January UFO Completed: Charm Square Table Runner

I finished the first UFO in Connie's Game! I decided that I don't like binding inside corners because I can't get sharp corners on the back when I turn, but it turned out ok. I'd been working on it for about a week in the evenings.

I'm glad this one is done; it's the only weird binding project I have. I even made it with a few days to spare!

 

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Quiet Progress

I haven't blogged lately, but I've been working on my binding for my January UFO table runner. I am almost half-way done with it. I will say that I will probably never bind inside corners again, because I am not pleased with the results. But the bad looking part is on the back of the runner so no biggie. This weekend is quilt block party so I'm hoping to finish it by then or at the party.

It's been a week of early nights and that has also contributed to the slow movement on the binding. Good for me, bad for sewing. The other thing that happened was I pulled a muscle in my left tricep on Monday, and it hurts when I'm holding the sewing piece for binding. It actually hurts when I do anything, but it's starting to recover. I was really angry on Monday from work and just overdid it at Jazzercise.

 

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Practice Star Finished!

Tonight I completed my practice Lemoine star while watching the Oprah interview of Lance Armstrong. Check it out!

I'm super excited about how it came out. The pattern isn't perfect but considering I cut out the fabric by eye without precision I am pleased with it.

My plan is to quilt and bind just this and use it as a mug rug at my desk at work. It will be big for a mug rug but it's pretty.

 

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Short Night

Tonight I had a date with the man at the symphony for the organ series. It was wonderful, but also meant that I spent about 30 minutes only sewing tonight, added some more background to my star. I have high expectations to finish the star tomorrow night!

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Quiet Night

Last night I ended up "working" at home in the evening. Not worth the effort. I think I've learned that it's better to leave it at work.

Tonight I continued working on my practice Lemoine star. I have the star put together and I'm now working on the background. I'm really excited because I even got a cool pattern in the star.

Tomorrow we are going to an organ recital so I may not get to sew at all. But the plan is to finish the practice star before the end of the week so I can get back to the real stars in the quilt.

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Short and Sweet!

Despite the fact that I've not posted in a few days, I spent copious amounts of time this weekend working on my sewing projects. All hand-piecing.

Friday and Saturday night I took my sewing to friends' houses and worked on my starry path block (almost done). Then this afternoon I went to my hand-piecing class and learned how to make a Lemoine Star, which is the base of the blocks for this month. Instead of working on the real blocks we created a sample star. I am almost done and I plan to create a mug rug with my practice block.

I'm really enjoying my attempt to not work at home so much in the evening. I look forward to sitting at home, sewing, watching tv with Kyle and cuddling with the boys. We've even started some organizing some areas of our house in short sessions and those results will appear here as well.

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Too Tired

Last night I was at work until after 11, so ended up not doing anything crafty. Tonight I must be feeling it because I have zero energy. I sat on the couch intending to hand sew, but started falling asleep. I then deduced that it would be better for me to do something active so I gathered the projects as part of Connie's game to group together. In the process of doing this I discovered that I misnumbered the projects and actually started working on number 4 instead of number 5. Instead of starting on the correct 5 I decided to resume them. I am lucky because 4 and 5 are actually both "put binding on and turn" so I thought that was fair.

To round out the 15 minutes, I spent some time decluttering my craft area which is an ABSOLUTE disaster. I gathered a lot of scraps and put them in a fabric bin for sorting later, recycled some paper and threw away some bags.it's to big to go much further than that in the 15 minutes, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

Now I'm going to get ready for bed and I might thread a needle and sew some until I get too sleepy. Nighty night!

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Binding is on!

Tonight I sewed the binding onto my spring table runner. I used the leftover binding from a different project and ended up eyeing the length just right. This is what is left:

I had to look up binding inside corners. I went with the clip the corner and straighten the quilt method. I hope it works when I go to start turning.

I'm really pleased with how it looks against the colors. I'll start binding tomorrow, but have to alternate with the hand piecing so that I don't get more behind than I already am.

 

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More Hand Sewing...New Block

Tonight I had planned to set up my machine to put the binding on for my UFO project. However when we finished dinner we started working on our office area which needs some major TLC so I never set up my machine.

We are almost done with the flooring in the top half of our house and will be contemplating how we will be fixing up the basement. Part of the process is just to declutter that area in general. We've started with the office corner, but will continue to my sewing/crafting supplies and then our extra room, which has become the storage area.

Last week I worked over our filing cabinet and got that in good order. Tonight we worked over the desk drawers and our extra filing sorter. Before I knew it, it was 9 pm and I was ready to just sit and be. So instead of sewing my binding on I worked on my hand sewing. I worked on the Starry Path block, which is nice because only the center has the machine point. Although I like the points I get with hand-piecing, it's nice to have something a little more mindless every now and then.

 

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Semi-crafting

Connie's Game gave us our first number and it was 5. That is my charm square table runner that was a Zakka project from last spring that I quilted at the quilt retreat last fall.

Tonight I spent some time going through my binding leftovers from past projects and found three possible options. I think I'm going with the brown and pink binding. If I did it again, I would envelope this. Not because of the funky binding (I found a Pinterest tutorial) but because there are so many colors and patterns, it's hard for me to determine the best inning options.

Hopefully, tomorrow I can clear off my sewing table enough to sew it on and get ready for hand-turning.

The other thing I did tonight was to work on the quilt for hire I was asked to do. I started scanning fabric into my computer and started getting EQ7 installed back on my laptop. A friend of a friend asked me to create a baby blanket for her daughter. There is no baby yet but she wants to be ready.

Originally I had planned to do a biblical block theme for her, but I don't have quite enough fabric to make them all work. Then today as I was looking at the fabric again I decided that perhaps a scrappy approach would be better. In my first couple of results on a search I found a simple nine block option that I think will work great.

 

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Crafty?

Tonight we went to a rehearsal dinner for a good friend couple who are getting married tomorrow, so no traditional sewing for me. I did however, have to "fix" a dress. It had some of it's gems come out and I replaced them with rhinestones using hot glue, I don't love the look. I may try MIchaels tomorrow to see if they have gems that I like better. I'll post a picture tomorrow of me and Kyle all dressed up.

The other thing I did tonight that I consider my 15 minutes is that I pin curled my hair. Tomorrow will bring pictures of that too.

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More Hand Sewing and a New Challenge!

Tonight I finished one of my hand piecing blocks! I have one more to finish that is cut out and then I need to do more cutting.

Don't you just love those points????

The other thing I did tonight was list 12 UFOs on my project page. I decided to participate in Connie's Game after seeing it on another blog. This is what I have wanted to do for awhile but just haven't had the time. Maybe this will help.

Each month they will randomly pick a number between 1 and 12 and that is the project that must be finished,not will be a push to get some of mine done in a month, but my recent resolve to not spend money and not work at home should assist with finishing these projects.

 

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More Hand Sewing

Let's pretend I wrote this last night.

Wednesday night I worked again on my hand sewing, I put together two squares to make half the block.

I have to say that I do enjoy the hand piecing and quilting. It's slow, but I really like that I can get perfect points.

 

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2013 Re-SEW-lutions

Hello interwebs!

It's been so long since I posted, but actually not so long since I sewed. I'm good about doing my quilting just not posting about it.

Tonight I went back to my 2012 New Years post and laughed about how much hasn't changed. I still have too many projects, still haven't made much progress in my weight loss, still working too much. So why do I think things will be different?!?!

Well, I am still struggling with a personal goal of mine, but now I have professional help and we are taking a new direction this year. It's going to cost me a lot of money and so we are on super-Dave Ramsey mode to save up the money. Part of that goal is to finish paying off my student loans in the next month. It will be a drastic change for us:

• No more eating out. A lot of people are probably confused by this, because most normal people don't eat out very often. Kyle and I work for the same company, known for being a work-hard, play-hard place. This has meant for both of us late nights and long weeks, meaning when the schedules go crazy, the last thing we want to do is cook. Our eating out budget has been taken down to 0.
• Strict food budgeting at the grocery store. We struggle with this as well and I know that we can do better by better meal planning. Grocery budget is staying the same.
• Doggie classes are suspended. I am also considering a change to our agility training as well so this is a good time for me to take time off, explore options. They still have a budget for daycare though.
• In general, spending is to be drastically lowered. We are basically going to try and live off one salary and put one in the savings account.

Why does this change anything? The strict budgeting means the we will be at home a lot more. This means that I will have time for sewing and organizing. Of course I will need to work less to accomplish this. I'm going to try and leave my computer at work more and go to Jazzercise like I used to.

Where does that land us? My 15 minutes a day for today! Today I spent my sewing time working on my hand piecing. I finished sewing this sub-block together:

It is 1/4 of the block that I am working on. Perhaps tomorrow I will finish it.

Also on the agenda for soon is to clean up my quilt space and take inventory of the projects I want to complete. After the quilt retreat, I have a large number of projects that just need binding, and are great for the tv.

 

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