El Dia de las Mommies

This has really been a full-on Mother's Day weekend.

We started on Friday by seeing Baby Mama (okay funny, but not 30 Rock funny) and then coming home and finally watching our Netflixed Waitress (really funny and touching, and heartbreaking given Adrienne Shelly's murder and her own daughter's role in the movie). I immediately iTuned Baby Don't You Cry from Waitress--contrary to the title, it will make you cry.

Saturday--Starbucks and then ballet in the morning with my daughter--during which I shopped the Farmer's Market outside her dance studio: netting 2 red mandevillas, 2 purple native plants that look like posh dandelions, a slew of veggies, and some excellent carrot/onion bread. A quick zip to the gift shop for BOGO Webkinz for a last minute afternoon birthday party. Dinner and M's day presents for my mom (and dad). At the end of the day, I cleaned my quilt room and found that my cat had pee'd all over my Civil War blocks--long story--so I'll be starting that project over!

And, today, I got perfectly imperfect class-made gifts from my son and daughter, another awesomely cozy Pajamagram from my husband, and a full day of quilting while finishing the Shopaholic and Baby audiobook. Now, I'm blogging while doing some advance baking for a Teacher Appreciation Lunch this week (a chocolate cake, that after a day chilling, will grow up into a chocolate buttercream frosted triple layer cake with raspberry mousse filling). The extra batter is now heartshaped chocolate-chocolate chip mini-cakes, quite delicious when warm and served with white milk. Yum!

Here's my M's day project--the Jammie Quilt. If you glance at the blog regularly, you may recall my Domino Challenge quilt. Well, it's all quilted now, and I should be able to bind and clean up the loose threads on most of it tomorrow at Guild.



It's big--about 66 x 66. I love the brightness of it--so summer!

Here's a closer look at the quilting--I did a lot of different things depending on the shape/section:



The blue/red is the backing. I figured the more color the merrier. This is a Dargate Book print, I think.

Hope your Mother's Day weekend was delightful!!

Beautiful Spring!

Look what arrived in the post, all the way from Wales:



My swap partner, Andrea, made this adorable 30s repro wall quilt for me as part of the 4 Seasons Swap. It's handquilted in a gorgeous salmony pink, including the cute spring blossoms in the counter-squares. Even the binding is scrappy. And, her label is also pieced. I'm so lucky to have been gifted with this thoughtful, clever, and beautiful quilt!

Back to the Blog

The phrase "I've been at sea" sometimes means that one has been lost or without a direction. Well, I've actually had too many directions lately--too many work world changes to chase down like a mom running after overactive toddlers careening from bright thing to brighter thing. So, I haven't had much blogging--or quilting time. But, I did find some family time to go literally to sea! We took a Disney cruise during the kids' spring break, and it was a wonderfully timed break for us all. Just looking at the lovely blue sky portrait of the ship below brings a sense of peace:



I've also had to do a bit of work traveling recently. I spent almost a week in Rochester, NY (with an evening dinner event at the supercool George Eastman House). I'd never been there, and the city was surprisingly charming and full of spring life leaping into color. When I came home, I had to jump quickly into my Four Seasons Quilt Swap spring quilt--so I was thankful for the inspiration (and the cool pink and orange wallet I bought there!).

I sank into my quilt room chair overwhelmed. Where to start? I had delayed this project a bit too long to go crazily creative, but I also didn't want to cheat my swapmate. Then, my eyes lit on a Strawberry Lemonade charm pack. It perfectly suited her stated color preferences. And . . . I designed (as in, with my own little brain) a quilt that would use all of the charm pack. Voila:



I used the lighter prints for background, drafted two flower patterns for the layered blooms, and used buttons for the flower centers and accents. I made the binding from the remaining charm squares. I called it "Strawberry Spring," and quilted the word "spring" in there among the meandering. I hope my swapmate likes it. Based on her blog, it seems just her style.

Then, I turned my attention to my daughter's Kindergarten teacher's baby quilt. Each of the children in the class decorated a 6.5 inch square. Each was unique and captured the child's personality to a 't'. I added one block to make 25, which is whited out since it had her personal info on it. It's put together with a simple pillar and post setting, and "hello" and "baby" are quilting throughout the sashing. Here it is:



My daughter gave her the quilt at a special shower breakfast last week, and tears were had by all :) The teacher is leaving the school after this year, so the quilt is doubly special as it represents the last class she'll have there. I didn't cry when she opened the quilt (only when I was making it--ha!), but I did cry when she took me aside to tell me that all her students are special, but she knows that one day she'll hear about the great accomplishments of a few--including my daughter. Given that I work about 9000 hours a week at a job I love, am frequently out of town on trips I usually don't, try to keep up with my writing projects, and have all the working mom guilt that goes along with this--I felt so good to know that I am still stirring the pot in the right direction at home. That coupled with a super cute note from my son's preK teachers that he is definitely ready for Kindergarten (he skipped a level largely on verbal wit and native charm!) really made my week.

Then, yesterday, I spent a whole day in a quilt workshop with the Blackbird Designs women, Barb Adams and Alma Allen. They were just wonderful--clever, giving, gracious, funny, and just plain nice. I got just a wee-bit finished on the workshop project, but learned oodles of great tips for machine applique and bias stems. Plus, I got to do some active browsing (read: buying) at one of my absolute favorite shops: Olde Green Cupboard.

Today, I'm in house and porch cleaning mode with the liddle kiddles as my workforce. Wish me luck!!

Getting Old

Because this is my birthday weekend, I've been able to do some sewing. Of course, most of it has been on a quilt for one of my daughter's aftercare teachers, who was injured in a car wreck--but it's still sewing! The teacher is very bumped and bruised but not permanently hurt. Though, my experience is that bumps and bruises hurt plenty all on their own. The teacher is a huge fan of a very specific college sports team, which you might be able to suss out from the picture of the quilt below:



I took the picture rather quickly, so it's a little blurry, I think. The binding is pieced because I made one too many strip sets and wanted to use it up somehow; it still needs to be sewn down. All of this fabric is from my stash. My daughter picked out the colors and matched the strips--and pushed the pedal every once in a while.

I've been listening to the Monsters of Templeton while working on this project and the Civil War blocks that will show up below. It's really a great book--surprisingly so: Imagine a very dissolute Stars Hollow with a more rancorous Rory and Lorelai. One thing I realized during listening though is that I am OLD. I am almost as old as the narrator's mom . . . and I used to be the narrator. It's freakily hard to make that perceptual shift when engaging in a narrative. Sigh.

Luckily, I will be 60 before my children graduate college--and people keep telling me that they will keep me young. By which, I am assuming, they mean in debt and constantly working so that I cannot possibly retire. Woo-hoo!

As the new button on the side bar denotes, I've joined the Civil War block madness that's sweeping the blogosphere. If you've paged through either of the books by Rosemary Youngs that have inspired the recent craze, you'll recognize that I grabbed some low-hanging fruit with my first four blocks (from the upper left): Abomination of Desolation (possibly the best quilt block name ever!), Special Blessings, Soldier's Box, and Yankee Papers .



And, I've lost 19 pounds so far! And, it's Oscar night--fantastic whip-stitching viewing. Happy Oscars! Happy Birthday, to all!

My Very Own Domino Challenge

I'm a charter subscriber to Domino. I'm not sure why; maybe because it first began publishing when we moved into our no-longer-new house a few years ago. Maybe because I simply love getting magazines--especially those that are really just catalogs in disguise. Anyway . . . every once in a while, Domino runs an editorial spread in which its decorator du jour (read, some intern) tries to turn an outfit into a room. (Clarification: The goal is to create a room that captures the essence of the outfit.) It's a wacky idea that somehow always works.

So, this weekend, I've decided to engage in my very own Domino challenge: make these pajamas into a quilt!

My husband, who knows my heart spookily well, got me a kicky Pajamagram for Valentine's Day. Here are my jammies:



In case you're wondering, they're covered with little chicks engaging in me-like activities, all labeled "Cool Chick." After thinking about this project for a while, I grabbed a long-on-the-shelf stack of Amy Butler prints and went in search of a pattern. Believe it or not, this is the one I chose:



I've had this pattern forever but never made it. The flash blurred the pattern designer's name, it's by The Cranberry Cupboard. Now, you're likely looking at this pattern and seeing little to no link to the jammies. It's so country. But wait . . .

The pattern needed 20 FQs, so I added some Westminster/Rowan/Fassetts from the shelf to my Amy Butler stack. So far, so good. But, it also needed over a yard of background. Well, one of my parameters for the challenge was that I needed to use ONLY my stash--because I started it on Friday and wanted it done this weekend. So, I auditioned several tone-on-tone, neutral prints, none of which really seemed to capture the spirit of my endeavor. Then, one decidedly non-neutral print caught my eye, and with the bravado that comes from a middle age wasted on Domino, Lucky, and Cookie, I decided to take a leap of faith and go for it. I have to confess that I completely felt like Kay Thompson in Funny Face as I cut into my background, though rather than "Think Pink" I thought orange.

And, here is the almost finished project in wall paste up form:



I had some serious moments of doubt last night while sewing and even cut up some more neutral triangles to try out over the orange paisley print. But, I decided to sleep on it. When I looked at it again this morning in the clear light of day, I simply loved it!

And, I think I really managed to turn my new favorite jammies (which I'm wearing even now) into a quilt:



What do you think?

This project was so much fun and really pushed me way, way out of my comfort zone. So, I encourage everyone to take the Domino challenge!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Yes, this is an entire kitchen's worth of Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing.

Can you feel the calories?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Baby Quilt

One of my daughter's kindergarten teachers is pregnant, so she drafted me to make a quilt. I felt in the sewing mood, so I whipped out the top this weekend. My daughter actually helped me "sew" a bit and got a lesson in assembly line cutting and piecing that I'm sure will change her life :) I started from a pattern (Cobblestone something) in a baby quilt book I've had for a while. But, I changed the colors and added a more complex set of borders, including the checkerboard. I used a lot of my 1930s stash fabrics and tried to make it suitable for either a boy or a girl. This era of fabrics seems to cry out "baby"!



I'm going to get all the kids to print their names on the label. It should be cute!

I listened to another several hours of Jeffrey Eugenide's Middlesex while working on the quilt. I think the whole book is about 18 hours long. The story is more engrossing than I might have thought, and my parents lived in Grosse Pointe for a while in the late 80s and early 90s, so a lot of it seems very familiar to me (and makes me long for Detroit-proper Coney Island hot dogs!). Now, off to prepare for Hannah Montana in 3D!!

Winter Work

Look at what fantastic surprise came in the mail last weekend:



It's a gorgeous Four Seasons Quilt Swap (FSQS) quilt from Ms. Jan. Like me, she lives in warmer climes and opted to focus on our shared winter fruit: the orange. (I've actually still got them hanging from the tree outside.) The quilt is so very lovely and is in colors that are way-me, so much so that I own at least three of these fabrics. The quilt now graces my dining room. Thank you!

As the arrival of the winter swap quilt suggests, it's the end of January, and I'm finally posting for the new year. Yipes. Well, since I last posted, I have lost 13 pounds, which is nice. (Or, as my newly-six year old daughter with the metabolism of a tweaking hummingbird says, "You look less fat than you used to." Ah, children.)

I also got called an "artist" in a review of a quilt show in which three of my works were featured--similarly nice. The reviewer wrote that I have "a modern inclination shown to great advantage in 'Heralded Hydrangeas.' The contemporary design uses folded fabric boxes to represent flowers layered on a two dimensional stem. This method gives depth to the small piece - it wouldn't be large enough for a cat bed - and takes this work from craft to art." What's funny is that--while I do have a strong appreciation for contemporary/postmodern art--I so-completely-don't have a modern inclination in the vast majority of my work.

I finally finished the combo jelly roll quilt shown previously in top-only form. I decided to quilt it to emphasize the boxes:



I called it "Cottage Comforts" because the mixed-up, shabby-chicness of it reminded me of Cottage Living magazine and of our summer-rental beach cottage. I liked how the polka dot backing added yet another pattern. (It's a bit wrinkled since it was dragged all around the state over the holidays as I finished the binding.)

And, I planned and (this weekend) actually finished my own FSQS winter quilt: Father Christmas. My mystery-swapmate said she wanted something Christmas-y but not religious. So, I found a few coloring book images of Father Christmas and adapted them into an applique pattern. This was actually a bit harder than I thought it would be as I had to simplify things to get them to look right. I really like the result:



I wanted it to look like Father Christmas making his way through the starry winter night, and it seems to work that way.

Well, I've either re-caught the cold I had earlier in the week (which I think is impossible) or caught its mutated cousin (which is totally possible). So, I'm off to dig into the chicken soup that's steaming away on my stove and get ready for the SAG Awards, hoping to see some love shown to "There Will Be Blood." Go, red carpet!!

Merry Christmas

Ho-ho-hopping Back into the Blog

Yep, about once a month--I was right. So, here I am again, squeezing in a blog entry between running errands in advance of the ever-approaching Christmas countdown. Since I last wrote, I've hosted a cookie-decorating party for 13 squealing kindergarten girls--which was enormous fun! I organized the party because I had about 2 pounds of Swiss Meringue Buttercream left from Thanksgiving baking. The SWB frosting recipe came courtesy of my awesome cake decorating class. We learned that, chocolate ganache, cream cheese, and royal icings. Plus basic simple syrup and foundation mousse recipes so that we can dress those up as desired. I also learned how to make chocolate plastic. The first complete cake I made (chocolate cake with coffee syrup, chocolate mousse, dark chocolate ganache icing and white chocolate magnolias) cracked in half on the drive home. But, it still make great eating! We ate half and my office ate the other half . . . literally in minutes. Here are some of the other cakes I've made:



Two Christmas party/gift cakes: chocolate with coffee syrup, raspberry mousse filling, chocolate ganache icing and chocolate cream cheese piping. One's an 8 inch; the other a 9 inch.





This was our final class cake: white with simple syrup, italian cream filling, swiss buttercream frosting and piping, gold-dusted royal icing snowflakes, and a fondant poinsettia. I had so much fun in the class and now feel super-confident in making cakes that look great and taste delicious. The baker who taught the class has a mantra that the cake comes first, the decorations second--so she uses fondant sparingly and focuses on yummy frostings.

And, of course, the first thing I did after finishing the class was sign up for Weight Watchers . . . seriously. Not because of the class, really, but because I need to shed some "makes me tired" weight. I have pear-shaped genetics, so I'm not kidding myself, these hips aren't going anywhere. But, I can be more mid-sized and energetic.

I've also managed to complete one new quilt top. This one's based on the "baby cakes" quilt in one of the newer jelly roll quilt books (can't remember the title and it's upstairs). I increased the number of blocks and used some extra strips for the border rather than go with the big, single fabric one in the pattern. I simply paired strips and then cut each into 2-4 pieces at random to get a staggered set of seams and some border movement. I used 2 jelly rolls for the quilt--one Shangri-La and one Allspice Tapestry--and have enough strips left for binding and another small project. I really like how the two different fabric lines play off each other; the contrast between the more romantic one and the more stylized one gives the interplay a good energy.



I listened to Steve Martin's "Born Standing Up" while I sewed this quilt. I really recommend it; he reads the book and his voice gives life to the memoir wonderfully.

I have one other quilt to finish this break--a baby quilt. Then, back to my own projects.

Now, off to watch the stunning conclusion of "Clash of the Choirs"--otherwise known as, "What Won't I Watch During the Writers' Strike?" or "Just Give it to Patti LaBelle."

Monthly

I seem to be posting only monthly lately. Too, too busy. I also caught some creeping crud that left me feeling kinda consumptive--but I balanced this wasting phenomenon by learning to make perfect vanilla and chocolate cakes, swiss buttercream frosting, chocolate ganache, and cream cheese frosting in my cake class. So, I'm still nicely rounded out :) My cake class has been so much fun; it's at the town's top bakery. There are just 6 of us in the bakery's kitchen using all the real baker's stuff and getting cool inside secrets. Last Monday, we learned how to make "chocolate plastic" to mold flowers, leaves, and the like; and I also made chocolate ivy leaves by painting on leaves. Fun!!

My children have been sucked into the Webkinz universe, which means I've been spending odd hours playing Quizzy's Word Game so my babies can afford backyards and interactive stoves, refrigerators, and treadmills for their furry obsessions. (Hey, what's so virtual about this place again?) But, one nice quilty outcome is that they want to make quilts for their WKs. Here's the first endeavor:



My daughter (who's 5 and 7/8, just ask her) picked out all the fabrics and then arranged the squares. She wanted a quilt that looked like a rainforest, which is where Pandi the Panda lives. She also pressed the foot pedal on the machine as I sewed and actually picked up speed regulation fairly quickly. I quilted a flower in the middle of each square. Now, I have to make a pirate-themed quilt for Baby Pongo the Dalmation and some pink confection for Ashley the Rainbow Pony.

Here's a quilt I've never shared, but I found it in my closet during a cleaning mania two weeks ago (during a Housewives of Orange County marathon; it makes me feel so much better about my own life):



I made this in 1998 (insert aging cough here) right when Kumiko Sudo's book Fabled Flowers came out. I love hydrangeas and wanted to create a mythical hydrangea plant that could flower in both violet and pink. Over 50 different fabrics make up the origami petals. The background is a fabric that looks like homemade paper with flower petals embedded in the fibers. Here's a closer look at the petals:



I had completely forgotten about this little quilt. I've included it in the three quilts I'll be showing at the college this year. The quilts are shown in the President's Lobby throughout the winter holidays along with trees that student clubs decorate and then donate to families in the community. The whole lobby twinkles, and the display really brings a calming sense to the manic panic of term's end, when nerves of faculty and students alike fray.

My daughter keeps peeking her head around the corner begging to play on Barbie.com, and my son needs a pirate beard and mustache, so I'm off with this request. Consider signing up for the Winter segment of the Four Seasons Quilt Swap (click or see side button). It's great fun!!

Crazy Busy

I have just been crazy busy, so I've neglected the blogosphere. No posting, no ring-surfing, no nothing. Just lots of traveling and the like. I did get to watch Grey's Anatomy while in Seattle, which gave me an odd thrill!

Here's some catch-up . . .

While away on one of my trips, I received this absolutely beautiful quilt from Anne Ida as part of the Four Seasons Quilt Swap.



It came all the way from Norway, with a chocolate bar! She said she envisioned it as a table topper, which is exactly how I'm using it.



This was the trip when I came back to town at night in the middle of a thunderstorm and found that my headlights didn't work. This was one straw too many for this camel, and I immediately (I mean next morning immediately) went looking for a new car. I bought a Camry hybrid within two days and love it. Plus, I feel super virtuous when driving! Oh, and the lights work.

Given all I've been rushing around doing, I haven't had much time for quilting. I did start and finish a baby quilt for a friend, but forgot to take a photo. It was still warm when I dropped it off with someone to deliver to the shower on my way out of town. I actually used a UFO from who-knows-when that was in bright brushed plaids and backed it with a great, bright Amy Butler print in orange, yellow, and purple.

I'm in a finish-it-up-and-get-it-out cycle, I guess, as I also just put borders on another UFO; it has been sitting around for over 5 years! I was also going to quilt it right away, to strike when the iron was still sizzling, only to realize I'm out of batting. So, I ordered a bunch, which will hopefully arrive within a week or so. The quilt came from a pattern out of an old Cabbage Rose book. I can't believe I made all those flying geese. I clearly had too much time on my hands before I had children.



It's hard to tell, but the background for the stars is a novelty print with little salt and pepper shakers. I'm going to call this, "season to taste."

One of my trips took me on a consulting visit to Kentucky. I flew into Nashville and rented a car to drive about an hour into the state, and as I approached the Tennessee/Kentucky border, I got so excited. There was a sign featuring a bunch of quilts that read, "Paducah, exit 4." Of course, as soon as I crossed the border, I realized that I was at exit 89. Oh well, I'll go back one day.

One late night in some hotel room, I was checking email and found a message saying that I've been dropped by the Quilting for Pleasure blog ring because I hadn't posted in a month. The message caught me by surprise and seemed to undercut a bit the jolly tone of the blog ring title. There was something about the email that really irked me--especially given how many folks in the ring barely post about quilting at all--so I think I'll take this as a message from the powers that be to go quietly into the Q4P night and drop the button from the sidebar without a fuss.

I start a cake decorating class in a couple of weeks. Not one of those frothy Wilton things, but a class with the top cake-maker in town. I'm really excited! So, if my work turns out presentable, I'll post some photos down the road. The good thing is that even if the cakes are messy, they'll still be super yummy!

When I Was Young

My daughter's kindergarten class sent home "parent homework" on Friday, and like every good student, I sat down to do it the night before it was due :) Each of us (mom and dad) are supposed to draw a picture to illustrate a story of that begins "When I was young . . . ." It goes along with a book the class is reading. Both my kids love hearing stories from when I was little, and I tell them all the time. They have their favorites (like when the dying bat fell smack in the middle of our picnic table or when my Uncle Terry thought there was a spider on the wall and--in his attempts to kill it--kicked a hole clear through to the next room). But, when I got this assignment, I immediately got a picture of the story I wanted to illustrate and knew that I wanted to do it in fabric. So, I dug through my stash to create a picture of the summers when I would pick berries around my grandma's cottage:



I really liked how this turned out. When I showed it to my daughter, she asked if this was a competition we could win (she likes winning), so I think she liked it, too. I've offered to accept a commission from my husband to make his. We'll see.

Fruits of My Labor Day

It's only halfway through the holiday weekend, and I've finished the fall swap quilt. Here 'tis:



And, here's the quilting--swirling loops with the word "fall" secretly included:



I had fun on this little project. I've been listening to Antonia Fraser's Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King, which is fairly engrossing, while working on the quilt. I think most of the appeal has been to secret myself away in a world where I get to sew and everyone speaks in a plummy brit-accent. What a perfect world! Now, off to work on my next BOAF block.

This is turning into a dream weekend. I finished a co-authored article on Friday before I left work--freeing my weekend for a rainy, sewy, laundry-y, movie-y, reading-y time with the family. Plus, we had Mole at our fav Mexican restaurant on Friday and now Tikka Masala from our fav Indian restaurant tonight. And the US Open is on. Yee-haw!! Life is good! Enjoy your labor day.

Falling Forward

I had a mini-creative crisis yesterday as I worked around the other Four Seasons Quilt swappers' blogs. I've been crazy busy for the past couple weeks: I went to Chicago (pre-storm) to promote my textbook for the sales reps, finished summer grading, began a yearlong city leadership program, tried to finish an article, wrote my convocation speech (day of!), and kicked off our term; the kids went back to school, including one starting kindergarten, and we planned a back-to-school bash; etc. So, I'd let my little fall quilt sit unattended for some time, and when I zipped around the blogosphere, I saw that many of us seem to have come up with similar quilts. For a while, I started off in a new direction, and then decided I didn't like it and came back to the original plan. Here's where I am now:



I abandoned the border, as it seems I can neither read directions nor measure correctly (which may come from working on projects at 4 am), and my quilt was too big. But, luckily, I realized this after adding the borders (sigh) and found my seam ripper right where I left it--on the floor near the pile of fabric I keep meaning to put back into my stash. (I am so far from being the queen of organization that I have no idea how I accomplish anything.) I went light with the leaves so that they'd show. I was too lazy to find a leaf pattern in a book, since I was so happy to just be sitting in air conditioning after a 3 hour outdoor birthday party in the heat and humidity, so I drew these free-hand. I really liked the results. They aren't as light as this photo suggests, as I'm still learning the iMac photo editing program. They're more golden with a darker gold, tan, and purple leaf pattern, which will be accented with the blanket-stitch that's coming next. I'm thinking of quilting it with the word "fall" as the repeating pattern. Now, on to a whirlwind of cleaning in prep for the "lemonade tea party" coming in a few hours.

Small Fall

Here's a quickie of the fall swap quilt I'm arranging/rearranging. I finished grading some essays and can't find my outline for the chapter I'm writing (and conveniently left my laptop at work on Friday), so I decided to start cutting. The quilt has 64 different 2 1/2 squares (2 inch finished) and will have a cabbage leaf Kaffe Fassett border that's also 2 inch finished. Perfect for a table-topper or the like. This isn't the final layout; those two plaids (one real, one faux) in the lower right are too close for me, as are some of the reds. I will likely use the pieced center as a backdrop for some appliqued falling leaves.

Totally different topic: We do a real Sunday dinner each week. Tonight, I made the Meatballs and Macaroni soup from Rachel Ray's 2nd 30 Minute Cookbook--extra easy and a very big hit. Here's an odd thing about Ms. Ray. I dropped a reference to her in my freshman comp class then apologized, thinking that a class of 60% male 18-20 year olds wouldn't get it. They all watch her show. Who'd a thunk it? So, I'd recommend this as an ideal fall soup (even though it's about 190 degrees here and we still ate it).

Monkey Pox!

I really am thinking of calling this quilt--now finished--Monkey Pox because of all the little dots. Although it looked a bit wonky pre-quilting, it actually finished up delightfully flat. I quilted it in a bright variegated cotton thread with big looping swirls. You can see those more closely here:



I had just enough of the Funky Monkey stripe left from my monkey-stash to do a kicky binding alternating the blue focus stripe with the orange focus stripe. All-in-all, I like it very much and think my little great nephew will, as well.

I mentioned before that I'm doing the 4 Seasons swap. Well, a few days ago, my sister stopped by to raid my stash for solidy-tone-on-tones. I pulled all my fabric bins out, and we found all the fabric she needed. So, yesterday morning, before I sat down to quilt Monkey Pox, I decided to grab "some" fall tones before boxing the mess back up. Well, I pulled over 60! fabrics without even breaking a sweat. This should be interesting.

A Picture of Me

Thanks to a post on Tazzie's blog, I finally have a picture of me that I'm comfortable posting on my blog . . . my Simpson's Self. So, there I am, in my profile. You simply upload an image to the Simpsonize Me site and adjust the result. After I did it, I called my kids over to the computer, and my son said, "It's Simpson's Mommy." So, I guess it really does look like me!

iMac Photo Experiments

I'm working on learning iPhoto as an editing tool. I should say that I've been using computers for over 20 years, and this is my first Mac. So, it's like learning to write with my left hand--but on a very pretty tablet.

Okay, here are the fabrics I pulled pre-lockdown retreat (see previous post) for my daughter's All About Me quilt. It's an Atkinson pattern, which means a ridiculous amount of cutting but fairly straightforward sewing. When I got to the retreat, I realized I seriously underestimated the border fabric required. So, I did buy another white ground fun print.




Here is the resulting quilt, with lil' miss skinny legs in the background. (Seriously, I think someone slipped me a DNA cocktail when I was pregnant with her, as she's such a little slip of a thing.) The actual pattern asks for solids in the borders, but I wanted to brighten it up and had yards of the two white grounds in the picture above, so I thought, "what the heck." I think it worked nicely. This is a full-size quilt top. I'll be outsourcing the quilting on this one.



Then, while at the retreat, I also partially cut this Cheese and Crackers (another Atkinson pattern) quilt from Funky Monkey fats and some Funky Monkey dotted white. I had actually purchased a bunch of this when it came out, and this is the second quilt I've made from this massive purchase. So, here's the original fabric set:



And here's the oddly oversaturated picture of the quilt top. What's nice is that the photo calls attention to the stretching I had to do to make the pieced borders work (insert sarcasm here). I'm still looking for the iPhoto feature that can auto-correct this both virtually and actually. This is a lap size, I'll be quilting it, and I'll quilt out the poochiness--which I doubt my 1 month old great nephew will mind much :)



Finally, this is my latest BOAF block. I still need to take the massive seven block photo.



So, that's what I've been doing for the past month.

The Long Hot Summer Just Passed Me By

I don't know where summer has gone. The post's title comes from an old Style Council song that really captures the steamy malaise summer can bring. I haven't been suffering ennui, but I have been suffering from overscheduling. For some reason, I decided to teach a freshman comp course in the latter half of summer. While this unpaid gesture has been great fun and I love my students, it--of course--doesn't release me from any of my other worklife obligations. So, I've been running from pillar to post keeping it all up in the air. I'm currently behind on one presentation, one journal article, one service committee, and an entire house of cleaning. Somewhere in the dustier recesses of my brain, summers used to be slower, more relaxing times. Hmm.

We've been switching over computers--got a new iMac, so sleek--so I should get some photos up later because I actually have been sewing. I went on a cool quilt shop lock-in retreat with some ladies from my guild. We got to sew on our own projects for three days (Fri-Sun), while the wonderful shop owner gave us meals, snacks, and company. It was ridiculously fun to have the run of a closed quilt shop. I felt like Corduroy in the department store.

While there, I cut and pieced a full-size quilt for my daughter and began a lap quilt for my new great-nephew in New Zealand. Those are the photos I'll get up later. While sewing these, I've been listening to Tina Brown's The Diana Chronicles, unabridged. The story of this sad, petulant princess really makes engaging soap opera.

I've also signed up for the Four Season's Swap (see badge on the right). This looks to be great fun, so if you're not over-swapped right now, think about joining!

I'll post pictures this afternoon of all my quilty endeavors once I improve my Mac-literacy.