Hooray for ballet!

Okay, I am not actually that excited about ballet but today was the best class I have had thus far. I got my shoes in the mail along with my tights and leotard...

Yeah, I have to wear a leotard. I was mortified too.

The shoes made a large difference in class. I have yet to find out if the leotard will make me a batter dancer or not. I ordered the wrong size. I have this tendency to believe that I am larger than I am. Some may call it a Napolean complex. Regardless, lately I have come to terms with my smaller stature and have been purchasing or making clothing according to that size.

So, when I went to order my sizes I figured, "Why not order the smalls, since you always order the larges?" I now know why not. When asking my best friend, who is a dancer, how the items should fit or what sizes she wears, she told me everything I did.

Oppositely.

This girl is tiny, wearing a size 3 jeans regularly she wears a size L/XL tights. She also wears a M leotard.

I ordered a small. Upon arrival of my package I decided to try it on anyhow. She said when I hinge at the waist it should not ride up very much, if at all. Imagine my surprise when I hinged and stood back up only to find my butt had eaten the whole thing. (For those who do not know me personally, my butt is rather large-ish for my stature.)

I will be returning the leotard to get a medium. With the tights on, I know it won't be so bad but I don't even want to risk it in class. Imagine what the other dancers will think when I have to explain to them that my butt is a voracious leotard eating monster.

They may wind up fearing for their own leotards as well.

When the world eats me,

If there is anyone out there who reads my blog, sorry I haven't posted in a while. If there is not, "Sorry Annie for putting to the side your obligation to post on this blog almost everyday. I would say it won't happen again, but I can't guarantee that."

There.

It seems the world ate me this last week. With ballet starting up and everything in between I have been a little busy and more than a little consumed. (Get it?) I've been taking time to digest everything that's going on. Needless to say, I have not worked on any quilts recently. I have aspirations to work on them all but I don't want to spread myself too thin between everything I am doing now so I decided to wait.

I have however worked on some curtains for the trailer this week. They are almost complete and I love them. They match my others which I made a couple months back. Honestly, I should have made them sooner, but who wants to make curtains when they can quilt?!

They are a pop of color I need in such a small space though, so they are important. They are also lined with the black out fabric which tends to insulate as well, which is great because I love sleeping in the pitch black. The trailer doesn't air conditioning or heating either so they will help with the temperature too!

I will update this post when I get some pictures of them. Maybe I will post pictures of the interior of the 5th wheel too!

I love Anne

singed Anne's Fiance... TYTY

Feeling dead, not lifted.

I have spent this whole morning laying around either napping or playing on the computer. Regardless of which however, I have not left the couch. To anyone who knows me, that seems pretty uncharacteristic. I am the type of gal who usually hops out of bed and starts doing something immediately. (Especially these days. Gotta beat the heat!)

Today, I am not that gal. Today, I am the gal who can barely walk. 

Why?

Because I got overly excited about my new gym membership. 

On Wednesday I went to the local YMCA and signed up for a membership. This is exciting news seeing as how I have never belonged to a facility that has so much to offer! My brother-in-law works there, my sister works out there, a friend works and teaches classes there. What more could I ask for?

So after signing the paperwork I immediately parted ways with my mother, whom I joined with and headed straight for the weights. Generally I have some sort of workout plan, but that day I didn't. I decided to go with a tried and true, highly functional exercise, the dead lift.

Dead lifts aren't difficult for me. Stopping is difficult for me. Not over-doing it is difficult for me. Now, walking is difficult for me.

I did over 150 dead lifts Wednesday, which to some may sound like I am tooting my own horn. I'm not. It's actually quite embarrassing. You see, I have been a fitness enthusiast since I was 14 years old. So much in fact that last year I got my personal training certification. I understand that just because someone is certified doesn't mean they know all about it. But, I am the type to know all about it. Which means when I bent over and picked up that bar for the 100th time, I knew better. 

And now I'm semi-crippled from it. 

Going Sale-ing

After deciding that the best course of action to make each block look it's best would be to match the applique thread to the color fabric I applique, I realized I don't have that color thread. So, instead of going out and buying it at full price I have decided to take the week off and buy it this weekend, when thread at Joann will be 50% off.

Really, it only makes sense. Especially with how expensive this quilt it becoming already. Also, I get another 10% off the entire purchase for being a student. (If there are any students reading this, go to your local Joann and ask about this discount! It's like getting paid back for enrollment... Almost.)

So, instead of not sewing at all, I decided to take this lovely flannel I bought a few years back and finally make the rag quilt I had intended to.

It was coming along quite nicely until I realized that it would not be big enough to sleep under. I need to get about a yard more to make it a nice size. However, flannel is on sale this weekend also... So,

I can't wait until Friday! Joann sales, here I come!

Grandma's No. 2 Fan

I did it!

I completed 90 fans for my Grandmother's Fan quilt. After 25 hours of intense work this week I am finally done with that part.Now, I'm on to the rest of it...

I just found a cool way to do the center of the dresden plate here. Elizabeth Hartman explains it in such a way that seems so simple.

Until I tried it.

The centers turned out just fine thanks to her method explained in the tutorial. I did exactly that and then just cut them into four sections so that I could line up the right angle of the 1/4 circle to the right angle of my quilt block.

I think it looks great.

Here is the problem however. My tiny little 3/4 size Janome Harmony has a hard time sewing sometimes. She's a great machine, don't get me wrong. I've had her for 8 years and she's only let me down a couple of times.

However, the little zig-zag on my machine sucks when it comes to bulk. (Which my dresden fans have because I didn't see that I was supposed to clip the corners before I turned them. But, I digress. That's a different story for a different day.) The button hole stitch also sucks.

 So now I have to figure out how I am going to stitch these fans to their backing without making them look bulky or just outright gaudy.

I worked so hard on this already, I feel stuck. I could use my sister's machine potentially, or I can just hand stitch it. I'm not concerned about the amount of work it will take to hand stitch the machine but I am concerned about the integrity of my stitches. I would be so upset if I gave this away, had this big ol' production and hype about it, and then have my craftsmanship fail after only a little use.

My hopes are that this will last longer than my marriage, which is saying something. I am marrying him for life.

I'm pickin' up!

I can't begin to tell you how discouraging it is when I pick a large project, excitedly start it, and then part way through get overwhelmed. I feel like I am way in over my head and at that point don't know if I can even finish it. My self esteem starts to diminish along with my drive... It just sucks. So today, when I finished sewing up the petals for about half of my quilt I was so excited!

It's a real pick-me-up now to look over and see this pile.

Suddenly, I feel like I can go on...
Which is great because I did not cut enough petals to make all the blocks I need. I couldn't believe it, but when I did the math I realized this quilt will take 450 petals. 450!

...I didn't know what I was getting into.

Are quilters nuts?!

In the midst of my sewing strips of fabric, upon strips of fabric, and seam upon seam, upon seam, upon seam, upon seam... I had this fleeting thought like, "Am I nuts?"

The answer is yes.

I have taken perfectly good fabric, cut it into a billion pieces, and now intend to sew all those pieces back together to create a pretty picture. Of course, what I'm sewing it all into is functional. That seems pretty sane,  right?

Yeah... Until I find myself here again, cramping from sitting so long and wondering why I decided to cut all of the fabric up.

When my Granny Cora put together her beautiful log cabin quilt a hundred years ago, it made sense. She was poor like most people those days. All she had available were fabric scraps from clothing long overdue to the trash in or bits she salvaged from projects that required much more fabric. What else would anyone do with that fabric? They would make a blanket! (I don't think I've ever met anyone who said they had too many blankets by the way - let alone quilts.) That made sense then and it does now.

So I find myself asking then, why do quilters continue the approach they do? Blankets aren't a scarcity and neither is cotton, especially not attractive cotton. Do we quilt for the love of it? The art perhaps? Or the tradition? The functionality of the final piece?

At this point in time I can't say why I quilt. It seems to be one of the only things that I think about non-stop. If I am doing something else, I'd rather be quilting. If I can't be quilting, I'm thinking of the next quilt I'll be making. If I'm quilting, well then it's a good day. It seems I don't have to have a reason to quilt, but with every stitch I start to understand the reasons of others. Who knows, I may have all the same reasons as them one day. The same reasons as you.

So, why do you quilt?

Once upon a time there was a girl who could not stop thinking about a boy. After thinking about him for a disconcerting amount of time she got up the courage to ask him out. Nine months later they were engaged. Four months after that and she can be found here, attempting to document her journey in preparation for her wedding.

As soon as Tyler asked me to marry him I knew I had to make my own wedding dress. It is something I've wanted to do since I started sewing. So I sat down and started the sketching process.

It was entirely too overwhelming. I continued however, until I finally sketched up the perfect dress for me. I had decided between the art nouveau and the bohemian look and came up with the general lines I would be using in the dress. I excitedly showed my mother, to which her response was, "Oh, hold on and let me grab that."

"Whaaaat?!" I said.

And grab it she did. My mom had the exact dress I had sketched. Except better. It was the dress I used to dream of wearing when I was four. To me, it was the most beautiful garment a woman could wear.

She had bought this dress in 1996 at JC Penney during their Christmas sale. She paid $20 for it and wore it once - to Christmas dinner. Since then she has stored it in the original garment bag and transported it from house to house when we moved around. Without ever folding it. Or cramming it away. For 16 years!

Unfortunately I cannot give up any more details about the dress until after the wedding. My fiance doesn't want to hear about it, see it, touch the bag its in, nothing. He reads my blog to critique and only knows the story about the dress. If he had his way he wouldn't know that either. Everything about our attire will be unknown to each other until that day comes.

It makes the anticipation for the wedding that much greater.

Recently, my fiance's family's cats have adopted me into their hearts, and themselves into my home. I am a sucker for animals so of course I allowed them in to visit and to sleep. It's not like I really have a choice regardless. The screen door is missing the bottom panel - just perfect for a cat to slip in to. Them adopting me was charming, I was starting to feel more and more like the family. Even the cats like me!However, when I awoke and went to turn on my computer this morning the charm was lost.

One of the cats sprayed right next to my laptop. My laptop which just has been fixed for about 5 days after being out of commission for about 4 or 5 months. My laptop which I just paid to get fixed as an alternative to getting a new one.

I was mad. I did not seek the cats out though I was tempted. Instead I wiped it all off my desk and my favorite quilting book and instead started a blog. A blog which I have desired to start for 8 years now. One that I will start now so I can tell anyone or no one about the interesting parts of life from my perspective.

In a weird way, that cat helped me. If it weren't for him I may not even have had the gumption to start this project. I guess I should tell him thanks.

He is still not allowed in the house anymore though.