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!

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!

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!

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!

1. 

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!

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!

Test Blocks with a Plan

So, I am starting a new project, which I will share at a later date. I am using the X and + block. Badskirt has a nice little tutorial but her block was too small for my project. While scanning for fabric placement ideas I came across a beautiful finished version by Bijou Lovely. She provided a link to cutting instructions by Conoe Ridge Designs. I was set.

This is a project that requires a test block since I am mashing up information from two sites before I start chopping up my lovely stack of Japanese fabrics.

At this point I usually pull out my Baggie of traditional and not so lovely fabrics and make a test block that will be donated to my traditional guild's orphan block stash. But being fresh off making a Genny & Ruth block for Elizabeth Hartman's Rhoda Ruth Challenge, I decided to grab the brightest solid scraps out of my scrap bin.

Here's the Genny & Ruth:

And here's my test x and +:

Wow, you really need sunglasses for this one.

I hung it on my design wall next to the Genny and Ruth and that gave me a great idea. Instead of making my test blocks out of my "not my style" fabrics and passing them on to the guild, I am going to make them out of solid scraps and save them for an eye poppingly bright solid sampler quilt. I have two blocks already so I am off to a good start!

As you can see, the Badskirt/Bijou block was a complete success despite the fact that I flaked and messed up my corner square placement. I have moved on to cutting the actual quilt in confidence.

That's it. I am on my decrepit iPad 2 which makes blogging almost impossible. iMac gets his 15 minutes with a Genius tomorrow. I just hope they can at least extract my data.

Mini-Cooper, Dog Gone Cute & Pets On Quilts Show

When I first saw Lily Pad's Pets On Quilts Show hop I planned to post this photo of Cooper on a pillow that I made for him using the Nested Churn Dash block when it was all the craze.

He looks pretty cute but guess what, he despises that pillow. He will only lay on it out of desperation. 

On top of that, his housemate, Son #2's White German Shepherd Dog Evora, chewed the corner off of it the same day I finished it!

But now another option has popped up and none too soon. I absolutely fell in love with Lorna at sewfreshquilts' latest Quilt-Along. I may have been the first to sign on in the Comments. I was, you can go check HERE. While you're there you may just fall in love with her Dog Gone Cute pattern and down load a copy. I dare you to resist.

So, pattern in hand, or more specifically, sitting on my iBooks shelf, I decided to get an early start by creating my own fabric Cooper. I mean really, how could I pass up the opportunity to immortalize that little fuzzy muzzle in fabric.

Hey, that looks like me!

As cute as all of Lorna's pups were, not one was exactly a Cooper so I had to make a few minor changes. It was so easy, I just added a few more HSTs and used more fabric options to capture his tri-color face. I even gave fabric Cooper a freckled ear just like the real deal. 

Who wants a pink poodle when you can have a cute Jack Russell Terrier? 

I made good use of one of those "what was I thinking" fabrics in my stash. That mottled brown only comes out for "special" occasions. 

She made a sandwich out of me and she says she's going to feed me to the Juki! 

What the heck's a "Juki?"

Cooper quickly decided that the Mini-Cooper was better than the Churn Dash Pillow. Don't tell him that he won't be cuddling with it when it's done. The Mini-Cooper is destined to hang above the Bose in my sewing room. He will be the first mini to grace the wall in my new space. Yeah, I am calling it the Mini-Cooper.

What are the neighbors up to?

So now it is on to quilting. I took the Juki off the Grace to do a little FMQ. I'm a bit rusty so it will be a few days before I can reveal the finished Mini-Cooper.

On another subject, I had to finish this post on my work computer because I found my iMac stuck in the blue screen of death today. I fiddled and failed so I packed him up in his box and now I have to make an appointment to take him to the Apple Store. Not a fan of that place. 

My postings will be spare and infrequent until I get the iMac back. If you want to see updates of my progress and quilty adventures, please visit me on Instagram. I'm pedalsewlightly there and you can find a link in my upper right column.

Thanks for the visit!

I'm entering Cooper in the Dog or Pup on Quilt Category.

Click above to see all the adorable entries!