ForestJane Designs

More Catching Up

2011-12-17T01:07:00.000-06:00

Last of the garden harvest was these onions. It was fun digging for them, like having an Easter egg hunt. ;)

They didn't get as big as 'normal' onions you'd get in the supermarket, did they? But I decided I honestly liked the small sizes. Sometimes onions give me digestive problems, especially if I eat a lot of them, or if I eat more than one one raw ring on a hamburger. Which is a shame, because I love the taste and smell of onions, if I could, I'd be eating them raw on subs and slicing them for my salads, putting handfuls in my soup, etc. But anyway, these little onions were just perfect for me. I could add one small onion to a skillet or casserole and then I didn't have a lot of raw onion left over stinking up the fridge and getting dried out. I gave half of them to my neighbors, and stuck the other half in the fridge.

And I'm only a bit late on revealing another quilt I did for Quiltmaker magazine. I have always wanted to try a gradient, and with Diane Harris' generous stash enhancement of some BEAUTIFUL blue batiks, I planned this in EQ:

There's everything in this quilt, a huge variety of blues. Some of them were used in my mom's blue and beige quilt, s couple of the batiks in the Linkin' Logs quilt, some of them calicoes I'd had in my stash forever. You can read more about the fabrics and design process on Quiltmaker Magazine's blog, Diane Harris did another super writeup about it. Here's a closeup of some of the fabrics I used:

And here's what the actual quilt came out as. I realized it wasn't going to be bed-sized unless I added another border after the flying geese, so I came up with the tumbler gradient idea. I love the tumbler die I got from accuquilt, the small 3 inch size. It was a great way to have a scrappy but cohesive border.

Before I used the tumblers as a border, I had to see how they went together and how long a section of 2 of them was, or ten units in a row, so I could plan how many to cut. They went together so well it was almost goof-proof. Having the dog ears cut off the corners really helps the accuracy! So before I knew it, I had this many on my design wall:

And here it is with a final border of tumblers on it - almost looks like stained glass with all the different colors being backlit by the light from the window, doesn't it?

Bad Blogger, bad blogger!

2011-12-16T23:49:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted in months - I've spent more time on facebook than on my blog. I did realize that I ought to be doing both, because I like my blog for use as an online journal. I like being able to go back and read about when I was working on a quilt, when I finished it, etc.

So a little catchup is in order.

Here's the EQ design of the Quiltmaker quilt I did at our retreat in June. I couldn't show it to anyone until the magazine came out, which is why there were no posts about it.

For more information on the design process, visit Quiltmaker Linkin' Logs page And here's a picture of the finished top. It's still unquilted, but it's nicely folded, with backing, in a Kroger bag, like all my other unfinished tops. And since I did something different with the border so my quilt would have those curls at the corners, I made a web page on my personal website telling people how I did it:

http://www.forestjane.com/linkin.htm

And let's see, what else haven't I shown here? Oh, the guild I belong to makes blocks for our president. The last president selected a simple tulip block. This is easy and would be great for a spring border. She should have enough for a whole quilt, and with all the tulips in different colors, it should be lovely:

And that takes me up to August, I think. More later!

Quilt Class

2011-08-28T02:01:00.000-05:00

I took a quilting class today from Anne Lullie on making mosaic quilts. She also gave us some pointers on using the color wheel to help choose fabric. The wallhanging I made in the class is rather brighter than most of my quilts to date:

To be very honest, I don't really like this. Maybe when I get a couple of borders on, I'll like it better. The technique is okay (if you have something in mind for it that'll never be washed)and selecting and trimming and arranging all those little color-squares wasn't all that bad. I also understand how we used the color wheel to select lights and darks and mediums and complimentaries of all these colors, but . . . this is too bright and abstract for me. I don't like that dark curl even though I 'get' the fact that without the darks, it'd just be a confetti of mediums-to-lights. It's too stark.

Guess I'm just stuck in my ways. I do prefer piecing and making a quilt the traditional way using repeated blocks. I can't say I don't like abstracts at all, because most of my quilts have been geometric designs, not picture quilts. I just don't like these colors together one bit. If Anne had led us to the table full of her beautiful hand dyed fabrics and said, "Pick 20 tones and shades you like." I probably wouldn't have selected ANY lime green, neon yellows, no oranges, or mustards. It was probably good to force myself to use these—but I'm not going to hang the finished quilt on my walls!

The quilts I've done for Quiltmaker Magazine are challenging me to expand my color choices, but I'm happier with those fabrics. The carnival themed one in batiks, I like that even though it has oranges and brights, and this latest one I can't show you yet, it's in shades of green, blue, purple on a faintly minty green background. Here's two of the fabrics I've used:

Stay tuned for the reveal on the whole quilt top! I've found I love working in batiks for the whole quilt, and I like the 'hand' of the batik and the color variations you get in one piece of fabric. But I also like tone-on-tones. I'll even admit to liking some calicoes.

Do you find yourself stuck in certain colorways and fabric types? I love scrappy, but tend to grab from a color family to make controlled scrappy. For example, I don't often mix Thimbleberries muted colors with brights or character prints. I've never made a two-color quilt, but would like to some day. Would you? Or is that too bland a quilt?

Schlep Bag

2011-07-30T00:05:00.000-05:00

I saw the pattern link for this on the quiltville chat yahoo group, and had to try it. And since I had some batik out from the last quilt I was working on, I decided to try it in these three cool colorways of the same line.

The pattern is here, free:

Schlep Bag

I changed it just a little by using 6½ inch squares and I made the strap longer so it'd be a shoulder bag instead of a handbag. I made mine reversible too. Instead of batting in the strap, I used a couple of 1½ strips from some old jeans. That made it thicker and stronger but not puffy like batting would be.

Now I want to make one using ultrasuede, maybe a forest green and brown combo. Add a zipper at the top, and a couple of zippered pockets in the lining. Sort of a grown-up version. :)

Split cantaloupes

2011-07-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

I've found three like this so far. They're not big or ripe enough to pick yet.

I've still got several more on the vine, I hope they don't split too!

And it's been too hot for the tomatoes too, I've read that they won't set fruit unless it's a little cooler at night than it's been. But I'll keep watering them and maybe I'll get another crop after the boiling days of August are over. Here's the one big tomato I have waiting to ripen, kind of bruised from the storm we had when the whole pot fell over:

And there's a few cherry tomatoes and several pear tomatoes on those bushes too.

Hoppin' Jane

2011-07-13T01:49:00.000-05:00

Okay, I know it's really called Hoppin' John, lol

But since the fresh stuff was from my garden, I can change the name, right? The black eyed peas looked like they were going to be a LOT more while they were still in the pods, because I had a good sized handful. Here's the harvest:

I dropped one as I was bringing them in, and Libby snatched it up and went running under the kitchen table with it. I never would have thought peas-in-the-pod would be enticing to a Siamese. I rescued it, and pinched off the end of the pod with the kitty fang-holes punched in, but I didn't give it back to her. I don't want to start sharing my peas, lol.

Since after shelling there weren't enough black-eye peas to cook by themselves, I decided to make Hoppin' John with them. First I measured the water for my rice and put it on to heat, then I chopped up that baby bell pepper, added the raw peas and brought it to a boil. Then I added the measured rice and brought it to a boil again, flipped the burner down to low, covered the pot and let it steam for ten minutes. I served it with a sprinkle of grated cheddar on top, and it was superb. Next time I make it, I might add onions and mushrooms. To finish out my meal, I quartered both of those little tomatoes in the picture and dribbled a little italian dressing on them. The pear tomato I'm saving for another night. :)

Early July Cantaloupes and Onions

2011-07-08T01:14:00.000-05:00

Cantaloupe! I've got lots growing, luckily they're all different sizes. Only one big one, but five medium size ones, and a handful of thumb down to marble sized babies.

The pear tomato bush is full of clusters of greenish lightbulb shaped tomatoes. I can't wait until they turn solid yellow! They don't taste too much different from a regular cherry tomato, but the seeds are smaller. Something different, and they do look pretty on a salad along with red tomatoes. Plus, the birds don't bother them as much, unlike the cherry tomatoes I had to cover with bird netting.

The Bonnie Original is the tomato plant with the most green ones right now. These two, a couple on the other side, one biggish one near the bottom. A few on the cherry tomato bush too, but still nothing but blooms on the red beefsteak tomato plant.

The onions are doing fine also, getting bigger, but slowly. Here's the largest - do you think I need to put more dirt around it? I haven't tried wiggling or pulling on it, so I don't know how solid it's in there.

Cantaloupe!

2011-06-30T22:40:00.000-05:00

Here's Babyloupe! I never knew that teeny cantaloupes had fuzz, did you? It's about the size of the end of your thumb. It looks soft and . . . pettable here, doesn't it? But it feels a little bristly instead.

Here's my mid-size one. I'm calling her Mamaloupe. She's about the size of a peach.

And here's Daddyloupe, my largest one. He's bigger than a biggish orange. Maybe grapefruit sized? No fuzz left on him. Tomorrow, I plan to hang him in a hammock from the trellis, to take the weight of the melon off the vine. They say that groing them up instead of letting them sprawl on the ground makes for bigger fruit with no blemishes. We'll see!

End of June Harvest

2011-06-28T01:18:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post—I was away for the weekend and came home to a nice lot of ripe veggies:

That's one last snowpea, but paired with my very first yellow pear tomato. The bush is loaded with them, so I predict a lot more! I also picked six banana peppers, eighteen cherry tomatoes, and two medium sized tomatoes that will be good for slicing. And my black-eye peas are producing pea-pods too! I only saw two pods with peas big enough to pick today, and I've got to admit that I just ate them raw. The peas, I mean, not the pods, lol

How does YOUR garden grow?

Spinout Reveal!

2011-06-21T00:32:00.001-05:00

Well, today's my reveal day, and I get to show you all what my final Spinout quilt top looks like:

I loved doing this one in batiks, they're so nice to sew on, they don't fray much, and you don't have to be careful of wrong-side or right-side up. It seems when I sew with white-on-white fabric, I always get one square or triangle wrong-side up; by the time I notice it's wrong, it's buried deep in the piecing where it'd take a lot of unsewing to get to it.

The inside of this quilt, Spinout, was designed by Barbara Cline, and if you follow the link, you can get a copy of the magazine with the quilt pattern in it. It's the July/August 2011 issue.

Diane Harris, of Quiltmaker magazine, is blogging about the Scrap Squad's interpretation of the Spinout pattern, and she did a very nice blogpost about my quilt, go look! Lots more details there, and you can also use links to see other Scrap Squad versions of the same pattern:

Scrap Squad Spinout

I also made a tutorial on my website to show people how I made the seminole border—or you could call it a bargello-type border too.

Seminole border Tutorial

Here's a closeup of the border I did:

Now I need to get to work on the next Scrap Squad assignment. This has been so much fun—to get the patterns before anyone else does,and try it in different fabrics. :)

Cantaloupe on a Trellis

2011-06-12T20:51:00.000-05:00

I've been reading online about doing cantaloupes in a container garden, and one site mentioned that you could grow them in less space if you'd train your cantaloupes to grow up a trellis. I stopped on the way home from work the other night and bought two of them. There was a lot of trellises to choose from—wooden ones, plastic ones, fan shaped aluminum ones. I knew I wanted something tall, so I nixed the idea of the 3 and 4 foot versions. There were a lot of wooden ones with diagonal slats hanging on a rack waaaay over my head, but some of them had loose slats already, or slats that had come apart from the outer frame, They were unpainted and looked pretty cheaply made for the price. I didn't want something that was going to last only last one summer. Here's what I got:

They're nicely made, and I liked the idea of NOT having the 2 inch wide slats creating a lot of shade. Plus, I needed a trellis that had horizontal bars as well as vertical bars. Supposedly, when the cantaloupe get baseball sized, you use pantyhose or plastic mesh to make a sling on the trellis to support them, to take the weight off the vine. I have lots of the bird netting I put on my tomato bush, so I'll probably use some of that.

Here's my cantaloupes right now, I've used some saved selvedge to gently encourage the vines to grow toward the trellis. They're not knotted tightly, so I'll be able to shift them as the vines grow. This is my first year for cantaloupe, and I didn't know that the plant has those little curly tendril things like the snowpeas do, to connect them and help them grow up.

And one last garden shot - these are my yellow bell peppers, at golfball size. I wonder how long it'll take them to get ripe? I've never grown them before.

In other news, I've eaten LOTS of cherry tomatoes so far, and handfuls of snow peas. Oh, and three banana peppers. I love it when stuff starts getting ripe, and I can't wait for my first big tomato of the year. :)

A Memorial Day finish

2011-05-30T12:42:00.000-05:00

Finally got the binding done on this one—and it's been sitting for YEARS waiting to be bound. I'm such a procrastinator. Had the binding right in the bag with the quilt all this time.

And I was delightfully WRONG about my snowpeas, I ate the first of them today. I know two of them is not a serving, but surely eating them warm and crunchy right off the vine is just as good as a vitamin?

End of May Garden update

2011-05-29T22:23:00.000-05:00

Well, it's the end of May, and here's the State of the Container Garden. My onions are doing okay, and the cauliflower in the wading pool with them are nicely leafy - but no cauliflower showing yet. I keep peeking down into the middle of the leaves, hoping to see something down there, but nothing.

The Better Boy tomato plant has several small and these two bigger green tomatoes:

I have this one nice sized banana pepper (about three inches long) and lots of buds and little ones that're about the size of the end of your pinky finger:

My snowpeas are blooming and there's lots of tiny snowpeas started, all about an inch long, so by June 1, betcha I'll be eating my first snowpea:

Here's the cantaloupe, nothing but lots of green leaves. I'm a long way from needing to trellis these, aren't I? I'm going to try growing them up, and suspending the melons in little mesh sacks attached to the trellis.

The yellow bell pepper plant isn't as far along as the banana pepper, it's just now starting to have little buds:

As for my other tomatoes, they're not doing as well. The Bonnie Original has a couple of little tomatoes on it, as does the yellow pear tomato and the Beefsteak tomato. The winner for this season, so far, is the Cherry tomato. It's thick with tomatoes of all sizes. I've had ONE ripe tomato from this bush so far, the birds pecked holes in several others. Now I've got it surrounded by bird netting. It's difficult to see unless you look at the CD there in the pot:

People have asked me about the CD's. I had heard they'd be birdscare, that the birds would see their reflection and fly away. It hasn't worked this year! I do like watering with them in there though, if you water on the CD, the stream from the hose doesn't dig holes in the dirt, instead it splatters out flat, if that makes sense.

How does YOUR garden grow?

First Tomato and hotpads

2011-05-28T14:25:00.001-05:00

I made a couple of hotpads for Mom for Mother's Day, picking colors that were nice for spring. Here she is holding them:

And here's a closeup. I used some 100% cotton toweling in the middle of the bargello style one, which makes it pretty heatproof. Making a hotpad is a good use for these prairie point stars, since all the layers of fabric are too much for a quilt top anyway. This one didn't need any layers added! Anyone else made one of those way back when?

And here's my first ripe tomato! It's only a cherry tomato, but it was very good. :D

Quilts, Tomatoes, Pepper buds!

2011-05-04T00:27:00.001-05:00

Ready for some garden pictures? Here's my banana pepper plant, with lots of buds all tucked in the center there. I bet I'll have blooms soon!

Again with the cherry tomato plant, from the top this time, with four easy to spot little green tomatoes, and a few more hiding in the leaves if you really hunt for them.

And last, the current quilt I'm working on. I can't share the whole thing with you, because it's a yet-unpublished pattern from Quiltmaker magazine that the Scrap Squad is doing. But here's a photoshopped picture that gives you a teaser of the colors of batiks that I'm using:

Easter Garden Update

2011-04-25T02:26:00.002-05:00

Hope everyone had a good holiday! I was off Friday, had to work Saturday, so it was a short weekend for me, but I did get a little gardening done. Here's my peas on 4.20.11, snow peas on the bottom and black-eye peas on the top. Too many people have been telling me that that's too many to grow in a windowbox.

Here's the same peas 4 days later, to me that seems like a HUGE difference in size of the leaves. I love watching them grow, lol. The snowpeas are vines, and I'll put up a cage for them to grow on, I'm not worried about them. But yeah, I had to agree, the black-eye peas being bushes, they were probably going to quickly outgrow the planter.

So I bought ONE more container, a cheap dishpan from the dollar store, punched some holes in the bottom—to be honest, I cracked a big split in the bottom when I went to punch the holes. I guess I was either too enthusiastic or the dishpan was really cheap! Anyway, I transplanted three of the black-eye pea bushes in there, and put another in the wading pool, in an empty spot next to the cauliflower.

Here's my Husky Red Cherry tomato plant. It gets blog space because it has the most blooms. ;)

I don't know if the recent cool nights we've had (chilly, but all above freezing) will mean these blooms will set fruit or not. Have to wait and see!

And last, the picture above is the current state of the cantaloupe. I know four plants per big container may be too much, but I can always hack one out later, right? Perhaps eliminate the smallest one, or the one with no cantaloupes on it? But I saw online where I can get a trellis to train the vines on, then hang the cantaloupes from the trellis in net bags or pantyhose sections, and that keeps them off the ground, too. Supposedly less chance of mildew or mold.

More Spring Planting

2011-04-10T19:57:00.000-05:00

Went and spent some hard-earned cash at Home Depot last night on the way home from work. Then had to haul the two big bags of dirt, a new plant pot, one more tomato cage, some seeds, and three more plants around to the back patio. Here's what I ended up with. First, that banana pepper plant I said I still wanted:

I was also tempted to try yellow pear tomatoes this year. I think it was Tazzie that mentioned them in response to my problem with birds—because these tomatoes don't get red, birds're less attracted to them. They're about the size of cherry tomatoes, but longer, with an added pear shaped blob. Supposed to taste great too!

I also got some Vidalia onions, a whole little round blob of them. I think you call them starters? Then on my way to the front of the store, I passed a rack with more plants and I couldn't resist some early cauliflowers. These are supposed to be done in 50 days, so if that's true, I'll get a harvest at the beginning of June, before it gets too hot for them. I put those in the wading pool, onions toward the back:

I had so many onions that I put a few in some of the tomato containers, around the edges. It seems like my tomatoes always grow pretty tall, and the roots never extend out to the top edge of the containers, (I plant them deep) so maybe the pairing will work.

So here's the state of my containers now, and I think this'll do me for the summer. I'm not at all sure about the cowpeas in the windowbox—the snow peas do wonderfully there, so maybe these will too? And the cantaloupe in containers is new for me. I may need to get tomato cages for them, and suspend the cantaloupes from the wire with little net bags? I'll have to do some research. All suggestions welcome! How does YOUR garden grow?

Giveaway Winner and April Block of the Month

2011-04-05T01:04:00.000-05:00

Yaaay! Using the Random Number Generator at Random.org I've picked the winner for the free Julie Herman pattern giveaway! First here's the (lucky or unlucky, however you look at it) number:

And counting down 13 on my blog comments, I come to Jennifer! She blogs over at Hoodies and Flipflops
if you wanted to go say hi. Congrats, Jennifer! If you'll send me your address, I'll pass it on to get the pattern to you.

I've also been working on the block of the month for my quilt guild. It's all online, if any of you wanted to follow along, or even if you just want to try a block or two. Not quite as . . . vivid . . . as it appears in this picture, let me introduce Block two of the Sweet Sixteen series:

And a graphic for what it looked like when I drew it up in EQ. Here's the website page with the instructions and fabric cutting directions for the April 2011 block of the month. Enjoy! And if you decide to try this block, I'd love to see a picture of the finished project.

It's Garden Time!

2011-04-02T20:20:00.001-05:00

It's April, so that means all my quilting friends are going to have to put up with garden updates again. :) I enjoy my little foray into container gardening, and it's really no trouble to do, once it's set up. And setting it up is NOT that difficult, nor does it take much space, money or time.

First, here's the wading pool. I started using it three years ago, as a cheap alternative to a raised bed. This spring, I'm using it to plant onions, (little green onions, around the edge) and I'm going to try cantaloupe in the middle. I need to add some fertilizer and give it a good stir before I plant the seeds tomorrow.

I think this will be the last year for the wading pool. These pools are really cheap, but not meant to last several summers. The plastic around the edge that's been exposed to the sun is disintegrating. Since I've enjoyed the fruits and veggies of my labors, I think next year, the pool will come out, and I'll upgrade to a raised wooden bed. Maybe even put in some strawberries and asparagus, which take more than a year to grow, and keep coming back.

Walmart had four varities of tomatoes this year that looked good. I prefer indeterminate plants that yeild all summer instead of the determinate ones that grow tomatoes that ripen all at once. Here's the four I have so far:

*drumroll* In the beige container, the Better Boy. I've grown these before, and they did well.

This next one's a new variety (cultivar, is that the right word?) for me, it's called 'Bonnie Original' and I'll have to see how it tastes.

Red Beefsteak is also a new one for me, and I'll admit I bought it just because of the name. Doesn't 'beefsteak' sound like it'll be a huge, ripe juicy tomato? The name made me salivate, so I bought the plant, lol.

And finally, a Husky Red Cherry tomato bush. This was the first variety of tomato I tried to plant in containers, and they're great. I can eat these all by themselves or in a salad, and the plant's pretty prolific too.

Then I'm trying one more new thing this year, yellow bell peppers. Last year I had two banana pepper plants and there were just too many banana peppers for one person to eat. I shared handfuls with the neighbors, and pickled some, too. I didn't see any banana pepper plants out at the store yet, but I did see these, and thought, hmm. Stuffed bell peppers, yum!

I still plan on getting a banana pepper plant when they're available. cuz I love those things. And possibly another tomato plant, maybe a grape tomato again? I have plenty of time to decide. Any suggestions for other crops I could attempt in containers?

Pineapple Blossom and Raspberry Variation

2011-03-30T01:20:00.000-05:00

Remember, you've got until the 4th of April to post a comment on my blog for a chance to win the free pattern from Julie Herman. Plus, don't forget to go over to the Quilty Pleasures Blog to post for a chance at some free fabric. ;)

Here's an indoor shot of my Raspberry Dessert variation - the library shelves make excellent quilt hangers:

And here's the current state of that pineapple blossom quilt I started at Bonnie Hunter's class in Jackson TN. I decided to make it 3x3 (or six by six, depending on how you count the blocks) before I added the border, so this last week, I've made and added on 12 more twelve inch blocks.

Tomorrow after work, I'm going to head to Home Depot and Walmart to check out their seeds and seedlings. It's almost April, and time to start thinking Garden! Tomatoes! Banana Peppers! SnowPeas! Hey, have any of you ever grown cantaloupe in a container garden?

Raspberry Desserts and Giveaways!

2011-03-28T23:04:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is, the reveal date for the second Quiltmaker Scrap Squad project. I'm glad I was picked to be on this team, it's been lots of fun so far. For the last two months, we've been working on a pattern by Julie Herman of Jaybird Quilts. This one is called Raspberry Desserts (she did it in pinks and creams) but if you'll click around the other scrap squad blogs, you can see that it looks great both color controlled and scrappy! She also has some wonderful patterns on her site that look great in scrappy, look around while you're there.

I decided to do mine with a dark background, rows of blocks with jewel tone colors bordering scrappy insides. Then I used the same fabrics in the scrappy braided border:

Mine's not quilted yet - and before I send it off to my longarmer, I may add another braided border all the way around. I used my Accuquilt GO! to cut the chisel shapes that became the braid, and it was SO easy to cut the right and left shapes. And addictive, almost hypnotic, to keep sewing the braid, chaining them through the machine.

I also changed the setting of the Julie's blocks - instead of putting them on point with setting triangles, I set them square. I think it would have been neat to do them with smaller strips too, really scrappy against white, maybe I'll try that someday.

Now for the Giveaways!

Julie has given the eight of us on the scrap squad each a pattern to give away FREE. So comment on my blog between now and April 4 (that gives you a week to comment) then I'll use a random number generator to pick one of you to receive the pattern. Make sure your response is set so I can reply to your comment if you win! Then go hop around the scrap squad blogs and comment on theirs too (links on my sidebar) for MORE chances to win a free pattern.

AND it doesn't stop there!

Quilty Pleasures blog, over at quiltmaker.com, is having a fabric giveaway. Yup, FABRIC! Run over there and follow the instructions to be entered for that too!

Pineapple Blossom Progress

2011-03-14T02:10:00.000-05:00

There, I've sewn together the first twenty-four blocks, but you can only see a few here. I love the way the orange/yellow/pink batik looks in the large segments. Almost like a sunrise. I started this last Saturday, in Bonnie Hunter's class, and it came along really fast. It's been a long time since I made a quilt with only three fabrics. Working with the batiks and white was a treat too, there was no right or wrong side, no almost invisible white-on-white print to search for either!

Toby decided that the hanging quilt-center was put up for HIM to play behind. See the bump at the bottom left corner? That bump's name is Toby.

I'll add a two-inch border of that aqua-turquoise. I also have finished part of 24 pinwheels from the bonus triangles, they'll go in a thick white border surrounding the whole quilt. I haven't decided if I want to put the pinwheels on point, or make them wonky or... space them evenly or... ? Any suggestions? When I put four of the bonus triangles together to make a pinwheel, the block finishes at 7 inches.

Meeting Bonnie Hunter in Jackson, TN

2011-03-07T22:22:00.000-06:00

I had the great honor of joining the Jackson TN Peace by Piece quilt guild as they hosted Bonnie Hunter. Her lecture and trunk show was fantabulous! Even though I'd already heard of the Scrap User's system, it was a treat to see Bonnie in person as she worked the crowd. She had them rapt—actively listening, laughing, nodding to her words, and responding to her questions.

That quilt on the wall behind her is such a clever idea. It shows the sizes of light and dark strips and squares she cuts most of her scraps into, and UNDER the different sized strips, she made some sample blocks from those units. It's a great visual aid to her trunk show and lecture!

I think the picture above is the 'quilt holder' pose ... Bonnie's both sweet and funny in person. :)

Even though I only had met one person in the class before (Patty, on the left) everyone at the Jackson guild was very friendly and hospitable. I appreciate their letting me join them!

Here's the eight pineapple blossom blocks I finished, spread out on the bed in my hotel room. I'm making 24 twelve-inch blocks, then I'll decide if I want to make more, and what I want to do with the border. And yes, I did more than eight total, but these were completely finished ... the rest are in different stages of being done.

Scrap Squad Teaser and Block of the Month

2011-03-01T02:43:00.000-06:00

Still can't show you the Quiltmaker magazine pattern I'm working on, but just to tease you, here's some MORE of the fabrics I'm using.

These past two nights, I've also been working on the website for my guild. I put up a block almost every month, and the next series of blocks is starting TODAY. Here's block one. First the EQ drawing of what I designed:

And then here's the actual block, made out of fabric:

If you want to play around with us, it's all free, online at the Uncommon Threads guild website, just scroll down to see the block of the month links. The January page has some sample layouts and color options, and the March page starts you with cutting directions and instructions on the first block. Wouldn't you like to join us?

How to Quilt it?

2011-02-26T02:18:00.000-06:00

I finished reading my book for the evening (a Sharon Sala young adult offering was what I was copyediting,and very good it was too, I didn't want the story to end.) Then I decided to do some quilting.

So I pulled out my block of the month wallhanging that I did with the twelve stars from 2011. Added a one inch border to the edges, with four little pastel corner squares. Cut me some white for backing, a square of bamboo/cotton batting, and got it all sandwiched and pinned together. Then I froze:

How on earth should I quilt the thing? It's only 26 inches square, so I'll do it myself on my domestic machine instead of sending it out; but I'm petrified to set needle to cloth! I could put the walking foot on and quilt in the ditch easy enough, but somehow I don't think this one is calling for straight lines. Help! What's easy enough that a beginning machine quilter could tackle it without messing it up? Suggestions?

Storywonk

2011-02-24T22:41:00.002-06:00

Have you ever thought you could write a novel that’s just as good as the ones you’re reading? Or better? Then you tried to write and got bogged down at getting it all down into your word processor. Your romance went flat or your characters dull. You want to pick up some writing tips and skills, but who has time for classes in this busy world? Here’s a solution:

Go to www.storywonk.com and check out their seminars, classes and workshops. Minimal fees, and you can enjoy them in the comfort of your own home, in your jammies, if you want. Most events are scheduled on Sunday afternoons, if you have plans, you can download them later. The classes have assignments, whereas the seminars are one afternoon only.

Why am I frontin’ for Storywonk? Well, for one, I like Lani’s books. I glommed onto her after reading Dogs and Goddesses, a book she’d collaborated on with Jenny Crusie and Anne Stuart, another couple of my favorite NYT bestselling authors. Then I picked up some of Lani’s own books and enjoyed them too, especially one titled The Fortune Quilt. I started following her blog online; always real, sometimes evocative, sometimes amusing, generally entertaining. AND, she’s having a contest. Out of all the people who repost about Storywonk, she’ll pick a few for a chance to attend a free seminar. That’s what I’m aiming for. Free.

Maybe go enter the contest yourself. Take a look at some of the topics and educational opps that Storywonk’s offering. Maybe you’ll be the next NYT bestselling author I follow on facebook.

Braid-Making

2011-02-15T02:15:00.001-06:00

I've been braid making tonight! I think I'm about half done with the lengths I'll need.

This is the kind of project I'd never have done without the Accuquilt. Cutting all those right and left tilting wedges by hand? eww. But the cutter makes it so fast to cut hundreds of them. And sewing them together goes fast and accurate too, since all the little dogear corners are already cut off for you.

I can't show you the quilt these are going to border yet, we have to keep it a secret until the day before Quiltmaker magazine subscriptions are supposed to come out. But I'll have a dark navy skinny border between this and the quilt center, then more dark final border on the outside. So even though this looks like a really scrappy hodgepodge of fabrics, surrounding it with navy will tame it down some. And even though you see some fabrics directly across from each other in the pic, they won't be on the final quilt. I'm planning to have the top braid pointing right, the side braid pointing south, the bottom braid pointing left, and the other side braid pointing up. Does that make sense?

Books and Potholders and Quilting

2011-02-09T01:03:00.001-06:00

Been busy! Have you?
First, I got a PACKAGE today - a book from one of my favorite authors, Sharon Sala. Doesn't Toby look like he's telling Libby, "Another book? Where's Jane going to put all these?" Anyway, Sharon sent me that pink one on the end, and it's autographed, too!

I've been adding some of my favorite authors to my facebook friends because it's cool to see updates from them and learn about the day to day lives of these famous folks. I told Sharon I was looking to order Blown Away because I couldn't find it in the stores. I'd already bought Torn Apart and Swept Aside (the aqua and the yellow books, second and third in the series) and told her I didn't want to read them until I'd read the first. She very kindly offered to mail me the pink one, Blown Away. I'm already 150+ pages into it, until I made myself stop so I wouldn't gulp it all down in a day.

Sharon writes really good romantic suspense. At least these three are, some of what she's written could be romantic comedy. Both Whippoorwill and Amen Trail by her made me laugh out loud. :) If you haven't ever read anything by her, give her a try.

In other news, I'm also making a couple of Valentine themed potholders for gifts. Super simple project. I'll put a couple thicknesses of terry or flannel inside, and some of that silver ironing-board cover for a backing so they'll be heat proof.

The eight of us on the Quiltmaker Magazine Scrap Squad already have our next pattern to make, and I'm busy cutting strips and squares from all my scraps. Here's a few of the fabrics I'm using. That navy blue is the only thing I purchased, for background. The rest will all be from stuff I already have. I really like the design we're making this time. Sorry I can't show you more of it, but it's a secret until the magazine comes out. Stay tuned!

Scrap Squad goes LIVE!

2011-01-28T12:29:00.000-06:00

Some of you may have noticed this logo on my left sidebar:

In mid-November, Quiltmaker Magazine had a little blurb about an application process for being part of their new Scrap Squad. Not thinking I'd get selected, I sent in my application letter and pictures of three sample scrappy quilts. Time passed, and I almost forgot about it in the busy-ness of the holidays. Wow, was I surprised when I got an email back saying I was in! After completing the paperwork, they sent me my first pattern to make.

Our intrepid group consists of eight talented quilters, who are ready to deplete some stash. The first assignment is a pattern called Rhapsody in Bloom, which is a pattern designed by a teenage guy. Since I was still surrounded by the scraps of flannel left over from completing those two flannel rag quilts you saw earlier in this blog, I decided the bits needed to be used up. To add a little contrast, I also put 4 flannel fat quarters in the mix. Here's the completed top, so you can see the whole design:

I decided to make 4 of the twelve inch blocks in the pattern, then made several more units to extend the pattern flow out to the sides. Since the units were 4½ inches unfinished, I was also able to cut some 4½ inch squares to give the center design blocks almost a medallion or Around the World feel. Here it is all arranged prettily in a library staff room chair:

While doing this project, what have I decided? I don't like doing little triangular pieces in flannel with quarter-inch seams. The flannel is a looser weave than the quilter's cottons or batiks I normally use, and I'm afraid some of my seams are awfully narrow. If I ever do another flannel quilt, I'll change the pattern pieces to have wider seams. Anybody else have any tricks for working with flannel?

One More Day!

2011-01-27T23:08:00.000-06:00

One more day until the great Scrap Squad reveal!

Here's a couple more teaser pictures to get you excited. First the label I made for the back of the quilt:

I like to sew the tag to the backing, then layer and quilt it. That means the tag is there to STAY. :) For this one I used pigma pens to write on a scrap of white flannel. That gave it a sort of fuzzy looking appearance, but at least it matches the rest of the quilt!

And here's a picture of the quilt arranged on the library table, with a bunch of winter and snow books on top:

Don't forget, come back to this space tomorrow night for the great Scrap Squad pattern reveal!

Scrap Squad, Snow, and BOM

2011-01-17T15:54:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned at the end of the last post, I've been selected as one of Quiltmaker Magazine's Scrap Squad. It's nice to make a little money with my quilting and not have to sell the quilt! We can't reveal the quilt designs we're given to make until after the issue of the magazine comes out, but we CAN give you a sneak preview teaser. Here's Toby to present it:

Toby agrees with keeping things quiet. Or maybe he just wants ME to be quiet so he can sleep on the nice, freshly ironed block segments. I'm doing this first quilt for Scrap Squad with leftover flannel bits from my Christmas flannel rag quilts, with the addition of some blue FQ's I won at a retreat auction.

And we had SNOW! In Memphis, that's amazing. Can you see the glowing red stop sign? It was pretty falling, but I'm glad it's all melted now:

The 3 inches we got were more than I wanted to drive to work through the next morning. But did the library close? No. It made for some slick and slushy travelling.

And speaking of travelling, my quilt-guild friend is touring Turkey this winter with her husband, and they're posting some fantastic pictures and a little Turkish history on the blog. Such vibrant blue skies! Such intricate tile work on the ceilings, floors, walls. For some real quilt inspiration, check this out:

Jeanie Goes Cold Turkey

I also finally got the new block of the month up for my quilt guild. We're doing twelve 16 inch blocks, and they'll all be tied together with a diagonal line of ... well, go see. Here's the address for the 2011 Sweet Sixteen Intro.

It's not just for my guild members, so feel free to join us if you want. :) Really, don't you have enough fabric where you could join something like this and not have to buy a thing? I sure do.

The work part for me was not drawing the quilt in EQ, or designing twelve blocks, but in taking last year's block of the month selection off of the website index page, making teeny thumbnails of the pix, and re-linking all the pages from within the BOM archives section. So I'll leave you with a couple of nail clippings from last year:

Christmas Gifts 2010

2010-12-26T21:37:00.006-06:00

Now that the suspense is over, I can unveil some of what I made and gave for Christmas this year.

First, here's my big brother Bob holding up a rag quilt. Now that I have the Accuquilt rag quilt die for my cutter, it's so simple to cut and make these quilts. And since they're quilt as you go, I don't have to send them out.

Here's Fred playing like he's sleeping under the one I made him for his recliner:

My sister-in-law Paula also got gifts made with the Accuquilt cutter - the triangle-in-square die cutter made it simple to cut the bits for these three pillows:

Mom got a red and white table runner. These arrowhead blocks were from Quiltmaker's last issue (scroll down to see some of the blocks in progress, in a previous post.) The blocks went together very quickly. Here they are on her coffee table with some candles on top:

And here is the whole runner, on my design wall:

In other news, I'm now a member of Quiltmaker's Scrap Squad for 2011! I never thought when I sent in my application that they'd accept me. But now I have my first assignment from them, I've already picked fabric from my stash for it, and I plan to start cutting tomorrow. Can't tell you much about the project we're doing yet, but I hope to use up a lot of the blue and khaki flannel left over from my two rag quilts above.

Inside Medallion

2010-12-12T03:50:00.004-06:00

I was trying to tie it all together for a spring theme, and I think that'll do. ;)

I did the grass and stems using liberated quilting, Tonya Style, just like the letters and wonky houses I've made using her technique. I sewed green triangles to white triangles, then cut the resulting rectangles into wonky wedges. Then I sewed those wedges together, trying not to put any two blades of similar height grass close to each other, and alternating pale green with medium green. I trimmed the bottom and top flat and parallel, then machine appliqued the pinwheels onto the stems.

I ended up removing some of the background fabric on the pinwheels because the bottom fabric was white, and made the pinwheels look as if they were floating above the stems, not the effect I wanted. I also wanted them far enough away from the star blocks where they didn't touch.

This is currently 24 x 24, a nice small size for a wall hanging. Should I border it or leave it borderless? I have enough of the white background left where I could put a 1 inch white border on, then maybe bind it in scrappy strips?

Design debates

2010-12-11T15:00:00.005-06:00

Here's my latest block of the month arrangement:

I'm not sure how I wlll put these three little pinwheels in the center yet. I could cut a 12½ square of background fabric and turn the edges under and applique them down, adding stems and some spikey leaves at the base... or I could cut some background triangles for the upper right and left corners, and try to piece them in, separating the pinwheels with little one-inch strips. Then I'd piece some blades for the bottom... I can't decide. Any advice?

3 inch Pinwheels

There's the link for the pdf pattern to paper piece the little pinwheels,if anyone wants any three inch blocks - wouldn't they make cute ornaments if you did them in green or red?

Finally a Post

2010-11-04T18:55:00.005-05:00

*blushing* Yes, I've been a bad blogger.

But only because I've been so busy! They've been sending me lots of books to copyedit lately, and I love the extra money. I used some of it to buy myself an AccuQuilt Go! cutter. I've been cutting bunches (over 200) rag quilt squares, and this weekend I'll start sewing some of them together. For those of you who don't quilt, here's what it looks like:
One of the things I've been busy with is keeping up with the block of the month for my guild. Since I'm the coordinator, I don't have much choice! I have to stay a month ahead of everyone else, so I can get take pictures, write directions, get the web page made. Here's the ten months we've done so far:

People will have the option of doing these in both 12 inch and 6 inch sizes, there's instructions for both, and in whatever colorway they choose. Visit my guild's website if you want to see some of the instructions for the blocks:

Uncommon Threads Quilt Guild

I also just had to try the Arrowhead block in the last issue of Quiltmaker - I wanted to play with it in only two colors, instead of scrappy. It's an exceptionally easy block to make, and makes a graphic statement in only two colors. Here's the first four blocks:

But will it be TOO graphic in only red/white? So many options. I could do some more blocks in green/white and make it in Christmas colors. I could do some in pink/white and do a Valentine's quilt. OR I could make some in blue/white and make a patriotic version. Opinions?

And finally, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this month.

By beoming a participant, I'm pledging to write 50,000 words in November. We can do any subject we choose, any genre. Some of the novels written during National Novel Writing Month have gone on to become best sellers . . . not that I expect my first attempt to do that! So far, I'm keeping up, and even have my word count ahead of the minimum daily amount. Wish me luck!

Banana Pepper Pickles

2010-07-05T01:44:00.005-05:00

Here's my very first try at home canning/pickling.

The first little jar is banana pepper rings only.
The second and third jars are a combo of sweet banana peppers, garlic and Vidalia onion slices.
The fourth jar is like 2 and 3 but with red onion slices added. The red onion was HUGE, and much stronger than the mild Vidalia onion. I cried when I was slicing the red onion. :(

And that's NOT dirt or bugs in there, it's allspice berries, a peppercorn or two, and dill seed. In all my googling for recipes, most of the instructions mentioned that you shouldn't use powdered spices when canning, so that's why I added the whole berry and seed. Next time, I might make a little cloth bag and take all the spices out before I fill the jars. ;)

The first four jars have just a pinch of something called "Pickle Crisp" added, that's supposed to keep them crunchy.

The last jar, on the right, is mixed red and Vidalia onions with a slice or two of garlic clove, but no banana pepper. Instead of packing the veggies tightly in the jars raw, like I did the first four, I put all the onions I had left in the hot vinegar/salt/spice/sugar mix and brought it back up to a simmer, cooked them for a couple of minutes. Then I packed the hot rings in the jar. I poured in juice to almost fill the jar, and had enough left to fill the jar behind the small one, but it's pink from the red onion. This last jar didn't get any "Pickle Crisp" since I figured they'd be soft from cooking anyway. I was hoping also that the short cook time would make that red onion a little less strong.

I haven't tasted them yet - I'm going to wait a day before I try them, let the raw veggies soak up the vinegar and spices. It was less trouble than I thought it'd be, once I'd bought everything I needed, so I'll definitely do it again if they taste good.

These jars actually all sealed just from the boiling vinegar being poured over the veggies, all of the tops are locked down. I'm still going to play it safe and keep them in the fridge, though, because I didn't use a hot water bath on them.

July Garden Sow and Tell

2010-07-02T20:12:00.005-05:00

Been picking a lot, but not posting much! Here's the state of the stuff on my kitchen counter a couple of days ago. I took about 6 of the bigger ones to Mom because they really enjoyed the ones I took over on Father's Day.

I have banana peppers and MORE banana peppers.

I guess two pepper plants are too much for me! I've bought some vinegar, kosher salt, and a little jar of something called 'Pickle Crisp' and I plan to pick some of these on July 4th and attempt a refrigerator pickle, with banana pepper rings plus some rings of the Vidalia onions I bought. I plan on making one jar with some red onion rings or wedges, just to see what happens. Think the red onions will turn the yellow pepper rings orange?

Charity Quilts

2010-07-02T13:47:00.004-05:00

My guild just had a challenge to complete quilts for a hospice near us. I'm proud to say that we met and even exceeded the challenge, donating over 55 quilts to the hospice. Here's a few of them:

You'll see a nice mix in the pictures, everything from big block quilts to nickle square quilts, crumb quilts and heartstring quilts. We had a workshop on the quilt-as-you-go circle quilts you see there, they were a lot of fun to do. Here's more quilts:

Jewel Box quilt top together!

2010-06-30T00:14:00.006-05:00

Well, I can't believe it, but I've finally finished the top to my Jewel Box quilt. I'm debating on adding a one-inch border of that navy blue, or I may just save that matching navy fabric and do a binding with it instead.

I went to a quilt retreat this weekend, and after making some fold-and-roll totebags, I worked on this Jewel Box. I've had it two-thirds done since July of 2008.

It's king sized - 108 inches square, to fit my waterbed. There are more than 3700 pieces in it, squares and triangles. I don't know how many fabrics there are, but a LOT. :D All the navy blue is the same, but there are about 6 different tone-on-tones for the white. Countless different fabrics in the bright squares and triangles. There are some duplicates, but not too many!

You're never quite sure if what you draw in EQ will look the same when it's translated to fabric, but I think this time, it's very close. Here's the original design I did on EQ of what I wanted it to look like:

Back in May of 2008, all those little squares looked like this. If you're interested in how I went from the EQ design to construction of the quilt, here's my instructions, with graphics. For those of you who like to count, there's 2592 squares in this quilt, 1160 triangles, 36 rectangles (in blue, to piece the border) for a grand total of 3788 pieces.

Tomato crop in early June

2010-06-05T20:36:00.003-05:00

My tomato crop as of today. The bigger ones are all early girl, then there's five round cherry tomatoes, and the oblong ones are grape tomatoes. I've had more cherry tomatoes than this, but I had a salad last night, and 4 of them plus 2 grape tomatoes went down the hatch. That really ripe early girl on the bottom right is destined for my lunch sandwich tomorrow.

I've been picking them when orange instead of red so the birds don't get any ideas, but they ripen up quickly in the bowl here if I don't refrigerate them.

End of May veggie update

2010-05-30T13:08:00.006-05:00

Lots and lots to show you today! First, here's some of my bigger squash. The plants are loaded with them, all different sizes from one inch long to almost ready to pick. The two I DID pick are at the bottom of this post:

And a snowpea (with the squash wading pool in the background) these are so good I'm not even getting many pictures of them, not cooking them or steaming them, just eating them raw and crunchy:

My cherry tomato bush is loaded with little tomatoes. I've picked two of the ripest ones already, you'll see them at the bottom of the post.

So is my grape tomato bush, and they've got differing shades of green and orange going on, too. I like it when they start producing one to three tomatoes per day, that's exactly what I need for my salad.

After I picked the one LONG pepper from each pepper plant, now both of them are producing 'normal' sized peppers:

Here's what's ripened and been picked today. Two little squash, both about 5 inches long. Two cherry tomatoes, four grape tomatoes, and one Better Boy tomato. Plus two snowpeas that made the picture, but got eaten before I could get the jpg cropped and up here on the blog. :D

Mid-May Garden Update

2010-05-21T23:07:00.002-05:00

Ready for more tomato and squash pictures? Sorry, there's no snowpea pix, I've *guilty grin* eaten them all.

Here's my Cherry Tomato bush. Some of them are getting too big to really call them cherry tomatoes, but they're not ripening yet, still just as green as they can be. I hope they don't all ripen the same day! Between this bush, and the Grape Tomato bush you've seen already, I should be swimming in little tomatoes pretty soon.

I have two pots with banana pepper plants, and one pot has ONE immensely long pepper, and a handful of smaller buds. But this one looks too long to be normal, somehow. Maybe it's a mutant alien pepper... :)

My Early Girl bush has several golf-to-plum sized tomatoes, but again, all still very green.

I'm most proud of my squash plants though - lots and lots of blooms and lots and lots of teeny squash. Here's two of the biggest so far. Maybe thumb sized? Too small to eat, but a good size to drool over. After last year with no squash but lots of blooms, I was about to say that squash growing in a kiddy wading pool didn't work, but this year is a total reversal.

It's snowpeas and squash!

2010-05-16T15:08:00.006-05:00

I was so surprised to go out and look at my garden and discover that I don't just have foliage, I have veggies! First, here's my snowpeas - I picked the one in the middle and I'm going to eat it right now:

*crunching noises*

Yup, mighty good! The other two I plan on leaving until tomorrow night's salad, let them get just a bit longer.

And squash! Cute little ones, but still, more than I got last summer:

These are doubly precious to me since there's so many of them - I guess it's the difference between regular dirt and planting in Miracle Gro potting soil.

Here's the biggest. Still smaller than my little finger, but bigger than the others:

The grape tomato bush is full of blooms and little tomatoes too - want to play dot-to-dot with teeny tomatoes? Click on the picture to enlarge, lol

And there's peppers on both plants now. I'll put this last so you can easily compare it to the picture taken a week ago ... look how my pepper is growing!

Squash, Peppers and Windchimes

2010-05-09T22:37:00.004-05:00

Ohhh, lookie what I saw when I looked under the leaves of my squash plant today! Surely with all those buds, I'll get at least ONE squash worth eating, don't you think?

And a little pepper - I can't wait for these to start growing. Does anyone know if the dark streaks up the stem there 'mean' something? Like over or under watering or... ?

And finally, got a shepherd's crook at Home Depot today. A friend of mine from Georgia gave me this last winter, and I've been wanting to put it out ever since! What's neat, it's also a birdfeeder, you fill the globe with seeds. I think I'll wait till late fall for that, because I don't want to attract birds to the area where my ripe tomatoes will be. :D

Little Green Tomatoes

2010-05-07T21:05:00.008-05:00

Everything is coming up little green tomatoes! Here's five of the seven that're on my cherry tomato bush. I may not even have to stake this one, it's staying low and compact:

This is the Early Girl plant, they're looking nice too:

Only a couple on the big boy plant so far. Here's the biggest:

The grape tomato bush is my top producer. Twelve tomatoes that I can count, (although some of them are teeny-tiny) and bunches and bunches of blooms:

And here's my biggest tomato, slightly larger than a golf ball size, on the Better Boy plant. It has another couple of marble sized ones.

Meanwhile, my squash hasn't got any blooms yet, just buds, but the foliage is sure getting big and healthy looking:

I've taken the wire off the peony bush, and moved it to the back again. I also shifted the snowpeas to the end so I could sink the legs of the wire frame into the dirt, then I started using some scraps of fabric and selvedges to tie up the vines.

The peppers have blooms too, both plants - but they're growing very slowly, compared to the tomatoes.

How does YOUR garden grow?

End of April veggie update

2010-04-29T00:08:00.001-05:00

I'll start with the obligatory group shot:

My grape tomato plant has lots of clusters of blooms, but no little green tomatoes yet:

But my Early Girl plant has a tomato! This first one is about marble sized:

The peonies in the previous post are using the wire cage that I'll put between the snowpeas. They're getting tall enough to where they need it! Maybe I ought to go buy another one. I had to scoot the window boxes apart so the peas wouldn't grab onto each other. ;)

The squash in the wading pool is doing fine too, much healthier looking than last year.

And last, my Better Boy tomato. I'm wondering now if this one or the Early Girl will ripen first. The race is on!

April Flowers

2010-04-28T19:10:00.002-05:00

Lots of things blooming in my yard, end of April. These smell so sweet - and I get more and more of them every year:

I'd bring some inside to admire, but the ants like them as much as I do, so they're definitely a flower to keep outside and admire from afar.

I keep thinking about diversifying, and getting some other colors of peonies, then separating these and mixing them together. But my favorite colors are green and cream, like these. I wonder what other varieties they make? I'll have to go hunting next fall.

I have several different colors of iris, too. Plain yellow, plain lavender, and two varieties of purple/white ones.

For some reason, I don't get both varieties of purple/white and white/purple blooming at the same time.

Blocks of the Month and Yarn balls

2010-04-21T01:13:00.005-05:00

You wouldn't guess it from all my garden posts, but I HAVE still been quilting. You can get a lot of quilting and web page making done while you're waiting (and waiting) for a plumber to call you back... and waiting (and waiting) for a plumber to arrive ... lol

But finally, I have a new not-leaking hot water heater, and dishes and clothes are being washed, etc. Catching up, here's the web page and the six inch star block I did for April:

The web page for May is almost finished, way early, for once. I won't officially put it up until May 1. Here's a sneak preview of the block, though, a six inch Maverick Star:

I've also been finishing up the Cats and Pinwheels quilt, by adding the yarn balls on the two long border edges. I don't really get into applique, even machine applique, so I'd been procrastinating on this, even though I really thought it'd add to the design of the quilt. Here's the left side:

And a slightly different one. I know it would have been easier to use a solid piece of bias tape for the string, but when I laid it out that way, it didn't look like it connected to the ball, it was TOO solid. So I tried a solid ball, and that just looked wrong next to all the scrappiness of the quilt blocks. I went back to the patched ball, and made a patched string, and I think it'll do. Here's the right side border:

Yet another Cat and Garden Update

2010-04-17T21:25:00.004-05:00

First, a request from Mom. She liked the picture of Libby from my last post, but demands that Toby get equal time. So here's my other rescued Siamese. He wanted to look out the window undisturbed and chatter at the birds, especially a dove that lives in the ash tree. But I wanted a picture and kept tapping him on his furry little butt, so he'd look at ME instead of the bird. He finally turned around, looked exasperated, and gave me a couple of long meows. So this is him explaining, "The white bird is out there, I'd much rather watch it, if you'd quit thumping my rear end, I could concentrate. Understood?"

So I'll leave the cat alone, and start with the garden headline news ... my first tomato! It's on the Better Boy plant, the one that had blooms when I bought it. This plant has three, but the other two are even smaller-than-green-pea size.

The wading pool squash are going great so far. I'm not going to let myself get too excited, though, because they were going pretty good last year too, till the rabbit got them. Any of you that regularly garden know of a good companion plant that I could grow with the squash? I've heard corn, but... not in a wading pool, of course.

And here's my windowbox snowpeas. I'll have to put them near the cage pretty soon, so they can climb, but the cage is round front by my peony bush. When they start getting the huge golf-ball size buds, the peonies are usually too heavy for the stem and need some support until the blooming is over.

And, I'll close with another group shot. ;) The banana pepper plants aren't growing near as fast as the tomatoes, anyone know why? Any advice?

Garden Update for Mid April

2010-04-11T22:29:00.001-05:00

*grins*
Get used to it, I like to keep a photo-record of my plants. ;)

Here's another version of the group shot I took 9 days earlier - scroll down to see the previous group shot - I like seeing how they've grown, and it's fun to be able to look back on last year and see which ones grew best, and produced earliest. Several of the tomato plants now have buds and blooms, the Better Boy has three teeeeeny little tomatoes, not even the size of an English pea yet.

My squash in the kiddy pool is doing great - I planted 5 seeds per hill, as the directions on the back of the packet showed, but not all of them are up. I wonder if storing these seeds in the freezer (they're the ones that didn't get used last year) impacted their hmm... sprout-ability? Viability, that's the word I was looking for. Most, but not all of the snow peas sprouted, and they were stored in the freezer too.

And finally, a picture of Libby, who hates to go outside, but loves to sit in the window and watch me when I'm outside.

Cat Quilts and Snowpeas Growing!

2010-04-06T19:12:00.003-05:00

I'm still working on this quilt - but I did finish piecing my kitty borders. Yes, it's on a fence, and I rotated the pic so you didn't have to tilt your head... lol

Now to put (applique, uggh) the yarn balls on the sides. I've changed my mind and am thinking about only putting them on the long sides, do you agree? With a little scrappy bias tape tail, with one loop in it, I think.

And I've got snowpeas, growing like a weed! These pictures were taken just a little more than 48 hours apart - the top picture was taken Sunday, the one on the bottom, today. I can't wait to crunch into my first raw, fresh off the vine, crisp little pea pod. ;p

Garden Beginnings for April

2010-04-02T11:39:00.005-05:00

Ready to meet my new plant family? This is Easter weekend, so that means planting time at my house. I spent three hours this morning, shifting dirt from container to container, repotting, and planting.

The squash in a kiddie wading pool first - last year this didn't work. Not even ONE squash. But I kept the extra seeds in the freezer and I'm trying again. This time, better dirt instead of the topsoil I used before. I also poked some bigger holes in the bottom for drainage. I have five hills of five seeds planted. Last year, I thought I was being smart and tried to stagger the planting times, thinking I'd have squash early, squash late, and even end-of-summer squash. Instead, I think I might have not had enough blooming at one time to fertilize each other. I also had rabbit problems - this year, once they sprout, I'm doing the stinky kitty litter trick around the outside of the pool earlier -- after I did that last summer, I didn't see hide nor 'hare' of the rabbit for the rest of the season. :)

I enjoyed the produce from my sweet banana pepper plant so much last summer, I decided I'd have two this year. I'm planting them in better soil this year too, so I hope I don't get massively over peppered! Meet Banana One and Twin.

And about the CD's -- I'm always tempted to lie and say they're providing some esoteric nutrient to the soil, or they're providing reflected sunlight to the understory of the plants ... nope, they're just there for bird scare. When my tomatoes get 'caged' I use scissors to cut a slice thru the CD and put them on the cages, where the slightest breeze spins them back and forth and sets them flashing.

I haven't yet had a surplus of tomatoes in my little garden, so this year I bought still another container, plus more dirt, and I'm putting out a bunch. First, a Better Boy. Lookie, three little yellow tomato blooms! I had one of these last year, and it did really well:

Then I'm trying grape tomatoes for the first time. I often buy these at the supermarket, and spend $2.50 or so for a little plastic box of them. I'll try to keep some account of how many the plant produces, and see if I save anything.

Next, a Big Boy. I'm hoping this will produce some larger tomatoes I can slice and use on sandwiches. I used one of my big new plastic terracotta containers for this - it's a normal sized tomato plant, not one of the little container 'bushes,' so I'm slightly worried that it may be too much for a container. We'll see.

Here's another I've had in the past, a Husky Cherry Red. This was one of the varities that got me started in container gardening - it was so much fun going out every evening and picking a couple of cherry tomatoes for my salad. Juicy, round, and sweet, they were great. And they weren't prone to splitting either.

I have had this one too, and couldn't resist another. I'm not sure if this Early Girl will have the first ones ripe this summer since the Better Boy already has blooms, I'll have to wait and see.

Now, a group shot of my container garden - and if you look off to the left corner you can see my two window boxes with snowpeas. I planted the seeds for that last week. When I was planting everything else this morning, I was delighted to see that I now have tiny little green leaves poking out of the dirt. I didn't have any mulch on them though, so I re-covered the little shoots with some loose mulch when I was adding mulch to the tops of the tomato containers.

Border Cats

2010-03-19T13:33:00.004-05:00

Here's what I've decided to do for my border.

I tried another quilter's idea of making a border using strips of the cat fabric similar to a piano key border, but with the tops pointed like the cat tails are done in the center of the quilt. But too many tails were indistinguishable from a picket fence border, and, at least in EQ, your eye didn't pick up the visual cue that made you think... oh, those are tails!

I tried coloring it so there was a background fabric, and every other tail was a different calico. This time it looked like my inner pinwheel and cat blocks were enclosed in a cage.

Then I tried putting one cat on the border, and having his tail curl up to be the first strip in the picket fence, but that didn't work either. I gave up on the picket fence - tail repeat idea, and just put a kitty in each corner, then added the yarn balls to partially fill the empty space. I may try to do some small bit of machine applique to make a 'tail' of yarn looping from the ball on the two longer sides of the border. We'll see!

Pinwheels and Cats again

2010-03-02T02:44:00.003-06:00

Well, like I thought in the last post, I took all the blocks down and totally rearranged them. I decided that I wanted a 5 x 7 layout after all. That makes it fit a bed better, or cover your feet better if it's a throw.

Then I needed to make some more blocks - but (like the Grinch) I had a wonderful, awful idea - How about one BIG mama cat, to go with the five little ones? That way I wouldn't have to make as many pinwheels. I also picked the very darkest skinny green sashing, 1½ inches. So here's what I ended up with, this is all sewn together:

I've got to put the sashing around the top, and right and left sides still. Then decide if I want to make a pieced border, THEN a calico border, or just a couple of calico borders.

Because the pinwheels finished at the odd size of 9¼ (9¾ before sewing them together) the quilt's not as big as it looks, hanging in my doorframe there. When I get the rest of the skinny sashing on, it'll be 52 x 73ish, so to get it to twin size I'd have to add borders of about eight inches all around to make it 68 x 90. That's awfully big, isn't it? Any thoughts for a simple pieced border instead of a wide plain one? I have plenty of calico left... lol

Pinwheels and Calico Cats

2010-02-22T01:35:00.003-06:00

Here's another project I've been working on the past month or two. It started with some very scrappy calico pinwheels made in Pat Speth's class:

I decided I didn't want to do 35 pinwheels, to make the quilt 5 blocks by 7. Then I found this calico cat block in an old magazine. I redrew it to the size I needed and made four of them - it really made me like the blocks better to have some cats in there! I need ONE more cat for that empty bottom right corner.

My design wall is too small, so I had to overlap most of the blocks to get them to fit, even with folding the right hand row around to the back. I wish I had a bigger house --and a studio with a skylight and a maid to keep things clean and might as well wish to win the lottery while I'm at it-- but meanwhile, this design wall is as big as it's gonna get!

Now looking at the photo, I see that I've got to shift some blocks, those two brighter green background ones are too close together, and I don't think I like the two cats that're looking left being that close either. Anyone else get to this point and decide to just take them ALL down and start the layout over?

There'll have to be sashing between the blocks, because the pinwheels spin different directions. It'll be thin sashing, maybe 1 or 1½ inches, but I can't decide what color I want. There's a forest green... and a mauve, and a medium blue, and a dark blue. None of them are solid, but they're all a very tiny print, and almost read as solid. It's gotta be from stash, I'm on a no-buy thing till I use some fabric up. Any opinions?

Block of the Month for 2010

2010-02-21T00:18:00.005-06:00

Been working on several things, but I'm such a bad blogger! Here's the block of the month I'm doing for my guild, for 2010:

Start Page

It's going to be stars, this year, a different star for each month. People can choose between 6 inch or 12 inch stars, and do whatever theme they want. I've put several suggestions/hints for theme ideas on that Start Page, some suggesting they make their own design for a medallion center, and one at the end for just a sampler quilt. It's pretty neat, seeing all the different colors being used to make the blocks.

Here's an Ohio Star, for January:

And the Strip Star, for February:

And a preview of the block I'll have up in March, the Rising Star:

My web page for the Rising star isn't up on the website yet, I usually put them up around the first of each month. ;)

Personally, I'm going to do six inch stars in a pastel scrappy theme, for Spring. I'll arrange these around a white medallion center, tall and skinny like the Easter one on the Start Page link. I think I'll put a tulip or daffodil in the middle instead of the bunny shown there.

And here's one of each in brown and green and cream, of each star - in the 12 inch size:

The Ohio Star (sorry the view is wonky here - the block is straight, I promise!)

The Strip Star - I paper pieced this one too.

And the Rising Star. I paper pieced the inner and middle star, but not the outer star points.

I'm going to give people the option of using a solid 3½ square instead of the teeny little star in the middle there, I know a lot of folks don't like paper piecing fiddly bits. :)

These will be added to my kingsize 'Neverending Sampler' that I've been working on for *blushes* about 25 years. As I've gotten better at quilting, I look back at some of the early blocks and think... ewww! I can't use that!

December Update

2009-12-15T02:58:00.007-06:00

Gosh, I'm not posting much, am I? I'll try to start doing better, I promise. ;) I've been busy, though! Here's the Carolina Christmas logo I just finished for Bonnie at Quiltville:

I've also put this logo on different items in the Zazzle account, if anyone wants to show their support for Bonnie and advertise for Quiltville.

Here's what I've been working on in the evenings after work. First, the finished Autumn table runner, at the completed top stage:

When we used it on the table at Thanksgiving, Mom decided that it would look better just a little longer, so I added another couple of rows of blocks on each end. I'm glad I hadn't backed it and quilted it yet!

And this is the Block of the Month row by row quilt I've been doing for the last year, finally all sewn together. It was just a little too tall to hang on the library shelves, so you can't get the full effect of the row of maple leaf blocks across the bottom:

Two final borders on this and I'll be done. I can't decide if I want a 1 inch brown, then a 3 inch green, or a 1 inch green and a 3 inch brown. :D If anyone's interested in seeing all the instructions for the blocks we used for the rows, they're all on the quilt guild's website: www.ucquilts.com

And finally, the pinwheel blocks you saw the EQ design for:

I've decided that I've definitely met and exceeded my scrappy comfort level with this quilt. Color controlled scrappy like the brown/cream/green row quilt = good. A billion different colors of calicoes put together like this one = bad. That triple-scrappy sashing between the blocks is too, too much scrappiness. It does look old-fashioned, but the end result is too busy.

I'm now planning to unsew and rip out the sashings you see there and use a fabric that reads as solid instead, maybe a blue or a dark green. I can always cut up the 1 inch sashing strips into segments for 9 patch blocks, maybe even use them between some solid borders for this quilt. I've got 17 blocks finished. I can't decide if I want to make it a 4x4 layout and have one block left over for the back, OR a 3 x 4 layout and have 5 left over for a whole row on the back, OR make three more pinwheels and do a 4x5 layout. Decisions, decisions!

November Update

2009-11-26T05:40:00.002-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Here's what I've been working on the last week. Mom mentioned 4 days ago that she wished she had an autumn themed runner for her table for the upcoming holiday. So I've gotten it pieced, but not backed and quilted yet. Here's the design I drew in EQ:

And the actual thing in fabric looks pretty much like my initial design:

Notice on the bottom right corner between the leaf square and the maroon square that I ran out of bobbin thread on the LAST seam - I lacked about an inch or two. Isn't that always the way it goes?

And here's what I learned how to do on our quilt guild's retreat - Happy Villages. We cut stairstep chunks of fabric, lightly glued them down, added doors, windows, and roofs, then covered the whole thing with a layer of tulle and quilted it.

I've still got to bind this one. I'm thinking blue binding to match the sky/ocean around the top and blue sides, then where the edges turn beige for buildings, I'll switch to tan binding and go around the bottom and tan sides.

It was great fun to make, and now I'm thinking of making holiday themed ones... wouldn't it be neat to make one for Easter, say, and buy some fabric with little eggs on it... then hide them all over the village? A Christmas one with candycanes and gingerbread? A Halloween house in shades of black and gray, with spooky things looking out the windows and pumpkins everywhere?

I also made a design wall... and I must say I love using one more than I thought. It's one of those dressmaker's accordian fold boards, with a cheap vinyl/flannel tablecloth carpet-taped to it... then those inexpensive metal expanding curtain rods are clipped to the top and bottom to hold it out straight.

A Third Idea

2009-10-22T20:46:00.003-05:00

Here's a third setting idea from my friend Ann (link to her blog on the sidebar - go look at her grandkids... lol)

Ann's a quilter too, and she suggested alternating the dark and light blocks.

Whichever design I end up using, I'd always been planning on adding a couple of borders to take the quilt out to twin sized, I have some deep green and blue calico that should be enough for borders - so I went on and put blocks in that outer border of the two below, then added two more solid borders on. Now which of the three do you like better?

Quilting and Tomatoes

2009-10-22T19:21:00.004-05:00

Bet you'd thought I'd forgotten my blog, didn't you? But I've been quilting and tending my tomatoes and working - I'm just more hooked on the facebook games, Farmtown and Vampire Wars, than blogging... lol.

I'm taking another quilting class Saturday, this one is from Pat Speth, and is all about using 5 inch squares. We have lots of homework to do before the class, getting all of our nickel squares cut!

But I'm not choosing one of her layouts... typical troublemaker that I am, I'll be using one of these two... either dark IN or dark OUT. Which do you like better?

I know they're not my 'typical' colors or quilts you'll see on my blog, but I really needed to get all these older calicoes out of my stash. I'm not buying a thing for this class - by using the thin strips of calico for a scrappy sashing, and using scrappy variety in the blocks, I've got more than enough calico and small print fabric to complete this. :) I'm glad to finally be using it up - it's funny how my fabric tastes have changed, I'm much more into batiks and tone-on-tone prints now than sweet little calicoes and tiny florals.

And finally, here's an October 22 tomato update for you:

We haven't had a really hard freeze yet here in Memphis, so yes, things are still this green. The Early Girl bush is producing nicely, and as you can see, I'm still rolling in cherry tomatoes, too.

Garden Update for September

2009-09-20T17:04:00.003-05:00

Yup, I've still got a garden. ;) During the hottest part of August production really slowed down, but now, at last count, this cherry tomato plant has over 50 little green tomatoes:

And here's my better boy plant, it's got about twelve tomatoes, and so does my early girl plant.

If they don't ripen before the first frost, then I'll be bringing in the containers and finishing out the season inside. Last year, I had tomatoes until after Thanksgiving.

Here's my harvest for this week. We've had so much rain here in Memphis, that I went on and picked the two greenish tomatoes you see in the back - once they start to turn pinkish, they split when it rains, I think. Just being proactive. :)

The banana peppers have been superb - my favorite recipe is to take them, hollow out the seeds and pith, then stuff them with a half a stick of string cheese. Wrap them with a piece of bacon, and bake... mmm.

Class with Susan Else

2009-09-13T13:46:00.005-05:00

This Friday and Saturday, I took a class from Susan Else. You can see some examples of the kind of fabric stuff she does here, on her website. She did a quilted skeleton that's amazing, plus some quilted teapots that are very cool.

It was a really good class. Here Susan is standing in front of an arrangement we made *on her background* with all the class samples we did - she showed us how to do a reverse applique technique for making the backgrounds, how to layer things to produce the illusion of greater depth, how to work with color and scale, etc. So much of this will also translate from art, to art quilts, and even to traditional quilts-for-beds.

Lunch each day was exquisite. ;) The china changed daily, as did the table coverings. Friday's theme was Italian, with superb salad and pasta courses, and Saturday's theme was Mexican, with the chilled avocado soup you see there, followed by a chicken enchilada, served with blue chips, salsa. Our snack later on in the afternoon was a rice pudding with tangerine slices. Absolutely fantastic food, both days, catered by Paula Hamilton, the one standing, wearing a pink shirt, in the picture above.

Susan taught us how to do lots of three dimensional things to add to our quilts and wallhangings, the vines you see there, two different techniques for the flowers and leaves, plus how to attach different design elements.

Best of all, she worked with us on designing our OWN 3D animals and figures. You'll see on her website she does people as well as the animals/monsters we did in the arrangement above. We laughed a lot, and learned a lot, both!

I'll post pictures of the things I did personally later, when they're done. Mine isn't in the arrangement above, but she's a bluegreen batik book-toting librarian-monster. :)

Incubator Quiltlets

2009-08-26T23:57:00.003-05:00

Here's four little incubator quiltlets I made for donation to our local children's hospital, Lebonheur Children's Medical Center, here in Memphis. I made the first two bargello quilts during Bonnie from Quiltville's Superbowl Bargello Day, back in 2008.

I can't decide if I like the bright version better (below) or the pastel version better.

This pastel quiltlet was made from a collection of nine patches I had left over from a class several years ago. I matched them with pink squares and made the half square triangles, then added the pink sashing.

And finally, a teeny little Heartstrings quilt made from 6½ inch square string blocks. It seems like I always end up with a surplus of short strings, so this was a good place to use them.

The incubator blankets had to be 24 inches square, and they're used not on top of the preemie, but on top of the incubator itself, to add both insulation and to block a little of the light for the babies. I hope they find a good home. ;)

All four were quilted and bound by my friend from the Uncommon Threads Quilt Guild, Marge N. She does superb quilting, as you can see. I'm just in awe. I think my favorite is the teeny stars and loops on the pastel bargello, the first one on the top ... but the feathers on the heartstrings one are so well done too.

Finished House and Reading

2009-08-17T00:03:00.003-05:00

Here's the finished house. I'm happy with the paint job, especially the shutters, they're a slightly darker green than what I had, and it's prettier.

If the grass looks a little shaggy, it was - my yard guy came the day after I took this picture. Can you see the kitty in the window? That's Libby, she has to watch everything that goes on. Toby is in the middle window, but you can't see his little black nose, just the fact that he's pushed the curtains aside. ;)

Not much news, just the usual round of work, read, sleep. I have proofed a couple of books this week, and enjoyed them both. I'm also reading David Baldacci's First Family, and one by Rupert Isaacson, called The Horse Boy.

Peppers, Tomatoes, and Repairs

2009-08-05T01:07:00.004-05:00

I made a great chicken fettucini alfredo last night, and along with the chicken and some mushrooms, saute'd my first banana pepper. Stirred the whole thing together... mmm. I'd cut into the pepper and cleaned out the seeds before I remembered that I hadn't taken a picture of it - so here it is, with a couple of cherry tomatoes slid in there for eyes. That's my harvest for the last couple of days. Anyone know how long an un-cut-into unrefrigerated pepper will keep? Will it get hotter or milder as it ages, or will it stay the same?

Here's my banana pepper plant now. It doesn't look as green and nice, the leaves have spots, and something is eating them... but it's making great tasting peppers. Can you find the little peppers about to bud out? The inch long one you see had been pea sized for a while - then when I cut the two ripe ones off, within a day, bam, it grew an inch.

And I'm finally getting more new tomatoes. I suspect it was just too hot for a while, then we had some rain and cooler weather, now I've got little tomatoes again. The CD's you see there are for bird-scare. The wind catches them and blows them back and forth, the sun glints and flashes off them as they move. Between that and picking the tomatoes before they get too red and enticing, I haven't had many bird problems this year.

I'm going to wait until the end of August, then start another crop of snow peas. The package says they'll grow well in cooler weather, even through frost.

And in other news, I'm finally getting some repairs done to my house, painting and replacing of masonite board and trim. This board over the carport had some warping and birds had gotten in and made nests. Now it's all clean and neat again. They've been doing some sanding too. I had a trumpet flower vine growing up the post, and it'd spread those little root-things on the wood. SO nice to have it gone.

Here's the back door, out back by my container garden. They've replaced some door trim that had water damage and a whole sheet of masonite.

There's supposed to be thunderstorms tomorrow, hope it doesn't slow the repair work down. The paint will be the exact same shade it is now, Navajo white, with forest green shutters.

Feeding the Stash

2009-07-24T21:11:00.004-05:00

First, a stashbuster report:

I haven't bought any fat quarters in over two years. What I HAVE been buying is yardage, and for the B's: borders, backing, background,and binding. Here's my latest acquisitions:

This blue batik with daisies will be for the backing of a king size quilt. There's 12 yards here, and if there's enough left, after I've cut the backing, I plan on making a couple of king size pillowcases to match.

Of course, while I was shopping on eBay for backings, I just had to pick up a few more batiks. These are all three yard pieces, from Phillyfabrics, one of my favorite sellers.

That top one has more lavender in it than you can see from the photo. I plan to use it as lining. The green with lizards and the aqua with leaves are even cuter in person. Most of all, I think I like the sherbet colored one on the bottom - I may have to make another fabric shopping bag with it, so it gets out of the house. :D

Another Quilt Finished!

2009-07-19T20:51:00.005-05:00

A couple of months ago, my guild had a UFO challenge - and it provided the impetus for me to finish the blue/purple pinwheels quilt you saw a few posts down, and this one, also, that I'm finally getting pix of up on my blog.

Fans of Bonnie Hunter will recognize it as her Carolina Crossroads mystery, with sashing. I've had this one as a completed top, tucked away with it's backing, for a long time, awaiting quilting. I didn't add a border. As you can see with it hanging on a fence, it's 72 inches square (six feet). That's a good size for a card table cover - a 4 foot square table with 2 feet of tablecloth drop on all sides. I suspect I'll use it mostly at the library, under displays of Christmas books.

Most importantly for me, as you'll see on the closeup picture below, it really allowed me to make a dent in all the Christmas fabrics I have somehow collected.

Mary S., in Missouri, did the all-over stipple for me, and did a great job, too. ;) I knew it didn't need anything intricate, as busy as the top was. And yes, those nine patches are made with 1½ strips, to finish at three inches. Even the backing is Christmas fabric.

Garden Update for Mid July

2009-07-17T01:14:00.005-05:00

Have you been wondering about my little container garden? Here's the status. First, some tomatoes - The Better Boy and the Early Girl plant both have maybe 4 green tomatoes on them, a bit bigger than golf balls so far. I ate a ripe one tonight. Here's two from the Early Girl:

My Cherry tomato bush is producing one or two ripe ones per day, barely enough to keep me in snacks. I really like these things. This is two of the clusters on the bush.

Finally, my banana pepper plant has finally started doing something, LOOK! Two cute little banana peppers. I got a turkey cold cut sandwich at Subway just the other night, with banana peppers, and was wishing mine would grow... and it HAS! I have Peppers! :)

And the bush is full of little hard peppers that aren't even half an inch long yet, I'm so excited.

Winner and Reviews and Authors

2009-07-16T21:29:00.012-05:00

First, the good news! Nessa, from NJ, won the muse from my random drawing over here. I have your snail mail addy, and she'll be on her way to you tomorrow. :)

Next, a little rant - regular readers of my blog will realize I don't do this often. ;) In fact, I can't remember any post yet, in years of blogging, where I've been even slightly negative.

As a "follower" Friday on Riding With The Top Down, I DID have a good time with the responses, some were pretty funny. But I'm disappointed too. Despite links to here, on the bottom of my post there, not ONE of the ten authors came over here to post. I don't mind if they didn't want a muse, pipe cleaner dolls aren't for everyone. But if I were an author and saw a post showcasing my most recent book released, I'd comment - even if only "Hi, glad to see you bought my book!" or... "Glad you bought my friend's book, hope you enjoy it!" Then I read This Post on authors relating to readers over on Editorialass.blogspot.com and it really made me think. So I'm gonna share.

You guys have seen the little Shelfari on the left sidebar there, filled with books *points to sidebar* and you know I sometimes review books here - being a librarian, I can't help it. With these three books I bought, I had been planning on doing what Mom taught, growing up ... If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. So I wasn't going to review any of the three books that are in the pictures below. But then I realized, they won't come over here to see it anyway, so why not be honest? I'm NOT giving them a mediocre review because they didn't come visit, either. I'm just going to tell about what made ME stop reading each book.

Granted, I don't read as much straight romance as I do other genres. I read more romantic suspense, mystery, etc. The two on the left WERE probably the first Harlequin/Silhouette paperbacks that I'd bought new, not at used book sales. Ever. I thought I'd give the Suspense and Nocturne lines a try. I read all genres, and mostly, I get my books from the library, on my card. And I have a time-tested way of sorting thru the multitude of books that I see.

Every day, at morning break, I'll pick from the carts of books-waiting-to-be-shelved. The book I pick gets a ten to fifteen minute read as I drink my diet soda. I read fast, usually thru the first chapter, sometimes more. At least 20 to 30 pages. If, at the end of break, the author has caught me up in the characters and story, to where I want to keep reading and find out what happens, then I'll stick in a bookmark, and leave it on the break room table to read with lunch. If I'm not interested, it goes right back on the cart with the other returns and new, but not bestselling books. After my 30 minute lunch read, the book goes through another quality check ... do I put it on the cart, or leave it on the table for further reading on my afternoon break, or put it on my library card?

This gives me three categories:

Uggh. Fifteen minutes of this was enough. Not my style, and I won't recommend it either. Probably only about 10% of the books I pick up. We have good book selectors in purchasing, and it shows.

Hmmm. This is only okay. After 45 minutes of reading, I might recommend this to readers who like this genre. I may or may not finish it, on my breaks. Probably about 60% of the books I pick up and audition.

Good! The books that I didn't want to put down. Characters I care about, enough conflict to keep me interested, so I'll check it out and take it home. I read a LOT, so 30% of the books I pick up, I probably take home.

Now back to the three in the pictures below - I'm still not finished reading any of them. For books I have at home, that's very unusual. The library didn't own them, but if I HAD picked them off the cart to look at, they wouldn't have come home with me. All three are that Hmmm category. Books that are okay for others, just not for me.

Kylie Brant, Terms of Attraction: For a tough, smart, sharpshooting sniper of a female character, Ava made too many dumb decisions. I stopped reading the first time after page 63, when Ava locks her door, goes to bed, then slowwwwly, groggily wakes up to find the main male character holding her down. She gets one good slug at him till he pins her. It's her BOSS. He climbed across, from his balcony to her balcony, to get in her room.

Sorry, but - no. I put the book down. You wake me from a sound sleep by breaking into my room and climbing on top of me in my bed, then think I'd still be working for you the next day? Even if you're the sexiest thing on the planet, that kind of behavior would be a deal breaker for me. I picked it back up later. I'd bought it, I should finish the book, right? I got to page 93 when this time, she wakes from a sound sleep, but is immediately fully alert, puts on her bulletproof vest,and is running down the hall with her gun in less than ten seconds. Barefoot. In a sexy camisole.

Bah. She should be smart enough to sleep in a bit more than that, after what happened the night before, especially! And plz, girl, take half a sec. to slide your feet into some shoes as you're putting on the vest. I put the book down again, and have yet to pick it back up. Now I know that the first book in the series has just won some awards, so I might have to finish it. Maybe the ending is better?

Michele Hauf, The Highwayman: I thought I was going to like this one, a main character who shapeshifts into a cat. You ALL know I am a cat person. But the character has only shifted a few times so far. First time is when she sees this guy who's been following her ... she becomes the cat, leaves her place by way of the cat door, walks across the street to his car, then, at his invitation, joins him inside his car and shifts back. But her clothes don't shift with her, so she's sitting there in only his coat. Why didn't she stay human, and dressed? I couldn't find any motivation for her shifting in the first place. She does do some nicely catlike behaviors, rubbing on things, curling up to sleep, hating to swim, the kitty characterization is good - but in general, the book is entirely too easy to put down, and even after two weeks, I still haven't cared to finish it. Maybe someday I will.

Lois Greiman, Unscrewed: Not sure what it is about this one I don't like either. A couple of my degrees are in counseling/psychology, so again, I thought I'd get into this, with the main character as a psychologist. But so far, she doesn't seem to really care much about the clients, she's too stupidly obsessing about this sexy cop/detective she's met in the previous book. She somehow strikes me as too old to be that dithery about her date with him, she's not in high school, after all. He knocks on the door to pick her up, instead of letting him in, saying... "Hey, c'mon in, I'm almost ready, have a seat." like a normal person, she goes all hyper. If she's a counselor/therapist, she should be a bit more together than that. So I quit reading this one too, and haven't picked it back up, instead, moving on to other books.

Does Blogging Sell Books?

2009-07-09T22:12:00.009-05:00

Does Blogging Sell Books? Well, it certainly worked on me. And don't even ask why a librarian goes and buys books!

After meeting one of the ten authors, I started following this blog:

Riding With the Top Down

Lately, I've been reading their chat about their latest releases. Some of the little blurbs they wrote sounded interesting, so I copied their names and titles down and went off to WalMart to see what I could find. The picture above shows what I was able to score. ;) My book budget was thankful I couldn't find books from all ten of them!

I've been invited to be guest blogger over there for 'Follower Friday' tomorrow. And I've also decided to have a drawing. ONE person who posts over there *points to link to RWTTD above* and ONE person who posts over here will get a little pipe-cleaner muse that you see posed on the books in the picture.

Commenting on any post, even from way down the page, or from my archives, over here will count, I have all responses e-mailed to me. ONLY responses on my 'Follower Friday' post will count over there. Otherwise I might miss you. ;) I'll use a random number generator to choose the winners.

What good is a pipe cleaner muse? Inspiration! Works for quilting, writing, and anything else creative you may be doing.

How to use a Muse

First, take your muse down from her perch. (I have my two green ones hanging from the ceiling fan chain, where the cats can see them, but not abscond with them.)
Second, put on some music, and dance around the room with the muse. This serves a dual purpose - gets some blood flowing to your brain, and entertains any pets or family you may have.
Third, contort her little arms and legs, place her carefully on a backdrop and go get the digital camera to take a picture.
Fourth, rescue the muse from the cat. Lie and reassure the muse that the cat was only licking her chops and she was not in imminent danger of being eaten. Take the cat off the cushy backdrop. Use some masking tape to dehair the area. Re-pose the muse. Take the picture.
Fifth, go get a salad. Put some protein on top of the vegetables. Cheese, HB egg, tofu, tuna, ham, chicken... pick one. Oh, heck, dump them all on. The combo of vitamins and protein are good for the brain. Finish your meal with some chocolate.
Sixth, NOW you're ready to go back to whatever creative project you were stuck on. And since, if you're like me, you'd completely forgotten where you were, you'll be able to get a fresh start. Worked well, didn't it? :)

Tote and Fabric Letters for Header

2009-07-07T01:46:00.007-05:00

Here's some other things I've been working on lately - a tote bag that folds up into a purse sized roll. There's a neat tutorial here, but it has a pocket that turns inside out over the bag. I changed the pocket just a little by adding velcro and leaving the last inch not sewn, so that mine becomes a roll instead:

It unfolds into exactly the same size as the plastic bags you get at most stores, in fact, you use a plastic bag as a pattern.

I've also been working on letters spelling my screen name, for a header for my blog. Inspiration from Tonya, of course, and the incredible header she has on HER blog. ;)

I was working on this at the quilting retreat, and also had my Seminole strips out to finish too - I'd done the larger version, but had about 20 inches more to do on the smaller size. The quilter sitting next to me thought I was making the Seminole strip for border around my ForestJane header... so now I may just have to do that.

It looks big in the picture, compared to the name, but the strip is only two inches wide, while the blog header above is about 20 x 14, without borders. Guess it'll be a wall hanging when I'm done. I was thinking back, and realized that I've been ForestJane online now for over fourteen years. Gosh, I'm getting old!

June Retreat

2009-06-29T21:30:00.004-05:00

Back from the quilt guild's board retreat, and finally all caught up on my sleep too. ;) Here's the progress on couple of the projects I took to do.

This was started from a block of the month. I won the drawing, but I'd only gotten six of these blocks. So I connected them with sashing and made this center that I posted about last June. I still didn't like the quilt, though, and it had languished in a grocery bag ever since. Here it is after yesterday:

I did take out and replace one half square triangle that was too 'off' to suit me. Finally, this weekend, I decided to round out the shapes on the edges, by connecting them with border fabric, then I added a solid border fabric row. Now I like it much better. Maybe this week, I'll scrounge some backing fabric for it and get it quilted. A little one like this, I ought to be able to do myself, right?

And here's the status on the row quilt the guild is doing as block of the month this year. This weekend, I made the 80 half square triangles needed to go in the blocks of that friendship star row going across the top. The friendship star row will be row six of ten.

I went on and connected the star row to the houses and trees row, and then I really liked the looks of putting row one under the houses. I think I'm going to wait and connect the other rows later, though.

In other news, I'm enjoying my tomatoes - made a wonderfully sloppy sandwich today, with turkey deli meat and 4 big slices of homegrown tomato on it. Was so messy and drippy I had to change my shirt when I got done eating, but the flavor was so worth it. :)

I've about eaten the last of the Spring crop of snow peas, but early September, I plan on putting in a crop for Fall.

The tiger lilies are doing great this summer, that's the only flower I have growing now. Here's a couple of shots from the bed of lilies I have growing along my carport:

Some of the lilies look like two flowers nested in each other, some three... and the one below looks almost like there's four petals stacked up:

Square Dance Quilt Finished

2009-06-19T22:38:00.006-05:00

I finally finished this quilt, with a center inspired by Martha Thompson's Square Dance book. If you look back on my blog in 2007, you can see some of the design process I went through.

Here's a closeup of it - you can possibly see the purple and blue fabric have the same pattern, just different colorways. I used many of the same fabrics from the inner pinwheels for the bigger pinwheels in the middle pieced border. This one ended up double bed sized.

Surprisingly, this quilt has been one of the most searched quilts in my blog - the book is more than 15 years old, out of print, and people are looking for instructions. I've received multiple e-mail requests for help. I actually e-mailed the publisher, and they say they have no plans to re-issue the book.

Navy Band Mid-South Quintet

2009-06-18T22:25:00.005-05:00

Here's one of the things I look forward to every summer -- a visit from the Navy Band to the libraries I work at. I usually invite them to come out and play during our summer reading club activities. They always play a mix of music, from marches to patriotic, to jazz and classical. The songs most well received were the 'William Tell Overture' and the 'Pink Panther' but, I think the kids enjoyed them all! Some pix I took at the event:

I especially like the fact that the guys take the time to explain what the name of their instrument is, play a few bars so the kids can hear what they sound like. It's nice to expose these little ones to live music - and some styles they don't hear every day.

Rainbows and Tomatoes

2009-06-16T19:15:00.004-05:00

We had quite a storm come thru Memphis this past weekend. I was without power for two days, and there are some 30,000 folks in the city who still don't have any. I took these photos immediately after the storm:

It was just before the sun went down, and there were still some pretty dark clouds in the sky. It was a lot prettier in person, really. ;)

And here's what I picked tonight from my little container garden:

I was going to save the snow peas to have in my salad, but *blushes* I crunched them raw while I was uploading the photos. Five to seven snowpeas each night seems to be my average, so it takes 3 to 4 days of resisting the temptation to gobble them up fresh in order to be able to save enough to cook. I just ate that reddest cherry tomato too... lol The other red one on the right, from the early girl plant, WILL make it to the salad tonight. :) The two bigger ones in the back, still orange, are from the better boy plant.

Wordzzle Saturday 66

2009-06-06T01:01:00.007-05:00

This Week's Ten Word Challenge was: swashbuckler, heads-up, dry martini, recovery, jungle gym, whiskers, bathing suit, spade, circular reasoning, abrasive

I had decided I didn't want the whiskers to belong to a cat, and didn't want any one-eyed sword-fighting pirates or anyone drinking the dry martini. ;) For the Wordzzle guidelines, and the words for next Saturday (if you wanted to try it yourself) go on over to Raven's blog. Thanks for hosting this Raven, it's been fun!

My fifteen year old son, Scott, came backing around the corner into the living room from the kitchen, brandishing a butter knife like a swashbuckler, and wearing nothing but his bathing suit. Rowf, our golden retriever, pranced right behind him, with his favorite throwing stick (the wooden handle from an old backpacking spade) in his mouth. I watched quietly from my recliner, realizing neither of the two knew I was observing their silliness.

I also knew that if I didn't stop the horseplay, something would probably end up broken, but in a weird kind of circular reasoning I was too glad to see his goofiness to want to put a stop to it. These last two years, my son's behavior had changed from a happy-go-lucky kid into an abrasive, mouthy teen. Having a conversation with him was like playing tag on a twisted jungle gym. If I were climbing up, then he'd be maneuvering away from me down the other side.

Now, with a 15 year old's bravado, he was dancing with his reflection in the sliding glass door, holding an empty cocktail glass from the bar in his hand. He tilted his head and admiringly stroked the four whiskers that had recently sprouted from his chin. I figured I'd better give him a heads-up before he did anything to embarrass himself further.

"Scott," I said quietly, getting up from my chair, "What are you doing?"
He jumped, spun around, and dropped the cocktail glass, narrowly missing the dog, but making a quick recovery.
"Nothing, Mom, I promise, there was nothing in it!"
"Why were you holding an empty martini glass?"
"Um... because it was a dry martini?
I laughed and gave him a quick hug while he was caught off-guard. Wonders never cease, he hugged me back.

Garden Update for Beginning of June

2009-06-02T20:01:00.006-05:00

I'm baaaack. ;) and wow, am I glad to have internet at home again. On the right in the picture below, my new modem. Now to catch you up with my garden! This is my first little crop. One tomato (between ping pong ball and tennis ball size) and eleven snow peas, on top of that snack sized baggie there. I'm really trying to save them till I have enough to stir fry, but it's hard! I like them raw too.

Here's the tomatoes still on the vine, another Early Girl just starting to get orange. The Better Boy tomatoes are in the foreground, but I think they have some growing to do still.

And here's the status of the crookneck squash. The kitty litter trick has worked, and no more gobbled blooms.

Last, my snow peas. I almost wish I'd planted more of these, instead of just 20 plants, they're really delectable. I've eaten only four of them, so far. But the package directions say they don't do too well in the heat of the summer. Instead, I'll wait till August and put in a new crop for fall.

Anyone out there know when the squash blooms open? I'm worried that with fewer bees, I'm going to have more of a crop if I go pollinate with a q-tip. But every time I've been out there, the blooms are twisted shut. Healthy looking, but closed.

Wordzzle Saturday

2009-05-30T00:13:00.008-05:00

I'm trying the Wordzzle challenge from Raven's blog again. :)

The words for this week's ten word challenge: parasite, meals on wheels, crows, it's my fault, everything but the kitchen sink, on sale, patriotism, the love of my life, library card, common sense

I never wanted to be a parasite on society, but here I am, one tired, dependent old lady. I don't get out anymore, so the high points of my day are visits from people society pays to come. Our mailman arrives before noon, with his circulars, junk mail and bills. The bookmobile, every Tuesday, enticing us with a bus full of large print to check out with our moth-eaten library cards. At least it isn’t just me. Every day, the three of us old widow-women are waiting outside on our front porches, like crows in a row on the telephone wire, wrapped up in our sweaters against the nip in the autumn air. You’d think we’d have the common sense to wait inside where it's warm, but no, we’ve become slaves to our routines. Each of us has our quirks.

I pick up my binoculars and turn to the left. Ellen’s front porch looks like it holds everything but the kitchen sink. She often has carloads of tourists stop and ask if things hanging there are on sale. Wind chimes and mobiles dangle from every crosspiece or beam. She finished one made of old silverware yesterday, and now tiny pickle forks clank dissonantly against the butter knives and spoons. Ellen doesn’t like my binoculars, she says I am a nosy old spy. I wave, but she doesn’t wave back.

As loud as I can, I call over to Mildred, next door on the right. She's a little deaf, but too vain for hearing aids. “New flag, Millie?” Her husband was a Navy veteran, and she kept both her flagpole and her patriotism, even though he's gone. Today she glares and turns her back to me. I had the love of my life a full ten years longer than she had her husband, and she resents me for it. Not that it’s my fault, you understand. I hadn’t held my Larry’s hand as we walked past her porch to make her jealous, but because those last few years, cataracts made him feel more secure if he held on to me when we shuffled round the block. This morning, I shrug my shoulders at her rebuff, because I know in ten minutes, she’ll forget. Millie doesn't remember things so good anymore.

Here comes the Meals on Wheels volunteer, driving her van around the corner, loaded with those pre-packaged dinners. She had the gall to try to get us to eat our meals together, once, but Millie and Ellen refused. I drag my walker closer, and smile. I like the Meals on Wheels lady. She talks to me.

Silflay hraka, u embleer rah!

2009-05-29T10:18:00.005-05:00

I have good garden news and bad garden news... :)

The good news first, I have snowpeas! Now I have to decide how long to leave them there before I pick them. How much bigger or thicker should I let these get, anyone know?

The bad news... I must have a wild rabbit. The quote in the title is from Watership Down, by Richard Adams, and if you haven't read the book, you can either go get a copy or google the phrase. Just realize, even if it's a book about fluffy rabbits, it's an adult book. Silflay hraka is not a nice thing to say to a rabbit. :(

I came home from my quilt guild meeting Tuesday night and went out to check on my garden. It was dark, but I have a motion activated floodlight outside my back door, so there was plenty of light to see by. And I saw blooms! Yellow squash flowers. I promised myself that I'd wake up earlier Wed. morning, come out and take a picture to blog by.

Wed. morning, bright and early, I went out with my camera and the two blooms were nothing but a few confetti size shredded yellow bits around a bloomless stalk. I'd been raided.

I didn't plant my squash to be some rabbit's flayrah. My solution was to go inside, scoop up about a gallon of well-used kitty litter, and sprinkle it around the outside of the wading pool. Now, two days later, I have new blooms, and so far, they haven't been nibbled. Fortunately, with two indoor cats, I'll never have a lack of rank-smelling kitty litter, but how long do you think that'll continue to ward them off before they realize it's all stink and no cat? Anyone else have any good solutions?

Squash, Tomatoes, and Sugar Queen

2009-05-24T23:52:00.004-05:00

It's been raining a LOT here in Memphis, over this Memorial Day weekend - and when it's not pouring, it's looking like it's about to. My veggies are loving it though! The squash plants don't have many leaves, but there's whole thickets of buds about to emerge. I can't wait till they bloom.

And here's my cherry tomato bush, clusters of little tomatoes all beaded with drips from the rain:

And since indoors is a good place to be when it's pouring, I'm glad I've got some good books to read. Here's Toby snuggling with one of the better ones I've read this week, Sarah Addison Allen's second book, Sugar Queen. Think he's trying to tell me he's ready for a little sugar?

Sugar Queen has some original ideas, one of which I can't tell you without giving a book spoiler. My favorite device is that one of the main characters has a book problem. Whenever she needs a book, the perfect one appears. Books follow her. Even when she doesn't want them to. Some short quotes:

For a while ... she thought her great-grandparents were surprising her with books. She'd find them on her bed, in her closet, in her favorite hideouts.... Books on games or novels of adventure when she was bored. Books about growing up as she got older. But when her great-grandparents confronted her about all the books ... she realized they weren't the ones doing it.
She accepted it from then on. Books liked her. Books wanted to look after her.

As the novel starts, Chloe had broken up with her boyfriend, Jake. Now she's being stalked by a couple of self help books on relationships, that she does NOT want to read:

She stomped to the bathroom to take a shower. Books never appeared in the bathroom. Like cats, they hated water. She stood under the spray until the water turned cold. Just when she thought she had washed all thoughts of Jake out of her mind, at least enough to sleep, she opened the bathroom door and found the books, stacked neatly one on top of the other on the floor in front of her.

"If I see you again tonight, I'm putting you both in the toilet," she said as she stepped over them and went to the bed to set her alarm.

When she turned around again, they were gone.

I truly enjoyed this one, as well as the first novel from Sarah Addison Allen, Garden Spells. If you read either one of her books on my recommendation, or if you've already read them,let me know!

Scrappy Quilts for Finn and Michelle

2009-05-22T22:42:00.010-05:00

My blogging friend Finn's been posting about Frugal Friday, then she got an e-mail from Michelle who also blogs about making 'Kitchen Sink' quilts from what we have at hand, and using the odd bits and perhaps recycled fabric. A quote from Finn's blog on the left:

"... to encourage all of us all to think frugally and show the long standing tradition of using what you have in any ways that you can, whenever you can.

I'd love to see a wonderful showcase of quilts across America showing our scrappy nature and ability to combine unusual fabrics to encourage fun and frugal creativity."

So these little thumbnails are all pix of my scrappy quilts - many of them made from donated fabric, some of them from block of the month and swaps. The four above, from around 2005, when I first got a good digital camera. These below, from 2006.

I use this one with floral fabrics the most, it lives on my couch and collects kitty-fur, then gets very frequently washed. It doesn't match the living room, doesn't match anything in the house, but used up lots of 2½ inch strips!

These next four are from 2007. Can you tell I got into paper-piecing half-square triangles in a big way? None of these were bought specifically for a quilt, all entirely from stash. I just have a STABLE. (Stash Totally Above and Beyond Life Expectancy.)

I'm finally getting the two above quilted. My ability to get tops pieced far outstrips my ability to send them off, then pay for the longarmer to quilt them.

The two below are already quilted, and given away for a Christmas present. On the left, king sized quilt that used up almost all my scraps and FQ's of blues and beiges - on the right, a pillow to match (and there were also two pillow shams) that used up even the tiny remnants.

And *sighs* not posting the not-scrappy quilts, limiting myself to 4 things per year, I'm only up to 2007. Finn, you'll have to wait for another post for more scrappy Memorial Day weekend showcase! This has been fun, thanks for the idea, Finn and Michelle. :)

Snow Pea update

2009-05-22T11:24:00.004-05:00

My snowpeas have their first bloom. :) You can see one cherry tomato on the bush behind it, if you look close.

My banana pepper plant is producing more leaves. getting bushier and greening out, but nothing exciting:

The squash didn't like the transplant to the pool. Think I must have broken some roots? Some of the leaves turned yellow, but now they are finally producing more green leaves, so I didn't kill all of them off. If you look at this pic, then scroll down to see the first squash-pool pic, there's not much difference in the size.

But you can see the double leaves of the 4 new squash I planted when I transplanted the older ones to the pool, right there in the middle. They look nice and healthy, at least! End of this coming week, first of June, I'll plant 4 more, I think.

Tomatoes and Quilt Blocks

2009-05-17T23:14:00.006-05:00

How 'bout another tomato picture to start off with? These are my Early Girl tomatoes, getting visibly bigger every time I go out and water.

I've been working on some quilting web pages and the blocks that go with them. My guild has everyone make a block for the guild president, as a thank you for her year of work. She gets to choose the block style, size, and colors. This year's pres. selected a house block, 9½ inches square, any pattern house.

The guild has a huge mix of ability levels, from beginners to national award winners. I drew the simplest house block I could in EQ, then I'm telling people they can embellish or make it more complex if they feel inclined. Here's mine:

For interested folks, here's the web page for the easy house block:

http://www.ucquilts.com/bomjune09.htm

For those of you independent quilters and blog readers who've been joining the guild's row of the month quilt for this year, there won't be a new row for June. Instead, you have the whole month to catch up! Check out our guild bulletin board if you want to see some of the rows people have done. ;)

Finally, here is the progress on the ForestJane name block I'm making using Tonya's free pieced letter making techniques. Eventually, I plan to take a pic and use it for a blog header, like Tonya did for her "Incredible" header.

Much of it is still not sewn together. The crossbar of the J isn't attached, so it will be skinnier. There's nothing sewn to the right or left of the big S, so it'll also be thinner. Only thing I'm not sure about is the space in front of the J - that flowered green fabric could be swapped for a more solid green, then maybe applique a flower (red? yellow?) or possibly a light green leaf and curly vine there? Or will that make it too busy? Does it need a spot of color? Opinions?

Wordzzle

2009-05-16T19:56:00.004-05:00

Bloghopping around google's Blogs of Note today, I found a neat weekly challenge!

She posts a bunch of ten random words and phrases. The challenge is to make all ten words, any order, into a SHORT paragraph. Guidelines for playing are posted HERE. She also posts a mini challenge with only 5 words and phrases.

Here are the words for next Saturday's ten-word challenge:
albino, trench, marble, assistant, Indian, What's that supposed to mean?, sound first principles, the key thing, moat, curtain

and for the mini challenge: under the surface, doomed, grand design, temple, aspirin

Here's my paragraph - I decided to try both challenges, and to tie them together into one coherent story.

Marie looked at the others sitting around the faux marble conference table. An albino, an Indian, and a soldier fresh from the trenches, what an eclectic mix. But the key thing was, they were all the best in their field at creative software design. Their new platform was going to be based on sound first principles, and protected by an impenetrable security moat.

She moved to the window and pulled back the heavy brocade curtain. Where was Carl? It wasn't like him to be late, especially for something as vital as this final, pre-launch meeting. Suddenly, a knock on the door.

Mike, her assistant, stuck his head in. "Carl's not going to make it today."
"What's that supposed to mean?" snarled the marine.
"He's dead." stated Mike.

Anna slid under the surface of the table in a faint, a crumpled puddle of orange, batik cotton saree. She'd been fasting and spending time at the temple in the days before their grand design was to be unveiled.

Marie fumbled in her purse for an aspirin. Without the information on Carl's flash drive, their press conference was doomed.

May Garden Update

2009-05-12T18:17:00.005-05:00

Meet my new crookneck squash pool! I picked the yellow to match the squash. I'm sure my neighbors thought I was nuts to be out there hammering drainage holes in a brand new wading pool, but it's perfect for a container garden, lots cheaper than buying the lumber and making one.

Besides transplanting the two squash hills I'd already started, I also poked some finger holes in the dirt (near the bottom of the picture) and started 4 more new seeds. In June, if there's room, I'll start 4 more. Hopefully that'll stagger the ripening squash times so I won't be overwhelmed. But I can eat a LOT of squash, that and tomatoes are my favorite veggies.

I've also been inspired by Deborah Smith to start a sweet banana pepper plant. I'm not sure how much one banana pepper plant produces, perhaps I'll pickle my peppers if there's plenty. *grins*

But seriously, I do love the pickled banana peppers you can get on the sandwiches at Subway, so now maybe I can have some of my own. They're supposed to be very mild, I'm not a hot pepper type gal.

Here's my tomatoes and snow peas - Now that the peonies have bloomed, I took the rack and moved it to the snow peas, so they can climb. I couldn't figure out any way to get the trellis to stand up unless I moved them to the dirt and jabbed the ends in, so I put down plastic and maybe that will keep the grass from growing up around the peas.

Finally, the tomato plants ALL have little green tomatoes. The Early Girl has the largest ones (above) with about 5 tiny ones on the cherry tomato plant behind it. The two below are on the Better Boy plant.

How does YOUR garden grow? Does anyone know what kind of yeild to expect from one banana pepper plant? Any good recipes for them if I'm overwhelmed?

And I just had a horrible thought - do I have to have TWO pepper plants at least, for them to pollinate? Or, like the tomatoes, do they pollinate themselves?

A Package!

2009-05-07T22:24:00.004-05:00

Absolutely love coming home to packages on the front porch, don't you? Especially unexpected ones. I'd ordered some books and cd's from Amazon, and thought that's what the package was, but no - it was a gift! Yay! The box was from BelleBooks, the publisher I recently started proofreading for.

Have any of you read the Mossy Creek books? I've read the first one, Mossy Creek, and the second one in the series, Reunion at Mossy Creek, but not any of the others.

A quote from the first book: Mossy Creek is "...the town that ain't going nowhere, and don't want to. You could count on Mossy Creek to stay put, to always be the hometown you remembered, the place you would never forget and never wanted to. We might make only a pinpoint on the maps of the world, but that pinpoint was a jewel."

I've got the whole series to date, and I can't wait to get started on them. I'll post a complete review when I finish, but if they're all as good as the first two, I'll like them. The stories in each book are by different authors, and typically, one author will write for the mayor, another for the police chief, etc. I don't know how multiple authors get the details tied together, but they do!

Inadvertently, BelleBooks also sent a gift to Toby and Libby. Every box has to be inspected AND tried on for size. Toby fit nicely. Libby's butt was slightly too big for comfort, but would she get out so Toby could take another turn? Noooo, not as long as Toby wanted it. :)

They're here!

2009-05-05T00:42:00.004-05:00

Went out to check my veggies when I got home from work this evening, and whee, I have tomatoes! Only three so far, and on the Early Girl bush, which makes sense. And YES, I know it's silly to get so excited about three marble-sized green tomatoes, but hey, you take your happiness where you can find it. :)

Letters and Growing things

2009-05-04T03:00:00.002-05:00

Free pieced letters anyone? I'm in the midst of making a new header for my blog, and who knows, it may be a small wall hanging when I get done. Many thanks to Tonya of Lazy Gal Quilting for all the tutorials on the letter making. Jane will be added under the Forest, with the J starting right below the high spot under the OR in Forest. I'm worried that the S looks too big, what do you think?

I've also promised Tonya that I'd do a SNARL for her Halloween letter quilt she's making, and I have the fabric picked for it, and some definite ideas, but you won't see it here until I've sent it to her. :)

And then, because my last post had no pictures, I have to make up for it by adding a couple of garden pictures. Here's my whole setup... 5 containers and two window boxes, out on the washed pebble slab that serves as my patio.

And a closeup of the snow peas. Everything's really green with all the rain we've had for the last 4 days, and weathermen predict 2 more cloudy, rainy days here in Memphis before the sun comes out.

Shelfari

2009-05-03T22:01:00.003-05:00

Got a bookshelf on my blog now. :) Scroll down, on the left there. It's a pretty cool widget! And very simple to stick on your blog.

You can add as many books to your shelves as you wish, sort them by:
Books I've Read
I'm Reading This Now
Books I Plan to Read

You can easily move them back and forth from category to category as their status changes. You can mark some as favorites. You can rate them, one to five stars. You pick what books will display on your blog - I decided to have a 4 book shelf, with 4 top favorites showing.

Click on my shelf, and it'll take you to my profile, showing you all the categories, the 50+ books I have on there. Hover your mouse over a book on the shelf, here on my blog, and it gives you the short review, plus a button where you can add it to YOUR shelf, and put it in the 'Books I Plan to Read' category.

Once you have some books on your shelf, you can (if you choose to) hook up with other people who read what you do. The site is filled with book clubs, some divided geographically, some by genre, some by common interest, like Mommies Who Read. Each book club has a bulletin board to post on.

No affiliation to Shelfari here, just thought it was a neat idea. And I'll be looking for bookshelves on others blogs, to see what YOU read!

Wallhanging almost finished!

2009-04-27T20:32:00.005-05:00

This is the mystery quilt I started last Nov. at our retreat. Everyone else did it in three-inch squares, but I didn't want a huge wallhanging, so I scaled it down to one-inch squares. I left the fence hinge (well, ok, the GATE hinge) on the pic so you could get some idea of scale. It finished at 27 inches square.

I don't do much machine quilting, so this was a challenge to me, making teeny loops and squiggles around the little half-square triangles. None of the green or brown in the center of the quilt has any quilting, so they puff out a bit, compared to the flat quilted white areas.

And I machine sewed the binding - have you guys seen the funny blog post on binding tutorials? I couldn't help but laugh at it:

Binding Tutorial Spoof

Finally, here's another flower picture from my yard. The wire trellis I borrowed from my sugar peas is keeping them all upright this year, and they look much better:

I love my peony bush, and I'd take some into work for others to enjoy if it weren't for the ANTS! Tiny little black ones that like my peonies as much as I do! I took 4 huge blooms in a couple of years ago, having put them upside down in a bucketful of water for an hour first, hoping to drown the ants, or at least chase them off. Didn't work, and I was thumbing ants to death on my desk at the library all day. :D

Anybody have a solution? I don't want to use ant spray, the flowers would smell bad, instead of sweet, like they do now.

Veggies and Tomatoes

2009-04-26T12:14:00.005-05:00

Anyone ready for a status update on my tomatoes? Here's the Early Girl. I read a couple of reviews online after I bought this one, that said the tomatoes were early, but not as good as the tomatoes from plants that ripened a couple of weeks later. If I'd known that, I may have gotten something else, flavor is the most important reason I am growing my own.

Blooms on my Cherry tomato plant! Last year I got Husky Cherry Red, and enjoyed them very much, we'll see what difference there is between the two. I almost got a grape tomato plant too, I can buy a container of those at the store and eat almost the whole pint in one sitting. Maybe next year.

Here's the Better Boy, and I've heard only good reviews about this one. I'm actually thinking, if they all have blooms right now, don't you suppose all three of these plants will end up having tomatoes at the same time?

And I posted this one last, so you could easily see the difference between the previous week and this week - what a difference only a few days makes on my snow peas! A trellis that I bought for the peas is around the front of the house, holding up my peony bush. Those blooms get so huge that the flowers usually get too heavy for the stalks and arc down till they touch the ground. Now, watching these grow so fast, I'm hoping their blooming time will end before my snowpeas get tall enough to need the support!

Veggies and Flowers

2009-04-24T01:48:00.004-05:00

Well, ok, they're not veggies quite YET... :)

But these will be my snowpeas:

And these the crookneck squash:

This is what Toby was watching from the front window, some yellow iris I planted ten years ago. I love stuff that comes back year after year that you don't have to keep planting, don't you?

As for my three tomato plants, the Early Girl has big blooms, the Better Boy has smaller blooms, and the Cherry tomato nothing yet, but it's still early. I'll try to get pictures of them later this weekend.

Are any of you planting container gardens?

Seminole Patchwork

2009-04-20T02:18:00.004-05:00

Here's my first try at Seminole patchwork!

I've decided to have a Seminole strip in the Block of the Month strip quilt I'm doing with my guild. Since I'm offering it in several sizes, I'm giving them the choice to do a narrow, 2 inch strip, or a slightly wider 4 inch strip:

Because I had to test the sizes first, I'm doing both for my quilt. :) Some of the more complicated Seminole patchwork was really impressive, but I decided to do an easy one. If you'd like a sneak preview of the block of the month instructions that will be given to the guild at the end of April, here's the link:

Block of the Month for May, 2009

And of course, all the instructions for the previous four rows are on the guild's website at www.ucquilts.com

Ready for another Toby birdwatching picture? He thinks when he sits behind the curtain in the front window that he's hidden - unaware that he's totally exposed to the anybody at the front of the house... :) I have a bed of yellow and purple iris that are blooming there, so right now, the stalks are tall and green, lots to watch!

Container Gardening Again

2009-04-11T17:56:00.004-05:00

Well, here I go again - pictures of my little excuse for a garden. I enjoyed growing three tomato plants last year, so THIS year, I'm doubling the size of the garden, adding several more containers.

I'm trying some snow peas in window boxes. I saw online where it's supposed to work... :) When they get big enough, I have a trellis thing I'm going to put between the boxes, for the peas to climb. The package says you can usually get two crops, start one in Spring, and start one in late Summer.

I'm also going to try a couple of containers of crookneck squash - I know there's not much dirt in here, after they come up, I'll add some more - I may even move them to something bigger, like a kiddie plastic wading pool with some holes drilled for drainage.

Here's the three tomatoes I decided on. An Early Girl, this one already has teeny blooms about to open:

A Sweet Cherry Red. There were two plants in the same pot, but they were planted so close together that I hesitated trying to separate them, I was afraid I'd tear up the roots for both. If it gets to be too much for the container, I may have to cut the smaller one out later.

And last, a Better Boy. They all look a little short now, but the instructions on the pot said to plant them deep, so I did.

And just for the regular readers of my blog... remember when I put the whole raw egg under all my tomato plants last year? When I dug out the old dirt from the pots this year, I was especially attentive to watch and see how much of the egg was left, and what had happened to it. All three eggs were flattened, you could see grayish bits of shell in almost a deflated water-balloon shape. None of the three eggs were surrounded by especially dense concentrations of root. I didn't put eggs in the containers this year, so I'll see if there will be a difference.

Kitty Pix

2009-04-10T15:44:00.007-05:00

The weather in Memphis has been alternately nice and nasty. Today we're under a tornado watch, we had thunderstorms with hail this morning... but just last week we had a couple of lovely, sunny days with temps in the 70's. Both cats enjoyed sitting in the open windows, snifffffing long sniffs thru the screen.

First, here's Libby. This was just prior to a sneeze. I think she must have inhaled some pollen. :D

Below is Toby, and the sun on his window moves off to the left as the afternoon progresses.

*sings* ...but tomorrow may rain, so, I'll follow the sun....

I keep thinking he's going to fall off the window, but he hasn't yet!

Sometimes I think see Libby looking over at him and smirking at the poses he contorts himself into, to get the last dregs of warmth:

Clutch Wallet

2009-04-04T03:12:00.003-05:00

My old wallet was just about to bite the dust... and the ones I saw in stores didn't have all the features my old one did. I like zippers and hidden pockets and velcro and lots of space for credit and ID cards. Sooo, I decided to try to make my own. I had bought two old purses at a garage sale for a quarter each, and that's where I got all the zippers and accessories.

A money slot first (and that dictated how wide the wallet had to be) with a zippered pouch for coins in front of it, and a pocket for stamps and stuff. You can't see it from the picture, but the dollar slot has a fold of fabric on either side, so it accordians out. I unpicked the plastic for the card slot on the bottom from the old purse, and used that AAA card to get the size right. That's where my driver's license will be.

Then I made a different 'page' that has four slots on either side for credit and ID cards. The velcro tab you see closes that half of the clutch, so when I'm getting money out, the cards don't flop open. There's also a hidden big pocket under this whole section here.

When the card page is flipped to the other side, there's a long pocket for my checkbook.

Here it is shut halfway, and below, completely closed.

There's another pocket on the front, with a second zipper repurposed from the same garage sale purse.

The only thing I don't like about it is the edges. I'd planned on putting some bias tape to finish it, but the card page had to be two cards wide, which meant it barely fit. I had just enough room to zigzag past it, but I'd never get bias tape on nicely. There's so much denim in this that it'd be a booger to hand sew bias edging on. If I ever do it again, I'll make the wallet ½ an inch wider, and that would give me more room to finish the edges. :) Live and learn!

March Update

2009-03-24T01:50:00.005-05:00

First, the block of the month row quilt addition for April, 2009:

I'm alternating colors each star, some will have green centers, some brown.

All the stars will be the same off white muslin. Here's the link to the directions I made for my guild (and anyone else that wants to follow along.)

April's Row

I'm also working on a Heartstrings style quilt, but trying to use up all my strings and strips that are too short. Can you tell this will eventually be a tumbling blocks style quilt? Making that one side of the square from strips allows me to avoid the Y seams that are the bane of tumbling blocks. :)

I have plenty of the navy blue and plenty of the small sprigged white, for my solid diamonds, and of course I'll never run out of strings. I'm paper piecing the string triangles. This one will probably grow to be wheelchair lap sized, for donation.

It might be interesting to try this with all strips, divide them into three piles, strings mostly white, strings very dark, and strings in mediums. Of course, it'd also look neat in batiks too!

And finally, Spring has sprung in Tennessee, here's the daffodils around my mailbox - it's an especially thick clump of them. I hope I remember to separate them before next year.

Row Quilt, Row 3

2009-02-25T01:33:00.004-06:00

Houses and Trees!

Row three for our guild's block of the month row quilt is up! This row is the one the members will be working on for March, here's the instructions, - I'm going to stay a row ahead.

I give folks the option of using any color palette they want, mine will be in browns and greens and creams... Here's my EQ coloring:

But if they want to make it bright and scrappy, that's ok too! So I colored one for the bright folks. As I was playing with the brights version, I kept singing that beatles song - the one about tangerine trees and marmalade skies:

Here's mine in fabric - I added the last green strip along the bottom after all my blocks were connected, but it' didn't make the picture.

I also gave links if folks wanted to use Tonya's Wonky Houses that are linked on Quiltville instead, so it'll be interesting to see what everyone's row looks like next guild meeting!

Top Finished

2009-02-16T16:12:00.004-06:00

Another top finished... to add to the other tops that are done but not quilted... :D This one, I'd like to add an extra layer of batting under the two hearts, and see if I could get a heart feather design put on them, to make kind of a trapunto effect. Looks pretty much like the EQ design, doesn't it?

Now I need to go start making backs for all these unquilted tops, and maybe I'll send them off to the longarmer.

Smaller Tote

2009-02-09T01:32:00.005-06:00

Now that I've been using my big totes to carry stuff home from the grocery, I'm getting less plastic bags... which is good, but I was in the habit of using one of those plastic bags every day to carry my lunch, to work. I also used them to line the small trashcans in the bedroom and bathroom... now my supply is dwindling. So I decided to make a smaller tote the size of the plastic shopping bags:

I still get plastic bags at the store (I tell them to put my raw meat in plastic, I don't want it to leak on my big totes) plus things like bread, bagels, squishable stuff doesn't work in the big totes. Anyway, I looked online, and found lots of free patterns for a smaller tote. Here's the pattern I used for the shopping bag itself and here's the site I used for the folding pocket.

I made the solid green pocket to fit a 1 liter bottle of water, and I wanted the main tote big enough for a Healthy Choice or Lean Cuisine (what I take to lunch every day) plus an orange or a yogurt, a diet coke, a book or two, a sewing project... etc. :)

And here's the neat part - when empty, you can roll the bag up, and that same pocket that holds the liter bottle becomes a wallet type closure, so I can remember to put it in my purse and take it home.

Now that I've made a utility one for my first attempt, I think I'll get my pretty batiks out and make a fancy one. :) That flap that laps over the pocket to close it all up was a little long, it's not a tight roll like it could be. I also think I'll put a teeny snip of velcro on the bottom so the flap doesn't hang loose - like you can see it does on the doorknob pic.