Rambling

Morning from my own home! My mother-in-law is doing great  and she kicked me to the curb! She's ready to get back to her normal life and I'm happy to be home with Bret.  I've missed my sewing, even when I'm not sewing, I like sitting in my sewing room and looking at my stuff.  I'm sure she missed doing stuff without me checking on her every 5 minutes!  It was a fun time though, and I'll miss it!

 

I've been thinking a lot about my stash of fabric.  Not just my pkm stash but all the fabrics I have and still love.  I am considering  a small project and made a quick fabric pull.  Not sure if any or all of these will show up in my project or really, even if I'll actually make it but it was fun.  I really enjoy quilts made with fabric that is pulled from many different lines. 

 

I'm working on a quilt from an old 2002  For the Love of Quilting Magazine, named Wild Irish Rose.  I originally made it in 30's fabric and always wished I had made the flower centers with connector triangles, so this time I cut some squares for that.  I think these will turn out well, the little corners won't line up to the pieced squares, so no pressure there, we'll see if my grand plan works when I begin to stitch it all together.

 

My fabric inspiration is Urban Chiks Swell Christmas.  Kristyne made  my quilt inspiration (see it here on Instagram) and you recognize my kit making style. This project is using strip sets so there's lots of units that I have ready to assemble.  I have one more strip set to cut and that's ready for some power sewing.  I'm glad I saved the magazine, I really like the way that the project was organized. 

 

Organization is key when you're working on a longer term project.. there's lots of things here that look similar but are used in different spots.  Mine are all in different little bags (saved from fabric orders!) and they correspond to each step. I hate it when I've set a project aside then have to do some quilt forensics to figure out what needs doing next. 

 

That's what doing with me.  We've had some California fall weather in the 70s but this week it will soar  back up to the 90s in what hopefully with be the end of the summer heat.  HOPEFULLY.

 

Ok, that's it for me friends, what's doing with you?  xop

That Quirky Feeling

Hi friends, how are you?  We're enjoying some delightful weather this week, in the 70s!  Yesterday morning it was in late 40s when I got up.  Definitely fall weather. Chatting with my mother-in-law, we can hardly believe it's already halfway through September for pete's sake.  What a year it's been for us. 

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is how back in the day we'd drive for hours to check out quilt shops and see what was new.  You couldn't see everything under the sun on the internet like you can now, so you'd have to drive all over.    We'd somehow get wind of a new quilt shop opening and we'd make a plan of visiting it as soon as it opened, and hitting all the shops along the way.  USING PAPER MAPS! Sometimes MapQuest or whatever mapping software was available at the time.  Martingale put out books featuring quilt shops and I loved it.  I dreamed of visiting places.  Plan trips around shops, it was a cool thing. 

 

Now it doesn't seem like people do that quite as much. Or maybe it's just me?  But one shop I've wanted to see for a while is Temecula Quilt Company. I'd seen those cute little ruler boxes with their name on them.  My friend Joyce told me about their sew alongs on the blog, and just the photos.. well they're captivating! 

 

All this brings me to the one of the latest e-books that Martingale shared with me, Temecula Quilt Company Quirky Little Quilts.  If you like sweet little quilts get ready to fall in love.   So many adorable projects, it brings me back to my Civil War reproduction days. 

All these photos are from Martingale.  I picked my two favorites to share with you, but you can go check out the rest of the quilts here.  I love this flower shape, this quilt is Petite Posies.  I know it's an old block from way-back-when and that's exactly why I like it.  I still feel drawn to these quilts even though I mainly sew with the brighter PMK palette.  And really wouldn't all quilts work in whatever colors you picked?

My absolute favorite in the book is T is for Temecula.  I love that block and I love the way Sheryl has used the changing background colors to give this a little extra sparkle.

The whole book is totally charming.  Lots of photographs of vignette's which I LOVE.  It makes the book so special to me,  pretty to look at even if you don't stitch a quilt.  Entertainment while reading and then later while sewing.  Double the fun.  

 

I'll confess it only makes me want to visit the shop more!!!  I hope you take a minute to check out the book over on the Martingale site. The pictures are yummy! Happy browsing and happy sewing friends! xop

Dutch Label Shop

Hi there friends! I'm back home for a few hours working  (broken record alert) on getting my sewing room put back together  (and pretending I'm not searching for that seam tape.) Is any of it surprising, nope . 

 

Earlier this year Abby at Dutch Label Shop contacted me asking if I'd like to try out some of their labels. I wasn't able to do it at the time but Abby contacted me again recently and  I was happy to be able to say yes, I'd love to give them a try.  I was  in love with the look of the ribbons and tags after checking out Helen's post about them. 

 

I ordered two kinds of sew on labels, and some hang tags.  They have a lot of little designs to use on your tags, and I couldn't resist the coffee cup and button, and the cherry was perfect for the hang tags.  I like the idea of tying the paper tags onto small projects or including them in with gifts.  I just used some seam tape on them, but Helen used some raffia and some bakers twine which was delightful. I'm using one of mine as a bookmark so I can enjoy it daily.  I'm looking forward to a project to stitch one on, maybe on my next visit home!

 

I hope you get a chance to check out the labels!!!  Thanks again  Dutch Label Shop for offering  me the chance to order them!

 

 

Sew Dreams

Hello friends! I don't know about you, but when I can't sew I do the next best thing and pull out some quilt books to look at and dream about sewing.  Martingale has very kindly shared some  new release e-books with me and the first one that caught my eye was Barb and Mary's new Easy Layer-Cake Quilts 2 book.  I'm a huge fan of those sisters, Barb and I are  #superfriends  It's probably good we have some geography between us, we're a couple of  troublemakers! 

 

Easy Layer-Cake Quilts 2 has a lot of really cute cheerful projects in it. Around the Block caught my eye, I love the confetti feeling of it.  The instructions are great and I like the method they use to put this quilt together.  To me it's an easy to make without a design wall quilt, which I love.  Perfect to sit and stitch with friends, no thinking allowed!

 

If you're feeling fall, Flipping Out is super cute.  It's a big quilt requiring 2 layer cakes and a jelly roll, and is a nice bed sized quilt. 

 

I'm always happy to share new books that I fall in love with, but I'm extra-happy to share books written by friends you admire!  Congratulations Barb and Mary on another great fun book!

Asking for a friend

Hi there friends.  I'm home for the afternoon to catch up on things around here.  My mother-in-law is doing well, thank you to all who checked on us!

 

ANYWAY.... people, as per usual I'm looking for things I can't find.  I have a half used spool of vintage Hug Snug seam binding that I needed for a quick project.  CAN NOT FIND IT.  There are few things that have a regular place here, and this tape is one of them.  AND IT'S NOT THERE. It's not even there the second or third time I looked! Which sad to say often happens.

 

 

I have torn the place apart looking for it. At one point I even lost my phone along the way and spent another 10 minutes backtracking my trail looking for it. The saddest part of this story is, I have a fresh new spool and I can totally cut off the pieces I need and move along with my life, and eventually I did it, but I still feel like I need to search for the other spool.

 

Sigh.  Well it's not like I haven't moved on for the most part. I mean I'm still me.

 

I almost have everything is checked off my list of things to do here. Hope you're doing well.  I love keeping up with you guys that are on Instagram.  I'm not doing much but hey did you see I did some hand sewing?  Kind of crazy for me but I loved it!  Elise sent me some of her Dilly Flower papers to try and I thought it was so fun. I have been inspired by her photos.. check out her IG feed here.

 

Ok that's it.  I'm just about over looking for lost stuff for today.  I haven't had a chance to put my room back together yet, one last inspection to go before everything can get put away.  I know my tape will show up then!  Miss you guys! xo

P. S. Cross your fingers it's not with the tailor's ham!