We have reached that point of winter ...

 It's too cold out to really do anything.  Too much snow, but not enough for anything fun. 

Unless you are in to ice fishing on the bay.

Winter doldrums ... the Monday of winter. ... whatever you want to call it, we are in it. 

I'm not even sure what I mean anymore.  The cold snap (and I use that term loosely, considering the area I am in) is done.  Today we had a high in the upper 20s F.  The rest of the week the high temps are supposed to be in the 30s.  I'm just waiting for spring fever to hit me. 

Okay ... 

Last week I had Thursday and Friday off of work.  I have vacation time to burn before my work anniversary in February.  I'll have been at the paper for 21 years. TWENTY-ONE years! Can you believe it?  I can't. 

I decided to make use of this time to catch up on some of my crafty endeavors, and maybe knock a few things off the list. 

My last blog post talked about how I measured incorrectly for my binding on the Daydreams wall quilt. 

I went to Walmart and looked for the fabric.  They did not have it.  I was disappointed but not surprised. It's been a year since I purchased this fabric.  A yard of plain white fabric was purchased, to ensure I did NOT run short this time around. 

Wanna take a guess as to how much binding I would have needed for the original fabric? 

Here, it may make you weep. 

Maybe six inches?  When I set that up to see how close I was I immediately went looking all over the craft room and out in the she shed to see if I had ANY scraps of this fabric left.  I don't have a problem with piecing fabrics together. 

Nothing. 

Here's my finished wall quilt. 

Daydreams Wall quilt

Started: 2/5/23

Finished: 1/18/24

Designer: Sew Sampler Box, Jan. 2022

Fabric: Beautiful Day by Corey Yoder. Background fabrics from walmart. 

Made for: myself.  Will go up on the wall in my bedroom. 

On the bright side, it is my best binding job, to date. 

I put the binding on Thursday night.  I'm very pleased with it, overall.  This was my first time using the walking foot, with the bar, instead of drawing out all those lines.  I used a hera marker and pressed the first line, going each way.  Then used the bar to space them out about an inch apart. 

Friday I decided to tackle the apron I've been wanting to make for around two years now. 

I had the video going, and wasn't feeling stressed at all.  

Bam! The piece I had cut out for the body of the apron. ... I accidentally grabbed that piece and cut the straps out of it. 

Seriously? 

I posted about it in a few places on my social media and a few people gave me suggestions, since I did NOT want to have to buy more fabric. I promptly folded this fabric up and put it away until I could think more clearly about it. 

I figured it would be a good time to break out the WIP progress bag I wanted to make. The WIP-style bag I like, and have made several of, is the one that Kimberly from Fat Quarter Shop shows how to make. 

Cruising along with it, and quilting the back of the bag was going easily enough. 

 Then I about 25 percent into the quilting and I thought 'Hey, did I check that both fabrics are the right way?  You can see in the upper photo, to the right ... No, they are not!

I'm pretty sure I said out loud "Are you freaking kidding me?"  

I sat there for about 30 seconds and thought to myself "I should have stopped after the apron, and just gone and knit." 

Then thought "I don't care." The bag is for me.  No one is going to see the back of the bag.  I use vinyl on the front to help showcase the fabric." Then I continued quilting the fabric. 

There may have been an email to my mom's group in the interim about this. ... *ahem*

Before I trimmed down.  I thought I'd take a photo to show how the fabric was. 

After it's all trimmed up. 

The finished product.  I'm thrilled to bits with it.  Naturally, I want to make another one. I also want to put a Valentine project in it.  Cross stitch or sock, it doesn't matter. I think I'm ready to be done stitching Christmas charts. 

Spring WIP bag

Started: Purchased fabric from walmart in early 2023

Finished: 1/19/24

Used tutorial from Fat Quarter Shop

Made for: myself

Gotta say .... my new Janome came with an awesome zipper foot.  The zipper foot with my older Janome is a bit confusing to work with and I'm never quite sure I'm using the right side of it. 

I finished my WIP bag on Saturday. Friday night I worked on it until 10 p.m. and only had the binding left go to.  Thankfully I had enough. ... 

Sunday I tackled the apron again.  Since I had stepped back from it, I was able to go "Oh yeah, just sew the pieces back on!" 

That I did! 

And here you go.  You may not be able to see the three pockets I have sewn on there. I'd love to figure out a way to sew snaps on so I can fold the apron in have and use it to haul stuff in from the garden. 

Farmhouse apron

Started: Purchased fabric at walmart in 2022

Finished: 1/20/24

Designer: Sewing tutorial from Cosmopolitan Cornbread. 

Made for: Myself.  I've wanted a harvest apron for some time, and i think this will fit the bill. 

Would you believe that as soon as I hung this up I realized there was something that I forgot to do when I was assembling the pieces together on this.  Yeah ...  I'm not going to say what, however, because I firmly believe in not pointing out your errors, especially if they aren't obvious. 

And, yes, now that I've struggled through one of these aprons I want to make another.  One in a lighter color. 

I'm a glutton for punishment.  It's a really nice design, though.  Simple and you don't have to worry about ties. 

This weekend I worked on few of my knitting projects.  I'm hoping to record a video this week, and I'll share about them in the video.   Naturally, I had some battles with a vanilla sock and my harvest cardigan. This wasn't my week for crafty things. 

In other news, my hubby is hatching an idea for our solar set up and the ability to charge up the batteries with a generator when the solar panels are covered in show, or when we haven't had sun in several days.  That's kind of exciting.  We haven't had any new homesteady-type projects in a while. Unless you count expanding the garden.