Friday, May 29, 2015

Orange Binding

I must really like orange binding.  I finally finished my Cheer quilt from {insert random mumbling here} with orange binding and I bought this orange fabric to finish another Cheer quilt.  





It feels good to finally have a completely finished quilt to send off.  I'm looking forward to getting the others done very, very soon, so that I can move on to other projects, guilt free. What other projects you say?  One out of necessity, and one out of desperation. Desperation on so many levels.  

First, I pulled this fabric to make myself a new wallet.



 It's classic, summery, patriotic, and perfect.  My old wallet, which I loved, literally fell apart last week.  I was in denial about the sad shape it was in and I'm still in a little bit of denial that it's actually gone.

Second, I'm jumping on the bandwagon with Blue Elephant Stitches, and quilting through Simply Retro.  I was going to go with her first choice, Sunday Morning Quilts, which I already own, and my first choice, but I checked Simply Retro out at the library and fell in love.  My only rule is that I cannot buy any new fabric.  Not even when it's "necessary" to finish a quilt.  I HAVE to work from my stash only.  Even if it means that my quilt will not be "perfect".  I have so many lovely, and not so lovely, fabrics that I need to use up. I know that it will feel good to purge in such a delightful way.  I pulled these fabrics for the first quilt in the book, Swell:




I bought this set from a quilt shop that was going out of business a few years back. At the time, I "loved" this fabric. Now, not so much.  It's just too dark and not my style.  Of course I bought yards, and yards, and yards of it.  I'm hoping that one quilt will be sufficient to eat up all the yardage.  It might be a large quilt. . .

With all of this sewing going on, I'm starting to feel a wee bit better.  Let's hope I can keep it up, orange binding and all.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Living Joyfully

Live joyfully.  That's my mantra lately.  It's hard to actually do though.  Especially when everyone else seems so, not joyful.  Miserable actually.  Mama is unhappy living with us, the kids are stressed, and I feel like all the eggs keep falling out of my basket.  I'm barely holding it together here people. I am not naturally exuberant.  And yet. I'm trying to stay calm and cheerful.  I'm falling dreadfully short of the "joyful" that I'd like to be, but I feel like I have to balance the gloomy, spiteful, melancholy, self-pitying beast that comes out at our house sometimes.  

Wow, I'm such a downer today.  Sorry about that.  It feels good to vent just a little bit though.  Let's move on to actual joyful things, shall we?  First, THE LIST.  I'm feeling great about that.  The Wizard of Oz is over!!! Yay!! We all survived and nobody had to go on stage nekked, so it's basically win-win.  The difference between naked and nekked, you ask?  (You didn't but I'll tell you anyway.) Naked = no clothes.  Nekked = no clothes and you're up to something.  Yes, I do need a cup of coffee right now. Back to the list, revised of course.

1. February Bee Blocks  
2. March Bee Blocks  
3. Star quilt (just need to finish binding)  
4. Green quilt (top is done!)
 5. Shirts for my boys
6. Plus quilt (top is done!)
 7. Renae's quilt (needs to be quilted and bound)
8. April blocks and quilt
9. May blocks

I have about a zillion things to add, but I want to get through this particular list first.  Then, maybe Jolene over at Blue Elephant Stitches will be ready to start that quilt along. . .