Evening Edition, Free Nook Book and Quilting Cave Alert!

Here's a Nook Freebie that is entertaining me this weekend.  I just started it and am already 100 pages in.  The time that it's written in in 1988 from the voice of a girl called Charlie who is a High School Freshman.  I started 9th grade in the fall of 1988 so I think that is what attracted me to the book.

Charlie Woodchuck is a Minor Niner by Dalya Moon

Overview - It's 1988, and Charlie Woodchuck is the most minor of niners. At thirteen, she’s the youngest girl at Snowy Cove High School, and so clueless, she wore leg warmers and acid-wash jeans on her first day. Big mistake! Almost as big a mistake as signing up for a boys-only shop class. Doy.

Just when she thinks the first week of high school can’t get any more weird, Charlie discovers she may be adopted. According to her Science textbook, her eyes should be blue, not brown.

Now the girl with the boy’s name will have to use her detective skills to uncover the mystery of her identity. She'll need the help of best friend Stacy, expert blackmailer, and new friend Ross, expert class clown.

Before the year ends, Charlie will face down the biggest bullies of all: the all-powerful members of Snowy Cove’s School Board. The Board doesn't like what Charlie's been up to, and they're all out of doughnuts.

ALSO for Amazon Kindle users CLICK HERE (make sure it's still free)

 In other news - It seems that there's a "Quilt Cave" in the making... today I've been in the basement opening up box after box in the sewing room. I almost teared up when I found my iron!!!!! Now I can drop off that $4 clearance one I bought at Target a few weeks ago at the Goodwill!! So much stuff to sort through and figure out what goes where!

I even found my design wall!! Who knows, maybe by the time Monday rolls around I'll have it hung up and can take a photo to share in JudyL's weekly show-n-tell design wall Monday posts. lol  But don't hold your breath...

Love from Indiana!

Meet my new "Olivia"

Sorry to have kept everyone waiting - but I was wanting to get things cleared out of the floor a bit before taking a photo of my new "Olivia" Arrow Sewing Cabinet that I won from their facebook fan page.

The sewing room makeover is still in progress but here's a sneak peak.

Those open spots are designed to fit a second machine or serger - neither of which I own. I did buy some stackable baskets that fit in there. However at the time I took the photo, they were downstairs in the dining room binging loaded up of stuff to carry up to the Happy Room.

I couldn't "BEAR" the cabinet looking so empty so I grabbed these guys... Quilt Cut Up Bears that my "Momma Newt" made for me when I was 18. The twin quilt bears have their own special story to tell - but I'll save that for another day.

Take a closer look - my Bernina (aka Bernie) all nestled into his new home.

I even got David to change the light bulb in my machine. I have to confess that I bought it back in August last year when I took Bonnie Hunter's workshop at our guild but had no luck removing the old bulb from fear that it would break off in my hands b/c it was in there so tight... and b/c my machine was cramped up in the bay window of the dining room, I just lived with it rather than have to take a lecture of the husband's complaining of the messy dining room if I asked him to go in there to help.

Thanks to my new "Olivia" things are looking great and I can tell it's gonna help me be more productive in my projects and also bring a lot of peace to our home with everything out of the dining room once and for all!

You wanna know one thing that I really like... the drawers may be too tight for other's liking but for me they're just fine. I have two 3 year olds who I know are gonna be quite nosy once they see the new table with stuff on it. David offered to take them back out and readjust them, but I told him to leave them as is for now :)

The drawer on the left isn't as tight so I didn't put any pins in there. Instead my DMC floss collection and machine quilting gloves. I'm sure it's a lot like a new kitchen - things will get organized and REORGANIZED until I figure out where I best like everything to be. :)

As for photos of the rest of the "Happy Room" you'll just have to wait for now. I still have several more things to carry up from the dining room downstairs but as you can tell from the photo there's no more cutting mat, ruler, or machine or iron in there - so my sewing days in there are OVER. ;)

Nora has several classmates with March and April Birthdays coming up and it's about to break the budget taking her to shop for them. We ran out of wooden dolls that she usually loves to gift so a trip to Joann's was in order to pick up some more. While there I also picked up these fabrics to use for pillow case making.

I'm sure if you've flipped through any quilt magazine in the past few months, you've seen the ads for APQ's 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge. "Make a pillowcase. Make a difference."

Have you seen the Missouri Star Tutorial Video on the "Sausage Pillow Case" yet? I watched it for the first time a few weeks ago and thought - I COULD DO THAT! So we're gonna find out soon! :P and if all goes well, we'll be making each of the girls in her class a new COOL "Peace Sign" and flowers pillowcase to wrap up the wooden dolls in and tie with pretty curly ribbons.

I also watched this tutorial youTube video too.

Making a Sausage Pillowcase with Judy

Although her measurements are slightly different, the overall total is the same.... and since I don't have a serger, I love that she shows how to make a french seam! I love the ending where she sighs a big relief when her friends clap for her :P

Stay Tuned...

Love from Texas!

Saturday's Honey Do Project ;)

Remember how I told ya to stay tuned... well it looks like I'm gonna have to keep ya hanging once more b/c while David put together my "Olivia" sewing table this weekend I took photos but the camera battery expired before we were finished! :/

Here are some to share with you while it charges..... Here's proof that I really won the cabinet - the boxes were addressed to "Olivia Facebook Winner" ;)

David reads over the "Olivia" Tech. Pubs. (that is what the engineers called the "Technical Publications aka "direction book" when I worked at EZ-Go Textron years ago) and Olivia ate popcorn and shared some with him...

For most of the time Olivia was the only one in the sewing groom with David... near the end Nora and Paul Thomas came upstairs and quickly found us at work and of course chimed in, "I wanna help! I wanna help!"

It didn't take but seconds for Paul Thomas to gather up his iron and football fabric and pick up his "home work" he calls it and begin testing out the new table while David put together the drawers.

Paul Thomas worked that screw driver as if he'd been using tools all of his life :) and of course Olivia gave the ironing a try too..... the photo of her ironing was the LAST photo taken before the battery expired :( *sigh*

But at least I got a few cute ones to share with you from Saturday when we worked on putting it together.

Yesterday after church we ate out then did some shopping at Target and I picked up a few of these stacking baskets. I'm hoping that they will fit in the open areas of the cabinet. There were only 2 available in the green so I bought them and hope to get 2 more next time I return.

So once again, ....stay tuned! :)

Love from Texas!

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Guess who's Birthday we celebrated yesterday at preschool.. Yep, you guessed it Dr. Seuss! Aren't these the cutest "Thing 1 and Thing 2" you have ever seen? :)

I took about 4 dozen photos in less than 2 minutes and then gave up. Apparently they've learned that sticking their tongues out is SILLY... or so THEY think it is anyway. :P

Tounge in or tounge out, no matter what you do...

Mommy still loves her "Thing 1 and Thing 2"

...and speaking of a thing 1 and thing 2... here's 2 things that arrived Monday that have been just hanging out at the top of the stairs... You might not have heard, but recently on facebook, I won a sewing table from Arrow Sewing Cabinets!

As in FOR FREE!!! Yippee!

However things have been on the go, go, GO so much with the kids - Girl Scouts, Jazz, Softball Practice, the twins' T-ball practice, and CCD on Wednesday nights... Softball games here in town, plus OUT OF TOWN Softball tournaments each weekend (Both Sat & Sun) and then throw in homework into the mix... and well you get the picture.... NO Free time!

Next week is Spring Break around here, which means all the above listed activities for the kids are not meeting next week.... *sigh* so I'm hopeful that in the next week we can work on getting my new "Olivia" cabinet put together and moved into the sewing room!

(Light off) (Light on)

I just love the back wall painted green - I did that MYSELF one night last weekend and I plan to sit the new sewing cabinet right about where the bed use to sit. For now, Paul Thomas has his ironing board set up there...

Stay Tuned!

Love from Texas!

Mommy, We wanna go to the HAPPY Rooooom!

I heard two voices sweetly begging me to go to the Happy Room today and when I approached the stairs this is what greeted me.... ;) How do you say no to that? And after all, I've got some tiding up to do before I can get started on the sewing room makeover...... and from looking at my watch we had 2 hours before time to go pick up Nora at school...

So while they played, I cut up a few shirts... and since I had my camera with me I took some photos in hopes that this will help other Quiltville.com fans in their shirt deconstruction... It really can be fast and fun!

The 3 things you must have to make it fast and fun are -

1. a cutting mat,
   
2. rotary cutter and
   
3. Fiskar's "spring" scissors.
   

I always start by laying out the shirt as if I were getting ready to fold it... face side up. and rotary cut on each side of the arm seams. Doesn't even matter to me if I'm close or not... I try not to be close on purpose to avoid hitting that bulky seam - not only does that slow you down but could dull my blade faster than needed... remember - the whole shirt cost me only $0.50 so I'm not hung up on saving every little cm of fabric.... Close enough is... close enough :) Cut the arm off then move down to the cuff.

Slice! That takes 2 seconds... flip over and grab Fiskar "Spring" scissors... and chop, chop up the area that you button the cuff... 5 seconds tops.

and hang on before you move on to the other sleeve... one final step - SLICE up the seam that holds the sleeve together.... another 5 seconds. Easy Peasy! ;)

Now you are ready to reposition the shirt and make the same cuts to the other sleeve.

Next, I like to start at the shoulder and cut over to the collar. Repeat on the other side.

cut all the way out to where you button up the shirt. Snip, snip, snip! :)

Then you're ready to fold out the fronts of the shirt - where it's open like this..

Then I make a rotary cut along where the "yolk" I think it's called? In the center you may roll over a big BUMP aka pleat - if so either cut above, below or grab the Fiskars and snip over it...

Now that the yolk is gone - readjust to work with where the "shirt back" meets the front pannel (either left or right) and make a snip along both sides of that seam.... now pick up and RIP! RIP! each of your snips! :) This is the fun part! Repeat on the other side.

Then I flip around the shirt so that the shirttail is on the mat... and use my rotary blade to roll around that bottom hem. Fast and easy... :)

Repeat cutting off the shirttail hem on the front panels of the shirt parts using your rotary cutter. Then snip beside the buttons and button holes and rip them off! :) Love that sound! I end by grabbing my Fiskars and cutting off the buttons. Snip, snip, snip, snip, snip, snip, snip...

I do not worry with the threads or any tid-bits of fabric left on them. I'll worry with taking those off WHEN & IF I ever need to use the buttons! The kids love playing with them all the same and I bet some of it will fall of from their pretend baking and money exchanges. ;) Plus I have things on my "to do list" to spend my time on - not on using a seam ripper to cut off threads!

As you can see from the pile above - very little waste... and I didn't time myself, but very little time too! :) Moving on to the next shirt.... Ooough! Aa nice Docker's brand... too bad it's only a L and won't fit the hubby. :(

Speaking of buttons - I just heard a spill behind me... Ought-OH... time to pick up!

Today I cut between 15-20 shirts in less than an hour. The only parts I folded were the "shirt backs" the rest went into a bin to be cut in to strip sizes at a later date and filed into drawers according to size and light or color. ;) like Bonnie Hunter's Scrap Users System.

Wanna see some of my "shirt backs" collection??? Here's just one diaper box... and one drawer.

There are many many more.... which reminds me after I fulfill my obligations on the pink project (which is nearly complete) I'm gonna get back to my Hand Me Downs project I stared last summer!

So here are a few more photos I took of Paul Thomas & Olivia here in the "Happy Room" today. Won't they love it once I get a small kid sized table for them to sit at here with me in the sewing room..

Oh and here's one more thing that I bought for only $0.50 at the Goodwill... a denim skirt for Nora with shorts built in! It's a size 8 so it will have to be put into our "waiting to grow into" bin :)

and guess who loves to make little stick people with the smiles from ear to ear.... Miss Olivia... even on the wood top to my table *sigh* I can't watch her ***ALL*** the time... and thanks to my Mr. Clean sponge I'm sure it will wash off... so I'll let it slide.

and guess who la,la,loves to use the iron!!?

Not a real one of course... actually he calls it "doing his homework" and he does a great job. Spends just as long getting it ready, straight and no wrinkles as he does ironing it :) The last time we were at Joann's I let him buy this football FQ and he has ironed it at least 4 dozen times!

Sometimes he gets a little frustrated b/c the plastic ironing board tips over easily... and it doesn't help that he thinks he has to be sitting down to iron... guess his legs get tired standing with all the time he spends on it. lol

Here he is getting it straighten up again for the 13th time.... and all the while Olivia is dancing and twirling around the room.... yelling LOOK at ME! LOOK at ME!

I love those little piggies sticking out in the photo above left to help hold it from slipping off the edge.... I'm telling you he could spend 30 min on this! Too bad he's not old enough yet to really iron! One day little brother..... one day!

Finally. Either he's ironed it enough that it meets his satisfaction or he just can't resist any longer... he calls it a day and jumps up and joins Olivia in a round of Swing your partner!

.....Or this could also be observed as just run around your sister as fast as you can and if you knock her over and she doesn't cry then I won't get in trouble and then I can laugh! .......if she cries quickly yell I'M SORRY! then repeat!

and here's one more photo that I have to share.... the perfect ending to my day. Nora reading a bible story to me! :)

Love from Texas!