Spring has sprung!

The weather here has been absolutely beautiful for the past few weeks. The flowers are blooming, the trees are blossoming...and I am taking seventeen students to China for spring break in three days. Crazy? Probably. But I'm sure it will also be fun.

So, what have I been crafting?

I have been making some progress on my t-shirt quilt. This is one of the largest projects I've undertaken, and it has taken a lot of time! First, I had to pick the shirts. And figure out how they would lay out and look nice. And I realized I have way too many shirts.
Then I had to cut them all (and find a size that worked...)...and iron on the interfacing....I am almost finished sewing the quilt top together, but that project will have to be on hold until I get back from China. I have learned some important lessons from this project so far:
1) cutting straight lines is hard (is that hard for other people, or just for me?)
2) I am bad at math. I totally failed at figuring out how much fabric I would need for the sashing and backing and will have to go back for more.

For my birthday, my grandmother bought me an awesome book called "How to Sew a Button (and other things your grandmother knew)" by Erin Bried. It has all sorts of tips and tricks in it, from cleaning to sewing to organizing and cooking and gardening, budgeting, taking care of kids, entertaining...and the first project I tried out was "How to Make an Apron from a Pillowcase". Ta-dah! (Ew, you can see how messy my house is!!!) Picked up a cute pillowcase at a thrift shop, and a few quick seams later I had a new apron! I have since picked up several more cute pillowcases because this was a fun project and I think they would make nice gifts, especially for housewarming or something like that. The whole project took me about an hour, but I think I could do it faster next time.

Finally, I made myself this cute little bag. The instructions came from "Sew What! Bags" by Lexie Barnes, a book I adore. It has little pouches for my cell and, most exciting of all - it has a zipper!(Note to self: Work on taking better pictures, and read the cleaning section of that book Grandma gave you...although if it's any excuse, Keith was finishing the tile in the kitchen yesterday so the house is recovering from that project).

Rufio says, "Happy Spring!"