Progress on Girl Pirate Quilt

My Oldest is thrilled with her pirate quilt.  She comes down when I am sewing and lays down on the blocks I have arranged just so, and tells me how soft and pretty they are, and how much she loves her quilt!  Then she rolls around and messes everything up!  Arrgghhh!!  Doesn't she know I have a method?  It's not much of a method...but it's a method.

My heart does a pitter pat when she loves what I'm doing.  I like to know my children enjoy what I make them.  Someday I know they'll hate everything I create, so I am going to enjoy it while it lasts and will continue to make things for them...as long as they'll let me.

This is the scene in my sewing room.  I don't have a terribly large space to spread things out and so...I make do the best I can....thus blocks heading out the door.  I am sewing this one block at a time, so I want to see the forest as I make the trees.  This is becoming more and more difficult...I guess I can go ahead and plan out every step from this point on...but where's the fun in that.  I like the adrenaline rush of not knowing if I'll have enough fabric, and have to make a last minute change!!  Yes.  You read that correctly...I just said the adrenaline rush in reference to whether I was going to have enough fabric...whatever does it for ya, I guess.

The pile of fabrics that I am working with....on the floor.  Where else would I put them?  I want to be able to look at them and decide what is up next.  There's a reason The Mister tries to avoid this room at all costs...it gives him hives.

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Perfect Fabric for my action packed daughter

My Oldest is high energy and all imagination.  She loves playing like she's a creature, typically a different one every day.  Yesterday she was a dolphin.  She's been a porcupine, narwhal, mountain goat.  She also loves to be Princess Leia, an astronaut and ninja. 

Okay.  Put this kid next her daddy while watching Pirates of the Caribbean...and you got it, now she wants to be a pirate and she told me she wants to marry a pirate...ummmmm...righty then.  I can just see her now, at 25, fulfilling all her dreams. We've continued to encourage her to do whatever she wants, that as a girl she can do anything and is just as good...okay, better than the boys.  She's at University to become an astrophysicist/Veterinarian while taking night classes to master tae kwon do...but, the opportunity to marry a pirate has just never materialized.  What's a girl to do?    Maybe she'll out grow the whole...want to marry a pirate thing...but keep going towards the astrophysicist thing.

Luckily I found this fabric.  If she can't marry a pirate, at least she gets to have a pirate quilt on her bed.  Girl pirates.  Much cooler than boy pirates.  This is Out To Sea by Sarah Jane for Michael Miller.  I am in love with this fabric.  I want a quilt made from it for myself.

She loves maps and globes!  There's narwhals!!!  Mermaids!!  And ships!!

I am so excited to turn this into something amazing for her...and from the picture at the top, I think she's pretty excited herself!

Thanks for reading!


Heather

Beginning Quilters...Please Stand Up

If you are a beginning quilter then I have the quilt for you..I may or may not be talking to you Beloved Sister.  It is easy enough that you won't stress yourself out making it, but it's visually complex enough that you will be immensely satisfied with your work of art...and make no mistakes, quilting is art.

It's a Snowball Quilt.  The best thing about this quilt is you only have to cut two dimensions of fabric. 
8" x 8" squares for the large blocks and 2 3/4" x 2 3/4" squares for the corner pieces.  And then you get to mix it up as you see fit.  This is just the beginnings of My Youngest's birthday quilt, I am alternating (what's in my head as) "solid" blocks and "white" blocks...just go with it...they're mostly solid and mostly white.  And then going slant-wise across the quilt are diagonal strips using the different corner blocks. 

It's pink...at least mostly. 

My Youngest Only Loves Pink.  I believe it.  So, in my motherly wisdom, I am giving in to her wishes.  A Pink...mostly... quilt.  Look, I need a little creative license.

I am making this quilt for two reasons.  1. It gets cold here in winter.  I think you need two quilts plus sheets on a bed for winter warmth and she has been using just a random quilt as her 2nd quilt.   2. I am making her this pink quilt because her first big girl bed quilt was a failure in my angel baby's opinion. Not mine, mind you, but it wasn't nearly pink enough to satisfy her.

See...shamefully not pink enough.  The Snowball quilt is going to, hopefully, be pink enough.

A Ghastly surprise!

My final big fabric purchase of 2011...and boy was it a doozy.  The Ghastlies by Alexander Henry was my final purchase since the great purse tightening and I am so happy I bought it.  I coveted this fabric line last year...and yet did nothing!  So, when it was released again this year I hopped on that ghastly train as soon as I could.

Here is what I bought of the awesome Addam's Family-esque fabric.  And you'll have to tell me what you think of the color-way.  LOVE IT personally. 

The lady in the lower right-hand corner...she is mean.  I would not mess with her...just look at her eyes...she's had a little too much crazy for breakfast.  I love the Mama witch hovering over her son.  You just know he's a mama's boy.

And this nice gent...don't get me wrong but...he kind of looks like my...Dad.  I love that he's walking an invisible dog too!

Family supper.  I love it.  It' just like when my family gets together...except for the spooky servants and the bell.  But...OH...how I wish I had a bell to summon my heart's desires.  I also love the cat lounging at the foot of the table.

If you look closely, pardon the wrinkles of course.  But there are the Weird Sisters in the middle.  The furthest one on the right is looking at you...looking at her...looking at you.  So suspicious.  Don't you wonder what they are up to?

And here is the family enjoying their evening after the tasty supper.  The knitters in the corner kill me.  They are so suspicious...and what are they knitting anyway?  I figure it's something for their...pet. 

And all the rest.  This is the rest of the fabric line, plus the solids that I have chosen to go with my project.  What do you think of the color scheme...MAUVE!!   I mean, I haven't been this into mauve since my next door neighbor decorated her house using a tasteful combo of forest green and mauve.  SEXY!  I so wanted my house to be forest green and mauve.  But, now I get a little taste of the mauve love....in my Halloween decor.  It's perfect if you ask me.  It's kind of a corpse color-way.

Next the problem was...what am I doing to do with all this fabulous fabric?  My sister says it looks Roald Dahl.  I agree.  What's the book about the really gross people and there's a picture of the man's beard and he's got all kinds of nastiness in there.  Gross! 

Anyway, I have all kinds of ideas and pictures for all kinds of quilts...but the problem with this fabric is the pictures are so large, and I love them, so I want to showcase the fabric as well as patchwork.  Mr. Because I Can tells me ever since my Wizard of Oz quilt that I have developed a love for panels...I told him, this doesn't count as a panel.  A panel is yucky and runs across the entire width of the fabric.  This is just cute design.  It's different...clearly.  So I have decided to cut large 15 x 15 blocks for the fun scenes and then do a string-quilt block that's 15 x 15 and have these blocks run 3 across and 3 down in an alternating fashion.

Here's the beginnings...

You might wonder what wild quilt pattern is that?

It's because I forgot to mention I am paper piecing the string quilt.  I love paper piecing.  There really is something satisfying about ripping off the back paper.  It's totally fun...unless you mess up and don't rip cleanly and then it just leaves a giant chunk of paper that's a pain to get off.  So rip cleanly!  Oh, and rip from the outer edges in.  So once you make it to the middle, start at the other end and work in to the middle a second time.  Much easier!

RIIIPPPPPPPP!

Here is the final outcome.

Hope you like it.  Stay tuned for more Ghastly updates!

On the Cheap

The ceiling in Puerto Rico's Capitol.
 I want to design a quilt inspired by this.

Due to a change in circumstances...I am changing the focus of this blog a little bit.  It will still be all about crafting and day to day life and my kidlettes, but it will also focus on practising a hobby, quilting, that is traditionally quite expensive and figuring out how to do it on the cheap. 

It will also focus on my attempt to be a more frugal person and my challenges to do that...coupons?  I might actually be considering couponing.  Oh, whoa is me.  This is not my favorite thing to contemplate.  First of all, I usually feel that the coupons are for junk.   And as I try to feed my family a fairly healthy diet, this is going to be interesting.  I need to cut my food budget down to $500 per month.  I don't know if I can do it.  We will see.   I will let you in on my plan once I have one figured out...it will involve dried beans, lentils and tuna fish on a regular basis.  Yikes.

Luckily for me I already know how to make bread from scratch. 
I think I make 100% whole wheat bread for around $1 per loaf.

As of today, I scoured the coupons and ads in the Sunday paper and decided that the only way I can handle couponing, is if I have a database showing every coupon that I have and which ones are closest to expiring.  This way I can compare the weekly ads to my coupon database and figure out what I need to buy ASAP to avoid having something expire that I really need.  Luckily Mr. Because I Can is a computer whiz and he got my Excel spreadsheet to do exactly what I wanted plus threw in some fancy features.  If a coupon has expired, it will show up in Red  This way I can easily delete it and throw away the coupon, as I am going to file them in expiration date order.  If it is going to expire within 7 days, it will show up in Green  Otherwise it will be Black.  This will bring some order to what I feel is a huge hassle.  AKA storing a bunch of unruly coupons.  Oh BLAH!

 I am not known for being frugal.  So, this is going to be quite the challenge.  I am facing a couple years of budget crunch and I might have to cry on a semi-regular basis.  But I've got a couple of months to prepare.  So, we're going to be fine...just cross your fingers for me that I can figure things out without torturing my kids too much.  Bean soup again?!?!

Here's the back of My Oldest's Wizard of Oz quilt.  I wanted to make it Over the Rainbow themed, so I used solids in all the shades of the rainbow for my panels between the printed panels and along the sides.  I am going to quilt it probably using straight lines that way as the front and back panels are different dimensions, it won't take away from either side.  The wind was blowing extra fierce this morning and so that's why I couldn't get a shot of my fabric that wasn't being partially blown away.  And yes that is a sunscreen bottle holding down the top corner.  I had a coffee cup on one, my cell phone on one and my foot holding down the bottom.

If you insist on piling my cushioning up like this on your cutting mat, then I will just have to lay on them as best I can.  In the future, can you please put them in a more convenient spot?  A little larger would be nice too! 
Sincerely,  Puss

I guess one thing I have going in my favor is that I am headed into a solid phase of my quilting career.  And traditionally solids are less expensive than the designer prints as they are sold at JoAnn's-type stores.  Thanks JoAnn's and Fabric.com for your lovely selection of Kona solids.  So even though I will still look at all the beautiful prints that are being made and sold, I will restrain myself and only buy fabric and supplies as needed, vs. whatever strikes my fancy.  I've got my stash to keep me going in the meantime.  So don't feel too bad for me.  I am not in any kind of quilting crisis.  I will just use what I've got. 

Anyone from P.E.T.S. don't read this!

P.E.T.S. People for the Ethical Treatment of Snails...I am not a part of your organization.  I hate snails.  Well, okay I don't 100% hate them, only because of one simple fact...my Oldest LOVES snails.  She kisses them on their slimy underbodies. She places them gently on the picnic table so they will be safe.  She pets their shells and brings them the most succulent selection of grasses for them to nibble.  She thinks we should be a snail habitat. 

What's that you say?  There's a snail in danger?  I must soothe it and love it and give it sweet kisses and call it my own sweet dear.

Mama on the other hand...well, let's just say that on an almost daily basis...Good Lord, I am turning into my Dad....I go on a snail hunt.  I know where they like to lay low.  Under my dianthus plants.  So, I scour them.  I handpick through each stem and look under each leaf and along the flower bed where there might be some rotting leaf that they've attached themselves to.

I look through the leaves and stems of my Salvia Nemorosa...are you there little snails?
Maybe you're hiding in my peonies?  Let me just browse through my lettuces and along my dahlias (which by the way is their newest favorite SNACK!!)  And which also is one of the main reasons for my devotion to becoming THE SNAIL HUNTRESS...I think I might need to make me a warrior outfit creation that I wear while on the hunt.  My vision is all buckskin with the occasional bead, crystal and fringe thrown in... knee-high boots, a nice little loin cloth/mini skirt-type business and a buckskin bikini with fringe...I also see a tattoo across my chest...            Snail Death

Triumphant

I mean…I am not a hateful person, but, really, do you have to eat my flowers?  Last year it was my basils and this year it's my dahlias.  All I ask is for the snails to mind their own slimy business and leave my plants alone.  If they did this...then I would surely leave them alone!  Because, it's like I said my Oldest is a fan, so I'm sure she'd be quite saddened if she didn't have the chance every once in a while to love a snail to....death...

I am not going to mention my method of destruction.  I do not want PETS to be on my back....let's just say I get my method from my Grandma...we're talking old school methods.  No sweet and gentle, let them live out their days at a snail farm where they can procreate and munch tasty nibbles the live long day.  NO!  Straight up, ugly death. 

So...anyway...how's your day going?

Now that we've got snail death talk out of the way, let's talk about WTF...

I was pressured into it.  I can't even blame my Oldest for these purchases.  I can however blame Mr. Because I Can and My Sister!!  Where are the Munchkins?  Where's the Wizard?  Where's Glinda the Good Witch?  Where's the Emerald City?

Fine!  I am not a strong woman.  I give into peer pressure.  Plus, the black and white panels...Freaking cute actually.  So, I went out and bought more fabric for the back of my Oldest's Wizard of Oz Quilt.  Not my fault.  Oh yeah, and no Munchkins.  I could not find any fabric that had a Munchkin on it.  Oh well, I did try.  We will have the Horse of a Different Color though.  So that should be good.

Everyone have peace and love fill your day thanks to this uplifting post about having love for your fellow creature and hopefully...no more munched plants.

WIP June 8th

Lots going on over here cratfywise.  Nothing finished, but I can show you my works in progress...some I don't even really have an end project...exactly.  I have some ideas...I was just having fun sewing.  I'll come up with something I'm sure.

Applique for the Christmas wall hanging that will cross fingers be finished by December.  Lots of pins.  Lots of piercing myself.

Here is the finished block.  Sorry for the wrinkles.  It gets scrunched a lot mid-sew.

I had sewn a bunch of strips like this for a pattern...then promptly lost the pattern that I had scribbled down on a note pad, and couldn't remember what I was going to do with it anyway.  So, I decided since I had all these already sewn I should do something with them.  All these cutes solids need to be used. 

So I made 4-patches out of them and am planning on something like this.  I don't have enough of the colors to make a complete quilt, so I am thinking of finishing the outside edges in grey and white 4-patches...any thoughts?  Love me some solids though!

My WTF quilt's progress.  I like how the white fabric gives it a slightly more modern vibe than I expected it would have.  I paired it with some Bari J plaids and though the colors are a little washed out in this photo, they're really vibrant and match perfectly I think.  It's a sweet marriage of Traditional and Modern Quilting which is how I roll.  All this hate between the modern quilters and traditional quilters is just silly to me.  If you ask me, we're all making the same things, it's just the fabric we choose that makes them different, and a tendency towards minimalism for the modern quilters maybe.

I'll keep everyone updated on the progress. 

Completely unrelated quote of the day: "Don't you dare hit me with your swimming suit!"  Oldest Daughter as said to Youngest Daughter

WTF

Do you ever look at a piece of fabric and just wonder...what was I thinking?  This happens to me far too often.  I like to buy fabric on sale just to have a bunch on hand for any impulse projects.  And sometimes what looks good under the magical store lights doesn't look so good in reality.  Or something I am sure I will use because it is so completely awesome, just sits there on my fabric shelf and collects dust.  So, this is my new series called WTF... what the fabric. 

The fabric I am going to showcase today though is not my fault.  It's my oldest's fault.  We were walking through a quilting store, perusing their clearance fabric when she came running up to me, a couple of bolts in hand, looked up with her big blue eyes and pleaded, Please Mummy, can I please have this lovely fabric?  Imagining her talking in a British accent allows you to see why this was so hard to resist.  A Mummy's got to do what a Mummy's got to do.  And besides, I want to foster a love of fabric and crafting so that my kids will raid my fabric stash and visit with me in my dotage...not unlike what I do with my own Mom.

Oh yes...Wizard of Oz fabric.  Mr. Because I Can introduced her to this movie and she has loved it ever since.  In fact, when we changed television providers, she was most distressed to know that our DVR no longer had this movie available for her to watch.

We are talking about panels here.  What am I going to do with panels?

And not just panels, then we have this with the characters skipping through the poppies...only they're at oddly placed intervals....so if you cut it out on a straight line, on one side they're a couple inches lower than on the other side. 

And this one...my second favorite of the bunch.  What's up with the upside down and sideways characters?  This does not work for me or for anything I might want to make with this fabric.  WTF!  I am not fussy cutting and it's distressing to have to chop off parts of the Tin Man to make other parts of the Cowardly Lion fit.

And finally we come to my favorite one of the bunch.  The hideous flying monkeys!  The lovely colors!  Oh and did you notice that awesome border between each of the panels?  I will not mention that when my sister saw this particular fabric, she said how sad it was that I would be cutting out this border...and she was serious!  The only redeeming quality about this particular fabric is that I do get to cut out the border and not have to include it in what I am making.