More Bags

 I made a few more bags. I'm visiting extended family for the Thanksgiving holiday, and I am bringing a gift, so I made a Thanksgiving color themed lined drawstring bag to put it in.

This bag is made from the leftover backing fabric from the Colorado Quilt.

This is a "snack bag." It's pretty small. How small?

This bag uses the leftover binding fabric from the Flight of Fancy quilt. (Those aren't rocks, by the way. they are eggs.)

I confess I went into the stash for the body fabric of this bag, but the crayons are the binding fabric from the Black Crayons quilt.

I went to the Orange Big Box hardware store because I needed a long extension cord and I ended up coming home with these:

What can I say, they were on special markdown.

Did You Know?

 My son is gluten-intolerant. When I ordered some one-for-one flour before his visit earlier in the month, I saw this and ordered a box. 

(Now I should tell you I've been using King Arthur flours and products for years... like 40 years. They are located in Vermont, not far from me, so ordering from them is in the realm of "normal" for me.)

Anyway, I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies with walnuts and dried apricots and milk chocolate chips the day he and my DGD were flying in. I was nervous, and baking helped settle my nerves and keep me busy. 

I don't like cookies that are too big, so I made smaller ones. I ended up making three dozen. I put them in a big tin and they were ready when he arrived.

After all the hubbub, when they were getting ready to go to my Mom's apartment (where they were staying), I indicated the giant tin on my kitchen table, that I had labelled "Gluten Free Cookies." My son took one look, lifted the lid, and started to cry. Then he stuffed a cookie in his mouth, and gave me a giant hug. "Omigod Mom, thank you so much."

He told me later he ate at least six of them that evening. By the time he left five days later, the tin was empty.

(I had eaten ONE, to test them. They were delicious.)

In the meantime I found a recipe for cookies with Malted Milk Powder. Amazon had some, of course, but I'd have to wait three weeks for it. I am not known for my patience. King Arthur had it in stock and they are just the next state over, so I decided to order it there.

Then I noticed they had this Gluten Free Cookie Mix* on sale. If you bought five boxes you'd get like a buck off each box. Such a deal, but what was I going to do with five boxes and my son living across the country?

The answer was apparent. Send them to him as a Christmas gift, of course, so he could make and enjoy cookies with my DGD any time he wanted.

It's always nice to find the perfect gift.

*One box makes 2-3 dozen cookies depending on size. All you need to add is a stick of butter (or a non-dairy substitute), one egg and a couple of tablespoons of water. You can add up to 3 cups of add-ins. Oh, the possibilities...

My son figured out a long time ago that I show love by cooking. I'm lucky that he gets it.

ReNamed

 

I've just finished sewing the binding on the blue and yellow quilt formerly known as Stairway to Heaven. The name just didn't sit well with my son. So he asked my DGD to take a look at the quilt and tell us what SHE thought the name should be. 

She came running in from the next room, where she was coloring with my niece, took one look at the quilt and said, "River of Light."

Everybody looked up. "That's great!" And so, the quilt has a new name.

This is a wonky rail fence inspired by Sujatah Shah's book, Cultural Fusion.

Sujatah wanted readers of her book to play around with her ideas, and I have certainly done that. Traditionally these pieces are arranged in a square four blocks in each of four rows. But I decided to follow the color - or river.

The photo above shows Janet-Lee's Santeusanio's terrific quilting.

I put together another of the lined drawstring bags. I really like this one and it might not ever leave my house.

Hey Mom, Can you...?

 

An hour and fifteen minutes before we were supposed to leave for the wedding (which was an hour away), my son texts me... "Hey Mom, can you sew a button? It needs dark gray thread."

Can I sew a button?

Is the sky blue? Is the Pope Catholic?

I grabbed my portable mending kit, threaded a needle with dark gray thread and went outside to wait for them. They arrived a few minutes later, and I got into the car and sewed the button on the drive to the wedding venue*.

Crisis averted.

Memories preserved.

My son was an officiant and my granddaughter was the ring bearer. A very good time was had by all.

*My portable mending kit is nothing more than a chocolate tin with a small magnet affixed to the cover. Inside, as you can see, are pins, a small pair of scissors, a needle threader, thimble, set of tweezers, seam ripper, needles, thread and of course, a band aid. The whole shebang is smaller than my wallet. It's handy as hell, and quite a little lifesaver.

 

His Quilt

 

The Black Abacus quilt is all finished. Here it is reclining on a park bench.

And here it is in its new home with its very proud owner.

Here is why you should use color catchers when you wash a quilt. Even though every piece of fabric I buy gets run through the washer (on warm water) and then the dryer before it ever gets into the studio, fabrics still shed excess dye. I washed the Black Abacus quilt twice! The color catchers from the first washing are on the left. The color catchers from the second are on the right. I actually washed the quilt a third time, and the color catchers from that one came out a medium gray. I could probably have washed the quilt two or three more times, but enough was enough. M is very happy with his quilt and had waited a long time for it.

I made the binding for the Stairway to Heaven quilt, and will sew that on next.

Woo Hoo!

 

I thought it would be fun to get a banner to welcome my son and his family to NH for the weekend.

Guess who loves to play Jenga? The tower did NOT crash after my son removed his piece. It did crash on the next person's turn.

Here are the four generations. 

DGD and I made a tiger cake and fish chowder and we picked at a cheese platter for lunch. Who would have thought DGD loved Brie cheese?

I made another bag, and this one didn't come from the scrap stash. This one may not ever leave my house!

More Bags

 I've been continuing to clean up and declutter my house for the impending visit of my son & his family. There's nothing like the idea of guests arriving to make you really want to put your best foot forward. It's a great excuse to FINALLY do the stuff you have been meaning to do.

So I worked out in the yard. We'll have a frost this week, so it was finally time to trim the garden and move the gardening stuff into the shed and bring (gasp!) the snow shovel out and put the snow brush in the car. 

After doing work work I felt virtuous and could spend a few hours in the studio. I finished a couple more bags.

Sometimes you throw things around and they land next to something good. Shells and glasses? In this case, most definitely YES!

I used this flowery alphabet as the lining.

Pink ties completed this one. I really like it.

The typewriters were the backing for a word quilt I made years ago. NATURALLY a bag with these needed other fabrics with letters. Not to worry, that's what a good stash is for!

Yeah! That works!

Lastly, I cleaned the office. I shredded a lot of stuff, and then sorted and filed what I needed to keep.

Gosh that feels good.

I have a bunch more bags cut out, but those will have to wait until after the kids go back home. I have about five more feet of hand sewing to do on the Black Abacus quilt before that is all finished. Next will be the Stairway to Heaven to be bound.

I have also started working on the story of my DGD's Dinosaur Diamonds Quilt. If I am very lucky, I will get it finished and printed so I can read it to her when she is here in a few days. I've decided to make and print these for all my quilts. I know what their stories are, but if I don't write them down, nobody else will ever know. Everyone to whom I have given a printed copy of their quilt's story has immediately started reading, so I know it is a good idea.

Happy Halloween!

Finished Bags

 

Here are the first batch of lined drawstring bags. The pattern is by Jeni Baker. This is the Artist Bag, and it's the biggest of the ones I made.

This is also an Artist bag. Here I have used sewing fabric and pincushions and rulers together. This one will go back and forth between Julie and I.

This is another Artist bag.

This is the next size down. It's a "Project" bag.

This is the two sides of the next bag. I think this one is my favorite. Can you say "fussy cut?"

These two are much smaller bags. I think these are "snack" bags.

This is the one I planned.

This one was a spur-of-the-moment decision based on another of the "Ghastlies" line.

I'm really happy with these and I can't wait to make more. 

It's Julie's Fault

 

I was pinning the bottom of some of the lined drawstring bags I am making when I went into the studio looking for something.

I got distracted and the next thing I knew I had planned six or seven new bags. I'm really going to like the blue one, above. I've had that fabric for over a dozen years. I think the gold Charley Harper moth fabric will look terrific with it.

In each case the body of the bag is the fabric at the center bottom. The contrast strip across the top is the fabric directly above. The linings are at the left (I hate dark fabric as lining of a bag. It makes it hard to see what's inside.) The fabric for the drawstring is either at the right or across the top.

I planned a couple of Christmas ones too.

Thirty-Five Years

 

Yesterday I celebrated 35 years of working for the same company. On each five year anniversary we get a catalog and get to choose a gift. I did not need a watch, a giant wall clock, binoculars, a necklace or camping gear. That pretty much left this 7 piece Cuisinart set of stainless steel pots and pans.

I did not need it, but I figured it would be handy to have.

On impulse, I took a picture and sent it to my son and DIL. "Do you need pots and pans," I texted? "I got this set for free and I really don't need it."

My son's one word reply:

"Desperately."

WELL THAT SETTLES THAT! The kids will check them out when they are here next week (SQUEE!) and then I will ship them to the city of Angels as a Christmas present.

I love it when magic happens.

Bagged!

I keep everything, which is why I have bins of stuff. When Julie suggested I make some drawstring bags with my leftover bits, it was fun to go through them and figure out how to use the fabrics. In the example above, the big print is the background of the Greensleeves quilt, but the orange print above it has been in my stash for over 40 years. In fact the red violet next to it is also over 30 plus years old.

In this arrangement, the big fabric was one I've had for a while. It was one of those that looks good when you buy it, but hard to place once it's in the studio. The birds above it was a backing for a baby quilt about ten or twelve years ago.

I've had this Ghastlies fabric in my stash for about ten years. I've used pieces of it in all kinds of places, but never in a big piece. So here it will be the body of a bag. My suggested lining is at left.

Eventually I replaced the pink fabric with this steampunk fabric. 

Three of the fabrics in this arrangement above are leftovers from backings. The big one is the back of the Magic Carpet quilt. The one above it is the backing for the Jealousy quilt (although I later changed my mind about that.)

I guarantee I did not buy the sewing related fabric in the center here. But I decided to surround it with other sewing related fabrics. (The batik on the right is about 25 years old.)

I have about 7 of these bags in the works. 

The rest of the scrap fabrics went back in the bins. The studio is neat. 

By the way, as I was writing this blog post, I was "watching" the documentary about Leonard Cohen and his life through his song "Hallelujah" on Netflix. It was really good.