Frustrated...........

The day started out OK, talking with friends at our twice monthly sewing session.  I took my yo-yo makers along again and made 15 new ones.  NO plan in mind, just busy work.

Last night I spent over 2 hours trying to put my Boston Commons tutorial in my blog.  I used to be able to copy a Word document and paste it into my post.  With the new version of Word, none of the photos are there.  That means I will have to put in each photo and resize it all over again.  I tried Windows Live Writer, same thing, no photos.  I can't figure out any way to attach a PDF file to my blog either.  It makes me wish I didn't create it in Word.  Can anyone help me?  I don't know a thing about HTML so I can't do it that way.

My other frustration, more commenters that are NO REPLY.
I hate to tell all of you that are using Google + that you are NO REPLY.  Also a bunch more of you have a Blogger accounts but you have not checked the box by Show my Email, and then scroll down and SAVE.  Why am I telling you this?  Because you are signing up for giveaways on lots of blogs and you will never have a chance of winning because you can't be contacted.  I feel bad about this.  I want you to have a chance.  Seven more NO REPLY people today with no email in their comment.  Giveaway ends tonight at 10 p.m CST.  See post from 2 days ago if you haven't entered.

Which photo?........

To represent yesterdays activities I didn't know whether I should take a photo of the vacuum cleaner or the tax return.  I didn't think either would be very interesting so instead I'll show what I took along to sew when I got together with friends on Thursday.  I started these before my mother passed away almost 4 years ago.  Maybe in another 4 years I'll have enough of them to make something.  I think I got about 10 of them done in 2 hours so it is bound to be a small project whenever I get around to it.

Not a sewing day

Yesterday looked like it would be a "snow day" to stay inside and sew but it turned out very differently. At 9:10 a.m. I got a call that my mother was going to the emergency room in an ambulance and that I might want to come over and be with my dad. My mother has had swallowing problems for years and she thought she had a pill stuck in her throat from the previous night. I grabbed my bag that I had prepared with my yo-yo makers in it.

They were just getting her on the gurney when I got there, vital signs all good and in fact she walked to the gurney. They saw how elderly my dad was and suggested we just wait at the apt. instead of sitting in the emergency room waiting room, while we waited to bring her home. Three hours passed so I finally called the hospital to see what was going on and they were admitting her.It seems that one of the routine tests showed something else that they wanted to check. Her throat checked out ok and we are hoping we will get a call this morning to go pick her up.

I made a little batch of yo-yos to keep my sanity, and when I got home I replenished the bag with some more fabrics, just in case.

The sun came out yesterday and most of the streets and driveways that had been plowed melted off. The sun is out again today but it will be below freezing if the prediction is right.

Cheerful color

Cheerful color, isn't that what we need in winter? Here are 3 sizes of yo-yos laying on the table together. Here they are again with the yo-yo makers. That little green one is the one I started out with. Don't look for a project made out of these any time soon. I will have to make bags full before I have enough for anything. I have packed a ziplock bag with fabric for all 3 sizes, scissors, needle and thread to grab and take along when I know I will stuck somewhere for a while. The small ones are about 1.2", the large is 1.8" and the X-large is 2.375". Why didn't they make a medium? There is another size an X-small that is about .75". I didn't figure I needed that one.
Here is another postcard I made last year from the scraps of one of the Kaffe Fassett fabric quilts. I used a veriegated rayon embroidery thread for the stitiching. It is all raw edge cutaways laid in place and then stitched over, no fusing. It is 4" x 6".
I have the pattern for the postcard backs for my embroidery machine so I did a bunch and use them as I make a matching color card. The piece below is square, it is the camera lens that distorts it.
I wasn't really paying attention when the weatherman said we might get a dusting of snow overnight. This morning I thought I heard a snow plow and when I looked out we have a clean fresh blanket of white on the ground. It is supposed to be 9 degrees so I'm not ready to go out and shovel yet.

Yo-yo maker

In the early 1990's I bought one of those Japanese quilt books with antique quilts in it. This is the one that really caught my eye. Mrs. Mel asked me yesterday how this yo-yo maker works so here I have a series of one handed pictures, one hand holding the camera, one hand holding the maker. First you take a piece of fabric wrong side up, place center disc on it and snap into the bigger piece with that line matching one of 3 bumps on the bottom piece.
Trim around leaving about 1/8" seam allowance.
All trimmed.
Using your thumb to hold the seam allowance down start stitching through the holes in the order that they tell you to do it.
When all of the stitching is done, push the center disc out by pushing through the hole in the big piece.

Carefully peel the fabric off the disc.
Sorry about the blur, remember I'm one handed on the camera here. Pull up the gathering thread.
Voila! a yo-yo with perfectly even pleats that you can arrange going around all in the same direction.
A picture of the package, and again how the finished size compares to a quarter. This one is the "small" size. Now I need to get medium and large if I am going to make a masterpiece like that antique one.

Decision made

If you go back to my January 5th post, I was trying to decide whether to add beads or not to add beads to a little wallhanging. I got a lot of great input from my readers in the comments but I wanted my art quilters' group to see the wallhanging in person and give me their reaction. A couple of the ones who read my blog said it was much different seeing it in person and the vote was.........add the beads. I hope to finish it this week and then I will post another picture of it.

I got these blocks sewn together and now the decision on the quilting.
On the quilt pictured on the cover of Kaffe's book, they did perfectly straight parallel lines. Just writing the word perfectly makes me start doubting that is how I want to quilt it. After all it is going to be a couch throw, not a show entry. I happen to love wavy lines and have been using them to quilt my quilts for 15 years. By the time I have it basted I will have a better idea how I am going to quilt it.
I had a wonderful inspiring day with my art quilters yesterday. Last year we had to cancel our January meeting twice so we really lucked out that they were able to come. It takes some of them close to 2 hours to get here. An hour after they left the snow started. It is a winter wonderland again with about 2-3" of snow.

While I was watching October Road, I decided to try out my new yo-yo maker. At first I wasn't too keen on it but by the third one, I decided it is pretty slick. It makes your stitches so evenly placed that the gathers are almost like little pleats laying in a circle. I put a quarter next to them so you can see how little they are. I definitely want a bigger size one if I am going to do a bunch of these.