Sunday, July 31, 2011

Hexagon Quilt Appreciation Day. Oh. My. Lanta!

Tonight after doing some indexing I decided my eyes and brain needed a little R and R (rest and relaxation) so I decided to look at a few of my favorite quilting blogs. When I came upon an incredible story of a woman by the name of Linda White who is from outside of Simpson, Australia. She was looking for a project to do and wanted to do something of an antique piece. (You will soon see why my tired mind and eyes got no R and R with this quilt) She started with one tiny hexagon:

Linda began on the 11th of April, 2010
And this became...this:

Soon her little project took on a wonderful life of
 it's own. Many of these tiny hexagons are 'fussy cut'.

'Fussy-cut' means she is very particular about
where and how the fabric is cut. Notice the flowers.


This project grew until she had hand-cut, stitched, pieced, and placed over 17,977 tiny hexagons. It took her a grand total of 54.5 weeks, and approximately 1,300 hours. She finished it on the 28th of April, 2011. And here is what it looked like when Linda won 1st place in the quilt show, AND Best of show.

Here stands Linda White by her creation...
"Dear Prudence"

My hat goes off to Linda White, for her beautiful insight, creativity, work, and tenacity. What a beautiful heirloom. This quilt trully has the "Wow!" factor.

~Sandi




Saturday, July 30, 2011

Organizing My Fabric Stash

There is joy and even peace in organization. I also find joy in pretty fabric. Put those two things together and you have a fun summer day project when the thermometer inside my car says this:

Temp in my car when Jered and I were
running errands yesterday. A/C=Blessing!

I asked Jered to go to Boomerang Comic Book Store with me. He did the whole Bill Cosby rubber-face double-take. He LOVES comics and comic book stores and asks us to take him often. But me asking him...this was a first. It's fun freaking out my 15 y/o son. LOL! I was a woman on a mission to find comic book backing boards. Let me explain:

In my spare time I would rather look up quilting, sewing, embroidery, or crochet blogs than watch TV. Hands down...any day. Learning something new brings exuberance to life, and there are so many brilliant women out there who inspire me, teach me, and motivate me to do better, reach further, try new things, and to think outside the box. In my search on quilting blogs not long ago I came across a marvelous idea, this gal was showing off her organized sewing room. Huh...back up...do the Jered version of the Bill Cosby rubber-face double-take....what?!? Organize my sewing room? I thought mine was already doing pretty good. But, hold the phone...I was feeling inspired. :) Unfortunately, I tried to go back to this particular blog the next day so I could look at it again, but, I couldn't find her blog again, or her name.  I also didn't add it to my favorites. Boo. I will keep trying to find her since I would like to give credit where credit is due. When I find her again, I'll post her name and blog address. Thank you, brilliant unknown lady. For now though, I'd like to show you what I've been up to.

At the Comic Book store I purchased 7 & 1/2x 10 and 1/2" comic book backing boards. These are used to put in the back of the plastic comic book sleeves to keep comic books in mint condition. She purchased hers online for $9. (100 pkg) + shipping. These are heavy, so it was great to find that our local comic book store sold me a package of 100 for $9.99 no shipping. Yeah! This is what they look like:

7 and 1/2 x 10and 1/2" acid-free heavy
card stock.


This is where I kept a lot of my fat quarters and quilting/piecing fabrics:
There are several more drawers like these
that were over-stuffed. But who can really
see what I have in there? It's a problem.

This is how her system works; Take any piece of fabric and lay it lengthwise on your table. Fold it in half again.
This piece was only 1 yard long. So I
folded it raw edge to raw edge. Then in
half again.

Lay one of the backing boards on your
fabric a few inches over from the right edge.
fold it over and begin to roll it.

Keep the fabric nice and tight.
You should have about 1/2" sticking out
of the bottom.

Secure the top and the bottom
with straight pins.

When I pinned the fabric I went ahead
and stuck the pointy tip back into the
fabric so it doesn't snag on the other
material as you store it. I also placed
all of my pins on the LEFT side so that
when pulling material in -or- out they
won't hang up on each other.

Then as you finish folding a fabric
go ahead and organize by placing
the newly folded piece from light to dark.

The more I worked the more encouraged I became.

Isn't the little 'bolt' effect great? It's like having my own little fabric shop. The cool thing about the 'bolts' also is that just like a store version you can lay out your bolt, un-pin and cut only a small piece off if you want to. The rest is still neatly folded on the bolt. Re-pin & voile. Also- Some of the fabric was longer and stuck out the top. That is ok...I still keep 1/2" inch at the bottom so the fabric doesn't squoosh. It was very easy to lay flat to carry back to put it away too. Very, as they say, 'user friendly'. :)

This is not a very good picture, sorry.
But you can get the idea.

Look at the top shelf only. LOL! This kind of gives you an idea how the rest of the shelves will look soon. BTW- to the right of my browns is some flannel and other misc. fabric I wanted to experiment with. This method works great with even several yards of material.  I will definitely be storing some fabrics in their own sections. ie... Flannel, Christmas, Holloween, etc. It will be FUN to dig into my green fabric, reds (my favorite color), and blues. Can you tell that this has been an enjoyable project for me? :)

P.S. Sadly I ran OUT of backing boards tonight (Yup- all 100). You know, if I still had boards in my sewing room, I wouldn't be blogging...I'd be happily folding. Oh how I love to run my hands across pretty fabric. :) And...I will be running my hands through a LOT more material as soon as I can locate more boards. :) Happy joy!

I hope this has inspired you. Do you know what you have in your fabric stash? Hmmmm?

~Sandi

Look what I found today. Look on the right.

Today I was looking around for a particular pattern and I came across a random blog. The blog was actually about the little card you see in the top shelf there in front. She had made a quilt for someone & that person did a small water-color painting of the quilt on her Thank You card. The author of the blog just loves it and placed it in her 'sewing nook'. Then I saw that her sewing nook was organized like MINE (little cute tidy bolts). Fun to come across someone else who thought this idea was brilliant. :) Hey- she has more fabric than I do....she wins. LOL!


Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Flannel Baby blankets- My new favorite thing.

I went to a baby shower several months ago and one of the gifts was a flannel baby blanket with crochet around the edges. I LOVED it! At most showers, after the Mommy opens her gift, she usually will pass it around for everyone to see it. Flannel is my favorite fabric. My children were raised snuggled in it's softness.  So I took special interest.

Since I have been working mostly from my home office, it has freed up some time for the things I enjoy doing, like... quilting, and handwork of many kinds. I am happiest when I am 'doing' something creative.

I'm also crazy about my family. We have a large wonderful family full of little 'smoochables'. And recently, one of my nieces who has a dickens of a time with her pregnancies, trooped through things that would make a billy-goat puke. So when I got word that she had indeed brought this little fella into this world, safe, sound, and both were healthy. I had to celebrate by searching out some cute...wait for it......flannel, and trying to make him a blanket that would be his very own snuggle from Aunt Sandi, since he is in Utah, and I am in Texas it was a must-do.

I had fun looking for material. I knew it had to be sporty. (I actually wanted BYU flannel so his big brother Kaleb would like it too)...but alas, I couldn't find BYU flannel. Boo. So here is what I came up with for our wonderful little fella.

I taught myself how to crochet a border.
This was the first round, around the edge.

This is the finished edge.

Yes, that's baseball print on one side &
animal print on the other. So boyish & cute.

Here is the crochet pattern I used for the edge:

Easy Shell Stitch Edging (Notice it says 'easy'...yeah, thats MY kind of pattern.)

Directions:
Single crochet in the first stitch, chain 2, skip next 2 stitches, *5 double crochet all in the next stitch (shell stitch made), chain 2, skip next 2 stitches, single crochet in the next stitch, chain 2, skip next 2 stitches **, repeat from * to ** as many times as needed.

Yes, thats it! It was such a fun project to do. YouTube tutorials helped. Isn't technology wonderful? I could hardly wait to send it. Yes, more cute/darling flannel fabric has already been purchased, cut and worked on. We have another darling nephew & niece that are due with their first 'smoochie' soon. I will post pictures of her baby (girl) blanket as soon as she receives it. I may even post a tutorial on how to make these.

Here is a picture of our newest angel.
This is Camden T. born 02 July, 2011

The most important part really isn't the blanket. It's the precious child that came to this amazing couple, and highly anticipating, big brother. Camden entered into a large, wonderful, loud, fun, funny, talented, spiritual, strong family. Oh, how I wish all children born into this world could be this loved, welcomed, and blessed.

~Aunt Sandi









Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Spoiler Alert: Impending Cassi Brag

A few weeks ago Cassi auditioned to sing in the BYUI Jazz night show on campus. She got one of 14 spots in the show.

Her friends came out to lend support.

On June 25th she sang 'At Last'
by- Etta James

Cassi Dodge- singing her heart out.

Then on June 30th she recieved this email:

Cassandra,

We really were so pleased with your performance at Jazz Night!

Our committee gets to select one act from our show to be included in the 'Best Of' show that includes all the best of the campus talent events of the semester.

We would like to invite you to be the act from Jazz Night to perform. 'Best Of' is Saturday July 16th.
Would you be able to perform that night? We hope so.

Please let me know and I will confirm your decision with the 'Best Of' managers.

Congratulations on making 'Best Of'!

Sincerely,
Steve Hansen/BYUI Events Coordinator

Then she recieved another invite as well. Here it is:

Hello talented performers!

I was wondering if you would be interested in performing in an event called Cram Jam. It is July 19th 8-10PM in the MC Crossroads. It is put on by the food services and food will be served. No audition is needed because we already know you are great! Please let me know ASAP (no later than July 5th please) if you would be willing and available to participate. If you sang in multiple shows this semester, you are welcome to sing/perform both songs. Thanks so much for your willingness to share your talents!

Kendall Warnock
Acoustic Cafe/Cram Jam Manager


Cassi enjoying the water at a friends farm in
Shelley Idaho July 2nd 2011.

Though she is persuing a medical degree she is still very involved in her music. Jerry & I are so proud of her. Good job Cassi!

~Momma Dodge