Pawprints

To show the process of what I have been doing since mid-June, here are the photos of my red scrappy top which was inspired by Nann Blaine Hilyard. She did scrappy pinwheels with reds and attributed her inspiration to Bonnie Hunter. I guess that makes this a second generation scrappy interpretation! LOL!
You may recall seeing this picture of the first 12 1/2" blocks to land on my design chair:

I had started out just using 2 1/2" squares cut from scraps (made when cutting for my swaps) as my leader/ender. But that cute little pile of scrappy 4-patches just grew and grew as I was working on Bonnie Hunter's mystery, Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll, (which I named Cotton Candy). I was itching to make something wonderful with the 4-patches!
Then I spotted Nann's idea of alternating pinwheels with red patches. I loved her quilt! And I had lots of reds, too. I used 4 1/2" squares of scrappy reds to assemble the 4-patches into a giant 9-patch block. I worked on other stuff, too. My goal was to make one or two of the big blocks per day until I had a total of 36 blocks. Being true scrappy, some of the lights in the 4-patches were kinda mediums. That made my first attempts at a placement layout full of errors. This was on the deck and was disturbed by breezes!

Sorry for the interruption from my helper, Raven! She believes in a big roll and stretch and yawn after her sunbath.

I finished sewing the last few blocks this week and waited for a calm, no-wind time to make my final arrangement on  my driveway.

This was done at dusk on a swelteringly muggy August 1st night. After I got all the blocks arranged the way that I wanted them, I pinned numbered slips of paper, one through six, on each of the first blocks in the far left-hand column. Then I carefully picked up each row across placing the first block on top of the next one and so on. Then I had six stacks of six block rows in order. That's what keeps me on the right track when I sew them together. Here I am picking up the stacks. Geez, it's a workout!

Then this week, I worked on sewing the blocks together into rows. I leave the little marker paper right on there as I assemble the blocks because I'm gonna NEED those for when I do the rows. In fact, I like to leave them on until I take the top to the longarmer because it helps me to orient the top for when I do borders, too.

Today, I got the center of the top sewn and pressed. Here is the picture of the top in direct sunlight with the shadow of my head! LOL! I measured the top and it is 73"X73". Too tired to do the borders today, but I'm thrilled with my progress and I love the way the quilt is coming out!

What a Clothesline SHOULD Look Like!

This is my idea of what a clothesline SHOULD look like; all neat Fat Quarters that have just been prewashed in Orvus and are now hanging out in a neat row! LOL! No men's undershirts, no bras and panties, no jeans, just FQ's, well, maybe some pretty yardage,too.

These FQ's are rather drab-looking because they are all authentic Civil War reproductions. I am preparing some of them to be cut into 5" nickels for my August 15th swap-group's deadline. If you are interested in joining, here is the link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nickelswap/
We send in sets of 5 pairs of nickels that are all the same, then we get back the same number of squares we sent, but in all different pairs. It's a great way to expand your variety and to get access to fabrics from other regions in the country. I love swapping! When my mailbox gets that big squishy envelope, it feels like Christmas! I'm gonna use some CW nickels to continue to build my pile of Bow Tie blocks from Bonnie's Cheddar Challenge. My stack of them is now up to 50 made!

 You can also see all the components of blue and neutrals, the four-patches and the Half Square Triangles, that are being made for my Blue Ridge Beauty. My whole Quilt Cave looks like a blueberry bomb exploded! And if you look at the top of the last photo, you'll see a big ole coffee can holding all of my carefully hoarded Bonnie "bonus triangles." I have no idea how many I already have there, but it is all the ones from making HST's for "Yankee Christmas" (Carolina Christmas) AND from the ongoing Sister's Choice blocks, too. My Yankee Christmas used red HST's.

The Sister's Choice blocks are using green HST's and yield a cool eight bonus HST's per block! Yippee! I keep dreaming of an Ocean Waves...

My Schlep Bag

This week I've done a lot of prewashing of lovely fabrics that are mostly all different shades of blues for my Blue Ridge Beauty, or Buckeye Beauty. I need 448 blue and neutral 4-patches and 448 blue and neutral Half Square Triangles. Whew! For me that's a tall order because I work like a snail, dawdling along, just enjoying myself. I've also poked along on the Cheddar Challenge and I'm up to 44 of those cute lil' bow tie blocks.

So today I jumped in and made the second in a pair of matching Schlep Bags.http://tinyurl.com/yjqom44 I did the first one yesterday and it took me all day to complete one. Then today, I made the next one in about an hour and a half. It was all cut out and all the instructions were nice and fresh in my mind, so it flew together!

In the picture, it looks like there is something growing out of the bottom of the bag. That is actually a nice 2 yard piece of indigo that is sitting on my design-wall chair. You can just make out the white selvedge on it. I hope to use that for the borders on my Blue Ridge Beauty if it's not too dark. Geez, it looks black here. hmm.

Anyway, I'm thrilled with the schlep bags and here is a close up of the fabrics that I used. These are not quilted bags, but they are lined and have a very strong, batting reinforced and quilted set of handles. The set will be a birthday present for my sister, Suzanne in September.

The focus fabric, the light one, is a teal and lavender floral on a very pale creamy yellow background by Sarah Morgan for Blue Hills fabrics. It is called, "Charlotte," and I just ordered it a few days ago from Thousands of Bolts.com. But the other fabrics are all from WalMart and have been in my stash for months or maybe years!

Since this pattern uses four 8-inch squares of three fabrics and a couple of 8 1/2-inch squares of the top triangles and the handles fabric, it really moves out the stash! I used a pale yellow print tone-on-tone for the lining. I pieced the whole thing with a light warm gray Aurafil thread which looked great on the quilting of the handles and on the top-stitching on the upper edge.

The other boring thing that I did today, was to fill out all the paperwork to enter my FOUR (OMG, me? four?) large bed quilts in the Belknap Mill Quilter's Guild show October 1st & 2nd. So I need to do labels and sleeves, too. everything takes me twice as long to DO as it does to think of it! LOL! I guess that just goes without sayin', right?

A Quick Diversion

One fun thing that I do for myself almost every month is to participate in an internet nickel swap group. We swap five inch pairs of squares. My June swap for florals just came in a couple of weeks ago with awesome fabrics. I liked them so much that I decided to use them for the upcoming quilted patchwork totebag workshop on August 6th. When I sent in my check, I received back a materials list that had some instructions on it too. So I got antsy and worked ahead on it last night. I made two matching panels and two four patches (for the inner pockets). I liked the look of lights alternated with the darks, most of which are black backgrounds.
For the handles, I wanted to use something that would not show everyday wear and tear, or dirt, so I went with the black with the red flowers and golden dragonflies. I have been hoarding this fabric for over a year which was when I spotted it at Keepsake Quilting in their sale area. Now this is the perfect time to use it!!!
The instructions want you to use the same fabric for the lining as the handles. But I want a very light colored fabric for inside the bag so you can SEE what's in there at the bottom!! I chose an ancient calico from the 70's from my stash. Geez, I've been a fabric-aholic for a very long time!

The supply list called for Pellon 987F fusable fleece. I special ordered it from Joann's but got 3 yards instead of the 1 1/2 yards called for in the directions. And I'm afraid to cut into it before the workshop. I'd like to make two bags; one for myself and one for the guild table at the October 2nd guild show. That is, if they come out nicely!!! Let's not get too far ahead of myself here.

Bonnie's Cheddar Challenge

With three large projects finished, (Orange Sherbert, Cotton Candy, and Celtic Cottage) I felt comfortable to enjoy the thrill of beginning a new project. What fun to join Bonnie's Cheddar Challenge from her Sister's, Oregon trip! If you missed her post, here is the link:  http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2011/07/sisters-sisters-2011-leaderender.html
Last Friday, when I was at Keepsake Quilting shop for their big Fat Quarter sale, I stumbled upon a brand new bolt of a delightful Civil War Cheddar. Mindful of the challenge and the fall swap of cheddars on my Nickelswap yahoo group, I bought three yards of it. It was full retail which damn near killed this penny-pinching yankee! Last night I got it prewashed by hand in Orvus in my bathroom sink and then out to the clothesline. I also cut out a few of the 1 1/2" tiny squares for the 2 1/2" squares that I already had ready.

This is from a collection known as "Railroad Ties" designed by Faye Burgos for Marcus Brothers. To me it looks like chicken tracks up close, but from any distance, you are hardly aware of the black figure on it.
So I sat down and in about 30 minutes, I had 10 cutie bow tie blocks pressed on the ironing board!

Those dark blocks in the upper row are a very deep indigo, not black!
I also discovered that it pays to pay attention! I goofed up on the sky blue block; see it here?

 I had to open up one wrong seam and resew it to make it right:

So I learned to not rush and lay out the four pieces to double-check their placement! But I had great fun! They all look so bright and happy-scrappy!

A Flourish For Another Finish!

On May 1st of this year, I fell in love with the mood of the "Chain of Faith" quilt by Jo Kramer for the Moda Bakeshop. Jo used an Irish Chain variation that used all scrappy backgrounds from the two Moda "Collections for a Cause" jelly rolls. A big "THANK YOU to Jo Kramer for sharing her great interpretation of this traditional design!
I wanted to make the quilt right away to use all of the $1.00 apiece Fat Quarters from the Keepsake Quilting shop April sale. I had a ball! Here I am finishing up the hand-hemming on the binding:

As you can see, I have a lot of helpers! Raven and Luau (my party dog!) are always near to encourage me to take a break to cuddle with them on THEIR futon. By the way, my tee shirt reads, "I'd be a vegetarian if BACON grew on trees!"

I told Felix, my Husband Wonderful, that this quilt would NOT have gotten hemmed without the running of our two AC window units that kept things cool enough to bear having a Warm & Natural batted quilt on my lap for three days! There goes the power bill. I swear, I have a size fourteen carbon footprint! But I wouldn't have it any other way! I'd far rather we use clean coal than to live with rolling blackouts without power.

This quilt looks better in the photographs as far as being able to "read" the single Irish chain design and the many reds are a lil' more tomato soup colored than appears here. I took some close-ups of a few of the fabrics so that you could get a sense of the cottage roses and sagey greens. The quilt is not exclusively Civil War reproduction fabrics, but there are many of them in there if you know where to look.

The last close-up is the truest of the colors. They are very warm and earthy with just enough of the cooler burgundy red to balance the mix.
On the back is the pieced warm grey flannel with the red tartan that did not get centered on the back. It's not my favorite part of the quilt, but it's okay.

The longarmer did a medium-large stipple that has very circle-like curves in a thread color called, "Cranapple!" Tracy Szanto of dreamlandmachinequilting.com did another outstanding job on the quilting! There are no puckers or gathers anywhere, despite the fact that I used two different weights of flannels on the backing. She is a real pro! Can you believe she charged me only $105? For a queen-sized 88 X 90 quilt? THANK YOU, Tracy, for keeping within my budget! I love this quilt so much that I plan on doing another one, just for fun!
Now, for those of you who think I must work fast with all these finishes, I tell you, "That's all, folks!" LOL!

Fabric Buyer's High

Today was the home store of Keepsake Quilting's fat Quarter Sale! Regular FQ's were $1.00 each as long as you bought 25 of them. I went at about 10 am and drove the 45 minutes to Center Harbor, New Hampshire. I am so lucky to have this quilter's mecca right in my own backyard! I had an absolute field day shopping for fat quarters. I got quite a few that were Civil War selections. Batiks were $1.00 each for 20, but I am not ready to do my batik quilt right now, so I passed on those.
I took my almost-finished quilt, "Celtic Cottage," with me to audition fabrics for a binding. I shopped my stash first, of course, but nothing really looked quite right.
Celtic Cottage is turning out to be a comedy of errors! First, I cheaped-out by not purchasing 3 yards of a really good-looking burgundy red to make a consistant red in this single Irish Chain variation. The scrappy reds that I used instead are nice but lose definition in all the scrappy background. All the fabric came from the April Keepsake Quilter's FQ's sale. I'm really glad that I used it right away when it was "fresh!" I have been so happy with this quilt's shabby-chic cottage look. Lots of florals, lots of tomato soup-colored roses, lots of warm greens, and quite a few Civil War pinks and browns. Somehow, I love it!

But it came back from the longarmer's with a disappointment for me. I love the front of the quilt! I love the very simple curvy-linear circular stippling! I love the Warm & Natural batting! But I must have not made myself clear enough about wanting the pieced flannel backing centered down the middle of the quilt. So the backing is rather lop-sided looking with a wide medium gray flannel swath, then a wide red flannel Stuart tartan plaid swath, then a narrow swath of the gray flannel again. I have said nothing to the longarmer because what's done is done, and there is no such thing as a perfect quilt! LOL!
Now I have found a beautiful Civil War madder-toned print for the binding and I already have it prewashed and hanging on my clothesline. As soon as I get it on the quilt, I promise you more pictures!

Hot Weather Fare

Middle Eastern Delight Pita-Pocket Sandwiches

Cut your pitas across the circle to make pockets and then spread the bottom inside layer generously with your favorite hummus. Next heap in a layer of taboule salad. Top it off by placing two folded slices of Lebanon Balogna inside. They are delicious, but wear a bib!

If you are choosing a vegetarian plan, just leave off the balogna. This sandwich was my own invention and we love it in hot weather!

My Husband Wonderful came up with this idea today for a hot weather luncheon salad:

One head of cooked & chilled cauliflower, one can of pitted black olives, one can of artichoke bottoms, about 1/4 of a pound of Genoa salami, julienned, all tossed with one packet of the made-up Good Seasons Italian dressing. Again, if you're vegan, just drop the salami. Enjoy it well chilled from an hour in the refrigerator to let the flavors marry.