Meet Glenn!

After Trevor and Jonah, I was hoping I'd have enough blue sheet left over for the background of this quilt. There was plenty, with enough left over to bind something else.

My quick rummage through the sewing room for yellow tone on tone fabrics didn't turn up as many as I wanted, so I used some pieces with the wrong sides facing up to add more variety. Then, as soon as the top was done, I found the rest of those yellows.

The backing is left over from the piece I used for Laura.

The pattern is Buzz. You can find it, and all of the other free Let's Make Baby Quilts! patterns, over on the sidebar.

For more finishes, check out  Sew Much Ado, Finish it Up Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?,  , and Freedom Fridays, Wonderful at Home, and Inspired Friday.

What's a good cowboy name?

Ages ago, I cut a bunch of 2" strips to make a blue version of Sadie. It was one of those "when I have some extra time" projects. Not that I've got extra time, but it was sure nice to have fabric ready to go when I did get the opportunity to plug in the sewing machine.

I need to take a hard look at my WIPs. More accurately, I need to take a hard look for them. Sewing time has been scarce over the past few months and things have gotten shuffled around. I can't remember what I was working on, let alone where half of it is.

This post is linked to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.

Have you seen The Purge?

Not that awful movie with the same name -- this purge, dreamed up by Rachel at Stitched in Color,  which involves fabric and going through your stash and finding wonderful things to do with it.

I'm hopping on this bandwagon late, but better late than never and there's a lot of inspiration to be found over at her site.

Weekly Stash Report 

I had to buy more yarn for Squidpocalypse and found out that hard way that Red Heart with Love is substatially more expensive than Red Heart Super Saver, which is what I thought I was buying when I grabbed the skein I needed for the inner side of the tentacles. And of course Walmart doesn't carry that color a couple of months later, so I wound up paying even more for the two additional skeins that I needed.

Fabric Used this Week: 1 3/4 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 15 3/4 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 48 yards
Net Added for 2014: 32 1/4 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 3775 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 1100 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 2610 yards
Net Used for 2014: 1165 yards

Catch Those Ideas!

If you've been reading my blog for long, you know by now that we're a homeschooling family. One of my pet peeves when it comes to curriculum is the writing instruction. I've seen too many books and curriculums that tell kids that there are certain steps you have to follow. I've also known a lot of authors and written a few novels myself, so I know for a fact that there's no absolute combination of brainstorming and outlining  and writing ideas on index cards that's the "right way" to write something.

I'm loving Fireflies by Coleen Murtagh Paratore.  Her premise is that ideas are like fireflies and if you don't capture them, they'll flitter away.

The book itself is gorgeous. It's listed as a paperback, but feels more like a hardback to me. The pages are stitched, so I can believe that it'll hold together for years (and the author encourages you to date your entries so that you can look back on them later.) Most of the pages are blank, or nearly blank except for writing prompts. Some are lined, some aren't, and they're a variety of different colors, all light enough that they won't distract from your writing.

 

Although the book is meant for kids, the prompts aren't age specific. They don't ask you to write about things that you write about something you might not have any interest in. Teenage Daughter has called dibs on it as soon as I'm done writing this post.  I could see it being a good choice for an adult who wants to write but doesn't know where to start.

Disclosure - the publisher provided me with a copy of the book.