Fabric

Fabric lovers visit this site for a "stashing and giving away" of fabric. You know you want it. Her etsy shop is full of delightful cupcake minis.

Details

I will be leaving tomorrow for San Francisco. I'll see everyone (online that is) when I get back. In the mean time here are some small little things from my life.

This ceramic duck reminds me of one that I saw on Doe-C-Doe's blog.



My mom found this for me. There may be another name for it, but I call it an inked embroidery pattern. Vintage of course.



I find 10-cent designer's work so fun that I thought I would try one of my own.



See Adam's lost his head.

His dad gave him his old bowling ball.



I tell you though- I am worried sick about leaving Misty. My friend has nicely offered to watch her for the week. This will save us a bunch of money as kenneling her is around $30 a day- with an extra $5 to walk her. Lucky our cat will be kenneled at the vet.

You see Misty is an expert escape artist.



When we first got her at the shelter they told us she couldn't be off leash. This is because while she was at the shelter she climbed her fenced in area one night (well over 12 feet with a teeny gap at the top) to be with the dog next to her. Yup they found her sleeping next to the other dog. She is that sweet.



Once we left her in Adam's truck and the next thing we know there she is standing there next to us. She pushed open the sliding back window and jumped out.

We have taught her to stay close while we hike in the woods- but she still sometimes refuses to listen. Once on one of our hikes near Mt. Whiteface she decided to keep going. We ran around the top of the mountain for twenty minutes frantically looking for her. She was walking back down with another family.



So I am worried sick. I mean really worried. I really can picture her being let outside and running away, or walking in the woods and taking off, her maybe scratching one of my friend's daughters (Misty is still puppish), or chewing something important or peeing somewhere inside because she never barks to be let out (she is super quiet).

Two of our other pets died in the past six months and I don't think I could lose another. Not her. Keep your fingers crossed for her please.

Scores

It is impossible to take good photos before I go to work. My contacts are floating around like crazy and there is nill for light. Unless I rush home after work, I still don't have much light to work with (and I hate flashes). Anyway, as you can tell I am super eager for summer to be here. I would love to see the sun on a regular basis and think it would be great if some of the brown snow would melt so that I could see what is green and grows beneath it.

Anyway, all that complaining is because I really wanted to show you a nice photo of this mini quilt made from scraps. But this is all I got.



I am going to start hand sewing my bindings because they really come out bad doing it on the machine. My mom was recently giving me some blind stitch tips and I think that is going to help.

On my mission to use scraps, I've decided to give myself a tacky novelty fabric challenge. Yup, I as I am sure many of you, have somehow purchased (eek) tacky novelty fabric. I was very close to throwing it out the other day when I though better of it. Instead, I am going to challenge myself to come up with something interesting with it. So here is the little devil fabric.



I scored these little cupcake toppers from this etsy shop. Her cupcake toppers are all so amazing. Even though I have a huge (really hug) bag of vintage toppers that I found at the dump I couldn't resist these.

Projects

Keeping my fabric store trips to a minimum has really forced me to try new things. I am loving it. As a quilter/hoarder I feel great pleasure using up what I have. I do wish I had a better stock pile of whites and off whites for borders.

I was so inspired by Tallgrass Prarie Studio's quilt that I made these rectangular blocks.



Seeing her quilt made me realize how little I've used long rectangular blocks.



I had all these green pieces leftover from this quilt. I made long strips from them and then cut the smaller sizes I needed for the rectangles. Super easy to do. I plan to only have six blocks in this quilt with really big borders.

I am so thrilled to finally have landed one of these cameras on ebay.



Polaroids here I come baby.

Lusterware

One of my first collections was lusterware- mainly the colors from the 50's.



These purple cups with orange on the inside are little snack plates. They are marked from Czechoslovakia. Most of the colors I collect are either from Czechoslovakia or Japan. I love the sheen of lusterware and how delicate they are.





These three cups and saucers have a very interesting and unusual pattern.







The only teapot I have. In great condition really.



Amazingly, it has it's sugar pot too.



And these are a few mismatched tea cups and a creamer. They are wonderful to hold bobbins of thread.



They have a pearlized inside.

Inspired

I love Ann Sacks' advertisements. The photos are so feminine, but classic and fun still. Here are some things on my inspiration line.





I love that frilly bathing suit. I seriously had one almost exactly like that when I was five or so.

Isn't this spring cake amazing? Adam's mom made it.

Beastie

I finally finished this Denyse Schmidt's What a Bunch of Squares quilt. I've named it Beastie as it has tortured me continuously through the making process.



Blood was drawn, swears were uttered, cats and dogs were constantly being asked to get off of it and in the end after I put it away for a couple days, I was happy with it.





I love quilting, but really it is the sewing the pieces together that I love. I am sure I could learn to love the actual quilting and binding process if I just had some more darned space and a machine that could take a full sized quilt with out constantly breaking needles.





A great post here from Small Life blog on why she likes long arm machine quilting. I am already on board for trying it.





The top right hand square in the above photo is an example of a scrap block. I barely had enough fabric to make this quilt full sized. Also, I love having at least one section on a quilt be totally improvised.

The quilt is actually a double sided quilt. The other side was an idea from Bling on my Sewing Machine Blog.





Actually this side makes the whole thing a very fun four way quilt. See the quilt is actually a square- so it can be on a bed in at least 4 (really 8) different directions. I originally made the strippy side to be with vertical lines, but I realized that I could put it horizontally too.

Early photos

Getting my digital camera at Christmas has really brought me back to loving photography. I thought I would share some older photos of mine. These were all taken on my SLR camera.





One of my favorite things to photograph is water. I love slow shutter speeds and need to figure out my new camera more.











And, my blogging debut....



Adam took this, maybe 7 or 8 years ago. I had been nagging him to stop putting me directly dead center of the photo and he gave me this.

Quick Hello

Were you aware that I collect skunks?



Mainly, little skunk statues. I think they are charming really.

I have tomorrow off from work and I plan to sew, sew, sew. I have a stack of half finished quilts that must get done! I do need to go get some more cotton batting and will probably take Misty for a walk in the woods and a run around the block. Other than those things-uninterrupted sewing. As long as my sewing machine doesn't electrocute me again.

I know these aren't the best photos of this, but aren't these days of the week tea towels great as curtains? I just love em.





So plan to see some great projects starting Monday! Also, tomorrow I am mailing things to both Molly and Jen--sorry I've taken so long.

the Old Me

The old me, in high school and college took more landscapes and more sweeping large type landscapes. I am still drawn to landscapes. I hope I don't bore you all with these. I promise- more sewing soon!