Native Woman Sews, Crafts, Writes, and More

Fabric Talking To You

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My real life friend and neighbor Shannon just started a quilting blog and one of her posts was about quilts talking to her, telling her where they wanted to live.

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Angelic Quilts screenshot

I find that its the fabric that talks to me. I love looking at fat quarters, they are neatly folded and stacked together. Sure the bolts are also neat and stacked, but fat quarters are even better because you can see so many together at once.

I used to think and say that I had an eye for color. Sure my favorite colors (dark blue, maroon and forest green) have been my favorite for over ten years now, but I can put jewelry together well and have always enjoyed picking out beads for a bracelet or necklace.

A few years ago I took a quilt class with my Mom and when we went to pick the fabric I picked a handful of really bright colors. I know my Mom thought I was a little crazy for picking that way, and looking back on it I can understand her feeling that way! The quilt turned out nice, I liked it, but man, it was practically neon it was so bright! Not so great on picking the colors then. (Mom still has that quilt I made, she took it with her to finish because all I had done was the top, I wonder if she ever finished it?)

I still think I have an eye for color, I’m just slightly out of practice. How do you feel about color?

Alice’s Baby Sling

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I taught Alice how to hand sew a couple of years ago. Every once in a while she will grab a couple of pieces of fabric, a needle and thread and sew it together. She still has big stitches sometimes, followed by little stitches. She is learning and figuring her way around things. She wanted to find something she could do on her own, or mostly on her own, on the sewing machine so last month I found a quick project for her to do. We worked on it together and were finished in an hour!

She picked the fabric from my stash and we cut and started sewing in a few minutes. I showed her how to hold the fabric to guide it through the machine, showed her how to line the fabric up (we didn’t pin anything – note to self, she’s only 7, pin it!) and set the speed setting close to the slowest one. She loves her new handmade babydoll sling!

I know I found the pattern on a crafty blog and it is lost forever in my bookmarks or stumble page or something. If you recognize this, please let me know so I can link it!

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Alice & baby in a new sling

A short time later and she was done! I didn’t have any rings like the pattern calls for, so she cleverly found an elastic hair band and wrapped the ends together. Her baby didn’t complain and stayed tucked in just fine.

Shop Hop Day 2

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On to day two of our Shop Hop: Cruisin’ the Texas Coast excursion! We had planned on going to two of the shops then doing a third day of the shop – especially after hearing there was a new quilt shop but they weren’t participating in the hop. We figure we’d stop there in addition to fnishing up the shop hop – ah the best laid plans!

We went to Golden Needles & Quilts of Rockport, got on the ferry to go to lunch at the Port Aransas Brewing Company, to Kalico and Keepsakes of Port Aransas, stopped at the hospital to see a friend who just had a baby, to the The Quilt Cottage in Corpus Christi, then finally to the new quilt shop, Heirloom Elegance.We left early in the morning and didn’t get home until dinner time! It was a really long, long day.

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Alice & I on the ferry

Golden Needles is a favorite shop – we’ve been there a few times and the shop is very nice. She also has classroom space and depending on the schedules of friends we may rent it for an afternoon for our own get togethers! That may not end up happening but I like that the option is available (and really, I hope it happens at least once!). They had door prizes while we were there but none of us won anything. The free gift they gave was a cute felt pincushion and a fat eighth of fabric, I let Alice pick mine out which she thought I meant it was hers so now she has her own pincushion!

We lucked out on the ferry! We drove up and were second in line for the next ferry to leave – at least 15 minutes, if not a longer wait. But then they waved on the person in front of us and we thought “awesome, we’ll be first!” – only to have them wave us on too! During day one of the shop hop others had talked about the long wait for the ferry due to issues they were having so being able to jump right on was fantastic.

The Port A Brewing Co is a great place to eat! They brew their own beer though we haven’t been back to try any, I’m sure we’ll go before we move.

Kalico and Keepsakes is a small quilt shop and of course I managed to find a few things I loved. She had more fabrics in a line that I have been collecting (collecting is what it has to be, I have no plans for it yet!) and also had a door prize drawing and gave you a fat quarter just for stopping by. I thought it was particularly nice that she let each of the kids grab their own fat quarter!

We stopped to see a friends brand new baby – she was born on Thursday night and we had been getting text message updates throughout day one of shop hopping. It was good to see her but we didn’t stay for too long. I forget (or did I even know?) that kids aren’t allowed in to see babies (and why is that anyway?).

The Quilt Cottage is a regular shop we visit so it was nice to stop in and look at her fabric again. I signed up for a couple of quilt classes at Golden Needles and ended up finding fabric for one of them at the QC! We’ll see if I stick with that fabric in the end. They also gave away door prizes and all of us won something! I won a book, which is awesome, and their free gift for coming in was a pincushion kit. I sewed it together the other day so I’ll share that too.

The last shop, Heirloom Elegance, was having a really great sale on fabric – 25% off *everything*. It was really hard to even be in there with those prices! It was like they read my mind and stocked their shelves with every fabric I’ve ever liked. I bought a few things and wanted to go back the next day (the last day of their sale) but didn’t because I really bought a lot in those two days.

Whew! What was day three of the shop hop turned into a hang out and rest day for me. I sorted my fabric and put it with the rest of my stash or into project bags. It was also a few days into a short time with Chris at work so it was a day to clean up the house a bit before he would get home!

Have you survived my blog post? Have you ever done a shop hop? 🙂

Update On Moving

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Have I mentioned we are moving (again)?

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More state signs in our future!

Yep, we are out of here! The dates are hanging out in jello right now (translation: wiggly and subject to slight changes) but they are there. The kids and I are going back to Washington! I am trying not to use twelve million exclamation points but it’s really hard! I’m *so* excited to be going back. We aren’t going to the same town we were in before – we are going to where my Mom is! It is going to be super fantastic to be near family, as in in the same house near and then hopefully on the same street near.

Such is life in the nay vee that this means we will have to be away from Chris for who knows how long. Well we do basically know, also hanging out in jello next to our move dates. I spent a few days being very sad and borderline depressed before moving into my “oh my gosh we have to move I have to plan that where is paper and a pencil so I can write a list and what exactly can I send with him or send to him hhmmm do I know how to password protect a blog so he can keep up with all that we will do while he’s gone” mode. The sad days were good for me, got them out of my system and all, and I’ve really been in planning and making mode sense.

The move dates have changed but it doesn’t really affect us since it’s still a couple of months away. I’m still working and working on various projects (secret projects!) and the kids are both in soccer! I’ve been keeping a calendar more now then I have in the past just to remember everything that’s going on. But that’s a good thing as while Texas isn’t the most horrible thing I’ve ever been though, it’s up there.

Shop Hop Day 1

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There was a Shop Hop a few weeks ago that I attended! There were five quilt shops that participated ~ It was officially known as the Shop Hop: Crusin’ the Texas Coast. For day one Shannon, K, myself and my kids went to two of five local quilt shops to participate in their Shop Hop. We went to the Quilter’s Patch of Victoria and Beefore It’s a Quilt & Gifts of Port Lavaca. Victoria is just over an hour away so we stopped there first, then on the way home we stopped in Port Lavaca.

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Outside the Quilters Patch

I took along a short list of quilt patterns I was looking for and some fabric because I was looking for fabric to go along with it. I have several quilts in mind that I want to make and figure why not stock up now! Of course that’s the fabric collector in me.

We were lucky enough to all three win a door prize while we were at the Quilters Patch and they also gave out a goodie bag. Oh and a snack room.

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Alice & Jake in the snack room at the Quilters Patch

(you can see Jake likes to make a scary face when I take his picture!)

The first day was long but very fun. It was just over an hour to Victoria and the town just looked like such a great place. We’ve talked about going back and having dinner or going shopping there.

Next we headed to Port LaVaca – and I have no pictures to share. They had a lot of fabric that I loved (pictures of fabric soon!) and I bought most of an entire line they have. I also bought a book of patterns there! They had homemade chocolate chip cookies too, which made the kids happy. I ended up finding most of the matching fabric I needed at the Port LaVaca shop too.

The first day was very fun. We ended up having to rush home because Jake had soccer practice, then afterward we all came to the house to eat dinner. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about Day 2 and changed plans!

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