Here is the Feed Bag!

Here is the animal food bag I learned to make a couple of weeks ago. Handiest tote bag ever! These would be great to keep in the car for muddy shoes. When dirty, you only need to hose them out. So easy to make - I'll be making lots more of these, I know.

We went to lake for a long weekend. Our current home was listed late last week and we wanted to leave it clean and get away for a few days. Hubby spent a good bit of time while at the lake doing yard work. I spent lots of time doing marathon sewing! My deadline for making these baby quilts for our new grandson is quickly approaching! 

I'm happy to report that while at the lake I knocked out one baby quilt top completely...start to finish! It didn't turn out like I had planned because I had cut some pieces incorrectly, but I persevered and came up with my own design to fit the pieces I had. BOOM!

I also finished the eye spy baby quilt (see above) except for borders. I won't show picture of either of these quilt tops until they are gifted. Yesterday I ran by a quilt shop and found the perfect border fabric for the eye spy quilt. This morning I'll try to get the borders on while Sadie is at preschool.

If you have been keeping up with my baby quilts, then you know there is one more to complete. I'll cut more pieces for it this morning and should have it finished before the week is over. I had planned to quilt these myself, but that's not happening with our upcoming move. And so, I'll have a friend take care of that for me. 

The project that is lagging behind is my cross stitch. The August block will not be complete in August. Oh well, maybe I can catch up eventually. Not the end of the world if I can't!

Be happy!

A Tiny Bit of Sewing

 I got very little sewing done this week as we have continued to prepare our house to sell. I did cross stitch a bit one day - I'm afraid I'm going to be behind my schedule on Anniversaries of the Heart. I'm not near finished on the August block and September is coming fast. That's okay.

I did go to a guild class on Saturday. I'm so glad I took the time to go! We learned to make WIP (Work In Progress) bags, and as you can see I put mine to work immediately. It's storing the Eye Spy blocks until I have a minute to sew them together. Yes, I still need to make several more blocks.

We also learned to make large tote bags from used animal food bags - those big 20 or 50 pounds bags. I can't put my hands on mine at the moment or I'd share a photo. 

I would like to make more of both of these types of bags - both are easy and don't take long. 

We have another busy week ahead. Our current home will be photographed for the listing this week and a house cleaner will come and do her thing. And then we just hope it sells fast.

All is well though. I think the worst part of moving is getting the current house ready for sale. And now that part is complete - yay! I'm not worried about the packing - we scored some free moving boxes over the weekend from someone who had just moved. We have them tucked away in a storage unit along with the many things we cleared out of our house before the showings begin.

I hope to fit in more sewing this week - I'll keep you posted on that! Enjoy your week!

A Tiny Bit of Sewing and a BIG CHANGE COMING!

It's been a bit crazy around here lately...I'll explain why later in this post.

 I have had very little sewing time lately, BUT I did start the quilting on my Sadie portrait! I had planned to do intricate free motion work. Then I thought it through and changed my mind.

My upper body strength has not been up to par since my mastectomy a few years ago. I was afraid I'd end up sore and miserable during the process of free motion quilting. So I decided to do straight line quilting instead. I'm letting my machine do all the work with dual feed set. 

I'm not marking or using rulers....just aiming and sewing. This is a great technique for me because I can try to sew a few lines on the quilt each day. It's not hard to pick up where I left off and I don't have to get into the rhythm of free motion work each time.

And here is the progress on this baby quilt. All these pieces are sewn together now. This top will get only one or two more rounds of blocks and it will be ready for quilting. I wish you could see this in person. The colors are so nice and it's SO SOFT to touch.

(First zinnia bloom from seeds Sadie and I planted!)

And now for the craziness....

Yes, we custom built our home.

Yes, we've only been living in it for 2.5 years.

Yes, we love it.

BUT...

1. We decided earlier this year that we wouldn't mind moving back to the other side of town - the area where we lived when we first moved to Auburn 10 years ago. (Can you believe we've been here 10 years???)

2. We decided we wanted a little more house, something a bit bigger. Our needs have changed in the last couple of years.

3. We wanted to live closer to the elementary school Sadie and her upcoming baby brother will be attending. (I imagine picking her up from school and bringing her to our house quickly.)

4. Though I was previously against having an upstairs, now that I've lost more than 40 pounds, stairs don't bother me so much.

And so.... for the past several months we've been looking. We were even open to building again, but lots are hard to come by in that area of town. We even made a couple of offers on homes, but couldn't come to an agreement with sellers.

Thursday morning a new listing popped up. We have learned that here in Auburn homes can sell FAST! So we made an appointment and saw the house at noon that day. That evening we made an offer. Friday it was accepted. No counter offer, no dickering. It was meant to be, I believe. 

And so...if the inspection goes well, we'll be closing on that home in a few short weeks. We love the decor of the new home. The only thing we will want to do before we move in is to add wood floors to the two rooms upstairs. We'll wait until that is complete before moving in. 

(First lime from my lime tree!)

So we are now preparing our current home to sell. Luckily there is not too much to do. But we are clearing some things out and touching up paint here and there. The worst part so far?  Removing 168 foam stickers from the wall of my sewing room. They held up my design wall felt squares. Advertised as ‘easy removal, no wall damage’. WRONG on both! It took hours! The wall is now smooth and spackled, ready for a touch of primer and paint. 

I will reuse these felt tiles in the new home, BUT I will not use the same sticky pads that came with them.

This week we'll have the home inspection done at the new house, but since it's only a couple of years old I doubt anything major will be found.

God's timing is really perfect. We needed this to happen exactly when it did, though we didn't realize it. We'll be moved in before the new grandson arrives. Sadie starts back to preschool this week, giving us a bit of extra time to get packing done. 

Every house we've owned in Auburn (this will be the 4th) we've thought would be our forever home. Haha! That's okay. Moving is really not that hard. It IS hard to move from a home you've living in for 20 years. But it's not hard when you move every few years. We're excited.

The biggest challenge will be to finish 3 baby quilts quickly. I haven't even started one of them. But, trust me...it will happen!