WNBA Dreams (and A Quilted Pillow!)

Shwew!  What a crazy couple of weeks it's been.  I was able to squeeze in one sewing project, and I'm so glad with how it turned out!  It's my very first quilted pillow.

I made the quilt block several months ago, just to see what it would look like.  I liked it so much that I couldn't part with it, so it just sat up there cluttering up my cutting table forever.  It didn't take too long to put the pillow together, and the quilting was super easy (a few straight lines shooting out from the yo-yo in the middle of the square).  And now I am free of my rogue quilt block...man, it feels good.

Somewhere in the craziness of the past couple of weeks, Michael and I went to see my little sister play 4th grade basketball.  The girl is a force to be reckoned with!!!  Don't even try to score a lay-up on her.  She will block your shot with little-to-no effort, then laugh in your face (wait...that's probably me laughing at the poor little girl from the stands, living vicariously through my sister--embarrassing!).  As I watch her play, here's what I'm seeing:

But here's what I'm really seeing:

By Michel Euler, AP, 2008

One and the same in my mind.  

I'm 98% sure that Karli is providing more entertainment/pride for my parents on the court as a 4th grader than I did my entire junior high basketball career.  I was a force to be reckoned with in a different way.  Don't even try to wear a higher tighter ponytail than me while sitting on the bench!  My moment in the sun was never during a game, but during the warmup routine.  It was more of a performance in my mind, a perfectly choreographed dance routine (thwarted by the fact that we had to simultaneously dribble and shoot basketballs).  Running through that Dragon Power paper door frame to the tunes of Jock Jams...I could not have been more cool in my mind.  Practically a Broadway star.  But I secretly hoped the crowd would be too in awe of my ponytail to notice the air balls I kept delivering up to the basket.

So when Karli is suiting up for one of her WNBA games, I will be there in the crowd, with a tear in my eye...due to the tightest ponytail you've ever seen.  And maybe because I'll be a little proud of her.

Want To See My Collection?

I come from a long line of collectors...and please hear me when I say collectors and not hoarders.  Great-grandma Farrie is a collector of stuffed white cats (I'm not talking taxidermy, by the way).  Uncle Lenny was a collector of beer cans and coins.  I was a collector of crystals (shiny rocks I found at my house OR manmade crystals bought from places like the Science Center).  My brother Adam was a collector of Beanie Babies.  Youngest brother Luke: bouncy balls.  And little sis Karli "collects" coffee beans from the containers at Walmart (shhhh.....).  

And Grandma Alice.  In addition to collecting various State refrigerator magnets from her travels, she has decades worth of fabric.  Grandma Alice has sewn amazing things my whole life, and I often reaped the benefits.  From dresses to doll clothes to an entire sunflower-themed bedroom to simple mending, she spoiled me with her talents.  When she recently decided to downsize her enormous fabric collection, I was, once again, spoiled by Grandma.  She sent me home with LOADS of amazing fabric (some of which I remember from outfits she made when I was little). 

The stacks of fabric stared at me for a long time before I took the plunge and organized it all.  I was pretty frustrated with the whole process and had to take a few breaks to unwind (a.k.a. watch gameshow bloopers on youtube).  But, hey, now I have a system to all these fabrics and don't have to go digging through scraps to find what I need.  Hurray!  Check out "mah stash":

Get it?  "Mah (My) Stash"?  Mustache?  ehhhh...   Here's my real stash:

Boom,

boom,

and boom.

Also, I got this wall-mounted thread organizer, which has simplified my sewing life SO much.

And thank you, once again, Grandma Alice.  My new fabric collection is way cooler than my crystal collection (although that collection really rocks...  Anyone?)  But enough of all this talk of hoarding and organizing.  It's time for a break!  You know what that means...  And please pay special attention to the very last clip (from Family Feud).   I was embarrassingly close to hyperventilating from that one.