Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Remember This?

2012-02-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

Well, it's going to need a good name soon, because this is what I spent the evening doing--

I'm a little less than halfway done quilting the background "texture." After that, it's just quilting the detail on the applique and then the borders--and I'd guess that the quilt might be ready for binding by the end of the week or thereabouts.

If you're a new reader or missed a few posts, then you probably don't know, but this quilt started out as the Rabbits Prefer Chocolate block of the month by Bunny Hill, until I got a little sidetracked and distracted. Or maybe someone slipped me a hallucinogenic drug. Or a flashback to the 60s? In any event, the rabbits got carried away and turned into something a little different from what they started out as.

Now, of course, the original quilt name, Rabbits Prefer Chocolate, no longer fits the quilt, so it needs a new name. Can you think of one? Suggestions will be accepted through Thursday evening (March 1st). I'll either pick a winner then or, if I can't decide on my own, I'll post a poll with a few of my favorites so everyone can help pick a winning name.

Of course, there's always a prize for winning, and this is no exception. The winner will receive two Redwork Renaissance charm packs. Everyone's gotta love red and white, right? Just like everyone's gotta love rabbits! Good luck and thanks for helping me out!

What I Did Next . . .

2012-02-27T00:04:00.000-08:00

I didn't mention it last night, because I hadn't uploaded any photos to show you yet, but Izzy came over (with Soccer Son and His Lovely Wife to Be Someday) on Saturday and met her dog father, the Drooling Dog. Here's a photo of the two of them approaching one another for the first time:

I took several other photos but in each, one or the other of the dogs was a blur--they had a wonderful time romping around the yard together. At first, the Drooling Dog didn't know his own strength and sent Izzy tumbling a couple times, but no harm was done, and he became quite gentle. In fact, she was the one chasing after him much of the time! It was really cute to watch. I'm just sorry the Wild Child wasn't here to see it, but she's settling into her life in New York, and Soccer Son sent her photos.

I sure don't know what was in that hot chocolate I drank last night, but I couldn't keep my eyes open long after drinking it, and I think I was asleep before 11 p.m.! On a Saturday night! I think the last time I was asleep before 11 p.m. on a Saturday night was when I was seven. What a party girl I'm turning into.

I wanted to show you what I've just finished. I worked on the pinwheels a little bit on Saturday evening but I got bored with them and . . . well, you already know about the hot chocolate. Anyway, I got up this morning and worked on this little hanging all day, finishing the binding around 11 p.m.

The center is a screen printed block I purchased online from Olde America Antiques. The have a large selection of vintage/antique images that they print in different sizes onto good quality cotton. If you'd like to check out their stuff, click on their name.

Now it's time to start thinking about the end of the weekend and going back to work in the morning. Bath time, for one thing, if I can get Stitch out of the tub. I'm really not sure what he does in there, but I can hear him thumping and bumping around, and I suspect the bath tub is a little like a skate park where he can slide and roll around.

Pets! At least they're entertaining.

Because You Can't ALWAYS Play . . .

2012-02-26T00:03:00.000-08:00

As much as I'd like to spend each and every day playing--in the Sweat Shop, spending time with friends, dreaming creative dreams--every now and then reality slips into my world and I force myself to do the things that need to be done. Like house work.

And that's what I spent most of my Saturday doing. Sure, I thought about doing it one evening last week so I didn't have to give up a weekend day . . . but I didn't. I put it off. Until today.

But now it's done, so I think I deserve a little treat. This is what I think I'll do--

Right after I put on my comfy jammies, grab a good book, and climb into a newly made, soft bed. Yum!

Ah, Yes!

2012-02-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

Okay, it's done! Well, at least it's done as far as I'm ready to go for now. Want to see? Of course, you do!

I had to lure Spike out to the kitchen with the promise of dinner in order to get her off the quilt top, and then she came back and tried to get on it again while I was folding it up! At least I know SHE likes it!

By the way, I realized I hadn't shown you the pattern inspiration for the original block swap--this pattern was printed back in 2004, and I can't remember which magazine it was in, but I loved it at first sight. Maybe you can click to enlarge the photo to see if it has the magazine name on the page--if you need to know.

What I mean when I say it's done as far as I'm ready to go is simply that I don't know if I want to add borders or not. You can't see very well, but the quilt is barely wide enough to extend over the sides of the king size bed, which would make it fine for a twin and maybe a double but it isn't as large as I'd like for a queen--and I think I'd like it large enough for a queen. So I think I'll set it aside for now until I pull the monthly Thimbleberries project out of the jar and find I'm to work on "Thimbleberries Tree Blocks"--because I think I might like to make those blocks into a border with the addition of a few more trees and maybe houses. Of course, I might change my mind between now and then and just add traditional borders. But for now? It's on to the next project! I wonder what it will be?

Slow and Steady Wins the Race . . .

2012-02-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

Well, not really. What an inappropriate old adage that is when you think about it! I've told many quilters that quilting isn't a race. If you want a speedy hobby, try speed skating. Seriously, I wouldn't mind following Apolo Ono, would you? Of course, HE'd be a little freaked out to look behind him and see ME there--not to mention the rest of you! But I digress.

I cannot tell you how nearly I balked at plodding along on the birthday block quilt tonight. I started the evening by asking myself if it would be a very BAD thing to take the night off from the birthday blocks and start a new project instead. Yep, I was feeling THAT CRAZY about the whole thing! And I think part of it was the thought of working on such a LARGE project--I don't find those very fun anymore, do you? I have plenty of bed quilts and the thought of maneuvering this one through the Juki to get it quilted makes me cringe a little.

But I stuck to the plan and made a good deal of progress. Although it's not much to look at, here's where I am:

I DO have the missing center strip pieced, but it's so large that I didn't want to struggle with getting it up on the wall and taking it down again to add the side sections, so it's laying on the Wild Child's bed--probably under Ms. Spike, because you KNOW cats can hardly wait to lay on a new piece of fabric. And that upper right section isn't pieced together yet--just that section on the lower left. But I think it's looking pretty cool! And thank you Marie for leaving me a comment affirming my thought of using the cream setting triangles--I think that's worked out well.

So although this project is going slowly, steady plodding WILL get it done--I should have this part done tomorrow night and then I think I'll set it aside until I decide on a border. Unless I lay it on the Wild Child's bed and find it's already large enough and needs no borders--which I suspect may be the case.

On a slightly different subject, here's a thought: If you're a small business owner, carefully consider your driving abilities before adding advertising to your vehicle. I don't think I've ever found a business through that particular method of advertising; I HAVE, however, made decisions NOT TO EVER do business with advertised companies if I decide the drivers are idiots who likely got their drivers' licenses out of Cracker Jack boxes, because I think that just might reflect on their abilities to do other things well. And if you're a small business owner with advertising all over your car, and you're driving slow and maybe not all that steady and you get in my way when I'm heading to the office in the morning . . . you're definitely not winning anything.

Sometimes you just gotta rant. Sometimes working on a slow, plodding project gives a person a little too much time to dwell.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

2012-02-23T00:01:00.000-08:00

Have you wondered why I haven't been posting about thrift store finds lately? I've kind of been wondering about that myself. I think I've just got so ~~much useless crap~~ many collected treasures taking up room in my house that I hesitate to go out and look for more. Still, the urge never quite goes away. During my lunch hour today, I went to a nearby "antique mall" to browse. For the most part, I was hoping to find something Easter-y; just about anybunny would do. The only Easter-y goodies that grabbed me were a couple of postcards. In addition to the postcards, I found a few vintage sewing goodies, and corn holder thingies--made in England, which seems like a fairly good thing. After all, many of my transferware plates come from the same place!

Here's a photo of my haul--

Check out the back of one of the postcards--

I like the way the writer says, "Why don't you write? Is someone sick?!" Can't you just about hear her saying it? I also think it's pretty cool that for two cents a person could send a postcard addressed to another person without any street address--simply a city and a state. I don't know if you can see the postmark very well, but this postcard was from 1919. And seriously, from what I can make of the rest of the writing, there's mention of other people in the family being ill; this was right around the time of the big Spanish flu pandemic, I think. (By the way, this reminds me--have you been watching Downton Abbey? I love that show!) I think it's fascinating to hold a little piece of someone's past, like this postcard--it really brings history to life.

Tonight I finished making the sashing for the quilt I showed yesterday, but it was such a boring, tedious task that when I finally finished, I took a little time to play in the scraps. I have no idea what I'll make, but I now have 24 3" (finished) 9-patch blocks to bank away. Maybe THIS is why swapped blocks never seem to get used up!

The next part of the quilt top--something I didn't feel like tackling tonight--is to cut ginormous squares and criss-cross cut them for the setting triangles. I'll do that tomorrow night. In the original pattern, they used a green fabric for the setting triangles. The other color option I've been considering is using a cream colored fabric. Any opinions? Here's the photo again--

Well, I Didn't Get That Far . . .

2012-02-22T00:03:00.003-08:00

Remember that Thimbleberries project I told you about yesterday? Well, it's going to take longer than I thought. I'll tell you the story behind the blocks though.

Some years ago, my online Thimbleberries group decided to make blocks for each other for our birthdays. We took sign-ups and had around 24 participants, so we divided into two groups. I don't remember how it came about--maybe because I was one of the two swap coordinators--but somehow the block pattern we used was one I'd seen in a magazine and picked; I suspect everyone else liked it too, so we went with that particular pattern.

Each "birthday girl" was able to specify what Thimbleberries colors she wanted us to use in making her blocks, and as each birthday came around, we would make a block and mail it off to that person. In theory, we would each receive 11 blocks; the quilt called for 13 blocks total.

I asked that my blocks be made in fall colors, so they arrived in red, green, brown, gold, and cream. I ended up with one rogue block in a sort of teal and pink--I'll use that one for a different project or on the back of the quilt.

We also had a couple of participants who just faded away without completing their obligation to make blocks for everyone in their group, but for the most part, it was a successful swap. And without that one rogue block, I ended up with 10 blocks, so I needed to make three more. Simple, but those blocks took a little time to make.

After that, I got the blocks up on the design wall, and started making the sashing. I've got to say that piecing three strips together in 15-1/2" long sections is kind of boring. I need 36 of those sashing pieces and I think I've made about half.

I wanted to get a photo to give you an idea of the quilt--as you can see, it's going to be a large one!

I'll keep plugging along on making those sashing strips and then the setting triangles for the sides. I think it will probably take another couple evenings.

In the original quilt, the borders were small and plain. I think I'll get this part together and then decide where to go from there. One of this year's anticipated "swapped Thimbleberries blocks" projects involves several tree blocks we swapped, and I've been wondering whether they might make an interesting border--maybe interspersed with some simple house blocks. But I'm not there yet. I'll show you how this one is coming along in another day or two.

Thanks for stopping by to check on me!

Harrington and Hannah

2012-02-21T01:25:00.003-08:00

Earlier today, I finished the Harrington and Hannah block for February. I made a couple small changes--but don't I always?! You probably know me well enough by now to expect it, right? I wanted a little more wool and a little less embroidery, so instead of embroidering the garden tools in the original pattern, I selected a background printed with garden tools, and instead of embroidering leaves on the heart stems, I substituted wool leaves. Just a couple small changes because this is already a cute pattern.

When I made the first block a few weeks ago and mentioned something I was doing for my stitchery friends, someone asked about it, so I'll clarify. Each month the six of us get together, and each month, I'm putting together little kits of background fabric and wool for each of them so they can make the block. That's my little gift to them this year--because much of the time, we exchange small gifts that are more about thinking of one another than they are about spending money. So when we meet in March, I'll have little kits ready to give my friends.

You may remember that when I cleaned up the Sweat Shop, I found I had several packages of swapped blocks and nearly completed projects--all using Thimbleberries fabrics. I decided to type the name of each on strips of paper and put the strips in a jar; each month, I'll randomly pull out a strip and whatever it says, that's the project I'll finish that month--finish, at least, to the point of being a quilt top. Doing the actual quilting? Well, no promises about THAT task!

This first month, I drew this one--

That's the next project I began a bit earlier today. I'll give you a little sneak peek now . . .

. . . but I won't have more to show until tomorrow. At least I THINK I'll have more to show tomorrow. I took a couple days off work surrounding the three-day President's Day weekend, and I have one more day off before I go back to work on Wednesday. I'll see you back here tomorrow to tell/show you what I accomplished. Thanks for stopping in to visit!

It's Good to Have Stash

2012-02-20T00:03:00.000-08:00

I've been working on the February Schnibbles quilt, I.S.T.H. Sinta claims "I.S.T.H." is an anagram for a four letter word--you can probably figure it out--but Carrie Nelson, Schnibbles designer extraordinaire, claims it simply stands for "Insert Snappy Title Here." Whatever it is, it's a fun quilt to make.

For my version, I decided to change the setting a little bit because I wanted a quilt I could use on my kitchen table; in other words, I wanted something that looked the same from all sides and was square. Here's a photo of my quilt top:

Here's a photo of the original pattern, so you can see what changes I made. I love the checkerboard sections at the top and bottom, but I didn't think it would work for what I wanted.

For the most part, I used charm packs from the Blueberry Crumb Cake line, but I didn't have any yardage to go with it, so I had to "shop" my stash. I settled on the blue and white stripe early on, but the fabric I used for the setting squares and side triangles was harder. In fact, I first pulled out a beautiful blue, beige, and green watercolor floral. I even cut all the pieces and put them on the design wall along with the pieced blocks, but I decided the floral pattern overwhelmed the pieced blocks.

I hate to waste fabric and have to start all over again, but as I was trying to decide what to try to lighten up the quilt, my eye spotted this Debbie Mumm bird fabric in my stash:

I thought it was worth a try, so I took down the floral and cut squares of the bird fabric--it looked much, much nicer to me!

I wish I'd taken a photo of the floral fabric to show you, but I was deep into experimentation at the time and didn't think of it until later.

I like the way this one has turned out and I think it will look great in the kitchen for summer, don't you? Of course, I still have to quilt it. Sometimes I feel that having a large stash is a bit of a hinderance, because I wonder when I'll ever use it or if it will just languish on the shelves, but at other times, like today, I'm very grateful to have a variety of choices at hand. During my first few years as a quilter, I felt that having a good stash was as important as it is for an artist to have a variety of colors to chose from. Do you agree, or do you prefer to only purchase exactly what you need for a specific project?

The Day After the Friday Night

2012-02-19T01:04:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, I added a wing to my naked chicken and made the pieced parts of blocks 6 and 7 of the Garden Club quilt. I trimmed the appliqued pieces to size (I always start with the background cut a little larger than I need) and sewed the parts together into their sections.

After that, I couldn't help but pull out a couple of pieces I made before to see how they look together.

I'm really liking this quilt a lot! I still have something like four sections left to make, not including the borders, but I feel like it's really coming together now.

A couple of you have commented that you have the book but haven't made the quilt yet. I bet you'll love it when you do! The applique is fairly easy as are the pieced blocks. I'm kind of sorry to see this project put away for another month, but it's time to move onto something else. That's the thing about working on block of the month quilts--you might be really into what you're doing and not ready to set it aside, but then again, you probably won't get bored with a project.

Friday Night Sew-In Results

2012-02-18T01:00:00.000-08:00

I guess Friday "Night" isn't quite accurate since two of my stitching friends and I spent the entire day together sewing! I arrived at Gran's house at 11 a.m. and started in on my applique. A couple hours later, we took a break to enjoy a lovely big salad and bread for lunch. Then it was back to more stitching.

By dinner time, a fourth stitcher joined us and we went out for Chinese food. Eating and stitching all day--what could be more fun? And, of course, enjoying the companionship of good friends.

Two of our friends were ill and unable to make it today, but I'm sure they'll be back with us by the time we have our next regular get together. We wound up the day around 10 p.m. with a little dessert and packing up. All in all, we accomplished a lot and had a great time doing it.

Up at the top is a photo of the applique pieces I completed--these are from the Garden Club Quilt project. I think I'm going to add a wing to that brown chicken tomorrow--the more I look at it, the more I think it needs something.

Did you participate in the sew-in? What did you work on? Whatever it was, or whatever you did if you didn't sew, I hope you had as wonderful a time doing it as I did!

Thrifty Creations

2012-02-17T02:02:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to show you a couple of the gifts I received from my stitchery girlfriends on Saturday, not just because they're really cool and fun but also because I think there are some crafty ideas here that might lead to other creations.

Gran gave me this really great pincushion--it's a big sunflower!

Although this one was made commercially, it could be reproduced with a candle stand from the thrift store, felted wool, and a glue gun. I just love it!

My friend Imelda gave each of us what she called a red neck wine glass--

She made them by gluing canning jars to glass/crystal candle holders she got at a thrift or antique store. They make fun joke gifts, but I also thought I'd fill mine with buttons and add a scrap of fabric to cover the metal lid--maybe something a little fancier than cotton for the fabric, but I'm not sure yet. Of course, I could construct some type of pincushion to cover the metal lid--wouldn't that be excellent?

In the first photo, there's another little pincushion from my friend Sandy. We agreed we're all developing quite a pincushion collection--there's no way we can use all of them, but they're all so unique and fun--just like the stitchers themselves!

On a Roll . . .

2012-02-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

Okay, raise your hand if you're doing the Merry, Merry Snowmen block of the month this year.

Wow! Of the ten people who regularly read my blog, four of you are doing this block of the month! I'm impressed!

And in addition to you, four of us in my stitchery group signed up through a shop online before any of us knew that some of our local shops were also offering it. But a fifth person in our group is doing it through a local shop. And guess what arrived in the mail last Friday? The goodies to make the first block! Wooo-hooo!

Here's mine--

Nope, not letting any moss grow on this particular stone; not when it's just the first month, anyway!

I made a couple small changes to mine. I used a different fabric for the top of the cupcake stand. In the original quilt, it's made with a different taupe fabric, but I didn't think there was enough contrast between that and the cupcake, so I pulled out a pinkish-red French General fabric from another line, and I think it's a better contrast. I also embroidered the "Merry Merry Cupcake" sign in black instead of red. I think the black stands out a little more, and I like that. NOT so intentionally, I used a different toned solid for the square in square blocks and the right side strip--I think the one I was supposed to use is a little more tan. I just didn't realize there were THREE solid fabrics in the packet; I thought there were TWO. I don't think it will make much difference, though.

I'm almost running out of applique projects, and I have a day of stitching planned for Friday with some of my friends, so I'm trying to get the next block or two of the Garden Club Quilt prepped. And, of course, I have several other non-applique projects I'd like to work on this weekend. How about you? Do you have some quilt projects planned? This Friday, February 17th, is the Friday Night Sew-In over at Heidi's--don't forget to sign up! Just click HERE to get the information and add your name to the list. I hope to "see" you there Friday night!

Not Too Shabby!

2012-02-15T00:02:00.000-08:00

Yet another block of the month! But I'm really enjoying Shabby Fabric's free block of the month, Country Cottages, and I think several of you have also joined in, right?

Here's my second block done!

I love the fabric I settled on--Annie's Farm Stand by Lakehouse. And while I was working on this block, I remembered that I'd actually purchased the fat quarter bundles I'm using from Shabby Fabrics--isn't that a funny coincidence? I guess it makes a kind of cosmic sense that I would decide to use them on this Shabby Fabrics project!

If you'd like to see both of my blocks together, you can see them HERE at my Flickr. Or you could go HERE to see all the blocks uploaded by everyone to the Country Cottages Flickr group so far. They're fun to see and all so different!

And I can't remember if I've already shown you, but if not, it's only fair that you should be just as tempted by cuteness as I have been--and I succumbed. Shabby Fabrics has another block of the month starting in July--of course, THIS one isn't free, but how can you resist?!

Gosh, that first block at the top left looks awfully familiar, doesn't it?! I can hardly wait for July, but I'd better finish what I can of my current projects before July arrives.

I'm glad you stopped by for a visit!

How Many Are Too Many?

2012-02-14T00:29:00.001-08:00

Do you ever over commit? Probably a silly question--I suspect most of us do from time to time. Right now, I'm wondering if I've committed to too many block of the month projects. How many have I committed to? I don't know because I'm kind of afraid to count them. And I suppose that should tell me something right there!

This year I wanted to devote most of my quilting time to applique, so you can probably see how I've gotten in this predicament. So far, I haven't gotten behind, but then the year has just started, really. We'll see how it's going come June.

In the meantime, here's block 2 of the Bunny Hill pattern, Autumn House. Four of us in my stitchery group are working on this block of the month project.

I gotta tell you--those little leaves were a pain! But they look nice in the block and there aren't any more in the pattern, for which we're all grateful.

Soccer Son and His Lovely Wife to Be Someday picked up their new pup this past weekend. I'd like you to meet Izzy.

Izzy's name is actually Isadora, but they'll call her Izzy. Remember the escapades of the Drooling Dog and his "girlfriend" in the midst of a little party I threw back in October? Nothing actually happened that weekend, but the Drooling Dog was more successful the next weekend and Izzy was one of the results--there were six altogether.

Spike isn't very impressed.

Does that pose look comfortable? She sits like that all the time! Much of the time I was working on the Autumn House block, Spike was sitting in the chair across from me, keeping me company.

What do you think of block of the month programs? Are they a good way to get quilt projects done a little at a time? Or do they make it too easy to start projects but not finish them?

That's A Lot!

2012-02-13T00:44:00.000-08:00

I just noticed I've made 1,800 posts to my blog; my first post was March 9, 2007. Time flies when you're having fun! It sure doesn't seem like it's been almost five years since I began.

It's been a dreary-looking day out and finally started raining around dinner time. I've spent the day doing some applique and pinning the Rabbits on Crack (working title only) quilt--I'm anxious to get going on quilting that one so I can get it up in plenty of time for Easter--NOT that I think it's only going to come out to play at Easter time, but I think it would be a nice time for its debut performance. I'll have to post a photo of the Autumn House block I was working on tomorrow night--I haven't gotten it uploaded to the computer yet. In the meantime, I wanted to let you know that I picked a winner for the Mary Engelbreit "parts"--Cindy in SC. Cindy said:

"I would so, so love a chance to win this one!! My sister is a HUGE Mary Englebreit fan. I am constantly telling her about another project I need her to make for me (it's amazing that after five years or so she hasn't spit not ONE of those out for me - go figure!!). Anyway, this screams her and I'd love for a chance to surprise her with a project I'd made for her that I know she'd love. Thank you for the chance!!"

Cindy, please email me your mailing address and I'll get this in the mail to you. And thank you all for playing along! See you tomorrow--with photos.

A Fun Day

2012-02-12T00:12:00.000-08:00

Some of my favorite people came over today to spend the day talking, eating, and stitching.

Four of the six of us were working on block 2 of the Autumn House block of the month. Because I was the hostess, I didn't get very much done, so I'm not ready to show you mine just yet--although that's part of it in the photo above.

I've mentioned before that my house is small and it's always hard to figure out where six women can sit and work on their sewing projects. This time Hubby was out of town for the weekend, so I had no qualms about moving much of the living room furniture out to the garage and setting up two tables for us to work on.

And because I moved the kitchen table to the living room, I was able to move the sofa table into the kitchen, and it made for a great buffet table.

And, really, we ate all day. Breakfast (chocolate croissants, OJ, and strawberries), snacks (fruit, cheese and crackers, salami, and a warm beef and cheese dip for tortilla chips), lunch (vegetable soup, rolls, and salad), and dessert (chocolate peppermint cake).

We always exchange little gifts and goodies and I found the perfect gift for them this year. Something I started off this month and will continue each month at our get togethers through the year. Here's my little wagon filled with fun--

I came across this free BOM pattern last month--it's the Adventures of Harrington and Hannah. Last week I made up the first block . . . .

. . . and put together kits for my friends from my wool stash. Each month I'll kit up that month's wools and backgrounds.

Yep, it was a really fun day and now I'm tired and ready to head to bed. Thanks for stopping by to visit!

Getting Ready for My Stitching Friends

2012-02-11T01:20:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, it's my turn to host our monthly stitchery gathering. I can hardly wait! I've been getting things ready: I've moved furniture (because our home is tiny, it's hard to accommodate six ladies and their projects without some adjustments and space planning. I've done some food prep (I want to spend as little time in the kitchen as I absolutely must). I've put together some little gifty treats (because my friends deserve them). And I've prepped a couple projects of my own to work on. Now I just need to get a good night's sleep and then take care of a few last preparations in the morning. They'll be here at 10 a.m.

I have another little giveaway treat for you too:

This is another of those projects I'm clearing out. At one time, I made a quilt top with nine Mary Engelbreit panels and then decided I needed something smaller, so I removed four of the panels. What's left will need to be taken apart and re-done. There are five panels (two designs) and sashing. If you'd like to adopt this project and you live in the US or Canada, please leave me a comment, letting me know you'd like to be included in the drawing. I'll pick a winner Sunday night to be posted on Monday's blog post. Good luck!

As for me, it's off to bed. It won't be long now until my friends arrive.

Another Applique Block of the Month

2012-02-10T02:34:00.000-08:00

Have you seen the free Country Cottages block of the month over at Shabby Fabrics? I came across it a month or two ago and wanted to make it. When I was cleaning up the Sweat Shop, I was admiring the fat quarters of Lakehouse fabric I had and thought it would be ideal for this project. The second block was recently posted, so I'm already behind, but I finally finished--or just about finished--Block 1--

The pattern has white embroidered snowflakes that I haven't added so far. I have some snowflake buttons I was thinking about using instead, but I'd add those after I quilt it, so I have plenty of time to decide which to use.

What are you working on?

Busy, Busy

2012-02-09T00:04:00.000-08:00

When life's busy, no matter how fun it might be, don't you just hope for things to slow down a bit so you can spend a couple quiet evenings, just you and your sewing stuff? I do!

What have I been doing so far this week? Well, Tuesday I had to go to the dentist for some excavation and backfill work. Always a ton of fun, right? Then Tuesday night, three-quarters of our little Autumn House group met at Casa de Kim to parcel out the fabric we'll need for block 2. It was Gran's birthday recently, so we had a little celebration. And a little celebration deserves a great little cake, doesn't it? Strawberry white chocolate mousse cake. Yum!

I'm hostessing the larger stitchery group gathering on Saturday, so I jumped on a recent Groupon for housecleaning services, and that was scheduled by Hubby for today (Wednesday). One of the nice things about having Hubby home is that he's able to do things like schedule appointments and then BE HERE for them. So per Hubby, the housecleaners were supposed to arrive at 10 a.m. while I was at work and be done by noon. At 8 a.m., when Hubby was still in bed, sawing logs, there was a knock at the door. Guess who? Yep, the housecleaners! Seriously, folks, although I wouldn't tell HIM, it wouldn't surprise me if Hubby had scheduled them for 8 a.m. and then mis-remembered. He does that sometimes because he never writes anything down and thinks he can rely on his memory. Ha!

So, after the housecleaners went out to their van to get their supplies, I rolled Hubby out of bed and gave the housecleaners a tour. Then I got ready for work in whatever spaces they weren't cleaning at the time. Sheesh! Yes, they did offer to leave and reschedule, but hello! I have people coming over this weekend and if they didn't clean NOW, I would probably have to do it myself. No thanks!

Wednesday during my lunch hour, I ran the Autumn House block 2 "kit" over to the missing member's house--she has bronchitis. Wednesday after work was Thimbleberries Club. Then a little grocery shopping for the weekend. See what I mean about being busy?

Thursday was the only day I had absolutely no commitments, but my friendly dentist did something to one of my teeth that makes me think he's been seeing too many Twilight movies and he's into transforming his patients into Edward-wannabes because this one tooth is a little more sharp and pointy than it used to be. And he wasn't able to see me until Thursday. Sadly, Hubby broke my Dremel awhile back, so no [self-]help there.

So tomorrow I have to work and make time around the lunch hour to go to my dentist. And the way this week's been going, I suspect a few other things will be added to the day's schedule.

And do you know what all of this amounts to? Since I'm off work on Friday, it means there was not one single day this week when my friends and I could have our regular Chevy's-chips-and-salsa lunch. ARGH! Withdrawals are setting in and I'm ready to mainline Chevy's salsa!

Woe is me. But enough of that. Remember that last giveaway I posted about? Those Debbie Mumm parts? The giveaway winner this time is Donna, who said, "It looks so nice. I would give them a good home!" Donna's a regular reader and giveaway enterer (is that a word?) here but I don't remember her winning before. Donna, please email your mailing address to me and I'll get these parts out to you soon.

Now I need to say goodnight and get to bed--I'm sure tomorrow will be another busy day. By the way, it's now Soccer Son's birthday. Happy birthday Hon! [Okay, you're right. Maybe my life WAS a little busier on this date 31 years ago. More painful at any rate!]

New Kids on the Block

2012-02-08T00:38:00.001-08:00

While I've been cleaning out the Sweat Shop the last couple weeks and not thinking about very much else, life has continued to happen all around me. At work, I have two new bosses.

A few years back, you may remember me occasionally mentioning Girl Boss and Boy Boss. And then Girl Boss 2. I guess that means these bosses are Girl Boss 3 and Boy Boss 2. If you're keeping track.

I may have mentioned Girl Boss 3 before because she started with the firm in December. She's the same age as the Wild Child and played competitive soccer at the same time, so I'm sure they played against one another. Kind of an odd coincidence, don't you think?

She's smart, self-possessed, and has a great personality. She fits into the office really well and everyone likes her. And, most importantly from my perspective, she's easy to work with.

Boy Boss 2 started last week. He's from England and initially practiced law there. His wife is a medical scientist, and she was offered a temporary position at a large medical university here a couple years ago, so they came over to the US. When that position became permanent, Boy Boss 2 studied for, took, and passed the California bar exam, so now he's a practicing attorney.

Boy Boss 2 is the same age as Soccer Son. And, since he's from England, it's no surprise he has a great deal of experience with soccer too. Another odd coincidence. Soccer Son came in to have lunch with me the other day and I introduced the two--they talked soccer for quite a bit. Of course, I only understood half of what they were talking about.

Boy Boss 2 is a nice guy and seems easy to work with so far. And I knew he was pretty okay when I saw some of the artwork he brought in to put up on his walls. Two pieces were drawings of Liverpool landmarks and the "fill" (for instance, the designs of the buildings that make up the skyline) was patchwork. How cool is that?

Working for two new attorneys isn't easy in the field we work in, and in the way our firm is set up. There are always rush jobs to be done at the last minute, and the pressure can be high. I hope I can keep up and not let myself get too stressed out. At least these two seem like a good pair to work for.

Part of what the firm expects of me when they pair me up with new attorneys is to teach them the practical aspects of practicing law in our field, at our firm. Since I've been in the field for a gazillion years and with this firm in particular for nearly 20 years, presumably I know a couple things I can impart to them. I really knew I'd slipped into teaching mode when I had a dream the other night in which I turned to a new attorney and said, as two people walked into the office lobby, "and these are plaintiffs." For those of you who aren't in the legal field, it's a little like explaining to someone "and these are cats." In the dream, I quickly realized I had absolutely nothing to add to that statement and I felt like an idiot. I guess I need to remember that not everything in life is a teachable moment. Sometimes you just need to sit back and let life happen.

How Do You Feel About Lemon Chicken?

2012-02-07T00:35:00.001-08:00

I like lemon chicken, don't you? And not just the kind you get at your local Chinese restaurant either. When I roast a chicken, my favorite thing is to stuff the cavity with onion, celery, and carrots (and put a layer on the bottom of the roasting pan too) and then rub lemon pepper seasoning under the skin. After that, I rub a little oil over the skin and sprinkle it with some sea salt, and then into the oven it goes.

Here's the thing though. How would lemon pepper chicken soup taste? Well, I'm here to tell you: not so great.

I always ("always" means probably about 90 percent of the time) use our leftover roasted chickens to make chicken soup. And most of the time, the leftovers consist of the carcass and breast meat from one of the breasts. And I've never had it turn out with a noticeable lemon flavor . . . until this past weekend. Really, really odd. And I can't figure out why--I really didn't do anything differently. The soup tasted kind of interesting at first, but by the time we were about half way done with our bowls, we were really tired of lemon.

Keeping in mind the rather large container of leftover chicken soup in my refrigerator, I decided today to ask some of my friends who have pretty good cooking sense what they'd do to cut the lemon flavor. All agreed it probably needed some kind of cream--half and half or maybe a little sour cream. And maybe just a touch of honey. Or perhaps a can of cream of chicken soup would help. So I came home and added a can of cream of chicken soup, a dollop of sour cream, and about a tablespoon of honey. Now it tastes pretty good. There's still a slight lemon flavor but not in a bad way, I think. Of course, I haven't eaten a bowl of it yet, so only time will tell if we can make it past the half-a-bowl point.

And speaking of leftovers, although I'm done cleaning out the Sweat Shop (I think!), I still have a couple things to give away. Here's tonight's giveaway:

These are parts that were leftover from the first bed-sized applique quilt I ever made--kind of a farm animal applique using Debbie Mumm fabrics. I'm sure I've shown the quilt on my blog before, but I'll have to take a photo or search to see if I can find an old one to show you. In the meantime, if you're interested in becoming the recipient of a bunch of star blocks, nine-patches attached to triangles, and a few other miscellaneous pieces, please leave me a comment saying you'd like to be entered. I'll draw a winner Wednesday night. The second place winner might get some lemon chicken soup--but only if it turns out that I still don't want it. Good luck!

Did You Notice I Was Missing?

2012-02-06T00:02:00.000-08:00

So Saturday night, I was working in the Sweat Shop when I felt this tug on my big toes, and the next thing I knew, the floor under the sewing table opened up and I was sucked down a giant tube slide into the land of the quilter's elves. Remember when you'd go to the drive-thru at the bank and they had those vacuum tubes? Same thing! It was rather frightening at first, especially since the elves didn't speak English and I couldn't understand what they wanted. Well, and I didn't even know they were quilter's elves at first! But they soon had me relaxing in a hot tub, sipping on champagne, watching videos of George Clooney and Johnny Depp, and nibbling finger foods and chocolate. And did I tell you about the mani/pedi? Most excellent!

As midnight approached, I told them I had to go back to post something on my blog, but they said no, I had to stay with them until they were done with me. Of course, I put up a little bit of a struggle, because I knew some of you would miss me and worry, but they insisted.

When they finally returned me home at 3:30 a.m., guess what I found? The elfish cleaning crew had been hard at work in the Sweat Shop, finishing up the cleaning for me! Yay elves!

Now you'd think that I'd have all Sunday to play, right? Well, in all the time I've been working on the Sweat Shop the last couple weeks, I've let the rest of the house go, so a good part of the day Sunday was spent in cleaning up the house and putting up the Valentine's/spring quilts. Finally, FINALLY, Sunday night I was free to sit down in the Sweat Shop and survey my domain. But what should I work on first?

I decided to work on a little project that involves some embroidery and some wool and some other things, but I can't tell you what it is just yet. I've made up little kits for my stitchery friends because we'll be getting together on Saturday and I don't want to ruin the surprise. I CAN show you my first two embroidered snowflakes though. At least I THINK I can--they probably don't show up very well because it's white embroidery thread on a cream fabric background. Here, take a look:

I wanted to give you a quick little look at the new and improved Sweat Shop now that the elves have cleaned--before I make a mess. In many ways, the room still looks the same, but it's crazy the number of containers--baskets, buckets, totes, etc.--I was able to eliminate because I could finally get all the fabric onto the shelves.

One of the hardest things I found was figuring out how to store precuts, and they really ended up being all over the room, but in an organized way. For instance, I have two places I'm keeping charm packs. You can probably see a bit of a little suitcase open on the desk--that's full of charm packs. Layer cakes were a challenge, but I finally removed the cardboard backing and rolled them up and put them all in a wire basket--

This surface also has many fewer things cluttering it up. That wicker suitcase basket now contains all sorts of little "kits" and projects--most of them are little wool stitchery things I've collected over the years and not gotten to. Most of them had been stuffed here and there--too hard to find even if I'd wanted to work on something!

And see that blue topped glass jar up on the shelf? That jar contains slips of paper with the names of 12 unfinished projects--many are simply blocks collected from swaps or BOMs that weren't finished. All are Thimbleberries. I've decided to draw a slip of paper out each month and try my hardest to complete the project sometime during the month--most should be fairly quick.

I also took everything off the bulletin board that's behind my chair and replaced only the things that I really needed/wanted there, like the month's projects. If you look closely, you'll see a strip of paper pinned to the board; it tells me that the first project I drew was Thimbleberries birthday blocks. You'll see what that is as the month goes by, I think. And then there's this month's Schnibbles pattern. Important stuff.

I know many of you have either been cleaning out your spaces or encouraged to start. If I see them again, I'll send the quilter's elves to visit you and help out, okay? Until you've experienced it, you just can't imagine what a blast it is to party with the elves on Saturday night until the wee hours.

Garage Sale Day

2012-02-04T00:14:00.000-08:00

I first want to apologize to long-time readers who are no doubt bored to tears right about now. After all, there have been no funny stories and no cute projects for awhile--just a bunch of drivel about cleaning and selling unwanted stuff. I'm sure if it wasn't for the occasional giveaway, I'd probably only have two or three readers left. I certainly hope to change that soon so we can all get back to our regularly scheduled program, but at least for today, I have to devote this blog post to promoting my "garage sale." Bonnie over in Quiltville is acting as a central location for links to garage sales all over Blogland, so I thought it would be an excellent opportunity.

In this post, I'll list some of the fabrics I'd like to sell, with photos and prices, and then I'll upload them to my Etsy shop--because it's really much easier for everyone concerned to arrange payment, etc., through Etsy. In my Etsy shop are also the kits and fabrics I listed earlier this week. There's a link to the shop just above, a link in the sidebar, and a link near the end of this post, so pop on in at any time.

NOTE: I'm amending this post to remove the items that have sold and add a couple new items, so if it looks different to you--it is!

Thimbleberries Scraps. I was surprised to read in Bonnie's comments that several people were hoping to find scraps at the garage sale and didn't, so--well you know I had a hard time closing the Thimbleberries scraps drawer--I thought I'd gather some up. I put together two packages of scraps, approximately 12 ounces in each. This pile (and one similar to it) fills a large Ziploc bag. There are many "vintage" Thimbleberries fabrics in these bags. Price: $15 plus $3.50 shipping in the US.

And you all know I've been cutting 5" charm squares of Thimbleberries fabrics. I'm going to list two of these in my Etsy shop. These also contain a number of "vintage" Thimbleberries fabrics and there are 105 squares in each packet. Price: $12 plus $3 shipping in the US. [BOTH SOLD! THANK YOU!]

Debbie Mumm Woodland Santa fabric, $12.50 plus shipping.

Debbie Mumm Garden fabric, $7.50 plus shipping.

Thimbleberries Evergreen Lodge--pattern included for tabletopper/lap sized quilt, $25 plus shipping (page 2 of shop listings):

A little frog music, $35 plus shipping.

Click HERE to shop! [THERE ARE MORE FABRIC GROUPINGS IN MY ETSY SHOP THAT AREN'T POSTED HERE--TAKE A LOOK.] I've also listed shipping prices to Canada in the Etsy shop. And thank you all for your patience. Someday soon I'll get a life back.

Second Chance

2012-02-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

It's Thursday night here at Casa de Kim, and two of the original winners are out of time to claim their winnings, so I'll do what I promised and announce two new winners. Sorry ladies!

First is what was Group C. This group consists of cannibalized Thimbleberries quilt parts, as you can see in the next two photos.

And the new winner is Cathy who said, "Group c for me. I can already think of a middle for the border quilt... thanks for being so generous.

The next is Group D and it consists of gadgets:

The new winner of Group D is Melissa, who said, "I'm a gadget girl and would love group D. Thanks for the chance Kim!"

Cathy and Melissa, please email me your mailing addresses. You have until Saturday night to contact me. One way or another, these "prizes" are heading out the door!

And, in case you were wondering: I spent another evening culling out fabric I no longer want. I'm feeling a little less claustrophobic--yay! Thanks to all of you who have helped by taking some of ~~these zucchinis~~ this quilty stuff off my hands.

Solved!

2012-02-02T00:03:00.000-08:00

One of MY puzzles is solved, at least--I have a winner for the Bag O'Parts of the Spring! wallhanging, and that winner is Sandi. Sandi's entry came to me by email rather than comment, so I'll post what she said: "I have been away from quilting for about a year (due to a family thing). In the last two weeks I have been back, but not in full force. Nothing seems to interest me. But a puzzle really caught my interest. I love a challange. Please keep me in mind. Thank you." I'm sure we can all relate to being in a bit of a slump; I hope my little puzzle will help revive Sandi's enthusiasm for quilting and NOT be the thing that kills it completely due to frustration! Sandi, if you aren't easily daunted or frustrated and still want to claim the "puzzle" pieces prize, please email me your mailing address and I'll get it in the mail to you.

As far as the Sweat Shop goes--my other little puzzle--I thought I was getting close to the end of cleaning it up/out, but tonight showed me that I still have a little way to go. I ran some errands after work, so I didn't make it into the Sweat Shop until a bit later than I wanted--too late to dive into what I had thought of as the last area to be organized. So instead I started "correctly" folding some fat quarters that I'd shoved after purchasing onto the stash shelves and sorting through the red section of my stash wall. Then the blue section. After that, the green section, and before I knew it, the brown section too. Then I began on the "sort of grouped by collection" section. In each section, I found a few pieces of fabric that no longer appealed to me, so I removed them for donation. Now I've straightened up the stacks and made a little room for the fabric to breathe, but I also ended up with a big bag of unwanted fabric. (And I've really only done half the shelves too!) Now what? I can't really keep paying postage to send it all over the U.S. I'm telling you, it's like zucchinis in August! Speaking of which, it just occurred to me that one of my neighbors sews. Do you think she'd be surprised to go out her door in the morning and find a mysterious bag of fabric on her front porch?! Pleasantly surprised or not so much, I wonder?

The other day I bagged up some red, white, and blue fabric leftovers, thinking I'd find someone locally who's involved with Quilts of Valor or a similar group that might want it, and a friend of mine offered to take it for her mother who's in a group, so that's handled. And I know I can take some of this no-longer-wanted fabric to my next guild meeting for the "free table" (thank you to the couple people who mentioned their guilds had one--I'd totally forgotten about that!) and maybe the community service ladies at the guild.

I still have a lot of stuff in the Sweat Shop that needs to be sorted and arranged better, but it's coming along. I'm also pondering the Christmas fabric: It takes up a lot of space, so I wonder whether it makes sense to pack it away until late summer when I start to think about Christmas quilts again. What do you think? What do you do? I know I could better use those shelves for year round fabrics--precuts that don't seem happy where they are. And how do YOU store precuts? Especially when you've purchased additional yardage for borders?

I'd like to discuss what I've found out about myself and my fabric buying habits--the kinds of things I think are cute as heck when I buy them but that don't seem to have staying power--and find out if you've had similar experiences. But it's getting late, so maybe that talk will have to wait until tomorrow. Good night!

Do You Like Puzzles?

2012-02-01T00:02:00.000-08:00

Are you feeling lucky? Well, maybe this post is for you. But first . . . .

Remember last night's pile of charm squares? Tonight's pile has grown. I've cut 1,050 squares altogether. Maybe I should have cut more, but with considerable weight behind the effort, I was able to finally close the Thimbleberries scrap drawer and that brought this task to a close. I gotta tell you it was kind of like when people sit on their luggage to close it; you know what I mean?

So that's done for now. Of course, we all know scraps breed and grow when they're left unsupervised, so it's just a matter of time before they'll be popping right out of that drawer again. In the meantime, my floor where the scrap pile USED to be:

Yes, there's still a lot of cleaning that needs to be done, trash to be dumped, and a little more rearranging, but the end is in sight. Hallelujah!

So I thought we'd celebrate a little. I thought I'd have a little giveaway. Are giveaways getting a little old and boring around here? I know I'm starting to feel a little like a gardener with too many zucchini in August. But I hope you're still enjoying the chance of winning something. However, tonight's giveaway might take a special person. It's not for everyone. The winner will need to have some patience.

Back when I taught one of my first classes--my Spring! wallhanging pattern--I made up blocks to demonstate to the class how everything was supposed to go together. I came across the class blocks and, not wanting to make a second wallhanging, I nearly threw them out, but then I stopped myself with the thought that maybe one of you would enjoy putting the puzzle together.

The problem is that I can't swear all the pieces are there, although they SHOULD be because the bag's been in my "projects to be finished" drawer since the class.

My demo version used a variety of pastel shades for the tulips and bright green stems and leaves. Along with these block pieces, the winner will receive my pattern so he/she can figure out where each piece belongs. It will also help if the winner has a design wall or something similar to lay out the pieces.

What's here doesn't include the fabric/pieces for the rabbit or the words--it's just the pieces for the background tulips although there is green fabric for the appliqued leaves. I also didn't store any additional background fabric with the package so the winner may need to be a little creative.

What do you think? Are you up for a challenge? If so, please leave me a comment telling me you want to be entered. I'll pick a winner tomorrow night--assuming there's more than one intrepid quilter out there willing to give it a try--and announce the winner on Thursday's post.

Good luck!

I Cannot Begin to Tell You . . .

2012-01-31T00:19:00.000-08:00

how boring my life has become. They say a picture is worth 1,000 words. Here are two. You'll be very glad I spared you an additional 1,879 boring words.

This is the pile of Thimbleberries scraps remaining on the Sweat Shop floor. Up until tonight, getting past that pile was a little like a cross between pole vaulting and doing the long jump.

Over 800 5" charm squares so far. I still have the scraps on the floor, a bag of red scraps, and a bag of mostly brown scraps to cut up.

If I don't post tomorrow night, it's because I have even less to say. And someone might want to come take my rotary cutter away from me before I get crazy. Just sayin'.

And On and On . . . .

2012-01-30T00:01:00.000-08:00

Another day spent in the Sweat Shop. I guess it's better than cleaning the house . . . although that needs to be done too!

I spent all of today cutting Thimbleberries scraps into usable pieces so I can fit the rest into the Thimbleberries scrap drawer. In the meantime, the Sweat Shop still looks like a bomb exploded in there, and walking around can be hazardous.

I've uploaded a few more things to my Etsy shop--please visit to see what's there--there might just be a treasure waiting for you! Besides the things I've decided I need to let go, I uploaded a couple of spring patterns and kits. You can click over to the shop through the link in the sidebar.

Now for the winners of giveaways I posted the other day. If I announce you won, please email me your mailing address and remind me which group you won, and I'll get your "prize" in the mail to you in the next couple days.

Group A: Janet. Janet said, "Choices choices ... I'll toss my hat into the ring for group A - I've been into cheddar lately! Dang, that was tough! Thanks for the opportunity!"

Group B: Sandie. Sandie said, "Oh my goodness, you know I love Thimbleberries! Group B is calling me because I know I have those patterns! Thanks for the chance!"

Group C: CarrieBeeCrafts, who said "I would love to be entered in Group C! Pretty border :) P.S. I understand the chair cover is not included in the giveaway, but I couldn't help but mention how cute it is!" (My response: Thanks! I made it several years ago to cover torn upholstery on a chair that's still wonderful otherwise. And it's washable and reversible.)

Group D: Wanda. Wanda said, "Wow! Thank you for thinking of us. I want to make this easy. I love several. To try to pick is hard but I would love to have the gadgets if you pick me. Thank you again."

Group E: Dianne, who said, "grrr! blogger is eating comments again... Group E ... i LOVE Group E!!! does that make me a groupie?"

Group F: Josie. Josie said, "Again with the reds in group F! Love the red and Aqua!!!"

Group G: Phyllis, who said, "Love all the groupings but group G is calling to me. I thank you."

Congrats to the winners! And for those of you who didn't win, I have a couple more things coming up soon. And remember: To claim your win, you must come back here and email me--I won't get in touch with you. If I don't hear from any of the winners by late Thursday, I'll pick a second place winner from those who have entered.

I'd better get back to the Sweat Shop--it's not going to clean itself, and since I'm not the only quilter in Blogland cleaning out her quilt domain, I think the Quiltmaker's Elves must be busy helping someone else. At any rate, they sure haven't visited me so far, but there's always tonight, I suppose.

Somebody's Gotta Do It

2012-01-29T03:28:00.000-08:00

Oh, my! I spent all day Saturday, from the time I woke up until well into Sunday (note how late I'm writing this post!) mucking out the Sweat Shop. A person can only go so long before a BIG reorganization effort is required, and as you know, that time had come. But I really, REALLY didn't expect it to take as much time as it's taking.

On the bright side--for YOU anyway--I've found a couple more things to give away in the future. And also on the bright side--for you and me, maybe?--I've found several things to list in my Etsy shop. Remember I mentioned that I thought I'd sell some of my Thimbleberries things that were taking up space and that I'd never get around to using/making? Well, they're there now. Click on over to see what I've listed--quite a few fat quarter groupings but also a couple kits and some non-Thimbleberries things too. (Click HERE.) Yes, I know--shameless promotion. But I really need to get some things moved out because my space is limited--and I could probably make a small fortune selling my Thimbleberries fabric and still not notice I'd made much of a dent in my "supplies."

Over the years, I've "collected" swapped blocks and half-finished projects, and I'm oddly excited about finally taking stock and coming up with a PLAN. I've written down what I have along those lines, and I'm going to type them (well, not THEM, exactly, but a name and description) onto paper strips and draw a strip each month. Whatever project I draw is the quilt top I need to finish that month. Many of these projects will only take a few evenings or a weekend at most to finish. I'm thinking about doing the same thing with getting my basket of quilt tops quilted, but I'm not quite to the point where I can organize those yet.

I can see that I'll need to spend a few more hours in the Sweat Shop on Sunday before it's in order, so I'd best get myself to bed for a little sleep. "See" you tomorrow!

Parts is Parts

2012-01-28T00:04:00.000-08:00

What better way to party on a Friday night than to clean out drawers stuffed with rejected blocks, quilt parts, and leftovers? I've gathered up some of the pieces I thought might still be useable for something or another and grouped them together in the hopes that if you see something you like in a group, you'd be willing to take on it's uglier cousins too.

If you're interested in giving these poor rejects a home, here's what I need you to do. I'll identify each "giveaway" by letter; for instance, Group A. If you want Group A, leave me a comment telling me you want Group A. If you want Groups A, B, and C, you have to leave me three comments, telling me you want only one group in each comment. That way, I can move the comments into the corresponding giveaways, and when it comes time to draw winners, you'll already be sorted. Right? Okay, let's start.

GROUP A

Group A consists of several blocks made from Thimbleberries fabric. Most of these blocks are fairly large--around 12" or larger except for a couple smaller ones.

GROUP B

Group B also consists of Thimbleberries blocks. Most of these are smaller, except for the large blue, white, and green piece on the left--that would make a decent pillow cover top or the center of a tabletopper. After I took this photo, I came across more smallish blocks and added them to this grouping, so you'll be surprised. In fact, I might have added a couple to Group A too, but I'm not as sure about that one.

GROUP C

Yeah, Group C is an odd one and there are two photos of the pieces that make up the group. Again, Thimbleberries fabric. The first photo is of a few random blocks. The second photo is of borders--attached together in a square with no middle. (What you see there that might look like the rest of the quilt top is my chair cover.) This one started as a quilt top, but I didn't like it that well, so I took part of it out and used it in another project.

GROUP D

Are you a gadget person? I'm not. Over the years I've collected several quilters' gadgets I thought I really needed and found I really didn't. And I've been given a few that have languished in a drawer. If "Gadget" is your middle name, maybe Group D may be just the thing you've been waiting for.

GROUP E

I have no words for this one, except to remind you that Cinco de Mayo will be coming up in a couple months.

GROUP F

A tisket, a tasket, six red and aqua baskets.

GROUP G

Don't they just make you want to salute? If you're part of a Quilts of Valor group or are just plain patriotic, maybe Group G is for you.

This group of giveaways is open to anyone in the US and Canada. I'll leave this up for the weekend and pick "winners" on Sunday night, to be announced in Monday's blog post. Thanks!

COMMENTS CLOSED--WATCH FOR AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE WINNERS!

A New Home For a Quilt Top!

2012-01-27T00:25:00.000-08:00

I've picked a "winner" for the quilt top I put up for adoption yesterday, and the entry I drew was "Anonymous"! Yes, there were a couple entries by the Anonymous family, but this member said,

"I'd love to adopt your quilt top, cat hair and all. I need practice on machine quilting. Thanks for the sharing - your words and your unwanted quilt items. cindy cke49 at yahoo dot com."

Congrats Cindy! Email me your mailing address and I'll get the quilt top and cat hair in the mail to you.

In the last couple weeks, I've have a few new visitors to the blog: The Heart Struck Runner I designed for the Valentine's Blog Hop last year was featured at FaveQuilts and they posted a link. I realized today that with new visitors, I probably should have posted my "rule" about giveaways--that the person must come back to the blog to find out they've won, rather than me email them with the news. I don't know if Cindy is aware of the rule, but normally if I don't hear from a winner within a few days, I'll pick someone else. I DO very much hope Cindy comes back to claim her win, but if I don't hear from her by Sunday evening, I'll pick a new winner.

In the meantime, if you were hoping to win and weren't picked this time, don't despair: I still have a LOT of things to clean out, so there's bound to be more giveaways. Stay tuned!

Up for Adoption . . .

2012-01-26T00:01:00.000-08:00

I have a very large basket of rolled quilt tops that are waiting to be made whole, given soft innards, so they can find someone who wants to snuggle with them, love them, and live happily ever after. Some of them have been waiting quite awhile. And as with everything else, I felt it was time I took a look at what I have and reassessed a little bit.

This morning, I pulled a somewhat small Civil War/1800s style quilt top out of the basket. I thought I might give it away, but as I looked at it on the design wall, I realized I kind of liked it--kind of alot, in fact. So I rolled it back up and put it back. Then tonight, I found this one:

It's made with Thimbleberries fabric and I won the partially completed blocks and some of the fabric at one of my Thimbleberries Club's raffles a couple years ago. I finished putting the top together, rolled it up, and stuffed it in the "to be quilted" basket.

And while I kind of like the quilt top, I have a lot more quilt tops I like more, so this one will probably languish in the basket for years and years. I decided, instead, so see if anyone wanted to offer it a good home. No, the cat is NOT included, but you will, no doubt, receive some of Spike's fur if you are lucky enough to win the quilt top. And, in the photo, it's on my daughter's double bed, so you can kind of judge the size.

Please leave me a comment if you live in the US or Canada, aren't allergic to cats, and would like to adopt this poor quilt top. I'll pick a winner--assuming I have some volunteers--on Thursday night (tomorrow) and post the winner on Friday's blog post. Anyone interested?

In The Same Vein . . .

2012-01-25T00:04:00.000-08:00

I know, I know . . . . You want to know who won the scrap box, don't you? Well, let's do that first then. Shelley, come on down! Shelley has been a long time visitor and I don't think she's ever won anything from me before--at least not that I can remember, and I've got a memory that's good for remembering things at least as far as a month or two back.

Shelley said, "Oh lovely box of scraps, please come live with me :) You will have a warm and comfy home with lots of friends to play with! Kim, you're so much fun!" (Does it help to say nice things about me? Well, I guess it doesn't HURT, right?!)

Shelley, please email me your mailing address and I'll put the mysterious scrap box in the mail to you. Congratulations!

Okay, now for some quilty business. I did it again.

Another quilt top, from another set of already-made blocks. These were from an online quilt-along that I lost interest in at the point of making the ninth block. I've decided that online quilt-alongs aren't for me. Not, at least, the ones where guest designers each design a different block. They're fun to participate in, but in my (admittedly limited) experience, I don't find the designs make for a very cohesive quilt in the end, do you?

But you know what? I think some kid will really enjoy looking at all the "critters" in the fabric of this quilt. So I decided to put the blocks I'd made together into a quilt for a child. I'll quilt it simply and donate it to my guild's community service group.

You know what I was thinking as I was finishing the piecing on this one? I was wondering what YOU do when you fall out of love with a project you're working on. Do you soldier on and finish it anyway? Do you set it aside because your time is limited and you can't stand to spend it on a project you no longer like? Do you donate it to community service? Do you "accidentally" set it on fire? Do you have a giveaway on your blog and stuff it all into a scrap box?

Obviously, for me, I just set these unhappy projects aside and move on to something else, but now it's time to deal with them because I can't keep storing them--I just don't have the space. So tell me . . . what do you do? Maybe you have a suggestion we haven't even thought about yet!

2010 Called and It Wants Its Quilt Blocks

2012-01-24T00:23:00.000-08:00

. . . made into quilts!

In cleaning up the Sweat Shop the other day, I was reminded that I have a couple of quilt projects that are close--but not quite--done. I picked up and peered into one tote bag, completely forgetting what was in it, and I found it contained the completed blocks from the 2010 Thimbleberries BOM. The only part I hadn't pieced yet was a set of sawtooth borders and final borders.

The sawtooth borders were okay but I quickly decided they were waaaaaaaaay more work than I wanted to put into it, so I put the completed blocks up on the design wall, added some sashing that wasn't in the original pattern, and finished it up with a couple simple borders.

I'm not sure why the original design called for blue fabric "sky" in the fence blocks but nowhere else--that bugs me a little bit. There were three colorways the quilt could be made in, and the nighttime sky version had the same dark background throughout. I kind of wish I'd picked that one now. But this is okay--I'll do some simple quilting, I think, and it will be a nice spring throw quilt.

Most of all, I'm happy to have finished a project that was languishing in a tote bag. That's one more half-finished project I can put in the "done" (but still to be quilted!) pile. I wish I could say ALL the half-finished projects are done, but I still have a couple more that I need to give a little time and attention to. Another day, another quilt project. Happy quilting!

Tidying Up and Cleaning Out--Again!

2012-01-23T00:07:00.000-08:00

With the completion of another quilt top comes a bit of cleaning and organizing in the Sweat Shop. After all, I've had a large plastic zip bag devoted to the fabric used in the Rabbits quilt for the last six years, and all those leftovers needed to be relocated--some of the larger pieces have been moved back onto the fabric shelves and some of the smaller pieces have been moved into the scrap drawer.

The overflowing scrap drawer.

So guess what? Yep, it's that time again. I've filled a medium priority mail box with scraps and I'm ready to send it off visiting somewhere in the United States. Would you like to invite it to come live with you?

Contained in the box is a real mix of stuff. Old Kansas Troubles scraps, brushed cotton scraps, bright scraps, holiday scraps, ugly scraps, pretty scraps, . . . . You name it and it's probably in that box.

Want it? Leave a comment inviting the box to come live with you and I'll pick a winner Tuesday night and post the identity of the winner on my Wednesday blog post.

This is NOT the end of the cleaning out. I've been going through a few other bags and baskets of half finished projects and I sure wouldn't be surprised if I come up with a few other orphans that need a new mom (or dad), so stay tuned. Also, my 11 in '11 peeps--I haven't forgotten you; I've just been bogged down with other stuff. I'll get to you very soon, okay?

Why is it that there's just never enough time? Or room to store everything? It's probably just as well, though--otherwise, I'd be moaning about not having enough money to buy everything I want. It's always something.

Year(s) of the Rabbit(s)

2012-01-22T00:24:00.000-08:00

Most of you already know the story. I was smitten with Bunny Hill's Rabbits Prefer Chocolate BOM (as it seems most of the quilting world was) and I signed up for the monthly class at my local quilt shop. That first month, I made the first block. The next month, on the second block, I tweeked the pattern a little bit--that was the big chicken with the bunny on its back, and I wanted it to look like it was running faster. By the third block--well, I tweeked that one even more. And the fourth block? That's when I got sidetracked and put it away for awhile.

Over the years, I pulled it out now and then and worked on it a little bit and then put it away again. Finally this year, I got a little more serious about it. After all, by this time, I had quite a few blocks made and only needed to make a couple more.

Well, maybe more than a couple. But it wasn't too far from finished, so I kept on. And now the quilt top is done.

A couple of you asked about a pattern. No, I can't market my version because it's really Anne Sutton's pattern--admittedly with a few tweeks and variations, but it was originally her idea. But I'd like to encourage you to try something similar if you like a pattern but you have a few ideas of your own. Really, it's not as hard as you might think.

For mine, I looked at how Anne drew her bunnies and chicks, and I drew similar shapes onto freezer paper with a pencil. If a line wasn't right, I erased and redrew it. The shapes were relatively simple. I'm not an artist--for instance, I'd be hard pressed to draw a design like McKenna Ryan's applique patterns--but these simple designs are achievable, particularly if you have a good pattern to begin with.

I looked at the copyright date on Rabbits Prefer Chocolate--2005. I suspect the class I took began in 2006, so I've spent six years on this project! You know what? I took another BOM class at the same time with similar results--I think I finished the first block for that one. Maybe it's time I got it out again.

Gōng xǐ fā cái!

2012-01-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

Congratulations and be prosperous! I had an email tonight from my former boss who's now living in China. It's nearly the start of the Chinese New Year and the celebrations have begun. The fireworks are sure to be incredibly impressive and are set off all over the place. It must be a lot of fun to be a part of such a large celebration--a bit like a cross between Christmas and a week long 4th of July celebration.

Sadly, though, that means it's the end of the year of the rabbit and the beginning of the year of the dragon. With that in mind, it's time I finish up the crack(ed) rabbit applique quilt, right? Luckily, that's what I have planned for the weekend.

After having a very dry winter the last couple months, a storm finally moved into our area on Thursday, and the rainy weather makes it the perfect time to hang out in the Sweat Shop and sew the day away.

I'm getting close to finishing. I measured the quilt center tonight and calculated what needs to be done to add the borders. The outer borders are appliqued and ready, and two of the four corners are done as well.

Let me show you one little part I've changed since you last saw the quilt. Here's the "before" photo of the section I've been working on:

And here's the "after" photo:

I replaced the too-light egg car connectors with something that shows up a little better and added the chick with balloons to that open space--it always bothered me a bit but especially after I put the rest of the quilt top together and it felt like something was missing there.

There's another section near the top that I plan to "fix" but I haven't gotten to that part yet--this weekend, I think. At least I have a very good idea of what I want to do in that section too, and I don't think it will take too long if it works as I think it will.

What do you have planned for the weekend? How about going out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant in celebration of upcoming the New Year? Not a bad idea! I think I might have to do that myself. Hot and sour soup on a rainy night? Yum! Saturday's shaping up to be an excellent day.

Thanks!

2012-01-19T00:02:00.000-08:00

Thank you all for your input on the bunny quilt! It was extremely helpful, particularly since just about everyone said they thought red was the best choice--it really reaffirmed for me that my eye wasn't lying. From a purely "wishful thinking" standpoint, I liked the blue, but it just wouldn't have done for the quilt what the red will do.

I also appreciated the other suggestions to try green and even brown. I put green up against the quilt with the border and it just didn't do much for me. I think it may be because green is so similar to blue and neither color is strong enough. And I'll admit I didn't try the brown--I just didn't want more brown in the quilt and there's already a lot in the border. So red it is--or will be at some point.

The other great thing about taking photos of quilts in progress is that you can get a slightly different perspective of the quilt. Judy suggested that the connectors for the egg train cars should be darker and I'd been thinking the same thing myself, so I've changed them for medium light green. I didn't want them to stand out too much but I want them to show up. I haven't gotten the quilt back up on the wall to see how they look, but I like them just fine while the quilt's sitting on the sewing table.

I also knew there were a couple spaces in the quilt that were kind of open but I didn't know what I could do to fill them in. I think I've worked that out now, so I'm doing a bit more applique. I'll show you later, when I've done that part and added the borders.

Okay, now onto the Rabbits Prefer Chocolate pattern giveaway--you've all been very patient with me and Yahoo. Tonight I drew a winner, and I'm pleased to announce the winner is Sunny! Sunny said:

"Please include me in the drawing. My pattern basket does not contain this little beauty. Thanks for the chance!"

Congratulations, Sunny! Please send me your mailing address and I'll get the pattern out to you.

Finally, I wanted to tell you that I might not publish a post tomorrow night. I have the annual legal secretaries' court update seminar/rubbber chicken dinner to attend, and unless something really interesting happens there, I doubt I'll have anything to write about. But you never know. Still, don't look for a post from me; if I come home incredibly bored and tired, I'll probably just take a nice hot bath, fix myself a cup of hot chocolate, and head to bed with a book.

Thanks for visiting me and thanks again for all of your input--one of the things I love about quilters is the way we're always willing to help with an opinion when asked, and I appreciate you taking the time to comment with yours.

Bunny Trouble

2012-01-18T00:29:00.000-08:00

Yahoo is experiencing "technical difficulties" tonight and it won't let me into my mailbox, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to postpone the drawing for the Rabbits Prefer Chocolate pattern until tomorrow night. Please come back then to see whose name I draw--assuming Yahoo has resolved its difficulties and doesn't decide to go dark for the day as some internet companies will in connection with anti-piracy legislation.

In the meantime, I'm finally ready to show you the rabbit quilt as it looks so far with various pieces stuck up on the design wall. The applique in the center is done and I just have about half of one scalloped border and the corner pieces to applique.

I've run into a little trouble, though, that I'd like to get your input on. I need to pick a fabric for the inner border, and if you look at the photo, you'll see I've auditioned blue there at the bottom and red at the top. I think I'm leaning toward the red. Do you agree or would you pick blue? Or another color? What do you think?

The Hunter-Gatherer in the Modern World

2012-01-17T00:03:00.000-08:00

Anthropologically speaking, hunter-gatherer societies are made up of people who search for their food rather than grow it. Kind of like we do at the supermarkets every week. Of course, our hunting-gathering doesn't take quite as much effort as it did for our ancestors. Then again, we have to do all that work to earn the money to pay for it, so it's kind of the same, right?

But maybe grocery shopping isn't enough to satisfy the need to hunt and gather. Not for some of us. Not, maybe, for quilters.

Quilters, I believe, are born hunter-gatherers. After all, aren't we always on the hunt for fabrics, gathering them in for the next project? Well, that's what I've been doing recently--I'm on a mission to find what I need for a project I have in mind. I spent my lunch hour today, hunting at a local quilt shop. Usually I'm a really good hunter and today I found a couple things I was looking for, but right now, I'm stuck in my search for one particular piece. Even my internet searches have failed miserably. So I thought I'd ask you for help--because I'm pretty sure YOU'RE a good hunter-gatherer too.

Specifically I'm looking for this fabric:

It's from a line called Stone Cottage by Renee Nanneman for Andover. Fabric number 4014-L. It's a couple years old now. Have you seen it?

I don't need too much--a fat quarter would be perfect. A fat eighth even. If you have any in your stash and would like to trade, just let me know what you'd like to trade for. If you know your local quilt shop has it in stock, please let me know how I can get in touch with them. Email me with any tips you have.

Thank you for your help!

It's That Time Again

2012-01-16T00:03:00.000-08:00

Almost done and nearly ready to pass it on--

The original pattern, that is. Not the altered Kim-i-tized version.

Leave a comment if you're among the last ten quilters alive who doesn't already own the pattern, if you live in the USA or Canada, and if you would like a chance to win.

I'll pick a winner Tuesday night and announce the winner on Wednesday's blog post. Good luck!

A Day of Friendship

2012-01-15T01:29:00.000-08:00

I spent another stellar day with my stitchery friends on Saturday--it was our monthly get together. I feel so lucky to have found such a congenial group of friends. Four of us are starting the Bunny Hill Autumn House BOM; two of us are fairly experienced appliquers and two of us are newer to the technique. Here's my first block:

If you're familiar with the pattern, you might have noticed I changed mine a little by putting the pumpkin and vine on the right of the house instead of the left and adding a squirrel on the left. In the original, the word "AUTUMN" is embroidered down the right side, but I didn't want to include that in mine.

As usual, we spent the day eating, stitching, and chatting. I can't think of many better ways to spend a Saturday.

It's True!

2012-01-14T00:09:00.000-08:00

Time really DOES fly when you're having fun! How did it get to be the middle of January already? I thought Christmas came fast this year, but I figured that was because there was so much to be done before it arrived--why is time still speeding by now that Christmas is past and January is here?

I think one of the reasons I've been longing to work on applique is the leisurely nature of hand work. I don't want to be forever rushing through life to get from one place to another--literally and figuratively. Especially, though, in quilting, because it's not a race; it's a slow craft by nature and a relaxing hobby that should be enjoyed.

As I was prepping the applique borders for the bunny quilt tonight, my mind drifted off to the plans I have for quilt projects and what I want to make and complete this year. I thought about how I wanted to keep track of the quilts I finish, and I decided I should continue with something similar to the 11 in '11 photos in my sidebar. But then I wondered whether that kind of goal-making would keep me feeling I HAD to accomplish more and more, faster and faster, and I had a mental image of myself as a hampster, running inside a wheel.

Somehow I need to find a way to enjoy this hobby we love and let go of the feeling that quilting is a means to an end. I need to enjoy the process and the creativity and not feel I need to get things finished quickly so I can move onto the next project. How do I do that? Especially when I'm so excited about so many of the projects I want to work on this year? I feel a little like a kid on Christmas morning who's told to slow down and really savor each and every gift before opening the next. Who does THAT?!

Well, I'm going to try. Maybe I'll put up a sign or two in the Sweat Shop, reminding myself to slow down and enjoy. To take deep breaths. To step away from the sewing table now and then. I don't know; I'll have to give it some thought.

In the meantime, the weekend's here. Cheers!

Lunch with friends at Chevy's today--yum!

Rabbits Again . . .

2012-01-13T00:03:00.000-08:00

I have one more photo of the quilt I can show you, and this is a new rabbit, riding a zip line:

The center of the quilt is put together now, but there are a few things that need to be added to fill in the empty spots, and I'm not quite done with that yet. As soon as I am, I'll get a photo of the completed center. I'll still have to prepare the appliqued border, but at least I'll be closer to finishing!

Tonight I had to set the rabbits aside so I could prep the applique for the first block of Autumn House. I'll be getting together with my stitchery group on Saturday, and since four of us are working on this project at the same time, I thought it would be fun to work on mine then.

I finally tasted the chevre cheese we learned to make last weekend, and it's good! I minced up some garlic, green onions, and parsley and added that to the cheese with a little smoked sea salt--yum! That was the easiest and fastest cheese to make, so I'm sure I'll make more in the future. I've looked on the internet to see if I could find the same recipe we used, and I didn't come across it, but if you're interested in trying to make this type of cheese, just search for "how to make homemade chevre" and check out the recipes. Seriously, it's easy and there aren't any really specialized ingredients or equipment involved, other than the cheesecloth (you need a closer weave than most available in the grocery or fabric store) and a thermometer. You CAN probably find both at a decent cooking supply store or from the internet.

I'm still missing the Wild Child, but we've emailed back and forth this week and she's having a great time in New York so far. Manager Man works for/with a well to do couple who are associated with the theater arts and music, and through that association, the Wild Child spent a few hours in a recording studio the other day, watching the wife of this couple record a CD. I don't know if you remember, but the Wild Child sings and was in a small band a couple years ago, so it was a fun experience for her to watch. On top of that, she and Manager Man are spending the weekend in Connecticut as guests of this couple at their country home. Life's rough, eh?! Next week, though, she needs to get a little more serious about settling in and finding a job, but at least the transition from California to New York has been made a little easier for her since it's been more like a vacation.

Time to get ready for bed--one more day of work to get through before the weekend's here. I hope you have something fun planned for your weekend, even if it's just spending a little "me" time at some point!

Oh, Those Rabbits!

2012-01-12T00:12:00.001-08:00

I thought it was time to show you a little more of the rabbits quilt. You've seen the bunnies on the train before, but now I've added some details--

With the positions of their arms, they looked like they should be holding onto something and what better than balloons? And although you can't really see it very well in this photo, there's "smoke" rising out of the smoke stack of the engine.

I've started adding in some of the floral "fillers" too, as well as the small stuff like the "harness" for the egg cart that's snaking out from the undercarriage.

The center of the quilt is really starting to come together finally. I think I'll have a couple more photos to share in another day or two.

At some point, I'm going to have to have some help naming this quilt because Crack Rabbits . . . well, no one would really understand that name except you, right? See you tomorrow!

A Little Cheese with Your Catch-Up

2012-01-11T00:09:00.000-08:00

Sounds kind of gross, doesn't it? Cheese and ketchup? Unless you plan to stick it on a bun with some juicy beef, maybe. But you probably noticed I typed "catch-up" instead of "ketchup," right?

What it means is just that I thought I'd give you a little update on stuff in general and cheese in particular. Tonight three out of our four-person group gathered to "kit" the first block of the Autumn House applique quilt. Here's what the quilt will look like someday--or something close to it, anyway:

The first block is the one at the top left. I'll show you when I get mine done.

We met at Imelda's home and her husband fixed dinner for us--homemade chicken tacos and Spanish rice. Delicious! I've always thought Imelda had just about the perfect relationship, because her husband travels out of town for work every couple of days, which gives her a little bit of "me" time for sewing or whatever else she wants to do. Now that I know he's such a good cook too, I'm REALLY jealous!

Just before the Wild Child left for the airport last night, one of our cheeses, the goat cheese (chevre) was ready to taste. We had just been out to dinner and I wasn't hungry, but she said it was excellent! (I would have tried it tonight, but you know--after those tacos, I didn't need to eat another thing.) So, to recap a bit, although the mozzarella didn't turn out right (and looks even odder now that it's been in the refrigerator), the goat cheese is excellent. I'm still working on the feta, turning the chunks, pouring off the whey, and "feeding" them a little salt twice a day. I think tomorrow they'll be ready to put into a brine solution and refrigerated for a couple weeks. So far, so good! I have to say, though, that the smell of the ripening cheese is a bit overpowering in a not all that pleasant way. At least I've been out of the house a lot for work and friends, and Hubby's cold makes it a little harder for him to smell it!

A couple of you asked about the cheese making book Robert recommended to us. Mine arrived today and I had a chance to look through it. The recipes aren't exactly the same as what Robert gave us, but the process of cheese making is the same and the book looks like it covers just about everything a person needs to know to get started.

If you're interested in classes and expect to be in the Sacramento area, email me and I'll put you in touch with Robert. He told us about one couple who traveled from Humboldt, about a five or six hour drive, to take the class and carted their cheeses all the way home, stopping now and then during the drive to pour off the whey, so keep the class in mind even if you're just traveling through for a few days.

It's time for me to start getting ready for bed. Tomorrow's another full day of work and then our Thimbleberries Club meeting right afterward. Goodnight!

Leavin' on a Jet Plane . . .

2012-01-10T00:02:00.000-08:00

I'm a bit sad tonight because the Wild Child left for New York where she plans to live and go to school for the next few years, if everything works out as planned. Of course, we expect to see her a couple times a year, and technology such as Skype makes it possible to stay in contact, but it's certainly not the same as having her live close to us. On the other hand, I'm excited for her too--I think this just might be a marvelous adventure. Overall, though, I think I'm just glad this week will be a busy one--it will give me a little time to adjust to her absence and not so much time to think about the fact that she's not here.

I'm also a bit sad tonight because it appears Hubby hasn't escaped this awful "worse than a cold but not the plague" illness that's been going around. It's been awhile since the Wild Child and I were at a contageous stage, so I thought he'd managed to evade the bug, but that doesn't appear to be the case, poor guy.

While I was ill, whenever I felt up to it, I worked on a bit of applique--and that wasn't really very often! I spent most of the time sleeping or reading. Just about the time I started to get sick, though, I was working on the last block of the fifth section of the Garden Club quilt and I did get that one finished:

Tomorrow evening I'm meeting with three of my friends to start on the first block of the Autumn House applique quilt by Bunny Hill. Our monthly meetings will mainly be spent deciding which fabrics to use for our blocks. We've pooled what fabrics we've "collected" so far, and we'll share what we have with one another. I think our quilts will end up looking similar but none will be exactly the same. And, of course, you know I'll probably tweek things a bit, although probably not nearly as much as I've changed the Rabbits Prefer Chocolate quilt. I've done a little more work on that one too--I'll show you where I'm at with it in the next day or two.

I'm glad you stopped by for a visit!

Got Cheese?

2012-01-09T00:03:00.000-08:00

I'm back! I'm finally feeling a great deal better, although I have a feeling this cough will hang around a few days and I'm still a little stuffed up--but nothing like the way I felt last week. And best of all, I've finally done something interesting! (At least I thought it was!)

Remember my company's mystery event this year when we ended up making beer? This is the brewmaster, Robert, who the firm hired to teach us:

Robert also teaches cheesemaking, which seemed really cool too, and I came back from the event talking about taking a cheesemaking class someday. I don't remember if I told you, but for Christmas, the Wild Child presented me with gift certificates for three of us to take the class, and that's what she, my sister-in-law, Kathy, and I did today.

Robert has an old Victorian house and the bottom floor--at least what we saw of it--is his office and kitchen classroom. I took some photos during class and I'll tell you a little bit about what we did.

First, cheesemaking--at least what we did today--mostly involves mixing milk with "stuff" to change the milk into curds and whey. The whey is separated out and the curds become cheese. The whole process seems kind of magical although it's really just chemistry!

Here we had a couple pots of what would become cheese going on the stove. The pot on the left contained the beginnings of feta cheese while the pots on the right would become mozzarella. (Sort of.)

Here's just a photo of part of the kitchen--you can see the empty gallon containers of milk and empty smaller containers of goat's milk (for the goat cheese we also made). And yes, there's some cheese and crackers on the counter--a sample of what we may be able to make someday if we keep up our studies!

One of the steps in making cheese is hanging the curds in cheese cloth to let the whey continue to separate out. The cheese in these cheesecloth bundles is feta.

Robert doesn't usually include mozzarella in his beginning cheese class but I asked if he could show us how to make it. Seriously, I think it's probably the simplest soft cheese that I'd actually use fairly often. As it turns out, mozzarella requires more work--you have to keep heating it and kneeding it as you would bread (if you didn't just go buy bread at the grocery store).

The reason I say we sort of made mozzarella is that for some reason, of the two batches of mozzarella cheese we made, neither turned out. Robert, of course, has made mozzarella cheese numerous times and has never had it fail this way, but for some reason, this time it did. The problem was that at some point, when the mozzarella reaches the correct temperature through heating and kneeding, it kind of melds together and forms a ball--a little like bread will--and ours just never did.

There in the center is some mozzarella Robert made a week or two ago, and on the left is one of our batches--which looks kind of lumpy, as you can see. We understand it will taste okay and will melt, but the consistency isn't right. (Toward the back, on the right, is that great cheese Robert made and let us taste.)

Finally, here's our cheese, resting at home. The feta is still hanging in cheesecloth in a big canning pot on top of the refrigerator, and the goat cheese is curdling in the canning jars until tomorrow when it will be transferred to cheesecloth--after the feta comes out. And that sad mozzarella is in the refrigerator--I think I might cut it into large cubes and marinade it but maybe not; I haven't decided yet.

One thing's for sure though. It's going to be a long time before we run out of cheese. But when we do? I just ordered a home cheesemaking book Robert recommended. I may need to start a new blog. How does Kim's Big Cheesemaking Adventure sound?

More Than a Cold, Less Than the Plague

2012-01-06T00:03:00.000-08:00

That's how PCFlamingo summed up this illness. And because I think the only person truly fascinated by updates on my health is me, I'm going to give you guys a couple days off while I attempt to recover and find a life that doesn't revolve around tissues.

I found out today that another Girl's Bowling Night attendee, the Lovely Wife to be Someday, also came down with this thing over the weekend. It's a scary thing when the whole female side of a family--including its extended members--is wiped out as a result of bowling. But you know how dangerous I think exercise is.

I'll be back sometime this weekend, when I feel better and have something to say. In the meantime, if you signed on for the 11 in '11 challenge (your name would be in my sidebar), you were successful in the challenge, and you haven't already emailed me that you posted photos of your projects on your blog or in the Flickr group, please do so soon. There may be rewards involved.

A Figment of my Imagination

2012-01-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

That feeling human thing? Not so much after all. Wishful thinking, maybe. I THOUGHT I'd be going back to work today, but in the end, I got up when the alarm went off and sat on the couch, trying to muster up enough energy to do the hair and makeup thing. In the end, I gave up. And I've spent another very boring day with tissues, my bed, and a book. If I don't get better soon, my nose will fall off. Maybe tomorrow.

Feeling Human Again

2012-01-04T00:28:00.000-08:00

I don't have anything interesting to tell you about my day because I didn't do anything interesting and I've been feeling too ill to put any effort into making up a good story. Not that I ever do, of course, although Hubby would probably like you to believe some of the stuff I say about him is made up. It's not.

I'm finally starting to feel more human tonight, and I expect I'll go back to work tomorrow. I might even do something interesting. In the meantime, all I have for you is a link to website called Damn You Auto Correct.

Whenever I want to laugh so hard that tears run down my face and I can't breathe without getting up and walking away from the computer screen, I pop over and read a few of the latest postings. I should warn you, though, that most are pretty off color, but that's what makes them so funny.

And while we're on the subject of Hubby, he came into the room a couple minutes ago to see my shoulders heaving and hear me crying. Of course, he was concerned until he asked me what was wrong, and I told him I'd just been reading Auto Correct again. "Well, don't DO that," he said. "It worries me when I think something's wrong!" Poor guy. But after all, isn't laughter the best medicine?

Allergies versus A Cold

2012-01-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

Over the years, my seasonal allergies have become worse, and when they're acting up, I often feel just as I would with a cold. I said something about that to a friend not long ago, and she suggested you can always tell when it's a cold because you feel "sick"--not like when it's just allergies. I'm not so sure.

A week or so ago, I felt like I had a cold. Remember when I said I was going to take some Nyquil and go to bed early? I felt sick all that day, but I woke up the next day feeling fine again. Allergies fooled me that time!

So when my allergies started acting up again this weekend, I figured I'd just continue on and ignore it. Guess what? My "allergies" have held on strong for two days now. This "morning" I slept until 12:30 p.m. This evening, I have chills and feel like I'm running a fever. I have a feeling it's not allergies.

Sadly, the Wild Child has the same thing. We think we picked something up at bowling. Besides the balls. Besides the calf injury. It just goes to prove what I've said for years now: Exercise is bad for you.

I think I'll take some Nyquil and go to bed.

Chopped!

2012-01-02T01:14:00.000-08:00

Do you ever watch Chopped? It's that show where the contestants are given a mystery basket with ingredients that no one in their right mind would ever think of putting together, and they have to come up with dishes that actually taste good. I've kind of felt like I'm in that show the last couple days.

My refrigerator has been filled with a mishmash of leftovers and stray ingredients from the holidays, and rather than throw everything out, I've been trying to turn them into edible meals. It's a weirdly creative process.

Tomorrow I think I'll go to the grocery store. I still have a couple odds and ends left, but a few "new" food purchases will give me more options. I bet my family will be glad to hear it! Actually, they've liked what I've made so far, but I don't think I could keep it up much longer.

For those of you who are listed in my sidebar as having accepted the 11 in '11 challenge, if you were successful, please post your photos in the Flickr album or on your blog--and then let me know you've done it. I'd mentioned that there might be some kind of reward for those who achieved the goal. I'll give you until next Saturday to post and let me know, and then I'll let you know what you might win. Fair enough?

Happily I have one more day off before I go back to work on Tuesday--one more day to sleep in and play in the Sweat Shop, although I have a few other things to take care of too, so the day won't be all play. So far, though, 2012 hasn't been too bad! Thanks for stopping in to visit.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T01:11:00.001-08:00

I've heard it said that a person should usher in the new year doing what they plan to do all year long. I followed that recommendation this year--I spent most of New Year's Eve on the next applique block for the Garden Club quilt.

In 2011, my quilting "goal" was to finish up 11 quilt projects that I'd begun or needed to made for one reason or another during the year, and I managed to reach my goal in the final days of December. For 2012, my quilting "goal" isn't as results driven. My plan is simply to spend time working on applique projects--which really is my favorite quilting technique. And although my emphasis will be on applique, I will also try to direct at least part of my focus on finishing up a few projects, like getting a few more quilt tops quilted. And I actually have a couple of quilt tops that are just waiting for applique to be added, so those projects will be high on my list. Finally, because I know I'll want to do SOME piecing, I'll continue to play along with the monthly Schnibbles group hosted by Sherri and Sinta.

So those are my plans for the 2012 quilting year. How about you? Do you have a quilting plan?

The Old Gray Mare . . .

2011-12-31T00:02:00.000-08:00

Last night was Girls' Bowling Night. The "girls" consisted of me, my friend Lisa, my sister-in-law, the Wild Child, the Lovely Wife to be Someday (who, by the way, is finally sporting a beautiful diamond engagement ring after what's already been a long-ish engagement), and my 13-year-old niece who's never bowled before. Me? Well, it's been a few years. In my time, when I bowled on a league, I had a high game once of 248. My average was around 160. It's been awhile, though.

About 25 years, in fact.

The short of it is I have a new New Year's resolution: to get more exercise than what I get from the sport of extreme quilting.

I'm not very good about resolutions, though, so let's just say I'm thinking about it. And losing some weight would be good too.

The longer of it? On the third frame (first and only game of the night), I was still kind of tentative about bending (afraid I wouldn't be able to straighten back up) and thought the weight of the ball (after losing strength in my wrist from carpal tunnel surgery) might cause me to release it on the back swing and kill someone. And those darn rental shoes tend to stick, right? (Besides the fact that I always feel like I'm wearing CLOWN shoes!) So anyway, I was trying to bend but not bend too much, and not stick or accidentally let go of the ball, and somehow I twisted my left leg, felt the kind of pain you get with a Charley horse in the calf, and thought I felt a bit of a POP.

I'm better tonight. Last night, though, I had to stop bowling and limp around instead. There was more limping today. But I'm hopeful it's nothing serious after all--that POP kind of alarmed me.

One of the attorneys at my office--who bowls on occasion--cautioned me not to hurt myself playing Tiddly Winks this weekend. I swear I'm the Rodney Dangerfield of the office (without the weird eyes): I don't get much respect.

I don't really like New Year's resolutions though. Too much pressure, and they just set a person up to fail. But I'm going to give it a shot. Because at this rate, Lord only knows what might happen if I ever go miniature golfing. I figure that's probably a death event.

I DO like to make quilting resolutions, although I call them "plans" or maybe "goals" if I'm feeling really ambitious. I'll tell you about my plan for 2012 tomorrow. Tonight, though, I wonder: Do you have any (non-quilting) New Year's resolutions for the coming year?

Well THIS is Super Annoying!

2011-12-30T00:20:00.001-08:00

I came home tonight to find mail waiting for me. A smallish package from McCall's Quilting. Cool, I guess--a quilting DVD. My gift for subscribing to the magazine, maybe?

NO! Not hardly! What McCall's sent to me--unsolicited and with absolutely no advance interest expressed by me--was an "Inspire - Design - Create" Quilting DVD, and they gave me the option of paying $12.95 to keep it (along with more $$ each time they sent me a new DVD) or I could send it back. And if I wanted to send it back? They provided detailed instructions that they've cautioned me to follow carefully: "Remove the disk from the case and insert it into the white Merchandise Return Envelope, along with your Reply Form. Detach the postage-paid Business Reply Label from the enclosed letter and also insert it into the envelope so that the label shows through the envelope window. . . . DO NOT return the DVD case. You may keep, recycle or discard it."

Really? You're really making me go to all this trouble, McCall's, to send back something I never ordered in the first place? And I want to continue subscribing to your magazine . . . why?

You know that guy at Netflix who raised the rates, drove away customers, and practically killed the company? Do you suppose he's been hired by McCall's now?

Miscellaneous

2011-12-29T00:04:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to update you on the Christmas porn front. Remember I was talking about my blog stats and looking at what kind of searches brought people to my blog? Well, Christmas porn has been a popular search. Seventeen hits this week. People are odd, aren't they? As an experiment, I Yahoo'd and Googled "Christmas porn" and didn't see my blog come up at all on the first couple search pages, but that's as far as I got--I was sidetracked looking at all the rest of the Christmas porn. Mrs. Claus has been particularly naughty this year. (Okay, I didn't really look. I didn't want to chase away those visions of sugar plums dancing in my head.)

Someone left a comment asking about the pattern for the Garden Club quilt. (I'm too lazy to go back into my emails to see who it was, but I DO know they were "no-reply" because I attempted to reply on my new Kindle, and it was kind of a pain.) The quilt is the main project in a book entitled [drum roll, please] Garden Club Quilts. If you're interested in making the quilt, you can find the book used through Amazon by clicking HERE. I love Amazon's used books--I ~~buy~~ used to buy a lot of my books there. And did you know you can become a seller too? I turned over a bunch of my unwanted quilt books to the Wild Child and she's listed them--I told her if she makes any money, she can keep it for her move to New York. I'd insert a shameless plug with a link to her book listings here except I have no idea what her seller name is.

Someone else left a comment a week or so ago asking me how I get comments in my e-mailbox and move them into folders for my giveaways. There's a setting in Blogger under the "comments" tab that asks for an email address for comment notification. I have my email address listed there, and all of my comments come into my mailbox. And because I have a Yahoo mailbox which allows me to make subfolders, I can set up folders for the giveaways I do. After I read a comment, if the person wants to be included in the drawing, I move their email into the appropriate folder--that way I don't have to re-read comments from people who don't want to participate, and I don't have to print out all of the comments. I just pick a number (either through a random number generator or a random family member) and count up to the winning comment. Easy peasy!

I'm sure I've mentioned before how much I dislike mornings. I don't think people--except maybe farmers and ranchers--were meant to get out of bed before the sun is fully risen. Had my garbage man ascribed to that belief, Tuesday morning would have been better for me.

I woke up about ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off, and knowing I wanted a bit more sleep than THAT, I reset the alarm. Just as my head touched the pillow and my eyes were nearly closed, I heard the sound of the garbage truck grinding down a nearby street. Because we were a bit discombobulated over the days of the week due to Christmas and then the holiday on Monday, I wasn't sure the Wild Child would have remembered to wheel the cans down to the street. So, of course, I jumped out of bed, pausing only to turn off the alarm, and high tailed it out to the side yard where I found the cans HAD been moved for pick up.

Nothing to get too excited about there, right? Well, when I got back into the kitchen, I wasn't quite in full possession of my faculties--not like I would have been had I begun the morning in a more leisurely, civilized manner--and when I went to pull out the coffee maker's water reservoir to make a fresh pot of coffee, imagine my surprise to find the reservoir already FULL of water. Not expecting the added weight, as soon as the reservoir was free of the holder, my wrist flopped over, and water poured all over the countertop, down the cabinet and the front of the dishwasher, and splashed all over me. Nice way to start the work week, eh?!

But my early morning escapades didn't end on Tuesday. This morning I woke up around 4:30 a.m. to the sound of a cat batting one of the Christmas ornaments on the bedroom tree. Sitting up in bed, I hissed "STOP IT, MISTER!" Stitch sat on the dresser, calmly looking at me. I laid back down and started drifting off to sleep when I again heard the tap, tap, tap of a batted ornament. "Okay, that's enough," I thought, and jumping out of bed, I grabbed Stitch to assist him in reaching the other side of the closed bedroom door. Unfortunately, Stitch was somehow attached to the tree--hard to have known or anticipated since it was still pretty dark in the room. The longer the tree "followed" us, the harder his claws dug into my stomach/chest/arm. I swear he grew at least two more paws! The tree ended up on the floor, Hubby sat bolt upright (and confused) in bed, and Stitch happily left the bedroom (and his bleeding victim) far behind.

After picking up the tree and all the ornaments, I went back to sleep until the alarm went off a couple hours later. At least I didn't have to make coffee again this morning.

Oh, and I DID wake up--that second time--feeling a little better than I did last night. I really DO think it must be allergies. AND I think I've made friends with my Kindle. At least I'm starting to understand it a little more. I just need to finish the hard copy book I'm currently reading so I can try out an e-book and see how I like it.

If you've posted any questions in comments that I haven't answered or if I've forgotten to follow up on anything I've written about, let me know. With the year coming to an end, it's nice to tie up loose ends.

Have you accomplished what you hoped to accomplish in 2011? We'll talk about that in the next day or two, so give it a little thought if you haven't already. Thanks for stopping by!

Mud Brain

2011-12-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to figure out tonight how this Kindle Fire works. I guess I'm becoming an old geezer because this darn new-fangled technology is alien to me. Seriously, I don't have a cell ("smart") phone, and I know the devices work very similarly--so working the Kindle is probably quite simple for 98 percent of the population. Me? Not so much.

And despite the fact that the thing can access the internet, I had to get on my desktop computer to find the user's guide that finally told me what to do.

Everything's done with an icon these days, and figuring out what the icons mean is like learning a second language--even if it IS a fairly limited language. Some of the stuff I was trying to figure out how to do began with instructions to tap the menu button. Except, for the life of me, I couldn't find a MENU button--or nothing I would associate with the term, in any event.

Finally, I found an illustration that explained with arrows, words, and pictures what everything was. As I've gotten older, I find illustrations are much more helpful than written directions. Probably because my attention span is shorter and my natural curiously is oftentimes abandoned in favor of unnatural frustration.

Turns out the menu icon looks a little like a lined tablet. Old school stuff.

I think what's been making it harder for me is the fact that my brain is filled with snot. (I thought "mud" sounded nicer than Snot Brain as a title, especially if you're having your breakfast, but it's really snot.) I've been telling myself it's allergies, but I've been feeling worse and worse and my throat has gotten scratchier and scratchier. And several people at the office have colds. I'm not quite ready to admit defeat, but just to be on the safe side, I'm going to chug a half bottle of Nyquil and get to bed early with a paper back book. Because I don't think it's safe for me to take Nyquil and operate complicated machinery like this Kindle.

The Day After . . .

2011-12-27T00:14:00.001-08:00

Did you have a wonderful Christmas? We had a lovely day, Hubby and I and our kids (including Soccer Son's Lovely Wife to Be Someday). We gathered in the late morning to open gifts and have Christmas lunch before going to see Hugo in 3D. It was the first time in years I've watched a movie in 3D--pretty fun!

We all agreed the movie was a good one, and afterward we returned home to make egg rolls and jalapeno poppers to snack on while we played Apples to Apples and the card version of Monopoly. Other than the fact that I didn't win a single game, I enjoyed myself the entire day.

I find it's really kind of weird having adult kids who buy us nice gifts. The Wild Child gave me cheese making lessons for three (if we can arrange it before the Wild Child moves to New York in a couple weeks, she, Soccer Son's LWTBS, and I will take the class). Soccer Son, et al., gave Hubby and me a gift certificate for a night's stay in the same hotel we spent our honeymoon night in a quaint, touristy town about an hour or two away. Am I spoiled, or what?

Hubby and I have an agreement not to get gifts for one another, and every now and then, one of us cheats. This year it was him: He bought me a Kindle Fire. Between you and me, I've been pretty resistant to reading something that's not a good, old-fashioned, paper book, but now that I have this device, I'm kind of excited about it. I unpacked it tonight and I have it charging. What do you think? Do you have one? Want one? Wouldn't want one?

Today I got together with a friend, Imelda, to talk about the Autumn House applique project we're planning and have lunch. We looked over the fabrics we've both been "collecting" and agreed we probably have what we need. We hope to get together with two other friends once a month to share fabrics and encourage one another. I'm really anxious to get started soon.

In the meantime, I've been working on section 4 of the Garden Club quilt, and I just finished the parts for that this evening.

I haven't decided yet whether to go on to section 5 next or get back to my Rabbits on Crack applique. I DO have a little non-quilting craft project to work on this week, though, so it may be neither applique project for a day or so.

It's back to work for me tomorrow, but at least it's only four days of work and then another three day weekend. We almost always spend a quiet New Year's Eve and I think this year will not be an exception. How about you? Do you have any fun New Year's plans this year?

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T00:01:00.000-08:00

My Christmas Eve day was spent in a fairly relaxed way. I did a little "puttering" around the house, doing some light cleaning to get ready for THE DAY. I went through all of my quilting books, culling out the ones I no longer want and reshelving the ones I do--all as part of my whittling down of quilty stuff. After the "chores" were done, I got out the book and fabrics for the Garden Club Quilt and started section 4. While I appliqued the first part, I watched the first Sherlock Holmes movie--the one that came before the movie that's in theaters now. All in all, a really nice day!

I mentioned showing you the three quilty gifts I made this week. Maybe you've seen the pattern for making quick tablerunners using a striped "border-type" fabric? I can't remember what it's called or who it's by, but it's a simple concept. A 60 degree triangle "ruler" and the fabric itself does most of the work, so it was possible to make a couple of nice gifts fairly quickly.

The two "round" ones went to my two work "lunch buddies." The three of us try to get out to lunch--usually Chevy's--every week or two. The longer runner was for another friend from work--someone I've known there since I started. I was so glad to be able to make gifts for these special friends.

I made a fourth, longer tablerunner that I was going to give as a gift but I realized how perfectly it went in my livingroom, on the chest we use as a coffee table. I didn't have a runner or tabletopper on it, and it was taking a bit of abuse from--well, I'm not sure. It looked like hot cups had been put on the wood, but I never actually SAW anything put down that shouldn't have been, so I'm not sure what was causing it. In any event, the chest is now better protected and I've paired up some homemade edible goodies with a purchased gift for the person I initially thought I'd make it for. And really, I'm pretty sure that it's a better choice in this instance anyway, so it's all good.

This evening when I went to take a photo of the runner on the chest, I noticed Stitch was nowhere to be found. I guess he's hiding from Santa. Where could he be?

Aren't animals funny?

I picked a winner for the quilt top I showed you yesterday. Cory said, "My church's Hugs Ministry would gladly accept this top. We make quilts, pair them with stuffies and give them to the local fire department for kids in crisis situations. Thank you for the opportunity to add to a ministry that is very near to my heart. Merry Christmas to you and your family. Take care and God bless." I think you'll agree with me that the quilt top will be going to a good home. Cory, please email me your mailing address and I'll get it in the mail when life gets back to normal on Tuesday.

If I don't post tomorrow night, it will be because I'm spending time with my family and/or am worn out by the festivities of the day. Now, though, I'm going to try to get to bed early with a book and a cup of hot chocolate and wait for Santa to arrive. I hope you and yours have a wonderful holiday. Merry Christmas!

The Calm Before The Storm

2011-12-24T00:02:00.000-08:00

I'm done. At least I THINK I'm done. The weekend is here, and my paying job's done until Tuesday. The gift shopping is done--even the gifts for me. I THINK the grocery shopping is done. But is it ever really? I wouldn't be surprised if I remembered something I've forgotten. The gifts are wrapped. The goodies are made/baked. Even the tickets for the Christmas movie are purchased. (We decided on Hugo as it was the only movie that appealed to everyone.)

It's Friday night and I've finally been able to get into the Sweat Shop to spend some time NOT MAKING CHRISTMAS GIFTS! Wooo-hoooooo!

Tomorrow Hubby's going to his brother's house to watch some football; no idea what the Wild Child has planned. I DO know that I'm going to relax, sew, and maybe reassess my quilt-related stashes. In fact, I've already begun.

You know I've been giving away patterns I don't think I'll ever get around to making and I've finally gotten through the bunch. Now I've started thinking about quilt tops that aren't quite done but that I don't have any desire to finish. And I'm wondering what to do with them. This one, for instance:

I worked on this during a monthly class where we learned about fabrics and quilting styles from the 1800s. It's very scrappy. It's somewhere between 40" and 45" wide and long. And it's been taking up space for over a year now. Maybe you'd like it?

Not only do I have the quilt top, but I have a few scrappy pieces of fabric to send along with it, in case the new owner wants to add another border. There are even some already constructed HSTs.

If this project appeals to you, please leave me a comment saying you'd like to adopt it. If more than one of you are interested, I'll draw a "winner." And if there is a drawing, I'll announce the winner on Christmas.

I think this is just the first of a few quilt tops I'll give away, so if this isn't your style, maybe something will come up that is. I think I may also clean out my stash of Thimbleberries fabric and kits from the past four or five years and list some of them on Etsy before too long. I'll let you know when I do that in case any of you are Thimbleberries fans. It's not that I no longer like Thimbleberries--it's just that I've "collected" a lot more than I'll ever use and I need the space in the Sweat Shop.

How are your Christmas preparations coming along? Are you ready or are you frantic? Have you made many gifts this year or have you purchased most of them? In my next post, I'll show you a couple of the gifts I've made--and one I decided to keep for myself. Glad you could stop in for a visit!

Busy "Doing" Christmas

2011-12-23T00:01:00.000-08:00

The Wild Child and I have been out looking at a couple of the larger holiday light displays tonight, so I haven't much time to write. Instead, I'll give you this:

Because, really, who can resist puppies? Especially Christmas puppies? I really think the Wild Child should have put Santa hats on them, though!

Remember back in October how the Drooling Dog was having a difficult time figuring out what he was supposed to do with the female boxer he was smitten with? And how he finally figured it out? Well, this is the result--three boys and three girls, born last weekend. The Wild Child got to meet them tonight.

"See" you back here tomorrow!

Binge Shopping

2011-12-22T00:25:00.000-08:00

OMG, there's a REASON I don't normally shop! Remember the cardinal rule of Christmas shopping? Buy a gift, buy something for yourself, buy a gift, buy something for yourself . . . ? Well, I can't seem to even stick to THAT rule! My shopping experience has been more like "buy something for myself, buy a gift, buy three things for myself, decide to keep the gift I bought, buy another gift, buy six things for myself, . . . ."

By the way, I remembered the second store I wanted to go to today. And then I thought of a third. Remember I mentioned stocking stuffer type gifts? I guess I'm stuffing my own stocking.

First I went to Bev Mo and bought several bottles of adult beverages--one is a gift, although I'm trying to justify keeping it for myself. But that could be a problem, you see. Because the person I bought it for? I WAS making them a gift until I realized how nice it would look in my own home. ARGH!

Then I went to Total Beauty Experience, a large store with all kinds of scented, girly beauty products--and a few manly products too. I bought myself several nice things there, and I'm thinking about going back again for the couple things I wanted but restrained myself from buying. Oh, and I guess I DID buy a couple gifts there, but not too many.

The last store was Cost Plus and I actually DID find several gifts there. I guess I must have run out of things I needed for myself. Almost--I did find a couple things for the person at the top of my Christmas list--ME!

I'm pleased to say, though, that my Christmas sewing and shopping is very close to being done. I'll be bringing gifts for my office peeps to work tomorrow, just in case anyone plans to be out on Friday. After that, it's just the family, so picking up a bucket of coal should be pretty simple.

Gosh I'm tired out! It must be all that shopping. Time for bed. I wonder if there are any other stores I should visit on my lunch hour tomorrow? Hummmmmmmm . . . .

Santa's Got Nothin' on Me!

2011-12-21T00:02:00.000-08:00

I hope your Christmas preparations are coming along nicely. I'm working on what I think are my last four somewhat small Christmas gift projects--I'll get photos and show you after they've been gifted, but I can tell you that I have one done and the other three just need the bindings stitched down.

I have one food-type gift that still needs to be made. I have a couple others made but they still need to be packaged for gifting.

I have some miscellaneous shopping left to do--more or less of the stocking stuffer variety, so I think I can just stop in at a couple places. I had two in mind earlier tonight and now I can only remember one! Hopefully the other store will pop back into my mind. I think I can do at least one during my lunch hour tomorrow.

The couple gifts I needed to mail went into the mail today.

My office is collecting groceries for a local food bank--I did a little shopping during my lunch hour today, so that's one item I can check off my list.

Oh! And I finally remembered to pay bills tonight--something I kept overlooking with all the other things that needed doing. Now my conscience is clear for awhile.

The Wild Child, Soccer Son, His Lovely Wife to be Someday, and I had some tentative plans to go look at Christmas lights sometime this week but we can't seem to work out an evening when we're all available. I may just make a detour or two on the way home from work one night and look at them myself--it's something I really enjoy doing, and it's just not Christmas without that little ritual.

Unless something comes up, I don't think I'll do a blog post tomorrow night. It's getting to be crunch time for Christmas readiness and I think I need the time, even if it's only to sleep. So if you don't "see" me here tomorrow, don't worry about me. Just send some friendly Christmas elves to help, okay?

Now, about the pattern winners.

For Loon Lake, I picked Carol Fun, who said, "Loon Lake is talking to me -- I think it is the bear that's talking, the moose just seems to mumble -- anyway I would love to have this pattern and thanks for your giveaway!"

Caroline gets the sampler quilt pattern. She said, "I would like the Sampler pattern, because my first "real" quilt (other than the basic squares quilt and tied with yarn), is wearing out. Thanks for the giveaway!"

And the winner of the mystery quilt pattern is "Krislovesfabric." She commented that she "would love to try the Mystery quilt with our small quilt group. We are always looking for fun projects to do together, thanks for the chance! Your blog is always fun and often inspiring to read, thanks for your time!! :) Merry Christmas!"

Carol, Caroline, and Kris, please email me your mailing addresses and I'll get the patterns in the mail to you.

Finally, I wanted to ask you a favor. If you've seen a good movie recently, please leave me a comment about it. I think we may go see a movie on Christmas and we're trying to decide which one. Of course, there are a couple that aren't playing yet that we're all interested in, but your opinions will help too.

Merry Last Days Before Christmas!

Short Stuff

2011-12-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm going to make this post pretty brief, because THIS Santa's elf has a lot to do and needs to get to sleep eventually. There were a couple questions about the tree quilt I showed you yesterday: how I quilted it and what the pattern was. Sorry--sometimes I just forget anyone else might be interested. The quilting pattern I used for everything but the trees and border was that swirly snow pattern that I did the little tutorial on a week or so ago. Then on the trees, I just did straight lines down from the point in each section to the bottom edge, making the lines about 1" to 1-1/2" apart at the bottom edge of the triangles. The pattern is called Trees Up, Lights On by Sandy Gervais/Pieces from my Heart and it's one of her stack and slice patterns, similar to the method used in some of the Buggy Barn patterns. It's a really fun and different way of piecing--try it if you haven't already. I've taught a couple classes on it; next time I make a quilt of this type, I'll try to remember to do a tutorial.

Now, here are those random patterns I'd like to give away:

There's a sampler quilt in the center; on the right is a pattern called Loon Lake--I'd categorize it as a country applique pattern; and on the left is a mystery quilt. Of course, if you get the mystery quilt pattern, you just need to look at the last page to see what it looks like, but I won't show you in case you don't want to find out yet. Also, if you're part of a group or teach quilt classes, it might be a fun one to have to offer to others--I got it from a mystery quilt class I took.

I'm giving each pattern away separately and you need to tell me in your comment which pattern you'd like to win. And if you really want more than one (you greedy little quilter! LOL!), then leave a comment for each entry. The way I do these is to move the comments that come into my email into a separate folder, so for this one, there will be three different giveaway folders, and I can't move one comment to more than one folder. Make sense?

I'll draw winners tomorrow night and announce the winners in my Wednesday post, so please check back to see if you got lucky! As for me, it's back to the Sweat Shop for more elfishly magical fun. (The magic comes in trying to figure out how I can get it all done before Christmas!)

Counting Down . . .

2011-12-19T00:02:00.000-08:00

Can you believe Christmas is less than a week away? Crazy, isn't it?!

My friend Lisa had a couple of holiday decorating ideas I wanted to share because they're fast and simple. I think many of us have this type of chandelier. To dress it up, Lisa cut apart an artificial garland and made small wreaths. She added a decorative ornament and a bow to each, and hung one from each arm of the fixture.

I also loved this idea--adding votive candle holders in a larger, attractive candle that was nearing the end of its life.

Lisa has a housecleaner who also has a business staging homes for sale, and putting the votives into the candle was her idea. Wouldn't you love to have someone come in and clean your house AND decorate?! When the votives are lit, the large candle looks just like it did originally with the flickering light illuminating the sides.

We had Hubby's family's Christmas gathering today and my gift--we do one of those Mad Santa gift exchanges--was this quilt that I finished quilting the other day:

Several of you thought I SHOULD count it as my 11th quilt in 2011, so I will--and that means I've reached my goal. I sure was itching to work on one of my applique projects tonight, but I'm not done making Christmas gifts yet, so the evening was spent in the Sweat Shop, working on a couple last-minute projects. The applique will need to wait.

Speaking of applique, I picked a winner of the lighthouse pattern. The winner, Barbara, said:

"Oh that would be the perfect pattern for my dad. Two summers ago he was a volunteer to work on the lighthouse that is in the Boston Harbor. He was able to live at the lighthouse for two weeks. I have been looking for a lighthouse quilt pattern. Thanks so much for the chance to win one."

Barbara, please email me your mailing address and I'll get the pattern in the mail to you.

As I mentioned, I have a couple other random patterns, and I'll try to get those posted tomorrow so you can see whether you might be interested. Thanks for taking time to stop by!

Good Stuff

2011-12-18T00:40:00.000-08:00

During the holidays, we are often invited to different gatherings where everyone brings an appetizer. The get together we attended tonight--The Greenwold's First Annual Holiday Pictionary Challenge--was no exception.

Earlier this week, I spent a little time online, looking for an appetizer recipe and I came across Honey's Spicy Honey Wings on the Food Network's website. Its five-star rating is well deserved. The real challenge was putting down the wings long enough to play Pictionary!

Click HERE to check out the recipe. If you need an appetizer for a holiday gathering--or if you're attending a tailgate party or a football "event"--don't forget these wings. Oh, yum! I know you'll love them!

Now, what did I do differently from the recipe? Not too much. I ran across Emeril's Essence seasoning at the grocery store a month or two ago, so I had some in my cupboard. That's a time saver, but if your store doesn't carry it, mix up a batch and keep it on hand. The other thing I did differently was to cut the two sections of the wings apart at the joint. I think it makes them much easier to eat and they cooked a little quicker too.

We had an excellent time at the party, even aside from the food. Pictionary was played girls versus boys, and the boys won. I'm sure they cheated. I'm also sure we'll have a rematch!

Are any of you interested in making a lighthouse quilt? Here's a cool pattern I found in my pattern stash that I don't think I'll ever make. If you'd like it, leave me a comment asking to be put into the drawing and I'll pick a winner tomorrow night.

I have a couple more random patterns I'll give away in the next day or two, so make sure you check back, even if you're not interested in lighthouses.

Now it's time for me to get to bed, because there's another Christmas gathering tomorrow--and I have more appetizers to make. Stuffed mushrooms for that one. I'll be sure to let you know how they turn out!

Safe Again and Home For the Weekend!

2011-12-17T00:04:00.000-08:00

I know you're worried about Mr. Bill, so I'll tell you right up front that a daring air rescue was successful today.

I brought my camera to the office, so I could capture photographic forensic evidence, which I hoped would assist in Mr. Bill's recovery. I know it's hard to see because the colors are so similar, but here's a photo of the crime scene and the rubberband that was cut during the toy-napping:

The rubberband is looped around the tree trunk and is partially obscured by the dried floral baby's breath. The kidnapper cut the rubberband and grabbed Mr. Bill, ruthlessly shoving that poor snow baby aside.

Ultimately, Mr. Bill was spotted confined in a metal bucket, surrounded and camoflaged by Christmas floral material.

We quickly discovered that walking away from prison wasn't possible for Mr. Bill, so we arranged to bring in a toy helicopter with a winch to lift Mr. Bill out of the bucket and carry him to safety. Because it was a covert operation involving several agencies and a number of undercover operatives, we were not permitted to photograph the rescue.

And the rescue did not go without incident.

In the end, though, Mr. Bill was sufficiently recovered to join Gran for coffee at Starbucks at the end of the day. I believe she will have a photograph or two on her blog before long.

Mr. Bill will be spending the weekend at my house, where we will try to keep him safe. Here you can see he's settled into the penthouse suite where he's out of reach of the Drooling Dog and the curious cats, Spike and Stitch.

You should also know that the toy thief has not yet been identified and apprehended, so we must remain alert and vigilant.

In a somewhat related bit of news, Saturday Night Live is airing their yearly Christmas show this Saturday night. It should be worth watching. Remember the Alec Baldwin, NPR, and Schweddy Balls bit a few years back? Classic!

If I don't post tomorrow night, it's probably because I've had too much fun visiting friends and am (1) still not home; (2) too tired to write; or (3) had a drink or two too many and can't remember how to turn the computer on. (Don't worry--I'm not the designated driver!)

I hope you have an excellent weekend planned and get most of your pre-Christmas "chores" done too!

Oh Noooooooooooo!

2011-12-16T00:06:00.001-08:00

Since I returned to work following the latest carpal tunnel surgery, in the absence of my boss I've done some overflow work for other attorneys in the office. A few weeks ago, I was listening to a piece of dictation that began something like this: "Noooooo! Sh$t! This thing is broken! Oh, nooooooooooooooo!" I figured out fairly quickly that the attorney was having some kind of trouble with the recording device, and when the actual dictation picked up, it did so mid sentence. After considering the situation for a minute, I decided to transcribe the dictation verbatim so the attorney would know WHY the typing began mid sentence.

I'd forgotten all about it a few days later when I heard the attorney start to laugh and say, "Oh nooooooo. Noooooooooooooo! Mr. Bill...." Of course, she'd picked up the draft of that particular dictation for review, and she and I had a good laugh. End of story, or so I thought.

On Monday I came to work to find Mr. Bill sitting on my computer. Oh, boy! A new toy! Again the attorney and I had a good chuckle and over the next couple days, I had fun posing Mr. Bill.

Unfortunately, Mr. Bill has come in for some harrassment of late. While we were at the office holiday party yesterday, someone took Mr. Bill from my desk. I finally found him amid the holiday decorations at another secretary's desk; she denied any knowledge or involvement. The attorney who originally gave me Mr. Bill rescued him and returned him home to my desk, and I went about the rest of the day's business.

Mr. Bill's challenges didn't end with his return home. I was asked to to cover the phones when our receptionist had to leave early for a doctor appointment. Using a long rubberband, I carefully teathered Mr. Bill to the Christmas tree at my desk for his own safety and protection, but when I returned to my desk, the rubberband had been cut, and Mr. Bill was nowhere to be found.

Before leaving the office, I put up posters and sent out an email asking for information about Mr. Bill's kidnapping.

I have my suspicions, and I don't think it's Sluggo or Mr. Hands. Seriously, what could be more frightening than a toy thief at this time of the year? I just hope Mr. Bill isn't cold, hungry, and lonely somewhere tonight. Hold on, Mr. Bill! We'll save you!

On The First Day of Christmas . . .

2011-12-15T00:04:00.000-08:00

Today was my first day of this year's Christmas gatherings and gift exchanges and it started out in a very challenging manner. First, I was a little late to work because I hadn't allowed myself enough time to wrap the gifts for the exchanges. Then, when I got to work, I realized I'd left my reading glasses at home--and I can barely read the computer screen without them. My office manager came through with a spare pair, but after a couple hours, I had to make a run to the drug store to buy a pair because the ear pieces of the borrowed pair were uncomfortable.

After that, though, the day got better.

First, we had our office holiday party at a local restaurant. As we were walking the couple blocks from the parking garage, we passed NBA basketball player Peja Stojakovic. We have no idea what he was doing in Sacramento since he plays for the Dallas Mavericks, but maybe he was visiting friends or family here--he played for the Kings for several years.

The appetizers and cocktails were most excellent and we played that Mad Santa gift game, where you can either open a new gift or steal something that's already been opened. I brought two gifts because (1) I thought they were so silly, they'd provide some entertainment and (2) I was pretty sure at least one person would forget to bring a gift. Here's what I brought:

And yes, they were both popular gifts and were stolen a few times before settling in with their new owners.

And what did I end up with? Well, I didn't take a photo, but it was a decorative Christmas plate that looks a bit like fused glass. I bought myself one last year at Pier 1 and the one I stole today is a match for that one. Much, MUCH better than a basketball net to wear on the head, believe me.

After that, I headed to the next event--our Thimbleberries Club end of the year party.

Throughout the year, those of us who completed a large quilt using Thimbleberries fabric and brought it in for show and tell got a ticket for the end of the year drawing. We did the same thing with Thimbleberries mini quilts. Well, I'm pretty excited to tell you that this year, I won the prize for the big quilts! Woo-hooooo!

My prize was a tabletopper/wallhanging sized quilt made by our two teachers/leaders; after I opened the package, all of our members signed it--

Isn't it a great momento of a year spent with friends? I also won a gift certificate to the quilt shop. Can't beat that, right?!

Our Thimbleberries Club also had a gift exchange, and the gift I brought for that one was that first darker little Santa wallhanging I made last weekend--

Pam got my gift and has already posted a "thank you" on my blog. Most of the gift givers remained anonymous, but there are a couple people who read my blog and recognized it, so it wasn't a secret for long! Pam is an excellent quilt maker and designer, so I know Santa's gone to a good home!

And the gift I drew? A box of See's candy! Isn't it funny the way we all recognize the size and shape of a See's candy box? I've stashed it in the Sweat Shop for those times when I need a little chocolaty energy to keep me going. Which is pretty much constantly at this time of the year!

Still to come in the next few days? Friday evening, I'm meeting a friend to exchange gifts. Saturday evening another friend is having a holiday gathering. And on Sunday, Hubby's family is having their Christmas gathering. And although I still have a few things to prepare, I'm also looking forward to having just as much fun as I did today.

Just Remember to Breathe

2011-12-14T00:04:00.001-08:00

Isn't it funny how hearing that just about everyone else is in the same boat you're in helps make things easier somehow? For me, maybe it's because I'm pretty sure you'll all pull it together in time for Christmas, one way or another--and that gives me hope that I will too. Of course, Christmas is coming whether we're ready or not.

And can I just point out that the ONLY person who commented that they were in good shape and ready for Christmas was "anonymous," so we can't even TRY to persuade them to pitch in and help! Ha!

I woke up this morning feeling a little more calm. What I had figured out is that I need to take things one step at a time. There's really no need to worry about NEXT week just yet--all I need to worry about for now is what needs to be done THIS week.

During my lunch hour, I went shopping for a couple gifts for friends and found gifts I'm happy about giving. Of course, I can't show you now, but remember my cardinal rule of gift buying and how for every gift you buy, you need to buy one for yourself? Well, I think I outdid myself!

I'll just show you these cuties that I found at a local "antique mall."

I have no idea how old they are, but I suspect they aren't very old--maybe from the 80s or 90s. But I think they have character and appeal, don't you?

Last Sunday night, when I went into the Sweat Shop, I was thinking about making a few smallish gift projects, but the idea of starting on something else just then was a bit daunting. Then I remembered I had pinned a Christmas quilt top for quilting--a quilt top I'd made last year and then set aside. I decided to work on getting this one quilted instead.

I finished the quilting tonight but I still have to do the binding. I haven't decided whether to count this as my 11th quilt for the year. It IS something I'm finally completing, and that was the whole point in the 11-quilt goal this year. But then again, it's not a very big quilt. Well, I'll give it a little thought as I'm binding it.

By the way, Florence left a comment about some of the Christmas things I did last year--mugs with hot chocolate mix I put together for my co-workers and our firm's annual San Francisco shopping trip. Since she mentioned it, I'll tell you that I ended up skipping the shopping trip this year. It was scheduled for the day after I stayed home sick with a cold (and a fever), and I thought a day of wandering around the City might not be the best thing for me--after all, the last thing I wanted was to tire myself out and get sicker! But I'm sure I'll go next year, and I didn't really mind missing it this time.

I've been kicking around a couple ideas for "Christmas treats" for the people I work with, but I haven't made any definite decisions yet. That's one of the things I've decided I don't really HAVE to worry about until next week.

Oh, and I just remembered I hadn't told you! Remember my boss took a leave of absence to live with her new husband in China? His contract was going to be up in the fall and he expected he'd be relocated to the US then. Well, we just heard yesterday that he's going to stay in China for the foreseeable future, so my boss is leaving the firm to stay with him. I'm really sad for myself because I enjoyed working with her, but I think this is a wonderful opportunity for her.

Tomorrow is my firm's holiday lunch/reception and following that is my Thimbleberries Club's end-of-the-year party. Yes, it's going to be another busy day--one that I need to prepare for. I still have a couple gifts to wrap, so it's time for me to say goodnight and finish up because I don't think Santa's elves are planning to stop by tonight and pitch in. If I'm wrong, though, and they do show up, I'll send them on to help you, okay?

Visions of Sugar Plums?

2011-12-13T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm beginning to feel a little bit of panic. I have Christmas thoughts swirling around in my head and I've been busy scurrying hither and yon, looking for the perfect gifts with no real idea of what I'm looking for. And then I return home and shut myself away in the Sweat Shop, feverishly attempting to complete quilted gift projects.

Most of our gift-giving "events" will take place by the end of this coming weekend, so time is short. I've suddenly realized I've failed to make any real plans, thinking somehow that everything will fall magically into place. Or that it won't, perhaps, but in the back of my mind, thinking that SOMEONE ELSE will step up and handle everything, despite many years' evidence to the contrary. Or maybe I've been thinking that there's plenty of time to worry about that later, except now "later" is here.

Hubby has asked me the last few mornings whether there's anything I'd like him to do to help, but I have no answer, because I have no plan.

Christmas has come too fast. December arrived before October even started, didn't it? Where did the fall go?

Are you disorganized this year? Or are you calm and on track to complete all the tasks on your list by December 24th? Or perhaps you're done already and just sitting back, sipping hot chocolate, and waiting for Santa to arrive? Mostly I'd like to know that I'm not alone in this state of Christmas chaos. But, also, if you're just sitting there pounding down the hot chocolate, maybe you'd like to come over and be that SOMEONE ELSE I'm hoping will save the day? What's your holiday state of mind right now?

Three Pictures Are Worth . . .

2011-12-12T00:03:00.000-08:00

3,000 words, right?

I highly recommend decorating gingerbread houses as a family "event"--it's a lot of fun. The Wild Child decorated the house on the left, and Soccer Son and his Lovely Wife To Be Someday did the middle house. Mine is the one on the right--the one with candy covering every little bit of it. Hubby didn't want to decorate a house, but he offered words of encouragement from his recliner. Of course, more of his words of encouragement were directed at the football teams on the TV as well as a few not-so-encouraging words. He also wandered in and observed the decorations and periodically offered suggestions.

By the way, did you know that a gingerbread house will serve anywhere from 35 to 40 people and will provide around 120 calories a serving? (And of those 35 to 40 people, at least three will chip a tooth?) Who comes up with serving size and calorie counts for gingerbread houses? And how do you evenly divide a gingerbread house into 36 pieces (the serving size for the middle gingerbread house)?

I guess it's another Christmas puzzle--kind of like how Santa can visit every kid in the world on one night and can make it down all those chimneys.

Soup and Santas

2011-12-11T00:04:00.000-08:00

A few days after Thanksgiving, I made a shopping trip to Trader Joe's in a desperate attempt to put a little beef back into my life. One of the fun things about Trader Joe's is the way they put a few of their products together and offer samples of the results. That day, they had created a rather tasty chicken soup--but being fed up with winged meat, I mentally filed the idea away for another day.

I was talking to my friend Sandy a few days later, and Sandy told me about this wonderful soup she'd made using chicken strips, chicken broth, and spinach-artichoke dip. Really? That was the same stuff I'd sampled at Trader Joe's! It turned out we were both there on the same day.

Fast forward another week, and I'm back in Trader Joe's, thinking about how comforting soup is in the winter, and that soup came to mind, so I grabbed some spinach-artichoke dip from the frozen food aisle, and a couple cartons of free range organic chicken broth. The next day, Hubby went to Safeway and found rotisserie chicken on sale--the two chicken breasts, shredded, were just what I needed. And while I was disappointed to find I didn't have a package of whole grain and wild rice in my cupboard, I DID have a package of rice pilaf.

Here's what dinner looked like--and I can't even tell you how really excellent it tasted!

Seriously, it was super simple to make. Here's what I did:

I cooked a package of Rice-A-Roni rice pilaf according to directions, but I used 2 cups of chicken broth instead of water.

While that was cooking, I poured the rest of the two containers of chicken broth into the crockpot and added the package (now defrosted in the fridge for two days) of spinach-artichoke dip. After stirring it around, I added the meat from two chicken breasts, and turned the crockpot on low.

When the rice was nearly done, I added it--with the liquid still in the pan--to the crockpot and left it alone for three or four hours, other than the occasional stir. Now it would have been just fine like that, but I had about 3/4 cup of cream left over in the fridge that I wanted to use up, so I added it to the soup. Milk, half and half, or nothing would have been nearly as good, so don't worry if you don't have cream to add or if you don't want those added calories and fat.

I have a seasoning mix called Soup Pot, and I added about a half teaspoon of that to the soup, but it's not that necessary either. You can add about the same amount of poultry seasoning for a similar result.

I also had a package of Crescent rolls left in the fridge from Thanksgiving. Before rolling them up, I brushed them with melted butter and sprinkled on some grated parmesan cheese and minced fresh thyme--also left over from Thanksgiving. Yum!

Having soup cooking in the crockpot left more time for me in the Sweat Shop. I made two more little Santa wallhangings today--this time, I experimented using more wool and some brushed cotton. Oh, and these guys are lighter and brighter too!

The Wild Child came home from work chilled to the bone, just as I was putting the leftover soup in a plastic container. I was so glad I could offer her a nice hot bowl of soup and a couple of warmed up Crescent rolls. After thawing out, she was ready to help me pick a winner for the Pere Noel pattern--and the entry she picked was from Sandie ~call me crazy. Sandie said, "LOL I love that cardinal rule!! :-) Your little quilt turned out wonderfully~ I either applique with the little iron, or just blanket stitch on some things. Maybe I should devote more time to applique in 2012 too...hmmm. Thanks for the chance on the pattern~ I have a friend who collects Santa's from all over, and if I won it, I'd make it for her. Have a happy weekend!"

Congratulations, Sandie! Please email me your address, and I'll get this pattern in the mail to you.

I hope all of you are making the most of your weekend and getting things done that need doing. Tomorrow we'll decorate gingerbread houses. I know we'll have fun!

2012--A Year of Applique

2011-12-10T00:44:00.000-08:00

I don't expect you remember me mentioning a month or two ago that I thought I'd devote myself mainly to applique in 2012, but I'm still serious about that idea. I've really enjoyed the applique I've done lately--it's very restful and it really doesn't take as long as most people might think--even though most of the applique I do is hand applique. I'm really enjoying the method my friend Imelda taught us, using starch, a mini iron, and a bit of glue. (I think I did a little tutorial on that method, right?)

I used that method on this little Santa project, and look how fast it went--three evenings from start to finish!

Speaking of Imelda, I was at her home tonight for a holiday open house--a couple other women from our stitchery group were there too, and we talked about quilting, among other subjects. Imelda does lovely work, and applique--especially if it's a Bunny Hill design--is one of her favorites. When I was cleaning out my patterns the other night, I found that somehow I'd purchased two patterns for Autumn House by Bunny Hill, so I wondered if Imelda wanted one.

Of course, she already had it, so we hatched a plan to work on it together. AND one of my other stitchery friends was interested in joining us, so I found a home for my extra pattern AND I have a fun project to look forward to working on with friends next year!

I started the ball rolling on YET another applique project today too. Another Bunny Hill design. Shhhhhh! I'm not telling Hubby for now! But I signed up for the Merry Merry Snowmen Block of the Month. Isn't it great?! And that French General fabric looks just right!

So that one will start in February. And, of course, there's the Garden Club quilt I started a couple months ago. Plenty to get me going in the new year!

Here's another pattern I came across when I was cleaning out--

Another Curtis Boehringer Santa pattern--this one is from a line called Father Christmas From Far Off Lands. This is Pere Noel from France. I also have an Irish Father Christmas, but I'm keeping him for now. Hubby comes from an Irish background, so I might decide to make it someday; not so much Pere Noel. Would you like to invite Pere Noel into your home? Leave me a comment and I'll draw a winner tomorrow night and announce who won on Sunday's post. I can mail to the US and Canada. The quilt is 32" x 44"--kind of a nice size for a wallhanging.

I bet you'll be busy this weekend, getting ready for Christmas--me too! Thanks for taking the time out of your crowded schedule to stop in for a visit. I hope you'll find a little "play" time this weekend also! And remember the cardinal Christmas shopping rule: One purchase for gifting, one purchase to keep, one purchase for gifting, one purchase to keep, . . . .

Well, You Asked!

2011-12-09T00:19:00.001-08:00

Doris R. left a comment, asking about the Santa pattern. Doris, it's by a company called the Wooden Bear and it's a line called Little Quilts Squared. Click HERE to see their little quilts.

I've finished the applique--except for the wool mistletoe and moustache, and I'll sew those down with the machine when I quilt it. I think it's going to be very cute! I won't be giving away this pattern just yet because I want to make a couple of these little wallhangings. I also have the snowman pattern from the same company, and I'd like to make that one too! You can see it on the right side of the photo above.

Okay, are you ready for a little quilting? This is that swirly circular stitch I like to use, particularly on my winter quilts. First I make sure I've outline stitched the areas around where I'm going to be quilting--unless it's a really large area, and then I'll just start in the center and work my way out.

Next . . . . Well, I usually don't draw the pattern for this, but I will do it for you this time, so you can see how it's done. See that light pencil mark where I've drawn a spiral from the outside to the center?

You can practice this by doodling on paper first. And then draw a few spirals on a scrap quilt "sandwich" to test it out on the machine (free motion setting). But you'll start by making a spiral, stitching from outside the circle toward the center, making a couple "coils."

You'll want to leave twice the space you think you want between the coils, because once you reach the center, you'll loop around and spiral back out, stitching between the lines.

It's a little hard to see here, but that spiral closest to you is the first one I made. Then I sewed down the already stitched line about a 1/4" behind it to begin another spiral (or, in this case, a half spiral since the border cuts through what would have been a full circle).

After that, I continued on, adding more and more spirals.

I like to keep going, but sometimes I'll spiral my way into a corner and have to stop and start again. And sometimes I have to go back and do a little filling in where a spiral wasn't quite big enough to fill the space but there isn't enough space left to add another spiral. When that happens, I just add more lines to the closest and smallest spirals.

You don't have to keep your stitch lines precise but try to make sure most of them are roughly the same distance apart. I also like to vary the size of my spirals by adding more or fewer coils--but still keeping the stitch lines about the same width apart.

You can see, though, that they're not all perfect, and that's okay--it looks just fine when it's done. Also make sure the spirals are going in different directions so they don't all look the same. When I have to stop and start, I usually reverse the direction of my spirals for a little bit.

Easy, right? I hope you'll give it a try!

Up Next

2011-12-08T00:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Florence commented about the Santa pattern, wondering if I had created a whole wallhanging from just a pattern of Santa's head. Well, no--I really can't take that much credit. I had simply misplaced the full color cover when I was trying to get a photo. It has since turned up, so I thought I'd show you that what I ended up with looks much like the pattern.

A friend of mine made the same Santa wallhanging (we started at the same time but she actually FINISHED hers!) and used a narrow corduroy for Santa's coat; I used wool for mine. The ivy leaves are also wool. It's funny, looking now at my tiny blanket stitches on Santa's coat--I can't imagine having done that back then. With the leaves, I used a method I've talked about before where I stitch down the wool as I'm quilting the piece, and in this instance, I left the leaves somewhat dimensional, stitching only the veins of the leaves. I think that back when I was first working on this project, the idea of stitching down all those ivy leaves using teeny, tiny blanket stitches probably played a big part in my decision to pack it up and put it away!

I mentioned I had another old Christmas project I wanted to pull out and assess to see what still needed to be done. This is it--

I pieced the basket quilt top some time ago, and then I added some minimal applique a few years later--I can't remember if it was last year or the year before. Now that I have it out, I'm just as stumped as I was then. Do I add more applique or do I make the quilting itself the "star" of the quilt? I'll leave it on the design wall for a couple days and decide whether to do something more with it this year. Any suggestions? (I am planning to add some yellow buttons for the poinsettia centers and red buttons as berries for the holly leaves.) I keep going back and forth about whether I think it's too bare and boring or not. Part of me likes the clean, simple look.

In the meantime, while I ponder the baskets, I had separated a few small Christmas patterns out of my pattern baskets, and I decided to work on a small Santa applique. This will only be 12-1/2" tall and wide and will fit in one of those standing metal frames.

I've picked a winner for the English Ivy Santa pattern, and that person is Sandy E-H, who said: "My goodness you are doing a good job of finishing up projects! That is always such a good feeling,and like you,I always wonder why I didn't finish it up instead of setting a project aside. I guess the call of starting something new. This little Father Christmas quilt is so cute, would love to win your giveaway and create the quilt for Christmas 2012."

Sandy, send me your mailing address, and I'll get the pattern out to you. And I sure hope you DO get it done for Christmas 2012 and not wait ten years like I did until Christmas 2022!

Tomorrow I'll try to get my little swirly quilting design tutorial posted. I love to use it on many of my winter quilts because it reminds me of snow. See you then!

Number Ten

2011-12-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

After writing last night, I went to bed and slept for ten hours or so, although I kept waking up all night long, and when it was FINALLY time to get up in the morning, I was running a bit of a fever. So I called in sick and curled up on the couch and read most of the morning. In the afternoon, the fever subsided, and I felt a little better, so I headed into the Sweat Shop to watch some TV and finish this project:

I'm counting this one as my 10th of 11 quilts in 2011. Why? Well, I started it ten years ago. I got as far as adding the embroidered ivy stems when I decided I didn't like one of the borders I had used. I set it aside.

A couple years later, I took it out again and removed the offending border. But I couldn't decide on anything else, so I set it aside again.

I've gotten it back out a time or two, but didn't do anything more until this year--finally! With my stitchery group on Saturday, I finished the embroidered ivy stem, and that night, I added a border and pinned it for quilting. On Sunday, I cut all the wool ivy leaves and started sewing them down while quilting the rest. Today I finished quilting the outside border and added the binding. After all these years, it really feels like a pretty big accomplishment to know it's done now.

Tonight I finished another little project I'd begun last year and set aside:

The snowman just needed borders, quilting, and binding--he only took a couple hours to finish. Sometimes I wonder why I don't finish things when I have them out to begin with--after all, it's not like these two projects took a whole lot of time! Crazy, isn't it? But it's good to have them done now.

I have another Christmas quilt top--wallhanging size--that I'm thinking I need to pull out and take a look at to see what remains to be done. Maybe I could finish that one too!

In the meantime, I have another giveaway--the pattern for the English Ivy Santa. But first, I should announce the winner of the frog pattern, yes?

To change things up a little, tonight I asked the Wild Child to select the winning number and the winner was Belinda, who said:

"2nd Try at leaving a comment :-) I would love the opportunity to make this quilt for my daughter. She loves frogs and has forever! What says love more then a big frog to keep you warm. Plus - Everytime I quilt, it is not complete unless I do a great deal of "FROG STITCHING" rip it....rip it.....rip it..... Thanks for your blog, I have enjoyed it for a long time."

Belinda, email me your mailing address, and I'll mail "Frog Cabin" (that's the name of the pattern--I forgot to mention that last night!) out to you.

Now, here's tonight's giveaway pattern:

If you're interested in winning, please let me know you want to be added to the drawing. I'll pick a winner tomorrow night. By the way, this pattern can also be used as a stitchery pattern, rather than an appliqued quilt. And I'm willing to mail this one to the US or Canada. Good luck!

Ribbit

2011-12-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

I'm closing yesterday's giveaway a little early tonight because I seem to have come down with a cold, and I'd like to take care of my "computer business" early so I can get to bed soon. Hubby's making a compassionate run for hot and sour soup as I write. I hope that an evening of rest will see me feeling much better tomorrow. (Ever the optimist!)

So whose name was picked to win the Lost Quilter book? That would be Doris R., who commented as Anonymous as follows:

Kim, I love your zany way of writing! You have a great sense of humor. I would love to read this book, as I am always looking for books with characters that are of color. Thanks for a chance at winning it!

Doris, please email me your mailing address and I'll get this book in the mail to you. I'm also waiting to hear from Karen, the winner of the stitchery kit. I hope Doris and Karen come back for a visit so they can claim their winnings!

The next giveaway is a little more "specialized." You really need to like frogs--or know someone who does--to want to add this frog quilt pattern to your collection:

The quilt is 60" x 65", so that's one huge frog! When I bought the pattern, the attorney I was working for LOVED frogs, so I thought this was a fun one to make for him someday. Unfortunately, he left our firm before I had a chance to make the quilt and--since I'm not much into frogs--I don't think I'll "need" this pattern--but maybe you do?

Please leave a comment telling me that you like frogs, and I'll enter you in the drawing. I can mail this one to the US or Canada.

"See" you tomorrow when I'll announce the winner of the frog pattern.

Weekends Go By WAAAAAAY Too Fast!

2011-12-05T00:01:00.000-08:00

I finished up the last of the Christmas decorating today and then I worked on the apples. Remember my excursion to Apple Hill a couple weeks ago? Well, I've had half a box of apples sitting in my garage since, waiting for me to find time to bake them into scrumptious treats. I tooks some photos, but I haven't uploaded them yet--I'll show you what I made later. But I have to tell you that as I'm writing this post, I'm eating a half of one of those little pies I showed you before--but apple this time instead of blackberry. Still, yum! Especially with a little ice cream on top.

There's always so much to do at this time of the year, and the weekends just pass too quickly, don't they? I've been working on another quilt project that I'm anxious to get done--it will be my "10 of 11 in '11" because it's one I started about ten years ago, and if I finally get it finished, it will be quite an accomplishment!

Some of you asked me to demonstrate that swirly quilting design you've seen in some of my projects, like the Christmas quilt. I'm using it again in the current project, and I've taken photos. So a tutorial should be along sometime this week.

Now you're probably wondering about the winner of the pillow stitchery kit, right? Well, it's Karen of Briarside Lane. She said, "Yes, I DO remember this pillow and thought, 'Oh, how cute, and I wonder if I could make one up simply from your photo.' Now you have one to give away. I'd love the kit... thanks for the chance." Karen, email me your mailing address and I'll get this out to you quickly.

Now, another little giveaway. As I'm cleaning stuff out, I'm hoping to find homes from some of the things I don't have room for--at some point, you just have to quilter-up and realize you're never going to make all the things that have caught your attention. So, in the next week or two, I'll probably be giving away some random things, like patterns and maybe some orphan blocks or projects. This giveaway though, isn't quite like that. When I was putting up the Christmas things, I realized that somehow I had ended up with two of these books:

The book is used and is a couple years old, so maybe I picked it up somewhere, thinking I'd give it to a quilting friend, and it somehow ended up on my bookshelf. This is the book about a fugitive slave, Joanna, who makes her way to Elm Creek Farm. If you'd like a chance to win--and again, you'll need a US postal address--please leave me a comment indicating you want to be entered in the drawing. I'll pick a winner tomorrow night and make the announcement on Tuesday's post.

As this weekend is just about over, it's time for me to get ready for bed. Thanks for stopping by to visit!

CONTEST CLOSED--WINNER BEING SELECTED AND WILL BE ANNOUNCED.

A Little Something

2011-12-04T01:31:00.000-08:00

After that little hoarding scare (and I'm glad to know I'm not alone in that!), I spent much of Saturday night sorting through old quilting books and patterns, trying to cull out the ones that no longer "speak" to me or that I've already made and won't make again. Along those lines, remember this Christmas pillow I made a couple months ago?

(One of my stitchery friends was working on hers today--it was our monthly get together. It's a fun little project.)

Anyway, in cleaning out, I came across the pattern. I knew I had extra button packs and I also had the fabric cut to make a second pillow--but I never did. So I thought I'd have a little giveaway for the pattern, buttons, and fabric to make the front of the pillow (or wallhanging, tablerunner--whatever). (Note that the "kit" does not contain enough fabric for the ruffle I added nor does the pattern include instructions for making it with a ruffle. The "kit" also does not contain embroidery thread--just the button embellishments and basic fabric.)

If you'd like to win this one, and if you have a US address, just leave me a comment, asking to be entered in the drawing. Tomorrow night I'll pick the name of the winner and announce who won on my Monday post. Please come back to see if your name is drawn and email me to claim the prize. Good luck and Merry Christmas!

OMG, I'm a Hoarder!

2011-12-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago, I finished quilting and binding the Christmas quilt. As I was quilting it, I noticed the white base of my Juki was slowly turning pink over time, so I thought I'd better be careful when I first washed the quilt in case the red backing fabric bled. The backing was a wide Moda marble--I didn't really expect Moda to bleed, but you never know. And seeing that pink was kind of scary!

Here's a photo of the quilt on the bed after it was successfully washed. I still need to do a couple more things to decorate in the master bedroom, but this part's done. I'll probably show you a couple more photos this weekend.

With the completion of this quilt, I've finished 9 of the 11 quilts I was striving for this year. It's not looking like I'll make 11, but there's still time for me to finish one more, maybe!

Anyway, when I was ready to wash the Christmas quilt, I went hunting for the Dye Magnet sheets I knew I had, but I couldn't remember where they were. All I recalled was that when I'd first bought the package, I kept them on a shelf in the Sweat Shop, so of course that's where I looked first.

The problem was that I'd been keeping a lot of stuff on that shelf. And the way everything was jammed into that space, I'm pretty sure I must have been a squirrel in a previous lifetime because it looked just like a nut hidey hole!

Over the years, I've kept large plastic bags in case I want to use them to keep everything together for various quilt projects. I just never realized how many bags I'd kept. By the time I pulled everything out, here's the pile of stuff I had:

Bags, Steam-a-Seam, chunks of freezer paper, baggies with applique templates, and several other miscellaneous items. Gosh, I'm kind of embarrassed! Really, I had no idea I'd shoved so much stuff into such a small space! And the Dye Magnets weren't even there--I finally found them in the garage with our other laundry products.

I'm happy to report that my plastic bag stash is now tidied up and whittled down, and that spot on the shelf is much more organized now. I have a couple more drawers in the Sweat Shop that I should sort out--I think this might have given me the motivation I need, unless I just get too busy getting ready for Christmas. But I'm going to try. How about you? Are you a hoarder too?

So, Speaking of Christmas Porn . . .

2011-12-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

Oh, my! I guess that title will draw in the crowds, huh? But it really is pertinent to what I wanted to tell you about tonight.

Remember back before the economy came crashing down and everyone had too much money to spend? No, I don't exactly remember it that way either. But they must have. Because back in December 2007, I wrote the post I'll reprint below--it's about all those Christmas blow up yard decorations and a funny story. Perfect for this time of year.

These days it's only the really rich people--probably all those investment bankers--who can afford the overly done "yard art," like the the people Mary at Quilt Hollow wrote about a week or two ago. Here's one of the photos she posted:

She has a close up over on her blog that's even more delightful. I love the artistic positioning of the Nativity on the banks of the drainage ditch, right next to the Dickensian Christmas carolers. What a wonderful reminder of all that Christmas represents. And did I mention the teddy bears that are as large as the Nativity figures? Or the three Santas? (A clever reference to the Three Wise Men maybe?)

But back in December 2007, it seemed like everyone had yards that looked similar to the one Mary wrote above. And yes, maybe I was a little harsh in my criticism at the time, but you have to understand that just the year before, the low class, drug dealing neighbors across the street from me--the renters who never did anything to maintain their yard, EVER--stuck two blow-up decorations right at the front edge of their yard where I could enjoy their beauty every time I looked out my living room window. Just imagine the charm of a blow-up snowman standing right next to Santa popping out of a chimney. Absolutely no relationship between the two as to scale. And it might have looked more convincing had they made the chimney look like it was coming up from an underground bunker--certainly that's what I would have done. But no.

And they weren't the only ones. By 2007, it seemed those blow ups were popping up in every other yard.

When I mentioned yesterday that the stats showed me what posts people were reading, this one was on the list. So, here it is--reprinted from December 4, 2007.

* * * * * * * *

On my way home from work, I drove around a corner a few blocks from home, and saw this--or something very close to it--in someone's yard, surrounded by his other Santa and snowman friends:

Okay, how incredibly tacky can someone be? In looking on the internet for a photo of this thing, I found several versions which all looked incredibly similar but ranged in price from about $8 all the way to nearly $200. Who would spend $200 on an inflatable SpongeBob? Yeah, maybe there are one or two huge SpongeBob fans who might, but is there really a market? People are weird.

It doesn't appear that any inflatables will pop up in my immediate neighborhood, but if they do, I'm considering calling my friend Lisa to see if she'd like to revisit the whole adult bookstore experience. I'm thinking that one of these in the front yard, wearing a Santa hat, would be just the thing, don't you?

And since I'm on the subject of Christmas and blow up dolls, I have a funny story to pass on. Perhaps you've seen it before? It's not mine--I've heard it originated with Jeff Foxworthy. If you haven't seen it before, get yourself some milk and cookies, and sit back and enjoy!

CHRISTMAS WITH LOUISE

"As a joke, my brother used to hang a pair of panty hose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them. What they say about Santa checking the list twice must be true because every Christmas morning, although Jay's kids' stockings were overflowing, his poor pantyhose hung sadly empty.

One year I decided to make his dream come true. I put on sunglasses and went in search of an inflatable love doll. They don't sell those things at Walmart. I had to go to an adult bookstore downtown. If you've never been in an X-rated store, don't go. You'll only confuse yourself. I was there an hour saying things like, "What does this do?" "You're kidding me!" "Who would buy that?" Finally, I made it to the inflatable doll section.

I wanted to buy a standard, uncomplicated doll that could also substitute as a passenger in my truck so I could use the car pool lane during rush hour. Finding what I wanted was difficult. Love dolls come in many different models. The top of the line, according to the side of the box, could do things I'd only seen in a book on animal husbandry. I settled for "Lovable Louise." She was at the bottom of the price scale. To call Louise a "doll" took a huge leap of imagination.

On Christmas Eve, with the help of an old bicycle pump, Louise came to life. My sister-in-law was in on the plan and let me in during the wee morning hours, long after Santa had come and gone. I filled the dangling pantyhose with Louise's pliant legs and bottom. I also ate some cookies and drank what remained of a glass of milk on a nearby tray. I went home and giggled for a couple of hours.

The next morning my brother called to say that Santa had been to his house and left a present that had made him VERY happy but had left the dog confused. She would bark, start to walk away, then come back and bark some more. We all agreed that Louise should remain in her pantyhose so the rest of the family could admire her when they came over for the traditional Christmas dinner.

My grandmother noticed Louise the moment she walked in the door. "What the hell is that?" she asked. My brother quickly explained, "It's a doll." "Who would play with something like that?" Granny snapped. I had several candidates in mind, but kept my mouth shut. "Where are her clothes?," Granny continued. "Boy, that turkey sure smells nice, Gran," Jay said, trying to steer her into the dining room, but Granny was relentless. "Why doesn't she have any teeth?" Again, I could have answered, but why would I? It was Christmas and no one wanted to ride in the back of the ambulance saying, "Hang on, Granny, hang on!"

My grandfather, a delightful old man with poor eyesight, sidled up to me and said, " Hey, who's the naked gal by the fireplace?" I told him she was Jay's friend. A few minutes later I noticed Grandpa by the mantel, talking to Louise. Not just talking, but actually flirting. It was then that we realized this might be Grandpa's last Christmas at home.

The dinner went well. We made the usual small talk about who had died, who was dying, and who should be killed, when suddenly Louise made a noise that sounded a lot like my father in the bathroom in the morning. Then she lurched from the pantyhose, flew around the room twice, and fell in a heap in front of the sofa. The cat screamed. I passed cranberry sauce through my nose, and grandpa ran across the room, fell to his knees, and began administering mouth to mouth resuscitation. My brother fell back over his chair and wet his pants and Granny threw down her napkin, stomped out of the room, and sat in the car.

It was indeed a Christmas to treasure and remember. Later, in my brother's garage, we conducted a thorough examination to determine the cause of Louise's collapse. We discovered that Louise had suffered from a hot ember from the fireplace to the back of her right thigh. Fortunately, thanks to a wonder drug called duct tape, we restored her to perfect health. Louise went on to star in several bachelor party movies. I think Grandpa still calls her whenever he can get out of the house."

Stats and Stuff

2011-12-01T00:03:00.000-08:00

If you have a blog on Blogger, you probably know it tracks your stats for you, right? Every now and then, I like to take a look to see what other blogs my readers come from and what kind of internet searches lead people to my blog. It's really kind of interesting.

I consistently get a lot of people reading my blog posts that relate to Connecting Threads. I think many quilters are intrigued by Connecting Threads' fabric prices and want to see what kind of reviews may be out there. I'm sure they're disappointed in my blog, because I've never tried the fabric--but I like to use their thread.

When I looked at the stats page last night, it told me that three people had come to my blog as a result of an internet search for "dart guns for two-year-old boys." Really? When did I ever write about that? I tried a Yahoo search with those terms, but I sure didn't get my blog! Maybe I'm missing something in how the stats come up with these things.

When I went back to look for the "dart gun" stat today, it wasn't there any more, but I noticed I was getting a lot of hits off a referral from Fave Quilts to my technique tutorial for making an appliqued wallhanging using wool, a sewing machine, and a quilt-as-you-go method. Their post linking to me can be found HERE--take a look at some of the other patterns and things they link to while you're there, as you might find something that really appeals to you.

While we're on the subject of that Santa wallhanging, I thought I'd show you where it's hanging this year--

It's in the guest bathroom where Santa can keep a close eye on all of the snowmen! (Not even gonna consider what ELSE Santa may be watching in the guest bathroom.)

I found that a small nut/treat bowl will make a great soap dish in a pinch.

Snowmen everywhere!

I think I might feel a little creeped out when I take a bath tonight. I never thought about THEM watching me until now!

I was thinking that it might be kind of fun to mess with peoples' internet searches by throwing random stuff into my blog posts that people might search for. Like "the perfect gift for the quilter on your Christmas list!" Now I wonder how many people might search "Christmas gift for quilter" and be led to my blog--which will be pretty useless, really. Or "Santa caught looking at naked woman in guest bathroom."

I'll keep an eye on the stats over the next couple days and let you know if there's a sudden increase in traffic for Santa porn. In the meantime, remember that if you see weird stuff in my blog posts, it's just me having a little fun.

Time now to march into the bathroom, take off my clothes, and face down Santa and all those staring snowmen. Sorry if this visual has put you off your breakfast. Wish me luck!

My Christmas Home

2011-11-30T00:03:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd give you a little tour of the rest of the living room and the kitchen tonight. The fireplace is just to the left of the tree I showed you last night. Over the mantle is the little quilt I made last year from Cara's Moda Bake Shop pattern, Prairie Point Christmas--it was one of the LePetite projects. (It's a fairly quick project to make, and if you click on the name of the pattern while clicking the heels of your ruby red Christmas slippers together three times, you'll be whisked off to the Bake Shop where you'll learn how to make your own!)

The star, ivy, and candles stay up year round but get dressed up for the different holidays.

Last year, I found this lidded glass jar at WalMart; I found the "stand" separately at the Goodwill--it's a candle holder! Somehow we figured out the jar fit the stand perfectly. When it's not being used to display the Christmas snow angel scene, we use it as a cookie jar the rest of the year.

Now off to the kitchen. I know some of you enjoy seeing what I do with my old blue dresser area each holiday. The quilt on the wall is from a Sandy Gervais/Pieces from my Heart pattern called It's a Wrap. The two small quilts (one is actually a tree skirt) on top of the dresser were made from a free pattern by Marcie Patch of Patchalot Patterns called Trees on the Table.

Here's a close up of the Santa shelf. I started "collecting" Santa mugs from the thrift store this year--I found two I liked and added them to one I already had.

And here's a better view of the candle holder and another Santa--this one's a Mary Engelbreit Santa.

Above the stove, which sits to the right of the dresser, hangs a fabric wreath--last year I taught a class and I think I gave directions on the blog too, in case you're interested in making one. On the hood of the range vent are a couple of elves, getting ready for Christmas.

Continuing around the room, next comes the refrigerator. Santa, Mrs. Claus, and two mice preside over the food preparations. My mom bought these "dolls," made by Annalee, back in the '60s from what I can recall.

Do you remember the mouse I had in my house last year? Since then, I've had a bit of a mice theme running through the Christmas decorations. Of course, I've had the two Annalee mice for quite awhile, but I've added a couple more mice to the kitchen Christmas tree. If you look back at the photo of the tree, you'll see a large mouse standing under the tree and there are two mouse ornaments.

One of my favorite places to decorate is the hutch. Lots of stuff going on here!

When I was decorating, I realized I have a lot of things from Starbucks, like these glass coffee cups:

(The two brown bunnies are carved wood buttons--another thing I collect are bunnies. There's a vendor who comes to our local quilt show each year, and she sells the carved wood buttons--my little treat each year is to add a button to my collection!) Most of my Starbucks "stuff" has been found at the thrift store or on sale at Starbucks after Christmas. On the hutch there are two snack plates with coffee (hot chocolate!) mugs that I love too. I guess it's not just the coffee that I like so much--it's everything!

In real time, I still have the master bedroom to decorate, and I plan to get to that tomorrow night. I think I'll have more to share with you then too. See you later!

Winner, Winner, Turkey Dinner!

2011-11-29T00:04:00.000-08:00

And you thought I said I was giving away FABRIC leftovers rather than FOOD leftovers, right? Ha! Okay, seriously, yes, I have a winner for the Christmas fabric scraps giveaway: Anna of Woolie Mammoth who has a daughter-in-law who is expecting a baby in January and whose daughter-in-law's birthday is on Christmas--Anna thought she'd make something for the mom-to-be. Anna, please email me your mailing address, and I'll get the package off to you. Thanks to all of you for playing along.

Now I'll tell you a little bit about my Christmas decorating--first the "main" Christmas tree.

For several years, we've had what I rather politically-incorrectly refer to as "the gay guy tree," because it was decorated mostly with male fairy/woodland creatures and jeweled fruit. Pretty, but somewhat dark and a little more opulent than felt right in our small house. For the past two years, I wanted to do something different but nothing else seemed better for our yellow/red/brown living room.

This year, Hubby put up our tree--which is artificial and pre-lighted--on Friday morning, and as I looked at it, it occurred to me that I knew just what direction I wanted to go with it. Unfortunately, a Black Friday excursion to JoAnn's and Michael's was required, but neither store was too awfully crazy.

Here's what the tree looks like now:

And here's the magazine that inspired the look:

The tree on the magazine cover is much more full of decorations, and maybe I'll add more to mine over the next couple years--it will give me something to "collect" and think about. But for this year, at least, I wanted a little less red, and a little plainer, streamlined look.

What I noticed in the magazine and liked the look of--long before I decided I wanted to adopt the idea for our house--was the addition to the tree of the silk greenery with the white edging. Here's a close up of our tree--you can see I've added the same greenery:

Someone who shopped at JoAnn's must have had the same idea, because they only had one lonely, sorry-looking stem of the greenery. At Michael's, though, I found what I needed, and I cut each stem into three pieces to tuck into the branches.

I also grabbed several stems of white "pip berries" to tuck into the branches:

I'm not too excited about the white ribbon "garland" and I'm sure I'll change that next year, but I'm not sure what I'll do instead; it will give me something to think about during the intervening year.

This year, I simply used ornaments I already had from past years. Hubby was pretty darn thrilled that I finally used the clear glass "icicle" ornaments I bought years ago and never could seem to incorporate into any of my trees or decorations.

By the way, speaking of Hubby and decorating, I know you'll be interested to learn that the fairly large sponge he brought back from Florida seems to have found a home atop his bedside lamp shade. Yep, once I put the lamp shade back on the lamp, Hubby added the sponge to the top, like some crazy lamp hat. And you know what? I've just been struck with an idea. I think I'll buy one of those fuzzy red Santa hats and put IT on top of the sponge. After all, I still need to decorate our bedroom. I think I'll go to bed and sleep on it. Goodnight!

I'm Really, Really Tired of Turkey

2011-11-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

How was your Thanksgiving? We had a really nice time, although both of our kids' significant others weren't able to join us, so it was just the four of us for the day--and I cooked enough food to feed at least eight WITH leftovers. So, ever since Thursday, I've been eating mashed potatoes and gravy for breakfast, turkey sandwiches for lunch, and turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and gravy for dinner. Every day. (We had Chinese takeout the night before Thanksgiving, but Hubby snagged THOSE leftovers for himself, darn him!)

At the suggestion of several of you, I bought Apples to Apples and we played it after Thanksgiving dinner--tons of fun! Thanks for the suggestion. In fact, Soccer Son and his Lovely Wife to be Someday came over today (Sunday) for leftovers, and we played the game again because we enjoyed it so much the first time.

I think this is the longest break I've taken from blogging since I started several years ago. It was nice to not have to stop what I was doing to make time to write--even if what I was doing was getting in bed early with a good book!

Mostly, though, I've been working on getting the house decorated for Christmas, and I'm nearly there! Not quite, though. And I still haven't quite finished the Christmas quilt for my bed--but I'm working on the binding, so I'm getting close. In the next couple of days, I'll share a few photos of my decorations and the quilt--when I complete it. In the meantime, I have a little something for you tonight.

After nearly completing the Christmas quilt and sorting through the leftovers (fabric, not turkey!) to make sure I have what I need to make a few other things for my bedroom, I found I have a panel and some scraps I don't need.

The panel and scraps are from Kate Spain's 2010 Christmas line, the 12 Days of Christmas.

I'd guess there are enough scraps here to make a tabletopper or small wallhanging, plus the panel. Are you interested in adopting my leftovers? (Again, fabric, not turkey!)

I need to limit this giveaway to those of you in the US or with a US mailing address because of the cost of mailing and the amount of time it would take to reach someone outside the US. Also, I'm going to keep this short so I can get it out to the winner quickly, in time to do something with it by Christmas.

What do you need to do? Just tell me what you think you'd do with the panel and scraps if you won. I'll pick a winner Monday night and announce the winner on Tuesday's blog post. Please come back on Tuesday to see if you won, because I'd like to get the winner's mailing address and get the packet mailed before the end of the week.

It's nice to be back in Blogland and visit with you again, and I hope your holiday weekend was the best!

[COMMENTS CLOSED--WINNER TO BE SELECTED AND ANNOUNCED.]

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-23T00:02:00.000-08:00

I don't know about you, but I've been running around like a turkey with her head cut off the past few days, trying to get everything done. After spending several hours of quality time at Hobby Lobby, Target, and Safeway tonight, I think I've finally gotten my immediate shopping done--unless I've forgotten anything. And if I have? I think Hubby might be running an errand or two.

The past couple years, when it's come to cooking our Thanksgiving meal, I've made it easy on myself by buying a couple of pre-prepared dishes from Trader Joe's. This year, I've decided to do everything from scratch. This year, I'm going to try to get the Wild Child to help, but Manager Man just flew in from New Yawk, so it might be tough to pry them apart. The plan for Wednesday night, so far, is for me, Hubby, Manager Man, and the Wild Child to go out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant after I get off work and then come home and prepare whatever Thanksgiving dishes we can.

Thursday is Thanksgiving.

Friday . . . well, I don't do the whole Black Friday thing, but I DO start heavy duty Christmas decorating--I'll be busy with that all weekend.

What I'm getting at, in a roundabout way, is that I'm quite possibly going to miss our daily get togethers a few times over the next several days. There's just too much to do and not much of it is going to be worth blogging about. So, just in case we don't chat before, I want to make sure I wish you a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving how. Have an excellent day!

Honey, Would You Like a Little Pie?

2011-11-22T00:28:00.001-08:00

A couple days ago, I cleaned out the refrigerator and realized I had two small containers of blackberries that wouldn't live much longer. I also had some pie dough, but I knew I didn't have enough berries to make a "real" pie, so I didn't do anything about the berries that day. I guess, though, that somewhere in the back of my mind, I'd been thinking about what to do with those berries, because the next day, it occurred to me I could make mini pies in our large muffin tin. Genius!

That evening, after the mini pies came out of the oven, I asked Hubby if he'd like a little pie, and of course he said "yes!" I think he was a little surprised to see I meant that literally--what I served him WAS, in fact, a little pie.

I made a crumb topping for these, but I'm sure I could have made a regular crust for the top instead. To make these, I rolled out the dough and cut dough circles (I used a bowl as a template) that were a couple inches larger than the circumference of the opening of each cup. I sprayed the muffin tin with cooking spray and fit the dough down into the cups.

I took a look at the pie section of my Betty Crocker cookbook to get the general proportions of fruit, sugar, flour, and spices, and I "guesstimated" in making the filling--and it turned out just right! I filled the cups and then I made about a half recipe of crumb topping, which I thought would be enough to cover the tops of my six mini pies.

Most of the recipes I looked at called for cooking the pie at 425 degrees; because these were small, I thought maybe 400 degrees would be best, and they turned out okay--I just kept an eye on them to make sure they didn't over brown.

I know mini- and hand-pies are popular now and I can see why. These would make a perfect Thanksgiving--or any other holiday--dessert. In fact, if I were having a large crowd for Thanksgiving and wanted to offer my guests a selection of different types of pie, I think I'd make a few batches of mini pies with different fillings and whipped cream and ice cream on the side. Yum!

If you're stumped for an idea for Thanksgiving dessert or if you've been appointed to bring dessert to a large gathering, please feel free to use my idea. The other really excellent thing about these are the fact that they're small, which makes them the perfect treat to follow a large meal without being tempted to over-indulge. Bon appetit!

The Games People Play

2011-11-21T00:05:00.000-08:00

With the holidays approaching and rain in the forecast every several days, it's a good time to think about playing board games with the family--at least it is here in our home. Of course, we have certain favorites we tend to play over and over again, so I was wondering what other games are on the market that we'd enjoy. There was some talk at my office last week about this game:

I was told this is a fun game to play in a larger group--perfect for Thanksgiving and Christmas. So I went over to Amazon and ordered it. While I was there, I started looking at other board games for my immediate family--I haven't really paid much attention to the new games in the last year or two.

Generally, our family enjoys games that don't require a lot of concentration, so some of the most popular strategy games probably wouldn't work for us. We like games that are fairly simple to understand and can be played in under an hour. And we need a game that can be played by three to five people as our immediate family is small.

Do you know of any games--new on the market in the last couple years--that you'd recommend for us? Also, what's your favorite game when you get together with a large number of people? There are so many games on the market that it's quite confusing to browse online, so I'm hoping we can share some suggestions. Thanks for your input!

A Visit to the Quilt Show

2011-11-20T00:01:00.000-08:00

As promised, I'm bringing you a little eye candy from the local River City Quilters Guild quilt show. In most cases, I don't know who the quiltmaker and/or quilter is, and I rushed through the show so quickly on my lunch hour, there wasn't time to take notes, but I'll tell you what I know about a few of these--or at least what I liked.

The theme of the show this year was a Symphony of Color. Each year, guild members are challenged to create a quilt using a specific fabric; this year there was a focus fabric and an accent fabric. I'm not sure which fabrics those are in this quilt, but it sure didn't LOOK like the quiltmaker was forced to use something "challenging" as many times these fabrics seem to be!

Jackie, one of the ladies from my Thimbleberries Club, made the quilt and certainly deserved the ribbon she received. It's a beauty!

As you can see, the next quilt received a special award too as signified by the rainbow colored ribbon. Unfortunately, I don't know which award this was given, but isn't it a stunning quilt? I LOVE circle quilts and you'll see I've photographed a few; I aspire to make one someday. The use of color in this one--and that may even be what the award is for--is simply luscious.

This next one may look familar to you--yep, it's mine! I entered two quilts this year.

This next quilt caught my eye from a few aisles away. I absolutely LOVE that rusty red she used with the contrasting black and cream. This one was made by Jan Soules, the show's featured artist. If you want to learn more about her, click on her name and it will take you to the guild's bio on her. There are also photos of a couple more of her quilts. I know I've seen the middle one with all the flying geese in a quilt magazine before.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of the next quilt, just because I've always loved this pattern and I have it in my pattern stash to make someday. I think this is the first time I've seen it made, though.

Laurel Anderson created the next quilt. Laurel teaches and writes patterns and books. Click on her name to view her website. Laurel has been a past featured artist, and the pattern for this quilt is available on her website. Isn't it a beauty?

Isn't this one fun and whimsical? It reminds me of Mary Lou Weidman's quilts. Sadly, I was running out of time and didn't read the story behind this one.

Another beautiful quilt--I told you I like circles! And I'm not the only one who liked it, as you can see by the rainbow ribbon.

If this one looks familiar--yep, me again. It was really nice to have this one hanging in a place where I could finally get a decent photo of it.

I think this is a fun Christmas/Santa quilt. My friend Sandy has the patterns. I may need to borrow them someday to make one for myself!

The show's over and my bed is calling to me. It's been another long and busy day. Thanks for stopping by to visit!

P.S.: There are many, many more wonderful quilts at the show I didn't get to photograph, and there are even some I DID photograph but didn't upload because I didn't want to overwhelm anyone. If you're in the Sacramento area today (Sunday), the show is open until 4 p.m. For information, click on the link to the featured artist, and from there you can access additional information about cost, location, hours, etc.

Friday Night Sew-In, November Edition

2011-11-19T00:40:00.000-08:00

I'm very, very tired tonight. I worked all day, ran over to the annual quilt show on my lunch hour, picked up a couple prescriptions from the pharmacy after work, headed to Kohl's for a few things, and followed that by a stop at Michael's for a few more things. I then capped off my errands by picking up chicken wings and fries for dinner and hurrying home to participate in the Friday Night Sew-In--for what was left of the evening.

Having lost three days of potential productivity this week due to stomach flu meant having to compress five days worth of errands and chores into two days.

During the sew-in, I made a bit more progress on quilting my Christmas quilt. I started by finishing the swirly quilting in the center. Once done with that, I cleared the decks and flipped the quilt over to check for puckers and trim thread tails. That task completed, I decided it was time for a little treat, and I grabbed the camera while I was at it so I could better document my progress. Here are a few photos.

Yum! Hot chocolate with whipped cream! Stitch is pretending indifference.

Here you can see a bit of the quilting I've been doing. And if you look very closely, you might see the tip of a furry ear sticking up toward the back edge of the quilt.

Stitch yearned for a more active role in the Friday Night Sew-In.

Largely ignored, Stitch edged closer. "Can you see me now?"

It's really hard to quilt when you have a cat guiding your free motion quilting. At this point, I gave up, gave Stitch a good pet, and shut down for the night. Operating heavy mechanical machinery with sharp parts any later tonight probably isn't a very good idea anyway.

I have photos from the quilt show--I'll share those tomorrow night. Happy quilting!

It's Started

2011-11-18T00:04:00.000-08:00

You know about the world ending on December 21, 2012, right? Well, I recently read that some people (world-ending expert types) think the REAL date is December 21, 2011. Yep, this year. I started to read about the reasoning behind the discrepancy, and I think there was something about Passover, yada, yada, yada . . . I don't know, because I got bored real quick. But it occured to me that it might be a good idea to put off Christmas until sometime in January. Because, really, I'd hate to spend so much of my final days shopping and preparing for a holiday that may never come.

Sadly, I haven't had much luck in persuading everyone else to hold off. Despite my best attempts, I find myself bombarded with everyone's holiday plans and parties. So I began. Let's just hope that come December 21st, I'm not sorry I did.

At my office, we're having a gift exchange, and the theme is something to do with "cute." I saw this snowman hat at Hobby Lobby and thought it might be the perfect gift for that occasion. I'll have to review the gift description again to make sure, but yep, this might be it. One down, fifty-three gifts to go.

When I got to work this morning, someone had ripped out a day from a Maxine flip calendar and taped it to my desk. Don't you love Maxine? It said, "Five words you'll never hear from me are 'I read your blog today.'" See? That's why I feel fairly safe telling YOU about a gift I got for someone in my office. Most of them think my blog is strictly about quilting and they'd rather poke a hot needle in their eye than read it.

My family has been given strict instructions to get our Christmas decorations down from the garage rafters by tomorrow night. This year I'd like to try to do some pre-decorating. What I have in mind is sorting out the decorations and getting my small trees, wreaths, and anything else along those lines decorated in the garage before bringing everything into the house right after Thanksgiving. I'm hoping this pre-decorating plan will help cut down on some of the time it takes to "really" decorate.

Tonight (Thursday), I hauled Hubby to Hobby Lobby and bought some things I'll need--mostly gift related things like containers and packaging. Tomorrow night I'd like to stop by a couple more stores to get more things--Michaels is one of the stops on my list.

And I'm starting to think about things like baking and candy making. In fact, I'm starting to feel like I need to get out a pen and some blank lined paper and start making lists. That's pretty hard core.

How about you? Have you started yet? Do you have any tips from years past that helped you save time and/or streamlined the preparations? I'd love to hear from you.

Looks Like I'll Live

2011-11-17T00:02:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the get well wishes. Around mid-afternoon today (Wednesday) I finally started to feel a lot better. One of the ways I knew I was feeling better was that I started getting kind of impatient to be doing SOMETHING besides sitting and laying around the house. It will be good to get out of the house and back to work tomorrow.

If it wasn't for the fact that I hadn't eaten anything that no one else shared, I would have suspected food poisoning, but I guess it was just a bug--I imagine I picked it up on our Saturday excursion to Apple Hill, since I was exposed to crowds of people and touched a lot of things that had no doubt been touched by others. The timing seems about right since I woke up early, early Monday morning with stomach cramps.

Mostly, I've done very little the last few days. I picked a Nora Roberts book from the bookshelf because I figured it would be decent light reading. I napped a lot too. The timing on the book worked out, because I finished it just about the time I started to feel better.

When I've felt up to doing anything, I've worked on quilting the Christmas quilt, but it's kind of slow going, even with the assistance of Stitch, my almost-constant companion.

While I've been sick, Stitch has napped with me, stretched out along my stomach (and legs) like a furry hot water bottle. Maybe he thought all that gurgling noise coming from my stomach was me purring.

I've done a small amount of applique on the crack rabbits quilt, adding wings to one of the chicks . . .

. . . and a crossing guard holding up a stop sign.

Now, it's time to get to bed and get a good night's sleep because tomorrow I plan to resume my normal life. Being sick sucks.

Come on, Stitch. Say goodnight.

Sick Day

2011-11-16T00:02:00.000-08:00

Just a short post to say I've had a stomach bug the last couple of days, and about the only things on my mind at present aren't really appropriate for sharing. ARGH!

Garden Club Quilt, Parts 2 and 3

2011-11-15T00:02:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd show you my progress on the Garden Club Quilt. You've seen bits and pieces of part 2 as I've demonstrated the applique methods I use--

And then on Sunday, I was having so much fun with the applique, I went on to make part 3:

Here's a photo of the two parts together on the design wall in roughly the same places they'll occupy when the quilt is finished:

If anyone was interested in purchasing a trolley, I found them at JoAnn's online--click HERE. Someone commented about burning themselves when using the trolley--that's not usually my problem. Generally, that happens when I'm doing anything else and I've forgotten I have a hot piece of metal sitting next to my right arm. Or I'm waving the iron around and not being careful. One of these days, I'll finally learn. I hope.

Now that I've finished the third part of this quilt, I'm ahead of schedule for the BOM, so I can set it aside and get my Christmas bed quilt quilted. And, of course, I still have my crack bunnies to finish. When it comes to quilting, there's just never enough time, is there?

More Applique

2011-11-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

About a month ago, my friend Imelda agreed to show the rest of the ladies in our stitchery group the method of applique she likes to use, and I've been using her method ever since. I think it's a bit faster and eliminates a couple of the drawbacks to the method I explained a couple of days ago. Here's what she showed us.

First of all, this method requires a number of "tools," unlike the other method I demonstrated. And really the need for so much equipment is the only drawback I see with using this method. You'll need an Omnigrid thingy that has a cutting mat on one side and a pressing mat on the other--or something similar. I kind of like the Omnigrid product because I can put my pieces inside and take them with me, and I'll have a surface to work on wherever I may be. This comes in handy with our monthly stitchery get togethers.

You'll also need applique glue and a toothpick, an applique iron, spray starch and a small container with a lid, a thin paintbrush, and one of the metal trolley ~~weapons~~ tools you can see in the photo above. Make sure the applique glue you use is water soluble.

First you'll need to do all the preparation work I previously described for applique up to the point of basting the applique pieces with needle and thread. Before going further, check layout by placing all of the applique pieces where they'll eventually end up. This is a good time to check to make sure the colors and prints you're using work well together.

If everything looks right, turn on the applique iron and get out the starch and paintbrush. [Imelda sprays a small amount of starch into the lidded container and waits for the foam to subside.] Using the paintbrush, paint a bit of starch along the fabric close to the freezer paper. Too much liquid will soak into the paper and make it soft, so brush the starch on sparingly, and only work with a section an inch or two long at a time.

The metal trolley is worn on the middle finger of your non-dominant hand--for me, that's my left hand. The applique iron is held in the dominant hand. Which leaves no hands for holding the camera--so you'll just have to imagine I'm doing these steps using both hands working together.

Fold the starched fabric around to the back of the freezer paper and hold it in place with the metal trolley while setting the fold with the iron.

Repeat until all applique pieces are prepared. It will take a little while to get the hang of it, but mistakes are simple to iron back out and begin again.

Once the pieces are prepared, check again for placement of all of the pieces.

I prefer to attach and sew the applique pieces in layers. Clear all the pieces off the background that do not belong on the bottom layer--in this case, I'll begin with the two red pieces that form an "X".

First I peel away the freezer paper. Most of the time, the applique will hold its shape, but a little touch up with an iron helps if an edge isn't cooperating. Using a toothpick, run a thin line of applique glue along the outside of the applique piece but don't glue too close to the edge--glue would make it harder for a needle to go through the fabric.

The glue will dry quickly. You can then stitch the applique pieces to the background as I described in the prior applique post.

Repeat with additional applique layers until done.

The main benefit to using the glue rather than pins is that the thread, as you're sewing, won't get caught on a pin. I know of other appliquers who like to glue all the pieces before sewing, but when I tried doing that, I felt my results weren't quite as nice--you might want to experiment, though.

Here's what the back looks like. As you can see, the center of the circle is cut away where I used the method I described previously, but the rest, using this starch and glue method, are layered, and none of the under fabric is removed.

Using this method, once the quilt is completed and washed, the glue will wash out, but if you're planning to hand quilt an appliqued quilt, you may wish to use an applique method that doesn't employ glue as it would be harder to needle.

It will take me a bit longer to get as good at this method as my friend Imelda. I'm much more ham-handed and I seem to burn myself on the applique iron quite a lot. But I do think I like this method better--it has all the benefits of freezer paper applique while eliminating some of the problems, like getting thread tangled around pins. There are many other applique methods, and of course, needle turn is probably used more often by experienced appliquers than freezer paper, but I still like freezer paper best--you may find something different works best for you. The key, though, is in trying all the methods you can find and then deciding which you enjoy most. If you haven't tried applique before, give it a try. You might find you like it!

Knackered

2011-11-13T00:02:00.000-08:00

My good intentions to show you the other method of applique I use have come to naught tonight. I spent the day with my stitchery friends, driving up to Apple Hill and tromping around a few of the apple ranches, looking at baked goods, treats in jars, apples, vegetables, craft booths, and various and sundry other delights. We stopped at a quilt shop on the way up and another on the way back. After eight or nine hours spent on this excursion, we were all dragging a bit. But we were all pretty pleased with ourselves and each other too. [If you click on "Apple Hill" above, it will take you to a post I wrote a few years back about Apple Hill with photos, so you can see where we were.]

After getting back to Sacramento, I went to visit Soccer Son and his Lovely Wife to be Someday. They're deep into moving to a new place, with household goods in both houses and nowhere to really call "home" for the moment. While Soccer Son took another load to the new place, his LWTBS and I went to a local sandwich shop to pick up something for dinner, which we took back to the new place to eat. I suspect the pair of them were among the few people in Sacramento who were more tired than I was at that point.

Just one more stop after that--at the grocery store--and I was finally home, but much too tired to do more than stare at my belly button after mustering up the last vestiges of energy to unload, unpack, and put away all of my day's purchases.

Applique can wait. It will be there tomorrow. And tomorrow I'll show you the other method I use. In the meantime, I'm heading to bed. Thankfully, it's Sunday and I can sleep in.