progress....

Here is the ice box from Aunt Meta's basement. Tractor joe loves it. He washed it all up when we got it home. He wants to use is out in his shed. But not yet. His personal Men's Crisis Center is still a work in progress. So, for now, it is in the garage on top of the cupboard out there...just sitting there looking pretty.

If dirty, ratty old yarn make you queezy....

look away from the next picture.

close your eyes 

or something.

The old quilt is a flimsy now. I took out all the yarn. While I was snipping and fighting the creepy crawlies from having to touch some of the dirty spots, I was also able to find the spots that the stitching is coming loose. Not many areas at all.  I will be able to fix them with no problems.

(I hope)

One of the baskets had two frayed areas of fabric. 

I will make a fabric band-aid that will blend right in.

(I hope)

Just needs a washing. I can't bear the thought of messing with this until it is cleaner. I gag to easy when it comes to dirty fabric. 

Went out yesterday for more paint. The bottom sides of the chairs got a coat of red and the table now has yellow on it. Tractor joe picked this color out. He was very pleased when he saw it painted up. He thinks this should be the color of the swing. I agreed.

No standing there fighting, I mean debating what color it should be.

We just agreed, it should be yellow.

It will look nice painted yellow.

We need cushions yet. I did start sewing some.

But, that isn't what I ended up with.

I made myself a bag and a bunch of snap happy bags. They are made with an old measuring tape that is cut to size. It snaps shut. So cool. I laid them on the swing. 

This is about what my cushions would look like, only bigger, if I had actually made cushions. I'll get to them yet.

The Jurassic Park quilt is SLOWLY coming together.

I forgot to lay it out this morning for a picture.

Next time I lay it out and work on it, I will take a picture.

Aunt Meta's things.....

A couple months ago, my mom asked tractor joe if he wanted the gun cabinet out of Aunt Meta's house. He said, "OK"

So when were up in Minneapolis, we went to her house to get it out. First we tried going down the stairs with it. To tight, had to bring it back up. I was ready to leave it.

But, NO, tractor joe wasn't about to leave it. There is a balcony type thing over the sunroom. We brought it out there. The plan was to tie it up and lower it over the railing. 

It worked pretty slick. We put it in the truck. Then off to my sister, Jen's house.

Late last summer we had taken this old ice box out of the basement at Meta's. We had no way of getting it home that day, so it sat in Jenny's garage all winter. It got loaded up on top of the gun cabinet. 

I am thinking of painting it and turning it into a bookcase. It isn't very deep. Wide books wouldn't work, unless you turned them so they were facing out. Right now it is out in the shed waiting for something to happen. 

While we were packing up the furniture, Jane said we needed some blankets to protect it.

She pulled this out of a cedar chest.

"here use this!"

I thought it was one of those tied, whole cloth quilts I remembered from youth.

(make face and gag, YUK)

But it wasn't. 

There were basket blocks on the other side. Now I have no idea what to do with it.

What do people do with old stuff like this?

Can the backing, batting and ties be removed?

The front seems okay, can it be re-quilted?

painting.....

We were given some lawn furniture because, it wasn't being used and....

 we would use it.

 It needed spiffing up. There is some rust and they are boring white.

This morning was the day.

I sanded like crazy this morning.

Then it got a coat of primer.

So far so good.

I went in to eat lunch and watch The Bold and the Beautiful.

When that was over, I went back out to give it a coat of red.

I love it!

There is one more chair and a small table I will paint red. Look at all the leaves that have fallen out of the trees. It is so dry. I hope they aren't dying, they just got big enough to give us shade in the evening.

Then there is this swing.

When Karen saw it she said, "no, no, don't paint it, leave it shabby chic!"

hmmmmm.....

I am tired from just one chair, 

and there are two more things to paint.

I will leave it. 

(for now)

But I will make it some real pretty cushions!

Everything will get pretty cushions!

And then there is a couch. 

.....same style....but no picture.

Not sure about how we will use it.

It might be cute with potted plants sitting on it and around it.

I don't know. It will get used somehow, somewhere.

out of the closet jean quilt......

I couldn't stand it.

I had to try working with old jeans.

I went into the closet looking for these jean blocks I had made years ago. They were abandoned, I wasn't sure I liked working with the denim. I thought I had made a dozen or so.

No.

There were 54 blocks ready to go for some thing.

Who knew I had that many. 

In the closet was a box from my cousin Gwen. In that was a huge hunk of this green sheep fabric, and also in the closet were many many many batting scraps.

...or so I thought, I am actually running very low on batting scraps.

I started cutting it all up and sewing....

I made groups of two, then two 4-patches.

But wait, I didn't want too much bulk going through the machine on the right side of the needle, when top stitching the backing down. That is when I sewed these two 4-patches together.

Then took the rest and turned them into rows to add around the outside.

These are all sewn together now (no picture) and I will be able to add more rows to the outside of this.

I wasn't careful about the direction of the blocks or the sheep. I was worried at first, 

oh oh what will this look like.

But I am really liking it.

When I run out of these blocks, I'll start cutting plain blocks. I have a ton of black jeans too. I am thinking that a checkerboard  of blue and black around the outside would look cool. I am not sure how much sheep fabric is there...may run out and have to switch.

A work in progress. Thanks Gwen!!

what I want to make, and what I want to finish up......

Gwen sent me this picture of a quilt she has finished. She layered a 6 inch square of denim from old jeans with batting and a backing piece cut 2 inches bigger. Sewed a simple X to hold it all together.

She sewed the blocks together with the back sides together. Then flipped it over and top stitched the backing fabric down like binding. A quilt-as-you-go technique.

I can't find the pictures she sent of her work in progress, a visual of what she did. 

I love this. I have SO many jeans set aside for cutting up. Some are already cut up...but I never had a plan for them.....Was ready to toss all of it as I was de-cluttering. Not anymore.

I was never sure how to use them.

I do now.

I am so excited.

But first I want to finish up some other things.

Like this top........

It is the last of the hearts I won at Block Lotto and flowers made using another block lotto block we made last summer. This is as far as I got yesterday. There are 4 more sections ready to attach the sashing and sew together like one big 9-patch.

doll quilts....

Last year I made a ton of 9-patch blocks from old sheets. I am making them into doll quilts this summer. They are for donation to a new program Karen has learned about.

She talks about it (here) and you can see her quilt too.

Because they are sheets, they don't like to stay flat....even after you steam press the crap out of them.

That made them rather hard to quilt.

(for me anyway)

I tried diagonal on the first one, and just wavy lines along the seams on the last two.

That seemed to go okay.

I did one more. 

Last spring I got a huge tub of sample shirts and fabrics. Some of it just seemed gross to me. I didn't see anything wonderful in it at all.

Kristi, who gave it to me said,

"go though it and pitch what you don't want"

It had been given to her by someone else.

I cut off sleeves and backs.

There was also a small packet of decorator fabrics.

I combined the decorator fabric with the stripes from the shirts, and free pieced hearts, 

this is what I came up with.....

It is about 20 x22 inches. I am thinking that I will give it to Kristi's little girl. I am sure it will shock her to see what came out of the box. It shocked me! 

We spent 2 days down at ISU, in Ames. 

That would be Iowa State University, home of the Cyclones.

NOT the University of Iowa, home of the Hawkeyes.

I easily confuse the two.

(I am a Minnesota girl, a Gopher!)

Anyway.....

Crispy will be attending ISU this fall. We spent two days walking around the campus.

Miles and miles of walking. 

Okay, we did some geocaching on the campus and that added to the total of miles.

Crispy's dorm room is the window right above his head.

We looked in the windows of the room right below it. Nice corner room, with two windows.

He is pretty sure he will love it at ISU.

little things....

Last winter, I saw this blog...buildinghousesfromscraps....teeny tiny houses, seemed simple enough.

Except it wasn't.

I made a few using different techniques. I found this one in a pile of fabric. Not sure what went wrong. There were others that weren't nearly as bad and they were put into pot holders and given away.

I gave up.

Then I saw this wonderful pile of mini-houses here at karenssewingrooms and she encouraged me to give it another go. 

So I did. I made tiny templates for the roof. Strip-pieced the chimneys. And very carefully cut the doors and window to the size they needed to be.

(cutting things the correct size always helps)

Here are the first four....and I was happy enough with them that I made about a dozen more.

While I was going through my skinny strip bag, I found some small string quilt blocks I had started. There was even a few paper squares in there,

all  ready for sewing more string blocks....

So I ran them through the machine while making houses.

They are 4 1/2 inch squares. It will be a bit before I have enough for a quilt.

While cleaning and sorting my way through a pile of fabrics, I found rectangles....

all cut and ready to go.....I sat right down and made......

Little tissue holders!

Karen, my Karen, not the little houses Karen, said if they were re-sized just a little bit they would make nice cell phone holders. Hmmm.....that would require more thinking and measuring.

I will save that for another day.