A Tote for Fun and Important Decision Making

Pink and Gray totes are the cutest!  At least they are sitting on a "Caribbean Blue" chair.  

My TACMQG president had a bag making class. We met in a police substation (and it was a great space!). We used Bijou Lovely's Market Tote tutorial and spent the day making bags. The pattern is a fairly typical bag pattern, but is designed with a triple layer of fabric at the base, which means that you can carry a lot of groceries, or whatever.  Since Tacoma is going plastic bag-less this summer there is increased interest in fabric bags.  I love sewing with others sewing nearby. The conversation and support are always amazing.

I got to play on my Grandmother's 1938 Singer Featherweight.  It is a joy to sew on - if the stitches aren't perfect, it's because I haven't threaded it correctly. 

Some of my Guildmates were cranking them out! I managed 1. Sometimes I think I'm a fast sewist, and then I see  my masterful friends at work and re-learn better. I thought I might make it a carry bag for my Featherweight, but it wasn't quite the right size. We worked out the size needed and the necessary adjustments to the pieces to make one just perfect for the task. On my way home I stopped by Joann's and picked up some Home Dec fabric. How could it take me hours to pick 2 fabrics? No idea, but I finally found two I loved together. At the checkout line, I found totes for sale (7.99 or 9.99?) and it was cheaper than I could have bought the materials for. I bought it (in navy and leaf green, of course) and it happened to fit Mary/Flossie perfectly! 

Who is Mary/Flossie? I have never named my machines before, but many of y'all do and I love it when I see it or hear it. .I'd love to hear your opinions about this - either naming your machine(s) or what their names ought to be.  My paternal Grandmother (who is turning 100 this July 2nd!) gave me her.  She originally belonged to my Great Grandmother Florence. My Grandmother Mary purchased it from her (many decades ago)  and then several years ago sent it home with my Dad who had been out visiting Wyoming. I love it, and grateful for it every time I see it. She is a joy to sew on. So that's where Mary comes from. And Florence isn't an option -she wasn't a very nice woman...

My mother, Sally, who passed away in 1999, was the daughter of Flossie. Flossie (one of 4 kids: Acey, Dewey, Flossie, and Cossie) died when my Mom was 13. I don't know if she was a sewist, but my Mom sure was. I would love to honor her side of the family even though the Featherweight comes from my Dad's side. My big fancy Brother doesn't have a name either. 

I don't think I could name either machine Sally.  Should the Featherweight be named Flossie or Mary? Should I name my Brother the other name?  Or do you have any other suggestions? I'd love your feedback.

Funny how I can take something so silly, so seriously. If you haven't gathered yet, if there is something to worry about, I find it.  

Love to you all!

I'm Dreaming of a Tropical Vacation

 



Hello! 

I hope this finds you on a sunny day - at least sunny in spirit!  It's (still) raining and gloomy here.  It just snowed over 2 inches on one of our mountain passes last night!  We've had the weirdest weather this spring, and the sun has made a few random appearances. 

 

The only perk to blecky weather is that, as a high school math teacher, there are less wardrobe issues at school.   Our district has a dress code that basically says, in legalese, keep your private parts covered.  And don't expose shoulders.  That's so tube tops and halter tops don't happen.  And then there is no risk of a wardrobe malfunction.  Of course, some say that is sexualizing students and an example of gender discrimination.  It's distracting to see any students private bits exposed.  I don't want to see it, really.  And if I'm holding my breath that you might move the wrong way and expose your private bits, then you don't have enough clothes on.  Regardless of gender. 

Of course, it's never that simple.  We had a day and a half of nice weather (it broke into the high 60's) and there were issues.  In fact, we had LOUD protests outside my portable, with lots of drama, and news cameras(!) and interruptions to class.  All during AP testing, of course.  It was a challenge to teach that day.  Then the weather gods smiled on our school, and there has been no more sun.  They are promising some next week.  I'm not holding my breath for it.

Anyway, all this dreariness has me dreaming of sunny, tropical locales!  My best girlfriend and I are going to meet in Orlando, FL (she'll be finishing up a conference there) and I'm flying to meet her, and then we road trip to Key West!!!!!  I'm so excited..  I love, love, love, love tropical pictures and locations.  Seeing Key West has always been on my bucket list, since I was a wee child.

I grew up in a small town in the Pacific Northwest, where ocean water is dark and freezing.  There were pictures of my Mom standing in a very large pool.  Nope, that's from when my Dad was stationed at Key West Coast Guard Station, and she was standing in the Atlantic Ocean.  Ever since then I've loved water that looks like that.  I even got to go to Hawaii once, and that was amazing.  But Key West has been a part of my dreams from childhood.  My Mom was going through old boxes (again when I was young) and pulled out a navy and green paisley dress, and matching shoes - 60s kitten heeled pumps.  I thought it was beautiful, but I was already to big to fit into the dress my Mom wore when she was in her 20s.  I loved it though, and it was made of "Key West fabric" and the shoes were made with identical fabric as the dress. 

 

As I write this, I know where my love of blue and green and tropical comes from. 

 

I'm so lucky to have a friend who loves to travel, and thought to invite me and make a trip out of her work week.  We haven't traveled together, but we work shop well together.  We "get" each other, and can spend many (many!) hours together, and still wish we had more time to hang out.  We respect each others needs and tastes, and I think we will travel well together.  She is a planner - thank Heavens!  There are reservations for every part of the trip, and she has a list of activities that we can do.  I'm really easygoing, and I'm just up for the adventure.  As planning was happening, she'd email "what do you think about...." and I'd just reply "Sounds great!"  It all sounds great, and I can hardly wait to go.

 

One of our planning conversations revolved around a day trip to the Bahamas.  I admitted I didn't have a passport, so it wasn't an option.  My friend (who has travelled internationally for decades now) said no worries.  And it turned out the trip didn't have great reviews.  I wanted to us to not go because we didn't want to, not because we couldn't.  Hence, the photos.   (Edit: My passport came in the mail - only 3 weeks - and I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!).  It took weeks to get the appointment for the passport interview.  The actual interview only took about 10 minutes...filling out the paperwork in advance took way longer than that! 

 

So you can see I've had sunshine on the brain.  I used a Cluck Cluck Sew pattern, and this came out of it.  It just makes me smile, and the tangerine binding is the happiest fabric I can imagine at the moment. Note the tropical blue chair?  Yup, it's my favorite. 

I'm wishing you tropical times...

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Gift for Fundraising

Hey All -

Here are some pictures of the "garden" pillow I made.  I saw this on Pinterest, and the Dance Team Coach saw it on my page and asked for one for her team's fundraiser.  Of course!  I followed the link to an online free pattern.  Once I find the link again, I'll link it here.  It is raw edge applique, and I adjusted the pattern to an oblong rectangle as opposed to a square.  I think it came out super cute, and I like it a lot more than I thought I was going to.

 

 

Best,

A Happy Single's Awareness Day - I mean Valentine's Day!

Time does fly, yes?

For Valentine's Day, I made a pillow for myself.  Several folks saw it, and wanted one.  I ended up with 13 orders for pillows.  Most wanted whatever I felt like color-wise, and some had specific color requests.  It was so fun to make them, and to have people like them so. It was just total gravy that folks paid me for them!

Yes, I know, I need to have materials covered, and my time paid for, but that's challenging for me. I plucked an amount out of the air, and it seemed high to me, but clearly, it wasn't.  My husband and I actually had a fight about me not charging enough for my work.  I thought I had charged plenty, he felt I should have charged more.  That's a good thing, I suppose.

The pillows came out awfully cute.  I started with IKEA pillow forms.  They are inexpensive, and down.  They are soft, and give great support.  Starting with such a great base, how can you go wrong?  Well, actually, it's pretty easy to go awry...I started with 2 layers of white fabric, and drew a line with a Sew-line air erasing pen.  I did a heavy stitch, twice, as the "line" the hearts were hanging on.  The hearts were drawn on fusible paper, ironed onto fabrics in red and pink and purple, cut out, and ironed on the line  I outlined the hearts, and Voila! I did envelope style closure, and they are OK, but I really need to work on my invisible zippers  I did a binding,, because it just seemed to frame it so well - it really completed the look.  I am enamored with the effect of binding the pillow.

The closure fabric was made from a variety of fabrics I had about the house.  The "I LOVE YOU" fabric looks like there are blank lines between the red words, but in reality it is printed with glow in the dark words  It says things like "Take out the trash" and "You don't bring me flowers" and so on.  A guild mate said it perfectly summed up marriage!

I made mostly 16" x 26" sizes, but a few 20" x 20" tucked in for fun.  I made one with lots of little hearts in a heart shape  It was cute, but not what was in my mind's eye.  I gave it to my folks who were visiting.  My chiropractor ordered a custom one for his wife.  While he was adjusting my husband's back, he described what he wanted  I sketched and before it was my turn, we had a design.  I think the initials turned out super cute!  He was pleased, and more importantly, his wife was thrilled and surprised.  It's a win all the way around.

I'm now working on a garden scene for a pillow.  A team at my school is doing a Bunko night, and there will be raffle/auction items.  The coach requested a pillow with flowers.  I will be reimbursed for the supplies.  I'm excited to get my work out there, and it's helping the dance team pay for it's costs.  They did a fleece scarf fundraiser, and I will get one of them, in a color of my choosing.  I think it's a great trade!

I hope your Valentine's Day had some joy in it, and that you got to sew and let a loved one know you cared.













Best,

9 Little Thank Yous

I finally get to share my "secret sewing".  It's a long story, but you don't mind...In late August there was a fire at the School District Bus Barn.  24 new buses burned down to their metal frames.  It was awful!  And school was going to start in a week and a half!  Needless to say, someone's job at the district office just got a LOT harder.  But neighboring districts started calling in..."Hey, we've got some extra buses, want some?"  (Imagine that conversation  - Hello, school board? We'd like to loan some buses to another district for several months - for free).  In all, my district borrowed buses from 9 districts. We were and are so blessed! 

I emailed a longtime friend and "boss" and asked if we were doing anything to say Thank You.  Other than just saying "thank you".  Nope, we didn't have any plans.  Well, that seemed like an underwhelming response.  I asked if I could make a quilts/wall-hangings for the districts that had shown us such kindness.  And they said yes! 

I had a series of email conversations with the head of transportation, and gave her a series of pictures (Do you like the one on the left, or the one on the right better?) and got a sense of what she was thinking.  She went for cute!  (Yay!  Applique - here we come!) I sketched out a design, and framed what they would say, and we were off to the races.

Making 9 wall hangings that are all almost the same wasn't difficult.  Boeing says, anyone can build a plane, it's doing it repeatedly, identically, and reasonably priced that's the challenge...Pretty accurate. The first, and the second, and the third were fine.  The fourth, and fifth, and sixth I was slowing down.  And then there was seven, eight and nine to go! I did it assembly line style, 18 wheels, 9 frames, and 9 Ts, 9 Hs, etc.  Again, not hard...just long.

I worked this fall on it.  It was pretty much all I did for a good while.  I am thrilled with how they turned out.  I handed them over in early November.  Our district communications team heard and did a story (here) and it was exciting!  And the local paper saw it, and they did a story (here).  The recognition has been fun, but mostly I'm just thrilled I could do something nice for folks who went above and beyond when they didn't have to.  I place a high value on kindness, and I'm grateful my bosses let me do this. 

Now, whenever I turn on my computer at school in the morning, and pull up the attendance and gradebook programs, it opens to the district web site, and there's my face!  I jump a little each time. I cut my hair after seeing these photos...I worked hard on my hair that day, and it was good, but not doing what I wanted it to.  Also, I've been working on losing weight.  This encouraged me some more to keep on keepin' on.  I laughed at "marrying into the well-known Mahaffie family", but it is true.  My husband is from an old family in town, and there was a family business in town for many decades.  My husband (and his brothers), his parents, and his grandparents all grew up here, and went to Puyallup High School. My son will be 4th generation when he attends PHS.

I was given  a copy of the article, so I'm mailing it to my Grandma (she's 99!).  It really is true, I come by my quilting habit honestly.  My Grandma and Aunt on my Dad's side, and my mother all sewed and quilted.  I remember being 7-ish learning to hand sew - bear paw pattern in yellow and yellow calico, 4 patch, as a pillow - with Grandma.  I really didn't stand a chance of not sewing.


And, yes, that is my classroom down below.  It was the only place with enough floor space to stretch them all out!

Long Tall Glowing

Hello Again!  Yes this is the second post tonight.  I actually have time, and access to the laptop. 

 

This quilt glows.  The pattern is "Long Tall", hence Long Tall Glowing.  This is a great example  of how much a difference the fabric makes.   The pattern cover is in shades of brown, and, to my eye, meh.  At the sewing expo (every February at the Puyallup Fair Grounds!), I had seen a glorious quilt in spectacular greens and aquas.  It was Amy Butler "Glow" fabric.  These pictures don't do the glow-i-ness justice.  I walked past the pattern many, many times, and had to ask the clerk where I could find it.  When she handed it to me, I was surprised, to say the least. 

My best-girlfriend was with me, and she saw my hesitation in getting the pattern and the fabric, and she encouraged me to go for it.  It didn't take a lot of encouraging, but I'm so glad that she helped me to make a good decision.   This is also a lesson  in how fabric lines play together.  I always love Amy Butler fabrics, and Tula Pink, and the showy lines. But I never buy them since I don't always see how it's going to go together.  I would have never put these together, with the variety of designs and colors.  This is why I'm not a fabric designer!   

 

The picture of the back is so gloomy, I'm not even putting it here.  In reality is it a gold flecked aqua, and pieced with a variety of leftover fabrics from the front.   

My son asked what I was going to do with it.  I said, I didn't have any plans for it.  He asked, "Well, then, can we just keep it, and you don't give it away?" That's about as high of praise as I can get from him.  So, yes, we can keep this one.  It currently lives on our bed.  We have a king, and this is a generous full, so it lies sideways across the bed.

 

Once the sun comes back, in say, April, I'll try to get a good show of it in its "home". 

 

Coming soon: Pics of Christmas gifts for friends (OK, so none of them see my blog, so it's probably safe, but you never know...)  and my secret sewing can be revealed in January.  I'm really excited to share with you what I was allowed to do, and how honored I am to have gotten to do this sewing.

 

Much Love,

At the fair

 My how time flies...These photos are from September! And its nearly the end of December!  We did "the Puyallup", except it's now the Washington State Fair.  I don't now if I'll ever call it that - it's been the Puyallup Fair for forever.

 

One of the best things about the fair are the quilts!  There are HUNDREDS on display.  They vary from tied quilts, to intricately quilted.  The piecing varies from simple to complex.  They are hung from the ceiling in the second floor of the Home Arts building.  I entered several pieces in the fair this year.  It's a tough show - the judges are really looking for high quality in whatever category the piece is entered in.   I've always been intimidated by the amazing work that is hung there every year.  

 

About 8 years ago, I entered 2 quilts, and one of them won 2nd place in its category.  Of course, there were only 3 I could find in the large, non-traditional category, so 2 out of three ain't bad?

 

I'm fortunate that a friend works the fair each year.  She messaged me with something to the effect of "You can bring your quilts in today or tomorrow or the next day.  Do you want to bring them down, or should I?"  Love that.  No excuses.  I gathered some work from around the house, and off to the fairgrounds I went.  On the small one, I ripped out the machine stitched binding, and hand-stitched it down.  I may have gone a tad bit overboard - I took 5 items!  I entered them, and then didn't think much about it for awhile. 

 

We usually go to the fair as a family, so getting it to schedule out can take awhile, or a few weeks in this case.  I'm so lucky, my friends and guildmates love that section of the fair as well.  I heard from a friend at church that she thought I'd won a ribbon (WooHoo!) but she couldn't really describe the quilt.  And, I had one hanging at the top of the entrance stairs.  That's where the ribbon winners land!  And did I have a small one, maybe in a case?  At this point, it had been almost a month since I turned them in, and honestly, I couldn't really remember all the pieces I turned in!  Then at the TacMQG meeting, a guildmate came to me and asked if I'd entered a pillow.  Um,  Yes?  She thought that she'd seen it at a guild meeting during Sew and Tell.  Then she pulled out her phone, and showed me the pics she'd captured.  Yup, that's my pillow.  I was so excited!  (Envision Snoopy and the twinkle-toes happy dance!). 

 

Finally - the family was able to go to the fair, and I could see them in place!  My husband is very tolerant/encouraging of my sewing, and doesn't mind just letting me roam for an hour or so by myself upstairs.  You can see how thrilled the kidlet is about this. 

 

 

 

 

Actually, this picture is the one I take each year, so that if I lose him (or Dad and I get lost...), I can show someone what he's wearing and what he looks like.  This pretty well captures his happiness at being drug to the fair.  More time at the fair means less time on-line gaming at home 

 

Our family tradition is to stop and get a "Krusty-Pup" and a drink.  That's not just a corndog, mind you - it transcends the genre!  Of course, for $4.50, it better. Then, it's off to the quilts.   And this is what I saw at the top of the stairs when you come in!

In a place of pride, and a ribbon! Then, knowing I had 4 more spread out and about...off I went. 

 

 

 

 

 Four ribbons!  I was so excited.  My husband laughed and said "I'm married to an award winning quilter."  I can't even describe how thrilled and delighted this made me.  His comment and the ribbons.

 

I don't know how I got so lucky!  The judges commented on the variety of pieces that I could work on my piecing accuracy.  Yes, yes I can.  Their comments were spot on.  I do need to make sure the corners and edges match like they should.  Yes, Yes I should.  But, was thrilled regardless. 

 

I hope that you all had a wonderful Halloween and Thanksgiving!