Sewing Projects Completed

I haven't done much sewing for the last 20 or so years but over the last few months I have been drawn to fabric's and projects using fabric.  I have never really enjoyed making clothes, although when my daughters were young I had fun making things for them.  I even made fabric dolls for them that were about two and a half feet tall. 

 

Two of the things that have sparked me are purses/totes and rag quilts.

 

Combining quilting and making a purse was a real big step for me but I love how this bag turned out.

 

 

 

 

This is a purse I made from a tutorial I found on Pinterest.  Here is the link.  Below is the same bag except I made it a little smaller and gathered the pleats a little tighter and also made the band at the top a little wider. 

 This purse was made from a Simplicity pattern #2396.  I also realized that the fabric I chose for this one is an exact match to a bag my blogging friend Pat made a few months ago.  I didn't realize it until I went back to her blog and looked at her finished tote.  Great minds think alike!

 Here is a rag quilt I made out of a Moda Fabric layer cake pack, which are 6" squares.  It's not real big so I thought I would let my grandchildren use it whenever they come to spend the night.

This is also a rag baby quilt I made using a pre-cut package of flannel squares I bought at JoAnn's.

How blessed I am that I can pursue my passions and Pinterest has given me a who new world of creativity.  Now if I can have a pile of money dropped in my lap so that I can make even more stuff would be the cherry on top.

Edit to add:
I finished another simple purse today.  Lovin' me some polka dots for sure.

 

 

He's Five, Where Did The Time Go?

 

Landon turns 5 years old today.  It hurts my heart to see my grandchildren growing up, I wish I could just wave a magic wand and freeze them right where they are. 

 

Landon is the youngest of three children and he has made sure that he is not lost in the shuffle.  He is definitely one not to go unnoticed (he often comes to stay at our house so his family can have a little break :-)).  He is smart, funny and energetic and has pretty much mastered any game he plays on the Wii, we are blessed to have him as part of our family.

 

Love you Landon!

Organizing a Mountain of Fabric

My stash of fabric was getting out of control so making some sort of sense out of how it is stored was a necessity.  Even my cluttered and unorganized brain can only take so much.

 

Here is a the stack before the organizing began.

 

I have seen various ideas for organizing fabric from Pinterest and thought this method might work best for me.  I bought some foam core poster boards at the dollar store and cut them into 6.75"x9" pieces so I could wrap the fabric around them for vertical storage.  I got 9 pieces out of each poster board.

 Here is a front view of the boards.

 

 

Next I pressed and folded each piece of fabric no wider than 9 inches then wrapped the fabric around the boards

 

I then secured it with a straight pin.

 

I recently bought four of these storage bins from Thirty One, an in home party company that sells totes, purses and all kinds of cool products the help you get organized.  I thought they would be a perfect place to store fabric in.

This is three bins full of my organized fabric.  Ahhhh, no more digging through bins.

 

This will be way better for me when the sewing bug hits.

 

And here is where they will now reside, right next to the sewing machine

Now I need to tackle some other drawers and such to make crafting easier but that will have to wait until another day.  This project took me  ALL STINKIN' DAY to complete.

A Post Of Sheer Randomness

I was wondering to myself how it got to be the end of February already and what the heck have I gotten done since the first of the year?

 

Looking back through my photo's for the last two months I realized that I did actually get a few things accomplished.

 

 

I dusted off the sewing machine and made a couple of purses/bags using video tutorials from youtube.

 This is one I finished up this morning, it makes me anxious for spring.

  I got so inspired making the first bag that I went in search of another tutorial to make another one with some fabric I found in my stash.  Below is a flower I made last year but didn't really find anything I wanted to put it on so it sat in my container full of flowers, that is until I realized that I used the same fabrics in the bag.  I love it when things work out.

 

 

Another thing I got accomplished was canning some beef stew and some red beans.  I even got some chicken canned which I posted about here.

 

I spent a couple of days last week at my daughter Maria's house.  She is the one with the mini farm and has taken to raising pygmy goats. 

 This is one of the cutest babies, he is a cuddler.  He wasn't very cooperative when it came to having his picture taken.

 

This doe on the other hand was all too ready to pose.

 

This is their dog Soley, she was another one that wanted to be in the pictures.

Now, how is that for randomness?

Day Trip To The Pacific Ocean

Hubby and I took a getaway day and headed for the Pacific Ocean.

It was a beautiful day (mostly sunny and that is considered beautiful in the Pacific Northwest this time of year).

 

It takes less than 2 hours to get to the beach from where we live and one of our favorite spots is Astoria, Oregon.  You know, that place where Goonies was filmed?  Astoria is situated on the Oregon side of the Columbia River at the mouth of the river where it enters the Pacific Ocean.  It has many historical homes and points of interest, a town built around the fishing industry.

 

Here is a picture taken of the Columbia river looking across to Washington.  You can see a ship anchored out in the middle.

 

 

 

This is a quaint little dry docked boat that they have converted into a little Fish and Chips take-out.

On any given day you will find lines and lines of people waiting to order the best halibut F & C's around.  This is a must stop whenever we are there.

 

 

 

This is the little sandy pathway that you can drive down to get out on the beach.  Yes, we took my car out on the beach, brave of us don't you think?

 

Just another shot of the surf.  I love the suns reflection on the water

 

 

I am not sure if everyone knows it or not but a lot of debris from the Japan tsunami has been washing up along the coast Washington and Oregon.  We did some beach combing looking for some treasures.  This is the lid of a little brown bottle we found.  Could it be from Japan???

 

 

Here is the side view of the bottle.

 

Hubby found a couple of unique looking light bulbs.  They may very well be from Japan or even something just tossed overboard off a ship or fishing boat, I choose to believe they are from some building or warehouse that was washed out into the ocean.

 

 

I don't think this little shoe made it all the way from Japan, it was in too good of shape.  I will bet however that someone's mom is wondering where little Johnny put his other beach shoe though.

 

We almost hated to leave.  I love nice little unplanned getaways.