Tidy Tuesday, the one in which I actually have a helpful tip

I haven't posted a Tidy Tuesday in a couple of weeks because, honestly, I haven't been very focused on housework. I've been in a complete sewing zone, which was helped by a few commissioned orders. This weekend, however, I reached my limit with the messy house and tried to play catch up all in one day. That didn't work so well for me:) But it's a great deal better than it was.

And one of the better areas (here comes the tip) is in my drip pans. You all may know this and may wonder how I don't, but it wasn't until this weekend I discovered the tip of using ammonia to clean my drip pans. There are many sites discussing it, but I found it here. Previously, I've tried everything - soaking in scalding water & soap or Pine Sol, running thru the dishwasher, scouring pads, which would just get shredded without budging the dirt. I resigned myself to dirty drip pans most of the year until I finally broke down & bought new ones just so I could have clean ones for a week or so. Before I went to bed Friday night, I sealed each one in a ziplock bag with just a splash of ammonia & Saturday morning, I had this, after a brief wipe:

Not perfect, but you should have seen them! I think I'll do it again this weekend & see if I can't get the rest off.

Since my "clean all the things" rampage Saturday, I've slipped back into my sewing zone, but out of necessity. I've had a plan for my daughter's teacher appreciation gift for several months, but received a phone call from the PTA last Thursday saying that teacher appreciation had been moved up to this week. Thanks for the notice, guys! I guess no one makes hand made gifts anymore? I wasn't going to let my plans get derailed over a bumped up deadline, so I got to work.

This teacher is all about reading, which is probably a good trait in a 1st grade teacher, and I think she'll like it. She has done an amazing job with my daughter, who I feel owes it completely to her that she is probably reading several grade levels ahead. And she now has the courage to try a word. She tries all the words. Every moment we're in the car, she's reading something from a sign somewhere & I'm usually frantically looking around to see what she's reading.

Unfortunately, it was raining yesterday, so I didn't get the best of pictures of it. I echo quilted each book and then hand quilted with some pearl cotton around the word. I wish I had a close up of the word, but for whatever reason, it didn't occur to me yesterday. I did get a close up of that tilting book:

Because with all those irregular angles, I was super proud to have the corners meet so nicely. I was sure I'd either cut one off, or end up with a book "floating" above the shelf. I think I audibly squealed when I peeled back the binding to see that perfect little corner:) As a bonus, each piece, even the white ones, were taken from my scraps. That makes it even more fun for me.