Busy Bee

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 

Sew Mod row quilt challenge

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.

Giveaway over at SewMod

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.

Christmas catching up

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

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.