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One of the blogs that I follow regularly, Confessions of a Fabric Addict does a regular Monday feature called “Make a List Monday”.  I decided that I would try it out. She does it to hold herself responsible for her projects and to see what she gets done. I have been following her for a couple of months now and decided that with everything I have on my plate these days this is a great idea!

This week – June 20 to June 27:

1. Finish my organization project for my fabric
2. Begin work on Part 2 of the QuiltMaker Mystery Quilt
3. Make an Apple Pie! – a late Father’s Day gift for my wonderful hubby 🙂

I know my list is kind of short this week, but they are all pretty big ticket items for me that require a lot of time and effort. Plus this weekend the hubby and I are going to install our new garage door opener, which is going to cut into any crafting time I may have.

Here is a sneaky peak at my organization project for the sewing room 🙂

What is on your list this week?

Sorry there was no Work It Wednesday this week. I spent a good part of Tuesday in the ER, luckily my bff Sunni, was able to not only drive me there but also watch Anne while I was there with my hubby.  Good friends are hard to come by and I am blessed to have her in my life!

Yesterday I got a little sewing done but more housework than anything else. Today though I finished up a little organizational project for my sewing room.

I have a lot of yarn, kind of like I have a lot of fabric. Until today this is what the yarn “section” of my sewing room has looked like:

Kind of ugly and drab and not enough storage.  The basket on the left is holding my acrylic yarns, the middle basket is holding mixed fiber yarn, and the basket on the right is holding 100% wool yarn. I wanted them separate for projects like felting. I still needed something more though because I had another entire BOX of yarn that I couldn’t unpack!!!

This is what my yarn space looks like now:

Don’t you just LOVE my new totes?!? I followed this tutorial that I found on Whipstitch. I struggled a little bit with the directions as far as the “box” corners go, but in the end they turned out really well.  I had to change her measurements to fit my needs.  If you would like to know my measurements to fit my shelf just let me know in the comments and I will send them to you!

Here is a close up of my baskets, and yes I do know that the print is going the wrong direction…I meant to do that!!! (Not! I just didn’t think about the directionality of the print when cutting.)

And they are jam packed with my yarn! Woohoo for a clean and organized space, now I just need to get to work on the sewing cabinet, wait until you see what I have planned for it!!!

What tutorials have you followed lately, tell me in the comments 🙂

So I was going to do a mini tutorial on Paper Piecing for all you quilters. I made my first paper pieced square last week and today I made my second – this time following my own pattern.

Here is a pic from the one where I followed my own pattern:

It isn’t bad, but definitely not perfect. That is why this is a NOT Tutorial Tuesday. I didn’t feel as though I could put up a tutorial for something I am still trying to master.
It is my goal to only give my readers tutorials on things that I can answer questions on, and right now the only question I could answer would be: “Is a seam ripper a handy tool to have around when paper piecing?” The answer, at least when you are new to it, is YES!!!

So instead of a tutorial, I am going to give a sneaky peak to my gift exchange partner of what is coming her way in the next week.

No, not this block! It is terrible and I wouldn’t feel good about sending it. What I made though uses both of these fabrics and several more and there is a star quite similar to this one in the project (that would be attempt number 1 following someone else’s pattern, and yes, that pattern was better than mine, WAY better!).

Are you participating in the Handmade Gift Exchange going on over at Craftaholics Anonymous?

 

 

I hope you are getting excited Staci from Just Sew Sassy blog, because I sure am!

Here’s where I’m partying this week:

 

 

 

I thought I would try something new on today. I ran across this post on Quaint and Quirky and liked the idea of a quick post that would let you know a little about myself. I think the main reason I liked it though was that it looks back across 30 years of life and I am turning 30 in less than a month, egads!

1 year ago: I was missing my husband badly but loving watching my 6 month old experience new things in her growing world.

2 years ago: I was 4 months pregnant and pretty sick. My husband and I were picking out names for our baby and we had decided to not find out the gender.

4 years ago: I was freshly engaged and starting to plan my wedding, I had 4 months to plan it and my fiance was stationed in Germany. If it wasn’t for my parents help we probably would have gotten married at City Hall (which wouldn’t have been bad, just not what we had in mind).

5 years ago: I was starting to climb the ladder at my corporate marketing job. I loved traveling for business and spending my free time visiting my friends in Southern California.  I was getting ready to turn 25 in style in Hawaii.

10 years ago: I was finishing up my junior year of college at Santa Clara University and getting ready to spend the summer working and taking classes towards my Master’s Degree (which as of today is only half finished).

20 years ago: I was finishing fourth grade and getting ready to start fifth grade. I was NOT looking forward to a summer in Day Care, but I knew I couldn’t complain about it.

30 years ago:  I was getting ready to be born! My mom was 7.5 month pregnant with me, and I think by now they would have picked the date for her c-section.

What do you think? Do you like Five Minute Friday?  How about you? Where were you 1, 2, 4, 5 10, 20, 30 years ago?

The original idea for Five Minute Friday is from this blog:

Want to play along?

Sunni and I just had our weekly play date…although lately it has been every other week. We have been some busy mama’s what with my family moving and Sunni ramping up for her THIRD craft show next weekend (if you are in the Puyallup, WA area from June 17-19, stop by Meeker Days and show her some love!).

Today we were actually able to get together, which was good, because I know I needed to see her, and I know Anne was super excited to see Mae, her favorite playmate.  We did a quick run to JoAnn’s for some supplies (I managed to lose my seam ripper in the move!) and we did an even quicker lunch.  Then we headed over to do some thrift store shopping.  Check out what I found!

Isn’t it beautiful? You may be asking yourself “did she get a fish?!?” No, this is a pet free zone! Whenever I am quilting I find that I spend a lot of time “accidentally” throwing perfectly good scraps into the trash can because they are so small.  Really, they are plenty good for projects like the Bottled Rainbows quilt along that is going on over at Stitched in Color it is just that I have been super lazy about scraps for a long long time.

Well that is all behind me now!

Way better than fish!  It is full of scraps.

And it is conveniently located next to my sewing machine for easy access, so that I will be encouraged to save all my scraps from now on!

The best part of all is that this little beauty only set me back $5.42, less than I would have paid at any other store. There is definitely something to be said for getting your thrift on.  Sunni also walked away with some super cute finds, but she had to head out to pick up Ellie before I was able to whip out my camera.

What thrifty finds have you made lately?