Bending the Rules Thread Painting

Little honey bee- I like this a lot. Also his big sunflower friend.

Sunflower, photographed in the blog classic "throw it on the cleanest spot in your house" method. I did this project from Amy Karol's new book Bend the Rules With Fabric. I like this book as much as the first book. Also check out her online tutorials on no swearing, no pinning bias binding and fold over elastic. Her aesthetic is a little more spare than mine. ( of course, my approach to color is similar to an explosion in a crayon factory.) Her directions, encouragement, and wide open attitude is the best ever, though.

As for me, I have rescued the shirt with the weird grease spot. ( Yes, Mr Wolly, I am very sensitive about grease spots on clothes. It's bad enough that I am a fat chick, but a fat chick with a weird grease spot on her shirt? ewww.)

Iraqui Boxes of Love

Here's the box the kids and I put together- the project specs are here. The only thing we bought was six yards of green fabric for $2 US per yard from the sale table. I had recently donated a bunch of bigger pieces to Goodwill, so I needed one to wrap the bundle. Everything else was stash- lots of cards of needles of the type I decided I don't like, hundreds of buttons from shirts and the like, four pairs of decent scissors that I never use, two boxes of pins that I bought before I found the ones that I love, and uses all the time, and six other assorted yards of fabric with no people depicted on it.

Well, I hope somewhere in Iraq, someday, a young man who is hearing that he needs to blow himself up because the Americans are evil pauses back to the day that the American soldiers gave his mom a bundle of sewing supplies, and how happy she was, and that the bundle was sent over by a regular American woman for his mom. Maybe she will be making her sons some nice little shirts for school out of that green fabric, and they will remember, and the world will change a little bit. I remain hopeful. My kids remain hopeful. I am so grateful to the US soldier who gave me the opportunity to reach out to a mother across the world.

Quilt for a Wee Small Friend

Was meant to be for her first birthday, but I missed it by a few months. But the moment the binding was sewn on, I went over and gave it to her, and her mom. The Small is an admirer of my chickens and garden, so I made her a little garden of her own.

Rocky Road to Who Knows Where

Describes the process of getting this post done and the quilt. I am cutting my center kites from fabric I had sewn together into strata. Most of my strips are not small, and it is a lot of cutting to get them small enough to use. So I just layed out a template and cut them real close to each other. Then I will make the rest of the square on a foundation.

Here's the quilt in Bonnie's book and the strata, waiting to be cut. I can't remember what I was making when I first sewed it. I have to make a bunch of strip quilts, just to get the exploding box of strips back under control.

I have been working a lot. My cute younger son has lost his two front teeth! School starts in two weeks. Too bad, I love summer. I hate how school stresses out both my kids. I know, they need to learn the life lessons involved, but dang, it is so fun to have them home!

Really, it's OK

Someone emailed me privately, saying that my last post was such a bummer she didn't know what to say. It's OK, folks. Not every one is going to like me, and as much as I wish they did, especially family, there will be times when it it is more important to me to be true to myself than to be liked. This is one of those times. But feel free to post a relative or house guest horror story in the comments!

I'm playing with an idea for a quilt from Bonnie's book. I don't save very small scraps ( sorry, Bonnie!) so some of the construction techniques that are designed to utilize little treasures might not work for me. I am pondering a solution.

I have also started a granny square made out of those little balls of sock yarn that are left over. Sometimes I make baby socks out of left overs, but i have quite a lot more of yarn than I do babies at the present, so this should be a fun way to use the leftovers. I picked my favorite for the center.

Three and a Half More Days

OK, so the guests have gotten challenging. They are my husbands people, and I had no idea he came from a family with such long memories and strongly held beliefs. It is a bit like being a hostage, except the captors will be going away. Too bad- prior to this trip, I thought I liked the adults. After this trip, I will not likely see much of the children. Heartbreaking.

Never again do I have guests and not move my sewing machine to the bedroom.

My husband carried up a big plastic storage box of fabric to the bedroom for me.I dumped out my giant box of strips of fabric and started sorting them into a new plastic drawer thingy I got at Target. Those of you who have done this are probably chuckling wisely about now. This must be some kind of quilting rite of passage. I sorted and sorted and sorted and filled my new drawer thingy with fabric strips- darks, lights, and mediums- and the bin did not get any closer to empty. Not a bit. Irritable and annoyed at my lack of control over the thing, I petulantly tossed the strips I had sorted back into the original bucket. They did not fit.

The space time continuum warped. They used to fit. They don't fit. The fit only an hour ago. I stood on them. I sat on them. I cried a little. Nope, not going back. Put them back into the drawers- they were still mostly sorted-and realized that there are some things in life I can neither understand or control, and that laughing or crying changes nothing.

Day One, Nine to go

We're having guest here at Chez Wooly, which is nice. What is not nice is that there are so many of them that some are staying in the family room, aka the sewing cave. My access to my sewing machine is cut off. CUT OFF PEOPLE!!!.

Breathing deeply. I hve hand quilting. I have knitting. I have books. I will be fine without ten days of sewing ARRRGGGGHHHHHH I'mmm MELTINGGGGGGGG!!!

Think good thoughts for me, folks. Calm, good thoughts. I am taking deep breaths. I am hand quilting the doll quilt up in the photo.