"But, First..."

My demo tools of choice...wonderwoman!

We are backing up, instead of going forward in our sewing room...what can I say? I wanted to put built-in cabinets in the old closet area.

See the wall after we removed the newly painted (but now trash) baseboards...
uh, right...the new baseboard will be taller...hopefully

The carpet was not an ideal color, brown green...(I'm not a carpet person anyway) and to have it in a sewing-with-needles-and-pins room is just courting disaster in someone's foot.

Our friend Richard is filling the divots in the concrete left from the tack strips.

Larry sent me shopping for flooring, and meanwhile, the baseboards, and carpet, and padding, and carpet tack strips had to be removed, and handygal Pokey has been involved with every process, including hauling it out of the house. And hauling other stuff back in!

I'm so slow (ha! I bet you didn't know that?!?); it's taken a bit of time. Next up, the flooring! Larry's doing that, I'm the go getter mostly, lol.

The newly patched floor, and my floor of choice is a closeout laminate

that has a hand-scraped texture, Armstrong brand.

"Oh, no! My displaced fabric is in the computer room!"

DD Lydia is in the process of putting their wedding photos into a shutterfly book, and it's coming along much better than the sewing room. I've helped with some photo editing. I thought I'd close showing a few of those pics ~


Lydia made her flowers, boutonnieres and bouquets
from lace, felt, buttons and ribbon. Oh, and love ~

So sweet! And see the little lego light saber on his boutonniere ~ !

Me, Grandma Barb, Lydia, Jeff, Larry and Grandpa Gil Davis

Sewing Machines

A small but beautiful hand crank sewing machine

I've saved this post to share today. Last week, I went with two friends from the Monday night quilting class to Anaheim.

I've mentioned M&L Fabrics before, and of course we went there.

A person could get into trouble in here, if she didn't have a plan! I was basically purchasing background prints, so it was all good.

We did lunch too. But I was wanting to share about sewing machines.

Mr. Lloyd Askew

There is a man that has a love for them, and we went to see his featherweights in particular.
Meet Mr. Lloyd Askew. He loves sewing machines. He has repaired and rebuilt them for 20 years, and it started as a side job or hobby.


~ I was viewing history on these shelves ~

I thought I loved sewing machines...until I met him. This is what greeted us in his garage.

Lloyd servicing my friend Lety's machine.

For those of you who don't know, years ago in 1933 Singer Sewing Machine Company put out a wondreful little doll-like machine that was portable, lighter weight than most machines of the day. It was well built and had a true but simple straight stitch. It seemed to lose favor in the 1960's-70's when most seamstresses wanted the zigzag or other fancy stitches. I'm one of them, growing up I sewed mostly on a Kenmore. But, these little machines still hold a charm to us girls who love fabric. He has so much more than featherweights, though....

I told him I'd love to share his collection.


~ mother of pearl inlay ~

hand painted, not decals

a couple hand cranked machines...

He smiled and said sure!

I think he said this one was from 1858 ~

~what's not to love about these child's versions?

a child's machine~ The first time I ever saw an Elna, I was in my 20's. My friend Patty Bullock was sewing on it, and it was green like this mini one-!

His collection of machines literally would rival a museum...

"AMERICAN" ~ don't you love it?

Or this one, that's me!

American Girl, a child's machine. No bobbin, this one does a chain stitch ~

Oh, you know what else? He has them all sewing, in working order. I was amazed at the beauty of them.

While we were there, I was shopping, too. My birthday is Sunday, 7/17. This little one is older than I am (not by much, though!),

and thanks to my sweet Larry, it came home with me. *VBG*

Now, I guess I'd better go sew a bit!
Happy Quilting ~

Friday Fun Post

~ love the dots ~

This week has been a complete mix of activity for me, mostly fun. Wednesday, I visited with my bff Beth, to faraway Hemet (not really, but the drive was over an hour by myself) and attended her quilt guild, Maize Stone. The group was friendly, they had bunches of charity quilts and other creativity to share, and a great guest speaker, Wendy Mathson. I would join a guild if I could, but I'm only on a break, so my night school quilt class will do.

Wendy had so many quilts to show, some of them hers, and many done by a group of ladies she works with. She brought a book she's written

and a cool set of rulers that go along with it. Who doesn't like "Storm at Sea", one of my favorites for the curved lines that appear from the different angles? Her method helps you with perfecting your sewn units for a more successful completion.

I purchased her book and rulers at her "guild special" price,

and now have 10 near perfect diamond units. Ten down, 132 to go...who needs quilt alongs, I get myself into enough mischief all by myself...ha ha! (Yes, I LOVE the Farmer's Wife squares showing up everywhere..NO...NO....)

I mentioned waiting on a couple of exchanges,



this little envelope was wait for me when I got home yesterday,

filled with charm squares of

Pokey dots!! I know, you say tomato, I say...

...I say, I bet ya wished you joined in, aren't they sweet!
Thank you, Wendy, for hosting the swap.

In other news, the sewing room is almost paint-complete. We have a friend of the Handy Man sort coming to help us make some construction decisions, shelving, you know, that sort of thing. The hard part will be sorting through and breaking down the necessary fabrics and the ones I should part with. To me all of it is NeCeSSarY, right? Yeah, that's why I say it's the hard part....

This morning at 6:45 a.m., our kitchen thermometer said it was a nice 70 degrees outside, and 79 INSIDE.


So, I grabbed the weed bucket and headed out to deadhead the geraniums around the fountain. It took me an hour (does that tell you I don't do that task as often as needed?).

Here is my little zinnia bed, go see Chris' batch-w.o.w.

Now, it's 83 back inside, and 93 out. I'll be spending some time trying to bring this Google Reader number down, it has not been below 1000 until last night! my dear SIL Jeff told me to clear it, and start fresh, but I just know I'd miss the inspiration of the decade. That is what you guys are to me, pure inspiration of creativity!

How appropriate that my friend Annie was on the screen, I feel like I did one of her "Tuesday's Ort's" post, sharing bit of this and that today. I love her driving rants, I soo-oOo identify with driving frustrations, seeing how we work about 25 miles from home, and I spend more time than I want to driving. Larry and I carpool often to save gas.


Hope you are staying cool (or warm in the case of our "outback" friends), and hope you find some time to create today.
:-}

Tuesday's Design Floor

I'm still in summer mode here, and here is the sewing to prove it!

The little twister cherry runner top is done, I need to quilt it.

See the little cherry cornerstones? :-}

I know, I didn't use all the fabrics I showed before, but they didn't play well in the pattern. I may need to try something else with those...





The "Pineapple Blossom" was waiting for me to figure out the sashing and wonky star, I think it's gonna work out, hope so, anyway.

I'm not sure after I did it, what do you think? Anyway, I need to lay all the blocks on the bed today, and figure out the placement. You may recall, this was a Block Lotto challenge for May, originally from Bonnie Hunter....

I like the extra texture that comes from the white-on-white pieces ~

I appreciated the design and kept it going for the month of June, ha ha! Lydia keeps telling me this one is her wedding quilt. She says,"With so many quilters in my life, I didn't get one wedding quilt!" (I had to remind her of table runners and wedding dresses... ahem...)

I've finished 10 squares for the Block Lotto for July, that's the limit for the month for exchange.

This "Liberated Checkerboard" has to be the most fun I've had sewing a block, Sophie's step by step pictures on Flickr made it so-o easy... I may have to do more of these ~

TTFN!
tah-tah for now!




"O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together." Psalm 34:3