Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Taming the Scatterbrain in Fluro Pink


I can be a bit scatterbrained at times and I am always looking for ways to tame this beast. During our ultra busy middle and high school home school years we used a five piece layout of the ever popular Pottery Barn Daily System. We have two calendars, a linen board, the office organizer and the letter bin. We called it Command Central, which seemed a bit unique all those years ago but it's pretty common today.

It looked great in our last house on the kitchen wall and, more importantly it helped keep our family on track. It was out in the open and everyone could see what we were all up to. My family has long been color-coded and we used a collection of Vis-aVis pens to keep everyone's activities straight..

My youngest graduated four years ago and my oldest is now married and lives out of town. The old Command Central won't even fit in our present home because of the very open floor plan. The calendars hang in the laundry room, the office organizer and letter bin hang on a sliver of wall just as you enter the kitchen and the linen board is off its hinges and is wedged between the kitchen desktop and the wall cabinet above. What worked so well a few years ago is not cutting it today.

I needed a new system to keep track of my quilting, blogging, social media, appointments, activities, Hubs ride schedule, the family business.... Basically, life as I know it post home school.

I may be scatterbrained when it comes to my schedule but I am an absolute neat freak about my purse. Nothing can float around, it must be contained neatly in my wallet, two small zip pouches and the one or two zip pockets I allow in my spare style handbag of choice. There is no spare change to be found hanging out on the bottom of my bag.

I will not carry around a standard purse calendar either.  I've tried many times and once the corners start to dog-ear I give up and its gone.  I knew whatever system I went with had to be special.


So, I went for an eye popping Fluro Pink A5 Filofax. As the only girl in the castle I often get my girly fix of pink in my personal items.

This was my second recent try at an organizer. A couple of years ago I opted for a gorgeous lime green leather Folio/A4 DayTimer. Love, love, love it but not for planning. It is too big for that but it is just what I need to carry and track things for work.


Here is a side by side comparison with my iPhone and iPad for scale.  This collection represents my favorite colors; orange, hot pink and lime green. I realize my favorites are a bit loud so I use them sparingly.

I have recently started to follow a lot of planners on IG. This has inspired me to make inserts and accessories for my Filofax to get it dialed in to my needs. I love looking at all of their cute layouts but that will never be my style. My sticker and washi use will be spare. I do have plans to use some "useful stickers" but I will not be decorating my pages. I am sticking with personally made items in 2015 while I am building my full system.  

I made a personal size pocket file to hold mail supplies and extras using a tutorial by Alexis, aka Miss Trenchcoat at Strange & Charmed. Click HERE to go to the Youtube tutorial.


I only sliced the ring punches on the right side of my folder so mine stays in my organizer and just flips open. I used See Jane Work file folders from Office Max and they do not seem as stiff as the Target $1 Spots that Alexis used so I had to reinforce mine with washi tape. Would you believe this is the first time I have ever used washi tape?!? 

I will probably need to reinforce it better with packing tape or I may run it through the laminator and slice the pockets open through the plastic.


That is what I did when I made this larger A5 size folder of my own design. It was a first attempt and the plastic came out with a crinkle but it works great. It took two laminating sheets and two passes through the machine to cover the whole thing. You can barely detect the seam. To get a nice crease I folded it while it was hot and then ran it through the laminator folded. It was too thick to melt together but it made a nice tight fold. I had to give it a little extra push at one point. My laminator is fairly heavy duty so I would be careful if you have a light weight version.

And there you have my little peek at what I am up to with my quilting. And here's another...


Thanks For visiting!



Sunday, September 27, 2015

In a State of Evergreen

I participated in Lily Pad Quilting's Pets on Quilts Show 2015 and it was so much fun meeting all the other quilting pet lovers. Even though Cooper was not the favorite "Dog on a Quilt" I did nab a little swag. Lucky me!


I won this fantastic Evergreen Jelly Roll from the fantastically talented Judi Madsen of Green Fairy Quilts. Her long arm quilting is over-the-top amazing so go check out her blog HERE. She also runs a pretty sweet online store with her husband, Clint, and you can check out the store HERE.

Green Fairy Quilts has a huge selection of precuts and they are having a 40% off sale on all their thread at the moment. 

What's crazy about my Evergreen win is that both of my Christmas projects to date have used BasicGrey Christmas lines! Now I am destined to make a third project which is pretty great because I have a decent size collection of Annalee Dolls and this line is a perfect compliment!

This post will be linked up with Molli Sparkle's Sunday Stash and Sew Darn Crafty by Sew Many Ways.

If you want to see Cooper on my Dog Gone Cute mini click HERE.
For my BasicGray Christmas Table Runner click HERE.
My second BG project is a WIP pair of Christmas Tree Pants that I have not shared yet.

Thanks for visiting!




Friday, September 25, 2015

Team Lyndsie Quilt

I have been focused on a very special project the past month. A quilt for a very sweet young lady from a large family of deep faith and a love for the Lord that shines through in even the darkest of circumstances.


Lyndsie faced her first battle with ovarian cancer at the young age of 17 and over the next ten years it would return three more times. She faced each battle with a strength and grace that would become a testimony of the power of God in her life. She amassed an ever growing team of prayer warriors along the way.

She would live to the fullest. Getting married, adopting a boy and a girl, spending time with her huge family and giving freely of herself to others.

Her last battle was long and difficult but through it she would touch many through her incredible testimony of faith. She shared her faith and love of the Lord with all who came in contact with her and she touched even more through the sharing of her story and calls for prayer on social media under the hashtags of #TeamLyndsie and #shewillbemadewhole.

Lindsey went home on August 28th and her Celebration of Life Service was so powerful that there were several professions of faith made that day! Her hashtag has now been modified to #shehasbeenmadewhole.


I started this quilt while Lyndsie was still with us. It was like an ever-growing prayer reminder card on my design wall. I was five blocks shy of having the top finished the day she went home.

When I came up with the idea to make a quilt I first brought it up to one of my guilds as a scrappy solids group project using a particular block. Then, when I got home I saw a collection of fabrics I have been hoarding for a special occasion. A bundle of Japanese F8s I had won from Sew Me A Song, plus the F8 bundle of Lecien Flower Sugar I purchased to add to it and a FQ bundle of low volume text prints. At that point I knew I needed to take this project on solo. I informed my guild of my intent and got straight to work.


These fabrics seemed so perfect for Lyndsie. They are vibrant, beautiful, colorful, fun, happy, and modern yet still old-fashioned. That is a great description for Lyndsie. I chose to use the X&+ block because I wanted to include the symbol of the cross to reflect her deep faith.

Teal is the color for Ovarian Cancer and I had a multi-yard cut of the perfect fabric by Valori Wells in my stash.

I love the Pay-It-Forward aspect of using the bundle I won from Sew Me a Song.

For the tag I was given permission to use a design by Grace All Day Designs that she was inspired to create for Lyndsie after learning about her through a mutual friend. She didn't even know Lyndsie! It is so beautiful and it is one of the scriptures that Lyndsie claimed.
Grace gifted her original to Lyndsie's family and she has made this available as a print in her Etsy shop at her cost. She is quite the talented artist and I recommend you check out her work. Here's the Link to her shop.


I put the finishing touches on this project yesterday and Lyndsie's parents picked it up in the afternoon. Unfortunately it was a rainy, dark day so this is the best I can do for photos. 


             

This quilt will be used to raise funds for Lyndie's family to help cover the medical and extra living expenses incurred during her illness. It gets its local public debut at a BBQ fundraiser on Saturday. My prayer is that it will be a financial blessing for the family and that it brings comfort to whoever gets to take it home!

Thanks for visiting!






Sunday, September 20, 2015

PHG Challenge Peek and a Test Block


Last week I had some late nights working on my Peaceful Hearts Quilt Guild Challenge piece for our show in November. I got it done just in time for our meeting last Saturday so I was able to participate in the Guild's Choice competition. This is a traditional guild so it didn't have much of a chance to nab the ribbon but it was fun being part of the festivities. A beautiful scrappy string quilt won the ribbon. 


I did a matchstick in all the color areas and doodle quilted in all the gray negative space. I'll try to share a full shot of this piece next week. I'm working on another piece that has to be done by Saturday and I've got an insurance audit at work so I can't make any promises but I will try!



I put together this test block for my Augusta MQG meeting. Hoping to to free up some of that improv mojo for our challenge project. This block is destined for my Kona Bright Test Block Sampler.


I have so much to share now that I have my computer back but my time is so tight with my multiple deadlines and heavier work schedule.  I am going to try to do a series of short posts so I can get caught up.

Thanks for visiting!




Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Dog Gone Cute! Part Deux

Hey,

I am back. I was able to get my vintage iMac repaired and I am so happy. Mainly because they were able to retrieve all the stuff I should have been backing up!

Now to play catchup with sharing some of the things I have been up to while I have been computerless.



I Finished my Dog Gone Cute Mini Cooper, but he's lonely and needs a pack. Which, is a good thing since I have signed on to do Lorna's blog hop!



His friends will be the smaller version and nice and colorful. I picked up this bundle of Cotton and Steel Basics at my LQS. Shocker, huh? They are finally wading into the modern end of the pool and I couldn't be happier.



Now, I just have to clean up the carnage created after back-to-back paper piecing projects and I can catch up with the hop!


Thanks for visiting!