Oh, and by the Way . . .

I think I used up all my deep and insightful thoughts on yesterday's blog post and there's not another one rattling around in my brain right now, so today's post is mostly just a little fluff and catch up.

You may need your sunglasses again. Remember Montezuma's Hangover (aka the Bad Cherry Tequila quilt top) from a couple days ago? Did you happen to notice the stars in the hourglass block sections? One of my blogless internet friends, Synthia, emailed me to mention she had noticed four of them, so I thought I'd mention it. It's kind of like Where's Waldo. Can you find the six stars? Yes, I even amuse myself when I make bad quilts!

Seriously, though, thank you all for your support. Frankly, I'm kind of surprised by all the nice things you said. One of these days, I'll finish it. And if I still don't like it, maybe I'll have another giveaway on the blog!

Okay, now cats. Or my goofy young one Spike to be specific--the one who wanted her own bed and still seems happy to have it. Sometimes I'd like to kill her. Like when she opens the kitchen drawer where we keep the dish towels and digs them all out onto the floor so she can climb in. Several times a day. I thought I'd take a photo of her tonight--this, I think, was about the fourth time this evening.

What goes on in those little cat brains? She also likes to open all the cupboards. She must have the strongest paw muscles of any cat I know. If we could only harness all that energy into doing some kind of housework I'd be a happy cat mom.

But here's why I let her live: She makes me laugh. This is one of her favorite poses:

There she is, laying on the floor in front of the television because she knows hubby and I are both looking in that direction, and she's hoping that if she's cute enough, we might abandon the evening's television program and pick up that feathered stick she's laying on top of and play with her. And if she doesn't think we're noticing her, first she'll stare at me for awhile--

Then she'll stare at hubby for awhile.

She's so obvious, isn't she? Hussy! Tramp!

Nature or Nurture?

When it comes to creativity, is it something passed on to us in our genes or do we pick it up because creativity is part of our upbringing?

Last night, I was reading Mary Ann's post about her family and her creative grandmother. Then I thought about quilting friends who have said they first developed an interest in quilting because a mother or a grandmother quilted. I started thinking about creativity and wondering why it develops in some of us but not in others.

I was adopted at birth and never knew my birth parents, nor do I know anything about my genetic background, so I can't say whether I come from a long line of creative people. My adoptive mother, though, was involved with painting and art for a time, until alcoholism overwhelmed her desire to create. Still, during my formative years and until I was in my mid-teens, my mom would paint or sketch periodically, and she was always interested in home decorating, sewing, and making our home attractive. My mom's father was a fairly talented artist as well. On the other hand, my brother, who is my parents' biological child, appreciates art and creativity but has never seemed to have much of a desire to create anything himself. Still, when it came time to get a job, my brother went into commercial house paint sales, so he works with color regularly--is that his creativity coming out?

The other day, I was talking to my mom on the phone and she asked if I was still quilting. "Yes, of course," I replied. "Why do you want to keep making quilts?," she asked. "Don't you have enough?" "For the same reasons YOU painted pictures, Mom," I told her. At that point in the conversation, she told me she had to stop painting because framing was too expensive. We've been down that road before--next she would have complained that my father wouldn't let her paint because it cost too much money. So, of course, I changed the subject. But you know what? I think that if she had felt the same need to create that I feel, she would have found a way to continue with her art, even if it meant sketching in pencil and charcoal on a drawing pad. I'm not sure what led to her periodic spurts of artistic endeavors and whether it was the alcoholism alone that quenched her creative spark, but I don't think my mom ever truly felt a passion to create, because she doesn't recognize the motivation in others.

So where did I get it from? My early exposure to an artistic parent and a need--particularly as an adopted child--to be more like her in some way? Some gene passed down to me by ancestors I never knew? I don't suppose I'll ever know for certain, but maybe it's a combination of both. How about you? Where did you get your creativity from?

Put on Your Sunglasses . . .

and grab yourself a margarita. You guys asked for it, so here it is! The working title is Bad Cherry Tequila. Or maybe Cherry Tequila Hangover.

And I have to tell you that for once, the photo looks better than the quilt top in "real life"!

I knew when I was piecing it that it was awfully busy, and I think if I had used one constant fabric in the hourglass blocks--like maybe the black I used for the background of the cherries--with the other fabrics, it would have calmed it down a bit. But the pattern itself called for scrappy fabrics and I was trying to stick to the pattern as much as possible. Still, by the time I got a pile of the hourglass blocks made and up on the wall, I knew it was waaaaaay too chaotic, so I thought maybe simpler corner blocks would help--and they did a little bit but not enough, I think. I've also been thinking that a plain outside border using one of the fabrics might help, but I hate to use more of this cute fabric in this project right now. So I think I'll hold off for awhile until I can get around to making the other quilt top I want to make with this fabric line and then I'll see what I have left--maybe I can rework this project a little bit so I'm happier with it.

And here's a peek at the cherry blocks I'm making for my other--main--cherry quilt project. I only have three made so far and I'll need nine of these and then four more on a blue background.

I'm using a Valdani variegated perle cotton for the stems and I think I may want to stitch a double line to make them a little thicker. I only have one ball of the perle right now, though, and the Valdani perle is hard to get ahold of. I've put an order into an online shop, but the owners are attending a couple of stitching shows this month, and there's no telling when my order will be filled and delivered. So I'll just keep going along with the single stems for now and see how far I get with what I have.

At least it's a much calmer project to work on. Until we visit next time, I'll just be sitting here in full lotus position with my back to that cherry tequila nightmare, chanting "ooooooom" and stitching away.

Out of Sorts

I've been feeling out of sorts this weekend--I'm pretty sure it's a hormonal thing. I hate that. Other than that, though, I had a nice, relaxing weekend. On both days, I took my morning cup of coffee back to bed and snuggled in with a good book for awhile--something I rarely do anymore. The house got cleaned--and boy did it need it! And somewhere in there, I did a little sewing, although I think I should have just gone back to bed with a good book for all the good it did me.

Remember that appliqued cherry center block and the Jo's Little Women pattern that I was going to use the Blackbird Jubilee fabric in? Well, for the first time in a long time, I've made a quilt top I don't like at all. And it's a bit of a mystery to me how it happens that you use fabric you LOVE and end up disliking the finished top. Obviously, quilting holds mysteries I've yet to solve. Like the one where you add a butt-ugly fabric to a quilt and it ends up looking fantastic. See, experimenting with that one is still a little outside my comfort zone. Maybe someday. It sure can't turn out any worse than the one I worked on this weekend.

The Jo's/Blackbird project has turned out looking like some Mexican fiesta where everyone drank too much tequila. Yeah, it's a little busy. And bright. And--well, ugly! I might finish it someday because I keep telling myself it could look okay on a table with a bunch of food piled on top to hide a lot of it--just background color. Yeah, that might be okay. Or maybe it would make for a nice pet quilt, although it might give the pet some nasty nightmares!

On the UP side, though, I've started my "real" cherry project. This is the one I've been thinking about and planning. I should have a photo or two of what the blocks will look like in the next couple days.

Oh, and one of the BEST things I did this weekend--I cleaned up and organized the Sweat Shop. It was really getting kind of crazy in there--to the point where it wasn't a place of comfort and refuge anymore; instead I'd go in there, look around, and start twitching with anxiety.

I do still have a plan to use the Blackbird Jubilee fabric in something else that I think will turn out a LOT better, but I think I need to not look at it for a little bit. And that's just fine since I have this other cherry project to keep me busy for awhile anyway.

I hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable weekend! Thanks for stopping by to visit.

Roses Are Red . . .

Or any other color you want them to be when you make them from your scraps! Tracey has a nice tutorial for making roses--if you haven't seen it yet, check it out HERE.

I've been making the occasional rose for the last few years too. The only real difference between mine and Tracey's is that she continues on with the piecing to make a block while I stop when I'm happy with the way the rose looks and then I applique it onto a background.

With summer coming in a few months, wouldn't this be a good time to play around with some scraps and make yourself a few roses?

Cats and Blackbirds

The rest of the Blackbird Jubilee fabric I ordered arrived yesterday! Woo-hoo! I took a photo because I thought you'd want to see it. My assistant got in the way a bit though.

Here she is again, keeping a close eye on me while I try to sew and guarding the appliqued cherry center--by laying on it.

Of course, if you know cats, you know they like to lay on stuff. The other night I was sewing and heard a crash. Since it wasn't a very loud crash and didn't sound like breaking glass, I ignored it for a bit. When I went out to the kitchen awhile later, though, I found the crash had been the sound of a wooden holder we use for napkins, miscellaneous papers and pads hitting the floor. And here she is, laying on all the papers--probably to make sure they didn't get away. A live paperweight, if you will.

I had noticed over the past month that although she doesn't like to sleep on the bed with us, she does want to stay close by and had taken to sleeping on any of my dirty laundry that may have ended up on the floor near the bed. And if there WAS no dirty laundry on the floor, she would dig around my shoes and stare at me until I PUT some of my clothes on the floor for her to sleep on. Because I simply had no laundry for her Monday night, she meowed at me until I threw my robe on the floor. Being a reasonably easy-to-train human, I thought maybe she'd like a bed--so Tuesday night after work I went to a local pet superstore and plunked out some of my hard earned cash on a cat bed. As you can see, she's very pleased with her new bed.

So pleased, in fact, that now if I stay up late on the computer, she gets up on the bed and meows at me, telling me to turn off the lights because it's her bedtime. Considering the fact that cats can't speak English, they sure don't seem to have too much trouble communicating sometimes!

Pictorial Tutorial

I just had to "say" that again! I think even if a few of you hadn't asked me, I would still have had to show you how to use mylar templates for applique so I could use the phrase "pictorial tutorial" a few times. Of course, I could just take a bunch of photos illustrating my method for plucking stray chin hairs instead of demonstrating this applique technique and use the same phrase, but I think I'll save that one for another time.

But while I'm thinking about stuff like health and beauty, here's a tip for women over 45: Fill the bathtub with bubbles and bathe by candlelight. It will help to keep you from catching a glimpse of your middle-aged, saggy, pudgy, naked body reflected in the chrome bath fixtures. Works for me. Otherwise, I'd scare the hell out of myself, have a heart attack right there, and drown in the bathtub.

But enough about me. Here's how to prepare cherries and other simple rounded shapes for applique. First of all, you'll need a sheet of no-melt mylar template plastic. I usually buy mine at JoAnn's; your local quilt shop may also carry it. It's important that it be no-melt because you'll need to use the iron on it, and if you just use the regular plastic template material, it may warp.

I find that a thin point permanent marker works best for drawing shapes, but if you don't have one, try whatever you have on hand. For drawing my circles for the cherries, I traced around a spool of thread. I've also been known to use shot glasses. Whatever works, right?! (You can see some of my shapes drawn on the plastic in the upper right corner.) You can reuse your shapes at least several times, but I'll usually cut several so I can prepare my pieces in batches. I took a class from Robert Callaham once and he actually uses a nail file to get his circles perfectly smooth and round--too anal for me! I just use a bit of care in cutting and I find that's good enough. In this instance, I cut a larger circle out of a stiffer file folder-type paper--that's what I used to trace around to cut my fabric circles. You want to make a pattern that's at least 1/4" larger than your mylar circles all the way around--in other words, at least an extra 1/2" across at the widest point.

Next, trace and cut your fabric circles. Baste with contrasting thread all the way around your circle, using fairly small stitches as this will give you a smoother edge.

Once you've basted around the circle, leave yourself two "tails" of thread for tying. Place one of your plastic circles in the center and draw the fabric tight around the plastic. Tie the tails in a knot. Sometimes the thread may slip while tying, but do the best you can with this.

Once you have a little pile of basted "cherries"--or whatever you're making--you'll want to heat up the iron and get yourself some spray starch. You may also want to use something to keep from getting starch all over your ironing board--I just use a kitchen towel and toss it in the wash when I'm done.

Lay your pieces on your ironing board with the plastic side up and use enough spray starch to saturate the fabric fairly well--you'll see it bead up a bit on the plastic. Press without steam, moving the iron around, until the fabric's nearly dry. If you didn't tie the knot of the basting thread tight enough, you can pull the threads a bit before pressing but make sure not to iron your fingers!--that should be enough to hold it. Flip your pieces over so the "good" side is up and spray and press as before.

Set your pieces aside and wait a bit for them to completely dry. This would be a good time to run down to Starbucks or pluck your chin hairs. Once the pieces are completely dry, you can clip the basting thread at the knot and, being careful not to pull the piece out of shape, slip the plastic out of your "cherry"--or whatever you're making. Usually I'll then give them one last press with the iron because no matter how careful you are getting the plastic out, they tend to not lay quite flat afterward.

Eventually, you'll end up with a nice pile of pieces all ready to be appliqued onto something.

You can use the same method to make leaves, flower petals, or any other simple, rounded shapes.

Once I have my pieces ready, I just pin them onto the background and start sewing.

I hope this helps inspire you to try making a few cherries along with me! And while you're catching up, I think I'll go take my candlelit bubblebath.

Catching Up

Sometimes in life, it seems like not much has happened until you look back a couple days and see what you've been up to. Of course, when you hit your middle years, sometimes it's hard to remember what you had for breakfast that morning, let alone what you might have done a couple days before. Luckily, unlike our parents, we have digital cameras and computers and can engage in a little photographic flashback when necessary. So indulge me here in a brief trip down short-term memory lane.

Before my body tried to turn itself inside out on Sunday morning and when I wasn't digging through people's cast-off stuff at the flea market on Saturday, I was busy finishing the box for the Wild Child. Here are a couple photos--outside and inside. The "outside" photo doesn't really show the box as well as the couple I've posted previously, but I wanted to try to get the "feet" into this shot, so it's not full on. Of course, my photography lack-of-ability meant the feet didn't show up all that well either. Oh well.

The Wild Child seemed delighted with the box--at least that was my impression during what little quality time I was able to spend outside of the bathroom while she was here.

Of course, the rest of the weekend was mostly just a nauseous blur. On Monday evening, I started thinking about my Jo's Little Women Club meeting that was coming up on Wednesday night. Then I started feeling kind of guilty that I hadn't done any of the Jo's projects this session--and I think we're on the third or fourth meeting of a six-month session. So I pulled out my Jo's packet and looked at the project. I don't recall the name of it, but it's designed to be worked on over two months; the first month is an appliqued center and the second month is a gazillion relatively small hourglass blocks that go around it.

Oh, a slight detour in the narrative here. Look what came in the mail on Monday:

Okay, so that's what I was doing--looking at what came in the mail on Monday. And looking at the Jo's project. And feeling guilty. And thinking about cherries. Yep, multi-tasking at its finest. And what resulted from all those jumbled thoughts reminds me of that commercial that goes something like, "you got chocolate in my peanut butter!" Except in this case, I got cherries in my 1800s repro project. So, this is what the Jo's project was supposed to look like--it's that one down in the right hand bottom corner.

Instead, this is what my appliqued center looks like.

When I showed it at Jo's tonight, everyone laughed. Ha! Scoff they may, but just wait! Yes, I will add the gazillion hourglass blocks--sort of--but they'll be in the Blackbird Jubilee fabric. As soon as the rest arrives--a FQ of each fabric and then some. Waiting is hard, though. Still, making this little appliqued center gave me a chance to test out a few ideas for the BIGGER cherry quilt project I'm starting. I see a few things I'll do differently on that one--like make the stems narrower and alter the leaves a bit.

In the meantime, I think I said something about working on cherries the other night while recovering from my near-death stomach flu experience. Now I have 39 cherries all prepped and waiting to be appliqued to something, but I didn't have the right background. At the quilt shop tonight, though, I found the PERFECT background. Unfortunately, I've now discovered that I rather short-sightedly failed to check my stash for the perfect leaf fabric(s). Nope--the perfect leaf fabric is not in the house. It's always something, isn't it?

So tomorrow I think I'll need to make a great sacrifice of both time and money and treck on down to the quilt shop during my lunch hour. You guys know I can do some serious power shopping during my lunch hour, right?

Oh, that reminds me--I wanted to ask if you know how to make appliqued shapes using no-melt mylar templates. If you don't, do you care? Do you feel a great void in your life? If so, I can share with you some photos I took while I was prepping the cherries and leaves for my Not-So-Jo's-Little-Women project and I could do a little pictorial tutorial, but I don't want to bore you if this isn't something you're interested in. ("Pictorial tutorial"--Love those words together! Reminds me of tutti-frutti!)

And for those of you who may be disappointed in my greatly updated version of an 1800's quilt, I thought I'd placate you with a couple photos before I say goodnight. One of the gals brought two blue and cream quilts to Jo's Club for show and tell, and Lindy (the owner of Bear Paws & Hollyhocks) dated them to around the first couple decades of the 1900s.

Bedtime for me! Goodnight!

The Joke's on Who?

I had to share with all of you my April Fools' Day experience. My Blogland buddy Yvonne thought I was playing an April Fools' Day joke on her--but I WASN'T! It took a few email exchanges before she believed I wasn't just pulling her leg. Check out her blog HERE. And if you want to read the original post, you can find it HERE. Isn't that the funniest thing?!

Happy April Fools' Day!

You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.
- Colette (1873 - 1954), in New York World-Telegram and Sun, 1961

So, rather than appear foolish afterward, I renounce seeming clever now.
- William of Baskerville in 'The Name of the Rose'