Wednesday, September 30, 2015

October Goals

September came in slow but went out fast.   I only gave myself a few goals because I knew I had some really time sensitive projects that were also time consuming.  So let's see how I did -

1. Blogging More - Well I drew out my posts on the retreat and if you count this one will make 7 which matches the last couple of months.  I will say goal met -but I think I'm really stretching it.
2. Vintage Kitchen - Do the last stitchery - Complete - Goal Met.
3. Finish SNR Guild workshop project that I will be teaching in October.  - Complete - Goal Met. 
4. Bears -  :) Happy Dance.  Goal Met.  I have it traced on the vinyl, all of one is traced on the fusible and fused on the appropriate colors.  Cut out and started to fuse together.  
5. Work on things to sell at the craft fair - Goal Met.  I am adding to the collection of the little dolls and have even already sold 2.  


These are the two sets I've sold.  

September was pretty good.  

October Goals: 

1. Blog More Often
2. Continue with Craft Fair Items to sell. 
3. Make Progress on Bear.  Finish first one and start on 2nd. 
4. Mystery Monday if not cancelled and I can go -  complete project. 
5. Complete top of Halloween Wall hanging from SNR Table Runner. 

I think I better leave it small so I can stay focused again. 

Have a Blessed Day!
Lynn 

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Retreat Wrap Up

So Saturday started at 4:45 or so and we were off and having a groggy but fun time being the only ones that were in the sewing room at time in the morning.  We sewed (or traced  ha ha ) until about 7 when we headed to the buffet

They have a very nice buffet and I've eaten there before (that's where this picture came from) but on this morning - unknown to us, they had 6 tour buses and 200 people they were trying to get thru there and on their way.  Wow the place was packed.  So we got our table and took turns getting in line. This is where the funny comes in.  I know other countries are not always bothered by closeness, but I am.  I like to have my invisible bubble of  6-12 inches.  I give others space, because I want space.  Anyway... I had a man standing behind me and I'm telling my friend Barbara oh no here we go again, because I just had someone get really close to me in the line checking in the day before.  Well he is getting closer and closer and finally he's actually touching my back he is so close.  And even though I moved and shrugged he just kept it up.  I was extremely happy when we got to the actual buffet so I could literally get him off my back.  *pun intended*   :)  

Okay so we got thru that - whew and headed back up  - I did more tracing  - 


Then it was time for lunch.  I didn't get a picture of the spread they had for us again, but it was huge.  Pot Roast, Chicken, Salad, Cooked Vegetables, Rolls and triple layer Chocolate Cake.  Wow.  
I really tried to not over do especially after Friday night. 
Back to I at this point was to the cutting and fusing of things on to the appropriate colors of fabric.  And did that until dinner time.  Did I mention that we ate alot.  :)  
We had dinner at an Italian restaurant in the casino.  




Oh the dishes that were calling me - Chicken Parmesan, Ravioli, ....., but I was really wanting to keep it low level.  So I had soup, salad and 2 bread sticks.  They had Italian Wedding soup - one of my favs.  :)

Okay Sunday Morning I got up and was down there by 4 am.  I was ready to start fusing my pieces together and tried to do it with out tracing the placement on vinyl but that didn't work so I started tracing on the vinyl before breakfast - which they set up the buffet for us. 

There were pastries, mini muffins (yes I grabbed a mini bear claw later)  eggs, potatoes, bacon, sausage and fruit. 
But I again was trying to be controlled after not feeling well Saturday morning. 
 So after breakfast I finished tracing the vinyl placement overlay and then finally got to start fusing some of the bear together during the final couple of hours before we had to pack up and head out.  


The pattern is written a little different than I am used to so that took a little time figuring out, but I think from here it should flow pretty quickly.  I calculated the time I spent on this and it's roughly 18-20 hours not including the time spent picking out fabric. 

So that pretty much wraps up the retreat  - it was so fun but as I said before I was so tired when I was done.  :)  

So before I end here's a couple pictures of my friends that I was sewing with.  

Annette


Linda and Katie
Ann and daughter Terri


I didn't get a picture of Vicki, Cheryl, Aggie or Barbara my early partners in crime - but I will.  :)  
All in all it was productive and I am so happy I went.  
Blessings, 
Lynn 



Monday, September 28, 2015

Eating and Sewing

I'm not ready to do the Paul Harvey "And now the rest of the story", but I'll give you more of it. Some of the younger readers won't get that reference but you can google it.
I am not sure why we as sewers think we need to eat so much - but when you go to these retreats that is all you do is "Eat and Sew - Eat and Sew".   There are snacks everywhere, cookies, pretzels, candy, Chocolate.   Then we get meals, and they do not skimp on the meals.  I was so over stuffed Friday night that I really was not feeling too well on Saturday morning.  I will say however that there were 4 or 5 of us that weren't feeling well so I don't know if we all over ate of there was something else going on, but it passed so I'll go with the overeating thing.  :)

Friday we were on on our own for breakfast.  So I made hubby and I a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich.  Then lunch was provided by the retreat.  We had a deli buffet table.


All kinds of sliced meats, bread, and fruit and ahmmm  - Cheesecake,   Oh ya it was really good.  There was also coffee, Iced Tea and Ice Water.   Yum.

That was served at 11;30 or noon and then we were back to our sewing tables.   I say that because in reality I never got my sewing machine out not even once.  I did not take one stitch, by hand or machine all weekend.  How can that be a sewing retreat?   Well it's all part of getting part of what will be a quilt done.
I need and needed to trace all of the pieces of my bear applique onto the fusible,


 I normally use soft fuse, however it is on back order at the local quilt store so I bought some steam a seam lite.  This is the product that I used to always use, but after you get used to soft fuse it feels so heavy.  So for this weekend I used up scraps of the soft fuse that I had and was able to get most of what I did except a couple of larger pieces out of my scraps.

Then it was time for dinner.  Did I mention we ate a lot.  :)  We were on our own for dinner, so we went to the cafe in the casino.  One of our group, my friend and table partner Vicki had just had a skin graph in her mouth a week earlier and was still on soft foods, so we wanted to go somewhere she could get a baked potato or mashed.  We ended up going to the Cafe in the casino. I decided that I wanted the Chicken Penne Primivera and then 3 others did too.  Vicki had her potato, Aggie had a fish sandwich and Linda had something else too.
I don't know if you can tell but it was huge.  So I'm eating along,  I have had about 6 bites or more and I'm asking everyone - do you have chicken in yours?  I can't find the chicken.  No they couldn't find the chicken.  So we ask the waiter - sure enough they had forgotten the chicken.  So it took forever, but they brought each of us a small plate of grilled chicken which looked like a full chicken breast half - wow.  All of it was so yummy but it was a lot of food- no I didn't finish it but still ate too much.  Then 3 people ordered Ice cream cake.  It was huge (sorry no picture) so then they wanted the rest of us to help eat that.  Chocolate Graham crust, cookie n cream ice cream with caramel ribbons through.  I only had 3 bites I was stuffed.

So then we went back up and sewed some more.  People slowly started heading out and up to bed or out to do a little gambling in the casino.  Vicki and I stayed for a while, Barbara's birthday was on Saturday and Linda went to the store to get her some balloons and stuff so we stayed in the sewing room until she got back.  We headed up to bed around 9:30.

I worked at winding down - because and here's the crazy fun part of this retreat - I knew we were getting up at 4 am to go sew some more.  Yup it's crazy.
At 4:03 the next morning I get a text -  "R U up"  I respond - "I am now - See ya soon"  :)  It took me a little longer than I wanted to get ready, but after showering and dressing, I got there at 4:45.

Ready to start another day.  :)

Saturday will have more food   - and I wish I had more pictures of it, but I'll share that in the next post.

Blessings,
Lynn

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Dog Tired

Well I don't think even dog tired explains how tired I am right now.  We,  me a 4 other friends,  got up and were in the sewing room by 4am each morning and would sew until 9:30 one night and 8:30 the next.  But happy I am.
I wanted to blog each day, but trying to blog from your smart phone is not an easy task - throw in being so tired - well you all just had to wait.  :)

I got lots done, however it will be hard to see the progress unless you have done a complicated applique before.  There's a zillion pieces and it's just very time consuming.  I have roughly figured the amount of time that we were in the sewing room, less meals and chatting with other sewers - I roughly spent 18-22 hours working on my bear applique.

Day one we got there at 9 am  - Sewed for awhile and then I needed to go down and check in for my room.  picked the wrong time ---





but I was already there so decided to wait.  I had some guy so close to the back of me in line, he was almost touching me - I hate that so much.  I like a 6-10 inch bubble.  It was so bad, I almost turned around and asked him to stop - but I didn't want to make a scene.  :)  rrrrrr.   Oh well I got my room and then back to the sewing room.

That's it for now - so stay tuned - I'll give you little bits more as I go.

Blessings - Lynn

Thursday, September 24, 2015

Blogging

It would be really bad if the only goal I don't meet this month, especially since I only had about 5 goals, was that I didn't blog enough.  I'm not sure what happens - that's a lie I do know, I forget to take pictures and then I think I can't blog right now cause I don't have a picture and then another day and another day and another day goes by.   So I may try to post something every day for the last few days of the month to keep up with my "Blog More"  goal.  Next month I may have to put a "Blog More Often" goal in there.  LOL.

Okay so what have I been up to.  Guild Meetings - Both guilds have started back up for the season and so at one I presented my finished wool felt project and collected sign-up for the class I'll be teaching in October.
I've also spent quite a bit of time writing the pattern, and instructions and making freezer paper templates for the class.

For the other guild I am in charge of refreshments, so I had a leadership meeting to go to and then my monthly coordination of the potluck lunch we always have.  

Here's a picture of the last Vintage Kitchen Stitchery that I told you I would show later.  It's not the best picture but it's a picture.  

And now the most time consuming efforts of the month - my "Dolls in a Bag" that I'm doing for the craft fair.  I've been doing blankets, quilts, pillows, pillow cases, bags and little outfits.  I have already sold one to a lady and will be delivering this weekend at the retreat.  Here are the two finished bags that she can choose from. 

Each bag contains:  Bag, Blanket, Quilt, Pillow w/ Pillow case., Doll, Nightie w/ Bonnet, and Jumpsuit w/ Bonnet.   Fun to make but the outfits are time consuming.  

Okay and now - the Retreat.  It's this weekend and my main focus is/ will be the bears.  I want to get them traced on fusible and ironed onto the background.  And considering that I'm doing two - it will probably take all weekend and then some.  I am taking the doll stuff and a fall wall hanging to work on - but I don't want to get too side tracked with it and not get the bears done.   And since I'm going to try to blog each day - you'll know how well I do.  :)  

Other than sewing I have been walking with my husband and going to the lake and swimming, going to lunch and playing cards with friends, and visiting with my crafty neighbor.  

Okay that's it for now - Have a Blessed day! 
Lynn 



Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Time Warp

Yes I was abducted and time has flown by.  Well at least that's what it feels like.  And now we know why I have to keep putting "Blog More" on my goals list.  I really do think of it daily, then think oh I don't have time right now, or I don't have enough info to share.  But then too much time passes and I feel like I have too much to share.  And so the wheel goes around.

So in my last post, I listed my goals for the month, which were limited because of my goal to focus ton two things.  The infamous "Bears" and getting things ready for a local craft fair.  Baazar's and Craft Fairs are something my Mom did and I said I would never do.  Yup I'm giving it a try.   But before I get into all that,, I'll try to catch you up on what I've been up to.

My hubby and I are trying to get back into our walking.  We like to walk 3 miles a day, on the days I don't go somewhere for sewing.  So 3-4 days a week.  But we also like to swim at the lake too so we have been doing a little of both.  The 2nd to last time we went there was a school of blue gil babies swimming around us nibbling on our fingers.  Fun.






 Then last time we went it was just a beautiful day we got in a little cove by our selves - it was great.



On the Saturday of the holiday weekend, I went with a couple of my sewing friends to a neighboring town that is about an hour and half away and we went to a quilt shop and had lunch out and made a girls trip day out of it.   That was fun.  I bought some really cute fabric that has sheep on it I'm going to make a box pouch for my Sister out of it.  We raised sheep when we were growing up and so cartoon sheep just seem to be a fun thing between us.

Here was a little Christmas Tree they had - Barbara got the pattern for it.

Also,  I was working very hard to get my wool felt project done for the first SNR guild meeting.  I designed a little wool felt wall hanging that I will be teaching at the October workshop, so I needed to get it ready so I could present it for sign-ups.


I will be working with the local quilt shop to make kits for this, so I still need to finish up the instructions.

I have finished the 9th and final stitchery block for the Vintage Kitchen from Jenny of Elefantz.  So now I can work on putting the little quilt together.   I show the picture of that later.

The Bears - I finally have a pattern that I feel I can use to make the bears the way I want to.  It only has one bear but I am going to do one in reverse next to it so there are two.   I have a retreat at the end of the month and I am taking it to work on.  I'm really hoping to get it all traced and fused on to the background by the end of October, so if I could get it traced and fused on the various materials at the retreat I'll be very happy.  :)

Now the craft fair - I have probably a dozen things I want to sell, but only have had about 6 weeks to prepare so I've been a little scrambled.  Work on this no this - no this.  Finally I had to sit myself down and say "Finish all of this one thing, so you'll at least have one thing to sell.".  Nice pep talk huh?  So right now I working on a thing my Mom used to make called "Dolls in a Bag".  It's a homemade miniature tote bag, with a mini doll, extra clothing, a blanket a quilt an a pillow with pillow case.  So I have about 10 bags made  18 or so pillows  10 ish pillow cases,  a dozen blankets and  fleece blankets.  So right now I focusing on finishing the extra clothing.  Once I made myself sit down and do it, it wasn't so bad.  :)    So when I get a complete set made I'll share pictures.

Oh and in the evening after finishing my Vintage Kitchen Stitchery, I started stitching on my wool Bethlehem and have finished the top of it.


So that's what I've been up to and where I've been, while I've been so quiet and mia.

Hope you have a wonderful Blessed day.
Lynn

Thursday, September 3, 2015

September Goals

Well August was kinda a bust in some ways - I did not get all the things done that I wanted to and as I stated in my other poster here- the retreat was not as productive as I had anticipated. I took about 5 projects to the retreat knowing that I wouldn't get them all done,  but thought I would get maybe 2 1/2 done. Nope that didn't happen . If you want to read about it you can click the link above.  But it is September and since it's already the 3rd and I haven't blogged, wrapped up August or listed September goals I am starting out of the gate behind.  I have had a lot going on and I do want to share some of that but I'll save it for another post.  So with no further ado - August wrap up.

1. Blog more - Well I tied with July so I guess that's ok - E for Effort
2. Mystery Monday - Complete it.   A+  Done and using alot.  I've always wanted to make one of these and let it intimidate me so Now I'm happy I did it.  :)


3. Woodsy Quilt - Do a new Block and or Redo Bears - Well No Progress but E for Effort.  I found a pattern that will work perfect for the center Bear Block and I am going to alter it so that there are two bears instead of one.  So I did some work on it all - I just didn't do any work on an actual block.
4. Wool project "Bethlehem" - Finish .... No Progress at all.
5.   Finish quilting the Sea Turtles and then start on Bee Hive Baby.  1/2 done.  I finished the turtles and then took the Bee Hive Baby to the retreat, however as you can read in my other posts, I didn't finish anything at the retreat.  :)  so only 1/2 done.
Here are the Sea Turtles -




6. Embroidery - Vintage Kitchen - Done.  I was able to finish this on our little trip we took at the first of the month.  Yay!

7.  Piecing Project - Chocolate Stars - Finish top - Success finally.

8.  Charity -   Nothing new done.
9. Boutique -  Dolls in a Bag - A+ -   And probably a big reason why some other stuff didn't get done.  :). Also I went helped out for a day at our local quilt shop.  They had a bunch of stuff dropped off and donated to them so they had a give away day.  At the end of the day I volunteered to drop the remaining stuff off at the local senior center and found out that they are having a craft fair at the end of October.  So now instead of gearing this stuff up for the February quilt show boutique - I am going to enter the craft fair - see what I can sell - and then replenish for the boutique.  Here's a peek at some stuff I'm working on.


I have more on this later but I've been making these little pillows and blankets and they will go into the little bags that are above.  :) 

10.  APQ - UFO Buster #2.  It was my wool crazy and ark crazy projects - No Progress.
11.  New projects - Start my challenge quilt for the quilt show.   Goal Met -
It's not sewn together I want to finish the hand stitching on the center wool applique first.   But I definitely got a good start on it. 
12.  New Project - Start and get most of the SNR Guild project that I'll be teaching in October done so I can show it at the September business meeting.  - Goal Met!   Pictures on this later!  
I have the pattern drawn, 2/3 of the directions written and 1/2 of the project stitched. 
13.  Complete the rest of the Row by Row that I was going to use for the bench pillow.   No Progress. 
Okay so here's the Tally for the month.   5 Goals met,   1 - 1/2 met 1/2 not,  2 E for Effort and 4 not met.   So 7 1/2 to 4 1/2  - the scale is slightly leaning towards the met side  -- ha ha  :)  

Okay now for September

1. Keep on with Blogging more. 
2. Embroidery - The last block for Vintage Kitchen.  Then I can work on assembling it. 

3.  Finish the SNR Workshop project.  - I will post pictures of this in a later post.  It is a small wall hanging that is done in wool felt. 
4.  The Bears.  Using the pattern pictured above I am going to do one the way it's pictured and one reversed so that there are two bears.  I would like to have this drawn out on a vinyl over lay and *extra credit * if I can get it traced out on the fusible. 
5.  Work on projects to sell at the craft fair.  

It seems like a short list - but knowing how much time each of these things are going to take along with the fact that both of the guilds are starting back up this month and there will be extra time spent on that too, I think it's enough.  
I have a lot of things I normally like to incorporate into my monthly sewing - but if I get all this stuff done and want to do something else I probably need to do more on the bear block.   My sweet Sister has been waiting so so long (maybe close to 3 years) for this quilt - I really want to give it more attention. 

I will keep you posted as I work on things this month and see how good I can be at staying focused. With both guilds starting up I know there will be new projects and as much as I say I don't want to start new things - I get sucked in.  :)  

Have a Blessed day! 
Lynn 

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