Friday, November 7, 2008
Dresden Turkeys
Friday, October 24, 2008
It's a Banner!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Kitty Block
Thursday, October 16, 2008
More Fall Leaves
By the way, I noticed something odd about the silver maple tree: only the leaves on the east side of the tree are turning color. The leaves on the west, south and north sides are all green!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Leaf Quiz Answers
Monday, October 6, 2008
My Newest Pieced Quilt Pattern
Here's a full shot of the quilt, along with some of Oregon's beautiful scenery. If you look closely, you can see the four white sails in the Mayflower block. Instructions for a crib size version of this quilt will be on my web site someday soon - before Halloween for sure.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Leaf Quiz
Here's the list:
apple
big leaf maple
bracken fern
cherry
Douglas-fir
filbert (hazelnut)
grape
ivy
lilac
morning glory
plum
silver maple
sword fern
viburnum (snowball bush)
I could have included three kinds of blackberry leaves and a holly leaf, but I didn't fancy getting my fingers pricked. I'll post the answer sheet a couple of posts from now (that way the quiz and the answers won't appear on the same web page). Good luck!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Stitches for Redwork
Fall Leaves
(800) 354-4595 Fall Color Hotline
Leaves are one applique pattern you don't need a designer for - nature provides them in abundance! Take a walk, collect some leaves, then trace them on paper or template plastic. Or sandwich the leaves between clear adhesive-backed plastic (i.e., Contac paper), then cut about 1/8" around the leaf (leave enough seam allowance for the plastic to adhere to itself). Now you have a pretty leaf to look at and an applique pattern to trace.
If you need an activity for kids, have them collect the leaves and sandwich them between the adhesive-backed plastic, or press between two sheets of waxed paper (adult help required), then cut them out. Punch a hole at the top of each leaf, thread yarn or string through the hole then tie to make loop. With adult help, hang leaves near a window or above child's bed. Small leaves can be used as bookmarks. Have fun!
Monday, August 11, 2008
It's Summer!
Now that the Olympics are on TV, I'm getting even less done. Well, less outside stuff and computer stuff. I am making headway on a redwork project. And I gathered up 8 quilt tops that need to be sandwiched and quilted. I can do things like that while half-watching the TV, but my back is toward the TV when I'm at the computer. Once the rain returns, I'll spend more time at the computer and blogging.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
New Quilt Blocks
I've been busy this week catching up on a block challenge for one of the Yahoo groups I belong to. The challenge is to make one block for each month that features a cat and represents that month in some way. We had snow in January, so I used yo-yos to make a snowcat and stitched it to a snowball block.
February's block features a heart for Valentine's Day and uses a pink fabric that I used in a project I was working on in February. The cat fabric just looked like Valentine's Day to me.
March's block is a 3-leaf clover made without a pattern - I just haphazardly cut some white rectangle and square shapes and sewed them to green squares to make the leaves. It's fun to ignore all the fussy rules once in a while! I drew the cat on a small piece of fusible web, cut it out and fused it in place. The stem is embroidered.
My oldest cat, Wylie, was born in April many years ago, so I searched my cat fabric stash for a black and white tuxedo cat. The kitten in the center of this block was the best I could find. The block features a 4" Puss in the Corner block as the center of an 8" Puss in the Corner block.
What I Learned Today
1. If a grocery store employee is walking around the store with a box of cookies from the store bakery and offering a cookie to adults as well as kids, say "no thanks." I said "yes" today and about broke a tooth on the cookie. I'm guessing it was at least 3 days old, probably older.
2. Don't put a cookie in your pocket and then forget about it for 12 hours. I did and I now have a greasy pocket.
3. Wrap cookies in paper towels for several hours before eating them. If fabric can absorb so much oil from a stale cookie, paper should absorb even more from a fresh one. And less oil means fewer calories, right?
Monday, May 12, 2008
Twin Star
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
More Surprises
And I found some of a litter of kittens one of my cats had several years ago. It's about time for this year's feral kittens to start peeking out at the world, but so far I haven't even heard any tiny meows. Since the cold weather stayed around for so long this year, I'm wondering if this year's kittens will show up later than usual. We don't really need more kittens, but they sure are cute! (My females are all spayed now, btw. And the ferals get spayed whenever I'm lucky enough to catch one.)
I also found a sample of a crazy heart block I designed years ago that I'd totally forgotten about. I pulled scraps from a box to make the 4 blocks it took to make the sample, and I'm not entirely happy with how it turned out. Next time, I'll have to try it with a controlled pallette of fabrics. This is what an EQ (Electric Quilt) mock-up looks like:
If you'd like to play with this foundation pieced block pattern, let me know.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Long Lost Recipes
This week, I started what now seems like the never-ending job of unpacking more boxes. At this point, it's mostly the boxes that got packed last - the ones that have no labels because they contain a bit of everything. Some things I'm delighted to see again. Other things I toss in the trash while wondering why they got packed in the first place.
One of the treasures I unpacked yesterday was my box of collected recipes, the ones I liked so much that I actually took time to write them down, by hand, on 3x5 cards. The oldest one is from childhood, a recipe for gingerbread. My fourth grade teacher loved the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder and read each one to us that year. One day, she brought us a treat: gingerbread made from Laura's recipe! I'd never liked gingerbread until that day, so my mom got the recipe and somewhere in time I copied it for my collection. I'm not sure I understand all the instructions, but you're welcome to try it! I'm guessing that you add the cup of water to the batter and that a "moderate oven" is 350 degrees. And I think my mom baked it in a 9" x 13" pan.
Laura's Gingerbread
Blend together:
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
Mix in: 1 cup molasses
Add 2 teaspoons baking soda to 1 cup boiling water. Be sure cup is full of water after foam has run off into cake mixture. Set aside.
To 3 cups flour, add:
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
Sift flour mixture into cake mixture and mix well.
Add 2 well-beaten eggs and stir.
Note: the mixture should be quite thin.
Bake in moderate oven for 30 minutes.
Variations: add raisins and/or candied fruits and/or a chocolate frosting.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Bunny Baskets Update
Sunday, April 13, 2008
The Gammage Cup
This week, I had the dubious honor of undergoing one of our society's initiation rites into the Past 50 Club: a colonoscopy. Those of you who have already suffered this pleasure know that it's a 2-day ordeal, at best. I had it figured that I wouldn't get any work done the day of the procedure, but I'd planned to get my taxes done the day before. Oh, how naive! When I realized that I'd be sitting on a porcelain seat, not an office chair, all day, I decided to make the best of a yucky situation and pulled one of my all-time favorite children's novels from the shelf, The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall.
It's been years since I'd last read this book, so I lost myself in it despite my uncomfortable setting. First published in 1959, it was a Caldecott Honor Book way back then. It's always puzzled me why this book hasn't been more popular through the years. Although the story lacks the complexity of Harry Potter books or the Hobbit, it has a simple, witty charm that I find delightful. The theme (as I see it) is a fairly universal and timeless one, that of finding the courage to stand up to peer pressure and be yourself, and allow others to be who they are.
As I lost myself in the land of the Minnipins, and fell in love with Muggles and Gummy and even Mingy once again, I decided that I'd try to translate this wonderful story into a quilt when I'd recovered. So yesterday afternoon (I slept all morning!) I sketched and figured out measurements and began cutting, and today I sewed up a prototype block of a Minnipin cottage. In the beginning of the story, all Minnipin cottages are white-washed and have thatched roofs, and all are supposed to have green doors. I chose to make the walls of my cottage from 1" (finished) white-on-white strips to make it look like clapboard siding. As in most fantasies, electricity doesn't exist in this story. The minnipins use candles and reed-lamps for illumination, so I chose a yellow-with-white fabric for my windows. The door is green, of course. Most of the cottage is pieced, but I chose fusible applique for the thatched roof. The finished cottage is 10" x 10", a bit larger than I was originally planning, but the perfect size for my Wee Folk (applique patterns) who can easily be turned into Minnipins.
Not bad for my first cottage, but I see a few things I want to change. I'm going to move the second-floor window up a notch, and make the thatched roof a bit wider. The soft-yellow windows look nice up close, but in the scan they blend in too much with the white walls, so I might need to find a more intense yellow to create more contrast. I can't wait to finish my taxes so I can build my next cottage!
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Experimental Gardening
I then resolved to plant them in February. Almost every February we get a week or two of beautiful, spring-like weather before winter weather returns for another 6-8 weeks. We got one week of almost-nice weather this February, but I totally forgot about the tulip bulbs. I spotted the bulbs last week and decided to try planting them soon as it quit raining and got above 45 degrees for awhile.
When I opened the bag today, I almost changed my mind. Although most of the bulbs had pale, yellowgreen shoots sprouting from them, showing that something was still alive, the bulbs themselves were really squishy. I wondered if it was worth the bother. In the spirit of "nothing ventured, nothing gained," I dumped the bulbs in an old planter, set them as upright as I could, and covered their heads with soil. They're not buried as deep as they should be, but they're certainly deeper than the forced tulip bulbs that the local grocery store was selling before Easter.
Now I get to play the waiting game to see what happens.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Bunny Baskets
Last week, I began working with the novelty Easter fabrics I bought in February. The bunnies were just too cute to pass up! After studying the fabric for several hours, I decided to go with a pieced basket block idea. I chose what's probably the simplest of all pieced basket blocks, a triangle basket with base and an appliqued handle. But instead of appliqueing a handle, I decided to fussy-cut some bunnies and fuse them to the top triangle. To hide some of the awkward cuts, I fussy-cut some eggs and fused them over the "holes" left where another bunny was originally.
For the baskets, I dug into my doll clothes stash for some trims like lace, rick rack, etc. My goal was to make each basket different in some way - no exact look-alikes! I'm pleased with how they turned out. Now I just have to decide how to set the 16 blocks I made.Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Snoopy and Woodstock's Irish Jig
But there's a flip side to most things in life. In this case, Wal-mart's $2/yard fabrics can have a huge range in quality, from really nice to really bad. I certainly wouldn't choose these fabrics to make an heirloom project of any kind. But they do have their uses: playing with ideas, making doll quilts and drag-around-everywhere quilts for kids and pets, and making crafts you don't expect to last a lifetime.
After fondling the fabrics for a few weeks, I began cutting strips and sewing them together and ended up with a little quilt top that looks a bit like this (oops! forgot to press it before I scanned it):
Okay, my scanner doesn't show much of it, but I wanted you to see the actual fabrics. Below is a mock-up of the quilt top using Electric Quilt software. The finished size is 24" x 28", perfect for a doll quilt or perhaps a baby-size lap quilt for tucking in a baby stroller or a car seat to have handy when the weather turns a bit chilly.
To make a quilt top like this, you will need 1 yd. focal fabric, 1/2 yd. light color fabric and 1/4 yd. medium color fabric. You will need to make 20 Uneven 9-Patch (also called Puss in the Corner) blocks, then set them with sashing and cornerstones. My Uneven 9-Patch blocks are 4" square finished size. To make one block this size (quantity needed for entire quilt in parentheses), you need:
one (20) 2.5" square focal fabric
four (80) 1.5" squares medium color fabric
four (80) 1.5" x 2.5" rectangles light color fabric
Sew pieces together using a scant 1/4" seam allowance. Press and square-up each block to measure 4.5" x 4.5".
For the sashing you will need:
(31) 1.5" x 4.5" rectangles light color fabric
(12) 1.5" x 1.5" squares focal fabric
For the borders you will need:
(2) 3" x 19.5" strips focal fabric
(2) 3" x 29.5" strips focal fabric
My quilt top is now folded, with the backing fabric and strips for the binding, waiting for good weather so I can spread it out on the patio table to sandwich the layers together.