Happy National Quilting Day!

I know I don't usually post on Friday nights, but I didn't want to miss wishing you a happy National Quilting Day!  I'm heading to a quilt show in Yuba City and a couple quilt shops with two of my friends.  How are you celebrating the day?

A Little Bunny Business

For one reason or another, I don't think I've been in the Sweat Shop . . . at least not to do anything at all creative . . . since probably last weekend, I think.  I've THOUGHT a couple times about the progress--or lack of progress--on my Easter egg quilt projects and pondered, in particular, what I wanted to do with the appliqued runner.  I finally headed back into the Sweat Shop this evening to do a little work on the bunny.  After all, almost everyone can use a little work at one time or another.

And now that the bunny's had a bit of a makeover, I'll start the border treatment next.  And yes, I've figured out what I want to do with that, but you'll have to wait to see.

I haven't quite made up my mind, though, whether the bunny's overbite needs a little bit of orthodontia work.  I'll keep pondering that.  Thanks for checking in.

Smokin!

Last Saturday, I was watching the Cooking Channel while I sewed.  I find I can't do that very often, because watching those chefs create yummy goodness just makes me hungry, and then I want to eat all day, so I limit myself on my TV food show watching.  Watching Chopped is usually okay, because I'm never really going to want to take those ingredients they find in their baskets and cook with them.  And usually watching cooking shows in the mornings is okay because I'm less likely to want to snack then.

So, Saturday morning.  There are a couple shows I like to watch and Kelsey's Essentials is one of them.  Last Saturday, the TV channel guide promised me Kelsey was going to barbecue, which sounded pretty good, but when the show started, I learned she was going to barbecue INDOORS!

Seriously, did you know you could smoke foods on top of your stove?  I didn't!  I wasn't even sure that we could smoke foods outside on our barbecue, although Hubby later assured me it was possible, even if we'd never done it before.

So what did Kelsey make?  The dish that really made me drool all over my sewing was Garlicky Smoked Shrimp.  Ummmm, um!

I could only imagine!  And you see, that was the problem--I could only imagine since I didn't have a stovetop smoker.  But I thought about it for awhile while I watched Kelsey eating smoked garlicky shrimp, and then I told Hubby I was pretty sure I wanted a stovetop smoker.  "Why?," he asked.  And that's when I found out we could smoke stuff on the outside barbecue.  But you know what?  The outside barbecue is HIS toy, and he's never used it to smoke food.  And if he never has, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be the one to try to figure out how to do it either.  So I hopped on Amazon to check out the possibilities.

And now I have a smoker of my own, and tons of wood chips to go with it.  And the cool thing?  After I ordered my smoker, the price went up about $20, so I feel even better about ordering it when I did instead of holding off to mull over whether I really needed a smoker or not.

I think I just might do some smoking soon.  If I wasn't going to be out of town on Saturday and cooking corned beef on Sunday, I'd probably be smoking something this weekend.  As it is, though, I might have to wait until Monday or Tuesday night.

Do you smoke indoors?  If so, what's your favorite recipe?

Sick Day

I stayed home sick today with a stomach/intestinal bug, so there's not much to tell you about my day.  Nothing you'd want to hear about anyway!  I didn't even feel like wandering into the Sweat Shop.  But after a day of resting, reading, and watching TV, I'm starting to feel a little better, so I should be up and around again and back to work tomorrow.  "See" you then.

That's My Boy!

You know, of course, that Soccer Son plays soccer.  And I think the last time I talked about his soccer endeavors, he was playing for a local professional arena (indoor) soccer team, the Sacramento Surge.  Well, that lasted for a couple of months and he became dissatisfied with the way things were going--this was a new expansion team and it just wasn't what he expected when he joined.  Around that time, he was invited to join a team that was part of the same overall national soccer organization but at a semi-pro (premiere) level.  Joining that team meant he would have to travel some distance to and from games and practices, but he liked the team and was offered a modest compensation package that made joining a little more attractive to him than remaining a part of the other team.

So fast forward to now.  The semi-pro team he's been playing for is based in the Oakland/Alameda area and is called Bladium Rosal.  They ended their regular season and moved on to the division play offs in San Diego--Hubby took Soccer Son to the airport last Thursday and will pick him up again tomorrow morning.  (Soccer Son is number 13 near the center of the bottom row.)

The initial play offs consisted of three games; they tied the first two and won the third.  That was enough to move them on to the national quarter finals.  They won that game and moved on to the semi finals.  They won again and went to the championship game against the Colorado Blizzard.  And guess what?

Victory!  National champions.  But you probably figured that out from the title of my post, right?

Oh, and here's a photo of Soccer Son in action that I picked off the league's website:

That's him on the ground in black.  I don't know how he did personally yet as far as goals, etc.; I'll have to wait until he gets back to town to find out.  When Hubby and I talked to him on the phone after we saw the trophy pose on his Facebook page, the professional championship game had just ended, and the San Diego Sockers took that win, so you can imagine how loud it was in the Valley View Casino Center.  Hard to really talk.  But isn't it nice when we see our kids do well in something they love?  Congratulations Bladium Rosal and Pat Powers!  Woo-hoo!

Play Date

A friend of mine had surgery about a week ago, and I wanted to either bring her dinner or take her out to eat today, depending on whether she felt able to get out and about.  Since she was starting to feel like she could do things for short periods of time (and had been advised by her doctor to take short walks), we decided we'd go out to dinner . . . eventually.  But first we made a fast trip through Michael's for a couple essential items and then we went back to her house for a few hours of crafty play time.  Want to see what we made?

We were supposed to get together and make these wool felt "pots" a couple weeks ago, but then I had that pinched nerve in my arm, so we had to postpone.  Here's the pattern--in case any of you need to make a faux pot too.

I have to tell you, though, that about half way through, I told my friend I thought we should have just gone and bought terracota pots instead of trying to make them from wool felt!  On my way home, after we did, in fact, go to dinner (at Mimi's), I remembered I had some wooden tulips and a few birds, so what originally started off as a pot full of eggs grew into a pot full of faux flowers, eggs, and a bird!

It was the perfect decoration for an otherwise overlooked and unembellished spot in the livingroom.

Hop Forward

Today we go back to Daylight Savings Time.  I'm not really a fan of Daylight Savings Time.  Well, that's not it exactly.  I guess I should say I'm not really a fan of messing about with the time twice a year.  It seems that no sooner have I adjusted to one time, it's time to change to another.  It's really pretty pointless.  In my perfect world, it would be time to wake up when it's light outside and time to go to sleep when it's about seven hours before it gets light outside.  Simple really.

I've found a use for the smaller eggs I made.

Yes, the bunny looks a little funny with no eyes or whiskers, but he'll get some before too long.  Next I'll trim it down (you can't see it in this photo but the background fabric extends a few inches in all directions) and add some borders.  I'm thinking about a pieced border but I haven't decided what kind of pieced blocks I'll add.  Probably just something simple and not too big because I don't want the border to overwhelm the rest of the runner.  I think small pinwheels might work.  Or just half square triangles.  Something like that.

Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead an hour if you haven't already.  I'm going to go adjust mine now--begrudgingly!  I think the hour I have to give up might just be an hour of housecleaning.  Or cooking.

Finding Inspiration

Egg-stra, egg-stra, read all about it!  Yes, that's just plain silly, I know, but it's late at night and I've been playing with my eggs.  Hummmm.  I think that sounds wrong, doesn't it?  Well, you know what I mean.  Much of the fabric I've used so far is from the Sunkissed line by Sweetwater--it came out a couple years back and I had a bunch of it for a quilt-along that was really a quilt-a-short, because after I made about three blocks, I decided it wasn't something I wanted to keep going on.

Anyway, it's perfect fabric for spring and eggs, and as I said, I was playing around with it tonight.  I'd appliqued all four of the large eggs onto Sunkissed background fabric and then I auditioned some setting triangles.  They're too dark, though, aren't they?  Well, the problem with all this Sunkissed fabric I have is that I started out with a fat eighth bundle and added some larger pieces, but unfortunately, none of my larger pieces are any of the three colorways of the fabric I used for the egg background.  And that means I don't have enough of it, so I ordered more of the green I used there in the center square.  Of course, it probably won't arrive until Monday or Tuesday, but I'll keep playing--I still need some kind of applique for the center and I have some other applique ideas I'd like to prep for the setting triangles anyway.

I also prepped all four small eggs--the edges are starched under and I just need to decide what background to place them on.  Originally I thought they might go into the setting triangles but they're too large, so now I'm thinking about making them into a runner of their own.  Of course, this gives me more playtime options while I'm waiting for that Sunkissed fabric to arrive.

And speaking of the arrival of fabric, here's where the title of this post comes from.  Remember the quilt show I attended last weekend?  Out of all the beautiful quilts and all the goods the vendors had on display, you know what really caught and held my attention?  The fabric used in an apron one of the white glove ladies was wearing!  Sheesh!

And yes, I had to stop her and ask.  No, she didn't know what the fabric was, exactly; she just knew that she'd liked it so much, she bought something like five yards.

When I got home, I did a little online sleuthing and came up with the fabric, more or less--I just never was able to find it in the same colorway as the apron, which had a red background.  But essentially it's that white fabric in the center:

You know I love my Starbuck's, right?  So cups of coffee, espresso, and cappucino are perfect!  And it's even better if it has red, black, and white, and polka dots too!  The panel on the right is a different line, but the two pieces on the left are from Lloyds + Barton for Timeless Treasures and the date is 2007.  I found it online at Tymber Creek Fabrics, and if you click on the name, it will take you to the fabric--just in case you're smitten too.  The panel is from a line called All About Coffee for Exclusively Quilters and I found it at Fort Worth Fabric Studio.  I have no idea what I'll make from these fabrics, but I hope to get around to it before too long--they look so fun!

When I post again Saturday night, I'll show you where I am with my eggs, if I've made any progress.  Somehow, I suspect it's going to be EGG-CELENT eventually!

So What's With Those Strips?

Okay, now I can show you part of what I was up to last night with the strips.

Easter eggs!  And this is pretty much all I can show you for now.  Oh, not because I'm being super secretive, but just because I haven't worked out much else yet.  I just knew I wanted Easter eggs in a project.  Will I applique them onto a square?  A long runner?  Hummm.  I haven't  a clue.  But I do have another stack of future egg strips there in the upper left corner of the photo.  Those didn't turn out quite as large, so they'll be smaller eggs--you can kind of see my two freezer paper templates.  I'll be making four more smaller eggs that may be added to these four large eggs or may be a smaller project on their own.

Do you want to know what I did to get this far?  Please feel free to make Easter eggs of your own!

First I cut those strips you saw last night.

To do that, I assembled some random pastel fabric scraps--a little less than fat quarters--and cut a strip or two off each.  To make an egg, I cut one center strip that measured 2" or 2-1/4" by about 5-1/2".  After that, I cut three more pairs of strips that varied in width but were all about 5-1/2" long.  The narrowest pair measured 1" and the widest pair measured 1-3/4".  I then pieced them together.  I've also added some ric rac trim down the center of each egg.  For now, I've just used applique glue to secure the trim, but when I quilt the piece, I'll sew the ric rac down by machine.

Finally, I cut an egg-shaped template out of freezer paper, ironed it to the back of a strip set, and trimmed the fabric edges so they were about 1/4" away from the paper all around.  I turned the edges under to the back and thread basted around the egg, stitching through the paper.  When I was done, I pressed the edges front and back, sprayed them with starch on the back, and pressed again until the egg and the paper were dry.  Then I removed the stitching, carefully peeled off the paper, and went on to the next egg.

Tomorrow night?  The egg saga continues.

Quilter's Block

Would that be the right term for an inability to muster up enthusiasm for sewing?  Or would it be a LACK of quilter's blocks, since nothing has been made, thus resulting in no blocks?  I'm not sure.  I've been so very unproductive the last couple days, but it's not really for lack of a desire to make something; it's more due to a lack of enthusiasm.  Where's the quilter's Viagra when you need it?!

I mentioned that I sat around the Sweat Shop Sunday night with project ideas spread around me but nothing motivating me toward any one thing.  Monday night I put those projects away, looked around the Sweat Shop for inspiration, checked the TV schedule (nothing, NOTHING on TV!), and decided to waste an evening on the internet, only to find the internet down.  I was starting to think my creativity biorhythms were out of whack.  Or maybe it was my feng shui and I needed to come home tonight and move furniture.  But after a restless night and an early rising this morning, I started thinking about fabric and I came up with an idea!

I don't want to tell you what the idea was yet, but I'll give you a peek.

See?  If I tell you what I'm doing now, you won't be surprised later and then you'll start to feel just as blase as I've felt.  No, I can't do that to you.  Besides, I'm not completely sure what I'm doing either.  Right now it's just a spark and an experiment.  No, I won't make you wait until I'm completely done; just until I have something more to show.  So maybe tomorrow night.  See you then!