Blogger's Spring Festival 2010

So many changes have happened in each of our lives since the first Quilt Festival, perhaps you can spare a moment to share yours?

Both yesterday and today I have spent nursing a deformed butterfly for my 4-year-old daughter.  I feel like I've been through the wringer, but still I think it's important to participate in this Season's Quilt Festival as I have since it began.

My entry is The Cat Quilt, which my husband hung on the wall only yesterday evening. This quilt was my very first Block Challenge Swap. As I said naughty words over blocks that other Quilter’s had selected they were saying the same words about my cats. It has taken 6 months of thinking to put the blocks I selected into a quilt and I'm so glad to see it finished.

For me this quilt isn't just about the finish line, it's about the process. I was new to quilting when I started the swap and even as the blocks themselves increased in difficulty my own skills increased - Thank Heavens!

Happy Quilting!

Pretty in there Somewhere

A crazy thing happened. When DD and I were going outside, I asked her to put her flip-flops on but her foot wouldn't fit into the shoe. With flip flops I'm used to the foot hanging off the shoe a bit when it's time for new flops. But not my girl, she wanted a full stepsisters scene from Cinderella, complete with trying to cram the shoe on the foot. I don't know how it happened, certainly she wore them the day before...

So we were on a mission to find new shoes. Flip flops are cheap so after going to to many stores looking for comfortable ones (instead of the ones with the plastic tongue) we found them and we also found these plain white sandals. They were on super sale only $10 and no wonder, they screamed that they needed color, glitter even.

So I gathered up Jessica, her new flip flops and those sad little shoes.  Just look at them now.  No more wedding plain now.

Tips for adding glitter to your shoes: I used my peewee glitters and their brand of fabric glue. I covered the rubber treads with tin foil to protect them from the heat, and stuck them in my cool stoneware pan. Then into a 350-degree oven (heat it up and turn it off completely) allow to "cook" for 30 minutes. When time was up I pulled them out and unwrapped them. I highly recommend it.

How Can You Tell...

How can you tell if a hard-boiled egg is cooked inside without opening it? Now let me preface, I can cook, at least I think I can, I don't burn dinner, and I don't get any complaints, and compliments mostly come in the form of requests for seconds, or even thirds, and of course burps.

That being said, at lunch my daughter told me when she was done she wanted an egg. That means a hard-boiled egg, and as it was her second request in two days I went ahead and started them while I made grilled cheese (have you had it with oregano?). Then we ate our lunch and I went back to my work on the "What Would you Look Like if you Where a Quilt Project," and forgot about the eggs.

My gas stove carries on like a cat in heat if something is boiling, and I have those Lifetime Pots that make the water seal. That being said the eggs didn't hold their water seal (mostly because they were ignored on med-high heat) so instead of how you would normally make eggs by bringing to a boil and then reducing the heat, I never reduced.... Okay truth be told with the water tight pots I could just turn them off and let them sit after they boil but dd always wants them faster than that...

As my thoughts turned to dinner, I'm guessing about a silent 45 minutes later (silent because I'm in the kitchen a mere 7 feet from the stove all this time!) I thought, oh I'll make pasta. Nope, can't do that I boiled all the eggs. Crud. Racing over to the eggs I can see the water had boiled down quite a bit... I added more water and took them off the heat, and I'm going to make DH eat one after dinner. Wont he be thrilled.
They do look okay. One egg has a hairline crack, but that happens sometimes. Other than that they look fine... I am not a fan of eggs. I'm sorry, I know they're great, a complete food and all, but they make me hurl, no kidding, even the smell makes me heave. So trust me the kitchen was silent and smell free. I don't really understand it.

As for the challenge, I'm missing just one fabric I think, and I need to selectively bleach one I bought already. Why in the world did I buy fabric to bleach? Well I figured it would be much to hard to find the white bleached out areas where I wanted them. So instead I found a fabric that was the proper color most everywhere...

My theme will be a single appliqué paisley, for reasons that may or may not become clear to you while I work on it, as the paisley will be on the bottom left of the quilt. I found a beautiful hand detailed heart to balance. The trouble is the heart isn't fabric, it isn't embroidery, and it isn't a pattern. Instead it's a rubber stamp. As I want the final heart to be about 18" square I doubt the stamp comes that big.

So I was working on redrawing the imagine into Illustrator when Mcafee lagged out the entire system with an update and then everything concerning Illustrator and the file I was working in vanished. I've yet to determine if that was the best path anyway so I haven't gone and dug the file (or what is left of it) out of the temporaries.

As for the eggs, aside from a bit of browning on the outside of the white that dd didn't notice they must taste fine because she ate it right up. As for the egg smell I found it trapped within the egg, as soon as I pulled the shell back…

All Pups Great and Small

While I'd intended this to be a quickie project it got stalled for a while in the handyman department.  Now it's out of there and ready to be hung within reach of my sewing machine.

I collect straight pins; I have some that are over 100 years old at well as other more modern ones. I have added them all to a large bit of embroidery I made over a year ago now I think. It's really interesting to see where we've come from with quilting pins. From metal pressed flat and then folded upwards to make a pinhead, to flat head pins dipped to make a larger round head, to now having my personal favorites - our flat head pins.

Yet with all of these I still have the simple harder worker crystal head pins on my shopping list. Why? Well those are the ones that can go under an iron! We're not going to talk about the plastic ones I accidentally melted...

When I was little I used to call my mother's pins circus pins. They were all the colors of the big top and always reminded me of a party. These were short 1 1/4" pins. Aren't you glad we have longer pins to work with now?

What do you collect? That's a question often found on getting to know you lists. I feel like straight pins aren't something most people can relate to. Lucky for me there is always some thing else wanting to collect dust in my house, then of course are those things - the ones someone else thinks I should collect.

Turtle Beadwork needs Your help

I've been doing a bit of beading on the Appliqué Turtle Pillow. I just added the outline around the shell. But now I'm not certain where to go next. Can you help? I have just over an entire tube of the beads left from outlining the shells, which is not enough to outline each piece of shell. I'm not certain where to add those other beads, or should I just take them back and trade them in for something different. What do you think?

I also finished quilting the cat quilt. I ended up adding more quilting than I thought I would. Choosing to quilt around each cat as well as each block. I like the puffy look you see because the quilting.

The baby orchids arrived Wednesday and were all carefully planted by DH. Isn't that mounted one the cutest little thing? As that's not where I'd intended to put it, I think that spot under the grow lights might be to much for my Laelia purpurata var. carnea, so I'll keep an eye on it for a couple of days and if it doesn't like it I'll move it off to be with the Laelia purpurata I already have.

So what's in the humidity tray? Cattleya loddigesii var. alba as well as Cattleya harrisoniana, the hassisoniana's are the oldest being nearly 3 years old. I know! What a shock. We've also had them the longest as they arrived for my birthday last fall. I know those plants very well, as each one is a little different. My current favorite of those is one with 8 leaves that is one of the biggest and reaches as tall as it can towards the new light, but there is also one that arrived with a broken leaf tip (Which it has since lost) and I really enjoy watching how well it is doing.

Buckeye Beauty Finished!

Yippie!  Today I finished up the Buckeye Beauty.  This quilt should nearly be called a firsts quilt as it is both my first raw edge applique and my first attempts at freemotion quilting.  It is quilted 1/4"-1/2" over the entire course of the quilt with the sole exception being the borders, which have tulips quilted on them leaving areas puffy with gaps more like 1"-2.5".  It is not an all over pattern as most of my readers already know, and instead it is quilted to show off the pin wheels and appliques.  This quilt feels like the quilts my grandmother had at her house that she would always pull out when I visited.

The black fabric I had leftover was more than enough to bind the quilt, and adds just the right touch.  I'm so glad I saved it back.  So what do you think?

Super Saturday Shopping

Yeah, yeah Saturday was yesterday.  That seems to be a trend for me these days.  Anyway all though yesterday took a bunch out of me, yesterday was wonderful!  I went fabric shopping!  Joy of Joys!  Thrill of my days!

First up is a Quilt Challenge:  If You Were a Quilt, What would you look like?  You can click on that link or head over to our hostess's blog if all of the details.  Rules?  Well it can be any size and you have to have fun.  The deadline isn't until October 31st so there's plenty of time.

These are my fabrics so far, but I'm not done, as I need at least one more fabric. Mine will be an art quilt, my first real one. To keep the cost of fabrics down mine will be a wall hanging. If you're interested you can follow me along, but I'd recommend you just join in. Who knows what we'll end up with and after all isn't the journey of self-expression the most important part anyway?

I'm going to start work on a Not Tonight Pillow. One side of the pillow will say "Not Tonight" and the other side will say "Maybe" it is to be a bachelorette present for a childhood friend of my sister's. These two greens are the fabrics, isn't that batik beautiful? 

Yes, the greens match, but the only way I could capture the batik was the flash which washed out the colors, so you see the best of the patterns or the best of the color, not both.

While I was shopping I picked up many odds and ends for some of my long time back burner projects so be on the lookout for updates on those. Now get out and enjoy life.

Never Met

Last night I dreamed I'd never met my husband. It was one of those dreams where you don't know it's not real until you wake up. While I was dreaming I was okay, but when I woke up before I opened my eyes I was filled with loneliness. Thank heavens when I did that mad reach towards the other side of the bed he was there, leaving the dream to fade away.

Odd that I would dream I'd never met him. I met my husband in 1996. My best friend was with me and every time I would mention him she would scream "TO MUCH BAGGAGE!" and "Leave it be!" Being smart I listened to her and off we went.

In 2000 we met again. Are you guessing fireworks? Because if you were you'd be wrong, instead we were acquaintances for over a year, before becoming friends. It was our friendship that grew and spread like wildfire and we've been together ever since.

So was my best friend right? Did he have baggage? Are you kidding? He has a truckload, but I have my own semi truck too. We carry the load together and surprisingly it isn't heavy anymore.

Flimsy Friday

Okay Friday was yesterday, but my darling child has become very excited to play on the NickJr. website, which of course means in the afternoons when I'd like to post, the computer is taken. That of course is good and bad because it means I have to find something else to do, but also equals less posts...

Anyway, on to more fun things, like this flimsy! Once I knew how I wanted to piece these blocks from that block challenge oh so long ago, the top went together easily, taking me only about two afternoons. Of course it's been a long road getting to this point.

This top will be a wall hanging, and as I plan to use a Mylar backed batting I wont be quilting it very much. It just seems like the less holes in the Mylar the better. Each cat has an embroidered face, and button eyes. I don't have enough of the batik to bind it, so I'll be looking for a close match today while I'm out fabric shopping.

Next week another batch of seedling orchids will be arriving from Troy, so we had to get ready for them by making space, while I was at it I discovered we were having a bit of a light shortage for the junior Cattleyas that were already up there. The handyman in my life took it upon himself to make this new setup complete with the baskets for anyone of decent size, complete with the Cherry Humidity Tray and the Full Spectrum Fluorescent Lighting. I love the new set up and in fact the orchids already living there have started to reach for the new light.

Have a wonderful weekend, to all the women I know and love be you mothers or not, you're all great in my book.

Sunshine Award

My long time friend Heather over at Miracles Momma Designs gave me the Sunshine Award for my blog.  Here's what she had to say about me:  Liz is a crafting dynamo! She’s always got projects going and her quilts are absolutely fabulous. I want to sew like her when I grow up.

Isn't it surprising to hear something like that?  So often I think we live in our own pool of creativity, going outside to learn but yet, not ever seeing ourselves the way others do, looking from the outside in.  Thanks for the pat on the back!
 
Now The Sunshine Award has rules:  I'm supposed to pass this on to 12 other bloggers.  Now I'm a big stinkpot because I'm not going to do that.  If I have ever posted a comment at your blog I surely think you're amazing because if I didn't I would have moved on without posting.
 
Funny thing about that phrase "stink pot".  My dearly departed Grandmother used to call me that, it was sort of special just for me.  But my own daughter...   Now she doesn't like to be called Stink Pot.  It reminds her of smelly toilets, and she is convinced that no matter what she is NOT a smelly toilet.

When All of the Math Works Out

This is the latest installment of the back to the 2nd Blessings from Heaven Quilt.  I tell you this much is for sure, I'll be thrilled to have it finished and put what began as overflow from my first quilt behind me.  Today I sewed blocks - 74 blocks to be exact.  These are 6" blocks and are merely a four-patch pattern as you can see.  Both borders with pink in them are done, leaving only the middle pieced border, a mere 36 blocks left.

Have you ever wondered what 74 blocks would look like?  I'm not one to like making something over and over, but today it brought me peace to feel the fabric slip through my fingers.  Perhaps it gave me to much peace as I found myself picking out stitches on more than one block simply because I sewed them together colors matching instead of staggered.

No matter it's progress regardless. Yes, I have created two files to have custom printed with dd's baby picture on it. Two files because that way I can order both and use the one I like the best. I'm not certain if I'll be sticking with Spoonflower, or going with KarmaKraft on this one. There is something about the later, knowing the fabric will be printed squarely, and not shrink... It's worth the extra, if only I could find more positive reviews..