Mindless sewing and christmas music

Latlely I've had the urge to just sit and sew, what I refer to as mindless sewing. So when I came across a bag of batik samples that I've had tucked away for many years I knew it was the perfect time to use them. I thought there were probably about 100-200 pieces in the bag.

As I looked them over I decided that golden yellow would be the perfect addition. I had 1/2 yard, cut it into 1 1/4 " strips and began sewing the samples to the strips

The 1/2 yard did exactly 196 pieces. I had a pile leftover, they seemed to be multiplying. I dyed several more yards of golden yellow and one yard of strips later I finally finished the pile. There were 588 pieces in that gallon plastic bag. It took a couple of hours of pressing to get them ready to sew again.

I've started sewing them together in pairs. Then those will be sewn together until I have long strips, which will be sewn together with golden yellow between strips.

I'm really enjoying doing this and part of it is the music I'm listening to. I love classical music and listen to our local public radio station(Boise State Radio) frequently. While I've been doing this sewing I've been listening to some marvelous Christmas music, not the current commercial choices. The Christmas music will be over before the sewing is done, but I've made a good start on a quilt. A quilt that will probably go to a grand daughter that graduates in June, from both high school and community college at the same time.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Snow dyeing

Snow dyeing has been a hot topic for the past few winters on a list I'm on, but in the past I've never succumb to the lure of another way to apply dye. Well, we've had lots of snow and there were some dyes leftover from the Thanksgiving tie dyeing festival with granddaughters,so I jumped in and did some snow dyeing. Here are the results.




I may have to do some more!

Christmas Presents

For many years I made Christmas presents, especially for grandchildren, but as they've gotten older and live farther away I've pretty much stopped. This year I made only two of the gifts, the first was over Thanksgiving weekend and was a request for fleece pj bottoms. The second is for my youngest granddaughter and is the sock creature seen below.



I got a new toy for Christmas.


I have talked myself out of a needle felting machine for several years, so this year Santa ordered one for me. I've been collecting roving for awhile, so now I'm ready to play.


Don also got his present early. He got a snow blower and got to use it this morning on our new layer of snow.