bee inspired

I've gone and done it now! I've signed up for a virtual quilting bee. If you're reading this blog you probably know what that means, but if you don't here's how it works: There are 18 of us participating. Each of us have one month that is "ours." Some months have two people. When it's your month, you mail a bundle of fabric to the other participants with some basic guidelines. Everyone makes you a block and mails it back, and suddenly you have enough blocks for a quilt! The other months you get fabric and make a block to send to the others. Sounds like a lot of fun, right? I'm a little bit nervous (what if they are all better than me???) and a a lot excited. It's all run through flickr instead of a central blog. There aren't many pictures up now, but as the bee gets going you'll be able to see them at the bee inspired group. Mine, of course, you'll see here.

What I did on my day off..

Today is President's Day, which meant I had the day off work. My children's daycare was open so I had an entire day to myself. YAY!

Here's what I did with my day off...

I made a square for the Bushfire Quilt Project.

It turned out a hair small, so I made a second.

Then I made a little thank-you gift for a friend out of an old T-shirt. Zippers are fairly new to me, so I am proud of my little bag.

Finally I made a series of crayon rolls for the shop. I LOVE this fabric and have a little bit of each left over. I also have a yard of the coordinating robot print, but I decided it was too big a print from crayon rolls.

I finished 5 of the rocket crayon rolls and cut 5 more out of a girly kitty fabric.

It was a completely wonderful day.

Bushfire Quilt Project

(Image posted to flickr by abxkris)

With the heartbreaking news of the fires in Austrailia, lots of bloggers are looking for ways that they can help. Rachel at p.s. i quilt posted about this project yesterday, and I wanted to repost for the 3 people who read my blog.

About Bushfire Quilt Project

Bushfire Quilt ProjectThis group is for
those of you interested in giving to the devastated people of Victoria,
Australia. As you have probably seen on the news the Bushfire destruction has
been widespread. With a death toll rising to nearly 200 with countless loss of
pets, and livestock and the priceless loss of precious memories left behind for
the inferno to engulf. I am proposing we, the Quilters of Flickr, give something
to these dear people so they can wrap themselves in our love and prayers as they
return to rebuild.

If interested you will make a 12” quilt block or two and send it to me,
where I will assemble the quilt tops, quilt them up and send them on to their
recipients. I will be working with the quilt guild here in town and my son’s
school to make sure they reach the proper channels. We are stationed in
Australia, so you will be sending your quilt blocks to an APO address which is
just like sending something to San Francisco (or anywhere else in the US).

The quilt block I am proposing is a maverick or wonky star on a white,
light or cream background. That is it…too easy. Here is a tutorial from
Quiltville if you are not familiar with this technique. quiltville.com/maverickstars.shtml

Thank you so much for your time and attention!

Xo,Tia

I'm planning to join the group and make a few of those myself. Why don't you join to?


Bushfire Quilt Group on flickr

The tutorial on how to make that lovely block is here.

Kreativ Blogger Award

Amanda at Made by Amanda has named me a Kreativ Blogger! This is extra special as it's the first shout out the new blog has gotten, so thanks, Amanda!

The rules of the award are: 1. Copy the award to your site - 2. Link to the person from whom you received the award - 3. Nominate 7 other bloggers - 4. Link to those on your blog - 5. Leave a message on the blogs you nominated.

Tagging other bloggers is always hard for me, because I never know who has already been tagged and frankly, I'm too lazy to go look. So I'm going to list 7 without looking.

1. Bayou Quilts, home to jenclair of A Garden Carried in the Pocket.
2. Moogsmum, who also got a new Serger for Christmas. Being braver than I, she jumped right in without a class!
3. Lauren at my aunt june, who has a great quilting technique.
4. Mary Beth at Salt and Chocolate, who manages to both work and parent two small children (and some teens!)
5. Get Down Kitty!, another Lisa and mom of boys.
6. Patchy Work of Mini Grey, go check out that Disappearing Nine Patch. Now I need to try one.
7. Rachel at PS I Quilt, the host of the Calendar Quilt challenge in my sidebar.

So there ya go, 7 bloggers who inspire me with their creativity.

Baby Shoes!

One of the things I've been making lately are these little baby shoes. I made the Christmas ones first and the Bug wore them over the holidays. I made the soles out of felt though, and they did not hold up well. The blue polka dot pair have corduroy soles, which is much better. The two black and white pairs are both surprise gifts for unsuspecting people. I'm considering adding a couple little pink buttons for some bling.

Did you know?

That you can subscribe to Etsy shops through Google Reader? It's TRUE! I just noticed it. So say you want to know when your favorite seller (ahem) posts a new item- just go to their shop and near the bottom you'll see "subscribe to shop feed."

Ta da!

Cool, huh?

.

Admin: Imported blog

I successfully imported all the posts from the old blog into this one, yay! Of course, you won't see them unless you read the archives, but at least there ARE archives now!

Progress, I think.

This morning I managed to get downstairs for an hour or so to sew. I had to spend the first 20 minutes of it clearing off the sewing table and the cutting table, so not much actual sewing was done. The Pirate and I spent some time sorting buttons into these cute little bowls I picked up at the thrift store for 50 cents each. I still have a ton to go through, but it's a start.
I picked up a couple skirts to cut up into bags.

I also got a pale green linen dress that I'll cut up to use, but it wasn't exciting enough to warrant a picture.

I cut my fabric for the whirlygigs, and made one block of each fabric. I'm glad I took Made By Amanda's suggestion and included the colored one.



Then I sewed roughly a mile of blocks with no thread in the bobbin and decided it was a sign that I should come blog instead. I'm planning to try to import all my posts from the old sewing blog, so if you suddenly see a bunch of stuff dated from last year, this is why.