red, red, red up!

I love to get into the red stash and play - it's invigorating!

This is part of my red stash - sooo pretty!






I'm going to spend the rest of the morning cutting some up.
gotta go now...

fiber art attempt

So, I recently joined a Fiber Art Traders group - I think I may be overqualified for a group with the initials FAT, but that remains to be seen...

 

Here's my first efforts at being artistic in the group - it reminds me of that old song "The Sun Shines Out of Your Shoes"  by Petula Clark.  Have to smile, ya' know?

the other one was just for practice - these are only 4" x 6" so I had to get my sea legs under me before I got serious.  

So now that I know that I'm not really a doodler by nature, do you think I should give it up or keep trying?  Let me know, before I make a fool of myself!
Thanks!

Pat Sloan's Calendar Quilt Challenge

busy day in PA

You may not believe this, but it is only 6AM, and I’ve been awake for 2 hours already! I think this is a sign of aging – or it could have been that the paper carrier was just extra noisy this morning. Just as well that I’m up, tho, cause I have a busy day ahead of me and need to get moving.

I’ve been reminded that there hasn’t been a post on my blog yet and its now TWO WEEKS into the NEW YEAR – so here’s what’s up: I had a lovely post that I thought I had saved, but it is nowhere to be found…. Lost in cyberspace somewhere, pics and all.

First – the Studio part of the sorting adventure took a ton more effort than the yarn sorting, and it’s still not done! There is floor space showing, and the furniture is in place, but the sorting out uncovered yet another 8 boxes of fabric that I had completely forgotten about! How could that possibly happen?

Also uncovered – a LOT of ‘almost finished’ UFO’s – very tempting to just drop everything and finish a few of those, but I’m doing my best to restrain myself. I did have to put the sorting on hold while meeting a couple of deadlines, one of which is this coming Monday!

Other stuff: an almost finished knit scarf, a pincushion, a jar of buttons and a bunch of small gift bags!

AND – I’ve been putting a LOT of my energy into shoveling snow – it snowed here for 11 of the first 12 days of this year – enough already! It’s amazing how long it takes to recover from just an hour of shoveling snow…

Today is supposed to be pleasant, so I’m going out to spend some time with friends and do a couple of errands.

I know a lot of us leave our purses in the shopping cart while we are reading labels, reaching for frozen dinners, etc. - but this habit is an open invitation to purse snatchers, so when you are shopping, consider taking just your wallet and keys in your pocket – or maybe wearing one of those mini-messenger bags with just the necessities. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

And finally - please leave a comment to let me know you are reading this… don’t be a stranger! Let’s be friends. I’ve made friends in Australia, Belgium, and Cyprus just this month!

Another use for selvages

The yarn sorting party was successful - and if there is anyone out there who would like scraps of polyester rug yarn - it's yours for the asking! But ask soon, it is going out with the trash on Sunday!
The guest bed is now up on risers, and about 90% of the yarn is now under the bed, stored in covered bins, with a selvage retrieval system that I conjured up out of available materials - namely, empty gift wrap tubes and strips of selvages. See pic...

No, I'm not going to show you the yarn itself. Although I do wish I had taken pics of what was in each box - might pull the bins out just for that purpose - it would be easier than writing it all down!

and here's the stash UNDER the bed!  Notice the selvages wrapped around the boxes - that's my retrieval system - the strip of selvage goes through a tube at the back of the pile, so I can pull out the whole stack at once without crawling under the bed!  nifty, I think...

This the is resulting floor space where those boxes had been:
Still a long ways to go before anyone comes to call... but a major improvement from my perspective - I haven't seen that floor in months!

the bed/quilt storage facility - almost uncluttered!  wooot-wooot!!

Here's Traci working on the new floor plan for the sewing studio.

On a sad note, today I'm closing the "Quilters Closet, Etc." shop at Craftique downtown - it was just not going to make it through the bleak winter months. That merchandise will still be available, however, in my new "GrannyGoodStuff" boutique on ETSY. It's not quite open yet, but watch for it next week.
Although it's hard to believe this is the last day of 2009, I'm looking forward to 2010 with high hopes and positive expectations.
I hope your New Year celebration is safe, healthy and joyous.

yarn sorting

Hello again,
We had a wonderful Christmas with a little trip thrown in and ended up driving through some nasty blowing snow on the way home, but things are getting back to normal, so I'll be posting more often again.
Today is sort the yarn day - Traci (DD) is helping me find, sort, and repack my yarn stash - it was just taking up a bit too much of the guest room, so I'm taking a short break.
Now, I know lots of quilters are also knitters/crocheters and have yarn stashes - mine goes back several decades - so we are sorting into what will and will not felt when washed, with a sub-category for 'embellishment' fibers.
So as we have the room nearly covered in boxes of yarn, Traci says to me: "Mom - your are one of the few people in the UNIVERSE who could to fill a TARDIS to the point where it WOULD NOT MOVE."
I'm not sure, but I get the impression she thinks I have a lot of yarn...
She likes it when I knit for her, tho - she found several skeins that she showed an interest in... which I will do in exchange for her able-bodied skillful assistance.
She says my knitted gifts are tangible proof of my motherly love and devotion...  and could I knit another pair of wrist warmers?

A Cute Christmas Story...

It was the day after Christmas at a church in San Francisco. The pastor of a church was looking over the creche when he noticed that the baby Jesus was missing from among the figures. He hurried outside and saw a little boy with a red wagon, and in the wagon was the figure of the little infant Jesus. So he walked up to the boy and said, "Well, where did you get your passenger, my fine friend?"
The little boy replied, "I got Him at church."
"And why did you take Him?"
The boy explained, "Well, about a week before Christmas I prayed to the little Lord Jesus and I told Him if He would bring me a red wagon for Christmas I would give Him a ride around the block in it."
An Early MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!