Fun New Things

I had great fun participating in Amy's IGQuiltFest in March, even though I was late to the party.  It was a great way to see how other quilters do all the same things you do, from labels to bindings to stash building.  I'm looking forward to seeing what Amy has up her sleeve next!

I've also seen a lot posted about Olfa's new Endurance Blade lately, so I had to pick one up.

 Jo-Ann Fabrics does have them in stock (at least my store does) and since rotary tools were all 40% off when I bought it (plus a 20% off coupon which is the same as my employee discount) you could get one for only $6.24 the day I bought it.  I confess, I'm not big on changing my rotary blade often; I just become accustomed to its poorer performance and really only change it when a nick means it always skips cutting at a certain rotation.  But I had a new project in mind and thought a fresh blade would make a big difference,  so I splurged.  The proof is in the duration, so I'll post again with time!

My project involves trying out Moda's Cake Mix Recipes.  I love precuts, but I never bought a layer cake before.  I like charm packs for small things and jelly rolls and honey buns for strips, and fat eighth or fat quarter bundles if I wanted larger cuts, but a layer cake seemed limiting.  Maybe I'm exactly the type of quilter these were invented for?  So I picked up a layer cake of Jen Kingwell's "Behind the Scenes" from Green Fairy Quilts, and four yards of Kona Cotton in Celestial, and set to work with Cake Mix #2 which I'd ordered from Missouri Star Quilt Company.

This is easy and fast - just like using a cake mix is easier and faster than baking from scratch!  Layering the squares with the paper takes seconds.

Sewing one of them takes me less than three minutes.  The advantage to these long straight lines is that I could put the pedal to the metal and zoom over these straight lines.  (Side note - I need to look into getting a foam pad of some sort because my whole sewing table vibrates when I sew that fast!)

Then it's slice, press, and pull off paper to yield a dozen HSTs to rearrange into any of a number of block settings.

Here's the one I've chosen!  I may switch it up from the block design to a streak-of-lightening/chevron design when I put these four blocks together in the end.

My only challenge is working with pins ... I'm not a quilter who uses them often and I keep poking myself!  But it's a small price to pay for speed, accuracy and convenience!

After I cut all of these with my Olfa Endurance Blade I enrolled a course in the One Block Wonder quilt, which is essentially turning a gorgeous piece of fabric into kaleidoscope blocks.  It was a fun day of cutting and sewing at the Blue Hen Quilt Shop, and I'm looking forward to returning in a few weeks with all my completed half-hexie blocks to lay it out and put it all together!  (Repeat pics from my Instagram feed here, sorry!)

I must add that the instructions/supply list for the class told me to bring multiple rotary blades since I would be cutting through six layers of fabric and it would be tough.  Well, this is where I thought I'd put Olfa to the test - I'd just cut an entire cake mix recipe with paper and fabric so I brought ONLY my rotary cutter with the Olfa Endurance Blade.  No problem!  Sliced through all six layers on the first time, every cut.  Gotta love it!  When it's finally time to replace it, you can bet I'll be buying another one.

Finally, my last big exciting bit of news almost deserves its own post.  I just got my preview copies of Quiltmaker Magazine's 100 Blocks Volume 15, and not only was I a happy tester for the issue, but I am the proud AUTHOR of Block # 1435!  Tune in to Quilty Pleasures for the blog tour May 1-5, 2017.  I'll also be showcasing my block here then, and giving away issues to a few lucky winners.  Testing for Volume 16 begins next month also, and I'm looking forward to being the first to test those ... maybe I'll come up with a design to submit for Volume 16 as well!

Winner announced! And Christmas countdown

Wow, my favorite football team - the Baltimore Ravens - played horribly last night, so I was glad for the distraction of assimilating all the comments I've received from you all to pick out a winner while watching the game.  This was not an easy task, especially because I wanted to be fair to everyone and stick to the rules that I had set out, so I went through and put in one entry for following and one entry for giving me the name of your favorite book ... extraneous comments and those posted after the giveaway closed on Saturday were not counted ... sorry!!

The winner is ... Michele!  She wrote, " My recent favorite books are all by Lisa See. Try her first one, Snowflower and the Secret Fan, and you'll be hooked by her."  Actually, she's right.  I love historical fiction, and last year for the family book-themed Yankee gift exchange, my Honey's sister contributed that book, which my Honey ended up with ... but I was the one who spent the day after Christmas reading it from start to finish.  Since then I've also gone through her books, "On Gold Mountain," "Peony in Love," and "Dreams of Joy."  I've also read several Anchee Min novels (slightly more history than fiction), both "The Painter from Shanghai" by Lisa Cody Epstein and "The Concubine's Daughter" by Pai Kit Fai which I received for my last birthday, and Ha Jin's "Waiting" is next on deck. 

However, I want to thank everyone who contributed the names of their favorite books.  Be reassured that I have already read the Hunger Games, Percy Jackson series, and Harry Potter (I do have an 11-year-old boy, after all), and am a huge fan of Jane Austen, rereading her books every few years.  I've read nearly all the classics, including everything by Dickens and Dostoyevsky, and much of Dumas (LOVE the Count of Monte Cristo), and Edith Wharton is another favorite author.  So I really appreciate a lot of the modern literature that others have recommended - I'm going to filter through the list and start adding some things to my library wish list!

Now, on the quilting front - the guild just posted photos from the December show & tell, including the Kaleidoscope quilt I made for my dad, so I'll share the photo here:

I was able to sew labels onto all three of my Christmas present quilts last week and need to get them washed and dried to give them that great "crinkly" look.  Most of the presents are wrapped and already under the tree, but the next thing on the list is menu planning.  Not only am I hosting Christmas Eve dinner for my Honey's family, but I have a whole week's worth of meals to think about for our houseful - three kids, my dad, and his girlfriend - who arrive on Christmas Day.  It's not easy going from two people to seven, and it tired me out last year, so I'm trying to do as much pre-planning (and freezing) as possible.  I think the crock pot will get a lot of use Christmas week!  We're also planning "theme days" with the kids during that week - one day where we get outside for a hike or to take the dog to the dog park, one day where we stay in our pajamas all day to watch movies and bake cookies, one day where we do some volunteer work, and so on.  But I'm planning on building in some good sewing time in there, including catching up on my charity sewing - comfort quilts, 4Patches4Hope, and pillowcases for the Million Pillowcases Challenge.  Does anyone else have any special sewing plans during the holidays?

Kaleidoscope is finished

Progress continues on other projects ...

quilty weekend

It was a delightful weekend, even for someone still recovering from surgery.  Let's review:

I finished the main part of my dad's Kaleidoscope quilt towards the end of the week.  I am short the amount of fabric I want for borders in that whitish-blue batik (looks solid white here) so this is as far as it has come:

My thought is to add 5" white borders all around, and then to applique onto that a curved bias-cut strip of fabric, kind of like a vine, in a color that really pops.  I didn't love anything in my stash, though, so it was on my shopping list.

On Thursday night, my Honey's dad came by with a little sewing project for me that I did on Friday.  When my Honey's mom was sick with cancer last year, his aunt made her this beautiful watercolor quilt.  My Honey's mom was an amazing gardener and it was perfect for her.  She passed away last September and since then his dad has moved to a new place and wanted to hang the quilt.  I sewed a sleeve on the back of it so that he could do so.  We took it down to him Saturday morning and later this weekend he emailed me a photo in thanks.  I've never done a watercolor quilt and I find Kathy's work beautiful and wanted to share.

He lives outside of Blacksburg, so after dropping it off with him, we went to Sew Biz in Radford, where I thought I could find some fabric for the bias strip for the Kaleidoscope quilt, but I wasn't finding anything I loved.  We decided to head to Floyd, where there was a quilt show happening.  On the way there, we hit Schoolhouse Fabrics in Floyd and made some good finds.  I bought not only the red for the quilt, but a nice 108" wide dark blue paisley to back the quilt with.

I'll stop back at Patchwork Plus in Dayton on my next drive north to see if I can find more of the batik which I originally bought there ... if not, I'll have to find something close and be okay with it.

I took a nap on the ride home so I had energy to sew that evening.  I was working on a whole different project that I'll blog about in a separate post, but it was fast and easy and is almost finished.

I sewed for much of Sunday, too, with football on in the background.  My son, who is 11, was having a lazy day and was texting me.  I've been feeling guilty because I've finished quilts for both my Honey's daughters, but for well over two years have been making only sluggish progress on my son's quilt (lesson learned:  do not allow anyone to choose their own pattern when making them a quilt).  So I'd recently resolved to work at least an hour a day on his, regardless of what else had brought me into the sewing room.  When I texted him that I was working on his quilt he replied, "Yay!  Thank you!" which added a little pang to my guilt accumulation.  This is my setup, with some finished blocks in front:

He chose the fabric and the pattern (from Carol Doak's 50 Fabulous Paper Pieced Stars, this is "Ohio").  Each star is paper pieced using eight sections, and yes, it takes a while.  I managed to make an entire star yesterday and picked out the paper while watching the Ravens beat the Jets last night.  I think I now have three finished.  I'm calling it "Dark Star" (although maybe I should call it "Bright Star Dark Sky") and although I've long since determined that the quilt will have to be made up of more than just these 12" blocks, I have no idea how many I will make or what the finished quilt will look like. 

It was also a weekend of good eating.  On Friday night my Honey surprised me with dinner reservations at a new restaurant in Salem called Blue Apron.  We had an 8:30 reservation but it was jammed (parents weekend at Roanoke College) and we didn't get seated until almost 9 (and while we waited in the bar, it was tiny - room for only 3 at the bar itself, and occupied with diners).  The staff was extraordinarily apologetic, though, and made up for it in service.  I enjoyed lobster bisque and an incredible mahi dish; my Honey's choices were excellent too.  What I loved was that every dish came in a small plate option so that you could have appetizers without sacrificing your meal.  On Saturday while in Floyd we stopped in at a brick oven pizzaria in Floyd called Dogtown Pizza.  It was very busy also and the pizza was worth the wait - using only fresh, local produce - and a nice beer selection to help pass the time.  Yesterday my Honey cooked up some beer-basted bratwurst and carmelized onions to enjoy in front of football and I'm already craving the leftovers I know are in the fridge.  Good food and good sewing, what more could a weekend hold?

Tonight is quilt guild and I'll take Pink Profusion for show and tell.

Kaleidoscope!

As I mentioned yesterday, the Kaleidoscope quilt I'm making for my dad is going together so beautifully. 

I'm making 9" blocks, and I'm using two fabrics that I purchased at Patchwork Plus in Dayton, Virginia.  The white is really a white with very pale blue fern batik pattern in it.  The dark has a lovely pattern that makes me think of stones at the bottom of a river, with grays and blues and browns.  Here is an image I found on the web which gives an idea of what it should look like when all put together - I love the image of the curves:

Because the pieces are large and I stacked them when rotary cutting them, they go together SO fast.  There was preseason football on last night (Go Ravens!) and it's my habit to let it record on the DVR for at least a half hour so that I don't have to watch commercials when I finally sit down.  I think I zipped together about eight of these blocks in that half hour.  Wow!  I wasn't anticipating have this done as a Christmas gift, but at this rate, I just might!
I did finish hand piecing those Drunkards Path blocks last night - remember them?:

... so now I will need a new hand sewing project for Thursday nights with Kitty and to take to the beach next month.  Assuming, of course, that the house that's been rented for our beach vacation is still standing after Hurricane Irene blows through.

See where that black dot on the red background on the North Carolina coast is?  That's where the beach house is currently standing.  At least my family no longer owns a beach house ... hurricane season was always stressful.  On the other hand, my dad told me last night he's thinking about spending the night on his 43' yacht so that it doesn't break its moorings when Irene blows through his area.  I hope he lives to get this quilt!  Just kidding, he should be fine, especially if his girlfriend is with him - she's writing an autobiography about some of her most harrowing experiences in a lifetime of sailing around the world.

Anyway, I digress.  I wanted to share one of my favorite places on the internet with all the fabric shopping I've been doing lately ... great deals at Green Fairy Quilts (right now, everything is 30% off their already way low prices, including new precuts!) and Burgundy Buttons (a Bigger Big Giant Clearance Sale has me supplementing an earlier order) have me anticipating what beautiful Moda fabrics will be hitting my eager little hands soon.  So I go to Moda's website to download swatches and sample patterns to drool over while I wait.  If you weren't aware, Moda offers all kinds of goodies for their fabric lines, including images to import into your quilting software and swatch cards to view and print.  Many have free patterns to download featuring a new fabric line, and it's laid out so that you can tell at a glance which line has what, as well as sort by name of line, release date, or designer.  There are 405 fabric lines in this chart right now so it's not just the most current releases either!  How awesome!

The weekend is nearly upon us and I hope to spend a lot of it in my sewing room.  If you're in the path of Irene, take cover and take some hand-sewing project to work on by candlelight like generations of quilters before us.  Stay dry!