Archive for December, 2008

Have yourself a merry little Christmas

December 23, 2008 at 2:59 pm · Filed under Everyday Things

xmasguy

Presents are wrapped. Sewing is done (-ish).  And now we are engaged in The Great Debate–which winter weather scenario is preferable for driving purposes? It looks like TODAY is the winner. So for the next few hours, we’ll be packing (do I really have to pack meds for the dog…um, after picking up her refills…) and hoping that I didn’t forget anything (one year, it was the presents, another year, my winter coat–details, details).

I did have the time and foresight last night to tidy up the massive sewing room dumping ground. Ahhh….at least that won’t be awful to come home to.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

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Things are pretty sweet around here

December 17, 2008 at 7:49 pm · Filed under Books, Everyday Things, Fabric, Great Quilt Patterns, Quilts

Despite the fact that I have run out of red AND green sugar, life is sweet.

cookies

I’ve been avoiding holiday finishes:

stillnothumbs

See, still not a thumb in sight. And I’m missing one of the teacher’s hands entirely.

Instead of finishing these, I decided to make Nanette’s Cascading Baby Blocks and Stripes quilt from the Winter 2008 Fons & Porter’s Baby Quilts:

baby-blocks

Yes, nice and wavy because it’s laying on a floofy down comforter… It is for the sake of playing with fabric. I also wanted to be able to perhaps take it along on holiday travels to do some hand quilting. Priorities! I’m afraid planning for car trips and down time trumps the to do list every time. I enjoyed Nanette’s pattern and think it could be really fun to play with lots of different color schemes or themes. Fun, fun!

Also making things sweet around here:

embsantas

I won these embroidered Santas from Michelle! She included some cute Christmas fabric and I think I know what I’m going to do with these. Aren’t they cute?

This guy might be my favorite:

drinkingsanta

Crack me up! Thanks so much, Michelle!

And, as if she hadn’t indulged me enough, Katy sent some more yummy Liberty!

moreliberty

Pretty! I think these may have to join their mates in some small wedgie circles. Thanks, SO much, Katy! I’m gonna have to do something nice for that girl!

In the Department of Self-Indulgence (a bustling facility, no doubt…), there were a few could not resists that made the tedious online hunt for various holiday gifts bearable. I know, I know, better than the mall. I don’t think the desktop computer has enough RAM for holiday shopping. Anyhoo,

vfloss

Some pretty Valdani flosses. Don’t they just look nice in their little box?

Wouldn’t the flosses look nice somehow incorporated with Amy Butler quilting solids?? I really like these colors.

absolids

kaffeinjapan

Yes, I had to get it. The bad news? It appears there is another volume. This is a great book filled with crisp photos. The projects are home accessories, quilts, aprons, slippers, etc. Lovely stuff!

OK, those chocolate covered pretzels aren’t going to peel themselves off the waxed paper. I hope none of them jumps into my mouth. I think I’ve had enough sugar for today.

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What’d ya do to it?

December 12, 2008 at 10:10 pm · Filed under Everyday Things, Fabric, Great Quilt Patterns, Quilts

Not satisfied with that Twinkle quilt layout from yesterday. Not satisfied at all. The original quilt had lots of different colors. Trying to over-think it, I wanted to add an organizing color scheme that ended up as large rectangles of vast boredom. I loved the fabrics. Separately. Together, well, yawn.

So, here is yesterday’s again:

twinkle2

And today:

twinklepicnik

Smaller areas, four different sizes of fabric pieces in each block. Oh, the fretting. I thought and thought and messed around and came very close to trying to figure a way to insert friendship stars between the blocks. Without adding sashing. For a worrisome amount of time, that actually seemed do-able.

Ultimately, I cut the blocks down from 14 1/2″ to 12 1/2″. I put the ruler in a corner so that the old block center was off-set from the center after the cut. Half the blocks have a full size blue-green rectangle in one corner and half the blocks have a full-size pink-orange rectangle in one corner. So now the stars are slightly off-set horizontally and vertically.

There, that’s better. Moving on.

Can you resist?

charm1

No.

charm21

No, you can’t.

charm31

Not a chance.

charm51

Really. Superbuzzy 5″ charm packs! Get. Out! And I’m seeing some lovely fat quarter packs over there. And some interesting looking new books.

While at Superbuzzy’s site just now, checking to make sure they still have charm packs before I posted here (you’re welcome), I noticed that I missed one charm pack. Rectified. And that they have a Japanese book of projects using KAFFE fabric.

I learned of the Superbuzzy charm packs from a tweet from TrueUp. Twitter is very handy for such great breaking news. And then there’s me tweeting on about the tedium of daily life. Ahem. Are you on Twitter? I’ve been toying with starting a quilt group there. But, um, I’m not quite sure how that would work. I should probably figure that out first.

Finally, in the Copycat Dept., I had to get a couple of fat quarters:

chairfab1

After seeing these at LucyEllen’s blog, I had to get them. So very pretttttty! From Scarlet Fig.

OK, have a good weekend, everyone!

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One, please

December 11, 2008 at 10:50 pm · Filed under Tools

Just in time for holiday giving…

I’m giving a yodel out to Alexis Hammack who works in public relations with Bernina. She emailed to let me know that the new Bernina 830 is in stores now! Thanks, Alexis!

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It’ll end in tears

December 11, 2008 at 9:19 pm · Filed under Everyday Things, Fabric, Great Quilt Patterns, Quilts

I just like saying that. I was thinking of it today as I was chopping the second of two large onions with tears streaming down my face. For some reason, other than the need to eat, I have been cooking a lot of new things lately. I’m either a) bored with what we regularly eat or b) unable to remember what kinds of things we ate last winter. And it’s kind of liking wanting new fabric, I guess. I certainly HAVE fabric and recipes, but they aren’t nearly as exciting as NEW fabric and recipes.

Of course, I’m often too lazy to work through the vast collection of recipes in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. That book loses me at the first cross-referenced component every time. Much easier to hunt up one start to finish recipe online.

Mind if I share some of our recent favorites (some subset of us likes some recipes more than others)? OK.

Nigella’s Butternut Squash with Pecans and Blue Cheese
Port Wine Blue Cheese Ball (we are fortunate to have a local meadery, so I subbed mead for port)
Mario’s Marinated Butternut Squash (YUM!)
Roasted Edamame Salad
Polenta Casserole with Fontina and Tomato Sauce
Lemon-Rosemary Cookies (I subbed dried lavender for the rosemary)
Potato Chickpea Curry (we’re having this tonight)
Carmelized Onion Dip
Spicy Potato Tacos

Do you know what this means? This means I have to keep up my vigorous walking program all winter long is what this means. But when I break my hip after I slip on some ice on a frozen sidewalk, I’m gonna be in trouble and need new pants!

Still no finishing of any quilting projects. I’m in plugging along mode.

Finished all of the Twinkle blocks today:

twinkle

I am not in love with this. Still working on the layout. It is decidedly large. Too large to lay out on the bed. If I don’t love it, it might end up smaller than the pattern indicates. I don’t know. It’s just kind of boring. Maybe I will like it better if I play some more with where the darks and lights land. You know how that game goes–on and on. Move one block and then two other blocks with the same fabrics are close to each other. Move that block back and move another one. And then another two of the same fabrics are next to each other. We shall see.

This just in from the Shoulda Bought More Dept.:

greenfab

Heavy weight Michael Miller. Half a yard? What was I thinking?

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Freda’s Hive blog anniversary

December 8, 2008 at 1:25 pm · Filed under Everyday Things

Nanette and daughters are celebrating their one year blog anniversary this week! You’ll want to run over and wish them well and enter the give-away. Don’t you just love Freda’s Hive??!! I do!

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The Mrs. Schmenkman Fragments

December 5, 2008 at 5:43 pm · Filed under Fabric, Quilts

or “A Lack of Focus,”

or “Short Attention Span Theatre,”

or “I Think I Should Finish SOMETHING.”

We’re not lacking in parts of projects over here.

For your enjoyment (or shock and horror), things I have worked on this week.

More of this:

pinks

Finished the “hand” part of some fingerless mitts. Too chicken to start the thumbs. This is the practice pair, the blue will be a teacher gift when I get over my fear of thumbs and move on:

thumbs1

Wanted to make another one of these:

gnomepaper

But played with some Kaffe-Liberty wedges instead (for the upcoming Ode to the Wedge):

wedgestart

Can’t waste the Liberty, so there is more to do (what these will ultimately become, I don’t know):

wedgeparts

Got sideswiped by a new pattern and some new fabric:

twinkleparts

Having a hard time deciding on color layout for this one as I have pink-orange and blue-green block parts.

However, this is generating leftovers that will need to be attended to (aka not lost…):

twinkleleftovers

But, then I wanted to make a Wildflower Pincushion this week too:

wildflowerpinc

We are to a hand sewing portion of that show.

And now I’ve become obsessed with this. Which got me to thinking (::danger::). So I got out a sketch book. Lots of BLANK sketch books around here. I am a very repressed sketcher. Clearly having more than just trouble with perspective here.

cake

I think my brain is going to explode if I don’t finish something soon.

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Gnome-licious

December 2, 2008 at 9:40 pm · Filed under Fabric, Great Quilt Patterns, Quilts

Sonja Callaghan is the guest designer over at SewHooked. Sonja shares some great free patterns, so I made one:

gnomelette

Who doesn’t love gnomes and mushrooms?? A person could easily get addicted to making cute stuff like this. Thanks for sharing, Sonja! I will be making another one of these very soon–like, tomorrow.

My new best friend in the sewing room is Netflix’s Watch Instantly beta for Mac. I’m in love. Much better for keeping the spirits up than NPR these days. I’m working my way through season 1 of Weeds at the moment.

And I’m working my way through a stack of free patterns and tutorials. Next up, I think, is Anna Maria Horner’s wildflower pincushion (this is also in Quilts and More Spring 2008, but I was too lazy to look for mine). I have a funky piece of yellow wool for the center of the flower.

Oh, and I was speedy quick and ordered this lovely kit from Nanette‘s etsy shop:

mixedbag

Really, I just wanted to get my hands on some of her fabric. 🙂

Look what she sent along:

matrushka

OH MY, no doubt this matrushka is adorable and has a Freda’s Hive One of a Kind tag, but do you know what else? It is stuffed with lavender and smells like SUMMER to me. Ahhhhhhh, yes, that time of year when it is warm (but not too hot…) without aid of furnace. I’m going to be sniffing this item all winter, I can just tell. Ahhhhh…

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