Samoan pouches

I signed up for a craft fair at a local church a bit ago. Unfortunately only 4 crafters signed up so they had to cancel the event. I did make some new items in preparation though.

I made these Samoan zippered pouches from some of the beautiful fabric I purchased from Barb. I have a bunch of scrap strips from my Samoan Stars quilt and there was no way I was going to throw anything away.

This is the front. I decided to use some black in between the Samoan fabrics. The front has batting and is quilted in simple lines.

I used the bold yellow Samoan fabric for the lining (which stills need to be hand sewn shut). The back is another piece of Samoan fabric. This is the first time I cut into this fabric. It just screams to be made into a tote bag. Even the zippers were from Barb. It worked out well that I had a few different colors for the zippers because I think plain white or black zippers would have been boring. These pouches will be going in the shop soon.

Does anyone have a good source for zippers? I like to buy them in bulk because I use alot of zippers.



* I made several projects prior to injuring my shoulder. I will be taking pictures and posting them during my recovery. I am following doctor's orders by slowly increasing the use of my left arm and strictly limiting the use of my right arm*

Christmas Blocks

Sometime last year I joined APP's Christmas Block Swap. It took so long for the blocks to come back that I completely forgot about them. Everyone did a wonderful job with their blocks! I love the gingerbread house and the fabric chosen for the mittens look so mitten-y. Thanks ladies!

Another gorgeous block received

I joined another block swap last month. This one is over at Block Swap Adventure. I like this swap because we make one 12.5" block each month. We use our own fabrics and make the block our partner chooses in their colors. Nice and simple. My partner for January was Wendy. I decided to let my partners decide which block they wanted to make. I chose red, aqua, and white for my colors for the year. I figured that between this swap and the 3X6 Bee swap I will have plenty of blocks to make a nice size quilt.

I think there is still room for new members if you are interested in joining.

3X6 Bee block

I received a beautiful block in the mail this week. This is from the 3X6 Bee swap over on Flickr. I believe this is the last block from the 4th quarter 2010. I did sign up again for this year but switched up my color choices. Last year I chose rainbow but this year I went with aqua, red, and white.

Still Here Just Napping

I thought I would pop in and let everyone know that I am doing fine after Monday's surgery. I haven't been quite myself as you can imagine. The anesthesia fog is clearing so that is a good thing. I can now have a normal thought and stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time lol. The shoulder is stiff/swollen and of course it hurts alot and often but it is doing just what it is supposed to be doing. I am being a very good patient and following my therapist's and doctor's orders. I can now type for a bit so you might start hearing from me again. I do want to thank everyone for checking in on me, I appreciate it. Please take this as a big hug and thank you to everyone!! Soon I will be able to write more blog posts and actually answer individual emails. I'm already sketching some new ideas in my quilt sketch/idea book and can't wait to get at my sewing machine again.

I leave you with this picture of my get well plant from my sister. She was determined to make me dinner, dessert or buy me any kind of snack but I refused. So, she showed up at my door with this plant. She did good too because this plant is one of those hard to kill kind. It doesn't like much sun or water so it should be safe at my house. I do tend to either pay too much attention or not enough attention to my plants.

Snow Days for Soldiers

As most of you know my Daughter Mandy is in the Army. She is currently stationed at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Like many places across the country, Ft. Jackson received a bit of snow earlier this week. They actually had a couple snow days due to the fact that SC doesn't normally get snow and apparently does not have the right equipment to keep the town open.

We have always know that Soldiers love to have fun but now we get to see it. So, what do a bunch of Soldiers do when they encounter snow?

They build a "snowman" of course lol. Mandy's Battalion is the Screaming Eagles so they decided to make a snow eagle.

I was really surprised that they came up with this. Plus, they executed their idea beautifully. The white head, eyes, sand for brown feathers, and beak....amazing! I smile every time I see this pic on Facebook. I love that the Soldiers all took the time to have some fun and work on this together. Some of the Soldiers are from the South and don't come across snow very often. I know Mandy hasn't played in the snow in over 9 years.

Surgery Day

Today's schedule goes a bit like this....

9:00 am - go to doc's office to get the surgery site marked
10:30 am - be at hospital to sign in for surgery and start pre-op prep
12:30 scheduled time for surgery but it might not be until 1:00

The surgery is scheduled to last 1.5 hours depending on what the doc has to do once he gets in there. At this point he is expecting to fix the bicep tendon tear, remove a bone spur and trim the end of the clavicle, and some debridement as necessary. If everything goes as expected then I should be home sometime around 5 pm. Then I can expect a week full of appointments and naps.

I hope everyone has a great week and gets lots of crafting done. I will be visiting everyone's blogs so even though I can't sew, I can at least look at all of your wonderful projects and plan my next one. I need to find a sketch book so I can get some of these ideas out of my head and into a notebook. Right now I have a bunch of little pieces of paper with some quick sketches floating around the sewing room getting lost and forgotten.

A day of Rest

As I am getting back into blogging I've decided to take at least one day (possibly two) off each week from blogging. I love how Madame Samm over at Stash Manicure puts up a pic on Sunday for their blogs day of rest so I thought I might "steal" that idea. Let's see how well I follow through.