It's My Birthday!

Happy Birthday to me! I'm 38 today. Do I look it? (say no!)

I'm having a very nice day. My coworkers took me to a Greek place for lunch. My co-worker and friend Sarah got me some fabric - a few almost solids and a piece of Anna Maria Horner's Drawing Room. Love it!

My other coworker/friend Erin made me this cake - tart lemon with blackberry reduction filling and cream cheese icing! Yum! Tonight my daughter is going to make steak and chicken shishkebabs with veggies for our party. I'm having a nice birthday, hope your days is good too!

Wendy

Sunday Stash

Today for Sunday Stash I have the fabric I bought during the one day 50% special that I was alerted to on St. Patty's day by Quilt Dad. It was a great sale, but I was a little disappointed - I ordered seven fabrics but when they came I only got four. They said the rest were sold out. Well why didn't you tell me that?! I would've ordered more and then waited to see which were delivered and which weren't. Oh well, at least I got a good deal on these.

Designer fabric lovers will recognize Heather Bailey pineapple brocade and paisley, along with Sandi Henderson's Petal Party. I can't remember the designer of the red/pale yellow so if you know, tell me! My cat Victory says hi. Click to make them larger and bask in their gorgeous colors.

Enjoy! Wendy

A Twinkle of Stars

My mom just bought me the book Stars by Magic by Nancy Johnson Srebro. It was perfect to make some stars for the patriotic quilt. I love all three of her "by magic" books and many of the things on this blog are made from patterns I found in them. Her "magic" is using only cut squares and rectangles to make all the blocks. So the diamonds you see here started out as rectangles.

Sharp-eyed blog followers will notice that the blue star on the lower left is the one I featured in this post as unintentionally wonky. I lived with it for a few weeks, but eventually I couldn't stand it and I had to fix it!

Enjoy!

A Wave of Flags

A wave of flags flapping in the breeze, waiting to go into the patriotic quilt!

A Gaggle of Sams

Might it be better to say a pride of Sams? A clutch? A herd? If you can think of a better word, let me know. At any rate, the Sams are all lined up, ready to go in the patriotic quilt. Click to make them larger, they really do look better big.

Tomorrow I will feature some flags, and the day after, some red, white and blue stars. He wants YOU to tune in tomorrow to see them!

Wendy

Sunday Stash and a Sweetie

I'm a wealthy fabric miser! I'm going to put my fabric in a pile, jump into it and do the back stroke like Scrooge McDuck. I bought some scraps from two etsy sellers and here are just my favorites from the two scrap packs. Which fabric is your favorite??? I love the Mocca in brown and red (fourth from the right in the first photo). It is the sister to the fabric I featured in last Sunday's stash (below) but I think I like it even more. Thoughts? Click on them to make them larger.

Oh, I also added a gratuitous photo of Gigi, but it's admissable because the fabric on her dress is so cute. Right? My mom bought it from Chicken Noodle in San Francisco. My mom also points out that if you enlarge it, the look on her face is the same as mine when I was a teen ager. Uh....what are you trying to tell me mom?

Wendy

Star Wall Hanging

This is a wallhanging I made for our living room years ago. It still looks pretty good, except the star points that appear as light purple were originally dark purple - they faded out with the light. Still looks ok! Enjoy.

Wendy

Sunday Stash and Sweets

I just joined the Sunday Stash group, so here is my stash for the day. First, a chocolate cake I made using a recipe from allrecipes.com. I made the dark chocolate frosting with a recipe from the back of the special dark cocoa powder box and my five year old sprinkled purple sugar on top. Today I also baked two loaves of wheat bread and two of white. The white ones went to the neighbors and we're eating on the wheat ones.

Here are a couple cool fabrics I found sorting through the piles today. I LOVE the large floral ones, the colors are so soothing. I don't know the name of the pattern or designer, so if you know, please share. I love the salt and pepper shakers one because I sort of collect salt and pepper shakers. Really, it's a very small and dwindling collection since my kids keep breaking them. The only thing I really collect is .... wait for it....fabric! But i'm sure you guessed that already. Cheers!

Wendy

The Quilt That Almost Broke Me

Of all the quilts that have tried to break me over the years, this one almost did it. I came very, very close to allowing it to win, but I stuck with it and eventually emerged triumphant! Nice try Grandmother's Choice block - picking on a poor beginning quilter! Sorry for the poor photo quality, I had to scan these in.

I made this quilt for my step daughter Heather's highschool graduation six years ago. I chose this block so I could transfer photos to fabric and feature them in the nice open center square. Being a self-taught beginning quilter, I just jumped right into all these billions of triangles. I also used whatever materials I felt like: recycled clothes, crappy cottons, linen, polyester, etc. Yeah....hmmm...probably going to regret that. But I just happily sewed along, by hand of course, and ended with 20 blocks consisting of 34 triangles each. I was tired but happy.

Happy, that is, right up until the point where I tried to make rows with the blocks. They were not all the same size. Hmmm, guess those bias edges stretched a bit. I measured them and, no joke, the smallest was FOUR INCHES smaller than the largest! Horrifying. So I almost let the quilt win. But I finally decided to pick a measurement from the middle and make everybody match that one. The larger ones I cut down a bit (without cutting off knots) and the smaller ones I added fabric to. When all was said and done, you can't really tell! Go ahead and enlarge the first one and see if you can tell where the mistakes are.

That's Heather on the left in the first one, me and her dad in the middle with a pie, and Heather and her paw paw in the last one. Enjoy!

Wendy

Material Monday

Why does gorgeous fabric have to be so expensive? Well, I guess compared to other hobbies, it's pretty cheap, but still! Why can't I get as much as I want without having to put some of the best ones back? Here is the fabric I got at the Honeybee Quilt Store yesterday - the cotton is on top and the two flannels are last. The green leaves and the pink/red/white are home dec fabrics and so were even more expensive ($15.50 per yard)! But I had to have them. I only got quarters of most of them, but the flannel birds I got 1.5 yards so I can use it as a baby quilt backing.

Click to enlarge and enjoy the soothing effect of staring at lovely fabric!

Wendy

Stars for the Australian Bushfire Quilt Project

Well, here are my two stars for the Bushfire Project. I've never made wonky stars before and it takes a bit of practice to get them wonky without the points being too skinny. Making these was especially hard for me as I don't own a machine! You have to cut through seams a lot to make them, which is no big deal for a machine sewer, but I kept cutting off my knots and having to go reknot my ends. But that's ok, because it's for a good cause. I will send them to Australia tomorrow!

Wendy