WFMW - more movies than we can possibly watch

When I was a kid, my parents owned an appliance store. It was in the first days of VHS tapes and they had a handful of movies to rent...Heckle and Jeckle and another cartoon that I can't remember right now. Then videodiscs came along and they had a rental section of those.

I remember being so jealous of my friend whose parents had a VHS player because she got to rent movies from the Movie Shack. In hindsight, I'm thinking it might've been because they had movies I hadn't seen yet, not because they had that many more movies.

Fast forward a few more years and the appliance store moved to a different location and bought out the rental inventory of a place that was going out of business. For one glorious weekend, we had that inventory in boxes the middle of our kitchen floor. Hundreds and hundreds of movies right there and permission to watch them as long as we didn't get them out of order. Of course we didn't have the boxes with the descriptions, just titles of a bunch of movies we'd never heard of...but it was fun!

That's what streaming Netflix reminds me of. More movies than I could possibly watch, all of them right there. And they're not going away at the end of the weekend. (To make it even more fun, they've started adding lots of those dumb old horror movies that I never got to rent from the Movie Shack.)

Besides providing me with horror movies to listen to late at night when I'm quilting after the kids are asleep, there area ton of old television series for the family to watch. I was surprised by how much my little guys liked Flipper. Who'd have thought they'd like that one?

Right now, the kids are loving Ruby Gloom (kind of an animated girly Addams Family -- it's hard to explain, but absolutely adorable..and you'll have the song in your head for days) and Sgt. Frog (like a Japanese Invader Zim, but better).

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT family.

Barn Charm Tuesday

I love this old barn and its view of the mountains. It's next to a little white house that we drive by almost daily and the place is just so peaceful and well tended that passing by makes you feel that all is right with the world.

For more barns, visit Barn Charm Tuesday. There are some spectacular sunset shots, and an interior shot of sunlight emphasizing the gaps between the boards of an old barn.

Makes me want to go for a drive and look for old barns, but today we're staying home and I'm working on Orca Bay units. I set the timer yesterday and chain pieced hourglass units -- they really do go together fast if you can stop thinking of how MANY of them there are!

Orca Bay Step 2 -- I may be a convert!

I was going to use muslin in my string blocks, because that's the way I always do it. Even after Bonnie said not to, I was going to go out and buy some really thin interfacing. The idea of ripping out paper scares me -- what if all of my seams fell apart?

Friday and the second clue came, and Bonnie was kind of adamant about not leaving anything in those blocks. She's never led me wrong before, so I took a deep breath and grabbed one of the phone books.

We live in the land of the thousand phone books. There's a book for the little town we live near, and one for the county, and another one for the county that has a different assortment of towns...and I have to have one for Salem where we do most of our shopping... Just to function, we need half a dozen. And they always deliver duplicates, and books by competing companies, and the whole thing is a bit ridiculous. But I've got phone books for string piecing! And for the kids to try out some of the things they saw on the Mythbusters phonebook episode.

I wasn't prepared for this step. I've got blue fabric, lots of it. All buried under other things. But it didn't take long to cut strips for a couple of test blocks.

It took even less time to assemble the blocks and peel off the paper. I think Bonnie's made me a convert, at least for this project!

Now it's time to find my strings and pull out the blue ones, and some blue crumbs for the corners.

I'm linking this post to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and Bonnie's Orca Bay Linky Party at Quiltville.

My First Quilt

Bonnie is having a First Quilts Linky Party!

Before I started my first "real" quilt, I did this. I can't tell you what I was thinking, other than that I'd read how to make squares in triangles and wanted to give it a try. It was a looong time before it got finished into a baby quilt. I think a big chunk of the binding still needs to be stitched down.



I do know what I was thinking when I started this one.



I'd been watching Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting on PBS and fallen in love with the split nine patch. But I was afraid of the triangles, so I did the whole thing with three inch squares. I think the layout I used came from a library book with different ideas for log cabin quilts.

The fabric is a combination of thrift store scraps and red tag clearance fabrics from Joann's. Half of the binding is cotton left over from a shirt I made in high school home economics. The muslin is the least expensive stuff I could find at Joann's using a coupon.



At the time I started playing with these blocks, I was still completely obsessed with knitting, so I made them a couple at a time, whenever the mood struck. It was a long time before I had the blocks all done -- by the time I laid them out on the floor and assembled the top, we were living in the new house and I'd had another baby. By the time I quilted it, my mother (who I don't think had started quilting when I started the project) had her longarm...did I mention that finishing this quilt took a while? And I'd started blocks for a bunch of other quilts that still aren't finished. There was the monkey quilt for Alex, and Dot to Dot, and my rail fence, which I wound up giving away to my best friend. And not long after that was the first of the log cabin quilts. It really feels like I've been doing this more than four or five years!

weekly stash report

No new fabric for the second week in a row. I found a mistake in last week's math and fixed it, but I'm not sure how many other mistakes I might've made over the past few months. I've actually been wondering about that for a while now. Next year, I'm going to figure out a better way to keep written records.


Fabric Used this Week: 3.5 yards yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 80.25 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 1020 yards
Net Added for 2011: 939.75 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6640 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 14075 yards
Net Added for 2011: 7435 yards

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

skipping Black Friday (and showing off a finish)

I started this quilt early in 2008, probably not long after I started my first "real" quilt top. There was a smaller experiment before that one, but I don't really count that one. The Plan was to make a big quilt. I cut some squares, made some blocks, and then a bunch of other quilts happened.

And somehow along the way the plan changed. I convinced myself that the blocks I'd already pieced wouldn't work with the scraps I've got now. I didn't like the muslin I'd used for the block centers, and didn't have any more of it to make more that would match. I wasn't going to take the blocks apart and put them back together -- why do that when I could just make a fresh batch?

I assembled the blocks into a top. And I let them sit. They'd still be sitting if I hadn't gone looking for a project to finish this week. Of course now that they're quilted, I'm back to wanting a bed-size version. I really do love those tiny squares of fabric -- they finish to one and a half inches.

Most years, I'd have been out standing in line long before dawn, after Black Friday deals. This year, I was more excited about the second Orca Bay clue. And Bonnie did not disappoint!

I had a feeling the strings would make an appearance soon -- and here they are! Itty bitty strings which actually look a lot of fun to piece.

they're all cut!

My original goal was to get 100 of the hourglass units done this week. That
seemed like enough to count as decent progress, but not enough to overwhelm me. Now, I've got all of the pieces cut, and half of them sewn into pairs. And a few more assembled into the hourglass units.

All of those loose little triangles sitting in a pile at the side of my sewing machine make me nervous. I'm afraid that something will happen to scatter them and then I'll have to count again.

As much as I love playing with little pieces of fabric, I hate counting them --especially 448 of them. I'm not sure I've ever needed 448 pairs of anything before! The entire drunkard's path quilt took 320 units. Grandma's Donuts took 320 wedges.

I avoid counting pieces as much as I can.

For Quinn's Trip Around the World I know I need two hundred and sixteen strips. So I cut a bunch and assembled them into blocks and at some point I'll count the blocks and see how many more blocks I need and multiply it by six to see how many strips short I am. I did something similar with the pieces for Cabbage Roses, my drunkard's path quilt.

That's one of the reasons why I make so many quilts with 2 1/2" squares. I cut a bunch, use what I need, and toss what's left into my box of squares. Sooner or later they get used up. Or I need to cut more for the next project.

While I wait for the next clue, I'll see how many more of those hourglass blocks I can get sewn and finish up another UFO.

wfmw - a warm bathrobe

We've lived in a series of old houses, each one a bit older than the last. There was the rental, an awesome little mid-century modern place that I wish I had more pictures of. After that, we bought a a house that had been built in 1944. It was old enough to have plenty of quirks, but not old enough to be neat. Now, we've got a ninety year old farmhouse.

This time of year, I start paying attention to whether or not I can feel my toes. I don't think the boys slow down enough to ever feel the cold, inside or out.

It was fall of 2005 when we moved in and by the time it was cold enough to turn the furnace on for the year, all Hell had broken loose. I was in the hospital, both houses had been broken into, and we were still trying to finish up the move from there to here and sell the other house. The furnace got turned on, we installed a brand new monoxide detector, and we didn't think much about it until the next gas bill came. Keeping this house really warm would cost more than we're willing to spend. So we bundle up.

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a post mourning my old bathrobe. My husband bought me a replacement for Christmas, and I bought a second replacement when I found it for five bucks at the thrift store a couple of months later.

I still wish I had kept that old purple robe. But the ones I've got now do the job. And I'm still keeping my eyes open for my dream robe. Sooner or later, I'll find it. (It may or may not be purple.)

It makes more sense to me to stock up on warm robes and quilts and socks than to spend extra money trying to keep the house a certain temperature. And it doesn't hurt that I'm finally off the blood thinners! Which also means I can have cranberries at Thanksgiving dinner and stop limiting my green veggies. Life, or at least this part of it, is good!

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT family.

I love little pieces

Quilts with little pieces make my heart go pitty-pat. Most of my quilts are made up of 2 1/2" squares, and sometimes I start to wonder if those aren't just a little too big. Usually, I convince myself that 2 1/2" is a perfectly reasonable size, especially for baby quilts that I'm giving to someone else's baby. But I will do a postage stamp quilt for myself with much smaller pieces one of these days. And a Lego Quilt.



The first step for Orca Bay is right up my alley. I hadn't done many hourglass blocks before. And I hadn't used this ruler. But I'm loving the technique and I'm using some of my favorite neutrals. Bonnie said to use up the icky stuff, but it only takes a 1 1/2" strip of each print and I plan on keeping this, so I'm using fabrics I love. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure if I even have any neutrals I don't love.

This post is linked to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times and Bonnie's Orca Bay Linky Party at Quiltville.

there was a reason I couldn't find it

When I first discovered Quiltville a couple of years ago, I bought the two rulers Bonnie recommended. I knew one was the Easy Angle and, looking back, I assumed that the other one was the Companion Angle. That was the one she talked about when the clues for Roll Roll Cotton Boll came out.

Turns out, she also recommended the Easy Square Jr. and now that I look at the picture of that one, I'm pretty sure it the second one I bought when I bought my Easy Angle.

No wonder I couldn't find a ruler I never bought in the first place! (And no, I can't find the Easy Square Jr., either. But I'm not looking for that one, so it doesn't count.)



Now that I actually own the ruler I need, I've started cutting pieces.

Thanks for the advice on how to make this work without the special ruler. I knew I could do it, but trying to find that ruler was driving me nuts. And I really like that I can cut the pieces out of 1 1/2" strips. Whatever black and neutral strips I don't wind up using for this project will go into my pineapple quilt, whenever I start that.

Weekly Stash Report

Another week that no new fabric followed me home! Not a whole lot used up, since I've been recovering from the baby quilt binge.

Fabric Used this Week: 2 1/4 yards yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 76.75 yards
Added this Week: 0 yards
Added Year to Date: 1020 yards
Net Added for 2011: 868.75 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6640 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 14075 yards
Net Added for 2011: 7435 yards

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

more blacks!

While I was searching around my sewing machine for my Companion Angle ruler, I found these blacks --

And some smaller pieces that I'll be able to use if I either find the ruler or decide that I never bought one in the first place and drive into town to buy one. Can I start with a different method and then switch to the ruler once I make it into town to buy another one? Or is that just asking for trouble?

While I'm cleaning up the sewing corner (because Thanksgiving is coming in less than a week, so it's time for that fun annual ritual), I'm also pulling out yellow fabrics because I stumbled across the instructions for Kiss in the Corner. How did I never see that one before?

Now what?

I made a terrible mess of my sewing corner while I was working on the baby quilts. So the first thing on my to-do list is to get that straightened up. Then I need to finalize my fabric choices for Orca Bay, and figure out where I moved my green strips to. And I've got some little quilts that I'm anxious to get started on.

But right now I'm holding my breath waiting for the results of yesterday's ultrasound on my leg. I really hope the blood clots are gone, but I've been feeling something in there for the past six months. And the ultrasound tech did a lot of clicking. How is it that I'm not allowed to look at the images of my own leg?

I should get back to the fabric and distract myself.

I won goodies from Needles and Pens. Isn't that yellow print gorgeous? And the buttons -- I don't know what I'm going to do with those, but it's going to be cute!

wfmw - the space bar

Did you know that instead of scrolling down with your mouse wheel and hoping that it'll stop on the right line, you can use your space bar to page down through one screen of text at a time? It makes skimming through the eye candy on the quilt blogs much easier on your hands!

There are all kinds of useful shortcuts. Especially when your daughter's bird bites a hunk out of your mouse cord. There's a more detailed list here that shows which shortcuts work in which browsers.

Just a handful can make your life a lot easier. In addition to the helpful space bar, try these --

Ctrl + c -- copy
Ctrl + v -- paste
Ctrl + f -- find
F5 -- reloads the screen

For more Works for Me Wednesday posts, visit We are THAT Family

only nine quilts

The stupid pulled muscle won, and I only finished nine quilts. But seven of those quilts didn't exist at all a week ago, and the other two would've sat until who knows when. And isn't that the point of a challenge -- trying to do something you know won't be easy?

The two other times I've tried this ten-baby-quilts-in-ten-days madness, I've had a stack of partially started projects to start with. This time, I had one top and nine blocks and no real plans.

So I'm calling it a success. I'll try it again, but it's not going to be soon!



This post is linked to Fabric Tuesday and Finish it up Friday.

Baby Quilt Binge - Day 10

#9 is done --



It's just this one with brighter colors and without the pieced background.

I have no idea what I'm going to do for the last quilt, but I've got fifteen hours or so to figure it out and get it done.

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

12 1/4 Yards!

That's got to be a record for me, especially since all of this week's little quilts were brand new projects. Excuse the bindings, they'll be sewn down soon!

#7 is the same as one of the blue sheet quilts



#8 is the isosceles triangle die again. And it's polyester. I cut the pieces for it when I did the two color quilt video. I'm not going to claim that it goes together the same as nice cotton from the quilt shop, but it's really not that bad to work with.



Two more quilts to go and two days to do them in...and one very pulled muscle in my shoulder. Have I mentioned how much I miss Ibuprofen?

Fabric Used this Week: 12 1/4 yards yards
Fabric Used year to Date: 74.5 yards
Added this Week: 8 yards
Added Year to Date: 1020 yards
Net Added for 2011: 945.5 yards

Yarn Used this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Used year to Date: 6640 yards
Yarn Added this Week: 0 yards
Yarn Added Year to Date: 14075 yards
Net Added for 2011: 7435 yards

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

Baby Quilt Binge - Day 7

I've caught my breath and I'm back to work. This is baby quilt #7, all quilted and waiting for me to measure the purple binding and see if there's enough left. And I've got definite plans for #8 and #9. Three quilts to go....three days to go...I can do this!

Baby Quilt Binge - Day 6

I'm going to step back and catch my breath today. The next three quilts are planned out and I'll be up early tomorrow morning, making them a reality. I'd forgotten how much fun these little quilts are to whip up one after another. Decide to try something to see how it will look, cut some squares, make a few blocks, dig out something to back it with, meander fun little curves and swirls, repeat!

Did I mention that I've been operating my the foot pedal of my sewing machine with my right foot for the past five days?

Baby Quilt Binge - Day 5

Today, I am going to work on a quilt without a blue background! Because, as much as I love this color, they're all starting to look the same.

This is the third time I've made this heart pattern, which I found in an old quilting magazine. I changed the setting triangles to make them pieced and totally ignored whatever measurements the designer used, and I've gone by memory for the past two versions, so I'm not sure how mine compares to the published version. I thought I might have it out of my system for a while, but looking at it this morning, I still think a bed-size version with a white background could be a fun way to show off scraps.

I won't have as much quilting time today and tomorrow, so I'm going to try to find a quick idea that'll work with the fabric on top of the pile.

wfmw - just go ahead and call poison control

When I was pregnant with my daughter, my supervisor at work told me a very sad story about the little neighbor girl who drank bleach. Have I ever mentioned that I'm a bit paranoid about keeping the bleach completely inaccessible to my kids? Nasty cleaning supplies, vitamins, medication...all of that stuff is where they can't get at it. And after seeing a story on the news last night about button batteries, I've really got the heebie jeebies about those now. My kids should be getting too old to put stupid things in their mouths...I hope!

It's the weird little things that have given me trouble. I mean, who gets mad and deliberately swallows his older sister's tooth? Who eats a glue stick? Or tries to suck the ink out of an empty printer cartridge?

Or the things that you can't believe they got their hands on. I was Christmas shopping with my youngest in my arms a couple of years back, digging through my purse and standing in the checkout line. With that awful speed that only young children headed straight for trouble have, he reached right over my shoulder, grabbed a fistful of petals from a poinsettia display I hadn't even noticed, and stuffed them into his mouth.

That scared me. It was too early to call the doctor's office and I was in an absolute panic, imagining my little baby in the emergency room getting his stomach pumped. Called the emergency line for our HMO -- and they had me call poison control. It turns out that poinsettias aren't as deadly as we've all been warned they are.

And why would anyone take a swig from the bottle of food coloring?! (Not to mention, who got it down from wher I had it hidden?)

The nice man at poison control actually laughed at me this week and suggested I take pictures to blackmail my child with once he's older. And I was pretty sure that it was harmless, but wanted to be prepared with real answers when Daddy got home and I had to explain the dark green teeth.

If you even think your child might've gotten into something, give them a call. I'm convinced that they have information about everything (Including ink cartridges...did you know that those have antifreeze in them?) They'll tell you what symptoms to watch out for. Or if, God forbid, you need to head to the emergency room.

And, every single time I've called, they've told me it was going to be just fine.

1-800-222-1222

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

Note -- if this seems like a lot of calls for one Mom to have made to poison control, please keep in mind that it was spread over four kids and almost fifteen years!