Take Note - notebook finishes

It has been several days since I posted.   I have been busy with some personal stuff (nothing bad though) and getting some items made for an art gallery.   

The Mountain Valley Arts Council is hosting a fiber art exhibit for the month of May and I was asked to bring some items to exhibit.   Since I know that my notebooks usually sell easily, I decided to take about ten of those.  

I am also going to exhibit one large quilt.  The bad part of that is that I have to put a hanging sleeve on it for the show.  I did find a way to make a sleeve and attach it with safety pins.  At this point I just need to "get it done."  Ha ha. 

Truthfully,  I love making the notebook covers because they finish relatively quickly.  If I plan ahead and do some "assembly line sewing,"  I can speed up the process of assembling them.  Making the cover and quilting it still  takes time.  

Here are my latest six finished.

In the top photo, the one on the right is already sold.  I will be shipping it this week to its new home. 

A previous finish also sold and went to a new home last week.  (Yay!) 
The middle one is different in that it has handwoven fabric with beads actually woven into the cloth. 

These three are fun. I love the hearts on batik which are fusible raw edge applique.  The middle one is a liberated log cabin set on point (using lots of fun scrap pieces.)  Then the right hand one is a design that I digitized and stitched out on my embroidery machine.  Then I added a piece of handwoven fabric for the "ground" under the horse.  

All of these have a pocket inside the front cover with my label sewn in as you may have seen on a previous post. 

Now......to get that sleeve made and put on the big quilt...... Sigh! 

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Some Finishes

Those fun randomly pieced chunks - at least some of them - became these

three notebook covers.  These will go in the next venue in which I sell things.

That may be next month, but I am waiting to hear more details.

The middle one in that group looks like this on the back. 
I decided to use a pieced strip across the middle. 

The one on the left in the first picture, looks like this  when you

turn it over. 

And of course they all have pockets and my label in them. 

The other finish is the puzzle that Mom and I were working on. 

We had fun doing this puzzle.  I am not sure we will start another one any time soon.  But that all depends on Mom.  

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Getting There

Mom and I are getting there on the puzzle.  We finally had some time to work on it.

Here is how it looked Thursday before when we decided we had done enough.  

All that is left to do is finish the water and the sky.  Oh, yes and those three pieces in the moon.  The thing is - the moon and the water are the same colors.  

Above are the pieces that are left over. I do believe we can finish it over the weekend.  

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

More Scrappy Fun

The scraps have not diminished or so it seems. I have scraps in bags, boxes, drawer units, and who knows where else.  In my quest to tame the scrap monster, I am doing a lot of "sit and sew."  I grab one piece and another piece that looks interesting with it - or is just about the right size. I sew them together and then do another one.  I try to keep one under the foot at all times during a session.  When I just "need" to press one, I grab them all and go to the iron.  Or sometimes, I set an ironing table next to me.  (But I like the get up and move break some days.)  

Here are two pieces that have been trimmed.  For these I have mostly sewn strips that were already cut. A few pieces were chunks that I just cut into strips for convenience in sewing. 

This first one was cut into thirds and reconfigured just for fun.  A strip was added on each side of two sections - then the other section was added onto and joined to the bottom. 

The one below is just strips and pieced strips. 

When a strip isn't quite long enough,  I grab another piece or two and extend that strip, as you may see. 

I do a lot of the cutting while sitting at the machine with my scissors.  Sometimes  Usually this means there is a mess there. 

To be honest that is neat for that area. 

This is a very small pile of scrap pieces waiting to get used. 

And there is one pieced strip that was the last thing under the foot this sewing session. It 

was taken for a press and trimmed also.

That teeny pieced section was trimmed from another piece - 

those three strips were longer than the others.  Waste not, want not!

Meanwhile,  at Mom's,  we are working on another puzzle.  Although we are not rushing on this one.

Mom thinks that she doesn't accomplish much, but often she pulls out a set of pieces that I 

then fit together.  One example is the lower right corner. She had pulled all the blossom pieces

and left them at the lower edge. So I fit them all into place. 

Here is what it should look like when we finish.

It is really pretty, I think. 

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Another Little Piece of my Heart

Scraps! For some of us they have meaning. Many of the scraps in my stash remind me of other quilts or the person who gave me a piece of fabric.  Those memories can make them a little piece of my heart.  

While trying to use them up, I sometimes go down a rabbit hole of memories.  While other pieces are a mystery to me "Where did that piece come from?" But mostly, I just look at the pieces and smile. Then I sew them into another "something."    

I have been sewing a lot of scrappy somethings lately.  There is no big secret plan.  (or maybe there is and I don't want to tell just yet.......)  There IS No Plan.  ha ha. 

There is a lot of enjoyment from taking bits and strips of fabric that so many would just toss in the garbage to enlarge the landfill.  I prefer to only toss pieces so tiny that I can't sew them. 

Here are some of the Scrappy Somethings from the past few days. 

Some of these,  no,  MOST of these are not squared up and ready to use. If it doesn't exactly fit, but it is large enough,  I sew it on and trim it later. 

For now, I am enjoying the play of color, texture, accidental design, hand dyed fabric, batiks, and prints. 

A plethora of things that these could become.  Or they could all be worked into one wallhanging or table topper.

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.

Maybe I Have Had My 15 Minutes

The American Pop Artist,  Andy Warhol, once said, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes"   Well, many of you know that I love being onstage and that I also like to make people laugh.  

To be honest, I have probably had more than my fifteen minutes of fame.  In the last few weeks, my name has been broadcast to a couple of audiences.  

You see, there is this Southern humorist,  Jeanne (pronounced like the "I dream of Jeannie - but spelled with no "i") Robertson.  Jeanne Robertson is known as A Grandma Gone Viral for her YouTube channel. Once the COVID Quarantine hit, she couldn't go speak to large audiences in person.  Her solution was to stage "Live from the Back Porch" both on Facebook and YouTube.  The audience writes in questions and she and her famous guests answer them.   

She KNOWS my name.  I think she knows I have a pretty good sense of humor also.  On March 20th, her special guest was a Country Music Legend, Jeannie Seely.   Having grown up in Alabama with parents that loved country music, I knew her name and who she is in the business. Of course I submitted a few questions.  Here is what happened:

You should know that I was laughing right along with them.  I had to show the video to my Mom.  She thought it was amazing that Jeanne Seely said my name, right there on the internet for everyone to hear.

                Here is a LINK  to the whole show in case you want to watch it all. 

The next week Jeanne was not on her own back porch but was in Savannah, Georgia with her friend, Jane Tucker.  Jane is from New York City and has helped Jeanne dress for her speaking career.  Jane also is a "character" in some of Jeanne's hilarious stories - like The Pashmina story.   Again, here is what happened:

                                  Here is the  LINK to the whole thing. 

Have I exceeded my fifteen minutes of "everybody fame?"  Should I go hide in a cave for a few years? 

More importantly, have I ever made you laugh?  I sure hope so.  (I guess I should say that I hope the video clips work.)

Until Next Time,  

Stay Creative 

Comments are welcomed. I will reply when possible. Of course if you are a "No Reply Blogger"- I can not reply. Links in comments will result in the entire comment being deleted.