I’ll tell you what, re-entry after a show is *hard*. The weeks leading up to a show are crazy with the prep work, but the week after a show is so much harder for me. I think because I put off all the other “life” stuff while I am getting ready for a big event, it then all comes up to yell HERE’S JOHNNY! in my face the week after.

Carolina Fiber Fest Booth

I am obviously someone who thrives on being organized. In fact I would say I require it. Like air or water. But the week after a show is so disorganized it leaves me feeling chaotic and unproductive. I flutter from one task to another without any real progress. I start working on cleaning the kitchen and go downstairs for paper towels, and get distracted by the pile of scraps that need to be sorted. While I am sorting fabric I realize I need to update the scrap shop. While I am updating that I get a convo on etsy about a custom order. While I am ordering fabric for that I remember I need zippers. I check what size I need and get pulled into sweeping up the studio because the dust balls are moving on their own. While I am sweeping downstairs I realize I should sweep upstairs too, and come to find out that the kitchen hasn’t magically cleaned itself while I have been doing 12 other things. (Damn elves. So lazy.) And then I figure out that I have left the paper towel downstairs. Repeat infinitely.

I am a list maker by nature, and love my little 2Do app. Each day I make a list of things that MUST get finished (orders usually) and then tack on a ton of other things that I will do if I get all of the must-dos done. The result of this is that I work way too many hours and then just crash into bed. Especially if TJ is traveling and I am home to work unchecked and undisturbed by things like making dinner or lunch.

But over the last few months I have realized that all of this is leaving me so. sacked. Being your own boss sounds so romantic, and I do really love it. But I work sooooo much harder and longer than I did when I had a 9-5 job. Weekends don’t exist (or at least they are not a whole lot different than weekdays). And I place crazy high expectations on myself. So here is what I have been trying over the last couple of weeks: make a list of things that must get done that day each morning. Full stop. Don’t tack on extras, don’t flit from job to job, just do what has to be done that day. And then be happy with it. I’m telling you, this is so hard for me. Most days the list of must-dos still means a 10 or 12 hour day, but I have trouble stopping it there and not making it a 14 or 16 hour day. So in the interest of honesty, I am putting it out in “the world” in hopes that I will be accountable for not making myself a crazy person. Today I really need a reset so I am doing that though this post. Resetting.

I truly and utterly love what it is that I do, and I really want to keep it that way for a very long time. Anyone else out there working for themselves or a small business after doing the corporate or 9-5 thing? Any advice? Any pearls of wisdom on how you keep it from taking over everything?

I have been looking forward to this show for so long and it’s finally here! I have heard so many good things about the Carolina Fiber Festival – I am hoping it is going to be as much fun as everyone is telling me.

You can find me in the exhibit hall, booth #5. All the info you need about the show is on their website. It’s free, and if you have wee ones Saturday is kids day.

Hope I will see a few of you there!

As a part of Lindsay’s studio makeover, I decided that I would make her a small lap quilt/wall hanging. I had seen the “i heart you” pattern over on V and Co. and really wanted to try it out. I picked up a fat quarter pack from Hawthorne Threads because I thought that they would work well with the pink paint colour I had picked for the walls.

So I went to work getting the 231 half square triangles (HSTs) ready for assembly.

I used this tutorial for making 8 HSTs at once, but it meant I needed to trim each one to exactly the right size. I actually like this method for that reason – it gives you very precisely sized HSTs, which makes final assembly so much easier. It does make a giant pile of trimmings though.

Once the top was together, I picked a little heart quilting pattern out for the long arm and got to work.

By the way, how lucky am I that I have access to two long arm machines that I can use? I mean, really? So lucky.

Once it was quilted, I hand stitched the binding on, and then decided that I would applique the Eileen Quilts logo over the top of the quilt. I used the starch and raw edge method, and I did it after the quilt had been quilted so that if Lindsay ever decides that she would like to use it just as a quilt rather than a wall hanging, she just has to pick out a couple of threads and the EQ will come right off.

Once it was all done and washed up on the wall it went! Yay for those Command Hook thingies!

I am pleased with the outcome and I know Lindsay was too. Thanks V and Co. for a great pattern (super well written). I might even make one of these for myself some day.

So as most people know now, Google Reader will cease to exist this summer. I have moved over to Bloglovin and I am lovin’ in. Ahem. Haha. Anyway….if you want to follow me on Bloglovin please use the link below! There seems to be two options for my blog and this is the one that works…I am working to get the other one deleted.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

A few weeks ago it was my friend Lindsay‘s birthday. She had been having a rough couple of months dealing with her diagnosis of Graves Disease (you can read about it here, here, and here). So I really wanted to do something to try to make her feel a bit better.

Lindsay has a great studio space for her long arm machine in a part of the building that houses her husband Greg’s screen printing business, but it needed a little perking up. So I called Greg and asked if it would be ok if I came in and did a little work.

One wall is all brick, so I took a big risk and picked a pink paint colour for the walls. I knew she wanted pink because those samples had been up on the wall for a while, I just wasn’t sure which one. I ended up going with Benjamin Moore Hearts Delight in matte Aura paint. (As an aside, Aura is seriously amazing. This stuff covers like NOTHING ELSE. It is flat out my favourite paint. It is spendy, but sometimes you can find a $5 off coupon, and you end up only needing to paint one coat in a lot of cases, so you use less paint. And it is totally worth it for the time you save.) I was very thankful I ended up only having to do a coat, as it took quite a while with the doors, rough brick, and other mechanical items that I needed to paint around.

Once the painting was done, I did a couple other things to tidy up and fix a couple of things. Greg had been storing some things in the room, so he moved all of that out, and what was staying I tidied up in the corner. I fixed a table that was a bit wobbly, painted the door, did some cleaning, and picked up a new cutting board and rotary cutter on Greg’s behalf. I also hung a quilt that I had made for her, but I will do another post about that later on.

Overnight Greg printed a little sign for the door, and installed a doorknob. He also reassembled Vada’s teepee that had been in the corner, but had sort of been flopped around a bit. My friend Amanda made an amazing red velvet cake and we called a couple of friends.

The next morning we all snuck into the studio and Greg schemed to get Lindsay there. Turns out Vada let a bit of the cat out of the bag, so she knew that I was going to be there, but she didn’t know why. I think she was still surprised!

Thank you Greg and Amanda for helping me to put this together. Somehow it still managed to be surprise even with me pulling into the parking lot behind Lindsay by accident (not once, but twice!) and a toddler starting to spill the beans.  You are a great friend Lindsay and you deserve to have a space to work in that you love <3

Later this week – more details on the quilt!

Thank you everyone for your kind words on my tartan scarf. I feel like I am starting to get my groove with weaving and I am really hoping that I will make time to do more in the next few weeks and months.

For Christmas this year I had made TJ a shaving kit, as he travels so often and his old one was…..icky. I used a roll of seat belt material that I stitched together to create a wide fabric. Then I made a basic box bag with it, and used waxed canvas for the inside. I changed how it was stitched around the zipper because the standard way that I make them wouldn’t have worked with the thickness of the seat belt material.

He really liked it, but he had an idea for a shaving roll to go with it that would hold a few of his things. So….

Tada! It is vinyl lined to keep it clean, and uses the same waxed canvas on the outside. The little pieces of elastic hold all of his travel toiletries securely, and it means he is not rummaging around in the bottom of his bag for a sharp razor.

It rolls up neat and tidy and fits right inside the bag. The little pocket at the end even has a little bit of elastic to hold his collar thingies.

The seat belt material on the outside of this one was actually made from the original seat belt from the very old car that he has (he has had it since he was 16…it’s going on 30 years old now!). So I was excited to get to use that. And he even helped me a bunch! He figured out layout and came up with a few of the construction details, and even sewed a few things.

It was a fun project to work on!

I have been involved with a weaving study group for almost 2 years now. There are 9 of us in the group, and we have all learned so much from each other. (Alright, I have learned much more from them than they have learned from me, but that’s ok!).

For our current course of study we all had to choose our own topic to explore, and then present to the group. Last year about this time I took a tartan weaving course, and then just two weeks ago I took a Scottish District Checks and Tweeds class, so I decided that I would do a presentation on tartans and Scottish cloth in general.

My grandpa was a Cameron, and I have woven a Cameron scarf in the past. I love it, and have worn it a lot, but I really wanted something that was a bit more my colours. So I designed my own! I used this site to roughly come up with the sett (the colours and numbers of each thread), and then wove off my very own Warren-Miller tartan.

Project Details:

Yarn: Jaggerspun Zephyr (Wool/Silk blend)
Sett: 30 epi, 15 dent reed sleyed 2-2-2
Warp: 3 yards, 352 ends (8 selvedges)
Loom: LeClerc Fanny II 45″
On Loom Measurements: 82.25″L x 10.75″ W
Finished Measurements: 74.5″L x 10.25″ W
Fringe: 4″ each end

This one is quite a bit softer and has more drape than my previous scarf, as I used a 50/50 wool-silk blend. I have basically been wearing it non stop since I finished it.

In addition to doing the actual weaving, I did a presentation to the group on the history of tartans. Did you know basically most tartans are completely made up? I absolutely loved learning all about the history, reading about some of the major Scottish battles (particularly important to tartans is the 1745 rebellion) and doing the actual presentation to the group. I am doing another tartan class this summer at MAFA so I am hoping to continue my study on this. Eventually I would like to make a modern kilt, but that requires a massive amount of fabric so we will see.

In the meantime I will continue wearing this one endlessly, or at least for a couple of weeks before the weather gets crazy hot here. I am pretty chuffed with the outcome.

On Tuesday we had our monthly Roanoke MQG meeting. We had decided last month that it would be fun to do a little mug rug swap.

I had seen a few different quilts/mini quilts that used black quilting thread almost as if they had “drawn” the shapes on the quilt. Like an outline, I guess. So I decided to try it out!

Hedgie!! And bunting!! I used raw edge applique and then stitched over top with the black. I used a little button for the nose too, just because. I should have taken a picture of the back, because it was grey plaid. I thought it worked well with the dots.

When we pulled names Whitney and I ended up exchanging! Look at the super cute rug I got from her:

She used a couple of different Denyse Schmidt lines and then tried out her free motion quilting with her new Bernina. I love it! It is a perfect match both to my Herdy mug and my studio. It’s sitting right beside my machine for my constant cup of tea. Thanks Whit!

I love how doing small projects like this is really allowing us to try out new things and develop us as quilters (and as a guild). We have a small but wonderful group and I have learned so much from them already. I can’t wait to see what we do going forward.

A few months back my friend Melinda brought some quilt tops and backings to the Roanoke MQG, looking for someone to quilt them and finish them off to be sent as Quilts of Valor. I decided to take them, and then the craziness that was this holiday season took over. But I am finally finished!

This first quilt Melinda called “Autumn in Virginia. I quilted it with “Signature” which is a loopy free form pattern. I thought it sort of looked like the way leaves would swirl around. Plus it’s my favourite pattern, so I use it a lot. I bound it along with Nicole and Lindsay one night at Lindsay’s studio (thanks ladies!)

The second quilt Melinda called “Blue Ridge Fog”. Again I used Signature quilting on this one. I bound this one myself using a green blender fabric.

I got word the other day from the folks that coordinate the shipping of the quilts that I was to send them to a rehab facility in GA, for service personnel that have trouble adjusting to life back home after a deployment and are struggling with substance abuse issues. I am proud that these quilts will be helping someone at a dark moment in their life and I hope that they bring comfort and a feeling of love. Thanks for all those that helped put these together!

At the beginning of December good friends of ours welcomed their second baby girl to the family. With the total insanity that was my “4th Quarter” (look at me using the business lingo….) my personal work and gifts really suffered. (As a side note, I plan on doing all of my Christmas stuff in August this year and not committing to getting anything other than work done from Oct-Dec. That should work, right?) So sadly I didn’t get their gift finished until the middle of January. Luckily they are lovely people and were very understanding.

I love baby sweaters, but I always worry that babies grow so quickly and thus don’t get much wear out of them. So I decided to make a little baby shrug instead, figuring that would fit for at least a year or so.

Sorry, no modeled shot. There are some really cute ones on the Ravelry link though!
Pattern: Victorian Lace Baby Shrug
Yarn: Skacel HiKoo in 009
Needles: US 5

I really liked the little lace pattern on this one.

It was challenging enough to be interesting but easy enough to memorize after a repeat or two.

The yarn is amazing to work with, and perfect for baby stuff. Really soft, but not pilly at all.

I also wanted to make baby N a quilt, as I had made one for her sister and it got tons of use (thanks J and M for that by the way – I love seeing things I have made get USED!)

I roughly used this tutorial, but I added a large border as I just didn’t feel like it was large enough.

I used two small charm packs for this one (of course I have already managed to forget what line of fabric they were from, duh) and kona ash for the sashing. The border and backing are both from Hope Valley, and the binding is a DS for Joanns. I used my new favourite quilting pattern on this one, called Signature.

I hope that baby N enjoys both the quilt and the shrug! Although realistically, she is not likely to remember the shrug. Congrats again J and M!