Friday, August 31, 2012

Fabric Journals

Last week I read this great tutorial over at Stitched In Color and knew that I just HAD to make some of these journal covers.  I packed up a box full of fabric scraps and took them with me to NJ with plans of making one for my DIL's birthday, while my granddaughter was napping in the afternoons.  Here's the one I made for her...

She loves orange and grey and bird fabrics, so I hope she likes my selections.  She always has a notebook handy to jot down ideas, recipes, etc. so I thought she'd like this.  And the great thing is that they fit a standard composition notebook, and you can replace the notebook when it's full, and re-use the cover!
My daughter liked it so well that she dug through her scrap basket later that night and asked me to make one for her too!  So here's hers...

These were so easy to make, and they're great to make up for quick last-minute gifts.  The hardest part for me is deciding what fabric to put where.  Improvisation is hard for me - I'm a planner - so it's hard to just throw things together randomly.  But I love how they both turned out, even if it took longer to plan them than it did to sew them...
Now that I'm home for a few days before my next trip, it's time to get some more projects accomplished.  But first, we're headed out to celebrate my hubbie's birthday tonight...

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Tasting Table Tuesday - Toddler Style

Happy Hour each afternoon now consists of sippy cups and Goldfish crackers, otherwise known as "fishies" if you're 18 months old...  I'm spending a few days babysitting in NJ while my daughter gets her 3rd grade classroom ready for the new school year.  We're having a wonderful time and I'm still able to get a little sewing done while she naps in the afternoons.  I finished one project yesterday and my helper is assisting me with the fabric selection for today's project.  I'd show you what I'm making, but it involves a birthday gift for my DIL and she follows my blog, so it will have to wait a couple more days.  I'll share the end result with you later in the week.
OK Blogger - I give up...  I've been trying all day to post a picture to go along with today's post and it won't cooperate.  So I'm publishing it now without the picture, and if Blogger decides to be nice later, I'll update it with the picture.
I just got home from NJ this morning, and now my desktop computer will allow me to upload a picture, but my laptop would not.  If anyone has any knowledge about this problem, I'd love to hear from you.  Even at home, with my laptop connected through the same router/modem as my desktop, the laptop wouldn't let me upload a picture...
Tomorrow I'll share pictures of what I made out of all these scraps, so be sure to stop by!  Cheers!

Friday, August 24, 2012

Tasting Table - Friday???

I'm late...  I was away last week and intended to post on Tuesday, as usual, but just realized I forgot all about it!  Anyway, there's something new on my Tasting Table that I'm really excited about.  Awhile back, I bought this gorgeous Jelly Roll of grey Puttin' on the Ritz fabric, just because I loved it.  Grey and Cream is such an elegant combination and I thought it would make a really amazing baby quilt.  I've been staring at it for ages, and finally decided to cut into it last week.  I chopped it all up into 4 1/2" long pieces, then arranged them in a really simple layout - so easy!!!  I saw a quilt laid out like this somewhere on the internet (sorry, don't remember where) so I got to work on EQ and drew it up.  The jelly roll is heavier in greys than creams, but I was able to make a 40" x 48" quilt and you can see how many "bricks" I still have left over for a future quilt.  The pale blue you see on the left is my backing fabric.  I found it at Enchanted Mountain Quilt Shop in Olean NY, and the cream & grey rings on it match the jelly roll fabrics perfectly.  Can't wait to see this one finished!  It will be listed in my Etsy shop when it's done.  Have a wonderful weekend!  Cheers!

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Tasting Table Tuesday - Show & Tell

The MLQG Quilt Exhibit is only 3 weeks away and it looks like I'm finally going to meet my deadlines.  All that's left to do on Haberdashery is to hand-stitch the binding and hanging sleeve to the back of the quilt.  Whew!!!  This project was tough.  I started quilting it a few days before we left for our fishing trip and after several agonizing hours, I quit.  I walked away from the machine, folded up the quilt and gave up.  For some reason, the Juki I normally use for my quilting absolutely refused to sew more than a few inches without breaking the thread.  I tried every trick in the book - nothing worked.  It took me 2 hours and many many thread breaks, just to quilt one block.  Talk about frustrating!!!  So I quit.  I don't like quiting...  I stewed and stewed about it, then went to visit a quilting friend.  It really helps to have another quilter to talk to at times like this.  I had so much time invested into this quilt, with hopes of entering it in our exhibit next month, and I couldn't finish it...  I could have cried....

Anyway, to make a long story short(er), I decided to give it one more try, but use my Bernina this time.  First block, no thread breaks - 2nd block, no breaks - 3rd, still no breaks!  Over the next few days I finished the whole quilt with ZERO machine problems!!!  Like the ads say - "nothing sews like a Bernina".  The only hard part was wrestling this heavy quilt through the small throat space.  That's why I bought the Juki - there is  more room for the quilt.  Most of the time the Juki works great and I love it - but it has it's days...  It obviously doesn't like the silks and bulkier necktie fabrics in this quilt, that's for sure!

So now I'm dreaming about the new Bernina 7 Series coming out in September.  Ten Inches of Throat Space!!!  They're not as expensive as the previous 8 Series, but still pretty pricey.  But I can dream, can't I?


I also finished my AAQI quilt for the Exhibit.  All of the entries in this category will be donated to AAQI at the end of the exhibit.  My entry is called "Dare to be Different".  The squares are all 1 inch, and it's quilted with a 1/2" grid of straight lines, and the overall size of the quilt is 8 1/2" x 10 1/2".  I really love how this one turned out.


So if you're in the Wellsboro PA area during the month of September, stop in and see our exhibit at the Gmeiner Art Center.  You'll be blown away by the quilts, I'm sure!  See you there!

Friday, August 10, 2012

Trip Report


It's raining as I'm writing this.  Pouring, in fact.  This is our last day of our trip to our fishing camp in Canada.  Did I mention that it's pouring?  What a miserable way to end our trip.  We got here last Friday and the first 2 days were unbearably hot & humid.  You'd break into a sweat just sitting doing nothing.  The heat broke on Sunday but it poured all day.  Almost made us wonder why we came!  But then we had three lovely days of sunshine, blue skies, comfortable temperatures, and the previous 3 days were all but forgotten.  We caught a few bass...

listened to the ospreys sing for their supper...

and watched the loons frolic in the lake...

This one floated along right beside our boat for quite some time.  They are so beautiful to watch and this guy was obviously quite comfortable with our presence.

Now it's raining...  still...  We thought the storm had passed, so donned our rain gear and headed out for one last fishing session.  I don't mind fishing in a warm rain shower, but this was ridiculous.  It POURED - buckets and buckets of hard rain dumped down on us.  So that's it for today.  As soon as it lightens up a little we'll pull the boat out of the lake and start packing up for an early departure tomorrow.  We plan on coming back at least two more times this summer, so we might catch that big one yet...  if it doesn't rain...

Have you been following the Olympic Games?  We only get 2 TV channels here, and all that's on is the Olympics.  It's interesting to follow the Games from a Canadian perspective.  They have been interviewing the Canadian athletes and it's very interesting to hear about their backgrounds, and the towns they're from, especially for me, being Canadian born.  I've been a US citizen since 1994, but my Canadian blood still runs deep.
There was a interesting story on the news here about a group of quilters in Kelowna, British Columbia who made and donated quilts to people in Newfoundland who were affected by Hurricane Igor last year.   They interviewed the quilters and the recipients of the quilts.  It was such a touching story.  One of the recipients said it made her feel "rich" to be the proud owner of such a beautiful quilt.  She was so honored to receive it.  It's nice to be reminded about how special our quilts can be, and the satisfaction we receive from gifting them.  Here's a link to the news report if you're interested...

Our local quilt guild is having their semi-annual Quilt Exhibit next month here in Wellsboro, and one of the categories is called PolkaDots & Plaids for Progress - Quilts for AAQI.  Each mini quilt will be donated to AAQI at the end of the show.  I brought my supplies with me and got a good start on mine here, yesterday afternoon.  It's called "Dare to be Different" and I can't wait to share it with you when it's done.  Each quilt in this category has to contain at least one Polka Dot fabric, and one Plaid fabric.  Of course, I didn't have any plaid fabrics in my stash, so I had to beg from a fellow quilter, and she came through with the perfect one for my quilt.  I hope to finish it shortly after we get home, so check back soon for pictures.  I'll have Haberdashery finished by then too, so I'll post pictures of both.

I did a little knitting this week too.  It's a great way to pass the quiet afternoons here when we're not fishing.  My daughter picked out a skein of gorgeous hand-painted merino wool yarn ($$$$) and I offered to make her an Infinity Scarf with it.
Well, I've learnred a very important lesson.  Never use a shiny metal bowl for your yarn if you're knitting outdoors.  Monday was our first nice SUNNY day here and I thought it would be nice to get a little sun while knitting.  I left my good ceramic yarn bowl home, for fear of breaking it in travel, and used a stainless steel salad bowl that was already here in the camper.  The inside of the bowl is polished to a mirror finish.  Sunshine - mirror finish - I bet you know where this story is headed!  I hadn't been knitting five minutes yet when I smelled something burning.  I looked up at the trailers to see where it might be coming from, then noticed the smoke rolling out of my yarn bowl!!  I grabbed it quick, but there was already a black, charred spot about the size of a dime right in the middle of my ball of yarn.  Fortunately, it didn't burn all the way through, and I just wound off the damaged part and salvaged the rest.  Lost a few yards though.  Why couldn't  I have been using cheap stuff!  This is probably the most expensive yarn I've bought!  But lesson learned.  I'm now using a black hard plastic bowl.  I've made some progress though.  I'm not a very fast knitter, so it's going to take me a while to finish all 100 inches of this scarf.  Now if I can just keep from setting it on fire again....