Introducing: The Crafty Procrastinator

Well I've finally found my destined blog name.

"Just keep swimming" was a temporary (year and a half long) name that I never intended to keep. Sitting here this morning still in a fog from the weekend and The Crafty Procrastinator just came to me. It's a perfect fit for me!

I hope you are looking forward to more regular posts from the crafty procrastinator...I know I am :)

Maggie Mae

As if life couldn't get any crazier...we adopted a puppy! All sewing/quilting has been on hold since Tuesday...even though my blocks for the zig zag quilt along are ready to be sewn together...

Last Friday night we went to the animal shelter to look at a few dogs...we put an application in for no dog in particular so Hubby and I could properly discuss. That night we decided to adopt a chocolate lab puppy that we thought was 10 months old. A call on Monday led me to believe we didn't stand a chance at getting her due to how many applications they already had. Tuesday afternoon we received another call from a woman who was fostering the siblings of the puppy we wanted and offered us her sister. The puppy was from a litter that was brought up from North Carolina...and was only 13 weeks old, not 10 months.

We went to meet her that night with Paige at the animal shelter. It was all up to Paige at that point, because if Paige didn't like her, it was a no-go. The girls met and really just ignored each other. There was too much else going on at the shelter and too many other scents to get a real sense of how they would be.

Our first night was hell! The puppy cried every hour in the crate. We got no sleep! I really don't think we knew quite what we were in for. Each day/night gets better, but at first I really questioned if we made the right decision. Paige seems happy. The puppy who we finally named Maggie Mae is very attached to Paige. Everyone is adjusting...well almost everyone. It took Spike a few days to come downstairs, but Annabelle still won't come down. She'll come around eventually...I hope.

We took Maggie to the vet yesterday and she was given a clean bill of health. She was treated for a few things while in foster care so we were happy everything came back ok.

Some day Maggie will be a great dog....but for now she's just a puppy!

Zig Zagging Stripes

I almost gave up...almost.

I'm working on a Zig Zag Quilt for the ORB/ParkCityGirl Quilt Along this time hosted by Amy. Check out the cool group & instructions on flickr. I picked 15 fabrics, 5 of which have stripes. Lots of frustration (ie cursing) ensued in my hot hot sewing room last night as I tried to assemble my blocks. The stripes were going every which way and I HATED it. So much so, I almost scraped this Christmas gift to be. But alas, I have beat you quilt. I figured out your game and to save anyone else suffering from this predicament and surely myself in the future; here is how to do it so that stripes align:

Here are two of my squares, pinned in the center.

Draw a line on the diagonal of one block. Rotate the second block 90 degrees and draw a line on the diagonal of the second block.

Sew 1/4" on each side of the line. Cut squares on the diagonal with a rotary cutter. Press, snip, etc. (I haven't gotten that far yet, nor are my blocks exactly square at this point!)

Ok, now take your newly cut half square triangles from one block, separate and open them up like so.

Take your second block, separate the half square triangles, and pair each one up with the ones you've already laid out. So one half square triangle from the first block will match up with one half square triangle from the second block.

Now the best part is you can rearrange the squares very easily so that the print can be vertical or horizontal. Vertical wavy lines in the photo below.

Same blocks just rotated so that the light blue fabric has horizontal wavy lines. I prefer this one over the one above.

My next obstacle....we'll see how it goes.

Just make sure that you rotate 1/2 of the blocks 90 degrees. I have 6 blocks, so I need to remember to rotate 3 of them. I'll have to make sure to do this when I'm not tired.

Hope this helps someone out there.

Coming And Going

I love getting mail. Even if it's something I've ordered, I love seeing it arrive on my porch. So when I received these items yesterday....they made my day.

The first is a pincushion from Francesca and a really neat postcard. I won her giveaway featured on Alicia's blog "My Favorite Things." It's the first giveaway I've won so I'm very excited about it. I can't wait to start using it, especially since I've invested in new pins recently! The second item is from Nancy, from Blogging Near Philadelphia. Nancy was recently de-stashing and offered up some really cute patterns on her blog. I snagged the Hugs & Kisses Pattern shown below. Thanks Nancy!

There was some mail going out as well. I love sending cute little packages but unfortunately time is not on my side lately so I do my best. Below is the Amy Butler fabric for the Fat Quarter Drawing for the Zig Zag quilt along. This went out a day late, but I was sick! I swear! There's also a PBS book below the fabric. It seems I send one book a week out these days!

So yes, I am working on the zig zag quilt but it's a Christmas gift...so I may not be posting too much of it here. We'll see!

Giveaways Galore!!!

Not mine yet! Coming soon though, I promise!

Here are a few awesome giveaways with some time left to enter:

First up: Karen over at Badlands Quilts is giving away a Soiree HoneyBun for her 25th post! Karen's giveaway ends August 5th so head on over!

Over at PS I Quilt, Rachel is giving away a $50 gift certificate to fat quarter shop! Talk about awesome! Seriously! You have to hurry though because the last day to enter is today!

Last but not least, there is an amazing bag giveaway over at Bumble Beans Quilts! The contest ends tomorrow (August 1st) at 9am. Go visit V's blog to see the gorgeous bag and enter the giveaway!

Vacation Re-Cap

Last week, Hubby, me, and Paige took a mini vacation. We went to the beach for a few days...just long enough to get crispy and finish a book or two! Paige normally does not go on vacation with us...and I was hesitant to take her. Paige makes poor choices in our house and even more recently does not go in her crate since breaking out of it a few months back. It has since been put back together but I'm afraid to leave her in it, fearing that she'll try to break out again and hurt herself. So, the crate stayed home. Paige came to the beach and was a very good girl. She cried a little when we left a few times to go to the beach and boardwalk. She was so good, we bought her a baby on the boardwalk since we forgot to pack some for her to play with. Surprisingly the baby has lasted more than 10 minutes (up to 5 days now!) without her shredding it completely.

Paige chillaxing in bed with her new baby! Paige was a tired girl from

all the walks on the beach and the heat.

A view from the bay of our vacation location. This picture was taken during our

crabbing trip the previous weekend. It was my first time on a boat!

I packed my sewing machine and sewing basket to work on a quilt but the sunny beach was too inviting to sit inside and sew! We came home to a defrosted freezer and not completely cold refrigerator. Fortunately, the refrigerator is not broken and the malfunction was a result of someone (ugh...me) leaving the freezer door slightly open. The bad news is everything in my freezer had to be discarded. The good news is a lot of it needed to be thrown out anyway. Before figuring out that the fridge was working properly, we researched buying a new one and looked at quite a few. That, my friends, is another blog post for another time.

Hi, my name is Swedish and I'm an Eco-Sinner!

Another crazy week of classes and sewing, another project completed! Hubby surprised me with flowers from his garden last week. They were so pretty and it was very sweet! On top of classes and sewing, was book club. This month's book was, "Confessions of an Eco-sinner" by Fred Pearce. I still have not finished it (ooops!) but I can already say it is a great read. Fred flies around the world to research where his "stuff" comes from: everything from his wedding ring, to his computer, to the socks on his feet, the coffee he drinks, the fruits and veggies on his plate, etc.

It is by far an eye opening book and as a consumer made me very depressed. Basically I've learned that fair trade anything isn't necessarily fair trade. The farmers growing the crops don't see that additional money we are paying for the end "fair trade" product. The only thing fair trade assures is that the farmers are getting paid slightly higher than the market value which in reality is only a few cents. The only other point I'll bring up for thought, before stepping off the soapbox, is that almost all of our clothes in the US come from sweat shops or are made from materials that are grown by grossly underpaid farmers. Granted this is not my own research, and I'm sure there plenty of online vendors, so don't shoot the messenger! Fred basically tell us that the clothes we buy from Walmart, Old Navy, Gap, etc are all produced in the same factory. They all come off the same assembly line. So why on earth should I pay $58 for a pair of jeans at Gap, when I can buy them for $10 or $15 at Walmart? I would be more than willing to pay $40 for a pair of jeans, if I knew that extra money went to the workers rather than some CEO sitting behind a desk. So needless to say the book was depressing, made me feel helpless in the world I live in, but I need to keep on, keepin' on.

So now that you've digested that (you are still there, aren't you?), here are the chair cushions I made/recovered this weekend. The picture shows the back of the top cushion, because the front was too boring. The strings are to tie it to the chair. I'm pleased with how they turned out, although they don't photograph well and they are super soft!

I'm A Machine

I'm a reading, homework doing, class attending, bbq-ing, book club attending, sewing and soon to be exercising machine. This is probably going to be the busiest week ever! I have something to do each and every night this week and unfortunately none of it involves sewing. Tonight I had class...and I'll have to do more homework once my teacher realizes how crappy my paper is, but tomorrow...tomorrow is going to be AWESOME! We are going to DORNEY Park! Hubby got me tickets for my birthday (great present) and I can't wait to go. We've never been to an amusement park together. I love water parks and am not a fan of roller coasters, but that's ok because neither is here. Although I've got all this crazy stuff to do, I've managed to pick up another project and the deadline is ASAP. My mom's friend's DIL is having a baby girl in about 2 weeks. Her first baby was a boy so everything is blue. Not going to work for a baby girl, right? My mom volunteered me to recover cushions for the rocking chair/glider since they couldn't find cushions to buy outright. I have the cushions, check. I have the fabric and thread, check. I have the time...hello time, where are you? I'm all about upcycling and reuse but I'm a little short on time.

The fabric was an excellent buy at JoAnn fabric. I can't tell you how much, it was that cheap! It's upholstery fabric and it's velvety. It is going to cover the cushions nicely and be really comfy for the new mom. Here's a pic of the fabric ready to be cut... It's very plain and neutral (read: does not photograph well). I'm not sure exactly how this is going to work, but wish me luck!

To make up for the less than quality photo above, here's something I've recently added to my stash. I have aspirations of making a Wonderland quilt of some sort with this (any suggestions, please??), but of course I'd like to hold on to it forever! The jelly roll and patchwork fabric, (1 yard) are from fabric.com. The floral is a fat quarter that I grabbed off the table at The Little Shop during their fat quarter frenzy sale yesterday. 20 fat quarters for $25...I only bought 20....but I'm so going back for more!