Blog Transfer

I am notoriously poor at keeping up with my blogging. I started a more personal blog a few years ago and instead of maintaining two blogs, I've decided to merge them. My other blog is jdandje.blogspot.com. Please look there for any further entries. Thank you!

T-shirt Quilt Day One

At first, I considered writing a step by step instruction for the quilt. Then I stopped drinking the overambitious Kool-Aid. While I have made quilts before (ten years ago), I am NO expert. Please refer to a quilting book as I am or taking a class before starting your own project. I will be posting pictures of my progress with short explanations. 

So many t-shirts! It will be Aggietastic. 

Wash them all before starting your project. It will help prevent shrinkage.

Good quilting tools are an investment...or at least that is what I have been telling myself to swallow the sticker shock. 

My blocks at 15x15 and therefore will end up being 14.5x14.5 when I take the seam allowances into account. 

I was a little sad cutting up the shirts.

One of thirty shirt squares 

Yea the squares are cut!

I think the 15x15 squares turned out fairly well. I also cut out 7.5x7.5 squares for smaller logos or for some of the t-shirt's sleeves. I cut out eight of those squares and will turn those into two blocks. Next step, iron on the fabric stabilizers so the t-shirts will be less stretchy. 

Dry Erase Weekly Calendar

With Thursday spelling wrong....

The Dry Erase Weekly Calendar is cute and easy to accomplish. I found this project on pinterest.com and loved it. To make things even better, I already had the frame collage! In college, while I was taking out the trash, this frame was sitting right on top of the dumpster. In the frames were all graduation pictures. Why this person threw it out, I still don't understand. There was nothing wrong with it! Nothing! Why would I spend $20 when I got this for free?

And Thursday corrected!

For those of you who don't have wasteful neighbors, this is what you'll need:

• A collage picture frame. Target has a variety of this kind of framing. 
• Scrapbook paper. I had a different kind of paper for each day but the combinations are endless. 
• Scrapbook letters. You can also write the days of the week by hand;  I bought letters because I have poor handwriting. 
• Scissors
• A pencil or pen for outlining
• A dry erase marker

The project takes about half an hour. Customize it how ever you would like!

1. Use the backing of the picture frame and trace on the backside of your scrapbook paper of choice. 
2. Cut it out.
3.  Now for the lettering. Each frame is a day of the week. If you are a perfectionist, you may want to measure the letters so they are centered. I just eyeballed it and adjusted as I needed to. As you can see on the picture, I had to place Thursday vertically instead of horizontally due to the length of the word. 
4. Place each piece of paper in the frame. 
5. Find a place in your home, hang it and you are done! 

My dry erase picture frame has now found a place in my bedroom. My husband and I tend to forget each others schedules and I hope this will help! I love how it turned out....for the most part. I am very much fighting my perfectionist tendencies with the lettering. Anytime my perfectionist self comes out, I hold the project further away from my body and I usually feel better. 

Currently I am working on a t-shirt quilt for my husband to enjoy on the ship. The plan is to have it done before he gets deployed this summer. 

Welcome

I love to create. My urge to "start a project" developed in middle school and has not lessened since. My work and school schedules wax and wane but I continue along with my projects. I usually have something in the works and dedicate my time when I have it to give.

Thus far I have made:

• ten lap quilts
• quilled snowflake ornaments
• wire star ornaments
• cross stitch ornaments
• one minor cross stitch project
• one major cross stitch project
• Thumbtack pumpkins
• a hollow book 

These projects have been completed in chunks of time. Often I have to stop my projects for long periods of time or my focus turns elsewhere. For example, the major cross stitch project listed and shown above took me more than four years to complete and I completed all the ornaments during that time period. 

After extensive time on pinterest and following other peoples how-to blogs, I realized that I can easily do the same thing. I love my projects and want to share them with others. I hope that I can inspire others to create. I will post my success and failures and want you, the reader, to learn from both.