What's new?

Productive time in the studio--yay!

Tuesday morning Melissa called and said she was sick and not able to go to work that day. Visions of three days OFF (no kids plus John's out of town) drove Sophie and me straight out to the studio quicker than you can imagine! Most nights we had to feel our way in the dark back into the house. I just lose all sense of time when I'm left alone out there.  I have to show you how this dog spends much of her time out there with me

 

those little back legs poking out just kill me! Drumstick, anyone? :-)

I had definite ideas for what I wanted to get done. Quilt the blue zinger thanks to the sweet lady who loaned me her machine

 

I just stippled the blue bits and then did a few straight lines in the selvage diamonds. I won't bother you with pics of this again til it's hanging in the show next month. Just wanted you to see how doing the border like that really ate up my stash!

I really need to do a giant destashing of fabric and supplies out there. I came across some packs of precut iron-on flowers I'd made in the past and put together this pillow as a sample idea

 

I cut several fat quarters of vintage fabric I'm willing to part with too, but what I kept thinking about for the Flower Sugar fabric was little girl's clothing so that's kinda what I spent the next two days working on. Here's a couple of things I came up with--.

 

with matching headbands or barettes

 I'd like to sell them but first have to do proper photos and list them and all that. It's really too cold up here for my granddaughters to wear cute summer things.

Before I close this and start my day, I told my dad yesterday that I'd post a kid pic. Madison and I go wandering around the block 2 or 3 times a day and she has developed some have-to-do habits on these walks. One is to grab two big rocks from the back alley (one in each hand). A noticeable pile is beginning to develop over our back fence, as I always toss them back over once we come inside and she's put them down somewhere. Another thing she seems to always have to do is run to the streetsign at the corner and give it a big hug

 

As I was typing just now I remembered the story I told via a scrapbook page of  THE WALK Caleb and I used to go on. (select non-flash version to be able to read each page.) Maybe OCD runs in the family, but I've a feeling most little kids are like this. :-)

Have a happy Independence Day weekend!

Quilt Show pics

This week Eureka is having their annual Fair and Rodeo. I never go. Not a fan of rides that just go 'round and around. But I did volunteer to sit in the quilt display room for a couple of hours. There weren't an awful lot of entries maybe 50, but there were some good ones worth sharing.

 

I love how manly this one is. I mean; even a lumberjack wouldn't feel foofy having it around. Right down to the tied bits being made of jute! I also like that it's a form of recycling, using all the old suit jackets.

 

This one puzzles me for sure. How on earth did she sew it all together? One ginormous paper piece?

 

Pat Durbin is probably our most famous local talent.

The tree trunk and leaves are all done with what she calls "thread play". Boggles my mind. And it's hard to tell in my photo but there's twinkling crystals all over it.

 

I really enjoyed watching this quilt (also by Pat) reach out and GRAB people's attention. They just couldn't hardly believe it was a fabric quilt. And check out her machine quilting.

 

She teaches classes locally for both 'thread play' and machine quilting, but I know darned well I'd never be that good so I just don't even go there. But I sure can appreciate her work.

Here's a fun mini-group project. Four ladies took a photo of a pixelated rose and each created a small quilt of it.

 

Then they each cut their quilt into quadrants, and shared one piece with each other (each person has one 25% piece from each of four different quilts). Then they sewed the four blocks together to create a completely different quilt. Clever, creative, and captivating, for sure! That fifth one on the far right was done by one of the women 'just for fun'. Probably had the idea while she was working on the assigned quilt and just had to do it. You know how that goes, right?

Here's one more that I feel is very inventive--

Love the movement in this.

I had my somewhat crappy pocket camera that day. Next month at our guild's bi-annual show we will have 350+ quilts! I'm really looking forward to that. I'll get better photos with the good camera.

OH--the older lady I sat with for those two hours--I was somewhat complaining to her that my Bernina's been in the shop for a month (waiting for parts) and I was really getting concerned about time constraints as I still had to quilt my selvage quilt before the July 11 deadline to turn it in for our guild show. Even tho she'd never really met me before, she offered use of her quilting machine and brought it to my house the next morning! I was blown away by the trust and kindness. Really restored my faith in humankind, you know? Only trouble is, I LOVE that machine and now I think I need one! It's a Brother 1500 and ONLY does straight stitch. Not even zigzag. But man, the efficiency in which it performs that straight stitch. 1500 stitches per minute. I'm here to tell you; not many people could handle that kind of speed. I sure can't anyway. It has a nice long 'arm' and even a push button to nip your thread (so you don't have to look under all that quilt for where to cut your thread off). It's nifty, for sure.

Hope you have a great weekend! I'm heading back out to the studio for some more machine quilting now.

Yesterday French, today; Japanese!

I never said I wasn't a book and magazine junkie. Aren't we all to an extent? I, like many others, get so much inspiration over at Nanette's blog. Often she'll post something that I just have to have!! That's when I pull out my detective cap and go on the hunt! Luckily, this book she recently posted was not too hard to find on ebay. Oh look! This seller still has some! Nanette posted several pictures from this juicy idea book, but I thought I'd share a few more today. (and no; I'm not going to try to learn to read Japanese. Luckily they provide plenty of photographs) :-)

 

Looking at these two quilts makes me think I'm going to round ALL my quilt corners from now on. It really is a sweet look, and I won't feel bad about less than perfect mitered corners!

 

Isn't this a clever scalloped border? And such sweet applique!

OMG with the applique again. Anyone can make cute flowers with just circles. I love cleverness.

 

Nanette did show this on her post but I think it's worth showing again. I left it pretty big so click and enjoy. They call it the SunSun Sampler.

 

They even give us lots of individual block photos

 

And how's this for HAPPY and CHEERFUL

 

By the way, I said I'd "never" try hand basting, but yesterday "back basting applique" came to my attention and I rather like the look of it. Google it and see if you're interested.

Soooo. Are you inspired yet? Me too. Hey--maybe I'll put this fabric to use with an idea from the new book.

 

Wheeee! My obsessiveness paid off. I was searching for Lecien Flower Sugar on etsy at least daily (or when I thought of it) for quite a while and one day last week I got lucky and found someone who was quite literally in the middle of listing individual fat quarters. I believe she had scored two fat quarter bundles at market last month like a few other lucky people we've seen in blogland. So I convo'd her, "HEY! What'all ya got there!?" and yikes on the Visa card I scored a total of 34 pieces. THAT'll probably never happen again, right? So who's gonna cut theirs first? ;-)

My very favoritest magazine

I came across Marie Claire Idees magazine while blog-hopping, I'm sure. It was about a year and a half ago. I think I bought my first copy on ebay. Then I found out you can subscribe through Amazon, which I did for the following year. As the year came to a close I noticed the darned magazine just sitting right there on the shelves in my local Borders bookstore. I thought, well heck! I'm not gonna bother renewing a subscription when I can just drive over here and get them!   Yeah, you know the rest of the story already, don't you? I've never found the mag there since. And believe me, I've been looking! And asking clerks to check their computers. So I went back to ebay for the latest edition and will be renewing a subscription! I thought for fun I'd share some eye candy here with you today. (I chose the fast alternative over scanning--just photographed the pages by a sunny window, hence the windowpane shadows!) Click to enlarge...you don't want to miss a thing!

 

This little camper could very well be crapola on the inside but who really cares with a cheerful paint job like that on the outside? I'd like to have this in my driveway.

I think I have to go make baby clothes RIGHT NOW! And learn to knit.

 

Wow. Maybe I haven't done enough to my bike!

 

'Specially for Miss Pam.

 

 

Sheesh. They even make fruits and vegetables look better than ever. I DO think I could pull off one of those lemon sailboat placecards tho.

The part I really look forward to, almost like I imagine men look forward to the centerfold, is the (usually) monochromatic still life.

 

Aahhh. I really do love this magazine. I'm even half tempted to learn French, just so I can know what they're talking about without having the laborious chore of typing things into Google translator.

I just hopped over to flickr to see what's new if you search Marie Claire Idees and there were several other pages from this edition that I didn't show today. Go check it out! And then don't forget to subscribe. I know you won't be disappointed. :-)

A special weekend

Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild. ~~ Welsh Proverb

 

I'll never forget the day our grandson Caleb was born. His mother fell into an exhausted sleep from 24 hours of laboring which ended in an unscheduled c-section. With no father around I got to experience the magic of bonding with him in his first moments of life. His head was as conical as Grandpa Simpson from being stuck in the birth canal for so long. One ear was squished into a misshapen purple blob. Some strange tumorish lump covered the entire back of one hand. It appeared that he may only have one testicle. God I just sat there in amazement at his beauty, promising that I would always be there to take care of him and I'd make him special hats to cover his funny head and send him to Christian school where they'd be less likely to make fun of him. Idiot that I was; I didn't realize the first three 'defects' I describe above would just magically disappear by the end of the first week and the boy parts do end up dropping within a year or two. :-) We'd only ever had girls so what did we know? I felt really guilty for the first couple of years...it seemed like I loved him more than I'd loved my own! How horrible, right?! But then I started talking to other grandparents about it and they said, "OH, we all feel the same way!" Some combination of getting older and wiser and it's almost like getting a second chance, only better--you're getting to experience your children's children. It really is magic. I've tried very hard to savor and remember every day, knowing how fast it goes by, yet here he is already eight years old.

The kinda sucky part of having a summer birthday is many of your classmates are either gone or just plain forget that they got invited to your party. But just enough did show up to have a fun time.

 

The water was warm but when the sun went behind the threatening rain clouds it was maybe 52 degrees. BRRR! The second they got out their lips turned blue!

 

His face here tells the whole story--"Wow, Mom. This is a really lame excuse for a birthday cake." lol. I just crammed eight candles in one of the cupcakes. And the wind would NOT let us keep them lit, so I think by the time Melissa put it in front of him one candle was still lit. Gosh, I see we didn't even bother to take them out of the box they traveled in . Oh well, there were enough M & M's on them to get him over it real quick. :-)

He got some cool gifts, money which seems to be the norm these days, and a bike from Papa and I. Here he is reading the part in our card that says "We love you SO VERY MUCH"

 

Awwww. Such a very sweet child.

The next day being Father's Day, the kids went to visit Madison's dad and John and I were left to entertain ourselves. We headed to the wharf and it was gorgeous out. What a difference a day makes!

I asked the waitress, "Would you take our picture? We're not tourists or anything, we just don't get to come out and be adults very often." :-)

Yikes. I should have asked her to take two! Oh well--it is what it is, right?
This week promises to be a super duper mail week if you know what I mean! I should be back soon with pretties to share. Hope you had a great weekend, too.

Friday and we have a winner

Miss Madison jumped in on the action today and helped me pick a winner for the pillow

Well okay, not really. But she does look cute when she pops up behind my computer screen. :-) I'm finally taking the time to look at some of the blogs of people who left comments. Wow. There are so many fabulous and talented gals out here in blogland. Many of whom seem to go unnoticed when they most definitely should not.  I really enjoyed finding Courtney's blog. Such a tryin'-to-do-it-right kind of young woman. OH it does my heart good to find you gals. Just like I was 30 years ago. :-) And Tracy and Tara and Heather.   So many real, down to earth people just trying to live a good life and raise their kids right. People I never get to come across unless I have these give-aways. So clearly, the lesson is; I need to have more give-aways! :-) For tonight, the winner of the birdie pillow is Lindsey in AL. Send me your address soon Lindsey so I can mail this off to you.

Even if most of you have already seen this, I just have to pass it on. OH I am so going to do this. Not as early as this Sunday but definitely soon!

Thanks again to everyone who left comments.

Tomorrow our oldest grandchild turns 8. We're hosting a swim party for him and his classmates at John's golf club. I'll be back soon with photos. :-)

Happy Birthday Sophie!

Do you remember when we brought this little lump o' sweetness home and into our hearts last summer?

 

Gads...her cuteness still just bowls me over. And the brains and the personality. People--believe me when I tell you that a Corgi is the BEST dog ever! (I know; everyone thinks that about their dog!)  We're about a week late, but today I finally went to the All Dog's Bakery and got her a cupcake to celebrate (I reckon we won't know the difference when we look back on this pic years from now).

 (We must be getting old. We're photographing our dog as if she's human.)

Yesterday, while thinking up a pattern for abc blocks on point, I came up with a quilt on point idea and just had to make it right away. I didn't have enough of the spotted fabric on hand to use the larger abc sets I have cut, so I made a small one.

 

Cute? As you can see I still have to sew down the binding (I sure don't like that part). It's only about 22" from edge to edge (not point to point). I think it would be cute as a wall hanging, or even a play pad for a wee one under a year old. While I was cutting it all out I went ahead and made a second set, so will probably sew that up tonight. I can't quite figure how to price these things for etsy so for now I just stockpile.

I'll be back tomorrow evening with a winner for the pillow.  Thanks so much for all the sweet comments!

Make a sweet pillow cover...

or maybe just win mine!

 

I try to think of projects for the Moda Bake Shop blog that aren't *just for quilters*. I think you'd have fun with this project.

 

I'm giving away this birdie one so leave a comment  if you'd like a chance to give it a home. Just in case you were wondering, here is the one I am keeping;

 

Still can't believe I sewed 100 buttons in such a small space!!

edited to add: the giveaway is just for the pillow cover. You'll need to provide a standard 16" pillow insert.

Prettifyin' the Ride

You know how it is sometimes--you see something that just seems like such a perfect idea that you just HAVE to do it! Even if you didn't know you needed to do it. My utilitarian black bicycle basket seemed okay until I got a peek at a Betty Basket liner. Well, next thing you know I was spray painting and sewing and here is what we ended up with:

 

Too much?

I have to say; it was nice for my peace of mind when we ran our errands this morning and I didn't have to worry about the dvd's we were returning or the bank deposits bouncing through the open areas when we went over bumps and curbs. And the yellow ribbons flicking back in the wind reminded me of the tassels we used to have in the ends of our handlebars. :-)

Time to hit the beach!

Up here in FAR northern CA we have to look at the calendar to know whether it's Summer, or Spring or Fall for that matter. Seems it's always 55 to 60 degrees and overcast. Still, not a lot of people can drive 15 minutes and be on a beach like this

 

It was a really low tide this morning. This rock is probably almost always underwater.

 Isn't that starfish something? All purple and fat and fleshy. A lot more like Patrick on Spongebob than anything we ever saw in a shell shop. This rock was teeming with life

 

I'd never seen anything quite like it.

 

Caleb tried with all his might to pull some off but those mussels had muscle! Now I know why we've seen them using a chisel & hammer in the movies. :-)

When I saw the familiar tree-studded rock off in the not too distant ocean it reminded me of the time Caleb had stood in the same spot with his young father 7.5 years ago

 

Today I said, "Caleb, let me take your picture here. Your father would probably like to see it since he stood in this same spot with you when you were little." Here is the pose that he struck

 

You may remember that I talked a little about Caleb's relationship with his father last Christmas. I just found it so touching and somewhat sad that he struck (in his mind) his sweetest possible pose, as if to say through pictures to a man he doesn't know, "Please, like me!"

Then we have Madison. Little oddball that she is :-) Doing her version of 'Boot Scootin' Boogie'

 

LOL! Caleb told her "I think they sell something at the pet store for that problem!"

It's always so grounding for me to spend time standing in front of the ocean. Really helps put things in perspective. We promised to come back often this summer. We also decided to pick one rock, preferably a heart shaped rock, as a keepsake for every time we go on an adventure.  I look forward to seeing our collection at the end of the summer. :-)

It's Picnic Time!

Or;  Target Has Done it Again!

Honestly, it's like you have to stop by Target every other day or you might miss something! I got it in my mind that the grandkids and I will need a picnic basket this summer. You know, we do live on the coast after all. And then of course there are fabulous parks within a bike ride's distance. (Did I ever tell you that I struggled so hard with that four mile ride because my tires were flat as pancakes? Um. Yeah.)  I cruised ebay for a night or two, thinking I wanted a vintage basket. But more often than not I know they'll smell like mildew or the tin ones will have rust issues. I was really smitten with the pristine nature of the contents of this one and the uniqueness and condition of this one but I really want one to use, even if it only lasts one season. Don't want to get on to the kids for not being *precious* enough around a gosh darned picnic basket. So here's the one I snapped up at Target 3 days ago for $15.

 

Sweet! They also had a great variety of plastic plates, cups, etc for right around a dollar. I should have posted this right away because if your Target's anything like mine the good (new, seasonal) stuff only lasts a day or two. But I wanted to share a strong suggestion to add that ribbon as I have on the left side. The top is attached with two short piano hinges and it wouldn't take much, the weight of the lid itself over time, to snap it right off. So tonight I used small screws to attach a piece of grosgrain ribbon. It should be just enough to keep the lid from going too far back. I'm sure having done it on both sides would've been more visually appealing but I don't think it would make much difference and we're all about what works and gettin'rdone around here this summer :-) Oh. And if you're a cloth napkin user like we are, you know how hard it is to find 100% cotton ones. The six seen in the basket are half of the 12pack I found at Bed, Bath and Beyond tonight for $9.99.

That's all for my little commercial break. And if you have any suggestions for good finger/picnic foods for somewhat picky kids, I'm all ears!

A little of this and a little of that

I think "clean and organize the studio" is a never ending goal of mine. Isn't that pretty common? I'm guessing it is. I got one of those big garage-type bin organizers at Costco last week. Pulled everything out of the big scrap-crap closet and then set about piling it all back into the bins. I like it! Now I have to thin the stuff I know darned well I'll never use. After emptying the closet I came in the house to get something and when I looked back out the window I saw this

 

chop-chop Mama! Get back out here and clean this up!

This dog could fill a book with cute pictures in my opinion. I bought some little stuffed animals for her at a garage sale a couple days ago. Threw one out to her when I got home. Went about my business. Looked out and saw how funny she looked. Went and found my camera. Came back in the kitchen and took this pic through the window

 

In all that time she hadn't moved a muscle. Hilarious!

When I visited my friend Liz at the quilt shop the other day she told me she'd done some sort of internet search for *kitchen* and mine was the first return. It reminded me how popular the dinette shot was over at flickr. I was again forced to photograph it when I saw this over the weekend.

 

sunbeam + fabric = nest, no? :-)

I made the terribly stupid mistake of wiping a countertop Saturday morning. Well, you know how it is when you're not big into routine cleaning. That countertop leads to a backsplash, which leads to a cupboard, which leads to the fan hood....and it's ALL greasy and sticky and hard to clean. I can't believe I've been a domestic goddess for 30+ years and just recently thought to use these two cleaning products.

 

They both have degreaser in them but the citra-solve is a more all-around cleaner. AMAZING. I never thought I'd have shown this once grease spattered area online, but here it is all cleaned up

 

WOW! Not quite a ShamWow but a definite WOW! :-) All those little specks that build up on the clock area there? All sticky and you wipe and wipe and really they just smear? The Citra-Solv wipes it all off easy-peasy. And when you have kids around (or big guys who never wash their hands) and layers of dirt, grease, food, more grease,etc build up on cabinets and doors build up to Skungueeda (John's name for it)---wipes off no problemo. Get some and try it!

On my studio worktable is the selvage quilt wanting to be quilted and finished. I had a build up of scrap strips of batting. You know, from cutting crib size pieces out of twin size pieces, etc.  I could easily have gone up to JoAnn's and bought another roll and cut it down, but I wanted to use what I had and try piecing the scraps together.

 

You just butt one strip up to another and whip stitch them together. I saw this idea on some blog or maybe in a book. It will be pretty heavily machine quilted so I can't forsee any problems with it. I feel good about using up the scraps, too. Thought I'd share in case any of you had wondered if it would work.

For about a day and a half I thought my fulltime babysitting days were going to be behind me. OH the thought of my own free time made me glad! Unfortunately, well; long story short-- the world is full of flakes. I then thought I would pay to send Madison to daycare 2xweek, one that our two older grandkids have gone to in the past, but she has to be over two years old. Just yesterday on the news there was a story about a babysitter who had abducted a child. I just went to google it so I could hyperlink it and by the time I got to *babysitter ki *(was going to type in kidnapped) the most returned search came up as "babysitter kills baby". So. There ya go. I'm at home with children five days a week from now til November. I spent maybe a day being grumpy about it. You know--I've done my time. For 33 years now thank you very much. AND I've got that fabulous studio just sitting out there wanting someone to create stuff in it. But then I remembered that the whole time I was raising my own two girls the sewing machine was always set up in the hub of things at the dining table...I was creating AND taking care of kids. And those first two never went home at the end of the day! (Gosh, come to think of it, my house was always clean, too!)  I can do this. And I'll do it well. Besides, who else would share my Lean Cuisine lunch with me every day?

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.   ~~Wayne Dyer

Thank you John for supporting me in doing this.

Thank you God for making John so good at what he does that I don't have to worry about making money.

Thank you Universe for putting these wonderful children in my everyday. Apparently my life's purpose is more than just making quilts and collages. And that's a good thing. :-)