my modern quilt (NOT!), making laundry soap

September 14, 2012

what a week! does anyone have elderly relatives/loved ones that they watch over? well, in our family we have my mother & chip's mother & aunt. my mother (who is in a nursing home) is not doing well so i have spent more time with her than usual. this cuts in to my quilting time! i like starting my quilt blog out with a picture of sweet nora jean. i can't believe i finally got a picture of her on my sewing machine! she got on it the day after my last blog and i had my camera right there. she is looking at me with disdain. she does not like to be disturbed when she is watching my thread go round and round.
while i'm looking at this picture i'm puzzled at how she can sit up there and not get tangled in the thread. i literally sew while she is up there. she never bothers anything and gets down only when i stop sewing. she's a smart cat!

i did finish the quilt top that i was talking about last time. you will see (and i have to smile every time i look at it) that it is a traditional quilt with some of the more "modern" colors. i think i will stick to what i like and know. i have always felt very comfortable doing what I like to do. if that means that i do what's new and popular or sticking to "the old way" then so be it. i remember my sister and i talking about getting older and she said what she liked so much about it was that she didn't worry so much about what other people's opinions were or if she was doing the right thing. that conversation was about ten years ago and i've tried to live by it ever since. the second quilt picture is going to be the back of the quilt. i'm going to have a scrap strip going down the center of it and amish black around it. that just may come out looking "modern"! i promise i'll show you when the whole quilt is done and quilted.

i emailed vistaprints and told them my complaint about the size of the lettering on my business cards. they replaced the whole order without batting an eyelash and i received the new cards yesterday. they also threw in some return address labels that i had wanted to get for chip & i. nice people, really nice products and i couldn't be happier. go on to www.vistaprints.com and see their products and get some free business cards to try. if my etsy shoppe gets going i'm going to order the tape measures for a gift for my customers.

well i finally made my own laundry soap and just did some laundry with it. it was GREAT! the stuff is easy to find in the grocery stores and is very inexpensive. what i like about it is that it is not only MUCH, MUCH cheaper but there are no additives for my sensitive skin. the naptha soap (it comes in bars) is the only thing i have to buy to make more. i have enough of the other ingredients to make 6-8 more batches. i was going to make the liquid version the the duggars use (19 kids and counting) but i found this tutorial using a dry powder in a much smaller amount. you can double or triple this amount and i will be doing this to make xmas gifts for the family. she even supplies a label you can print out to put on your container! sweet! her website is: http://www.sew-much-ado.com/2010/03/tutorial-homemade-laundry-detergent.html i don't know whether it is still active or not but i plan on finding out and thanking her for putting this on the web. it is very easy to make. after i grated the naptha soap i put it in my old blender and made it a fine powder. then i just mixed up the rest of the ingredients with the naptha soap and used 2 tblsps per wash. i taped her label on a coffee can and voila!!!! easy peasy is what i say!

well the mister and i have been apple picking and i've made homemade applesauce for my dear mom. she loved it and it cheered her up. of course i don't know if it was because i loaded it with cool whip (the light version but she doesn't have to know that) or because she actually liked the applesauce. chip and i enjoyed it though so maybe she liked both. this week i am loving apples, laundry soap, this wonderful weather we're having, and of course, my mom. have a great week and i will too. nancyb

UFO's, nora jean helps, business cards

September 6, 2012

hi everyone! it's been about 3 weeks since i blogged but i've been kind of bummed. is anyone out there reading this? i do love to write about things so i've decided to keep doing this. i'm also going to do a little more advertising. there are so many blogs out there that i don't know how any one finds any one!

 

i've finally ordered and received my business cards. i really like them but i enlarged the lettering and it doesn't seem to me that they did that. i've written them a note. we'll see how they respond. what do you think of them? the ones on the left were free! pretty nice, especially for free! i used vistaprints.com. which ones do you like better? i like them both!

well i've been trying to get my ufos under control. nora jean has (as usual) been helping me. she's such a big help!!! during this session she spent part of her time sitting on the top of my sewing machine watching the spool of thread. we've had her 11 years and she has always done this but never even attempted (even as a kitten) to put her paws under the needle. smart kitty! i do have to hold her considerable coon sized tail because she likes to flick it in my way as i'm sewing. she seems to like to have me hold it while i sew. what a helper cat she is!

well here are some of my ufo's. when i was working and my boys were in college/high school and things were crazy busy, i finished each project that i started. now i seem to be all over the place. this year, especially with my etsy shoppe up and running i really need to get organized! that will be my goal. the big block in the 2nd row was my attempt to make a "modern" quilt. i loved the block but when i put them all together they just weren't symetrical enough for me. i changed the block and added a plum and green square to an outside edge and now i have them lined up and looking woven. i should have taken a picture of the squares together before i changed them but i didn't think of it! i guess there's no changing the traditional quilter in me. i love some of the modern quilts tho! in the next blog i'll show you the finished product (i hope!).

well, our garden has produced a TON of zucchini and i have been making zucchini bread and zucchini brownies and we've had zucchini almost every night for supper! we're not complaining, we're just happy our efforts produced something! i have a freezer and i'm going to grate up and freeze some of the zucchini this week.
this week i love.........my cat, nora jean, zucchini, FINISHED ufos and my business cards. please check out my etsy shoppe some time at http://etsy.com/shop/sewingontheswift and tell me what you think. have a great day and i will too. it's beautiful up here in the white mountains.