This was not the thing I wanted to have happen one cold and wet morning. The loud clang bang I kept hearing from the dryer was making me rather nervous. Usually when I put the coat in the dryer it would make a bang and clang because of the zipper but this time it just sounded different.

Different in a bad way.

I was really not happy to find my zipper pull detached from my coat, especially since I didn’t have another warm AND water-proof one.

Keep in mind this coat was a couple years old, pissed me off, and was only around $10. It pissed me off because the zipper would get caught in the little flaps it had to cover the zipper. It had a invisible zipper thing going on, and had more flaps on the inside to keep the zipper off the skin. But those flaps just kept getting stuck!

I had to fix it.

Why fix something you hate though? Well there is that thing called money that you need to buy a new one… Yeah a little short on that front. Plus this was the first coat I found when we first moved here to the Pacific North West that would fit and keep me warm from the snow.

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It felt like it took me forever to finish my green quilt. It turned out the way most of my other quilts turn out. I started making it because I felt the need to make the quilt and it slowly evolved into Grandma’s Christmas present.

A lot of my projects I’m going to be posting soon are older ones from Christmas and maybe a little before. It was a rough end of last year and even rougher beginning of this year, so trying to recover from life explosions take time.

And sewing.

All of the green fabrics for the quilt top were leftovers from another quilt I had made for my sister several years ago. I’m on a kick of getting rid of my stash of stuff, and finding ways to use all the bits from other quilts while making sure they don’t look the same.

The greatest thing about this quilt is how much Grandma loved it. She’s getting older and not really wanting to collect a lot of things that she really doesn’t need, so I figured the quilt would be a great way for her to have a nice gift and have it also be useful. It was nice seeing her use the quilt one of the other nights we were staying with her, being cozy while watching TV.

I love quilts as gifts.

Sometimes when I look at a quilt or something else I’m working on that is just filled with needles or something else sharp, my inner toddler starts chanting “I’m just on pins and needles with excitement!”

Yes I have an inner toddler, I can’t help it.

I also decided that the next quilt I made would be green. More on that later.

I need to start on a new quilt. Its weird since I have the bug to quilt and sew when I usually only get that bug when there’s a person or a reason to quilt. Right now the bug is “I WANT QUILT!”

My inner 2 year old is getting restless I guess.

So I separated some of my pretty fabrics out by color type and kind of “grouped” them into a tentative quilt. I have this thing lately with doing all similar color groups.

Most of these are scraps from quilts I made previously, so it’ll be like a stash busting type of thing. Now I just have to pick a color and a design.

There really is something I LOVE about working with fabric. I love love love the smell of a hot steaming iron being run over fresh cotton. It is such a warm and comforting feeling that I just can’t describe.

The one thing I do hate about my iron is when I use it over something dark, like black, and it leaves those damn calcium deposits all over my clean fabric. It was doing this recently and I just got all disgusted and annoyed with my iron. My poor little $9 iron doesn’t need my ire, it just needs to iron!

So I decided to clean it, let it sweat it out.

Literally.

Since the iron shoots out the little specs when its steaming, I took my trusty little iron that has seen better days to the kitchen and decided to steam it to death. Well not literally death, but…you know.

I filled it with as much water as it’s safe to hold, and put it laying down over the edges of a pan. A cake pan worked well and kept the iron lifted so it could steam to its hearts content.

Yes, my iron does have a heart. Its just crusty.

I let it go for quite a while, and kept refilling it and using the steam booster button thing on top to help shoot out more of the stuff.

I cleaned quite a bit out of my little iron, but I’m sure I’ll end up finding more on dark fabrics though its better than it was. I’m sure that using vinegar will clean out more, kinda like how you clean out a coffee maker after a while, but for now I’m content.