Create, create, create!

     It's been almost ten days since my last post... I thought, the way I left things, you might be getting concerned-- but I am still here, CRUSHING IT, with my schedules!

     What is the difference between really having the "sewjo" versus other times when you just don't seem to have the enthusiasm? I honestly wish I knew. I'm not sure how long this pace can keep up, but just getting a little more organized and making a punch list each day has really helped keep things moving.

    Besides tiling all four walls and a bathroom floor, I was able to complete six new sets this month! (I will be showing cabin renovation pictures one of these times, since some of you are interested.) 

     The "Villages of the Month" are off to a great start-- I'll probably have to do them monthly now, heehee. Thank you to all those joining me.

    There's always a little spillover of people from social media who think these are hand cross stitch-- well, good news for them, I'm going to make these into charts this weekend. It can be done with a click of the button, you know! But not all machine embroidery cross stitch translates well into hand patterns-- what you can do in terms of quarter stitches, 3/4 stitches, and back stitch by machine is incredible. I'm using as many whole cross stitches as possible in these, and cutting back on the backstitch, so they would be fun to do by hand-- I may even try myself.

     Then the "Zen of Thread" was super well received-- the most popular thing I have done in awhile! Anything sewing related always does well. It just struck me-- there should definitely be a SEWING VILLAGE this year-- WOW! Who could resist!!

    I'll probably convert this into the matching table runner design of these types of mug rugs-- grab a couple of "Strawberry Lemonade" charm packs if you're interested-- the colors are perfect for this endeavor!

    Then, to continue the sewing theme, Stitch-y Bowl Fillers were born and here's my display. Michaels had a whole bunch of all types of little battery operated string lights last Christmas-- did you see them? I have become addicted to them. There is something so warm about them over the winter. I turn them on when I sit down in my living room and then I turn them off when I leave. It's kind of a cheap equivalent of a watching a gas powered fireplace in my mind-- lol. Reminder-- be on the lookout for Valentine's day string lights at Michaels this month.

     Then, a sneak peek for later this year-- I completed a 5x7 version of Christmas ABCs. There are now twelve in the ABC series-- but I'm making you wait for this one until the fall. The ABCs would be fun stitch by hand-- even though the words are all backstitch. Why the aversion to backstitch these days? It's just a cross stitch that's horizontal or vertical with one thread? I am right about this people. Backstitch, why dontcha?

   Can you tell what a gloomy, chilly day it is here from the color of that photo-- I for one am glad January is over! 

   I also completed the Chris-Mystery tablerunner-- well, it is not quilted yet, but it was a good accomplishment, and I even got a matching mug rug out of the deal!

    SEW-- here I am, still working on Christmas! It is a wonder I have any readers left-- I promise you, one more Christmas finish below and I am over it, till the fall. This quilt I really put PRESSURE on myself to finish by January 31st. It was the only thing standing in my way of saying I made a quilt from all 12 monthly Sew Sampler boxes and all four holiday boxes in a year.

    I had mentally kind of given up on it-- I was extremely late finishing the December box, if you recall. But I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and made it happen! I will give you a tip-- if we all just stop thinking about doing things, and actually work on them, it takes a lot less time than you would think. I ended up just putting about a 1/2 hour in the morning pressing and an hour at night sewing, and did it in a week. I just drew it up on graph paper-- super quick to put together. If you have large scale Christmas prints-- they are perfect for "wrapping papers." My friend said she is making one out of those gorgeous Hoffman metallics. This is a large quilt too-- it is 63" x 81" and I might just add some thin pink border strips to make it a bed size in Sew Sampler overtime! So snuggly-- well, for next Christmas!

Here are all the box finishes for 2023.
 I'm beaming with pride. And if I can do it, believe me, 
you can, too! 

        I wasn't intending to keep going full out on these boxes again this year-- but I already like the January 2024 box AND the Cupid Box and have started them. 

    It is major "guilty pleasure" for me-- shouldn't an artist like myself be working on my own quilt designs? But all day it is create, create, create, here-- such a relief at night to rest the brain and just work on something with instructions not written by me. Also, most of my original projects are still boxed, waiting on the "Sewtopia" space upstairs to be born. So for now, I will have to forgive myself for being a mindless stitcher. 

     Sewtopia is the next DIY-- all we need are a ceiling, walls, and a floor. You might laugh when I'm saying that, but really, just sheetrock and flooring are all that's left-- framing, electric-- all done! I will definitely show pictures of it, or maybe even make a video of the transformation. There has been a lot of construction going on around here-- is it any wonder I am tired at night?!

     So the January box is cut-- in one of those boxes, still packed, is my grandmother's scrapbook, which contains a picture of her in that exact hat-- how could I resist?

     The Cupid Box isn't started-- I may replace the birdies with a novelty Valentine print, but other that that, I'm sticking with the patterns on these first two boxes of the year.

    SO "novelty prints"  actually brings me to MARDEN'S-- after the last blog post, Mr. SFO and I headed out for a "date" in the big city of Waterville. If you never heard from me again, I would have been found, years later, still wandering the aisles. Wow, oh just WOW! It's one of these surplus and salvage outlets-- everyone kept telling me they have fabric. I assumed it was leftover Walmart or Joanne's type stuff...

    Noooooo-- it was Moda, Robert Kaufmann, Riley Blake--- all priced at $2.99-$6.99 a yard! I was wandering around in a daze, thinking, "Well, I'm sure they don't have Tula Pink fabric," and there it was, and then "I'm sure they don't have any Lori Holt," and there it was! So this was my first haul:

    Mr. SFO was very encouraging of me, but I controlled myself, only buying what I "needed." So the Valentine prints are options for the Cupid Box and the fabric shapes are potential Christmas stockings. (No worries, you won't have to hear about that until the fall.) The cheese fabric is for a cabin tablecloth-- my son-in-law LOVES cheese. Then I got a pack of five 45mm rotary blades for $5.98. This I am entirely skeptical of-- I can see you are thinking what a greenhorn I am, to fall for that. It says "finest Japanese steel," but as Mr. SFO pointed out, they might stink at cutting, and that could still be true. I have to know.  And I will let you know. Then the needles were $2.98. 

    What I didn't buy, was entire bolts of Tula Pink for $5.99 a yard-- the kind that is now out of print-- I could double, triple my money on many Facebook groups with that purchase! But then the shipping and packaging would have to start. So it's nice to know that if machine embroidery, egg farming, and tiling don't end up working out, I still have fabric reseller in my pocket.

     So here's the results of my fabric diet for January:

   

    And February's not looking so hot either-- as soon as I sign off here, I'm heading off to get the Strawberry Lemonade charm square packs.

    Lastly-- Hand stitching-- coming along! Prairie Meadow has been pulled back out...

 

and the sewing cross stitch is almost done:

So that's where we stand, this first day of February, 2024.
Thank so much for stopping by my little corner of Maine--

now let's all get back to CREATE, CREATE, CREATE!

xox

Carol