I'm a doll quilt swapper....

(In my mind there is a song "I'm a bird (maybe substitute girl for bird) watcher..." That is what I trying to reference in my title...)






Doll quilt swap information - Just click on the hyperlink...

I have made 3 doll quilts. (Camera at home, me at work - so no photos today.) I used "left-overs" before finishing the primary quilts!
I have since finished 1 of those primary quilts and I have a real good start on the other. (I am actually making 2 doll quilts from each set of left overs - one for me of each, one to swap, and one to gift.)

The date on this may be back in March, becasue I slightly pre-blogged it - I am posting it on April 10, at 6:50 a.m. I am finally back from my week off & I am so far from caught up it isn't funny - so I am just reading blogs (for the most part!) Thanks for all of the well wishes - I did get a better shot of the Seder Plate quilt - take a look at the note in Lime....

Happy Passover

(you can make a cool card too.)

Sorry for the horrible photo... (I'll have to take another when I hang this, this weekend.)
You can get the pattern (& see a better photo) here: Seder plate quilt. (I own 95% of the patterns/fabric available from that site - I can whole heartedly recommend purchasing from them!)
Yet another quilt (table runner) The Ten Plagues (You obviously don't need a pattern, but I am compelled to support a small market & small business.)



Depending on your interpretation, the ten plagues are blood, frogs, vermin, wild beasts, cattle disease, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and death of the firstborn. So on my table runners, you start with the red square that represents blood go to the left, return to the red boils, and go left again. Exodus 7 through 12.

Hag kasher v' sameach (Happy Kosher holiday)

If you did not catch it above, I have "banked" 50+ hours of compensation time so that I can spend my time cleaning and cooking for the holiday, so I may be scarce....

Up to (not to be confused with up town)

I am having serious issues with "redoing" the Up Town quilt. It goes against my "Done is better than perfect" attitude in a very strong way! But I will persevere - maybe tonight?

 

In the mean time, I have been cutting for my Zipper quilt! I hope it "works." By virtue of using one line of fabric, you usually get a good amount of value differences... This line Marcus Brothers Metro Blue is mostly medium... I hope the over all effect is not a big blob!

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Food fight? Enjoy some healthy debate
in the Yahoo! Answers Food & Drink Q&A.

take a look!

Back when I was in Australia, they had some "unusual" items to sell to the tourists... Among them were coin purses made out of cane toads. Take a look at this one! That would make a whole purse! (I am in training on a break...)

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Don't pick lemons.
See all the new 2007 cars at Yahoo! Autos.

On sewing & on buying...

Several people have commented on my sewing while watching TV...
A. I am not trying to sew anything complicated.
B. I am not "watching" TV, more listening and looking up everyonce in a while.
C. I do the same thing with my hand work, although probably less TV, as I have to concentrate more on the hand work, than the machine work.
D. my previous option was one or the other & TV was winning...
E. My girl cat was even happy as she can sit next to me on the chair in the living room! But petting her is not conducive to feeding the machine...

Since this is in a round about way, more chatter without photos on Up Town, My shopping cart had so many variations that by the time I got my purchase, I could barely remember what I bought... I apparently did not get 1 of each of the paint by numbers prints (grumble) nor did I get the fabric that I was going to use as a border (grumble, again). I did get my binding fabric & I have enough to use it to fix my error, but seeing it reminds me of why I changed my mind (for the worse) in the first place... But I'll discuss that more with photographic evidence, so you can weigh in with your opinion...

Up Town Drag nabit, I was supposed to click save not publish...

Up Town is a quilt top! (I am about to "rippit" on 1 part...) I forgot to take a picture of the top, but I will before I "fix it."

This is so unlike me... But then again, I should have did what I first planned, instead of switching gears mid-stream...

Oh and my tertiary idea - of sashing them with muslin, probably would have been better too - there are no resting spots...

One of my second thoughts was to mention that I finally broke down and set up my sewing machine on the TV table so I can sew and watch TV...

& I started to cut out the fabrics for my zipper quilt! (I even sewed two together to see how it works...) I did the math & I need about 1 more yard for the twin size quilt - I hope to find two nice solid half yards. (I think I have some of all of the fabrics from the line - minus the border print...)

I finally found a copy of the Kaffe Fasset book that MayBritt used to make this quilt... & I Played with my fabrics working on finding light, medium, and dark trios... (I am so crappy at value... I need to figure out the B&W setting on my camera - I hear that helps!) The book was in the library - I hung out at the library during the lunch break for the court. I have two ideas for coloration... green & blue cubes with red triangles or scrappy cubes with black triangles - or one of each!

Michael & I did more shopping for Passover... I hope all I have left to buy is meat and produce!

I have training for the next three days, not sure how that will impact my PC access...

Is it really Saturday?

Court was well court... Now to make it sound good in a paper... (Oh and to finish my last two statictics problems...)

In the mean time, this will be the first passover that Michael and I are doing on our own... So the kind of stuff that familes have from years of holiday observances - are not owned by newly-weds... That coupled with the fact that Kosher foods are already more expensive than their non-kosher counterpart - we think $2.99/lb. is a deal for a frozen chicken... They are even more expensive for Passover... UGH! And where oh where will I be able to store this stuff for next year?

I am in my office, supposed to be working (it is Saturday night)... But my Hancock's of Paducah order came in today, so all I can think about is SEWING!

Which reminds me, I mentioned before that with my birthday GC to Nancy's Notions, I got a portable design wall... Someone at Nancy's told me that they sent the wrong frame... Luckily I don't have to return he too big frame, but the correct size fram is not due to arrive for several more weeks... So the new turquoise and brown (I got 2 more from HOP) zipper will have to wait, as I want to do that on the design wall - Yes, I can be cutting it out in the mean time & maybe I will...

I should have gotten two of the charm packs for my Up Town project... 40 charms is hard to work with... But I will resist temptation and make it work!

Maybe tomorrow night I will actually do some work while at work... (But it will be Sunday, so there is no real crime if I don't - just me busting my buns on Monday if I don't...)

Happy Friday...

Confusion - Maply Island quilts pattern, was seen on Simply Quilts...

"Confused Kitty"

close up:
The only "pinwheel" in Confused Kitty - I tried to keep the browns on the edge for a "border effect" and I tried to put 4 purples together, so that they would show up more.

Let me start by saying that it is a good thing that this was not my first experience with bias - or I may never have made my favorite quilt:


Back to today's quilt - it was quilted by Judy L. back in about 2001... It was one of my first professionally machine quilted quilts. (She quited that blue and yellow star quilt too...)

I saw them demo. it on SQ, ran to the store and started it right away! (I was such a novice that I cut all of that cat fabric, not just the number of squares that I needed...) Only, they did not give you all of the dirt on the SQ show or HGTV website... I luckily found the pattern soon after & finished the quilt. I "happened" to find the backing material - perfect match IMHO in the sale bin!

I could probably yammer on, but I can't today...

As you may know, I am in Business Law class, a portion of my homework includes sitting in on court procedings then writing a paper - so I am headed to the county court house for the day... (At lease I will only be an innocent bystander.)

Can you use a laugh - or good cry...

For the laugh, go check out what Carolyn is up to... (At the bottom, but the pine needles in the cat box is pretty funny too...)

Good cry... First the background, 1 family, 3 cars, 3 drivers - dad, mom, teen (to save their privacy, they will be referred to as dad, mom, and teen.)
Mom has to go in for a same day surgery procedure. A co-worker is taking her... Who is picking her up? Dad, no he is at a work related conference about 2-3 hours away, teen - no he has a baseball game - DID YOU READ THAT RIGHT? They gave him a very nice car, buy the gas, and pay the insurance - can he pick up his mom? Apparently not... (But then again, a lot of the things that happen in that universe would never have even been conceived in mine.)

Back to funny and Carolyn, in that same post, she pulled out all of the hidden cat toys... Very cute & I am sure fun to watch...
But what kind of cat did I get?
This kind:
I had to tie the ribbon to her tail for her to "play." As soon as she removed it, I got a dirty look and she went back to ignoreing it. However, if I hold the ribbon with in her reach, she will bat at it - but she will not expend any effort what so ever!

She will watch RB playing though...


Something quilty... (I shared this before, but this is my blog...)
The "whole" Funky Fish quilt.
A small portion of the back - I was juxtaposing the realistic fish against the funky fish & using my border scraps - making the back wide-enough...
A school of striped bass.
A rainbow trout.
the quilting...

My only wish in hind sight is that I used a pieced scrappy background ala Clowns on Parade, by: Cathy Wiggins.

WIP on Wednesday & Stashbuster prompt...

First (based on the title, it should be second, anyway...) My main sewing machine is a Pfaff, you can see most of it if you take a look at this post from my past. I also have an ancient Viking - it was the top of the line in the 60's! And I have a featherweight...

My WIP is still my Taupe BOM you can see the finished project here: Ping! (It is for sale there too, if you want to join me.)

I am waiting on fabrics for my new Zipper using these fabrics:

And my simple squares using these fabrics:

And, and, and....

Oh and I am working on those Buggy Barn cats that I posted about on Monday...

What's for dinner?

LEFTOVERS!
Here is another oldie but goodie! (It was actually 1 of 2, but I sent number 1 to my cousin when she had a baby - without taking a photo...)
Here is a glimpse of the back, love that Laurel Burch - it is on the back of another quilt of mine - one that I need to pull out and photogrpah....
One of the sources of the fabrics for the leftovers quilt...
The front - also a source...
Another source was the twin quilt that my GF made - she gave hers away as a graduation gift. And a quilt that I gave to charity.

You see, onceupon a time ago, I did not want to start a collection of flannel scraps, so I made the baby quilts witht he scraps... (I gave up on that idea... I love flannel on the back of quilts!)

I hope you enjoy the leftovers...
Passover is upon us & Michael & I will be eating a lot of leftovers... They are a natural by product of cooking a shoulder roast, a brisket, a chicken, and a turkey breast (on different days) for two people...

Happy Spring!

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen today is the Vernal Equinox (in the Northern Hemisphere) I am actually about 1 hour late (it happened at 8:14 a.m.), but my computer was getting looked at by the IT guy... Because I am kind of geeky, I could go on, but the is a quilt blog with a smattering of travel and cats, not a science blog - I am not that knowledgeable!
In honor of spring, here is a quilt that I rescued form a yard sale back in the very early 2000's.
She was/is hand pieced & hand quilted, but someone washed her in a washing machine and dried her in a dryer (I do it all the time, but my stuff is machine pieced and machine quilted) so some of her seams popped. Since she was damaged goods, someone decided to sell her. So I rescued her... I even mended some of her popped seams (Before I knew what I was doing - so I did a whip stitch instead of a blind hem stitch, but they are mended nonetheless...) but I found another big seam that needs a repair when I pulled her out for photography.

A bit close so you can see the fabrics.

Update...

I ended up going home to get the rotary stuff & I made fairly good progress on my cats... THose of you who know the Buggy Barn technique, know that you are in essence slicing and shuffling and sewing and trimming, etc. right? Well for the pattern that I am doing, you use 3 fabrics for each cat & there are 12 cats that I am doing... For the first three, I have bodies and tails done, now to do the ears and faces :o) The version shown here is the actual Buggy Barn quilt from the book, That Crazy Thing We Do.

Mine will be similar, only instead of the plaids, I have geometrics - like polka dots.

For what it is worth YMMV (Your miles may vary) I do not care for this technique...

From the Amy Archive:

My first Trip Around the World.

pre-sewing...

Yesterday, I took a lot of picture of my quilts - so that I could have almost everything in Flickr... So I am going to be sharing - some you may have seen before, so bear with me...

My second of 3 (so far) Trip Around the World quilts. (Yes, it is hung crooked, no it doesn't bother me.) I did this one and my first one the old fashioned way - with stacks of squares. My third one used the strip piecing method.

I plan to once again try to work on my Buggy Barn cats quilt - I was so close to working on the project that Nancy (Something about great minds...) chose, but I want to sew - not cut then sew... CR@P - I forgot my rotary cutting stuff... You need them to do Buggy Barn stuff... UGH! (Good thing I brought my EPP project too...)

Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow

Well, my friend V. came down on Thursday night... We had a lovely turkey breast for dinner (if I do say so myself...) & planned on going to Mt. Vernon on Friday. However, the weather was crappy... I heard that the first leg of our journey was hopelessle backed up, so we decided not to bother - the weather was only supposed to get worse... (We got some snow!)

So we ended up playing with the cats... (Rhapsody really likes V. much to Michael's chagrin...)

I tied the ribbon the her tail as she slept...

She removed it as soon as she woke up...

She Sure liked watching RB play with the ribbon...

And she made sure that he did not get anything that she might have wanted - like this knee tent - he loves then, she hates them!

That was Yesterday...

Today:
Happy St. Patty's (What is left of it at 6:45 p.m.)
It is a NY Jets quilt, but it is green...

It is also National Quilter's Day... BUT My Sew-n-Tell group meets tomorrow, so I am saving those festivities for then...

Tomorrow:
I just got my machine back... I have no idea what project to bring to work on... Maybe an I Spy UFO - since it is cut and ready to be sewn, or my pieced cats project that is in a similar state... I really want to work on something BRAND new, but I don't want to be cutting - I want to be stitching! I should be working on V's quilt, but I am so not in the mood for it...

The good, bad, & the ugly

Yesterday after running my last errand (McIrish Annie - Life Chocolate is good...) I dropped my wallet & did not notice until this morning - you see I keep it in my jacket pocket instead of carrying a purse - I carry a backpack, too - but not for shopping, so the wallet lives in my pocket - that zips when I remember to zip it shut. Yesterday afternoon, it got into the 70's so I carried my jacket, instead of weraing it, so I did not notice the lack of heft until I went to put the jacket on thisw morning... PANIC - search around where the jacket has been setting, search the kitchen where the jacket visited while I dropped off the grocery sacks, search the car, serach the area between the front door & the car - no wallet... Call the store - wait for a good 10 minutes for someone/anyone to pick up... Ask about a wallet that was maybe turned in...
The lady then asked, "What is your name?"
I replied, "Amy P. S."
She then stated, "Spell your last name."
I replied, "If you are looking at my DL it is P..." (I need a roundtuit to get to the DMV - I also need to get a few car repairs done & the other license is good for a few more years...) "If you are looking at my work ID, it is S..."
She replied, "yes, we have your wallet."
Silently I said a little thank you... Out loud I thanked Rhapsody who sat next to me while I was on hold and let me pet her while my nervousness got the better of me... :o)

That was the GOOD.

The bad... theis minor delay, created a horrible commute, and a rather bad start to a hectic day. (I am still suffering from DST.)

The ugly - my cholesterol is to high... Dr. appt. resulting in... "less nuts and less cheese" I really like nuts and cheese...

HELP (Update part deux)

If you were coming to the Nations Capital (Washington, DC) last minute on a Friday (tomorrow) when it was supposed to rain... What would you want to do... (FYI Many things take appointments or you can't really do anymore at all - like tour the White House...)

My GF is coming down tomorrow (I am taking the day off) & I have no idea where to take her...

Where would you want to go?

American History is closed for renovations... Too early for the cherry blossoms...

We are going to go to Mt. Vernon (I think.) I know, "That's not in Washington, DC."

Up Town (updated)

Well last night, instead of logging off, I just locked my PC - so my shopping list for Up Town was waiting for me...

Yesterday on Flickr, I saw a Turning Twenty (Similar in concept to Yellow Brick road) that was made out of 1 line of fabric, so I get jazzed again to BUY BUY BUY more uptown fabric...

But then I saw (in the background) a simple just squares quilt (It was even tied - it was that simple) where all of the squares had a very similar tone and feel (AKA Matchy matchy - 1 line of fabric) to them. So I thought, my 6 fat quarters are all "Aqua" (I have been studying the heck out of the color card) so they too have a similar tone/feel to each other...

So maybe I should take Shelina's advice & just make something small... I don't "NEED" to buy anymore fabric... If I did not also find some on sale new to me kitty prints, I could easily Kibosh (Thanks AntiM for the new word - I had heard it before but never used it...) the whole order...

So why am I haveing such a hard time deleting the Up Town fabrics? I can justify the heck out of more cat prints... Someone who already has about 700 cat prints, really truely does need more! Meow!

Note: Yesterday's Matchy Matchy comments was not about the quilt matching my home, rather all of the fabrics with in it mathing themselves perfectly - you see I am a scrap quilter... (Take a look at the Jacob's Ladder that I posted a few day ago, if you don't believe me...)

And while, my Trip Around the World, does match my furniture and wall color - that is purely coincidental & my desire to have a neutral furniture wall scape...

Well, color me silly - I just remembered that I am dealing with Moda - the people who brought me the charm squares that I love so much... I can get a set of charms for a lot less that my more limited selection of 1/2 yards... (I had a little bit of trepidation about mixing 1/2 yards with fat quarters - will they be balanced? - But I was ready to dive in head first yesterday regarding that tiny tid bit) So I have put the Kibosh on most of the Uptown fabric. The current plan is to get the charm pack, sew them together as a bunch of squares & use my fat quarters for the backing... Oh and at 1/2 price, I am so getting those kitty prints!

Am I nuts?

Am I nuts? When did I get all matchy-matchy? Mod? (I think I got mod at the green faux zipper stage, but that is really beside the point, isn't it?)

Hey Andi - Is Beside the Pointe still a good restaurant in Phx? Am I showing my time away from Az.? (I ran across an old matchbook cover not to long ago - my punny mind made me think of it today...)

Back to the actual point of this post...

Last weekend, I purchased some lovely Moda (the same people who introduced those charm packs that I am finding to darned charming & the Jelly rolls...) fat quarters... The mostly light and aqua ones that you can see here Uptown. Immediately I thought I have 6 fat quarters, I can do a YBR - the only thing, that makes a baby sized quilt & in my mind those are so not baby fabrics... far to sophisticated... Well, the small calico-y one would be cute for babies... (The Biological clock is TICKING. TICK-TOCK if it wasn't apparent... I have been dreaming/day dreaming/googleing/flickring/blog hopping babies....)

Back to the point, again...

So I "need" some more to make the quilt at least lap sized, right?

Then I started thinking - Country Roads at least that is what I think this quilt is called... I own the pattern... I think the brown would be perfect for the sashing & inner border...

So here I sit with visions of a matchy matchy quilt (that will not match anything in my house) & a cart load of 1/2 yards, while I ponder the lint in my belly button - asking the never ending question, should I or shouldn't I? (Should I shop around some more, to see if I can make this purchase really worth while?) Is the fat quarter pack a better "investment" for the scrappiness that it will bring to my matchy matchy project... (I have already almost "spent" that much without getting the variety...)

Bowie, MD. Quilt show photos

(I am posting this now, because I just uploaded photos from my trip to Australia & I haven't figured out out to "file" my photos that are on Flickr - so these were on the verge of getting lost. Like most of the regular files on my computer.)

A small sampling of what is going on in Bowie, Maryland.





Does anyone know how to do this 3-d attic windows? (BTW That "color on black" that she used for her sashing, is in my Jacob's Ladder quilt... Yes, I have both of these kitty prints.)
Triple 4 patch, very effective pattern, shown here in CW reproductions, but I have see it done in brights and batiks - equally effectively.
30's are not my thing, but this quilt is so effective... I like the way the border blends with the last row of blocks. I also like how scrappy the quilt is. (Each flower petal on each flower was different - I did not check the yellow flowers against themselves, but I liked the idea...)
A cat quilt, need I say more... Love the button eyes...
Several gals from this quild went to a quilting retreat in California (Asilomar) and too this class with Jan Krentz, in my opinion, this was the best out of the group...
100% Hand done! (My friend is working on this quilt, only hers is charm style - no greens are used twice and no reds are used twice. She got a good selection in Mimi Dietrich's grad. class. - If you take Mimi's Baltimore Album Class, you can join Grad. Class - although they are about to burst out of the back room of the LQS - the grad. Class came about, because everyone had so much fun that they did not want to quilt seeing each other after the year long BAQ class ended.)
Close up of the hand quilting... AMAZING!

Quilts by me!

Instead of having a sign in book, we had our guests sign a quilt block. Here is the resulting quilt... (The binding is attached, but not hand sewn to the back...) Quilted by Sunshine Quilts. She also did a quilt that was used in my wedding, I wanted this quilt to have a similar feel.

Do you see my model? He just loves to be in the middle of everything... Can't miss out on anything. (I might have been eating a steak in bed...)
The blocks that were signed are called "Indian Hatchet" Solid squares are interspersed to form stars. I got the pattern out of a Fons and Porter magazine. (Batik back - one fabric - a pink with red flowers, batik binding - red, like the flowers on the back, quilted in label - machine stitched onto a batik - so this quilt is 100% batik...)
Jacob's Ladder - Nice and bright & scrappy! If I had to fit into one box, this is the one where I would be most comfortable. This quilt is the biggest size that Judy can fit onto her long arm!
The Jacob's Ladder block - with a good representation of the fabrics that I used. Black on blacks - one with cats..., dark white on blacks, dark color on black (not in this photo) mixed with brights that included color on white although they are not represented in this block and some cat fabrics... Does that suprise anyone? The border is a Laruel Burch cat print...
The backing - flannel, mostly Patrick Lose prints, but there is a 3rd cats on black that is not Patrick Lose..., The binding is a bright polkadot on black.

Together they weigh 18 lbs... (I like it when you can feel the heft in a quilt...)