Down and Dirty

With only four (FOUR!) days left until Easter, I knew I'd need to take a couple of shortcuts to finish the Easter Toss quilt before the big day.  Will I finish, though?  That's far from certain, but what I'm doing to hurry things along is something I've done a time or two in the past, and it seems to work out okay.  Instead of hand appliqueing the corner bunnies, I've prepped the pieces and glued them in place; now I'll stitch them down by machine as part of the quilting.

Tonight I finished prepping the bunnies and pinned the quilt.  I also have the Juki out and cleaned, the thread picked out to match the quilt, and I'm ready to start quilting tomorrow night.

And for those of you who are curious about the pattern for the bunny, I started with the one I designed for the Spring! quilt pattern, redrew him a bit smaller to fit the corners, and adjusted the legs and ears, also to fit the space better.

If I can get the quilting done Wednesday and Thursday nights, I'll have Saturday to sew on the binding and anything else that needs to be finished.  Wish me luck!

Bits and Pieces

I'm so tickled that several of you want to join in the Scrap Basket Sunday group!  And I'm even more tickled that Carol offered to help me with a blog button for the group.  I think sometime this week, we'll probably have something you can add to your blog.

I know several of you have also said you want to make the Kim Diehl quilt I showed on my blog--that's the one I'm working on.  I had a little bit of trouble when I started making my blocks in that the pattern is written using fat quarters and strip sets.  However, I carefully read through the directions and did some calculations and came up with the cutting measurements for single scrappy blocks.  If you have the book and just need the measurement conversion, email me and I'll be happy to give you the info, but please don't ask me if you don't already have the book.  (I'm not being mean; I just don't want to violate copyright laws.)  I have my first four blocks made and I'm excited to show them to you, but I have to wait until Sunday, darn it.  I know this is going to be fun because these are like potato chips:  it's hard to stop with just a couple!

Besides the scrappy blocks, I took a little time to make the April block for the Thimbleberries BOM I started this year--it's the very first BOM Thimbleberries ever did, and it's fairly simple really.  Here's April's block:

I worked on it while I watched Murder on the Orient Express on PBS on Sunday night--another oldie but goodie.  Here are the first four blocks up on the design wall together:

I'm kind of surprised I've kept the blocks up there for the past couple months and I'm sure I'll need to take them down before too long for some other project, but it's kind of nice to have them there for now.

Tomorrow night I'll get back to the Easter Toss quilt--I'll be sure to show you how it's coming along.

Basket Case

I've been working, off and on, on the "Easter Toss" project, and I thought you might like to see how it's grown.

This is as large as it's going to get, and I think it's probably around 40" square or so.  I'm working on bunnies for the corners, but I'm not far enough along that it's ready to show just yet.  I hope when I quilt this, I'll be able to make those tulips look a little less one-dimensional.  In truth, if you were able to see it in person, you'd see that the center "petal" is folded fabric--kind of like prairie points--and not sewn down.

I'm happy to hear a number of you are interested in Scrap Basket Sunday, and I like the idea of a blog button, but I'm not sure how to make one.  I took a photo to use but I'm not experienced enough with Photoshop to add borders with words--not without spending hours trying to do it.  Do any of you know how to do that and want to volunteer to make a button?  If so, feel free to grab this photo, or I can email it to you--or you can make something up yourself.

I was only able to make one block today but I'm excited about how the "prototype" turned out and I'd like to make a couple more before I post photos next Sunday.  And, as you can see, I went through my much larger scrap bin and pulled out some fabrics to begin with, so I'll have them handy.

I've had a happy and productive day in the Sweat Shop today; but it's back to work in the morning.  Still, I think it's things like having to go to work that make us appreciate our play time even more, right?  I hope you too had a great weekend!

Scrap Basket Sunday

The idea that I needed to do something with my increasingly packed scrap drawer has been lurking in the back of my mind for some time now, and I finally formed a plan to help decrease my scrap stash.  I'm going to start something I'm calling Scrap Basket Sunday.  Each Sunday I'll pull fabric out of my scrap drawer and make a few blocks.  Then I'll post photos on my blog the following Saturday night--that way, the photos will show up in my Sunday post.

Once I decided on a plan, I started looking through various resources for a project to begin with.  First I visited Quilter's Cache.  Have you looked at all the blocks Marcia Hohn has uploaded there?  It's a great resource.  If you don't know about it, click on the name link which will take you to the page where you can access the blocks and check it out.

I printed out a couple block possibilities but then I remembered that Kim Diehl's books contain a lot of scrappy quilts and I love her patterns, so I pulled my books off the shelf and began browsing.  When I came across this one, I knew I'd found my first project:

The quilt is called Pie in the Sky and the blocks are stars inside of churn dash blocks.  My friends and I saw a quilt made from this pattern at the Manteca Quilt Show a few weeks ago, and it was one of my favorites.  And I'd already forgotten about it until I went looking for a scrappy project!  You can also see there are plenty of plain fabric squares that make up the sashing--great for using up a basket full of scraps!

I'd like to invite you to join me in Scrap Basket Sunday if you also have scraps that aren't being put to good use.  And I may have a few scrappy giveaways along the way--which will also help to decrease the amount of scraps I have.  Win-win, right?!  Just find yourself a pattern you like and join in--it doesn't have to be the same one I'm making.  If you have a blog, post your blocks on your blog each Sunday and let me know you're participating, and I'll create a section in my sidebar of links to other scrappy bloggers.

Speaking of giveaways, I promised to announce the winner of the Australian magazine Stan sent to me for machine embroidery.

Here's the winner's post:

Shelley has left a new comment on your post "Stan's the Man!":


"That issue looks like an 'oldie,' but 'goodie.' I have been embroidering for over 12 yrs and I do not have that particular issue. Maybe there is something inside that catches your eye? Love adding embroidery to my quilts! Thanks for the chance to win a little treasure."

Shelley, please email me your mailing address and I'll mail the magazine to you this week.  Thank you all for stopping in to visit.  Happy sewing!

Stan's the Man!

Do you have any favorite eBay fabric sellers you'd like to share?  I thought I'd let you in on one of my "secret" sources for "vintage" Thimbleberries fabrics--Ideas Unlimited.  I try not to visit too often because they always have fabrics I want, so it can get expensive.  In fact, just in finding the link for you, I was compelled to order three yards of fabric, darn it!  Lucky for me, most of the fabrics are priced under $7 a yard.

I'm terribly tickled at my latest find, though.  I know some of you have followed Thimbleberries for years, right?  Do you remember the Safe Haven BOM with all the bird house blocks?

For years after that BOM came out, I'd hear off and on from people searching for the focus fabric, which was very scarce and was even harder to find because a whopping 3 yards of it were needed for the quilt.

Well, Stan, one of the owners of Ideas Unlimited, must have unearthed a bolt somewhere because when I stopped in last week for a peek at the vintage Thimbleberries fabrics on offer, there it was!  And yes, I had to order four yards.

And oddly enough, at the country store at the quilt show in Yuba City last weekend, I found a set of the patterns--it was meant to be!  Of course, since the patterns first came out, the whole set has been reprinted in one of the Thimbleberries BOM books so they're widely available.

When I opened my fabric package, not only did I find the Safe Haven fabric (and another yard of vintage Thimbleberries), but I found Stan had tucked in an Australian magazine, Machine Embroidery.  What a sweetie, eh?!  There are some very lovely things in this magazine, including a baby's christening-type gown that would surely become an heirloom, but since I don't have an embroidery machine, the magazine isn't much help to me.

So I thought I'd share Stan's bounty.  If you live in the US (or can receive mail here), have an embroidery machine, and think you'd enjoy this magazine, please leave me a comment and I'll draw a winner Saturday night (posted on Sunday's blog post).  And stop by and visit Stan from time to time.  If you're not a Thimbleberries fan, you should know that he also carries vintage Jinny Beyer and some Moda as well.  You just never know what you're going to find there!

Rabbit, Run(ner)

Sometimes I throw fairly obscure (to most people) literary references into my blog posts.  In this one, my bunny runner reminded me of the title of the 1960s book Rabbit, Run, a very well regarded piece of literature written by John Updike.  I thought what I read of the book before putting it down was pretty boring, but then that's generally my opinion of most literature, unfortunately.  I guess that's why I didn't stick out college to become an English major; instead, I've left that feat to the Wild Child to accomplish.

Anyway, now that I've bored you about as much as John Updike bored me, I'll show you my rabbit runner and tell you the book Rabbit, Run has nothing to do with an actual rabbit.  Typical for literature, right?

When we last saw this guy, I was contemplating orthodontia, which I did perform one day.  And I also gave him a lower lip/jaw under his buck teeth--kind of like Doctors Without Borders performing jaw reconstruction surgery.  Still, I wasn't happy.  He was just sitting there in the grass, looking kind of sad, lost, and (shhhhh!) not very intelligent.  In fact, he looked like a sad dog with long ears.  So I added a basket of carrots.

And apparently I did a really good job with that lower lip/jaw surgery because the basket handle seems to just be stuck to and held up by his lower lip rather than gripped in his buck teeth, but a person can only remove and replace a bunny's teeth a limited number of times, so this will have to do.

If I thought I could make some decent-looking butterflies, I would seriously consider adding two or three to the runner, but I'm afraid I'd end up with something that didn't look quite right, and then I'd be tweaking it into 2014, so maybe this is done now, except for the quilting.  Time will tell.

Easter Toss

Tonight I thought I could show you the current progress on one of my Easter egg projects--remember I had to order more of the background fabric a couple weeks ago?  It arrived last week, so I worked on it over the weekend and a little bit the last couple evenings.

I'm not sure where I'm going with it from here, but I have a couple of ideas.  Right now, it's 24" square.  Originally I thought just a simple border of the background fabric would finish it, but then I started wondering where the bunnies were.  So, I guess I should wait a little while and see if the bunnies show up--those carrots seem like pretty good bunny bait, don't they?

Lady Bugs, Polka Dots, and Red Fabric

I guess you could say these are a few of my favorite things.  I've been "collecting" red fabrics--mostly fat quarters--for a couple years and squirreling them away in my secret drawer.  Okay, the drawer isn't really secret, but I DO have these "special" fabrics tucked away there until I find just the right project.

See the lady bug fabrics too?  There are a couple in there.  And there are a lot of polka dot fabrics in the drawer as well.  At the quilt show last weekend, a vendor called Lady Bug Lace had lady bug pincushions.  Yes, I bought one; I couldn't resist.

And I purchased a little bundle of fat quarters that go with my red fabrics, although these have black too for some nice contrast.

When we were at the show, there was a section that had several red, white, and black quilts that were quite nice--we all admired them.  Maybe that influenced my purchase a little bit.  But my best "find" of the day, I think was a nice collection of fat quarters from a little shop in Lincoln that we stopped at on the way home--Sew Katie Jean.

These guys--except maybe the one yellow fat quarter--definitely belong in my secret drawer; don't you agree?  Just looking at them makes me smile.  I found a possible pattern last week to use with my stash but I'm not sure yet--I saw it made up in reds and greens, but they were more "country" shades and not as bright as my little hoard.  I'll think about it.  And open that drawer every now and then to admire my collection.  How about you?  Do you "collect" any specific fabrics you just can't seem to pass up?

Houston, We Have a Problem

Don't you hate it when technology goes wrong?  Admittedly, my little problem wasn't anything like the problem Apollo 13 experienced but it was frustrating.

Recently we here at Casa de Kim have had some problems with sporadic internet access and we thought it had something to do with our service provider.  A couple weeks ago when I sat down to write a blog post, I found I had no access until later that night, when I just posted a brief note mentioning the problem.  The same thing happened again Friday night.  I had already been playing around on the internet, reading blogs, and had even posted a brief message about National Quilting Day when our internet connection went down again suddenly. 

It's a little alarming to realize how much we depend on something like the internet or our telephones.  I email a friend, Eileen, twice a day; in the morning and evening.  I thought if Eileen didn't hear from me for any length of time, she might worry, so I brought my Kindle with me on the quilt show trip.  When we stopped for coffee drinks at Starbucks, I took advantage of their WiFi to send off a very brief message letting her know I was okay and what the problem was.  And while I was off playing with my friends at the quilt show, Hubby was tasked with contacting our internet service provider to get the problem resolved.

When I got home Saturday night, I learned the problem wasn't our service provider but was instead due to our outdated modem--time to buy a new one.  So Hubby went off to the electronics store and I spent a couple hours blowing dust out of the computer and messing around with plugs and wires and software and passwords.  Why is it that these computer things that would take a tech 10 minutes to fix always take me two or three hours?  So on Saturday night I spent a second frustrating evening on computer stuff, but at least the computer is up and running again, and the fact that I finally took time to remove the dust from the computer guts seems to have it running better than it had been lately.

Remember when computers were supposed to make our lives so much easier and better?  I'm sure they DO, but I can't help but feel, now that the weekend is at its end, that I lost several precious hours messing around with the computer when I'd much rather have been sewing!

How Was It?

Did you have a great National Quilting Day?  A couple of my friends and I traveled north for about 45 minutes to a quilt show in Yuba City.  Some of us went last year and had a good time, so it seemed worth repeating.  Last year the only disappointment, I think, was the choice of the restaurant we were directed to for lunch, but this year I got a couple recommendations from a blog friend who is a member of the guild, Diane Steele, and a local merchant, and we ended up with our choice of several good options.  In the end, we decided to try the Sutter Buttes Brewery.  I ordered a twist on a club sandwich that included sun dried tomato aoli, chicken, and bacon, and my friends had fish and chips.  It was all good!

Before lunch, though, we went to the show.  And this time, I completely forgot to bring my camera, darn it!  There was a really great quilt made from a Sue Spargo pattern with wool and an amazing number of different embroidery stitches--marvelous!  And Diane's group, the Calendar Girls, had a display of their quilts made from patriotic blocks they'd swapped last year--such a talented group!

Ah, and then there were the vendors.  I had been looking forward to visiting one particular vendor who sells vintage "stuff," like buttons, ephemera, laces, trims, etc.  And yes, she was back again.  Last year she had some really fun themed "grab bags"--you could kind of see what was in them, but when you got them home and opened them up, there were a few surprises that weren't visible through the wrap.  Unfortunately she didn't have those today, but she did have some trims I really needed to have.

Red and white ANYTHING will always find a home with me, but I also thought the tiny green rick rack and green bias tape would make some really nice stems for appliqued flowers.

One of the fun places to visit at most quilt shows is the country store or boutique--whatever they call it, it's more or less the quilters' garage sale area; you know what I'm talking about?  There I found more trim I really needed--how cute and spring-like are the lavender and yellow loop braid trims?

You know what happened that's kind of funny though?  When I got up to the cashiers, they told me they didn't think they had any individual packages of trim.  As it turned out, the WHOLE BOX OF TRIMS were just $3.  Yes, ma'am, I'll take it!

Hubby seemed to think the box itself was worth the deal I got, so maybe I'll give it to him to store stuff in, but I'm keeping the trims.  I'd estimate about half the box is filled with seam and hem tape, and I'm really not sure what I can do with those.  Any ideas?  The seam tape can probably be used in place of silk ribbon for embroidery or dimensional applique, perhaps.  Something like that, anyway.

I'll show you one more of my "steals" from the country store--a bundle of light colored (mostly blue and gray) woven/homespun fabrics.  My friends and I have been planning to make house quilts with homespun, so for $5, I was able to significantly increase my stash of light shades.

 
I have more to show you but it's going to have to wait until another day, because if I yawn any wider, I'm going to crack my jaw.  I think it's nature's way of telling me it's time to head off to bed.

My corned beef is in the crockpot, by the way, bathing in a couple large cans of Guiness overnight--I'm trying my friend Missy's recipe, and it's new to me.  I'll let you know how it turns out.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!