Accio Fabric!

It's all about flexibility

2012-01-25T12:51:00.000-06:00

I was asked if I could make a yoga bag, and without thinking I said "sure!" Then I thought, hmmmm, can I make a yoga bag? Which was followed by research mode! I went online, thought about the hassles of toting around my yoga mat to and fro, and asked my friend Michelle, who teaches yoga classes, what is needed in a well thought out and useful yoga bag. Michelle talked to her yoga peeps and they all said that it needed to have pockets for a yoga brick.

I'm a firm believer in many pockets, so I was all for a yoga brick pocket!

I had been eyeing the Amy Butler Buttercup bag from her book Amy Butler's Style Stitches for quite some time. I love the flap shape and the handles, so I started with that and then changed everything.

Obviously it had to be really, really long to accommodate the mat. I also wanted it to have room for clothing, in case the class is right after work. And I felt a water bottle pocket was an absolute necessity!

I fell in love with the Ty Pennington fabrics for Westminster Fibers and thought they would be great for the person wanting the bag.

I made a mock up first, in order to get the proportions and dimensions correct, so now I have a yoga bag too!
I'm having big issues w/blogger today, and it lost some of my pictures that I don't have backups of, so some of the final bag pics are missing. It also won't let me put text where I want it, so bare w/me on having it all up top here.
After the mock up I decided the flap needed to be smaller and the sides needed magnets so that they don't poof out like on the left side below. The water pocket seemed to keep it tucked in, so I guess I could have put a pocket on both sides, but I didn't and I don't recall why I decided against it.
I also put in a key holder tag on the inside and a tie for the yoga mat since I'm always struggling with my mat.

Mock up bag front

Yoga brick pocket

Inside bag

Bag back

Water bottle pocket

Final bag front

water bottle pocket

Mat tie since they are always unruly

Magnets to keep the sides tucked in under the flap

Ummm, Happy New Year!

2012-01-17T12:09:00.001-06:00

I've been a little absent from the blog the last few months. I've had a ton going on personally, including some medical issues that I won't go into on the blogosphere, so while I'm recuperating, I am trying to catch up on the blog and some wool applique! The other reason I was absent for so long was that I spent the last 3 months of the year sewing like a mad woman to make a double sided t-shirt quilt.

People underestimate the time it takes to make a t-shirt quilt. There's a lot of cutting, interfacing and squaring up to be done. Not to mention the color coordination issue that goes along with t-shirts. I had everything from neon orange, forest green, tie-dye and purple to contend with and make coordinate.

I was given a ton of shirts from her sorority, college and dance performances from her entire childhood. I was told the colors the young lady likes, her style, things she likes to do and was told that she had seen a friend's t-shirt quilt that had made from someone in the back of a magazine and she had wrinkled her nose and said "'it looked like something out of Real Simple." I therefore had to be more creative than a standard sew the t-shirts together and call it a quilt. I was also told that the commissioner had complete faith in my abilities, and she would leave it all up to me, so no pressure there!

I actually like that kind of challenge, it really gets the brain and creativity flowing. I decided that using a ton of different fabrics was the best way to make all the different shirts play nicely together. I also decided that outlining each shirt in grey would unify them nicely and make them coordinate w/the other fabrics more easily.

After sorting through the t-shirts and grouping them by college and precollege, I decided to go all crazy and make it two sided, the front college, the back precollege. I used two different lines of Dena Designs for the front and a combo of Sandi Henderson and my all time favorite, Heather Bailey for the back. I found there were several similar shirts that had those appliqued sorority letters on them. I had the idea to take the red and pink ones and make a giant flower in the center. The polka dot was a Riley Blake Christmas fabric! I used two different Moda Bella greys for the front and back.

Then Michelle and I traded emails about the other blocks and came up with the the design for the other front blocks, inspired by this quilt by Hyacinth Quilt Designs. I liked the way the grey kind of ties the blocks together and moves your eyes around the quilt. For the back, I decided to do a simple pieced sash of 2" finished squares between the shirts.
I was only going to use the front of the dance recital shirts, but DiscoJen pointed out that the names of the cast are on the back, and that's the most important part, remembering the people who were there with you. I ended up with 30 shirts on the back and 20 on the front. It was HUGE by the time is was done, I would say it's a large queen sized quilt.
The front:

The front and back:

The back had an oh 'insert cursing here' moment, or if you prefer the glass half full 'there's no mistakes only design opportunities' moment. I had bordered all 30 blocks in the grey, and was all in a tizzy to attach the pieced sashing to see how it looked and it didn't fit!!!!
By a simple math error I had made the blocks 13" not the required 14"!!! ARRRGGHHHH!!! I then bordered them all in white too! I was really unmotivated by the time I was 1/4 of the way through the bordering a second time. I was taking no chances, I made them larger than necessary and then cut them all down to 14".

I worked some of the smaller t-shirt elements into the pieced borders:

And added a bit of fancier quilting to the blocks that had fewer motifs:

I have to say, pinning it was THE WORST!!! I literally used every single pin I had, and that's saying something. The quilt weighed a ton by the time it was finished being pinned. And yes, it had to be pinned, not long armed, because I had to perfectly line up the front and the back so the shirts would all be straight on both sides. Note to self, don't ever do a two sided tshirt quilt again!Lining up the front and back took quite some time and patience. Lots and lots of patience. The backing was 119"x99"!!

This is what makes all the effort and time worth it:

She loved her quilt, the design, the colors, the quilting, everything about it! And her brother was thrilled because he had helped out with one of her dance recitals and his name was on the back too. So DiscoJen was totally right! I feel I was given a very high compliment when one of her early 20-something brothers said 'she has mad skills'.

Long overdue

2011-10-21T16:14:00.000-05:00

Ok, I know it's been well over a month since my last post. I know I keep saying but seriously, where does the time go!

Thank you all so much for your votes and wonderful compliments on my quilt. I'm saddened to say I didn't make the top 3, I guess I just don't know enough people! It's all good though because in the end I have really fun quilt that I totally would have procrastinated quilting for years if I hadn't had a deadline.

I have been really, really busy this fall. Here's a smidgeon of what I've been up to.
I put together the scraps left over from this quilt:

to make this:

I was going to make another wall hanging, but Pattie suggested making a pillow, which is a fantastic idea. I like the longer pillows on a couch. Now I have to quilt it and make a pillow out of it!

I got these fantastic Chicago watercolor prints from old United Airlines travel books from the Megan Morrison store closing sale. One is from 1948, the other from 1952 (I think it's a 2).

They cost me $1 each! Don't ask how much the framing cost. I completely love them. The inner matting is a really dark navy blue. I tried all manner of greys and blacks, but nothing was working for me. The girl at the Michael's framing counter suggested navy, and by jove, that was it! The people in the Buckingham Fountain print all have hats and 40's clothes. It's fabulous. And the one of the river is not a view of Chicago that you find very often, so I really like it as well.

I got a cute make-your-own white board kit at JoAnn's in the clearance aisle for $3. I added the gorgeous Tanya Whelan paisley fabric to the frame. It took me an hour and 35 mins because of the amount of time I agonized over which fabric to commit to. It took an hour and half do decide, and then 5 minutes to make. Pathetic, huh?

So now I have a place to list the projects with due dates. And the list is LARGE. 13 to be exact. Most are commissions though, which is good since I just recently discovered that coming in January is Rouenneries Deux!!

I know, be still my heart right?.

I lost my camera for a month, but found it last night in a pile of quilts of all places, go figure. Some more of what I've been up to that I haven't photographed yet:

A ginourmous t-shirt quilt.

Designing and making a yoga bag

Emily's baby quilt (there's a glimpse of it below)

and several other things that are totally escaping me at the moment!

Posts w/pretty pictures to follow. I promise.

Oh, and I have to totally do a shout out the White Wizard! I got my sewing machine oiled and it got on a couple of bags I made, and the only thing that got the stains out was the White Wizard. It seriously was magical in it's stain removal! It didn't harm or discolor the fabric in any way either.

I got it on a whim when it was on clearance at Restoration Hardware last summer, so I have no clue who else carries it. I'm sure the wonder of the internet can find it though!

Votes Needed!

2011-08-20T08:02:00.000-05:00

I'm totally thrilled to share that my Riley Blake Upsy Daisy quilt was chosen to be one of the top 10 finalists in the Riley Blake contest!

Now the contest is opened up to public voting to choose the winner, so I need to ask all of you to vote for me and then ask everyone you know to also vote for me!
You can see all the finalists and vote here: http://www.rileyblakedesigns.com/cutting-corners/contest/ or here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Riley-Blake-Designs/217428743660

Click the 'vote now' and scroll to the Upsy Daisy quilt and click the 'vote' button.
If I win, this is the fabulous prize:

Photo courtesy of the Riley Blake blog. You can see more photos there.

Here are more photos of my quilt:

Quilting angle:

Border quilting. Even the ric rac is Riley Blake!

I got the small floral for the backing from Lorrie and Paige and filled it in w/scraps from the front.

Lorrie let me photograph it on her lovely Robin's Egg blue wall in her studio. I love it on that wall. I have a Tiffany Blue bathroom that it would also look great in, but it's way too large for that room.
That's all I have time for right now, I'm off to the dentist this morning! Too much fun, I know.
Thank you for everyone for your support and votes, it's greatly appreciated!
Happy Quilting,
Vicki

Tools, tips and tricks - Working with Minky

2011-08-09T17:34:00.022-05:00

I use Minky (or Minkee, depending on the manufacturer) quite often in my quilt projects and get a lot of questions about how difficult it is to sew with.

I've found that I really like having Minky on the back of the quilt because it glides so nicely across your machine bed when quilting on your home machine. The only catch is that you must be sure that it's totally wrinkle free when making your quilt sandwich and you need to make sure you pin the layers together with less space between the pins than normal. This is not a problem for me, since I pin the bejeezes out of all of my quilt sandwiches. The quilt is rather heavey though, between the Minky and the plethora of pins.

When cutting Minky, I find it to be more accurate if you put it plush side together. Fair warning, have the vacuum ready, it gets fuzz everywhere!

I use a 1/2" seam and walking foot for Minky to Minky sewing. I can usually get away with a 1/4" seam and using my 1/4" foot for Minky / cotton piecing. I usually use less presser foot tension than I would normally for cotton/cotton sewing.

Piecing with Minky is a totally different animal. Due to it's stretchiness and loft, it tends to move and shift a lot. When piecing, Minky to Minky or Minky to cotton or flannel, I've found the following tips have helped me to keep things the correct size, shape and keep shifting to a minimum.

1) Fold your Minky piece in half and mark the center with a pin. Do the same with the other fabric you are sewing the Minky to.

2) Match the two center pins from each fabric and pin together at midpoint. Then pin the ends the pieces together on the right and left corners.

3) Fill in between the center pin and corner pins, spacing pins an inch or less apart. I find it best to put the points toward the edge to be sewn for this project.

4) If using a 1/2" seam and walking foot, mark your 1/2" line on the machine with something that has a raised edge. (see photo below)

I use a self-stick, removable sewing edge tool, but it's lost it's stickiness due to Minky fuzz, so I tape it down. A post-it note pad would work as well. I've also used multiple layers of Duct Tape in a pinch. It really helps to have a nice ridge to line the pieces up on to keep it all moving together evenly. When using Minky / cotton, my 1/4" foot has that ridge attached to it already.

That's really it to making Minky easier to work with. I hope you give it a whirl if you haven't already. It's so soft and fuzzy and makes a great baby quilt, or for that matter, any age quilt! Everyone who's petted the Minky requests it for their quilt.

August!

2011-08-06T13:25:00.000-05:00

How did that happen? Why is it that time goes by so much faster the older you get?
In July I turned 40, had my 10 year wedding anniversary and celebrated my darling nephew's 2nd birthday.
I gardened and watered all of my plants a lot. Other than a few measly days in July, it was disgustingly hot. As I've mentioned, 82 to is my limit, and since 85 was considered 'cooling down' by the local weather guy, there was a lot of whining coming from me the entire month. Ok, it was more than whining, it was really bitching, to be honest. And as bad as we've had it in Chicagoland, I am thankful everyday that I don't live in Texas. One of my coworkers who is based down there said the other day it was 110. Yuck, with a ginormous capital Y! And the poor things have had over a month of that kind of weather.

At the beginning of July I started what I thought would be a quick quilt. I figured it would take a week at most. Riiiiiggghhhttt. I'm starting to think PittiPat is right. She always says that she thinks we all have delusions of grandeur because we bring 10 projects to work on to our weekend quilting retreats. I tell her it's really because we are optimistic, glass half full kind of girls.

I've been eyeing the daisy quilt on the cover of Quilting for Joy since I bought the Barbara Brandeburg / Teri Christopherson book over 2 years ago and thought it would be fun for the Riley Blake contest. I've also wanted to do a turquoise and red quilt for some time, so I went with that combo.

The pattern called for 12" blocks but I only had quarter yard cuts, so I had to resize it down to 8" blocks, which meant that instead of 16 blocks, I had 36.

Each of the 36 blocks has 5 appliqued daisy pieces and 5 centers for said daisies. It took me 14 hours just to cut out the daisy pieces and another 12 to applique them down. Luckily I have a Sizzix circle die that worked perfectly for cutting the center circles or you could have added a few more hours devoted to cutting circles out.

When I put the blocks on my design wall, I realized that my lay out would not work w/the different block background and alternating centers. Since I'm symmetry girl, I really struggled with the layout. The lesson there is to slap the blocks on the wall pre applique to decide what you need! Who knows if I'll remember that next time.

Like any quilter with an issue, I took it to my quilting friend Michelle's house, where, after laying in the pool and drinking margaritas, we decided it didn't have to be square and taking off a row would make it work. I think the margaritas really helped the decision making process.

Phew. I finished the top Thursday night, and hope to have the quilting finished this weekend since it's due by the 17th. Wish me luck!

Busy Bee

2011-07-01T12:29:00.001-05:00

I've been AWOL lately because we've finally had good enough weather to get the garden in. It was either torrential rain or disgustingly hot weather over my 82 degree limit which makes me stay in the basement and sew my little heart out.
Here's some of what I've been up to:
I made a batch of strawberry rhubarb and a batch of strawberry w/strawberry coriander tea. They have less sugar, so they are a wee bit tart, but still tasty. The recipe called for 2.5 cups for 8 cups of strawberries. I think I'll up it to 3 next time. I don't like it overly sweet.

I finished the top and back of the More Serengeti quilt. Now I just need to suck it up this weekend and layer and pin it. It's 88x88, so I don't relish the pinning. It was so large, I couldn't get a place to photograph the entire top at one time.

I'm doing a really simple quilt with this fab Chicago fabric. I was going to make a bag or two with it, but I had a request for a throw, so that's what it's going to be now. I added the red ric rac a last minute though. I really like it though. It pops. This is another project I hope to finish this weekend. (chuckling to myself right now at my ambition)

I repotted all of my indoor plants. I did these 3, plus split whatever this crazy growing plant is into 2 additional pots. I also got a new indoor basil plant from Trader Joes and replaced my dead one. It's completely beyond awesome to have an indoor basil plant at your culinary beck and call in the winter.

I also replaced my rosemary because my 6 year old one had two trunks on it and one died off, leaving it all lopsided, so I decided it was time for a new one. It lives outside in the summer. I used to plant it in the herb garden and dig it up every fall, but last year never got around to replanting it. It seemed to like the pot outside just fine, so I decided to see happens with this little guy.

My blackberry thicket is thriving. I'm so excited. I see batches of blackberry/Darjeeling tea jam in my future. And pies.

The red raspberry I planted last year is also looking good. Now if my year old blueberries produce, I'm going to have various mixed berry items to make come end of summer.

This is a gratuitous Fairy Rose shot. I just think it's really pretty.

I also finally got my vegetable garden in. I downsized it a tad, only two beds this year instead of three. And only five tomato plants, down from my usual 8-10.

I have plenty of squash planted. 8 Ball Zucchini, Yellow Crook Neck and my all time favorite, Patti Pan (or Flying Saucer) squash. I planted seeds of that, so I'm not sure what color I'm going to get. The packet contained yellow, white and green.
The trellises have English and Pickle cucumbers. I always struggle with cukes, so we'll see how they grow this year. I'm determined to make totally garlicky pickles one day. If anyone has a good recipe for them, let me know. I want the super garlic kind like you get in a good Jewish deli.

I know it's silly, but I totally love my little moss garden. I had to replace some Irish moss this year, it died off for some reason. Irish moss is the darker green, Scottish moss is the bright green.

I finally tacked down the binding and washed my Fruitcake quilt from last December. I absolutely love how it gets all wrinkly and quilty when you wash it. It really made the ornaments and sprigs pop out too. And funnily enough, the metallic thread is more noticeable since washing it.

I tried to show how the motifs popped out, but I don't know if it translated in the photo.

And my MacTavishing and lines really look cool now too. I love how this quilt goes with the chair I bought from my friend Kelly. I think I need to make one out of the Fruitcake with little bitty squares, so you can't tell it's a Christmas fabric, and keep it on the chair the rest of the year.

And my little bicycle embroidery is also coming along nicely. I'm so proud, These are my first Lazy Daisies! They are totally fun.

Here's my wee little bee. I'm debating on filling in the black body parts and the white wings with sparkly embroidery floss. What do you think? Fill him in more, or leave it as is?

Here's a reminder of the whole panel. I just love that bike!

And this week I found this panel, also by Pearl Louise Krush for Troy. It's called 'Bliss on Blossom Street' I'm not sure if it's new or not, but I think it will be adorable hanging with the bicycle. Apparently there's more embroidery in my future.

Love the flowers around the windows!

And that bistro set and flower cart! Too freaking cute! I want to live in this building!

And last but certainly not least, we have a foster dog, Koda. He's a sweetheart when he's one on one, but he doesn't care for other dogs which is a problem, since we have other dogs. Unfortunately he really, really doesn't like my old Abbey girl, so he's going to have to go back to the shelter and sit in his pen until he's adopted. He's been at the shelter for a really long time.
So if anyone out there in the Chicagoland area knows of an all adult, no other pet home who would like a Husky Malamute mix, please let me know!

Have a happy and safe 4th of July everyone!

Vicki

Two Bags and a Book

2011-06-20T17:52:00.002-05:00

It was a productive week here at the Bugglet Quilts sewing cave. I managed to crank out 2 bags and a book for my sister to take with her on vacation to France. Remember this combo?

I made it into a modified Smarty Girl bag by Heather Bailey for my sister. I made it the same way I made DiscoJen's bag since she loves it so much and said it was fantastic for her worldly travels as well as every day use.

I made a flange instead of the 3 ruffles because I didn't think the material lent itself to ruffles and because my sister isn't a ruffley kind of girl. I made the handle long enough to wear it across you, which is better for safety and keeps your hands free to attempt to keep your two year old child under control.

There are pockets on the front and back for tickets, passports and other items that need to be kept safe, yet readily accessible. Too bad I didn't watch the pattern better when I cut the pocket out, I should have lined it up. It looks like you are seeing double on the back now!

I also installed a magnetic snap closure on this bag, just as a precaution.

This is hard to photograph, and my editing software seems to have disappeared during my last 'upgrade', but this is the quilted divider that I made inside so she can put her e-reader in there and have it protected from harm.

The other side of the divider is lined with pockets and features a key clip. I figured it would be good for hotel and rental apt keys while traveling. Or for your own keys so that you don't lose them in the bowels of the purse, the way we all do. I wasn't sure about the way the divider snaps itself against the back wall of the purse, but DiscoJen assures me that it's better that way because when she's not carrying her e-reader, it's out of the way and she can use the whole inside as her purse.

I also interfaced this one more than DiscoJen's, so it's less slouchy. I may have used different interfacing in DiscoJen's too. I'll have to check out her bag again and see if I can tell what I did differently. I should have taken better notes if I was going to alter a pattern so much. Ah well, lesson learned.

The book I made is from the Alfabeto Italiano Collezione by Micheal Miller Fabrics. My sister is fluent in Italian, so I thought I should make it for her little guy so she can teach him Italian. I thought it would be good to travel with as well since it's soft and can be squished into a small bag. He's almost two years old now and we spent some time during our Father's Day dinner trying to get him to say 'Bonjour!' He just laughed at us.

I put some batting in between, and sewed around the outside colored border and a quarter inch in from that to help hold the batting in place. Then I used a star/circley stitch on my sewing machine for the hole to put the ring through.

I only screwed up one, which was the very last one of course! I put the hole on the upper right side instead of the upper left, so now there's a superfluous hole in the 'Z'.

I made yet another 'Sweet Simple' bag by Late Bloomer. I really love this pattern. I can get them done quickly and it really showcases the fabric. This one is a chocolate bag for my sister's French friend, Natalie. She loves chocolate, and is really neutral in her clothing taste, so I was thrilled to find this 'Confections' chocolates fabric by Robert Kaufman.

I like the Moda dots for the gathered part, I think it looks like cream filling with chocolate on top!

Of course I lined it with pockets too. You can't have too many pockets. Ever.

That's all the projects from last week!

Happy Quilting,

Vicki

It's a bird, it's a plane!

2011-06-13T17:30:00.001-05:00

No, it's.....SUPERTOTE!!!

My lovely assistant, Kate, is modelling her fabulous new Supertote. I made this for the mother of a friend who happens to live in the town where they are filming the new Superman movie. She works on the main street where they will be doing much of the filming, so I thought she needed a Supertote to show her Supersupport. I made the little yellow band to mimic Superman's yellow belt.
The inside has pockets, made from the Superman comic book material, all the way around and a key fog to boot.

I fussy cut out an 'S' from the comic book material for the button.

To add to the fun and excitement of having a movie filmed in your small town, Kevin Costner is apparently playing Superman's dad!

My other finished project this week was an all Minky graduation quilt. The young lady in question Loves, with a capitol L, bright colors and all things Minky. I saw this kit and knew it was perfect for her to take to college. She's going to attend the University of Michigan, where it can get rather chilly, so I used Thinsulate batting in between the Minky layers. It was a little bit difficult to quilt due to the puffiness of the regular Minky quilt top, the Thinsulate batting and the super fluffy Curly Minky on the back. I quilted it with overlapping wavy strands, kind of like a DNA model.

I tried to bind it in Minky, but it did not go well at all. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how badly the binding was going until I was 3/4 of the way done! For the first time in my quilting life, I had to cut the binding off! It was horrifying, I have to tell you. I wasted a whole yard of Minky in the binding fiasco. Luckily I had the perfect cotton fabric in my stash. The black with hot pink polka dots worked out wonderfully.

It makes you want to pet the quilt, doesn't it? The graduate was so thrilled. Several of her friends also gushed over it. It's pretty gratifying to have some 17 year old approve of what you do, since they are so often not approving of adults' taste.

I asked the graduate if she knew it would be a quilt, and she said "No, but I knew it would be something you made so it would be awesome!" That made it all worthwhile.
May all of your handmade goods be just as appreciated,
Vicki

That Old Black Magic

2011-06-07T18:00:00.004-05:00

I finally got a chance Saturday to start planting flowers and such. It's been such a bizarro spring here in Chicagoland that we haven't had much time to plant yet. It was literally heat one day, air conditioning the next. Repeat for a month. I really just want the windows open! And since my uppermost temperature limit is 82, there has been much whining and bi%$#ing from me. I'm loving my sewing cave in the ice cold basement this week.
I was at the nursery and saw a preplanted planter I liked, so I was going to replicate it. They were out of most of the plants though, so while looking around, I found this beauty:

I was smitten! I usually go with hot pink geraniums since you can't hardly kill them, and it's a western exposure, which requires a stronger color. Once I saw the magenta/black mini petunias, I went with an all new and exciting color scheme.

I found black regular sized petunias, dark magenta, black small leafed potato vine, the tall lighter purple and to add a little sparkle, the white Crystal Frost. I'm just so pleased with how they turned out! I'm calling it 'Black Magic'. Everything's better with a name. I learned that from Michelle.

I love that Crystal Frost plant. It really looks good all summer.

And this is the one in front of Grandma's buggy seat. I need to oil the wood and do something to help the iron, it's looking pretty weathered and my dad already rebuilt it once many years back.

I'd love to put some of those Pottery Barn mercury globes or string lights in them for nighttime drama, but they're a wee bit pricey.

My friend TJ told me she saw black and white striped petunias. I think a black and white planter would totally rock. Next year, I'm going to try to find them and do a Black Tie planter.

I also tackled a dinky triangle patch of dirt between my driveway and front walkway which I filled with Snapdragons and Dianthus in various pinks. I love the smell of the white Alyssum, so I edged the bed with it.

I dug in at the tip of the triangle and it ERUPTED in ants. It was beyond disgusting!!! I felt like they were crawling all over me the rest of the day. Ick. I ran inside and got the cornmeal. My sister did some research a while back and found out that plain old cornmeal is toxic to ants. They bring it back to the nest, and it kills them all off. We've been using it for over a year now and I have to say, it really works. It's good to have non-toxic options when you have a Husky and a Golden who both lick everything.
I almost forgot in my remembrance of the icky ants, I also got a little snail friend for the garden! Isn't he cute? And the best part? Someone put a bird on it!!! (Seriously, if you haven't seen the 'put a bird on it' you really, really should. It's freaking hysterical.)

I think I need to name him. Suggestions? Hermy maybe?

I took these pictures this morning at 6:00am. I like how the magenta's glow in the early morning light. The temp today is in the 90's with a heat index over 100, so I really hope they can handle it.

Happy Gardening!

Vicki

Vintage fabulousness!

2011-05-20T18:32:00.000-05:00

I went to the Winnetka rummage sale last Thursday. For those who don't know the area, Winnetka is on the 'North Shore', which is comprised of wealthy towns containing amazing houses. Not McMansions, but older, gorgeous houses with a ton of character, are all different and all really, really pricey. I left my house at 4:45am, met up with my boss and headed to the sale. We separated at the door and hit the various 'rooms'. This is the most organized rummage sale I've ever seen, and the nice part is that all the money goes to charity. I hit the linen room first and got a couple of retro table cloths, some fun vintage sheets and Pottery Barn valances for my bathroom.

Next was the pictures room, where I picked up some amazing vintage frames, which will be painted shabby chic-like for the vintage slate chalk board material that I got a few months ago.

The slate is from an old school and the doors were a score that Ashley found for me. I've been wanting to make an old door headboard for my purple and green spare room for a while now. I'm thinking one will be a daybed and one will be the headboard.

Then onto the vintage room (I stumbled across it, I had no idea this room existed) where I found the find of the day, possibly year.
Check out this quilt!!!!

It's an all velvet log cabin, in a modified barn raising pattern. The velvet is hand pieced to a cheesecloth like muslin. But the piping and backing were machine sewn. Look at that spring green! I'm in love.
The front is pristine.
The back, not so much. The backing is silk and greatly deteriorated.

It also came with a matching pillow, which was obviously used more than the quilt as it's a quite dirty.

The woman in the vintage room was willing to come down on the price for it, so I offered and she accepted. It was such a great deal that the woman who checked me out was ticked off. Since I know nothing about velvet quilts, I'm going to have it appraised and find out how to handle it appropriately. I think it's going to end up being framed somehow.

After the vintage room, I had a few bucks left, so it was on to the garden room, where I got the cute little bunny.

He was too cute to pass up for 2 dollars.

I found the retro sprinkles bottle w/the old glitter in the Vintage room. I thought it was fun that it was from Skokie, near where I grew up. I passed on the naked Peter Pan doll though. He still had his hat at least, since it was molded to his head. He looked a little evil, if you ask me.

And if you can believe it, I then went to the sewing room and stocked up on some great wool tartans, one of which actually had the tag from the mill in Scotland. I had to pass on the 5 yards of navy wool though, which about killed me, but I didn't have enough money on me.

Since I still had a few dollars left, I went into the Hall of Woman's Clothes. I wish I had a photo. It was a massive hall, with tables, end to end, piled taller than me with clothes. I hit the skirts table and scored several Pendelton and 'made in England' 100% wool skirts! And they were $2 each. I about squealed with joy.
And after all of that, we were back home by 10:30a.m.!

Since I was in Arlington Heights, I went to Quilter's Destination, where I was just going to have a look around. Riiiiggghhhht.

They had the Riverwoods Pedal Pusher Panel, designed by Pearl Louise Krush as well as the matching button and bead embellishment packet. It's so sweet and summery that I just couldn't pass it up.

I'm planning to cut off the bird house part, embroider the bike outline, bead the flowers and border it for a little wall hanging for my cube at work.

I had about an hour to kill before lunch with DiscoJen and her son, so I also stopped at Touch of Amish, where I happily ran into my quilting friend Linda! It was a lovely surprise. They had some killer retro Halloween fabric they were kitting up, the Spellbound line by Renee Nanneman. The bats in the fabric were fab. And this border print would be great to just quilt up individually as a table runner. I'm a sucker for Halloween fabric.

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one day, after lunch I weeded a bit and by 2:00pm I was so exhausted that I took a nap.

How to know you are a quilter

2011-05-18T18:08:00.000-05:00

My cousin Ashley is a quilter but just doesn't know how to quilt yet. How can I tell? She's started collecting fabric and brings it out just to gaze upon it's wonderment. I've found that the true quilter is the person who is planning their 2nd and 3rd quilts while they are still cutting out their first ever quilt. Ashley has a very good eye for fabric, and we make a great fabric coordination team. We were at Material Girl in downtown Crystal Lake last Saturday night for a little get together and she found this wonderful Alexander Henry print hiding on a bottom shelf:

I found a great Essentials magenta by P&B to go with it:

Then I was looking at it that evening at home and decided it needed another coordinate, and I found an Amy Butler stripe from the Belle line. I could not believe how perfect it was!

This is also a really good lesson about thinking outside the line. The fabric line that is. I love the coordinated fabric lines put out by the designers and manufactureres as much as the next quilter, but looking elsewhere for coordinates can bring really your fabric combo to a whole new level and make your combo pop.

What will this become? I'm so glad you asked! It will become a Heather Bailey Smarty Girl bag, sans the ruffle, but with all the extras, like I made for DiscoJen for her birthday this year!

This will also be a birthday present, but I'm not saying for who, in case said person is reading this.

Craziness

2011-05-14T12:12:00.001-05:00

I've been crazy busy and slacking off all at the same time the last couple of weeks.

Ashley, Chris and I had a wonderful time w/our Royal Wedding watching breakfast. We all decided the chocolate croissants were fantastic, but messy.

I totally loved my pink feathery tiara. Ashley's was a Hello Kitty tiara, which was waaaayyy better than that awful hat HRH Beatrice wore. What was that about? Isn't Ashley all cute and perky for 4am? Poor Chris, I got him pre-coffee, and with the flash no less. He's such a good sport. I think it comes from having a ridiculous amount of sisters.

Chris provided much entertainment by filling in what we couldn't hear when the t.v. people were whispering to one another. Ashley is apparently a fount of Royal gossip too! The wedding was so different on so many levels than Diana and Charles. I loved the Diana-esk sideways glances William kept giving Kate. It was clear they love each other and understand each other.

Ashley and Chris brought their dog Lucie, who's a nervous-nelly, just like my Robbie. Robbie loved her! He followed her everywhere. Magic was a butt-head though. When she laid down on the dog bed in the corner, he went over to her and woofed at her to get out and she did. She refused to go back there again. Magic and I had a discussion about manners and how treat our guests. Well, I discussed, he just looked at me until I stopped talking, then bounced off to his next escapade. Not much phases the Magic dog.

Ashley got Lucie a lovely pink sparkly collar to wear for the wedding too, but she wasn't so fond of it.

The retreat was a blast. Pitti-Pat and I took our time getting to Janesville. I had left my purse at work, so we had to drive a half hour East before heading back West/North. And then the hubby took the van key with him for some bizarre reason (as I was driving the van to Janesville). I was running around yelling "has anyone seen my van key!?!" My cousin's husband laughed and said "you and Ashley are so much alike." When I called the hubby he said "just use your van key." I said all sweet and innocent like "You mean the van key that in my purse AT WORK?" He said, "Oh. Would you like me to turn around and come back?" Me, very sweetly "Yes, please."
So by the time we got on the road, we were already 2-3 hours late in leaving. On the way we stopped at a couple of quilt stores, had a lovely lunch, got lost in the farmland of Wisconsin because the GPS told us to go the wrong way....
My friend Bobbie asked me if I finished at least 50% of what I brought with. I wish!

I did get a fair amount done though. I worked on my 'More Serengeti' quilt. It's not a hard pattern, but it is time consuming. I'm a total type A about lining up my sashing across the blocks, so that adds to the time. The pattern is based on 'Gypsy Girl' from the book 'Fat Quarter Five' by Heather Mulder Peterson. I altered it to use 2.5" strips and assemble it differently than her pattern though. I have over 54 fabrics in this quilt now. When I started putting the fabrics together for it, I couldn't find decent animal prints anywhere. Now that I'm 75% done with it, they are everywhere! It figures, doesn't it?

The problem I'm having is knowing how many blocks I need to make it the size I want. It's set on the diagonal, and my blocks are a different size than the pattern, so I'm going to have to slap it on the design wall and see how big it is to decide how many more blocks to do. I have 38-ish done now, I think I'll need at least 48, but that diagonal throws me for a loop every time. I guess I can always resort to more borders if it's too small.

I also designed and made one bag. I'm beyond thrilled with it. It's a 'planets aligned' bag. It was meant to be. I had the all of the perfect coordinates for the Cath Kidston London fabric in my stash, which was a good thing because the laminate fabric is no where to be found. Not on the internet, not at any stores I called, emailed, visited, not any where! One store even contacted Moda for me, but they aren't making it anymore.
I have just enough of the laminate and London canvas to make 8 of these lovely bags:

I bought the little carriage charm from Cath Kidston when I ordered my umbrella. Isn't is sweet? I have it hanging from the key fob I put in the interior of the bag. I made the button from another London print I happened to have that's from Kokka.

It's the perfect take along size. I've been taking it to work as my work bag. It makes me happy when I see it hanging in my cube. And look at my matching umbrella with it. It's just too much, isn't it? I freaking love it!

I lined one side with pockets, because you can never have too many pockets! I found that perfect lining fabric at Loose Threads in Milton, WI.

The weekend is a blur, so here's what else I remember after 3 consecutive nights of 4 hours or less of sleep.

Michele made this amazing quilt top:

I wish I had a picture of it w/the black setting squares. You can see it over on her blog. Along with photos of everyone else's projects that I failed to photograph.

PittiPat worked on things that I don't remember, then made a curtain by cutting down larger panels for her newly finished basement. You can see it in the bottom left corner of the first More Serengeti photo. Michele cracked us all up when she said "You go Scarlett!" We picked out a gorgeous batik jelly roll and coordinates at Attic Quilts in Beloit to go on the couch in her new space.

DiscoJen made about a hundred outfits each for her 2 children in the first 3 hours, a couple of placemats, and then finished a purple and green pinwheel quilt whose blocks were put together about 8 years ago.

Pat Pot worked on a happy and oh so summery, orange and pink Bill and Weeks Ringle quilt.

Debbie started not one, but 2 You Go Girl Bags! Judy did two projects, but I seem to only remember the second one, a gorgeous blue and yellow monkey wrench quilt. Carol finished a very detailed, GORGEOUS quilt using the 3 Sister's Sanctuary line (see Michele's blog for a photo) then she started a Christmas quilt. She was using a pattern from a country style book, but we all had suggestions, and ended up completely changing it. Patterns are really just suggestions anyway.

And last, but not least, let me introduce you to my new bag model, Kate! Yes, I'm calling her Kate after the new HRH, because I got her the weekend of the wedding, she's wearing white, and is ridiculously skinny!

I'm off to finish off the 6 London Calling bags that I'm in the process of creating.

Happy Quilting!

Vicki

It's all British all the time here lately.

2011-04-28T18:38:00.001-05:00

It seems to be Anglophile mania here lately. I got my fabulous Cath Kidston products last week, and tomorrow, at a ridiculously early hour of the morning, is The Royal Wedding! Yes, I'm totally one of those dorks that's completely into it.

I'm of the age when we all remember getting up obscenely early to watch Diana and Charles get married. It seems fitting to watch her son do the same.

I don't really care what Kate and William do on a daily basis, and think the press should stay out of it and let them live their lives, but boy do I love a good wedding. And a Royal Wedding is a whole stratosphere above your average wedding in fabulousness.

Yes, there are terrible things going on all over the world, as there are every day of every year, but you have to let that go and enjoy some pomp and circumstance every now and then or you'd be totally depressed all the time.

Ashley, her hubby, and their dog are coming tonight to have a sleep over so we can get up at 4am to watch it together. My hubby said to not bother waking him up for it. I told him he's a big pooper.

Ashley has secured tiaras for us to wear with our jammies, which totally rocks. I have scones, devonshire cream, lemon curd, crumpets, chocolate croissants, Prosecco w/peaches and fresh strawberries and Harney & Sons Royal Wedding Tea, which will be served in my Liberty of London teapot and matching cups. We are doing this thing up right.

Then at 9am, I will be picking up PittiPat and we will be heading off for our annual Spring quilting retreat at Evergreen in Janesville! I can't wait. I have the projects all packed. Needless to say there are waaaayyyy too many of them. I have the makings for 10 bags and 3 quilts (one of which is the Strawberry Fields quilt) packed. We all tend to bring too many projects. Do you think we have delusions of grandeur? PittiPat asks that every retreat, but I like to think that we are just optimistic.

All of those bags are projects, except the wheely one, which contains my beloved Janome 6500.

Fantastic Mail Day

2011-04-21T17:30:00.000-05:00

I opened the mailbox yesterday evening and gasped "oh my!" in wonderment at the site that greeted me. Isn't this the sweetest mailing envelope you have ever gazed upon?

And on the back it said:

As if! Could you throw this away? Well, my sister probably could, it's totally not her style, but I know when Ashley gets her order, she won't throw her mailer away either. And to think my Sew Mod group and I had a discussion a few weeks ago about how much we love it when we get fabric in the mail and it's all wrapped up in tissue paper and tied with pretty bakers twine.
This beauty was from Cath Kidston. I had wanted to order from there for a long time, but it's pricey, and it ships from England, so that's pricey as well. I finally caved last week when I got an email touting a sale on everything, except the Royal Wedding merchandise, so I broke down.
After much discussion with my friend, and fellow CK fan, Amy, I decided on these beauties:

The London umbrella, it's what started it all. I've really wanted this umbrella since my Liberty of London broke in the high winds while walking into work last fall.

The red laminate tape measure. It's now in my purse, to go with me on all my travels.

The Britannia Post Card set. Sooo pretty!

A close up of my favs. I can't decide if I want them in my sewing room, or in hanging in the guest room where my Strawberry Fields Coventry quilt is going. Check out those wee little bag pipers on Edinburgh Castle. Too freaking cute! There's nothing better than a wee bagpiper, I tell you. Well, other than a strapping, hotty bagpiper, but I digress....

And last, but certainly not least, the London cotton canvas/duck fabric. I have big plans for this, just you wait and see.

Happy Quilting and Easter!
Vicki

Material Obsession

2011-04-19T18:51:00.000-05:00

Not the fabulous blog/store/books from Australia, but the kind that makes you want to work on nothing else until you have finished something with the material that your obsession revolves around. And just what fabric is so inspiring as to make me forget all else you ask? Behold...Strawberry Fields!

I was in the middle of a no-deadline commission quilt when I got a layer cake of it in the mail the last week of March. From the moment I opened the package, I wanted to do nothing but make something with it, NOW. I freaking love strawberry fabrics. Slap a strawberry on it, and I'm all over it. The colors are just perfection! It's so ridiculously gorgeous in person that my friend Pattie, who got her layer cake before me, told me "it's so pretty that I want to lick it!" I completely agree. The non-quilting people are now horrified, but you quilters out there know exactly what we mean, don't you?

I spent an evening deciding what project was worthy, then I had to run it by my SewMod friends, to verify that my choice was indeed the worthiest project and that my chosen background fabric was perfect.
We decided on the Coventry star pattern by Brenda Riddle of the Acorn Quilt and Gift Company.

And that gorgeous grey polka dot is from my all time favorite line, Ava Rose by Tanya Whelan. I actually had to order more, 5 yards was not enough! I'm actually making the quilt larger than the pattern, to fit the full bed in my guest room. Which also means I need to paint it since it's currently lavender and green. Yes, I am redecorating an entire room because of a little layer cake.

Since I started this quilt I've wanted to work on nothing else. I totally want to take a week off of my day job just to work on it! I've been designing another quilt to make with it, but have to wait for the yardage to hit the stores before I can make that one. Big, huge bummer. I know it's just 'til May, but that's just too long when you are completely obsessed!

I had finished about 40 blocks, but then had to get busy making a couple of grocery bags for the school raffle my bff Donna is running. Of course, just because I want to be working on something else, I screwed them up and now have to make another set. I can't let Donna and the kids down!

And to add another worthy cause to my list, my quilting buddy Dori sent a note about some children left orphaned by the tsunami in Japan, where her daughter's friend is from, so I had to help out and get some quilts to the children (to be posted at a later date since it really deserves it's own post). You can read about it here. Fair warning, have the tissues ready.

And to put my obsession on the back burner even further, the hubby has been working on the basement which means that I've had to be upstairs since the tan dogs (Robbie and Daisy) are terrified of, well, everything to do with construction. Since I've waited almost 10 years for the basement/sewing room to be done, I don't want to discourage him, so my original spurt of sewing has been delayed until my retreat in two weekends. I don't know if I can last that long!

I put some of the blocks together to see how it was coming along. Yummm, it's lolly pop licking gorgeous!

Happy Quilting!

Vicki

Amy Butler Gumdrop Pillow Pattern Review

2011-03-25T13:29:00.112-05:00

Last week I made 2 Gumdrop Pillows from Amy Butler's pattern and had a sew in with my Sew Mod group to teach them how to make the pillows as well. I guess I really made 4 Gumdrops since I made 2 inner pillows and 2 covers.

I have to say, they were totally easy and the directions were great. I like the fact that she has really well drawn diagrams as I'm a picture directions person rather than a word person.That being said, you should always read directions too! If you follow the directions and make them as is, you can easily get it done in an evening. I think stuffing the mass amounts of fiberfill into the shell took me the longest amount of time.

This would be a great pattern to make with a younger sewer for her room. It's almost instant gratification sewing/decorating.

I don't like cutting apart my patterns since I tend to lose the pieces, so I trace mine onto freezer paper and cut it out from there. I also cut my freezer paper templates to full size, so where it says to place the edge on the fold of the fabric, I fold my freezer paper and line the fold up on the pattern and cut it out.

One good reason to do it this way is that you can iron your template to the fabric so that there is no shifting, you can line your ruler on the edges easily and rotary cut out multiple layers at one time, so there is much less time spent cutting. It also makes it easier to fussy cut elements out, as I did on my Cosmo Cricket Snorkel Gumdrop (which the hubby called a beach ball).

I, of course, can't just let things be, and decided that I would make an inner Gumdrop and a washable outer cover as I was intending my trial run pillow for my 19 mo old nephew. I had seen this idea on a blog somewhere, but have no clue where at this point. Having never installed a zipper before, I did some research and found this fabulous tutorial by Kay Whitt of Sew Serendipity. It worked pretty spectacularly, except I installed it w/the zipper pull at the top of the pillow instead of the bottom. That being said, the pillow is sooo large, and the zipper opening soooo small, that it was a you-know-what to get that pillow in the cover! I ripped a couple of holes in the seams that I had to stitch back up.

Enter *brilliant* idea number two! Install 2 invisible zippers to make the cover open up in half. I totally screwed this up. First, I installed one of them w/the panels on the wrong side, so the pattern was all screwed up and I had to rip it out. I ripped the fabric while doing this and had to recut a panel. Then I sewed the seams together at the top and bottom, which means that it wouldn't open all the way up!!

At this point I gave up, had a glass of wine and watched Rick Steve's Europe Through the Back Door on PBS. The next night, everything went much smoother and it worked!!! It's not as pretty as I would have liked, but it's not bad. The seams where the zippers are are a little puckery, but they iron down fairly well. And it's significantly easier to remove the cover and put it back on than with the one zipper.

Lorrie found a make your own invisible zipper where you can make it as long as you like instead of being restricted to 20-22" invisible zippers that you can only get at JoAnne's. If I make a third pillow, I'm going to try that option and start it at the upper middle part and continue it to the opposite side upper middle part.

I think I may be a glutten for punishment.

Here are my final projects. I fussy cut out the largest blossom from the Optical Blossom Midwest Modern fabric for the top of my grey and citron Gumdrop.

The muslin covered inner pillows:

Pillow cover action shots:

Why is Kelly all smiles with her Gumdrop? Because she followed the directions as they are written and had hers done in an afternoon! I just notice how well Kelly and her pillow match my kitchen. Sweet.

The left Gumdrop is Lorrie's Kate Spain Central Park and the right is Paige's Amy Butler Midwest Modern 2 and Daisy Chain pillow.

A Gumdrop on a Tuffet!

Overall, I say this pattern is an A+ if you actually follow it as written.

I tried to link to Lorrie and Paige's Sew Mod blog for more photos and whatnot, but Blogger is being testy and refuses to let me link, so if you would like to see more photos from our Gumdrop Party, please click on the Sew Mod link located in the 'Fun Places' section in the right margin.

Happy Sewing!

Vicki

Previously finished projects

2011-03-18T17:22:00.001-05:00

I forgot to share a monumental accomplishment! I finished the first block of the Baltimore Halloween applique quilt that I started almost 2.5 years ago! All that needs to be done is embroidered legs on the spider and feet on the owl. Ta da!!!

In the time that it took me to finish one block, an amazing hand appliquer friend of mine from my quilt guild finished and hand quilted the Ladies of the Sea quilt and has also finished the applique portion and is currently quilting the Baltimore Halloween too. She told me that I started with the hardest project, especially since it's my first ever hand applique. She also gave me some great pointers about using Ultra Suede to do the bitty parts like the beak and eyes and such.

Ladies of the Sea:

The Pirate Ship block:

Baltimore Halloween:

She pointed out how much bigger the pieces are in the Ladies of the Sea. They were indeed larger than the pieces in the Halloween quilt, but I think she was just being nice. I mean, those floral borders alone are insane! (Those aren't her quilts, just pictures of the pattern quilts).
I also finished my Limeade quilt made with silk dupioni. I hung it with 3M's picture hanging velcro strips, which totally rock. It's in a little nook/hallway going from my family room and bathroom. It's a weird angle with not much light which makes it hard to get a decent photo. The fabric glows and really brightens up that nook.

I don't know if you can see it or not, but if you look closely to the left side you can see that I used left overs from the blocks to make a scrappy binding. I had put aside one of the silks to use as a single fabric binding, but just couldn't use it all up on one quilt, so I saved it to use in the second quilt I'm going to make with what's left from the fat quarters I bought. I see something wavy in the remaining silk's future.

Here's a close up. I used a gorgeous turquoise metallic thread. The block in the upper right corner is really a peacock colored teal and a red/blue colored silk. The contrast is much greater in person.

Absolutely nothing exciting

2011-03-14T17:22:00.003-05:00

Why no posting? Because the only thing I've been doing the last 2 and a half weeks is cleaning out my basement! I know you are all jealous that you can't be cleaning out the basement too. I've made countless trips up and down the stairs and to Good Will. It's rather cathartic to get rid of all that crap. And it makes more room for fabric storage! Yeah! The hubby pointed out that most of what we were getting rid of is stuff that my parents kept bringing over to us whenever they visit.

That was part of the plan though. Dad says he's giving it to me, and I get rid of it, otherwise Mom would want to keep it.

I drew the line at the car seat from the early 1970's. I asked Dad why on earth they still had that thing and he replied "I don't know. Your mother told me to put it in the attic, so I did." I pointed out to him that that was well over 30 years ago and I'm pretty sure that it's considered a death trap now, and you'd be arrested if you tried to use it as a child car seat these days. I told Mom it was still up in the attic and she was shocked. Same goes for the 'vintage' playpen that was also up there. Ugh.

We bought flooring last weekend too. It's so exciting. It's only taken 10 years to get the basement going. I have 'sewing room' creep happening, much to the hubby's dismay. He had a cozy little sewing room in mind. I, on the other hand, have taking over the entire basement in mind. We'll compromise with me having half the basement, as I keep telling him. I explained to him that it's stifling my creativity to not have gi-hugic cutting and ironing tables and a 7ft x 7 ft design wall. And that I need my 'Studio' to be really cute. This is a non-negotiable point.

I know I'm painting it Restoration Hardware Green, but I'm torn between going Nicey Jane:

Or French General:

I could do Nicey Jane for the Spring and Summer months and French General for the Fall and Winter! Oooo, I think that's the ticket! Now I have to take a class on how to reupholster a chair and ottoman. Add that to the 'to do' list!

I have to say, it takes an insane amount of time to refold fabric to fit Ikea bookcases and wire shelving units, but it's worth it to see it all lined up and organized. I put my French General, Christmas and Halloween fabrics into their own Ikea Billy bookcases w/doors.

The cd towers are perfect for holding precuts such as Charm Squares, Jelly Rolls, Honeybuns, and Turnovers. It's also good for smaller things like ric-rac and the like. You can see it a bit there on the left. Why so much French General? Because I have at least 5 quilts planned for it, one finished and one in process. One project is a king sized quilt that has instructions which says cut 1526 of piece A, and it gets worse from there!

My next task is to rip apart all the rest of my stash and sort it by color. This could take quite a while. It took a day to get the blacks and whites done.

I think I'll need to make a few projects in between. I can't go that long with out sewing something!

So sweet my teeth hurt!

2011-02-24T17:42:00.002-06:00

What do you do when you realize that the totally floofy-girly garbage can you bought for next to your ironing board is totally useless because it has more holes in it than Swiss cheese and all of your fabric bits and thread fall out of it's sides?

Why, you spend two and a half evenings selecting the perfect fabric, designing and making a totally gorgeous liner for it of course!

When you put them together, you get the sweetest darn-tooten waste bin evah!

I was going to use Nicey Jane, but then I happened across my fairly substantial stash of Ava Rose and decided that was definitely the way to go.

I think it's perfect, don't you?

I used an Ava Rose polka dot on the bottom. I know you won't ever see it, but I'm nutty that way.

I waffled between the white and turquoise of this flower print for the inside, but since I had a lot more of the white, I went with it. I used a darling turquoise polka dot on the bottom of the inside.
One of my friends suggested that it would be cute in a baby or little girl's room for storage.

Another angle.

I know it seems silly to do this for a garbage can, but it's for use by my ironing board, so it will only have fabric, thread and paper in it, no nasty icky stuff.

I am quite proud of myself for figuring out how to make a liner that's round and tapered. It's quite a feat for the math challenged (aka:me).

And now for a gratuitous cute dog photo:

Don't your teeth hurt from all that sweetness?

Eating my curds and whey...

2011-02-21T16:35:00.006-06:00

Lorrie, from my SewMod group, came up w/the idea of making a tuffet at one of our sew-ins. Her neighbor was kind enough to cut the base and sink the grommets for the feet for us. Lorrie acquired and cut the foam and the ginormous buttons, so all we had to do was pick out feet, fabric and sew our little hearts out!

My cousin Ashley and I spent the evening 2 Fridays ago rummaging through my stash and were able to come up with these:

They are mostly Amy Butler, but there's a couple of Denyse Schmidt and Robert Kaufman thrown in. I love these so much, and have a ton of strips left over, that I'm going to have to make a quilt out of them as well.

There was a lot of prep involved to make the tuffets. I spent all day Saturday foundation piecing my strips into 8 sections. I tend work slower when I do scrappy projects, agonizing over each fabric placement. I think it's harder than a planned out quilt. I would not have known how to make the foundation peiced sections w/o having previous paper piecing experience either. The directions were not very clear on that part. I eventually got a system in place, and that helped speed things up.

Shelley made her entire tuffet at the sew-in. I was very much impressed. And for some strange reason, everyone of us felt the urge to wear our tuffets on our heads. We were all reminded of that cartoon character on Fat Albert.

Some action shots:

Lorrie, Shelley and Andrea arranging the tuffet cover.

You have to get it on just so, or it will be off center.

Andrea and ~~Lorrie~~ Pattie putting the feet on. (sorry Pattie!)

Yeah! Andrea clapping at our success.

There are no photos of us putting the buttons on, since it took all 4 of us to push the button in, brace the back of the tuffet against the pushing, tie the button and staple the beejeezes out of the thread to the back to keep the button in place. I pulled a muscle in my buttocks doing it. The lengths we go through for a good project! Pattie had left after we made her help w/the first one, smart woman!

I had to strip piece the fabric for my giant button, because I didn't bring any yardage with me to the sew-in.
Mine is about 17" in diameter and 9" tall. You can alter the height w/different feet. (I added this because I've had a couple of people think they might be pincusions).

I L.O.V.E. it! It's true, I do love it. And yes, Sue, I would marry it! Wouldn't you?

The tower of tuffets:

Top - Andrea used Kate Spain Fandango

Middle- my Amy Butler and friends

Bottom - Lorrie used Amy Butler Soul Blossoms

And all finished (except for Pattie's, because she had to leave early, but which I'm dying to see because she is using Sanae's Arcadia, which is totally gorgeous.)

Shelley's is on the top, she used a wide selection of Kaffe Fasset, of course. (Shelley's a Kaffe-o-phile).

I'm already thinking up what I should make my next one out of! They were all totally fabulous.

But I can't start another one yet, because I have a waste bin liner to work on tonight. That's a different post all together.

Our next group project to tackle will be the Amy Butler Gumdrop Pillow poof. Now I just need to find where I put that pattern!

Lorrie has more in process photos over at the SewMod blog and the SewMod Flickr site.

New medium

2011-01-31T16:53:00.003-06:00

I have been quilting with silk dupioni this week, and have been pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to work with. You need to use a fusible interfacing on it to prevent massive unraveling. I used an ultra thin Pellon fusible and ironed it to the entire fat quarter. I started out using a pressing cloth on the silk, but it ends up with this kind of silk, you don't really need it, the silk can be ironed directly. I did used a pressing cloth on the interfacing though, because I've melted through interfacing in the past.

I used a basic pattern so the material is able to shine through. It's basically two matching 4-patches, and then to sets of bricks for the sides. It's fun how the outer portion of the two 4-patches disappear once you add the rails to the sides. Since I wanted my blocks to be 6" finished, I used 2" unfinished strips to make the patches.

I'm using two colors of metallic thread to quilt it, turquoise and green. I was going to quilt it in swirls, but I finished about three swirls Friday night and decided I didn't like it, so I ripped them out. Rockin' Friday night, huh?

I eventually decided on alternating wavy lines. I'm rather pleased with them. They take longer, but what's a quilt without quilting, right?

I love most of the blocks, but this one is my favorite. It reminds me of a peacock. Is it wrong to love one quilt block more than the others?

Sew Mod row quilt challenge

2011-01-29T12:52:00.000-06:00

I have a wonderful small group that I belong to called SewMod. There's 7 of us, and we have a great time together. We are all inspired by, learn from, and share ideas with one another. We meet once a month and have sew-ins when we can all get together.

Paige had a great idea to do a group challenge sometime early last year. I think it was summer or maybe spring, and we had a deadline of February 3rd. Plenty of time, right? I'm a procrastinater, but I'm also generally swamped, so I put it off and didn't start until the beginning of this month. I have them all done though!

The challenge is to make a row, using an assigned block (different block for each person) and the fat quarter that the person you are doing the row for provided. By using the fabric that the person provided, there's a better chance that the rows will coordinate better. So I had 7 rows to do for others, plus one for me. I'm waiting to do my row until I get the others, so I can use my row to fill whatever design need I may have.

I had the week off of work last week, of which I thought I would spend 2 days on the rows, and the rest cleaning out my basement and sewing room. No such luck! I literally spent the whole weekend and week on my rows. I made all of them really scrappy, so just picking out the fabrics for each row took forever. This excercise solidifies my resolve to redo my stash and organize it by color.

I did Lorrie's row first, since I knew what I wanted to do. She gave us each a different Halloween fat quarter. I got the bats! I was so excited, since I love bats. The block I was to use for Lorrie was a pinwheel. I got out my Baltimore Halloween patterns and selected items that I thought would make pinwheel shapes well.

Shelley gave us all The Kaffe Fasset fabric on the outer border. (It's no secret that Shelley is a Kaffe fanatic). I had to make a row using flowers, so I chose the 'My Whimsical Garden' patterns by Piece O'Cake. I know that she likes their work as well. It's hard to see, but there's also a bitty little flange as an inner border, becuase you know, I love a flange!

I had to make flying geese for Paige, so I found a paper piece pattern online and used the freezer paper technique to make them. I'm really thrilled with this pattern, and see more of these in my future. Even though it looks complicated, it went really quickly and easily.

Paige gave us each a different fabric, I got that red w/white dot in the bottome of the goose circle. And look, could it be? Yes, it's another flange! I like how the black sets the row off.

Jennie was part of our group, but moved away before doing the challenge, so we all decided to make the rows as planned, then we will put it together as a group and raffle it off in the late summer / early fall and give the money from it to charity. So stay tuned for the details on how to win it later this year!

The fabric in the center of the blocks was the one provided and I had log cabins assigned for this row.

Kelly's was the biggest challenge for me since I had never made Dresden Plate's before. Lorrie loaned me her Dresden template, which made it amazingly easy! I have to say, I've always loved Dresdens, so I see more of these in my future as well.

Kelly gave us all the black and white swirl on the left and rightmost blocks shown here. I'm not sure I'm totally thrilled with the satin stitching on the inner curves, but I didn't know how else to finish them off.

I had the wild card block for Andrea, and since she didn't have the log cabin assigned to her, I decided to go with that. I tried to do a 'wonky' log cabin, but kept straightening them up unintentionally!

Andrea provided the fabrin in the middle.

Pattie provided the two Amy Butler fabrics in the middle of these stars. Can I tell you how much I love this row?

When the hubby saw it, he told me that I should make a different row for Pattie, and keep this one to make a table runner for us. Since I have a deadline on the row, I decided against that plan. However, I will be making myself a table runner for myself. I like the way the Kate Spain Fandango coordinates with the Amy Butler fabrics. And the grey just sets them off. Love it! I actually had to do a tester block for the star though, it was a pretty complicated set up.

To see the rows that everyone else in the group made, as well as the ones for me made from the Riley Blake fabric I chose for my quilt, check out the Sew Mod Flicker group.

Bedazzled!

2011-01-28T15:25:00.000-06:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks, so I have lots to share and catch up on.

Two weekends ago, Donna, Anna, the hubby and I spent something like 6 hours decorating 8 aprons for Anna's birthday party which was a cooking class at LeTiti de Paris on Sunday.

I have to say, couldn't believe how much fun bedazzling is. We started with iron-on names for each girl. Boy did we struggle with Jacqueline's name. It almost didn't fit. We all decided she should really go by Jackie. We were running out of letters, so we decided to whimsically mix capitals and small letters. If it wasn't quite right, we called it 'whimsical'.

We artfully placed, well Anna artfully placed, iron on butterflies, flowers and they such.

Then the fun began! Anna, Donna and the hubby arranged the rhinestones, and I heat set. Donna is the least sparkly, and not bedazzled person I know, but at one point Anna, who had rhinestones on every article of clothing, told her mother that she was overdoing the bedazzles. It was really funny.

I kind of invited myself to Anna's party. I did it under the guise of 'helping'. I thought it was only fair though, since Donna and I were the only chaperons for her son's birthday party in October at Medieval times. I figured, if I had to corral 10 seven year old boys and tear apart their chicken for them, then I should get to go to the French restaurant too.

The restaurant did a great job. The owner, Chef Susan and her daughter taught the class and wouldn't let Donna and I do anything but watch, have a glass of wine, and a fantastic gourmet lunch! Now that's a party I can enjoy!

The girls had a chocolate theme for the party. They made the Pot du Creme, the chocolate mousse cake (which was Anna's birthday cake)and the warm chocolate ambrosia, which was like a molten cake. Chef Susan made an executive decision at the last minute to make a double batch of the Ambrosia so that we could have some with our mousse cake. Smart woman, that Chef Susan!

Donna made sure that I got a picture of the ingredients table. Look at that butter!

I should have taken a photo of what Donna and I had for lunch, but well, we were so excited by the meal that we dug right in. The girls had salad, chicken breast and a wonderful homemade macaroni and cheese for lunch. One girl declared that "it was ok, but it had nothing on Kraft mac and cheese". Ah youth. The same child declared that the chocolate desserts were "glorious!" and based on the copious amount of chocolate all over her cheeks, I'm positive she meant it. She really got into the chocolate thing.

All of the girls seemed to have a good time. I had totally forgotten how loud 8 girls can giggle. I felt badly for the other's in the restaurant, but at least the girls were having fun and laughing, not screaming.

Le Titi has monthly children's cooking classes. I think it's a great thing to teach your children how to cook for you! And it's even better if you can sit and have a lovely meal while they are learning.

Giveaway over at SewMod

2011-01-25T18:23:00.001-06:00

Thank you to everytone for your sympathies about my Beaner. I tried to reply to everyone, but some people didn't have an email with their comment, so a special thank you to you lovely ladies as well.

On a more positive note, Lorrie, a good friend from my SewMod sewing group is having a giveaway!!!! She made this amazing pillow as a 'practice' block.

Seriously, this is a 'practice' piece. Look at all those little, itty-bitty french knots in the birdie earmuff! And the tassles on the scarf. It's beyond cute. She used the Birdie quilt along pattern from Little Miss Shabby and Hideaway by Lauren and Jessi Jung for Moda
Lorrie's embroidery is amazing. I hope to spend more time in the very near future learning from her how to make my embroidery look like this. Or half as good. I think I could settle with half as good and be happy.

You should all click over to Lorrie and Paige's blog ASAP and enter to win it. You can enter through Thursday, January 27th. The drawing is this Friday, January 28th.

My Beaner

2011-01-13T17:11:00.000-06:00

I unfortunately have sad news to share today. We had to have our Beaner put down last night. She was her perfectly peppy, happy, sweet self when I got home from work yesterday, but around 6:20pm she became lethargic and seemed to have difficulty getting up.

We took her to the emergency vet where they diagnosed her with a cancer. Her issues were caused by a cluster of tumors on her heart, one of which burst and caused the sack around her heart to swell with fluid, making it hard for her heart to pump blood and oxygen. They removed the extra fluid, which made her peppier, so we were able to spend some quality time with her, say goodbye and be with her through the end.

Unfortunately or fortunately (because I had knowledge about it), I had an Akita back in 2002 who suffered from almost exactly the same thing. When the vet diagnosed Beaner, I knew, but dreaded, what had to be done. To be completely sure, we asked if surgery would help her at all, and he said it would only give her a couple of weeks at best.

Needless to say, we are completely saddened and shocked. She was only 7 years old, and we had her just over 2 years. The vet said that these kinds of cancers can be totally silent and not noticeable until one of the tumors ruptures, and that it's very aggressive.

She was so full of life, and such an amazingly sweet dog. At Christmas, I walked into the family room and saw my one year old nephew sitting with her, just the two of them, and he was petting her snoot and head. She just loved it, and was so gentle with him. I will miss her Wookie/Werewolf howling, the woo-woo conversations that she and I had, her kisses and her snuggling. I'm just glad that she didn't have to suffer and that we could be with her through it all and that we gave her the love that she craved, even if only for too short a time.

A true Husky, she loved to sleep in the snow.

I walked by the basement and saw her laying like this. I cracked up.

When she wanted in, she would press her nose into the door and usually licked it too. She would stand like that for the longest time. It totally cracked us up every single time.

She liked wildlife shows. Especially those with wolves or dogs.

She was a good pillow for Magic.

Beaner and Bug, their one winter together.

I miss my girls something awful.

Beaner loved her stuffed toys.

The other dogs knew not to take her babies from her!

I hope she's playing with Bug, Methos and Barqy now.

Christmas catching up

2011-01-05T18:00:00.002-06:00

I never shared some of my Christmas projects and decorating from this year, so I thought I should do that before we take it all down.
This is for Julie, one of the lovely ladies I know from Tammy Tadds. She wanted to make this quilt, but I brought the sample home too quickly.
I love this quilt. Basic Grey designs fabulous Christmas fabric. This year's line was called 'Fruitcake' and it's a follow up to my all time favorite (so far) 'Figgy Pudding' from last year. The nice thing is that they coordinate nicely together, so I can use both in the 5 quilts I have planned for the line!

The pattern is 'Plaid About You' by Tammy Tadd. I also love this pattern. It goes together quickly and showcases large prints extremely well. I was able to match up my stripes on the border everywhere but on the bottom. ~~Se la vie~~! C'est la vie! (Pattie corrected my Frenish (combo of French and Spanish).
I like how the stripes on the bias do the arrowy-angle thing on the corners.
Of course I quilted the snot out of it. I can't help myself. I love the look of quilting, and I try to make it part of the design rather than an after thought.

I quilted it with metallic thread. I don't know if you can tell or not in the photos above and below. I was trying to get the sun to shine on it to show the sparkle. The Husky hair is an added something special that I put on it.

I have it hanging on the back of my new leather chair that I bought at my friend Kelly's estate sale and the dogs rub on it as they walk past all the time.
Kelly moved to a loft in the city and had to get rid of a ton of furniture that didn't fit into her new place. Kelly is a designer and has impeccable taste. I bought several really nice pieces from her for what I would consider a steal. She priced the stuff to move!
I love this chair. It's totally comfy and it looks so much nicer in my family room than the band-aid colored, poofy, pleather recliner that was there previously. I sit in it all the time.

I also got this desk and the lamps at Kelly's sale. I use it as a table in my front hall. I put it in place and immediately decorated it for Christmas.

The hubby thought the candles on the plate were real cookies and asked if he could eat one. Donna and the kids came over on the 23rd to help decorate our tree and also helped me decorate the little white one. Donna thought we may have put too many ornaments on it, what do you think?
The kids also put the Husky by Santa and the Santa Cow next to the Christmas card sleigh.

We had a great time decorating and drinking hot chocolate. Then about 2 hours after they left, I was standing in the kitchen drinking the last of my hot chocolate and there was a huge CRASH! SHATTER!! BANG!!! The tree had fallen down! There was a loud expletive from me and the hubby came running. Luckily the ladder was still in front of it and helped to break it's fall. We only lost one good ornament, my cow in Bermuda shorts drinking a pina colada lost his legs. The others that broke were just cheapy after Christmas sale ones. We put him on the tree anyway.

This is my favorite Christmas decoration. Truth be told, I leave it up all year. It looks pretty at night.

This is one of my vintage Christmas tablecloths. I think it's so happy!

I think I'll save the rest Christmas projects I've made for another post. I think this is enough eye candy for now.
Happy Quilting!
Vicki

Industriusness

2011-01-03T11:34:00.001-06:00

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday. I've been having a great time. I had 2 weeks off of work for the holidays, and got a lot and yet nothing done at the same time! I had really, really wanted to clean out my basement and make my sewing cave into a real honest to goodness studio. but that didn't happen.
I did get some sewing done though. I made this mini wall hanging:

The applique in the middle and the corner circles are wool. I appliqued it with fusible web (steam a seam lite, 2) and then machine button hole stitched it down. I used LakeHouse fabrics for the rest. It totally went together in no time.

It's from the book 'Pennies from Heaven' by Gretchen Gibbons.

It's a really nice book with great ideas. I like mixing fabric and wool for two reasons, 1) wool is pricey and 2) I hate hand work and it's easier to applique by machine on fabric.

This next project is DiscoJen's birthday present, so if you are DiscoJen, don't look any further until after your birthday!

DiscoJen travels quite a bit w/the kids, so I made her a Smarty Girl Bag from the Heather Bailey pattern, but with a few modifications to make traveling w/the chillens easier.

It has a nice long handle, so it can go across your front, crucial for travel.
I added a poofy divider on the inside, as well as several pockets. The divider is for her e-reader thingy. I put 2 layers of fusible fleece into the divider to protect the reader thingy and it's screen. They other side of the divider is for general stuff, and has 6 pockets. (By general stuff, I mean snacks.)

I also added tall pockets on both the front and back, perfect for easy access to tickets and passports for 3 people! I used different colors on the pocket interiors so that if she's harried, she might remember what color the pocket was that she put the thing in that she's looking for.

I picked the Lila Tueller 'Spirit' fabric from Moda because it's busy enough that hopefully it will hide travel dirt!
Last night I finished the first of 8 rows for my Sew Mod group's row exchange. We each provided a fat quarter to each person in the group, then we were given a chart w/different blocks on it. We use the fabric provided and the block assigned to that person and make a row for them. They are due by February, so I need to get a move on!
Lorrie gave us all Halloween fabric, which is totally awesome! I have pinwheels for her, so I made applique pinwheels out of Halloween motifs.

Lorrie provided the yellow bat fabric. I used some of the Moda 'Haunted Mansion' and 'Spooktacular' by Sanae and Riley Blake's 'Boo to You' for finish up the row.
I was so excited to get the row together that I forgot to sew the appliques down, so I'll be working on that today. Hopefully I can get another row or two done today, on my last day off. Sigh.

Quilting is a group sport.

2010-12-19T12:10:00.001-06:00

I started this post 3 months ago and just got it finished. Pretty sad.
One of my projects over summer was a quilt challenge for the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild. We were to prepare a block and provide fat quarters of what we used in the block and then our blocks would be swapped with others.
I received the wonky house w/the number 5 in it's door, along with a Rural Jardin, white w/red polka dots, red w/white polka dots, some more numbers, and the newspaper Authentic print.

I must admit that I was totally confounded as to how to combine 1700's French reproduction fabric, newspaper print and red polka dots, but then that's the challenge part! Things like this really help you get the creativity flowing.
I started by slapping a Heather Ross gnome and mushrooms on it, but then didn't know where to go from there. I knew I wanted a garden and a tree, but that was it.

I worked on it at my lock in at Tammy Tadd's, and Dee, Michelle and Jennie all helped w/what else to put on it. The clothes line was totally their idea. I thought the upper part needed something. I had quilted in a sun, but it wasn't very apparent. My friend Dori suggested a yoyo sun. That's my very first non-yoyo maker yoyo, which is why there's a button in the middle of it. If you don't like it, embellish it!

This is another of those Hemingway's cats things. Then the tree was too bare, so I found a piece of fabric I had w/a bird. Then the left was a little bare, so I added a Fairy Frost tire swing. The little quilt is 3d. I even quilted it. Someone asked me what the #5 was about, and I said I didn't really know, but then it occurred to me Harry Potter lived at #5 Privet Drive, so I decided to name it that. However, I was mistaken, he lived at #4 Privet Drive, so I guess the gnome lives next to Harry Potter. Or would that be across the street?
I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.
I've also finished an Irish Chain quilt with the Anna Griffin Georgette Christmas line. I must say, this fabric challenges me. It's very subtle, and kind of mushy. I started w/the 'Peace' Irish Chain pattern by Late Bloomer Quilts. I got the blocks together and thought is was blah, w/a capital B.

Then I was brainstorming with my friends Ann and Bobbie at the store one day, and came up w/wool ornaments in the solid blocks.

Better, but not quite there yet. I took it to my quilt guild meeting and we decided it need a flange! Seriously, how did I not think of that? A flange makes everything better!

Then I took it to my guild retreat and it was still missing something. Then Carol said it, "How about another flange between the outer and middle border?" Eureka!!! A quilt designed by at least 10 people!

Then I quilted the snot out of it with metallic thread. I did the bows and ribbons on the ornament (Dori's idea) in silver, but you couldn't see them, so I requilted them in blue metallic. I used my no marking technique to quilt the designs in the ornaments. I used silver lame and fusible web for the tops of the ornaments. Tammy suggested 3D organza ribbons. I may do that after the holidays.

One Christmas quilt done! By the way, that teal flange is the Gees Bend fabric. Heed my warning, if you use that fabric, pretreat and prewash it! It runs like the dickens. I have a couple of spots to fix where it bled in my middle border. Boy was I not happy!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

2010-12-17T17:03:00.000-06:00

We've had snow and really cold weather already, so I'm all ready for Christmas! Another sign it's Christmas?

Frostie's Retro Blue Cream Soda!!!

Aren't the pretty?

Cream Soda, and Blue! Life is so good. I was smart this year, I bought extra cases and sent them home with Binding Guru Karen for safe keeping so that we wouldn't drink them before Christmas. Ashley and Ju, there will be some blue soda for you on Christmas this year!

We had our Sew Mod Christmas party last Friday. I love these ladies. They are the best and totally inspiring. Lorrie assembled gingerbread houses for us then had all the accouterments that you could possible want to decorate them. This will come as no surprise to those who know me, but I was covered in frosting by the end of the night. The dogs kept licking my pants when I got home.

This is Kelly's house. She made a dog run on the side.

Let's take a closer look at that dog, shall we?

We were calling him the alien dog. Considering what she had to work with, I think she did a pretty good job. He cracks me up w/those ginormous red eyes. You can see action shots at Lorrie and Paige's Sew Mod blog and at our Sew Mod Flickr group. We had a gift exchange. I got Pattie in the drawing and she loves the Rouenneries line as much as I do, so I had a good idea where to start. I found this table runner/wall hanging on a store's blog, but I can't remember which. I'll update when I find it again. I loved it, and I hope Pattie did too.

Close up:

The middle is the linen/cotton blend and the applique is wool. I used by Sizzix die cutting machine for the leaves and berries and free cut the vines. I quilted around all the motifs in the toile.

I liked it so much, I'm making myself one. That's not wrong, is it?

Shelley (Elsie's Girl) made me a totally fabulous pillow that I have on my couch. I'll take a picture asap, because you don't want to miss this one.

Another sign that Christmas is upon us, the always fabulous Christmas tree that Tammy and cohorts put up at the store:

I love this tree at night too:

It's a little fuzzy since I took it with my camera phone, but isn't it awsome?

I love the Lakehouse flower ornaments that she made. And the ric rac garland is beyond too cute. Tammy bedazzled and decked out the snowflake at the too. It was just a plain snowflake before she got her hands on it. It makes me want to run out and get a white tree.

Well, that's all for now. I have a couple of more Christmas projects to finish up, then I can take the time to take photographs and blog some more. And have a Hot Toddy. I love that word. Say it with me, "Hot Toddy." There, isn't it fun?

Catching up

2010-12-13T18:00:00.002-06:00

I've been as busy as Santa's elves this time of year! So busy that I forgot to post about the most fabulous pie ever created. I'm in charge of pie making for Thanksgiving, and I typically make pumpkin and apple pies and ice cream to go along with them. This year things got changed up a bit.

I had been looking for a good caramel apple pie recipe for quite some time, and now I've finally found it! (Que the 'At Last' song in the background) The caramel apple recipe from Williams Sonoma was fantastic. Look at all that oooey, gooey caramel, you could totally eat it with a spoon! And how do I love those WS pie crust cutters? Let me count the ways. I used to use mini cookie cutters for the leaves and pumpkins and a skewer to make the veins and such. Now, you do it all at once! It's pure genius, I tell you.

I always use the Martha Stewart pumpkin pie recipe (with homemade pumpkin puree, naturally) and make an individual one for my Great Aunt Dolores.

My sister requested a pecan pie this year, which I don't usually even consider making, because I'm not a fan, but she begged me to make the Pioneer Woman 'Pie that will make you cry' pecan pie. And let me tell you, when she said that this pie "changed her life for the better", she totally wasn't kidding! It's to die for! The hubby had a piece before breakfast, he claimed that he had been dreaming about this pie. Of course, as the knife was heading toward the pie and I was shrieking that I don't serve pie that's already been cut into, he claimed that Voldemort was making him do it, so I'm not so sure he was telling the whole truth about the pie dream thing. Regardless, this pie was To. Die. For! It was almost a toffee pecan pie. And it tastes fantastic for breakfast!
I didn't make ice cream this year for 2 reasons: 1)time, 2) Julie Ann's frozen custard reopened in Crystal Lake!!! Yeah, I'm beyond happy!!! If you live in the area, please frequent them, so we can have frozen custard for ever and ever!
Well, that's about all for today. I'll have Christmas quilts and gingerbread houses for you all soon!

Retreating

2010-11-15T16:44:00.000-06:00

I had my bi-annual girlfriends quilting retreat the first weekend of November up at Evergreen Retreat in Janesville, Wisconsin. We all had such a good time, we probably each gained about 5 lbs in 3 days! Evergreen is really a fantastic retreat location. It's reasonable priced, not that far from where we live, they provide all the 'stuff' for quilting (irons/big boards, tall cutting tables, rulers, ott lights, design walls, comfy chairs.....) and they have 3 nearby quilt shops to explore! I felt that I got quite a bit done, so that was a bonus.
I made pillowcases out of Riley Blake's "Colorful Christmas" line for DiscoJen's kids for Christmas.

I finished sewing on the binding on the 'Plaid About You' quilt out of Lakehouse's 'Fun Flowers' black colorway. And since Binding Guru Karen was at the retreat, I even got it hand tacked down in record time. I tell you, the woman is a binding genius!

I used my water-soluble interfacing technique to mark my quilting.

I quilted the big flowers free-hand. Just to be clear, this is a panel. I did not applique these fabulous flowers.

And since this is for a baby, I used bright, lime green minky on the back. This photo doesn't portray the color accurately, it's really a lime green, like the gingham in the flower above. I love how the quilting shows up on minky.

I designed and tried to figure out how to make a commissioned tree skirt from my extremely crudely drawn design. I specifically save this to do at the retreat since I would have others to help me figure out how the heck to put this thing together. My friend Carol is especially helpful with these types of things because she's an engineer.
I started with this pile of batiks and fairy frost:

I made a circle out of the beyond fantastic red diamond Hoffman Batik. I found a ton of tutorials online on how to do this. I then used my beloved 1/4" fusible web tape and ironed under the edge.

Then I pieced together the greens into large strip sets and interspersed some thin. white fairy frost strips here and there and used one of those 9degree rulers to make wedges. I had the idea that if I could get the angles right on a quarter of the circle, then I could just do 4 of those and connect them, but unfortunately it isn't that easy. I had to make some wider angled strips, some smaller wedged strips and so on. I'm not done with it yet, but I have a good start at least. I'm really pleased with how it's turning out too.

And last, but certainly not least, I FINALLY finished the last of my Hydrangea commissioned "You Go Girl" bags!!!! It feels soooooo good to get this thing done. It wouldn't be that bad, but I quilted the crap out of the material. It took me 10-12 hours just to quilt the material, and this is the 3rd bag I've made like this! I'm really over quilting the hydrangea material!

Seriously, what was I thinking when I started to quilt it this way?!?!?!

I have photos of what everyone else made, but I can't locate the SD card with them on it, so that will have to be another post!

Where did October go?

2010-11-08T19:23:00.001-06:00

Anyone? I'm not sure where the whole month went to! I've been so crazy busy that I forgot to post anything. Here's a snapshot of what I did in October:

I actually did this mini as a challange swap over the summer. I was given the house w/the number 5 door and fat quarters of the polka dotted fabric, some Rural Jardin (French reproduction fabric) and the numbers and newsprint/dictionary print from the Authentic line by Moda. This is what I came up with. The newsprint is on the back.

I added the Heather Ross gnome and mushrooms first and then it grew from there. Michelle suggested the clothes line, and then I felt the tree needed balance, so I made the tire swing. Then the tree was bare, so it needed a bird...... It's kind of like that book 'If you give a mouse a cookie'.

I named it 'No. 5 Privet Drive' at the time I was thinking that was the address given to Harry Potter, but then I double checked and he lived at #4 Privet Drive, so the gnome lives across the street from Harry.

Yum

2010-09-26T13:05:00.002-05:00

We had a group meeting at work over the summer where our people form around the world came to Chicago for meetings. I work on a floor that's known for it's mass quantities of food available on any given day, so I don't bring things to work too often, but when I do, I pull out all the stops! I get all Martha Stewart in my set up, and people really appreciate it. People that I didn't even know resided on our floor show up.

To have a proper display for my treats, I used one to the vintage table cloths that I got at the sale at the beginning of the summer. The fruit salad blue Tupperware bowl doesn't really go, but everything was already so heavy I just couldn't do a ceramic bowl for that too.

I was only going to make one coffee cake, but you know, once you pull out all the stuff to make one, you might as well make 3! (This is kind of my theory of quilting and bag making as well. Although part of that is because I can't do math and usually end up accidentally cutting out enough pieces for 2 quilts.) All of the recipes are from Williams Sonoma. I've said it hundreds of times before, and will say it hundreds more, I have NEVER had a WS recipe not turn out or taste anything less than fabulous.

The Peach Streusel Coffee Cake.

The Blackberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake

The recipe was for raspberries, but I used fresh blackberries from my vine.

The Brown Sugar Macadamia Nut Coffee Cake.

I toasted the macadamias first for a nuttier flavor.

And this was exciting! Did anyone get the latest Restoration Hardware catalog? They have repros of the vintage lights I bought at the garage sale last month! Only mine are white and cost at a minimum $252 less, each!!!

Theirs:

Mine:

Yeah garage sale find!!!

Bag central

2010-09-24T14:33:00.000-05:00

It's been a productive couple of weeks, mostly thanks to my quilt guild retreat last weekend in Rockford.
I made yet another Late Bloomer Sweet Simple Tote for Ashley's birthday (which I gave to her that night, so I don't have a photo. I'll have to have her send one to me).
I love that pattern so much that I've been cranking them out. I love how beautifully it show cases larger print fabrics. I made two chocolate themed, a fantastic black/white/hot pink from the Michael Miller Dress Forms fabric and am in process of a purple glittery bag made from MM's Antiquity collection.

The inside pockets:

The inside w/pockets

I also finished 2 king size and one regular pillow case from some of the Moda Chocolat wovens, which are amazing. If you have never had the chance to pet the Moda wovens, I recommend doing so immediately! They are sooooo soft and silky. I just love them. I have a really poofy pillow, and the cases I made fit them so very much better. I can actually get them on and off with out a major wrestling match with my pillows!

I also finished a Terry Atkinson Happy Holidays table centerpiecehttp://www.atkinsondesigns.com/patterns/ which seriously only took me a total of two evenings, start to finish! I used a combo of Anna Griffin's Georgette Christmas, MM Fairy frost and a random paisley that we had at Tammy Tadds. I quilted it with holly leaves and berries in metallic thread. Since I can't draw, I just blow up the fabric motif on the copier then use my handy dandy non-marking technique to quilt it. It's a sample for the shop as well as a Christmas present for Mom!

I've also spent some time working on the look of the blog, what does everyone think?

The Stash Sale Continues!

2010-09-12T22:24:00.000-05:00

It's taken me waaayyyy longer than I thought it would, but I've finally gotten started to get my stash sale online. I'll be updating as fast as I can photograph and measure the fabric fabulousness.
I've started w/Fall and Halloween fabrics and kits and will work my way through the seasons. If there is something in particular you are looking for, please let me know and I'll see what I have available for you.

Click here http://buggletquiltsstashsale.blogspot.com/ to see what's available.
I'll have a cute little button on the side bar as soon as I can figure out how to do that.

Where did the month go?!?!?

2010-09-10T15:00:00.001-05:00

I've been crazy busy lately, so I haven't had much time to do the blog thing. I'm hoping to catch up on blogging and sewing in the next couple of weeks.
I've been slacking off in the sewing dept too. I haven't done squat about starting those 4 baby quilts I need to make.
I've been making Sweet Simple bags instead. I've been in need of instant gratification projects, and that bag is totally instant gratification!
Of course I totally forgot to take a picture of them before bringing them into Tammy Tadd Designs for sample display, so I'll have to show you all them this weekend.

Here's some fun I've had in the last month:

I found this package on my front porch when I got home from work a few weeks ago. I totally wasn't expecting it, so receiving a surprise package was really exciting. The Royal Mail postage could only mean one thing, some lovely things from my friend Anne in the UK!

Yup, I was right! Great tea and sweets, what more could a girl want? Other than Colin Firth squished in the box too, not much.

My favorite tea, Whittards! I want to use the herbals to make jam and sorbets and tasty treats like that. And Anne sent me a lovely new white tea to try out. Yum!

I ate the Aero bar right away (it was an 'I need chocolate' kind of day that day) and used the Lush Emotibomb in the shower the very next morning. It smelled great! If you haven't experienced Lush, you should. The products are fantastic and the literature hysterical. They are all over the world these days. I first discovered them in Edinburgh years ago where I purchased the Buffy the Backside Slayer exfoliating bar.

The green tub contains mint Humbugs. I just love that name. It sounds just so British to me. And since I l.o.v.e. chocolate mint, I love the Humbugs too.

Emily and I went the Bucktown Art Fair the Sunday before last. It was a wretched hot day, so I whined a lot. It's not pretty, but it's the truth, I'm a big whiner when it gets over 82 degrees F. I tried not to spend much, and did a pretty good job of it. I only bought a ceramic soap dish and tumbler for my bathroom and a couple of necklace charms from Soda by Amy. Totally cute! Of course I didn't take a photo of those either. Bad blogger Vicki!

There are a ton of garage sales around the art fair, so we stopped at a couple of those. I did take a photo of what I bought at the garage sale though.

Check these babies out!3 vintage enameled light shades in primo condition for a mere $20!! Score!!! According to the lady who I bought them from they are from the 1940's, but I have no clue if that's true or not.

After the fair we went to dinner at Terragusto, which I highly recommend. They make their own bread and pasta. It's heaven. I did take pictures of the amazing food, but they are on my phone, which is in the car and I'm too lazy to run out and get it right now, so I'll show those at a later date.
I also made wine slushies, completely by accident, but it was a disgustingly hot day, so it worked out just fine.

Lesson learned, don't forget you put a bottle of wine in the freezer!

Ages and ages ago I went to a massive rummage sale in the North Shore area (where the wealthier citizens of the Chicagoland area live) and found the most fabulous vintage linens and fabric. It's all pristine too, no staining or rips. I was told they get rid of the ones that aren't in great condition.
We figured since we got there at 7am and it had been raining torrentially for 24 hours and the streets were flooded that it wouldn't be too crowded. Boy were we wrong! Apparently people come by the bus load for this sale! It was worth getting up at 4:30 in the morning to go though, since I found fabulous fabric treasures for cheap.

Some lovely vintage sheets:

Can you believe this barkcloth?!?! I think I see bags and/or purses in it's future.

Tartan wool, I'm in heaven! That thing at the top is a sleeve presser ham.

These cute animals are from a set of Bozo sheets. I'm not a fan of clowns. I, like Kramer, find them creepy, but I grew up watching the Bozo Show on Channel 9, and have a soft spot for him.

And because I love all things autumnal I couldn't resist this cornucopia table cloth:

The best part of the trip? I spent a total of $35 including the entrance fee and was at work by 9:30 in the morning. Oh, and I ran into a guy I went to high school with. He was one of the police officers guarding the check cashing station. Go figure.

Well, that's all for now. I need to get back to sewing. Bags and quilts to make and time is a ticking!

Catching up some more

2010-08-13T18:32:00.001-05:00

Thank you to all that came to our fabric stash sale last weekend! It was an astounding success. Since I still have fabric left that I want to find new homes for, I'll be starting a second blog to sell it online. Stay tuned, I hope to have that done by the end of next week. Jennie will also be putting her remaining fabric online as well, so watch for good deals to be had there too.

Here's a couple of projects that I finished last month that I haven't shared.
This is a commissioned bag for a gift for a vet. I used the Tammy Tadd Designs 'You Go Girl' pattern and Micheal Miller fabrics.

Since the quilting would be difficult to see, I chose a feather pattern in black thread to tone down the zebra a tad and give it a softer feel.

This is another commissioned quilt that I designed and assembled. It was a teacher gift for a Catholic school 4th grade teacher. The artwork was a fund raiser for the school and was printed by the fundraising company on fabric. I designed the layout and advised on the color selection.

Since the moms in charge of the project had never quilted, I cut everything out, and had them join me for a lock in at Tammy Tadd's one Saturday night. One mom had sewing experience, so I gave her a crash course in quilting and put her to work. The other mom was our ironing minion all night. We got the whole thing assembled in about 4.5 hours.

I love the children's drawings. They totally looked like stained glass. I quilted around the crosses in the blocks, around the colored part of the square and in the ditch of the sashings. I echoed the leaves in the sashing fabric and quilted leaves freehand in the border. You can see them best on the backing.

I didn't want to over quilt it because the focus is supposed to be about the children's drawing, so I went the simple route. I'm told the teacher cried. I totally got crappy gifts when I was a teacher. I can't imagine getting something as wonderful as a quilt!

I have a few more quilts and bags that I finished that I need to take pictures of. I now have to finish a couple of Christmas projects for samples for the store and I have to make 3 baby quilts. One of the babies was born in July. Whoops!

STASH SALE THIS WEEKEND!!!

2010-08-06T06:44:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone! Just a reminder to those in the Chicagoland area that a few friends and I are having a massive, blowout stash sale today through Sunday!
Details:

Quilting Stash Sale!

1400 New Haven Dr

Cary, IL

9am-4pm

August 6th, 7th and 8th

Here's a small sampling of what's to be had. There's more than fit in the photo.

I hope to see you all there!

Vicki

Kind of like Hemingway's cats

2010-07-28T18:56:00.003-05:00

Have you ever heard the answer Hemingway gave when asked why he had so many cats?
"One cat just leads to another." He replied.

Well, this is what the internet is like. I get the Apartment Therapy emails, which feature cool products. Today's 'daily find' was a great handmade ceramic measuring cup-like vase that was apparently in Martha Stewart Living recently. (Note to self, check previous issues of Martha more closely.)
So I clicked on it and found out it is from a fabulous new store by those amazing people at Antropology and Urban Outfitters. (A job at their headquarters would be my dream job. Not only is the campus way cool, and you get to work with/in fabulous design all day everyday, but you get to bring your dog to work!!!)

The store is called Terrain. It's in Pennsylvania. I'm glad it's not anywhere near Chicago because I would probably be there all the time, drooling over fabulous garden and home things that I can't afford. Then I would be depressed, because the stuff is so cool, and I couldn't afford it, so it's better that it's far away from me.
I totally love these planters:

Who doesn't love a classic fountain?

This one would be more pratical for me though since my dogs use our current fountain as their personal water bowl.

Ah, but this one is my favorite. It's called the 'Bonsai Fountain.' It doesn't look like a fountain, but the description assures me that it is indeed a fountain.

Oooo, and then there's this:

A saddle stone! I love these things. Stupid, I know, but I can't help it. I just love how they look in the garden. They were used in the UK as supports for buildings in order to keep critters out of grain and what not.

There was also a link to some flickr photos of the actual store, which led to the OhJoy blog, which led to the new tiles from Dwell for Heath Ceramics which then led me to tell you all about all of it! See how that worked?

These tiles are totally a quilter's dream in ceramic. Check these babies out! It's a quilt, but in tile, and not tacky! That's the best part. I'm rather persnickety about tacky tile.

I need to tile something in this:

I don't know what just yet, but I'm sure I can find something that needs to be tiled.

I also found The Bicycle Muse on the OhJoy blog. Check these helmut hat covers out!

Yes they are hats for your helmut. I'm completely amused by them.

See what I mean? One thing just leads to another!

I'll leave you with another Hemingway quote that I enjoy:
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach to you keep your mouth shut."
Words to live by.

PS - don't for get about the stash sale the first weekend of August!!! *see July 26th post.

A Stash Sale and Dingle gets a new 'do!

2010-07-26T19:12:00.002-05:00

I took Dingle (Daisy) and Magic to the groomer last Friday and got an accidental new 'do for Dingle. I received a call from them mid-morning explaining that she was confused for a different Golden Retriever, and that they accidentally gave her 'a puppy cut'. I just laughed. They were glad I was laughing. It's only hair, it'll grow back, and compared the Dr. Suess-esk haircut my father gave our Old English Sheepdog years ago, it doesn't even rank on the bad-hair-cut-o-meter. My father shaved down her body, and left her head and feet for last since she hated those parts being messed with, and then the clippers died. She looked silly for over 2 weeks while we waited for the new clippers. Dingle before:

Dingle after:

At least they didn't shave Magic!

He smelled so good after his bath that all the dogs kept creeping up on him to get a whif.

As those of you who know Jennie and I personally, you will have heard by now that we, along with our friends Paige and Pattie, are having a giant quilting stash sale Friday August 6th - Sunday, August 8th. The hours are 9-4 daily, and it will be held at 1400 New Haven Drive, Cary Il.

I have been ruthless about culling my stash herd, and am not done yet. Here's a sampling of what I've decided to find good new homes for:

And I'm not done yet! I'm getting to be like DiscoJen, 'just get rid of it' is her mantra! And I have Binding Guru Karen to thank for the organization. She color and genre grouped it all and had the fabulous ideas to use those boxes for easier perusal and shopper ease. I must say some of it was very, very hard to part with, but I was strong, so I hope you all come out and give the fabric a new home. The prices will be great!

Homemade Wedding

2010-07-14T18:10:00.000-05:00

Well, it got a little crazy around here, but thanks to a team effort, the 15 table runners were finished in the nick of time forEmily's wedding!

Things were going well, but then my father-in-law had a mishap in Florida and had to have some risky surgery on his neck, so the hubby flew down to be with him the entire week that I was supposed to go to Paige's to quilt the runners. I couldn't very well leave the dogs locked up for 11 hours during the day, then lock them up at night again.

In a panic I asked others for help and Jennie, being the wonderful and amazing friend that she is, said she would quilt them for me on her Grandquilter in exchange for some of my Heather Ross collection. Emily and I found the perfect pantograph to quilt, but it needed to be shrunk down to fit the Grandquilter. Jennie's hubby was able to scale it down to the proper size and it ended up being better than the original size. And because Jennie is awesome, she also squared them all up for me! Isn't she the best?!?!?

Emily helped out with the runners too. She was my ironing minion. She was a big help. Ironing takes a lot of time, so having someone to iron while I cut and sewed was a huge time saver.

Here are the results or our efforts:

We searched TJ Maxx and Homegoods for the pots. Emily had found a few in the colors of the fabric, and we all went on a hunt to find enough of them. Emily's friends planted and nutured the herbs for them and made recipe cards featuring the herbs in that pot. I cut left over fabric to back the recipes.

The little pots are citronella candles that we found at TJ Maxx. They totally matched the pots and the fabric. And as a bonus, they kept the bugs away!

I quilted the pinwheel table runner myself. It's based on the Pleasant Home tablerunner. The fabrics are all Lantern Bloom by Laura Gunn for Michael Miller. It's the same line that I used for my boss's quilt.

The gorgeous pot was created entirely by Emily's friend, I think it was Alison, but I'm not totally sure, so I'll have to double check that. Isn't it perfect?

The cake was awesome! Check out those 3d lantern blooms!

The reception was held at the Glessner House, which has a great history to it. The Glessner family was very interesting, especially the women. If you are in Chicago, you should put it on your list of things to see. The park next door was beautiful too. The ceremony was in the park, and unfortunately, the 30% of scattered showers that we all thought wouldn't be a problem, was a problem.

Beginning of the ceremony:

The rain begins and the men all totally ignore it, but the women are all feeling like Emily.

The men continue to ignore it, but the bride takes action to protect her dress and everything else she worked so hard on. It was cute, she kind of grabbed the two men and they all shuffled to the shelter of the tree.

They planted an oak tree in honor of the Emily and Brett's wedding. The groom's friend performed the ceremony, and gave a little oak tree info while they walked over to it. He read that the oak is associated with Zeus, the god of lightening. He chuckled, looked at the black cloud overhead and said, "that's a little ironic."

The music the whole night was fantastic. The groom is a musician and two of his friends planned and performed all of the music for the ceremony. I didn't get pictures of them unfortunately. The acoustic guitar was really beautiful.

And the food, OMG! The food was beyond good, it was amazing! They did two signature drinks that were perfect for the heat. One was lemonade w/vodka and mint, the other was grapefruit juice w/gin and basil. Emily even found alcohol that was organic and produced here in the midwest. The hubby commented that he doesn't like gin, but he could drink the Death's Door gin all night. And then proceeded to do just that! Luckily the bartenders weren't overly liberal w/ the gin.

The caterer was City Provisions. They try to do things as sustainable as possible and use local and organic ingredients when possible.

Even the hubby, who usually doesn't pay much attention to food was carrying on and on about the food. The chef and I bonded. I really liked him. He told me not to miss the crab cakes, and he was not kidding. Holy cow, they were amazing. I was bummed because I missed the grilled shrimp on grits appetizer when we took the mini tour of the Glessner House.

It was just such a fun wedding. Everyone danced and mingled and talked to people they had never met. A very friendly crowd. Emily's Aunt Mary did the flowers, and they were gorgeous. Other friends helped design the invitations, and Emily took a letterpress class and printed them herself.

She didn't have any attendants, just the children of her friends, and they all wore what ever they wanted. Two of them had on ties made of Nicey Jane by Heather Bailey! The funny thing about that is that Heather Bailey is the sister-in-law to Laura Gunn, the designer of the table runner fabric! What are the chances! Of course no one realized that buy me, with my crazy fabric identification skills.

I have a ton more photos of the runners up close, as well as the zebra and hot pink You Go Girl bag and Fruitcake Christmas quilt that I also made during this time. The issue is that I took the SD card out of the camera to get the photos off of it, and now I can't find the blasted thing. I'm sure it will show up, and it will be someplace stupid where I left it.

Tomorrow I work out at Tammy Tadd's, and Sunday I have tickets to see Sting w/the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Ravinia!!!!!! Thanks Eileen!!!!

DiscoJen, Sophie, Ashley and I are going. The hubby commented that it will be an estrogen-fest. We have been planning our menus. It looks like there will be rain, so I'm going to try to whip up an oilcloth backed blanket tonight for it. And I will be able to use my super cute Liberty of London umbrella if it does rain, so it's all good!

A very productive weekend.

2010-06-20T19:47:00.000-05:00

It's been a productive three day weekend for me. I took a mental health day on Friday and spent a lovely day with my friends Pattie, Michele and my wonderful cousin Ashley. We met up at Acorn Quilts for their big sale on Friday morning. We got Ashley some great Deer Valley fabrics to make a wall hanging for her entry way. This will be her first ever quilt! It will be fun to teach her the art that I absolutely love. I'm hoping she'll love it too. She has a baby quilt she wants to make for a friend as well, so maybe we'll do that one first. Speaking of that, Ashley - I found this in my stash. It's purple and green, and the line is called "Pampered Pooch" from Moda. Part of the proceeds from the line go to the ASPCA. Let me know what you think of it for the baby quilt..

After the store, we ate lunch at my absolute favorite restaurant in Rockford, Mary's Market. I tell you, if I were to buy a franchise, it would be this place. I don't think they franchise though, I think it's a family owned thing. Seriously, if you are anywhere near Rockford, IL, go eat at a Mary's Market. You won't regret it!

Then Ashley and I found the strangest looking dog wandering down the street. He had the head of a normal dog, but the body of a Basset Hound/Dachshund mix. Very strange looking, but very sweet. Unfortunately we found his trashy, super drunk owner. The dog didn't look abused or anything, but this guy gave us both the creeps and neither of us wanted to turn the dog back over to him. Yuck, ick and ewwww about sums up this guy.

Then I as I was heading home, a massive storm hit. Luckily I knew where I was, and that the Machine Shed restaurant was one stop light away. It was perfect because they have a large drive through overhang in front of the building and the wind was coming from the direction of the restaurant building, so I was perfectly shielded. It was one wicked storm. I took the back roads home and there were branches down everywhere.

When I got home I was relieved to see that the power was on, so that was a bonus. I got right to sewing. First was a bag comissioned for a little girl's birthday party. They are doing a horse themed party and taking the girls for pony rides. I made her this:

Can you believe that fabric? It's perfect! I was shocked that I was able to find such fantatic horse fabric that wasn't either western or cartoony. And if you look really closely on the counter of the first photo, you'll see my brand-spanking new EQ7 upgrade!!!! The hubby got it for my birthday. After about 6 emails and 4 reminders, he finally ordered it. (EQ is quilt designing software that's absolutely fabulous for those non-quilter's out there).

I also made many more table runners for Emily's wedding:

I know this one looks just like the one above, but it's the reverse of it, see - the branches are in the middle of the mosaic on this one!

So what is that, 9 more done? Thank goodness the Harry Potter books on tape are long. I'm on the Deathly Hallows now, so I can just listen for hours and hours while sewing.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I just have to share more pictures of the Rose That Lived. It was literally glowing this morning!

And for Father's Day, I made my dad and brother-in-law individual strawberry-rhubarb pies. It's my dad's favorite and they had fresh strawberries and rhubarb at the farmer's market that Karen I went to yesterday morning. Since I did a standard pie for my dad's birthday at the beginning of the month, I thought I'd mix it up a bit. I'm rather pleased with how they came out.

As I was sliding them onto the preheated pan, I dropped 2 of them. Magic happened to be right under the one that dropped directly into one of the dog dishes and had it down his gullet before I could yell "no!" to him. The hubby told him he was a bad dog to not listen when I said 'no', but really, he had swallowed it before I could even yell, so technically, he didn't disobey.

Didn't they turn out pretty?

I packaged them in left over Martha Stewart boxes from Christmas:

We all went to the Kane County Cougars minor league baseball game today. We were really lucky, the weather totally held up. I like the minor league games, they take half the time of the Major league games and are more entertaining. I tried to teach the nephew how to do the YMCA dance, but at 10 months old, he didn't really get the arm movements down. He did dance to the music though.

Well, it's almost 8pm here, and I'm off to watch Masterpiece Mystery on my local PBS station. I hope it's Miss Marple or Pirout tonight!

Three Down, Ten to go!

2010-06-15T16:20:00.000-05:00

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about making table runners for my friend Emily's wedding. She wanted to help, so she's been over the last couple of nights helping to design and iron. She doesn't sew, so that part is up to me. She seemed interested in learning the rotary cutter, so she may be upgraded to cutting soon.

Emily chose the turquoise and oranges from the gorgeous Lantern Bloom line that I made my boss's birthday quilt with. I started out making Pleasant Home's Pinwheel Runner, but Emily wanted something that showcased the fabric more, so we went with larger blocks and rectangles and the such. We designed 3 different styles. There will be 8 of style number 1, and 4 each of the other two.

We finished piecing these two last night:

Please forgive the terrible photos, my editing software isn't doing what it should tonight.

And because we need to eat, and both Emily and I love to cook, we made a fabulous pesto (with basil from the garden) pasta with grilled shrimp and a salad with roasted red and yellow peppers, pine nuts and lettuce, also from my garden. Not to be overly humble, but holy cow are we good cooks. It was it gooooodddd! I had some left overs for lunch today and had to use much self retraint to not eat it all and save some for dinner.

The recipe we loosely used was this:

Skewer shrimp, brush w/olive oil, sprinkly w/salt and pepper. Grill until done. About 3-4 mins each side.

Brush peppers w/EVOO, grill about 6 mins each side. Cut up when cooled, toss w/lettuce & pinenuts.

Make pasta per directions on box.

Pesto:

2 Cups Basil (I used 3 different kinds, Italian, Pesto and Spicy Globe)

7 tbs EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

3 med garlic cloves, peeled

1/4 cup fresh grated parmesan (we kind of just threw a few hunks into the food processor)

1/4 cup toasted pinenuts

Zest from 1 med lemon

1 tsp salt

Put all ingredients into food processor and blend the beejeezes out of it, until it's all blended and, well, looks like pesto should look.

Add more EVOO if needed.

Toss pesto into pasta, place shrimp on top and Bon Appetit!

One more shop

2010-06-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

Oooo! I totally forgot that I had this post started, so it's old, but still inspirational.
I don't have many photos of Fat Quarter Quilting in Coon Rapids, but I just had to share the display they had right inside the entrance. (The hubby totally giggled uncontrollably when I told him we were in Coon Rapids).

So Cute!

The sign under the deer head frame is embroidered with "No Hunting".

They didn't have a pattern for the rug. One of the owners just 'drew it out' I was told. Bummer for those (ie: me) who can't draw!

It was a really nice store, and they are just settling in at a brand new location.

Catching up

2010-06-10T17:29:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile, so here's some of what I've been up to in pictures:

I picked my first Snow and Sugar Snap peas!!!

The 'Rose that Lived' lives on one more year!

We had a most excellent fog, which always makes me preten that I'm in Scotland.

My pretty perenials are blooming. I wish they'd bloom all summer.

I started, ripped out, rethought, sought advice on then redid a Christmas wallhanging. It's the "Plaid About You" pattern by Tammy Tadd Designs made with Fruitcake fabric by BasicGrey for Moda.

The blue is more like in the first photo, but the corners are totally different now. I'll update on that soon. I'm currently listening to 'Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince' and quilting the crap out of this with metallic thread.

I have also have started:

15 table runners to make by July 10th for my friend Emily's wedding.

A baby quilt to finish by the end of July

2 'You Go Girl' bags

A horse book bag

Oh and I finished a red/white/blue Pam's Charming Bag that I will take photos of asap.

I'm off to quilt now!

Bloggers Quilt Festival

2010-05-25T21:15:00.002-05:00

My friend Pattie told me I should participate in the Amy's Creative Side Blogger Quilt Festival, (formerly known as Park City Girl) and I thought, why not, I'll do it!
I think Amy and Jennie thought this idea up of having a blogger quilt show about a year ago, but I missed that one. I ~~tried to get the little button thingy to post, but I couldn't figure out how to get the code for it.~~ ~~Lame, I know~~. Jennie figured it out for me!

We both agreed that my Lantern Bloom quilt had to be the one to showcase. It's my current favorite, although I've pretty much loved all of the quilts I've made.

I made this quilt for my most fabulous and wonderful boss's birthday. She makes going to my day job extremely enjoyable and is a very generous and fun person, so I decided she deserved a quilt for her birthday.

It was love at first site for me with this fabric. I resisted it for quite sometime, but then it was getting scarce, so I bought an eighth yard bundle from Quilt Home. I decided that the Slide Show pattern by Terry Atkinson would showcase the fabric perfectly. Of course by buying the fabric prior to deciding on a pattern, I didn't have a wide enough cut for the big squares, so I decided to border them.

My favorite quilt saying is "it's not a mistake, it's a design opportunity" and this was definitely one of those. I L.O.V.E. how it came out, so much so that I may need to make one for me.
I quilted it with vertical wavy lines to achieve a more organic look. Jennie suggested it to Michelle for her table runner at our retreat and I thought it was a great idea for this quilt as well.
I put Curly Minkee on the back because my boss absolutely adores Minkee. I'll tell you, if you haven't felt Curly Minkee, your life is not complete! People can't help themselves when they see it. Their eyes go all unfocused and their hand starts to reach for it as though they have not control over it. Then they pet the Minkee and say 'oooo....it's soooo soft....' in a dreamy voice.

The quilting looks great on Minkee too.
These are a few of my favorite blocks:

There are currently over 500 quilts listed in the show and a slew of them are in the group pool on Flickr as well. Check them out for inspiration.
I've noticed several bloggers are doing giveaways and sales at their online stores in conjunction with the festival, so you should check out the festival page as well.

Gardening

2010-05-14T16:44:00.000-05:00

I started planting seriously this week.
I was able to plant 4 different blueberry bushes (2 early producers, 2 late producers), a raspberry bush, 3 tomato plants, 1 orange pepper and many, many seeds before the rain two nights ago.

I bought all of the seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds out of Missouri. It's an interesting store. The man who started it began it out of his parent's house when he was just 17 years old! It's grown exponentially every year and now they have a whole pioneer village thing where they have festivals, an apothocary, a mercantile and a natural food restaurant. I'd like to take a road trip there sometime.

I love the names on my carrots:

That's right, I have Obtuse, Cosmic and Atomic carrots!

I still have my lettuce and a multitude of radishes yet to plant, but the weather got all rainy, so that will have to wait until after the Husky Hike on Saturday. I don't mind the rain, but the Husky Hike is a ton more fun in nice weather. And it will be especially fun this year because my cousins Ashley and Chris just moved into the area at the beginning of the month and will be joining us for the hike! Yeah!!!
I usually take Robbie with to the hike, even though he's not a Husky, but I don't know, his privilages may be revoked after what happened the last time he went to a Husky hike. Of course, this time he will be under my supervision, so that would make all the difference in the world. Still, I'm not sure that I'm willing to risk it just yet.

More Shop Hopping

2010-05-12T17:30:00.000-05:00

Another shop that I totally loved on the Bus Shop Hop was Eagle Creek Quilt Shop in Shakopee, MN. This store is in a renovated train Depot. They had an amazing amount of oilcloth and laminate. Everything from Moda to Paula Prass oilcloth! It was fabulous. You can see some of the Nicey Jane laminates at the cutting counter there in the middle.

Pardon the over-correction of brightness in the photo below. I was trying to show the great details of the building and the back lighting from the windows just would not let me do it.

Some Nicey Jane fabulouslness.I wasn't sure if I liked the green floral fabric in this line until I saw this quilt. Now I'm sure I love it.

My favorite part of Eagle Creek was the batik room in the back portion. It makes me want to live in a place with brick walls just so I can hang batik quilts on it and have them look that fantastic.

It looks like I followed Gale, the lady in pink, everywhere in the store!

And I think this about sums it up for quilters everywhere:

It's a little fuzzy, but what do you expect when taking a photo in the bathroom. Yup, that was painted in the bathroom. Back on the bus several ladies mentioned that they took photos of it too. Is it wrong to take photos in a bathroom?

Shop Hopping

2010-05-07T16:30:00.013-05:00

I spent last weekend as the "bus mom" on a bus shop hop tour of Wisconsin and Minnesota for Tammy Tadd Designs. I hope all of my bus ladies had as great a time as I did, since I had a blast! I made some new friends, got to spend time with long term friends (see how I avoided the term 'old friends' I didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea there. See how p.c. I am), learned some fabulous new quilting things and was uber inspired. The ladies were so much fun on the trip.

While all the stores offered great ideas and projects, there were two that really struck my fancy, and not just becuase of the great fabric. To me, atmosphere makes the store, and these two had it in spades. I love architectural detail. Today I'll feature Fourth and Main in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. I'm told that a website is currently under development, so in the meantime, check out the photos below to see just how wonderful this place is.

I want to live in Fourth and Main, yes, in the store. With or without the fabric. Either would be just fine for me! I couldn't help myself, I took a ton of pictures at this store. The building was originally two that they combined into one during their "extensive" renovation. I really enjoyed talking with Carol, who is one of the owners. She told me that one part of the building was once a bank, I think, or was it a post office. I can't remember now. Either way, Carol and Julie (and Steve the carpenter) did an absolutely amazing and fabulous job on the place.

The front window, not a great photo, but it was sooo cute!

Kind of straight-right-ish when you walk in the door.

Look at that ceiling!!

In the second building area....Some lovely quilts, including a gorgeous Ava Rose quilt. Don't you just love the molding on the shelves?

Looking down the second building room. Love that offset log cabin! And those shelves. Fab.U. Lous! They call them "Alberts". Carol explained to me that they name everything, so these are called "Albert." They have "fat Alberts" and "skinny Alberts"

That's Carol on the right. She's with two sisters that came on the trip. They were sooooo sweet! They put together a game and gave away fabulous prizes all on their own! So sweet and generous!

The window on the right of the log cabin quilt. I can only imagine how gorgeous it will be all decked out in flowers

A shelf full of happiness, Nicey Jane by the lovely and extremely nice Heather Bailey.

Back to the front door. This is the building to the leftish when you enter. I mean really, can it get any more fantastic? I think not

To the left of the cutting/check out is a bathroom and the staircase to the upstairs.

There's another bathroom at the top of the stairs. It had a shower area too. It looked like Restoration Hardware decorated the bathroom! The color in the photos is deceptive. All of the walls are really more of a Restoration Hardware Silver Sage green, which happens to be my all time favorite paint color. The tile floor was the original hexagon tiles. So wonderful!

Continuing on past the bathroom hallway you enter the kitchen / eating area. Do you see those cabinets?!?! Excuse me while I wipe up the drool on my keyboard.

There's a fabulous chandelier and office area behind the French doors.

And the best part is....

It's a little cluttered up w/the goodies for our group, but I think you can see how amazing the kitchen is! Seriously, I could live here!

Back downstairs for some sewing inspiration....

The red blouse is a Favorite Things pattern called Prairie Girl.

Check out those darling pleats on the Oliver + S skirt!

The corner in the second building had great clothing and bag samples. It really makes me think that I need to learn how to make some wearables.

This is the 'Classic Shirt' pattern, also by Favorite Things. Carol altered it to make it sleeveless. The fabric is Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley stripe fabric. She told me that she made it for her daughter. I think it's perfect for her and she will look gorgeous in it. She was working that day, so I had the pleasure of meeting her as well.

Carol let me into the courtyard out back to see the fountain, planters and most importantly, her fabulous lavendar bicycle!!!

I think you can see now why I was so smitten with this store. Don't you want to live there too?

In case I don't get back to the blog before Sunday, I'd like to wish a

Happy Mothers Day

to all of you mom's out there!