Archive for May, 2009

Sweets from the sweet

May 28, 2009 at 12:59 pm · Filed under Everyday Things, Quilts

Having some good mail karma today! First, I have a confession to make. Just after Easter, I ordered A CASE of Lifesavers jelly beans from Amazon (what don’t they sell?). Yes, there have been tales of my excesses with sweets before. I’m not here to talk about that (and you’ll notice I didn’t even put a link to past excesses of which I speak…). In any event, around that time, Katy was telling me that all of the fruity candy treats in the UK are actually flavored with, get this, FRUIT JUICE. What? No scientific flavorings?!? I could barely comprehend this.

So, I sent her a few measly all-chemical-all-the-time Peeps and she sent me this haul of sweets:

SWEETS!

I couldn’t show you the top of the Skittles bag because, um, well, it’s open and unsightly now. Had to do a tasting, dontcha know. All I can say is: YUM! There is quite a difference between these and what I’m used to. The purple Skittles are flavored with black currant juice. I find that awe-inspiring, don’t ask me why.

But wait, she also sent:

marmite

A Paddington Marmite set! Get. Out! Look at his little Marmite suitcase! And the Marmite is in a squeezy bottle. We’ll be having a tasting after school (but before piano and swimming…).

Katy, being the dear, sweet, generous person that she is, also sent us something to do while we are feeding our faces:

clothkits

doll

A Clothkits doll to make! Fun, fun, fun! Best not to get Marmite on her, maybe we’ll stick with the fruity treats while we sew–ever so much more cleanly.

Thank you so much, Katy! Oh, and there is some contraband that somehow managed to get in the box. An oversight, no doubt, a Kinder egg. Shhhhhh…

Oh, and I see that Katy is doing the Old Red Barn Co.’s Quilt Along. Are you quilting along too? I WANT to jump in and join in but am having a hard time catching up to myself right now, so I may join in later just to make a fun quilt.

The other piece of good mail karma was the May Material Obsession dolly quilt kit, Tanglewood (see some dolly quilt action here).

tanglewood

Yea for great mail!

Ooh, speaking of which, I need to get Amanda’s fabrics in the mail!! Yipe! I don’t know, it feels like I’ve been spending far too much time this week doing things other than what I planned to do this week. For instance, I did not plan to spend so much time at the mall. Today I bought a foundation garment, ahem, because yesterday I bought a — wait for it — DRESS. Even dear daughter was in utter disbelief. Well, when you have to buy SOMETHING, you might just end up with a dress when you least expect it after weighing all the options (and not wanting to go into another store) (issues being: don’t want to hem lined pants in a hurry, DO NOT want to buy (or wear, for that matter) high heels to go with too-long pants, nope, not a suit with a skirt because that would require HOSE AND HEELS…so a longish dress it is…) (clearly, I am not a grown-up).

Oh well.

Here’s hoping you’re having a sweet day and good mail karma!

Comments (11)

That’s so sad

May 22, 2009 at 3:28 pm · Filed under Quilts

Oh my! I’m glad to know I’m not alone in my quilting boo-boos. Some of your stories were so sad! Thank you for sharing! It was really tough to pick a winner. I do know that I don’t want to sit next to Kerry during a quilting class. I could totally relate to Brooke buying the same fabric twice and still not being able to match her project!  Mary cracked me up because her mishap sounded just like something I would do–all prepped for her retreat and then forgot a main ingredient–her jelly roll! I must say that Barb had a very hard time getting her quilt backing sized right and then she had to give in and put a seam down the middle–just what the longarm quilter preferred NOT to have. Instead of doing that, I usually sew the wrong lengths of backing together–I guess I mean I start to sew the length to the width and then wonder what happened when I get to the end of one of the pieces. D’oh!

The winner, by a quarter inch seam, is Amanda who had a four-patch turned wrong in her Jacob’s ladder, had it quilted and then appliqued a four-patch over the offending four-patch, but the “new” four-patch was also oriented wrong.

Really, thanks to everyone who played along–it was fun. Thanks for the birthday wishes. The cake was/is delicious.

Oh, and I did get to work on the Savannah Satchel. Of course, I went straight for that elephant and then found my piece of fuschia velvet for his little ear. Awwwwwww. Well, he still needs his ear, but at least I found the fabric.

elephantunderway

For those here in the U.S., have a safe Memorial Day holiday!

Comments (14)

That’s just wrong

May 20, 2009 at 8:50 am · Filed under Everyday Things, Fabric, Great Quilt Patterns, Quilts

OK, OK, I’m still holding back showing and telling about Pittsburgh…but I wanted to get right to the SEWN giveaway (still time to guess the bag weight) and then I wanted to do something about today. Today is my birthday, so I wanted to have a little giveaway–short and to the point though. But it’s going to be a subjective selection of the winner rather than a drawing. Yes, I’m going to make you work for it. And, no, we won’t be guessing my age or my weight.

First, I want to show you the current state of the Heaven and Earth quilt:

heavearth
Aha! Such discipline. Came back from seeing lovely new things but went back to work on an “old” project even though I reaaaaallllly wanted to get to work on some of the new things. Anyway. I found a variegated acid green fabric for the filler strips and am pretty happy with that choice. While I was sewing, the green tents (auditioning as the border) were on my sewing table. Tents, meet triangle quilt. Triangle quilt, meet tents. I may have to see what the blue tents might look like, but I think the green ones are pretty good. Hmm, maybe the yellow tents need a try too.

But back to the story, it seems like every time I post about a quilt, I’m explaining what I did wrong–usually as a result of not reading the pattern. Case in point, I cut the triangles for this quilt from a 2 1/4″ strip and later found out I should have been cutting them from a 2 1/2″ strip (I think). So my triangle strips were only 2″ wide rather than 2 1/4″. Well, didn’t that just work out to my benefit in this case? The acid green variegates along the width of the fabric (over the 44″). Had my triangle strips been 2 1/4″ tall (and there are 21 strips), the variegated fabric wouldn’t have been wide enough to accommodate all 21 strips. I would have had to figure out some other approach to using the variegate…cut another width and then selected some section to duplicate, for example. So you see, in this case, my screw up worked to my advantage. Wishing I could say, “I meant to do that.”

But, really, I do seem to confess a lot of screw-ups, no? Feeling the need to re-name the blog MrsSchmenkmanScrewsUpQuilts. So, for my birthday, I want to hear about YOUR quilting screw-ups, OK? Will you entertain me and make me laugh? I’m going to pick the funniest quilting screw-up to win another fat quarter set of Erin McMorris’s Wildwood fabrics:

wildwood

Submit your quilting “oopses” by 11:59 EST on Thursday, May 21. I’ll laugh WITH you (not AT you) and pick the winner on Friday, May 22.

In the meantime, I decided that today I’m going to start Sue Spargo’s elephant purse. OK, it’s actually called the Savannah Satchel. I like all of the bags in the book:

sacs

But when we stopped by Sue’s booth (hi Sue!), we couldn’t stop fondling the elephant’s velvet ear.

elephant
A fuschia velvet ear. Sigh. So, as a treat, I decided to begin the Savannah Satchel today.

Last, but not least, we’ve been laughing about this around our house this week. I received this cute little planter for Mother’s Day:

boot

The best part, of course, is the little warning at the bottom:

notatoy

Furthermore, seriously, who thinks I can be trusted to be left home alone with this all day????

CAKE4

So that’s that for now.

Comments (44)

SEWN Launch Party Giveaway

May 18, 2009 at 1:36 pm · Filed under Fabric, Field Trips

DRAWING IS NOW CLOSED.

I’m still unpacking the market goodies, but I wanted to get to posting about Sarah’s new adventure, SEWN.

See, here’s the lovely Sarah signing books at the Moda booth (hi, Sarah!):

sarah

You’ve probably already heard about SEWN, but if not (and I quote…):

SEWN is new and innovative online quilting and sewing community for all lovers of fabric crafts. We have Tips and Innovative Tools to help with your projects, an Advice Centre for all your sewing questions, online forums and chats, and information on your local shops, sewing groups, quilt groups and classes.

SEWN will feature designers and shops from Australia and New Zealand, as well as the latest from the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan.

There will be articles, interviews and tutorials from industry experts, competitions and free patterns! We’ll even be reporting via podcast from craft shows around Australia and the USA.

It sounds like it will be a WONDERFUL place for us, doesn’t it?!

I’d signed up to join the SEWN Blog Party Giveaway when Sarah first announced it, but I wanted to see if I could find some choice goodies at Market to share. And I did, so here’s my giveaway post.

I’ll be giving away two offerings, so there will be two winners.

First up is a four-fat quarter set of Heather Ross’s Far Far Away double gauze fabrics from Kokka:

far

Ooooh, aaahhhh. They match today’s ranunculus:

orange ranun

The second option is a set of four fat quarters of Erin McMorris’ Wildwood fabrics:

erin mcmorris

BUT you have to play my guessing game to be entered.

Here is a pic of my totebag that I carried home from Quilt Market:

toteb

I even had to go expando on the way home:

expando bag

Here’s a photo of some of the innards spilling out:

openbag

Here’s the deal. You have to guess how much my bag weighed when I arrived home. Here’s some info on the bag to aid in your guessing. It contained a combination of items including books, some plastic templates, some fabric (duh), a camera, very little money (!), gum, wires, etc. It did not contain a laptop or any clothing items. Oh, and it didn’t contain all of my goodies, just what would fit.

To be entered, you need to guess how much the bag weighed before it was unpacked. I’ll draw from the correct answers for the Heather Ross fat quarters. I’ll draw from ALL comments to this post for the Erin McMorris fat quarters. You can enter until 11:59 EST on June 7 and I will draw the winners’ names on Monday, June 8. So, take a guess. Oh, my achin’ shoulder.

Here’s a wonderful love note that was in my tote bag too:

luvnote

This is the back of a day-by-day love note from a certain nine-year-old. Awwww….

And, quickly, I wanted to show you a couple of fun things I found. I love this Kokka creepy stuffed animal fabric:

stuffies

Here’s a LIME feedsack I picked up as well:

feedsack

Sorry, no, they’re not part of the giveaway… I’ve taxed my brain going between photo downloads on different computers, so I’d better go before I start babbling. I’ll babble at you later.

Don’t forget to guess how hefty my bag was for a chance to win!

Comments (231)

Good to be home

May 17, 2009 at 9:14 pm · Filed under Field Trips

pittsburgh

I need to get out more. Thanks, Pittsburgh! It was a fabric-good time! More soon after a brief recovery.

Comments (4)

Running away from home

May 13, 2009 at 4:03 pm · Filed under Everyday Things, Field Trips

Ack! I’ve done so much dawdling that I’m running out of time. And now I’m doing laundry, trying to pack up and make sure I have all of the various chargers and re-chargers, paper and pen, clothes, tiny toiletries. Do you have particular smells you relate to traveling? I usually feel like I can’t take my regular complement of toiletries so I substitute and then always relate the substitute smell to the travel destination. For example, I am reminded of Philadelphia when I smell pink grapefruit Neutrogena face wash. Confessions of the odd. Anyway, I have a feeling I will relate Pittsburgh to Right Guard Sport scent deodorant. I’m not a big fan of powder-fresh anything so the tiny Right Guard was the option of last resort. Don’t look at me like that. Quilting is very macho.

And I’m trying not to over-pack in the hand sewing project department (from the Lessons Learned column…), but I’m wondering if I will even touch this lovely project. It’s the April Material Obsession dolly quilt–an Ode to Susan McCord. You know the quilt, the vines with the millions of pieced leaves. This is a tiny travel-sized tribute from MO. So, all of my leaves are cut out and I’ve tested my tiny travel scissors:

travscissors

The flight is short, I’m sure the hotel lighting is bad and I’ll probably be too pooped to applique at the end of the day. But a good quilter is always prepared, no?

Oh, before I go, look what came in the mail today:

absoftwares

I don’t even have time to have the IT Department get this set up and working, but I’ll tell you about it when I get back. Allegedly I have a quilt in the gallery section. Sa-weet! If I can stand the thought of the packaging getting bent, I might take it along for a little autograph from Famous Amy.

Behave until I get back! Pittsburgh or bust.

Comments (10)

Looks like Kaffe to me

May 10, 2009 at 6:27 pm · Filed under Fabric

I just ran across this scarf over at Lucky Brand. Huh. Looks like Kaffe fabric to me.

If it’s authentic Kaffe, I might have to have it. Or I might have to return my new Lucky hoodie.

Comments (6)

Some mothers’ children

May 10, 2009 at 8:50 am · Filed under Everyday Things

Last week, after bearing up through three hours of dress rehearsal, we got to enjoy this year’s dance recital. This year, our kid was in the group of the oldest kids. That is still hard for me to believe. But as we sat and watched, I found myself welling up as every group performed. I do this every year. I guess that is the time that it profoundly hits me that these little beings belong to someone and, look, there they are “alone” on stage being all independent and stuff.

Trust me, I’m not welling up based on the art itself, ahem, because it happens at every “performance”–be it a little class play, a sporting event, what have you. These little people belong to us but are always moving away from us. It doesn’t matter whose child it is, I get a little verklempt.

So, to all the mothers of all of the children who make me well up, Happy Mother’s Day!

flowerpic

Comments (9)

Breaking up is hard to do

May 9, 2009 at 7:31 am · Filed under Fabric, Quilts, Tools

irondos

My iron keeps trying to break up with me. I’ve been reading a lot about irons on the blogs these days. Stephanie got a new one. Kathy did too. I just can’t give mine up. It’s about 15 years old. These days, sometimes it will heat up. More often, it won’t. I’m probably going to get electrocuted playing around with the plug and the outlet. I am hopelessly attached to my Rowenta. It breaks my heart just a little to read the reviews of the new Rowentas being so leaky. I’m so brand-loyal that I’d rather wait out this slow death than buy a different brand until I have to.

And auto shut-off is a deal breaker for me.

So, now, I keep two irons out. The Rowenta has pride of place unless it won’t heat up. If it won’t heat up, the trusty travel iron is called up. Of course, I’m trying not to fry the travel iron because it is very special too–ya know, it can be hard to find one with a pointy tip for prepping applique shapes. Do you think I’ve become too inflexible in my tool choices??? Oh well, I never thought I could be so happy when I see the little orange light on the Rowenta light up. One ought to just be able to take that for granted.

I am enjoying how crisply batiks iron up. Batiks know how to act when heat is applied. Oh, you want me to go that way? No problem, at your service. No fighting with batik seams, by golly! All of the triangle rows of the Heaven and Earth quilt are CRISPLY together and I auditioned some “filler” fabrics:

heavearth

I don’t like either of those fillers. Since I’ll be spending, oh, seven hours at a quilt store today, I might have the opportunity to find some other options.

Comments (16)

Triangulation

May 6, 2009 at 1:30 pm · Filed under Fabric, Great Quilt Patterns, Quilts

Got some things done, got some things planned. So, of course, it was time to start a completely unforeseen project. Well, you know how it goes on the internet…one thing leads to another.  Here is how I got to this point.

Well, I was over at Flickr checking out people and their pretty pictures. I saw this picture of Lizzy House’s Marble Champ quilt. Nice, huh?! So I wandered over to her blog post about Marble Champ–which uses her fun new Red Letter Day fabric collection. And it was off to the Andover Fabric web site to have a look around. Oh, yes, gotta take a look at the free patterns. What’s this little beauty? A free pattern from Lonni Rossi called Heaven & Earth (using her gorgeous Blue Moon fabrics). OOooh, aaaah. Very striking.

So, I printed it off, gathered some batiks, cut some triangles:

triangles

And found myself pulling out the bendy “design board”:

trianglelayout

I’m not sure I’m loving the lack of subtlety in the greens…as if acid green can be subtle. Snort! I think the green prints are fighting with the variety of the blues and I want the greens to be more background-y. We shall see…I may change these out and stick with just two or three of the lighter greens. Oh well, fun for now and it struck me as a nice, crisp summer-y quilt.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Off to ponder those greens some more.

Comments (20)

Older Posts »