Quilting and more ...

Hearts

2012-01-27T11:28:00.000-08:00

Our guild has an annual challenge, and this time we had a beautiful red batik fabric to use, as well as the requirement of a heart somewhere on whatever we created. We were given the fabric last January, and I made my piece in July but decided not to post it until after the challenge competition last night. ;) There were some wonderful creations there, all interpreting the theme of "Heart's Desire".

I used a paper-pieced pattern designed by Carol Doak for my blocks, but I shrank them to 3" in the main part of my miniature quilt and 2" in the border; the quilt finished at 14" square. I set photos of my family members into the centers of the larger (comparatively speaking, of course!) blocks. I decided to make this a two-color quilt, so it's all red, with a white/pink for the background.

At the end of last night's meeting, I was thrilled to find that my quilt had placed second in the miniature category! :D Here's a detail of one corner (at right):

I quilted feathers in the border and small hearts in the corners of the blocks, with loops in the "bumps" of the heart blocks.

Another top

2012-01-24T08:34:00.000-08:00

At the retreat I mentioned recently, I took a second class. I won't say too much about it, as it wasn't my favorite for several reasons. However, I've now finished the top begun there (it's fused appliqué), though I am still debating whether or not to add borders. That would complicate matters, as I don't have enough of the flower fabrics left, so I'd have to find a "just-right" fabric somewhere. At any rate, here's the top, which I'll quilt when I've caught up on some other projects.

As promised — and more

2012-01-17T10:34:00.000-08:00

I actually have two finishes to show today! :) First, I promised a photo of the finished top from yesterday's post. Before I show you that, though, here is a photo of a couple of the 6-inch "macaroni" blocks we learned to make in class. Do you see the piping that follows the curves? It really adds a great accent!

But here is the finished quilt top, and I'll be adding more piping after it's quilted; I love piping next to the binding. That background fabric is pretty busy, isn't it?

The next thing I have to post today is a real finish from yesterday. That is, it's quilted, bound and labeled. This is the result of a class I took in Houston in November. It was a class on machine trapunto given by Philippa Naylor, one of my very favorite teachers. She gave us lots of wonderful tips on how to get great results, and she also gave us some patterns to use. I combined elements of a couple of those patterns to come up with this result.

The center is heavily stippled with pebbles to bring the hearts and wavy border into relief, and I tried to echo the heart theme by turning the border feathers into something resembling hearts. And, of course, I added piping next to the binding to give the quilt a little color accent — and because I really like piping!

The color in this detail photo is much closer to the color of the actual quilt. This little quilt is about 21" square.

Retreat

2012-01-16T11:48:00.000-08:00

I've just spent a few days at a retreat I'd never before attended, and it was great! It was a smallish retreat (compared to some), with only about four classes each day, but it was so well organized that I was really impressed. Our rooms were very nice, and breakfast and lunch were provided, as was a neck wallet, complete with notepad and pens for jotting down information.

My friends (there were four of us) and I took only two classes each, one of which we all took together. That one, a curved piping class with Susan Cleveland, was well worth the trip all by itself! I really enjoyed that entire day, especially.

Can you picture yourself spending a day quilting while looking at this view out of the window? Pretty nice, isn't it? :) I'll post a photo of my project from Susan's class as soon as I've finished the top.

Clarus

2012-01-07T19:46:00.000-08:00

Clarus — that's the name of the pattern for the second part of the lace knitting class I was talking about in this post. The shawl I made from this pattern was finished, including the blocking, today! :) This one is a good deal larger than the first one was, so that gives me some variety. Keep in mind that I'm a beginner at lace knitting and haven't knitted anything at all in several decades, so there are mistakes in the shawl. Still, I'm pretty pleased with it. The yarn was a dream to work with, very soft and easy to use, and the shawl almost seems to float because it's so lacy.

The class itself was really good. It's on the Craftsy site, where they offer classes in all sorts of things from gardening to jewelry making, crochet, knitting, quilting, and goodness knows what else. One nice thing about the classes is that there's a forum for showing pictures, asking questions, and commenting; and you can take and retake the same class as many times as you like. Nice!

Experiment

2012-01-04T18:49:00.000-08:00

A few nights ago we went out to dinner and had an absolutely fantastic butternut squash soup. Naturally, it had white truffles in it, which I'm not sure I can find, even if I thought they'd be reasonably priced. ;) Still, the soup was so good that I decided to research recipes. I found about a dozen, and most of them were similar, so I bought a butternut squash and some chicken broth and embarked on a test drive today. The result was tasty, but not nearly as delicious as what we'd had. Still, it's a start. This is the result. My next attempt might include some sort of topping, and I should have bought a baguette to have with it and the salad I fixed instead of the crackers.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T07:05:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to all!

We're awaiting the arrival of our daughters and their families so we can have our traditional Christmas breakfast together and open gifts — though Santa has, of course, already visited their homes. ;)

Wishing you all a very happy holiday season. :)

A new pin cushion!

2011-12-23T15:09:00.000-08:00

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was in a pin cushion exchange with a group of French quilters, and my new pin cushion arrived yesterday afternoon! It's really nice — all handmade, with a dimensional flower on one side and a six-pointed star on the other. Have a peek:

Flower side

Did you see what was included with the pin cushion? Yes, a lovely embroidered card with a sweet note inside, and a meter of some beautiful floral ribbon! I'm really overwhelmed! But here's a second photo so you can see the star side of the pin cushion:

Star side

Didn't I get lucky? :)http://sandywf.blogspot.com/2011/12/pin-cushion.html

A little more complicated ...

2011-12-21T12:37:00.000-08:00

Some time ago, I heard that there were skins available — even custom ones — for certain models of Bernina sewing machines. Unfortunately my Bernina 630 wasn't on the list. :( However, I then learned that the reason was that removing the skin might damage the faceplate, and that replacing that faceplate would solve the problem. Yay! I ordered the new faceplate and a skin, both of which were very reasonable in price, and settled down to wait. In a relatively short span of time, both arrived, and that's when the complication arose. No one had mentioned (even to my dealer) that replacing the faceplate was somewhat tricky, involving circuit boards and that sort of thing. Now, I used to repair Mac computers, so I'm not really afraid of circuit boards, but I was really nervous about doing this without any instructions and without the proper tools. Drat! But onward I marched.

The skin I chose wasn't the one I'd originally envisioned, which would have had my grandchildren on it. But there really wasn't a way to get all five of them into the space provided without at least one of them having a nob for a nose. ;) So into the breach stepped our little Bisou. I am very pleased with the quality of the skin and the ease with which I was able to apply it to the faceplate! In fact, several of the people at my dealer's shop thought it had been baked onto the faceplate. The tech there spent a couple of hours getting everything all in order, and I'm absolutely delighted with the results! Do you want to see? Here you go:

Skin showing Bisou

Just click on the photo to get a larger view. Can you see how well Bisou fits the available space? Here's a close-up of the main portion of the skin:

Close-up

This is such fun to look at — I can hardly wait to do a bit of quilting this afternoon! Just in case this has inspired you to want something similar, go to this part of the Bernina site and select one of their available skins or design your own! I love mine. :)

Decorating

2011-12-11T10:59:00.000-08:00

Last year, I posted photos of a portion of our Christmas tree and of our santons. I've just been finishing up the seasonal decorations, so I thought I'd show you a couple of other things we use.

This first photo shows two special little bears. The one on the right (she has angel wings) reads the nativity story aloud from her book, and the one on the right reads 'Twas the Night Before Christmas to his little son, sitting in his lap. They're both so cute!

These are two little sand cast figurines. Since we have our adorable red and white cocker spaniel, I fell in love with these and had to have them. The larger one (on the left) is running away with a string of holiday lights, while the three puppies in the basket on the right are all dressed for winter weather.

Pin cushion

2011-12-10T09:52:00.000-08:00

I'm a member of a French-speaking online quilting group, and the list mom suggested a little swap of pin cushions as a holiday activity. This is the little Santa (Père Noël) pin cushion that I made and which is now on his way to a new home. :)

He's made from wool felt with hand stitching to accent the mustache and beard and French knots to make the holly berries on Santa's hood. I think he's pretty cute and hope his new owner will agree. He's stuffed with a layer of wool batting to keep his shape, but I also put in crushed walnut shells for weight and because I really like them in pin cushions.

Knitting progress

2011-12-01T18:16:00.000-08:00

Blocked and drying!

I mentioned previously that I was taking up knitting again after many years. My first efforts yielded a gift to be given at Christmas, but my next project didn't go as well. Hmmm. Unknitting, anyone? However, during my trip to the Houston Quilt Festival, I ran across a stand that does online classes in a variety of subjects, including knitting. I signed up for a class in knitting lace shawls; the class gives instructions for two different patterns, and I'm very happy with the results! :) My first shawl is now drying after having been blocked, and I'm anxious to begin the second one.

Nostepinne

I'm going to make the second class shawl from a baby alpaca and silk blend that feels like heaven when I touch it. It came in a hank of 875yds, which needed, of course, to be wound into a ball. Do I have a ball winder? Nope. ;) But I do have something called a nostepinne, and it does a great job, albeit more slowly than a ball winder. To the left you can see the finished ball of yarn and the nostepinne. The end of the yarn is looped around one of the indentations in the nostepinne, and then the yarn gets wound — and wound, and wound — around the slightly tapered end until finished. Then the yarn can be fed from either the inside of the ball or the outside. Below is what the ball looks like before being removed from the nostepinne. This ball is about the size of a large navel orange.

Finished winding the ball!

Turkey, turkey, and more turkey!

2011-11-25T09:39:00.000-08:00

As most know, yesterday was Thanksgiving here in the US. We had dinner at our daughter's home, and everyone brought something to contribute to the meal. I baked pumpkin pies and made cranberry relish, and DH smoked a turkey — he's a whiz at doing mouth-watering smoked turkey! Others brought salad, potatoes, more desserts, and other side dishes, so our daughter didn't have to do everything herself.

What we hadn't known ahead of time was that our son-in-law's mother was also bringing turkey (roasted) and that his niece's boyfriend was bringing fried turkey! LOL! We all certainly had our pick of wonderful kinds of turkey! This is a photo of some of the meat from the three turkeys laid out for us to pick from. From the lower left and going clockwise: roast turkey, smoked turkey, fried turkey.

I hope your Thanksgiving, if you celebrate it, was as nice as ours!

Lax

2011-11-22T07:45:00.000-08:00

7500 Member Block

Yup, that's me lately. I've been neglecting my blog (and other things), and I'm sorry. Unfortunately, I can't promise to do better in the near future, since I'm having some eye problems that aren't made any better by too much time in front of the computer. :S

On a more cheerful note, I've been a member of the Carol Doak Yahoo group for several years now. I really enjoy paper piecing, as you might be able to tell from some of the quilts I've made in the past. :) Carol gives us a new pattern every time we reach a "milestone" in terms of new members or some other special occasion. The latest one was when the group hit 7500 members. I made the block in a slightly different size from the original (9" finished) in order to fit with some others it will be used with, but I did get it done yesterday. It's nice to finish a project, even if it's a small one! :)

Home again

2011-11-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

I've been home from the big Houston Quilt Festival for just hours short of a week now, and I think I've finally recuperated and caught up enough to get my blog caught up, too. ;)

A friend and I flew to Houston on Wednesday (11/2/2011), arriving in time to dump our luggage in our hotel rooms and dash over to the convention center for the preview night. We headed straight for the vendors, as usual, saving the gorgeous quilts for a full day — at least. I have to say that I didn't buy as much this year as I have in past years, but I enjoyed the shopping and looking just as much. What did I buy?

1. a king-sized batt from Pellon, in their Heritage line. Hobbs was sold out this year in record time, and the Pellon product is just as nice as the Hobbs product — in fact, it's made from the same formula.

2. a large package of Soft and Stable, much of which I'll need when I make one of the two patterns I also purchased.

3. two patterns. The one on the left in the photo will use that Soft and Stable, and it's an adorable dog bed. The one on the right is another wool appliqué project, for which I bought some yummy lavender wool and Valdani thread.

4. a new pair of thread snips.

5. some Martelli rotary cutter blades.

These were my "just because" purchases. ;) No books this year, no fabric other than that piece of wool! But I'm trying to use what I already have, so I was good.

Thursday at lunch time I met up with an online friend from Australia, and she bowled me over by bringing me a gift. She made this adorable little (12.5" x 8.75") koala, using aboriginal fabrics. Isn't he wonderful? I just love him — and I'm so grateful to have him. :D

Thursday I also had a class in curved piecing from one of my very favorite instructors. Here is the block I made, though I still need to add the curved borders:

We learned how to make just about any block into a curvy one and how to put the pieces together to end up with a flat result. One of the tricks was to use a very fine polyester thread. The fine thread takes up very little space in the seam, and the poly allows for a little stretch in the curves. The thread I bought to try out is made by Wonderfil. I bought some Deco-Bob, which is 80wt., and some Invisifil, which is 100wt — as is fine silk thread.

On Saturday I took a second class, this one on machine trapunto. I've experimented a little with this technique in the past, but I learned so much in this class! I still have much to do to finish my piece, but we began with some patterns that we then changed around to become more "personal". I've finished all except the background stippling to make the trapunto stand out more:

Since coming home, I've started yet another class, this time on how to knit lace! It's an online class, and it's very good. The lessons are all on video, so we can see exactly what the instructor is explaining, and we can ask questions, post photos, and make comments. The beginning of my lace shawl is on the left, and I have to admit that the yarn for it was yet another purchase in Houston! ;) That's where I found out about the online class I'm taking.

Current projects

2011-10-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

I haven't made a lot of noticeable progress on anything lately, but I do have a couple of projects going. The first is the quilting on my basket quilt. The lines of thread you can see in the photo are just the basting, which I'm clipping as I cross it with my machine. I'm almost finished with the stabilizing quilting, which I'm doing with the walking foot, and then the quilt will have to be put away until I get back from Houston.

The second project is barely begun. I have some new yarn for a shawl for myself. It's a gorgeous alpaca-silk blend in a very pale blush color, and it's heaven to touch! I've wound two of the hanks into balls so far, with the third still to go. I've been trying different techniques to wind the balls, so it's taking a bit longer than it might otherwise. ;)

The last "project" is a much shorter-term thing, as I now have my Christmas fruitcakes in the oven. :) I know — many of you promptly thought "YUCK!" as soon as you read "fruitcakes". But good fruitcake is wonderful, and I not-so-modestly think mine is very good. It's certainly nothing like what you find in a tin on the grocery store shelf. :) There will be more holiday baking to come, but these days I'm cutting way back from what I used to make.

Shawl

2011-10-23T10:55:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much to blog about lately, but I did finish a couple of projects. One is a gift I can't post here, just in case the intended recipient happens upon my blog, but it's a little pin cushion for an exchange with an online group of quilters. :) The other is also a gift, but it's for someone who doesn't have a computer, so I'm pretty sure she won't see this before Christmas. ;)

I found some scrumptious alpaca yarn — actually, a blend of 50% alpaca, 30% merino, and 20% bamboo — that's so soft it's almost like a cloud! I knitted it up on some very large needles to get a more open, lacy effect, and I think it turned out rather well for someone with very little experience like me. Unfortunately, I had no ideal place to photograph it, but I'll show you what I did manage to get. This first photo gives a better idea of the color, which is mostly off-white but with some interesting additions of tans, browns and even a bit of grey-blue.

This one will let you see that the shawl is big enough to wrap up in rather well, as I've spread it over the back of our loveseat. Since the leather on the loveseat is brown, the shawl's color doesn't come through as well here.

This was a fairly easy shawl to do; it was a free pattern (Opal) from Ravelry.

Revisiting my youth

2011-10-08T08:34:00.000-07:00

When I was much younger, I did a bit of knitting. I really enjoyed it, but I didn't pursue it very far, since I was young and pretty broke most of the time. ;) Lately, though, I've been seeing more and more knitting online, and it's been very tempting to begin again. I resisted at first, but I've given in.

What spurred this change of heart? My sister gave me a fun scarf — all ruffles — in shades of grey and white, in August and I loved it; it will look wonderful with my red coat this winter. I found some similar yarn and made myself another, this time in royal blue, turquoise, and a sort of greyish olive. I finished it yesterday, and it was such fun to make that I'm going to make a shawl next! Here's the scarf:

It's about 38" long and very fluffy! It should be lots of fun to wear. :)

Sad day

2011-10-06T08:59:00.000-07:00

I've been using Macs for for almost 30 years now. I added iPods, an iPhone, and an iPad to the mix over the years. I simply can't imagine what the modern computing world would look like today if Steve Jobs hadn't had his vision. My condolences go to his family, his friends, his staff, and to all who — like me — have benefitted from his contributions.

Time flies ...

2011-10-04T14:23:00.000-07:00

… even when you're not having so much fun. ;) My poor little dog injured her back seven weeks ago and has been on enforced rest (and a couple of meds) since then. She and I both are about to go stir crazy, since I feel so bad for her that I stay home with her most of the time these days. We had another visit with her vet today, and he wants to continue the rest for another one or two months. I was so sure she was going to be given a clean bill of health today! But the vet is being very conservative, since Bisou has had back problems before. I trust his judgement, but it's still disappointing. :S

On a more cheerful note, a friend of my husband's makes little plaques out of wood, and he made us this cute little cocker head! :)

I'm sorry that the color is a bit off; the wall behind the head is actually white, and the lightest part of the ears is almost white, but they both look pretty yellow in the photo.

To keep myself busy for the next several weeks and while I wait for my current quilt project to "jell", I'm thinking about learning to knit. That should be fun!

Yet more wool appliqué

2011-09-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

The pattern I've been working on has three parts to it, and I've just finished the last of the three, a heart-shaped pin cushion that will be donated to a project for our quilt circle. I like this one a lot and am thinking about making it again, but adapting it to make a needle keep instead.

Here's a photo of all three pieces together — a fun project! :)

Wool appliqué

2011-09-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

Just over a week ago, I showed you a scissors case I made from wool. Now I've finished a matching pin cushion to go with it. It's rather a large pin cushion, so there will be room for lots of pins, and I'm hoping it will get good use when I send it to a good friend. I'm really enjoying doing some of this for a change; it's nice to have some very portable handwork.

Soon, though, I should be able to begin doing the machine quilting on my basket quilt; I've given it to another friend, who is going to do the basting on her longarm. Basting is a part of quilting that I simply don't enjoy — though it's not so bad on small quilts. ;) Once this one is basted, I'll bring it home and quilt it myself. :)

Wool needle case

2011-09-04T14:00:00.000-07:00

About six months ago, I posted this project. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to do more — especially after I found about a zillion really adorable ideas at Bird Brain Designs. :) I chose this one on the left, called Americana.

I've just finished making the scissors case, and I'm not unhappy with the result. :) I chose to do it in the same colors as the pattern, but it would look equally nice in pastels or some other color scheme, I think. Here's my scissors case, propped up on the perle cotton I used for the appliqué. What a coincidence that I had some green scissors to keep in it!

By the way, some time ago a good friend of mine recommended a book that I've found very helpful, since I don't do a tremendous amount of embroidery and frequently forget how to do stitches I haven't practiced in months — or years. ;) It's Judith Baker Montano's Embroidery & Crazy Quilt Stitch Tool. It's spiral bound at the top and easily stands up on any flat surface, making it very handy to refer to when trying to figure out how to do certain stitches. What's even better, IMHO, is that all of the instructions are illustrated in both right- and left-handed versions — a great help for a lefty like me! (No more turning the book upside down to see how something should look.) There's also a free iPhone/iPad version, but it's quite limited unless you buy the add-ons for it, which I haven't done.

Strips

2011-08-28T15:29:00.000-07:00

I've been working on my basket quilt today and have made some progress. :) All of the baskets were already put together into strips with black setting triangles, and today I cut what felt like miles of an off-white fabric with black pin dots; these strips will be the first and third borders. I'm going to put a narrow black border between the two lighter borders, but I haven't yet cut that one. What I have so far is just about the limit of what will fit on my design wall, so future photos will be a challenge. ;)

Visitors in our garden

2011-08-24T12:48:00.000-07:00

We had guests this morning — completely unexpected ones. Actually, they visited our next-door neighbors first, but then they decided to head our way. Can you see them?

It's a family of quail, complete with a baby or two. There were several more that disappeared before I could grab my camera, but I loved seeing their little topknots parading across our garden wall. :)

New blocks

2011-08-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

Last spring I posted a little tutorial on how to make some signature blocks. Our quilt circle had its exchange, and I tucked my share of those signed blocks away for a time. Fast forward to last week, when our circle had another exchange, this time of half-square triangle blocks. Coincidentally, the signature blocks were 4" (finished), and the HSTs were 2" (finished), which means they could be so easy to use together! I've spent the past couple of days sewing them together into basket blocks with results like these:

I'm going to set them on point, probably with black setting triangles, though I'm still considering color choices. I'm pretty pleased with how they look so far. :)

Latest project

2011-08-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

I've been AWOL for a time, but I have a good excuse. ;) My twin sister and her husband were visiting us from France! We've had such a good time, but of course blogging went by the wayside. They've left now, though, and it just so happens that my local quilt group had its monthly meeting today. We made what I think will be a very handy little project. Can you see it here?

So, what's so handy about a flat piece of fabric with handles? Can you guess by seeing it all folded up in this photo? It looks like a little purse, doesn't it? But it's not!

Half-open and half-closed, you can see that it's lined with that silver heat-resistant fabric that's used on ironing boards. So this is a caddy for a travel iron, and it just barely fits my little Rowenta travel iron! I think it will be really nice when I need to take an iron to a class or meeting!

Camera case

2011-08-05T17:46:00.000-07:00

Have I mentioned lately that I really like Annie Unrein's patterns? ;) I've shown you her MiPad Case and her Name Tag Bag, and now I've made her camera case. It's a bit fiddly to do, since the curves are small (what camera case isn't?), but it came out pretty well, IMHO. The bag has a wrist strap, as well as an adjustable shoulder strap.

The front has a velcro closure on the outer pocket (large enough for a cell phone), and there are several open pockets inside. The back of the case has a see-through pocket that's useful for any sort of ID. The only real problem I have with the bag is that I picked out the wrong zipper, but that's my fault, rather than the fault of the pattern; I should have ordered one of Annie's, but I didn't want to wait. :S

Do you remember ...

2011-08-02T19:36:00.000-07:00

... this post from just over a month ago? I said then that I was hoping to find buttons to decorate my gingerbread house tea cozy, and I did! I went to the Long Beach Festival last week, and there they were! Yay! So I've spent part of today putting them onto my tea cozy, and I think it now looks more like a gingerbread house should. ;)

I'll enjoy using this with my tea!

Dinner!

2011-07-24T16:02:00.000-07:00

Let's get one thing out of the way from the start: I love ratatouille! It takes a little while to make, though using a pressure cooker does cut that time down a bit. But summer in the desert is no time to be really excited about standing over a hot stove, so I don't make ratatouille as often as I might, and summer is when all of the vegetables for it are in season.

However, a few days ago I just couldn't stand it any longer and made a batch of the yummy stuff. Naturally, the two of us can't really eat an entire batch (and it's not worth making half a batch), but the leftovers are wonderful in a tarte à la ratatouille, or ratatouille pie. That will be our dinner tonight, and I can hardly wait! :) Lovely ratatouille, cheese, olives — what could be better?

And another hat

2011-07-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

One of my daughters liked my new hat so much that I made her one of her own to wear to her children's ball games. She wanted white, and I couldn't resist making the reverse side a very pale aqua, since that color brings out her eyes.

Here's the aqua side:

Finally, here's my lovely daughter wearing the hat. I had to blank out her face to preserve her privacy, but take my word for it: she looks great in her hat!

More hat photos

2011-07-17T12:11:00.000-07:00

I've had a couple of requests for photos of my recently-completed hat on me. Ugh. I hate taking photos of myself! But here is the darker side of the hat; please forgive the busy background, as the easiest way to take my own picture is to do it with my computer.

Then I decided to take another, showing the paler side of the hat, but I also wanted a "cooler" background. I just zipped really fast up to Yosemite for this one; it's lots cooler there than here in Las Vegas! ;)

Isn't it wonderful what we can do with computers these days? Anyway, you can see how wide the brim of my hat is, so it's really going to be great for keeping the sun off! :)

Two finishes

2011-07-15T18:22:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last post, but I have a good excuse — as usual. ;) Actually, our guild is having a challenge; we have a piece of red batik we must use (it's gorgeous!), and we must use a heart somewhere on the front of the quilt. The challenge isn't due for several months yet, but I had an idea and was afraid I'd forget what I was planning if I didn't do it right away. So now it's finished and awaiting the due date, but I can't show it to you until after the challenge is over! :(

My second recent finish — as of this afternoon — is thanks to a friend of mine who sent me a link to a pattern for a reversible hat. :) As it happens, I've been looking for a hat I can use to keep the sun off of my face and neck; in our area, the sun can literally be a killer. I hadn't found anything, though I've been looking for some time. Every time I think I've found something good, it's either not good on me, or it's so expensive that I won't even consider it. ;) However, what did I have to lose with a free pattern, fabric from my stash and a couple of hours of my time? As it happens, I like this one! It covers my head and neck and fits well enough to be secure while still not resulting in "hat hair".

I did make a few changes in the pattern. First, I added a layer of pretty stiff interfacing to the brim. In addition, I added a layer of flannel to the crown for a bit of body. Finally, I turned the hat right-side out through the brim instead of the sides and did a few rows of topstitching on the brim for extra stability. I think it will work quite well! :)

Button, button, who has ...

2011-06-26T00:32:00.000-07:00

… the buttons? Last week I showed you part of a tea cozy I was working on. Now I've finished it, except for the specialty buttons I need to add to make this look like a traditional gingerbread house. But finding those buttons is proving to be a real challenge; I'm guessing that this is probably the wrong time of year. So my tea cozy will have to be unadorned until I can find what I'm looking for, which includes buttons that look like candy or gingerbread men or anything else you might see on an edible gingerbread house. ;)

In the meantime, you can see what it looks like so far. I made it from a pattern put out by Bent Tree Hollow Designs; they have so many really cute tea cozy patterns!

I don't garden

2011-06-24T10:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know that's practically a crime to some people, but I simply don't enjoy it. I'm allergic to something (several somethings?) out there, so whenever I've tried to garden, I've spent more time wiping my eyes, sneezing and dealing with my nose than actually accomplishing anything. Luckily for me, my husband loves to garden and is quite talented at it. His favorite kind of gardening is producing various vegetables, especially lots of varieties of chiles so that he can have salsa and pico de gallo. He also grows cucumbers, bell peppers, and whatever else strikes his fancy.

One thing he always grows is tomatoes, which is a challenge in our hot, dry climate. Large tomatoes are generally out of the question, as they crack and split before they can ripen. However, this year we had a long spring and late summer, which has resulted in a bumper crop of gorgeous tomatoes! :) The cherry tomatoes are smaller than usual, but they're sweet enough to make us remember that tomatoes are actually a fruit. The larger tomatoes are full of flavor and beautiful to see.

Our only problem is getting the tomatoes harvested each day before busy little Bisou can go feast on the ones that poke out of the fence surrounding them. ;)

In progress

2011-06-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a new project for the past couple of days. It's actually something I've been meaning to make for several months, but it was sort of on the back burner for one reason or another. I saw the most adorable pattern for a tea cozy and just had to make it! Here's what I have so far:

It doesn't look like much yet, does it? ;) But the two gold pieces are just waiting until I can get to the store to get a specialty thread for some decoration, and the whitish piece is the main part — but inside out for now. I'm also going to be on the hunt for some buttons to add, but that may have to wait until the season changes. Stay tuned ….

I'm back

2011-06-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

I've been quiet lately, but it's because I was getting ready for our cruise and then taking it! :) The two of us had earned a free cruise, thanks to the points accumulated on our credit card, so we took off for the southern Caribbean. Summer temperatures in that area are low, compared to the desert where we live, but the humidity is so thick that you can almost cut it with a knife! I'm so used to a dry heat that the humidity was a real change; getting off the ship at each port blinded me briefly each day as my glasses fogged up at the first exposure to that humidity. LOL!

This first photo shows part of the interior of the cruise ship — it was really beautiful!

Our itinerary began and ended in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and included stops at five islands: Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Maarten/St Martin, and St. Croix. This last one is part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, though most of the others are independent countries.

When we reached Barbados, part of our sightseeing included a visit to an orchid "farm", where we saw orchids growing in thin air! There were some planted in the ground, but most were simply hanging from wires, and they were all colors of the rainbow — just gorgeous.

BTW, all of these photos are "clickable" so that you can see them a little larger.

This is a photo of our ship, taken from quite a distance away; we were docked in Castries, St. Lucia.

We also saw what looked like a replica of a pirate ship. ;)

Our next port was Antigua, where we toured an old British fort overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. This photo shows part of the ruins; another step back, and we'd have been over the edge. ;)

St. Maarten/St Martin is very interesting, as it is half Dutch and half French. We did a bit of looking around on both sides of this island, but the most interesting part for me was a visit to the home of a former governor and its outlying buildings, many of which were shacks that had been inhabited by slaves. This signpost was fun to see. :)

Our last stop was in St. Croix, U.S.V.I. This island and the previous one were my favorites. The water around St. Croix is such a gorgeous shade of green/blue!

Here we are, ready to get back to the ship for our last night aboard before heading home. Look at that beautiful water!

Thank you!

2011-05-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

This thank you goes out to all of the people who have served or are currently serving in the armed forces. I know how much you sacrifice, both in terms of your physical and emotional well-being, and in terms of family.

My own father was an Army officer during WWII (European theater), as well as in the Korean "conflict". We were scheduled to be stationed in Japan at one time, but those orders were changed to Fort Huachuca, AZ. Quite a different post!

To all of our service people, a huge Thanks for all you do!

Bed runner

2011-05-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago, I made a Winding Ways quilt for our bed. That quilt is pretty big, so laundering it will be a major undertaking. That wouldn't be a huge consideration, except that Bisou really does like to sleep at the foot of the bed, and I have to admit that I like her to do so. ;) The solution was to make a bed runner to cover the foot of the bed; the runner will be a lot simpler to wash when needed! This one was made from a layer cake of Moda fabrics in similar colors to what was in the quilt; I cut each square in half diagonally and then cut off a couple of strips from the long edge and simply mixed up all of the strips. The first photo gives you an idea of how that worked.

After joining all of the blocks, the next step, of course, was to quilt the runner. Once again I resorted to feathers. What a surprise, right? ;) This time I outlined an oval with pointed ends in each block, then put the feathers along that outline. You may be able to see that better from the back of the runner. I pieced the back, by the way, from the unused squares from the layer cake.

I finished the binding yesterday and then washed the bed runner and put it on the bed. I think Bisou approves, since she climbed right up and made herself at home. ;) What do you think?

Name tag bag

2011-05-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago I made a MiPad Case. The pattern was designed by Annie Unrein, and I liked it so much that I bought another of her patterns. This time I made a name tag bag; this is to replace one I wasn't entirely happy with, and I think the new one may be a winner. :)

This bag is from an oriental print I had and is trimmed with a black oriental print for the binding and strap. You may be able to tell that the bottom part of the bag has a vinyl pocket for the name tags we all get at various shows or in our guilds.

The top flap has a zippered pocket, and under the flap is a large inner compartment, which I lined with magenta. The back of the bag has an open pocket to hold a cell phone or pencils, etc. One of my favorite parts of this bag, though, is the strap! It's adjustable, so I'll be able to wear it around my neck or, when my neck gets tired, across my body. Pretty cool, right?

Annie's instructions are very clear, and she also has video tutorials on her site to help in construction. Oh — and I'd recommend getting her finishing kit if you decide to make one of her patterns. The kit has everything you'll need for the project except the fabric and zipper, thus saving you the time needed to find all of the hardware and notions. :)

Have you ever ...

2011-05-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

… broken your threads in the middle of a line of machine quilting? Or run out of bobbin? If so, you know how frustrating it is to try to get the thread ends knotted off so you can get back to the quilting. Here's how I do it, with very little fuss or muss. ;)

The first step, of course, is to pick out enough stitches that you will have at least a short length of thread to work with. Ugh. I know you probably hate that part as much as I do! But I've discovered that I don't have to pick out that many stitches any longer, since I've found a method for knotting the ends while still fairly short. When I have long thread ends, I make a thread loop around two fingers and pull the ends through that, but shorter thread ends can still be knotted with the help of everyday tweezers. (To give credit where credit it more than due, I learned this from Sharon Schamber.) I prefer the reverse tweezers — you know, the ones that remain tightly closed unless you squeeze them, but you can easily use the regular ones instead. Here's how, keeping in mind that I'm left-handed, so you may have to reverse direction on some steps. ;) All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

1. Hold your two thread ends in one hand. I've put my needle in the photo to give some general sense of proportion, and my thread ends are longer than needed so you can see them more easily.

2. While still holding the thread ends, slip your tweezers under the threads.

3. Still holding the threads, make a loop around the tips of the tweezers.

4. Open the tweezers (if they aren't already open) and grab the ends of the threads through the loop. You can release the threads from your fingers now. ;)

5. Place the tip of your needle through the thread loop and into your fabric where you'd like the knot to end up.

6. Use the tweezers to pull the thread ends through the loop. (Sorry this shot is a bit fuzzy!) Pull the thread taut to slip the knot down to the required spot on the quilt.

7. Okay, now you have a knot. But what if the thread ends are too short to be able to thread the needle and feed the whole thing into the quilt? Easy! Put the needle into the quilt before threading it! I like to use one of those self-threading needles for this, but use whatever kind you like.

8. When the needle is sufficiently into the fabric to allow you to thread it, go ahead and do so. I've done this with threads short enough that barely more than the eye of the needle was showing.

9. Pull the needle through ...

10. … and pop the knot into the quilt center.

11. Now all that's left is to snip of the threads close to the top of the quilt!

See how easy this is? Since the tweezers are so much thinner than human fingers, this technique saves lots of unpicking! I hope this helps someone. By the way, this can also work when your thread breaks during hand piecing or hand quilting. :)

Where did the time go?

2011-05-12T11:53:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post! Yikes! I've been working on a bed runner to use at the foot of our bed, where Bisou likes to lie at night. I think it will be much easier to keep clean than a huge quilt. ;)

Like many, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the recent royal wedding. Since I collect thimbles, I was very excited to receive a commemorative thimble in today's mail! I bought it from a highly-rated seller on Ebay, and I'm very pleased with it. This is the photo the seller posted of the front and back:

Just One Star

2011-04-18T08:09:00.000-07:00

Like many groups (and individuals), my local group is making blocks for our armed forces. We're participating in the Just One Star challenge sponsored by Moda. The blocks are due by May 1, which gives everyone less than two more weeks to get a block made and mailed. I'm hoping they will receive many more blocks than they were expecting! :)

It's a very easy block to make, with oversized setting triangles to make trimming to size easy for those who are actually assembling these quilts.

An award ;)

2011-04-12T15:33:00.000-07:00

I have my twin to thank for this one:

Thanks, Jill! Even though I had a difficult time figuring out how to meet all of the requirements for the award, I still appreciate it. So here are the rules:

Put the logo on your blog. (done!)

Thank the giver and give a link to her blog. (done!)

List seven characteristics of your personality. Hmmm … that's a hard one!

I love being at home.
I love to travel. (These two aren't mutually exclusive, after all!)
I'm stubborn.
I love my family.
I'm a dog-lover.
I love quilting — obviously. ;)
I spend far too much time online.

List seven more blogs with their links and notify these people that they have "won" this award. Now, this is really difficult! It's not that I don't think at least seven people have amazing blogs; it's more a matter of will they be irritated at having to do the same thing? Oh well, here goes:

My twin sister, Jill, whom I'm so proud of for coming so far so quickly in her quilting!
Sally, who does some of the most gorgeous quilting I've ever seen — much of it feathered.
Michelle, who has accomplished so much even while moving twice in just a few months.
Diane, who designs and quilts beautiful quilts for various fabric manufacturers — and also has them published!
Susan, who does lovely work and teaches her local (winter) group what she knows.
Another Sandy, who also has a fun podcast that I enjoy.
Geta, who does gorgeous work in Romania, where it's frequently difficult to find supplies.

That's it! I hope everyone enjoys visiting these blogs. :)

Dessert

2011-04-11T10:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything I've cooked or baked, so I thought I'd post this today. It's a mango tart, courtesy of my sister. She knows how much I love mangos and kindly shared the recipe with me. Unfortunately, I can't really share the recipe, since it's not hers; I don't have permission to post it. But let me tell you, it's delicious and very easy to make. The green flecks you see are lime zest, and the crust is really puff pastry. I took this one to our daughter's house last night. :)

Cecilia's Circles

2011-04-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

Do you remember when I posted about making a lot of Drunkard's Path blocks? I've finally finished the quilt, including the label and a hanging sleeve, just in case I want to hang it at some point instead of using it to snuggle under. :) I had a lot of fun putting a zillion of the feathers I love so much on this one! You can see them better in these detail photos, one from the front …

and the other from the back. In this last photo, you can sort of see that the smaller partial circles were quilted exactly the same way as the larger ones; look near the center top.

My quilt inspector approves!

2011-04-07T18:24:00.000-07:00

Bisou has her own quilt, a little braided one I made several years ago. It lives at the foot of our bed, and she sleeps on it every night and sometimes during the day. Today I stripped the sheets in order to wash them, and this is what I saw when I came back to the bedroom to put fresh sheets on the bed:

She'd put several of her toys on our new Winding Ways bed quilt and then made herself comfortable on top of her own quilt, which was on top of ours. Isn't she adorable?

A bag

2011-04-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted lately, because I'm saving the handwork on my Drunkard's Path quilt to take with me to a quilting day on Sunday with some friends. Other than doing the hand sewing on the binding, though, the quilt is finished. :) I'll post a photo when I get that last bit done.

In the meantime, I've been working on a bag, which is something I rarely do. However, this time it's a special bag, nicely padded, that I'll be able to use with my iPad when it arrives. The pattern I used is by Annie Unrein, called the MiPad Case. It features an adjustable strap, a zippered outer pocket, an inner pocket, and a central front panel done with Texture Magic. I used Annie's Soft and Stable to pad the case, and I think it will work out great. :)

I already had the bamboo batik, the solid black and the bright pink I used for the piping, as well as the handle hardware, in my stash, so all I needed to purchase were the zippers and lining fabric. It's so nice to be able to make something from stash! :) The bamboo print is black and white, though it sometimes looks sort of navy, depending on the lighting, as you can see in the photos.

By the way, I had a couple of questions during the bag's construction, and I was delighted by how quickly Annie responded. :)

It's National Quilting Day!

2011-03-19T08:24:00.000-07:00

Have a great quilty day! I'm going to do some machine quilting. What about you?

It's been a while!

2011-03-18T14:28:00.000-07:00

I hadn't realized how much time had gone by since my last post! I guess time really does fly when we're having fun. ;) Let's see — does that include having a blood test? LOL! Probably not. But Sunday I spent the day with two quilting friends, and that was definitely fun. Yesterday my local group had an all-day meeting, and that was also fun. In between, I've been doing the free-motion work on my latest quilt. I've only finished about a quarter of the blocks, but it's coming along. Here's a preview:

I'm using a variegated King Tut thread in shades of purples and magentas, and of course I'm still in my feathers "rut". ;)

Our sleepyhead

2011-03-09T14:31:00.000-08:00

Last night and the night before, my husband pointed out Bisou soundly sleeping on our couch. She spends quite a bit of each evening dozing, then comes to find me when she decides it's really bedtime. Then she settles herself on the foot of the bed, where she remains until morning brings wild "zoomies" and ecstatic bouncing at the thought of another day. What a character! But isn't she just adorable?

Today I finished sewing all of my Drunkard's Path blocks together, so now they're ready for me to sandwich and quilt. I thought about adding a border, but I really think borders might detract from the pattern and even stop the movement I get from it. What do you think?

I still need to decide what color binding to use, too, though I think I've decided on thread color and — mostly — quilt motifs.

"Almost" circles

2011-03-08T18:28:00.000-08:00

I do like curves! Not on me so much, but on my quilts. ;) I've been making some Drunkard's Path blocks in two sizes, and this is what they looked like on my cool design wall this morning. Since then, I've rearranged them a little to distribute the colors a bit more evenly, but I forgot to take another picture after I'd done that. Now I'm happily sewing them together! :) I'll post more photos as I finish piecing and then quilting.

A nice touch

2011-03-05T07:33:00.000-08:00

Our local guild began doing something new at last year's show. Each person who has a quilt that earned a ribbon is also given a little badge to wear. It's really nice to look at your friends and immediately know what they've won. These are samples of those badges, though there are also special ones for Best of Show and some other special awards.

I think it's a nice touch, don't you?

I'm so excited!

2011-03-04T15:48:00.000-08:00

Our local quilt show opened today and will be open through Sunday. This year's show judge was really good to me, as I won three ribbons! Wow! I'm thrilled! Here are my "babies" with their fancy additions:

Some time ago I made a Baravelle Spiral quilt from a pattern designed by a very good online friend, Pat Storey. Her book is Geometrical Quilts. I used her pattern to make a quilt for our guild challenge that year; we had to use specific black and white prints, as well as any other blacks and whites and only one other color. We also had to add beading. This is what I made, and it took a third place ribbon in our show! :)

My miniature Trip Around the World (about 21" square) is next on the list. I made this one after a very good friend gave me a set of strips of batiks. I love the colors in it, and apparently the judge didn't hate them, as she awarded it a second place ribbon. :)

Last, but best of all, is my Winding Ways quilt. I've been waiting for the show so as to hope for the chance to take a photo of the whole finished quilt (remember this post?). I certainly had my chance today, as one of our members who was acting as a white-glove lady kindly held some other quilts out of the way while I snapped a quick photo. You can just barely see the edge of the first-place ribbon that's hanging with this one! I'm so pleased, especially since my friend Gerda did such a great job of quilting this big quilt for me. :D

New blocks

2011-03-02T13:20:00.000-08:00

I've always liked curved blocks: Drunkard's Path, New York Beauty, Winding Ways, etc. In fact, I've already made two projects from the Drunkard's Path block, I've done some NY Beauties, and I recently finished my Winding Ways quilt (photo coming soon, I hope!). When I saw my sister's recent work, I decided I had to make yet another Drunkard's Path quilt, so now I've begun work on that. :)

What's really great about this one is that the quilter who came out with the templates I'm using this time also put up some online videos for her technique — a technique that uses no pins! Yay! I've never liked what happens with pins in curves, especially if the blocks are very small, so this is great. I've made the first 20 blocks for this quilt; these measure 3.75" unfinished. They're all cut from FQs with virtually no waste at all. Even better, the FQs were all in my stash!

Another cupcake

2011-02-25T15:05:00.000-08:00

I liked that first cupcake pin cushion enough that I've made a second, slightly different one. I modified the pattern slightly, but I have to say that these cupcakes are pretty easy to make, and they definitely don't take a huge outlay of cash to do. The only part that was a bit funny was having to buy a package of floral stems to make the cherry stem. To get that 3" piece of stem, I had to buy a package of 30 stems, each 18" long, but the package was only $1. LOL! I now have enough stem "stuff" to make 90 pin cushions — but I think I'll stop at two for now. ;)

Here are my two together. You can see that the cups aren't exactly the same size, so this is pretty adaptable to whatever is available, in case I do decide to make more at some point.

Finished is good ...

2011-02-23T14:41:00.000-08:00

As you can see from the photos, I did decide not to do any filler quilting in the corners of this piece. After trying two different fillers and having to pick them out, I just couldn't bring myself to do a third. If I'd had to pick that one out, too, I think the fabric would have fallen apart. I didn't have any of the fabric used in this one, so the binding is just another piece I had lying around and that I thought worked okay. This will work as a table topper, as it's fairly small: only 17" square. Below is a detail of the quilting, though I apologize for the color being off.

Sometimes nothing works

2011-02-21T12:29:00.000-08:00

During the class I took in Phoenix last month, I drew out the designs for two wholecloth quilts. One of them must be redone, due to slithering problems, but the other (smaller) one is fine, so I began quilting it a few days ago. I quilted all of the main motifs and then added some cross hatching around the central wreath. So far, so good.

Then I decided to do pebbles as the filler around the corner motifs; pebbles are one of my favorite fillers. After doing half of one section, about 10-15 minutes' work, I decided that this just wasn't going to look right this time. Okay, so I spent the next three hours unpicking that mistake.

I really don't want to do a "traditional" stipple, so the next thing I tried was echo quilting around those corner motifs. It was looking pretty good until I realized something. The instructor for the class had required us to use the standard blue markers when doing our drawings — not the fine line type. So when I removed some of the blue lines to see how things were looking, I realized that the corner motifs were completely lost in the echo quilting! Ack!

Last night I began unpicking those echoing lines, and I'm only about halfway done now. I may decide not to do a filler at all at this rate!

Adorable!

2011-02-16T17:47:00.000-08:00

Last fall I saw some absolutely adorable pin cushions at the Houston show, but I remained strong and didn't buy the pattern to make one. However, last month when I was in Phoenix and went to a sewing expo there, the same company was showing the pin cushions again. How could I resist? I mean, wasn't it meant to be? I didn't buy the pattern, though; I bought the kit in order to make life easy. I also bought a second little cup for the bottom, and I'm thinking I'm going to be making a second one of these very soon -- though I'll have to go look for the rest of the materials.

So what kind of pin cushion am I talking about? A cupcake! Isn't it cute? :) Sorry the photo is a little fuzzy, but you get the idea.

The pattern is called With a Cherry on Top. I'm beginning to think I have a pin cushion fetish. ;)

Table Runner

2011-02-16T07:23:00.000-08:00

It's finished! I really wanted to get this done before the next meeting of our local group, and I made it. Whew! ;) This was a fun table runner to make; we took strips and watched as they magically became this simple but very interesting pattern. (Click on the photos for a larger view.)

I couldn't remember how I'd wanted to quilt this, so I resorted to more of the feathers I love so much. :) Since nothing was really going to show in the busy border, I did some basic straight lines before adding corded piping and the binding. I'd have liked to have used more of the border fabric as the binding, but I just didn't have enough. This entire table runner came from my stash! :)

Storm at Sea news

2011-02-13T09:18:00.000-08:00

My goodness! My little Storm at Sea miniature is getting around! I'm very flattered that it's making an appearance on the John Flynn (really written by Brooke Flynn ) blog. Look here. :)

Pumpkins

2011-02-12T07:31:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know I missed the season, but this piece will be ready for next fall. ;) This is wool appliqué, all done by hand, and I began making this while in Phoenix last month. Most of the fabrics were from a kit, and the thread is Valdani perle cotton in size 12; the Valdani has a lovely sheen, much nicer than DMC.

The biggest problem with this pattern (created by Cathy Skow) is that it was literally impossible to see through the background fabric (the olive-y green) to trace the layout and the embroidered tendrils. I made a plastic overlay to place the wool bits, but then I had to make a stencil for the embroidery -- not an easy task with scissors. ;) I will say, however, that this fabric was quite easy to appliqué to the scalloped backing. The original pattern showed that scalloped backing in a little brown plaid, but I couldn't find anything similar for my version. In fact, I couldn't even find a good range of colors in solid colors of wool felt! However, I think the green I finally settled on works well enough.

This was fun to do, but now it's back to quilting! :)

A finish and an "almost"

2011-02-08T10:47:00.000-08:00

At last month's meeting of the local group I attend we made table runners. I finished the top of mine, decided just how I wanted to quilt it, and then left town. Do you think I can remember now what my plan was? Of course not! :S The runner is all pin basted and ready to go, but I'm stumped as to what I want to do and will have to ponder a bit longer. This photo shows part of the runner. It's the "almost" from the title of this post.

So what was the finished item? First, a bit of background. Remember that Winding Ways quilt I've been working on for quite some time? I finished the top, which turned out to be enormous — about 95" x 112" or a bit more. Gulp. It sat, basted and ready for quilting (and I did remember what I wanted to do on this one!) for a while as I procrastinated about beginning. It was just so big! I had serious doubts as to how I was going to manage on my Bernina, much as I love that machine, and especially since my back had been bothering me — how was I going to wrestle this monster in my limited space? I wasn't; I chickened out and asked a good friend of mine to long-arm quilt it for me. She used most of what I'd originally intended to do myself, with some tweaks of her own that came out great. :) The quilt is so big, though, that I can't take a picture of it yet! However, it will be going into our local show in a few weeks, so I'll hope to get a photo of it hanging at that time. Meanwhile, here's a "teaser" of the result!

Where did the time go?

2011-02-04T18:47:00.000-08:00

Gosh, I hadn't realized it had been so long since my last post! A couple of days after that one, though, I went to Phoenix for Quilting in the Desert, staying with a dear friend and her three dogs for almost a week. You may remember that I have a little cocker spaniel; however, what you don't know is that I used to have Dobermans, so it's not as though I've never been around large dogs. In fact, up until not too long ago, we had a big lab-chow mix! Phyl's family includes a Golden Retriever and two black standard poodles. What is always a surprise to me about them is that they're so light on their feet! I was used to big dogs having a certain amount of "heft" to them, but these poodles can jump on me, and I have absolutely no chance of being knocked over. (G)

As for Phyl and me, we stayed pretty busy during my stay. We each had a class to attend, and we went out to dinner a couple of times (YUM!) and to the theater (great play!) once. We did our own mini-shop-hop one day, updated some computer stuff for each of us, and did our own "class" on wool appliqué (Phyl was the instructor, and I was the student). Above all, we laughed and had a great time. :)

I don't know where my head was, but I completely forgot to take pictures of most of what we did. But I did take a picture of the three dogs waiting for their treat. I guess that tells you where my priorities were. ;)

Lovely!

2011-01-23T08:36:00.000-08:00

The other night my husband and I went out to dinner. The restaurant we chose is located in a very pretty shopping district, and this was the view that greeted us as we walked along the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.

Isn't it pretty? The combination of the dusky time of day and the fairy lights -- I love little white lights! -- is just magical.

Fun today

2011-01-20T19:27:00.000-08:00

The local quilt group I attend had a meeting today, and we began making a table runner. It was lots of fun to see how the colors each of us chose made the same pattern look so different. I found a focus fabric and the other necessary colors in my stash, so I'm thrilled that this will be a "freebie" -- it doesn't count if I bought it a few years ago, right? ;) The top of my runner is almost finished; I'll complete it on Sunday at a friend's house. In the meantime, here's a hint of what it will look like.

Storm at Sea

2011-01-09T16:32:00.000-08:00

Last night I finished my little Storm at Sea miniature -- quilted, bound and labeled. :) It was a fun little project to do, and John Flynn's laser-cut kits are definitely very precise and easy to piece. This one ended up being 21" wide by 23.5" long after I'd added the borders; the center is 14" x 17.5". I quilted a combination of small feathers and some stylized "waves" into diagonal rows, then added some curlier waves in the outer border (click on the photo for a closer look). I really should have done more stabilizing quilting before beginning the free-motion work, as the areas between the quilting rows have a rather "topographical" effect. As I frequently do, I added some corded piping between the outer border and the binding; I like the extra bit of interest it adds.

Leftovers and choices

2010-12-31T10:24:00.000-08:00

I didn't cook Christmas dinner at home, as we had our family dinner at our daughter's house. So "leftovers" here are baked goods. I tried a new-to-me Martha Stewart recipe this year, along with a few of our usual favorites, and it was a hit wherever I took it. There's *one* piece left, which I plan to make sure is gone today. ;) This is the last remaining piece of the chocolate coconut cheesecake squares. Yum!

Now for the choices. I've had to give up on my original plan for quilting that Storm at Sea miniature, as I just couldn't make the intersections work out right. Fine. I'll probably use my original idea in the borders instead. Next question: what color thread should I use? Going through what I already had on hand, I thought a cone of turquoise/purple Rainbows polyester might be pretty good, but then I also liked a lighter lavender I have. Decisions, decisions! I'm leaning toward the turquoise/purple, but I'm still thinking ....

Back to quilting!

2010-12-29T18:18:00.000-08:00

Today I added borders to my miniature Storm at Sea. I chose purple for the inner border to give good contrast and teal for the outer border to tie into some of the other colors in the top. Now it measures about 21" x 24". The next step, of course, will be to sandwich and quilt it.

My new design wall!

2010-12-28T12:49:00.000-08:00

My sewing/computer room is a smallish bedroom, so by the time I have my computer desk, my sewing table, a rocking chair for handwork, and a few little extras, there's very little space left over. I posted a few photos in an early blog post.

One of the problems I ran into was that there was literally no space for a design wall. My solution was to put Command hooks over the closet doors and hang a piece of flannel from them. It worked, but it was awkward and inconvenient. If I needed to get into the closet, where I keep my quilting supplies and stash, I had to either roll up the flannel and clip it out of the way, taking the chance of disturbing whatever was on the flannel at the time, or I had to duck under the flannel and hope not to disturb anything. There had to be a better way!

Then I saw a fancy-dancy roll-up design wall advertised in a magazine. It's gorgeous -- there's no doubt about it -- but it cost way

more than I wanted to spend. However, it gave me an idea. I found a vinyl roll-up shade at Penney's (on sale!) and convinced a friend to help me spray glue flannel to one side of it. So far, so good. Then the roll-up shade stood in a corner for several weeks until my husband had a little time and no particular project in mind. I think I'm going to love having this! When I roll it up, the vinyl backing will prevent the things on the front from shifting, and I'll be able to get into my closet with no trouble at all! :) In this photo, I only have the shade rolled partially down; it will go all the way to the floor.

To one and all ...

2010-12-25T07:52:00.000-08:00

Woof!

Merry Christmas!! Wishing everyone a joyous holiday season and a very Happy New Year. :)

Taking a break

2010-12-19T14:41:00.000-08:00

I'm not completely ready for Christmas, but today I took a bit of a break from that hustle and bustle to work on the miniature I now have in progress. While I was in Houston in November, I bought a kit -- something I never do -- for a Storm at Sea. Why did I buy it, when I could have made a paper-pieced one quite easily? Because the kit's pieces were all laser cut and very accurate; I wanted to give using them a try. Here's what the cover of the kit looked like:

Notice that the label very clearly states that the batiks used in the kit might not be the same as those in the photo, and that was the case.

The kit came from John Flynn, and the pieces went together so easily!

Over the course of the past couple of weeks, I've made all of the blocks (100, though one is an "extra" and won't be in the quilt) and joined them into rows. Now I have six of the eleven rows joined together, and I'm liking the results, though I wouldn't have chosen exactly these colors.

Soon I'll need to start thinking of what to use for borders and how to do the quilting, but I doubt that I'll get much more quilting time for the next week. ;)

Getting ready

2010-12-16T16:21:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe that Christmas will be here in just over a week! :O I think I have the gift shopping finished, but I still need to wrap those gifts, and I will be baking some last-minute things to take to our daughter's home for Christmas dessert. Then there are the inevitable errands that suddenly need to be run, as well as the visiting -- it all adds to the excitement, the joy and the stress of the season. ;) Of course, I'm also trying to do a bit of piecing in spare moments just as a means of relaxation.

This is part of our tree with some of the ornaments we've collected over the years. The fabric candles are some I made a long time ago -- probably at least 25-30 years ago -- and if you make the photo larger (click on it), you may be able to see Disney characters, a dove from the top of our wedding cake, a cocker spaniel, and many more in all sorts of "themes". Some, like most of what you see here, are cute, others are religious, and some are just pretty.

I'd like to wish you and yours a very happy holiday season, no matter which holiday you happen to celebrate.

Holiday traditions

2010-12-11T09:22:00.000-08:00

Our family has its share of holiday traditions, as I'm sure most do. Since we celebrate Christmas, ours naturally revolve around that holiday. I used to be a French teacher and liked to share some of the French customs with my students. At one point, I collected several little santons, which represent various people, all arriving with gifts to celebrate the birth of Jesus. They are traditionally dressed in the garb of eighteenth-century France, except for the figures representing the people we Americans usually see in our own nativity scenes.

In France, many families set up entire villages, complete with houses and scenery, but my small home doesn't have room for all of that. As a result, my santons are merely grouped on any flat surface large enough to hold the entire collection.

Here is the "traditional" grouping: stable, ox, donkey, baby, Joseph, Mary, wise men and a shepherd.

On the left, you see the Simpleton, who hasn't brought a gift but throws up his arms in awe. All of the other figures bring gifts for the baby. Do you see the drummer boy with his drum? the baker with a sack of flour? the woman with a basket of eggs?

Here you see more people with their gifts or preparing their gifts: fishermen, woodcutter, basket weaver, etc.

Aren't they interesting? I love them!

Baklavá

2010-12-11T07:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was such fun! A friend of mine from our local quilt group invited me to her lovely home to learn to make baklavá. My friend is originally Greek, so you know her baklavá is authentic. What's more is that it's not as sweet as other baklavá I've had, and so I prefer it by far. I'm not sharing this recipe, since it's not mine to share, but suffice it to say that making it wasn't nearly as complicated as I'd assumed it would be. I can see having some in the freezer on a frequent basis. :)

Not the way we planned it ...

2010-12-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday our younger daughter invited my husband and the rest of our family over for dinner. Great! Dinner was delicious, right up through dessert. But dessert also brought a new challenge that I thought I'd tell you about.

We love crème brûlée, and that's what she had prepared for us to finish the meal. Great! :) She also asked me to bring along my little kitchen torch to caramelize the sugar. Prior to this, I'd always used a salamander to do this; they do a great job, but they're a mess to clean up afterwards. A salamander, as you might guess from the photo, is rather like a flat, circular branding iron. A torch sounded so much easier!

Okay, time for dessert. I'd read the instructions on how to use the torch -- several times, in fact. My torch looked pretty much like this one. I very carefully started to fill the torch with butane, and that's when things went very wrong. The butane caught fire! Naturally, since I was holding it, my arms were the next to flame up (thank goodness I was wearing short sleeves). In trying to drop my arms away from the flames -- a reflex action -- I then set fire to my three-year-old granddaughter's hair. OMG! I hadn't seen her come over to watch what I was doing. Very fortunately, my elder daughter got the little flames in her daughter's hair extinguished before more than a few hairs were in danger, and there were no burns at all there.

My younger daughter, meanwhile, grabbed my arms and stuck them under the cold water tap, right next to where we were standing. She added ice and burn salve, keeping me from serious burns, bless her.

Eventually, a braver member of the gathering actually tried out the torch, and it's actually no good at what we needed; it doesn't get hot enough to caramelize sugar.

We used the salamander, after all, and the crème brûlée was scrumptious, but do I need to tell you that the torch will never see the light of day again? ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T19:00:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving, whether you live in the U.S. or somewhere else, and whether you actually celebrate the holiday or not. I'll be headed to my daughter's house for our family dinner, and I'm taking the pumpkin pies and whipped cream, as well as cranberry relish and some wine for a holiday toast. I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a wonderful day and to hope that everyone has as much to be thankful for as I do. :)

Pistachio muffins

2010-11-19T14:08:00.000-08:00

While my friends and I were in Houston recently, we "discovered" pistachio muffins. Oh my! They were so good! Unfortunately, Phyl and I were only able to get one each, and we've been drooling over the memory ever since. Phyl decided to do a Google search for recipes, and here you can see the results of the first one I tried. Or — most of the results, at least. My husband and I had to sample them, of course, and they're pretty darned tasty, though not quite as I'd remembered. If you're interested, the recipe is on the King Arthur web site.

Update

2010-11-18T17:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, I know I said it was finished. However, while I was in Houston a couple of weeks ago, I found these cute little balls of wool. They're available in different sizes and in a rainbow of colors, but I bought small white ones for this. I think they make pretty good saguaro blossoms, don't you?

I flattened them slightly with my fingers and held the new shape in place with yellow thread before stitching each one onto my saguaro. Now it's really finished. ;)

I've been quiet

2010-11-13T13:25:00.000-08:00

but I've had good reasons. ;) First, I was away -- at the "really big show" in Houston! I don't have any photos to share, since I didn't get around to asking permission of the people in those photos, but rest assured that it was a wonderful several days. :) Four of us flew from Las Vegas to Houston on Wednesday, Nov. 3, and met with the fifth member of our group at the airport, as she was coming from Phoenix.

Our hotel wasn't quite ready for us, but we stashed our luggage in one room and headed to the convention center to check in and pick up our preregistration materials. Then it was off to the preview event and the marvelous expanse of gorgeous quilts and amazing vendors. We repeated our trip to the show each day until Sunday, mixing viewing quilts with browsing the vendors (and buying a certain number of useful items, of course!) and watching some of the Meet the Teachers presentations.

Three of us also had a class all day on Saturday. The class was *really* good, too; it was a class on techniques for finishing quilts, from corded piping to binding and facings and even to hanging sleeves. I know I'll be using those techniques a lot on my own quilts, so I'm very glad to have been able to attend this class and benefit from the ideas presented there.

Now I am headed to the sofa with a cozy quilt so I can nurse my sinus infection a bit. ;) That sinus infection is the second reason I've been so quiet; I just need to baby it a little.

A UFO no longer

2010-10-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

In July, 2009, I took a fun class from Rose Hughes on making landscape quilts. I say the class was fun, but the technique was definitely not something I enjoyed, unfortunately. I'm glad I tried it, but I won't be doing it again, as far as I can tell. ;)

Anyway, I designed my quilt and even had all of the major construction finished at that time. However, I was supposed to use beads and embroidery to suggest plant life, and I was also supposed to use wool roving to make blossoms on the saguaro cactus I made as a memento of the very long time I lived in Arizona. I'm not much on embellishing, though, so my partially-completed quilt sat on the ironing board in my sewing room until yesterday.

With the encouragement of my quilting buddy, I decided to finish the quilting on the piece and forget the embellishing. I added a facing instead of binding, and now it's all finished. Finished, as they say, is good. :) This is titled "Lonely Saguaro" both because it's all alone in its setting and because it's so unlikely to be the start of a series of landscapes.

You have to see this!

2010-10-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

I haven't been doing much quilting for the past few days, but I know someone who has. ;) Some of you know that I have a twin sister who began quilting just about five years ago or so. She's only very recently begun machine quilting, but what a job she's doing! I guess my love of feathers is something that runs in the family, too, because she's doing some absolutely gorgeous ones. You should see her most recent ones: go here to do just that.

Swirling Branches is done

2010-10-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

Not quite two weeks ago, I posted this finished top. Today the little quilt is finished, and I'm pretty pleased with it, though there are definite mistakes in it. However, the pattern was fun to make, and the piece isn't a UFO, so I'm happy. :)

When I posted the top, I was debating how to quilt it. Obviously, I made up my mind. ;) I used some variegated green thread to do free-motion feathers (have I mentioned lately how much I love feathers?) in the light- and medium-green branches. The darker green branches have a swirl in them. The red and yellow "lights" have candle flames quilted in them, and the background is all straight lines to suggest the light coming from those candles. Beneath the tree I did a little curlicue. Here are some detail shots of the quilting, where you can see what I did right and also some of the mistakes I made:

This one shows the quilting from the back:

Mug organizer

2010-10-21T15:33:00.000-07:00

My local quilt circle met today. We're a large group and usually have about 20 or more of our members attending any one meeting, though there are about 40 on the rolls. We take turns sharing ideas for projects with each other, and today's project was a mug organizer. It's a really cute idea for using a mug to keep quilting notions handy. Since I'd recently made that flower pot to do the same job, I decided that this would make a really good gift. There are little pockets both inside and out for pencils, seam rippers, and that sort of thing. Isn't it cute?

Still, it's amazing that I managed to make it at all. It was one of those days. I was really pleased that I'd finally remembered to take an extension cord with me for my little Featherweight, but I forgot to take pins, scissors, fabric markers and thread to match my fabric! Yikes! Fortunately, another member had spare pins, someone else had markers to share, and I scrounged scissors and thread from still others. Tomorrow is, as they say, another day. ;)

Tomato Pie

2010-10-16T12:40:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't a dessert! ;) Tomato pie is a wonderful lunch or light dinner, though, and it works very well as an appetizer, too. My sister introduced this dish to me, and I love it and try to make it at least a few times each year when tomatoes are at their best. The smell of it baking, as all of the fresh basil perfumes the house, is amazing! I made this one today to serve to friends for lunch tomorrow, and I can hardly wait. :)

Carol Doak class

2010-10-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

I've been a fan of Carol Doak for a very long time now. She's the queen of paper piecing, for those who aren't familiar with her name. I've run into her several times at the "really big show" in Houston and even had a class with her. When she agreed to come to our guild and teach, therefore, I was really excited. :) Unfortunately, I couldn't take the class I was most interested in, due to time conflicts. However, yesterday I was free and was able to go and be her "gofer" for that class.

What fun! She has such a sense of humor and is a very generous teacher -- she gives freely of her time and tips, practically daring anyone not to have a marvelous time and come out having learned how to make those beautifully pointy points that paper piecing can give.

This is a photo of me with Carol -- and that smile never seems to leave her face!

Chili and shortbread

2010-10-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

What a combination, huh? ;) We're trying to use up some of the ground elk meat that's in our freezer, since DH will be going elk hunting soon. So yesterday I made some chili, using three pounds of ground elk and whatever else struck my fancy. I have enough to feed an army at this point, but it does freeze well. That's a Staub pot I used to make the chili, and I love that pot! It really does a good job. Anyway, that was yesterday's project.

Today I was craving shortbread; I love shortbread! So I baked some as soon as I had a few minutes, and now I have enough to enjoy with tea for a while. If you like shortbread, too, you might want to try Joe Pastry's recipe.

Top done ...

2010-10-10T18:45:00.000-07:00

... and now I'll need to sandwich and quilt this piece! :) The pattern went much more quickly than I'd expected, and I rather like the swirly effect of the skewed log cabin blocks. The pattern says to quilt it by stitching in the ditch, but I'm trying to think of something a little more fun to do instead. Any ideas?

I have a new project

2010-10-05T17:16:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the current issue of American Quilter? If you have, you may have seen the article by Renae Merrill, called "Swirling Branches". In it, she explains her method of paper piecing and provides a free pattern for a holiday wall hanging. I've been interested in her technique of skewing blocks for interesting effects, so I've started that pattern -- though I'm still using Carol Doak's method for the actual paper piecing. It works for me, so why change, right? ;)

I've run out of Carol's paper, so I'll need to go buy more to finish printing out the foundations, but I got a good start today on one block and its mirror image. Here's what a single block looks like:

It really has a lot of movement, doesn't it? By the way, the block isn't supposed to be square, so no worries there. ;) Now here's what a pair of these looks like together:

Can you see how the red and yellow pieces will resemble lights at the tips of tree branches? No? LOL! It might be a bit soon for that, I'll admit. Now I have fourteen more blocks like these, but in gradually smaller sizes, to make, as well as adding some other pieces to square things up.

It's big

2010-09-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

I know some of you may have thought that this would never happen, but I've finally finished the Winding Ways quilt top. ;) Yes, that's just the top that's finished. The next step will be to make the backing and take everything to my friend Gerda, who has promised to baste it for me on her longarm when she gets time. I don't even want to think about trying to baste something of this size, though I am going to quilt it myself on my Bernina 630. Anyway, this is a milestone in the making of this large quilt -- I really do prefer making smaller ones. ;)

It really was fun!

2010-09-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

I'm back from the Clean & Sew I mentioned yesterday, and it was lots of fun! It was a small class, and we each had a new Bernina 830 to use. Wow! What a machine! It's not coming home with me (though I'd love that extra harp space for quilting ), but I'm so impressed with its capabilities. We had a crash course on some machine embroidery techniques and came away with a pillow, complete except for adding the buttons that close the flap in the back and which I've since sewn on.

The only machine embroidery I've ever done before today was free motion, so this was very different. We used some built-in decorative stitches, put them together into a "stitch recipe" (combination) for the design at the top right. Then we took a built-in embroidery motif and added a monogram for the bottom section. To form the feathers on the left, we used a built-in motif from a set designed Diane Gaudynski. Then we even used embroidery to make buttonholes for the back!

The quilt shop provided all of the materials, including the pillow form to put inside the piece we made, and while we were sewing/embroidering my own wonderful Bernina 630 was getting a "spa treatment". What a fun way to spend a day! :D

Packing up my machine ....

2010-09-23T10:42:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I received this invitation in the mail, and it sounds like such fun! :)

"My" LQS -- located a dangerous five minutes from home -- is Quiltique (that's their logo you see on the invitation), a beautiful store that's also a Bernina dealership. They've invited customers to come and sew on the wonderful Bernina 830 while their tech cleans and services our own machines. What a deal, huh? Naturally, I expect they want to sell us either an 830 or an 820, but I can't afford one, nor would my almost-new sewing cabinet handle the weight of one, even if I weren't still in love with my 630. But who could pass up a generous offer like this one of having some fun sewing time and getting a free servicing? I'll be packing up my machine later today and heading for Quiltique tomorrow! :)

Winding Ways progress

2010-09-13T11:33:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a long time since I've posted anything about the Winding Ways quilt I've been working on. That's mostly because I've been procrastinating and letting other things get in the way of working on it. I have to admit that I prefer making smaller quilts; bed-sized quilts just don't have the same appeal for me. However, we need a new quilt for our bed, and this one will be more like a bedspread, since it will come down almost to the floor. So it's onward with the project. :)

Today I finally finished putting all of the blocks and rows together! Yay! Now I need to cut the strips for the mitered borders, and this is where my next challenge comes in. That's because I've decided that my original choice of one of the three fabrics I will use is really not good. Do I have enough leftover fabric of one of the others that would work better? Stay tuned. ;) Meanwhile, here's what the center looks like -- and it's not really a trapezoid. I just don't have a design wall yet, so the quilt center is on the floor and I can't get up high enough to take a good photo. Oh well -- you'll get the idea. Do you see the circles?

Speaking of food ...

2010-09-10T16:21:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to try a particular recipe I found on the King Arthur Flour site, and today I finally got around to it. They have lots of really scrumptious-sounding recipes there, and this one sounded really good. They're called Scone Nibbles (click the link for the recipe). Unfortunately, my grocery store was temporarily out of the mini chocolate chips the recipe calls for, so I substituted Heath English Toffee Bits, thinking they'd be pretty tasty. They are, but I think the chocolate chips would be better. Still, these little scones are easy to make, and they're just the right size for a bite or two. They'd be good with breakfast or with a cup of tea or coffee. :) The glaze will help keep them fresh, too.

Food ...

2010-09-07T17:43:00.000-07:00

Since I've been writing as many food-related posts as quilt-related posts, and since someone suggested that this might be a good idea, I've decided to add a recipe section to my blog. I won't be able to add some of the recipes I use, as they're in French. Okay, I could translate them, but the French tend to use weight for measuring, while we in the US tend to use volume. It's the difference between cups and grams, for example. I simply don't want to spend the time weighing everything and then also figuring out how much that might be in volume, so I'll only post recipes that will work easily here in the US. It will save frustration on most of our parts. ;)

I also won't be posting recipes that I've pulled from other sites and then linked to in my posts -- fair is fair, after all. Going to the links in my posts is merely a matter of a little click.

At any rate, I've now placed a link at the left (below the Labels list) to the recipes page of my blog. I hope you enjoy something there. :)

Flower Pot

2010-08-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

My quilting buddy in Phoenix ran across this pattern, and I decided it was too cute not to make one, too. It looks rather like a flower pot, which may be why that's what it's called. ;) However, it's all fabric and intended to be used as a tool caddy and thread catcher. I'm not using it for threads, since I have a bag for that on my pin cushion; but it's great for putting slightly bulkier tools inside, too. The pattern is from Aunties Two Patterns, and they certainly have some interesting patterns available!

A special block

2010-08-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

I subscribe to the Carol Doak Yahoo group, which has several thousand members. Carol has taught classes in all 50 states, as well as many foreign countries. To mark the occasion of having "hit" all 50 states, the members of her group are making her a quilt with star blocks (from her designs, of course) from each of the states. I live in Nevada, but someone else had already signed up for that state, so I signed up to do a block to represent Arizona, where I lived for most of my life before moving here. The basic star is from her book, Simply Sensational 9-Patch Stars, but I added a center block adapted from a portion of a block from 300 Paper-Pieced Quilt Blocks; that center is reminiscent of the Arizona state flag. I can hardly wait to see the finished quilt! :)

New toy

2010-08-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I haven't been doing any quilting for the past few days. In case you're now wondering why, it's because I've been playing with a new "toy". ;) My birthday was last month, and my gift was placed into my hands just this past Friday. It had to wait until our current cell phone contract had expired so we could switch to AT&T and I could have an iPhone! I'm so excited, and I've been playing with it, getting all of my "stuff" switched over from my iPod Touch to the iPhone and then learning all about the features that the Touch didn't have.

I have to say that it's really not a toy, of course. I'll be using it to stay in touch with other quilters, among other things. I just wish I knew someone else who had one of these like mine so I could try out FaceTime. But now I'm going to go work on making a couple of ringtones. ;)

Update

2010-08-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

I showed you the backpack I made for our granddaughter, but she wasn't allowed to have it quite then (parental bribery involved here ). However, last night they came over so I could give her the backpack. She'd had no idea I'd made her a backpack, and her little face just lit up! She loved it! :D

Isn't she a little doll? :)

Sidetracked briefly

2010-08-14T12:08:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know I'm supposed to be working on my Winding Ways quilt, but things sometimes pop up unexpectedly. ;) In this case, I happened to see an adorable pattern online yesterday and just couldn't resist. You see, my little granddaughter is about to start preschool later this month, and every little girl needs a backpack for her papers, her quilt, and whatever else needs to travel with her to school, doesn't she? So when I saw this pattern (Kwiksew #3687), I knew I had to get busy.

The first challenge was finding the pattern in town, but our local Hancock's had it in stock, so off I went to pick it up and find fabrics. Gabriella likes lots of colors, but one of her favorites is pink, so I decided on pink denim (blue denim just seemed so blah!) and then found a lining with little mice in tutus! This was good, since Gabriella is taking dance lessons these days. :) The lining fabric is shown in front of the backpack in the photo.

Yesterday I washed, dried and pressed the fabrics and then cut out all the pieces. This backpack went together much more quickly than I'd thought it would; I finished it just before lunchtime today! What do you think?