MY SEWING MARATHON WEEKEND BEGINS….

I’m off – a little slow due to the electricity going off three times this evening – but off none-the-less.  One blanket top is finished.

Another is sewn in strips and two of the five strips sewn together

 

Jennifer is addicted to Minky Blankets and her kids seem to love them too:)  They are pretty easy to make although the Minky can be slippy slidey  sometimes. 

The status of the rest of my list . . . .

 

barely begun and

2/3 done. 

Someone else looked at the house today before I got home from school.  So far no one is lined up for the weekend but  I’m not really anticipating anything since it’s a holiday.  We shall see.  Tomorrow I’m hoping to sleep – 8:30 or 9:00 would be really nice.

I’m done for the evening.  More tomorrow.

HOW TO HAVE THE CLEANEST HOUSE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD and A TO DO LIST FOR THE LONG WEEKEND COMING UP.

I spent the weekend getting my house ready for an Open House that the realtor had today.  It really looks great!! And people can open my closets and I won’t be embarrassed:) I have learned to keep my house a lot neater since all the kids left (what does that say about me?) so there really wasn’t just a whole lot to do.  My sewing is what makes a mess these days.  Little stacks here and there and scraps laying on the table  -- you get the picture.  So, I’m trying to do better with that and maybe I’ll cultivate better habits about keeping my sewing picked up. 

The Open House was from 4 to 6.  Four different sets of people came through.  The realtor said all the comments were positive.  The house has been on the market for twelve days counting tomorrow and if I’ve counted correctly, after tomorrow 10 different groups will have looked at the house.  I’d say that’s a good start. 

I get a four day weekend so I’ve made a to do list so I can finish the stuff I cut out a couple of weekends ago

Wed: put together the two minky quilt tops.

Thurs: Put together the green tie over the shoulder dress

Fri – Mon : Finish the blue fish dresses and the bright fish dress and get as much done on the tuck dress as I can.  (I can’t believe I’ve started naming my dresses by colors , patterns and fabrics)  These are all easily contained projects in case someone calls and wants to show the house.

Okay –I’m off to bed – I’ll try to post pictures as I make progress on my to do list.

Night all.

COOL GIVE AWAY AT JUST BEACHY

Chris at JUST BEACHY is giving away 2  one room design plans.  Just check out her blog entry and leave a comment.  I’d love  a redesign.   Bet you would too.

In other news, I ‘ve finished 14 of 24 embroidered squares for Baby Girl Neal’s quilt.  I ran out of the stabilizer I was using so I decided to work on my other projects til I have a chance to get some more.   I finished the pockets on the dress I made for Lucy’s’ granddaughter and will finish the handwork before bed so I can give it to her tomorrow.  She’ll be so surprised.  I hope she likes it.

Back to work.

I THINK IT WILL WORK

I think this darker thread will work on the quilt I’m making – what do you think?

Here are the finished pillowcases too.

 

I’m off to bed.

This post written and published to MUSINGS through MS Live Writer in less than two minutes.  Blog Life IS good :)

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A SHADE (or two) MAKES

Here is a comparison of the new darker embroidery thread and the lighter thread I first used. I plan to embroidery a couple more squares after school and then I'll lay them out on the fabric and take a picture and post so you can see the difference. I think I'll be okay using the darker thread.

USING WINDOWS LIVE WRITER

UPDATE - 8:20 PM

Window's Live Writer is the bomb. I did my little test below in about one minute. The pictures uploaded so easily. That was my favorite part. They didn't move to the top of the post and then me have to move them around and get frustrated when the spacing was all wrong etc. It was great. Visit this blog post for more info about Window's Live Writer. Be sure that you only install the writer part of Windows Live --- unless you want some of the other stuff. It's easy and it's awesome!!!

And I even inserted the line below to divide my update from the original post!!!  Okay, I’m calming down now, but it is a fun toy.  Try it, you’ll like it. 

I’m trying out a new way to update my blog. My WONDERFUL sis told me about it and she doesn’t even have a blog :)) So, this is a test run to see if it makes it easier to add pictures and stuff.

Okay – just inserted these pics I had on my desktop – if you read Stacey’s blog you’ve seen them before. It was soooooo simple and they are arranged in the order that I loaded them.

QUILTS AND PILLOWCASES

Jennifer asked me to make some pillowcases for the girls out of some flannel she had so I did and embroidered their names. I think they will like them. Vail especially as she is totally obsessed with anything fish. Here's a sneak peek. I'll post the finished ones tomorrow.































































I've embroidered 1/4 of the squares for the quilt. They are sitting on the sashing fabric. I think I may have to put some interfacing or white behind the white squares so the outline stitching shows up. It shows up well on the squares where the stabilizer is still on but on the square I washed it doesn't stand out well at all.
I might see if I can find the thread color I'm using but several shades darker and redo the embroidery. Then I won't have to worry about backing the squares. I'll try to look at the shop downtown tomorrow -- she only has a small selection but maybe I'll get lucky.





































Last but not least, I forgot to pick the TobMagnet up off the floor and in the middle of updating I was forced to take a picture of this ----- Can't help but love him!!

A CUTTING DAY

Today I've done a lot of cutting. Pillow Cases (2) - with fish, Dresses (4) - 3 with fish and one without, 1 pattern I've made before and 2 that I haven't, and red minky squares to go with the puppy quilt. Tomorrow I'll cut out one more dress that my neice has commissioned for her sweet Mabry, at least some of the squares for the soon to be Neal baby girl quilt so I can start embroidering and then if time is left I'll do a little sewing also. I've got quite a few projects lined up -- a tote to finish, 5 dresses, 1 large and 1 small minky blanket and an embroidered quilt, plus a quilt top ready to quilt and another that needs to be sandwiched and then quilted. I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

I watched a three part video today on how to use glue when binding a quilt and how it turns out perfect every time -- they were by Sharon Schamber. She sure does make it look easy. I'm going to try the glue technique on my next quilt. Her binding looked perfect.

I saw a great corn recipe at Back Porch Musings and plan to try it when the kids come in a couple of weeks. All the recipes she posted looked yummy but this corn recipe is different and SUPER easy.

It's been a cold fall day - except that it's spring outside. We've had a good bit of rain the past couple of days but the sun was around alot this afternoon. Wish the weekend was two days longer but I'll settle for having tomorrow.

Hope nobody had any really bad storms when all the weather passed by.

FROM START TO FINISH IN AN EVENING -- ALMOST - and - I'M OFFICIALLY ON THE MARKET

The lady that helps me clean my house loved the dress that I made Avery. Told me she had a four year old grand daughter too and she'd love a dress like that. Soooo I looked through my stash and found this cute piece of material and tonight before I went out to eat supper with friends, I cut out the pattern. Then when I got home at eight I used my serger and sewed it up - decided to take pictures and realized I didn't sew on the pockets before gathering the skirt and attaching it. Well, I almost finished it and in the true fashion of procrastination, I'll put the pocket sewing off until tomorrow (if they weren't already made, I wouldn't bother with them) and I'll do the hem and handwork too and be totally finished so I can give it to Lucy on Friday. Here are some pictures





























I officially put my house on the market as of today. Got a sign and everything. Because those of you who usually read my blog have seen my house at its worst, I thought you'd enjoy a glimpse of it at its best. So, take a peek.

DONE and DONE

Here are pics of the finished Easter Dresses and some of the other pretties I've spent time with the last few days.

LIFE SUPPORT, SELLING HOUSES AND TOTAL RELAXATION

Sometimes when I'm working with gathering threads, whatever I'm working on looks like someone who's hooked up to life support with wires threads sticking out everywhere. I'll be clipping threads on these for awhile. But, the machine work is all finished unless I add one more button hole to the pink dress. Just a bunch of handwork to do. Woo Hoo! At least I can work on that at school when there's nothing happening in the lab.




























-Finish embroidery
-Press and sew sleeve facings
-Press and sew hems
-Sew on buttons


Tomorrow a realtor is supposed to call me -- she was at a continuing ed class today. I'm hoping to get her to come by and discuss what I'd like to do about the house. We will see.

I was this relaxed for awhile today --




















I had a massage and I was asleep before it was over. It was great!

I got this look after about the fourth picture. Guess he didn't appreciate my preserving his relaxed pose for posterity.

SNEAK PEEK AT NEW BABY NEAL QUILT

I think I mentioned that I wanted to make an all pink and white quilt for the new baby neal girl who will be arriving in June. Well, the best laid plans .....
I fell in love with these very pretty shades of pink, green, blue, whatever this color is -- I LOVE it. Believe it or not it really isn't blue -- it's kind of a turquoise on turquoise and turquoise with white and a white on white. One will be 8 inch blocks and a 3 inch border, one will be 1 inch sashing between the blocks and one will be the backing. All three will be used in the binding. Of course all of the above can be changed at the whim of the sewer(pronounced sower -- not "sue-er" I think it's late for me to be blogging)-- and,the sewer -- that would be me :)



















Here is a sample of what you might see on some of the blocks -- not in red but a thread matching the pink, green, blue, whatever that color is. (Don't know why the pics are so yellow) Remember this is just a sampling --- I'll be doing 24 of these and have more than that to choose from. My favorite that will definitely be included --- think Charlton Heston and water -- lots of water.







I won't start on this till after Easter probably so you'll have to wait til then for some updates.