Simply Done
I just love having a cutting table that I can stand at and walk around! Sarah gave me this table and I use it all the time. The other thing that I really like is the pegboard that hangs next to it. I have the table shoved into a corner (no wobbling) and my rulers, rotary cutters and scissors hang from it along with a comfortable mish mash of stuff . My mess, take a peek.
That cute quilt on the wall is, I believe, the first quilt Sarah ever made…isn’t that sweet! She gave it to me!
How lucky can I be to call both Kathy Harte and Judy Wedemeyer friends? These two talented ladies are letting the world see their quilted art works at Terra Bella Bakery & Cafe (on Dimond) in May, beginning with the First Friday Event on May 2, 2008.
Give yourself the treat of enjoying the cafe and the quilt art if you have a chance to be in Anchorage in May.
I was in Anchorage for a few days and I spent some time with Audrey. I brought up a small bucket of the things she’s used to playing with when she is with me, and here’s how that went:
She dove into the bucket, first after her necklaces and then ended up dumping the whole bucket onto the coffee table. Then she went for the purse – and she knew exactly what she was fishing around for in there – her cell phone. 
No, she doesn’t have her own phone at the tender age of 1, I just slipped one of non-functioning phones that we have in the house that haven’t been recycled yet.
She grabs that thing every time and flings it right into place and wanders around jabbering at the top of her lungs. It’s hysterical. Especially when she gets her arms going – I can tell that her mother must gesture a lot when she’s on the phone.
I finally talked her into trying on the booties
(way too big – what a surprise – lol) and she liked them. After a while she tossed them aside for the bigger version. I am afraid of taking her shoe shopping now….. what have I started?
Using the tracing that I took of Audrey’s feet and some quilted muslin from a machine quilting class, I cut out my estimation of the pieces. I love estimating and I do it all the time 🙂
I pinned the pieces together and I could tell right away that I had overestimated! I could put these things on a moose!
I unpinned and trimmed 3/4″ off the upper – all the way around except for the heel, which I had already sewn.
I re-pinned and then stitched, using a walking foot – which was a bad idea, it didn’t like the bulk, especially at the gathered bulk in the toe area.
I still think that the booties are too big, but I’ll wait and see how they fit on Audrey. I would like to inset some cuff material and make them into pull-on slippers. I have some fake suede for bottoms and maybe fleece for the uppers, with a cuff for snugness?
What happens when you try to hold steady a wiggly giggly baby with one hand and trace around her ticklish feet with the other hand? Chaos. And this kind of scribble:
Heather Bailey has a free pattern for baby booties that I want to try. I’ll make a tester first, to see how they fit, and then make a real pair for Audrey. Her feet are quite a bit bigger than the pattern that Heather offers, so I’ll modify as I go, using her basic design and tips for construction.
I begin to believe that spring is almost here when the daffodils start coming up. We still have several feet of snow in the yard, but around the house it’s melting out.
The poor things have to fight their way through the masses of snow we received this winter – but up they come! 
I can hardly believe that they push up through the snow pack!
There were even some dandelion shoots and I picked a few for bunny. His first spring treat 🙂 He just loves dandelions!
I was motivated to make this quilt (Crazy Shortcake – details here..)by a contest that was posted on the Jolly Jabber blog. All the entries are posted here in this Flickr set.
If you go to the Jolly Jabber Blog, you can vote on the 9 items entered. (I voted for the dress – LOL – I have a hard time voting for myself 🙂
There were some very nice creations, I hope you have time to take a look.
I’ve been playing with electrons again. This time helping a gal fix her blog ring. We’re getting to know each other via email and blogs, and every day I learn something new about her. She has a very funny email address and whenever she emails me I laugh out loud; she has pet rabbits living in her studio (just like me); she’s quite generous and kind and she’s got some cool stuff in her Etsy Shop called Littleputbooks.
If you have never been to Etsy, well, all I can say is “pour a cuppa, you’re going to be there awhile”.
My friend Holly Knott has a shop there too. But don’t just stop with these two, use the search engine and take a look around the Rodeo Drive of the internet.
I can hardly believe my eyes, but I have a bobbin disaster. I am using a bobbin thread (new brand) and it is blowing out the sides of my bobbins. All of the bobbins in the photo used to be the same size before I loaded on this thread! I have a stand alone bobbin winder that I have used for years (even when longarming, so it has seen plenty of use) and I’ve used bobbin thread for years (a different brand) but I’ve never seen anything like this before! Yikes!
I did get a decent bobbin wound by using the winder on the sewing machine, and don’t ask me how or why it worked because I have no idea. I wound the thread off the bobbin you see to the far right in the photo – and this is what was left on it after the other bobbin was full.
I have a good set up for hanging small quilts for photography. It’s a rolling clothing rack (about $12 at Walmart) and yards of stiff poly fleece (this is not the soft jacket style fleece) draped over it and 2 chunks of rigid foam insulation (my favorite building material!).
I used silk pins
– they have almost no head – to pin straight through the quilt, fleece and into the chunk of foam.
There is very little distortion to the quilt (it would be better on a flat wall, I know this, but I don’t have the space) making it a good compromise.
I was surprised that the whole lap sized quilt was able to be suspended by just the fleece, so the pins really just perform the task of keeping it straight and keeping it from falling off while I am trying to take the picture.
Holly Knott shares her very helpful tips for quilt photography here.
