Quixotic Crafter

Good Day/Bad Day

2012-02-03T00:40:00.003-05:00

Let's start with the good.....my sister came over today for a little demo on how to set up her machine for her machine quilting class on Saturday (my Christmas gift to her). She brought me a couple of goodies that she found in her inherited sewing stash.

First up was this cool silverplated needle case. It was black when we started, but I gave it a once over with the silver polish. It's a modern case (because it's got a screw on cap).

She suggested I add the bling to it. I like it. A lot. It's got a bit of heft to it, and it will slip right into one of the pockets on my applique organizer bag.

Next up is this ivory and velvet screw on pincushion. Check out the intricate carving. See the people in the garden?

It clamps on to your machine table. I don't know if it's antique or modern, ivory or bone. Old or new. Whatever, it's pretty neat.

On to the bad.....

I haven't mentioned it, but Bailey, our beagle has leukemia (among other problems). We found this out last week, and have pretty much come to terms with it and are doing our best to make him comfortable and give him lots of treats and love.

Now, my baby Paco (the chihuahua) has suddenly taken ill tonight. Not sure what's up. He was fine when I left for merchandising and when I got home he's taken to his bed and the hubs says he's been not acting well since he got home from work. Poor little thing seems to have some issue with his neck or his throat, or something. I'm hoping he'll be fine in the morning and his tail will be back to wagging. Last months' vet bill was crazy...almost as crazy as the vet suggesting another $1000 worth of chemo for Bailey (who is 12 years old). Fingers crossed Paco's back to normal tomorrow.

Okay, so what happened in the Safeway parking lot on Wednesday night?

I've just pulled into a parking spot and I'm going to run in and do my last merchandising job of the day. Knowing the Powerball jackpot was up there, I'm digging in my purse for some cash to put in my pocket. There's a teenage kid sitting in the car parked next to me, so I don't want to be too obvious that I'm leaving my purse in the car, so I'm taking my time.

The driver of the car next to me arrives, so I'm waiting until they pull out to exit. As she's pulling out WHAM! I'm jostled out of my seat and I hear the SCRAAAPPPE as her car's front bumper gouges down my rear quarter panel.

I jump out of the car, take a quick look to assure that indeed she has left a nasty scratch on my car and as I walk toward her car she drives off. I'm waving my arms and yelling, 'What the Hell? You just hit my car, where are you going', as I run alongside her and the kid in the passenger seat looks at me and laughs.

At this point I look at her tag, thankful that can still read it without my glasses, and knowing that I have no short term memory (Woodstock generation) , I start repeating the tag numbers over and over as I go back to my car to grab a pen and a paper to write it down. It doesn't occur to me to see what state her tag is from, or what kind of car she's driving. I'm lucky I've got the tag number.

"911, what's your emergency" (as if I'm not aware I've dialed 911...like I was trying to call 922 and misdialed). "I'm sorry, I'm not sure it's an emergency, but while I was sitting in my car someone hit me and drove off laughing as I tried to stop them".

The police car arrives. I'm slightly embarrassed because it's not like my car is totalled or anything, it's just an ugly 18" scratch on my previously unscratched, undinged car that I usually park at the back of parking lots to avoid inconsiderate people with no manners or conscience opening their doors on me. (The hubs thinks I'm nuts)

While we are speaking this MONSTER tow truck...the kind that you would call to pull your 18-wheeler out of a ditch, is trying to maneuver himself into the Safeway parking lot, down my lane and I get the feeling that he's not there for milk. Clearly he's got a police scanner and he's heard 'hit and run' so he's trolling for the tow. Disappointed in not finding a mangled, undriveable mess, he gave up trying to get to our lane and nonchalantly headed for the other exit.

Having stood outside my car for 15 minutes, while all of the Safeway customers are walking by wondering what the heck I've done that there's a police car idling behind my vehicle doing paperwork and talking on the radio, and blocking two prime front parking places, the policeman backs his car into the space next to me and hands me a sheet of memo paper. He has obtained the name of the person who hit me and their insurance information. (Go figure). He tells me he can't really file a police report because it's only my side of the story, maybe the person didn't realize they hit me, I can't identify make and model of the car, or the state on the license plate, so it's not enough info for a report. I should call their insurance company, and if they don't cooperate, I'll need to call mine. Gee, thanks.

I'm sure he saw the 'What the Hell' look on my face, because he concluded by telling me that since the car came back as living just behind the shopping center, he was going to swing by there on his way out and just see if there was any damage to it and if the owner was home, ask them what was up. Okay, I felt better.

I went into the Safeway to do my job, resigned myself to the fact that it wasn't likely going to be easy to get ESURANCE (the person who hit me's insurance company) to deal with this, and headed home--after buying Powerball tickets--figuring just how unlucky could I possibly be in one night? (Answer....no luckier)

On the way home the cell rings, and it's the policeman. He's been to the driver's house to speak with her, and as he suspected, she denied hitting me. Vehemently. Of course, he had checked out her car and the damage on her car was consistent with the damage on my car, so he knew that she had, yet still she denied it. I think the real problem for her was when the kid in the car told the police officer that yes, she did hit me. (Yeah, I'm wondering about that kid)

He charged her with hit and run and something else and was sorry to say that now I would likely have to go to court as a witness for the State. (Great!....let me take a day (or two) off of work now). But the good news is that now there's a police report number for ESURANCE. (Can you tell I'm thrilled.) He'll give me the number...but "are you in a moving vehicle ma'am?". "Yes I am, but I'm hands free" (it's illegal to talk on your cell phone and drive in Maryland) "I can tell, Ma'am." (Great, now my suspicion that the car's Bluetooth makes me sound like I'm laying in a bathtub in a mineshaft has been confirmed. Jeez, I hope I've never called in sick to work--'Uggh, I can't even get out of bed'--while driving to a quilt show).

So this morning I call ESURANCE. (Note to self, and all of you....do not get your car insurance from ESURANCE. Really, it's okay to get your insurance from a Gecko, but stay away from companies that talk through cartoons).

After recording my call and asking me more questions than were asked at Nixon's impeachment....

"Okay, since the driver isn't going to admit to hitting you, this is going to take a lot longer to clear up. And I'm going on vacation next week...."

( Seriously? )

"Do you have the police report?"

"Um, no"

"Not a problem, we can get a copy, but it usually takes us 7-10 days to do so. If you could just pop into the police station and pick up a copy and then fax it to us, it will go much faster."

"EXCUSE ME?!!! You want me to do your job for you so that you can pay me to fix my car that the crazy woman you insured hit and run?"

The hubs said that when the guy started talking about me getting the police report to speed things up, and him going on vacation that I should have said:

"Not a problem, take your time, but I should tell you that my neck is really starting to hurt"

Let's hope tomorrow is a better day for all of us.

Another reminder....your luck is bound to be better than mine, so be sure you enter the pincushion giveaway by commenting on Tuesday's blog post.

Thinking About Applique

2012-02-01T23:25:00.000-05:00

Or is it procrastinating rather than starting a project? Hmmm....what do you think?

Today was another70 degree day in the Nation's Capital, and again, I spent it wistfully staring out the window of my third floor attic office. Tomorrow begins the 3 day telework run (I don't have to go back to the office until next Tuesday), and while the dogs are happy campers (no crates!), the weather is slipping back to winter and the 70s are gone. Figures.

To compensate, I've scheduled a rather entertaining weekend. We begin with Champagne and Crepes (or as my iPhone insists on entering in my calendar....'Champagne and Creeps') for the ladies' Friday Night Happy Hour. One of the ladies' mother is visiting from Sweden (or Denmark, or something like that), and her specialty is crepes, (I keep picturing the Sesame Street Chef when I think of this). My assignment for the night is to bring a bottle of Prosecco. Can it get any easier than that? Actually, I'm thinking of adding Chocolate to the mix...though I'm sure Susie will have that covered.

No bubbly hangovers for me, as I must behave (now I'm channeling Austin Powers) because I've got to be up in Frederick Saturday morning before 10 for an 'Honorary Quilt Buyer For a Day' seminar. A Northcott fabric rep will be presenting a trunk show, sneak peak of upcoming lines, Stonehenge designs, and a lesson on how fabric is made over a 4-hour session that includes not only lunch, but a 20% discount on Northcott fabrics. Oh, and did I mention that the seminar costs $5, and at the end you'll get a $5 credit on any Northcott purchases? Sweet. How could you not attend this?

Back to the applique world I've been living and breathing in for the past 4 weeks.

Which thread would you use for applique? The one on the left or the one on the right?

On the left is DMC Broder Cotton 50 wt. Single ply. Nice. On the right is 100 wt. Superior Kimono Silk. The thread on the right is my thread of choice. It just disappears into my applique cottons.

Uh oh....looks like someone is out of Sz 11 applique needles. Time to try the new Clover Black Gold needles. And as it works out, I'll just happen to pass the JoAnn Fabric SUPERSTORE on Saturday on my way back from the seminar. And what a coincidence....needles are 50% off. Detour!

Shh.....pretend you didn't see all those.

Check back tomorrow to share in the Creeps and Champagne ....er Crepes and Champagne fun. I'll also tell you why I spent a good part of this evening in the Safeway parking lot leaning up against my car with an idling police car blocking me in. (Before you panic...think....I'm typing this now, so I 'm not in jail :) ).

And, most importantly, if you haven't entered the pincushion giveaway, be sure to comment on Tuesday's post for your chance.

Yay! For Giveaways and Meeting Goals

2012-01-31T23:56:00.001-05:00

First off, I am so proud of myself...I actually met the goal I set for January. Five, count 'em FIVE Baltimore blocks completed this month and it's not even midnight! Can I maintain the 4-5 block a month momentum for February? Wait and see.

I had to pull out my Valentine's day pincushion. It's a cute little felted wool heart. Don't you just love it?

I'm glad because I've got another one to send to one lucky person who posts a comment on this post. Tell me what you're making for Valentine's Day. It can be quilty, something baked, something crafty. And feel free to include a link to a photo. This giveaway will close at midnight EST on February 7th and I'll draw a winner on the 8th and get this in the mail to you in time for you to have it on your sewing table on the 14th.

And......if the winner happens to be a follower of my blog, I'll also include a little scissor/rotary cutter bling as a follower appreciation bonus.

Can't wait to hear what you're all up to. I'm off to spend the rest of this night prepping February Baltimore blocks, and tomorrow I hope to finish the wonky pieced rag quilt. Stay tuned!

Lost in Baltimore / Coming Up For Air

2012-01-30T21:07:00.000-05:00

Early this, month, after my class with Mimi Dietrich, I realized how far behind I was on my progress on the two Baltimore Album quilts I'd like to finish this year, so I set a pretty steep goal for myself, which is to finish 4-5 blocks a month. (Go ahead, laugh, I don't mind).

Anyway, I actually have finished 5 blocks this month. One really doesn't count because I finished it in class, before I set the goal, but I did get busy and knock out 3 'wreath' blocks, which weren't exactly the easiest blocks to do. I played with some different techniques on each, after all, this should be a learning experience.

This was the papercut block I finished in class. I was thinking that these were the most tedious and hard to sew blocks in the quilt, and I've got to do 8 of them total, so I wanted to knock them out first.

This one taught me that yellow is not a good color choice. You can hardly see the markings on the fabric to turn it. This was papercut 7 of 8. I have one left to do for the second quilt.

All berries were done the same way. Cut a circle of fabric a quarter inch larger than the circle I wanted, sit in front of the tv one night and sew a small gathering stitch close to the edge. Then I popped in a cardboard circle, punched from a file folder, the size of the berry I wanted. Pinned that, like a butterfly, to my ironing board and pulled the stitches to gather around the cardboard. You hit it with the iron, then you spray it with starch and hit it with the iron again. Once it's cool you can loosn the stitches just a bit and pop out the cardboard and gently regather it into the circle shape it was. Easy peasy.

The leaves were folded over freezer paper templates and pressed. You iron the freezer paper to the wrong side of your fabric, cut around, leaving a 1/4 inch and then you take a paintbrush and paint spray starch on the overhang. Fold it in on the freezer paper, smooth it, and press dry. Then you can use a tweezer to pluck the freezer paper out before you stitch.

This was my Florida project. We flew down a couple weeks ago for 5 nights for my SIL's big birthday bash (it was a wild and crazy 80's theme, attended by Billy Idol, Slash, a few Magnum PIs, a couple of Sonny Crockett/Don Johnson, Tom Cruise in his white socks and boxers, a dozen Material Girls, and a few Jernnifer Beals Flashdance Wannabes (myself included)--the funniest of which was a fairly large man in striking hot pink ballet flats, leg warmers, and a slinky off-the-shoulder sweatshirt that showed off the nipples on his quite ample bazooms ('feel my boobs!'). I can't recall a Saturday night where I drank so many martini's. (And I don't recall much of this one after about 11 p.m. :) )

Anyhow, technique on this one was the leaves. I used a super fine lingerie interfacing and stitched it to the right side of the leaf, cut a slit in the center of it and pulled the leaf through, forming a closed seam all the way around the leaf. A quick press to flatten it, and it was an easy sew. Not the most perfect edges, a little hard trying to hide the white interfacing at times, but probably quicker than needleturn.

This is my least favorite block so far. I thought it would be my favorite when I chose the design, but I was wrong. I'm not loving the colors I chose, or the shapes of the oak leaves. These were freezer paper ironed to the right side of the fabric. I cut around, leaving 1/4" all around and then I pressed the fabric to warm it and used my chalk pencil to draw around the freezer paper template. You needleturn it on the chalk line....and this doesn't always turn under perfectly. You can see chalk on mine, which will eventually wash off. (I hope).

All three of the above 'wreath' blocks will get some embellishment....a ribbon, a bow, a bird...something. I'll figure that out once I've laid the blocks out to see what colors are needed, or what sort of embellishment will balance it and tie it to the blocks around it.

I've got tonight and tomorrow to knock out one more block. I've got a papercut ready for the other quilt I could probably finish. And it's probably the perfect project to tinker away at during the Beverly Hills Housewive's Reunion show at 9:00. Hmmm......

Oh, you didn't think I went to Florida and didn't hit up a quilt shop, did you?

We happened to be in the neighborhood while we ran over to the Hobby Lobby in Viera, so I was able to pop into The Quilt Place in Rockledge, FL. This shop has a TON of fabric. They advertise something ridiculous like 10,000 bolts or something (seriously, who has counted them--wouldn't that take DAYS?). Numbers aside, they do have a vast selection of fabric, and the prices are much more reasonable than they are locally in the D.C. suburbs. (Like $1-$2 less per yard).

Having seen a couple of the prints in this line at my LQS, I couldn't resist bringing home a sampling of Timeless Treasures' Plume. I'm not normally drawn to fabrics with metallic gold, but this one was the exception. And I even picked up the Timeless Stitch Star challenge application. Not sure I'm up for a challenge where I've got to design and stitch an original in 2 months, but I'm ready if I do.

And while the photo makes it look gray, I wanted you to see this new line by Kaufmann...Kona Dimensions. See the dots? It's a solid fabric (for all intents and purposes), and the dots are pretty subtle. I had to manipulate the lighting so you could see the pattern. Reminds me of some striped pants I had back in the 70s that were like this--solid from afar, striped up close. It comes in a wide range of colors--24 to be exact. I picked up black to use with the Plume. If the hubs hadn't been with me, I might have picked up a whole lot more of this, but I was being good and using my vacation spending cash which I just about depleted on the Plume on Day 1 in Florida. No worries, I'm sure I'll find it online.

Check back later this week. I've got a fun little Valentine's Day giveaway coming up. Don't want you to miss it.

Now it's time to tune in to Bravo and be thankful I never went through with lip enhancements :)

Welcome 2012

2012-01-03T01:52:00.000-05:00

I hope that everyone had a lovely Christmas and got lots of great quilty gifts. Apparently I was a very good girl in 2010, as Santa was very good to me. I got some great quilt books, basting needles, the Accuquilt birds die, a Slice Fabrique (which I have yet to make work), a Beam N Read light, and a Reliable iron (the orange one, to go with my yellow Oliso iron). If you know me, you also know that I loathe ironing more than Madonna loathes hydrangeas, yet I own two of the coolest irons on the market...go figure....(apparently I have taken up iron collecting.). Actually, the Oliso may find itself on Sew Its For Sale. We shall see. I need to fire up the Reliable before I decide.

I was also lucky to pick up a little after-Christmas item for myself

The Fed Ex guy had a struggle carrying this huge box up the front steps.

And inside was another huge box.

And inside was the 'real' box.

Which held the new Beyers Choice Vanilla Icing Gingerbread house I added to my collection for half price this year. It's a lot bigger than I thought it would be, but I'll manage to find a place for it.

I tell you, those Chinese craftsmen are something else. You'd swear these were real candies they glued on, but they're just plastic replicas. (Ummmm.....gummy bears.....one of my favorites).

I put it away, though I've yet to put away any of the other Christmas decorations. I'm playing the "I'll take the decorations down after Three Kings' Day (January 5th)" game this year. In all honesty, I'm checking out the fresh tree tonight and darned if it's not dropped a needle, is still soft and pliable, and could likely make it another month....and the rest of the trees aren't real, so what's the hurry? Okay, so we are going to Florida in a couple of weeks and it would be nice to not have to come back home to Christmas decorations (not to mention embarrass myself in front of our house sitters), so I'll likely tear myself away from my sewing machine this weekend and put things away.

Speaking of sewing.....I've got a class with Mimi Dietrich this Sunday and I did not do the homework (horrors!!!), and it is way too late to start. Actually, it was a reverse applique project that she assigned in November and gave us 2 months to do .... along with the admonishment to not try to start it a week before the class. (do you think she was directing that at me??) Anyway, I didn't see myself using the block in either of my Baltimore quilts, so I just worked on straight up paper cut blocks. It would be nice if I could finish one more of those before Sunday so I don't look like such a loser, but not sure I can finish the one I've been working on for the past month, let alone one more. (sigh)

While I did have most of last week off from work, I didn't get a lot of sewing done. I did spend some time over the weekend and finished piecing the 63 flannel quilt blocks for the rag quilt

And yesterday I was able to put the sandwiches together, and today I finished quilting them.

Tonight I laid them out on the design wall, which was kind of tricky as there's also a pattern on the back to consider. I'm pretty sure I managed to lay them out with no two same blocks together. Guess we'll find out when I start sewing them together. Oh well if I did.

Well, I'm off to bed. Early tomorrow morning I've got to meet with a trainer at the gym, and then it's a work day (both jobs). I hope to get the rows sewn together tomorrow night and then rag it before Saturday morning, which might be a good time to take it to a laundromat to wash.

Oh, and if you find any drunken Karaoke New Years Eve videos of me on YouTube, do me a favor, and don't tell me about them. :)

I've got a couple great pincushion giveaways coming up, so check back later this week for how to enter.

Stay warm!

Meet My New Best Friend

2011-12-20T01:28:00.002-05:00

We've spent some quality time together the past day, and we've made plans for the next few as well, though hopefully we won't be spending as many hours together as we did last night. I wouldn't want the hubs to get jealous about all the time Mr. Ripper and I are spending in the studio locked in embrace.

After four hours of cutting, I got the 63 8.5" squares and the 63 10" squares cut for both rag quilts, and the 8.5" squares cut into pieces for one quilt. Tired of cutting, I decided to piece the wonky shapes together.

Easier said than done. While they may look like they fit together, it's an entirely different story when you seam them together with a half inch seam. They don't exactly line up.

And it doesn't make It any easier when you've got printed instructions that say to trim them to a size that is larger than they actually sewed together. We rip, we sew, we rip, we sew.

Did I mention that this is a RAG quilt? Well that implies that the pieces have been sewn together wrong sides together, with the seams out (to be fringed later). Have you ever made a rag quilt? If so, then you have some idea of how hard it is to sew seams with wrong sides together. Most of my ripping wasn't the result of pieces that just didn't fit together properly, no, most of the ripping out was because I kept sewing with the right sides together. So hard a concept this is for me to grasp that even after I ripped out the seam, I actually put right sides together and stitched it wrong once again.

By 2 a.m. I had enough. The one page instructions just weren't cutting it, my blocks were half an inch short of the trim size before I even trimmed. Reading the instructions for the forty seventh time, I noticed that it referred to laying the pieced blocks on top of the 9" solid blocks.....WAIT A MINUTE.....the instructions called for me to cut 8.5" solid blocks.Where did 9" come from? Now I was on to something.

A web search turned up Sandy Brawner, the pattern designer's email and I sent off a desperate plea for help. By 9 a.m. she sent me an email telling me she was going to investigate, and by 3 pm I had a revised pdf file instructing me to trim my blocks to 8.5", and were a little clearer on how to piece the three parts together. Do we love quilters, or what?! I've gotta believe that if I were making a sequined evening gown and ran into a little snag that Bob Macke wouldn't be so accessible. The community of quilters is amazingly helpful to those of us trying to learn. Special thanks to Sandy Brawner.

After a little last minute shopping run to the Gangs R Us Mall on the way home from work, I headed up to the studio and gave the wonky piecing another go. Success!

Have Mercy! the blocks even TRIMMED out to 8.5". Of course, I still had to do a little (okay, a lot of) ripping-- it is just not in my genetic profile to seam wrong sides together.. But I was able to knock out 10 blocks until I fell under the grip of the Hallmark Channel's sappy Christmas movies..

Only 53 more blocks to piece and trim.

Here's hoping that the 2 a.m. Christmas movies coming up are all ones I've seen before. I really can't spend another day on 4 hours sleep.

Little Miss Motivation Finds Her Mojo

2011-12-16T00:43:00.000-05:00

I have been to the gym two days in a row, thanks to my neighbor. I've set up a challenging regimen for myself: 8 minutes on the elliptical torture device, 12 minutes on the recumbent bike, and 10 minutes on the treadmill...all at LEVEL 1 (ha ha ha).
Seriously...I'm moving into this at a slow and steady pace. (Plus, my office is on the third floor of a 100-year old house, and I need to be able to walk up stairs without moaning, and stopping to sob in pain on the 2nd floor).

Today it was nice to see the guy next to me almost fly off the treadmill (not to worry, he recovered and regained his balance), because if anyone was going to do that, I was sure it was going to be me, in front of a full-house. (There's always tomorrow).

On our way out we looked at the big white board full of classes, and I discovered that I could take any class as part of my membership....pilates...yoga...spinning (hysterical laughter)...Zumba --- wait....Zumba? Haven't I heard of that? Isn't that the new fitness flavor of the month? Well, there's a Zumba class at 8:30 on Saturday morning, and gosh darn, we are so there. We may not know what it is (we're thinking Jazzercise on amphetamines), but we are certainly going to find out. And if I was worried about embarrassing myself in front of a room full of people...well, we've pretty much decided that we're just going to station ourselves at the back of the room and spend a lot of time giggling like little schoolgirls.

So, with this new found motivation (obviously caused by two days of adrenaline fueled exercise), I headed up to the studio and commenced to cutting 20 yards of flannel into 8.5 and 10" strips.

Next we cut each set into 126 squares, which will then be cut into some crazy patches. And before we can sew we need to cut another 63 squares of batting for each set.

The finished products will be twin-size flannel rag quilts.

Since my new motto is 'all things in moderation', we shall resume our cutting tomorrow night....after the gym.

In the meantime, here's a few shots of this year's Christmas decorating

The top of the Mardi Gras tree.

Closeup of the MG tree

Fairies swinging on the chandelier....it's always a party around here.

The sugar plum fairy holds court on top of our refrigerator.

Beelzebub, Quick! Go Get the Ice Pick!

2011-12-14T00:01:00.001-05:00

Because clearly, Hell has frozen over. (And the Sugar Zombie Elves are not happy.)

I JOINED A GYM TODAY (hysterical laughter).

And if that wasn't enough...the hubs wrote out 4 Christmas cards. In the 29 years we have been sending out cards, I cannot recall that he has ever wrote a card (though when confronted with this fact he will tell you that back in Year 4, he's pretty sure he may have written one or two (hysterical laughter)).

Finally....in the 29 years we have been sending a Christmas card to his HS friend Rick, we have never received a card from Rick. Guess what came in the mail today?

I stood frozen in the kitchen, envelope in hand, waiting for the magnitude 9.4 tremors to begin....but they did not....so there must be more surprises to come (like a Lexus with a big red bow on top in my driveway Christmas morning....or I wake up tomorrow morning and all the jeans in my drawer are a size 6 AND THEY ALL FIT (hysterical laughter). Or, more likely, I actually go to the gym tomorrow (wink).

For the rest of the night I shall enjoy my tea,

in my great green room,

and place a few orders at various online fabric shops for

Quilting Treasures' Goodnight Moon fabric line. This is my first foray into 'investment fabric' (which is what I am calling this purchase for the hubs' benefit). I don't have a grandchild, but should we be blessed with one in the future, the quilt I would want to make would be with this fabric. This was one of our favorite books to read to our daughter.

Now, all I need is for Quilting Treasures to come out with fabric from our second favorite book and we can invest in a second future grandchild (I'm sure my daughter is thinking 'good thing there's only two books' on our favorites list)

Where Has the Month Gone?

2011-12-11T23:47:00.000-05:00

I can't believe I've been gone this long. Goes to show how disorganized I've been (or possibly lazy?).

It's not like I've been totally absorbed in Christmas decorating...I'm still not done...there will not be 15 trees this year....and I'm fine with that. Seems the older I get, the less trouble I want to go to, not to mention the more practical I get...practical as in everything I take out will have to be put away again, so I find myself asking myself 'is it worth it?' many times over.

What's totally out of character is that when I got back from Florida I went and picked up my sewing machine, and it's now been 3 weeks and I've yet to use it. (GASP!!) I was hoping to spend some quality time in the studio today, but alas, Mrs. There Will Be No Outside Christmas Lights This Year caved at approximately 3 p.m. and spent the rest of the evening setting up outdoor extension cords, cursing strands of LEDs that were supposed to live forever that no longer work after 3 years, and untangling and hanging lights.

While I've self imposed the 'no trees upstairs' rule this year, I did decide to put the little sewing tree in my studio. It's one of my favorites because I made everything on it. It's supposed to sit inside a sewing basket, but I just haven't found one large enough yet. One day.

I went to Ladies Night at a local garden center a couple of weeks ago and bought two Cyclamen to keep the Christmas Cactus company. (Gotta have flowers in the studio) I'm as surprised as anyone that the cactus is flowering this year. I'm also surprised that I haven't killed the Cyclamen yet (Shh!, don't ask the red one how long it went without water this week. If it complains just tell it to buck up, and be happy it's alive.

I pulled out my little shabby chic pinecone gnomes and trees I made. I like them, and I'm glad they didn't sell on etsy.

This is the newest addition to my pincushion collection. He's not really a pincushion, but when I saw him at the garden center on a snowman tree I had to have him. It's woolfelt and he makes the prefect pincushion. This one is definitely my new favorite.

After the Ladies Night things got crazy. I had a week to clean/decorate and bake cookies for my annual Cookie Exchange.

Friday we had friends for dinner, so no work then. And Saturday was out, as the Happy Hour crew had plans for lunch (3 course) at Volt (yes, that would be Brian Voltaggio's restaurant),

This is my appetizer, it's a yellowfin tuna tartare with two kinds of roe on top and a little drizzle of wasabi on the plate. (I sent this photo to the hubs, and his first comment was 'ewww, who spit on your food'.) I never really did get the full explanation of the foam, but it's some kind of soy foam that they used to use nitrous oxide to make but it made it too sweet so now they use something else ( more likely, the nitrous was running out a little too frequently).

And this is a triple chocolate dessert, and that is egg-shaped chocolate ice cream (well, not exactly ice cream, something more pretentious-sounding).

After our $55 per person lunch, we popped into some of the shops and then went on a tour of some of the homes that were decorated for the holiday.

With the Cookie Exchange party looming, I had to bake Sunday if I expected to have any cookies for Wednesday. And of course I HAD to take on an all-day Bakerella project.

(My neighbor took this photo with her iPhone the night of the party). We had a lot of fun (and a lot more wine), I've gained 3 pounds eating cookies for the past 4 days.

Two more neighborhood shindigs this week and then things hopefully die down. I still need to put out a few more decorations, light one more tree outside, finish shopping, and wrap.

I don't think I'm going to get to that paper pieced Christmas tree quilt this year. Right now, I'm thinking more along the lines of the flannel rag quilt. It's freezing in here!

Some November Finishes

2011-11-18T00:33:00.001-05:00

The one thing I love about flying is that it's a great way to knock out hand sewing (what else are you gonna do at 37,000 feet trapped in a steel can seated in 2 cubic feet of space?)

On the flight down to Orlando I finished this one

And then I got a good start on this one (which I finished while sitting at the hubs' softball games....which explains why my face is not sunburned--I was always looking down, and that my arm is not sunburned in a diamond shape on the inside of my elbow--my arm was bent while I was stitching)

These are patterns from Piece O'Cake Designs Aunt Millie's Flower Garden, and the fabric is also from Piece O'Cake designs. The finished piece will be a four block wall hanging with an appliqued border. The blocks all have a 2-color wheel of fortune in the center that I'll do when all the blocks are complete. It's hand applique and I'm using DMC Broder single ply cotton thread, which I was loving until I started using Superior Kimono Silk on my Baltimore Blocks. There is seriously nothing that compares to silk thread for hand applique.

Speaking of finishes, Peg Coen from OPAM (One Project a Month) pulled my name as one of the monthly winners for September. She's in Australia so I told her that it was okay to pull another winner and save the postage to the US--I'm in the whole OPAM thing for the motivation--whcih is prize enough for me, but she insisted on sending a prize. I received two adorable patterns...one is an embroidery project, the other a wool felt/applique/embroidery...both of which I've recently 'dabbled' in and enjoy. Peg also included a sweet little pair of Embroidery Angel scissors in my most favorite color, that matches my studio walls (green). Thanks Peg!

Finally, you are looking at yet another project. At the moment, I haven't a clue what it will be. This is one of our Guild challenges, which is sponsored by Quilters' Confectionery. You get a fat quarter of each of the three fabrics on the right and you've got to use them in a quilt/wallhanging/wearable in a recognizable amount. Quilt/wallhangings have a limit of 160" around the perimeter, wearables can be any size. I bought extra yardage of each, along with the orange/red batik (which makes me think 'Tequila Sunrise' when I look at it) because I actually like all of the fabrics. There is a remote possibility I could make a wearable or a bag or a doll.

The challenge is called 'Orange Blossoms'. Totally subjective. You aren't going to get that from any of those three fabrics on the right. In fact none of those colors appear in an actual orange blossom. You're judged on use of fabric, creativity, and workmanship. This one's gonna require some serious creativity.

We've also got the 'Big League' challenge...the one that could possibly wind up in an AQS show. This is the Ultimate Guild Challenge. You might remember I wasted a lot of time on 'Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend' last year only to trash my efforts. I'm not sure I'm in the league to tackle a challenge of this caliber, but I do think about it. This year's theme is to interpret the title of a Beatles song, or a line of a Beatles song in a quilt.(Damn.....I could have saved all those black diamonds from last year's failed effort and done a 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' thing) It's a great theme, I've just got to figure out a song or a line and how I'd execute it and then assess whether or not I'm skilled enough to compete.

Can I order up 4-day weekends for the rest of this year and the first quarter of next?

Oooh...John Fogarty's on Letterman. Gonna sign off now and rock out. Happy Friday!

Back from the Beach / Show and Tell

2011-11-17T01:34:00.002-05:00

Got back last night (cue sad music). It was lovely to be in Florida in November, even if I did get a bit of a sunburn on Day 2. (I forgot the sunscreen). By the time we got back from the Gulf Coast to SIL's beach house on the Atlantic,I was quite uncomfortably crispy, and I didn't leave the house without SPF50 on for the rest of the trip.

I tried to blog, but it just wasn't working on the iPhone. I think when I star-2-2-8'd (to update my roaming capability) I screwed things up. Back in the day, you needed to do that with your Verizon cellphone to alert it to the local towers. It seems every time I went somewhere and did that, my signal just got worse (or maybe it was because there aren't any cell towers out in the ocean, which was on one side of me...or maybe because I'm in a concrete house.....). So, I amused myself by doing lots of Facebook posts with photos...sometimes every 5 minutes on a road trip, just so I could see all the places I was posting from be listed on my posts. (I'm easily amused)

I spared the hubs the usual quilt shop hop in Ft. Meyers Beach and Cape Coral area. Dragged him into Michaels for some Christmas stuff...I know, how is it I'm on vacation 1100 miles from home, and I'm shopping in Michaels? They had a great coupon for Fri and Sat, and I didn't want to miss out. He was a trooper about it, and it was his idea to go back on Saturday in between games (I suspect he was sulking over sending a runner in who was tagged out, and just wanted to get away, and the only place he knew how to get to was the shopping center with Michaels in it).

We did our usual Polish Pottery visit to pick up a couple replacement pieces (casualties of the hubs' occasional campaign to be relieved of emptying dishwasher duty...which isn't going to happen) and add a few more pieces (I can't resist, and I've still got a tiny bit of space in my cabinets).

I got to go to a really expensive decorator's warehouse in Orlando (where I spent a whopping $4.00). It cost us at least $25 which is what we'll be fined from the car rental agency once they get the photo ticket of us running through the toll booth without paying. Florida is sneaky like that....they put 2 toll booths on the on and exit ramps...one is EZ Pass, the other is exact COIN. Who knew???? I've got 20 one dollar bills, but no quarters, and the toll is a buck and you have to pay with coin. And there's 12 cars behind us. What are we suppoed to do? We had to drive through without paying. Of course, the minute we do that, it then occurs to us that now we've got to get off this road and we're looking at doing this again. I find two quarters in my purse...cool, we're passing exits that are 50 cents. We're set. Then we get off at our exit and it's 75 cents. Seriously!? Fortunately I also had some nickels and dimes to total the toll, otherwise, we would have driven until we found a 50c exit. The place (Margie's Interiors) had some really great decorated trees, and some excellent accessories, but the prices were seriously out of control, and I'm not sure the trip was worthy of the price of admission..

We stopped at The Quilt Place in Rockledge, FL which advertises having 11,000 bolts of fabric. It's a big shop, and they have a lot of fabric, but I just can't buy into 11,000 bolts. Who counted them? How long does it take to count to 11,000? (Sorry, I'm way too math challenged to figure that out). I suspect that someone counted the number of bolts in some set length of space and then made some math mistakes when trying to compute how many bolts of fabric went into the length and width of the place. Most shops advertise having 2000 or 2500 bolts of fabric, and this place just wasn't 4-5 times the size of those shops. They are a large building, but they've also got 3 or 4 Gammil long-arms in the place.

They did have a lot of Christmas fabric, so I decided to add a Christmas quilt to this year's ever increasing To Do List.

We drove to Vero Beach Monday and the hubs found a basket of Australian FQs, so I had to come home with a handful.

And this martini fabric just screamed my name.

Just because the vacation is over doesn't mean the fabric fun is. Today, my prize for winning the weekly quilt contest arrived...40 lovely batiks from Moda's Paridise Batiks line. Courtesy of Jojo's Quilt Shop in Elk Grove, CA. (Thanks again everyone who voted for me)the

All that remains is for me to drive up to Frederick this weekend and pick up my sewing machine (which has been enjoying a lovely spa visit while I've been beach bumming it), and I can get to work.

Yeah, I should be able to fit some sewing in between the treck up to pick up the Aurora, painting the living room, taking the kids to the airport (Jamaican honeymoon), going to the Sugarloaf Craft Festival, making and delivering cookie exchange invites, and cleaning the house....this is a 4-day weekend coming up, right? (I wish!)

Tomorrow it's back to work for me, and after that it's back to other work as well. Welcome home!

I got a lot of stitching done on the trip, and I'll post those photos tomorrow. For now...goodnight, and have a great tomorrow!

2011-10-30T02:06:00.001-04:00

I had to leave the house this morning at 9 to drive to Great Falls, VA to meet someone (who never showed up), so since I was in the neighborhood.....

Let's see what she bought that got her that bonus shopper bag...

Oooh.....aaahhh.....I couldn't resist her new line, Kashmir. I bought enough of one fabric from the line to back something, but I may wind up using it in a One Block Wonder/Kaleidoscope. I almost bought it in shades of turquoise, but that's kind of my summer go-to colorway, so I opted for the more winterish fuschia, orange, red.

This is the main snag...this week's 'Web Special'....I just love it when someone figures out all the colors you need and you can pick up the project fabric in 5 seconds instead of obsessing over dozens of bolts for an hour (or two).

And this is what the end result will look like. This is a project for after the holidays.

Since I was in Virginia, and it was snowing back in Maryland, and there wasn't any heat back home, I decided to visit one of the Virginia G Street Fabrics. I have vouchers burning a hole in my wallet.

Well, no impressive fabric that I had to have...not even wool, but I did find a nifty gadget.

It shows you that you can get this

From this.

Or, you can piece together this

From this. (Makes you wanna run out and pick up a Kaleidoscope book now, doesn't it?)

It's just two little mirrors taped together, and they're plastic, so you can carry them around when fabric shopping and not worry about breaking them. Pretty cool.

By the time I got home from my Virginia excursion, it was snowing pretty steady so I went rooting in my workroom closet for some kind of Christmas project to work on. Look what I found. It's actually a pretty decent tinsel tree on a metal base. Lots of branches, definitely full. Don't know when I bought it or for what, it just sort of fell off a shelf while I was looking for something to do. I've fluffed it out and set it on the sewing desk in the studio to think about what the heck to do with it.

This is the craft project for tomorrow. Can you guess what it's going to be? I can tell you, the Hubs was not thrilled when he called while he was out (he called from Walmart to ask if we needed any goat's milk, and to inform me that it would be a shame if we did, because they were sold out ??!! I think his point was that they even sell goats' milk in Walmart is a bit unbelievable) anyway, I sent him into the Nether Region of the craft department at Wally World in search of a 4" styrofoam ball.He whined, but he did bring one home (good boy), so this will turn into something tomorrow (after I make a mess of the packed away Barbie stuff in the basement rooting around for a plastic Barbie hairbrush to use on this yarn). Stay tuned.

And since it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...what is this? Hmmm....4 squares of blue, 4 squares of red, 8 different white on white prints, 4 tan prints and 4 green prints. This one is going to be an applique project...fusible with some blanket stitching. It's from an Art to Heart book (I love their projects). Let's see if I can knock this out tomorrow and show you a finish.

After that, I've got a Jinny Beyer table runner I started last year and didn't finish (gasp!----I got blindsided by mitered borders I decided to add to it...call me Ms. Miterklutz). But as a vote of confidence and a shot of incentive, I picked up a 12 wt. Sulky variegated cotton thread to do some decorative stitching on it.

I'm going to need to replace those fall and Halloween quilts in the family room and still do not have a Christmas quilt, so I'm going to knock out a flannel rag quilt for the hubs. I was going to make a quilt for a gift, but I'm no longer feeling the love for this idea, so this will likely not happen. So many quilts, so little time. Sigh.

Speaking of time...9 days until I'm soaking up the sun and surf in Florida. Tick tock.

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Fall 2011

2011-10-28T12:11:00.002-04:00

Updated to add some photos on 10/29.
I saw this quilt in the August/September issue of The Quilter magazine, and for some reason, it just grabbed me. I'm not normally a Halloween decorating kind of person...I kind of prefer Fall decorating because you can put it out in September and leave it out for 3 months before you have to start putting up 15 Christmas trees, assembling an army of gingerbread, and baking 47 dozen Christmas cookies, so I didn't quite understand my fascination and drive to make a quilt that I could display/use for a couple of weeks. Not to mention, I'm not really a 'panel' kind of gal.

Nonetheless, I had this unexplainably, almost rabid urge to make this quilt, so I set about finding all the necessary fabrics, and a coordinating back (we all know I'm a bit OCD when it comes to things matching...I'm just now starting to get over that need to have every fabric used come from the same line/manufacturer). I had to order from three separate shops...a valuable lesson learned....

Lesson 1: By the time you see the quilt in the magazine, the fabric has already been out for months (if not longer), so good luck wrangling it up...AND...Most online quilt shops do not carry the full line of fabric...in fact most brick and mortar shops do not carry full lines...they pick and choose from within the line and colorways, so never think that putting together a project like this will be a one-stop shop.

It didn't take long to piece this together. I was quite proud of my perfect points and alignment in the star blocks. The little cornerstones were fussy cut so that a spider appeared on each one...tedious, but necessary to the design. The problem came when I got to the backing and discovered that....horrors....I hadn't ordered enough fabric. Great. So, I pieced together border fabric, extra panels, and what I had purchased and with a little 'cut this strip off the border fabric and add it to this piece' magic, I wound up with just enough to leave an inch all around.

Lesson 2: An inch overhang on a backing is not enough to allow your quilt to be long-armed, when it occurs to you that you should send it out because you're going crazy with the October 8th wedding details and worried that this quilt won't see Halloween 2012.

Sucking it up, I decided to lock myself in the studio one weekend and machine quilt this baby on the Bernina. My current fascination is teeny, tiny stippling (thank you Sharon Schamber!), so that's what I did around the star blocks...well actually, teeny, tiny switched to just plain small after the first block when I realized how much time that was going to take, but it's all good.

The pieced blocks were stippled around the points.

The center of the stars got a spiderweb pattern quilted in.

Not the greatest stippling, but it it is small....the area pictured above is just about 2.5". MQP have a field day.

Then I had this great idea to pull out a metallic thread (which I have NEVER quilted with) to use on the spiderwebs that I was quilting over. Thankfully, my metallic thread was Superior thread, so I never had an issue with a thread break, or tension, though it didn't seem to quilt as smoothly and evenly as I had wanted it to. Fits and starts, a bit of ripping, and it really bothered me that I only used it on the 2 blocks with spiderwebs. Even after the quilt was bound I considered ripping it out again and going over it with cotton thread, but really....it's a Halloween quilt, it's for me, it'll be out 2 weeks a year and repeat after me....."FINISHED IS WAY BETTER THAN PERFECT".

Not sure you can tell there's metallic thread along the web lines.

They aren't the straightest or the greatest or the most even stitches. But it was my first experience with metallic, so I'll need to practice. Maybe I'll pull it out and use it on the Christmas quilt.

Lesson 3: Test out quilting with metallic thread BEFORE you put a needle-full into your real quilt project.

In the end my quilting isn't perfect...there's some microscopic stitching going on that would resonate like fingernails on a chalkboard with the MPQ (Machine Quilting Police)--I just didn't feel like using my stitch regulator on this one, it gets in the way when stippling. I'm not thrilled with the corner blocks, though they are what the pattern called for. I did play with some other ideas, but in the end I was lazy and just said screw it, go with the pattern. But I do have a colorful, fun Halloween quilt to snuggle under in the family room for the next week or so, so I'm happy!

Thanks for looking, and be sure to check out the other quilts in the Festival. You can link to the Festival page and navigate the entries by clicking on the icon on my sidebar, or you can click the title of this blog entry. Big thanks to Amy's Creative Side for hosting this Festival twice a year. Love you Amy!

Enjoy!

Please Vote For Me!!

2011-10-28T01:49:00.001-04:00

I've entered "Witch Way" in a Halloween Quilt Contest over at the Quilting Gallery. (It's also going to be my Blogger's Quilt Festival entry, so you'll see it again in another post with a close up of all it's quilted glory).

I'd love it if you'd hit the link in my sidebar (or use this one:

http://quiltinggallery.com/2011/10/28/vote-now-halloween-quilts/ )

to hop over to the contest site and vote for me, if you think I'm worthy. If you tell your friends, I'd much appreciate it, and they'd get to look at some darn cute Halloween Quilts that are in the contest. You can vote one time from an IP address (but you can vote twice if you use your smartphone and your home computer...three times if you're at work :)), and you can vote through Sunday night.

The winner receives the ultimate triple threat dream prize.......Moda/Fat Quarters/Batik.....a 40 pack of fat quarters from Moda's Paradise Batik line, generously donated by JoJo's Quilt Shop, who just happens to be having a pretty great sale right now, so you might want to check that out too.

My quilt is called Witch Way, and it's the third listing up from the bottom. Check it out.

Thanks a bunch, and have a fabulous Friday!!!

Moving Right Along

2011-10-22T18:24:00.000-04:00

My attempt to regain some sense of normalcy after the wedding resulted in laying myself flat with the flu (I knew I forgot something....my freakin' flu shot!!!). But by Friday, I was feeling well enough to sit at the sewing machine for a couple hours, and I've been at it for a few hours today. Only two blocks left to quilt on the Halloween quilt and it's on to binding. Happily I will have a couple of OPAM finishes for October. Not too shabby.

My big score this month was adding this book to my collection. Long out of print, and selling for $95, I posted an ISO ad on the 'Sew Its For Sale' Yahoo Group, and a lovely woman in California sold me a mint, hard cover, first edition that doesn't even look like it was read for what she paid for the book 15 years ago. I'm so excited to have this book because it's the handbook for putting together a free-form Gee's Bend kind of quilt, which is on my quilt bucket list. And I'm especially happy that there are quilters out there who are happy to share resources without taking advantage.

When you're home sick and you just don't feel like making messes, you tend to read, and I dove into a stack of books I borrowed from the Guild library about One Block Wonders. I guess they're kind of related to Kaleidoscopes. You take one fabric and hack it up and rearrange the pieces so the pattern is unrecognizable but artistically pleasing. Then you include a piece of what the real fabric looks like on the back and everyone oohs and ahs and goes, "OMG! That's freakin' amazing!". I want to do that. (I want to do everything, why wouldn't I want to do that?) Fabric.com had a killer sale earlier this week (another advantage of being sick....computer time in bed), so I grabbed some Alexander Henry fabric that just might work for this. I will say that I have a gut feeling that this is going to be one of those projects I'll be sorry I started, but we shall see. Quilting techniques are kind of like artichokes....you've got to try it once--you might love it.

And since there was a sale, and since I am expanding my horizons, I thought I'd play around with a little 'ombre'...I just like saying that word.....'ahhm-bray'. And this is going to be my 'ahhm-bray poochie' project, whatever it turns out to be.

While I'm adding projects to the heap, why not a black and yellow quilt? Here's the first two half yards to start that collection. Now I've got something to look for on the Florida trip. (As if I needed a mission to visit quilt shops).

That was a quick catch-up, and now I'm off to finish these last two blocks so I can bind these babies (yep, the pumpkin table quilt is still raggedy).

Watch This Space! Entertaining Wedding Story To Come

2011-10-11T00:33:00.002-04:00

I'm baackk!!!! And it feels good. Well, okay, I'm almost back. The MIL leaves tomorrow--don't get me wrong, it's okay that she's here, she's invited, she's not an imposition....but sometimes you just want your houseguests gone so you can not worry about being 'on' all the time. Also, I'm dealing with one last little wedding clean up issue and then I can work on running around planning our trip to Florida next month (and hopefully another one in January).

You know how it seems that every wedding has a story...and most of those stories involve something that happened the night before the wedding? Like at my SIL's wedding the guys went out after the rehearsal dinner, across from the hotel (which, come to think of it was a Hilton), and one of the groomsmen was a Cincinnati Bengal and people just wanted to pick a fight because he was a Cincinnati Bengal in Bethesda, MD, and the next day there was a lot of jockeying around with bottles of Maybelline trying to cover black eyes and such.....

Well, we got us one humdinger of a wedding story, also involving a Hilton Hotel (Hampton Inn), also involving groomsmen, also after the rehearsal dinner, though instead of rated R for violence, this one's rated X for sex (Hell-o!! Got your attention now, didn't I?). Seriously. But, before I can regale you with some hilariously entertaining prose, I'm going extend a courtesy to Hilton and allow them to submit an alternate ending, so hang tight.

Not to worry, there will be a story, and I promise, you will be amused (most certainly grossed out, but definitely amused) ,

The wedding was beautiful, the breakfast was great, the cake stunning, and I'm glad I've only got the one daughter. Onward and upward.

Good Class Today

2011-10-03T00:17:00.001-04:00

I woke up this morning and thought that I am one lucky quilter. How many quilters get up on Sunday morning and have to decide whether they're going to their class with Mimi Dietrich ( Renowned author and Baltimore Album Quilter) or whether they'll instead go to their class with Sharon Schamber (World Renowned Free Motion Quilter, 3 time winner at Houston (last year's best of show)/2 time winner at Paducah)? I live in a great city with great resources.

I went to Sharon's class, and while I felt bad skipping Mimi's class...that one's monthly, so I can catch up with Mimi next month. It was quite interesting, and a bit different from any other class I've taken.

Sharon has a rather unique way of teaching you to think about the process and develop 'body memory' (which, amazingly, the hubs knew what that was). Basically, the thought process is that you need to do something 12-40 times in order to remember it. (That explains why I seem to know the words to EVERY song I heard on the radio between the ages of 12-15---what else did I have to do, but listen to music and sing along...I couldn't drive!).

It was fun, she was entertaining, and most importantly, I learned a few things. Not only do I have a good start at quilting feathers, but I now know how to use two 3" wide by 1/2" (various length) boards to baste a quilt...no pins, perfect sandwich. in just a little more time than it would take to insert safety pins. There's some videos on this on YouTube, check them out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhwNylePFAA&noredirect=1.

I wouldn't have believed that using a needle and thread to baste a quilt wouldn't take a week, and I'm looking forward to trying this out on a future quilt. I learned the herringbone stitch is the go to hand stitch for this, and I also learned that there are 'basting' needles. (who knew?!).

With the basting and the lectures, there was little time to stitch, but I did get in a little bit of feathering:

Not great, but not bad. There'll be plenty of time for practice after the wedding. (T minus 6 days and counting!)

September Catch Up and OPAM Finishes....And The Wedding Looms Closer

2011-09-28T00:21:00.001-04:00

The countdown is T minus 9 (9 days to the wedding....9 days to World peace....10 days to a triumphant return to the studio (there's a brunch to host the day after). Of course then the countdown begins anew for a week in Florida, and once back from that I'm sure I'll be counting down to Christmas....it's always something. I'd just like to win the lottery this week and throw a ton of money at all my problems and obstacles and let it all solve itself while I sit back and play in my studio. But sadly, my chances of being hit by an errant satellite returning to earth are far better than my chances of winning Powerball (1 in 3250 compared to 1 in 195,249,053). Hmmm....if you get hit by an errant satellite returning to earth, can you sue NASA for a $49 million jackpot? I might be on to something here.

Okay, so here's what I've been up to in the 3 weeks I've been missing.... I finished a homework block for the Baltimore Album quilt...another papercut block.

And then I went to class the second week of September and came back and finished a leaf block which is the homework for next month (because I won't be able to attend the October class).

I even learned myself how to make a ruched rose....

And in class we learned how to make folded buds.

And I even attempted my first bird.

Feeling worthless for having not been in the studio for 2 weeks (for which my poor Christmas cactus paid dearly....not quite as 'cactusy' as one would think....did not like not having any water for an extended period of time...not sure if I did lasting damage, time will tell), this past weekend I decided to grab the smallest quilt project and sandwich and quilt it. Look closely....see those little red nubs? I tried out Pinmoors. I think I like them, but it took 50 to pin this tiny little table top quilt, so clearly you need about a hundred more to pin a 'real' quilt. (They're on my Amazon wishlist for the hubs to pick up for my Christmas stocking). He came in curious as to what they were. Then he says....:"you know, you could just buy those little licorice nibs and use those, and then when you take the pins out, you can just EAT THEM!" You know, he might be on to something there, and if I didn't think I'd have to wash my pins when I was done, I might give that a try.

Still on the Glory Road to instant gratification, I decided to knock out yet another Baltimore Album block, especially since the wait in the Retina Specialist's office is always over an hour in the waiting room and almost another half hour in his chair. (I think there should be a law that if a doctor makes you wait more than 15 minutes for an APPOINTMENT they should pay you for your time. I mean, really, if I don't come to my appointment, they are going to charge me for inconveniencing them...so why is it not a two-way street?

I was also able to take a break the Saturday before last and go to Creative Saturday at Needles and Pins, where we made little redwork-type Christmas ornaments as our 'make and take'. I really liked that whole backstitch thing, so I came home with the above pattern and everything I needed to execute it (though I'm not making little bags..I'm going to frame them). It's a ragged linen kind of fabric you stitch on, then it's stitched to wool felt. The pattern is from Crabapple Hill and it's #312 Trick or Treat Bags if you're interested in a sitch-along with me.

Sunday night I used my sewing machine to make placecards for the wedding. Which reminds me...gotta remember to change the needle. I did find that I had missed one, of course I put everything away, so I can't move on until I pull it all out and make the one missing card.

I bought this cute pattern at the September Creative Saturday and had hoped to make a cute little supply caddy to take to my class with.....get ready.....SHARON SCHAMBER!!!....Sunday. It's only Tuesday, so I'm not ruling it out yet (and I'm also not ruling out Happy Hour this Friday, so that could be a problem).

Finally, I'm still on the quest for wedding shoes. I sucked it up and bought a dress last week...took a day off work and went shopping with my neighbor. It cost way too much money and it needs to be hemmed. (But if I'm ever invited to an awards show, or go on a cruise, I'm set....I've got a long dress). Which is why I'm needing to have the shoes thing crossed off the list this week. Found a pair at Marshall's last night, in black, bought them, and decided to drive up to Frederick to see if I could find them in gray. And bonus that there's a quilt shop across from the Marshalls and they have Presencia thread on sale for $2.50 a spool. Okay, so I'm a Thread Whore...der. Sue me.

Just wanted to post some OPAM finishes, check in with you all, and let you know that the giveaways will be caught up and resume AW (after wedding). I'll definitely be blogging on my Sharon Shamber class Sunday night, so if I don't see you before then, have a great weekend!

If It's Friday, I Must Be Stressed

2011-09-09T02:26:00.002-04:00

Oh look! The quilts needing sandwiching, and the bags needing stitching have walked out of the studio and positioned themselves in the upstairs hall, hoping they will be noticed and actually finished rather than banished to a shelf in the closet until next fall.

I should be in bed, but instead I'm sitting here in the studio wondering how the heck I'm going to get my Mimi Dietrich homework done for class on Sunday. Aaarrgghh!!!!!

I'm a project manager, I've been professionally trained, I should be able to handle this. Okay, let's see, first we need to define exactly what it is we need to do this weekend. Don't worry, I won't bore you with the 42 bullet item list, suffice it to say, it's more than can be completed by a mere mortal in 2 days.

Next we look at the list and decide just what we can get by without doing. Okay....I can go another week without looking for a wedding outfit. I can probably go to Mimi's class without doing my homework. Do I really have to go to Frederick to buy Blue Bunny Red Velvet Cake ice cream?

And then there's what absolutely can't be blown off....Happy Hour with the ladies tomorrow night, attending Mimi's class Sunday afternoon,

That was called 'prioritizing'. I"m good at actually performing the act of prioritizing, but I suck at carrying out the tasks I've prioritized. :)

I'm also a good multitasker. (Who isn't these days?) . What if I take my class homework to Happy Hour tomorrow night? (Hmmmm...hand sewing in low light, while drinking, at a kitchen island laden with foods from the 'top ten toughest stains to remove from quilt blocks' list.) Probably not a good idea.

And let's not forget 'delegating'. Can I trust the hubs to go out and get stink bug traps?

Wouldn't it be great to just phone in sick to work tomorrow and add another day to the weekend? While that would solve all my problems, it can't happen, so I suppose I should just suck it up, and go to bed so I can get up early enough to knock out one of my tasks before work. If I do that now, I can still squeeze in 4.5 hours of sleep.

It's going to be a very busy Saturday. Hope yours winds up being way more relaxing than mine. Enjoy your weekend!

The Weekend Wasn't a Total Loss

2011-09-06T02:03:00.000-04:00

Life has a way of turning things upside down, and the much anticipated 3-day weekend I had been looking forward to crashed and burned.

While it was most definitely a loss, it wasn't a total loss, and I was able to finish the scrappy pumpkins quilt top:

And once again, I veered off the beaten path and tired my hand at redwork:

The year before last I had a Mary Engelbreit Carolers jelly roll and charm pack. I used some quickand easy Eleanor Burns pattern I had picked up at the show in Houston and whipped out a Christmas quilt for my MIL I took the leftover fabric, added a little high quality muslin and turned out another lap-size quilt, with the intent of using my new machine embroidery to fill in the 18 blocks. (ha ha....what a dreamer I was/am).

Instead, it was folded into the closet, waiting for me to discover Redwork. Looked easy, just needed to find some patterns, which I did today when I made a pity party trip to JoAnn and Hancock (I started too late, otherwise it would have been a much better pity party that also included G Street and Needles and Pins). So, one block down, 17 to go.

I picked up a couple of great magazines at JoAnn. Sew Beautiful has a pretty wild tape measure tote on the cover that I picked up 8 tape measures to attempt making....but then I realized that I could purchase a kit, which is the new plan, so I'll need to make a return trip to JoAnn (such a shame) .

The other mag is called 'magicpatch' and it's a UK publication. While it's only 50 pages, it had a great table runner and some pretty interesting mini quilt patterns. Watch this space and you'll see at least one of them in the near future. (Yep, another U-turn on the path to finishing something.)

Right now my pile has 4 quilts to be sandwiched. The only big one is the Halloween quilt, so I really need to get off my butt and get that done. I'll put that on the list, right after figuring out what the homework is that's due Sunday for the Baltimore Album class. .

Maybe I'll get a chance to take the field trip I was tempting you with next Saturday. Sadly, family got in the way of fun this weekend. Won't happen next weekend.

I'm going to try to get at least one of those quilts finished this week...even though it's already a third over. What are your goals?

See You In September

2011-08-31T23:51:00.002-04:00

Yes, we got our power back on Monday night. Woo hoo! Spent last night reacquainting myself with how to operate the stove, the dishwasher, the refrigerator.....I even made brownies from scratch! (Katherine Hepburn's recipe, no less).

I've got a couple books that need to be read, so I knocked off 'Room' (loved it!), and now I'm trying to read anything but the bookclub's non-fiction choice--which is strange because this bookclub is the neighborhood ladies Happy Hour/Night book club. Amy wanted a book club, so she's recruited us and chosen the first book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks". I don't know how this is going to work out, but I suspect that we're going to wind up with 'Don't Drink and Read' t-shirts by the time this is all over.

While the power was out, it would have been a wonderful time to pin about 3 quilts that are ready for pinning, but blame the DH because he didn't bring the pinning table up from the basement when I asked him, and it slipped my mind after that. So, rather than get started on that now, I've taken my usual run out to left field and I'm working on something else...

Remember that scrappy little Valentines quilt with the totally impossible instructions that I picked up a kit for in Vegas last fall?

Ah....now you remember!

Yep, it's a scrappy little pumpkin quilt kit I picked up in Vegas, and it's from the same provider of less than intuitive instructions that came along with the Valentine's quilt. I gotta tell ya, I 86'd those instructions right off the bat... I'm doing things my way with this one. Hopefully I'll have something to show you by the weekend.

And hooray for long weekends! I've got a lot planned. There's going to be a field trip to a pretty cool Baltimore establishment (it'll be a blog post, so stay tuned, you're going to enjoy this trip), I need to do my Baltimore Album homework for class next weekend, and I'd like to get those sandwiches made. Setting the bar pretty high, as of Wednesday.

Hope you've got something wonderful planned as well! Whatever it is, play safe, and enjoy yourself!

iPhone Blogging

2011-08-28T23:09:00.001-04:00

Remind me again... What country do I live in?

Fast heading into Day 2 with no electricity. I do so love Pepco. How their management hasn't been indicted on some Federal racketeering charge, received Anthrax in their payment envelopes, had their headquarters set on fire, their tighty whities packed full of concrete and thrown into the Potomac never fails to amaze me.

In the meantime we're delivering laundry baskets full of frozen food and good cheese to our friend's spare appliances, (thank you Anna, and thank you for having 3 refrigerators) filling coolers with ice so we've got ice and cold milk for meals of cold cereal and sitting in parking lots outside of Chinese carryouts with the engine running so we can charge our cell phones.

At no time has Pepco told us when to expect to get our power back. In fact the army of temps they trucked in from Boise to answer the life threatening emergency line ("Do you have a life threatening emergency?" "no, but I'm pretty sure you will if my power isn't turned back on soon"), have been downright rude but nonetheless quite fun to screw with...one got me back good today telling me that they just found a bunch of fuses that blew and were replacing them one at a time...honest to God, he actually said that! ( and I am ashamed to say that I actually believed that for about 10 minutes after I hung up).

I'm a bit calmer now that the meat stash is safe. I can drive 30 minutes and take a hot shower. Eating McDonalds morning noon and night isn't that bad and there's some badass cassette tapes in the basement we can play on the boom box I found buried under a pile of Spandex leggings and off the shoulder oversize tshirts.

As long as I don't burn the house down with the 47 candles we need to read by at night, we're all good!

In addition to playing FUtility (lots of double entendres there, don't you think?) with the electric company all day I did finish a wedding project.

Riders On the Storm

2011-08-28T01:43:00.001-04:00

Just hanging out in the non-event that is Hurricane Irene. You can actually hear the wind a little bit now, and it's raining, though not a deluge. This is the most hurricane-like it's been all day.

Yum....favors from the shower, the tux was a Red Velvet cake ball.

My SILs and niece totally skipped out on my daughter's bridal shower today. The one used the hurricane as an excuse--she didn't want to have to drive home in a hurricane. (The shower was over at 4:30 and it was simply raining, with no wind.) If you watched the news....and it was impossible not to as it was all hurricane, all the time on every channel since early Friday morning, you knew we weren't getting anything serious until 10pm. The other SIL and 17 year old niece just didn't show...no excuse, no call. They live less than 10 minutes from where the shower was. Whatever.

I vented on Facebook about that, enjoyed the comments from friends, and just now went in and deleted what I posted earlier in a state of rage.

I didn't delete my Facebook post because I wasn't angry anymore...oh, far from it...I am so pissed that I get cross-eyed just thinking about it. And I didn't delete it under the guise of 'never go to bed mad'----trust me, I am going to lie in my bed and let the remaining steam seep from my ears. I deleted the post because I didn't want my father-in-law, who is recovering from heart surgery to see the post and feel bad for his granddaughter. He's got more important things to concentrate on rather than his rude daughter and daughter in law and their lack of family values.

Alright, I really deleted the post because in my wrath I used the 'F' word. While I probably use that word a dozen times a day (okay, I use that word at least 2 dozen times a day.....okay, so I sometimes use that word so many times in a conversation that it would make Scarface blush), I just decided that it had no place on my Facebook page for all to see. :)

Alright already, enough about my f-ing pathetic sisters in law and their lack of consideration for my daughter. Selfish middle-aged bitches. (Oooh, she's pulling out the big guns....'middle aged'...SNAP!). One less quilt I have to make for Christmas.

Moving on....

I started the Halloween top last Sunday....spent the day cutting all the pieces and fussycuts, and I finished piecing it by Thursday night.

Then I spent an inordinate amount of time last night trying to piece together a back a couple inches larger all around than the top. Stupid me only bought 2 yards of backing material.. I have no idea what I was thinking, but I did wind up with some extra motifs on a panel, and some extra border print. I had to use the 2 yards in a directional that wasn't exactly the direction I had in mind, but I had no other fabric that I could incorporate into this back, and I was in a rush to get it pieced last night, so should the power go out in the non-hurricane, I'd have everything ready to sandwich. Got to bed at 4 a.m. I was still a little short and wound up piecing some 1" wide strips from that border together to add to the bottom.

This morning, after doing every piece of laundry I could find, and vacuuming the house top to bottom, I fired up the iron and fused the Heat n Bond to the fall batiks and then the cardstock to be used for the Wish Tree at the wedding. If the power goes out, the Accuquilt GO! still works.

(Okay, bite my tongue, but we're having a bit of flickerage going on with the lights right now.

Tomorrow is play day now. I'm so enamored with this Halloween quilt that I've allowed it to butt into the front of the line. This is the project most likely for Sunday. If I can get it sandwiched, I'll probably start quilting it before I sandwich the rest of the pile.

There's 64 pounds of ice in the freezer downstairs. Here's hoping we can use them for luge practice tomorrow.

Procrastination Justification

2011-08-21T18:38:00.001-04:00

Okay, so I stayed up until the wee hours last night figuring out how I could come up with backing for the Drunkard's Path without taking a trip to the quilt shop today. No matter what, I just didn't have enough of the two Moda fabrics to piece. Until I looked in the closet solid stash and realized that back when I was having fits and starts getting that circular stitching right, I had bought just a small bit extra of the solid ivory background. Well that piece was enough to stretch my other leftover fabrics to a fit.

Yay.

One would think that I would have made my sandwich and started quilting today, anticipating an August OPAM finish from this, but if one would have thought that, then one doesn't know me at all.

Instead of finishing that project, or instead of pulling out the Baltimore Album notes to see what my homework was for this month, I thought I'd have a much better time standing at the cutting table for 4 hours cutting all the pieces required for the Halloween quilt. (Inordinate amount of cutting time due to lots of fussy cutting that was required.)

And now that they're cut, and I'm staring at the drunkards top and background pinned to the design wall, I've convinced myself that the best course of action is to fold those puppies up, slide them into the freshly labeled 'To Sandwich' cubby in the studio closet, and head full throttle into the Halloween quilt.

If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy....that's my excuse!

Friday Night Sew-In Progress

2011-08-20T17:32:00.002-04:00

It's not as far as I would have liked to have gotten (hey, I HAD to go to Happy Hour) , but it's something.....

As you can see, I decided on the first Drunkard's layout. I just liked the pattern created by the dark brown.

And then I commenced stitching 64 blocks together. For the most part, it wasn't so bad aligning the one curved line of stitching from block to block, but some of the blocks were a little testy being lined up after that stitch because of how good a job I did (or didn't do) sewing together the pie and the wedge, so there was quite a bit of ripping that went on and swapping out this block for that block so that one block wasn't a quarter inch shorter than the block it was sewn to.

But it's done, and now I'm avoiding stitching those 8 rows of 8 blocks together and aligning all the seams, which I shall get to as soon as I turn on the iron and press their seams in the proper direction.

To assist in my habitual procrastination, my neighbor accompanied me on a whirlwind tour of three local quilt shops that began at 10 this morning and ended at 4, with a stop for lunch and a dash into a new bakery we found to inquire about wedding cakes.

Shop 1 was my source for some backing, sashing and binding fabric to make the Jeweled Forest batik Christmas tree pattern from the Nov/Dec 2009 issue of McCalls Quilting. I was lamenting to the salesperson that the quilt was only wall hanging size and that I had seen a much larger throw size quilt at one of the local shows. She smiled, walked over to the pattern wall and came back with this pattern:

which I bought...though it's not the quilt I saw at the show. I think that person took the original pattern and just resized it to come up with this:

Onward and upward to Shop 2, where I was excited to find 2 things I'd been looking for.....Print & Fuse (fusible web for applique that you can run through your printer so you don't have to trace), an honest to goodness piece of silk Matka to use on a woofelt/embroidery project, and yet another pattern for some organizers that I'm going to make to hold my applique and woolfelt projects and supplies (I was spurred on by the fact that I've got a stash of Timtex, and a drawer full of vintage zippers, which are needed for these bags...and really, who doesn't have fabric...so I'm ready to go with this project.

We also learned how to transfer color to fabric for embroidery purposes -- which involved crayons and irons and was pretty neat. My neighbor thought it would be a great way to make a quilt label.

After a stop for lunch, we headed off to Shop 3. My neighbor hadn't seen a longarm, so I took her to my Bernina dealer who also sells the Handi Quilter Avante. And I was tempted by the new Bernina B580 coming in September. Or maybe I'd rather make a sweet deal on their floor model 830 (they're running the 830LE now in the shop).

Decisions, decisions.......

Maybe I should stop daydreaming about expensive equipment and concentrate on turning on the iron and getting back to work on Drunkard's Path. There's new projects to be started that can't begin until we finish the old..

Enjoy the weekend!

Everyone Should Have a Design Wall

2011-08-19T01:13:00.000-04:00

If you look on the Internet, there's all sorts of guidance how to make your own. You can get drywall at the home improvement store and staple gun flannel to it...you can hang 4 cork squares and pin a vinyl table cloth backwards to them (and use them for bulletin boards when you aren't using them for a design wall)....on a small scale you can cover a kid's science project display board with flannel (that was my first design wall--in addition to our bed....

Or you can purchase one of the various pre-made styles marketed to quilters. (or do what I did....put one on your Christmas list). I've got Cheryl Ann's Design Wall, and I like it a lot. It's large, it assembles in minutes, tears down in minutes, has a nice little carrying case, and it's free-standing. I've also seen another that mounts near your ceiling (or over your windows) and the design wall pulls down like an old fashioned window shade. Supposedly you can leave your blocks on it and roll it up to stash your project.

Having a design wall has come in really handy with this Drunkard's Path project. I've been able to arrange the blocks in various configurations before I make the leap to permanently sewing them together.

Another helpful hint is to take a photo of your arrangement and view that before you decide. You'll add a whole new perspective. It's like standing back and reviewing. I'm seeing patterns in the photo that I'm not seeing on the wall in front of me.

Here's wha layouts are currently being pondered:

The last photo is a reverse layout of the first photo. I'll likely use the first, second or last layout. Sewing the blocks together is the project for tomorrow's Friday Night Sew In. Check back Saturday to see what I went with.

In the meantime, the Halloween fabric arrived today. It took a great deal of control to not walk away from the project in process and start cutting fabric for the Halloween quilt. I don't really decorate for Halloween so much, I much prefer decorating for 'Fall', but when I saw this quilt in the August/September issue of The Quilter Magazine, I couldn't resist. And I was able to find all the fabric I needed to recreate it at two shops.

I can't wait to get started, it just looks like such a happy, fun project. I wish the weekend would hurry up and get here.
Have a fabulous Friday!

A Little Wedding Planning....Drunkard's Path Is On the Wall

2011-08-18T00:41:00.000-04:00

The Design Wall is a very patient tool.

The invitations arrived at 7:30 p.m. Monday (a new record for UPS). The hubs, DD, a couple bridesmaids and I assembled, stamped, and stuffed. Tuesday, I stood in the lobby of the Post Office and affixed numerous stamps to each and turned them over for mailing. Guests started receiving them today. One tick off the Wedding Checklist. Next up...mini pies/cake/caramel apple favors.

The dining room looks like a hurricane passed through..it's currently the staging area for Wedding Centerpieces. I'm working on a lit 'Wish Tree' at the moment. Figuring out the best way to adhere Batik fabric to card stock that will be run through the Accquilt GO! and die cut into leaf shapes to hang on the tree after a guest writes a little wedding wish on it. Great excuse to go to the fabric store yesterday ... needed fall colored Batiks. Any glue recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Been piecing curved Drunkard's pieces for a couple of days now.

I'm really liking the decorative stitching and couching I did on each pie.

And as of last night...the last block was pieced. Tonight they all got a quick press and I woke up the Design Wall.

This is the initial layout. It'll stay there for a bit while I decide if it's what I'm going to actually use. Probably tomorrow I'll start moving things around to try something different.

Not sure I'm seeing enough flow with the connecting stitched pies.

And already I'm wondering just how the heck they're going to stay aligned like that once I start sewing them together (shudder!)

Have a perfect Thursday. Think about joining the Friday Night Sew-In (see the link on my sidebar). I'm tussling with the demons on that...on the one hand, I would really like to be sewing this together so I can move on to a cute little pumpkin quilt (or the Halloween quilt, whose fabric is arriving tomorrow)...

On the other hand, my neighbor has called Ladies Friday Happy Night....and I did miss the last one because I had Strep......

Decisions, decisions...

I did say I had a most patient Design Wall, didn't I?

Drive By Blogging - First August OPAM

2011-08-13T22:48:00.005-04:00

I have no idea how I am still conscious and functional.

Last night after trying to catch up with about 500 emails in a Yahoo Group I'm in, I decided to switch out my iPhone and just lost track of time organizing my aps on different screens. Before I knew it, the clock said 4:15, and I said 'heck with it, let's go outside and look for meteors and the International Space Station".

Didn't see any meteors (well, maybe, but it was a little overcast here and there and I couldn't be sure), but I did see the ISS cruise by, so it was worth the effort.

7:15 AM the hubs is handing me the phone, my daughter is on her way to 'boot camp' and can I drive over to where she is and pick up the grandpup? Two and a half hours of sleep (I take naps longer than that), no coffee, and I'm on my way out to pick up a dog in a parking lot.

I figured I'd take a nap later, but I got involved in a couple of projects, and between the coffees and the adrenaline sleep was elusive.

As you can see above, I have procured Running With Scissors. The hubs was in Manassas, VA yesterday for a softball tournament and I rang him up and sent him on a quest. Seems I was a bit vague and only requested 'red', so he brought home a Merlot and a Cab Sauv. Two bottles!!! Obviously, one was going to turn into a studio accessory. So I found a way to attach some actual scissors, and then I began obsessing of what to use in a vignette.

Right away I knew I wanted a pincushion, so I made 4 (heck, as long as you're going to the trouble)

I filled two with poly beads (in case they should happen to leave the country....Customs in some countries frowns upon sand and nutshells and potpourri fillings). The other two are filled with actual beach sand from Florida. (Shh....this is probably not legal...swiping beach sand.)

And I'm pleased with the final display:

The scissors you see lying there are a paper cutout, and there's a white button that doesn't show up very well in the photo. And oh, yeah, the glass of wine is empty now..but you expected that, right?

Maybe tomorrow, after a good night's sleep, and a small bit of house cleaning I'll be ready to tackle the Drunkard's Path project--though I may surprise myself and try monogramming some napkins (feeling daring today). It's time I started paying attention to the philosophy of the 'bling'.

She's Alive!!

2011-08-12T01:36:00.002-04:00

I've been busy, busy, busy. The sore throat I've had for over a week turned out to be Strep, so I was forced to skip Happy Hour with the ladies last Friday. Sitting idly in front of the sewing machine, wishing I was swilling back wine and hors d'oeuvres with the ladies, I decided that the studio needed a bit of refreshing, so in between an 8 hour tour of Hobby Lobby/Michaels/JoAnn in Columbia with DD on Saturday (we were on a wedding centerpieces mission), I did a little tear-down...

I pulled things out of drawers...

The piles of junk fast overtook the sewing desk...

And so much 'stuff' was pulled from the closet that I just began heaping it on the floor.

Two and a half days (I moved really slow) later, we were somewhat back to normal in the studio.

The pièce de résistance ..... the studio closet ...

And just in case the Quilt Fairy sneaks in one night...

I've labeled the 'task shelves' in the closet so there's no question about what needs to be done.

In pulling all my solid whites and naturals out of the cutting table cubbies for a refold, I sorted out the smaller pieces, pulled the batting scraps I'd been saving and made a mess of quilt sandwiches for free-motion practice.

The weekend before my daughter picked up some more storage boxes for me on a trip to Ikea, so I was able to reorder the closet shelf.

I love my P Touch label maker. Each box and plastic bin has been tagged for what's inside.

These little bins are from Dollar tree and make great containers for my CDs and DVDs.

Those strip dies for the Accuquilt GO! were just not being stored effectively in the die rack...they took up an excessive area of flat space, so I pulled out the P Touch and labeled them on their ends and stacked them against the closet wall.

And now the die rack takes up half the space since it's got smaller dies in it.

I was forever fishing out hoops from behind the cubes in the closet as they would fall off of the pushpins in the closet wall, so I raided my bedroom closet for the perfect storage solution....

Yep, it's one of those belt rings. Now the lot of hoops just hang on the closet rod where I can grab the size I need.

Cleaning out the solids from the cutting table gave me some room to move in some other project fabrics. I try to keep an entire project of fabric in each cubby, or if I'm still collecting, a theme of fabric per cubby...i.e., dots, Fall, Halloween. I can get about 10 yards of fabric in each cubby...it's all about the fold. :)

Cleared off the cutting table. It's all business now, except for the waving good luck kitty--which reminds me, I should go check last night's Powerball ticket... not a winner :-(

I picked up another small ruler holder in Hershey to maximize how many rulers/templates I can store on top of the table. I've got 12 on the longboard and 7 on the short (are you diggin' the 'surfer speak'? )

All that's left now is to reorganize the bookshelves.

DD also got some magazine files for me at Ikea so those pretty scrapbook paper-covered ones need a go-through to make room for incoming. I'll move what's not current to the shelves in the guestroom next door. This is a project for Friday night, and then I've got the rest of the weekend to spend some quality time bonding with my Bernina over the Drunkard's Path project.

In class last Sunday, Mimi Dietrich mentioned a wine called 'Running with Scissors',

so I'll be on a quest to hunt that down tomorrow on my lunch hour. I want the cork (and check out the seal to the left of it).

Today was our 39th anniversary, and since last week's Gladiolas had seen better days, the hubs stopped at Costco on his way home and picked up a lovely mixed bouquet for the sewing desk. There is always something in bloom in my studio, and a Yankee Candle tart in the electric tart warmer. Ripping out a seam isn't so bad a task when you can 'stop and smell the roses' every now and then'.

Progress On Drunkard's Path

2011-08-01T01:01:00.000-04:00

Alrighty then! Today we made some progress on our next project..."Drunkard's Path with a Twist" or as I like to refer to it "The Twisted Drives Me To Drink" project.

I got all my pies and crusts cut (and I did not use the Accuquilt, as neither of the dies made were the right size). I thought it would take forever and be a pain, but it was really pretty easy, fast, and with the small rotary cutter, painless and accurate.

A couple of distractions. Late afternoon my neighbor came over to show me her fabulous t-shirt quilt, and the bottle of blood orange juice she found. Of course she also brought over a bottle of tonic that she just happened to have open, so we spent an hour or so sipping blood orange vodka tonics.

After she left I went back to snipping the tear-away (ha ha ha) stabilizer from the back of the stitched blocks until it was time to leave for dinner at my daughter's. I was able to continue snipping on the ride over and while waiting for dinner.

Once I had counted to make sure I had the right number of everything (I had to count 3 times....must have been those vodka tonics), I started sewing. Two down, 62 to go. Woo hoo!

Tomorrow night is the first night back for the season for the quilt guild. The hubs has been reminded that he needs to bring a handtruck home and take the ride over to haul in 8 boxes of books that I'd estimate weigh about 100 lbs apiece. I hope to get a few more blocks pieced together tomorrow.

Got some wedding issues to attend to this week, and it is going to be a busy week at work. Sewing goal is to finish piecing these blocks. Overall goal is to survive the week and actually accomplish anything. :)

Leaving you with a couple more photos from Quilt Odyssey. Enjoy!

Fear the Turtle? Bwa ha ha!!! (Another OPAM Finish)

2011-07-30T22:05:00.002-04:00

Three Heather Bailey Turtle Pincushions...check!!!! Let's not discuss how long it took to complete them. I appreciated all of the comments of those who attempted and failed before me. You challenged me. It's all about the stuffing,and I tell 'ya, next time I see one, I'm going to get myself a 'stuffing fork'. In the meantime, I made do with a Purple Thang (which I came close to destroying), the end of a paintbrush, a pencil (eraser end....except in a couple instances I used the pointed lead end), the tips of my scissors, and finally, a chopstick.

Done...moving on to something new tomorrow. But since we're on a roll for finishing what we've started, maybe we'll start on the "What Was I Thinking/What Was I Drinking Drunkard's Path. As for the rest of tonight, I'm crawling into bed with some quilt mags. A girl can only abide so many 3 a.m. bedtimes in a month, and I've certainly endured them for most of this month. Tonight we sleep!

Leaving you with a couple more quilts from Quilt Odyssey 2011.

If this looks familiar to you, it's because you might have seen it in the quilt mags you subscribe to. This was a winner at Road to California this past winter.

Check back tomorrow and see if I manage to not stray from the path of productivity. (Ahh, what's that saying about a road paved with good intentions?)

Good night all!

(edited to add photo of 'That Purple Thang'...which is a tool that every sewer should have within reach of their machine)

Road Trip!!!!!

2011-07-30T02:48:00.001-04:00

(Screeech!!!!!!! Back up now!!! 55 THOUSAND Swarovski crystals? You don't suppose she bought those at Michaels now, do you? That would be about 1000 packs. Man, I would not want to have been in line behind that woman!)

Took the day off work today and headed to Quilt Odyssey in Hershey, PA with my sister.

Quite the applique-centric show this year (I remember it being that two years ago as well), there was a fabulous exhibition of applique (including Baltimore album) quilts (sorry, photos not allowed) from the collection of Pat and Arlan Christ. 40 quilts from the mid 1800s were on display. My sister pointed out that most of these were in amazing shape considering they were 150 years old. Something to keep in mind as we crank out our own work....someday, 150 years from now, one of your quilts could be hanging in a show somewhere, belonging to a collector who purchased it for a small fortune. (I really need to start burying those thread ends!). But, it's more likely when I die that my daughter will just cram all my quilts in a plastic trash bag and put them out for an AmVets or Purple Hearts pick up :-).

Here's a couple highlights of the show...

This was a fun one (you've got to have some serious love for Jack Nicholson to invest the time in this one....I'm hoping to see a Johnny Depp at an upcoming show)

And it was fun to run into an old 'friend'. I remember this quilt from Houston back in '09. It was this quilt that finally made me realize that clowns really are creepy.

Ringmasters by Denise Havlan (sorry, I didn't get a readable placard shot)

The vendor mall was just okay, not a great fabric selection, only a couple vendor selling fat quarters. I did pick up some wool and of course I did my usual bag o'thread (and spent half my mad money) at Superior Threads (10 spools of silk and a large cone of 50 wt Masterpiece for piecing). I was excited to read that Aurifil would be represented at the show, but the vendor was selling the thread for the same price our quilt shop sells it for, with no discount for multiple spools (shame on him!), so I walked away Aurifil-threadless--for full price, I'd rather give my money to my local quilt shop.

Well, it's getting late. I'll post a few more photos tomorrow. I've got to get up early and pick up some milk at the Farmer's Market and since it's so darn hot, I think I'll spend the weekend in the studio. There's Turtles to finish, Drunkard's Paths to cut, and wool applique projects to prep (yeah, yeah, yeah....off on another tangent, I go).

Gotta check when the next Mimi Dietrich class is scheduled and get my homework ready for that too (I think it might be next Sunday).

Sleep tight!

More OPAM Finishes....Time Marches On

2011-07-25T02:40:00.000-04:00

The weekend finds life somewhat back to normal.

Saturday morning I headed out to meet my sister at one of the local quilt establishments for the unveiling of their Christmas fabric. Always one to support the local shops, I picked up 4 yards of WinterBerry Lane from Red Rooster. Looks like it'll make a nice little table quilt that will serve through winter...that is if I can actually finish it by the end of the year.

Heading home, I had the windows down, and I'm cruising down the road, about 40 mph when I hear something hit the windshield or the side mirror, and as I glance in that direction, something somewhat large and very black has sailed into my driver's side window and is now ON ME. Momentary panic, but I'm coming up on a red light so if I can just keep it together until I stop I can jump out of the car screaming and flailing wildly at myself when I come safely to a stop.

As I look down at my shirt I can now see just what the big black monster hanging on to me is...it's not a bird, it's not a bat, its not some mutant gigantic bug...well, okay, it is a bug, and while it is the size of my fist, it's not so threatening once I discover it's a beautiful black and blue butterfly, that is clearly not doing very well, having just bounced off a 40mph impact with my car.

I'm trying to gently pick it up by a wing, or scoop it up in my hand, but now it's crawling across my stomach and trying to get under my seat belt. While I am not a bug fan...pretty or not...especially when they are crawling on me, I'm trying to figure out what I can do with it. Clearly, this isn't one for the vet, and from the looks of it, this butterfly is mortally wounded. I'm also the 2nd car in line at a light with a dozen or so cars behind me, and the light has just turned green. The best I could do was take it in my hand and hold it out the open window and hope it could fly.

(At this point, it would be best to just let you write the ending to this story yourself..I'm a 'glass half empty' kind of gal, while you might be a 'glass half full' type.)

On the sewing front, I spent the rest of the day attempting to make 3 turtle pincushions.

....

Got so far as to stuff one and it was not good. No, not good at all. So I unstuffed her, tweaked the seams a bit, laid it aside and set off on another project:

This is an 18"x18" quilt block carrier from Elly Sienkiewicz's Baltimore Elegance book.

It's made from some JoAnn fabric I bought when I first started quilting and have had sitting in a cubby, and the hubs finally bought the FoamCor home from scraps from work on Friday, so this was a 'free' project.

You lay your blocks, fold in the side flaps, fold up the bottom flap and tie it up. Keeps your blocks nice and flat until you're ready to put them all together. The block on display is one of the papercut blocks for my Baltimore Album that I finished on the trip to Ohio last week.

If you're liking this block carrier and want to make one of your own, let me just warn you that Elly doesn't provide the clearest directions, and unless you have a set of Fasturn tools, you're going to need an alternate method for making the ties and the handle, and you're also going to have to adjust the sizes of your FoamCor pieces if you go with where she tells you to place your handle and the side flaps....I'm just saying that this is not a project for the faint of heart. This was an all day project, and I expected it was something I was going to knock out in a couple of hours (bwah ha ha ha).

Well, tomorrow it's back to pincushions....FEAR THE TURTLE! (if you live around here, you get that :) ).

Have an excellent week (and thanks to all for your supportive comments last week.

It's Time To Move On

2011-07-21T00:42:00.000-04:00

Today has been a day of reflection...serious reflection.

Now that my sister's funeral is behind me I can direct my attention to a self-centered bride and an overly critical, likely to be ex-, husband. God give me strength. (Though, it's likely I'm going to have a pack of Marlboro's in my purse before the week is out...and I will blame my family for that, regardless of who it is that lights the matches).

Before I left for Ohio I had asked my husband to pick up some FoamCor so I could come back and make the block carrier from Elly Sienkiewicz's Baltimore Elegance book. Clearly he didn't hear me, lost the note with the sizes, didn't think it was worth the effort, so that's on hold until I can get over to Michaels to pick up what I need, myself--which is what I should have done to begin with. (Really, by now I should know better....if you want something done, do it yourself.)

My daughter's in a snit because I told her it was too late to send out 'Save the Date' magnets (not yet ordered, and if they were, they'd be mailing the week before the invitations). Of course the hubs is being pissy because I'm stressing the daughter by 'throwing a roadblock' at her plans. He thinks we should just roll up and set fire to a couple of Benjamins and f--k wedding etiquette so as not to stress the bride. (Hel-lo....does he consider the level of stress he's causing the MOB? This is why he's going to be apartment hunting on October 9th.)

Come back tomorrow and I'll have something sewn to show you. I NEED to sew something (because I shudder to think what I might do otherwise).

And most importantly, thanks for the thoughtful comments regarding my sister. I truly appreciated the comfort of friends. Especially in the absence of family. Love you all.

Drive By Posting

2011-07-18T01:03:00.000-04:00

(She's back!!! Lots going on...we'll get to it..for now, suffice it to say that I've been neglecting the house, myself, the hubs, the wedding plans, so I'm trying to play catch up and the quilting has taken a hit.)

One of the projects I'm currently working on turned out to be way more tedious than I could have imagined. This would be the New Twist on Drunkards Path project, which I am going to rename The Twisted Drives Me To Drink project.

I shall not bore you with how many times I had to go back for fabric and redo blocks for one reason or another. This project is most definitely my top pick for 'not as easy as it appears' in the videos and handouts. 16 blocks had to be done with the stitch pattern. Now we move on to cutting them out as well as cutting out all the other fabrics. But before we can do that, we've got to remove the 'tear away' (are they serious? on what planet and in what atmosphere does this stabilizer actually 'tear' away) from the above-mentioned 16 blocks, and this requires a raft of different scissors and lots of breath holding so I don't accidentally snip the fabric while cutting away the tear away. (sigh)

On a lighter note....How about a no-sew pin cushion? Get yourself a nice block of wrapped (very important, lest you desire having little soap crumbles all over your worktable) scented soap and poke quilting pins into it. Bonus is that the soap acts as a wax on the pins, making them glide through the fabric. Cool!

I'm finally catching up with my to-do list and was tackling a little mending tonight and thought I'd share my mending thread source. This cool item is a little braided 'scarf' of threads. You can get it at JoAnn. There's a bunch of strands in each color and you just grab one and pull it out of the hank of thread and off you go. I went my whole life not knowing about this cool product and just found out about it from a teacher in a class I was taking a couple years ago. A worthy tip for passing on.

As of this evening, my house is clean, my laundry is done. The eye is still screwed up, but I'm told it may take 12 weeks for it to clear itself up, and I'll be revisiting the retinal specialist next month, so I'm just trying to not dwell on it and ignore the 'smudge' in my vision.

I've got so many projects started in the studio that I've been neglecting that I'm looking forward to getting started on. If I had more than small scrap pieces of FoamCor in the house, I'd have made myself a sweet applique block carrier out of Elly Sienkiewicz's Baltimore Elegance book today. And yes, I could have got up this morning, at the crack of dawn, finished the cleaning and run over to Michaels for the FoamCor, but the path of least resistance was to sleep until 10, give the hubs a note with the sizes I needed cut, and ask if he could pick them up for me tomorrow from his office and it will wait until next weekend..

What little time I did have in the studio today was spent packing up some handwork that will occupy me on the 5-1/2 hour drive (each way) to Athens, OH tomorrow (my oldest sister, who has been ill for quite some time, died this past Thursday).

I hope to settle back into the studio once I get back from Ohio, so stay tuned for show and tell. (And fingers crossed the hubs and the dogs manage to keep the house clean while I'm away).

Enjoy your week. Stay cool!

Accuquilt GOI! Bust My Stash Photo Challenge

2011-07-11T21:20:00.001-04:00

Have you stared at your fabric stash and wished that you had the time and energy to cut up your fabric for future projects? AccuQuilt has the answer! Click on the following link to participate: http://on.fb.me/qtyUoq or go to AccuQuilt’s Facebook page and click “Like”. Then go to the ‘Bust My Stash’ tab under their profile picture and upload a picture of your fabric stash. Submit your photo by Friday, July 22nd and you’ll be eligible to win a GO! Mix & Match 12” Starter Set. The photo with the most votes by July 31st wins! Photos will be voted on by viewers and fans of the AccuQuilt Facebook page using the following criteria: relevance, creativity, and originality. Share with your friends during the voting period to increase your odds of winning!

Good Luck!

I Am The Queen of Coincidence -- Je ne suis pas la personne que vous désirez

2011-06-29T20:09:00.003-04:00

You know how you'll be thinking "I think I might like to cook fish for dinner tonight (of which you rarely eat, so have none in the house), and you come home and the hubs has fixed dinner and he's stopped at the grocery store and picked up some Cod?"

Or you're like "You know, I haven't heard from Rick since Thanksgiving, I wonder how he's doing, and you'll get home and see his number on your caller ID?"

Or maybe you've been at Chartreuse Market and been admiring the style of jewelry you like where they've taken a print of a bird and encased it in a little Lucite frame surrounded by silver and hung it on a chain, but you walk away from it for one reason or another and a week later your daughter comes back from Michigan with a souvenir for you and it's one of those bird charms, on a chain?

Okay, so this kind of stuff happens to me ALL OF THE TIME! The hubs never pays any attention to me when I tell him about it, he just thinks I'm certifiable (and that my stories and explanations are WAY too long).

So, it's been happening a lot lately. More than usual, though what's to think. It's just .... whatever.

Pre-quilting, I used to be an avid reader. I've got a reading list that comprises over 100 books that I want to read that I carry with me. On the back, I write a concise 1-line review of each book I've read before I cross it off of the front of the paper. Sadly, there have been no 'read it' entries since 2009, which just about coincides with the year I discovered quilting.

Lately, I've been reading some book reviews that have intrigued me, so I've been adding to my list. I go to our local library website and put a hold on the book. When it's available, they'll email me. About 5 weeks ago I listed a book I wanted to read. It took a REAL LONG TIME to get to me, but I picked it up last week.

This is the book

I'm a really fast reader (trained in high school by Evelyn Woods), so it took me a couple hours to read this. I finished it today, unable to put it down once I picked it up, tears streaming down my face halfway through, and at the end. LOVED IT!

My taste in reading is all over the map. I'd have to say that my all time favorite books (and favorite implies books that I would read more than once) are the Riverworld series by Philip Jose Farmer (Science Fiction...kind of), Life on the Mississippi (Mark Twain...short stories), Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)...and if I were stranded on a desert island with only one book...I'd have to negotiate for TWO and they would be Great Expectations (Dickens), and Anna Karenina (Tolstoy). And I'd have to leave all of my X-Men Wolverine comics behind.

Anywho, I don't want to ruin Silent Land for you, but suffice it to say that one of the main characters (who believes she is dead) starts receiving calls on her cellphone, and the voice on the other end speaks in French, which she cannot understand. It's relevant, it's explained at the end (though you likely guess what's going on after the 3rd phone call). Nice little imaginative addition to the story.

So, I get home from work tonight. I've started a new bout of stressing over the upcoming wedding, the hubs is pissing me off for the past couple days, I'm feeling left out at work, I don't have a real sewing project to occupy myself, I've got something going on with my eye, spent the afternoon at the dentist, the house is a wreck (at least by my standards)...basically, I'm unsettled, which is unusual for me. On the way upstairs from the garage, I grab a bottle of my fav Australian wine from the case in the basement and figure it's going to be another wasted night in front of the TV.

The phone rings....the caller does not speak English. They are speaking fast, I have no idea what they are saying. I'm repeating, "I think you have the wrong number". "Speak English". "Can you put someone else on the line who can speak English?" (they do, they can't). After a few minutes I hang up. Open the wine. The phone rings again. Caller ID tells me it's the same alien caller. It's Groundhog Day at the Entwistle house. Again, after running through our little routine I hang up, pour the wine, the phone rings again....Surprise, it's my non-American friend once more. We do our dance, they put on the other gibberish-speaking person, I hang up, take the block of Cheddar out of the fridge, the phone rings again.

By now, while I have deduced that this is some foreign equivalent of a crank call, I have figured out that they are speaking to me in French...and suddenly I make the connection with the book I had been reading this afternoon. (queue Twilight Zone music here). This time I tell them thanks so much for entertaining me, please call back when they have found someone who can speak English for them, and while it's been a blast, I do have caller ID and that I will now refrain from answering any more calls from their Bronx, NY area code, it's been real, have a safe and happy 4th.

Phone rings. It takes all I have to not answer it. Phone rings again. This time the little red light illuminates, indicating that 'You Have Message'. Of course, it's in French (clearly, as it begins 'Bon Soire"...that much I know from my 3 years of Elementary school French (I was in the 'program' :) ).

I send a text out to a couple of friends I think may speak the language better than I and my neighbor happens to have a friend who speaks, who is married to a French National. I hand over my voicemail password and wait for translation.

A total stranger (my neighbor's friend--don't you just love the way we all connect) phones to tell me that my caller seems to be either Haitian or African and is looking for a Mrs. Ne-Ne, and at the end of the call, the man on the line is speaking to the woman I also spoke to and telling her "I think we may have the wrong number". Too funny. Like what do you think your first clue was??

At any rate, Julie (my friend's friend) left me with a phonetic message (so I could write it down) that I should relay to my callers should I hear from them again.....
Mo Vay Nu Moro (wrong number)....Je Nes Suis Pa Le Person Vous Desiree (I am not the one you desire).

Right now, I think that message says it all.

Enjoy the book. Let me know what you think.

Saturday, Saturday....Yay for Saturday!

2011-06-25T13:51:00.000-04:00

Just doing a little blog updating, and waiting to start something new in the studio. But first I need to run downstairs for the bottle of aspirin. The future son-in-law dropped off the grandpup for an afternoon of barking at nothing.

And what a surprise....Mr. Ricky got a scalp...er haircut

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Well, that haircut should last him a couple of years. The hubs told the daughter he's going to file for a protective order and take custody . :) Though I have to say, it's the perfect 'do' for a long-haired chihuahua needing to enter the witness protection program.

Note the 'official Accuquilt blogger' button on my sidebar. Yes, it's finally official, and if you click on the link below for the free patterns, and sign yourself up for their newsletter you'll get some great downloadable patterns. We're going to be working with one of them in the next week, so check them out. Even if you don't have a GO! yet, you'll want to grab these pattern books while they're free. You never know when you might find yourself a proud GO! owner.

I'm off to download my free pattern book and then make one of Heather Bailey's pincushions...wanna guess which one?

A New Way to Thread the Needle...and another OPAM finish

2011-06-24T01:26:00.001-04:00

It hasn't been a very quilty week for me thus far. I did manage to finish Block 1 of Baltimore Album Quilt 2:

(Don't look at it too close, especially the center....I've still got to do one just like it for the other quilt and I'm hoping it turns out much pointier, and rounded and I'm not worrying about any of those inside points fraying when washed.)

I gotta tell ya, it is not easy doing needle turn applique with a bandage on your index finger. While I can get used to using my thumb and middle finger with the needle, I've still got to turn under fabric, and I feel like I'm doing this with a big old bear's paw. 'Precise' is not achievable. I have tried it without the bandage on, but then the very fine silk thread gets caught up in the slit I cut into my finger...I can't win. It'll heal, eventually, and I'll be back to normal. (And in case you're worried, the doctor saw it Tuesday and used it as an opportunity to give me a Tetanus (Diptheria, Pertussis) vaccine...ouch!!

I think I need to go back to a project on the machine for the weekend. Sigh...if only tomorrow were Saturday.

Now, I don't know about you, but as I get older (and hopefully wiser), I find it's not so easy to see to thread those little tiny eyed applique needles. I've been pretty lucky so far and have managed to get that thread into the needle on most occasions..even while riding in a car or on a plane, but I can't count on divine intervention forever, so I took my 40% off JoAnn coupon and bought myself one of these:

It's the Clover desk needle threader. The concept is pretty easy, lay the thread across the the little channel in the center, stick the needle (eye down) in the slot, push down on the lever, and after a few tries, you'll get the thread pushed into the eye, and if you are ever so careful taking the needle out, you'll be able to grab the tiny little millimeter of thread that has pushed through and pull it further. Bottom line...not thrilled, waste of money, glad I didn't pay full price ($14.95) for it.

Save your money. I'm going to give you an easy way to thread a needle without the need for bringing in the heavy equipment.

The concept is a simple one. Instead of holding the needle steady and guiding the thread through the eye of the needle (which is how the majority of us thread a needle), you're going to hold the thread steady and drop the eye of the needle on to the thread.

I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos....the hubs had to take them as I needed two hands, and he's about as adept with the digital camera as he is with the computer (which isn't saying much).

Start with about 18" of thread (any longer and you're just asking for it to tangle itself) and hold it between your thumb and first finger of the hand you don't write with. Be sure you have a nice clean cut end.

Now pull the thread down through your fingers so that only the tiniest bit of end is sticking up. This is the trick to having the thread 'stand up' and not flop; over.

Now hold the needle in your other hand between your thumb and forefinger (unless you've got on a spiffy purple bandage, in which case you need to use your middle finger).

And guide the eye of the needle down over the thread.

And wah-la! Your needle is painlessly threaded....JUST LIKE THAT.

Now go try it yourself. You'll never thread a needle the 'other' way again.

An OPAM Finish and a New Start

2011-06-20T00:24:00.000-04:00

Applique class with Mimi Deitrich last week was great. I learned a new way to thread a needle (I'll share that with you soon), and I learned needle turn applique without using templates.

Within a couple of days I had finished Block 1 of Quilt 1:

And then I started on Block 1 of Quilt 2, which I carry around in a plastic zip bag in my purse so I can take a stitch or two when I have a free five minutes. My plan is to use 4 papercut blocks in each of the quilts, so why not knock the 8 of them out sooner rather than later.

At some point I need to get back to Aunt Mimi's Garden. Fortunately I've only got 4 blocks total to do for this project, and this is block 2:

I'm using cotton thread on Aunt Millie, and silk thread on the Baltimore blocks....and guess which one disappears into the fabric so well that you need a magnifying glass to see the stitching? (hint: it's the silk).
I'm sure the hand sewing novelty will wear off shortly and I'll be back on the machine working on the Drunkard's Path with a New Twist, but for now, I'm in applique mode.

Which is not easy as I took a nasty chunk out of my right index finger while making margaritas for the ladies at Friday night's Happy Night. I was using the Ninja blender thiingie and managed to gash myself on the triple blade core as I was putting it in the dishwasher. I should have probably gone to the hospital for stitches, but I didn't want to be a buzz kill, so I just ran some water on it, applied some pressure and put a bandage on it. I'm sure I'm likely going to start regretting that decision in another day or two--especially if it turns out that I can't hold the needle to stitch. Oooh....bummer!

Hopefully I'll be able to make some applique progress before the next class. If not, there's a thousand pounds of quilting books from our Guild Library in my basement that need to be inventoried before our next meeting in August, so I can always get started on that task.

And somewhere in there, I'll manage to blog. Next time I'll share Needle Threading 102 with you. Until then, be creative, have fun, and enjoy your week!

Monthly Mimi Dietrich Baltimore Class Today

2011-06-12T11:34:00.000-04:00

I was up until 3 a.m. prepping for my monthly class with Mimi. I know, I know, I've had 6 full weeks to get everything ready, and in my defense, I did get most things done (i.e., washing and ironing about 72 FQS, and 20 yds of other various and sundry background and border fabric), but class is in 2 hours, and I have still not picked out my first pattern. Sometimes I just like living on the edge.

I do want to share something I came up with last night that might be helpful to you applique fans out there.

I am working with what will be 14" finished blocks. I was pulling patterns from various sources...Mimi's books, Elly's books, Jane Townsend....they all have different ideas as to how far away from the edges of the blocks the designs are, so I started out measuring the designs and using the proportion wheel to increase/decrease copies of the patterns.

I know all about proportion wheels from my early days in graphic design, and I do know that you can find them in some notions departments, but it's easiest to come across them in office supply stores, or you can contact the C-Thru Ruler Company (Google it).

The purple flag is my marker for the size I want, which is about 10-1/8". Say my design is 6", I line that size up on the inner ring with the size I want on the outer ring (my purple flag) and in the window it tells me that I need to blow that design up on a copy machine at just around 169%.

One important thing to keep in mind is that you want to choose designs that when enlarged/reduced, your leaves, petals, berried are approximately the same size, otherwise you're going to have some pretty strange scale issues between you blocks.

Another thing I asked the hubs to make me was viewing template. He had someone at his office cut me a piece of plexiglass 14" square, which is the finished size of my blocks. I'm putting my blocks on point, and all my designs are rather 'square', so I thought it would be good to have something to set on top of them so I knew how to lay the patterns out on my backgrounds. I'm looking at this last night and thought it would also be a great aid for me in choosing the patterns...I can just lay it on a pattern and see if the design is going to fill the block the way I want.

Last night I took some 1/4" photographic tape (red (see thru) cellophane) I found in my craft supplies and laid my plain plexi on top of a 15" ruler and marked horizontal, vertical and diagonal reference lines on my plexi. Now I've got a center to use to visually gauge my pattern sizes (looks like this one may need to reduce just a tad).

You can get your own plexi cut to spec at Home Depot. And while the red photographic tape may not be easy to come by, you can certainly find colored transparent tapes at the office supply store, or you can use a Sharpie (don't use a dry erase or those pens they use to write on overhead projector slides or you'll have ink all over your hands and fabric).

Hope these were useful tips. I've got to run and toss everything into my tote bag for class. I'll just have to pick my pattern once I get there. (Nothing like a little pressure to get the adrenaline going on a lazy Sunday.) Enjoy your own lazy Sunday afternoon!

Where's the Motivation?

2011-06-06T23:45:00.001-04:00

I've been sitting in my studio for 4 days now and haven't been motivated or inspired to start a project. I can't put my finger on it. I've got multiple projects to choose from, I've got projects that are started that I can finish, I've got fabric to iron and patterns to choose for my class with Mimi Dietrich Sunday, yet here I sit, popping Pez (some of which are probably 10 years old--seriously, Pez, does not spoil, so no need to call the EMTs), and OD'ing on Say Yes to the Dress On Demand.

But wait, what's that on the sewing machine?

Ah, it's the circular embroidery attachment.

And I did use it to test and choose some stitches to use on the new Drunkard's Path project.

And while I'm a little hesitant to cut out the wedges and the pies (because it's going to be a bit tedious and take forever (no Go! on this one), there's always the fear that I use the wrong templates for pies and crusts, So, I put off the work that I need to think about, and instead figured it was okay to do the mindless prep, which was cutting out the 16 pieces of fabric that will be circularly embroidered...

and fuse lightweight tear away stabilizer to the back of each.

Still procrastinating on Day 3 of the Drunkard's Path Project, I told myself I needed one more little sew out to try to determine how far apart to space each circle of stitching. Now I'm ready to get started on this....but I just can't bring myself to poke one of those squares on the machine and get to stitching.

I could turn the TV off. I could go dig a little shot of Five Hour Energy out of the cabinet in the kitchen (Lord knows, the 10 year old Pez aren't exactly offering up any sugar rush to speak of--nor has my 4th Diet Coke of the day) OR I could go let the dogs out, crawl into bed with The Quilt Life and fall dead asleep 4 paragraphs into a Ricky Tims article.

Maybe the morning will bring some motivation. (Which will have to last through the work day and Bridal Shop Appointment #3 after work).

Heavy sigh.....I think I'll save that energy drink for tomorrow night..

Lost But Not Forgotten (I Hope)

2011-06-03T23:35:00.001-04:00

Remember me? Hell-o!

I got a little drunk (figuratively speaking, not literally..at least in this instance) on the long weekend last week...3-1/2 glorious days of no work, and then a day spent working from home in my jammies. 2 days of cookouts, so no sewing to speak of (though I did sit poolside and do a little applique on Aunt Millie's Garden)....and then it was my birthday (more debauchery) and a last minute plan for yet another workless day off to go to a quilt show with Becky (Sarcastic Quilter). Anyhow, I'm still reveling in the fact that it is ONLY FRIDAY (woo hoo!), and I've got two more days with no plans (other than a morning appointment at a bridal salon) to actually accomplish some sort of sewing.

First, a couple orders of business we need to clear up...

The finished Winding Ways table quilt...a May OPAM finish. Still needs a label, but it's done and will be out of here (and yes, I am still not fond of it....AT ALL..can ya tell? (It's on the floor for it's photo op,).

Second order of business...someone needs to win this pincushion:

and that would be Joanne in New Hampshire. I've sent you an email. Yay!!! Congratulations, and thanks everyone for playing.

We'll have something cute to give away in June, so stay tuned.

Becky and I had a lovely time at the quilt show today. We just about shut it down, so not only did we get to see some lovely quilts, meet each other, enjoy a little shopping (and strangely enough, it was an unusually controlled 'shop' today--wait, I like that....'controlled shop', sounds like the Crocodile Hunter or something on Animal Planet....we've got a voiceover..."the ladies are sniffing about the vendor booths, nonchalantly scoping out the lay of the land, while others in the herd are pawing through the bins of fat quarters with random abandon...will they become aggressors and make their move and charge into the midst of the herd to establish position? Or will they pass up this opportunity and move further into the uncharted plains of the Expo Center to sniff out a more bountiful selection, with lower prices?")

...but we got a good bit of exercise walking around for seven (7) hours (I must tell you that Fit Flops are not the best choice for 7-hour hikes). While I would love to just go put my feet up, suck down a second glass of wine, and open one of the new quilt mags that arrived this week, I've got a daughter and a slew of her friends down in DC at the Verizon Center attending the NKOTB (for those of you that are pop culturally challenged, that would be New Kids On The Block) / Backstreet Boys concert. They parked their cars, got a ride to the Metro and were planning on hitting some bars in DC before and after. Guess who gets to drive to the Metro at 3:00 a.m. and pick them up? Trust me when I tell you that it isn't going to be the hubs, who was the one who agreed to this plan in the first place.

And gee, who's got an appointment to try on wedding gowns tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. 45 minutes north of here? Sucks to be my daughter and her bridesmaids tomorrow.

I'm going to leave you with one of the quilts on display at the quilt show today. More tomorrow. Have a lovely Saturday, and be sure to have some fun!

Let's Get Ready to Pinwheel (Which...bonus...is also an OPAM finish for May)

2011-05-23T01:24:00.002-04:00

Saturday the make and take project at the quilt shop was fabric pinwheels. Easy, quick and fun. I've made these out of

paper before, as you may have, but the fabric ones are fun and longer lasting. And hey, we're fabric people, right? I've had a few people ask me how to make them, so here you go.

I started with 1 yard of Heat n Bond Ultra Hold and four fat quarters, which I cut in half. I cut the fusible into 4 pieces and ironed it to one piece of each fat quarter.

Then I peeled back the paper and fused a coordinated piece of fat quarter to one that had been fused.

Now I've got 4 pieces of double sided fabric.

Which I then cut into various sized squares. For each pinwheel you need two squares of the same double-sided fabric. I wound up with 19 pairs of squares ranging in size from 6" down to 2.5". Anything over 6" is going to be rather 'floppy', so I'd suggest you stay under that. In fact, I think 5" was an ideal size (as was 2.5").

Before you go any further, take a minute to check the fusing on your squares. If youv'e got any edges or sides that you can peel back, hit them with the iron for 2 seconds to fuse them.

At this time, sort out all you squares by size, keeping the pairs of matching squares together. Grab your pencil and ruler and measure the width of the square, divide it in half and add 1/8". Take a ruler corner to corner and draw a line from the corner to the center as long as the measurement you calculated above. For instance, if you're using a 4" square, you would measure in 2-1/8" from the corner and draw a pencil line from the corner to this point. Do this for each corner. Then carefully cut on each of those lines. (Use your scissors, it's a simple one-snip process). You can snip a couple at a time, but be sure you adjust between cuts to line those corners up. The bottom one will tend to slip during cutting.)

Lay two matching squares side by side and flip one over. Starting with the upper right hand corner, apply a small dab of hot glue from your glue gun and fold the corner to the center of the square and hold for a second until it sticks. Note: it is very important that you are turning in the same corners of each piece.

Do the same with every other corner, bringing it to the center and gluing it down.

Now you've got two contrasting pinwheels.

Place one on top of the other, arranging so the blades of the top wheel are placed over the spaces on the bottom wheel. Use a bead of hot glue in the center of the bottom wheel to stick them both together. If it's a bit off, as long as you're quick, and the glue hasn't dried, you can simply give one of the wheels a twist to line them up properly.

Once I had them lined up how I wanted, I just folded down the top one and applied the glue, holding the two firmly together with my thumb and forefinger.

I like to work 'production line' style, so I did all my cuts at one time, and made all my pinwheel tops before moving on.

You can use lollopop sticks, straws, or bamboo skewers, which you can usually find in the grocery store. Apply a generous line of hot glue to the back of the pinwheel and hold the non-pointed end of the skewer in it until the glue is set.

I saved the scraps I had left from cutting squares and cut them into appropriately sized strips to use them to cover the stick (apply a little hot glue to the edges and place it over the stick and smooth it down). Don't worry about lining up your fabric pattern, it's not critical--it's the back, and really, we aren't trying to win any contests with these, it just looks nicer to have the stick and glue covered should someone happen to inspect your backside :).

To finish them off, hot glue a button or two (stacked) to the center of the pinwheel, and you're done.

In a couple hours, you too can have a pile of fabric pinwheels. Stick them in plants, fill a vase, use the little ones on cupcakes. Make them in Christmas fabrics and use them as ornaments (omit the stick), decorate packages with them, glue one to your straw hat, glue one to a hair clip....yada, yada, yada....you get the point.

Have fun!

Saturday's Finds

2011-05-22T11:42:00.000-04:00

You might remember these neat little stamped metal charms I found a couple weeks ago in a shop near Jinny Beyer's? Well, yesterday I took my neighbor to a quilt shop in Frederick and she in turn took me to this neat little once a month antique/shabby chic kind of flea market place in a barn in Buckeystown called Chartreuse and Co.

Here's a link to photos of the merchandise offered this weekend:

http://gallery.me.com/vacrum#100584&view=grid&bgcolor=black&sel=25

Of course, she went Friday morning and noted that by the time we got there on Saturday afternoon, a lot of good stuff was long gone, but I did find these:

which will be adorning something of mine as soon as I can figure out what. And I'll likely ask my daughter's jewelry making friend, Scarlet Robin (be sure to check out that link...her stuff is fab-o) to stamp me some sterling so I can add it to my jewelry collection.

I also picked up a couple of cute gift items (guess who they're for :) )

This one's a magnet. Love it! :

Looks like I'm going to have to take off June 17th so I can be at Chartreuse and Co. on opening day. Thanks Ann, for the enablement.

I'll be back later today to share my afternoon making fabric pinwheels. Enjoy yours!

This Weekend's Shopping...A Giveaway for May

2011-05-16T21:50:00.000-04:00

The fabric above is the reason I went back to the shop on Saturday. I saw it while I was in my one on one Smith Street Designs lecture and I didn't buy it. It was not a case of out of sight, out of mind, and I decided that since I was out that way on Saturday for the wedding 'tasting' that I'd swing by and satisfy my craving. I tried to find some other fabrics to go with it and in the end just decided that it was time to up my stash building from half yards to full yards (I know, I know, I fully expect to one day be buying 3-4 yards, baby steps....baby steps...) and purchased this with no specific project in mind. (Oh the horror!).

So the very helpful cutting lady gives me a sly glance and says..."did you happen to notice that we have those prints in blue as well"?

Put me down for 2 more yards.

And I had picked the print on the bottom to go with the red/butter prints above, but then I saw the maroon/gold and decided that this also had to join us (but only half yards of these...they'll more than likely be something other than a quilt.

My daughter mentioned liking paisley, so when I saw a few that went together well, the quest was on to find every paisley in the shop that might work together (fortunately, this is a rather small shop). A couple of them were half price, so I got full yards. I've now got 4 yards of paisley, so I think I can put it together somehow to make a suitable TV quilt.

I'm going to try to stay away from the fabric shops until G Street's Memorial Day sale.

When I stopped in Michaels to pick up the last of the drawer dividers, I found a bunch of these cute, bright fabric flowers in little pots on display inside the front door. Just the happy type of display to catch your eye.

Being the quiltaholic that I am, I skipped right over most of them and my eyes locked on one that was was a stuffed flower. Light bulb moment.... PINCUSHIONS!

Don't you just love them? I do, and for that very reason, this is what is going to be May's Follower Appreciation Giveaway prize. As always, as long as you're a follower of this blog (and you are listed in the sidebar as one), you'll get one entry into the drawing for each comment you post during the month of May. Good idea? Does anyone out there collect pincushions? What's your favorite?

Thread Storage Obsession - Mission Complete

2011-05-15T10:00:00.001-04:00

There's no rest for the compulsive (or obsessive, or wicked....I've got it all covered).

The other day while I was in Michaels buying more lovely storage cubes (two 4-drawer units this time), I came across drawer dividers in the clearance aisle. They're made out of the same wood material the storage cubes are and they were marked down to $2.99. I came home with two.

My daughter stopped by on her way to drop off Ricky and picked up 4 more for me. By Friday night I had all my cotton threads compartmentalized.

And on my way home yesterday, I stopped in and picked up the last 3 in the store and now all my polyester sewing thread no longer has to feel jealous of the quilting threads.

OCD anyone?

Since the hubs hasn't been very proactive in picking flannel for his rag quilt, I've decided to pick up half yard cuts of what I think he might like to use when I run across flannel in the quilt shops. What he doesn't use can be used to back 2 preemie quilts for our guild charity, and what he does like I can pick up another yard of when I'm back at that shop. Moda has some fabulous flannel releasing at the end of the summer, and I've dragged him on the online slide show, but he's not going there and wants to use more bright, non-coordinated stripes/plaids/dots. Whatever. It's his quilt.

This is the quilt. It looks like a lot of fun. It's two sided and it's constructed and quilted block by block. One side is the pattern, the other a solid square. If you're interested the pattern is Crazy Rag Time by Sandy Brawner and you can probably get it at http://www.quiltcountry.com/.

And this is what the hubs has started his collection of 8 prints needed with.

Today's plan is to sandwich and quilt DD's table quilt, and I need a dessert for Happy Hour with the ladies tonight (I know, it's Sunday, so we're calling it Happy 'Hour' tonight).

I'll be back tomorrow with the finished table quilt photos (fingers crossed), and pics of yesterday's exercise in stash building.

I hope you get a chance to visit some more of the Bloggers Quilt Festival posts throughout Blogland. I'm enjoying my tour. I've got Amy's site bookmarked and I'm working my way through the posts from the beginning as I have some time. Just be sure you write down the number of the next stop before you walk away from the computer.

Enjoy!

Bloggers Quilt Festival - Spring 2011 - My Mexican Star

2011-05-13T23:38:00.001-04:00

This is my Mexican Star. It's an experiment in curves and color. My second quilt using batiks and contrast.

I like that the curves are formed after it's pieced, so there's a dimensional quality to the piece.

I used a combination of very square and very circular freemotion quilting patterns on the circular background, which was relatively painless and left little room for disappointment.

This quilt was one of those 'outside my comfort zone' projects that I'm glad I went for. It was a challenge picking the fabrics that went together (based on an instruction to choose 'light', 'medium' and 'dark"), and finding a background that worked. Especially since I'm generally one of those quilters who just picks a line of fabric and uses the various prints from within that line.

And what I really like about this little quilt is the back

When I saw this fabric in the quilt shop, I knew I had to have it. This was my introduction to Jinny Beyer, and because of this fabric, I've made a couple of trips to her shop in Great Falls, VA. You'll see her fabric turn up as inspiration fabric in a couple of my upcoming projects.

I'd like to thank Amy at Amy's Creative Side for once again hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival. There's a link on my sidebar that I hope you'll use to view the many beautiful quilts and their stories from this Spring's participants. No need to rush through, they'll be available for a while and you can hop from one to the other through links posted by the participants. Enjoy the beauty, and I hope you find inspiration.

Winding Ways is Now a Quilt Top

2011-05-11T21:55:00.000-04:00

(Note: If you click on the photos, you can see the color better. The Winding Ways colors were hard to photograph. I think I'm going to wish for a new camera for my birthday...someone tell the hubs :) )

This is one of the Jinny Beyer fabrics I bought that I didn't show you.

Last night I decided I needed to take down the design wall, it's starting to look like 'clutter', so I set to finishing the Winding Ways table quilt.

If you remember, this was definitely not my best use of the fabric patterns and colors...any other pattern would have worked, but I was anxious to use the GO!. Live and learn and most importantly--add some solids to the stash. (Counting the days to G Street Fabric's Memorial Day Sale....I've got a voucher to use)

I arranged the blocks on the wall in a few patterns. This was the first try and the one I was going with last night

Sort of a checkerboard, there are four different block patterns from 4 fabrics. I thought about sashing, but I really just want to get this little quilt over with, though, in hindsight, sashing might have been a way to add some definition and break up the monotony...too late now.

Before I would commit to stitching, I thought I should try a couple other things...like this center/corners layout

Hmmm...I'm kind of liking this...what if we pair up those outside middle blocks to be the same blocks side by side. Yeah, that's the ticket! This, my friends, is why we need design walls. It's always good to be able to easily shuffle blocks around and view the results from a distance. It's also a good idea to take photos and view them. For some reason, they add another perspective..

It almost looks as if it we knew what we were doing with that fabric choice...(hush! I said 'almost'). Let's get a little border action going....

Maybe one more. But it can't be too wide because we don't want to run out of backing material and have to piece something to fit. I think we can swing a 2-1/2 inch border all around.

Done!

And I used this as an opportunity to practice mitering my corners. (Someone really needs to invent a painless way to do this as mindlessly as possible.,,,, I know, I know, do it enough times and it will become mindless...I hear ya)

Let's slide the design wall and get into the closet and see if we have any packaged binding that will work. (I tell ya, I want this puppy done and out of here.)

Tomorrow night I've got to drive up to Frederick for a 3-hour lecture/demonstration on making one of the Smith Street Designs machine embroidered quilts (I've got the pattern for 'Parlor Charm'). I am going to force myself to learn to use all the embroidery stuff I got with my Bernina. The hubs refers to this quilt as 'his quilt'. He picked the fabric and he's patiently waiting for me to make it. Actually, he's waiting (not so patiently) for me to learn how to use EQ7 so I can scan his fabrics in and he can decide how he wants to use them. Honestly? I think he's got a better chance of winning the lottery this year than seeing this quilt done.

So many projects, so little time....

Hello, It's Me

2011-05-09T22:38:00.001-04:00

Isn't it fun to name your posts with song titles and then you can listen to the song while you read the post? (Yes, if you've got speakers or headphones, my blog does have musical accompaniment).

Today's been one of those melancholy days. A little feeling sorry for myself, a little tired, a little pissed off, a little unmotivated all rolled into one kind of day. I'm sure it will pass in a day or two. Too bad it's not a weekend or I could go work it off in the garden. Sigh.

The highlight of the weekend was the trip to Jinny Beyer with my sister. Jinny Beyer's shop is not the type of shop I'd visit more than a couple times a year. Don't get me wrong, it's a fabulous shop and she has lovely fabrics, but the shop only carries Jinny's line of fabrics, probably no more than a hundred bolts to choose from. I love her border prints, and her color palette, and the quilts she designs, but I can't imagine having a stash without a healthy dose of Kaffe Fassett, or anything Moda, or batiks, 1930s reproductions, strips, POLKA DOTS!!!

I went on a mission to find a sophisticated inspiration/border print for a second Baltimore Album quilt. And I did...6 yards of this came home with me...borders, sashing and setting HSTs for an on-point 13-block quilt. I thought I'd need 3, but the woman cutting suggested that I might be a little 'off' in my calculations, and since this particular print isn't being reprinted, I might want to take that into consideration. (I did)

please excuse the colors...I have apparently transferred my current crankiness to my camera so it is not applying itself to it's best ability this evening. All of these colors are much, much more vibrant than you see.

I also found some hand dyed wool in lovely sherbet colors as well as the perfect match border print to use for an upcoming wool applique wall hanging which I'll be starting soon from Gretchen Gibbons Pennies from Heaven book (love it!)
.

And this is another print I had to have, but I only picked up a fat quarter for now. There's a third fabric, but it will not photograph in this light. Both that and this FQ will be used for papercut blocks in the quilts, where a big print is an advantageous print.

I did get a tiny bit of sewing in over the weekend....for my sister. I quilted a quick and cute little table runner she had pieced as a gift for someone. Got to use my new stitch in the ditch sole on the walking foot for the piano key border and I pulled out the BSR and quilted starfish all over the center panel and the corners. It's perfect practice, and I'm finally over the horror of 'practicing' on someone else's work, as they seem to wind up liking what I've done (though it is FAR from perfect).

Today I spent a good amount of time perusing all of my applique books looking for patterns to use for the Album quilts. I had out my trusty proportion wheel, my ruler, my calculator, and I painstakingly copied patterns I wanted from each book and calculated their enlargement/reduction values to work on my 14" finished blocks (I'm looking to have the actual design span 10.5" so I'll have room to quilt them on a diagonal grid and you'll be able to see the grid stitching all around.) I've pretty much decided that baskets are out, though I could change my mind. I'm just afraid if I commit to 4 basket blocks per quilt I'll be making little bias strips to weave into baskets for the rest of the summer and won't get anything else done.

I also picked up another fun item at JoAnn on the return from Jinny Beyer......iron on glossy vinyl to laminate fabric. I just bought this Fossil purse that seems to be made from a laminated canvas print, and I was thinking what fun it might be to laminate some of my Indigo or the Australian prints and turn them into functional accessories. I'll keep you posted on how that turns out. I'm leery.....somehow the words 'iron on' and 'vinyl' don't exactly spell success to me.

Have a lovely day tomorrow. I'm sure you'll all be in better moods than I. Maybe I'll shake it off and get some stitching done after work. That might help..

Crawling from the Wreckage

2011-05-06T01:00:00.000-04:00

First off, let's congratulate QUILT SUE in the UK who is the winner of the April Follower Giveaway. The Little Bits Think Spring paper piecing pattern and papers will be winging their way to her tomorrow, and we'll give her until next Spring to make the 4 little quilts, at which time we shall expect her to post photos. Congrats Sue!

New month, new giveaway. All you've got to do is post comments during the month and each comment gives you a chance to win in the drawing at the end of the month. I'll pick a prize for May shortly. But for now, here's what's up with me.

I'm in a bit less pain than a week ago, so I'm trying to catch up. My studio is a mess, honestly, it's a train wreck (horrified gasps all around).

But that hasn't stopped me from adding to the madness.

I started off the week at Michaels. I love my thread chest so when I realized I would need some type of storage for sorting fabric scraps, and figured the little rolling drawer cart in my closet was perfect, I now needed a place for the contents of that cart (zippers, snaps, dressmaking notions, etc.), and since Michaels was having a sale, I grabbed another pair of stacking drawers.

Bonus...more surface space.

On Sunday, I began a year long monthly workshop with the fabulous Mimi Dietrich. It's all about making a Baltimore Album quilt, which, hopefully, will be completed (at least the top will), by next May. I'm thinking about doing double blocks each month and making two. (always the over-achiever)

Mimi likes you to use washed fabric. I've never pre-washed, so this was something new for me.

Oh, did I pink all those fat quarters? You bet I did. (And do I have little threads all over the clothes I threw in the washer with them? You bet I do!!!)

And then I had to iron them all.

After pressing I cut a 2" square from each fat quarter.

Folded over the corner and cut a little hole.

And then I thread them on a binder ring.

And when I'm done, I've got a little swatch ring of all the fabrics I have for applique. I can carry this with me to stores and see at a glance what colors I'm short on, what patterns and color values I'm using.....and it's darn fun to pull out of your purse and play with.

This started out as my inspiration fabric, but I need more, and the shop didn't have enough available. It's a Windham Brick House pattern, so it's a couple years old and likely not going to be found anywhere, so the plan is to make a trip to Jinny Beyer's Saturday to replace it. (Which is a shame because I really, really, like this fabric). And, I've got to order 6 more yards of the Kona Bay Rain white on white.

Unable to resist the lure of a quilt shop, I caved Wednesday afternoon and popped into Capital Quilts on my lunch hour and found a new inspiration fabric.

And this one happens to go pretty well with the taupy Kona Bay Rain Cream fabric I bought by mistake, and will now need to order 6 more yards of. It came from Hawaii, and she's currently out of that color, so hopefully she'll have it in in the next week or two.

Hmmm....two different backings, two different inspiration fabrics, why not two Baltimore Album quilts?

Another root through my stash for compatible fat quarters for applique.

Another hour of ironing (and a half bottle of Mary Ellen's Best Press later)

And I've got an enviable stash divided by quilt, laid out in a little suitcase. And the leftovers will be perfect for the Dear Jane I hope to someday make.

And we needed to add those to the swatch ring as well.

There are 65 fabrics on that ring...30 for one quilt, 35 to choose from for the other. I think I'm set...as soon as I get the 12 yards of background and the 6 yards of inspiration (which is used for sashing and border applique (think swag, fleur de lis...)

I've made a little take to class kit (another find in Michael's scrapbook department...40%+10% off)...lots of little compartments, the inside center will hold a couple dozen spools of silk thread (you'll likely find me at the Superior Thread booth at the Quilters Unlimited Show this June in Dulles, VA...yes, I've got a list of colors in my iPhone)

All that is left is to pick 14 block patterns and size them appropriately. Next class is June 12 .

I am such a goober for this stuff....I even colored in my handout from the teacher to use on my class binder.

Well, since I'm not supposed to be drinking, I guess my water bottle and I will be spending some quality time cleaning up the studio tomorrow night, and I think I'll be flying solo to Jinny Beyer's on Saturday. I'd drag the hubs, under the guise of humoring me for Mother's Day, but he's already got a tee time. To be honest, Jinny Beyer's shop is one shop I'd rather he not tag along (more like drag along) to....what happens at Jinny Beyer's stays at Jinny Beyer's :)

Have a good one!

Last Chance for April

2011-04-30T23:55:00.004-04:00

Last day of April. Hopefully it's all May flowers from here on out.

I'm just popping in to offer you one final chance to enter the April Giveaway for the Think Spring paper piecing pattern. I'll be in a short workshop with Mimi Dietrich tomorrow afternoon so I'll try to announce the winner tomorrow evening.

My daughter and I went to Filene's Running of the Brides yesterday....I was not impressed, and we did not leave with a dress. It was definitely interesting....a bunch of women standing around in their underwear in the middle of Filene's Basement while guys who worked there and guys who did not were walking about. Seriously, you just flung off your clothes and had your friends load you into dresses. Dresses that were in various states of clean, some missing parts, some without sizes, hung in plastic zip up bags on about 59 rolling racks, in no specific order of size or style (and I use the word 'style' rather loosely) . Most were $499.99...marked down from anywhere from $1500-$6000 (and honestly, I was having a hard time believing that some of them actually ever sold for those prices, which might explain why they are at Filene's...think wedding gown outlet store. )

The important thing to remember was 'no refunds/no exchanges', and while I don't know a whole lot about wedding gowns, and have yet to go to a 'real' bridal store, I have to think there's something nicer for our $500 in an actual bridal store...along with a woman who will bring my daughter dresses in a dressing room (where she doesn't have to try them on over a pair of shorts her friend has run to the Jr.s department to snag so she doesn't have to stand out in the middle of the store in her panties). A 'boobologist' who will stick enhancements in her strapless bra to provide the necessary cleavage, while her friends and I sit in upholstered furniture sipping wine. (do ya think I might watch too much reality TV (Jersey Couture)? I'm going to wind up driving her to Jersey to Diane & Co., I know it!). Sigh....

Well, she did have fun, and got to try on some dresses to give her some idea of the dress type she's looking for. All was not lost. (Except the $9.00 we had to pay to park at Filene's Basement....seriously, what's up with that???!!! Since I'm shopping at a discount store, I can afford to pay $9.00 to park? Whatever!)

Today I picked up my circular embroidery attachment and I am dying to use it, but tomorrow's another day, and right now I need to take my Tylenol and put myself to bed.

Have a lovely Sunday....good luck in the drawing!

Final April OPAM Finish

2011-04-28T22:42:00.000-04:00

Sorry, I've been a little under the weather the past couple days, but I wanted to post a quick update and give you another chance to enter the giveaway for the paper piecing pattern.

Let's start with my OPAM finish (Hi Peg!) No name yet, but it will somehow include 'Mexican Star' I really liked this pattern and the whole curving thing it's got going on (nope, not an illusion, there are actually pieces that are dimensional that have been bowed and stitched into curves)

What's left on the design wall are these pieces from the 'WInding Ways' experiment in non-contrast. I'm wondering if there's some way to somehow use those on their own?

Of course, I was feeling well enough to go on a strip piecing jag for the rest of the Winding Ways last night.

Last, but not least, leaving you with a photo of our Easter desserts. I made the bunny cake (tuxedo Peeps and choc dipped berries...which were leftover from my contribution to Happy Night last weekend), my daughter made the cake pops.

The wedding planning has had it's ups and downs (more like working in a mine). We've made a little progress and tomorrow is Filene's crazy bridal gown madness event, which I've encouraged my daughter to attend, even if it's not until after work that she can finally get there . Who knows, she might find something. She's bringing two friends, so I'm not sure I need to attend, though she has said I need to go because I'll tell her if something looks bad on her or not. Ummm.....let's see, after the last week sharing my feelings about venue and costs, and wondering if the resulting backlash isn't somehow related to my need for medical attention, I can assure you that I most definitely am not going to tell my daughter that the bustle on this dress makes her butt look big, or that this bustier makes it look like she has back fat. Her friends can do that with far less drama.

I hope to be in tip top form for the weekend as I've got the first of a monthly mini-workshop on Baltimore Applique with Mimi Dietrich on Sunday and I'm also hoping to get in a little garden clean-up. It's been pretty hot here for a few days and I was forced to turn on the A/C (yep, furnace/heat pump was finally fixed). A/C in April!!!!! Outrageous!!!! Forecast for the weekend is reasonable, so I'll be shutting it off tomorrow.

What are your plans? Anyone planning to watch the Royal Wedding?

Another Day, Another Venue, Another Chance to Enter the Giveaway

2011-04-20T00:48:00.001-04:00

Another reminder to comment for your chance to win this cute paper piecing pattern. This includes the tissue paper foundation to make four 15-1/2x18-1/2" quilts...one for you, and three for your friends and family. As long as you're a follower, every comment you make on any post counts as an entry in this month's Follower Appreciation Giveaway. Don't know what to say? Well, I always want to hear what projects you are working on, and which fabrics you've got on your wish list. I'm always looking for inspiration.

So last night I took the new walking foot sole plate for a spin. Here's a better photo...I managed to figure out how to use the macro setting on my camera for the one photo, and then it just went way over my head, so this is the one shot that is postable.

The blade you see down the center is part of the soleplate. It sits in the seam and your needle goes into the fabric behind it, and your stitches drop perfectly into the seam and are just about invisible. It's interesting, but it's going to take a bit of getting used to. Those of you with Berninas know that two soleplates come with the walking foot, and one of those is more open so you can see the needle movement and exactly where it's going into the fabric. Well, this new soleplate has really low visibility. It's a little awkward bringing your bobbin thread up through the top fabric when you begin to sew (I used a small pair of scissors to slide under the foot and catch the threads so I could pull them up and to the side so that I didn't start out with any birds nests on the backside.) It's going to take some getting used to, but I'm sure I'll use it often. And, if you've got a Bernina and you don't already have a walking foot, the new walking feet are packaged with all three soleplates, and the price has not increased with the addition of the new soleplate. If you've already got a walking foot, you just need to order the soleplate, and it ranges in price from $24-$36 depending on your dealer. Right now they're hard to come by, so your best bet is to place an order and be patient.

Our little thread fairy looks extremely patient, don't you think? She must be waiting for her Stitch in the Ditch Walking Foot Sole Plate....or maybe she's been hitting the Svedka a little hard this evening. Gotta say, if I don't wash mine tomorrow, she won't be the only one in this house rocking that hairstyle.

If you're with me on Facebook, you've seen these photos, but I needed to take a break from sewing to try out something crafty, so Sunday we Peeped...

The blue Peep? Come on, every family has at least one Black Peep (black sheep), right?

And these are going to join some lemons and chocolate and whatever else I'm feeling, on a white cake pedestal for a centerpiece. But for now, I like to refer to them as: "This is what you get when you don't check the expiration date on the package before you buy."

Two more venues to visit tomorrow (so far), so I'll save the wedding prep talk for another post. Have a wonnerful, wonnerful Wednesday...it's supposed to be a beautiful Spring day...Enjoy it!

Welcome to Wedding Wars

2011-04-18T22:09:00.003-04:00

We've gone to visit two venues so far. There's another scheduled for tomorrow evening and one for Wednesday afternoon. Dear daughter and I aren't seeing eye to eye on a few things (like the day, the time, the venue) but I'm sure we'll work that out. At the moment dear daughter is doing her best to be impulsive (which is what she does best), and mother of the bride is doing her best to be negative (which is what she does best). We've got until next Thursday to come together in a Vulcan Mind Meld, so hopefully we'll make some progress this week.

Life is still a bit scattered. I've not had proper time to correspond with my newly connected Jr. High School friend, Debbie, so I've not corresponded at all (shame on me!). I think I'll fix that after this post and at least shoot her a short message...a short message is better than no message at all, don't you think?

The heat fixer guys come again tomorrow, and from their last call, it sounds like they may have come up with an ingenious way to blame the problem on the possibility of mice in the wallschewing the wiring that goes from the thermostat in the dining room to the heat pump outside. (I don't think it matters that we haven't seen a mouse, let alone any evidence of a mouse in the house since the 1st year the house was built and it was still all woods around us...we've been mouseless for at least 20 years.) Obviously they're stretching to find something outside the warranty. Honestly? I'll tell you this, when he brings those wires in to me tomorrow, he better have sufficiently chewed them and I'd better not see any plastic coating in his teeth.

My boss gave his notice last Friday, and I've got until Wednesday to decide if I want to apply for his job. This is a tough one for me, for many reasons, and at the moment, I can't believe I'm saying this, I don't think I want his job. It would mean no more telecommuting days. The hubs says I need to figure out how much of a raise it would have to be for me to give that up. There's a lot to be said about rolling out of bed, grabbing a cup of joe and starting your workday in your PJs two days a week. Decisions....decisions.....

I've been looking at the Winding Ways blocks on the design wall for a week now and they just haven't inspired me to sew them. I think there's a reason for that, and that would be....

Yay!!!!!! The Stitch in the Ditch sole plate for my walking foot finally arrived. See the metal piece in the middle of it? (look at the bottom). Well, that sits in your seam as you stitch....invisible in the ditch stitching, every time. For you Bernina users, it's like having a #10 walking foot. It's been a long time coming. It was ordered back in March and it took more than month for it to get here.

I think I'm going to throw caution to the Winding Ways and I'm going to thread up the Bernina and finish off the Mexican Star. All that's left on this is to ditch stitch the vertical and horizontal bars, and I've been holding off waiting for this soleplate to arrive...no excuses anymore.

Saturday was one of those crazy, rainy days and the hubs needed to go shopping up in Frederick, so I volunteered to go along as long as he would stop at JoAnn Fabrics for the last day of the Daffodil Dash sale. Now, mind you, there's really nothing I want from JoAnn except some thread, some batting, some rulers, books...and I had seen this really cute bird print home dec fabric in their flyer that I thought would make a great chair cushion and sewing machine cover for the studio.

The bird print I had my eye out for wound up being way too large for what I had in mind, so I wandered back to their quilting department. This is a JoAnn superstore, and I gotta tell you, as I'm walking down this 'special purchase' fabric row that was 30% off, I was experiencing a little quilt shop deja vu.

I don't know about you, but I can spot an Alexander Henry fabric in a JoAnn like Sara Jessica Parker can spot a pair of Louboutins in Payless. And it's not that easy because in JoAnn, the Alexander Henry fabrics aren't on gold foiled bolts. I don't ask why they have them (for $7.99 and 8.99 a yard, no less---on sale for 30% off that), I just buy them.

As it turns out, I've already got the Day of the Dead print on the left, so you'll see that again in an upcoming giveaway.

With the hubs beginning to whine about how long he'd been in the store, and how he thought I was just running in for one thing, whaaa, whaaa, whaaa....I was somehow miraculously able to maintain brain function and remember that I needed to see if they had wool on sale....bingo! I was able to pick up a yard of lovely cream wool for 50% off to use on one of my upcoming wool applique projects. It's so much easier to throw it in a hot water wash when you only paid $13 a yard for it. :)

So, life is almost back to normal. And now I'm off to test drive the walking foot.

Don't forget to post your comments for a chance to win the April giveaway!

I Need a Vacation

2011-04-13T01:13:00.001-04:00

It's officially Wednesday. Big whoop. 'Hump Day' offers ltitle hope of escaping the downward spiral that is my week. The only way this week could turn around is if the UPS guy drops off a box tomorrow and instead of containing some impulse-buy quilt book, the package contains a plane ticket South, a wad of cash, and the keys to an oceanfront beach house where it's at least 80 degrees and rains only at night for no longer than 10 minutes...oh, and there may as well be a herd of wild unicorns grazing in the front yard.

No, those aren't unicorns...it's a herd of a dozen ratty does that minutes before were chowing down in my perennial garden. I was able to shoo them to the back of the yard where they are waiting for me to walk away so they can resume helping themselves to free appetizers in my garden.

So much for yardwork this year.

Today was Day 4 for the heating/cooling system repair guys. Just another day of things not working out for them so they screw the heat pump back together, hook me up to 'emergency heat' (or as I like to call it '$800 per month electric bill', which is why the thermostat is set at 62 degrees), and tell me they'll give me a call tonmorrow. I telecommute for my regular job a couple of days each week, so they know they can come hang out on Tuesday and Thursday, which means 'see you guys Thursday'.

Speaking of jobs...my regular job (production manager for a scientific journal) has not been a walk in the park. I'm so behind on reports.I need to do, and we just went through a data conversion that has been my worst nightmare, so just when I think I've got one thing under control and can play report catch-up, something dire goes wrong and I'm working until 7 or 8 just trying to deal with the latest in a series of 'this should not have happened' that seems destined to remain withme forever, or until Hell freezes over, whichever comes first.

The second job (part time merchandising, which I do after the full time gig) has assigned a good deal of projects to me this week, and I've yet to get out. Thursday I'm on 'venue scout' detail with the daughter, so that cuts me down to 2 days to complete a weeks worth of assignments. And Wednesday's lunch hour (where I usually run at least a couple of those assignments) is out for merchandising as I've got a noon appointment with the doctor, who has already seen the test results on the blood that a clumsy lab technician leeched out of my still bruised arm a week ago, and from what I can interpret...this isn't good and I'm expecting I'll be spending a full day in the Labcorp House of Horrors for a glucose tolerance test next week.

Had I not given myself a major tension headache trying to explain to the daughter why buying life insurance was not an acceptable alternative to a retirement fund, I might have not stress eaten ~~half~~ okay, 3/4 of a bag of Chocolate Chex Mix while sending her links from CNN and Money and typing emails imploring her to call her benefits office and try to switch to something a bit more suitable. Had I not stuffed my face after midnight the doctor might have been able to suck a little more blood out of me and retest and hopefully write off those last results. Of course, then I would have been forced to be a martyr and forgo my morning coffee, so it's probably a good thing I sacrificed myself (and my hips) to the chocolate.
And did I mention the three yards of fabric that arrived from Hawaii yesterday that I purchased to use as background for my Baltimore Album...only to find that I ordered the wrong color?

I made two lasagnas today...one to freeze and one for dinner. The one for dinner I decided to go old school and actually cook the noodles (the one for the freezer I was lazy and went with 'no bake'). The recipes were a little different for each and I managed to misread the dinner one and mixed everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING together (sauce, meat, ricotta, mozarella, parmesan), so instead of having layers of sauce and cheese, I had gobs of goop between layers of pasta. What was I thinking?

I figure that even if I did have time to sew, I'd likely break a needle, or lose a finger on a rotary cutter blade. It's best I just go to bed. Would someone please call me when they hear the UPS truck heading up the street?