I am almost done with the small “Devil’s Puzzle” top! yahoo!! I will be glad to have one done out of this stack of quilt tops to quilt. I am taking a break from drawing the design on the last border. I will start quilting on that tomorrow.
Some of you might read the blog called “Grandma’s Red Needle” – Astrid posted an interesting post about some fruit that is grown on the island of Mauritius where she lives. The island is located in the Indian Ocean about 560 miles off of the coast of Madagascar. The fruit is called Jackfruit and it is grown on a tree. Some of the weirdest fruit I have ever seen!! You should go to her blog and look at her photos. Very interesting 
I was amazed to see this is in the mulberry family of fruit . We have a mulberry tree and it and the fruit looks nothing like this tropical variety.
I find it very interesting to read blogs from other countries – it is so nice to see what quilters around the world work on and also to learn of their lives.
I went to the Paducah Quilt Show once back in 2004 – 6 years ago! Wow how time flies. I enjoyed seeing the quilts and shopping the vendors – looking at the quilt museum which I have seen about 3 times over the years. Mike finishes his contract job in the middle of March and I thought he might be ready for a road trip come April 22 – don’t you all think so! He immediately agreed and got on line and found a campground only 14 miles from Paducah that had openings and I am going to the Paducah Quilt Show 2010!!!!
Now I don’t know if all of you are familiar with the show? It is put on by the American Quilters Society of which I am a member for the last couple of years. You do not of course need to be a member to go to the show but if you are you get a discount on admission (not a lot but with your membership you get six magazines a year and access to the sales on their books which can really amount to a bit). The quilts are fabulous to see. So many to look at and the vendors! I won’t even go there – I have no idea how many — OK I take that back I just now went to the web page to see if they have the vendors listed and they do – if I counted right it is around 200!! Do you have any idea how long it takes to walk through all those vendors I will be drooling. (you do not know how many of us quilters who have no local quilt shops enjoy shows with vendors until you have been there – finally we get to see all of these items we go on line to see – but now we can actually see and feel the items!)
We are staying 3 nights and I will be wandering through the quilts on the Wednesday(23rd) and Thursday (24th) of the show I believe. I told Mike that he can drop me off if I want to go back the second day to look some more, there is actually quite a few things in the area he can spend time seeing as he likes to take so many photographs he will be able to keep busy. Believe it or not he really likes to look through the quilts too. I think he likes to see the dumbstruck look on my face as I see some of the really fantastic creations some people come up with. Or maybe he likes to come with me to control my spending? LOL I actually keep that under control pretty well myself.
Of course right there in the same town is the National Quilt Museum. I love that place. It is another place to spend hours at drooling over the quilts. Normally by this time of year it is very hard to get a reservation as all of the motels in the town get booked up in advance. Six years ago when I went with my daughter we planned only a month in advance – kind of a spur of the moment thing and I was lucky to find a motel 50 miles from the show. This time though we have the motorhome – I was kind of surprised that the campground had spots available but I guess it is more women going with other women driving and/or flying in and staying in motels than women piling in a motorhome and taking off I’m so glad Mike was able to find something so close – that 50 mile drive the last time was a bit much considering it is a 6 hour drive from home too!
Just wanted to share my news – anyone else going?
Today is a cold, dreary day. We have had snow flakes spitting off and on all day. It is the type of day where you really don’t go outside unless you are really and truly an outdoors person or if you need to run and errand – like go exercise (which I did). Now though it is time to just sit back and enjoy the inside and hope tomorrow will be warmer. I will tune in to the Olympics sometime today or this evening to see how it is going, I haven’t watched it today yet.
Yesterday we ran to Little Rock to meet up with daughter and her hubby to go to the Arts Center – the exhibit was nice but much smaller than I thought it would be and no gold and glitter among these Egyptian pieces. All pieces were more of the ceramic and bead jewelry type of items and a couple of mummies. Everything was great to look at although my husband and I both thought that the cards all of the information was written on could have been larger – is age creeping in here I hope not!
When we got done with the exhibit we left the kids (kids to me – not to them they are in their late mid-30’s) and headed over to Sam’s Wholesale and Barnes and Nobles for a quick look before we left for home – wouldn’t believe the weather – snow flying everywhere – and it had been in the 50’s the day before – it was melting as fast as it was hitting the ground so no worries about travel.
At Barnes and Noble I always look through the quilt magazines to see what is new. Now and then they will have an overseas magazine and I always look through them to see what is going on in the quilting world away from the states. I found a great one from New Zealand — and the best – it had a quilt border in it that I love and I think I will use that one for the Little Brown Bird quilt instead of the one that comes with it as it is one of the main parts of the quilt that I thought was just a bit too fussy for my taste. (saying that I should actually mention although I love the quilt I find a lot of it a bit too fussy for my taste and I intend to change it a lot – when I get done it most likely won’t even look that much the same as the original as I am planning on substituting some blocks for others that I have found and making some of my own design also). The magazine I found is simply “New Zealand Quilter”.
this issue has such a simple quilt on the front of it I was surprised - most magazines tend to put something a bit flashier on the cover. I'm glad I opened it up to look at it and found the border inside.
The is the border I liked. It is from an award winning quilt by Margaret Matthews (2007) called "Roses for Me" and in the magazine it was the final of a 10 part series. I'm so glad I happened to pick this issue up, it has the pattern pull out included.
So that is news on the quilting part of my day (yes I have been busy with my applique border and I have 1 1/2 borders left to do). Today was a baking day also.
Blueberry, Banana, Walnut Muffins
1 cup of quick oats
1/3 cup oil (I use canola)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 small carton of vanilla yogurt (6 oz)
1/2 cup milk
1 mashed banana
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons ground flax seed
1 cup blueberries
Mix all ingredients together except the blueberries. Stir them in after all is mixed. Bake for about 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Makes about 21 small muffins (this depends on the size of your containers).
some of the muffins - as you can see I use a variety of containers, the ones in the back are the aluminum foil toss away and the red ones are microwave/oven proof silicon rubbery things I found these awhile back and wanted to give them a try and they work great. You kind of just pop the muffins out. I had six more baking when I took this picture and they are in a muffin tin. I have very large blueberries frozen from my little brother's berry farm as you can see in the photo - a couple berries and you have enough in each muffin! I have only about a cup of frozen berries left from the crop in June.
my afternoon snack - my very nutritious blueberry muffin and a cappuccino - of course I went and spoiled the nutritious part by having some chocolate afterward can't be perfect LOL after all I was hungry I had gotten in an hour of exercise after lunch!
Today it rained all day – so what do most quilters do on a rainy day? They tend to stay in and sew like me if they are able to. I did run out to the fitness center and then it was back home to fabric and a book
I made my vines today for the border of the quilt. I cut the bias strips yesterday and today I prepared that long, long piece of bias that I had sewed together yesterday – all 420 inches of it!! I don’t know what method most of you use but here are the steps I use once it is sewn together. I forgot to take photos yesterday of me cutting the strips and sewing them. To make my bias strips into vines or stems I use the product from Clover – it comes in various sizes. ( I have not ordered from this link given but I linked it to the Clover site) There is a fusible tape that you can use with this tool also and iron your stems and vines down. Sometimes I use it other times I don’t. There has been a time or two when I could see the fusible through the fabric and it didn’t look good. Other times it doesn’t seem to stay ironed on. Most of the time in the last couple years that I have used it I just press it and then when I put it on my quilt top I use the Roxanne Glue Bast It to hold it in place until I stitch it down. In this case I will continue to do my hand stitching as so much of this top already has hand stitching in it (the circles) and also because for me it will be neater!!
this is my bias stem/vine maker. It is by Clover and this one is 1/4 inch wide.
I lightly spray with starch (in BACK of the maker - don't spray the area that has already been pressed or it will open back up), give it a second or two to dry slightly and then start pressing the seams down with the iron as you pull/push the maker the opposite direction. I constantly move the iron to keep up with it to press the seams under. I don't even lift the iron up but a kind of push the maker with the iron as I press.
I cut a piece of cardboard off of things in the kitchen cupboard for winding the vines to keep them neat - in this case a large box of microwave popcorn came into use.
400 inches of bias piled up on the floor
420 inches of vines neatly waiting for me to glue baste in place on the border - maybe tomorrow?
Tonight I have gotten some little 9 patch blocks ready and have some more to make. After that it is more circles – I’m making 2 different sizes from scraps and they will go on the sides of the quilt border most likely on both sides intermittent along the vines.
Yesterday I just about completed 2 Dear Jane blocks for the “Insanity Revisited” quilt, I finished one up this morning. The two done:
Block number 8 from row 10
Block number 9 from Row 10. It seems that at times on this quilt the original maker Jane Stickle must have enjoyed making certain kinds of pieces in this case oval shapes, these two and the next two have them. They are a pain to make in my opinion!
Now I am back to making the patchwork blocks for the border until CSI comes on at 8 – how do you all like CSI lately – I haven’t enjoyed it as much the last two seasons now that they replaced the Grissom character with Lawrence Fishburns character – he just doesn’t seem to go with the other cast members as well I think and also not the same since they killed off Warrick last year, or was that two years ago? Too many changes aren’t good for a show at times!! In my opinion
I have decided on my border – thank you all for your opinions. I am going to put the vines on the border like the one I showed you on the baby quilt. I will put nine patches in the corners also in pretty much the same arrangement and then on the sides of the borders I will put circles here and then instead of the patches shown in the baby quilt. I was busy today cutting bias strips to make the vines but that is all the further I got with it today.
Someone asked in the comments on yesterday’s post how I plan to quilt this quilt — by hand of course! I do not quilt any other way. I think she mainly wondered because of all the seams. For me when hand quilting I go with the design of the quilt. I would not try to do anything fancy – wreaths or what not on the main part of the quilt because of all the seams. Around the circles I will quilt circles (outline) and on the squares I will have a diagonal line run through them. Yes the seams make it a little harder but there will just be a couple bigger stitches there. This is for me not a show or whatever, the size of the stitches do not matter to me, consistency does. On the border I will do outline stitch around the vines, circles and blocks and then the diagonal lines from the squares will run through to the border – that is what I am thinking right now. Another questions was why did I have a baby quilt — I’m not sure why that question was asked – don’t all quilters make baby quilts? This particular baby quilt was given to one of nephews on the birth of their baby about 4 years ago, I take pictures of most of my quilts and have a computer file to pull photos from. I have made a lot of baby quilts over the years. I used to try to make them for all the babies in the family but I come from a very, very large family and can no longer keep up with them. I still make baby quilts now and then, sometimes for charity and sometimes to sell.
I spent part of the day finishing a book I was reading so I could get my books back to the library before they were over due. Of course seeing as I was at the library I checked 3 more out. I also made a cake earlier – Mike’s birthday today – we will go out for supper later – steak for him – I don’t make a good steak and I don’t care who knows it steak is not a favorite of mine as I know it is for so many people, maybe that is why I don’t make one well?
We actually get a little more snow I hear over the next two days! I am amazed – this winter seems to be drawing out longer than normal for us. The temperatures are not bad though and what we have on the ground is melting.
I have a book I want to share with you all. I’m giving it a great review. I wonder how many of you quilters have this handy reference? This is a great little book. I picked it up at a quilt shop on one of our travels someplace – the sticker on the book says “Hearthside Quilt Shoppe”. We have stopped at plenty of quilt shops when we travel, it could have been anywhere! The book is by Peggy Scholley and it has a ton of information stuck into 30 pages. The book: “The Quilters Pocket Reference” I do not know if Peggy has a website to order the book from, the link I gave goes to Amazon. Com
The Quilter's Pocket Reference by Peggy Scholley
An example of the inside pages. This book gives you information and measurements. How big do you need to cut a piece of fabric to make a 3 inch half square triangle block? The book tells you. Run your finger down the column of numbers and you will find what you need. Anything from figuring out how much the fabric will cost to make you quilt to hst's and borders, how to cut and measure for quilt backs, calculate yardage for squares. You name it the little book has it. I really think it is one of the handiest books on my shelf - in fact I don't even keep it on my book shelf among the other books I have it on the shelf right above my cutting table where I can access it easily and always know where it is!
This is a very handy book and I recommend it to all quilters – especially if you are poor at math like I am
One more Insanity Revisited block is finished, actually I almost finished two last night but the one not shown I have several pieces to applique on to it and will show it another day.
Block # 7 Row 10 "Insanity Revisited"
Here I am having a give away (ends Friday) and I keep entering into other peoples give away’s and I won two of them in the past 2 weeks. Both arrived today. I won the package of six fat quarters and the most darling scissors I have seen from Christine at Aunties Quaint Quilts in Tasmania Australia and I won a book and 5 fat quarters from Colletta at Collettas Kitchen Sink in Pennsylvania. Here are photos of my wins — thanks to both you for the nice gifts.
From Christine at Auntie's Quaint Quilts
a close up of the scissors - aren't they unique!
my other win from Pennsylvania, I haven't tried this author so looking forward to the new read.
I have no where in this house for a design wall so after much thought I decided to order a portable wall. It goes up when you need it down when you don’t. This works out well for me as with all the hand work that I do I really don’t need a wall all the time. Right now it is being put to use with the circles and four patches. It is time to sew them together so I have some of them on the design wall and go back and forth to the sewing machine with them. I don’t mind going back and forth as it keeps me from getting stiff and also gives me some exercise I can go ahead and leave this up in the living room all week while I sew as it is pretty much just myself around most of the time as Mike is working long hours and isn’t home much this week.
what the wall looks like from the front with some of the patchwork on it.
this is what it looks like from the back - fairly easy to put together except the side clamps - I have to have my husband press those in place as my hands aren't strong and I can't seem to press hard enough - I will have come up with some method as he isn't always available when I might need to put it together. When not in use everything folds up including the poles and all goes in a drawstring tote bag. (as you can see from the walls in this room all those shelves and books, it is like that in a large amount of the house so no empty walls for a design wall.)
Don’t forget the give away ends on Friday.
That’s right we in the south are being hit with a very cold January! I know y’all in the north laugh and say toughen up – what you have is not cold That’s ok, if it wasn’t for the fact that I have been living in central Arkansas for 30 years now I would be laughing with you. I have gotten used to mild winters! I don’t mind a little bit of cold and a little bit of snow – I grew up by Lake Michigan in Wisconsin I know very well what it is like! This is unusual for here.
this is our forecast for the week, it left off Thursday night - it is supposed to get down to about 1 degree!! lets hope that changes
We woke up this morning to another light dusting of snow – not a lot by anyone’s standards. The squirrels thought they needed some food and tried to get into the bird feeder so I threw a bunch of bird seed on the ground for them so they would leave the feeder alone – here they are pigging out.
(click on the forecast to see larger photo)
3 fat happy squirrels as seen through my bedroom window and through the railing on the porch.
Today's snow - I haven't even gone outside and it is 2:55 PM - somehow I don't think I will make it outside today it is only 26 degrees and I bet it starts to drop soon.
I will brave the weather tomorrow no matter what the temperature and go to the library to stock up on more books – I am down to re-reading books off my shelves – surely I can find something new tomorrow. Also seeing as I will be out I will run over to the fitness center and get some exercise – I need it as I haven’t been out of the house a lot the last 4 days! But I have gotten more sewing and knitting done. I am down to finishing one sleeve on the sweater – maybe 16 rows more need to be done and then I can put it together. I have more strips sewed and cut to make four patches out of and I also got in an hour of quilting this morning on the Christmas Baltimore Album which I have really neglected since I put in on the quilting frame – I only have one border quilted and so much more to go.
So for those of you who read this how do you feel about the The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims? For $42.95 you have a year’s membership to use the site and access to patterns and quilt shows (tutorials?). How do you like it if you use it — and — is it worth the price? Please leave comments so that others can see what you all think about it too. I am tempted as I like some of the patterns that have been on this site.
I was asked by several how I am making my circles to applique for the scrappy quilt that I am working on. Instead of explaining – pictures are much better! Of course I am using my new camera that Mike got me for Christmas. I didn’t realize I had the date/time stamp in the bottom corner – I have turned it off but it is there in these photos.
step one - take one of the sampler squares from the Moda Box - or if you don't have that use a 2 1/2 inch square, using a 2 inch round circle from my Mylar collection of circles draw around it in pencil.
I like to have plenty of room to work with so I cut about an 1/8 of on inch on the other side of the drawn line.
using strong thread on the right side of fabric sew a basting circle - size of stitch does not matter
next, use the size circle that you are supposed to for the circles - I think this one was 1 3/4 inches - place it in the middle of the circle
put your finger in the middle of the circle to hold it still. Using your other hand pull the thread tightly to bring it up tight against the Mylar plastic
use a little spray starch - either spray it on the circle of fabric or brush with a stencil brush by putting some starch in a small container. This will help hold the circle stiff while you are working with it. Some people don't use the starch but just use plain water - it is up to you. I like the extra stiffness the starch gives.
holding on to the thread tail make sure you have it pulled tight while you are pressing the circle. When the starch is dry and it is pressed, flip it over and press down on the top side.
now loosen up your thread where you had finished the gather at. Loosen it up just enough to remove the plastic circle.
pull your gathering thread lightly to tighten the circle back up - this should be fairly easy as you do have it pressed and it normally pulls back into the circle easily. Press your circle again on both sides and trim your gathering thread tail off.
your finished circle with the template removed.
fold your white square (3 1/2 inches) in half and finger press or iron and then in half again and press. Center your circle in the middle and pin in place. Your circle is now ready for you to applique. Once you get the hang of this method it takes minutes only to prepare each circle. I have 4 pieces of Mylar template the same size so I work up 4 at a time and then start all over again. When I have about 12 circles ready to applique I sit down and get the stitching done. Take a break and work on something else and then try to do another set before boredom sets in
When you have your circle appliqued in place you can from the back trim off the back ground and also trim some of the gathered circle off from the back. I use a little extra fabric here because I want the circle to be a bit puffy – I did not trim off from the back. I have found that when I make circles like this the added puffiness makes it look like it has trapunto after it is quilted when I use the 100% cotton batting that I use and wash the quilt and dry it in the dryer. It gives that nice antique look to quilts and it this case the circles will look a little more 3 dimensional without having to add the extra batting in from the back. If you do not want the puffiness but do not want to trim from the back you can make your gathering line in closer to the size circle you want – I have excess in mine for the purpose of puffiness.
My white ironing mat has gotten stained up already – it was white not a short time ago – I think it is the spray starch that does it. You can find Perfect Circles by Karen Kay Buckley at this link. These circles are made from Mylar and are safe to iron. This set comes in many 15 sizes. I order a lot of my notions and little handy items for quilting from Connecting Threads and from Keepsake Quilting . I have had a lot of luck with these two quilting sites and I receive their catalog all the time. I have been ordering from both sites for years and have never had a problem with either. I just discovered Karen Kay Buckley’s web site and blog though and I see she has a store also and sells the perfect circles on her web site. I am going to check out her store and the next time I need something by her I will know I can order from her.
Continue reading about Making circles to applique – tutorial
And how many left — I’m going to quit counting for now. I worked on the binding today on the Dutch Treat Table Topper and finished it!! Can’t believe I started those blocks about 2 years ago and lost interest in it so quickly. I just usually do not do that. If I ever decided to try another go at these blocks I will enlarge these 4 inch blocks to 6 inches I think. It would make them more manageable for reverse applique. I just could not see leaving these blocks sit aside in a box though for years while I tried to decide if I would ever finish it into the full size quilt top it was supposed to be so I am glad that I decided to make it into a table topper instead.
The top finished at 30 inches by 34 inches after being washed and dried. Little by my standards – other than baby quilts I don’t make them this small normally other than a wall hanging here and there. Even my baby quilts are normally a lot larger than that. The back of the quilt is the darker green batik.
Trying it out on the table with the Christmas Table decoration. I like the size of this as it leaves some wood showing all around it and the wood is nice color and decorative that you want some of it to show.
The whole top.
While my fingers are resting up from quilting for 12 days I thought I would start on the Moda Bake Shop Sampler box that I got awhile ago. I gathered up all of my white fabric that I had fairly good size pieces of and some other yardage to “audition”. I ‘m not sure if I will use the colors that I show below in the photo. I might go for a scrappier look for the 4 patch part of it. But it would be easier to cut strips from the 3 colors I show. The orange, yellow and red are Michael Miller Fairy Frost fabric and I have 2 yards of each color. The link will bring you to all of their colors – every color under the rainbow! (maybe I need to order fat quarters of all the colors!) They shimmer a bit. They have been sitting gathering dust for awhile, I bought them early last year on sale someplace in the internet world – I am not sure which shop. I haven’t been able to figure what project to use them for. I might do all of the four patches with them – but then again I might just cut some strips from them and go totally scrappy by adding more from my stash – only problem with that is I have mainly small pieces and for doing 4 patch – it would be nice to strip piece. The sampler squares will be for the circles.
The pattern, box of sampler squares and fairy frost fabric - white under the pattern.
I will start with some of the circles and kind of go back and forth between machine sewing the 4 patches and appliqueing the circles once I figure out for sure if I am going with these three colors or if I will go scrappy.
I commented in my last post on a book that I got earlier in the week “Red and Green, An Applique Tradition” by Jeana Kimball. I didn’t realize when I ordered it that Jeana has a website. I had searched but didn’t look closely enough I bet. I had the nicest comment from her earlier today on the last post I made and she sent me a link to her website. You can order books 
directly from her and she will autograph also. Jeana also has a blog located at this link. Go look at her website and you will love her patterns and books – you just might be tempted to order I can’t be the only one working on too many projects!!
This will be a busy quilting year indeed! I will be trying to piece/applique 5 quilts and I will be trying to quilt 4 quilt tops already finished – oh the life of a quilter – we do suffer don’t we working with all these pretty fabrics and pretty patterns. I will certainly have a variety to keep me busy.
The fruitcake turned out wonderful! I made half the recipe and so my cake pan that I used was not real full. The piece here looks rather small – but it sure taste good.
I have saved this recipe and will make it again next year. This is not the dark chock filled with candied fruit that you normally find but a white fruit cake with dried fruit. See the link from my last post that will lead you to the recipe.
My “secret pal” from this past year Marianne is the one that led me to the fruit cake recipe. She also sent me a delightful Christmas present that I got yesterday in the mail.
Fabric, threads and a calendar -- thank you Marianne!
