More morsbags

Amanda & Dan did make it in the early evening, and by that time the house was nice and tidy. I wasn't surprized when Amanda wanted me to show Dan all the quilts I had made/was working on, but when she suggested that he make a MorsBag right away I kind of just went with the flow. Me, stop people from sewing?! never!

So we pulled up the pattern on the computer and Dan picked out fabrics (this process took much less time than I would have expected.. i totally wanted to play with my stash a bit more). I cut, Amanda ironed, and Dan learned how to use the sewing machine. It was pretty cool. He was very patient with the two giddy crafters, and in just under an hour, he had a new shopping bag. (pics of the final product forthcoming.....)

Amy's visit

Amy and I have been friends for ages, since way back when we used to run all over Kyoto, write stupid essays in Japanese, and complain about our O-kas. She has always been a huge supporter of my creative efforts. When she told me she was taking a class at City Quilter and wanted to come over and sew together, I decided to make her a little sewing kit. We all know that having cute things makes working on any task more enjoyable, deshou?

It is similar to the other sewing kits I've made but I changed the size so it would hold a pair of crane scissors and (shock) I finished it in just under 10 hours. The front is machine pieced and hand quilted, the inside is a mix between machine and hand work. The best parts about making it were:
+the front plum blossom fabric is one that I've been coveting in my stash, not knowing how to use. I'm so glad she picked it.
+everything came from my stash, even the zippers.
+after having sorted my scraps a few weeks ago, I knew exactly where to find that bit of brown bias tape for the edges.
+Amy likes it!
It was a quick visit but we were able to catch up on a lot of things. I only barely scratched the surface on all the quilting things I wanted to tell her, but there's time. Already she has identified an interest in Denyse Schmidt and the first block she drafted showed a lot of original style. Ah. I just have this wealth of knowledge (read: internet links, blogs, etc) that she needs to look at, but I don't want to overwhelm her. Hopefully the hobby will stick and we'll have a chance to sew together again soon. At any rate, I hope she has patience for all the links I'm about to start sending her...

Pajama pants

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day. I got up early to drive Costas to the airport, and I don't know if it was the sunshine on the drive back, or the realization that I had the entire weekend to myself to sew, but I was in a really good mood and my motivation level was high. His flight left wicked early, so I got home, cleaned the house, played on line a bit, and finished a few more t-shirt blocks all before Makiba called at 11. She wanted to make pajama pants, so I told her to come over.
As I may have mentioned, Makiba, though very stylish and creative, is not as craft-obsessed as I am. She needed to come over to make the pajama pants because (a) she doesn't have a sewing machine, and (b) she hadn't used one since junior high. Now, you know, I don't sew clothes. I'm pretty much good at making flat objects, or making quilted panels and shaping them into zakka-type items. I went through a phase in high school of wanting to be able to make my own clothes, and my grandmother helped me get through a few things (one of which was pajama pants, thankfully), but I am by no means a seamstress. But apparently, I knew more than Makiba and I had the right tools (straight pins, sewing machine, pincushion), so when we added that to our motivation and free time, and we were all set.
She tried to pretend like she needed help, but once I reviewed the basics, all of those junior high home-ec classes came back to her. She was at ease at the machine in no time. She needed me so little in fact, that I crochetted another hat while she sewed, just to keep myself busy and out of her way.
I think she got better photos of the finished product (complete with cute little pink buttons on the front), but she hasn't posted them yet...
In other news, this morning's internet wanderings brought me to two new awesome flickr groups:
Take a Stitch Tuesday and Trees Please

oh, and I finally uploaded pics of all of the quilts my great grandmother made at flickr and made a set: Quilts by Theresa Gleiter
I'll add details slowly in the flickr descriptions, but at least now all my pics are in one place.

being bad at work

today in our weekly Tuesday meeting, while a few people at the far end of the table were droning on and on off topic, M distracted me from taking notes by doodling on her meeting agenda. at first it was just circles, so i drew some circles on the clipboard on my lap. She kept drawing them and flashed me a glance that meant I hadn' t understood what she meant (my circles were not following the same line of thought as her circles..). So i drew a little wedge of Swiss cheese and a tiny mouse. I was getting colder. Next she draws a box around her circles, cutting some of them off. I was lost.
At this point, C,( M's husband, who's sitting on the other side of me) starts doodling on his notebook and throwing glances that I should pay attention to his paper. His doodles were more meeting-related, but as I glanced back and forth between the two of them and non-chalantly added wisps of lines and words here and there on my clipboard to communicate with both of them, i couldn't help but feel terribly unprofessional.
When I looked back at M's paper, she had changed from circles to squares, and I saw that she drew a patchwork quilt. M isn't a quilter, I was a little surprized, but she got my attention. Her drawing was a series of squares which she shaded in alternating blocks to form a checkerboard pattern. This of course inspires me to doodle quilt blocks too-- i quickly drew a few friendship star blocks and shaded them in (I whipped up a few on Sunday night from a bag of pre-cut blocks so the pattern was still dancing around my head). Then, with my doodled encouragements, C brings the meeting back on topic and we try to move along the agenda. The quilt doodles are forgotten until M stops me in the hall after the meeting and says she wants to make a quilt with circles.

Oh. now I get it. Or, well, I still don't know what entirely she has in mind (I doubt she's ready for piecing curves), but I may make a quilter out of her yet. :)