First Finished Quilt for 2022

 I believe it was over a year ago when a dear friend gave me some shirts that had belonged to her grandfather, who had recently passed away.  I had offered to make a quilt out of them for her.

At first, I was a little stumped as to what pattern would showcase them the best.  A couple that I have made in the past were had logos or other designs that were easy to focus on.  The shirts were quite an assortment of very different patterns.  When I scrolled through pictures of my previous quilt designs and Pinterest, I didn't find anything that I thought would do them justice.

                               

Then, I was scrolling through YouTube several months later and came across a log cabin pattern that looked interesting.  I liked that this pattern had a larger piece of fabric in the center that could show each of the shirt patterns.  

In the photos above you will see quite an eclectic mix of solid oxford blend fabrics, a small plaid, two different tropical designs and a turkey hunting design!  It's almost it's own version of an I-Spy quilt!

Working with clothing is more work that starting with regular fabric, but it is so worth it.  It reminded me of how quilts were made many years ago from clothing that couldn't be used anymore - nothing was wasted.

This black and white photo does a great job of showing the texture in the brown fabric that I selected for the sashing.  I felt that it looked like wood and looked like a picture frame around the quilt.  I played around with the many decorative stitches on my sewing machine to trim out the edge of the design.

I am very pleased with how this quilt turned out and I hope my friend will think of her grandfather and treasure it for many years to come.

Now on to my next project....

Toodles until next time!

What I'm reading and listening to at the moment...

 I love to read and it's what I do every night before I go to sleep.  It really helps me to wind down and relax.

As well as reading books, I also really enjoy listening to audible books.  My drive to work is at least 30 minutes each way and then I have 6 hours of driving time every other weekend when I go to see my Dad.  This helps me to get through quite a few books.

I am currently listening to:

I'm a huge fan of historical fiction, especially around World War II.  This story has an added layer of going back and forth between present day with family members who uncover a different version of their family history.

Before this book, I listened to Daisy Jones and the Six.  I tried to read this book and just couldn't get into it.  Then I saw a review about it on TikTok (insert eyeroll, y'all know my love of this platform!) and the reviewer said that this was a book that was much better to listen to than read.  I couldn't agree more!  I loved this book!

An author who I have discovered through BookTok is Colleen Hoover - I have seen multiples reviewers just rave about this author and I had never heard of her.  She must be a very popular author because all of her books were checked out when I was looking for them on my county library website.

The next book I plan to read is:

I've been trying very hard not to buy books the past couple of years and we have a wonderful library service where I live.  I get all of my audible books through their Hoopla service.  They have a wide selection of titles.  I would strongly suggest checking out what your local library has to offer.

Full disclosure, I did break down and buy this book at Costco 😁. Though I have a network of friends and family that this book will get passed around between, so I consider it a good investment.  I have a feeling that if I like this author as much as everyone else seems to, I will want to read all of her books.  I do that sometimes, find an author I like and then find and read all of their books I can find.

I'll let you know what I think.

Toodles until next time!

Temperature Quilt Update

Hi everyone!  Here's a quick update on my temperature quilt.  I was with my Dad this weekend, so I didn't get to update it until yesterday when I got home.  I am going to try very hard to keep up with this on a weekly basis - I can see how this type of project can quickly get away from you.

This is the first 16 days of January.  To give you a better idea of what you are looking at, think yellow, orange and red = hot, green and blue = cold. Please excuse my dingy ironing board cover.  For more about this project, see my previous post.

If anything, this color key does a good job of showing just how psychotic South Carolina weather is!  It's fun to watch it change and grow.  It will be really interesting to see what it looks like by the end of the month.

Toodles until next time!

Have you heard of PinTok??

Hello, my name is Jakki and I'm a TikTok addict.  

Hello Jakki

Now we've got that out of the way, onto the great app that I want to tell you about.  While I have new love affair with TikTok, I have been a fan of Pinterest for many years.  Well, PinTok is what you get if Pinterest and TikTok had a baby!

I have said "I saw this on a TikTok video" so many times to my husband and kids, they just nod and roll their eyes.  However, seriously, there is some great information that can be found on this platform.  I've sent so many links to my daughter who is getting married this year.  I've also found some great recipes, and don't even get me started on all the craft ideas!

So, I thought I was slick when I started texting the links to videos that I wanted to save to myself.  Yeah, not such a great idea - you have to scroll through all your messages to find anything.

I literally found out about PinTok on TikTok.  It's free and super easy to use.  You get to organize videos into labeled folders....my OCD heart is fluttering just typing this.

A great person to follow on TikTok is my friend xoxojlocrochet.  

When you find a video you want to save, click on the save arrow.

Now click on copy link.

Open your PinTok app and then decide which folder you want to put the video in.

Now paste the link you copied and add any notes you want in the caption.  Now you can go back and find the video anytime you want to!

TikTok and PinTok away!!

Toodles until next time.

 

Temperature Quilt Project

 

Several years ago I came across a post about temperature quilts on Pinterest.  I thought they looked interesting, but at the time I had a long list of other projects that needed my attention.

There are quite a few patterns for sale on Etsy, but I did some digging on Pinterest and found this pattern for free.  It is very well written, with clear directions and diagrams.  There is a blank chart that you can use for your fabric selection and temperature range.

Well, I still have a long list of projects but I decided that this was the year I wanted to give this quilt a try.  I had a stack of solid color fat quarter packs that I had received from the Fat Quarter solids fat quarter club, so I knew I had a good range of colors to select from.  I labeled and laid all of them on the floor of my craft room.  Then came the fun of coming up with a temperature range and the colors that I would assign to them.

I decided to go with a 3 degree temperature range.  I used data from the Weather Underground website to look at the historical data for a where I live, to get a better idea of the temperature ranges over the course of a year.

Of course, being the OCD gal that I am, this called for it's own notebook to keep everything organized and a basket to keep all the project supplies organized!  The ziplock bags are my favorite ones from IKEA.

I've decided to sew the blocks once a week.  The really time consuming part of this project is all the cutting, but that's what I do as I watch a TV show on my IPad.  This first set of blocks only took me about 15 minutes to sew together.  I am excited to watch this quilt grow over the course of the year.  

Drum roll.....here's the first week of January...

I'll keep you updated on my progress.

Toodles until next time.

One word for 2022

 

I have done the one word project for the past 6 years. I like this so much more than making New Year's resolutions.  It's amazing how you can find and use a word to help you focus on your goals, projects and ambitions for the year. One word can apply to so many different facets of your life.

Some years the word literally pops into my head, other years I have scrolled through lists of suggestions to find just the right word.  In previous years my words have been create, joy, focus, peace, balance and grace.  

I have to admit that this year I was a little stumped.  I let it "sit" for a couple of weeks but nothing really came to mind.  I went to this website for some inspiration and looked at their long list of words.  As soon as I saw "learn", I knew that it was the perfect word for me for 2022.

As an educator, I've always been a lifelong learner.  My job has thrown me lots of curve balls, and I have learned a whole new skill set.  This year, I want to learn the related content at a deeper level.  I want to make sure to schedule the time to learn these topics in depth.  I feel so much of the time, I am surfing the crest of the wave on so much content and not taking the time for a deep dive.  Really hope to work on that this year.

On a personal level, I feel that I need to learn to take better care of myself, both physically and mentally.  I really need to cut back on the amount of time that I spend scrolling through my phone.  One way I plan to do this is to spend more time reading all the great books that I have been watching everyone else talk about on TikTok!  I plan on using this blog to document my progress and share what I am doing to learn some new and better habits.

Here's to learning a lot of new things in 2022....

Toodles until next time!

2022 - Time for a quick refresh

 

Yay!  It's 2022 - let's hope this year treats us a little nicer than 2021 or 2020 did!  I thought it was time to give my blog a quick spruce up.  I love Canva and my Facebook avatar stickers.

I just scrolled back and realized that I had not posted anything since March - ooops!  Going to have to do a better job with that this year.  I'm guilty of starting out with the best intentions and then fizzling out after a couple of months.  

While I don't make New Year's resolutions, I do like to select one word to focus on for the year. I'll be posting about that a little later in the day.  Right now I really need to go find my craft room...