A Few Bests

I finally downloaded photos from our trip, and there are SO MANY! Clearly you'd be bored to death if I posted all 90 or so of them, so I'll just make you look at a few. There may be a quiz. No, not really.

I'll start with a couple non-vacation photos though.

I finished the Honey Bunny pillow from Don't Look Now's tutorial. Mine looks a little different for a couple reasons: (1) I used wool for the bunny applique, (2) I did hand applique instead of fusible, so I changed the flowers to make it a little easier on myself, and (3) I enlarged the pattern a bit using a decidedly untechnical method for enlarging (just drawing echo-type lines outside the printed ones when I traced it). I DO like the original better, though.

Helen emailed me the other day to say she had pulled her UFO out and finished it--she kindly sent me a photo and allowed me to post it to share with you. Hers looks a LOT like the original--I think you'll agree Helen did a superb job!

Okay, now for a few vacation trip favorites--all in the food line. I wanted to tell you where I had my favorite meals in case you're ever in the area, looking for a place to eat.

On the way down, we stopped in downtown Gilroy, home of the infamous annual Garlic Festival. It was rainy and the power was out in half of the old downtown section of town, but we found this little place, The Garlic City Cafe. It seemed like the kind of place that would show up on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Man was that food GOOD!

It's funny because I can't remember for certain what I had! I think it was some kind of a chicken club sandwich with a garlic aoli. I can tell you we all enjoyed our lunches enormously. We were completely surprised at how tasty and high quality the food was.

We spent our second day in Carmel shopping and asked one of the locals where the best place for lunch was. We were told Grasings was good, so we headed there--just a block or two off of Ocean. My clam chowder soup was easily one of the best clam chowders I've ever had. I wish I'd ordered a bowl instead of a cup!

Besides the soup, though, I wanted to try their grilled cheese sandwich--a sophisticated adult version of the childhood classic. Ooey, gooey cheese--emmenthal, if I remember correctly--with thick slices of tomato. Served with it, to be added to the sandwich, was a tart cherry and ginger compote. And on the side? Crispy homemade potato chips. Yum!

On our last day, for breakfast we decided to try a little restaurant/bakery across the street from our hotel--Pastries and Petals.

We had the best ever quiche; Lisa also had a side order of fresh berries that she said were really good. Are you wondering where the photo of the food is? I DID take one but by the time I remembered, I'd eaten half my quiche and the photo just doesn't do it justice. You'll have to go there and get your own. And I'm quite sure you'll want to when you see how cute it is inside and what yummy treats await you.

Hungry? I am! And isn't that cute what they did with the Peeps in the first photo of the inside of Pastries and Petals? I picked up a couple packs at the grocery store yesterday, and they're on my "to do" list for Easter.

I'm Home

Our Carmel vacation was fun and I can hardly wait to tell you more about it, but from the time we got home Monday night until now--nearly midnight on Tuesday--I've been too busy to even download the photos I took.

Yes, I went to Back Porch Quilts. No, I didn't go to Monarch Knitting and Quilts. The two friends I was with aren't quilters, so I didn't think it would be fair to drag them to more than one quilt shop, and Monarch's website seemed to be more focused on knitting, so I picked Back Porch Quilts.

No, we didn't see Clint. Yes, we came home with bags of artichokes from Castroville.

We had some great meals and some that were a little less than spectacular. We had a few excellent adult beverages and a few that weren't as excellent. There was shopping, magnificent vistas, and soft and beautiful toes and feet. None of us were arrested.

I'll try to find time to download and post a few photos tomorrow and relate some of the high points of the trip. I hope to see you then!

Hello . . . Goodbye!

As expected, Thursday night was a late night at work. After I came home, I may have had something to eat, but I'm not altogether sure. I know I took a bath, fell into bed, and slept soundly until the alarm woke me up again. Friday night, I planned to leave on time or just a little late, but three hours after my normal quitting time, I finally threw in the towel and wrote notes to my co-workers about what needed to be done to finish the projects I just couldn't. Why is it always so crazy in the days leading up to vacation time?

Tomorrow morning my friend Lisa and my sister-in-law Kathy are picking me up and we're heading out of town. Destination? Carmel-by-the-Sea.

In Carmel, we'll eat and shop, walk around, look at the sand and the ocean, and maybe run into Clint Eastwood. Probably not though. But the rest will be fun. 17 Mile Drive? Maybe. Pedicures? Maybe. Monterey Bay Aquarium? Probably. We only have a couple definite plans and the rest are possibilities. We'll come back home on Monday night.

I'll take my Kindle Fire with me and check emails, I think, but I doubt I'll write a blog post. So I'll be away for a couple days.

I was hoping to whip up a new purse/tote before I left--something cute but large enough to carry "stuff" around in. Because I've hardly been home, I compromised by making new handles for my old purse/tote--the handles were by far the most worn part; the rest will do for now. I also rummaged though some small wool and embroidery kits and gathered together what I need to work on a couple--if I have the time and inclination. I'd rather have something with me and not feel like working on it than not have anything to work on and wish I had. I have a couple quilt magazines to read too--I've been saving those!

My clothes are packed. I even have pants. In the morning, I just need to pack my make up, hair "stuff," jewelry, etc. Lisa promised to bring me something from Starbucks to get me going when she picks me up.

Now that my vacation has begun, it feels like all the late nights at work are long past. I'll be back in a couple days to tell you all about it. In the meantime, if you miss me and want to read about another adventure involving me, Lisa, and Kathy, you can click HERE. I think we're older and wiser now. Well, we're older, anyway.

Challenged By Pants

Not long ago, I told you about an incident in which I ended up with no pants. Appropriate perhaps; if you do a Google search for "kim quilts nude" you end up with me: I easily outstripped Kim Kardashian long ago. Yes, I did intend the pun.

Just to show you that I truly AM pants challenged: On Tuesday, after being home sick from work on Monday, I went searching for some clean clothes. I'd done my own laundry over the weekend, so I really only have myself to blame this time. When the laundry had come out of the dryer, I hung all the tops and gently tossed the rest into a laundry basket to be dealt with later. Well, Tuesday morning was later, and after a little search, that's where I found all of my pants.

I grabbed a pair of pants and got dressed. I quickly glanced at myself in the mirror as I was leaving the bedroom, already running a couple minutes late. My pants were kind of wrinkled. Well, more than "kind of." What to do?

I remembered I had a can of this stuff, which is a truly excellent product:

All you do is spray it on, tug and smooth the wrinkled garment, and no more wrinkles! So that's what I did, and sure enough, the wrinkles fell out.

Probably because I was still recovering from an illness, I failed to consider that I had chosen to tug and smooth my black slacks on the Wild Child's bed where the white cat hangs out much of the time. The WHITE cat. You see where this is going?

Several minutes later--and keep in mind that I'd been running around the house pantsless the entire time--I finally managed to remove all of the white hairs from my black slacks. Unfortunately, I got to work a little late that day, but it was TOTALLY due to illness, right?

I've made up my time, though. And THEN some--several hours, in fact. Tonight (Wednesday), I put in about four hours overtime. Why? Because I'm taking next week off work and I have a TON of stuff that needs to get done between now and when I walk out the office doors on Friday night. And being home sick on Monday sure didn't help!

I expect there will be more overtime in the next couple days and maybe not a lot of blogging if I don't have anything interesting to say or if I'm too tired to stay awake for it. Also? I'll be away from all of you from Saturday until Monday night or Tuesday, depending on when we get back into town. So if you don't "see" me here much in the next several days, don't worry. I'll be back to my normal blog schedule soon, even if I have to write without pants.

Eye Candy

I think we quilters are very visual beings. We love looking at pretty things. We see something lovely that someone's made, and we want to make it too. And, of course, that happens to us about 15 times a day, and after a couple days, who can remember all the things we've seen and want to make?

Reading all these new-to-me blogs the other day made me aware of a couple of controversies that hit close to home. First, there's Pinterest. I haven't really gotten into Pinterest, but I know a lot of people have. What a great way to collect visual images you can reference later for inspiration! With Pinterest, we CAN remember all those things we see and want to make someday. But the problem is that much of the time, users don't obtain permission to pin someone else's images to their boards, which can be a copyright infringement and result in litigation. There's a very interesting article HERE if you're interested. Some of it is legal gobbledegook (after all, it's a blog post by a lawyer/photographer) but you can still get the gist of it. And this concern has caused a lot of people to decide Pinterest isn't worth the risk of possible legal action, so they've left Pinterest for now and are waiting to see what happens next.

I also came across a bit of a controversy about copyrighted fabric designs. As I understand it, Emily Cier wrote a quilt book published by C&T Publishing, and a close-up image of one of the quilts in the book was used as a design for tote bags. Lawyers for Kate Spain, the designer of the fabrics used in the quilt and reproduced on the tote without her permission, threatened legal action. The matter was resolved by discontinuing the production of the tote, I believe, and setting up a program to educate authors of C&T books about properly attributing the fabrics used in the quilts to the fabric designers. All of that makes sense--you can read more about it HERE and HERE as well as on Ms. Cier's blog, Carolina Patchworks. (You can also see the controversial tote HERE.) What interests--or maybe I should say "worries"--me are the other issues this raises, as mentioned in C&T Publishing's blog--who "owns" the copyright? The fabric designer or the quilt designer? If you're writing a quilt book and you plan to feature quilts made from fabrics of many designers, at what point do you have to identify each designer? Of course, it's easy enough if your quilt is made of fabric designed by a single designer, but what if you used a mix of fabrics? And where is the line drawn? Would you have the same duty to identify a fabric designer in the description of the quilt you're entering in your local guild's quilt show?

In her blog post, Ms. Spain explained how she creates a design and licenses it for use on stationery, fabric, and gift wrap/gift bags, but fabric, unlike the paper goods she licenses, is intended to be a SUPPLY used to make something else--it's not the end product.

Perplexing, isn't it? It kind of makes my head hurt. Especially when all I want to do is look at and be able to remember the pretty things around me. Or design a quilt and write a pattern without stepping on a fabric designer's toes--something I've never before given a thought to!

Real candy can cause tooth decay and health problems; I guess eye candy can cause trouble too.

A Little Under the Weather

I've been feeling a bit ill today with a stomach bug, so I stayed home from work and slept a lot. I had chills for awhile, and being in bed under a couple quilts seemed like the best place to be. Thankfully, I'm feeling better this evening.

When I was up and about, I stitched on the rabbit project I showed you yesterday. Coincidentally, that was the same project Cindy in SC found to work on. I'd love to see hers one of these days. Of course, I haven't finished mine yet, but over the weekend, I worked on the Harrington and Hannah block for March.

I tend to like using wool a bit more than I like embroidery, so I've made a few small changes to mine. This is really a cute BOM, and I'm looking forward to seeing the new blocks each month.

Time to crawl back under those quilts and get a good night's sleep so I'm ready for work in the morning. I'm glad you could stop by!

Having Fun . . .

I'm really enjoying all the new blogs you told me about. I have several more to check out--the ones that people commented about today. I was too busy playing in the Sweat Shop to want to spend much more time on the computer today.

I was tickled to read the comment today by "Cindy in SC." She said, "I just wanted to say that I loved yesterday's post - it's generated a bunch of new blogs that I'm loving. Had a blast checking them out and found inspiration for a project I've worked on today!! Yay!!"

You're not the only one, Cindy. This evening I started working on an Easter project I found at the blog Don't Look Now. Here's what it looks like so far--

Not too much to look at really, but if you'd like to see what it WILL look like--and maybe check out the tutorial, click HERE. You'll need to scroll down that post a little way before you get to it, and if you're interested in making it, note that there's a second part you'll need to click over to.

Have you checked out some of these blogs you didn't know about before? Have they inspired you to make something?

I picked a random entry as the winner of the Luna Notte charm pack and the This and That Sweet Stuff pattern--JoAnne. JoAnn left this comment:

"I have my favorite list too, including many mentioned above. I enjoy Lane of That Man Quilts? Rachel at Stitched in Color and Sew Many Ways. You and these other people inspired me to start my own, the Patriotic Quilter. (JoAnne's blog has also been added to my list of blogs I want to visit regularly.)

JoAnne, email me your mailing address and I'll get this little thank you gift in the mail soon. Thank you all for your blog recommendations--I know it will mean many happy hours of reading and inspiration for me and others.

Is Cleaning Toilets More Often Than Once a Month Really Necessary?

I have a sweet deal going these days. Cleaning services. I've purchased several deals on Groupon and Living Social and I've found a service I like. They're supposed to come one more time under the package I purchased; after that, I'll have them come once a month. I thought I'd then clean once a month and just maintain an acceptable level of filth in the intervening weeks.

So today, Saturday, it was my turn to clean. Doing it once a month couldn't really be too bad, could it?

I did something today that I haven't done in a long time: I spent the entire day cleaning house. No, not that it was that dirty. It's just that I kept rewarding myself for cleaning bits and pieces with a little blog reading break. And you know I blame you, right? Of course I do.

And I truly do thank you too. Last year when I switched computers, I lost my favorites list, which meant I had to reconstruct my blog list, and I really was too lazy to do that, so I ended up just visiting a few close "friends" regularly. After awhile, I realized I wasn't getting inspiration from Blogland any more than a hermit gets inspiration from the big city he never visits. So asking you to tell me about your favorite blogs helped me tremendously. I've now visited most of them--at least most of those suggested so far--and found a bunch of great projects and nuggets of inspiration to encourage me to think up something of my own.

And I found a little gift to thank you--if you left a comment on yesterday's post and yours is the name I randomly draw tomorrow night:

And I'd also like to return the favor and list a couple blogs I stumbled upon today. These weren't recommended by you but I found them through blogs that were--as I was procrastinating on cleaning toilets:

Vintage Trailer Lady--Love her sewing room a couple posts down!

Clare's Craft Room--Check out her Easter egg craft project, also a couple posts down.

Clover & Violet--I really need to make a cover for my Kindle from their tutorial.

Okay, seriously? It's after 11 p.m. and I still have to clean the bathroom floors. I guess I'd better get that done. Tomorrow I'm heading back into the Sweat Shop with a clear conscience, a clean house, and a bucket full of inspiration.

Around and Around

Remember webrings?

When I first started blogging--back when we had to walk ten miles to school and home again, uphill each way because cars hadn't been invented yet--there were webrings. Well, there still ARE webrings, really, but it's not quite the same, I think.

Back then, blog surfing was much harder. The simplest way to discover new blogs was to come upon a webring member and click the "next" on the ring badge and travel from blog to blog, around and around the ring. If you were lucky, you'd stumble upon a member who belonged to two rings, and then you could click the "next" on the other ring badge and discover a whole other group of quilt bloggers.

Back then, I thought about joining a webring. There were Quilt Mavericks (headed up by Bonnie Hunter); Stash Quilts (where I found Vicky of LA Quilter--who is still working that stash); and Heartstrings--I'm pretty sure there are more webrings but I've forgotten what they are. I remember reading at the time what each group focused on and/or required of its members and I didn't think I really fit into any one group very well. Of course, not being part of a ring meant it would be hard for anyone to find my little blog, but that was okay--I enjoyed chatting with the people whose blogs I'd found through the webrings, and they often paid back the visit. After awhile, it seemed like I was getting a little more company and that was fun.

Of course, over the years, blog surfing became easier. Widgets were developed to allow us to post blogrolls in our sidebars with links to other blogs. The best, I think, are the ones that include photos, don't you? More often than not, they entice me into visiting new blogs.

And speaking of "new" blogs, there are TONS of quilt blogs now, aren't there? I'm afraid I've become a little bit overwhelmed with the variety--I just don't know where to start, but more importantly, I don't know where to STOP, and then suddenly it's 2 a.m. and I have to get up for work in five hours! Yikes!

The absolute best thing about visiting quilt blogs--if I had to pick only one thing--is the inspiration that's found in seeing what other people are doing.

I'd like to pick your brain about quilt blogs and I know the best way to get you to leave a comment is by bribing you, so here's the deal. You tell me about your three favorite quilt blogs--the less well known the better because I already KNOW about Bonnie Hunter, Happy Zombie, various designers, etc. I'll randomly pick a commenter, and that person will win a little something. I'm not sure what that little something will be yet--I'll have to look around and see what I have, and it might be something like a pattern or two or some charms--something fun but not hugely valuable. I'll see what I have to offer as a prize and post a photo tomorrow (Sunday's post) and then I'll draw a winner Sunday night to be announced on Monday's post. And maybe we'll all find some new inspiration in blogs we didn't know about before. Kind of like I did when I discovered webrings.

Easter's Coming . . .

Every year around this time, I think of the Easter carrots I've made, and I want to share them with you. The weekend is almost here and Easter will arrive in a couple weeks, so it's about time I share, once again, the "recipe" for these lovelies. The ingredients? Some muslin fabric, poly stuffing, and green and orange acrylic craft paints.

The first year I made them, the carrots were somewhat large and I painted them in a slightly more primitive tone of orange.

Click here for the directions.

The next batch I made, a year or two later, were a bit smaller, and I used a brighter orange paint.

Click here to see all the instructions for the next batch.

By the end of the weekend, your carrot patch will surely rival Mr. McGregor's!