Bouncing Back

After a few days in bed . . .

I am finally able to lift my head off the pillow.

Who knew a cute little nephew could be

carrying the "eboli" virus!

So today I snuffled my way to the attic and did some major sewing!

I worked on these little mug rugs . . .

Just need to hand sew the back of the binding.

These are for three friends with June birthdays.

I also finally got the binding on my Zig Zag quilt.

More hand sewing, but I like that part.

And since I already had most of the "made" fabric done

for my June Blocks of the Month,

I did those too.

These Blocks of the Month are being done over

at 15 minutes play . . .

Lots of fun!

Disappointment

Have you ever been looking forward to something so much,

and then for circumstances out of your control,

it can't happen?

I was planning a little sewing retreat at my house

for this weekend with a few friends.

Unfortunately, three of the five us have come down

with terrible colds and flu, me included.

So instead of sewing, and giggling this weekend,

there will be kleenex, advil and soup.

I know in the scheme of things, this is not earth shattering,

but it is disappointing.

Sometimes things work out in ways we don't expect,

and we have to go with the flow and accept them.

Getting back in the groove

It's been a whole week since I have been in my sewing room!

I was doing lots of other fun things this past week.

It's funny how you need to ease yourself back

into the routine of your life when you have

been playing with other distractions.

I needed to make more strips of fabric

for my basket . . . so that was a good place to start.

Then I was having trouble focusing on where I wanted to go next,

so I decided to make some fabric for the

15 Minutes Play Blocks of the Month

that I need to complete.

This kind of sewing loosens you up and gets you going again.

Looking for your MOJO?

Try this. It'll jump start you.

I find that I make a bunch of smaller sections

and then piece those together with fillers.

Is that ADD? I can't stick with one thing start to finish?

I think I will call it my creative process!

* * * * * *

I also have been cleaning up the sewing room

and setting things up for a little

sewing retreat this weekend.

I have two buddies coming up from the city this weekend

for sewing, giggling, eating, maybe some wine . . .

of course some wine!

I'm sure we will get SOME sewing done,

but I know there will be lots of laughs too.

Do you sometimes need to jump start your creative juices?

What works for you?

Not a heck of a lot of sewing going on here . .

I have been crocheting . . .

Because I can do it with everyone around me on the couch

and I'm not hiding upstairs in the attic.

Sometimes I think I should move

my sewing room to the first floor . . .

where all the action is!

This little blanket is coming along nicely.

It is the second one I have made recently.

Here is the other one.

I'm sure the kid will abscond with it!

This time around I am doing random color selection and widths.

I grab and go.

* * * * * * * *

My SIL and the little man arrived last night.

They are here for a long weekend, up from Virginia.

So we went to the beach.

I haven't been to this new super duper playground yet,

because, well, I don't have a reason to go!

There is a very cool water area with ramps and fun things . . .

The whole thing looks like a ship!

Very cool and lots of screaming kids, but not our little darling,

He is as sweet as can be!

A messy sewing room and a bee block . . .

The sewing room hit the tipping point this morning.

Total chaos.

I realized I didn't feel like sewing because it was

such a mess and really needed a major clean up.

Piles everywhere. They needed to be put into project boxes

and onto the shelf for now.

Clear the decks so you can think!

I'll have the after photos tomorrow . . .

I also had a little helper in the sewing room.

Mocha desperately needed to look out the window to

see what all that the noise on the street was about!

Mocha is a guest for the next week

while her family is on vacation.

She is very sweet and loves to be right next to me

no matter what I am doing.

And because I couldn't be around all that fabric and just clean,

I worked on my bee block for Kim in NYC Metro Mod Bee

Kim sent everyone a nice package of fabrics and some notions

for a block that has texture.

I got a zipper! A zipper!!!

Okay, think I'm up for the challenge.

Here is what I came up with.

I did add in a few of my own fabrics.

I pleated some green fabric and did a little decorative stitch

to hold it all together.

You can also see I sewed the zipper down with the same stitch

After I looked at it a bit, I decided to add some snaps

for the eyes on the bug.

Kim, you wanted texture! I hope you like this.

It was really fun. Loved your fabrics and the challenge.

Did you have a productive day today?

Sewing Sunday

A very productive weekend indeed!

I dragged out these disappearing nine patch blocks I made

in March and decided to play around with them

and put it all together.

I think I'll call this quilt Gypsy.

It's wild and fun and fabrics I'm not usually drawn to, but

it was fun to try something different.

You can see how I made another D9P here.

This one is a little modified because the fabric cuts I got were a little

scant the quarter yard asked for. (UGG!)

So I pieced the leftovers to make the 5" blocks needed for the nine patch.

The result was nine patches that were really 10 or 12 patches

randomly inserted.

The result is kind of cool. The blocks are all different, some ended

up with five or six pieces instead of the four when you make the cuts.

You can't really get a good feel for this quilt in a photo,

but it came out very nicely. Hope to start quilting it next week.

The fabric crochet basket is coming along.

It's the kind of thing you have to take breaks from or your wrists

will be useless! And of course you have to keep make the strips

to continue on . . .

Couple more months it might actually hole something!

Yesterday we had our Metro Mod Meeting in NYC.

These are the blocks for our next group quilt.

You can see more pictures of the meeting here.

And finally a friend gave me this old singer sewing machine this week.

It works pretty well. I think I will clean it up

for a little girl I know who is interested in learning

how to sew. Got to keep handing down this addiction

to the next generation!

Hope you had a nice weekend!

What were you up to?