Sunday, January 29, 2012

A Flower in the Snow




I found this wonderful post on a fellow Canadian's blog that really hit home for me today. It is something I know I will need to read again from time to time so, I thought I would share a link.

The post is written by Donna at Funky Junk Interiors and is called Are you a flower in the snow? ~ inspiration for hard times
 
 Here's hoping we can all push through the snow...

 

Friday, January 6, 2012

New Antique Grandmothers Flower Garden Project


A few months back I purchased 80 hand pieced antique Grandmothers Flower Garden units on eBay. I had hoped to use them as is. The first thing I did after looking through all of them was to hand wash them. They were soaked in groups of 10 at a time in the bathroom sink using baby shampoo. I still can't believe how brown the water became after each group was washed. After rinsing, they were laid out to dry. When laying them out, I noticed that many of them were poorly sewn and many had pleats and puckers sewn in. Not all were the same size either.

I decided that the best route to go would be to take the blocks apart and re-do them using English Paper Piecing. I took the first 10 apart keeping the pieces for each motif together. They were ironed flat and the pieces for each flower held together with a clip.

When I measured the hexies, I thought I'd be able to use 3/4" hexagons. I ordered the paper pieces I'd need and then waited. They arrived about 10 days later so I set about basting the first pieces. That's when I discovered that some of the pieces were cut just a bit too small. I need to go with a smaller paper piece.

Once again, I went online to see if I can find 5/8" paper pieces. I found that Paper Pieces website will custom laser cut 5/8" pieces as well as other odd sizes! I ordered them and set about waiting again. Another two weeks passed by until they arrived in my mailbox. I basted a few pieces and this size is perfect! Now I can really get this project going!


Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Happy New Year & Goals

Yikes... I just looked at my blog's archive for last year. There are only 11 posts for the WHOLE YEAR! Seems hard to believe that 2011 went by as quickly as it did. Perhaps it's just a consequence of growing older that time seems to fly by at an ever increasing speed.

I'm going to go ahead and post my list of goals for 2012 (even though I said I would never do that).
  1. Clean and organize the sewing room once a month
  2. Find ALL of my UFO's, list and photograph them.
  3. Add the UFO photos to my blog
  4. Pick 3 UFO's to finish in the next 3 months
  5. Post to my blog more often
  6. Spend less time on the computer and more time in the sewing room

Happy New Year my friends!