August 2017

 After months of cold rainy days this winter and spring, we had no rain for nearly two months until today.  A fine misty rain fell for several hours. There were a few happy dances done in Oregon as the wildfire season has created it's usual summer havoc.

In addition, the wildfire smoke from the British Columbia fires drifted down and we had to breathe smokey air for the last two weeks.

I actually managed a garden this year by planting late. My dahlias are really coming on and this one just started to unfurl this week. Seems to be a spinner in the middle.

 My tomatoes are slow due to the late plant date but in a couple of weeks we will wish to never see another tomato.

 We don't have a dog anymore so my friends, Peter the Rabbit and Cottontail moved in, eating everything in sight.

Except the Basil. Apparently, they dislike basil. They love young cosmo seedlings though. I don't think they like nasturtium either but I'm not sure as they seem to be struggling to get going. The rabbits have provided decent entertainment.

Another reason to blog was given when a new reader searching for an airplane quilt stumbled across my post featuring an estate sale find of a vintage, (and in bad condition),  Lucky Lindy Quilt.

She is re-creating this quilt for her son who just became a pilot. She is hand-stitching her airplane blocks. To celebrate and help, I sent her some small scraps of some of my reproduction feedsack fabrics featuring my favorite subject. Airplanes.

I also shared with her the 8-inch quilt blocks and how they were pieced.

Textiles: Novelty Item: Snap Bag

 My county fair is going on all  next week. The lovely volunteer who tagged my items said there were even fewer entries this year. Which means most of my awesome sewing will win blue ribbons. Not because they are amazing but because no one else took the time.

I would hate to see the demise of the county fair in my lifetime.
My blue ribbons are worth four bucks!

Textiles: Potholder; my chicken potholder

 My son hiked in Yosemite this weekend and climbed Half-Dome after winning a hiking lottery earlier this spring.
They just got back so I look forward to amazing photos this week while sucking down overtime.

And my sis from Minnesota is visiting my daughter in Alaska with her family. This is at the top of Alyeska Resort looking down on Turnagain Arm outside Anchorage.

I love that both of my kids love photography. Such a cool hobby to share.

Around The World Blog Hop

 Welcome to the Around the World Blog Hop making a stop today on Running With Rocket.

I was tagged by Marilyn  of Shades of Bold to participate today in this Around the World blog hop that is traveling through the blogosphere.  Hopefully you will discover more about myself and why I blog and also to find some new blogs that just might make it onto your Bloglovin' list.

Marilyn makes stunning bags and so do I (humble :-)).  I love to sew and craft and I have a dedicated sewing room that I  finished two years ago. I've been blogging since 2008(!)- writing about sewing, my auto-immune, my airplane.  Yes,  I  live on an airpark. When we want to go flying, we roll open the hangar doors and pull the plane out. The runway is at the edge of my backyard. Which I also like to play in. I live on an acre where I garden - both flowers and the edible things. The blog has turned out to be a surprisingly good place to put all those flower photos.

Yes, I have sewn the cockpit cover and the luggage compartment for this all fabric Stearman Biplane.

My name is Kathy. I started blogging because I like writing and I take lots of photos. This  blog has turned into a big rambling journal for flying and flower photos as well as documenting items I've made. I don't know about you but my memory is going and I enjoy backtracking once in a while to view what I've made or to find a recipe that sits well in my tummy with my auto-immune.

I work in a day job that  is usually less than 40 hrs/wk but in the last three years, that job has turned pretty demanding. I need the creative outlet that sewing involves and I've made a couple of really cool bloggy friends over the years.

I've been sewing since I was four. It wasn't until I started blogging that I found out this was unusual. I started off sewing garments and designed my Barbie's clothes - I still have the tiny patterns. When I got married, I sewed a lot of my children's clothing and this is when I learned to copy Ready to Wear (RTW). The children's patterns at that time were about a foot too long with gigantic ease. My family has always been frugal so we learned how to read pattern layouts in order to buy less fabric than the envelope suggested.

 I sewed for years without a serger and I only bought one about four years ago and I love it.
Love It.   How did I sew so much without one - my Bernina serger is probably my favorite part of sewing now.

I will sew just about anything that tickles my fancy. I am also very good at saying "No" without any hesitation. This is my creative outlet.


Anyway, the Around The World Blog Hop asks us to answer the same four questions and at the end, I'll tag two more bloggers that I think you would enjoy and they will post next Monday.




1. What am I working on?
That pincushion above - I finished it yesterday afternoon. My bloggy friend Benta over at SlikStitches posted a little teaser photo of a gift for someone and it turned out the rest of us wanted one to organize our needles too.

How many types of sewing machine needles do you use? I have a variety because I sew through thin rayon all the way through leather. I buy them at garage sales because the price of fifty cents to a dollar does not make me swear as much when I break a needle at ram speed.

 The back side which will always be down had a little patchwork zakka moment. You'll notice a few of my favorite fabrics - some airplanes, some japanese, some mini-stripes.  I wanted to do this Benta-gift justice and post a huge thank you to her for doing the machine needles embroidery.

What - you don't know what this pincushion is for???
It's for when you need to change out your needle for another project but you feel there is still some sharpness left in the needle.   --Instead of putting them willy-nilly on the cutting table next to the sewing machine - ahem.

My other project: I'm waiting for these beauties to ripen. Another 20 days?


 2.)  How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I have a genre? Good lord. I suppose my projects differ because I can't stick to a pattern as written even when I do the writing/measurements. I'm kind of a think-as-I-sew sew-er. Let's just say I need to make it more difficult than it has to be.

Snap Bag. Paper pieced Bee.

 3.)  Why do I create what I do? I am 100% committed to handmade gifts. I make what I like or what intrigues me. My brain loves engineering and I enjoy figuring out how something was made.  I make copies from RTW  a lot. I like the detailing that you cannot find on home sewing patterns.
Taking time to create balances out the stressful parts of my life.
I sew garments as well as dabbling in quilting (tedious).

I give away most of what I make. The few remaining items get placed on Etsy. I am unable to make duplicates - just sayin'. Once I've mastered a skill, I'm ready to move on.

I made this tote bag for my niece. 
I had some internet inspiration but I did a design as you go construction.

4.)  How does my creating process work?
2 am. Seriously - don't you have the best thoughts at 2 am?
For instance, in the bag above, the reverse side is the reverse of the van - the back window flips out to feature a cell phone pocket.

I hope you enjoyed visiting me.

And now the Around the World Blog Hop goes on.  I have picked two great bloggers to be my taggees for next Monday:

 

Kyle from Vacuuming the Lawn is a great garment sew-er as well as bag maker. I noticed Kyle a couple of years ago commenting on the same sewing blogs I was reading.  She just sewed two stretch lace gym tanks and they are awesome. She blogs about her fitting intrigues and posts great flower photos from the Princeton Farmers Market. She recently made this gorgeous dress - go look at what she sewed!

 

Janine  of Crafty Tokyo Mama is someone I met during a SewMamaSew giveaway day. I was intrigued about her haunted house in Amity (oregon) and come to find out - she is from Oregon. She has lived in Japan for the last 25 years - most recently Kyoto. She sells her creations in her Etsy store - she is definitely good at making 1000 bags! and blogs about life in Japan and her sewing adventures at CraftyTokyoMama. She shows stunning photos of the different shrines and festivals that  make up Japanese life. She made this Patriotic Table Runner last month that I love.

one last airplane picture - 'cuz you know how cool it is to own one!
No - I am not the pilot - just the navigator. My hubby has his license. . When times are rough at the day job, flying in an open cockpit biplane is positively guaranteed to blow out the cobwebs. Or as we say, "reach out and touch the hand of God."

More random facts about kathy:
Worked in Southeast Alaska as a cook in a gold mining camp. Got to fly in a Beaver and a Huey.
I almost got my flying license.
I love small towns.
I've been sewing all my life.
My juicing/blendering supports my garden as well as the produce manager at my local Thriftway supermarket.
I like to embroider but I'm so done with cross stitch.
I require my daily Sudoku fix {or else}.
My favorite flowers are Iris's.
My old gardening goal was to be able to pick flowers any day of the year.
I love to travel and I'm headed to Kyoto next Spring.
Yes - you can travel with an auto-immune to a country that breathes in soy (#1 bad guy).
I won three blue ribbons (and one white) at our county fair this year.
I can remember four jokes at one time instead of three - making progress here!

Sewing:::  1. Why should you never iron your four-leaf clover?
You don't want to press your good luck.

Flying:::    2. What do you call an alligator who uses a GPS?
haha - a Navi-gator!

Busy Bees

 I started this snap bag about four weeks ago.

 The paper piece foundation comes from Badskirt.
I printed it on vellum which tore easily as I sewed the tiny pieces together.

 The bee did not know what it was going to turn into at the beginning.
It was  organic sewing at it's best. Decide as you go (as it grows).

 The back side was a textured white fabric that I had in stash - well -- all the fabrics were in stash.

 
Here's my vellum starter piece.
Badskirt's tutorial has you sew the bee in three parts.
The body, the wings and the forehead.

 These next photos are of me deciding which fabrics to use,
- - - how my bee morphed into a snap bag.

 More black, anyone?

 Soft green textured stripe almost made it to the finish line.
But then I found a seersucker check in soft blue-green.

Finishing up some other UFO's.
Summer is nearly finished - Labor Day is Monday.

Sewing A Custom Order

A customer contacted me a few months ago (!) about my snap bags on Etsy. At the time, I was still knee-deep in too much overtime but I kept the option open.

When w-o-r-k let up a bit, I contacted her and she was still interested - in LSU colors (Louisiana Tigers).

Two snap bags.
These measure about 7" x 6". Nice make-up bag size.

Here's a better sense of the Purple and Old Gold. My camera deepened the purple quite a bit.
I spent more on the fabric order than what I will make on this order. Not so much on the LSU color fabrics but on some serious airplane fabrics that hijacked my shopping cart.

So -- custom orders help you buy more fabric - right?

Trimmed in purple gingham and old gold rickrack, these play nicely with the LSU colors without becoming overwhemingly PURPLE.

PIllowcases & Snap Purses

 One of my favorite purses to make right now - the Snap Bag

 Sized to hold two bundles.
Pillowcases rolled up.

My sewing machine did not like sewing lace and rickrack over the seam line on the first pillowcase.
In fact, I had to use my seam ripper too many times on this project. I also had a rickrack disaster. The original rickrack was wider but when I started picking stitches --it dissolved into pieces. The rickrack fabric rotted!
I know the rickrack was old but I have never had that happen. It was sealed in it's original cellophane wrapping.
Smaller rickrack was substituted and actually sewed better- or I learned from my mistakes.

 Oops, one of the gold coins hidden in the case fell out.

 Deciding to gift the niece with this box was one of my better decisions this season.
Filled with paper scrunchies, this stuff is replicating - like Tribbles. This box came our way via a delivered gift and there are paper scrunchies everywhere underfoot. Yet, the box always seems to have more.
I placed the snap purse/pillowcases underneath so she would have to dig for her gift.

Won't she be surprised!

Pillowcase Instructions. 

Last year, Pencil Girl and I made pillowcases to donate at SewExpo  for the Mary Bridge Children's Hospital. We'll be doing that again this year.

Birthdays in December

Nine-year-old nephew has a birthday coming up. Last year he wanted dinosaurs which his amazing aunt found and they came wrapped up in a dino bag. He's still into dinosaurs. A friend suggested giving him one of my snap bags which, of course,  had to contain gold coins.

Rusty even thought about sending his favorite ball since it matched colorwise.

He thought otherwise by grabbing it just after I snapped the photo.

I made two bags and put one in the shop.