More Mistakes

Wooo weee! I finished! Ain't she cute? I had a every productive afternoon. I sat down and finished all those blocks, after coming to terms to the fact that they aren't all perfect. I even had to add a plain fabric to 5 blocks in the same place as the word fabric was on the others. I wasn't as upset about this as I was with upside down or backwards words. After all, this is a scrap quilt. I used up all my leftover word fabric, all that dark purple triangles, all the light purple triangles and the focus fabric. Now I have more room in my stash!

I celebrated by buying more Mary Ellen's starch and 4 cones of thread. Now I'm set for a year!

If you are looking for a fun and quick quilt project, I highly recommend Lori's doll quilt. Her instructions are always the best. You can make it her way or make to match a focus fabric, like I did.

I'm thinking I may add a pieced border. What? I don't know yet. When I come up with something, I'll show you.

Oh and I think I'll keep the poll going on the name. I think we all agree that "Violet Beauregarde" is the best name. And if Beauregarde means beautiful in French, I think the name is even better. BUT... Hubby wants you all the say "Checks and Violets" out-loud and then decide. What does is sound like? He think this is a clever name and I usually let him name my quilts because he does come up with some great names.

So if you haven't sent in a vote, please do when you get the chance.

Have a Wonderful weekend.

Take care, Brandie

Violet Beauregarde or Checks and Violets?

So I have a question. Which or these two names do you like? Violet Beauregarde? Or Checks and Violets? This little doll quilt needs a name. Please just send of a quick comment and help me out with this. I can't have a quilt without a name, that's cruel. I just can't decide for my self.
This little quilt has been consuming my time. I have made many a hand full of these little scraps which I guess is appropriate since the blocks are so small.

I also discover a problem. Look at these two blocks and see if you and see the problem.
Can't see it? Look at this block... it's perfect.
Now look at this block. See it?
The word fabric is Not going in the right direction. In fact it Can't.

I've learned something... apparently when you cut directional fabric into triangles, you should have cuts going to the the left and some to the right.

So now I have 11 perfect blocks and will have 10 non-perfect blocks. I sure hope it doesn't bug me too much. Gail says I need to let it go. We will see if I able...
Last nights completed blocks. Look at the fun secondary pattern. I am making more blocks to finish off the 1/2 yard of violets. I hope to have all the blocks finished by this weekend. I keep having to cut out more pieces. And I may have to substitute different fabrics.

Well when you have a change give me your vote on the name.

Take care, Brandie

Little bits of Beauty

So I did actually get some sewing done. I've been meaning to start Lori's new doll quilt, but was to stressed and didn't feel I had the time. But now I'm just going to take some time for myself and try to stop feeling like everything has a due date.

So I looked around in my stash and found a 1/2 yard of this pretty violet print. Since it's my stash, I know that there were no plans for this fabric, ever. I just bought it at a quilt show because I knew my MIL liked violets. I'm sure there was the thought that I might someday make her something out of it. But I think this will be a better use. I like the thought of using it now and freeing up some space on my shelves.
I know that these are not Lori's colors, but unlike her, I don't have a surplus of cheddar. Maybe that's because I'm lactose intolerant? Someday I'll be lucky enough to find some lovely cheddar that I love, someday...

After my walk yesterday, in our beautiful sun, I went the long way home. I made a stop at one of our towns numerous thrift shops. I just felt the need to spend the $15 dollars in my pocket. Well whatever the reason, do you want tot see what I bought?

These 3 lovely linens. I'm still in the Valentine mood. How beautiful does that Batten-burg lace look on top of this red silk? Fabulous, now I just need to come up with a quilting design.

Those little embroidered baskets are also right up my alley. It's not a Valentine, but pretty all the same.

There were 3 of these little napkins, but I'm not complaining. These will also make beautiful Valentines.

Back to the house work. I need to finish that before I sit at the machine and finish up Lori's blocks, other wise I'll be quilting naked and hungry. Don't worry, I won't take pics of that!

Take care, Brandie

Not much going on

No quilting going on around here. Just a nice sunny weekend with a party, shopping and movies. Kind of taking a break after that non-traditional baby quilt. I have to warm up my creative bones. I'll try to start with something small.

The baby shower was fun. It's always fun to see all those little clothes. I think every shower I've been to in the last 10 years, I've learn something new. It's so confusing these days on even how to lay a newborn down. In my day, we laid or babies on their tummies. That's a NO-NO today! There are so many new products out there, I don't even know what or how to use them. But the shower was still fun!

I'm sure you are all wondering what this Play doh is all about.
It was one of our party games. We were told to make a cute baby. I was influenced by the party decorations and of course, my own quilt and diaper bag. So I made a cute little Elly.
She even has a wrinkly bottom. How cute is that?

I know I wasn't following the rules, but I was having fun!

I won't be back till I have something new to show you. Maybe I'll get around to cutting into some of the new decorator fabrics I've just received. Some I've order online, one I inherited from cousin Linda and some I just bought. Wish me more luck, it helped the last time.

Take care, Brandie

Quilty Finishes

So all that time before the machine has produced a couple of finishes. In fact I finished up the baby quilt around lunch time yesterday. There was a lot of stitching in the ditch. There were a lot of those flying geese!
Click to make bigger, if you want.
I ended up adding more "ghost" leaves to the tree and grass around the trunk. In the other blocks, I put grass under the the elephant and the giraffe and a big puddle under the hippo. It ain't perfect, but I'm happy. Hopefully children will love looking at it, besides cuddling under it.

I've also made more coasters. ( I was on a quilting kick and couldn't be stopped) I really liked my pumpkin coasters and have missed the log cabins coasters. But both of those were for the wrong seasons. So when one of my small group ladies, Hey Millie, showed up with a new idea, I was all over it. Millie had made a beautiful table runner with giant flowers, hibiscus I think. She had some leftover fabric and made coasters. She totally made my pumpkins look childish and pathetic. Her coasters were just gorgeous and I told her so and I also told her I would be stealing her idea as soon as I got home. So I did and this is what I came up with.
Valentine coasters! I may need to find better flowers. Pink doesn't exactly match my living room or any room in my house, but you get the idea.
Great way to practice thread play. Give it a try girls.

Also have any of you read Kim's blog? She has been tempting me with all her Valentine hearts. She has a couple of really cute ideas on Valentine quilts and table runners.
She inspired me to make my own Valentine. I got out an old hanky and layered it on a red chiffon fabric and just quilted it up.
I double stuffed the heart, trapunto style. What do you think? I was going for an antique Valentine look. Now to find the perfect place to put it, away from the men in this house!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Take care, Brandie

Triangle Update

Just taking a break from quilting to let you know more about the Triangle Exchange.

Yes, oversea participation is fine. The more of us the better. But one thing, I can't response to a "noreply-comment". You can still send me you address, but I can't answer you back. You need to change your settings...

1.Go to your dashboard,

2. Click "edit profile"
3. Check the box that says "show my email address"
4.Save your profile.

Good luck and I hope to hear from you soon.

Take care, Brandie

Busy, Busy

Just dropping in to let you know I'm really busy quilting. I need to get that untraditional quilt quilted by Saturday. That's when the baby shower is.

Wish me lucky! By Friday I hope to have more to show you.

Till then... Take care

Triangle Exchange

Here we go. Are you ready for some triangles? If so, this is what we will do.
If you want to participate in this Triangle Exchange, you need to send me your address and I'll send you 1 completed sheet of triangles and 3 unsewn sheets.

I bought these Thangles at my local quilt shop. I thought if we all had the same pattern, there would be less room for error. I'm using the 2 1/2 sheets.
Step 1. Find a light fabric and dark fabric. I looked in my scraps. You just need two 3 X 8 pieces.
Step 2. Layer the pieces and the paper together.

Step 3. Pin those pieces and take them to the machine. Sew on the dotted lines.
Step 4. Cut on the solid lines, iron, than tear away the paper.

Easy- Peasy.

So who wants to play? Send me you address and lets make some triangles!

Again, I'll send you 1 sheet sewn, 3 sheets unsewn. That will be 2 for you to sew and one to give away. All I ask is that you send me back 1 sewn sheet.

If you have a copier, you can make your own copies from the ones I send you. Get more friends involved and you'll get back more triangles.

So lets get to it. There are many patterns to use our triangles.

Take care, Brandie

Fennel Bulb?

Good morning! We are having a beautiful day here in Paradise. The sun is shining and the temps have been around the 50's all weekend. Sooo much nicer than the low 30's and high 20's from the week before. I'm not use to those kind of temps! My skin is taking a beating.

My grandpup, Maximus, stayed the weekend and keep us laughing. He is in to everything and poor PugsLee is exhausted! She has been running to and from and trying to nap all weekend. For an 11 year old dog, she's doing good, but Max can be too much for her. At some point I have to intervene and put him in a time out (his crate).
This was PugsLee sleeping on her chair in the sun, when Max popped up and woke her up. He has gotten so big. I weighed him again and he now a whopping 3 lbs 15 ozs. His height is 9 inches tall now. Pretty soon he will probably be as tall as PugsLee. She is on the short side, but I love her anyway!

Before Max arrived, I finished up some sewing. Want to see?
This is a fennel bulb with a neck. No, just kidding. This is my silly drawing of a giraffe. See the head on the right? I wanted a long neck and I wanted the giraffe to be taller than her block.
Don't you think this is the perfect fabric for a girly giraffe? She is now my favorite.
Here she is all done and ready to go. Click to make her big and check out her beautiful ear.
Ms. Elly. She also has a flappy ear and tail.
Hippo-Lynn
Spotty the owl. They are all joined together with 174 half square triangles. Yeah, 174... exhausting!
They may not be perfect triangles, but I Love, Love, Love this quilt. I said all along that this wasn't going to be a traditional baby quilt. But after I finished it, it reminds me of a old 70's quilt. So even though I thought it would look out of place, I feel comfortable with the way it looks.

My Daughter and I think that the Mom will love it, being how she likes the retro look. To most of us, that's the 70's. I never thought I'd go back, but it looks as though I did. I hated all those colorful clothes I was made to wear growing up, and not just because they were hand me downs. As we all know, I'm color challenged (professed by Cousin Linda in 2002) and would prefer muted tones and not too many patterns, but I'm slowly changing, slowly!

Tomorrow I discuss the Triangle Exchange, so you to can have 174 half square triangles to make sashing with.

Take care, Brandie

Who?

This "no pastel" quilt is really bringing my creativity out. I'm reaching deep inside myself to come up with 4 different blocks that all go together. This block may not be exactly like the others, but it's going in the quilt anyway! The mom to be already picked an owl baby blanket up from Target and I guess she really likes it, so I'm putting an owl in my quilt. Can you see him? I know he's little, but his is sitting on the branch. After I add some thread painting, I hope he stands out more. And again, I have to add, I'm no artist, so no comments on his size or my funny tree.
I have also been sewing up about a million triangles.
This pill looks a little different but just as big. Next week I hope to come back with rules about a triangle exchange. So start looking for small scraps and save them aside for some triangle fun.

Take care and have a great weekend!

Brandie

No Pastels!

Yesterday I went down to visit my friend Gail. I don't think I've mentioned before that she is a homeschooling teacher. In fact, she was my Daughter's algebra teacher. One day I was waiting around for my Daughter and I was probably appliqueing and we started talking about quilting. And before you knew it, we were meeting, or trying to meet, once a week.

So yesterday I went early and helped out at school. Doing what you ask? Definitely not math! There was a sewing class and Gail thought I might want to help out. This was right up my alley! There were about 6 girls that showed up. One was only 8 and she was one of the best at the machine. Obviously she had been at a sewing machine before. She had even brought a stuffed Platypus that she had made. It was so cute and so was she. I had so much fun that I'm going to try to go back often. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling all day!
After class, I managed to finish up that little quilt. No fancy quilting, just more stitch in the ditch. I just love using up scraps! That focus fabric has been around for awhile. It was a peachy-pink and I had a hard time matching pinks to it, so I'm glad it's gone.

And speaking of scraps...
I cut out all these squares from several scraps that were taking up space. These will be made it triangles, ala Edyta Sitar style. Then these triangles will be used in that untraditional baby quilt. Do you remember that dino quilt? The one with the car crash? Well this is baby quilt will be going to the same parents and they are not traditional. No filly pink or baby blue for this family. The Mother is having a girl this time and because my Daughter is her friend, I'm hearing a lot of " no, she wont like that" or "that's too pastel-y". Mom likes purples, olive or avocado greens and browns, No PASTELS! I think those dark squares above foot the bill, I hope.
Can you tell what this is? Give you a hint, it's big and likes the water. It's a hippo, a girl hippo. Since I saved out one of my diaper bags, the green elephant print, I thought I make a quilt to match, sort of. So I sat down with a pad of paper and sketched out some animals. Todays animal is the hippo. I think I love her! Just fat enough! All my animals are chubby, just like a baby.
I sure hope this isn't to pastel-y! I haven't given her a tail yet. All the tails will be 3-D. I also need to put legs on the blue bird. And maybe some grass...
Close-up of her eye and teeth. I used misty-fuse. I don't usually like to glue fabric, but for this application I did. There is a lot of thread work in the next step. Not to mention all those triangles that I will be using as sashing.

Time for me to get to work!

Take care, Brandie

It all started with this Book...

I know I left you all yesterday with the thought I may not be back. But I was inspired and it all started with this book.
I've had my copy for months and than forgot about. Hmmm, maybe I just got too caught up in everything else. Well I started thumbing though this book and this is what I did with it.
I found some pink and green scraps ( my focus fabric has green and you all know I don't have a lot of pink).
Cut them up into squares and triangles.
All so they could make this tiny quilt.
I did add more, because I had just enough focus fabric to add another row. Cousin Linda has a friend with a new baby girl, so this will be for her.

I had so much fun cutting out triangles, that I started something else. A very untraditional baby quilt. More about that later.

Also if anyone else has this book, have you read the front about exchanging triangles? If so and you are interested, lets start it up. Comment and lets start exchange triangles. Again, more about this later.

Got to run, or walk.

Take care, Brandie

Sleeper

Sometimes the best gifts are things you didn't even know you needed or wanted. Like this teapot. I didn't even know I needed it, but now I don't know how I lived without it.
I used to use my Grandmother's teapot. But then I started thinking I was using it to much and it might break. So I put my Grandmother's aside and used a cheap $10 teapot I picked up somewhere. That worked out for awhile, till I broke the spout.

See I'm not really a coffee drinker. It makes me too hyper or jumpy. Yes occasionally I get a real big boost of energy, then a head ache. And this is with decaf. So I drink tea, all kinds.

From chai to oolong, it's all my favorite. Today as I sit here, it's a white tea with peaches.

So back to the teapot. You know how the first cup is always perfect and hot? And any cup after that is maybe warm or just plain tepid? Well with this pot, I just put it on my wood stove and I have hot tea all day long. The pot can't break as it's made of cast iron, so I might also be getting some vitamins?

This gift from my Husband was a sleeper, till I poured my fist cup of tea. And since I can't break it, it might become a family heirloom, just like Grandmas.

I may take a break for a couple of days. I don't have anything going on right this moment, but if I start something, I'll be back. Going to just take a couple days to myself and some books.

Take care, Brandie

And the Winners Are...

Oh what a long weekend! Every weekend I think I'm going to get so much done and every weekend, nada! I have such high hope and big plans. I just need to stop doing that!

I May have started another BIG project which has me scared and super excited about. It will probably consume my entire life for a couple of months, but I feel that I'm up for the challenge. In our little rural town, we have a week long celebration to commemorate the largest, at the time, gold nugget. In April of 1859, a 54 pound gold nugget was found just outside of the town limits. Did you see that? 54 lbs! Today that would be worth... about $800,000. That's a pretty penny!

We do silly things things like hiking with a donkey (Donkey Derby), a parade, a whisker growing contest and the best part of all, Gold Nugget Queen. Young girls in high school compete for the coveted roll of Gold Nugget Queen. They have to have an an authentic dress or gown, right down to the under garments. And we all know that most 16 year olds can't sew, this is where I come in. I was asked by a friend to help out her friend and well, now I'm hooked! I went with "my girl" to a 5 hour long, 1800's lecture and boy did it whet my whistle! At first I was too scared and not at all confident in my skills to do something this elaborate. But after looking at some past dresses, I was too excited to sit down again! You would have thought I was the one wearing a hoop skirt!

Ok, so enough about my weekend. I'm sure you are all here to see if you are a winner, so here it goes.

The first name pulled from a hat...
Lee (no blog). Congrats!
Debbie (one stitch off). Again Congrats!
And Sammy (english country garden in bags). Sammy makes her own bags and she still wants another. What a girl!

So congratulations to all you girls! I will put your bags in an envelope and you will be as surprised as me as to who gets what.

Thank you all who played, it makes me feel loved to have you all commenting and stopping by.

Take care, Brandie

All Girl

Before I left yesterday, I managed to finish up another diaper bag. I'm trying to keep it even. 2 boys bags, 2 girl bags.
And this one is definitely all girl! It's a reversible bag. This is the inside...
And this is the outside, or is it the other way around?

Hubby came up with another great idea. Reversible boy-girl bags. So that before they know what the gender is, they are prepared. I'm thinking on this one, I think it's a good idea, now I just need to find the perfect combo of fabrics.

Have a wonderful weekend. See you back here Monday with some winners!

Take care, Brandie

GRrrrr

I bought some colorful fabric from the shop I'm selling my bags in. Last week I was asked to make more boy oriented things. Do you think this foots the bill?
We thought fabric this was definitely boy, but what about the diaper bag aspect? Only one way to find out, so here it goes. Later today I will be taking this down there along with the Bucket totes.
I thought this poison green matched rather well, don't you?

Tonight is our Guild meeting and we will be having one of our own members doing a trunk show. These are always fun and exciting meetings. Hopefully I'll be inspired to start a real quilt. but if I can't do that, maybe I'll just make more bags.

Have a great day!

Take care, Brandie