November | 2008 | Mrs. Schmenkman Quilts

Archive for November, 2008

Side dishes

November 26, 2008 at 8:28 pm · Filed under Everyday Things

I meant to sew today but have been making Thanksgiving side dishes instead.

I took some of these:

Mixed them with some of these:

And accidently put the raisins and pecans in at the same time. ::sigh::

Then I made a port wine cheese ball, substituting locally-made mead for port. Oh, this is going to be good! Um, but it’s actually a spread and not a ball over here… ::sigh::

Tomorrow, I have to deal with some of these:

::SIGH::

But Lily has promised to fly over and deal with these for me. Right?

For now, I will nibble on the homemade truffles The Other Mrs. Schmenkman dropped off earlier. When she returns later today, she may find me in a chocolate coma.

Oops, this one fell on the counter. That means I have to eat it. If only there was Smell-ernet. Smells like CHOCOLATE! ::sigh::

May you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Permalink Comments (6)

Simmer down now

November 25, 2008 at 10:01 pm · Filed under Books, Fabric, Quilts

I would imagine that Katy could hear me squealing across the pond. I went to the post office bright and early to mail my doll quilt swap quilt. And then I dropped an unread due-today book in the library drop box (!). And then I went to school for a stimulating hour and a half of checking math homework. I remembered to bring some hot coffee along. And then I came home to see a package sent via Royal Mail. It just sounds more grand, doesn’t it? And then I squealed really loudly. I only bothered the dogs (that’s a little taste of payback, dogs!).

Hmm, should I tear into it right away? Or delay the gratification–this might be the only exceptional thing to happen today…. Well, shoot. I had to report in that I had mailed my quilt, so I should be efficient and send along the report that I had received a quilt in the same note. Makes sense to me!

Here is the treasure that Katy sent:

Isn’t it great?!?!!!! Kaffe-y goodness surrounded by yummy solids. I’m in love with the continuous swirl quilting also! Not an easy feat! That tiny flange of cobalt is the perfect frame and that’s what is on the back too. I wonder if she knew I was on a cobalt Kaffe hunt last week? I love it!!

But that’s not all, folks! Katy has single-handedly oc-tupled my Liberty “collection”:

I am concerned that she might have risked her own personal safety to acquire some of this after reading her recent love of my life post! I dare say I get it–these are gorgeous, silky and wonderful! I’m getting ideas already!

Thank you so very much, Katy!!! What an utter bright spot in this dreary week!!!! I hope I remember to sign up for the next doll quilt swap round, whenever that happens. It was SUCH fun to give and to receive!!

The day continued on a bright path. While I was dropping off dear daughter’s unread due-today library book (I point this out because she is starting some sort of trend that I don’t quite get), one of the librarian’s called out that she had saved a box of quilting books for me. I love librarians, generally speaking:

A little perusal for later, just me and my box.

A tiny bit of wedgie-circle sewing today. This matches the pink economy patch blocks. I haven’t decided if they will go together somehow or not…to be continued:

With that, I’d better feed the dogs. They appear to have passed out from starvation or excitement…a likely story…

Permalink Comments (10)

You asked for it

November 24, 2008 at 10:03 pm · Filed under Fabric

Anita wants to see your Square Bags.

When she first showed her square bag, I recognized it as an awesome knitting bag because it sits up much like the knit shop plastic (?) bag I drag around with me. I will certainly continue to use such a bag on grungier surfaces, but when you can have something useful and pretty, hey, why not? So I giddily anticipated Anita’s generous tutorial.

Here is one of the two bags I made this weekend:

The bottom of it doesn’t look as crummy as the picture makes it appear. I’ve photographed the bags 100 times. The first time was at night. And today we have GREY and yuck once again. The second bag looks exactly like this one. I am smitten by this fabric combination.

I don’t generally get much sewing done on the weekends. I work weekends and usually don’t want to dig out my sewing room after I’ve been on my feet all day. All right, all right, I’m lazy about that.

So, I am thrilled that I made TWO square bags AND an apron:

Now, I was quickly looking at Anna Maria Horner’s Garden Party Flickr pool the other day and saw a quilt that Bari J. is working on–gorgeous, by the way. So, then I wandered over to Bari J.’s blog to read about her quilt and perhaps run into some of her uber-gorgeous handbags, virtually speaking. But then I saw her apron tutorial. OH MY, what pretty fabric combinations! OH MY! Then I wandered back to look at more of her Flickr photos. Oh MY. In her apron tutorial, I read her advice on picking fabrics. After a while, some circuit in my brain seemed to be re-igniting. OH my! I could barely sleep and I couldn’t stop thinking about fabric combinations for any number of things. I have come away totally re-invigorated and re-inspired and somehow re-emboldened. It feels like my definition of what colors and prints look good together has found a new center or something. I don’t feel like I’ve been afraid of color and prints, but this feels kind of fresh and new to me… Let’s see where this takes us. Bari J.’s “keeping it real” sewing advice really made me think about what I was doing as I was making the apron. Somehow I still managed to mess up the waist band. That was a different keeping it real moment.

Thanks for two more great tutorials, Anita and Bari J.!!

It felt like a lively weekend even though it was comprised of much of the weekend routine–just with added gusto and sewing. I hope your weekend was brilliant!

Permalink Comments (6)

I’m your biggest fan

November 20, 2008 at 8:14 pm · Filed under Books, Dogs!, Everyday Things, Fabric, Great Quilt Patterns, Quilts, Tools

As I was waxing lyrical in my head about how luminous the green is in this Kaffe spot:

(I swear it is the only thing close to sustained sunshine we will be getting around here for a while.)

the mail man knocked on the door. He didn’t need to knock because the Amalgamated House Bear Society Auxiliary 253 had already announced his arrival (having previously announced the arrival of the wind blowing, a car driving by, a random member of the public walking by, and so on). I went to the door. Oh, he was bearing gifts today! I think I love you, Mr. Mail Man. Ahem.

Yippee, the beautiful Kaffe totes from Glorious Color:

Gorgeous, no??? Very reasonably priced, IMHO.

And, wait for it:

Look! Dividers for your breakables. I had to go next door to borrow a bottle of wine for demonstration purposes. What did you say? Did you say that I had to go next door to borrow an UNOPENED bottle of wine???

Well, between the Fat Sacks and the Kaffe tote, I think the case can be made for carrying the groceries home in a pretty way!

But that’s not all that was in the package:

ACK. This is the Heart Attack Fat Quarter Pack. It is most certainly blog-worthy. This would be the ultra-luscious Kirman print from Kaffe’s most recent fabrics. Wouldn’t these be pretty as bandboxes?? Just when I think I know which color I like best, I look at another one and then I can’t decide. I don’t know, I just feel lucky we have such beautiful fabrics to play with. Once upon a time, I could remember all the names of Kaffe’s prints, but now there are so many, I’m losing track. That’s how lucky we are. Or that’s how bad my memory is getting…

So, what I was working on when the mail came:

Liza’s Economy Blue Patch Quilt from Country Garden Quilts.

However, mine will be pink:

Two of these will surround the larger blocks. I’ll have to decide which red to use:

Yep, this is certainly brightening things up around here!

And I finished the hand quilting on the doll dress quilt and am stitching down the binding. Then to add the buttons and a label and put that quilt in the mail. I haven’t done that much hand quilting in years, as you may know. While it felt like it was taking forever and a day to get that small piece done, I believe there may be more hand quilting in my future.

To that end, I tracked down some pretty tools that were hiding out around here:

A girl will certainly be motivated to hand quilt if she knows she can use her “Sting” scissors and her thimble with stars. Sounds like a soup.

May you find a bright spot in a November day.

Permalink Comments (7)

Reflections on hand quilting

November 19, 2008 at 6:14 pm · Filed under Quilts

Overheard at the quilting bee:

“Dude! Why does this take so long?”

Permalink Comments (7)

New day, new project

November 17, 2008 at 8:00 pm · Filed under Books, Fabric, Quilts

What’s a girl to do when she finds a priority mail box on her front porch and sees that it actually should have gone to her next door neighbor? I mean, how sad is that on top of the snow and grey weather?? Well, she should start a new project to cheer herself up, don’t you think?

Hmm, which project from the new Kaffe book do we have here?

My pile is not as pretty as Anita’s:

In the who moved my cheese department and further evidence that my stash is dysfunctional, there would be greater progress on this had I not spent a good part of the afternoon in the basement hunting for some shades of Roman glass and paperweight. Methinks I will have to give in and order what I need.

Which reminds me, did you see the new tote bag over at Glorious Color??

Oh, hey, the sun’s out for a minute, I’d better go soak up some vitamin D before it disappears again!

Permalink Comments (7)

You need a Fat Sack

November 14, 2008 at 7:27 pm · Filed under Fabric, Great Quilt Patterns

Yes, you do. You need to go over to Terry Atkinson’s blog and get the directions to make your very own Fat Sack. Special thanks to Miss Pamkittymorning for linking to Terry’s blog the other day. My life is not complete without my Fat Sack. And I just like saying Fat Sack. In my head, there is a Fat Sack song. The tune is the same as for Love Shack. I don’t have ALL the words figured out yet. Just the Fat Sack, baby, Fat Sack part.

I am in awe of well designed useful things and this sack is in that category because your stuff won’t fall over and doesn’t have to be packed all messy. I’m thinking people are getting these for Christmas.

I will admit that when I sewed the side seams and turned the bag right side out, I was dubious and kept checking the directions to see what I did wrong (always my first assumption…). I held out hope, cut a piece of leftover foam core for the bottom and, voila, a Fat Sack was born. By the way, you should see some of the GENIUS car marketing ideas on the leftover foam core around here. Genius, I tell you!

Oop, better skeedaddle and try to finish my second Fat Sack before the trip to the bus stop. My second one isn’t going to be quite this pretty. I ran out of fabric for the second handle. Little Miss Matched Handles Fat Sack.

Thanks, Terry!!

Permalink Comments (10)

Take me to your tiny buttons

November 12, 2008 at 7:47 pm · Filed under Everyday Things, Fabric, Great Quilt Patterns, Quilts

I stopped at a dangerous nearby fabric store yesterday. I knew they would have the tiny buttons I wanted for the Playing Dress-up dresses.

Which they did.

I accidently looked at their cotton fabrics. Well, they put them right on top of a shelving unit and are at eye level even from afar. I couldn’t help but see them.

DARN IT! And they have the panthers in my favorite color only. Isn’t that some sort of a sign?!?

I only looked at the Liberty of London. And the ribbons and trims. See. I can behave occasionally.

You can see that I’m still hand quilting the dresses.

Not that I mind, but this is taking up precious daylight hours. While it is small and portable, the lighting in the places in which I seem to be waiting around these days is less than acceptable for my eyes. Do you think the YMCA would mind installing some nice bright natural light for those of us who need to hand quilt instead of walking briskly around the track??? I’m sure they’ll get right on that. I hold out no hope for the church basement in which piano lessons are administered.

BUT, speaking of getting right on things. Did you see the great storage boxes over at Joanna’s place? My boss uses these boxes for projects and I’d been thinking since I saw hers that I needed to get me some of those. Well, Joanna got some at Xpedx. Hey, I have an Xpedx store nearby. Nope, they don’t carry them in the store. So, I came home and ordered some from the Xpedx web site. Cheap, super cheap and reasonable shipping. OK, done.

Today, the dogs sounded the UPS truck alarm (why do dogs hate the UPS man???? or is it just the truck?). Look what showed up:

Indeed they were packed with care:

Did I mention that I ordered them yesterday? Afternoon? And they arrived today? Via Ground shipping? Gotta love that kind of service. The economy may be in the dumps, but we can certainly deliver office supplies to storage-deprived quilters! Yes, we can!

What else? Oh, working on a work-related medallion center:

These are some of my best Y seams ever. Notice I said some because that person up in the upper right can’t get with the program. I was quite happy having tried a new-to-me construction approach. I put the units together slightly differently than I usually do. Nothing fancy or new, really, it just worked better for me to have the 90 degree angles on top while sewing. Maybe that made me stop sewing at a better place. Whatever, it worked for me.

Finally, I’m still doing the knitting on the side thing. I started this project on Friday night and can’t seem to put this project down. It is a Stegosaurus Noro Cowl designed by Maryse Roudier.

If you have any knitting ability whatsoever, you can make this. Trust me! This is also not a portable project FOR ME because I have to have my little yarn balls laid out in a certain order so I don’t get them twisted, but once you figure out what works best for you, you’re golden. You can even watch junky TV while knitting it. Won’t this impress your loved ones at the holidays?? This is definitely one of those squeal-y what will happen next projects. It is a good thing I am easily amused.

Permalink Comments (11)

Losing it

November 7, 2008 at 10:43 pm · Filed under Everyday Things, Whining

We all know I’m losing “it.” But why did I have to lose my 18 degree wedge ruler too? How could this happen? OK, I know how this happens around here in the Kingdom of Anti-organization (it’s not that I’m opposed to organization…). Gee, though, that ruler was in heavy rotation and I always knew where it was. I had so cleverly placed the wedge and its circle in a plastic zip-loc bag–TOGETHER. I could put my hands on it in seconds. And now it’s missing.

Yes, just when I need it. I’m trying not to get wrapped up in the endless loop of looking again and again in the same places until it shows up. I’m trying to be productive and carry on without it (until I need the wedge part, that is)…but you know how these things bug the brain. I’m sure that it got wedged (ha!) in a pile somewhere and I can’t hear its tiny voice crying out to me (see, definitely losing it).

OK, I’m going to go focus on some roasting vegetables and try to get on with my life…for now.

May your weekend be filled with finding things and not losing them–or it!

EDITED TO ADD: Cyndi cast a magic spell and I FOUND IT, well, I found the wedge ruler in my 20 pound tote bag. Thanks, Cyndi!

Permalink Comments (6)

My biases

November 6, 2008 at 8:03 pm · Filed under Books, Fabric, Great Quilt Patterns, Quilts

Today I am going to confess a prejudice I have. It is my prejudice against rectangles that are turned into any kind of triangles. When I see a pattern that uses these, I normally run in the other direction. I don’t know what it is, but they are impossible for me to perfect.

Come on, a half square triangle is full of fudge factor. A finished block can be over cut and then cut down to perfection. Not so with the half rectangle triangle block (see, it’s even hard to say). It can’t be over cut and then trimmed because of those ephemeral points…one bad cut to one side and you’ve lost a point that you don’t yet know about. The voice of experience.

I figure there must be someone somewhere who knows the secret to this. But I can’t figure it out.

In attempt to fight my prejudice, I went ahead and started the Modern Day Diamonds pattern from Heather Mulder Peterson’s Livin’ Large book.

Just because it is so striking. I have a small pile of reject blocks (too small one way or another) and a slightly larger pile of acceptable blocks.

Slow and steady. I’m hoping the connecting up corner triangles (made out of SQUARES, thank you very much!) will hide some mis-steps. As usual, we live in hope, this time of appropriate amounts of seam allowance in just the right places to make the pointed areas pointy and to have everything match up. Or I will have wreck-tangles and unhappy diamonds.

To achieve moments of calm, I have been hand quilting the doll dresses. Certainly not perfection, but I love the texture.