Can't I have anything NICE without you guys breaking it? Part 2

Does anyone else's cat CLIMB their design wall? Mooch has been literally climbing the walls lately. He tears into the room, gets a flying start and can reach the ceiling on a good leap. My nice taut tablecloths are now hanging and droopy looking. Tiger-E is polite with her claws, but not Mooch. I think he needs to take a trip to the vet. (I always feel bad getting them declawed, but I think he will ruin too much of our stuff- like our box springs!!- if I don't.)

Speaking of trips to the vet, Mooch also has a new, er, friend. He appropriated one of the kid's stuffed bears. He LOVES this bear a lot if you get what I mean. (The kids think he is "fighting" with the bear so we leave it at that.) No one else touches the bear and when I have to move it I pick it up with the dustpan. It looks really ragged and the stuffing is falling out. I have heard of dogs doing this, but never a cat... leave it to Mooch.

Today Brady "fixed" this plate.

I'll just go throw that in the dishwasher now.

This little pile can make a BIG impact,

if you spread it out!

This is for Future Niece. This is what I ended up with for a color wheel idea. Now I want one for myself! Lukey added that tiny purple circle in the middle. He said the green circle was the "mommy circle" and then added the purple one and stated, "This one Lukey." So of course, it's staying! :0)

I tried it on white, too, but it just doesn't have the impact. I am working on hand quilting the purple and green heart quilt and want to try a scalloped border on it. We'll see how that goes.

(I think you are supposed to use a plate to trace your curves for a scalloped border... but my plate is broken! Whatever shall I do?!)

We had a sewing bee at my house!

Today my mom came to (visit and) sew. She had this quilt started and today she finished cutting the squares and got it this far- over half-way put together. (It will be queen sized when it is finished.) These are not her preferred colors...

...but they are pretty.

This next quilt is for my Future Niece. It is absolutely adorable (just as she will be). Mom is making all the nursery stuff and she brought the quilt top down so I could add my touch- which was the embroidering on the bumblebees.

(We always have one "naughty" winking face. What a rebel bee!)

This next (the color wheel) is going to be used in a baby quilt for Future Niece. In some incarnation that is- I may be cutting it up or trimming it. I like this quilt, so wanted to do something like it and came up with this. My Sis-in-law is an artist so she will enjoy the color wheel, and hopefully Future Niece will like those pretty colors, too. The original is amazing (and I would not mind one of those for myself). This was really fun to play with. I sewed it backwards- this was definitely a learning experience- but the baby won't mind. Lukey keeps pointing at it and asking if he can have it, so I see something along these lines in our future.


My brother loves purple and green together so Future Niece also needs a purple and green quilt. I am a huge fan of Kellie's work and made my version of one of her quilts. When (not if!) she puts out a book, I am first in line!

I am currently sewing down all these petals and circles- a bit tedious, but still much faster than hand applique. I remembered basically what Kellie did- made a lot of cute girly shapes all close together in a heart shape, so I wouldn't let myself look back at hers until mine was done- at least cut out and ironed on. It turned out pretty cute, so I am sure Future Niece will like it.

I am considering cutting out the heart and doing a ragged edge applique to put it onto a white background. I don't think I like it just as it is. I will mull it over while I sew the rest of the petals down.

And now for an update on the recent post- no, the wedding gift quilt did not get finished in time for the wedding. I started quilting it and had to rip it all back out. So now I am hand-quilting it and they will get it late. (Hopefully it will be done in time for next winter...)

I did finish a quilt recently, though! I made a rag quilt for my aunt out of mostly Daydreams (blue and green colorways) along with some other coordinating prints. Unfortunately, I did not have both my camera and the quilt together at any point so I don't have a picture of it.

I had the best time sewing with Mom today, and the kids were good, and the sun was shining... it just doesn't get any better! ;0)

Some decorating pics and a new project

Ok, blogger is not letting me rearrange my pictures so I will have to write about them in a strange (out of) order.

This is the fabric for the quilt I am working on now. It is going to be a wedding gift for some friends who are getting married in May. Paul is standing up in the wedding. (They don't know about my blog, so I am safe posting about it.) They are a pretty modern couple and have lots of black and white photography in their living room, so I wanted a simple, modern quilt with clean lines. I know they like to cuddle under blankets while watching movies, so this is probably going to have a soft microfiber back, either black or white, not sure which. If I do black, I will have to put a batting inside to keep my white true on the front. That would make this a really heavy blanket, but they live in Chicago so that would be fine.

This is the quilt laid out on our bed. It's very wrinkled as it spent an uncomfortable night all balled up in a chair. (We had some company and the kids were playing hide and seek last night, and the quilt got knocked off the table and "put away" by one of the boys.) Gar! Maybe it will unwrinkle a bit if I leave it like this for a while. Acutally, the more I see it there, the more I like it. The quilt I have started for our room is made from a Swell jelly roll and some vintage fabric, but I like the black and white, too, now... hmmm....

The words above the bed are from Pier One and were supposed to say "Live Laugh Love". I thought for the bedroom that just the word "Love" was appropriate. (Some days not so much...) This room is still a WIP, as I have to finish our quilt and make a bedskirt and pillow shams and such, but I have some other projects to finish first. The quilt top is made but it's gigantic and I am afraid to quilt it. It is the one I posted about here: http://gitdownkitty.blogspot.com/2009/01/so-as-it-turns-out-they-can-be-too-big.html

(I'm not allowed to do much on here today, it seems- like link inside the word or move pictures!)

The lamp in the corner is from Goodwill and I LOVE it. Paul hates it because it's so girly, but it's on my side, so he will just have to deal with it. I let him hang his stupid deer antlers on his side. Which I believe is called a "compromise" or something like that. (Silly concept if you ask me.)

Here is a closer pic of the lamp. (For Leslie!) Those are cherubs on there. I have to find a shade that fits it, but haven't been having much luck so far. No fear, though- it's almost rummage sale season!

Finally! Some pictures!

I figured out a way to get the pictures out of the camcorder! It's one of those mini-disc ones and I had to "finalize" the disc and then could put the disc into my computer and that is where the pictures were. That should teach me to throw away my manuals, right? It took me long enough to figure out how to SNAP a picture, and they aren't the best quality, but at least this will tide me over until I can get a nice camera.

Here are some pictures of my "new" sewing room. Eventually I will paint the walls, probably white, maybe a little PINK or some light aqua, but I think white would be better so that my fabric colors will show true. Right now the walls are a yellowy paneling, so I am picking up that tone in the light. This room layout is a test, but so far, it's working really well. When I am sure I like how it "works" I will start painting. Also, I will do a little bit of decorating, but no sense doing it at this point.

Here is the sewing table. I can look out the window as I sew, or open it if the weather would get nice enough! I think a window box is somewhere in the future of this window (with geraniums!?). I am having too much fun with the design wall thing and most of the walls are covered with vinyl tablecloths turned backwards.

Here is the ironing station and fabric closet. The shelf unit between the design wall and the closet holds future projects that I have pulled fabric for or am collecting fabric for. Now, if I only had the time to make them all! On the short wall of the closet is a "tiny" design wall for Lukey. He had so much fun putting scraps on my wall that I made him his own and cut some squares and triangles out for him. He sticks them on and makes them "talk" to each other, which is highly entertaining for me.

The cabinet that is the ironing station was made by one of my uncles in his high school shop class and my grandma gave it to me years ago when I bought my first house. It has a butcher block top on it and I used it as an island in my first kitchen. Grandma has passed on now, but she would be proud to see her cabinet being used in a craft room as she was a very "crafty" lady. (The cabinet is full of vintage sheets and cutter tablecloths.)

This is the wall above my cutting table. There is also a tall box of rolls of wrapping paper standing on the floor. All of the gift wrap supplies are here- paper, tape, ribbon, bows, bags- everything all in one place! The ribbon spools are threaded onto a dowel rod.

Oh! And the music! lives here. :o)

This is the cutting table. We recycled when we made this- the wood pc. is the bottom of Lukey's poor broke-down old crib. I used a small shelf unit on one side and shelf brackets on the wall side. We put a pc. of mdf under there, too, to make it sturdier, but the crib bottom was the perfect size and also nice and smooth.

Here is a shot of that whole corner. The design wall is just a tablecloth (well, 2 of them) turned backwards. I had not even heard of a design wall until I started reading blogs, and wow, what a concept! This could just change everything! It's so much easier than laying quilts out on the floor. And the kitties can't mess these blocks up!

You can kind of see on the floor where I have little plastic cubes. These hold my scraps and they are all separated by color. (The cubes were 99 cents at Walmart!) I will eventually put them on a shelf on the wall but for now they live on the floor.

This is the kids' art table. As of now, those boxes have all of their art supplies all organized, but I expect that is a temporary state and things will be all mixed up in another day or two. They love this! I give them little "projects" to work on while I sew. Mostly they just like to cut things up. And glue them. Cutting and gluing are a lot more fun than coloring apparently.

I did my first sewing in the new room this week and have a completed quilt top to show for it! I took some pictures of that and will post soon. I cannot believe what a difference it makes to have a room dedicated to sewing, and also, separate cutting, ironing and sewing areas. It is sooo much faster and easier to get things done. I don't think I will ever be without a sewing room again, no matter if we ALL four have to share a bedroom. Heehee! (My family may think differently about that.) :o)

Giveaway! Giveaway!

Go here! Go here and sign up! I won a most excellent prize box from this lady and it was just like Christmas morning!

2 out of 3 ain't bad

Well, the laptop is back and better than ever, and my sister loaned me a sewing machine. (Just a Walmart cheapie, but so much better than nothing!) Unfortunately, hubby couldn't rig anything up to fix the camera, so I have to buy one of those. I am looking at an Olympus Stylus and wonder if anyone has one, and if they like it. I have to save up for that, though, so it may be a while before I have new pics.

I have been busybusybusy with no fun toys to distract me. I moved the two boys into Luke's bedroom, we took the one that Brady was in, and I appropriated the biggest bedroom for a "craft room". It isn't strictly a sewing room because the boys have a side with all their "art" supplies. (The art supplies consist of: crayons, paper, coloring books, stickers, and, most importantly, scissors.) This "art area" has been a big hit and now our dining room looks like perhaps normal people might live here.

Another reason I've been busy is that I had to get a job. Paul's overtime has been completely cut out and they have been laying guys off, therefore we thought I had best get something "just in case". So now I work at a fast food restaurant. Which is not, obviously, something I want to do forever, but it is a little extra money for now. I thought about trying to open an etsy shop, but I just don't think I could bear to sell any of my quilts. Also, even minimum wage is more than I would make per hour selling quilts. I'm just not fast enough to make any money at it. (If I priced my quilts so I could make $10/hr, believe me, I wouldn't sell any!)

As I was moving my fabric to it's new home, I pulled some into "Future Quilt Piles", which was very inspiring. I am itching to start sewing again so hopefully soon I will have some nice new quilty pictures to share. If I don't get a decent camera in the near future, I will buy a throwaway, because I have some fun ideas in my head right now... and a little niece on the way... she'll need a quilt or two, won't she?

Can't I have anything NICE without you guys breaking it?

My life is about broken things right now. First the camera, then my (borrowed) sewing machine, and now, my laptop. The camera needs to be replaced, the sewing machine I don't know about yet, and the laptop will be on it's way to Dell in a few minutes. So I will be offline for a while, just in case anyone tries to contact me and gets worried.

Maybe I will get some housework done since everything fun is broken... or not. :-)