Time To Buy A Bathmat

     I'm going to buy a bathmat from Walmart today.  I will not be finishing the crochet bathmat I planned to make with the the 1" strips of fabric I sewed together to make fabric yarn.  I did a test crochet last night with the ball of yarn I made the other night and I hate it.  I just wanted to let you know that I will not be working on this project anymore and you won't see a picture of the little bit I crocheted last night.  It is completely U G L Y.   I wasted about a week on this sewing/crochet fail and I'm moving on to the items listed below.


1.  Recover the cardinal pillow I made last year with red plaid fabric I bought a couple of weeks ago.

2.  Cut the squares for my Civil War Buckshot pincushion  and order the emery sand.

3.  Make the 4 pillow cases with the yardage of Tanya Whelan fabric I purchased last year.

4.  Iron the muslin and trace the pattern for the hand embroidery, Never Underestimate A Woman
     With A Sewing Machine.   Then pick the colors of floss for the embroidery.

5.  Organize the box holding more projects, fabrics and supplies.

6.  Start the pink fluffy granny square afghan for my bedroom.


 
 

It's All About Flexibility

    I know everything doesn't always go smoothly in my crafting world, but I had two major fails in two days and I had to go back to the drawing board on a project and a purchase.

    The first fail was my bathmat project.  I was going to make a bathmat like a mini quilt with a towel as my backing fabric but it was not to be.  The towel stretched when I was sewing my fabric on it and I got really frustrated with it.  I had to re-think my options for making my bathmat and I've decided to crochet one with fabric strips.  Crochet is really fast and when you use a big hook with big fabric strips, it goes really quickly and I really like to crochet.  The tutorial I will use to figure out how wide to cut my fabric strips, how to join them, and what size crochet hook to use is here at Crazy Mom Quilts.  I'll be pulling my fabrics out tonight and I'll start cutting them up.  I wonder how a dishmat for the kitchen counter would work made with crochet.  I have some curtain fabric leftover with some other blue and yellow fabric that would be fun to crochet.

     The second fail happened this morning when I finally opened the package that contained the Brother Software I bought to integrate purchased embroidery designs onto my Brother PE 770 embroidery machine.  I looked at the package and the Windows operating systems listed on it were all the old systems and my computer is running Windows 8.1.  I had no idea that they would be selling something that ran on these old systems.  I've emailed the company to see if I can return it for a refund.  In the meantime I had to do some additional research to find a reasonably priced replacement.  After checking the threads on Quilting Board again, I found Sew What-Pro software.  I did check some reviews on this software and it seems to be just what I need and it's even a little cheaper than the old software I purchased.  Here is a link to purchase the software.

    I never know when I'm going to have to change gears to get something done, so I try to be flexible with my ideas.  I hate to totally give up on an idea until I've tried it a different way at least once.  Dear daughter would say I'm stubborn (like my Dad), but I prefer to say I'm persistent.

Look! They Match!

       My big and little ironing board covers match now.  I covered the little ironing board last month and on Monday night I made the new cover for the big ironing board.  It took me a couple of hours to make it while I watched TV.  It's nice to have matching covers on my ironing boards.  I'm thinking about making matching machine covers for all the sewing machines, but that will have to wait for a little while.

  I've added a couple of quickie projects to my list.  I'm going to make myself a bathmat (pieced quilting cotton quilted to an old towel) and a dishmat, same idea as the bathmat but for the kitchen counter as a place to put wet just washed dishes when my dish drainer is overflowing.

   I also just ordered some yarn to make a big fluffy pink crocheted afghan for my bedroom.  I'm going to use a size N/P crochet hook and a double strand of Red Heart Super Saver making a large granny square.  These afghans work up really quick and are super warm.  I make these a lot when I want to get a big fluffy blanket done in a hurry.

      Here's a picture of the one I made with my scraps last year.

Here's a picture of the one I made for my daughter in a teal color.  This one has a crab stitch border on the edge.  

    I'll be playing with my embroidery machine this weekend.  I have plenty of tear away stabilizer, thread, and bobbins.