It’s been a sewing week… first off, the puppy chewed through the cord on my good old Sears Kenmore sewing machine. That thing is a hoss… and I love sewing with it. Well, we tried to fix the cord and didn’t quite do it right. So the machine took off stitching too hard and too fast and messed up the gears and timing, we so, we had to call our local sewing machine fix-it wizard, Ron Woodbury. He tunes them up and so did his father, they know sewing machines!

It came home and we got to sewing… I mostly had to do some sewing for Jessy’s rock company… she needed velour bags…. Well, I whipped those babies up in no time and it’s so nice… it sews so sweet and smooth. All cleaned up and oiled. It’s running so smoothly, I just can’t wait to get to more of my sewing projects!

I got to thinking… I do enjoy a lot of crafts. At one point or another, these are my favorites….

Watercolor Painting
Silk Fabric Painting
Knitting and Crochet
Quilting and Sewing
Beading
Wool Hook Rugs
Scrapbooking
Gardening (Not really a craft, but I do spend a good deal of time at it… more a hobby)

Problem is, when I have them all out and around, I don’t know what to do first and all, and I end up not doing any of them! Just working, or reading, putzing.

Well, I got to thinking, perhaps it’s like when you have young children and they have a lot of toys… toooooo many choices means they just get overwhelmed and play with the refrigerator box in the yard. I’ve been feeling like that. So I got to thinking about it and I do have a good deal more space in the storage unit now that we cleaned it up and ditched a bunch of stuff… why not pack up some of it, and store it, make a little more room in the Moby, and then offer myself only a choice or two for awhile.

So I did. I’m not a summer knitter. I love to knit and crochet in the wintertime. When it’s cold. So all that went away. And I’m not that into beading at the moment… just not feeling it. Love the beads and I probably buy too many, but they are so pretty and well, kinda cheap, sorta. (Per piece they are not, but you can get a neat string of beads for a couple bucks, so it’s a nice little “pretty treat” that I’ll give in to now and then. Problem is, I don’t do anything with them. So no more treats, and no more beading… into storage.

Silk painting, storage unit. Wool rugs…. storage unit. I let the water color paints stay, but squirreled them away in my closet. Too hot in the unit, might degrade the pigments and such. And frankly, I just have one nice art box and a few pads of watercolor paper at the moment. But I did take it out of the big craft shelving unit.

I’m left with scrapbooking…. and sewing and quilting. And the scrapbooking is mostly still here because I have a friend and we do occasionally get together to scrap, so I wanted to keep it nearby. I used to scrap a lot, but just haven’t much lately. I’d like to get back into it.

After paying a little bit probably too much for my budget on the sewing machine, then sewing is going to be my hobby of choice for awhile. I brought back my last tote bucket from the storage unit with sewing stuff in it and yesterday evening, when the house was quiet, the girls at their Dad’s, no customer stuff, just me and the livestock, I got it all out. I sorted it and found that half the box was just junk and that felt good to pitch. The rest was a delightful collection of one yards of fabric that I FORGOT I even had! Years ago, I wanted to start quilting and of course, I geared up. I think I had 35 yards of beautiful fabric, just waiting. And all sorts of odds and ends of threads, notions, you name it. Just sewing stuff.

I had a pleasant time just sorting and imagining, and then I realized that I had nice beautiful Oriental themed fabric yards, all with a touch of gold on the fabric, to catch the light and look like silk embrodiery. Just beautiful. And I thought, this is perfect for my first big girl quilt. I’m going to use these nine different Oriental fabrics to start it with. My pattern is very simple, it’s actually just 3 rectangles for each block. And then you have all the blocks, you twist them, so to make a sort of basketweave of sorts. Simple, yet elegant, and perfect for these fabrics. The rectangles will leave most of the pattern of the fabric exposed and that is what I loved most.

I spent a little time surfing the web for other patterns, but none hit me for this project. I’m so good at doing crafts and starting out with like the most complicated thing I can find and then, failing at it, or well, worse, being tolerable at it, but then loosing interest. I’m going to change that. I’m just going to start out simple and build on it I apparently have plenty of fabric for a good many quilts….

Today, I spent most of the day with Maggie and we finished up her bandana quilt. It turned out just fine and she loves it. We both sewed and pinned and chatted, it was nice. Of course, sewing with a teenager can have it’s ups and downs…. it’s funny how a girl thing can be one minute telling me “I KNOW Mom” and knowing it all, to the next “MOM I’ve never done this before, how can I know what to do?” and not knowing anything at the next moment and right back flip flopping to the know it all thing! Haha… teenagers. Just lots of patience and maybe a Mike’s Hard Lemonade to keep you from squeezing them tooooooo hard. In the end, she loves it and wants to start learning how to make quilt squares too! I think we’re going to work on a sampler quilt for each of us. One for her and one for me. Just take neat blocks and try and make them work for us. And in the end, we’ll piece them all together and each have a learning quilt. Should be fun.

(I’d have pictures of her quilt, but my camera battery died and I can’t find my charger!!!! Waaaaaaa! It’s around here somewhere, I know it is. I’ve been cleaning and putzing and I think I just found it a new home and now I don’t remember where it is. But, I will find it… tomorrow is going to be a organzing day… I want to take a bunch more stuff to Goodwill and a box or two to storage. I’ve decided that I really really like a empty and simple home and work environment. And tomorrow is the day…. I’ll post bandana quilt pics tomorrow!!!)