Gotta keep score!

I love how fast stuff grows on our desert island.  Now that our 6 hole putting course is taking hold, we gotta start keeping the statistics.  And if we're going to keep the stats, might as well display them for all to see!  This is why I love my cutting machine!

You can fix anything with a trip to Walmart.  I bought this big-ass whiteboard.  Pull that Sizzix eClips out of the closet, and off we go!  I cut the letters out of black vinyl, and voila!  

Now we get to celebrate the big accomplishments!

Screw cleaning, make something cute!

Wednesday turned into cleaning day in my craft room (my husband calls it my crap room.)

I fired up my computer and started the first season of Downton Abbey.  I figured that Lady Mary and the Turkish attache would make me feel better about organization.  It worked.  For a while.  Then I came across some big scraps of a fabulous fabric from Timeless Treasures.  (Before you start your internet search looking for this, I'll warn you that it's out of print.  I know, what were they thinking?)

OK, I'm done cleaning.  I've been eyeing a pattern I bought online, the Necessary Clutch Wallet by Emmaline Bags and Sewing Patterns (www.emmalinebags.com)  A match made in heaven!  I have no idea why I am so interested in making wallets all of the sudden.  I made one from a different pattern for Miss O, and it turned out adorable.

Now it's time to forage through the bins of batiks.  Needed some lining and pocket fabrics.  I'm so happy batik fabrics are so readily available here on Kauai.  It always seems like if you need something, but you don't know what you need, fling some batiks at it.

Start to finish, this project took about 3-4 hours.  With lots of lollygagging mixed in.

How cute is that?  Really cute, if I do say so myself.  As suggested in the pattern, I used Peltex stabilizer in the trim piece around the front flap.  It's kinda like fusible, flexible cardboard.  That stuff could stand up on it's own!  My first time with that heavyweight stuff and I am sold.  Love it.

This view illustrated how I chose to use this directional fabric and big print.  And you can kinda see my awesome topstitching.

There is a spot in the middle that can hold my cell phone and lipstick, increasing the awesomeness of this little specimen!  And I just love that I happened to have two coordinating batiks in my collection!  Score, and score again!

I put a big ass snap on the front to close it.  Not a magnetic snap.  I've had many a credit card lose it's swipe-ability from close proximity to a magnetic snap.  I used an old-fashioned regular heavy duty snap.  Here I go off on a tangent...one of the best things I have ever purchased was a really good snap tool kit.  It's called the Prym Vario snap kit.  I bought it ages ago, maybe while I was living in Singapore.

I use this thing more than you can imagine.  You can buy all sorts of pretty snaps to use with it.  But more importantly, you can attach these big, honking camping snaps or anorak snaps.  When you need a strong snap, nothing else will do.  But I digress.

The pattern for the NCW is delightful.  Well written instructions.  Most importantly, the finished product is one that is well thought out and useful.  I added an interior piece so that I can attach some kind of strap to it (the designer has a free download for this.)  I'm going to use this as a mini purse when I don't need the kitchen sink with me.

One more gratuitous shot of this beauty...

All in all, I'd say this was a delightful diversion for my Wednesday!  Screw cleaning, make something cute!

Quilters Without Borders

That sounds like a very altruistic undertaking.  Running about, around the world, curing people of their bad moods with brightly colored patchwork.  Let's try again for an appropriate header...

Quilts With Lots of Borders

Back to that beauty, the Aviatrix Medallion quilt.  After that center medallion, everything on this quilt is a border.  You gotta love these borders!

When last we spoke, or I guess I showed a picture, border 1 was attached.  That's the multi-gray HST border.  I've been busy.  I pulled out all the cut pieces for border 2 from their well marked baggie.  (Once again, feeling very clever for sorting the pieces and marking them!)  This was a pile of pretty.

Sewed all those strippies together, and border 2 was born.

The fun continues with border 3.  For some reason, I loved making these blocks.

It's all fun and games, until you realize you did something like this:

Oops.  Rippity-do-dah.  You know, it takes a big person to admit their mistakes.

So when I ended up with a giant pile of x/+ squares, time for a celebration.

The celebration got totally out of hand when the border was actually attached to the quilt.

Every step I take, every border I make, I like this project more and more.  Even my husband, unimpressed with his first view of the pattern, now believes this is the most awesome quilt he's seen.  He's a little slow, but I love him anyway.

Blooming orchids, Batman!

I like to have an orchid in my bathroom.  Here on Kauai, orchids are pretty common.  I mean, you can buy them at Walmart.  When they finish blooming, I take them outside and tie them onto a tree.  Then the hard part begins...it takes a lot of hard work and concentration to ignore them.  If you mess with them, they just die.  This is where patience pays off.

Eventually the roots grow enough that they cling to the tree and I can remove the green string.  That's when I start to feel really clever.  So pretty, you almost don't notice the giant plastic shed in the back yard!

15 Best Things About Being Close With Your Mom

Miss O posted this on my Facebook timeline, and it made my day.  Written by Alexandra Martell, it's definitely worth a read.

http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a29039/best-things-about-being-close-with-your-mom/?src=spr_FBPAGE&spr_id=1440_72273935

I even love the subtitle, "You're turning into her, and you love it."  Nicest compliment I've received in a while!

All about that quilt, the one with the rainbow of fabrics

I'm so excited about the quilt I am working on right now.  Let's see if I can catch up on my progress. The name of the quilt is the Aviatrix Medallion, by Elizabeth Hartman.  This is a picture of the quilt from her website, http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/

How do you not fall in love with this.  The colors are happy, the design is awesome.  It screamed at me when I first saw it.  I bought the fabric pack from Pink Chalk Fabrics, http://www.pinkchalkfabrics.com  I would have ripped my hair out trying to find all the colors on this island.  Score one for my sanity.

I decided to be a big girl and cut all my colorful fabric first.  Score two for my sanity.  I even separated them into zippy bags, as suggested by Ms. Hartman.  This is making me feel very clever.  I love feeling clever.

Blah, blah, blah...I got the center medallion put together!

Tad bit intense, matching all these intersections.  Well, pretty darn close to matching all the intersections.

Sew up eight points?  Check.  Sew on background fabric?  Check.

Realize the center sticks up like a little hill?  Crap.

Time for some Yankee ingenuity.  Rippity-do-dah.  I separated the four quarters and restitched the seams, grabbing a slight bit more fabric at the center of the star.  Put those little bastards back together, squint my eyes a little, now it looks so much better!  I actually considered cutting and stitching a whole 'nuther center.  Then I got over it.

You'll just have to trust me that it looks way better in this picture than it did in the ones above.  Add the first border, and voila!  On our way!

I like this so much, maybe I should make it into a cape so I can wear it.

If it is worth doing, it is worth doing in a giant, splashy way.

Well, it's true.  Back to the roots of the creative bug.  Sewing is the first creative endeavor that captured my heart.  So now I have taken up quilting.  It's been a whole year now.  So of course I go right for the huge payout.  The Aviatrix Medallion quilt by Elizabeth Hartman.

This is what you start with.  And if starting with this does not make you happy, does not make your heart sing, well you just need to move along because we can not possibly find common ground.