UFO #11

I completed UFO 11 in January, mailed it off, and have just now realized I never took a picture of it!

Number 11 was a pillowcase in patriotic colors for my DH's Memaw.. At least it's done!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Thursday...

What a week this has been!  We spent several nights away from home while we had new windows installed.  I'm going to have to nag them about a few broken stops and some unfinished wood, but all in all, this is a great improvement.  Of course, the things they need to fix may never get done, but I'm going to try!  There are paint touch-ups on every painted window, inside and out, and I don't know when we'll do that... baby steps, right?

Living at my parents' house with three kids was kinda crazy.  It meant the drive to school took longer than a normal bike ride there, and I had to wait around in an empty house to unlock it for our carpenters.  The Screamer enacted payback today by flooding the bathroom floor and basement today.  Sigh.

My sewing room is back together, at least for the time being.  My suitcase is unpacked.  Don't ask about the laundry, 'kay?

The countdown to my first ever craft show begins... 9 days.  I have the essentials finished, but still need to finish my table runner pattern (my printer is being a PUNK!!!) and sew alligator clips onto way too many flowers.  I resorted all my hats today, tidied up the basement, which became a catch-all during the move out and back.  I'm getting excited and nervous and wondering WHAT WAS I THINKING?

The Assistant woke up in the night with a fever, so she's home from school, which complicated my whole "unpacking plan."  I'm glad tomorrow is a half day, so she won't be missing too much.  She is a brave girl and hasn't complained much, except about her tongue feeling "twisty."

Bear Cub Q decided that since we were home, he wanted to enjoy it so much that he skipped his nap.  I decided to celebrate by turning on a movie.  Actually, the Assistant chose Pride and Prejudice, and I rehung the curtains while we were watching.  I give him 20 minutes max before he demands to go to bed.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Design Wall Monday

 What can I say? When your sewing space looks like this:

And the rest of your house looks like this:

And your clothes are here:

There is no design wall. If I can just survive this week, I'll be back in business.

Check out the other design walls at Patchwork Times.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Stash Report Week #39

Whew!  It's been another whirlwind week, complete with travel, training, teaching, fever, packing, and some finishes!

First, my Scraps to Treasures quilt is done.  8 yards.  Pictures, etc., when the voting is over in late October.

Fall colored bunting for my sister.  1 1/2 yards

A banner for the craft fair in my FAVORITE colors. 1/2 yard

Green table runner, monochromatic challenge.  2 yards

Making Scraps Meet.  Awesome to use my favorite colors, scraps from my Making Ends Meet top (pattern by Judy Laquidara)  8 yards

I enjoyed trying all the new quilting designs.  My tension is better.  Some of the quilting doesn't fill very gracefully, but I love it!

Four placemats, 2 1/2 yards

Lots o' hats and dish cloths and flowers for the craft show.  I should take a picture, but there's this thing called new windows that interrupting all progress.

My grand total for this week?

22 1/2 yards.  My goal for the rest of the year is to use 69 1/2 more yards, so I am almost a 1/3 of the way to my goal.  Too bad every week can't be this awesome, right?

Check out the other stash reports at Judy's place.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,

katie z.

Wichita Modern Quilt Guild

So, I tried a new guild... it was small... super friendly... I will be going back.

(sigh of happiness)

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Design Wall Monday

We visited the state fair.  Who know they made such big tractor wheels?

We'll never have a tractor this big!

On my to do list this week:

Pack my house.

Crochet like I'm crazy.

Finish quilting my Scraps to Treasures quilt.

oh, maybe do a few bindings!

Check out the other design walls at the PatchworkTimes.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,

katie z.

Stash Report Week #38

It's been a... distracted week.

Early in the week, I learned it might be possible to partake in a craft fair on October 8.  Good news all the way around, except, wait!  That's too soon!  So I had to set up a mock booth in my dining room (which required shopping for display items for said booth), take pictures, send in my application, and start counting how many hats I had made.  I have 70 done, and while 100 would be a perfect number, I've decided I can't drive myself crazy striving for that many.  I still need to make more flowers and dishcloths, as I don't have nearly enough of those.

I was also sidetracked by the distracting disaster of my sewing area.  Before and after, if you're interested.

I am on the homestretch on my Scraps to Treasures quilt.  Woohoo!  It will be completed by week's even if nothing else is.  I have to finish this week, as next week... well, more on that later.

One table runner, one lap quilt (MEM scraps), and 4 placemats are quilting, binding machine stitched on, and awaiting hand stitching and thread burying.  I have my work cut out for me!  I look forward to washing them and showing you pictures.  My machine quilting on the MEM scraps is certainly nothing to write home about, but I tried new things, even a few feathers, and feel I am improving!

Check out the other stash reports on Judy's blog.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Craft Space Cleanup Complete!

Check out the before pictures here.

Perfect?  Of course not.  That wouldn't be any fun.

Better?  Indeed.

I finished all my machine quilting for the time being (4 placemats, 1 table runner, 1 lap quilt).

 I sent the vacuum to live behind the basement door, where it's a little inconvenient for opening the door, but out of my sewing space!

I also moved all the rags to the dining room where kiddos can reach them without trying to climb the fence.  The other odds and ends are at least tidied up.

The barrel of unfinished projects is no emptier, but it and the pile of placemats are tidier.  I took down a few papers to recycle, sorted through what I can do now and what needs to wait, and made everything a little more streamlined.

I've been working on the basement but was delayed by a tornado watch for tonight.  The shelter is next to my sewing storage in the basement, and it's time to clear that out just in case.

Time to go quilt (and bury threads, and sew on binding!).

from the room of Zana's Ninis,

katie z.

Craft Fair

So, in the middle of my "studio" overhaul, I became a little distracted by the opportunity to have a booth in a craft fair.  Ooh, la, la!  I had to send photos of my products and booth.  Wait, I've never done this before! Therefore, a run to Target was in order to buy some display items.

Now, back to crocheting and quilting and revamping!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,

katie z.

My "Studio"

Okay, so my sewing "studio," if you will, is obscenely crowded.  Don't believe me?  Take a look for yourself.

My sewing space is a room 5 feet by 5 feet 10 inches.  Tight squeeze, no?  Do you like the gate?  It belong in front of our fireplace, but Bear Cub Q cannot be trusted in my sewing room (too many spools of thread and bobbins are unwound, and too many pins scattered and thrown willy-nilly.  You get the picture, right?).

Many things that have no other place go here... the vacuum, clothes to return to a friend, my guitar, my business materials, odds and ends of current projects, diaries to my children.

You can't see the bucket in the corner, but it's full of projects.  Over the gate railing are the pieces to placemats.

The window ledge holds bits and pieces seized from the kids, and the bulletin board is full of artwork and school info as well as a calendar for me.

There's clearly no room for fabric storage, or I wouldn't be able to sit down to my machine.  Where is all my fabric, you might ask?  Where's the yarn for my cuddly creations for babies?

In the basement.

Oh, look, there's my quilting rack!  That hasn't been upstairs since we put the house on the market last November.  Maybe I can sneak it up now, since we took the house off the market for the time being...  There are boxes of yarn on the table, as well as finished items.  Under the table is more yarn and more projects.  The four green tubs in the upper right corner as well as the blue tub next to them hold books, finished table runners, patterns, and fabric.

Mind you, I am NOT complaining.  I miss my 10x13 room upstairs, but my DH needed the office space worse than I needed the sewing studio.  And I have a room.  I know many quilters use the dining room table and squirrel away their fabric all over the house in various closets and under beds (of course, for me, that would require that I had closets... we only have one in each bedroom and a makeshift closet with a duct running through most of it!).

I think I need to clean.  I'll get back to you on my progress.

from the (cluttered) room of Zana's Ninis,

katie z.

Design Wall Monday

Progress is being made!

Stash Report Week #37

Nothing in this week.  I was too busy to even dream about shopping (although Spoonflower is calling my name... I'm itching to try my own designs!)

Nothing out this week.  I did quilt 3 placemats, 1 table runner, and am working on my Making Ends Meet scraps, but I think something out-of-the-ordinary was going on every day last week.  Hopefully this week, I will finish the MeM scraps and one more placemat.  Then I can put my regular foot back on my machine and sew on all the bindings.  After that, I should have plenty of fabric out!

I finished a few more hats, including pumpkin hats.  Aren't they cute?

I biked to and from school 6 times (usually, we go twice a day, but now that volunteering has started up, there are at least 14 trips a week.  Yowza!).  The squash beetles destroyed my vines, so I've been pulling those out of the garden.  It's a good thing the pumpkins ripened obscenely early, in July, so the dang beetles couldn't eat them too!

Now to get back to quilting my Scraps to Treasures quilt!  (28 days left... EEK!)

Check out the other stash reports at Judy's place.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Miscellany

Whew!  Going back to volunteering really ate up my day!  I made four trips to our parish and school where the Assistant is in kindergarten and I teach in the four preschool classes once a week (two today, two tomorrow).  All this biking had better result in some fabulous muscle tone.

God's AC is awesome.  It's remained in the low 70s F in our house all week.  It hasn't been that cool in here since May.

I've baked everyday this week, and most of it's gone! Finally, everyone's appetites are returning in relief from the heat. Blueberry muffins, chocolate chocolate chip muffins, two loaves of bread, a cake, granola bars, German pancake, pancakes... And it's still cool in the house!

We took our house off the market. We weren't getting any offers and had reached the point where it was necessary to address the lead in our windows for the sake of Bear Cub Q's health. With 40 windows, in the house, this is no inexpensive undertaking. At the end of the month, we will move to my Mom's for 3-5 days while 34 of the windows are replaced. Can I just say I weary at the thought of repacking rooms again and not moving.

Boo, weevils. Enough said.

Free new cloths for the kids is a nice treat, especially for the Assistant, who is quite the fashion diva.

I confess, my machine quilting has only marginally improved, but I still have over half of my MEM scraps quilt yet to do.

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.

Design Wall Monday

Busy, busy, busy, that's what I'll be this week.

Yesterday afternoon, while the men in the house slept and the little women played at the park with an uncle, I basted 3 placemats, 1 table runner, and 1 quilt.  Now to quilt them this week, as well as work on my Scraps to Treasures quilt.

Mama, there's a draft!

Check out the other design walls at Judy's.

Stash Report Week #36

Apparently, it is time for me to change my background again. For some reason, it prevents some readers from being able to see/comment on my blog, and the lovely background is only showing up halfway down the page. Grrr... (why does autofill come up with such bizarre changes... Etsy to easy, grrr to brrr?). When I am on the computer and not the iPad, I will go searching for new backgrounds.

On to the state of my stash? When Judy asked last week about stash use and ways to push it through the last third of the year, I boldy (rashly?) claimed I would double my stash usage. That means I need to get busy. Of course, I didn't finish anything this week, but I am in progress. I think I can make it. Let's see... At least 3 more runners is 6 yards. My "Favorite Things" quilt is another 19. My Scraps to Treasures challenge quilt is another 8. Making Ends Meet is another 15. My odds and ends of Makng Ends Meet is 8. Place mats should finish me off at 12 1/2 yards... Of course, all that is assuming I FINISH several large quilts... Maybe I should get back to quilting.

(Please let me know if the font is too hard to read, or other problems persist... I'm trying!)

Check the other posts at Judy's place to see who else is busting!

from the room of Zana's Ninis,
katie z.