Sunday, November 1, 2009

Da Blahs.

*This post is being brought to you from the Land of Blah and Inertia.*

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I have periodically struggled with depression in the past and, for whatever reason, the last couple months I have been dealing with a doozy. I have been seeing my (wonderful) doctor and the lethargy and grayness seem to have lifted now and I am doing so much better. I started sewing again- yay!- and have even recently made some half-hearted stabs at CLEANING MY HOUSE!!!
Unfortunately, I do have some sad news to report- my "old kitty" (as the boys called him), Sly, passed away. Maybe this precipitated the aforementioned funk? (Ok, it was not really a funk, but rather a deep black pit of sadness and despair.) It was rough, but he was old and not doing well, so not entirely unexpected. I cried for a few days, and now I can smile when I think of him. I truly don't think I will ever have another cat that I love as much as I did him. He was MY cat and I was HIS person.
Ok, icky sad stuff out of the way- time for happy fabricky stuff!
I have gotten some of my sewing mojo back, and this is what I worked on yesterday. Every piece of fabric in this quilt top was from a vintage sheet, except for the flower face itself. These flowers were on a panel and were intended to be made into place mats. A place mat would have a very short lifespan in my house, so of course they had to be incorporated into quilts instead. I wish I had a ton more of these panels because the quilts turned out so cute!
I made two identical quilt tops, one for Paul's cousin's daughter, and one extra for my gift bag for a future gift. I didn't like the pink daisy as much when I saw it photographed, so I think I will use both of the yellow flowers and save the pink ones for another project. (There are two of each flower since the place mats were supposed to be reversible.) The squares are sewed together, but the flowers still need to be ironed on and stitched down.
I will post better pictures of the quilts when they are quilted and bound- I have a cute striped sheet that will make a great bias cut binding, so I just have to choose a sheet for the backs and I will be ready to quilt! I had an absolute blast working with the sheets. I have been collecting them for so long now but had never actually made an entire quilt using sheets. This one is for a pre-schooler so it's only 40 x 50, but it still counts.

I have been toying with the idea of making some quilt kits to sell from my vintage sheets, so I cut out a couple sets of 10" squares from the sheets as I was cutting the squares for these quilts. Then, as I sewed the blocks together I noticed some issues with the "squareness" of my blocks. (Or rather, the LACK of squareness!) With some investigation, I realized that my cutting mat has some big ripples in it, probably from incorrect storage, so I have to get a new mat before I go into business. I think I could justify my compulsion to buy these sheets if I could make them pay for themselves. Maybe I wouldn't even need to sneak them into the house anymore?

4 comments:

  1. Welcome back Lisa! I've never used old cotton sheets before. Hard to find here I think. They just don't do garage sales like they do in the US. But I have so much fabric I can't justify buying old sheets to cut up, although I would if just the right thing popped up...

    I'm having a little difficulty with my cutting mat as well. I have an old Dritz and it's really thick and white. They don't make them anymore and all the new ones are so thin so I'm just thinking about what to do... I like the feeling of solidness to the old mat - and of course the white surface is great...

    You hang in there now and just take it one day at a time! Sorry about Sly - I know how hard it is...

    Hugs - Shari

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  2. Hi Lisa. It was interesting to read read your blog . I as well am having a lot of difficulty getting out of my rut and start quilting. Even having problems going into the sewing room. I have a lot of ideas and of course fabric , but no energy to put the idea to the cutting board.

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  3. I'm sorry to hear about your kitty. He was a handsome fellow.

    I have two mats, one of them is rippled all down one side so I finally had to buy a new one. I use the old one for small projects right by my machine, and the big new one on for actual cutting.

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  4. Welcome back, Lisa. Take it slow, little bits and smaller projects to get you into the swing of things. Crafting is supposed to be fun and enjoyable, and not a daunting task, so if all you can get to is bringing out the stash and looking at it, then shoving it away again...that's all you can do! We're here for you...

    As for the mat problem, I don't know. My wonkiness (squares) occurs when I put too much force from my cutting wheel and it slightly moves the ruler a teensy bit.

    thinking of you!!!!!

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