Update on Eye Surgery

Ask me if I recommend having eye surgery on both eyes at once.... HECK NO!! I look and feel like someone hit me in both eyes hard. Someone asked if I was having corrective vision surgery and I wanted to clear that up. I have a condition that comes around about every 6 months or so. Basically its like this, everyone gets styes on their eyes periodically or maybe just once in their lives right? Well for 99% of the people out there they just go away on their own after a few days. Well mine do NOT. Mine just keep getting bigger and bigger and harder to the point I have to go have them removed surgically. I believe this was my 3rd hoedown. They don't know why some people have this problem and they don't know how to prevent them. So I am just having to settle with having them removed by a surgeon and just keep my fingers crossed in between that they wont come back. The first time I had them on both eyes, the second was just one and this time it was both again. Only this time they had to do a little more work than expected so I have stitches and it hurt a lot worse when I woke up. Now don't get me wrong, I love my surgeon. He is actually one of the leading eyelid plastic surgeons in the country. He does excellent work. I have no complaints other than them not being able to tell me why they keep coming back or how to stop them. This time I had my husband ask him to write down exactly what the condition is called so that I can look it up. Because at this point I am willing to try even home remedies or herbal or anything to keep them from coming back. Now I cant make heads or tails out of this drawing he did for John about my eyes but what I can make out is this Posterior Blepharitis and then at the bottom is the work Chalazion I think. I think he even said in the office visit a few weeks ago that some Dr.s will recommend trying taking Flax seed supplements. So I have started taking a Flax seed Oil supplement as well. I am going to try and do some research on the Internet but keeping in mind that not everything you read on the web is true. Well I guess I will try and get some work done before I get too tired. Will get back to posting about sewing hopefully tomorrow.

Eye Surgery

OK so today I don't have a lot to say because very shortly I am leaving for eye surgery. I am not real happy about it either so I am not in a very good mood. I will just leave you with pictures of the bag that I made for my mom from the same pattern as I made my bag from, its the City Bag. I have been trying to get some followers so if you like the blog tell your friends to sign up. :-)

Hopefully I will have more to post tomorrow.

Baby Quilt

My best friend is having baby #2. I could say I was jealous but I love them all too much to be jealous. I can't wait to meet this little boy because baby #1 is such a character his little brother would have to be. For baby #1 I really didn't know how to make quilts yet so I just made a ton of those little tiny pillows that I made for the biscuit pillows and made one large blanket out of them. I thought it was so cute and they loved it. Was made in purples because I started it before I knew what the baby would be. Here it is.

So for Baby #2 I thought since I have a little more knowledge on quilts I would try it out. here are some pictures of me making it along the way. First off here is the fabrics I chose and let me explain why. I am not really a sucker for your traditional baby colors. I mean why does everything have to be "baby blue" or "baby pink"? Also I think a quilt should not only reflect the person you are giving it to in mind but it should also have a little personality from the one making it as well. I love stars, moons and sky themes. Anything celestial I guess you would call it. And the colors and theses of these three fabrics just jumped out at me so much that I had to get them. I just love the way orange and blue looks together. Also since this quilt won't be your traditional baby style quilt that means that little Baby #2 will be able to carry it around like Linus for years to come. How special is that.

Here are the fabrics I chose. I figured the swirls in the light blue and the orange would tie together and then since both colors are in with the dark blue it would work out great. Then the light blue also has stars on it.

So then here are some shots of the progress so far.

Don't you just "love" Chain Piecing!!

These little triangles took a while but they were allot of fun to see coming together

More Chain Piecing woohooo!!

Getting closer and closer!! Now we have a cute little square!!

Now add some sashing and corner stones. Lining those up just right took a little time and patience but it was worth it.

So I spent all day today adding borders and more cornerstones. Viola!!

Now I have to pick the backing which I think I am going to go with the darker blue but I will have to run and get more. I didn't know how large this BABY quilt was going to be, I guess I didn't look at the directions well when it gave the finished measurements. Then I need to get batting and get it quilted. After that comes my most "un"favorite part the binding. Gotta all be done by May!! Will post more as I get them finished.

Well that's it for today kids. Come back tomorrow and I will show you something new. :-) Peace

My Bag

I have this bad habit of making something or sewing something and then giving it all away. Everything thing I have sewn I have pretty much given all of it away. Don't get me wrong I like giving gifts and I especially love seeing other people happy and all...buttttttt that leaves me only with pictures of the things I make and sometimes that makes me sad. So I decided that to make myself a bag all just for me for a couple of reasons. First of all I guess its time I stopped using my UnderArmor backpack as a purse, even though it had a ton more pockets than most purses and looks so much cooler. And secondly because I just wanted one and that should be enough of a reason. So since I don't really enjoy the traditional girly flowers or colors I went to Hobby Lobby looking for something that I would enjoy looking at everyday. I have this bag pattern that is called The City Bag and I really like it. I made one for my Mom a little while back when she requested a bigger bag to take on trips. Well it calls for a charm pack of 36 5" squares but I never see any charm packs in the stores I go to and plus I never really see any that I like. Either they are too girly or the colors just turn me off. So I went to Hobby Lobby and just made my own charm pack out of some coordinating fabrics that I fell in love with. Now they do have some flowers on them but they are red black and white and they matched the great Fleur da lis pattern that I found. I made the lining a black tweed and I really like it. Its all for me and no one get this one. Here it is... I call it my "All Mine" bag. :-)

Bucket Purses

So as I promised here is a little info on my bucket purses. After doing several of the simple patchwork purses I wanted to do something a little more. I was strolling through the Stitcher's Playhouse (my sewing hangout) and saw this cute purse hanging on one of the cabinets. I inquired and they said it was one of the purses they taught in a class but it had been a while back. They did however have the pattern for it for sale so I thought it and boy did it ever give me something to do. The first one I made was a cute little purse that I ended up giving to my Sister for Christmas. I also made a little wallet to go with it.

So I loved the way that turned out so well I made another one. Now this purse's fabric is just absolutely ugly to me, but when I was shopping for it there were a bunch of teenagers in the fabric shop talking about how they would love to have a bag from these materials so I figured I would go out on a limb and try it out. Didn't turn out to bad but I still think its ugly. I used this purse as my Dirty Santa gift for Christmas with the family. I think it went over pretty well. It came with a little wallet as well. OH and I put these little dangle things on it and that took me a while to figure out how to get them sewn on but was worth it in the end.

From there I started with a few others. The camo ones are for my Aunt who loves everything camo, and the plaid is for a cousin which has dangle things as well. There are infinite ways to make these purses and I am sure there will be several more that will come out of my sewing room. Here are a few more.

So that's it for today and for Bucket purses. Let me know what you think!!

Purses

OK so for the past year or so I have been pretty fascinated with sewing purses. Now most of you that know me personally will be kind of confused because I don't even carry a purse. But for some reason I just love sewing them and giving them away. My first ones were nothing to write home about I assure you. But they were cute and the people I gave them to really liked them. One I made from a place mat and one from some cute pink silky type stuff I found at Goodwill (and yes they have fabric at Goodwill if you catch them at the right time).

Here they are .

Then I learned how to make them without the seams showing on the inside and put a lining in with pockets. Still nothing fancy and I used patches of different materials to try and make them look quilty. I made this for Paula the night before a surgery I was having to help keep my nerves down a little.

With each purse I learned something new and added something when I got comfortable with how things worked and started adding decorative stitching to the handles and such. I made this purse for my Mom because when she saw the above purse she immediately wanted one. I think it was rather cute.

Then I made some for the nieces and made them each a little different so they would be the same yet not the same. These were for Christmas gifts and I filled them with Goodies.

Then I learned how to make bucket purses but that will have to be tomorrows post...to be continued :-)

Day two of blogging... Hope I can keep up this pace :-)

So as you can see there is a picture at the top of my blog of a Mariner's Compass. This was my first attempt at Foundation piecing or paper piecing and in my opinion it was a success. I would never have imagined that I could have figured it out and second how beautiful it actually turned out in the end. The picture below is where I have added another border of the blue stars and moons fabric because in my opinion the yellow outweighed the blue and I like for things to balance. I have sandwiched it with the backing and batting and its ready to be quilted. I am just waiting on being able to purchase my free motion quilting foot for my sewing machine and I was hoping since my birthday is in early March I could talk to people into getting it for me, I'll keep you posted on how it goes. I have a few other things that are ready for quilting as well such as my first attempt at Applique which I will post a picture of below as well. I had fun doing this and I think I picked out a relatively easy piece to start on. Kudos to my friends at the Stitcher's Playhouse for teaching me how and being patient. I love that place a lot. I did this with a few brightly colored fat quarters that came together in a bundle. I was thinking of quilting it with some designs on the borders, in the ditch on the squares and some around the edges of the flowers. Not sure how I will do the Mariners Compass yet. Suggestions are greatly appreciated. Well back to sewing. Will try and post again tomorrow.

Take care everyone

Chernal