Movin' & Shakin'

Seems like Tuesday may be my official blogging day? I wonder where the week goes sometimes...

Anyhow, we made major headway on my Quilts for Kids quilt this weekend! Went over to a friend's house and pieced together the top while she put together her's too. While I received cute yet clearly girlie Tinkerbell fabric, she got John Deere tractor fabric!!! It is incredibly bold :-) We took a little break to head over to a new popsicle shop she was raving about - and she was right - DELISH! http://steelcitypops.com/  I went for the hibiscus and she grabbed the cucumber lime - both fantastic. We also did some brainstorming for quilt names as we get to name the quilts; I can't come up with anything fun for the Tink quilt but we might have landed on Tractortastic for hers. Any name suggestions for Tink? Here is Tink in all her glory, basted and ready to become my first FMQ'd quilt! Wish me luck!

A good weekend - but playing with all my friends' dogs made me miss mine, who is at home in CA with the 'rents because Lola would hate apartment living and humidity. I present the saddest looking, tiniest St Bernard... poor gal is climbing up there in years.

Should be a good week - finishing up Tink, continuing work on the blue/green disappearing nine patch squares, and Saturday will be a one-day early Christmas in July craft-a-thon with my good buddy! Thinking about making this frittata to start Saturday morning off right - http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2006/07/how-to-make-frittata-greek-frittata.html - good idea, no?

Happy Tuesday every one!

-k

Lusting after fabric...

In the mornings before I get real serious at work, I like to check the quilting blog community. I sit and drink my source of caffeine - coffee or diet coke (lovingly called DC) - and scroll through all the wonderfulness that everyone has made and is nice enough to share on the interwebs. It is absolutely stunning... I sit here drooling over all the fabrics out there and just wishing I had all the money I wanted so I could buy it all and have it in a room where I sit there and touch it all and breathe it in and just smile at all the beautiful fun fabric surrounding me. Then the HARSHNESS of reality hits - I am a poor graduate student. But that makes me super thankful to all of you bloggers who share the pictures of wonderful fabrics! So thank you very much!!!

Here are some of the fabrics I saw perusing today and loved:

Ayumi at Pink penguin has a few photos up of some cute little things with great fabrics with punches and pops of color that make me smile: http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2012/06/gifts-sent-and-received-etc.html

Rachel at Stitched in Color made a journal cover with fabrics I would do many a thing to get my paws on: http://www.stitchedincolor.com/2012/06/whimsy-plus-covered-journal.html

And Elizabeth at Oh Fransson! has these amazing refrigerator magnets with fantastic colors dancing on gray backgrounds: http://www.ohfransson.com/oh_fransson/2012/06/refrigerator-magnets.html

I hope your day is just as lusciously fabric-y as mine has been!!!

-k

Frustration with curves

So, granted, I probably took a bite way too big for me to chew as a beginner quilter, and this project has gone on for far too long, but one day when feeling overly ambitious I decided to make a double wedding ring quilt for a friend. Aye carumbah, what was I thinking! This thing has become a monster!

Over time it has slowly taken shape, from cutting out over a thousand strips of fabric for paper piecing the arcs, sewing them all on to one another, and making my rows; but alas it took me two hours to sew two rows together. I cannot for the life of me fathom how to sew curves, then right angles, then curves, then right angles, etc. 11 rows X 2 hours a piece = far too many hours for me to spend putting this face together! I am so frustrated, it is hard to get up the motivation to finish this quilt. I even laid it out to try and and see how beautiful it would be when put together hoping that would be my kick in the ass to finish, but no no no, it failed to work.

Now you all know what I have been working on FOR-EVVV-EERRRRR. Wish me luck in getting it done, even though it will not be technically sound :-( I hope if any of you have unfinished projects that are the bane of your existence, that you can find the motivation (which I can't) to finish your project!

Happy Tuesday!
-k

Boo being sick...

I spent the week laying on my couch watching Studio Ghibli films because I felt like poop. Besides the awesomeness on my TV screen, it was a slow boring week with lots of liquids. And although I felt crappy, my basil plant apparently loves himself and sunshine because he is growing superbly! You can see him here in the window making sure everyone parks in the right spot and watching ambulances go by:

I used part of him over the weekend to make basil and goat cheese stuffed chicken breasts with mashed cauliflower and roasted brussel (sp?) sprouts... mmmmmyumm. It was delightful. But before I got sick, I worked a little more on my sudoku quilt. I took a picture of the face with the future backing and binding. The binding is a really pretty purple but my camera skills provide no justice.

The lack of progress on the actual quilting of Mr. Sudoku is due to some other projects - I am very bad at starting a bunch of projects then slowly getting around to finishing them. I spent some time cutting out twelve 5X5 squares from 12 different fabrics, so 144 squares, all to make a fun disappearing nine patch quilt. A friend of mine made some placemats a while back using the nine patch and I have wanted to try the pattern ever since. Here's a picture of the beginnings of this quilt - it is using a lot of fabrics from Connecting Threads Birchtree Lane by Jenni Calo:

I am trying to work on my photography skills, so please bear with me :-) In the meantime, good news is my Quilts for Kids kit has been shipped to me! So excited to get to work on it.

Happy fabrics and foods!

Saturday!!!!!

I always used to associate Saturday mornings with an "ugh" due to my parents Type A need to clean the whole house. In practice it is a great idea - because then you are free to relax and have fun the rest of the weekend. As I get older, and yes, lazier, I put the cleaning on the back burner and choose to have fun right away... no more of this delayed gratification shit.

This morning I was super excited to head to the farmer's market and get some scrumptious tiny tomatoes to use for a recipe I have been wanting to try. Not only did I score with baby tomatoes, I got a be-YOO-tiful beefsteak tomato which is immediately going into a scrumptious tomato sandwich! And I got a cute little basil plant who's future I hope will be longer than the last time I tried to grow basil - eek.

To continue my Saturday fun day I plan to make some major headway on my sudoku quilt: a Moda charm pack of Kate Spain's Central Park line. Most likely I will dig through my stash and pick out some fun fabrics for a teenage boy quilt for Quilts for Kids. Here is what I have so far for sudoku (the sashing is Kona gray):

And lastly - the costco butter had a great time swimming in my mixer. The other night I tried a recipe from Food Network magazine to make chewy chocolate chip cookies. They didn't come out super chewy but they were super delicious!

Hope Saturday is a great day for everyone else too!

-k

sew something fun for charity!

A friend of mine just sent me the link to this charity Quilts for Kids:
http://www.quiltsforkids.org/patterns/request/
Basically, kids in hospitals all over the nation get quilts from this organization. You can use fabric from them (request a kit) or from your own stash. All the specs and details are on their site. My friends and I have all requested some and are also making some from our stashes. The quilts are lap quilt size - so really they are a great opportunity to try new patterns or different quilting techniques! Happy sewing
-k

An attempt to be web legit

Previously I have tried to blog, and the result was failure. Utter failure. So, why you ask, am I going for round two of probable failure? Maybe I am a glutton for punishment. Or, maybe I just want a way to keep all my thoughts together, seeming as my brain isn't capable and I have misplaced thousands of little tiny scraps of paper with new thoughts, craft ideas, book titles, recipes, etc. Most likely I am responsible for the destruction of a tiny rain forest due to all the damn paper. Anyhow, like I said, most likely failure but we'll see. Keep your fingers crossed.

Most importantly though: my desire to use this lovely lad who has been quite neglected in my cupboard for a while. Don't worry little buddy - I GOT COSTCO BUTTER!

-k