You're Dragging Me Down, Kid.

 

Wednesday.  Hump Day. The day that we all share our W.I.P.'s. I have been working on my goal list from Monday, and am very happy to report that I can cross one item off.  I worked at B and B Quilts in Buda last night, helping with the plans for a quilt in an upcoming shop hop.  I have stalled on that because I need to put EQ7 on my new computer from my old one, before I can tackle any plans for that.  Tonight?  I hope to get the border pieces cut on that baby quilt today. Maybe I can start cutting on the backing for the quilt for my brother. 

 

Here is a new little project for me this week as well:

 

 

My dear, sweet, loving daughter, who is enjoying age 3, thought it would be helpful to cut into one of my grannie square blocks that a friend made in a block exchange.  Nice.  At least it wasn't one of my applique blocks...ha, ha!!!  What the hell is applique?!  I don't get a whole lot of time to do that anymore because of my dear, sweet, loving daughter...I hope to get that fixed today.



 

 

I got that block fixed that was on my goal list. I had made the outer pieces to this block scrappy, when it was supposed to be matchy-matchy in each corner, so I got out my extensive seam ripper collection and went to town on it.  Luckily, these are all fabrics that I currently have in my own stash, in the event that McKenna would like to help me out again.  Looking forward to it.

 

...and Just So You Know:  When you learn that something is poisonous, it does not necessarily mean that it will kill you.  It may just make you terribly ill. (YAY!).  So, poisonous can mean 'deadly', but it can also just simply make you sick.  I have thus concluded that children are poisonous.





nose to the grind

 

 

Okay everyone.  I am about to tell you no more than 3 things that are in my circle of interest.  'They' say that a person cannot focus on more than 3 things at once, and usually begin to lose interest after the third topic in a discussion. 

1. I just finished helping out at QuiltCon here in Austin. The hard part about being local is that you don't get to go back to your hotel room at the end of the day.  You get to go home to your normal grind.  Kids still need to do homework, and be fed, and bathed, you need to pull a bean or two out of noses.  These things don't happen when your out of town.  When you get back home from being in another city, your children welcome you with open arms, and your husband tells you how simple everything was, and how he cannot understand why you have so much drama when you are watching them. I tell him it is because of the beans.  I put them in the top shelf before I left...and now he is totally confused.  But I live in Austin, so the bean jar is on the bottom shelf, ready for action.

I did get to meet Elizabeth Hartman, Denyse Schmidt, Heather Ross, and Alexia Abegg. They were all wonderfully sweet girls.  I now know that I will have to buy the book 'Liberty Love', 'Heather Ross Prints' and a few patterns.  Denyse Schmidt's new fabric line 'Shelbourne Falls' is so amazing that I will have to cut our credit card in half today, so that I am not tempted to do something to cause a divorce.

I bought another machine.  One that I will have to sell some of my stash to make up for the missing money from the savings account (VVBG).  Or I will have to make some totally awesome pillows or mini quilts to sell...or start an ETSY shop, or become a CEO of a very stupid company. I already own a Janome Memory Craft 6600, and will never, never part with it; but it is a little heavy to lug around to bee meetings, retreats, and classes that I teach.  I love the heaviness of it for home use, as it is a stable machine that doesn't bounce around when you put that pedal to the floor.  So I got a show machine from Janome: 3160 QDC. Great, great price and it is lightweight. I will now have a decent back-up machine for when my 6600 is being serviced. Here she is:

 

well, one exactly like it anyway. It has all of the stitches I need to teach my machine applique classes, and lots of 'stuff'.  So I will be happy when it arrives.

more on Quilt Con later this week...

2.  I have been working diligently on a project for a friend of mine in Flickr land.  Her name is Beca and she is an amazing friend.  We decided to do an exchange of hand made yummy things, and she sent hers on time (the nerve!) So I have had huge amounts of guilt trying to get hers done.  I am not rushing so fast that I do a terrible job, but I am not going so slow either.  I took her project with me to QuiltCon, and one of the magazine companies is interested in doing a pattern for it in one of their publications.  Which means that even if I get it done tonight, they would likely want me to mail it to them so that they can keep it for a long, long while.  I will now either have to hustle to make a copy for Beca or the magazine.  I am pretty sure Beca comes first.  I can't wait to show pictures of that, but it is a surprise!

3.  Goals of the week: get a block fixed that is haunting me right now...awaiting a seam ripper.  Dammit.  I would also like to get a backing done for another quilt for my brother so that I can get it sent off to a long-arm quilter. Finally, I need to put a border on another quilt for a friend's baby.  He outside of the womb, so I need to hustle on that too...oh, and finish binding on a quilt for my sister. Can I do it?

random thought of the day:

'Dammit, I'm mad' spelled backwards is...

Good Time to Change Habits

Connor will be starting 1st grade in a few days.  In the chaos, I managed to get his hair cut by someone other than his 2 year old sister.  I was able to pick up all of his school supplies in one fell swoop.  I bought 4 new shirts for him (all on clearance!).  We even managed to get new shoes for him.  Anything that you can purchase while shopping with small children deserves a huge amount of recognition.  One of these days, at a guild show and tell, I am going to stand up and say "I refused to buy candy for the kids in the checkout line at the grocery store this week.'' instead of showing a quilt...I bet I get a standing ovation.

I remember thinking when he finished school this last spring, that I would be able to get some things done now that I don't have to get up early to get him off to school. HILARIOUS!  Now I am thinking that it would be nice to get some stuff done now that I will be getting up early to get him off to school. My brain fell out when I was a small child, you know, the part of the brain that controls reason.  So now I have to get by with what I have left up there. 

I am going to go take a shower. 

Fabric Hibernation

Well, I have really had a 'come to Jesus' meeting with myself in the past few weeks.  I spent crazy amounts of money on fabric.  Fabric that, in all fairness, I have been waiting on for arrival.  They all came out at the same time and dented the hell out of the (our) pocketbook.  I actually am quite ashamed of it, and glad that I am; otherwise, I would turn into someone I really hope to never meet.  So, I will be paying very close attention to what I am spending my money on in the next few months, so that I (we) can catch back up again.  I am not saying that I won't be cuddling any new fabrics, because I did pre-order some things that will start showing up soon....but I really need to start cuddling finished blocks, or a quilted 'something or other'.

The remainder of July, and all of August will be spent in non-shopping mode.  I will be getting a spectacular amount of things done in the sewing room (like cleaning it), sewing projects that I would like to get the hell out of there (for a change), really making an attempt at tutorials...(I would do fancy video ones someday if anyone out there has some tips for me; but for now, pictures will do the trick), I have designed some patterns, tested them, and completed all text directions, but I need to figure out how to build the cute little diagrams that the professionals use.  I have been putting that off because...I have been too busy melting the credit card.  I have some patterns that I still need to test and maybe submit to a few periodicals.  I might even have time to feed and bathe my children...or do laundry.  But not both.

Living 'skinny', I thought that I might have to put the family on a ramen dinner diet for a while, but that would not be fair to them.  What I did do, is attack the recipe card box that mom gave to me years ago.  We grew up very simply and ate very well.  I remember this recipe being a very healthy, very inexpensive one, and surprisingly delicious:

Lentil Casserole

1 cup lentils (remove stones if needed)

3 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup brown rice

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

1 cup grated cheddar cheese

Combine all ingredients except cheese in casserole dish.  Cover and cook at 300 degrees for an hour.  Sprinkle cheese on top, return to oven without cover and cook for 20 more minutes.

the great thing about this recipe is that all of your protein and carbs are right there, so all you have to do is add a side salad, green vegetable, and/or dinner roll.  Do any of you have low-cost recipes to share?  Because there is this Chicopee line that I have been eying.

The Big 10 Inch Rules

The rules:

This swap is for 10 inch square charms of fabric in masculine prints.  Each sign-up person will cut 32 squares out of 2.333 yards (or 2.5 if you like to occasionally crooked cut).  You should be able to get 4 squares from each width of fabric.  

The fabrics that we are looking for can be geometric, large or small prints, tone on tones, or medium to dark in color.   They are muddy, earth tone-type fabrics.  They can have minimal amounts of white or cream on them as long as the fabric mostly reads a medium to dark, muddy color.  Please do not use prints that are light, or have a light background.  Email me if you have any questions on this.  No florals. No feminine prints.  No theme fabrics (such as fishing, hunting, hobbys, sports, etc).  No solids.  No bright colors. (no bright reds, bright blues, bright yellows, or bright oranges) These colors are fine as long as they are a subdued earth-tone version. No batiks.

Here are some examples of lines that have great prints, but please don’t limit yourself to these.  I just wanted to provide an idea:  -Hope Valley (the greens and grays), Painters Canvas, Gatsby, Modern Meadow (think Timber colors), Woodgrains by Joel Dewberry, Curious Nature by David Butler, Michael millers zen garden (blenders), Arnolds Attic, Neutral Territory (the non florals),….

*Yes! Medium to Dark earth-tone prints, such as slate, gray, brown, brick, ocre, terra cotta, dark mustard, denim, smoke blue, ...you get the idea

Fabrics should be 100% cotton. Use quilt store quality fabric (no JoAnn’s or Walmart fabrics)  I say this, but I think that the DS Quilts line at JoAnn is fine, unless anyone raises a stink about it.  Please let me know if this would bother you to receive. Do not prewash, but ironing is okay; in fact, please iron if wrinkles are present.  When cutting 10 inch squares, please do not include selvages.

You will need to have a flickr account to join so that you can post pictures of your fabric choice(s).  This is done to avoid duplicate fabrics.

I will post a sign up discussion page, and a mailing instructions page in the flickr group.

Mail date is June 15^th.  

Please pass this information on to anyone who you may think would want to join!

Here is the Flickr group page:   http://www.flickr.com/groups/big-ten-inch-swap/

Feel free to join for this and future 10 inch swaps. 

Well, I am hosting my first charm swap.  I think that the only thing hard about this for me will be learning how to make a button, linking a html code to the button, and (this part is the hardest) making sure that the link actually works.  So, if things look a little shaky the first day or two, please, either be extremely patient with me as I am self taught, or kindly tell me what the hell it is I am doing wrong :).  The easy part is laying down the rules and guidelines, and being in charge of receiving the fabrics, sorting, then mailing them back out again.  I say this is easy, because I am an optimist.  I am pretty sure that life has given me much larger hurdles than this silly little swap can send my way.  So I am ready, and willing, to take those bulls horns and give 'em a shake.

Info on the actual swap will come soon on the next post.  Here is a teaser:

Planning, Working, Coughing, etc.

I missed a few things on my list of stuff to do. Buy cough medicine, Kleenex, body ache relief, and 2 pet squirrels for the kids, to keep them busy. I am not fully sick yet. My chest hurts from the fluid that is coating my lungs, and my throat feels raw, so I know that I am in store for one hellova sick session. The last time that I felt like this, I ended up with walking pneumonia and a finger shake from my doctor. Some times I throw caution to the wind as far as my health goes...and sometimes I wake up thinking I have every form of sickness and disease know to woman. So I am all over the place on this concern level of health. Maybe if I just ignore it, it will go away. :)

I am going to get this list done if it kills me, and it just might, you never know. I finished the flying geese border on the challenge quilt, but I still need to plan the next border around the geese. Here is how that one is looking so far:
I don't remember if I explained this one yet or not, but this is the short story. It is a challenge quilt (one that I already missed the due date on) where each person picked out an orphan block from an unknown project, yours or elsewhere. You then have to come up with a design using that block to make a small quilt. This is the block that I got, before I started the project:
It is an antique block from somewhere in France. I decided to use my turn-of-the-century fabrics to do this little quilt project. So far, I have yet to use any reproductions, but I may have to, so that I can finish the project. I am thinking of doing an applique border next, so maybe a shirting background.

as far as the other projects on my list, flowers are being appliqued, and I have been working on the needle case (pictures to come on these) and maybe tonight I can work on the borders on Simply Charmed. That is the plan. The plan does involve codeine cough syrup. The borders will look straight tonight, if not tomorrow.