The One Where Elizabeth Works A Really Lot and Doesn't Have Much Time For Sewing or Blogging

LOST: Husband, kids and sewing machine. Reward for sewing machine. –Seen at a Local Quilt Shop

Did you know that the place were I work is a mere 2½ blocks from a quilt shop — one of my favorite quilt shops, as a matter of fact? It is the shop where I bought Grace. They always have a lovely selection of fabrics, an excellent clearance section and they give out some pretty decent coupons. In all the time I've been working just 2½ short blocks from a fabric mecca, I have not stopped in once. On the days when I'm out running errands for the BossMan {which are much less frequent now that I'm more Accounts Receivable and less Executive Assistant} I very often feel the urge to skive off work and spend an hour or two petting the pretty fabrics and dreaming of creative things to make with them. But not once at the end of my work day have I felt like stopping in at the quilt shop. There are always more pressing matters at home that I need to get to.

It was kind of that way this week with my blog and all my sewing projects. I thought of them longingly while I was balancing accounts and doing invoices, but when my work-day was done, I had more pressing matters like getting dinner on and wrangling homework out of the Little Bugs. You see, my 20-hour a week job has turned into a 30-hour a week job most of the time. This last week was a 40-hour week and I'm really surprised how much brain power all that number crunching took. By the time the kids were in bed, about the only thing I wanted to do was fall in a heap on the couch and watch TV. My apologies to the three people who read my Bradbury 13 posts. I'll be back next week at the regularly scheduled time. And I sincerely applaud those of you who work full-time and manage to get anything creative done at all.

When Friday came, the prospect of a whole weekend ahead of me brought back some of the creative mojo. I decided to ignore the housework and cram as much sewing in as possible. That's not uncommon for me — ignoring the housework in favor of something creative {although this time, I might regret it when I have to go starkers to work on Monday}. I decided to start with something fast and fun so that I would feel immediately successful and want to keep going. I made a couple of fleece baby blankets with satin edges. I've lost track of how many of these I've made; it's somewhere between 18 and 20. They make fun, inexpensive, easy baby gifts.

JoAnn's is great to keep me stocked with 40% and 50% off coupons, so I always make sure to use one for the satin blanket binding. And I love it when they put their fleece on sale because everyone buys a ton of it. When they are done buying their yardage, if there is anything under 1½ yards left, it gets made into a remnant because it won't stay wrapped nicely on the bolt. That's where I come in. If you buy a remnant while the fabric is on sale, they start at the sale price and then deduct 50%. I've gotten some really great deals that way. The polka-dot fleece above was big enough to make two blankets and I paid $3.94 for it. The total cost for that blanket was $5.71. The beautiful turquoise plaid below was a total of $4.75.

I'm really happy to have two February finishes {no matter how small}. Now I can move on to the apron that Joyce won from me two weeks ago . I was supposed to do that on Tuesday, but, well, you know. It was a long day at work. It is a good thing that thread is 50% off at JoAnn's right now, because I used up the rest of the green that I was going to use on the apron on the polka-dotted blanket.

Oh, I almost forgot. I'll be back on Monday with not one, but THREE fabulous sponsored giveaways! Get ready to be inspired!

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