Pins for tea

I guess one of the good things about my non-quilting mood is that I am getting some little projects crossed off my list.  Such as this pin cushion made with a teacup I bought at Goodwill for .49 cents.  There is a tutorial here.   For the teacup I just cut the circle of fabric about 2-3” larger than the cup.  Now my pins won’t stick through the back of my old pincushion and poke me!  I’m not sure the name of the fabric I used, or the one under the cup for that matter, but I really like them both!

I’m amazed how much you guys know about chicken eggs from my last post!!  It was very helpful!  Today we ( as in I’m taking pictures) are cutting down cornstalks.  Our local grocery store buys them for decoration & to sell.  Thus…the machete in my hands while wearing my lounge pants and my Uggs.  :)

Sew….lazy

   If this blog were named Cluck. Cluck. Lay around all day  I would have lots to blog about.  But alas…its not,  so I don’t.   Mostly I’m blaming it on not feeling so great, but mostly because I’ve felt like watching some brain cell sucking TV.   Only a little sewing has been done…like this fall table runner. 

( I even left the food smudge on the red chair for your viewing pleasure)

And the most exciting (really) news of the week…our chickens started laying eggs.  Not your ordinary eggs…green eggs.  I can’t remember what the kind of chicken is, but they lay green and blue eggs.  We call them our Martha Stewart chickens. 

You can imagine how excited my 2 1/2 year old is to run down to the chicken coop 50 times a day to see if there’s eggs.   He doesn’t quite understand that chickens can’t lay  50 eggs a day, so sometimes we have to sneak store bought eggs into the nests before he gets down there.  Its like Christmas every time he opens the egg hatches and finds all those eggs in there. :)

Market Bag

I’m guilty.  Of being maybe the only person in my uber tree hugging town who doesn’t take reusable bags to the grocery store.  I know I should, but I like having the plastic grocery bags around the house, what else would I put dirty diapers in?  Anyways…. I’m going to try taking my own bag now, partly because I love the earth and all that good stuff, but mostly because I’m afraid my car will be egged by the “green” people as I leave the grocery store with  50 plastic earth killers stuffed in my trunk.

And since I’m going to take my own bag now it has to be a cute one.  Luckily I’ve seen this pattern around blogland I figured its just the bag to cure my plastic bag love affair.   The pattern is by Alicia Paulson and I can’t recommend it enough.  The directions and pictures were great, and my favorite part is it didn’t use any pieces larger than 1/2 yards, so I had the fabric on hand.  I will definitely be making these for Christmas presents.

The outside of the bag fabric is by MoMo for Moda, the center strip/pocket is Amy Butler-Lotus, the lining is Freshcut by Heather Bailey, and the strap is Amy Butler- Midwest Modern.  I think.  Happy shopping!

Catch up

I’ve been running late on my quilting bee blocks so this weekend I played a little catch up….

This one is for Kathy.   This is for Jody.  Its from the drunk love pattern by Denise Schmidt.

And this one is for Sam.

Now hopefully I can stay caught up! 

Tutorial: Double Hourglass Blocks the EASY way!

First off…things always look better in my head than they do typed up, so please try one block and see how it works for you before cutting up all your fabric. Also, if your a perfectionist this method might not be for you, some of your points and seams won’t perfectly match up…but it will take you about 1/4 of the time of other methods. Enjoy and let me know if this works for you!

(click on pictures if you have a hard time reading the script)

• Jodi has pre-made triangle templates that work for this pattern in her etsy shop here. It may save you from cutting fingers when your cutting out all those triangles! :)

• To figure out how to make different block sizes: Figure out the finished block size you want, say…5" so you add an inch to that and cut your template 6" square. Now you’ll have to figure out how big to make your strips. So divide 6 in half ( the size of your template) …so you want your finished double strip after its sewn to be 3". Now the tricky part is figuring out how big to make your strips including the seam, my seams are usually .5" ( 1/4" + 1/4") so add that to 3" (how big your finished strip should be) Which leaves you with 3.5" which you divide in half and that’s how big to make your strips….. 1.75" wide. That sounds right in my head but beats me if it will really work! Try one first just in case I’m totally wrong!
• If you want to make this with a Jelly Roll, you would cut your template 9" square and it would leave you with a 8" block. But again….I haven’t actually tried it so make sure you try it before cutting up all your fabric! Or else I would feel really bad. :)

Baby Boy Double Hourglass

A week ago my friend emailed me asking me if there was an easy way to make double hourglass blocks.  I told her nicely she was dreaming and she’d have to use the ol’ cut 2 squares into 8 triangles then cut the tips off all 8 triangles then sew them back together then square up the triangles then sew them together and square up the blocks….method.    Which takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r.  and is a little daunting when you want to make a quilt with lots of blocks.  So I laid in bed thinking about it as crazy people do, and figured out an easier way.  Really…………SUCH an easier way.  I almost cried it was so easy.  And then I made this quilt, finishing up all the blocks in 2 hours. 

I have a tutorial for you I should get on in the next couple of days, in the meantime this little quilt is going to a brand new baby  I wish I could have hold.    The fabrics are a mix from my stash, same with the back.  I think I bought that big brown dot at Hobby Lobby & it matches the Katie Jump Rope orange and yellows perfectly.  

I’ll get crackin’ on the tutorial to post.   For now though my 2 1/2 year old wants to “fight” me (a.k.a. I lay on the floor while he beats me up and sits on my head) and he’s just found a pair of scissors which requires immediate attention…………….. bye!

Hello Betty

 

I finally got my blocks from the quilting bee all sewn together last night.   I’ll admit that curved piecing was a bad idea for a quilting bee block (sorry ladies!) but luckily they all were game for trying it and the blocks turned out great.   I like these blocks even better when they’re all sewn together, and it helps that I love these fabrics (I bought clear back in February!). These colors will make a great fall throw. 

I still have some pieces so I think I might add a border to this one to make it bigger (its 4 ft. by 5 ft.), and then stipple the heck out of it or pebble quilt it, we’ll see what the old Bernina is up for.   

I hope you all had a great Labor Day weekend.  We……….went camping.  And it looked like this.  Except this picture was during the short time when it stopped raining and started to dry out, and then started raining again.  We were drenched, but we had lots of fun and came back early to spend Monday enjoying the outdoors from inside.  Camping in the Northwest is always an adventure. :)

Color Inspiration

Where do you find color inspiration?  I’m thinking these colors would make a nice combo:(Bracelet  $6.80 from Forever 21)

  Speaking of inspiration…..have you seen these new lines coming out in the next six months?  I better start saving my pennies.

Amy Butler – Love

Heather Bailey – Cool Nicey Jane, Swell Nicey Jane

Denyse Schmidt – Hope Valley

And all of these by Moda – Abundance, Authentic & Happy Camper

And did you happen to see Camille’s new patterns?  Love. them. all.

Finished Pink Houses

This quilt went together SO fast.  I did a medium meandering pattern (aka stippling)  and my Bernina was on its BEST behavior.  So in other words no “choice” words were used in the quilting of this quilt. :)  The backing is from the Blossoms line by Urban Chicks for Moda, its discontinued but I still see it here or there in quilt shops. 

   I prewashed and dried the batting that I used in this quilt and on my last wonky quilt.  I soaked the batting in the tub and dried it in the dryer, so I’m surprised how much these two quilts still crinkled up after washing again.  It was just an experiment to see how much of a difference there would be after pre-shrinking the batting, but obviously there’s not much, so I probably won’t do that again since its a pain.

This quilt is in the shop.  Now I’m off to Target to buy school supplies just for fun and pound a  Costco hot dog.  Seriously….how good are those hot dogs?  I won’t tell you how many I’ve had in the past 2 weeks, probably because I’ve lost count.