Friday, October 31, 2014

Might As Well Bake

 Sometimes when you sew
 
 it all goes perfectly.
 O Happy Day!

The next day,
it can be totally different.
What's going on?!#*
What do you do?

On days like that I just walk away
 
and bake.
 O Happy Day!

My daughter, the teacher, needed
treats for the teacher's lounge this week.
Who doesn't like cupcakes? 
So I knew it was time to bake.
I had seen the recipe over
and knew I wanted to try it.

I love Lizzy's ideas because she generally 
starts with a cake mix and doctors it up
by adding good things like 
buttermilk and sour cream.

I started by taking Oreo cookies apart 
and decorating the half without the filling with
white chocolate lettering and edible glitter.

The other half of the cookie
 got placed at the bottom of
the cupcake liner and
the cake batter poured on top.
There's some extra goodness!

I made the cream cheese frosting light green.
I didn't want the teachers walking
around all day with their mouths tinted green.

Then the tombstones were added
to make a fun Halloween treat.

I heard they were a super hit.
A chocolate cupcake
with butter cream frosting,
and a hidden Oreo cookie,
what's not to love.
Happy Halloween.
  Until Next Time-

Friday, October 24, 2014

Easily Distracted

 Finally,
I can say I've completed a
few projects that have been on my list.

Time can slip away.
I've been meaning to stitch the binding
down on this.

It's the quilt I machine quilted myself
on a long arm.
Plus it was made entirely from
long forgotten and hidden at the bottom
of the pile fabrics.
So, in just a couple of hours
it was done.
Why do I procrastinate?

Because

I wanted to do
this instead on a beautiful fall afternoon.

I also finished my 
fall pillow before the season
 was officially over.

Why did it take me so long?

It was more fun to play
with these sillies.

(We take Halloween pictures early around here
because we have a history of blizzards 
on Halloween night.)

I also got the top done on this baby quilt.
It's the Falling Charms pattern

Super cute and super easy.
I improvised on the borders.
I didn't have enough for all four sides.
No, problem.

 I even made a little doll quilt to match.

There are still many things on my list
but...
you know,
it's easy to get distracted.


Until Next Time-

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

I Went to a Garden Party

I've been waiting all summer
to get to the Denver Botanical Gardens.
Well, now that it's fall,
I finally made it.

There's been a celebration of color and glass 
 mixed with the beautiful surroundings of
 the gardens going on.

Dale Chihuly's Garden and Glass
 exhibit was on display.

The colors were brilliant on
 
this beautiful fall day in Denver.

 The shapes and colors 

engaged your imagination.

The sculptures fit into the
garden landscapes
making you wonder if you were
looking at real flowers
 or glass ones,

a blazing red maple
or a object made of glass.
The sculptures really seemed to belong there.

Of course, we all wondered
how all of these glass sculptures
had survived some of the fierce hailstorms
the area had had this summer.

 It has interesting to 
look how he interprets our environment
 
 through the medium of glass.

As you can see,
 it was engaging

  for young and old alike.
If you ever have the opportunity to see
one of Dale Chihuly's exhibits
 be sure and take advantage of it and 
enjoy his work.


 Until Next Time-

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

A Super Seminar

 I spent last weekend with

 Alex Anderson


and

Ricky Tims.


 It was the kind of seminar 
that makes your head explode.
Not in a bad way, but
in a way that gets your juices running.

We heard about 
improvisational patchwork looking at 
Caveman style Convergence quilts

to
radial symmetry using his
 Bohemian Rhapsody (2002)

as an example.

This is Ricky's current project
a string quilt using all the leftover pieces from students
from the last 7 years of teaching classes.

It's being  machine quilting on his Bernina  home machine.

Then there were some his  prize winners

Linelines III: Can Something Come from Nothing
 Houston, 2012
I loved the couching technique,
all done on a regular sewing machine.

Alex shared her techniques
for adding squiggles into her patchwork.
 and much more

These two wonderful hosts from the Quilt Show.com 


have a great chemistry, bantering back and forth
and sharing their quilting techniques,
as well as, sharing their passion for quiltmaking and
stories of life.

The main thought I walked away
was the idea that you have to
find what you like and
follow your heart.

There's no one right way to do things.

There's no one style that is better than another.
Just make what you love, and
make it your passion.
 
It's not that I have to get out of my "box",
but maybe be willing to invite some new things
into my comfort zone and see how they might fit in.
( Bears in Bertie's Log Cabin.)
I like that idea.


Until Next time-

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Listen to the Rhythm

 All week I have been trying to think
of something interesting to write about.

I've been a bachlorette for the past 5 days,
so I was using this time
 to work on a number of projects
without too many interruptions, except
for the ones I created for myself.

But as much as I thought I would actually
finish something, it didn't happened.

Instead, I found myself doing more
prepping than anything else, 
which is not too exciting or clever to write about.

I kept hearing rhythms in my head.
Quilters rhythms like,


 prep, prep, fuse,
A-Z with Ewe and Me
Finally the borders.

 I was also hearing
cut, cut, sew a little,

I wanted to use some of the leftover fabrics
 from the A-Z with Ewe and Me sampler
 in the Falling Charms pattern from the 
Missouri Quilt Co. that
Paulette was using for a baby quilt, 
(I'm making two different sizes)
and
I had to make a few more nine patches to go
with the ones I'll be getting in the mail soon
from the nine patch swap that Barb organized.
 
 How about
trace, trace, cut
(more Noah and Matilda blocks)
I had to recut two of the blocks from
last month because I left them on the AIRPLANE!
and
pin, pin, sew together.
The Home for the Holidays quilt

Today, though, I will be doing something
very interesting.
I'm attending Ricky Tim's Quilt Seminar
with guest appearances with Alex Anderson.
So maybe next week,
I might be quilting to a whole new rhythm.
Who knows.

  Until Next Time-