Some Random Things

Well, Christmas is over.  The presents are all unwrapped, and now life is starting to get back to normal.  The cookies aren't all eaten, but we're working on that.  (oink!)  Our holiday was a good one, with lots of family and food, and I hope yours was good too. 

We got around 3 inches of snow the night before last.  It melted off the streets long enough for me to make a quick run to the grocery store yesterday to stock up again, then we got a little more snow last night and the temps dropped to below freezing.  The lake froze last night, and everything looks like it's pretty icy out there.  Our high temp today was 32*F.  In other words, winter is here!  Not like so many places around the country that got blasted with the Christmas storm, but still fairly unusual for this area.  So, it must be time to sew again!  Yay!  DH is back out in the pottery studio (with his space heater!), and when I'm done with this post, it's off to the quilt studio for me.

Since there has been so little sewing/quilting happening here, I thought I would share some of what my sister has been doing.  She's been working on some wool applique.  Above is her funky "Trees".  She started this a year ago, and it's been traveling with her wherever she's gone all year as she adds to them.  She told me she had a lot of fun doing these.  I think they're great fun.

Here's a wool applique bunny she did.  It will probably become a pillow at some point.  I think this one is my favorite, because I love bunnies.

This might look like floating bubbles, but they are actually flowers.  The last time I saw this, my sister was in the process of adding the stems.  She tried one thing, didn't like it and took that off and is now working on the next attempt.  I think these are fun!  I don't know what her plan is for this piece.  She doesn't use any patterns, by the way.

My multi-talented sister is also an assemblage artist.  This is what she gave me for my birthday this year.  The round disks are hand-made coasters, she thinks.  I'll probably hang this in a vertical position, not horizontal like it is in the photo.  This will look fabulous on the indigo wall in my bedroom!

If you're interested in seeing some more of her work, check out her website.

Here is the free-pieced house that is currently on it's way to Beth of Live Laugh Quilt blog.  I made this for her "Friendly Neighborhood" project.  She'll be drawing winners on the 1st of the year, and I sure hope this gets there in time!  As you can see, I made an indigo house (appropriate, eh?) and it's surrounded by fir trees, just like in Real Life.   I'm not sure you can tell I free-pieced this, as it came out pretty tame.  But it was fun to make.

And in the window you can see Dunkel and Shade.  They think they own the place, so I had to include them!  hee hee!

We finally joined the 21st century the other day.  T*rget had an LED TV on sale for a price that was crazy low.  DH had been saving his pennies for a while, and it was finally the right time.  Wow, can I just say Wow!?  This looks fantastic.  And the best part?  We can hook up the laptop to the TV and watch Netflix streaming right on the TV!  Love it!  No more huddling over the desktop up in the office.  We don't have Hi Def on Comcast yet, but it sure looks High Def compared to the old (and I do mean old) TV.  So, happy day!  We're still doing the happy dance!

We watched the movie "Julie and Julia" last night.  I loved it!  And Meryl Streep sure "was" Julia Child.  She nailed it.  I remember watching Julia when I was in high school.  I thought she was a little odd then, and now I realize how brilliant and funny she was!  And I loved the whole blog thing - wonder why??  Oh, and am I the only one that backs up the movie to see the quilts in the background?  hee hee!  During that whole hysterical scene with the lobsters, I kept trying to see that quilt in the background.  DH is a good sport about backing up to see the quilt!

Well, here we are at the end of another year.  The years seem to be zooming by so fast anymore.  But it was a good year around here.  Our blessings are many.  And I want all my readers to know that I truly appreciate you stopping by to read my poor scribblings.  I'm still amazed and grateful that you do.   I hope the new year will be kind to all who're reading this, and that there will be blessings upon you and yours. 

Happy New Year!  See you on the other side!

Around The Rainbow?

Here is my Rainbow block. Well, maybe it's more of a color "wheel". I got the idea for this one morning as I was waking up. I get some of my best ideas as I'm waking up or going to sleep. Anyway, it dawned on me that I could do somewhat like a color wheel with a 9-Patch block. And, it worked! Well, I think so, anyway. I'm happy with this one. The page is really much more square than this. I took a wonky picture, apparently.

By the way, when and/or where do you get your best ideas? Waking up, doing the dishes, ironing, or playing in the quilt studio? Driving in the car? Daydreaming over coffee? Or surfing the quilt blogs? Leave me a comment, as I'd love to hear your answers!

I've been working away on my free-pieced letters for my Witch's Pantry. They're actually coming out pretty good, but I've only done the easy ones so far. Sorry, no pictures yet. I won't make the deadline, but I'll be in the neighborhood, I think. Then I'll show some pictures.

Speaking of free-piecing, go take a look at what Julie of Through The Barn Door made for her Valentine's quilt. You can see it on this post. I think she did a great job, and she steps you through her projects and thought processes. Fun!

My sister is coming to visit this weekend. Yay! I love when she visits. We're going to drive up to Bellingham on Saturday. My niece (her daughter) is going to college up there. DH and I have never been there before, so we're looking forward to seeing both the town and our niece.

The next installment of Heroes starts on Monday. I was asleep at the wheel and missed Lost this week. Somehow I thought it was next week. (And why is it back on Wednesday?) But I love watching it on the internet - fewer commercials. I just need a big screen monitor! *grin* And then, on Friday the 13th, The Sarah Connor Chronicles starts up again, and then The Dollhouse. I'm really looking forward to Dollhouse. I have high hopes for it, it being the creation of Joss Whedon, creator of Firefly and Buffy and Angel. We don't watch a lot of TV around here (I'd rather sew than watch most of the stuff on TV), but what we do watch, we really get in to. I can't find out when the Dr. Who Christmas Special will be shown on Sci Fi channel. I know it just aired on BBC America. Does anyone else know?? If you do, please leave me a comment or email me! I don't want to miss it, as they never have it available over the internet. Gotta get my "Doctor" fix! Oh, and if anyone else gets BBC America and likes Science Fiction, take a look at Primeveal. We've watched it and really enjoy it. It's very well done. Nobody does SciFi like the Brits!

Well, enough babbling for one post. Have a great weekend!

More Vintage Fun

As promised, here are the other projects that I did with the 1930's scraps I was lucky enough to acquire. (see previous post)

This first one, Tumblers, is the smallest one. It was paper-pieced with the tiniest scraps. I wanted to use as much of these fabrics as I could, and there were some fabrics that all I had were tiny scraps. Some of the tumblers had to be pieced to have a big enough piece of fabric to use and they're 1.25 inches at the large end of the tumbler and .75 inches at the small end! The whole tumbler is 1 3/8 inches long, and the entire quilt is 15.25 inches by 18 inches. Not the smallest one I've ever done, but pretty small!

A close-up so you can see some of the fabrics.
Can you see where some of these are pieced?

And here's the last project with the 30's fabrics. The yellow border fabric on this is the feedsack found at the bottom of the grocery bag. Some of these little squares had to be pieced also. The smallest squares measure 1 inch finished and the 4-patch is 2 inches. This whole quilt is 21.5 inches square.

Some closeup so you can see more of the fabrics.
You can see how many plaids and graphic designs were in these fabrics. That was surprising to me based on the reproductions. I had no idea there were so many plaids available then!
I hope you've enjoyed seeing these little treasures!

The quilt tops from the previous post are having their backs made now. I tried to shop my stash, but it just wasn't working. So, 40% coupons from JoAnn's to the rescue! I've kind of lost my momentum at the moment, so it's not going as fast as I would like.

I found a copy of "Liberated Quiltmaking" at the library and so have been re-reading it. I just wasn't seeing some of the things in the quilts that Gwen was talking about, until I realized that many of the quilt pictures were printed upside down! Oh yeah, NOW I see it!

We've got a bird feeder outside the kitchen window. I try to keep it filled with sunflower seeds. We've had so many little Mountain Chickadees visiting us! And there's been another little bird that's about the same size as the chickadee that comes. It's so small and so fast, it's hard to get a good look at it. We haven't been able to identify it. Finally, I found it on What Bird web site last night. It's a Red-Breasted Nuthatch! If you click on the link, you can see what it looks like, because I can't get a good picture of it. Be sure and listen to their call too. I've been hearing this call all summer and it's been bugging me that I didn't know/remember what it was. And, just so you know, a group of nuthatches is called a "jar" and a group of chickadees is known as a "banditry" and a "dissimulation" of chickadees! (I learn something new everyday!) The kitties seem to think that all these birdies are a show just for them.

Speaking of TV, we finally got to watch "The Sarah Connor Chronicles." We think it's very well done! Even has good continuity with the movies. We've watched 2 weeks worth of "Fringe" as well. It was well-done too. Very X-Files like. We were really surprised to see John Nobel on there! He played Denethor on "Return of the King", in case you don't recognize his name. However, I don't think we're gonna make Fringe "must-see" TV for us. We've gotten burned out on "Lost" and I can see this is more of the same un-ending mystery. Oh well. "Heroes" starts next Monday - Yay!

The Bee's Knees

All done! Yay! I got the borders finished on this uneven 9-Patch from the last post. I was inspired by Gwen Marston's chunky applique from "Collaborative Quilting". I thought that the dotty wavy "vine" really makes this a fun, happy quilt.

The applique was pretty easy to do, and I don't do much applique! And I think the dots add just the touch of whimsy that I was looking for! I had a hard time not putting too much on - I kept telling myself to leave room for the quilting.

This block has real, old fabric in it. I think it's from the 1920's. I love those frantic mice. They're very angular and spiky. And I have a closeup of two of the dots that use real 30's fabrics. The first one was from an old apron, and the second one is/was a feedsack. Most of this quilt is reproduction fabrics, with just a few old fabrics thrown in.

As I was finishing this quilt, I remembered that I have another 1930's quilt that needs to be finished. So I pulled it out and looked at it. I had been stuck on whether or not it needed a border. I decided to put a small border on it. This quilt has all old fabrics, aside from the solid blue (that one is new). I decided, because these are old fabrics and kind of fragile, that a border would help protect them better than having them right on the edge of the quilt.

This quilt has kind of a story with it. When I worked on the charity quilts committee of my quilt guild in California, we got lots of donations of fabrics. One of these donations was a paper grocery bag mostly full of old fabrics. No one on the committee wanted to deal with them - they were going to throw them away! So, I volunteered to take them. I was stunned when I got home and started going through the bag. I realized these were someone's scrap bag with real fabrics from the 30's and 40's! On the very bottom of the bag was a feedsack that hadn't seen the light of day in many, many years! It was in pristine condition! (see the second dot up above - that's the feedsack). Also in the bag were fabrics from the 1950's and 60's. (I haven't dealt with them yet other than to wash them- they're patiently waiting their turn.)

I gently hand-washed everything because it was kinda smelly, put them on towels on the floor to dry, and they came out great. The scraps and towels totally covered the living room and family room floors, and I think DH thought I had lost my mind! *grin* I've made two little quilts with the smallest pieces of the 30's fabrics (which I will show you another time), and then I used the largest pieces for this one. I still had to do some piecing to have enough for these squares, which finish at 2 inches. (6 inch finished blocks)

My inspiration for this quilt came from this book by Mary Mashuta. This one is chock-ful of pictures of old quilts.

This is the picture that inspired me.

Here's a closeup of one corner. Following are some of the blocks. Can you see where I had to piece some of these squares?

What really amazed me about this collection of fabrics was how many plaid fabrics there were! I guess this lady really liked plaid, which is great because I do too! You hardly ever see a plaid or a graphic fabric in the 30's reproductions, and they complement the little flower prints so well that you'd think at least some would be included. Also, this lady had a lot of orange-y fabrics. That's not my favorite color, but yet these all work together so well. This is a great pattern for getting everything to "play nice".

I think some of these fabrics are from the 1940's as well, because they have more intense color to them, and larger prints. But I'm just guessing on this.

Aren't those cool fabrics?? I really haven't been too "into" the 30's reproductions. I'm not a pastel person, and I'm not quite old enough to have them be contemporary to me. But I love history, and I love seeing the real thing!

We've been having bees in the kitchen for a week or more now. DH keeps killing them, and more keep showing up. I don't want to know why. There may be a nest in the skylight in the kitchen. Ewww! At least they're not aggressive. I can ignore them if they leave me alone. If this keeps up much longer, I may have to call an exterminator. Ugh.

Well, it was a good thing I posted about the nanny geese when I did. A day or two after I posted, a whole big blizzard of Canada geese came flying into the lake in the morning, honking and carrying on. They flew out that evening. I think "our" geese left with them. We haven't seen them since. So, their job was done, I guess. They must be going south for the winter.

Sara over at Sara's Scraps has posted about her experience at Gwen Marston's Beaver Island Quilt Retreat. She's got lots of pictures of Gwen's quilts from Gwen's new book Ideas and Inspirations, Abstract Quilts in Solids.

I found an interview with Joss Whedon, Eliza Dushku and Tahmah Penikett about the new show "Dollhouse". There's also a trailer available to watch. "Dollhouse" premieres in January 2009 on Fox TV. I'm looking forward to it. There doesn't seem to be much good on this fall. I had to tape "Sarah Connor Chronicles" to watch later, because DH isn't available to watch it right now. I also taped "Fringe" tonight. Anybody else seen it? What do you think of it? I'm dubious. I don't want to get involved in another "Lost"-type show, and it's by the same creator. We're not real big on the TV anyway. Much rather sew (or do pottery, for some of us) or read!

Speaking of that, time to head for the quilt studio!