It's curtains for you, my friend!

Another problem I had (notice the past tense) was that I hated my shower curtain.  Solution: Make One!

So here it is:

 

I love the way the flowers start out just a few at the top and get thicker at the bottom.  But see the horizontal seam in the first photo?  The fabric wasn't wide enough for the curtain and I didn't have enough for a second strip of this lovely border print. So I found an old white cotton sheet and pieced that for the top half of the curtain.  Then (and this is the part I love), I used some fabric paints I had on hand to paint the sheet part with pink and green and turquoise flowers so it looks like part of the same shower of flowers. 

Old Made Quilts

I forgot to tell you where I found my loom and instruction book!  It was another case of fingers faster than the mind. . . .but here it is: Old Made Quilts!   You've got to check them out! 

Bev was at the Houston International Quilt Show and I made a point of going by to meet her.  She's a wonderful lady and has some of the finest quilts I saw.  Plus, of course, the rug looms, which I love!

Some of her quilts use vintage hankies as embellishment--so clever!

What to do with all those scraps?

Sometimes it seems like my scrap bag is bigger than my stash!  Well, not really--I have a HUGE stash--but I also have a couple of 40-gallon plastic boxes of scraps in the garage.  And another 40-gallon box in my sewing room collecting scraps. . .and a bag of scraps......

Well, you get the picture..............

What to do with all the scraps?    MAKE RUGS!!!!

While looking for Tiger Tape one day, I found Old Made Quilts and their easy-as-pie rug looms...and here is the first result:

 This was made on their 15" x  15" loom, using a wide variety of fabric scraps.  I used a bit of silk, some upholstery cottons, some flannel, some quilting cottons, and some cotton knit--just whatever I had on hand.  I didn't always weave the strips in the 'right' way but I think it looks great!

For my second rug, I used strips cut from a set of flannel pajamas:

This one may be a little softer on the feet, just because it's flannel.  Here are my first two rugs:

I honestly can't say which one I like better--and I suppose it doesn't matter anyway!

The Sew Box

Check out this great site!!  This is the wonderful lady who wrote THE book on sewing machine attachments (titled, appropriately, The Sewing Machine Attachment Handbook--scroll down to the bottom of the page for details). I ordered a few things from her website (http://thesewbox.com) and almost immediately received a thank you email from Charlene herself!  How many times does that happen?

While I like browsing Joann's as much as anyone, it's much more important to support our 'local' retailers....and in the day of the internet, a 'local' retailer can be located anywhere in the world!  Even Ohio.........So, check out Charlene's book, find out what to do with that funny thing that looks like a medieval torture device but is really a ruffler, and check out her great sites!

From across the pond

Witte is a very little Scottish lady (born 1964 in Clydebank, Scotland) who lived in The Netherlands with a wonderful quilter named Ingrid and has just recently come to live with me! Here is a picture of Witte with her older sisters in the background. 

 Isn't she a lovely lady? Witte had several adventures coming across the pond. . . .which will soon be told.

There is another Scottish lady who lives at my house.

She was also born in Clydebank, Scotland, but way back in 1936.  I'm not sure how this very stately lady arrived in the United States and ended up in East Texas, so I guess I'll just have to make up a story about a lovely Scottish lady who met a handsome Texas lad while he was over in England preparing for the Normandy invasion. . . . . . .

It's been THAT long??

Since October 15?  My only excuse is that a lot of things have been happening--and I've been doing a fair bit of sewing, too!

Last week was the Houston International Quilt Festival. I was there Wednesday night with my good friend Maggie, on Saturday with my good friends Carol and Cindy, and then decided to treat myself with going back on Sunday!  And I'm NOT a quilter!!  But oh, the art, the skill, the IMAGINATION!!

Look at the detail here:

And here:

Isn't that just spectacular?

My favorites, though, are the dolls.  Like this one:

 Or these happy ladies:

My sincere congratulations to everyone who took part in the Quilt Festival--and especially to those vendors who were on their feet 5, 6, 7 DAYS--and still managed to smile!