Sit and Sew @ the Sewing Cottage

Friday night was spent in the company of my friend Kathy at the Sewing Cottage in Andrews. Norma, the store owner, had a sit and sew from 6 to midnight. Since Kathy and I had gone to the Midland one a couple of weeks before, I called her up and suggested we try this one, also. This time I would definitely take pictures of everything that was going on. Well, turns out, Kathy and I were the only smart ones to take Norma up on her all night sewing fun. And what fun we had. Can't wait until the next one! We will definitely be dragging more of our Odessa group up there to join us. We talked, and sewed and ordered pizza which Norma's daughter was brave enough to go and pick it up for us. (apparently that was an education no one would have wanted).


As I said, we talked, even when we slowed down enough to eat. Of course we had to have our cokes from Stripes or we wouldn't have even been able to begin sewing.

Here's mine next to my ugly bag and my eye glass case. I really need to make a prettier bag. I was experimenting with the zipper and putting it on like I had seen in a TV show, but couldn't exactly remember how to do it. It works, but it doesn't look great. I keep using this bag since it is so handy. One of these days I will make another one that is much prettier. What's in it? All my little things that I need when I am on the road (even when I am not on the road. It sits in a partially opened drawer next to me when I sew at home) Oh, yes, you did ask what was in it. . . extra needles, wound bobbins, screw drivers, buttons, seam rippers, pens and markers. Everything a quilter or her friend might need.

speaking of bags. Here is Kathy's cute carry all bag.

she carries all her sewing stuff in there and has for quite awhile now.

Here is my purse.



Not looking so good. Today, I even discovered that my tote bag that holds all my school papers is ripped. I guess I will be getting two new bags this week. Or next. Or maybe even when we are off for Thanksgiving. Yea, that is probably the only time I will have to go to the store and even look at bags. My two have served their purpose.

I am sick of my pink bag. I bought it this summer when the purse I took to conference was WAY to small. I couldn't add anything to it and I had a hard time zipping it closed. That meant that I was carrying my cameras around with me along with my notebook and water bottle. So, quick trip to Target and I purchased this messenger bag. Worked great all the way through the first 6 weeks of school. Now, it is WAY to big. Nothing stays in it's place and everything falls to the bottom. Good thing that flashlight we got at the Ogallala retreat is still in there. It comes in handy when I am trying to find something.

This is what Kathy worked on after she finished up her retreat quilt. Sorry, can't show you pictures of it until our retreat. (What I really mean is, I didn't take a picture of it when it was all done)



Those are the greens she cut circles out of so she can put together project bags for her girl scouts. They are making yo-yo's into a tree. It is a really cute project, but we will all have to wait until next year to see their finished product since Norma and I talked Kathy into waiting until then to make them. The girls were only going to have about an hour or less to start on them in the meeting and Kathy expected them to take them home and finish the tree. How many of you would have finished your yo-yo tree when you were in 8th grade if you had never made a yo-yo before? "Not I," said the fly. So, that is why she is sooooo ahead on her Christmas project for next year. Now she has plenty of time to look for those little metal stars to go on the top.

In the next post I will show you what I worked on all night. It took me most of the time to just cut everything out. Plus eating, shopping, talking, looking around the store and of course talking.

Hooray for batteries!

Okay, I spoke too soon. I took a picture Wednesday of what I am currently working on, but couldn't upload it to the computer because my batter was going dead and it wouldn't keep the camera on long enough to download the picture to the computer. So, today, I went and bought some more batteries. I put the fresh batteries in the camera, turned it on, downloaded the pictures, shut off the camera and unplugged it from the computer and went to look at the downloaded photos. Huh? Not all the photos downloaded! Okay, no problem since I have new batteries right? WRONG! Now, my camera is playing dead. No matter which combination of the 8 new batteries I have tried in my camera it is simply not turning on. It has done this before which is when I purchased my second camera. But this one is my favorite to use. Of course. Isn't that the way it goes? I will let it rest until tomorrow or later tonight and see if it wants to turn back on. In the meantime, I will show you a picture of an older quilt I made. My cousin got on facebook and wanted, no wait that wasn't the right tone, demanded that I put my quilts on facebook. So, to please her and several other requests I have received, I changed my profile picture to one of my quilts.

This quilt was made as a name challenge with my quilt group. The rules of the challenges were that you could only use colors in your quilt that started with the same three letters of your given first name. My first three letters are N A T. The colors I chose for my quilt are Navy, Ambrosia and Teal. It is hand quilted with pink pearl cotton in sweeps that come off the tips of the pinwheels to help show the motion of them twirling in the wind. This challenge was so much fun we decided to do another challenge, but you couldn't do one for yourself, it had to be for someone else in the group. We drew names from the hat and I drew Nancy. Since her name was so similar to mine, I had to come up with other colors to do her quilt. I chose Newt (green), Ash (gray) and Naval blue. (okay, yes it is a form of Navy, but I really thought the blue was needed in this quilt and didn't want the dark Navy I used)

Sorry about the picture quality. Our quilt group, Bee Friends, was the feature group at the Ogallalla Quilter's Society quilt show in 2009 and we displayed some of our quilts we had made from challenges, retreats and mystery quilts. Prior to this time in my life I have not been real good about photographing my quilts. Sometimes if I need a picture of them to send to my mother or something I would take them up to school and have one of my students hold them up so I could photograph them. I have even given a stack of tops/quilts and my camera to a group of students and had them go out in the hall and take pictures of the quilts. I have a few of those pics saved on my computer and unfortunately they may show up here on my blog at one time so be prepared.