Sunday, March 27, 2016

SNAPSHOTS quilt by Fat Quarter Shop, and month end STASH report

Quilts don't get much cuter than this.  I love working on this gal's quilts because she is a Very.Accurate.Piecer.

I love the picnic block because, um, lemme think... it includes a glass of bubbly!!

Sunbonnet Sue is taking the dog to the beach.

Pinwheels are flying out of the basket on the bike.

Who doesn't like cake???

You probably wouldn't be reading this blog if you didn't love sewing (or someone who sews???)

Even the backing has a camera block!
The piecer made a mockup of the quilt where she had doodled quilting ideas, and brought it along with the quilt.  That is a GREAT thing to bring to your quilter when you have a 'special' quilt and your own ideas.  You may not get exactly what you drew, but it is a great jumping off point for the longarmer.
The patterns are available on the Fat Quarter Shop blog... here.  As they have requested, you should make a charitable donation to express your appreciation.

STASH REPORT
Used this month  6.65 m
Used YTD         29.54 m
Added this month  9.5 m
Added YTD          9.5 m
NET 2016       (-20.04 m)

I was doing really well for the first two months of the year.  Then Sew Little Time came to retreat with fabric, and then Red Hat day took us to two quilt shops. 

Here is a pic of some of the March fabric used.  So cute!  It almost makes me wish I was four years old again.  And then it occurs to me that if I WAS four years old people would frown on my martini consumption.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Circles are 'HOT' in quilting, and Friendships

Quilting designs with circles are 'da bomb', you might say.

They look good with stripes and plaids.
They looks good with moderns and solids.
They look good with elegant fabrics.

There is a blog I read sporadically:  Brain Pickings which reviews books, providing a very thoughtful and well researched recap. I came across this one today and I found it pretty interesting.  Who hasn't gone through a 'friend breakup' at some point in their life?

Steinbeck and the Difficult Art of the Friend Breakup

“I can’t consider you a friend when out of every contact there comes some intentionally wounding thing.”

“A friend,” wrote the poet and philosopher John O’Donohue in his beautiful meditation on the Ancient Celtic notion of anam cara, “awakens your life in order to free the wild possibilities within you.” But what happens when a friendship ceases to magnify your spirit and instead demands that you be a smaller version of yourself? While David Whyte is absolutely right in that “all friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness,” there comes a point past which granting forgiveness yet again for the same hurtful behavior becomes not an act of moral strength but one of moral weakness — an exercise in self-mutilation in the unwillingness to relinquish what has metastasized into a draining or even abusive relationship.

If you want to read the whole review, HERE is the link.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Easter/Baby Bunnies

Really, these are bunnies for a baby quilt. But Easter is coming up soon, so...

Normally I hate the little buggers because they are out in the garden lopping off the tops of my green beans.  But these are the cutest things I've seen all week.

I quilted around the applique then stitched a bunny pantograph on the rest of the quilt.  

At retreat last weekend I finished piecing these two little tops for the Hospice, then got them quilted and bound this week.  These are 40" square and 36" square, respectively.

And I've been baaaaddd.  It started with the license plate fabric.  My favorites are "stitch my grits" and "kiss my stash".  Ha ha ha.  The purples are for a couple of projects to be done soon-ish.  The aqua batik is for the horrible (!) Paint Chip Challenge / Border Challenge.
I have finished off the birthday celebrations I think.  On Tuesday I had my birthday dinner with long-standing friends from my RBC days, then on Thursday I went to see David Myles in Brantford.  I'm focusing on spring now - I have a flat of various veggie & herb seedlings sprouting down in the dungeon, and I have a seed-acquiring outing planned for this week.  The garlic that was planted last fall is showing little green shoots and the crocuses are starting to open.