Living vicariously

Today while I was at the grocery store, there was a young girl behind the counter in the bakery and she was talking to a fellow employee about going home to wash her face & put on new make-up and get ready to go out.

I said that I can’t remember the last time I’d talked to someone who said they were going out on New Year’s Eve and neither could all the other eavesdroppers! 

I asked if she could let us know her plans for the evening.  She said she was going to a Peruvian Restaurant with her boyfriend and his parents and then to Bayside in Miami for the rest of the evening.  I told her I would be living vicariously through her evening!

I remember when I went out to a restaurant on New Year’s Eve with a young man & his parents.  Fifty years later, that same young-at-heart man & I are staying home on this New Year’s Eve & will be lucky if we stay up as late as 10:30pm !

Oh, and at that restaurant of long ago – I had lobster.  It was $4.50.

Hope you have some Happy New Year’s Eve memories, too. 
Let’s all make a Happy New Year’s Eve memory …

Memories

The above little Sun Bonnet Sue animation comes from the December 18th EQ blog.  Electric Quilt is offering it “free for the taking”.  I’m guessing that we all have used Sun Bonnet Sue in our quilts, at one time or another.

I even made a Sun Bonnet Sue cake for a granddaughter.

It was for Jessica’s 1st birthday and it was “her” cake – the one that was set on her high chair tray for the birthday girl to eat - or demolish!  Jessie did both!  That picture brings back good memories.  Jessie is 16 now.

Christmas is about memories.  So my wish for all is to go out and make a good Christmas Memory …

Halloween Gift Bag

This is not meant to be a Trick or Treat bag, it is a gift bag – to put in special “spooky” things for a special “trick or treater”.  It could be used for a Trick or Treat bag if the treats aren’t real heavy.  

Start off with a plain paper bag and iron on some shapes.  I got the plain bag at Joann’s.  I’m sure the Party Supply stores would have plain bags, also.  The above bag was from last year for my grandson.

I found the above design by searching for “pumpkin carving stencils”. The design I downloaded was not the right size for the bag, so I took the image into EQ6 and drew (traced) it from the design.  The beauty of EQ6 is that you can make the design to your specs  and I could put the moon and bat where I wished.  I made the windows and door “crookedy”.  And could print out the templates any size I wished.

I cut the shapes from fabric fused to “Wonder Under” (or “Heat & Bond”).  Same as you would if making an appliqué for a quilt.  Then iron the cutout shapes to the bag – no sewing involved. 

I’m going to make another decorated paper bag this year cuz last year’s was neat.  I think I’m going to use the skull stencil I found at
www.sun-sentinel.com/halloween

Another source for images to use on the bag would be from a Desktop Publishing program on your computer. 

Gift bags with ironed-on stencils can be used to decorate plain bags for any occasion.  And makes them very personal.

Christmas Shopping Bag & EZ shopping bag

I wrote a tutorial for a Christmas Shopping bag last November.  Thought I’d bring it back now, in case anyone would like to make one for this Christmas.  They make nice gifts.  The can be used to “wrap a gift”.  Make one for yourself to put your Christmas shopping items in.  http://anotherpatch.blogspot.com/2008/11/christmas-shopping-bag-tute.html

And if you want to make some super-easy-to-construct Shopping Bags that are good give-aways, here’s a link to my bloggin’ buddy Sunnie’s http://patchworkpie.blogspot.com/2009/08/fabric-bags-e-z-way.html tutorial.

AOL Quilting Community Project #2

I have put up another project from the old AOL Quilting Community. This one’s from Tish Douglas, again. Tish designed this one in the days after 9/11/2001. Complete instructions, with graphics, are available as a PDF--
http://anotherpat.com/qt/flagquilt.pdf

I have a list up with another project on it and more will be coming –
http://anotherpat.com/qt/index.html

Several quilters have sent in pics of their Flag Quilts – http://anotherpat.com/qt/gallery6.htm

Fabric shopping, EQ, iPod Touch

I’d like to thank Penny & Andrea over at ElectricQuilt for creating a whole bunch of traffic to my blog today! I was mentioned on the EQ blog for my entry on Friday.

I had sent EQ an email saying I had found a good marriage between the iPod Touch and EQ and they agreed and posted my link today. In the EQ blog it said -- “She moves images from EQ to her IPod Touch and takes the IPod to the fabric store! Not only does she save paper, but going from computer screen to IPod screen, she doesn’t have to deal with the way printers and monitors are calibrated.”

There definitely is a difference between the colors I see on my monitor and the colors that print.

I've got a quilt that I will be making here in the not too far distant future and I will let you know how the iPod Touch helps me with my fabric selection.

Shopping Bag Gallery

It is always so nice to see other’s versions of one’s design. When another sew-er makes that item from the design, then it is assumed that the directions were accurate! ;-) Denise from Canada sent me a pic of the Christmas Shopping Bag that she completed.

Thank you, Denise! I see you used a different fabric for each tree. You must have started the bag shortly after I put up the tute. And I have put your bag in the #1 spot on the Gallery page for Fabric Bags. It shall remain at the top forever. Other pics will go in the next spots below.

Christmas Shopping Bag instructions

I hope to get lots of pics! It will be so neat to see other’s interpretations of the design – or what they can do with a plain bag.

I like blogging. It reminds me so much of the days in the old AOL Quilting Community. We got such nice feedback from the quilters for just about anything we did. And then there would be the quilting chat rooms where we could discuss all what was going on. Yah, I think AOL had a good idea and I think they made a big mistake when they got rid of all the Communities.

Christmas Shopping Bag Tute now edited

I fixed the huge pics on the webpage for Christmas Shopping Bag --
anotherpat.com/fabricbagXmas.htm

Tomorrow (Monday) I will be blogging a tip on printing webpages that might help you save some paper.

Christmas Shopping Bag Tute

I have great respect for all of you quilting and crafting bloggers out there who write tutorials in their blogs! It sure takes time taking all those pics and then uploading them and having to deal with the quirks of the blog's program.

I got so frustrated yesterday with trying to put up over 30 pics, 5 at a time, and dealing with the white space that grew between pics & text whenever I did another upload of pics. I said nuts to the whole deal & made my tutorial on a webpage. Please excuse some of the big pics on the webpage as they were created to go on a blog page with a link to bigger image. Ahhhh well. I will fix those big pics when I get the chance. FIXED -- Sunday Nov. 30.

Here's the Christmas Shopping Bag, complete with tutorial & Paper Piecing templates.

anotherpat.com/fabricbagXmas.htm

I figured out how to make a "French Seam Squared Bottom" Step 30 in the tute.

If you spot any errors in the tute, please let me know anotherpat@gmail.com and I will correct them.

And, if you make one of these bags, I'd sure like to see a pic!

Don't know if I'll be posting anymore before Thanksgiving, so I'd like to send wishes to y'all for a good Thanksgiving Day. And I hereby decree that all food eaten on Thanksgiving Day is calorie-free! Now, wouldn't that be something to be thankful for!

Today is Veteran's Day

Take time to remember