Little Sweets

Today I appliqued on the last of all the shell pieces that DH cut for me.  I now am the proud owner of 5 turtle blocks that need their threads stuffed to the back.  I feel like each time I stuff threads there are more threads to be stuffed!  I've fallen asleep stuffing threads, not once on this project but twice already so far!

Applique Turtle Blocks 

So let's bring this project up to date shall we?  Eight blocks done. Four Turtle blocks left to go, plus the 44" dolphin and turtle block.  Is anyone envious of this project?  I mean seriously it's dragging on forever.  I think I'll need 3 packages of wonder under before I will be able to finish the top.

Nearly Done!

Tonight for dinner I am having an amazing Kahlua Mudslide Variation that my DH makes which is really great, as well as Homemade Stuffed Crust Pizza with Garlic Butter Sauce.  If you ever wondered what a high school job is good for knowing how to stuff a crust is surely one of the things.  Perhaps that would make a good blog post "All the Best Things I Learned in High School...  So if you'll excuse me I think dinner is ready!

The Spiral

Just a small break today from the Dresden Plates, while I wait for the blue silk thread I ordered to arrive.  I took this free time as an opportunity to finish the back of the "What would you look like if you were a Quilt", aka Snake Quilt, aka more recently The Meerkat Quilt.

The back of this quilt is entirely blue and red blender snuggle flannel.  This is a single huge quilt block that I scaled up called "Monkey Wrench" and even as I type that I know it has been known by many other names, none of which come to mind right this moment.

I selected the royal blue because that represents my heart, my soul, and my inner calm.  The red is the pain, the hurt.  Note no matter how twisted up and turned around I get I'm still me.  No matter how far you go down the spiral - the me that is me is always there.  It's just hard to hear in the whirl wind sometimes.

Monkey Wrench Spiral Quilt Back

These pictures would have come out better had I not found a cat sleeping where I wanted to take my images.  Of course she only wanted to play in the quilt for a little bit and now she's at my elbow as if to say it wasn't me she was running from.

This project has taken three trips to the store for fabric.  The first time and then two oh cruds I don't have enough.  This most recent time had me so filled with dread I wouldn't even prewash the fabric to match what I'd already sewn until last week.  I actually bought fabric from the 3rd I don't have enough fabric issue back in November!  I was certain I'd only purchased 18" and I was afraid it would shrink to much.  Well come to find out I'd purchased 2/3rd of yard so that was a bunch of worry over nothing.

The Front of the Me Quilt Pre-Quilting

Then when I was cutting the pieces I was missing I had trouble with the pattern as you know, and thought I'd have to purchase 45" more inches of red and blue.  But I dug in anyway, I told myself I'd sew the middle and see.  Lucky me this time, hard to believe I know what I'm doing even when I'm second guessing myself!  When I finished sewing together all the pieces I had I started to reach for the tape measure but I reached for the quilt top instead.  After all who remembers a the dimensions of a quilt top they haven't worked on in months. Okay me, but that's not what we're talking about. So there's a nice amount of extra, just right for quilting and basting.

The last time I took a picture of this top it read a lot of yellow, but of course that's just the lights so I retook the image for you.  See no yellow.  Funny now I need to order thread and batting.  Gotta love quilts there's always something to shop for!

Odd Numbers

Now rather than vent about the pattern, which I threw away because I thought I'd saved the original computer file but really hadn't - and then recreated to discover I made the center the wrong size...and now have to rip the entire thing out and cut it down...  Which was what I did today.  I'm instead going to mention DD's Valentine's.

Last year I thought it would be asking to much of my daughter to write her name and the names of all her classmates on her Valentine's Day cards, so I had her write her name 18 times and tell me who was getting which specific card and I wrote her classmates names.  This year seemed like the perfect year for her to write everything with just a little help reading the names from me.  I was surprised that the other mothers didn't agree with me.   In fact I rank in with the rare "mean" parents.

As you can see 25% of the parents just did it themselves.  That I can understand I suppose.  Busy life and so forth.  More than 30% of the cards didn't even say who they were from at all.  As though the child arrived with an unopened box of Valentines.  I'm curious what would you do?

I found that DD was more than happy to write her classmates names and often she could actually read the name without my help, bearing witness to that feat I found it delightful.  I thought we'd need two weekends of prodding to get her through her class list, but she buzzed through them the very morning after the list arrived home.

So how has your sewing been going?  Hopefully you don't have as much seam ripping to do as you did sewing!

Christmas Quilt-a-long Year 2 Session 1 Wrap Up

Well I didn't think I'd have much time to sew today, but it turns out that I was inspired while out for lunch.  How's this tic tac toe board?  The pink markers have "O's" and the Yellows have "X's"  Not bad for an afternoon of sewing.  I even added a little pocket to hold all the markers when not in use.  The rug version I saw at the store was $40 so not bad savings for a bit of time.

What about you?  Did you have a productive day?

Christmas Quilt-a-long Year 2 Session 1 Check In

Just dropping off a quick note to say I finished the BOMs for this Month of the Christmas Quilt-a-long.  This month said to make two so I cut double of everything and they went just like clock work.  Here's a bit of trivia for you - these are 9" blocks and I've never made 9" blocks before.  12" yes, 18" yes, 24" yes, 3" would you believe yes.  I've even done 6" blocks but these are my first 9" and I've been quilting for 3 years this Spring.

First thing I did when I pulled out my fabrics was check and see that fern fabric is a print and it's the only non-flannel in the block.  Can you see the little blue speckles on it?  I have a great baby blue flannel that matches just right planned for the borders.

In case you're wondering those are little puppy dogs peaking out, of my flannels that I plan to use I have puppy dogs, monkeys, kitty cats, and frogs all printed with pink of course. Should make for quite the quilt!

Christmas Quilt-a-long Year 2 Session 1

Good Morning!  The Christmas Quilt-a-long has returned.  I know you're thinking it's awful early to be thinking about Christmas but I can't resist.  This year the hosting is being shared.  My two lovely hostesses designed a star quilt to go along with the Quilt-a-long so each month with have a BOM to go with it.  I'm especially looking forward to working on that.  I spent two days (yes I went away and came back later) going through my fabrics and in the end I decided my BOM quilt will be mostly flannels of pink.  (I was amazed to find so many different shades of pink) and it's all being held together by this great pink and purple fern batik or is it a print?  I'm not sure now.  Anyway it's beautiful.  With a splash of blue thrown in to spice things up.

For days I've planned what I will have cooking itself and would you believe I found some homemade chicken noodle soup in the freezer just waiting for me to thaw it out and serve it?  Sounds perfect does it not?

Then last night DH happened.  Seriously how many people have a change of plans because DH happened?  It's okay he was offering to pick up dinner on his way home.  Bonus! No reheating and no cooking!  I'm going to need that extra time because after all that thinking about dinner I never came up with what I'd be making today...  Opps!  Well when I know I'll let you know.

Happy Sewing!

When is the Love Cooked in?

I didn't sew yesterday.  I know it's a great travesty, but I was thinking about all of you anyway.  I wish you could smell the delicious chili I have in the crock pot.  I soaked the beans last night and started cooking before it was even bright this morning.  It's only 10 am and already the smell has my mouth watering.  It reminds me of a conversation I had with my daughter the other day while we were making dinner.

DD:  Mommy when do you add the love in?
Me:  ???
DD:  Everything is cooked with love so when do out the love in?

How would you answer that?  I think I told her I add it each time I add something and I add extra when I check on what I'm making.  But my answer doesn't hold a candle to her question.  I think the same applies to a quilt.  When do you sew the love in?  Is it when you're rethreading the machine for the thousandth time?  Or Perhaps when you add the label?  What about when your quilting it?  Or piecing it - perhaps dreaming of how you will quilt it?

For me I've been lucky enough to know the destiny of all the quilts I was giving away from the moment I started piecing the fabrics (sometimes sooner).  The love starts then.  Thinking about the person while cutting the fabric.  Selecting the proper thread and envisioning their face when you give them their quilt.  While piecing my quilts I feel most in touch with the fabrics involved.  It's then that I can see the quilting materialize as I work.  The hard quilts are the ones that wont talk.  :-)  Those get extra love in the form of the naughty words I call them in my head.  Oh you don't do that?  Of course.

May your quilts always have love sewn in.

18 or 20

You know it's funny I think most teenagers want to hurry up and be 18, but then when they get there they discover they really want to be 21, and of course after that we all wish to say in our twenties - except somehow keep all we've learned...  But that's not what this post is all about.

18" Spacing

Instead I'm following up on yesterdays post about the Blue Dresden Plates.  DH and I laid out a rough measurement of what the 18" will look like sewed together as well as what the 20" background pieces will look like.  What do you think?  Like one over the other? Now keep in mind we only centered these to show the space between and didn't actually line up the plates precisely North, South, East, and West, as I will when I start appliqueing the plates to their backgrounds.

20" Spacing

I'm planning to quilt at least one pointy echo outside of each Dresden Plate - by the looks of it I'm thinking an offset of 1" to 1.5" and for that I think the larger 20" squares will work better as it will guarantee enough space around each plate to make at least one if not two sets of echos.  Now with the large background size that will mean I will need to do something on the intersections of each block - most likely a quilting motif.

So pop me a note and let me know, what do you think?  The nice big space?  Or the traditional closer space?

Floating Dresden Plates?

Today we're having a quiet day.  I noticed this morning after DD got on the bus that Tiny was holding her paw off the table.  As Tiny is always picky about her feet I flipped her baby style and discovered she does have one red pad with a little "mommy I have a boo-boo" sort of boo-boo on it.  So no bath for Sunny day, and no running the vac in the main house.  I'm certain you can tell how heart broken I am!

Let's talk quilts!  I have finished sewing the circle centers onto all 16 of the Dresden Plates!  I am so thrilled!  Towards the end in spite of being hand work they went at a nice clip.  I've found that I work best having my sewing near me at the computer while I'm blogging (or playing Sims; an addiction that is a bit to addicting. That way I can reach over do a little and then go back to what I was doing on the computer.

Blue Dresden Plates all stitched up

These Dresden Plates measure 16" from point to point and I had planned to sew them to 18.5" background squares.  Now...  There is the option to sew to 20.5" background squares.  I'm not certain how much float I want in my circles.  I read on another blog that the quilter was having trouble with the Dresden Plates looking to busy and I firmly feel I will not have that trouble with the 18.5" background squares as they will sew in on point forcing the blocks to be further apart.  But as I have the fabric I've been thinking about it bigger...  The increase would give 1" of "float".  I know, I know, lay it out and look at it.  Well that's a job that requires a bigger quilt helper than Tiny and her hurt paw...

Dresden Pillow

How have you been?  I've been turning out circles here.

I've been working on hand stitching the center circles onto the Blue Dresden Plates, I'm nearly done with those with 10 down and 6 left to stitch on.  Then I will need to pick up some blue silk thread to stitch the entire plate onto the background.  So far everything is nice and flat sans puckers so I'm considering using glue to glue the plates to the background fabric instead of pins.  Does anyone have experience with this method?  I read something about school glue that would wash out and I have used glue sticks for single layer applique before but never anything this heavy, I'll have to look into as I'm not clear on what effect the glue will effect quilting.

I also wanted to make a matching Dresden Pillow.  I knew I wanted to flip it and stuff it through the center hole so while I'm in the midst of all this hand stitching I knew it was time to make it.  First I lined the blocks so the final pillow will not beard.  I sewed the pillow wrong sides together with first one side of the lining, then I trimmed the lining to within 1/8" of the seam edge and then added the second lining panel.  After flipping and turning out my corners I stuffed the pillow nice and full with some leftover shredded batting.  I think it turned out nice.  Even though I have yet to add the closing circle I've already had requests from DD to play with it. If that doesn't validate my pillow lining I don't know what will!

Liebster Award

I won a blog award.  That always adds a bit of smile to my day.  Blog awards seem to come it spits and spurts and then a bit of nothing (aside: I think we've been in a bit of nothing spell).  So this one came from Vicki of Felines and Fiber Arts. It's called a Liebster Blog.

According to Vicki Liebe means Love in German.  Now my husband and I have a hefty dose of German with namable relatives that came over here fleeing the Hitler Nazi Regime and after 10 years of being together we might not have a "song" but my DH calls me Liebchen which means sweetheart so isn't it nice how it has come full circle into a blog award?  Many thanks to those of you that read my blog.

Now this is an open ended award and you know I always like those because then I don't add effort to anyone's day, but as we have been having this dry spell in our corner of blog land the rules are simple anyone I pick to play it forward has to have less that 300 followers and I can pick 3 to 5 people but I don't have to.

So here are my votes.  Heather of Miracles Momma Designs .  This wonderful lady has been my gal pal for nearly 8 years and for that alone she deserves to win an award, but more than that her blog has a certain something about it that draws you in and from the moment you first find her you're her friend.

Next is Sue of Quilt Times.  I want to be Sue when I'm grow up.  LOL.  Really Sue is kind hearted and sprinkles compliments and happiness like my DH sprinkles salt.  She must have charmed the socks right off her Mr. Fixit and now he's so surrounded by beautiful quilts and a sweetheart that he'll stay forever and ever.

Last by never least is Penny at Stitchin' Penny's blog. If Sue touches my heart with her kind words, Penny Touches my Soul.  I believe she and I are birds of a feather.  We have come from very different walks of life to find ourselves with chronic pain that doesn't listen and trust me no one wants pain that hasn't learned any manners.  Sometimes reading Penny's Blog is like looking through a looking glass.  I'm certain magic wands were dreamed up for times like these.  Not for Prince Charmings and Chariots but instead to have to ability to wipe away the pain and suffering; that is true magic.