Pin It Weekly #176

A few pins from new followers!

First up:  Zwigil Monari's DIY board.

from Carol Matson

and from Donna Fuchs' paper-mache' board 

This is last week's Pin It Weekly, so if all goes well, I'll have another later in the week (with requisite apology). 

Sunday Quilt Inspiration: Little Ones

You know you're getting close to retiring when former students become co-workers. When they begin having children in multiples, it's so much more fun. For me, it's a reason to continue working. For a little while anyway. I need time to get used to the idea of watching these children grow up on Facebook. So in honor of my "month of many children," let's be inspired by new babies.

So now that you're inspired....baby quilts!

Aren't you inspired? I think I want to start a new quilt for one of those new babies!

Macy's Memories ~~ Quilt Top Finish!

A customer had an idea: make a memory quilt from her daughter's elementary and middle school tee shirts. There certainly are enough tee shirts for a throw-size quilt and she can use it while in high school--until she collects enough tees from BHS to make yet another quilt. 

Mom has also decided that when Macy gets old enough to leave the nest, and likely won't want the quilt, she will keep it a memento of her daughter's youth and innocence. How awesome is that! 

I've been working on this quilt in bits and pieces between all of those crazy Halloween projects that got thrown at me this week. I'd cut the tees last week and decided how they'd fit together. I ended up with five columns of about five tees each.

Stitching them was straight-forward, and it went together seemingly quickly. I am anxious to get it on the long-arm. However, I have to wait a bit. It's possible that there will be additional items added to the quilt, and I want to save the negative space for those. Perhaps Sunday afternoon. We'll see how things go this weekend.

Taking photos this morning was a bit of a challenge. I like dappled sunlight in a photo but have read that good photographers avoid it. So what to do on a bright autumn day? Throw the quilt in tree and snap. There will be chances to take good pics when the quilt is finished, don't you think? What do you do about dappled sunlight? 

Join me in linking up with

Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts

Fort Worth Fabric Studio

Halloween Hauntings

This entire week seems to have been the week of last minutes. You know, the kind of requests that are from crazy other people and are needed Right. Now. Please!  

It started with Jenny's needing a hand-decorated tee shirt for Marley. It ended with Grandmay being said hand-decorator. Tuesday they started looking at Pinterest ideas. They needed it today for a school contest. 

Marley wanted something in this vein, so Wednesday Jen picked up some Halloween fabric in a deep purple with spiders. 

Making the m was relatively stressful easy using my ruler to make sure I got the wide letter they wanted. I simply ironed on a bit of fusible web, cut out the letter and pressed it onto the shirt so that I could easily stitch it down. It was finished with a day to spare. The end result is pretty good, except that Marley demanded wanted a girly bow. Marley got a &*O% red bow and everyone is happy.

Sorry that you really can't see the shirt because of the bunting. That was last night's project--in preparation for the hayride planned for Monday night's trick or treating. Note: again, Grandmay is ahead of the game.


Jen bought a panel of Halloween bunting pieces. At first I had plans to sew a backing to the individual bunting pieces, but I decided to just cut them apart and sew them to double fold bias tape. 

I happened to have a four yard pack of orange. Not enough. So I added some green. It doesn't work so well, but this is a one-time use project, and they were thrilled with the outcome. They are easy to please, aren't they?

It's one very long banner of about 5 yards, so decorating a trailer may be challenging, but we already have an idea or two that may work. 


Tonight Dusti and her boyfriend showed up for a few minutes with a quick request: Grandmay, I need a tee shirt that looks like "Thing 1" for work tomorrow. What!?! Are you serious? So much for staying ahead.


Luckily, she meant she had the tee shirt and an iron on and needed an iron. And an ironer. But being the ironer was not a big deal after the shock of thinking that she wanted me to sew a shirt tonight. I think she may have suckered played me, but I can't say for certain.

I'll leave you with pictures of a few of the Jack-O-Lanterns that students painted for the annual contest at school. They are in a display case in the art classroom, so the pictures are a bit blurred, but you can see enough to know that our students are pretty artistic and resourceful. (And maybe a bit competitive.)

What have you been doing to prepare for Halloween? 

Join me in linking up with

Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts

Busy Hands Quilts for Finished or Not Fridays and TGIFF

Fort Worth Fabric Studio