Author: Teresa

Quilts, good books and dogs. Plus a cup of tea. Life is good.

Motivating moment

April 30, 2016

1

Today, I met the person who will be our principal for the upcoming school year. She’s very different from the retiring principal, but probably just what the school needs to continue the momentum started by her predecessor. I don’t know that much about her; however, the remaining admin team was tickled pink by the school board’s choice, and many staff members who knew her greeted her with big hugs today. I think everything will be fine.

The past 10 months have given me the opportunity to rediscover what I truly enjoy about teaching, dogs, libraries, sewing and running my craft business. The time was a badly needed balm for my soul. I have a feeling the new principal is going to turn out to be a professional development coach for both my library and my craft business. I look forward to the journey and taking things up a notch.

And yes, we had our Friday maker clubs today. I handed some of the kids cameras to take pictures of the group as we worked. I am officially on a diet. I most definitely did NOT like what I saw on the computer screen when I downloaded the pictures. So that will be my first agenda item!

Piecing blocks with directional fabric

April 21, 2016

I’m currently working a quilt using the Duck Duck Goose pattern from Summercrafter Patterns (edited my moi!).

Here are the completed duck and goose blocksduckduckgoose. See the ducks with the yellow/white ovals? And the goose on the second row?  Those blocks involved piecing with directional fabrics. It’s not difficult to do, but it does require some advance planning on your part.

SIMPLE STEPS

  1. Decide which end is up on the fabric – this will be the top of any cut pieces.
  2. Before cutting, study the fabric and plan the direction/sequence you’ll need to cut to make certain all pieces are oriented the correct way.
  3. Make sure you turn pieces the right way when sewing. Here’s a handy diagram I made to help remember which way to turn the fabrics when making corner units or HSTs. This example shows a snowball block:

TOP OF FINISHED BLOCK
(Directional base fabrics should be turned in this direction!)

cheatsheet.jpg
The arrows indicate which way to orient the top of the fabric squares to                          maintain a one-way design after sewing.

I often sew in the evenings after a long day at school. I don’t want to think too much about what I’m sewing. This diagram in my sewing notebook helps immensely!

**Goose block cutting changes if using directional fabric for the background** 
Cut two (2) 3″ squares of each fabric for the tail feathers instead of the single square listed in the pattern directions.

 

Curveballs

April 13, 2016

Sometimes life throws you a curveball.

How you react to it is totally up to you.

This morning, my principal announced her retirement effective July 1st. She is a beloved principal whom many folks followed to an “inner city” school to help turn things around. I joined the team last year at the urging of a mutual friend. I’ve never regretted that decision because I know I am in the right place for me. I am still processing the implications of her retirement at this point. Know what I’m most concerned about?  My kid sewing club and bringing Boomer to school.  Priorities, right?

One thing IS for certain – I will not put my creative arts business on hiatus again like I did from August – November.  I missed it terribly and quite frankly, it wasn’t good for business (library or sewing) in the long run.

So, I will keep on stitching and working on building the business that will follow me when I eventually hang up my school librarian hat.