Sewing Project - Food Storage Coths

I made another batch of food storage cloths as I found the very cute flannel at the ReUse Center this week.

With pizza on them there will be no mistaking them.

I use these in my veggie and fruit tupperwares in the fridge as well so now I have plenty for all my food storage needs.

They are 6x7 inches and I just cut it into 8 pieces and serged the edges.

Job done!

Sylvia's Simple Shots

The critters are starting to stir if they were here all winter.  Others are arriving backs from the southern climes.

The White Squill is a perennial flower that is one of the first spring flowers.

 
Got some news on Sunday that the leader of our quilting group is moving away.  I have volunteered with her on women's ministries for many years. 

They were able to sell their house and will be moving to be near their daughter.

She has liquidated most of her fabric stash.  She brought odds and ends that needed a new home so I was grateful to receive zippers, serger thread, a bit of bias tape and a small box of buttons.

I found the smallest red heart buttons in this box.  They certainly will come in handy for Macro Monday challenges.

Thanks so much for sharing.

We will have lunch with before she goes.

I am so glad to have my tax return done for another year.

Now that I am retired it is so much easier but I seem to forget that and procrastinate.

It took only a few hours and it was done.

I had time to have a walk around Lois Hole Centennial Provincial Park with my friend which I had not seen in a couple of months.

The red wing black birds had not returned yet.  I missed their distinctive calls.

The Canada Geese were jockeying for the best nesting places.

The water is very low so I hope all the birds find places to raise their young.

I attended the show where my aunt was displaying here old car watercolors.  They turned out really well. There was over 50 artists on display.

I met my other aunt and her husband at the venue.  We went for a walk along the Sturgeon River while we waited for the reception to start.

I is for Innocent by Sue Grafton is book I finished this week.

It`s always nice to reaquaint myself with Kinsey Malone the private investigator.  She has new work digs and is taking on work on her own.

Lonnie Kingman has hired her to continue work which Morley Shine was doing for him but he died suddenly.  Kinsey thinks it will be just a bit of final work and all the information will be ready for the civil suit.

David Barney was acquitted of the murder of his rich wife - Isabelle.  He is now spending her money - thank you very much.  Finding Morley`s files a but unorganized she needs to retrace some of those steps and redo interviews.

David`s story seems to be corroborated by evidence that he is innocent. 

Serger Desk - Mom's

During my visit with my sister we discussed my set up of the new to me serger recently.

She mentioned that she had brought Mom's serger desk to her house when they were cleaning out Mom's room after she passed.

She asked would I like to use it and I said for sure.

It is small so it fit in the card nicely and I was able to handle it by myself to get it to my place.

Here it is all set up next the Bernina sewing desk!

I have been collecting cones of thread. I did buy some serger thread as well.

My sister mentioned that the drawers took a bit of time to figure out which ones went where but I found a clue when I looked.

Mom had marked the drawers, top middle and bottom.

Mystery solved.

Thanks Mom!

I like that the desk are the same height so it extends my working surface when working with large projects.

I am very happy with this set up.

Sewing Serger Set Up - Janome 234D

The serger I bought from my niece is a Janome 234D.  It came out in the early 1990's.  This one has had a good service.  I did find a free download of the manual. 

It had been threaded with Wooly Nylon and when it was serviced the technician put regular serger thread in the needles.  Once the service was complete they just cut the threads so I had to work out how to proceed. So, I purchased 2 cones of serger/overlock thread from Walmart as it seemed the smoothest of the ones I checked out. I chose grey because I am very happy with using grey on my recent shopping bags.  Seems to got with lots of colors.  Now I could move forward.

I was going to put the Serger on the shelving unit in the sewing corner but that did not work.

The shelf was not deep enough or tall enough. 

So I had to come up with a new plan.  

I moved some of the boxes and stacked them high again so I could gain some floor space.

With that done, I needed a sturdy piece of furniture to hold it.

I chose one of the end tables from the living room as a TV table with hold a tea mug and lamp but not a serger.

That took a while to sort out.

The foot pedal was next. I had placed it in a plastic bag as it was leaving black stuff behind where ever I put it down.

Upon inspection,  the old gripper material on the bottom of the pedal which just disintegrating upon contact. I rubbed it all off.

I have some gripper material from Ikea - STOPP which I had leftovers off after putting it under my rug in the kitchen.  I cut it to size and decided to use Glue Dots to attach it to the bottom on the pedal.  

We will see how it goes.

I chose to put an old linen tablecloth on my end table to keep it clean and hopefully unmarred until it can be returned to the living room.

The table is squeezed between the sewing desk on the right and the packed boxes on the left.  I had added an extension cord to the outlet now behind the boxes. Nice planning ahead.

Now I had a space and power.

I was advised by my sister who own sergers that tying the new thread to the old one makes getting the thread through the machine very easy.

You can see that I tied beautiful square knots to the ends that were left by the technician and the grey spools now sitting on the spool holders on the left hand side. 

I then put the knife away so that I could concentrate on the thread. I ran the machine until the knots appeared just ahead of the needle. I cut them off there.  

Now I had to thread both needles. The manual suggests a needle threader but you really can't get your hands back there to do that.  I got my magnifying glass out and did it the old fashioned way.

Here's my first seam with the light over locking loops of the light wooly nylon thread. The other wooly nylon is grey as well.

I think the 2 grey lines close together at the needle threads.

Everything looks good.

There is still room for me to set up my craft table which I use for cutting and layout.

The machine is up and running so I can get started on those projects.

1. ReUseable Make Up Remover pads.

2. Bags with drawstrings to laundry these remover pads.

3.Who Knows What!

Very exciting.

I probably need to sew a cover for it so that it stays dust free when not in use.  I did want it set up all the time otherwise I would not be inclined to use it as often. 

Sylvia's Simple Shots

With my machine in a desk and not really portable I choose to take other tasks for my time with the ladies at quilting. 

I  took cutting to quilting on Monday since I just need my cutting mat, my rotary cutter, measuring tape, my long quilting ruler and some scissors.   I cut 16 UnPaperTowels - 6 sets of 2 in the grey flannel and 2 sets of 2 in the red flannel.

You can see that I have trimmed the corners on the top 2 sets making them ready for the serger.

I have quite a bit of flannel to cut and serge.  I think I will just put all of them in a pile then assemble sets of 10 somewhere along the line so I can put together nice looking colors.

When I picked up the serger I realized that I would need 2 cones of serger thread for the needle threads as they had been cut off.

I checked Michaels - they carry Coats and Clark but only in black and white on the 3000m spools.  Price is pretty good with a coupon.

I checked Fabricland which carries the Tailor brand and the price was pretty good.  I checked on the fuzziness of the thread and it was not as smooth as a sample I had from home so I moved on. They carry high end brand at a very high price.

I headed to Walmart where the price was about the same as Fabricland with the same manufacturer as Michaels and there was some grey.  Upon checking, the thread was smooth and very comparable to the the one I had with  me.

At quilting, Linda had brought fabric from one of our prolific quilter's stash.  This lady has experience health issues and has given up her hobby.

We were told all the pieces had to go.  There was a nice collection of fat quarters in beautiful colors and 100% cotton.

I took a stack of these fat quarters for my sister who is making different kind of sewing projects for the Grandma Africa chapter in Red Deer.

She has made casserole carriers, pot holders, aprons, and bunch more.  

She is working on getting rid of her stash but this will help a bit in offering different colors for her projects.

You know what they say - be careful what you wish for.  I had been wondering how to find flannel for my UnPaperTowels at a reasonable price since they will be donated or given as gifts.

Well, there were some pieces in the stash that Linda brought on Monday.

Here's the pieces I found.  There are a few darker pieces for the Make Up Remover pads projects.

I washed all the fabric and ironed them all so that they lie nice and flat and I can see what I have.

I will cut UnPaperTowels first then use the leftovers for the pads as they need pieces about 4 inches square.

Thanks so much for the donation of fabric.

I had a friend over for tea on Thursday.  I had not seen her since early December.  Of course, my life has been turned upside down since then.

We had a great visit. 

I used my Signature Turquoise and Yellow tea set which was a nice springy color.

I was invited to my aunt's new place for lunch on Saturday.  They sold their house and bought a condo much closer to me.  I am very happy to have her and her husband closer.

I decided to make Saskatoon and Rhubarb crisp in small pie size.  I used honey for a bit of sweetener in the fruit and brown sugar in the crumble topping.

I made 4 - 2 for my aunt, another for my other aunt who was invited to lunch as we were dropping off our art in the Juried Member show that morning.  One for me.

I ate mine for supper on Saturday.

Another book this week - J is for Judgement by Sue Grafton.

The story is about Wendell Jaffe who was recently declared dead after being missing for the last 5 years.  His widow Dana has collected the insurance money and has spent a lot of it clearing debts incurred while raising her 2 sons alone.

Kinsey Millhone has been hired to investigate a reported sighting of Wendell in Mexico.  Off she goes to spend a few days south of the border.  Based on her sighting it does seem that Wendell is alive. 

He has a new partner Renata and they just packed up in the middle of night.  Where are they headed. Kinsey heads back to California and starts tracking leads. One of his sons has been arrested so the speculation Wendell is headed north.

Life is always exciting with Kinsey.  We find a bit more about her personal life this week.  Some of her extended family reach out and she as always thought she had no family because the aunt who raised her never mentioned others.  There was a reason and it was hard to accept by Kinsey.

Sylvia's Simple Shots

I've been waiting for this happiness since I returned the Sunrise Stained Glass Art piece of mine to the window in the dining room.

One day this week the sun was shining brightly despite the temperatures this week.

This is the image on the wall in the living room being created by the stained glass piece in the dining room window.  This is exactly what I was hoping to achieve with this piece of art.  Blissfully happy with this.

The dried flower arrangement are the left overs from the bouquet for Mom's passing in January.  The leaves have dried very nicely, the baby's breath is good, the freesias are slowly falling off but that is okay.

I am back to my regular areobics routine along with the exercises from the physiotherapist.  I expect had I got back into my regular routine this fall I would not had the problems I experienced with my knee but such is life.

What I have learned is that you can not store up fitness.  It is something you have to do regularly or you just lose it.  

I am grateful the lesson was not more painful than it was.  From January 6th to February 25 I am back to about 95% on both the knee and the back.  I spend 1 hour a day between areobics and strength building exercises.

It is good to being feeling myself again.

Yes, it was a cold one again this week.  It has to end sometime.

I have stayed in most of the week. I did have a few commitments I had to do but in little sprints it was okay.

This little and mighty machine came to live at my house this week.  I picked it up from its service on Thursday.

I will be doing an in depth post on this machine later.

I had a conversation with my niece a while back who is a bargain hunter and thrift store shopper.  She had purchased this one and as she had 2 others this one was up for grabs.

With my recent sewing projects one of these will come in very handy for my unPaperTowel project.

I want to make some reusable make up remover pads as well.

I have to get new thread into it before I can use it so that is the next thing.

Bring Her Home by David Bell is a book I finished early in the week. 

This was quite a thriller of a story with a few tense moments and a couple of turns which one is not expecting.

The 2 teenage girls Summer and Haley are missing.  The search finds one girl severely beaten and just barely alive and one dead.  They had been looking for 2 girls and 2 appeared so it was assumed they were the ones being sought.  

Later, we discover another girl was involved and parents grieving received a shock and now there is still one girl missing.

Bill Price, a recent widower, is looking for his daughter Summer.  Tiny clues start adding up to behaviors he could not have anticipated his daughter would have engaged in.  Summer is grieving the loss of her mother.   It was a very good book.

I made a trip to the ReUse Center on Friday and found some goodies.

Some quilted fabric for my sister who has been making casserole carriers. 

This tiny blown glass snowman is just the cutest. No chips at all.

From the plastic I collected I want to make toggles for the bags to wash make up remover pads in.  They need to be plastic because they will go in the laundry.  They are small pieces so it was recommended that they be washed in a laundry bag.  

The cardboard rolls are for the UnPaperTowel project. 

The piece of embroidery is a huge piece of linen.  Yes I checked with a burn test.  I would like to make use of the stitched segment in some what but not sure yet what.  Can it be incorporated into a blanket?  Maybe. There is 2 meters so the other half from the stitch segment would make nice dish towels.  We shall see. 

The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks follows the tried and true formula for another successful story. His male are really good guys.

Logon Thibault find a photograph while he is on tour in Iraq.  The photo is a beautiful girl with a ferris wheel, 3 large pines and 3 marines in the background.  He experiences getting out of some pretty tight situations alive during his time with the marines. His best friend Victor believes the photo is a good luck charm that is keeping him alive.  After their tour is over and they are back in the USA they get together after a few years of trying to piece their lives back together after seeing combat. Victor suggests that Logan try to find the girl and thank her for keeping him safe. 

Logan finds the girl after a very long walk but does not disclose the reason he has arrived in Hampton.  He gets a job, they fall in love and then disaster strikes and the things he hid come to light.  It does not go well with the girls and he gets ready to head out of town once again.  Through a difficult situation he redeems himself in her eyes.  And as always they live happily ever after.