March Along Progress

We are a little over halfway through the month, and since weekly check-ins for March Along have not happened, a halfway point check-in seemed like a good idea.

I did very well for the first 2 weeks, but week 3 I got very busy with life. Between kids events, job interview, church stuff, school volunteering, doctor appointments, dance lessons and then getting sick with the Flu (I think), I was just tired out! Sewing did not appeal.

I am still sick, so I think today I will just read my newest Block magazine for my 15 minutes.

Here are some of my efforts this month.

Pieces cut for making a "Farm Girl Vintage" quilt block.

First round of fabric choices for the quilt pattern test.

Squares cut for quilt pattern test. The light where I sew is not good for photographs. See the photo below for truer colors.

Scraps from the quilt pattern test. They look very different in this light. It is pretty true to the real colors.

Diaper clutch made for a neighbor of my mom's.

Shirt appliqued with a little shamrock for St. Patrick's Day.

St. Patrick's Day outfit with a  rosette on the headband  and an appliqued shamrock on the shirt.

2 of 6 rosettes made for St. Patrick's Day. These went to teachers to pin on their shirts.

Drawstring bag made to carry a camping sleep-mat. Later it will house my yoga mat.

Throwback - when I was a kid, I took clogging lessons. I have recently started taking them again with my sister. It is quite fun and funny. We laugh a lot!

 

Hello!

Hello and welcome back to me! Haha!
 Blogging is not on my radar at the moment. Instagram (follow me) and Facebook are my connections to family and friends these days.
But, March is here TOMORROW! How did that happen?
In March, I join in with the Scientific Quilter to "March Along" and sew for 15 minutes every day. Which means the blog is going to get a little bit of action for weekly check-ins.

I have a couple of goals for this March.
 1- Learn to load my mom's quilting frame so I can get going on finishing some tops I have.
 2- Work sashing and cornerstone blocks for my Thangles Buck a Block quilt.

Not much but it should be enough to fill my 15 minutes a day.

Feel free to March Along too!

Catch up from February and March 2015

This year has been a busy one and a rough one. Personal issues, a really bad school year for my kindergartner, family life in general, and lots of extra curricular responsibilities have overwhelmed my ability to write and post anything significant. Perhaps the coming months will be different. I am going to make an effort to make them so.

As I have said in recent posts, Instagram, Facebook and a little bit of Twitter and Flickr have been where my sharing has happened.

So once again the next few posts will be summary posts of the last few months as far as my crafting goes.

Papercrafts:
I have thoroughly enjoyed having access to my rather large rubber stamp collection and have made a handful of cards for various occasions and people. Almost all of them are "cased" cards, meaning I copied a layout or color combo or both to create them.

I also made these for the ladies I visit teach for St. Patrick's Day



Sewing
This first one was a test bag for Schlosser Designs. You can find the pattern for purchase here: Chopsticks Tote (link no longer valid.)

I made this and then filled it with crochet hooks, yarn and instruction books for our Young Women's Camp fundraiser silent auction.

 

 I spent a day playing with my Hex n More ruler from Jaybird Quilts and this beautiful fabric I won a while back. I only got as far as cutting a few blocks worth.

 I also made some more Personal Progress book folders for the incoming 12-year-olds.

I worked on quilting the robot quilt, trying to get it finished up before the baby turned 2.  I quilted the pink and yellow using some of the decorative stitches on my Brother machine.

 

Some crafting catch up

I have done a little crafting lately, both sewing and paper crafting. Now that my home is more livable, I feel okay spending more time on my hobbies.

I have been using Instagram a lot to share project I have been working on. I forget to post things on Flickr these days.

December:

I wanted to make a gift for my fabulous Grandma for Christmas. I thought the Open Wide zipper bag from Noodlehead would be perfect since she travels a lot. She also likes southwest stuff and I had some fabric I bought a while back that was just right.



Then I could not find my toiletry bag when I was packing so I took a moment (ha!) and made one for myself, in a larger size. I love it!

While in Utah, I made a port pillow. My dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in November. He was getting chemo and radiation in December and had a port* in his chest. They can be very uncomfortable, especially when wearing a seat belt. My dad apparently frequently removed his seat belt when going to his appointments because of this. I found a couple of tutorials (here and here) for port pillows and made him one (as well as a couple more to donate to the chemo center). He used it while I was there and told me it helped.
These are made with charm squares and finish up about 4 1/2" x 4 1/2".



I also finished the baby quilt that our Young Women had tied for a baby in our ward. I had made the top a while ago. I donated it to the group along with binding. They tied it at church one Sunday during their lesson. Then I brought it to my mom's during Christmas break to trim and bind it.

 



 January:
More cord wraps. Some really big ones for extension cords and some regular ones for regular cords and a couple of short ones for my earbuds and charging cords.


February:
 Valentines!
I have been following a Stampin' Up! gal on YouTube, Wendy Cranford and she made a really cute little candy bar pocket for a valentine. I made one like hers which was not great, and then went my own way a bit with them color-wise.


Blue for my boys.

 
Pink for my girls, some teachers and the gals I Visit Teach.

 And throughout January and February I have been alternating quilting on the robot baby quilt and piecing this Trip Around the World quilt I started at a historical textiles class given by Leah Zieber at Fat Quarters Quilt Shop. I used fabrics from a fat quarter stack I had of Tidbits by Kari Ramsay for Henry Glass.  It was really hard to do the strips. I could not keep them straight, even using my walking foot and marking my machine with a tape guide and pinning the heck out of them and starching the heck out of them.
That said, I still like how it turned out. Very pretty.

 And that is my 3 month summary!
Have a great day!

 * Implantable ports or port-a-cath. A catheter connected to a port is surgically inserted (tunneled) under the skin of the chest, or sometimes the upper arm, by a surgeon or radiologist. You will receive either local anesthesia or be consciously sedated. Unlike the other two types of catheters, a port sits entirely underneath the skin. You may be able to see and/or feel a small bump in your chest or arm, but you won’t see the tip of the catheter outside the body. Before each “access” or needle insertion, the skin over the port may be numbed using a cream. When treatment is given, the skin is cleansed and a special needle is inserted through the skin into the rubber seal. This allows blood to be drawn or treatment to be given into the catheter that is connected to the port. (http://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/how-cancer-treated/chemotherapy/catheters-and-ports-cancer-treatment)

 

Insert witty title here

Wow! Life is just busy! I have not had a lot of time to sew or blog lately. I have been somewhat active on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, since they are mobile. I have been busy with band stuff, and dentists and orthodontists and doctors, and kids' school stuff and church stuff. The only things I have stitched the last few weeks were a needle book for the band sewing kit, a Halloween t-shirt for the tooth fairy costume, those cord wraps for my husband and 10 band tunics (plus a couple of tunic repairs after the first dress rehearsal).

My sweet tooth fairy.

A photo posted by @amyjodubya on Oct 10, 2014 at 5:40pm PDT

Tunics I helped make and my silly girl modeling for us. This is the best photo I have, unfortunately

.

I am itching to make something lovely and useful for myself. To do that though, I have to un-bury the cabinet where my fabric is stored from behind a stack of boxes. We have been in the new house for a little over 2 months I think, and we still have boxes EVERYWHERE.
Even though this house is a bit bigger than our apartment was, it is still small. Our 2 car garage in the apartment was essentially a storage unit for everything that would not fit in the living space. Here we are required by the HOA to park our car in the smaller garage that also has 3 built in cabinets in it taking up more space which creates a storage problem.
So, I have spent what free time I have unpacking and purging and tossing and unpacking and organizing and cramming and tossing. I am mentally exhausted from it all and it is stressful living in this cluttered, cramped environment.
So, the thought of trying to move stuff to get to my fabric overwhelms me and I don't sew. I miss it. A lot.
But it really is, most days, just too much for me to attempt.
On the bright side, I have been able to read a few books. That always relaxes me and I can escape for a little while.
Here's to hoping I find my will to find my fabric sometime soon!

Fundraiser Bag

I whipped out this messenger bag in 2 days for a scout fundraiser silent auction on Saturday. I really love how it turned out, aside from an oops with the snap being too low.

I put a key strap inside using the same fabric as the interior pocket (now shown).

Fabrics are:
Floral and red dot: Milk Cow Kitchen (Mary Jane Butters for Moda Fabrics)
Blue: Essential Dots (Moda)
I used this tutorial: http://www.noodle-head.com/2011/03/once-upon-thread-tale-of-peter-rabbit.html,
but sized it up a little, added length to the handle for an adult, added pockets, magnetic snap and key fob. I did not do the pin tucks.

 

The Laptop Bag

I finally finished the commissioned laptop bag. What a process! I haven't done that much math in a long time.
 I did not get complete pictures like I usually do because the week I finished it I was just too darn busy to do it. I snapped a couple with my phone to upload to Instagram after I finished but did not take any of the inside.

Final bag and test bag. The test bag was WAY too large.

The carrying bag is a messenger style, with an exterior pocket and an interior pocket and an adjustable strap There are lobster clasps inside that clip to D rings on the laptop sleeve to keep it from falling out.The flap has a magnetic snap to keep it shut. I did a gathered fabric accent on the front flap that matches the lining.

 

The sleeve has an exterior pocket with accordion folds to accommodate the laptop cord/power brick and a hook and loop tape closure. The zipper is open ended to allow the laptop to go in more easily  and has a hummingbird charm attached like a pull. The next time I make one I am going to try the zipper that wraps around the corners to go down the sides a little bit. There are D rings on the sides to allow it to be clipped into the messenger bag. I may make another strap to send for times when she might like to just use the sleeve.

I had intended to make a matching cord wrap, wallet and zipper pouch, but ran out of time. I may still make them and send them for fun.