Amy's messy sewing room dare

Amy over at Amy's Creative Side is daring us to show off our messes.

Remember all of that gorgeous progress I made on my sewing room? I kind of undid it when I cleaned up my sewing corner in the dining room and hauled everything back upstairs.





This is okay. It's actually better, because unless I do something dumb like posting pictures on my blog, I'm the only one who will see it. Now I can sort through it all at my own pace without anyone else looking over my shoulder.

It's more organized than it was before I started. I've pulled out most of the stuff that didn't belong in the sewing room and I've shifted the yarn to one side of the room and the fabric to the other side. Backings are in one big box. Sheets are in another.

WIPs are in boxes on the desk, which need to be stacked more carefully so I can have the desk back... There's a big stack of baby quilts by the steamer trunk that I can take down to the pregnancy center... and when I went up to take the pictures, I found a set of Q-snaps that are larger than the ones I've been using to hold my Hocuspocusville embrodery. It's exatly what I needed to find today, and I wasn't looking for it because I thought all of the frames were disassembled and packed away.

I can work with this.

June NewFO - Hocuspocusville

I am absolutely loving this month's project!



I don't think I've ever started an embroidery project this massive. When I got the pattern for my birthday and ordered the fabric, I didn't really think I'd be finishing it any time soon. But now that I've got it started, I want to make this entire quilt, and I fully intend to keep going until I've got it done.



I'm actually feeling that way about most of my NewFO projects. The spiral log cabin still has me a little puzzled, but the others are going great.



This post is linked to the June NewFO Linky Party at Cat Patches.

quilt shops don't have this effect on me

It'd been at least eight years since my last trip up to Acorns & Threads. Partially because I haven't been doing any cross stitching, and partially because we moved 50 miles further south and it seems kind of extreme to drive 200 miles round trip to drool over thread and charts if you haven't touched floss or a chart in so many years.

Yesterday, I had to drive up to Portland to run an errand that turned out to be on the same street...and my husband wasn't with me...and it was still early in the afternoon....

Oh dear! I'd forgotten how gorgeous and addictive that place is. Go click over and take a peek at the interior. The store isn't listed in the van's GPS, but I knew it was on Scholls Ferry Road, and which direction to go, so I could get there easily, right?

I'd completely forgotten about that awful intersection where I always mess up because the streets are so weirdly angled. Even with a GPS map showing me which street goes where, it was intimidating.

But we made it there and I managed to resist all of the gorgeous new Halloween designs. I've got Hocuspocusville to play with....and Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage...and all of the Halloween charts I managed to collect when I was still stitching...

But I did bring home this one --



I saw it in a stitching magazine I bought a few weeks back and fell in love, then quickly forgot all about it. But they were having a trunk show and had the stitched sample on the wall and there is just something about seeing a project stitched up that makes me go from "Oh, that's nice..." to "I have GOT to make that myself!"

If they'd had the pattern for Rosetta, I would've bought that one, too. Even though I'm sure stitching it would leave me blind and insane.

There were four or five other charts I would've loved to bring home, but at $16 a piece, even without the specialty flosses and buttons, it would've quickly added up. So I was really, really good and got the chart that doesn't take any speciality stuff and that I can finish with supplies I already own.

Quilt shops are fun, but they don't tempt me the way this place does. Wonder why...

where I sew

I've spent the past couple of weeks moving as much as I can stand to from my sewing corner in the dining room out to the sewing room. The goal was to clear out my mess, without either making myself crazy or losing what I was working on. I'm still not sure if I pulled it off.

The room looks better and I found a few things I've been looking for...and now I can't remember where I put them.

The roof is done!

The roofers are just finishing up. Hopefully this is the last time you'll ever read about my roof.



I'm finally out of the pumpkin patch and working my way up the tree. The embroidery goes quickly when I actually get a chance to sit down and work on it.

Jen at Sew What! finished hers in a year and three months. It took me almost that long to finish Quinn's Trip Around the World -- but I'm guessing she worked a lot more steadily than I did! I love the layout she used. I also like the center that Joann at Gecko Quilts is using.

I'd love to do mine with alternating sampler blocks, but the blocks aren't square, so that idea won't work. I've ordered more of my background fabric, along with some Coal Mirage, so I'll be ready when the time comes to figure out the center.

I'll have plenty of time to plan it!

To see more design walls, head over to Patchwork Times.

We've got more curb appeal!

Or something like that.... The house definitely does look cuter with the new shingles than it did with the old brown three tab stuff. But getting a new roof just isn't fun. It falls into that same category of necessary but yucky expenses as root canals and having a new well dug.

If the weather cooperates, the roofers should finish up tomorrow and I'll be that much closer to having my regular routine back. As much as I've been complaining about the noise, it's all "getting the roof on the house" noise. They don't play loud music. And they don't use foul language, at least not that me or my kids can hear. I can't say the same for the men who installed our carpet or the mean who delivered the new kitchen appliances a few years ago. I think I learned some new words from them.

Weekly Stash Report

It wasn't an exciting week, at least not as far as my stash is concerned. I used a very little bit of fabric for the doll quilt, I posted on Tuesday, and ordered backing and backgrounds for three quilts I'm working on.

Fabric Used this Week: 1/4 yard
Fabric Used year to Date: 31 yards
Added this Week: 15 1/2 yards
Added Year to Date: 123.75 yards
Net Added for 2012: 92.75 yards

To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times.

Review - Listen to Your Quilt by Barbara Persing

Listen to Your Quilt: Select the Perfect Quilting Every Time - 4 Simple Steps by Barbara Persing is a book for quilters who already know how to free motion quilt and want to make better quilting choices. There are no projects, but the author has listed the pattern sources for many of the quilts pictured.

What I like most about her four step plan is that it's not a list of rules telling you what you should do with your project. Instead, it explains how to make your choices based on the type of quilt, the intended use of the quilt, and the fabrics used.

The photos of quilts and close ups of the quilting are as inspiring as a trip to a quilt show. There's a wide selection of children's quilts, traditional quilts, contemporary quilts, and art quilts.

C&T Publishing provided me with an electronic review copy of this book.

I've been working on Hocuspocusville.

The pumpkin patch isn't quite as fun as the boards and window of the potting shed, so instead of making up stories about the leaking roof and missing shingles and whatever might be growing inside, I'm fussing over embroidery stitches that aren't quite as tiny as I'd like them to be.

I'm worrying about individual stitches on what's going to be a 70" square quilt. No one but me is ever going to look at the stitches this closely.

So, am I making myself a better stitcher? Driving myself quickly along the route to insanity? Or just enjoying the fact that there's no one walking past my windows or banging away on my roof and there's nothing more pressing to worry about right this second?

I've got one tiny but of stepping stone left, then I can move on to the tree. I'm sure I'll think up some interesting stories to tell myself as I stitch my way through the branches and cobweb and ravens.

Thread is on sale again!

Connecting Threads has Essentials thread spools on sale for 30% off through 8/13 -- woohoo! I haven't used up all of the neutrals I bought when thread was on sale last year, but I do need green and a few other colors for projects I've got planned. You can read all about my ove for their thread here.

Quinn's green quilt has been waiting for a backing. I've got two suitable sheets that both share the same problem -- too much white. Just in case he changes his mind and decides to actually use the quilt I've been making for him, I want to make it boy proof.



This is Metropolitan from their Urban Odyssey collection. I love that Zentangle looking print, which is just busy enough to hide some damage (duct tape, anyone?) and the price was right. I'm not sure if the green will look the same in person as it does on my laptop screen, but there are soooo many shades of green in the top that I can't imagine it won't work.

It's just starting to rain, so the roofers left early today. It's almost eerily quiet in the house....or was until the boys decided to make up for the lack of noise. But I can handle our usual kind of chaos. The roof should be done on Monday -- I can't wait!

why I'm not quilting today

My nerves are fraying rapidly. Right now, half a dozen men are stomping around on my roof, ripping off the old shingles and whatever is lurking under them. The house is small so even if they're not directly over my head at a given time, it still sounds like they are.

This is day two.

I can mostly tune out the scraping and stomping, but I've got three little boys. My brain is wired to jump at sudden loud noises. Every half hour or so I hear something dramatic and take a head count to be sure that the kids are all accounted for and not causing the noise in question. Because my typical day is filled with noises that require immediate investigation and intervention.

The front door has to be cracked open to let in the extension cord for their power saw. (Which is plugged into the same circuit as my sewing machine and everything else at this end of the house, so I can't use the sewing machine, or iron, or microwave, or vacuum cleaner. Or my washing machine, which is unplugged so they can use that outlet.)

It's kind of like being stuck in the world's noisiest and most boring waiting room. Except I don't have to keep the kids quiet or in their seats. I just have to keep them from unplugging the extension cord while they're trying to shove each other out the front door. And keep them all within sight because the roofing sounds mask all of those little auditory clues that usually let me know when someone is up to something.

After the roofers left yesterday, I thought I'd make dinner and then get some sewing done. Two seconds later, I picked up an empty cookie sheet that someone else had just taken out of the oven and burned every finger on my right hand. I haven't had so much fun since the bee stings and root canal. I'm linking this post to Finding the Funny over at My Life and Kids, because all I can do at this point is laugh at the situation.

the cave where Big Foot attacked -- or close enough!

Our family does a lot of things that could be described as field trips, but we never actually call them that. As far as the kids are concerned, they're just what we do, not part of school. And it's not part of school -- we did this kind of stuff loong before we even had kids and will continue to do it after they're grown up and off somewhere doing things with their own families.

A couple of weeks ago, we took the kids to hike through Ape Cave, a lava tube near Mount St. Helens. It was their first time, although I can't figure out for the life of me why we'd never taken them there. It's a cave. And it has a history of Big Foot attacks -- although it turns out that those were actually at nearby Ape Canyon. How much do six and seven year olds care about geographical accuracy?



I couldn't have done this last summer, or the year before, but my knee made it through the cave just fine. And we've hit a huge milestone, which I kind of missed when I was working on my knee and being able to hike without a cane. After fifteen years, I no longer have to carry another human being while hiking. That makes such a huge difference!



On the trail to the cave entrance, we passed a group of kids preparing to go down inside. Very few of them seemed happy about being there. One the was down the steps into the cave, we passed a second group on their way out who warned us about how long and boring it was. That's one of many reasons we usually do these things as a family instead of as organized field trips. I can listen to my own kids whine (which they rarely do), but I don't want to put up with strangers' kids.

This isn't the first lava tube we've taken the kids to, but they're always up for caves. And caves near where Big Foot has been seen? I've got a tribe of budding cryptozoologists here!

When Education Outdoors sent us a copy of their new board game Mysterious Creatures to review, the boys were ecstatic. It's got the usual critters -- Big Foot, Chupacabra, the Loch-Ness Monster, the Yeti....and a few that I'd never heard of.



At the start of the game, each player draws a card which determines which creature they'll be hunting for. You journey across the game board map, travelling from country to country to gather three pieces of evidence -- a photo, a piece of physical evidence, and a film. (Some of the film evidence can be viewed on the Mysterious Creatures website.)

Honestly, my boys were more excited about reading the creature cards and the evidence files to settle down long enough to play the game properly. But the graphics and packaging are fantastic and I can definitely see how it would teach the kids some geography as they navigate the map.

This post is linked to Works for me Wednesday at We are THAT Family.

a little quilt for my fractured dolls

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about my search for a set of Tim Holtz Fractured Dolls, which I wanted to buy and make quilts for.

My order came, and Sunday night I made them a little quilt.



These dolls are teeny-tiny. The larger one is only about three inches tall. I wanted a quilt with "real" pieced blocks, as small as I could make them. These nine-patches finish at 1 1/2" square. And the top only took three left over Jelly Roll strips -- one dark and two matching light prints.

Want to make your own?



From one light strip, cut four 1 x 14" strips. From one dark strip, cut five 1 x 14" strips. From the second light strip, cut twelve 2" squares. (If you're working with yardage or scraps instead of precut 2 1/2" strips, just cut it into the 1" and 2" strips that these instructions call for.)



Sew the 1" strips into the three sets shown and carefully press open. The pieced strips should measure 2" wide. Cut each strip set into thirteen 1" sections.



Assemble those sections into thirteen nine patch blocks. If your cutting and piecing are completely accurate, the unfinished blocks should measure exactly 2" square. A lot of mine didn't, but I'm making a quilt for a broken plastic doll, so I just concentrated on making my points match as best I could and it came out fine.



Lay out the blocks on a scrap of batting to keep them organized while you assemble the top.



Press the top well, then cut a piece of backing fabric the same size as your top, which should measure 8" square. I didn't want to mess with binding on something this tiny (it's a quilt for broken dolls, not a mug rug!), so I "birthed" the doll quilt.

Lay the top face up, then the backing face down, then a piece of thin white flannel. Sew around the whole sandwich 1/4" from the edge, leaving a 2-3" opening for turning. You can find more details about birthing a baby (or doll) quilt at Sunshower Quilts.



To keep the quilting from overwhelming the nine patch blocks, I quilted diagonal lines across the setting squares. Once I decide whether or not this is the quilt for my fractured dolls, I plan on attaching them to the quilt.



I wish I could find some of the real thing, but I'm too practical to spend what they're asking on ebay.... I think...

This post is linked to to Try it out Tuesday at Jo's Country Junction.

I fixed it!

The last time I showed you this quilt, one of the borders was upside down. I didn't notice the problem until I posted a picture here on my blog and, once I did notice, I wasn't all that motivated to fix it.

Turns out that after two months of procrastinating, it only took one episode of iCarly to rip out and resew those two long seams. And I only did it this week because I'm trying to avoid a different project.



There's a free tutorial for Extra Scrappy Pinwheels if you want to make it yourself. I did a slightly different outer border for the first one, but both versions use the same number of triangles. To check out more design walls, visit Judy at Patchwork Times.

I went to a quilt show!

I can't remember the last time I went to a quilt show. So I cheated and searched my own blog -- looks like it was the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in 2010. And I didn't realize that there was one close to home this weekend, but a friend who's been overseas for the past few months invited the kids and I to a parade. We missed the parade because I got a late start and the highway was closed off, but we did see some neat old quilts.





I've never seen Drunkard's Path blocks set this way before. Both quilts had the same name -- Road to Someplace or other, or something like that. I thought I could remember it until we got home, but apparently not. Anyone know what it's called?



This one is Lady of the Lake, which is definitely on my quilty to-do list. I don't think I've seen an antique one before.



And this one is so pretty that it may have completely changed my plans to make a pineapple quilt. Or it might mean I need to make more than one.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 0 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 30.75 yards
Added this Week: 7 yards
Added Year to Date: 108.25 yards
Net Added for 2012: 77.25 yards

I bought a set of white percale sheets from an estate sale to use for a Double Wedding Ring quilt, and some scraps from the convenience store. Now they have YARN. I didn't look too closely, but the prices were great. I might need to go back.
To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times.

Am I done cutting pieces for this quilt yet?

After almost three weeks of no time to work on my projects, I'm figuring out where I left off and what I want to be working on now that I've finally got a chance to play. First up, because it requires the least amount of decision making, is the drab postage stamp quilt. I did have all of the pieces for this one cut before I started cannibalizing squares for the Quilt Square Quilt Along.

While I was sorting through the dining room stash, I found some more prints to add. I've been looking for the pumpkins, which were part of the first two drab quilts, and found the others and brought them down from the sewing room.



I think this is the last of the fabric I'll be cutting for this quilt, but I've thought that before.

what I need is a Hoosier Cabinet

I'm not as trusting as the heroine of A Deadly Grind, the first in Victoria Hamilton's new Vintage Kitchen Mysteries series. If a helpful stranger offered to help me carry my newest treasure up onto the house and started asking me questions about our alarm system and who lived in the house, I wouldn't be answering them.

I'm also not as gutsy -- if a guy wound up dead on my porch, apparently killed with my old meat grinder, I'm not sure I'd keep living in the house!

But I did fall in love with the dusty old Hoosier cabinet right along with her. Just take a look at these things! Our house was built in 1920, when they would've been the latest and greatest thing. The trouble is, even if I could find and afford one, I wouldn't have a place to put it -- unless I gave up my sewing corner. Not gonna happen.

Maybe I should just cross stitch one. Or, since I'm wildly daydreaming here, what about quilting one like those neat bookshelf and jar quilts that are so popular?

While I'm daydreaming about what my kitchen might've originally looked like, Antique Homestyle has lots of pictures.

And I'll be watching for the next Vintage Kitchen Mystery, because escapism is even more fun with Pyrex and old cabinets!

scrappy spools

I've been wanting to make this spool quilt forever. The pattern I intended to follow was for larger blocks, but after sewing along with Jo's Quilt Square Quilt Along for the past few months, I'm really loving these itty bitty quilts. About the same time I found my inspiration for this quilt, my best friend made one with the same exact construction and different color placement. Her blocks were 12" square and she had nothing but trouble with it. I think that's part of the reason I took so long to start my own.

Somewhere along the line, I realized that I could use the Companion Angle ruler and try a block with some of the 1 1/2" strips from my log cabin box.



I sewed two strips together and pressed them, then cut them into quarter square triangles. I never knew I needed a Companion Angle until I bought it for Orca Bay. Now I'm finding all sorts of things to do with it!



You wind up with four triangles...



And sew them together to make a spool.



Using the 1 1/2" strips made a 4" finished block, which is larger than I wanted, because I'm a bit nuts that way, so I tried it again with 1" strips. That gave me a 2" finished block. I suppose I could have read the numbers printed right there on the ruler and figured that out without the first test block, but what's the fun in that?



Now I'm debating how many blocks I want to make. A 16x24" quilt sounds nice, but that would take scary lot of cute little blocks.... To see more design walls, head over to Patchwork Times.

Midnight Quilts

Black is the new neutral

That's what Lerlene Nevaril claims in her new book, Midnight Quilts: 11 Sparkling Projects to Light Up the Night, and she may be right because these quilts are gorgeous. I'm the hugest fan of white muslin backgrounds, but this book has inspired me to stretch my wings a bit.

None of the quilts looks particularly difficult -- the real razzle dazzle comes from the color choices. There are eleven patterns, along with a gallery of projects that provide even more inspiration. (And my one complaint about the book is that the quilt I most loved, which is pictured on the copyright page came from the gallery section and isn't one of the projects included.)

C&T Publishing provided me with a PDF review copy of this book.

Guest Post - Jo from Jo's Country Junction

Hi...
I'm Michelle's friend Jo and I blog over at Jo's Country Junction....I am here guest blogging for Michelle today.

This all came about a few days ago when Michelle told me she was going to be offline for a day or two and was trying to think of something to blog about while she was away. I told her to add a recipe. Well Michelle quickly said you're the recipe girl, not me. That's when I told her I would guest blog and share a recipe with you all.

My recipe...Marbled Brownies and let me tell you...YUM.

The original recipe comes from the Mississippi Valley Quilt Cookbook. I modified a bit by using my own brownie recipe. If you want you can use a box brownie mix or you can use my SUPER EASY from scratch brownie recipe found here.



Here's the recipe for the Marbled Brownies:

Cream together:
6 oz cream cheese
5 T margarine or butter
1/3 c sugar
2 eggs
2 T flour
3/4 t vanilla
Set aside.

Mix up the brownies using either a box mix or my recipe.

Spread half of the batter in a greased 9 x 13 pan. Pour the cream cheese mixture over the top. Glob the remaining brownie batter over the top. Swirl the brownie mix and cream to make a marbled appearance. Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

There's you have it...super easy and yummy too. That's my kind of recipe.

Quilter's Candy Mirage

I wanted a mottled fabric for the background of Hocuspocusville and spent quite a while looking for one. What I had pictured in my mind was something like the background fabric I used for Simple Pleasures. That fabric would've been perfect. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything at all like it.

I'd just about decided to use tea-dyed muslin when I saw Quilter's Candy Mirage at Connecting Threads. Just the mottled fabric I was looking for, for $4.96 a yard, and in 48 different colors.

For my project, Antique was the obvious choice. I ordered five yards, sight unseen, and held my breath.

I love this fabric. It's thick and soft and has just enough mottling to look interesting without distracting from the embroidery. It'll definitely be my first choice next time I'm looking for something with texture to embroider on or use as a background.



This post is linked to Try it on Tuesday over at Jo's Country Junction.

Hocuspocusville

I've got a huge thing for those Halloween villages that start popping up every September. I've adored those creepy, intricate little buildings for years, but I've never bought one. Hocuspocusville by Crabapple Hill Studio immediately reminded me of those villages.

It's really the perfect solution for my house. Once it's done, I won't have to worry narly as much about finding a safe place to display it. I can keep it away from the boys while still enjoying it...that's the plan, at least. Whatever becomes of it, I'm enjoying the stitching.



This is one short evening's worth of embroidery. It's going much more quickly than I expected and something about the little addition to this potting shed conjures up memories of my Great Grandma's added on kitchen. I've got these half-formed memories of a moss covered roof and uneven siding dancing at the far corners of my memory while I'm stitching. And even though I'm sure those memories don't have much in common with the reality of that old house, which was torn down when I was little, I'm enjoying the process.

That's what's going on in my sewing room this week. To see more design walls, head over to Patchwork Times.

The doily rag rug is done!

This was definitely one of those "because there's a free pattern and I've got the materials and it looks like it might be fun" projects. Would I do it again? Maybe. The same designer has a free pattern for a bathmat with a cable. Would I try that one? Not this week. Knitting lace with the strips of fabrics was challenging. I'm not sure I'm up to cabling with them.

My joins aren't quite right and and the long edge is a bit wonky, but I'd be willing to bet that I can block this thing into submission and bury those poky little ends deeper into the fabric once I get motivated enough.

For now, I've got embroidery to do.

Weekly Stash Report

Fabric Used this Week: 3 yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 30.75 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 101.25 yards
Flung --36 yards (96 yards total ytd)
Net Added for 2012: 66.5 yards

To see more weekly stash reports, click over to Patchwork Times.

shopping locally

Over and over, I've read how we should support our local quilt shops. Honestly, I'm more of a box store girl myself. Or an online shopper. Part of that's because they fit my budget better. Part is because I've always got four kids in tow and shopping for supplies at Walmart or Joann's is easier.

And part of that is because I haven't found that many quilt shops I want to go back to.

I've been to quilt shops. Lots of them. Between some lengthy shop hops and stops on our family vacations, I've probably been to at least a hundred. Only a handful of those made me really want to go back. And, sadly, most of those aren't within driving range.

I've been trying to track down the new issue of Primitive Quilts, because I didn't print out the pattern for Cheddar Cheese and Crackers when it was free over at Humble Quilts. I might feel a bit bad about that if there weren't so many other projects in that magazine that I want to try.

I didn't call the quilt shop close to home because I don't like shopping there. The last time I went looking for neutrals, what seemed to be every adult male member of the owner's family was in the shop discussing how to arrange the tables for a pot luck they were having later that night. And standing directly in front of most of the fabric displays. I felt like an intruder and left.

I didn't think to call the new shop that's also close to home, because to be honest, I forgot they were there. And I wasn't headed that direction.

I called what's probably my favorite of the shops on my regular route for running errands. They don't carry the magazine. I don't think they've ever had what I was looking for, but they're always very nice about it. That's why I keep trying them.

I called another shop a little farther from home, only because the Primitive Quilts website had them listed in their shop directory. They had the magazine, but were no help in finding it. (It was on the counter next to the cash register.)

That same day, I stopped at one of the scrap booking shops to look for an embellishment I'd seen online and fallen in love with (just try to tell me I don't need to buy a set of these fractured dolls and make a itty-bitty quilt for each of them!)

I was a half step into the store and still reading the signs on the inside of the doors, when the nice ladies invited me to have a cookie and tour the shop to see their new inventory and head to the back corner where there were make-n-takes... I so wish I could've stayed longer!

It was kind of like being drawn into a cult -- "Come in, have a cookie, look at the embellishment, drink some Kool Aid!" -- and I mean that in the best, most positive way possible.

Maybe it's because I'm still reading and loving Joanna Campbell Slan's Scrap-N-Craft mysteries, or because I've got that new Sizzix Big Shot sitting here, but I'm being totally seduced by all of the fun scrapping embellishments right now. And I know exactly where I'm going to go when I'm ready to buy more. They didn't have the little broken dolls, but are ordering some for me.