Fabric Stash Organizing

You all know how much I like LOVE fabric.  Since it is a rainy Sunday I decided to go back to my craft room and start rearranging again.  When it comes to rearranging my fabric I can do it all day.  I look at all the colors and designs and imagine what I could make.  Most times I'm just kidding myself because I have the hardest time cutting my beautiful fabric.  LOL.  So today I will pet and fold my fabric. After looking at a few pictures of other people's stashes and reading tons of blogs I decided to sort through my fabric.

Step one. (I don't have a before picture)  I pulled out all fabric that was not "prim" to me.  I buy all kinds of cotton fabric when it's on sale or when I see it in thrift stores.  Since I can't sew clothes my stash is limited to cotton quilting fabric. I had a smaller bookcase where all this fabric is for now.  I haven't gotten to it yet to reorganize.

Step two:  I then stacked my "prim" fabric according to color.  You all remember ROYGBIV of the rainbow right?  That's how I then put it on my shelf. 

Step three: After seeing a picture where someone put their fabric on their sides like books of course I had to hop on the train and try too.

I really like the way it looks AND I can see all the fabric.  On the top shelf I am not tall enough to see it at eye level so i can't see what's on the bottom of the stack.  I think I'm going to do this on the top shelf too and see if I like it this way for awhile.

I'm getting closer to reorganizing the whole room but still have a long way to go.  I promise I won't bore you with tons of pictures of it though. LOL  I promise I will get to some crafting things soon.

Success

I didn't get to my sewing last night as some horrible upset stomach hit me. ICK!  Thank goodness I didn't see any of my food again though it felt like I was going to.  I, like many others, have no time to be sick. 

Anyway,  this morning I am feeling a bit better and decided to go try again to make a fabric basket.  I changed my pattern, looked for new fabric, and this time went so much more smoothly.  The outside fabric is a canvas I bought a few years ago to make a purse.  Yeah obviously that didn't get done.  lol.  So, luckily I had it for this project.  I know what your are thinking... Mary, you are so prim why did you buy these colors.  The answer is I love brown and pink together just like I like teal and brown together.  Besides this will be in my craft room, which is in my dark basement.  This will lighten it up a bit. :-)

I probably should have stiffened up the sides, but then if I leave it this way I can smoosh more baskets together on the shelf I have.

Here it is...  I changed the measurements to 11"X11"X11".  If you can sew straight seams you can sew this.  There is only a total of 9 seams.

 As you can see my brown scraps are in here.

I will make a pattern for the next one I make and post it.  Until then have a great day!

Craft Room Organization

I know it's not the beginning of the year, but I have been thinking about organizing my craft room.  Actually I have already started.  I think I need to redo so I'm not going to show you quite yet.

I know, who has time for that at Christmas time?  Well, yesterday was a work day for me and today is actually Christmas here at the homestead.  I got home from work and lo and behold everyone was up and ready to open gifts.  We opened them and then everyone scattered to do their own thing.  I got spoiled by Steve with watches, earrings, and necklaces.  Can you believe it he still hasn't got the nerve kicked in the butt to give me a ring yet. lol.  Oh well, I truly am OK with it I just like to tease him.  It is an ongoing joke between us. One day he wanted me to listen to an old country song titled "I'll be a Bachelor til I Die."  Well, my old ears heard "I'll be a bastard til I die."  It gave whole new meaning to that song let me tell you. 

Anyway, my very smart daughter gave me the best present of all.  She gave me a two sided fabric cutting mat.  My old one has been used and abused in the past few years.  It was so bad it was dulling and chinking my rotary cutter. :-(  Well, this afternoon I had to take that baby for a test drive.  I have been pinning like a mad woman on Pinterest recently for craft room organization.  I keep seeing these fabulous fabric baskets/ fabric buckets people are using.  What a fabulous idea I thought!!!!!  ummmm....well.... you all know from the past I share my failures as well as my successes.  So today this is a failure BUT not a complete failure.

This is my FIRST attempt at a fabric basket.  I read looked at the pictures on several blogs on how to make one.  Would you believe almost every one of them I posted had all measurements in cm!!!! No disrespect to those who use cm BUT I am trained to use inches. grrrrrr... So, I put on my thinking cap and tried to draw a pattern. Ughhh I knew geometry would come in handy again since taking it my sophomore year! I walked my little self upstairs and told my trusty sidekick (Steve) to help me.  He is super smart when it comes to measurements and patterns!!! However, he looked at me as if I was an alien trying to explain to him what I was trying to achieve.  Something must have clicked and he found a huge mistake I had made. HA! problem solved.  I wanted an 11" wide, 11"length, 13" height basket.  Sounds easy right? WRONG!!!!! Let me just show you how it came out.

I know it is very flimsy, but I didn't want to go all out in case it didn't work.  Uhhhh glad I didn't. lol.  As you can see it is not the measurements I had hoped for. :-(  BUT all is not lost.  It fits my Longaberger market basket protector. SCORE!!!! My original thought was to put all my red fabric scraps in this"basket".  Red with red get it???? lol.  Can you tell I've been gone for far too long! As you can see all is not lost because unknowingly I made it fit the protector and can still use it.

I think Steve and I have figured out where I went wrong.  I'm going to correct my pattern and try again.  If it works I will post a tutorial for those who would like to get organized too.  I'm off tomorrow so maybe I will either make it tonight or tomorrow.  Have a great day and thanks for stopping!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas 

to you and yours from 

Gettysburg Homestead

Mary, Steve, Courtney, and Bailey

Trying Something New

Good evening everyone.  Long time no see :-)  To start out I should say trying something new isn't always good.  As you all know I have been trying out Facebook for quite some time now.  It has it's pros and it has its cons.  I must say at this point the cons are outweighing the pros.  I really like the fact I could have virtual conversations with my "friends."  I don't like all the drama involved with it at all.  Ugghhh!!!! I, personally, have not been wrapped up in any of it but I'm tired of seeing it and reading it.  I will be keeping my accounts on there for those who would like to have instant gratification of talking with me, but for the most part I think I'd rather be here.  Back to showing you what I'm working on and typing out my thoughts and getting your opinions.  Even if no one comments it's quite alright.  I'm happier here :-)  It really is therapeutic.  I can see where I am and how far I've come.

I have a lot of new crafts I want to work on next year.  It's not too early to start planning is it?  I have a bathroom redo to do complete with a shower curtain I will be making.  Do I feel a tutorial coming on? lol.  I want to try paper mache, clay sculpting, quilting, punchneedle, rug hooking .... oh the possibilities.  If any of you have any thing you would like to see give me a holler.  You know how to find me.  :-)  I can't promise how often I will post, but I'm going to shoot for once a week.  I don't want to set myself up for failure for telling you more than that then not delivering.  My life is still hectic as always, but in some ways it is slowing down too.  We will go into that in time. 

So, on the flip side of "Trying Something New"  I made for the first time tonight tiramasu.  It is Steve's 35th birthday today and this is what he wanted. What does a good girlfriend do but search the net for a good recipe.  I picked a couple and thought I could mesh a few together.... until I bought the mascarpone cheese.  Lo and behold there was a recipe on the back of the carton.  It looked and sounded easy so that was the one I tried.  Here it is....

Tiramasu (as found on the BelGioioso Mascarpone container)

3 large eggs
1 cup espresso or strong coffee cooled (I used strong coffee)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp cognac or brandy (I omitted because I didn't have any)
8 oz Belgioioso Mascarpone
2 tbsp cocoa
24 lady fingers (I changed this a bit because the recipe called for 10)

1. Combine 3 egg yolks, 1 tbsp coffee, sugar and (cognac if using) into bowl.  Beat 2-3 minutes.  Add mascarpone and beat 3-5 minutes until smooth.

2. In another bowl, combine 3 egg whites and a pinch of sugar.  Beat untilstiff peaks form.  Gently fold into mascarpone mixture. 

3.(I changed this step from original directions)  Quickly dip each ladyfinger into remaining coffee and layer 12 on the bottom of a 8X8" serving dish.  Spread 1/2 of the mascarpone mixture over the lady fingers.  Dip the remaining lady fingers in coffee and layer on top of mixture.  Layer the remaining mascarpone mixture on top of ladyfingers and then sprinkle cocoa.  Refrigerate at least 3 hours before serving.

NOTE:  The next time I make this I would brush the coffee on the ladyfingers instead of dunking.  They became too watery and very strong taste of coffee.  It was still very good don't get me wrong!!!! lol.  Just a minor change.

Thanks for coming back and I look forward to writing again.