Knit Knotted Scarves

 Pencil Girl sent this photo to me this morning from her 4-H sewing group.
They made these awesome scarves made from old tshirts.

 I immediately replied with "Off with their heads!"
lol
I try not to show faces - especially if I didn't ask permission beforehand. I also rarely post photos of me. Nor do I name people when I post faces. All part of my internet confusion game.

Anyway - aren't these nifty? They cut one inch strips from the bottom of tshirts and knotted them together with a pattern from Linda Lee. Kind of like a big macrame project.

 I also finished this week my (stupid*%$#@&##) hedgehog bags. They have a front zippered pocket with vinyl so you can see inside. I sell them as Lipsense bags in my RunningWithHandmade etsy shop.

I was chatting with another sewing blogger about how someone should make (and photograph) all the ways you can make zipper ends for toiletry pouches for a quick look at BEFORE you sew.

I picked the wrong way - which worked on the first bag. However, the next ones rebelled.
Which started to  make me very grumpy until I sat down with my seam ripper and made them right. 

So, there!

 Hubs is dorking around in the hangar. Making everything onto rolling stock (if it didn't roll before), re-painting walls, generally being crazy. But, both planes do fit inside.

That J-5 (orange) is so almost ready to start it's engine and take it's maiden voyage.

 I made four rope bowls for gifts this last two weeks. Two sewing peoples guilted me into sorting my scrap bin(s) and afterwards, it was a quick grab of the ziploc bag to utilize small scraps in the color I wanted.

 One went to Finland, Two to the UK (with second winging it's way to Ireland), and the final one to my CreativeGirl friend.  I discovered, I had been remiss in making her an orange one (her favorite color). I have one more to make (later, much later) as a gift to another sewing friend. We'll maybe call her MarineGirl.

 We had some 34' nights recently - a little early, so I made haste and cleaned off my back patio, throwing the houseplants into the garage. That frost was a little too close for comfort.

This frog is a particularly ugly lumpy brownish green color - not the cute spring green of my other frogs.

My dear daughter, is on a fall camping trip from Seattle down Highway 101 to Yosimite. She stopped off for a very quick 21 minute visit, hauling our Christmas Present!

 How perfect it is. Got the mountains, the fly fisherman, the river, the floatplane. All etched on ceramic tile and then hand-glazed. One of a kind perfectness. Might be the best gift ever.

This from my daughter who lives in Alaska.
This photo was taken recently on the way to Seward. I just love this picture of the mountains with their dusting of fresh snow and the reflection in the water.

I'm planning to make note cards from this image.

Linking to the 2017 Elm Street Quilts BAG IT event.

Dahlias And County Fairs

 The dahlias are living the dream.

Bumblebees this morning looked like they were sleeping off a pollen binge.

The garden is behaving itself producing just a few raspberries for breakfast and a few tomatoes for lunch. None of that buckets of produce causing friends to turn and walk the other way when they see you coming with more zucchini. None of that pressure to can (haha - pun intended). Even the weeds are puny (knock on wood).

Time to see which items won blue ribbons at my county fair.

 This is not my quilt (I Don't Quilt) but I love the playful animals getting into adjoining blocks.

And this teal and aqua one? Yum.

 Through the display window - my chicken hotpad making tracks on the chickie wallhanging.

My Mr. Hedgehog lipsense bag was a fair favorite. I bought that fabric from my friend in Kyoto.

 And my only second place red ribbon.  I bought this tote bag as a kit. Determined to follow instructions, I disliked the size of this bag (giant towel bag) and the lack of color interest (beige blah). The night before I had to enter my fair entries, I conceived a brilliant plan of ironing on this Big Book saying. Ahem.

Yes, in my hurry, I ironed it on upside down. I had to rip out the whole pocket area and lining and re-sew the pocket so it could be read.  Even though it did not get a blue ribbon, that red is still worth two bucks!

I made $26 dollars this year - enough to buy another couple of yards of fabric.

And finally, my daughter was able to connive her way into another Denali flightseeing trip (third time this year!) and managed to get herself into the right-hand cockpit seat for a bird's eye view of the mountains in summer. Her aunt (my sis) took her family up to visit Alaska.

March Randoms

Lots of rain here in Oregon. We get a cold, snowy, icy winter about once every ten years. Our spring, which can be as long as five months, is getting off to a slow start. The occasional dry day yields awesome photos.

Today, we have a dry day, yet the rivers are all very close to flooding. Another two days of rain and there is a rumor that we will have two dry days in a row. Woot!

Spotted at my creative friend's shop, Retro Revival, here in Canbyland.
The best blue hat ever.

I can't help but wonder who wore this hat and who encouraged her to wear it.

Creative girl won't let me have this plane.

But I did find some airplane wrapping paper at the dollar store when I was scrounging for green gifts for St. Patrick's Day.

Busy with trying to get  my spring pruning done on the (so far) one dry day off I've had from work. Hopefully the long-range forecast for a dry Sunday will happen and I can get the grapes pruned. Maybe the sweet peas planted......

Up in Alaska, they are having a good snow year. Unfortunately the moose find foraging difficult when a snow year happens and they are quite cranky this year. Taken near where my daughter lives. I don't actually know who to acknowledge the video to.

I haven't made time to sew lately, too much on my plate, getting a little cranky myself.

Travel Purses; Part One

 My daughter is traveling soon to Sweden & Finland. I think Russia too. Instead of looking through the family photos and finding the Swedish relatives and addresses, I chose to make her a purse set.

This first purse is the 2 Zip Hipster sewing pattern by Erin over at Dog Under My Desk Patterns.
I haven't made one since my trip to Japan over a year ago.

At the time, I wanted the bag to be a bit wider and I thought I took good notes but found I could be more specific about writing down which changes I made. A couple of mistakes in cutting were easily fixed because I sewed this in Cork fabric.

If you haven't worked with cork fabric yet, order some. Very easy to cut and sew. The edges don't fray. It's easy to add a short piece on if you made a cutting error.
Cork fabric is also weather resistant & mold resistant. This cork fabric comes from Portugal and is a sustainable natural  product. It's seriously awesome for bag making.
I bought mine here.

I had to pet it for a year before I could bear to cut into it. I have mostly used up my natural color cork and still have some of this sea foam color. I need to order more but it's pricey.

 I found some Paris map fabric last year with dear daughter (the traveler) in mind. Along with it is some world map fabric that coordinates. I hadn't bought the seafoam cork yet so it all added up to serendipitous sewing

.

This bag has an outside zippered pocket and behind that a slip pocket - perfect for traveling. It also has a zippered pocket inside - the pattern only calls for a slip pocket but I add a zippered one inside because it's more secure.
The top zips shut easily with a big purse zipper and the strap can be worn over the shoulder or cross-body.

In fact, I didn't have enough natural cork for the strap and I didn't want a seafoam color strap, so I robbed the strap off my Japan bag ( which I had robbed from a garage sale bag). Never say I am not into recycling.

Yesterday, I received some small tassels - God bless Daiso - from Janine in Japan. They are too short for my bag. However, Kyle's turquoise tassel is too big. Need to make one. Then this bag will be done.

Except, I'm making two more bags as a set. The coin purse which attaches to the inside dangly strap (airplane ribbon) and a passport wallet.
I have the coin purse done to blog about another day. Need to cut out the passport wallet tomorrow before work.

Does anyone else hide from their trip photos? I probably took 1600 photos when hubs and I went to Sweden and Finland 4 years ago (Summer posts in 2012). I was supposed to put the family ones in a photo album and send to the 2nd cousins in Mariehamn (Åland Islands between Sweden & Finland).
Did I? ..ahem...shhhh...I'm sewing.

If I can get them printed, I could send them with dd and save on postage.

Don't even talk to me about  my Japan photos.

And here's a gratuitous photo of my work apron. Pencil Girl sewed a front panel for me as a birthday gift. How sweet is that?

Of course, it will be ripped to shreds in a few months (unsafe equipment).
Don't look too close - this is the guys restroom - it looks marginally better than the gals bathroom.

Portland Timber Sewing

 Dear daughter is working in Alaska this winter. She's got a sweet deal baking at a ski resort with employee housing, discounted  yoga and skiing, sauna, & fun. Way more fun than I am having at my work.

Anyway, last winter, she was traversing Central America countries for five months (Guatemala, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua). I couldn't send her anything as the mail is so unreliable to those countries. We made a video of us opening her stocking but it wasn't the same.

This year, I sewed her a 'disposable' stocking out of the Canby Herald and filled it will all the usual stocking stuffers I have FIVE days before the actual day. (Can you say scramble?)

 DD is the ONLY Portland Timbers (soccer) Fan in Anchorage and on my recent foray into Fabric Depot, I found some team fabric. I made her two cosmetic zippy bags with clear vinyl fronts for whatever.
 
I am actually making three sets - I have two other people who need these as well. I finished two large and one medium earlier today and I'll finish the binding on the other three (one large and two medium) on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Maybe tonight.

I had to run to the stores for the aforementioned extra stocking stuffers so maybe my scramble break will get my accurate sewing mojo back

I dislike making multiples for precisely the reasons I experienced today.
I had some bad wonder under (double sided adhesive fabric) that would not release on the second side. I had to re-cut and toss that stuff in the garbage and find my other bolt. Top-stitching problems. The machine gagging on the binding I was top-stitching which necessitated opening up the bed of the machine to unwind it  and retrieve it.

All problems associated with being tired and Christmas sewing deadlines.

I prevailed and I just need to top stitch the binding on the other two sets to make them gift-worthy.

Tomorrow is my last 12-hr workday (1 hr lunch)

For these zip pouches, I hand cut (fussy cut) the logo part from the fabric, used Wonder Under to iron on the patch and then did a tight zigzag around it. My base fabric was a dark green batik that offset the neon bright yellow background of the Timber's fabric very well.

The back side is that yellow Timbers fabric and is also bonded to the dark green with Wonder Under.  --  Ha! just noticed I forgot to take a photo of the backsides. Well - no light now.

  Clear vinyl in front and zippers from my stash at the top. Then bound with grosgrain ribbon (did not like the curves) and some black 1/4" double bias tape I also had in stash (which did like the curves!)

Everything is packed into a medium flat rate box. It usually takes three days to get to where she is. Here's hoping Santa does his part.


Our Christmas traditions really start Christmas morning. I start making my Danish puff pastry and then we open our stockings while that is baking.
We all get lottery tickets to scratch off next to the fire.
Then my husband says he will take them to the store to make sure everyone got their prizes. And we all laugh, 'cuz we never see our winnings.
We enjoy our Danish Pastry topped with icing and slivered almonds.
We finish unwrapping our gifts and then it gets busy with two stops for other family celebrations.

What are your traditions or what is your favorite part?
Wishing you a Merry Christmas.


***Update - Christmas Eve. Santa delivered. You rock Santa!