UFO Challenge mistake

Well, I apparently looked at the post and didn't notice the number was at the bottom and not the one in the top . Okay so this is not making any since. I thought the March number was 1 and now I see this months post for April and realized it was at the bottom of the counter that I should have been looking. This month, well April the UFO to use is 2, and March was supposed to be 4.  Not that I got to it in the first place, but I have been working hard on the two I was supposed to complete for Jan. and Feb. That is when I have been in the sewing room this last two weeks. I hate feeling like this and I am so happy that I have gotten better, even though I am not what I would call good yet.
I started working out this week, and even though I am still not consistent with it I have at least gotten back to it. I feel better and have more energy, to do the things I should as well as the things I want to.
Well, what are you challenging yourself with lately? I get excited when I check out so many blogs and see what others are doing. I think wow I want to do that, but I don't know if I can. Hmmmm I think I can do anything they can so I am going to start doing just that. I love how so many have these consistent little things they do. Even if it is the only thing they post for a month or more. They always post that one day. Fearless Friday, Wordless Wed., Made for you Mon. Tue. trials. I see them and think I should do that, then I say in my head," you know you won't do it every week." I want to change, I want to be different, I want new in my life. I want to post without whining. I want to be exciting and fun and interesting. That Man Quilts always has a new story about his daughter, or his yard, or .... Did I mention I sat out in the front yard for hours last weekend and watched the cute little boy ( well 15 or 16) from across the street work in my front yard and clean out my flower beds. I read a book, that I was not really interested in, until almost the end, and I felt alive for the first time in months. LOL Okay so I didn't just watch him work, before he got here I raked like six or seven bags of leaves up, we have Red Oaks and the hold their leaves until the spring when they start putting on new ones, so we have to do our raking in the spring not the fall. I need to go out in the back yard today and do the same thing, but guess what I won't, I am headed to the sewing room when I get off here.
I had some computer problems the first of the week, and I though I had them fixed until last night, when it seemed to freeze up on me. So I got on today and started cleaning it again. I used a different cleaner this time than I did last time, so maybe it will be fixed this time. The sad thing is I got it from a website that I have been going to at least once a month for over a year. I sent the owner a email telling her it had happened, and no one read it they just sent me a form email saying I could change my email choices by clicking on this link. Sad that no one even seemed to have read the email I sent.
Well, hope you have a wonderfully quilty weekend.
Tennye

Anniversary Today

Well, I was just thinking this week, and I missed it again. Today is not actually my anniversary, it is the 16th of March. So next month I will be having an anniversary give a way. I will be posting more information about it soon. I will be looking forward to you posting comments to me after the gifts have been posted. Please do not post you comments until then.
Until later, have a quilty day,
Tennye

Check This Out I Did

Well, this give a way sounds like fun to me, and it gives me a chance to build up my stash. Laugh out loud please, as you have to know my stash is huge now. This lovely lady is having a blog anniversary and doing a give a way so stop by and say Hi.
http://susanintexas.blogspot.com/  when you do tell her you heard about her from me.
Have a quilty day,
Tennye

Bag, Bags I Made Some Bags

 Hi, all I had a busy week last week. Knowing I was going to a seminar this weekend I thought it would be nice to have a healthy sized bag  to carry my books and lunch and snacks for the event. I have had two  of these large bags cut and ready to sew for weeks now, so I got one out and put it together. Then I just kind of went crazy and made little bags to go with it.
So let me show you the set and then each one.

I know most of you know I am kind of partial to purple so there is a theme for the bags. LOL

The long thin bag was made using fabrics my cousin bought while I was in Ft Worth visiting my Aunt and helping her learn how to use her new sewing machine. My Aunt was not up to much as she was still recovering from major surgery so my cousin and I played with the new machine and she learned a lot from making a bag just like this one.
  I have made several of these and given all but one away, so I think I will keep this one, I really like the colors on it and I am even kind of proud of the quilting. 
  So on to the others, I have been trying for several years to make a Kleenex holder for the little pocket size pkg.s. I think I talked about it last time, but in case I didn't let me tell you I have made five or six and not one of them would hold the pkg the way I wanted them to. Yes, I did make one that was big enough, but really it was too big and just looked sloppy to me. Others have been too small, or way too small, or just plain not what I thought they should be. I made the cutest fabric box while trying this time, but forgot to get it out so I could put it in the pictures. Not sure what I will do with it, but I will figure it out. I won't put Kleenex in it that is for sure.

  Sorry the picture is a little fuzzy that is what happens when you crop it out of another picture. I am kind of upset over that, I didn't intend to delete the original picture, so I saved it before I started cropping. Guess what I lost it anyway. Oh well ,I still have all the bags and can take another one if I need it. I just planned to crop out the other one and show it as well, now I guess I need to learn what I did wrong so I don't do it again. I have learned so much about how to use my computer and the internet since I started this blog. If you use this stuff you really end up figuring it out or quitting and that was not part of my plan. The plan was so different to what it has turned out to be.

So here are the pictures of the big bag , I wish I had made the strap longer, but hey I still have another one cut out so I will make the adjustments to it when I make it. I did take the time to sew up the piecing on that one while I was at the machine last week, but I don't have enough fusible batting to make it so I will need to get out the fusible web and do it that way.

I know it is not easy to see, but at the top left of the bag as you look at it you might see the little pocket I added that is just the right size for my blackberry. I only have the center of the sides tied together in these pictures, but you can tie it all together so it looks like the sides are pleated in. 

I really enjoyed making the bags and I loved using them for my event. This is the one I made that I have made so many of  and I  have shown most of them to you here, but this is the  one, LOL the first one I have made for me and plan to keep. 

 The one in the center is the one I am talking about. I did figure out what I did wrong last time and was able to crop this out of the first picture I posted. Yea!!!!

Well, I guess it is time for me to get on to the next thing for today. I was going to watch some TV and relax, but my daughter is recording and has asked for the house to be quiet while she does it. I don't need the TV on while I do what I need to so I agreed to turn it off. I was supposed to be at Bible study tonight but it is Spring Break for the local schools so they canceled, only I didn't get the email until I got there. Not a problem I just worked on the next lesson in the classroom and had some nice quiet time to do it.

Yall have a quilty week and I will talk to you soon.

Tennye

Blogs I follow and other stuff

  Well, I have been trying to catch up on what the people out there are up to. You know the ones I follow, because Google lets me do that, and for what ever reason my dashboard is only showing me one. I can usually read a lot of them, Not Today.

  Okay that is all for my ranting, sorry. My lovely daughter was invited to a baby shower this week and she forgot until Sun. afternoon and I thought I would like to show all of you what she decided to do so here is a photo.
  Well, as has happened for a while now I can not make this cake stand up in the right direction. I think she did a wonderful job though and just had to share.

I have been working on a couple of bags for a week or so, and today I tried to figure out what I need to do next. It seems that this bag would make a lot of people very happy if they could buy one, but to make it is going to cost me at least 15.00$ or maybe 20$. That means I would have to charge twice that and include more for my time, as it is taking a lot. I wonder if anyone would be willing to pay 50$ or more for a bag to put stuff in??? I will post photos when I finally get them both completed.
I have got to vacuum the living room so I can get the Lizard quilt layered for quilting, and I do not look forward to crawling around to do that. I usually have a great deal of pain for days afterward, I do wish there was a better way. I guess there is, but I have had more problems trying to get the layers on the frame so I do not use it. One day I will get a friend to come help me figure out what I am doing wrong.
I will be at a seminar all weekend and who knows what the next day or two will hold, so if you don't hear from me please have a very quilty week.
Tennye

Rulers I may have an obsession

   Well, I am waiting for my daughter to come home, so I will know if she has pneumonia. The Dr. sent her for an x-ray to be sure. She was sick all last week, and went back to work this week, but really has not felt good enough to be there. So when she got to work today and the phones were not working (she answers the phones for a Pediatricians office), she called the Dr. to see why she seemed to be getting worse instead of better.

Well, this is just a sampling of my rulers layed out on the table. The one in the middle is my favorite ruler. I use it for most of my cutting straight lines. It is O'lipfa and it has a lip on the edge that will hug the mat to keep it straight on long cuts.

As you can see I have a wide selection of other rulers, many of them I have never used. Some I bought just because I thought they would help me in the future,others I bought for a specific quilt I planned to make. Like the ones up top in the middle. It came with a pattern to make cute fish blocks. I have stored them and as that sometimes goes I can't remember where I stored them.

Okay this one I bought because .... well I really don't know why, and this is the kicker, I don't know how to use it either. Some of it I can understand, but really not enough to use it. If you recognize it maybe you can comment and tell me how to use it. LOL
You can see the lip on my fav. right there on the left. I do love that lip.

As you can see these two are quilt in a day rulers. I love Elanore Burns and I have more books of hers than I do of any other quilt author. I have used this one on several occasions, but not the larger one, I even have plans for another quilt that will use this one. Do you have a favorite quilt author that has rulers to go with her/his books?
Then this one is the one I bought because I had to make a quilt with out a pattern and I had a vision for another one to go with it. The circle ruler was the vision quilt, and it has not been made yet.

I even went out and got a special rotary cutter to use with this one, as you can see the regular one would never make it around those curves. I hate this about me, but I think fear that it won't work is the reason I have not used this one. So today I may just go in the sewing room and give it a shot. You see that is one of my 2011 goals, over come the fears I have in quilting. Last year it was to challenge myself, this year over come fears.
Now this little jewel is gonna be fun to use and I have looked forward to having time to get it out and use it. I just keep saying I need to complete the ones I have started before starting any more new  ones. That is a good idea right.

 Spinning Star will have many inset seams when putting it in a quilt, unless I chose to applique it onto a block. To do that I might as well just use the Dresden plate ruler. Well, it isn't quiet the same, but close enough.

That one is on the table somewhere let me see if I can find it and post it too.

Well, it was there, but I can't seem to find it in the photos.So on to the next ones.
I have used the heart for many things, up to and including as a quilting line for three different quilts by hand and by machine. Then I got the Fons and Porter thingy and I have not used it yet.

I have a definite plan for the diamond. That is for a beautiful quilt with stars that are two colors and if done with the correct color choices ,look like they are three dimensional. I get so excited when I even think about making that one. I do love stars.

  The little 3 1/2 inch square is one I use for making my scraps usable . No I have not forgotten about getting our scraps under control. I am working on it and taking pictures along the way. The there is the add a quarter, they come in several colors, and this one just happens to be yellow, it may have to do with the brand, but I don't know. I use that most often when I am making a quilt the old fashion way with templets, instead of rulers and rotary cutters. Although I usually do the actual cutting with a rotary cutter if I can.
So that is my special edition for this week, not that I won't be posting again this week, I may. So have a quilty day.
Tennye

FYI Blog and Email

  I didn't know this lady however her story is one that could happen to any of us if we are not careful so I have re-posted her blog post from another blog I follow. Sorry for two posts today, I just thought this was important.

Wait until you hear this!

Because of a new droid cell phone that requires a gmail account, one was set up for me at Verizon when I got my phone. So, silly me, thinking I didn't need the old gmail account anymore, I deleted it. What a shock to find that account was linked to my blog, so of course now my blog is totally gone.

I've dug on the web a little bit, and this is a common occurence, but there's not an easy answer. Even if I was successful in reactivating my old google account and getting my blog back, the photos seem to be gone forever. So I googled my blog name and found some cached pages which may help remind me of what's important to re-post and a list of the blogs I follow. But my Followers and everyone will now get a notice that my blog is gone, and I have no way of knowing who all of them are.

Would you please post a note on
your blog about this with a warning to everyone NEVER to delete that gmail account even if they don't use it or think they need it. If they want to keep their blog, they need it. I just didn't remember that it was necessary to have a couple years ago when I set up my blog.

I have a new blog already, but there's nothing in it. However, I'm going to post this and hope everyone will be able to find me again, perhaps with the
help
of some of my bloggy friends. It's a different name: http://pinelandstreasures.blogspot.com/


 Have a quilty day,
Tennye

Just a re view of the projects I just completed.

Well, as many of you will remember I was busily working on some projects last week that had to be finished quick.  I dropped them off at the store before I left town for the weekend, to visit my aunt who just had surgery. We came home very early Tue. morning and I just never got to the blog. I had to get caught up on all five emails and the snail mail as well.
So here is the wall hanging I have been working on.

Then I made a jeans recycle bag. I was also able to
use up some small scraps on the bag too.

Because of the pattern on the jeans it is hard to see that this is the back pocket on the jeans. I planned some of the cutting that made it a little easier to make than the pattern actually called for.
'Tomorrow I have a little fun to share with you. So until then have a very quilty day.
Tennye