My guild’s annual field trip to shops around middle Tennessee!
Tag Archives: quilt guild
Quilting Dramas
Who knew?
Recap and Upcoming
Hi!
Saturday we had so much fun! It was a different experience going to a “mixed” craft fair. We were one of few completely handmade booths; there were a lot of booths were people were sales reps for bigger products, like Tupperware and those “it works” wraps…which we all know don’t work. We did pretty well, and we’re looking forward to participating again next year.
We also have an upcoming fair that’s in our little town!!! On Halloween we’re going to be at the Pleasant View Tent Sale at 1550 Dowlen Street Pleasant View, TN 37146. There will be kid friendly activities, pumpkins to paint, lots of vendors! And candy!! It’s sure to be a really fun event. If you’d like to find more info, here is a link to the event’s Facebook page.
So recently we’ve been working on a number of items to add to our shop, and really trying to crank them out. Mel’s been working on turning some antique quilts into pillows and hoop art, and I’ve been working on coloring book portfolios. We’re both just working away diligently, and we’ll try to work on other items once we feel like maybe we’ve got enough. We both feel like you can’t have enough though!
I also have some other projects to work on, I’ve got my Michael Miller challenge, which I may work on at the Guild meeting tomorrow. I’ve got a quilt top that I plan on giving as a Christmas gift, so I should probably get that quilted, and I’ve decided to make another quilt for a Christmas gift, so yea…there’s that. O_O Oh and I’ve signed up to be a part of our guild’s Secret Santa swap! Because I need more to sew.
I won’t be able to post the Christmas gift quilts until they’re gone to their homes (OBVIOUSLY, HELLO!!! SPOILER ALERTS!) But I’ll get them posted with their little stories as soon as I can.
So what have you been up to out there? Sewing away? Crafting it up? Us too. 🙂
Until next time, happy sewing!
Still here!
So, we did get the house! I know you were all waiting on pins and needles. It just took a couple of weeks longer, but now we’re in and making it new and ours. 🙂
Home Sweet Home!
We’ve spent almost one whole week in the house now, and it’s been a week of pulling up carpet, deep cleaning, questioning the dirt levels some people will live with, and buying basically everything. Lucky for me the devil has provided me with some easy tips on how to get some things clean easier than elbow grease. I am running low on elbow grease, and my slight carpal tunnel syndrome likes to act up at the worst possible times. “Oh, you need to scrub a tub? Here let me make your hand feel like it’s falling off!” #thanksobama (lol)
Luckily all this waiting is really starting to pay off. The floors will be completely finished Saturday (because golf course green is a bad color for carpet) and the painting starts today. Our washer and dryer came on Tuesday, which…okay I’ve only ever had “traditional” washers. We now have a Maytag that doesn’t have an agitator (fine) and uses low water (okay) and it senses the load size (alien technology) and it’s a little weird. It needs the middle to be uncovered when you load it…but won’t it get recovered once the load starts going? What was the point of me digging out the middle? I digress. It works plenty fine and if it makes my water bill lower that’s great. I am going to get started on my sewing room once the floors are done and I get it painted (pepto bismal pink is a bad color for walls. One accent wall, okay, all 4 walls? AND ROSES BORDER WALLPAPER? no thank you.) and get a rug in there. I’m very excited to get that going. I really need to sew. Real bad.
Green Carpet…Pink Walls….rose wallpaper border O_O
Al was very pleased with this floor choice. He doesn’t blend in now!
While I’m at it, lime green and Thomas Kinkaid little houses border wallpaper don’t go well together either. Just a little word of advice. Funny house happenings so far: I’ve locked myself in the backyard at least three times so far. The back is fenced in and the gate is strange…it latches from the outside? and there’s some kind of pole to keep it closed? The door that goes out back will turn on the inside if it’s locked or not, and yea…I’ve fallen victim to it. Also there is a creepy ball that was left in the back yard that keeps reappearing. I have thrown it away three or four times, and it kept showing back up in the yard. I’ve now cinched the bag that it was thrown away in and it has moved its way to the top of the bag. I’m pretty sure it’s haunted.
In other news, my quilt guild’s Christmas party is this Saturday!!! Pretty excited about that!!! Secret Santa?! Dirty Santa?!?! ALL THE SANTAS!!! I thought I was going to have my kitchen situated enough to make something for it, but looks like I’m going to be picking up something :O
I’ll post more before and after pictures soon, I don’t want to give it all away yet!
Until next time! Happy sewing! I’ll be able to join in soon! 😀
Update!
Okay, sorry Internets. I have been a bad blogger, but honestly nothing really blog worthy has been going on. 
I went to last month’s quilt guild meeting, which is always fun! We decided that this year we are going to have committees again, and I’m on the communications committee. oh yea! So the first order of business was to try to spread the word about a community sewing event we’re having to make these NICU smocks for Vanderbilt Hospital. It’s going to be fun, there are foods and giveaways, so if you happen to be in the Nashville/Franklin TN area and want to know more either leave a comment below or email our guild at musiccitymodernquilters@yahoo.com
Besides that, it’s just been house business. After the first house deal fell through we got right back in the saddle and we found a home that’s actually got a few more perks going for it. It doesn’t have the land we were looking for, but it’s closer to both of our jobs, in a pretty quiet neighborhood, and it’s still out of the hustle and bustle of Nashville. If all goes well we’re looking to close before Thanksgiving (yes, just a couple of weeks from now holy cow) then get it ready, paint, floors etc, then hopefully be moved in completely before Christmas! 😀 There will still need to be trips made “to town”, and I’m thinking I’m going to start strictly buying fabric online (much to my husband’s dismay) because the closest JoAnn’s is about 30-40 minutes away and..there is a Hobby Lobby maybe a little closer…but…anyway.
I really want to sew again, so I’m hoping the fixing up of the house goes really quickly and smoothly. Not going to lie, I also really have a ton of TV to catch up on. Also…Netflix. I am also looking forward to fixing up the house for Christmas, making everything look nice, the whole 9 yards. Right now we’re just waiting for everything to be processed and the bank tell us what day we can close.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this picture of the goats:
can you see them? They are near that tree kind of in the middle. If they hear anyone near the fence they come in a hurry!
Until next time, happy sewing!
The Danger that IS Sewing and Quilting!
DUH DUN DUM!!!!
Okay this is one of those “this will never happen to me” situations. I’ve giggled at my sewing machine’s manual with all its warnings that say “or you may be injured”. I have heard of people using rotary cutters and nicking and slicing (OUCH!) fingers and hands. I’ve read about people sewing over their fingers! Needles in fingers, ER visits, all of it!! I have just been over here saying “well it’s a good thing I’m never going to be injured while sewing! Because I’m overly careful and worry!”
No avoiding it. You’re risking your life any time you sit down to sew.
Famous. Last. Words.
On Sunday, February 9th I was in the shower, because I’m a human and I shower, and all of a sudden, I pulled a muscle. It was as if my arm and shoulder just fused together and my head wouldn’t move. It was not fun at all. I do not recommend it. So, I decided it was best to cool it or at least tone it down for my exercise. I go to zumba and step aerobics at my local YMCA a lot of days of the week. I started to feel like I was on the mend, and I went to step again, and everything was fine until we started to stretch and I felt like my arm was trying to pull itself off of my body. I invested in a hot water bottle, which is amazing by the way. It’s not like one of those heated pads with beads or seeds or corn inside. This sucker is hot, and when one side starts to cool, you flip it and somehow the other side is still hot! I don’t know what kind of magic it’s using but I love it.
My quilt guild meeting was on Saturday the 15th, and I was really excited because we were having a free-motion quilting lesson. I have dabbled in free-motioning, and I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos. I mean, a lot…of YouTube videos. So an actual in person lesson and “how to” was what I felt was the final step I needed. I was very pleased! I think for a first real effort at stippling I did pretty well. Other times I’d made a little flower, and I’ve written my name in sort of cursive. I knew loading and unloading my machine in my little rolly tote wouldn’t be so great on my shoulder, but it would surely be fine, right?
Pretty little FM-flower!
Sort of cursive Ashley!
WRONG. Sunday morning I woke up and it was much worse. I stayed on the hot water bottle a lot. I have figured out what it was that has rekindled the injury. When you free-motion, you move the fabric around, and the way I did it I think I rotated and moved my shoulder too much for the situation it’s been in. I haven’t really been able to sew much either, simply because it hurt so badly to move my arm for more than a few minutes at a time.
But not all hope is lost! It’s been almost a full two weeks since the initial injury, and I would say I’m at 97% this morning. My biggest pains lately have been when I look to the left, but now even that has subsided greatly.
This week, was also my birthday! YES! I love my birthday! Everyone saying happy birthday to me! I get things! Okay I love getting things, I think I may have mentioned that before…I like when people even say they want to give me things…but then actually getting things is probably the best thing ever!!!! So, for my birthday this year I got something so awesome, SO AMAZING!! When I sew, I like to jam out. I mean, I kind of blare my music to where you can hear it all over the house, and my husband is like uh, can you turn it down? So then I use my kitty ear headphones, which were another birthday present from either last year or the year before, and are amazing and cute and I love them and they’re from Japan!!!! Well, the only problem is when I use my headphones I’m tethered. I have this cord hanging between me and my phone, so I put my phone on my sewing table but then my arm fights with it while sewing, so I put my phone in my pocket and this and that and the other and it’s kind of a big cat-astrophe. (you get it? because they’re kitty headphones?! YES!) So, I have been thinking about these bluetooth speakers. My husband thought the same thing, and bam! I have the CUTEST little bluetooth speaker, and while it is small, it is LOUD! I recommend it highly. It’s a Logitech mini boom, it’s maybe 4″x3″ or so, but it is SO loud!!! Which, I love…I can’t listen to Kanye and Pink Floyd and Jewel (yes, all of them) on a medium to low-level. When I go HAM, jam out to Money, or even get a little emotional singing Adrian, it needs to be loud!!! (If you don’t know what going HAM is, just know it’s an explicit version of going hard.) And…we can’t leave out the “it’s all coming back to me now” karaoke sessions that are obviously going on in my sewing room.
Gettin my sew on!!
The single best thing ever. ❤
I hope you’re all having a lovely week as well!
Until next time, Happy Sewing!
Cute Fluffin Stitch 