TV Show prep & quilting

Yesterday I went to the telemedia station to meet the main people who I will be working with. They gave me some things to think about for the show. I also got to see how Town Talk (a local show) was directed. The name of my show will be "Its Easy Being Green." I scheduled the taping of my first three shows for next month. There were scheduling conflicts with taping it this month. However that gives me a few weeks to work on the opening as well as prep for the show. I did the homework that I assigned myself last night (emails, phone call, etc.).

The first show will be a craft show about what what you can make out of plastic shopping bags. I will focus mainly on making plyarn and fusing the bags. Then I will show some of the things that you can make out of it. If I have time, I'll talk about making wreaths out of the bags as well. However I would like to save that for a holiday themed show.

The second show will be a guest and craft show. My friend Bonnie Rankin will be my guest. We will be making things out of beloved fabric items that we have inhertied. How does this fit into the "green" theme of the show? We are reusing or as Bonnie has said, using the 4th "R," re purposing. Not all eco-crafts are about turning trash into treasure. Bonnie came over to my house this week to talk about what we are going to do for that episode.

Bonnie's visit inspired the third episode. It will be about quilting. Quilting began as a eco-craft. People used scraps of fabric (instead of throwing them away) to make beautiful quilts to keep them warm. The main craft of the show will be a "grandmother's flower garden" quilt pattern. Not only can you use scrap fabric, but you can recycle clean food boxes and used poster board & card stock. This morning I did a google search for hexagons, and I printed out several templates. I then took them to Staples and enlarged them on the copier. I also copied some onto cardstock. I began paper piecing one hexagon pattern that I found. I also cut several hexagons out of food boxes. I would like to sew a few hexagons together using old t-shirts. When making t-shirt yarn, I only use from the material under the sleeve seams. So I have several top half of shirts that I can use for this project.

Another recent project of mine that takes no time at all is making magnets. This started around Valentine's Day when I saw these super cute wood cut outs for about 50 cents each. I bought a pack of nice round magnets and glued them on the back of the wood cut outs. I have made a few more since February. I also attached one of those magnets to the back of a large googly eye. A long time ago I also made magnets using those free business magnets that sometimes come in the mail. I would glue pictures of magazines or wallet size photos of my son to it. The "Fox and the Hound" image came from a children's catalog.

Like I said I would in my last post, I have been trying to quilt a block a day on the "Steps to the Stars" quilt.