90 degree heat = winter coat ?!

heh, well, yes -- it seems my projects have no respect for the weather

I just wanted to get this thing finished -- after all the knitting part had been finished for a week, the cape was right there

and anyway, how was hand stitching the knitted sleeves into this any hotter than working on the quilting of a piece?

so it's done

the cape has been successfully transformed into a coat

and my daughter will have something warm to wear to work this winter when her own coat won't fit over my grandchild

but it comes with a warning -- I want this one back! I had been thinking about doing this for the last few years for myself -- but then we know how good I am at making things for myself - hum
behold the beginning of the dance of the hollyhock dolls

after all that stitching (at least I did these on the machine) of each and every petal

and turning

and coloring (which doesn't really show up well on the photo)

I got these all put together last night

so now I have the heads and arms to make -- which will be shades of green -- I think they look pretty good
about 10 years ago (just before I retired), I bought myself a sewing machine

now this is not the first sewing machine I've ever owned -- in fact, I bought it to replace a Pfaff that I had plainly beaten to death

and I spent big money for this new machine (at the time I was earning great bonus money at the "day job", so I had the money to spend)

but I never got to go take the "free classes" I was promised because about then we were packing up the house to move and sending off a child to college and and (well, you know how life gets)

so now, 10 years later, I'm teaching myself how to use some of the cool features that I bought the machine for in the first place

like this stipple quilting, for instance -- not perfect, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it
yesterday I was talking about the second baby shirt that I had started and how I didn't like the look of the yarn together and how I was thinking about ripping it out

heh, yeah

it got ripped

and I started this one instead, which I like MUCH better!

this yarn, while still cotton, has an interesting fat to thin texture which gives the shirt a totally different look that the yellow and white yarns did

so now I just have to keep an eye on those stripes and not repeat the boo boo of the yellow shirt
be afraid - be VERY afraid

for months now I've been saying I need to organize my quilting fabrics

but like with most projects, especially when I refuse to go and spend money for something, doing one project means that first I must do another and possibly something before that, and even something before that

I want to get all of the quilting fabrics that I use to create my art quilts into these shorter tubs instead of those deep ones so I can see what I have this way instead of having to dump the whole tub onto the dining room table

but as I said, I didn't want to go buy any of these tubs until I had made full use of the ones I already owned

so for the last couple of weeks I've been going through "stuff", which has meant a big bag of trash out, a lot of stuff into the recycle bin, several new things ready to go onto eBay and this empty tub to organize in

I started with the fabrics I had just bought and then started added stuff from another tub

by the time I'm done I'm sure I'll have one whole tub that is nothing but browns and greens (or even one that's all green!)

yup, one small step to organization (one giant leap to less frustration!)