and a good time was had by all

Last night was the Christmas party for my quilt group, the Ham Lake Piecemakers. By the way, who names a lake like that? Maybe there are just too many lakes to think up something more lovely than a chunk of hog. Sunset. Flower. Whisper. Rosebud. Those would all work better in my naming system. Anyway, back to the party, which was held at the home of Carol C. We have our regular meetings on the second, fourth and fifth Thursdays at Cedar United Methodist Church because it is sort of centrally located for our members and it is FREE! That made a big difference when we were informed that our previous meeting place (Ham Lake City Hall) could no longer accommodate our group. Since I was a member at Cedar UMC (and still am!) I hooked us up with the powers that govern the building. It's a small church, basically just the sanctuary, 2 offices, and one large multi-use space with a kitchen thrown in. But it has turned out to be a great place for the quilters on Thursday nights because we pretty much have the place to ourselves. And like I said, it's FREE! So to compensate for the utilities and wear-and-tear on the place, we have a tradition of collecting a Christmas donation of cash and cookies. And I got to bring the cookies home before delivering them to the church today so they can be used on Sunday. They are amazing!

Since they spent the night at myhouse, I had the chance to look at them a little more closely, and picked these out as my favorites:

What a generous group, it makes me happy to take these boxes of cookies along with an envelope stuffed with cash to the church office. Thank you Piecemakers!

We had a great potluck meal last night and Carol nearly ran out of counter space for all the goodies! I do have to say that her punch was yummy, and considering she confessed that she had never made punch before, I would say she should be our Punch Person from now on! Her home was great for our group of 25 (or so), roomy enough to enjoy our meal and then all sit together for the rest of the festivities. We play a little dice game for doorprizes, then we have an exchange of gifts. We draw names early in theyear, and then make something for each other. What a range of gifts and talents in our group! Everything from whole quilts to flannel slippers to pincushions to tablerunners, each gift a treasure.

I drew Jenny's name, and since I knew she loved Moda fabrics I wanted to do something with that. Here's what happened:

I sorted through my selvedges and used the ones that had come from Moda fabrics to make this little sewing caddy from a pattern by Graham Cracker Collection. I opted not to add the pockets on the outside of the pouch because that would have spoiled all those pretty selvedges! The pincushion on top is detachable from the tile base and the pouch is detachable to make emptying easy.

The edge of the pouch is made firm by a ring of plastic tubing sewn inside, which makes it flexible but resilient. The secret about this particular tubing is that it was scavenged from my nursing past (not used, I promise) and finally found a useful place. Pretty good re-purposing, don't you think?!

Sharon had drawn my name this year, and look at the cool spools she made for me! These will be perfect to hang on the wall by my thread rack.

Sharon found the pattern on a trip to Washington state at the Lavender Rabbit, if you look at this link you can see the neat idea for a hanger that I think I can contrive from some of my old wooden spools. What a great gift!

Today brings more sunshine and another party tonight, this time at a further distance (2 hours) so I hope the weather holds out, I don't want to miss Nancy's fest. I am cleaning, sewing, knitting, quilting and keeping the home fires burning (literally)!

straight and true

In the past week I have encountered a few occurrences of fabrics and seams that have deviated from the straight and narrow. This is always a frustration for me, since I like straight things to be straight. I'm just that way. Are you that way, too? If so, you might be interested in reading how I have learned to get things to go my way!

Here's a little quilt I put together--

It's called Jelly Jive by Pieced Tree Patterns. It is made from a "Jelly Roll", which is a pack of factory-cut strips that are 2 1/2" x 42", composed of the fabrics of a design group. In this case, it is Pure by Sweetwater for Moda. I alternated directions in sewing my long seams to try to minimize the problem of distortion, but that still didn't prevent me from ending up with a parallelogram instead of a rectangle! In order to get this back to somewhat near normal, I had to get down on my hands and knees.

Using my big square ruler, water spray bottle and pins, I staked it out on the carpet. I used the big square to help me make sure my seams were running straight and the corners would be square. I pinned it out as close to true as I could and sprayed the whole thing with water. After drying, I did some more adjustments andsprayed again, and came out with a much better result.

I used these little pins by Bohin, they worked well, but you might have others that you like.

Here's another example of a similar problem, this time it was a print that was a little skewed, but I wanted it straight for my purposes. I cut on the lines of the printed squares, then pinned it to the floor.

This time I had my laser level and square handy, so I made use of that. I put it at a corner and used the projected laser lines to establish where my fabric should be positioned. You can faintly see the little red line on the edge of the fabric and the spot on the black cabinet in the background where the line stopped. This little tool projects 2 lines at right angles, so I could do one corner and then move around to the other corners and adjust as needed. Spray with water, let dry, and voila! No more torqued corners! My tool comes from Stanley, I am sure there are other brands available.

In between all my squaring and shaping up, I have quilted this for a customer--

Not only do I love the colors and design of her blocks, but she supplied a dark brown plush fabric for the backing, which shows the quilting lines as very 3-dimensional and sculpted. She wanted a leafy vine spreading all over the quilt, so I had fun with that. The quilt pattern is Circle Dance, the same as I used for the quilt in the picture at the top of this page. No wonder I like it!

progress

In a recent post I showed you the project I was making with all those triangles that needed trimming. I am using Martinique, designed by 3 Sisters for Moda. I have made it to the point of joining all the blocks together, and I just barely have room to lay it out on the floor. Would be nice to have a design wall, but haven't made that happen yet. In the meantime, this works, and I use my handy dandy digital camera to help me. This is my tip for you---use your camera in place of a design wall! This gives me the perspective to view the overall color and block placement in a way that escapes me when I am looking at block-by-block.

Right away I can see that I need to reposition those 2 light blocks on the left side for starters. And maybe a few other changes from there. We'll see. With my camera I can get instant viewing either on the little camera screen or my computer screen without having to print anything. It gets 2 skinny borders, rick rack and a wide border yet to come.

Next up-- a quilted Fire Escape by Terry Atkinson, made by Debbie E. from patriotic prints.

I experimented a little with lots of swirls and curlicues and think I like it. This closeup looks awful yellow, the larger picture is more true to the color. I've been noticing this happens with my new camera and I haven't figured out how to avoid that or what I need to change with lighting, settings, etc. Any clues out there?

Next to be quilted---

Also made some really tasty brownies yesterday so I have to share that with you! I first will introduce you to Natalie of the Olive Grove. I met her 2 weeks ago in Molly's backyard where she showed up with these yummy Orange Brownies. Her recipe using her olive oil from her store! So began my quest for Blood Orange Olive Oil, bittersweet chocolate and ground almonds. Which resulted in good things in the oven, which I highly recommend to you! And this leads to a good quote:

"I am not a glutton--I am an explorer of food." ---Erma Bombeck

So long for now, the brownies are calling!

in the works

Martinique by 3 Sisters for Moda--gotta love it!

This is something that I have been working on for a couple months now, it is beautiful fabric and will be a sample for Bear Patch. Would be good to get it done while there is still a good amount of the fabric in the store! But I have not been focused on it so it feels frustrating to be so unfinished. I have actually completed 19 blocks and it needs 28 total plus 4 partial blocks and an applique flower block. I think I have all the half-square triangle blocks sewn now, but will have to double check the count to be sure. One problem I encountered was that all of these half-square triangles were in need of trimming down to size, not because I sewed incorrectly but because the cutting directions allowed for that. If I had been more diligent in reading the pattern prior to cutting, I would have converted over to using triangle paper instead. That gives me the exactly right size every time, and the job of removing the paper is, to me, less putzy than trimming everything. But the trimming did leave me a pretty little pile of quilters' confetti!

Quilt Fun

Something new and lovely spent some time on my quilt frame over the weekend, it looks so pretty and fresh! Debbie made this from a new group of fabric at the store for our upcoming display of baby quilts. The fabric group is Blush from Basic Grey by Moda. The pattern is LoLo by Blue Underground Studios. My quilting is pretty subtle, a few loops and feathers, to make a sweet little baby quilt that is useful and practical. We have other fun things in mind for display in a month or so, stay tuned.....