My Thimble Collection

I have about 90 Souvenir Thimbles.  The first one I received was given to me by the son of my very good friends when he came back from Israel.  He knew I liked to sew and brought it for a present.  I thought that it was a wonderful souvenir, so small and easy to carry, and so perfect for a traveling consultant who liked to sew.  I had been to Israel so it was like a souvenir of my former trip.  Then I started collecting them from the various places I worked on my consulting projects.  Many were bought in airport and hotel gift shops.  I also bought them on vacations.  One of the thimbles is of sealskin that I obtained in Alaska.  One has the Scales of Justice as a remembrance of my years practicing law.  There's one made out of Copper from the Kennicott copper mine that I visited when I worked at Rio Tinto in Salt Lake City.  There are Thimbles from when I worked in Germany and we took a side trip to Switzerland.  There are thimbles from Mt. Vernon and Monticello  that Dave and I visited when he was working in the Washington DC area.  There are Thimbles from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, San Francisco, Breckenridge and Denver, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas and Moab.  Some friends have brought me thimbles from their trips,  like the one from Ft. McKinley near Baltimore.    Some Dave brought back from his projects like the ones from Peoria Illinois,Corpus Christie TX, and Memphis Tenn..  I have one from the Bahamas from when I went on my Quilting Cruise.  I have a Texas Bluebonnet thimble that I bought when I was on a project in Austin.  I do have one from ASG and one that I got at the Quilt Festival in Houston.  I don't have one from Paris or London because I hadn't started collecting them when we went on our first trip to Europe.  Each one brings back a nice memory and none of them cost more than $8.00.  They all sit on one little glass shelf in my bedroom. 

Notions, books and thimbles make great souvenirs

At the end of a long day configuring SAP systems, I often did not want to go back to my hotel room and just eat room-service meals in front of the TV.  I did not want to hang out at a hotel bar and watch sports with my fellow travelers either, so I usually went to the Yellow Pages and tore out the page that listed fabric stores in whatever city I happened to be in.  Then I would check to see which stores were reasonably close to the hotel and go and take a walk around the stores.  I've been to fabric stores all over the country.  I think my favorites were Pacific Fabrics on the West Coast and G Street Fabrics on the East Coast.   I believed in traveling as light as possible so I did not purchase yards of fabric to bring home, but often I would buy a notion or a sewing magazine or book to read.  So although I do have a "small" fabric stash, I have a large notions tool kit and sewing library. 

Now I am trying out the various "tools" in my sewing toolkit.  Today I was playing with my Perfect Pleater that I am pretty sure I bought at the Clotilde booth at the Quilt Festival years ago.  I haven't figured out just what I want to pleat yet, but I will pleat a small bit of fabric and put it into my Fabric Manipulation sampler.  Have you pleated anything with this notion?

I also bought a ruffler foot for my sewing machine.  I tried using that foot when I made the outfit for my granddaughter that is pictured in an earlier post.  It made nice pleats but I found it was easier to just run basting stitches and pull the threads up to make the gathered strips the correct size for the top and pants. When I  used the Ruffler foot, it made beautiful ruffles but they were never the right length. What have you done with your ruffler foot?

I did use my "Quick Turn" tube-turning tool when I made my Snap Happy bags.  It would have been impossible to turn the little tubes without it.  I'm thinking of sewing up some tubes and weaving them for part of my fabric manipulation challenge.  I have no meetings this week so I will have time to play and sew and work on my to-do list.

My sister in California said she will send my sister in Colorado the baked potato bags so I am off the hook for that project.  It's my birthday this week, so I hope she sends me one also (Hint Hint).  She bought a new sewing machine this year and now she has an excuse to use it.

I'll write about my sewing book and souvenir thimble collections another day.  It's 1 a.m. and I really ought to go to sleep.

Quilt Guild of Greater Houston

I went to my first Quilt Guild meeting last night.  Sara and Nancy were there.  The Show and Tell Quilts were beautiful.  I liked the small quilts a lot.  Maybe I could try that.

The speaker was Gyleen X. Fitzgerald. She first spoke about "The Shape of Things to Come" moving from squares to diamonds to hexagons in quilts.  Then she showed her pineapple quilts.  She has a book called Trash to Treasure Pineapple Quilts and she sells a Pineapple ruler.  I realized I already have two Pineapple rulers, one from Possibilities that came with the Pineapple Smoothie book, and the Square in a Square ruler.  The position of the lights and darks make all the difference in how the quilts look. She calls the quilts Trash to Treasure because she suggests you use you stash scraps to make them.  You can see examples on her website:
http://www.colourfulstitches.com/trashtotreasure.html

Wonderful Wearables Group

Yesterday was the Wonderful Wearables Group down in Webster.  Those ladies really know how to sew.  For the Texture Magic Challenge, Sara made a purse and the flap was texturized.  Penny used her texturized fabric to make a water bottle holder she uses on her walks.  Another lady texturized some decorator weight fabric with a flower spray and used the  flower part on the side of a purse.  I worked on sewing the Texture Magic to my fabric, but haven't shrunk it yet. .The next mini-challenge is to use one of the fabric manipulation techniques that Penny demonstrated a few meetings back to make something. I have had the Lazy Girl Designs Town and Country purse pattern for a long time. Perhaps I will combine the fabric manipulation challenge with the Texture Magic challenge and put both into the purse.

Lou told us about her ASG trip to New York City.  It sounded great.  I need to get my daughter  who lives in NYC to do fabric shopping for me!  Too bad she is not a sewer. 

I have to decide if I want to go to the Linda Lee workshop.  I hear it is filling up fast and is limited to 25 students.  It costs $65 for the workshop and $75 for the fabric kit to make the Plaza Jacket and I don't think I would ever wear the Plaza Jacket.  Perhaps I'll just go on Saturday to the lectures.  They are not until Sept so I have some time to think about those.

Lorianne helped me figure out where to put the buttons on my blouse so I am still working on it.  I also decided to shorten the sleeves.  I still need to topstitch all around.  Maybe I'll finish it by the next meeting.

The next major challenge will be to make an outfit for the Stitch in Time Fashion Show at the Quilt Festival.  Perhaps I can make a nice outfit for Rosh Hashannah and then enter it into the fashion show.  Lorianne said that if you submit an outfit, you are in.  The other show coming up is the Cotton Patch show.  I think if you set a goal to finish something for these shows, you might actually accomplish it.  If you don't have a goal, time goes by and nothing gets finished.

Antique Pattern Library - A very cool website - Click on Catalog

Antique Pattern Library Crochet, knitting, tatting, netting, embroidery, needle lace, beading and other needlework patterns.

Welcome! This ongoing project is an effort to scan needlework pattern books that are in the public domain, to preserve them, so we can keep our needlework heritage in our hands. These scans have been photo edited to make them more useful for needle workers, and to reduce file sizes. They are available, for free, to anyone who wants them, for educational, personal, artistic and other creative uses.  Catalog  Who we are Antique Pattern Library is a project of New Media Arts, Inc., a nonprofit corporation tax exempt under IRC (501)(c)(3). EIN 27-2500171. Your donations may be tax deductible, depending on your tax status and tax jurisdiction. Please consult a tax professional in your country. Click  HERE  to donate. Thank you!  New Media Arts  Licensing These works are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. To view a copy of this license, visit Creative Commons licenses or send a letter to Creative Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, CA 94305 USA.  CreativeCommons  Conditions of Use By downloading the files, you are agreeing to the following conditions: The files are scans of books which are now in the public domain. Although the originals have no copyright, the scans are the works of the owners or scanners of the books and, as such, are copyrighted. The owners of the books give permission for you to download and use these file for educational and personal use. You are free to copy and distribute the scans, as electronic or hard copies, free of charge and to make derivative works under the following conditions: You must attribute the borrowed elements to the original title and author of the publication For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of these works Any of these conditions can be waived if you get written permission from the copyright holder (the current owner of the original book) You do not have permission to sell these copies in any format. You may give copies away, you may not sell them. There is more information on the library at The Antique Pattern Library Yahoo Group. We use this Yahoo group to email newsletters when we add new books to the library, to post information about donating book scans, website space, or time to the project, and to help organize volunteers.

http://www.antiquepatternlibrary.org

Tour for ASG at Ben Taub

The Houston Chapter of ASG has been making blankets that are given along with little bears to patients in the Oncology Unit who are told they are terminally ill to take home with them. It is called the Compassionate Care project. The Volunteer Coordinators took Juanita, Martha, and I to see the Unit. It is a new unit with new modern rooms. We were shown a new semi-private room that had a soundproof wall separating the patients beds and lots of room for families to visit. It was not the Ben Taub you imagined! They requested blankets about 60"x40" preferably of very light-weight fleece. They don't need a lot, perhaps 60 a year. They took our picture and said that ASG Houston is now a Volunteer Partner and they are very appreciative.

We were also taken to the Cancer resource center where through the auspices of the American Cancer Society and other charitable groups, patients are given information, wigs, protheses, hats and whatever they need absolutely free. ASG has donated Ouch Pouchs to the Cancer Resource Center. We also saw hats that are donated. This time of year they like very thin, soft stylish hats. The volunteers say they try to put a smile on the face of all the patients they see and help them to find a positive attitude. Every year they have a Cancer Survivor party.

Baked Potato Bags for the Microwave

My sister Marcia asked me to make her a baked potato bag that she uses to cook potatoes, corn, and sweet potatoes in the Microwave. She had one but it ripped. I looked on the Internet and found a few links, but I was wondering if anyone had one that they made that worked perfectly?

Travels and ASG

Last weekend I traveled to California to my Great Niece Shelby's Bat Mitzvah. It was wonderful. My sister Shelly hosted a great Lu-Wow party at her backyard pool, and all around the house. We got to spend time with our son and his wife and my California grandchildren. It was wonderful to see my nephews and niece, and the new Glasser grandkids. Altogether it was a wonderful weekend.

On Friday my new induction burner range, Microwave hood, and dishwasher were installed. They had to cut the countertop and floor boards a bit and we spent all last night cleaning up the sawdust. Now I need to learn how to cook with the new appliances, but it sure was nice having a quiet dishwasher.

Today at our ASG Neighborhood group meeting we had a farewell party for Mary. We had a wonderful turnout, gave her a gift certificate and some cash, and had nice refreshments too. Some of the girls gave her hand made gifts. It was really nice to see Joanne again. She brought some of her scrappy flower pins and dolls. She is definitely one of the most creative people I have ever met.

We all sewed quilt tops for Project Linus. I didn't get much time to sew, so I brought my squares home with me to finish. This is good practice as my DDIL wants me to make a quilt for my DGS to hang on the wall to replace my DGD's baby quilt. That will be my next project after I complete some of my current UFO's and challenges.

This week I hope to finish my blouse, decorate my skirt, do the Texture Magic challenge and finish my Project Linus quilt tops. I'm so busy I'm sure the week will go quickly.