Creative Homemaker

Some people have an affinity for animal rescue. That's wonderful for them. There are many poor pets that need a loving home and someone to be their advocate. I appreciate the work and the services they provide. I, however, have a heart for unloved, abused quilts. At every yard sale I visit I keep a keen eye out for poor unloved fragments of fabric. Every once in a while I find a treasure worthy of rescue. Today was that sort of a day. I stopped just down the road, not thinking I would find anything, browsed a few tables, walked around a corner and saw this beauty. It was marked $22, which was a steal of a deal for the vintage fabric and hand sewing involved. I quickly and discreetly scanned the bills in my purse and was about to walk away, but the "yard sale manager" said she would consider all offers. I quickly said that I only had $13, would that be OK. She hemmed and hawed, then caved! YES!! This vintage Double Wedding Ring was poor, unloved and abused. It was once a l...

I finished sewing the binding on last night while I watched "Blind Side." I thought this would be an appropriate movie since I was doing the "Bind Side" of the quilt, haha! Great movie. Great actors. But no one to watch it with. I hate watching good movies without my Bear....but I digress. Back to Beary Wonky Cabins by the Lake. In keeping with the scrappy look of the quilt, I did a scrappy binding too and pulled all my reds and blues out of the binding drawer and pieced them all together. I love hand sewing a binding on a bed size quilt. I'll do a machine stitched one on wall hangings and table toppers, but I prefer the old fashioned way on a full-size quilt for some reason. A quilting friend of mine said that I was backwards in my opinion on this, that I should do it faster on a bigger quilt, and take my time on a quilt that didn't take so long to finish. I don't know. I guess I'm just weird like that. I'll be sending a picture of the finished ...

I've had this top unquilted for a while now. It's a crumb chaos block which you can find tutorials for here and here . Beware, if you try these, they are addicting. You just whip along mindlessly sewing, and streaming out the backside of your machine come these lovely wonky things. I love wonky these days, ever since I did my wonky houses for Jennifer . So, yesterday, I really wanted to stipple. Just to meander around the quilt and not really think about what I was doing. So, I sandwiched this top with batting and backing, and went to town, or rather went to the Lake. (I really did label the quilt with my name, but I don't post that sort of stuff on the web.) My boys have bunk beds, so this will be for one bunk and the other bunk may get its covering soon, I'm such a fan of wonky blocks, I have to do more. I still have to bind it, but couldn't wait to show you. So, what have you finished lately?

My new Elna Quilting Queen and my Elna 8200 Experience Embroidery machines are here!! I'm unpacking them now. Later I'll be sewing, and after that, more sewing, and after the sewing, I think I'll be...yep, sewing. I may come out from under in a few days!! Don't expect to see me until the newness wears off, maybe in say about 10 years!! (I will post pictures in a little while as soon as they are all unpacked and pretty.)

Alright, it's not what you think! A honey bun is a sweet rolled up bundle of fabric strips! They are 1 & 1/2 inches wide and come in the most luscious colors! I'm entering the giveaway here. I'm also in an online quilting bee with this talented crafter! Seriously, she is a crafting maniac! Christy makes the coolest things out of "stuff" the sort of stuff that other people would throw away! She's my kind of frugal gal that way! So, hop on over, follow her instructions and you can have a chance at a honey bun too!

Hi dear readers. I think there may be two of you... I'm working on a new layout and a post to go with it. I'll be under construction for a bit, so please bear with me. It'll be good, I promise. See you soon...

According to the IRS, our income tax return will be deposited tomorrow. I am so thankful! With it, we are retiring some debt, paying off a personal loan and catching up on a few things that have been pushed to the back burner during Bear's most recent stretch of unemployment. First and foremost, we are paying off my truck. We currently owe more than it is worth, but we have determined that we will not be buying another vehicle for quite a long time, so we are making this one our primary concern. My suburban was repossessed last summer and we were literally crippled without it. When there are 7 in your immediate family, you can't really go anywhere in a two passenger pickup. Paying off the truck is first so that it will never get taken away from us again. While I do not fault the bank or the repo company, as they were just doing their job, it is certainly frustrating, and a bit scary to walk outside and wonder where is your vehicle. Second on our list, is to pay back a person...

Does grocery shopping just make you exhausted? By the time I get to the checkout, I'd like to tip the bagger extra to have her come home with me and unpack it all. Then off to Costco to see what good deals I could find there. I found one! This fabulous little camp stove and propane burner unit. It has a griddle or flip it over to have a grill, for pancakes or steak! And on the other side, a burner so that I can do all my pressure cooking outside and not ruin my ceramic stove top. I can't wait til it warms up so I can use it outside, for outdoor cooking. I thrifted some lovely vintage sheets the other day. We have a great thrift store in our little town. They sell pillowcases for 35 cents each. Each pillowcase yields two fat quarters and lots of strips for my fabric stash bins. Not much work on my UFO's lately. I just did a rush job for a customer, two purple dance costumes for an SRSIrishdance.com. I'd love to go see them, I love Irish dance. Now I'm relaxing to my...

Today was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, no clouds in the sky finally and warm enough to get outside and do some much needed yard work. There were leaves left over in the front flowerbed and needed to come out so they wouldn’t smother the emerging plants underneath. The grass in the front had matted leaves too. I pulled out the rake and scraped and scraped until it was all loose and free. Then I went into the garage to dig the mower out from under the piles of Nerf bats, balls, and Tonka trucks that had piled on its top during the winter months. While I was in the garage I grabbed the first pair of gloves I could reach. Blue knit jersey ones with rubber on the palms. They would provide enough coverage for my hands while I mowed. I checked the gas, added some oil and primed it six times. Pulled the rip cord and to my utter amazement, it started right up!! My front yard isn’t very big, it only takes about six passes with the mower and a quick turn around the flowerbed and it’s don...

On one of my quilting groups, when people receive a package in the mail they call it a squishy. It's squishy because it's full of soft pretty fabrics, or quilt blocks, or fun sewing gifts. I got one in the mail today! Ooh, I LOVE squishies!! I'm participating in a vintage sheet swap over here . Jennifer did a great job of hosting it. She said she had 545 fat quarters and 38 participants. WOW, what a job!! Thank you so much Jennifer for hosting this! It was so much fun. I can't wait to go through and fold and fondle each one!

I've updated my sidebar with all my UFO's. I'm determined to get a big chunk of these completed this year. I can really fritter away my time and after recently quitting my part time job, I've got to get organized if I'm going to really accomplish things. So, although they aren't in any particular order right now, (I may rearrange them by priority,) I'm chipping away at that list. First of all, let me introduce the Zeller Pinwheel. I've had this quilt too long. It's been on this frame for years. I told a friend of mine I would quilt it for her, it was pieced by a relative of hers and basted already. Then we moved, several times, she moved twice, and we've recently been back in touch. Now I'm determined to finish it this year. I've moved my quilting frame downstairs where I will see it daily and can spend time sitting and quilting on it. That is the only way I'll get it done. Just do it! I've counted the rows and columns, it is 9x...

I'm participating in an on-line quilting bee. You can see the posts here. Jennifer asked for cute little wonky house blocks. I made two. The first one was sort of a practice, it turned out ok. Not my favorite. The second one is better, I hope she likes them both. I'm sending both, but no pictures until she gets the package. Ooo, I love surprizes!! I'm off to do some more quilt blocks. Well, and laundry, always laundry.

For the past ten months, I juggled. Juggled dinners, homework, laundry and working part time at the local quilt shop in town. I am so done with working. I enjoyed it. I made some good friends. I learned a lot. Now let's get back to doing what I was meant to do. Dishes. Laundry. Helping with homework. Changing diapers. Mowing the lawn. Quilting, just for me. And I'm loving every minute of it!