The Friday 15

I love that our library checks out eBooks. I don't even have to go into the library. I can just sit at home and check out the book and read it on my iPad. Easy peasy. This month I've been reading a new book called The Year of Less by Cait Flanders. (Actually the full title is The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away My Belongings, and Discovered Life is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store but I went with, well, less.) Reading books like this one provides motivation to keep going.

Motivation to keep purchases to a minimum.

Motivation to keep donating/discarding 15 items each week.

This week's pile is a hodgepodge of things. Mostly they are things I had stuck in the bottom drawer of my nightstand. Basically another pile of junk I don't need.

Sew Quick and Easy Homemade Potholders - Tutorial Tuesday Flashback

In the spirit of simplicity, for the month of January I am re-sharing some of my most popular YouTube videos. Today we have a quick and easy potholder tutorial from seven years ago, almost to the exact day. It's also the tutorial where our kitty thought she needed to provide her own commentary at the two minute mark.

Looking for something else? Check out some of my other kitchen sewing and crafting projects!

Disclosure: Deb's Days is a participant in affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to affiliated sites. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Your purchase helps support my work in bringing you new sewing and crafting content.

Click on the step-by-step tutorial video to learn how to make your own quick and easy fabric potholders in minutes:

Here's the original link to the Quick and Easy Potholders blog post on that day.

I really do miss my kitty.

Sewing for Good Sunday

I just don't get it. How can I love two things that are so completely opposite of each other both so very much? So much I would never be able to choose between the two.

Cruising and crafting are my loves.

When I'm cruising I love each and every day. I love sea days. I love port days. I love visiting new ports and I love visiting some of the same old ports. When I'm on a ship I want to stay there and never come home. (I guess that's why we sometimes are away for months at a time.)

But when I'm home I love the time I spend sewing and crafting. I love cutting fabrics. I love the machine humming as I chain piece fabrics with a straight stitch. I love the calming meandering stitching I do when I'm quilting the top. (I guess that's why some days I can be found at the sewing and cutting table for hours and hours and hours.)

But when I'm cruising I sometimes have a pang of homesickness. Not for my home itself or my bed, but for my sewing machine and fabrics. But then when I'm home I sometimes have a pang of homesickness for the ship. Maybe because the ship is like our second home. Actually, now that I think about it, the ship IS our second home.

So how does that play out for me each week? Let's take these last couple days as an example. I spent yesterday trying to find a way to get back on a ship in the next couple months. It's always exciting when you start putting a trip together! Then that planning went on the back burner for today's sewing for good projects.

Just look at all the quilt tops for the Quilts for Kids organization that are now complete:

  

 And this one from last week:

That gives me five quilt tops made for charity just this month. Yahoo! I still need to cut backings, batting, and baste them together. Then they will be ready for me to quilt. Or I may make a few more tops and then quilt them all at the same time.

And guess what? After getting everything done today I ended the day without caring about cruising. Plop me in front of this machine every day for the rest of the winter and I'll be good.

But tomorrow I'll probably be back to planning a cruise. Ugh. Why can't I just pick one and go with it???

Why to Take a Magnet on a Cruise Ship

It's Cruise Ship Saturday! Today we're talking about why you should take a magnet with you on your cruise.

When traveling we subscribe to the belief of packing half as many clothes and twice as much money as we think we’ll need. When we cruise I add one more thing to our packing list. 

A magnet. 

Did you know the walls on the cruise ship are magnetic? A magnetic clip (even a big magnetic chip clip) can be placed on the wall and used as a bulletin board area. The clip can be a good place to put all the papers that are delivered to the cabin each day. The daily paper, the invitations to the art auction and health seminar, the ads for the boutiques and spa specials. 

Here's what we received on just the first day of a cruise.

Multiply that by seven days and yep, you'll get A LOT of papers. 

Grab a magnet with a clip, stack the papers together, and put them on the wall. Instant bulletin board!

The Friday 15

The other day I was going all KonMari on my daughter as I was helping her organize and tidy her den. (So proud of kiddo - six big garbage bags of things left their home!) As I was working with her as she culled her books, it occurred to me I had forgotten about some books at my own home.

Just a couple weeks ago I bragged about going from all these books and bookshelves:

down to just these few books:

But I forgot about all my kids books and teaching materials. When I left the classroom years ago I got rid of hundreds and hundreds of books. But I kept a couple containers of books and materials. Things I thought would come in handy someday when I had grandkids. 

Well, no grandkids yet. And a realization that even if and when grandkids arrive, I really didn't need everything I had kept. So the other night after hubby had gone to bed I went through the closet and the containers. I did keep a few things (can't get rid of that set of Dr. Seuss books - that's an order from my daughter), but I can happily report today's Friday 15 is actually a Friday 101. Yep, 101 books and materials that had been important to me over the last 30 years will no longer be mine. 

I just noticed something about the picture. Since less stuff = simpler life = more free time it seems pretty ironic that the last book I put in the stack was Teacher Tested Timesavers.

Make Fabric Covered Buttons and Magnets - Tutorial Tuesday Flashback

In the spirit of simplicity I'm continuing to offer up some of my simple crafting projects from the past. Today's video is from my first official Tutorial Tuesday on August 2, 2011. Back then I could never have predicted that more than 36,000 people would be interested in this project.

Disclosure: Deb's Days is a participant in affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to affiliated sites. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Your purchase helps support my work in bringing you new sewing and crafting content.

Click on the step-by-step tutorial video and learn how to make your own homemade fabric covered buttons and magnets.

Sewing for Good Sunday

First up, I did NOT mistake WD-40 for compressed air like I did last Sunday. Woo hoo. Second of all, I neglected to mention an important piece of information last week. The quilts I am working on will be going to the Quilts for Kids organization. It's a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming fabrics into patchwork quilts to comfort children facing serious illness, injury or trauma.

Let's see what I got whipped up for Quilts for Kids since last Sunday's Sewing for Good day.

Last week I finished this quilt top:

 And put together these blocks.

I still have more work to do with them, but right now those purple blocks are resembling a quilt top looking like this:

I also cut and did some stitching of these three fabrics:

 And they too now resemble a quilt top looking like this:

 I also sewed some kitty cat fabrics and white fabrics into strips. I think I'll be adding some white strips to the top and bottoms of them.

 And I also put together these two fabrics:

To make even more blocks:

Which I think I will use with this panel:

 It appears I now have five quilt tops in various stages of completion. It might be time to start to get the completion completed!

Cruising the Mexican Riviera

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