I've been tagged!

by Art and Soul

Here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I do not like water in my face- it feels like I'm suffocating. (Probably due to #2)

2. I'm claustrophobic- I found this out when I had to do an MRI. I thought I was going to lose it in there.

3. I hate blue cheese. The idea of it (mold-even good mold) grosses me out. Not just blue cheese but any smelly moldy cheese, yuck!

4. I only eat one brand of mayonnaise-Blue Plate-other brands don't even taste like mayo to me (and I love a mayo and mustard sandwich -nothing else just that on it).

5. I have a very strong sense of smell-lots of times others can't smell it and I can-particularly bad smells like, smelly feet, spoiled milk, moldy cheese, etc.

6. I only like to watch romantic comedies with a happy ending. I refuse to watch a movie if it ends with a death. There is enough bad in the world every day I just want to watch good stuff in my leisure time.

7. I have to have some quiet, leisure time right after I get out of bed to gather my thoughts for the day (even though I just woke up from resting all night). I feel out of sorts for the day if I don't have this time in the morning.

That's it. I'm breaking the rules (because I'm just that kind of gal!) I'm not tagging anyone in particular but if you want to play along, by all means, do! Send me a link to your blog so I can read it. Thanks Art and Soul, this was fun and kind of hard!

I have been working...

despite the fact that I have not been posting about it. This is what has become of the 4-patches. I have all the blocks assembled and I laid them out on my design board then stacked them up and numbered them. They are ready to be sewed together into rows. This has really been a fast and easy quilt. And I love how it looks all laid out.

This is a quilt I quilted last week. A friend of mine owns a Tin Lizzie18 quilting machine. She offered for me to go over and quilt a quilt on it because she knows I want to purchase one. I was not blown away by it. I guess my expectations were too high. There are a couple of things I really liked about it and a couple of things I didn't like about it. I am rethinking buying one. I have done some research and I'm going to Houston Quilt Festival at the end of this month, I will try several machines out and see what happens. I may end up just staying with what I have. Which is a shortarm system using a B-line frame and Juki TL98E.

Here is a closeup of the quilting. I hope you can see it. I did big loopy flowers in the outside border and inside border. I also did a small loop-d-loop around the blocks. BTW, the center is a panel and the borders were added on. I purchased this several years ago and it was just sitting in the stash so I put it together earlier this year at our guild retreat and thought it would be the perfect project to practice on. It is not finished however. I will do some more quilting in the blocks around the redwork and flowers.

And last but not least this is a christmas gift for a member of a small group I belong to called the Woolie's. We, of course, work with wool. I will show a finished picture when it is done. I did the embroidery and added the pieced borders. Now I'm adding wool accents with the buttonhole stitch. I have not decided if it will be a table topper or wall hanging and I'm not sure how I will back it and if it will have batting or not. Any suggestions?

Hi everyone! Sorry I have not posted in a while. I have not been doing a whole lot of any particular thing. Some hand quilting (which I am doing without a hoop and loving it!) and some hand embroidery for a Christmas gift.

After the two hurricanes we had in this area I just felt lost for a while. We came back from Pennsylvania just in time for the first one and I had not settled into my home routine yet. Then the second one hit. We did not have any damage to our property but the emotional damage was there albeit, temporary.

I worried about the family and when something like a dangerous hurricane happens I begin to think about what is really important. Like when packing things up for safety (important papers and pictures, etc). But I also think about how I have been spending my time. Was it doing something important, something that could make a difference in someones life. If I would die today who would have been affected by me being here. Thoughts like these, throw my everyday routine into a spin. I begin to rethink things I am working on and am I doing enough for my family? I felt kind of lost not only in my everyday routine, including quilting, but in my thoughts.

Are the quilts I'm making important to someone other than myself? Is it bad that I neglect my domestic chores (dishwashing and cleaning, etc)? Should my quilting be going in another direction? Like maybe more charity quilts. I have not found the answers to these questions and it is a daily journey to find out but with the changing of the seasons comes feelings of change.

I don't know what it is about the fall but it makes me want to cook (things from scratch like my mother and grandmother used to do. Using their recipes) and also to clean. Maybe it is that old feeling of "Spring cleaning" but in the fall. So for now not much quilting is going on but, I will continue to enjoy the renewed feelings of cleaning and cooking while I have them (because I know they will not last!) I guess it is all part of the changing seasons.

A friend said maybe I had just lost my "Mo-jo". I don't know, but I am hoping to find it again soon. I had lots of projects planned for this fall. Many Christmas gifts to make. We'll see....

2 posts in one day! Wow!

I must have way too much time on my hands. Actually I do have other things I should be doing but thought I would take pictures of my last two paintings from paint class for you to see. Last night was our last class and I'm sad and happy. I learned a lot and built up confidence in my abilities to paint but I'm really glad to have my Thursday nights back. I'm very much a homebody and getting out at night to go to a class across town was not my cup of tea!

This is a painting I did from a picture in a magazine. It is not finished but this is as much as I got done last week in class. I have not made the time to tweak it. I think his mouth looks like the "Joker" from Batman but the paint would not dry fast enough to add the color for his tongue. Overall, I'm happy with it. The teacher was very generous with his critic and said this was good enough to be entered in one of the art contest going on right now. NOT what I am interested in doing. Just like my quilting-It is all just for fun!



This is what I painted last night. I can not tell you how much I was dreading this class. We were doing portaits and I don't usually do people as I stated before. But this teacher pushed me to do what I did not think I was capable of. He handed out a drawing of a man's face and said paint this or use a picture you brought. I had brought pictures but was less intimidated by the picture of this man. I started painting and at first it was not much to look at. The colors were wrong ( I used grey and browns for the shading) but after I started to put some flesh tones and add detail it was looking ok. After I did the eyes then he came alive to me. I am most proud of this painting because it is something I did not think I could do. It makes me think what else is possible. Now, can I do it again? That is the question.
The teacher said it was a very strong portait. A great compliment (at least as far as I'm concerned)!

We are getting tropical storm force winds all day today along with some rains and we may be under a tornado watch sometime today but it beats the hurricane force winds we had 1-1/2 weeks ago.
Thought you might like to see some pics I took of the sunrise this morning. Ike is doing his best to make them beautiful. The clouds were blowing in fast and it was changing fast. I had to be quick to take the pics (not to mention my gown flying everywhere-yes, I was not dressed yet!).
Enjoy! I did!

Quilt stuff...finally

I haven't posted anything quilty for a while and I finished the labels on these two quilts yesterday and took some pics. These quilts were made for my husbands Aunt. She is a nun and they do a lot of charity fund raisers. She sent me the embroidered blocks (done by her and a friend's Mom) and asked if I would make these into quilts for a fund raiser. No rush, just whenever. I got them last year around Sept. or Oct. and you know how it is, other things come up and these got pushed to the back burner a couple of times. But they were always in the back of my mind. My best friend and I worked on these together and we got them finished. We pieced them together and I quilted the smaller one and she quilted the bigger one (she had the harder job, that was a lot of blocks to custom quilt). I'm glad they are done and we will have to get them to her soon.

This is the larger one that my friend quilted.

Here are close ups of the quilting in the sashing and blocks. She uses a Juki TL-98Q sewing machine set on a table. It is hard to do some of these designs but she is getting good at it.

Here is a close up of the quilting in the border. I hope you can see it. It is quilted with e's and l's that have one echo stitch all the way around.

This is the smaller one that I quilted. I also use a Juki-TL98E set in my sewing cabinet. At first it was hard to decide how to quilt these. I knew we would have to quilt in the embroidered blocks but had never done that before. These were vintage blocks. That made me nervous but, I'm real happy with how they turned out. They are not perfect but they are quilted as my friend likes to call it "Machine quilted by Hand". Every block is different. It is not stitched by a machine so that they all are the same. You move the fabric and so sometimes it is not stitched exactly perfect. But you know what? It doesn't matter. The overall look is good and it is done! Sometimes I think that is the most important thing. To finish the quilt.

Here is a close up of the quilting in the blocks and borders. The border is quilted with e's that are echoed.

Here is a close up of the quilting in the sashing. This was something new to me. I did the small flowers and culi-cues. I usually do straight line quilting in the sashing. I like the way it came out.

I'm also starting to work on some Christmas gifts. I have a small table topper that has embroidery on it and some wool. I'm working on the embroidery right now and will get pics when it closer to being finished.

Every year I make a quilt for one of my in-laws for Christmas. I started this in 2001. The year I learned to quilt. The quilt this year is for one of my brother-in-laws. Making quilts for men and boys is fun and different. Using a different color arrangement to make it more masculine.

My friend is really good at choosing colors and knowing what looks good together so she will come and help me choose the fabrics, from my stash, of course. I'm really trying to use it up. Although, as much as I use it never seems to go down, instead it seems to multiply. Why is that? If anyone has any theories on this I would like to hear it.

Paint class...

Tonight is paint class. On the day of paint class I always try to do a little painting. Today I tried to fix the house I painted in class last week. I didn't like it then. I like it now. I realized I like a lot of detail. Which I find hard to do with watercolor. You have to be patient and let it dry (or use a blow drier) then add more paint in a darker tone.

Tonight we will be working on painting people. Something I'm not good at and don't like to do. I usually have a problem with proportion. As you can see her chin needs some work and I will continue to work on this picture tonight in class. Over all I'm happy with it. I painted from a picture that the teacher gave us to practice with. It doesn't look anything like the practice piece but it does look like a woman. So I am ok with it so far.

Below is a painting I did last week of a photo my daughter took on a trip they took. I love the picture and thought it would make a good practice piece. I'm happy with it. There is one tree in the photo that has red-orange leaves in it and that is what I tried to capture. I'm happy with it. The road is not in proportion. It should be smaller at the top than at the bottom but that's ok. It was a learning experience.


Looking forward to class tonight! I am learning so much. The teacher is good. He is willing to let us do our own thing and just guides us.

Our electricity just came back on about 10 minutes ago. Me and my daughter jumped right on our laptops (we have our priorities in order you know). We are cooling down now with the central air on. It is time to clean up. Save the candles and batteries and flashlights (but not too far, there is Ike in the Atlantic to watch). I also need to clean the floors. There has been a lot of family traffic through here in the last few days. My daughter took some video of the storm while it was going on. When she has that posted I will put a link to her blog so you can check it out if you want to. Time to get to work.


Updated: Here is the link to the video on my daughter's blog:
Art and Soul

Still waiting...

Good morning everyone! We are experiencing about 30 mph gusts this morning. Not much rain yet. The storm has weakened some and they are saying now that we will be having sustained winds of 90 mph with gusts of 115 mph. There is a ridge of dry air coming in from the south into the eye and not allowing it to strengthen. We are grateful for that and believe that the prayers are being answered. As I said yesterday we are as prepared as we can be so now it is a wait and see thing. They are saying the worst will be here by 2pm and the worst of the winds will last about 2-4 hours then the winds will get less and less. We should see the eye pass over, which is a really weird feeling. The winds are at their worst then all of a sudden it gets quiet and even sunny outside for about 10 minutes then all of a sudden the wind picks up again in the opposite direction and at it's worst again.

The hardest is the waiting. Your mind loves to think too much when it has time to contemplate what could happen for days. It wears you down mentally and then you are physically tired from all the work of preparing. Picking up anything outside that is not nailed down and boarding up the windows or closing the storm shutters. Buying food, gas, and water. Getting all the things in your house off the floor, in case of water in the house. It is exhausting. But we are grateful for our family and friends praying for us and the storm could be worst than it is.

I need to get off now the winds are getting worst. You can hear the house creaking. We will probably lose power before too long. Bye for now...

Go away Gustav

On the eve of Hurricane Gustav's arrival I sit an write. The town where I live is supposed to be a direct hit. Me and my immediate family have evacuated every hurricane here since Andrew in 1992. This one we decide to stay.

Why, you might ask? Well, that is hard to answer. We went back and forth for about three days because it was too early for the weather team to know the most accurate projected path. All the times we left before I didn't like it. You are away from your home and some of your family (that are in the storm) and you don't know what kind of damage you will have to your home or if you would have stayed if the damage could have been taken care of earlier. Also, you don't know when they will allow you back in the city to get back to your home. Where you evacuate to also has some bad weather, usually from the rain bands. It is awful to be away from home and going through bad weather. If you decide to leave you may get caught up in traffic and you could run out of gas on the road with no gasoline available. The gas stations run out of gasoline really quick even miles away. When we evacuated for Andrew in 1992 it took us 9 hours to go on a 4 hour trip. The traffic was so slow on the interstate you could stop your car and change drivers right there. And most of the time you can't find a place to stay. Everything is booked and you don't know how far out you have to go. So you see it is not such an easy decision.

Anyway, we decided to stay for this one. It is supposed to be the worst one so far that is a direct hit on our town. The winds are expected to be sustained 100 mph and gusts of 115-120 mph. I have to admit I'm frightened. We have done all we can to prepare. We have food and batteries and candles and water and we have generator for after the storm. We will probably not have electricity for up to a week or more. So you will not be hearing from me for a while. We might not have water and it will be so hot without air conditioning. I have head phones and music so I won't (hopefully) hear the winds. I will place myself in a safe part of the house and I have my bible. I will read and pray. I have all of my children here with me and also my Dad and Step mom. My sister is right next door and my other sister has evacuated and is safe. We are together and will take care of each other. We are praying that it weakens. We don't want to wish it on anyone else so if we have to get hit we just don't want it hard. Please pray for all of us down here. I will check back in as soon as I can.

We are back from Pennsylvania. My husband enjoyed his woodworking class. He learned a lot of tips and info about trees and how they grow then about how to cut it and make furniture. He made a sofa table but it is not finished yet because he had to bring it home unassembled. When it is done I will post some pictures.

The picture above is a tree that I did for my watercolor class. We were supposed to use one color to learn color value. I used water color pencils and a paint brush. It was kind of fun. The teacher said "The tree has dimension and the trunk is believable. Has visual interest and should be matted and signed. Now try using a full spectrum of colors...". I am happy with it. It looks like a tree to me. My next class is tomorrow night. I missed one class and I they were working on the color wheel so I will have to catch up.

A lot is going on right now. My daughter and her husband are temporarily living in my quilt teaching workshop. They have ordered a new double wide trailer and the company said it would take 4-6 weeks before it was ready so they put their old trailer up for sale and the first guy that came to see it bought it. They had to get busy packing and now they are done and out. Their stuff is in storage except for what they need to live right now. Today the trailer company called and said the new trailer is done and will be delivered to the lot on Monday. Wow! That was quick! The old trailer will be moved tomorrow then cement runners have to be done and a new septic tank before the new trailer can be moved.

And now we are watching a tropical storm that is heading to the gulf and possibly toward us. It is always a scary time when that happens. We will watch, wait and pray.

Trees...

I signed up for a paint class for absolute beginner's. My daughter is taking it with me. I had my first class last Thursday and we didn't paint-we drew! It seems that you have to be able to draw before you can paint. Why didn't anyone tell me this.
It is a watercolor paint class and for some unknown reason I thought I would just go to class and put paint on the paper canvas and have tons of fun. No, that was not to be. Instead he said draw a tree. A TREE! I don't know what a tree looks like in my mind. How can I do this. Oh well, I thought I can put down lines that look like a trunk. I did and the result is in the upper left corner. He said "It looks like a fantasy tree". Huh, it seems my branches are out of proportion to my trunk. He said "Start over and try to let the branches go off the paper. Don't let the paper confine me". WHAT!
Ok, I can do this. The result is in the upper right corner. He said "You are concentrating too much on the individual leaves. Try to think in color value. Blocks of light and dark." So I fixed it. He said " It looks good. Your strength is texture and detail". Didn't he just tell me not to do too much detail? I'm confused.
I try again using a light source this time coming from the upper left of my page. The result is bottom left in the picture above. He looks at it and tells me to try my darks and lights in different places so I do (I didn't take a picture of that one.) His remarks "You did exactly what I said, but it doesn't look right, you were right with the other one". Huh? Ok, I think, a great teacher, not afraid to admit when he is wrong.
I try for another tree at home and the result is the bottom right corner. Our homework was to read this paper he gave us on "line", which made no sense to me at all and to draw more trees. I don't want to draw more trees, I want to paint some trees. It is a paint class, after all. Oh well, we will see what the class holds in store for next Thursday. Until then, I'm drawing trees.

Mechacon Convention!

Here is my oldest son in his Maes Hughes costume for the Mechacon Convention. If you don't know what that is you are not alone. I've learned a little about it but I still don't understand it all. Basically it is a convention of people that like to watch the Japanese anime shows (kind of like a japanese cartoon-my son will kill me for comparing it to a cartoon but that is the best way I can explain it to you). He ordered the costume to be made from Japan. It was a three day event with films, costume contests, vendors selling action figures and lots of other things like swords (real ones) and large posters and banners. He had fun. This is an annual event that he started going to last year.

I had fun yesterday! I went shopping to spend some money that my husband found that was given to us at Christmas (he had put it on his night stand because we were not sure how we wanted to spend it and forgot about it, he recently cleaned off his night stand and found it). We bought a new photo all-in-one printer, scanner, copier, fax. It will print some really good photos on fabric for my quilting. We also bought a laptop. I fought this for a while because, let's face it, I spend way to much time on the computer as it is, but I wanted one and we could afford it. I will be able to take it with us on our vacation coming up soon so my son can do his school work on it (we home school). Oh well, I justified it anyway. I am liking the portability (except the battery doesn't last that long). I don't like typing on it though, the keys are very smooth really almost feel like one big key. I find my fingernails get in the way when I type. So if there are some typos please excuse them. I'm sure I will have lots of practice and get used to it.

I have to go and hand quilt now so I will write more later.

Hi All, it's Friday, my favorite day of the week! I don't have any big plans this weekend but I'm still looking forward to it. I have had to be out of the house everyday this week for one thing or another and I'm looking forward to staying home today. Tomorrow I will be having some of my quilty friends over to hand quilt and a quilt that was made to commemorate the 250th birthday of the Marquis de Lafayette. It has already been quilted but does not have enough quilting in it. When we put it up on the wall it sagged at the bottom. I love to hand quilt. It is so relaxing to me. My thoughts can run wild while my hands are kept busy.

Here is a block that I made for a project that my mini group was working on. We decided to make a Louisiana quilt. There are 12 people that are making a block and the only rules were to make it about Louisiana. It could be any technique and any size as long as it is divisible by two. I did one on Louisiana music. The saxophone for the jazz music and the accordion for the cajun and zydeco music. The blocks were collected and all the names put in a hat and a name was drawn to win them. I did not win but that is ok because a friend won. We will help her to put the blocks together into a quilt. It will be fun. I used machine appliqué with fusing and I drew the notes with my pigma pen.

It has been really crazy around here. My oldest son had some medical problems last week and it took a couple of days but he is ok now. My sister and her husband won the St. Jude Dream home on Sunday and the whole day was spent going to the house and celebrating with them. They have not received the legal stuff yet but the excitement is starting to wear off because now they are worried about having to pay the taxes and selling the house. They love where they live and don't want to move. They are middle class with two incomes and live pay check to pay check. I hope it all works out for them. Seems like winning something should be a good thing and not come with headaches but we'll see.

I'm taking a blog break. I can't seem to find the time to blog right now. I am trying to keep up with reading my favorite blogs and even that is hard. The summer is supposed to be a time of relaxation (at least it used to be) and slow paced but my life right now seems to be on fast forward and something has to give. I will try to come back soon. Hopefully things will settle down. I will check in as often as I can.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TWO OF THE MEN IN MY LIFE!
I LOVE YOU HONEY! I hope you will have a great day today!
My honey is 46 years old today and...


it is also my son's birthday today too! It was quite a surprise when 24 years ago he was born 2 months premature! He was due on Sept. 5, which was near my birthday and he surprised us by being born early on my honey's birthday. My water bag started to leak and they could not stop the contractions when they started. So we had a newborn preemie. He was only 3 lbs and had a little breathing problem but otherwise he just needed to gain some weight so he could come home. He spent a month in the hospital. It was hard to leave him there and go home but we went to visit everyday. He is a reminder to me how good God is.

I LOVE YOU JOSH! Hope you will have a great day.

Pattie over at Attitude Changes Everything has issued a challenge to type up a post on how attitude makes a difference in living a healthy lifestyle. Here is my two cents:

I have a hard time with keeping a good attitude in everything I do. It is a struggle. I don't know when or how it happened but I had become a pessimist with negative attitudes. This has affected my life in every aspect, my relationships with my husband and children, parents and sisters. In my relationship with my husband it has caused some strained situations, to say the least. My husband is very patient and understanding but it was hard on him. My children have grown up learning a lot of my bad habits caused from my negative attitude. I see how it affects their life and how they now struggle. I'm sorry for that.
This lifestyle has also caused many of my habits to be unhealthy, not just physically but mentally, emotionally and spiritual. A few years ago, I decided that it was time to change. I was not sure this could be accomplished but I wanted to try. I was unhappy and sometimes miserable.
My Mom was very sick with lung cancer, four years ago, during this beginning time of change and many things I had to deal with during her illness were a blessing in disguise. I literally became the parent and she the child. Just this alone, can change your attitude. I was faced with having to do things I had never done before. Driving her to some of her doctor visits was difficult. You have to understand that I usually drove only in our neighborhood or on certain streets that I felt comfortable. I would worry about going to a place I had never been before or driving on a street and getting lost. This worry was due to my negative thoughts, I always worried about everything. Not driving many places was not usually a problem because I knew my husband or my mother would always take me where I didn't drive, but now my mother was sick and could not. My husband worked and it was too much to ask for him to take off of work to do this for me. So, I had to learn and do it. My attitude began to change and I realized this was something I could do. It is still a work in progress. I have to tell myself not to worry and get it done if I have to drive somewhere I have never been.
Speaking up for myself or my mother was another thing I had to learn. I usually kept to myself. Didn't speak to people I didn't know unless spoken to and even then, kept it short. I didn't know how to carry on a conversation. In my opinion I figured that no one else was interested in my business because I was not usually interested in theirs. Bad attitude, I know. This had to change. My mother was seeing doctor after doctor with new medicines and I was hearing medical terms I had never heard of before. I had to find out about these things for her sake. I had to talk. Sometimes stand up for her if I thought there was something bad for her or making her feel bad. That was so hard for me. That is just a couple of things that changed during that very hard time in my life.
I had also discovered quilting a few years before my Mom got sick. If I wanted to do quilting things like meetings and classes I had to get out of the house and drive there. Talk to strangers (who soon became friends). After Mom passed away I threw myself even more into quilting. I realized also at this time that life is short and I was wasting mine away. I needed to live life to the fullest, to enjoy it more. This all came about and started to change my attitude.
I now try to think positive. I try to enjoy every minute of everyday. I said I try because I don't always accomplish this, it is not easy. My old self wants to slip back in occasionally but I feel I have come a long way. My new friends have a hard time believing me when I tell them how I used to be even just five years ago because they say I'm not like that person I describe. They say I talk, am helpful, and have patience (this one I find funny). I'm not sure about all that but I am trying to get better at being all those things. I have discovered that I like to teach and I'm now teaching quilting to others. That is a big step for me.
I'm reading my bible on a daily basis now and have seen a positive change in my spiritual life as well. I have begun eating healthy and trying to lose weight (even though I have a long way to go). I eat better now than I ever did before. I feel better. I hope that the way I live now can be an example to my children of how attitude can make a difference and a person can change to be more positive and happy.

I'm not sure I met Pattie's challenge and it is probably way more than any of you wanted to know about me but it is me from my heart and how I feel about my attitude.

If you enjoyed reading about my attitude changes then go one over to Pattie's site and read about how you can join in this challenge.

This morning I started with the first class of my beginner quilt class. This is the third go around. The three ladies in this class are all friends that I have known for a few years. It went pretty good. They learned cutting and 1/4 inch seams. One of the ladies has a 1/4 inch foot on her sewing machine that came with her machine. It was not working correctly. The little metal guide on the right side would bend out whenever she put the foot down to sew. It was frustrating for her. I marked her machine with blue painters tape (about 4 layers) to make a guide for her to follow but I suggested she let the dealer know about the problem with the foot. I wish they made one 1/4 inch foot that fit every machine. It would sure make it easier.

We had a busy weekend. It passed so fast. We were invited to eat at my BIL's house on Saturday night and went to the movies with them on Sunday night. It was a lot of fun. The men went to see "Ironman" and the women went to see "What happens in Vegas". It sure was a funny movie.

I think it is time I got off this computer and got to some sewing. See ya!

Yesterday I did some repair work on a crocheted afghan that belongs to a friend of mine. It is old but has sentimental value to her. Some of the yarn had deteriorated and I cut it out and crocheted with new yarn and sewed it back together. I will tell her to put it away and not use it because there are other yarns that look like they will not last if it is continued to be used.

My class last night went really good. They both made 12 of there Cobblestone blocks in the light colors. They are doing really well. Fast learners. They make my job easy.

Today I think I will make myself work on a BOM project. I have not felt like working on them and I'm falling behind again. I really need to catch up.

And because I really don't like posts without pictures, I'm posting pictures of a clock and valance that I made for my sewing room a couple of years ago when I remodeled and cleaned out the room. The clock and valance have the same fabric. I made shoofly blocks for both. I used Mod Podge on the clock to glue the fabric down then cut the shanks off the buttons and glued them down. It was an old clock that needed a new look. I like the way it turned out.

I wasn't happy with the effect of the shoofly blocks when sewed together. I made a secondary design I didn't like. but I like the overall effect. I used the stash for these projects. Gotta love that! I really like the fabric with all the vintage sewing supplies on it.