A little Kaffe...a little Jacobs.....and Maria's Big Good...Bad...Good Week!

Several months ago...lucky me....I brought home from work a bunch of Kaffe Fasset and Phillip Jacobs trimmings. I sewed them together in groups of 5 or 6 depending on the colors or shapes of the trimmings since they were all pretty wonky, then put them aside. Finishing Emanuela's quilt I fell in love with the Kaffe map fabric I put on the back so decided to pull out those strips and start playing with them once again.

I laid them out light down to dark, added a border of fuchsia fabric and some yardage of Kaffe I had been hording and came up with this! I love it, when you look at it from a distance it looks like a sunrise/sunset. One week after I put this together I found more Kaffe/Jacobs trimmings in my apron pocket at work! Well, the top is done....but I still needed a backing!

Sewed those scraps together, did a little cutting, added the map fabric and there you go. It will be a while before this is quilted because I feel it needs some FMQ... need to learn how to do that first!!

Made this mini from the scraps....put my label up at the top so I can use it as a hanger....kinda looks like Stonehenge doesn't it?:) Maybe that's what I'll call it!

I've been busy but this girl has had a roller coaster of a week! She found out one of her papers was published on the Young Adult Fantasy Guide. Great! A couple days later she went to a poetry slam and her backpack with her Acer netbook, ipod, American phone, camera and external hard drive was stolen! Worst of all her notebooks, one of which she has been writing ideas in for the past 5 years was in the backpack too! Downer! Luckily she had her UK phone and her WALLET in her hand!

Earlier in the week she was contacted by the Save the Children, Born to Write Blogging Conference that she had won a spot in their Masterclass with Melvin Burgess....but she had to work! Downer! After the backpack incident she contacted work and found a replacement so off to London she went! Yeah!

She tells this all much better than I do...go have a visit and sent her some bloggie encouragement!!:) There's more to the story!!

Goodness....can you believe that March is almost here? Time to start thinking about the garden! Yeah!!

~d

Triangles....Love Them....Hate Them...

I love triangles....have loved them since learning how to make Half Square Triangles (HST) in Round 2 of the Old Red Barn Quilt Along. But I am lazy and I'll try anything that is a shortcut to getting a quilt top pieced quickly so I can move on to my next idea. So when Marguerite of Adventures of Quilting and Sailing told me a trick she had learned from someone else for making HST I had to try it!
This is what I came up with....or at least what my little quilt was supposed to look like and here is what Marguerite told me....

Using charm squares (you can use whatever size squares you want but this was really easy) take 2 putting right sides together, sew a 1/4" seam ALL the way around the outside edge of the squares....cut on the diagonals and iron toward the darkest side!! With 5" squares you end up with four 3" HST!!! LOVE this!!!

Chain stitching is sooo much fun too....but now I'll tell you what I don't like about triangles....all the seams while quilting!! My machine just seems to get stuck a lot when I quilt tops with triangles...I think it's me...I'll figure it out because I'm not giving up on triangles..... the other thing that is aggravating....is me...

....when I sew my rows together wrong and end up with diamonds

instead of Zig Zags!! Oh well...I still like it!

Thanks for the tip Marguerite!! xo

~d

A GREAT Day!!:)

First of all the SUN was out and it was almost 7o degrees, nothing was going to stop Dena and I from finally getting together again! After lunch at Panera's and a visit to Dena's place of employment....
...we promised to get together again sooner than later...me thinks next week!!:) We did remember to take a photo...man do I need to go for a touch up!:) Thanks for a good time Little D!!xo
The great day didn't stop there...waiting for me in our mailbox was a plethora of soft mail! Three envelopes had bitty blocks, the biggest envelope had this....

Can you believe this? Amy of Stolen Moments for Creativity is my partner for this round of the Mini QT Swap, the theme is 3D...and boy did she nail it!:) Between the linocut print, open door, embroidery, pleated lampshade with bead body and the wee little picture hanging from ribbon this little gem is a masterpiece and is already hanging in my room for me to enjoy 24/7!!:) There is lots more...go visit her blog to see her lovely photos and the other wonderful things that she makes during stolen moments!:) Thanks Amy!!

One other envelope arrived along with all that soft wonderfulness....postcards and a music CD from Maria. Alas sweetie...the CD doesn't work...but we loved the postcards....see that door at the bottom right? That's where Maria works!:)

To top it all off Don came home with some lovely fruit and veggies for our dinner...yum!

Yes, it was a great day....now I'm going to go play with some Kaffe!!:)

~d

ps....Slate is doing well!!:)

Happy Valentines Day....to Us!

He was our Christmas present to each other last year because we spent so much on his vet bill....he is our Valentine's Day present to each other this year....because we spent soooo much money today on his vet bill.
We don't know what he is fighting with to get these wounds that then get infected. He is the SWEETEST kitty....we think he is related to the cat in Neil Gaiman's "The Price" ...have you read that story?

Slate is not real happy right now....he has to be an inside cat for two weeks!

This is not going to be easy!

~d

With Love to Italia

I have recently reconnected with my Dad's family back in Reggio Calabria, Italia...young Emanuela and I have become email pals. She is my dad's(Anthony), sister's (Domenica), son's (Antonino), daughter!:)
Did that make sense?
Emanuela had seen my blog and commented on the quilts and right away I knew I had to make one for her. I asked her what her favorite colors are and she said fuchsia, rose, lilac, blue, turquoise..."clouds in the morning". Well that sure made it easy. I immediately thought of my little collection of Kaffe fat quarters. So with a little Kaffe and a couple of yards of Bella solid I had a little fun!:)

This photo is for Lynz's husband!!:)

Here is my fun displayed on the car I drove in high school...a '67 Mercury Cougar and Don's '77 Mach I Mustang...our courting car...is behind it. They are officially antiques...they only have to be 25 years old to get that designation...what does that make me?:)

Look Emanuela...your quilt has been in the snow!:)
It has been over 2 1/2 weeks since the big snow but has been so cold there is still a ton on the ground....looking forward to the 60+ degrees they have promised in the next couple of days!

To make this a really international quilt I used Kaffe's map fabric on the back...continents that aren't real continents...love it!!

~d

Rainbow Explosion and a few fish bones!

December's theme at the Bitty Block Committee was Roy G Biv....rainbow colors...the prism, and I have finally put that little mini together....Slate decided it was a good place to sleep as this is where I found him this morning. I used one of Maria's old dresses for the backing.

This morning we had luscious sunshine....I basked in it while at the computer....

....and so did the minis. The one on the left is made from all the scraps. I am trying hard to use up scraps while they are sitting there on my cutting board.

I had this great fabric...Puzzle Pieces in a rainbow gradation for the sashing and of course....fish bones for the binding!:)

I needed this pop of color today...and the sunshine!

Hope you are getting your "D" today!!

~d

Bitty Blocks Tres and Some Other Sweet Stuff!

ORBC Quilt-Along Ticker Tape Round 9 is finished so I have rejoined the world of Swaps!:) One of my favorites is the Bitty Block Committee! This month's themes are word/text or trees. Of course I had to do both of them!
I had some Moda Sunkissed scraps from work and sewed them together...decided they needed a little something so I took inspiration from one of the words on the fabric and embroidered a little sprout!

I want to put the trees with the houses from last month...I love felt and whipped these up. I can't wait to get all of them...I have an idea!:)

How about these guys...Sooz had this idea to make bitties with veggie celebrities like Beety Boop or Lima Beanelli....I picked Dr. Pepper...I just realized their arms are above their collar!! Oops!:)

When bitty's were finished I dug out the Pure canvas I bought several months ago...I decided I needed a new bag. Like my hot pink Swiss Army knife?:)

This was my favorite project of the week! My lovely coworker Kerry brought me some sweets from her trip to Road to California....a couple of candy coated FQs!! I added them to some cupcake fabrics and colorful scraps and now have a fantastic tablerunner that I will use for birthday parties...and to top it off the mailman made a timely delivery of that teapot fabric...isn't it perfect?:)

These were made with the scraps from Emanuela's quilt....still working on the quilt's binding. I promise I'll be done soon Bella!:)


~d

She's Not Here Yet....

....but this is for Penelope....she's due next week.

Her mom and my mom sing in the same choir at church...mom asked me to make a quilt for her.

Penelope...your family is excited!

Do you think she will like this?;)

~d

Round 9 of the Old Red Barn Quilt Along....Together at Last!:)

That's right...all the steps (links) for Round 9,

Variations on a Theme: Ticker Tapes

all on one post!

Post #1- Declaring the Theme!
Post #2- Supplies
Post #3- Cutting time

Post #4- Samples

Post #5- Samples Continued

Post #6- Sewing on the Scraps

Post #7- Quilting Examples

Post #8- Sewing the quadrants together

Don't forget....we want to see your lovely creations so make sure you post on the ORBC flickr page!!

Ciao

~d