Post-Christmas productivity

Christmas has come and gone and I managed to meet all my sewing deadlines on time.  The green and white quilt I featured in November was given to my sister-in-law who had been dropping not-so-subtle hints for some time that she wanted one!

Her husband has been hard at work finishing their basement into a media room with wet bar, home office, gas fireplace and powder room, with lots of green tones, so this was perfect for them.  For my other sister-in-law I whipped up a set of placemats with this easy pattern from Sew Biz called "Set the Table, Mabel!"

And then for my 11-year-old stepdaughter, I bought her a bunk bed set for her two American Girl dolls and made some bedding to match what she likes and has at our house.

I note also that the doll on the top is wearing a pajama set I made her last Christmas (with a matching set for my stepdaughter, each of whom have their first initial appliqued to the white t-shirt in flannel).

As usual, my well-trained family gave me a nice variety of quilter gifts - fat quarters, a half dozen charm packs, a jelly roll, two Accuquilt dies, and Leah Day's Free Motion Quilting Designs book (in print).

Now my husband is off to see his daughters for the weekend (although we just said goodbye to them all Wednesday) and I'm going to have to go through my sewing room, cleaning up from hurriedly-made gifts, putting my gifts away, and deciding what to make with my new goodies.

I do wish my sewing room had better lighting.  It's fine during a sunny day, but there are no ceiling lights and floor lamps only go so far.  We have not yet made progress on finding a new house, but, happily, our old one is under contract, through inspections, and scheduled to go to settlement in mid-January.  So I suppose the next part of getting settled here in Raleigh can move more quickly.  I'd love to find a job soon too, but so far no movement on that front, either with temp agencies or applications.  Frustrating.  More sewing time, I guess.

On the plus side of staying in and nesting, TCM's Star of the Month is my favorite classic film star, Joan Crawford.  Sadly, my DVR only holds three movies before it's full, so today I had to set my alarm for 6 AM to start watching before it tried to record a fourth at 7:15.  Of course, I'll have to make sure there is sufficient room for the start of Season 4 of Downton Abbey beginning Sunday night!

followup: business card holder

This is the pattern for the little business card holders I made.  No wonder I couldn't find it online when I googled because it's really called "Little Wallet" by Valorie Wells.  You can buy one online here - this pattern is about halfway down but there are so many other little delightful patterns by her that it's worth taking a look at them all.

The other day, the Ghastlies fabric I ordered arrived - with a huge bonus.  First of all, I wanted a selection of the fabric so I was searching all sorts of online places to get a variety.  I wanted both the original "Ghastlies" scene and the "Ghastly Night" dinner party scene that I pictured in my earlier post, along with some coordinates.  Most of the stores I found were out of some or another, but I found a vendor on a storefront called Artfire who was advertising everything that I wanted, at some really good prices ($5.50/yard for some).  So I placed an order, paid, received confirmation, and waited.  When it arrived, I found that I got only about two yards - not four - of the Ghastly Night in green that I'd ordered, but like EIGHT YARDS of the same print in the mauve background, which I hadn't ordered at all.  I emailed the seller to be sure it wasn't a mistake and she confirmed that she was out of the green but the mauve was end of bolt and she thought I might be able to use it since she wasn't going to carry Ghastly fabrics any longer.  Absolutely I can use it!  Now instead of making just a quilt, I can make all sorts of Ghastly Ghear like I've been seeing in the blog hop.

However, it's going to have to wait since this weekend I am headed up to visit with my son, and on Sunday I will get home in time to go to my Honey's sister's house for his family birthday celebration they put on hold for me.  I'm not even taking any handwork with me so I hope I don't get all antsy thinking of the sewing piling up without me.  I WILL be going to Jo-Ann Fabrics at lunch today to use the 30% off entire purchase card I got during my shopping last week and stock up on some basic fabrics, as well as some coordinates to go with the Ghastly project.  Maybe I'll see a pattern or two that will be perfect for all that bonus yardage.

We're supposed to see some snow in the Mid-Atlantic area this weekend ... a stark change from these sunny days in the 70's we've been having.  Stay warm and enjoy your weekend, wherever you are.

business card holders

Last night's football game was horrible, but at least I got some handwork finished, including four Christmas presents. 

A few years ago, my mother passed along to me a copy paper box stuffed full of raw silk remnants in every color imaginable.  I used them to whip up a few of these business card holders as Christmas gifts in 2009.  It was time to make some more this year.

I can't remember who made the pattern but I bought it in a quilt shop and made some cardboard templates that make it easy for me to cut and piece en masse.  While not a lot of people carry around business cards all the time anymore (although that's my Honey's card peeking out of the one in the top right), I thought it would also be perfect for all those "reward punch cards" we get at quilt stores or lunch places that are bulging in my own wallet.  Everyone nowadays wants to give you some kind of loyalty card but if it doesn't fit on the keyring, what do you do with it?  This is the perfect place to keep them.
I made two for my Honey's sisters - their mother passed away last year and that embroidered slate blue silk on the bottom left came from her stash; the other is the open one and also has the embroidered silk on the outside.  The other two go to colleagues.  The grey one has a bright yellow middle pocket and the other is in Virginia Tech colors - burgundy and orange - and both have a pretty little thing sewn on the outside for visual interest, a finding from the jewelry aisle at Jo-Ann's.

I might slip a gift card into each one of them before presenting.  I'm not quite sure yet.  But at least these are four gifts to be checked off the list.

cat house is finished!

Okay, readers, PLEASE, the next time I post a photo of some store-bought pattern - Butterick, Simplicity, McCall's packets full of folded tissue paper and directions in 17 languages - that I'm all excited about, remind me that I HATE making things from patterns, okay?  I was cursing this dratted thing all last night.  But it is finished.

There is a thing on the bottom side that still makes no sense to me.  You can kind of see it in the front there.  Instead of the bottom just being a plain circle sewn onto the tops, it has a little rectangle cut out of it and then there is a second piece of fleece which reinforces the rectangle - but is otherwise not attached to the bottom.  I'm assuming it's a thumbhole for popping the cushion out of the bottom, but I really don't know.  If I had it to do over I would have cut the bottom without this hole and not cut that second piece at all.  I probably put it in backwards because I couldn't rightly determine from the drawing in the instructions which it thought was the right side and which the wrong side and what was supposed to be "together" when sewing on the bottom.  And of course, my thread on Baron von Quilthausen broke like 67,925 times while working on this project.  And the foam didn't like going into the flannel sleeves and still isn't really shoved up in there too well.  And closing the opening around the wire I inserted to keep its shape wasn't a piece of cake either.  I nearly gave up after that step but decided to push through and finish the project last night, and I'm glad it's done.

Sigh.  And this is probably one of those "sew simple!" patterns they like to push on people!  The whole time I was working on it, I imagined the recipient saying, "oh, I love it!  Now I need one for my OTHER cat!" to which I would reply, "I will happily give you the pattern and you can make it yourself!"

Tonight I will reward myself by returning to my quilting in some way.  Kaleidoscope needs mostly hand work, so does preparing applique, and I have to cut more fabric before I can do anything on Dark Star.  I really, really want to use that "Ready Set Snow!" jelly roll to make the Lone Starburst quilt in Kimberly Einmo's book, and I have so many charm packs itching to be tossed together into something pretty, but I think I will do some cutting for a few hours and then hand sew on Kaleidoscope so I can get those two quilts out the door soon.  But first I'm going to work out before I head home.