Upcycled Dress / Skirt

                                                      (me without glasses)
I really don't like taking pictures of myself, but really wanted to share a recent thrift shop find that I up-cycled into a new skirt.  I've been following Marisa Lynch's "New Dress a Day" blog for a while now, and thought I'd try to do my own remake after spotting this sundress in a local thrift store.  It was only $3.  It was the fabric print that got me. Beautiful!

The dress itself wasn't that bad, but it was longer than I liked, and pretty shapeless.

So I decided to cut the dress in half to make a skirt out of it.  With this much fabric to work with (it wasn't a form fitting dress), I simple measured up 22 inches from the hem and cut straight across.

I then turned down an inch and a half of the new "waist, pinned and sewed up a new casing, turning under the edge a 1/4 inch as I went, and leaving an opening for the elastic.

Then it was only a matter of cutting a comfortable length of 1 inch elastic for my waist, threading it through the casing, stitching it together and sewing the casing closed. It seriously took me longer to write this blog post than it did to finish up a new skirt!  I'll probably add a small finishing hem to the top half to make a cute top.  Now we just need the weather to warm up so that I can wear it!

Finishes, WIP's and Bangladesh

First of all, I have a finished Deer / Elk block from the Forest QAL.  I think this is my husband's favorite, and I tried to make it resemble our local elk...

I also finished up a ribbon board to use to display some of my fabric postcards at a local art show.  I forgot to get a finished picture before dropping it off at the local art center, but I'll try to get one soon.  I also have some of my quilts in an upcoming quilt show. I've already helped register quilts, and plan to help hang them later this week!  It's one of my favorite week-ends of the year!  Thanks to efforts to finish up my quilt tops, I had a record number of finishes this year... something like 11 or 12 in all!

That brings me to my May A Lovely Year of Finishes goal...  I will work on what's now my oldest WIP, my "Scrap Attack" quilt that I finished up a year ago!

Finally, and most importantly, I've been thinking a lot about where my clothes come from after the recent devastating garment factory building collapse in Bangladesh.  I can't help but think of all of those mostly women, with families of their own who paid the ultimate price for our cheap clothing.  I've tried for years to buy clothing made in the USA, or used clothes from thrift stores.  I make clothes for me and my family as well, but I can do better.  I have a fair number of clothes made in China or, yes, Bangladesh.  Over the years, it has been harder and harder to find USA-made clothes.  I can find them though, and hope everyone will start looking a little closer, asking questions, and seeking for fair trade clothing.

I've bought clothes from USA made American Apparel, Pointer Brand, and Jody California.  Some New Balance shoes are also still made in the USA.  I often find USA made clothing in smaller scale stores... ranch and home stores, mom and pop stores, and even larger chain stores like Bi Mart.  I've decided to start again making more of my clothes and my family's clothes in the future.  Sure, it's easier and less expensive to buy discount clothing in stores, but I can't keep paying the ultimate price of exploitation, and dangerous, even fatal working conditions of these sisters, mothers, wives and daughters..

Quilt Block for Boston

The Boston Marathon Bombing has affected all of us.  It's still impossible to wrap my head around why anyone would commit such a heinous and cowardly attack.



As soon as I saw this post about making quilt blocks to send to Boston to help comfort, I started sewing.  The Boston Modern Quilt Guild is collection blue, yellow, white and gray colored blocks to make quilts to give to those affected.

I decided to make the Morse Code word for "strong", as in "Boston strong".  It's indeed going to take a lot of strength for these people to move on with their lives.  I've never been to Boston as an adult, and my memories of going there as a young child are gone, but it sure seems like a pretty special place full of special people. I'm more than happy to send a little bit of fabric to a city that's been through such a difficult time.

Please click on the link above if you want to help out as well.

Organic Chemistry Quilt is FINISHED!

After 2 years of working on and off of this (mostly off), I am so happy to say that my Organic Chemistry Quilt is done!!!

I started this originally as part of the Modern Quilt Guild's challenge, which had a theme of "organic".  After hand embroidering the first few blocks, it quickly became obvious that I wasn't going to get it done in the time period allotted.  I had time to stitch the blocks during  a cross-country road trip 2 summers ago, and even stitched together the back that same summer.  Then, I put it away and it sat for a very long time...

I think it sat for 2 reasons... the finished quilt wasn't as nice as I had envisioned in my mind's eye.  It's still not really a "favorite" quilt, but I love the concept of it, and wanted to see it realized.  I love geeky science quilts!  The other reason was that I had no idea how to quilt it.  In the end, I pretty much just closed my eyes and started quilting it, hoping for the best.  The hexagon quilting too    f o r e v e r   , but I'm glad I endured and got it done!  I was thinking about adding some free motion quilting in addition, but decided that I like the "simplicity" (ha!), or clean lines of the hexagonal quilting, and left it alone. The back is pieced together from all of the various fabrics that I used to make the hexagons and pentagons on the molecules.

It's 60 by 75 inches.  Each embroidered square is backed by muslin to keep the stitches from showing through the fabric, so it's a thick heavy quilt as well.  I think if I added up all of the time I spent hand embroidering each block, researching the chemicals, and quilting this beast, I probably put more time into this quilt than any other.  Whew!

Shanna and Melissa's "A Lovely Year of Finishes" helped motivate me to finish it, but I'm also getting it done with just a few days to spare to enter in our upcoming Krazy Horse Quilters' Quilt show!!  If you're in town May 4-5th, come see us!!

Happy Earth Day

I finished this "Eurasian Jay" Forest Quilt Along Block over the week-end, and thought it'd be the perfect block to share on Earth Day!  I've never seen a Eurasian Jay, but the pictures of them are so beautiful.

I decided to modify / disguise my bird and try to make a Western Tanager.  It's probably the most beautiful bird that I have ever encountered in the forest.  When I worked in wildlife biology surveying for the Spotted Owls in SW Oregon, I'd see these timid birds from time to time in the forest.  The males are so incredibly beautiful, and as you can see from this page in my "Peterson Field Guide to Western Birds", he's definitely a male.

Here are my Forest QAL blocks so far.  I have been enjoying this quilt along so much, as it combines 2 things I love... quilting and forests.

I though I'd put in a picture of our solar panels.  We were so lucky to be able to be involved in the local city program that helped us buy these.  Due to the weak economy and budget cuts, the program has not been able to continue, sadly.

These 12 panels supply all of the electricity we use in our house, including my sewing machine and iron, for all but about 3-4 months out of the year.  It fluctuates, depending on how hot the summer is (and how much we use the AC), and how cloudy our winter is (short cloudy days are not good for solar electricity production).

We are so happy with these!  We also drive a hybrid car, which we bought used about 6 years ago.  Our next plan is to replace our not-very-efficient heat system and hot water system, both of which are natural gas.  We try to do as much as we can to "lower our carbon footprint", but there's always room for improvement... One very small thing I'll do today is to head off to our local recycling center.  We have no curb side recycling here (booo), so I take a load every month or so.  I'd love to hear about any other Earth Day activities you are doing today and every day, because, as the saying goes... Every day is Earth Day.

WIP Wed: More Organic Chemistry, Clothes, and a Few More Postcards

I'm sure you all are getting so tired of seeing this WIP, but as usual, it's taken me much longer than anticipated to get it all quilted.  I love the hexagon quilting that I'm doing on it, but it takes a whole lot of time, and can't really be rushed.  It'll be so good to get this one finished.  I'm ALMOST there too!  These 2 blocks are at the bottom of the quilt, and are the last part to be quilted.  With any luck, I can finish it today!

I also got the itch to make some more clothes!  I have been keeping my New Year's Resolution to start and keep a regular exercise routine, and after 3+ months of "just doing it", my clothes are all starting to get really loose.  I really haven't lost a whole lot of weight, which is a bit discouraging.  I'm not overweight, but did want to loose about 10 pounds, but the inches are definitely coming off!!  I made a quick "1 hour" Simplicity pattern skirt, and it turned out pretty cute.  I plan on making more clothes soon!

Finally, my last round of postcards were fun thank you notes, but this last round was a condolence card for a family member, and a get well card for a good friend who recently went through her 5th brain surgery to remove a malignant Glioblastoma Multiform. She's been battling this cancer for 12 years, which is remarkable, since it rarely has a survival rate more than a year.  If you have a strong stomach and an interest, she recently posted a journey before and after her surgery.  She's an amazing woman! Her Youtube channel also has a beautiful video climbing Mt Whitney in California last summer that is a treat for anyone to view!

As usual, I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced WIP Wed.  Come see what others are working on!

Estrogen / Estrone

This past week was a mix of busy and sad.  My mind has been in another place, and I haven't gotten much sewing done.  Last week was also a solo week for me, as my husband was out of town.  Other than allergies and Spring colds though, my immediate family is fine.

I still want to highlight each of the molecules in my Organic Chemistry Quilt though, and today is estrogen.  Estrogen is actually a catch-all name for the female sex hormones.  The 3 main ones being estrone, estradiol, and estriol.  My molecule above is estrone.  It is the main estrogen present in menopausal women.  Estradiol is the predominant in women in reproductive ages, and estriol is the main hormone found in pregnancy.  The horse equivalent of estriol is the main component of birth control pills, as it tricks the human body into thinking it is pregnant.

These estrogens are present in both vertebrate animals, and invertebrates or insects, meaning it has been around for a very long time.  They not only control sexual maturation and development, and reproductive cycles, but contribute in many ways to most organ systems in the body.  They are also classified as "steroid" hormones, a group of hormones that also includes testosterone and progesterone.  Believe it or not, they all use cholesterol as a basic building block.  Though cholesterol is considered a "bad" thing in our diet, it is essential for making these hormones.

Both men and women's bodies make estrogen (women also make testosterone).  It is the balance of these that creates "wellness".  Besides reproductive disorders, there are many many disorders or illnesses associated with abnormal estrogen levels or receptors, including high blood pressure, blood clots, bone issues, cancers that are estrogen sensitive, and even mood disorders and mental illness.  It is an incredibly important chemical that helps our bodies work.

Since I've worked in the wildlife field and am very environmentally concerned, I have to add that the excess "synthetic" or horse estrogens that many women taking birth control pills or hormone therapy excrete also gets into the environment and act as "endocrine disruptors", which are a huge number of chemicals that can cause developmental disorders in aquatic and other life, as well as potential harm to human wellness. 

Again, these chemical highlights are purely for fun, and should not be taken as medical facts or used in research in any way...  I try to