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Halfway and counting down…

I’m calling this the halfway point.  I emptied the shelves and put lots of stuff into bins.  We’ll be moving these shelves into the next room and then putting in some way deeper shelves.
Gotta find a sunny spot for my table.  It all looks so spare and tidy now 
But this is only some of what I have to put back in an orderly fashion.  
Actually, I’m going to cal it the thirdway point.
There’s more here.  The quarterway point is starting to feel right.  I’d better get up and get moving.  
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Draaammmaaa + Give Away the Second!!!!!!!

This give away is closed!  No more entries will be accepted!  

Winner is announced here.

Continuing my draaammmaaa from yesterday.  I cut the seam allowances down as close as I could without panicking.  It always makes me nervous to cut close to a seam.  Sewing the binding went pretty well and I really like the way the binding looks on the edges.
  

See.  It’s a nice, narrow binding and I LOVE those colors together.  Love them.  
BUT the corners.  UGH.  Hate them.   
Truth be told, there was no chance of me ripping the binding out and starting over because the linen is very un-ravelly.  It couldn’t have stood up to it.  I was afraid of damaging the orange fabric.  That would have been a tragesty.  
 
The corners, however. are tragesties.  I should have done my research.  I needed a different corner technique to go with my different binding technique.  They were all donkey eared.  So I cut and resewed them and they are messy as hell.
See the second one down?  I didn’t resew that because the donkey ear was small but the other three corners were hugely awful and actually look better resewn than they did at first.  Sigh.  I’m washing it now in the hopes that, if the wash is going to cause corner problems, I can fix them before gifting it.  My husband said it just makes the quilt look more handmade.  He is a very nice man.
Onward and Upward to Give Away the Second!
Here we have a slouchy hobo bag that I made out of bark cloth!  The floral cloth pattern is perfect for a spring and summer bag.  It has two large pockets on either end (excellent for cell phones and keys) and an adjustable strap upcycled from a store bought purse.
The inside used to be a linen skirt and has a button closure pocket on one side.
To enter this give away, just write a comment and that is all.  The give away will end on Thursday March 21st at some point and the winner will be announced before that midnight.  
I will need to be able to contact you but you shouldn’t have to post your email address to the world if you have the kind of account that lets me just click on your name and then be able to reach you.  If you aren’t sure, you can always click on my name and send me your email.  
Thanks for stopping by and best of luck.  Hopefully the next picture I post of that baby quilt will be happy.  At least happy-ish.
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I Paced, I Pouted, I Twitched

  I did it!  I passed on the baby blanket with hardly a word and no apology at all!  
But then yesterday I was suffering from sewing deprivation.  I paced, I pouted, I twitched with the urge to make something.  I overshared pictures of the baby quilt at Craftser and Craftsy and Ravelry
So I sucked it up and made something.  
We are taking a family trip soon and I’m never ready to pack for a trip until I get a new purse.  Don’t ask me why.  
I couldn’t find one I liked.  That, along with my sewing withdrawal symptoms, made it clear that I needed to make one.  
 
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Please forgive the bad pictures, I can’t find my camera and used my phone again.
It’s exactly like the one I’ve been using (I bought it for our last family trip but I don’t have a picture of it because it was ugly).  I liked how it was laid out though. Two large pockets on the ends of the purse for keys and phone make it so useful. 
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I used my long neglected stash of barkcloth and a really ugly linen dress I bought at the thrift shop.  I put the pocket from the dress on the inside.  I also used the shoulder strap from the ugly purse.  Can I just say, it took me less than an hour, because I used the hems and finished edges from the original pieces.  I used to spend a day on a bag.  It was pretty exciting.
After I got it all put together I decided that it wasn’t big enough.  So, I bought the cheap one I was eying up at Target.  It was so plain, I had passed on it earlier.  But, since seeing it the first time, I had picked this book up:
So I started to decorate it late last night.  
  
  
I have a long way to go.  I plan on bringing my thread along and working on it on the trip.  Yes, I have to take everything out of it to do that so it won’t be what I work on in the airport or anything.   
That project will be a travel journal.  
I making a traveling kit for that stuff today.   I don’t think I’ll be sewing it, just putting it together.  I just need to find the right container.
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Still here Update

I know.  No posts for a month and then two in a day.  What could I be thinking?  
Look at all that floor.  And, look! A table top that hasn’t been seen for months and months. 
I’m just so proud of myself.  It’s not done by a long shot but it’s so much better.  Now I know that I have way too much linen and have to make something out of it really soon.  Also I have lots of awesome IKEA print fabrics that I completely forget about.
We got the giant cork board up and hubs is busy hanging art still; check out what he did with my denim quilt back there is the guest/game/workout/storage room.
I got rid of lots of wool and some pretty linen clothing that I was going to cut up but then I decided against it.  So…whaddaya all say to a crap craft swap? 
The going away pile.
I think I’ll ask if Sector67 is willing to host one. Would you (local folks) come?
I might even give away some of my baskets – I haven’t used them in forever.  I do love me some baskets.
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Still here

I have had very limited access to the computer and a really bad time getting my pictures on to the web since my laptop’s unfortunate demise.  I haven’t bought a new one because I’m just sure we’ll be able to repair ours someday, somehow when we acquire knowledge that we just don’t begin to have right now.  but I’m sure we will one day.  🙂 
So, here is a picture of my project for today taken with the camera on my phone.
Check out that giant cork board that I scored at the ReStore for $5!  I think it’s like, eight feet long.  Awesome.
I’m tackling the fabric stash and trying to get rid of at least two bins of fabric.  Can it be done?  We shall see.
In the meantime, please enjoy this talk on creativity by John Cleese:
It’s a little over 30 minutes long so if you want the shorter version check out Brain Pickings, which you really check out anyway because I’m sure you would love it.  Thanks to my friend Jen for telling me about it.
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Back in Business

One of the latest and longest lasting projects is my log cabin crazy quilt.  It’s inspired by the amazing quilts by the women of Gee’s Bend.  I was really taken with their corduroy quilts.  Here are some close ups of my attempt. 
It has pockets!  Everything except for the red and gold came from pants.  That really caused some issues because the pants have been worn and have a lot of bias to them.  I really had to embrace the chaos.
I’m not thrilled with how I hand quilted them together but I just really couldn’t wait to finish.  I worked on it in the spring until it was too hot and then put it away.  It’s been waiting for me for a long time.  I didn’t use any batting so the distance between the sewn bits ‘should’ be OK.  If it moves around I guess I can always add more.
The itch keeps you warm, you know.
The backing is a wool remnant that I bought at Gayfeather Fabrics.  It’s very warm but pretty itchy.  So I decided to edge it with velvet to off set the itch factor, at least around the edges.  I’m hoping that one pair of velvet pants will do the job.

Here are the pants cut up and waiting.  This is the only part of this quilt left to do.  I’ll sew them into a large strip and then edge the quilt.  I can sew one side with the machine (I hope) and the other will be hand stitched.


But, not today.  We are having a group of pre-teen girls over to make duct tape crafts with us today.  They won’t want me around though I’ll need to stay close so I’ll be sitting in the kitchen, burning cookies and working with this:
Keep your eye on this space to see what I plan to do with all this vintage bark cloth.