Dear Santa

Thanks for stopping by my blog, Santa. I know this is your busy time of year. Yes, I know I need to post more often. Otherwise, I believe I've been very good and deserving of many quilting gifts this Christmas.



Here's an idea from my favorite online quilt shop fatquartershop.com. It's a kit I've wanted ever since I saw it earlier this year! That is like forever ago! Just look at the beautiful Glace fabric and those sweet little nine patches and appliqued pieces.

Thanks again for stopping by. I'll see you in about a week and a half.

Thanksgiving resolutions

I'm looking forward to a long Thanksgiving weekend! Seems my weekends have been packed with activities lately and I'm ready just to sit back, sew a few seams and do what makes me happy. Looks like I'm also going to be working on a few Thanksgiving resolutions...you know, the lesser known relative of New Year's resolutions. You could say I'm getting a head start on New Year's.

• Clean up my sewing room. My room is jam packed and I need to do something to make it not look like an episode of Hoarders). If it all goes well, I might show a before and after photo...but only if there is an AFTER!


• I am going to pull back a bit on my quilt donations in 2010. Seems that is all I've worked on since 2008, and while I will still make donations to causes I really want to help, it will be a select few. Quality vs. quantity.
  
• I will make a list of the quilts I need to finish in 2010 and complete those. Like many other quilters out there, I have projects in my closet that have been sitting unfinished for a few years. For instance, my Reversible Quilt and my Worn & Loved Arbor Windows quilt and many others I've probably forgotten about. I am not, however, ready to say I will complete those before I begin another project. I mean, come on!

That's it for now. I picked up a great little book last week at the Main Street Quilt Co. in Shelbyville. It's The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt. This is something I'd surely enjoy working on this weekend and into 2010. I'm thinking pinks, browns and creams. I'll keep you posted.

I've been busy!

It's been a while since my last post. I've been neglecting my 'personal' sewing and quilting for the sake of a business - Shirt Tales.

I really enjoy making t-shirt quilts. I was asked a few months ago to do one...and I said, 'sure, I can do that.' One turned into two and two turned into three, so I decided I should make a business out this.

I feel it is a great way to actually do something with the shirts and pieces of clothing that we've all got stockpiled and don't want to throw away...because it has such a cool logo or because I wore it to this event.

Why not turn them into something you can enjoy every day and something that you can snuggle with when it turns cold?

I'm personally not a fan of the traditional t-shirt quilt design with sashing and shirts that are all one block size. This design incorporates many sizes of blocks so you can use many different types of shirts and the look is a complete turn around from the old school designs.

So, if you know of anyone looking for a unique gift for the holidays or if you want to commemorate a special event like graduation, think about a ShirtTales quilt.

A whole lot of love goes into making these quilts. I love looking at all the t-shirts someone has given me and thinking about the good times they represent. This is not my job - it is a hobby.

Speaking of hobby...I would love to have the pair of pink pants I wore on my first day of school to use in a quilt for myself. They had a Holly Hobbie logo and image on the knee. I was so stylin' for my first day...complete with a note pinned to my shirt by my mom! I wonder where that outfit ended up?

Talk to ya'll later.

Shirt Tales is coming, and what I did this weekend.

I'm getting ready to launch my t-shirt quilt business online and locally. For the last few weeks I've been working on a new blog site, creating sample quilts and making plans on paper and in my head.

One of my plans in my head came together this past weekend. I'd had the idea of doing a quilt using kids clothing. This would essentially be a t-shirt quilt using kids clothes. We have no kids, so I hit a garage sale and Catholic Charities on Saturday in search of some clothes (not kids!). For less than $8 I found these items: a few little shirts, a sweet little dress with ruffles, a pair of corduroy coveralls, etc.

I made these buys on my way Effingham to Lori's Pins and Needles in Paris. The whole time I was thinking about my new purchases and what I would do with them. My plan called for using the t-shirt quilt method I've used previously and creating blocks from the clothing and sewing them together like a puzzle.

I picked up some fabric for the back while I was at Lori's and made my way home to get started. After washing the clothes I began cutting. I decided to keep one dress pretty much intact and sew it on to a block. The other patches of clothing would surround it.

On Sunday morning I finished my cutting and settled on a layout. I sewed the top, quilted it, sewed the binding on and began hand sewing the binding. It went together easily and before I knew it I was almost finished.

I visited another thrift store today to get some boys clothes for a different version of the quilt.

I'll take these sample quilts with me the upcoming Girls Night Out at the end of October. I'll officially launch my t-shirt business there with samples of my quilts, photos of other quilts, some awesome business cards and testimonials from my first clients!

Hope you like!

The fruits of our labor

My mom and I made six quarts of liquid gold on Sunday.

See.


There's gold in them thar jars. At least it feels like there should be gold in those jars after all the time and effort we put into getting just six quarts of tomatoes from pounds and pounds of tomatoes!


On Sunday we started working around 10 a.m. and didn't pull the jars out of the hot water bath until after 3:30.

Aren't they beautiful. Too pretty to use!