Sewing for Good Sunday

I've been so excited for this first Sewing for Good Sunday of 2019. If you've been around my blog for a while, you know sewing for charity has been important to me. I tried to count out exactly how many things I had made over the years but lost count. (Just check out the charity tab at the top of the page. You'll see why I lost count.) I did find that I had 183 blog posts about things I made for charity. 183! Between quilts and pillowcases and turtle pillows for kids and stockings for soldiers I had written about it on the blog 183 different days.

We can now make that 184. While I like the Sewing for Good Sunday title, this post should really be titled Why You Shouldn't Start a Project in the Middle of the Night.

Like I said, I was excited about today. I was up late last night so I decided to wait until midnight rolled around to get started. (Wanted it to officially be Sunday.) I went through my fabrics and pre-cut squares and found some patterns to work with. I arranged and rearranged and swapped out colors and rearranged again and came up with this at 1:06 am.

After that hour-long process I still wasn't happy. I decided it was time to go to bed and start again in the morning. Before I headed to bed I cleaned up my work area and put the fabrics back into the Ziploc bag with the others.

That's when I found these beauties that had been shoved at the bottom of the bag.

My 1:19 am discovery

The excitement of finding blocks I had already stitched together made me want to stay up even later and make a plan. I grabbed my graph paper and got started.

1:37 am

And of course you can't come up with a plan without getting started sewing on the plan. So I found some strips of fabric that would work for part of the quilt. 

1:47 am

I considered going to bed after that. But again, you can't come this far then just stop. So I sewed some scraps together to make a wide blue border.

2:10am

Looking at the time I decided I should call it a night. I neatly piled the fabrics on my workspace and put a light colored spool of thread and bobbin in my sewing machine. I then grabbed the can of compressed air to clean up my sewing machine so it would be all nice and fresh and clean in the morning. (Now I know I'm not supposed to be using compressed air to clean the nooks and crannies and bobbin area, but it was after two in the morning and I was looking to be speedy.)

And that's when my compressed air can started behaving badly. Sometimes when I hold the button down too long the compressed air freezes things. But this compressed air was bubbling on the surfaces. On the outside of the machine. In the bobbin area. And even on the bobbin itself. What the heck was going on with the compressed air?

I then realized what happened. Notice anything interesting about where I store my black and white can of compressed air? Notice what I also store right next to it?

2:13 am mistake

Yep. I had sprayed WD-40 all over my sewing machine at 2:13 am on a Sunday morning. If that wasn't a sign it was time to go to bed I don't know what would have been.

After a WD-40 clean up (my sewing machine is so shiny now!) and a good night's rest I headed back to work. And by one in the afternoon I had this sewn together. Batting is cut and backing is picked out, even.

Time to set it aside until later and start piecing the next one. I'm thinking I'm liking these colors.

I snapped my fingers and now those fabrics have been sewn together into blocks that look like this. (I wish it was that easy!)

But now I feel a nap coming on. I'm not about to get myself so tired that I mix up WD-40 and compressed air again. Check in next Sunday as I figure out what to do with these next blocks.

Royal Princess Resources

Is there a topic you'd like to see more about? How about any questions about the Royal Princess or about cruising or Princess Cruises? Just ask! A

The Friday 15

A couple years ago I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. If you haven't read it, you should. It'll change your ideas about "stuff". Marie also now has a show on Netflix called "Tidying Up with Marie Kondo". I've been binge-watching the show this week and realized I've been doing a lot of the things she proposes long before she ever wrote about them.

Pile all your clothes on the bed and then decide which ones bring you joy? (Joy = keep.) Yep, I did that back in January 2014.

I can report I got rid of most of that pile. While some of the keepers from back then have now since been replaced with others, the number of items are still low. In fact, if I were to create a new pile of all my clothes today it wouldn't even take up a quarter of the bed.

Go through all your books and only keep those you wish to take with you into the future? Look at what we had in 2012...

Oh, my. We had a lot of books!

Here's all we have left now...

Now when we want to read something new we check out an e-book from our local library.

Clothes and shoes and books and kitchenwares and garden items have been pared down. Christmas decorations are much more manageable and a huge salt and pepper collection has been sent on its way. 

We're getting closer but aren't there yet. While I've been on a minimalism path for several years, hubby's kidney failure in 2012 helped us re-prioritize our lives. Simpler is better. Less is better. With that in mind I keep looking for items that don't bring joy to our lives. 

Here are 15 more this week. More Christmas and clothes. Where does this stuff come from???

Happy New Year! and a Pocket Tissue Holder Tutorial

As a former teacher, back to school time was when I made new plans for the year. New schedules, new routines, and new resolutions for change. Now that I'm not on a school schedule I find myself in the group of folks using the New Year to make those plans.

I looked back at my blog post on this day last year. I had titled it Simplicity. Here's a bit from that day:

"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail." ~ Henry David Thoreau 

Many of Henry David Thoreau's quotes have spoken to me at different points in life. I even felt strongly enough about "suck out all the marrow" to have it tattooed on my arm in 2013. But today is about simplicity, not sucking the marrow. 

My husband and I have been on a journey these last few years. A simplification journey. I'm guessing close to 80% of what we owned five years ago has been donated/sold/recycled/shredded/trashed. We've given up furniture and electronics and clothes. Tools and Christmas decorations and even trash cans have been sent away. Nine trash cans were in our house back then, one for almost each room. Now? Only two cans.

In the spirit of simplification, I'm going back to basics with the blog. A picture a day.

Well, how did I do?  I didn't simplify the blog with a picture a day and I didn't simplify my life. If anything, I made life more complicated by all the traveling we did. While we hope to do some traveling later this year to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary (Greenland, here we come -  I hope!) it won't be spread out over eight months like it was in 2018. Where I DID simplify life was in the number of possessions owned, thanks to the Friday 15. Using many of my Fridays to donate or discard 15 items resulted in 400 fewer items in our house. Here's the wrap up of that downsizing.

So what about 2019?

I would again title it Simplicity. And I've already started.

I've collected 15 things to send off this week. I'll continue each week until I have no more to give. Fewer possessions = a simpler life. And I'm giving the blog a mini working-towards-simplicity makeover. I've removed most of the ads I've had floating around. It made the blog messy and I don't do messy. (Amazon, I'll keep you in one spot. I do love you.) I'll also be cleaning up some of the posts that need more editing. I got sloppy when my internet was limited on the ships - sometimes I caught the mistakes but didn't want to spend more internet minutes to fix them. So I'll work on that.

What else will I focus on? The crafting tutorials. Cutting fabric, a sewing machine humming, and projects seen to completion makes for a good day. I'll also be starting back on sewing projects for charity. Sewing for Good Sundays has a nice ring to it. And the Encouraging Words Project is on the front burner. I've dropped several off in Boise locations just this week. Writing about cruising and travel will still happen, but with most of this upcoming year not being spent living on a cruise ship the travel posts will be less frequent. (At least until a trip comes back up.)

So there you have it. My intentions are released to the Universe to use them as it (she? he?) sees fit.

Now, in the spirit of simplicity, on this month's Tutorial Tuesdays I will be sharing some of my most popular sewing and crafting videos. (Don't worry, I'm still working on filming new ones for later.) Today's tutorial is from August 2011. It was the day after my mother in law's funeral and a day I was questioning whether to continue the tutorials. (Here's the original post from that day where we learned how to sew our own decorative pocket tissue holder, in case you're interested.) It's the most viewed tutorial I've filmed with over a hundred thousand views on YouTube.

For this project you will need:

• main fabric
• lining fabric
• pocket tissues
• Pins or Clover Wonder Clips
• Iron
• Sewing machine
• Matching thread
• Rotary cutter
• Cutting ruler
• Cutting mat

 Now available in my Etsy store as a digital download with the written directions, step-by-step photos, and link to the tutorial video. Click to find out more!

Looking for more quick and easy projects? Check out these ideas!

Click on the step-by-step tutorial to learn how to make your own homemade decorative pocket tissue holder:

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.

Simple project. Simple life.

Happy New Year!

Communication with the Outside World When Cruising

It's Cruise Ship Saturday and today we're talking about communication with the outside world while cruising.

Nowadays communicating with the outside world while you're on a cruise ship is more efficient than ever before. Efficient but not necessarily inexpensive.

•Cell phones can often be used on the ship while at sea but high roaming charges may be incurred in international waters. Even if you have an international roaming plan, proceed with caution. Roaming rates at sea are a lot higher than regular international roaming rates. For example, I pay 20 cents a minute for calls all around the world. But once at sea the cruise ship rate kicks in and charges me $5.99 a minute. That cost is set by the cruise line, not by my carrier.

Rather have this?

Or this?

And we're not even talking data! (That's $15 for 1MB - which amounts to browsing one webpage or reading one email. Yikes!)  Many a passenger has come home to an outrageous cell phone bill. Don't be one of them. My daughter who worked for a mobile company tells me she once had a customer call with a bill over $2,000 (double yikes!) because they didn't understand how it worked on a cruise ship. 

Contact your cell carrier before leaving home as they can advise you on the best plans for voice and data while in port or at sea. Otherwise keep your phone in airplane mode, particularly at sea. The alarm, clock, camera, and any stored or downloaded music, movies, games, and books will still be available.

•The internet is a great way to communicate but not necessarily when cruising. Internet is not free and may be slow. (Now if you're sailing on the Caribbean Princess or Regal Princess it's a different story. MedallionNet™ is super fast and super reliable. Check it out!) Your ship may offer internet packages for a flat fee. Internet services can be accessed either on your own electronic device or at the ship’s internet café. To conserve internet minutes compose those emails offline first before logging on.

•Some ships have an app for texting other passengers on the ship. Sure makes it easier to track down the rest of your group.

•The ship has a satellite phone if there is a need to make a call from the ship to back home. This can be an expensive way to communicate and is used primarily for emergencies.

Check into all options before heading out on your cruise. Once on the ship it will be too late. Don't be one of the $2,000 bill people!