Panic Button

Hi there friends!  This morning, after some coffee and Instagram browsing and general lollygagging around, I walked by  and saw this log cabin in  a pile of stuff in my sewing room. All the log cabins on line had me thinking about it, and I vaguely remember talking about it on the blog, but for the life of me I can't find the post or even a photo of it. I think I remember commenting with Darlene, BUT WHO KNOWS ANYMORE.

 

Anyway for some reason I picked it up and unfolded it.  OMG IT DOESN'T HAVE 3 OF THE CORNER TRIANGLES. 

 

A well organized person would say "Oh Pam, isn't that yellow solid that is YEARS OLD  just folded up with it?" But then of course they'd laugh maniacally because OF COURSE IT ISN'T. 

 

Normal people wouldn't even panic at this point because you know, it would be somewhere in their stash just waiting.  But you know what, I've been purging my stash and OMG DO I STILL HAVE IT? Thankfully a trip through a couple of fabric boxes yielded the yellow chunk there and several possibilities.  Doesn't really look like a match in the photo but when you unfold it, I think it is.  Or close enough.  (but I did go thru more boxes to see if there was a better match. Who knew I had so many yellow solids. This one, I remember, was called butter. By who? Who knows.)

 

Along the way I found several finished or almost finished projects.  And when looking at photos I saw lots of things that have me wondering where they are. Maybe I'll cut those triangles today and then pile it back up.  I made another quilt like this one in a class at Going to Pieces many years ago taught by the wonderful Gloria Smith.  I love the thirties and this is no different.  I remember taking this to the shop to have her help me with the corners so why I never bothered to finish this, or any  of the things I found along the way in those boxes, who knows.

 

All I know it, don't be like me and pack up your unfinished projects with what you need to finish.  This is not only a scary story but a cautionary tale for you.

 

Hope you're having a great weekend!! 

P. S.  I am curious about old projects. If you have old quilt tops  that you're never going to quilt, what do you do with them? I know I have things stashed away that will never get the finishing treatment. What do you do? I'd love to know.

The Sunshine Life

Hi there friends!  It's a sunshiney day here in PamKittyVille and I feel like a new person. This year it seems to make so much more difference to me, maybe it's because the weather has been gloomy for so much longer. It feels like a record year for rain, and I LOVE IT.  But I also love the sunshine.  Springtime sun is the best sun to me.  It's not too warm yet, my flowers still look pretty and everything is green and lush.  And it's mid-70s! The most perfect weather off all! 

Other things making me happy.... TINY BLOCKS.  I used to make quilts with tiny blocks all the time but somehow I moved away from it.  Don't even know why.  But these little 9 patches are dear to my heart. I have a lot of tiny 9 patch quilts and these were so fun to make.  Are you sewing along with the Temecula Quilt Company? 

Shh don't tell anyone, I even have the upcoming weeks blocks done!  Just maybe 4 more blocks left,  for me, and I want to make them pretty scrappy so I've put it off for now.  I need to lay them out and see what will help keep them from being too uneven colorwise.  But I like how they look all together. I will get a photo with the rest of them later.

Here's my completed pile of baskets for the Flower Basket Table Runner.  I LOVE HOW CUTE THEY ARE.  I used a lot of Heidi's new fabric Shortcake and then some fabrics from my stash.  Not all the handles are perfect, but ohmygosh so fun to do.  

I did all my invisible machine applique with some very fine Madiera monofiliment thread.  I've had this spool forever.  But I'm sure there is a lot of nice monofiliment out there.  This is soft and doesn't show much.  This was the style of doing things when I began to quilt, and now there are so many different ways that people are doing things.  This pattern just reminds me of all the fun scrappy quilts I used to make and I feel excited about sewing again. 

Hope you are doing well friends. Oh, on the last post Martha asked me what sewing machine I used. I also have an older machine, it's a Bernina 1260.  I LOVE IT and hope it outlives me. 

Ok friends that's it for me! Hope there's some sunshine and happiness where you are!  xop

Baskets

Hi there!  The past few days we've had a lot of sunshine and it really perks me up.  I'm feeling excited and energized by the springy weather!  We're back to a cloudy week though  so that dose of sunshine will have to last a while!   But  we always need the rain here so I'm happy about that too.

I've started a new project, you might have seen a little about this over on Instagram.  I'm working on the Flower Basket Table Runner by Rhana Summerlin. The little baskets have appliqued handles, you can use the method of choice, and  I wanted to do invisible machine applique, which to me means a hand applique look done by machine.  

 

I love my sewing machine and didn't have any problem with the stitch and settings, but my bias handle prep technique left something to be desired.  Luckily I remembered making a basket quilt with  appliqued handles from the My Red Sofa  book by Terry Atkinson.  I pulled it out and reviewed her method.  SUCCESS. 

 

It's a great book, and that basket pattern is adorable.  I made two of the quilts, I loved the technique and the quilt.  In fact I just recently pulled this one out to be quilted.  I have an embarrassing number of quilt tops waiting. You can see the other quilt that needs quilting in this post from back in 2007! Thanks again Terry for showing me how to prepare these handles!

I only have made 3 of the baskets since then. I'm making my runner a little shorter, so I worked on my pink blocks first, next up the white ones.  I have pulled a  mix of Heidi's cute Shortcake line of fabric, some of Elea's  Bluebirds on Roses and of course I'm filling in with PKM. 

 

Fun times friends!  I'm so happy with these cute little blocks, can't wait to make some more.   What are you sewing on?  Or working on? Thanks for hanging in here with me! xop

Sewing

Hello Hello!!  How are you friends?  I'm on a bit of a sewing spree. Not sewing fast and accomplishing, but just having fun with this and that, trying new things, remembering how to do old things.  

 

You might remember back in September I wrote a little bit about Quirky Little Quilts by Temecula Quilt Company.  It's really a fun book.  The other day I saw that they were starting a sew along for the cover quilt.  I was totally drawn in by this Instagram photo... you should click over, I'll wait.  It's worth it.

 

Anyway I made 4 blocks right away.  I loved it.  I used to always make tiny blocks and it's been a while.  I took my time and I think they turned out so nicely, right on the money when it comes to size.   Lets face it though, the real proof of how good they are will be when I go to sew them together, we'll see how those points do then.  But right now on their own they look great. (My triangle not-so-secret is the Clearly Perfect Slotted Trimmers by New Leaf Stitches. ) I may or may not have sewn ahead to next weeks blocks, don't tell anyone.

This week I was lucky enough to get a pair of the new Tim Holtz  Haberdashery Scissors by Tonic Studios.  I received a pair of the 6inch and the 5inch. Of course it's Tim Holtz so the packaging is  wonderful.  They come packed in little tin boxes lined with foam, which makes a perfect storage case for them.  The handles are cushioned  and have generous size finger holes.  And sharp... oh my ! 

 

Look how cute that box is.  I love nice scissors and these will be perfect, I'm putting the smaller pair in my travel sewing kit, the box will keep them protected from accidents, like spilling out on to the ground.  Ugh, not good for the tips of scissors.  Thanks to Paula from Tim Holtz for sending them to me to try!  I LOVE THEM.  

 

I'm closing with these pictures of my beautiful crabapple tree.  Everytime I look out my kitchen window and see it in it's pink and white glory I'm filled with the joy of spring.  It's really my favorite season.  Today it's on and off again rain  but the bits of sunshine make life so much better. Grateful for rain and sunshine. Also grateful for our friendship!!! Hope all is well with you friends! xop

Sewing for fun

I know it's crazy, so many posts in so few days, but I couldn't wait to show off this cute lunch bag I made for Nanette.  I had scored the cute Milky Peko Chan fabric for her, we're both fans of the hilarious urban legend about this  little girl character that is the mascot for the Fujiya candy company.  I wanted to make something fun but couldn't decide and just gave her the fabric.   She decided she wanted one of Ayumi's cute lunch bags so she sent me home with fabric from her stash and I've put off working on it since then.

 

It was so easy! Why did I wait so long?  It's adorable and holds a lot!  I love the covered opening, it makes this a perfect bag for anything, you know, including lunch. If you need a cute gift for someone I highly recommend it!

 

Have a great week friends! We're due for some rain! Our surrounding hills and fields are so green and lush, its a sight to behold!

Quilters Select Free Fuse

Hi there friends! How are you?  We're having a spring-sunshiney day here in PamKittyVille. I'm making the most of the weather, more rain is coming our way.  I'm grateful for it, but I'm LOVING THE SUNSHINE.  I've been in and out all morning, filling the feeders, checking on my potted plants, as well as all the indoor things,  like emptying the dishwasher which is my least favorite job. It can't be put off any longer though.  NO SILVERWARE.

 

Some of you might remember that I posted on Instagram about the Quilter's Select Free Fuse I ordered from The Quilt Show. I like to try new things, I normally use the spray fusible (505)  for small quilts and bag making.  No joke people...

 

I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS PRODUCT.



 

I first used it on my table runner and it was great. It was easy to shake on, and maybe the hardest part was seeing the product which is white, on my white batting.  My sewing room isn't bright.  In Alex's video, she mentions you need to determine your own temperature for ironing, depending on your iron, I ended up using it on high with steam, but I think it would have fused without the steam.  This is the video about it.

 

 

 

Since the runner, I've used on the little pouch I made, and just for fun fused a little piece of buckram to see how that would work. It's very nice to work with, no build up on your needle which I did periodically have with the spray fusible.  No fumes or over spray to deal with either. 

 

I believe this is a quilt shop product, but I found plenty of quilt shops to order it from if you don't have a local shop. 

 

Hope everything is good on your side of the screen! xop

Pin Pals

Hi there friends!  I just hopped on and saw that I hadn't shared my wealth of winnings from Carrie's give away on Instagram.  SO MANY wonderful items in my package.  Today I was on Instagram and saw that Fat Quarter Shop had a video with Carrie talking about embellishments and also about machine quilting the pin cushions.  Because I didn't pay close enough attention in the book, I was glad to see the information about 80 wt thread, and  those spools of thread make a lot more sense. 

 

This is one of my favorite photos of the book, Pin Pals, is this one with the jar of pin cushions. I love great staging and photography and this book has it all, you know like all Martingale books.  

 

I have some fabrics set aside to work on a new pincushion.  We've had some sunny days the past week or so and I feel so good.  I've enjoyed the rain and I know we need it, but that sunshine!  But I am NOT complaining about rain at all. Anyway my good mood has me back in the sewing room.  I've made some quilt backs and prepared some long time completed quilt backs for quilting.  FINALLY.    And I also  have some new projects in mind. 

 

Hope all is well with you friends! Happy Spring!

Dilly of a Day

Look at me posting at any random time.  Seems weird, I always thought if I didn't get that post out there first thing in the morning, my day would be ruined. But now, well, any old time is fine.  I do miss the old blog days, road trips, projects, shopping, all the ridiculous lunch pictures!  Yak yak yak.  I guess really we're doing the micro version of that on IG but somehow following the thread of people's lives  is harder. 

 

ANYWAY! Last week I had sew day with the Debbies!  I had a great time, always so lucky to be included.  Debbie hosted and Deb came up from San Louis Obsipo and we had a lovely time.  Debbie always makes a good lunch and we bring snacks and make a day of it.  I brought my dilly flowers to hand stitch.  I had one ready to sew together and 2 other sets of fabrics prepped.  I stitched together the pink one that I had ready left over from another sew day and then with their encouragement I managed to get two more complete!  SO SHOCKING.

 

I mean I get it, slow progress and a poor showing for real EPP people but for me it's huge, I generally don't have the attention span to keep at it.  I can't believe I have 6.  I really enjoyed it and felt like oh, maybe I could make something with them! #someday

In the mean time I'll hang them on my chunk of old fence that after years  I finally hung up.  It looked so moody on the last dark and stormy day I snapped a photo.  I don't know how many years I moved that fence around the house waiting to hang it up.

 

Everyone had one way back when I finally found my piece, but somehow I just couldn't find the perfect spot. Now when I walk down the hall I can see it out the corner of my eye and it always makes me happy. 

 

Hope all is well with you friends!

Treating myself to something fun

Morning friends!  How are you?  It's been chilly here in PamKittyVille and if you follow me on Instagram you saw that the surrounding foothills had snow!  Ok sure, for you people who get legit snow it's kid stuff but exciting for us here in the bay area.  Snow to 500 feet??? I'll take it!  

 

Anyway the chillier wet weather we've been having has me at the sewing machine.  I treated myself to a 12 inch  rotating Olfa mat,  and a BlueBirds on Roses charm pack, designed by the ever adorable Elea Lutz for Penny Rose Fabrics. 

 

I had a cute vintage bluebirds runner and I wanted to use it with this fabric but truth be told, the scale was a bit off for the small sweet designs and I couldn't bear to cut it up. 

 

But my idea to use this fabric with  embroidery  was firmly planted in my head, so I decided to see what kind of vintage embroidery designs I could find from Aunt Martha.  I'm not much of an embroiderer,  so I was looking for something cute and small in scale, and I came across these kittens.  I loved that little group of 3 faces there and the scale was perfect.

 

 

I wanted to make a  table runner/dresser scarf sized project with a curved edge so with the charm pack and  1/4 yard of a white solid this is what I came up with. I loved using my rotating mat to cut my charm pack pieces.  I look forward to using it with more projects. 

 

When I was stitching the kittens I thought about how when using a vintage piece, there might not be two  matching pieces, so I did some simple applique on the other end. If you didn't feel like embroidery you could  have applique on both ends, or just use the blocks. Those rail fence blocks are pretty fun to make.  (3inch finished)

 

 

The kittens are sweet and seeing them makes me tempted to stitch more of them. But also, unlikely to happen.  

 

So that's one of the things I've been up to.  It turned out just  as I imagined it.  Elea's collections is super cute, so I'm glad I picked up a couple of pieces of yardage.  I used the white focal print for the binding, I love how old fashioned it looks on that plain white.  (it's not actually white white, it's Riley Blake Confetti Cottons Off White)

 

That's the fun I've been having, what's up with you?

Olfa Quilt Along

Hi there friends!  You've probably heard the news by now, Olfa is celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Rotary Cutter.  To celebrate they've introduced a Ruby Red Rotary Cutter and you know how much I love red!!!  Do I use it? Do I hoard it???? ONLY TIME WILL TELL!!!

 

Olfa is also celebrating with a Quilt Along! You can read all about it over on the Olfa Blog, and today marks the start with a block by Beth Helfter.

 

 

My friend Roseann designed this quilt with all the blocks contributed and it was quilted by Marilyn Kidd. It turned out great.  I love how all those Splash colors pop against the snow in this photo. 

 

I hope you'll check it out, and quilt along with us!!!  Be sure and click over to the Olfa blog post to read all about it.  You can follow along over on the Olfa Instagram page and/or the Facebook page! 

 

 You can also see more by following these hashtags:

#olfa40

#olfacreates 

#olfaquiltalong

#olfaruby

 

Hope all is well with you friends!! xo

Pin Pals

Morning friends! How are you? It's a rainy week here in PamKittyVille and so I'm doing some reading.  I'm lucky to receive e-books from Martingale to read and review, and today I want to talk about Pin Pals.    I'm a long time fan of Carrie Nelson, you maybe know her as MissRosie.

 

Anyway I'm constantly inspired by her creativity.  This book chronicles  a moment in time when inspired by Amanda Jean Nyberg (aka Crazy Mom Quilts) she began a quest to make pincushion a day.

They're all cute.  I love the little color stories in each piece.  Of course I'm drawn to color combinations I love like this string pieced pinnie. 

The book has excellent instruction, tips and tricks, the works.  And the  styling and photography  is lovely, as in all Martingale books. 

I've included my favorites here. Right now on Instagram Carrie has a little challenge going, you can read about it on this post.

I even made a pin cushion myself. I love this little daisy pin cushion from the book, so I pulled out some fabrics and made it yesterday afternoon.  You can see it here.

 

True confession, one of my corners has a leak, but lets not tell anyone.  It's a little misshapen, but hey, it was my first try.  I love those long rectangles and I might try one of those.  Lets face it, there's plenty of scrap fabric laying around just waiting to be sewn into something pretty. 

 

All the above photos are by Brent Kane and used with permission from Martingale. They're pretty. And there's more like it in the book!  I received an e-copy of this book from Martingale but my review and delight with it is my honest opinion.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Good morning friends!  How are you?  I hope the new year is treating you well! I can hardly believe it's 2019. How has the time flown by? We've been meeting here for 13 years almost. Granted the pace has slowed, there's just not as much going on, but I still love coming here to chat with you. 

 

I was lucky to be invited to a couple of sew days last month.  Can anyone believe I'm doing handwork?  Yes, it's weird, but I like it. I can't believe I haven't mentioned it here, I'm using Elise and  Emilie's cute Dilly Flowers papers to make these blocks.  These are the medium sized papers I have the tiny ones but they just seem to small to work with for me.  I'm not as dexterous as I used to be.  I only have 4 flowers made and although I never may make a single thing out of them I love making them. 

Ha, how long ago did I start this Swell Christmas Quilt?  I sped thru the beginning, making the little units, 4 patches, the flowers.. then the assembly.  UGH. My attention span just isn't what it used to be.  We had a very stormy weekend here in PamKittyVille and Sunday was the perfect day to stay in and get those blocks done. 

 

My idea for making the flower centers turned out sort of cute, but I wish I'd really buckled down and made sure that there were no reds meeting up with them. Its looking a little sprocket-ish.  I also wish I'd gone a shade darker with the green.. too matchy and I'm not sure the chain will show up.  But that's ok, live and learn.  The pattern is from an old 2002 Love of Quilting magazine called Wild Irish Rose.  Anyway, maybe someday I'll sew them into rows finally? Before Christmas 2019??? Oh come on!

 

Last but not least here are the cute little set of bags that Elizabeth made me for Christmas.  I love those machine embroidery designs, so perfect with the fabrics.   And look at that vintage pillowcase trim she shared!  TREASURE.

 

Well that's a whole bunch for one day.  What are you working on?  There's so much inspiration out there.  Ok, time for another cup off coffee, see you later. xo

Good morning! Good Morning!

Good morning! Today is the day! We're up, Santa has arrived and we're heading out in a while to Grandma's house.  Sending love to you sweet friends.

 

Merry Christmas! 

Sew Day

Season's Greetings friends!!!  How are you faring this holiday season?   Ready or not it's soon upon us! 

I've been lucky to be invited to sewing group last week and again today!  I took the opportunity to make some apple coasters from Sharon's Apple Season free pattern. You might remember that I made one a while back.    I used the same technique I did earlier for the leaves, fusing two pieces of fabric wrong sides together and cutting the shape with my pinking shears.  I think it's a whimsical way of making a dimensional leaf.

 

It's so fun picking fabric combinations for these apples.

I just couldn't stop.  And I love my Dutch Label Company labels, they look so cute on the apples.  I stitched them on by machine but it would be cute to hand stitch them as well. 

I popped the apples into a cellophane bag with some chocolates and a couple of caramels and tied if off with the Dutch Label paper tags. 

 

No poison apples here... just cute little coasters. Wouldn't they be cute with a mug and some apple cider mix? Or just fun to make for the making.  I like that too.

 

Oh, before forget did you see Charise's Orchard Hot Pads and Apple Zipper Pouch???  Sew cute.   If you aren't familiar with Charise you can find her blog here and her IG account here

 

Ok friends, tell me what you're up to if you have time! xop