Spring Break Day Two

Since Vince is working days this week, I am up by the time he leaves the house (5:30 or so). Today was no different!

So, since I was up earlier than I planned, I figured I could spend time in the studio! I worked further on the Green String Quilt and put borders on the I Spy quilt (yes, I know it is not the same quilt I was working on yesterday!). Here is what I accomplished on the Green String Quilt...I cut and sewed the background diamonds. I made a few mistakes along the way before I got them the way I wanted...so I did not work much on this quilt today.

The I Spy quilt is for a friend who is having a baby in June. It is all ready to go and I have the backing fabric in the washer as I type this!
Then I went to church and Sunday school. I had lunch with my dear friend Caroline at our favorite local Mexican restaurant. We are going to have a yard sale together with some other folks in June! YAY!! I love yard sales...Now I get to clean out the house and price items and then get rid of them!

I spent some time at Gleaner's House Thrift Store before visiting Mom. At Gleaner's I scored a great 2" 3 ring binder, and some letter and number tiles. The tiles sort of look like oversized Scrabble tiles. I believe I can create a station activity with those! I also picked up a broken keyboard (for that as yet unknown craft idea!).

My visit with Mom was interesting...she had previously asked me to bring her a Catholic bible as the one she had was not a Catholic one. So, I brought her my parent's bible and she spent our visit paging through the bible, making comments about snippets of sentences she read. At least she was reading the bible!

I stopped by my classroom on the way home to pick up a box of used paper (for Inez's grandson's baseball fundraiser), the box of chip bags I need to send to Terracycle, and my large dry erase eraser.

I also gassed up the truck and washed it!

Upon arrival home, I sorted through the stuff in my truck and loaded up the 3.5 boxes of fabric I am bringing to Diana tomorrow. I also collected all of the newspapers around the house and from the recycling bin to bring to Lisa tomorrow (for the birds!) Then I collected up the loose 2-liter plastic soda bottles that had escaped the plastic bag they were in! I boxed the bottles as they will be used at the end of the school year for the 6th grade end of year water fight. (At least if it is still scheduled to occur!)

When I came back inside, I emailed Chris about dropping off two quilts on Wednesday, and then proceeded to my studio so that I could iron the backings and make sure I had batting. I have a piece for the Snow Crazy Quilt but need to buy batting for the Pieces of the Past quilt. One out of two is not bad! My last post on these two quilts was back in June of last year!

Here are the finished tops for Snow Crazy, this is almost a full sized quilt.
And here is Pieces of the Past, this one is a king sized quilt.




Now I am finished for the day. It is dinner on my own (Vince had a late flight), and then off to bed to rest up for my Clarksville trip tomorrow!

Terracycle Products hit the stores!

Most of you know that I am a huge supporter of Terracycle. I collect items for them to upcycle into new and exciting products. They in turn help keep these non-biodegradable items out of our landfills and help support education.

They have recently opened a pop-up shop in New York's Port Authority which features a number of really cool items from Terracycle and several other unique vendors.

Terracycle has also put many new products in Walmart stores for the month of April. While I know that some people will not shop at Walmart, I do agree that it is a good idea for Terracycle to team up with them to promote their products. A LOT of people go into Walmart and A LOT of people shop there. This is an excellent way to get their products seen an a mass market level.

I have actually considered going into Walmart to see what the products look like as there are no other stores here in my corner of Tennessee that carry Terracycle products. These new products are available nationwide at Walmart stores for the month of April in honor of Earth Day's 40th Anniversary.

So, check out the new Terracycle products, visit Walmart to see them in person or shop on-line at: shoponlygreen.com.

Spring Break Day One

One my first day of Spring Break I woke up at the same time I usually do. So much for sleeping in!

So, I decided I should make the best of it and stay busy.

I started with the laundry! Then cleaned up the kitchen, scrubbing the counters and clearing off all the clutter that accumulates there. I did manage to finish all of the laundry, get it folded and put away! (normally the laundry sits in the basket for a week--folded of course--but not put away!)

Then I wandered into my studio where I am working on two quilts simultaneously. I have one that I am making for a friend that needs to be finished before the end of school. I finished all of the string pieced diamonds using only scraps of fabric that I had in my stash. The "Green Scrap" box is now EMPTY! I just need to find a background fabric that compliments all that green! Here are my diamonds:


This is a diagram of the pattern I am working from for this quilt:


The other quilt is a neat quilt using nine-patch blocks. The blocks are each 3" square. A few years ago, when I still belonged to the Jackson Guild, I joined a block exchange and then realized I would NEVER have the time to complete the required blocks each month, so I resigned. Of course I had a bunch of nine-patch blocks already sewn so I did need to find a quilt to use them in! Fortunately, I found one I loved and saved the pattern with the blocks. Well, it is one of the quilts on my list to complete this summer so I started making some additional blocks now. I finished another 45 blocks yesterday and cut a few more. I need a total of 148 nine patch blocks. I need to search the stash for a background fabric for that one as well. Here are some of the nine patch blocks with the picture of the Skyward Nines pattern I am working from. Since so many of my blocks have blue in them, I am thinking of either a gold or gray background.

I also responded to a freecycle request for fabric! Last year someone gifted me a ton of cotton fabric scraps that I washed and sorted and then stored. I used a little of it but most of it is still sitting in boxes in my studio, getting in the way. I looked at this ad as a sign that I should part with some of this fabric so that it can be used! I now have 3.5 boxes of fabric on the couch waiting for me to deliver it on Monday. (I guess that counts as a stash reduction!)

Of course my dogs and I wandered down to the pond to feed the fish and turtles. We also walked through our 'orchard' and noted that all of our trees have leaves and some have flowers! It looks like we did a good job with the initial planting! YAY for fruit!

That was my day one!

Upcycling at its best!

I wanted to share our latest upcycled project!

This will be our second year with a vegetable garden and because it is going to be larger than last year's garden, I wanted Vince to build me a small greenhouse to get the seedlings started in.

So using concrete blocks that we removed from our driveway's edge and one of the skylights we removed from the house, Vince created my greenhouse:



Inside the greenhouse is more evidence of reuse going on: all of my little veggies are growing in old egg cartons:


As you can see, I have had some success with the little green darlings!

Here are my cucumbers, corn and beans:



Here are some tomatoes, broccoli and cauliflower!


I encountered a small issue with watering the babies. I do not own a watering can and pouring water from a jar or pitcher put out too strong of a stream of water for the babies. So, using our stash of non-recyclable stuff, Vince created my very own watering container:

He drilled a series of holes in the lid so that the water sprinkles out on my little green babies!


I hope we can get the garden tilled this week as I am on Spring Break and it would be a great time to get these darlings in the ground.

I also have marigolds growing in abundance in several pots around the house so that I can keep some of the critters at bay!

Quilt Bling!

Cat and Sherry had the opportunity to spend the weekend in Lancaster at the American Quilt Show. They took great photos of the quilts on display there and I am sure that they were very motivated and inspired by what they saw. Of course the vendors are always a favorite place to spend money!

I was thrilled today to receive an envelope containing my very own QUILT BLING! I love that Cat and Sherry thought of me on their quilting weekend!! I plan to wear my bling when I go to the AQS show in Paducah Kentucky at the end of April! YAY!

Resolutions: March Update

March's update on my Resolutions

1. Cease drinking soda. Hmmm..No soda this month! I do think about Pepsi from time to time, but have not purchased any single serve bottles (thus one less plastic item) and have not consumed any from what Vince purchases! Nor have I caved in and taken my reusable cup into the Shell station to fill up at the soda dispenser! I may have achieved success here!

2. Do not purchase new clothes for one year. Nothing here. I did purchase a skirt at the thrift store. It is new, so would that qualify as buying something new.?? I did buy it at a thrift store! So, technically it is a second hand item.

3. Save the savings. Huh. No grocery shopping trip this month. My shopping trips were small, and nothing saved! We are actually planning our shopping trip for tomorrow morning.

4. Reduce my personal belongings. Did well here. I gave my rubber duck collection to a friend of mine who is going to Nicaragua on a mission trip. She also received my mini-beanie baby collection that I have not used (although I did try to find a school use for them!) I also freecycled a plastic water bottle with an insulated sleeve, and a candy thermometer (it was an extra one!)

I also freecycled two loads of styrofoam packing peanuts and bubble wrap.



5. Read at least 3 books to improve my teaching skills.
URK. I have not moved along on this resolution at all this month. I did read several novels, but nothing that required much thought.

6. Keep my tax records more organized for 2010. Things are filling in nicely here. We even have our 2009 taxes filed and the check ready for mailing. (Yes, we owe money again this year!) I did put our receipts from the accountant into the 2010 file.

7. Walk 10,000 steps each day. I wear the pedometer every day that I am not home. I have been wearing it around the house more. I am still averaging 7,000 steps a day. I took a walk with the puppies the other day. We walked through the woods...up and down small hills....I am sorry to say I was tired when we finished! I also planted the flower bulbs I purchased last year.

8. Reduce my fabric stash. Hmm..after looking at last month's status in this category, I am disappointed to see I have not sewn a stitch since them! Perhaps the illness I contracted has affected me more than I thought!
I did go through my scraps and boxed them up and posted them on freecycle. No takers as of yet.
I also acquired more fabric! The lady who took the styrofoam pieces gifted me a huge bag of fabric in exchange! YAY for fabric!!
Oh wait. I am supposed to REDUCE MY STASH! Guess I did not meet my goal this month! I can say that in April I will again increase my fabric acquisitions....the Paducah quilt show is fast approaching and I am headed up that way to gain inspiration. I also plan to purchase some fabric to finish the mystery quilt fabric requirements for my June Quiltaway.

9. Make time for ME! Ha. This month, with being sick, I had a lot of 'me time' to rest and read.

10. Blog about these resolutions every month. DONE!

Sunrise in New York

When I was living in New York, I started working on the Thimbleberries block of the month quilt.

The year was 2005.

The program used 12 blocks to make 2 lap quilts. I finished the first set of blocks to make the 'Sunrise' quilt and since I was still in NY at the time, the name of the quilt became "Sunrise in New York". Only the top was put together.

Its sister quilt (Sunset), which I finished in Tennessee, became "Sunset in Tennessee".

I moved to Tennessee in the end of 2005.

Sunset in Tennessee was machine quilted by another quilter for me and finished in 2006.

Sunrise in New York was partially machine quilted by me. I finished the label and the binding and then I planned to hand quilt the 6 large blocks myself. I usually have one quilt that I am hand quilting, so I can work on my skills.

Here is the finished quilt:


Here is a shot of the label I put on the quilt when I finished the machine quilting of the sashing and borders.


Please note the date of March, 2006. Yes, I know it is now March 2010. Yes, it seems to have taken me 4 years to hand quilt 6 blocks.

All I can say is that I enjoyed the journey!