Why Do We Love Squares?

I am a crossword puzzle aficionado and even do the puzzle in ink (with a tube of white-out nearby, just in case...). I look forward to picking up my morning paper, sitting down with a cup of coffee, the puzzle neatly folded, the radio on low in the background and I jump in (is this anal or what???). I've been doing the puzzle this way for so long that on Monday thru Wednesday, I actually time myself. This past Monday, I completed the puzzle in 11 minutes (my best time EVER!). Thursday and Friday's puzzle are a little more challenging and then ... Come Saturday morning, they are darned near impossible. Is my brain in weekend mode, are they really harder, or do I have so many other things going on - that I don't want to waste the time and brain power to do a crossword puzzle? Yep, I have a 15 minute limit -- if I can put a dent in a chunk of puzzle, I'm off to work on something else.

I like Sudoku, but not nearly as much as the crossword puzzle. However, a sudoku puzzle did inspire me to make a quilt. And jigsaw puzzles are kinda fun, too, if you have a lot of time. I would rather be sewing, however, doing a jigsaw puzzle is a lot like putting together a scrap quilt.

This must be why I love quilting so much -- all those pretty squares cut and sewn back together to produce even prettier squares/blocks. And, speaking of squares -- don't we all love those Charm Packs (pretty 5" squares either tied up with pretty ribbons or a cardboard wrapper)? To me, they are like potato chips, "Betcha can't eat just one!" Everyone is starting to sell these Charm Packs now and I just drool looking at all of those gorgeous fabrics put together.

This morning, since I couldn't put a dent in the crossword puzzle, I decided to venture up to my sewing room and try taking a chunk out of my scraps and FQ's. Aha, I could make up my own Charm Packs out of my own stash -- is this a "light bulb moment", or what? I have been addicted to FQ's for ever - I can't go into a quilt or fabric shop and not buy at least one and if they are tied up with a pretty ribbon, I'll buy the whole pack. Even my family members know that I will squeal with delight with a gift of FQ's and this baffles them. Yes, I am weak when it comes to FQ's. But, I just can't seem to cut down the entire FQ. I have only taken a 5" hunk out of them. Maybe, if I tie them up with a pretty ribbon, I'll even think that I have new fabric.

I've been doing some Blog-hopping this week too and lo and behold, it seems like a lot of other Bloggers are cutting up their stashes into little squares, too. So, does this new craze of cutting our stashes into squares save time? Does it inspire us to make new things out of these pre-cut squares? Will we be seeing a lot of new book on charm squares? And, finally, how small is too small? Personally, I don't save anything under 2-inches.

Wake Me Up When February Ends

Five days after the ice storm and it still looks like we live in an arctic tundra. The good part is we have had sunny days which melts the ice, but the temps have not been above freezing, so unless the sun shines on what is melting it freezes again. You should see the size of some of the icicles - unbelievable. Now I know why bears hibernate in the winter, it's no fun chipping away at ice.

This cold weather has me longing for Spring. So, I dug through one of my Mary Engelbreight books and found a pattern for a Spring looking pillow. I needed to add a little bright pink, turquoise and lime green to my diet. I also have a Spring Basket quilt that needed a border with appliqued flowers. I'm not really happy with the border fabric, but done is done.

(Mary Engelbreight pillow) Doesn't this look spring-y?

Baskets are my absolute favorite right after stars.

I've been all over the map with my quilting and maybe just a little attention-deficit. I'm still working on the piano key border for the star quilt (1) which I'm doing as a Leader/Ender. Then, I started working on Daisy Vines from the March, 2007 edition of McCall's Quick Quilts (2) and I have started a broken dishes top (3) by making HST's out of scraps that I've been cutting down.

(1)

(2)

(3)

And, what would a post be without a hello from Bailey?

The weather forecast for tomorrow is supposed to be in the 4o's - that will feel like a heat wave.

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is Valentine's Day and WIP Wednesday - the only thing better would have been a "Snow Day".

So instead of a Snow Day, we got sent home early because of the ice! Why we even had to go in is one of those mysteries that I don't comprehend. It took an hour to clean the ice off of the car, the roads and parking lot had not been plowed, and road conditions were deplorable. Here is my car with about 3 inches of ice caked on it.

Here is a shot of the storm that started out as snow, then sleet, then freezing rain, then back to snow. And, the temperature never got about 24-degrees. Thankfully, with all of that ice covering the power lines, we did not lose power. I can only imagine what the accumulation would have been if it had been ALL snow.

Then, once I got home from work, the sun came out for a little while, which help to melt some of this stuff. The worst part was trying to move this mess - it was heavy.

Bailey was having a good time in the yard, walking on top of the snow/sleet/ice. The trees are taking the brunt of this weather with downed limbs as the winds pick up.

And, then it started to snow again.

I think I'll go try to attack one of my WIP's before the day gets away from me. I'm still sewing the piano key border for the Cookie Cutter Quilt.

A Little Snoopy Dancing

I can't believe a whole week has gone by and I haven't posted anything. I haven't spent a whole lot of time in my sewing room because it's just been too cold. We have been in a deep freeze for about 10 days and my sewing room seems to take the brunt of the cold weather, especially in the evenings. Instead, I have been doing some handwork and a little Snoopy dancing because "Glory Be" is done. Thank you for all of your wonderful comments and encouragement. I took your advice and used the gold for the binding and I am so pleased with how it turned out. I snapped this photo while it was lying on the back of the chair -- so the borders aren't really wonky, it's just the curve on the back of the chair - honest.

On this past WIP Wednesday, I did sew together the rows of the Star Cookie Cutter quilt top and even put on the muslin border -- now I'm searching my stash for something to use for the border. I know what I want, but I don't seem to have a long enough piece in my stash of what I want to use. I could cave in and break my fabric diet and buy something or, I'm also debating about doing a piano key border to use up some more of these homespuns. I'm kinda anxious to get this one quilted. Bailey just got his hair cut this morning, so he had to strike a pose on the quilt top. Doesn't he look cute?

I've also been doing some embroidery - my second love after quilting. I started stitching this teapot during the Super Bowl and it's the first time that I have stitched something with a piece of batting behind it. I really like the way it turned out -- now I just need to turn it into a wall hanging and I have some cute teapot fabric in my stash to complete it.

This morning I went to a Dakota Collectibles Trunk Show with a friend. We both own embroidery machines that have been collecting dust for some time and thought the trunk show might give us some inspiration to pull them out again. Oh, there were so many nice designs but that's a pretty expensive hobby even after owning the machine. I saw some really cute designs and I almost bought the CD with flamingos (yes, I just love flamingos), but I would need a card reader box ($400) just to be able to transfer the CD to my computer and download to a memory card -- whew -- I passed it up. So, instead, I just enjoyed all of the knowledge that I gained at the trunk show and only purchased a quilt book instead. This book has so many cute, folky, scrap flower quilts, that I came home and sat looking at it trying to decide which one I want to start first.

Hide and Seek

I hated the game of Hide and Seek when I was a kid. Who wants to sit in some usually dark, out of the way place waiting for someone to find them?

I've been pondering today why a UFO becomes a UFO. My opinion of a UFO is something that you've completely lost interest in working on and may never finish it unless by sheer magic, you open the box it was stored in and instantly fall in love with it all over again. I don't consider most of what I have UFO's as much as I consider them WIP's.

Most of my quilting spills over into all parts of the house, so, when Company is coming over, the quickest way to tidy up is to start throwing stuff into baskets and storing them out of sight (see my opening paragraph about Hide and Seek). Of course, I'm usually working on more than one project at a time (what an understatement), so bits and pieces seem to get misplaced quite often.

Today I uncovered this project that I started before the holidays. This was my first attempt at machine quilting, but I thought the border needed to be hand quilted. And, all that was left to do was about 10 minutes worth of hand quilting and the binding. While waiting for my tea water to boil, I finished the hand quilting on one side of the border, but now I can't find the fabric that I planned to use for the binding -- or did I even have a plan?

After searching and searching, I was able to locate the blue fabric that I used in the border, but the pattern calls for the gold fabric as a binding. I wasted a lot more time searching for the gold fabric. Now, my dilemma is - do I use the blue or the gold? Why didn't I just use the blue and be done with it? My goal is to have the binding on this baby, so that I can do the hand-stitching while watching the Super Bowl on Sunday evening. I'm also hoping that this finish with inspire more finishes in 2007. You'll have to stop back and see what I decided to use.

I also laundered and ironed the Heather Bailey fabric for Amy Butler's Swing Purse. Wow, talk about getting two designer's names in one sentence....Isn't this fabric so spring-like? This is going to be put away together and at least I have my Blog photo to remember what I was going to do with it.

I now have 15 of the 18 stars blanket stitched for the Cookie Cutter Quilt. Since I've decided to do the February Fabric Diet (Thanks Kim W. for the code), I feel like I'm on a roll with using up some of this stuff that I have. Now, if I can just keep up the momentum.

Bailey is lying patiently in wait for the mailman to arrive....and I've been all over the map with this post. So, now I'm off to work on that binding.

Happy Groundhog Day

Yes, it's Groundhog Day and Punxsutawney Phil did not see his shadow today, which, according to German folklore, means folks can expect an early spring instead of six more weeks of winter. Thirteen of the last 15 days we have had snow, but nothing more than a trace of snow each time. Mind you, I'm not complaining because I would rather be sewing than shoveling snow. However, our streets contain enough salt to melt a small arctic country.

On Wednesday evening, I attempted to use my sewing machine to do the blanket-stitch around the stars in the Cookie Cutter Quilt that I am making, however, the machine was not cooperating. I don't know if I'm having a tension problem (the machine - not me, personally), but I just can't get it to come out right and if I try to regulate the stitch length, the stitches just pull right out - ARGH! So, I called it quits.

Since Thursday night is my TV-watching night (gotta love Grey's Anatomy!), I decided that while watching TV, I would start doing the blanket stitch by hand and I completed 6 of the 18 stars. I think the hand-stitching gives is a more homey look, but it's going to take a little longer than I anticipated to work on this one project.... The black embroidery floss looks good on the red stars, but doesn't show up so well on the dark blue one -- so, I think I'm going to have to use ecru or an antique gold. If I'm going to do this by hand, I'm also going to be selfish since I want it to show up.