Calling out sick

Is it possible to call out sick from blogging? Because that's what I would have done this past week. As soon as the weather gets really nice? Bang, down for the count with a cold and cough! Blech! No motivation to do anything other than drag through the day and collapse at the end.

Thankfully, there was a bright spot at the end of my sick-o week! The evil postie of doom (as my not-very-nice postman shall henceforth be called) decided to drop off a parcel for me! My Scrappy Mug Rug Swap parcel, to be exact! I hadn't seen a photo of this one on the group photo pool, and I know just why!


A little shelf of books, just for me! And the call numbers, oh my goodness. See, my partner, Colleen? She's an elementary school librarian! How perfect! What do the call numbers mean? Let's hope I don't embarrass myself here.

The first two stand for Colleen and Yarnell (cuz that's her name). The second two are fiction books (accidentally shelved out of order--curse of librarians everywhere!), Nor for my last name, and Meg for my first name. Then we get into Dewey! 006.754 Fli? That's for Flickr! The next is the classification for coffee, followed by a book about quilting. The last two? 974.6 CON is the history of Connecticut, where I live, followed by the history of North Carolina, where Colleen lives!

(Did I pass, Colleen? I all but failed cataloging in library school. Heh!)

Oh, and at the top of that photo? A little bag of color coordinated scraps from Colleen's LQS--they're SO pretty! I'm dreaming up a little quilt built around their colors!

Scrappy Mug Rug Swap, done!

Snapped a couple of quick photos on my crowded cutting mat before this little guy heads out the door. Speaking of heads, that poor bird--it's what happens when working with a limited amount of a fabric with large repeats. Ah well. Hoping my partner doesn't mind toooo much. This is the smallest thing I think I've ever made, short of the coasters in my header photo. Those little green and pink squares finish at just an inch! Little and schnibbly!

Officially caught up with ALL of my swaps, and I think I'm going to try and enforce a bit of a hiatus on the swapping over the summer. I'll keep up with my bees, but I'm going to try and abstain from pillows, mug rugs and home goods for a few months--maybe then I'll manage to finish another quilt! (Good thing I'm not a betting woman, eh?)

Sunday Stash in action, 5/1/2011

Happy May Day, (or Beltane) to my readers! I'm still here--and officially on a "stay-cation" this week. That's right, all the sleep, cups of tea, book reading, couch lounging, and sewing I have been missing out on for months! Think I can cram it all in in just a week? Yeah, me either. Oh well.

I do have a few things I plan to get done in the early part--you know, the "gotta-do" stuff. But I also want to do them, so it doesn't feel too terrible.

One is to turn this pile of scraps into a couple of blocks for this month's round of do.Good Stitches, the Peace circle.



I'll be turning these bright and pretty scraps into a couple of coin blocks--hope to show those tomorrow!

I also need to get cracking on a mug rug for a swap over on flickr. I know there are some folks who really don't get the whole mug rug thing. I think they're cute and functional--hope my partner knows I hope to use what she makes until it falls apart! I drink a LOT of tea and coffee, especially at work, so I'm hoping that I'll have something cute to bring in to the office and break up the dreary gray of my workspace a bit. Honestly, I'm really all about the silver linings lately. (Not up for positive? Come over and I'll make you cookies. Seriously. Life's too short to be miserable--I've had a lot of forcible reminders of that lately.)



These are what I've pulled for the mug rug I plan on making my partner. I hope she likes it--I need to get sketching!

Oh, and as far as keeping track of my Sunday Stash? I think I'd rather just enjoy what I'm working on than keeping inventory on what I buy and what I use. I tried it, it's not for me. I'll still do Sunday Stash posts, but I think it will be more about using the fabric instead of sitting down to do math and statistics every Sunday morning. Ok with you guys? Or are you sticklers for math?

I took the pledge

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Tiffany is one of the queens of flickr swaps, and she's challenging all of us swappers and bee participants. Be on time. Communicate with your swap mama or bee members if you'll be late. Follow through. NEVER leave a swap partner or bee hanging. If you take on more than you can do? Do it anyway, and try and be more realistic in the future.

That's my pledge! What about you?

Production!

I've been making a concerted effort to take at least an hour every night to come into the sewing room/office and make things. First, it's productive! Second, it's relaxing--it's been a rough week, but each night, as soon as I sat down and started to play with fabric, I could feel the tension headache begin to loosen. And that's a VERY good thing!

Earlier this week, I finished my swap pieces for my Urban Home Goods swap partner. A trio of placemats, AB Love hexies on Robert Kaufman Essex Linen.


Some straight line quilting, backed in Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow Flower Fields in Sunglow, and bound in a Moda Crossweave (pale aqua with a cream crossweave) that I picked up at my LQS last fall. They've gone out to my partner, and I hope they get there soon, and safely!!

I was lucky enough to have the fabulously talented Alecia Sharp as my sending partner this round--I've been following her work for nearly a year, and I was so in love with what she was making this round, I seriously didn't even dare hope they were for me.

Let's just say, I made a lot of noise when I opened my package Thursday night.



Do you see that bag? Love hexies and linen? Yeah, great minds think alike! Too funny! And how sexy are those potholders? My photo is a little wonky, but the left one says "too HOT to handle" and the one on the right says "hot damn". SO fun--even the madman is totally enamored of them. So, so cute and I am such a lucky girl! Also want to give a couple of shout-outs to Tiffany, for being an awesome swap mama (this particular flickr swap got so big, they divided us into multiple swap pools), and to Heather and Kerri for creating and running this group--awesome job, ladies!!


I've also been making a few other bits and pieces along the way...


Like a cute little mug rug for a friend.
Love the fabric on the back--I got just this little bit in a scrap pack from Jenny, who was begging her blog readers to take some of her scraps off her hands--of course, how could I turn down a plea like that?



Just enough for a little 8"x6" mug rug--perfect! (Please don't look to hard at my binding. You know I'd do the same for you!)

Lastly, I've been steadily working my way through those Just One Star blocks for Moda's Quilts of Valor initiative--100 quilts in 100 days to servicemen/women and veterans. Looking for more info? I blogged about it over here. It's a great way to do some good without having the daunting task of making an entire quilt--the block instructions are really clear (the pattern is Minick & Simpson's, and they're awesome enough that they put a tutorial on their blog, in addition to the pattern--you can find that here.) and the blocks come together super quick. I sat one night and cut enough background and star fabrics for 13 blocks. I have just 3 blocks left to complete today--not bad for a week's work, eh?

One thing you may not know about me is that I taught myself to quilt just after graduating college. I won't tell you how many years ago that was, but it was more than 10 and less than 20. Fair? But that many moons ago, this whole modern quilting movement hadn't come into existence yet. So I still have a couple of bins worth of more traditional fabrics. Since the quilt pattern is on the more traditional side (thought it would be really cool done in modern red, white and blue fabrics), I chose to use this opportunity to dig back into that part of my stash.




Each block is left untrimmed so that the project volunteers at Moda can trim them down before the quilts are put together. As I said, the blocks are coming together very quickly--there are lots of opportunities for chain piecing, and each one is done in about 20 minutes. I'm just hoping they won't dock me points for the occasional clipped point. Heh.

Off to finish the last few blocks and get them sent out. Tomorrow, it's on to the Sunday Stash report!

Sneak Peaks...

Working hard on my main swap project for the Urban Home Goods swap over on Flickr.

Wanna see?


Essex Linen blend in Natural, some Amy Butler Love hexies, lots of straight line quilting...



One down, two to go...

The Urban Home Goods Swap--Round 2!

The spoils of swaps! Many thanks to all of the folks who participated in this round of the UHG swap. It really is amazing to page through and see all of the goodies created by this talented group!

I received my swap WAY early. Darci was just too fast! Can I please explain to you how much I adore this bag? Linen, Momo's Wonderland, AND those fab red bamboo handles? Killing me! I use it as my new book bag for work--and I get tons of compliments on it! The Flea Market Fancy pincushion? Almost too cute to use--ALMOST! It's become a sweet little staple to make handsewing hexies even more enjoyable. Darci, I cannot thank you enough!!



For my own part, I hemmed and hawed. I stacked and restacked fabric. My partner's color choices screamed autumn, and boy, was I ever ready for something that spoke to cooler temps! She (being Mary, aka Sewing Geek, of October Eight) had asked for a small throw that worked with her new living room colors of green, spice, and dark brown.


Ultimately, what I came up with was a Birthday Cake throw, using another pattern from Elizabeth of OhFransson!. Love that lady!

That would be my hubby modeling it for me. The whole quilt was pieced from my stash. Mary has similar taste in color and designers, so once I got started, it just flew. For me, that's saying a lot, since I typically sew at the speed of molasses in January. From cutting to sewing the binding, I think it took me maybe a week? As I said, fast! I really love this pattern, and can definitely see me using it again in the future.

PS--don't forget to stop back next week--there will be a bunch of give-aways here all through the month of October. Help me celebrate my birth-month in style!

Snow Day!

Once again, the weatherpeople were way off-base. Instead of the sleet and rain we were supposed to get overnight, I woke up to this:


Which is about 5 inches of snow. Which then turned over to freezing rain late this morning. Being the brain-trust that I am, I decided that perhaps my 30 minute commute in this wouldn't be such a good idea. My husband proved me right by calling me just after I woke up to tell me that he, in his 4-wheel drive, had almost slid off the road three times in the three miles between us and the nearest highway on-ramp, but that there was a spin-out two exits down that was slowing things down even more.

The hell with it. So I'm home being productive instead. I baked brownies this morning for the annual book club Xmas party being held tomorrow morning. I also caught up with my blocks for December for my bees--technically, my new bee, the Coast 2 Coast bee, doesn't start until next month, but Katie was a bit busy and figured she'd go ahead and give us some extra time to get our January blocks started. Thank you, Katie!

Katie sent out pink and purple fabrics, and asked for 6.5" stars:


A little glare-y, given the cloudy conditions today. I hope she doesn't mind the Maverick star to go with the Friendship star!

And I went ahead and made some speed-pieced Flying Geese for Jo, for my Beehive bee this month.


Jo also wanted Circle of Geese blocks, but I don't paper piece well, so I made one set with fabric she sent (the blue) and made a second set with some brown Katie Jump Rope stripes I had--her colors are awesome, blue and brown and white. I had a great time making them, learned a lot and love the tutorial for the quick geese blocks, which you can find here.

I also thought I'd share some of my swaps since my last post.

From my 4 Seasons Quilt Swap, I got this great little applique quilt from Leah. I can't applique, and I have a profound respect for those who can. Isn't this adorable?



And rounding out my end of a swap for Swap til you Drop (STUD) on Flickr, I sent Julie this little mini, made with some of the Frolic by Sandy Gervais I got in the Moda Sampler Box from FQS's giveaway this fall.

It was my second attempt--my first had too many points, and they didn't match up terribly well, so I scrapped it and started over.

From Julie, I received a sweet little quilt made of Joel Dewberry fabrics. The picture she posted on Flickr, here, is better than any I've managed to take so far.

Now, off to work on this month's STUD swap quilt. I was going to take December off, but this month's theme, Minis Go Green, was too good to pass up. We're recycling, using scraps, and have to use something that is not "standard" quilt fabric. We're not allowed to use anything new, and since I have hella scraps to use, I figured this would be a great little opportunity.

Hope everyone else is enjoying their Wednesday!

Photo landslide post

I've been busy! HONEST! And I finally was home while the sun was shining, to show you that I can actually finish projects!



I was on vacation a week ago, and I sat down and watched scary movies and bound my table runner--now it's ready for the Thanksgiving table! It's 4 wonky square-in-a-square blocks from John's quilt-along round of the ORBC quilt alongs. It's bound in dark olive, and quilted in cream/amber variegated thread. I'm actually quite pleased with the whimsy of it.


Then there's this:

My Christmassy swap quilt for the 4SQS autumn group. It's getting mailed out to its recipient this week. YAY! I'm actually really happy with the result. Just the tiniest bits of wonk. There IS a story to this, but that would totally give away who the recipient is, so I'll hold back on that just a bit longer.




And I have coin sets!

These are going together for a friend's daughter's wedding quilt--less than 2 months, and I want this one off my plate well in advance of the big day. Especially since it takes me about a year to hand-tack binding to the back of a quilt... >.< Hoping to have the top finished this week. We'll see.

And then the mail-lady came today, and brought me presents!!


I finally caved and snagged a charm pack of MoMo's Odyssea, since I have such a love-affair with Wonderland. I thought maybe I'd use it for a baby quilt. And then, since I was thinking baby quilts (I have several friends who are either expecting or trying), I saw the charm pack of Love U by Deb Strain, who I LOVE, and snagged that, too.

And I timed it just right, and Fat Quarter Shop agreed to ship them with my prize from their give-away last month...

You ready for this?

I won one of the Moda Sampler Boxes! Here it is, all nice and tidy, before I get my grubby hands into it. 12 mini charm packs of 2.5" squares, for 12 of the new spring lines from Moda. Can I just tell you how freaking excited I was to win this? I giggled and squealed and flailed like a little kid.

And these will be perfect, since I just committed to another mini quilt swap. (We won't talk about the new bee I joined that starts in January, ok?)

I think I need an intervention. :D

A working "vacation"

It's the second full day of my week off, and BOY have I been getting a lot accomplished! (Even if I do sleep in til almost 9am. *ahem*) Yesterday I finished off the top for one of the 2 mini quilt swaps I'm involved in--this one for 4SQS. When my plans for last night fell through, I opened up Pandora.com (SneakerPimps radio!) and got to work. I basted and quilted the whole thing in just a couple of hours. Currently, I'm auditioning binding fabrics both for it and for the table runner I made a week or so ago. With a bit of luck I'll spend part of Wednesday watching monster movies and hand-stitching the bindings for those.

Today, the madman and I went out to the PO to ship off the last of my fabrics for my Beehive girls, as November will be my month "off". Then we drove down the valley to have brunch at the local diner (mmmm, French toast!!), and then down to the orchard for apples, pie, a Xmas gift or two, and some homemade Tahitian vanilla ice cream. YUM! A quick trip home to put away the ice cream and then we were off to Home Depot. I finally picked up more painters tape for laying quilts out for basting, as well as setting quilting lines, and finally found some shellac and finishing paste wax for a couple of decoupage projects lying around (gogo Xmas gifts!).

We originally went to HD to look at replacements for the vanity cabinet in our hall bathroom, which is original to the house and SAD as all hell. They wanted a nauseating amount of $ for a cabinet, minus the sink and counter top, and we just couldn't do it. Then yours truly had the brilliant idea of going to IKEA (we did our whole kitchen out of IKEA last summer for less than a third what had been quoted us if we had anyone else do it) for a couple of white kitchen cabinets, one for the vanity and one for over the toilet for storage. The madman agreed it was a good idea, so now we have another chore for tomorrow afternoon, once we're done at the dentist's. (Yay?)

Finally, I have a few hours this afternoon (BTW, most gorgeous day of the month so far today. STUNNING!) before I go to watch scary movies and eat pie with the madman, so I'm finally ready to cut into some of this:


for a quilt for a wedding gift--I've got about 2 months. I actually started a different quilt for this gift over the summer, and then came to the conclusion that it doesn't suit the recipients at all. So that will likely be finished in the future for a donation to Project Linus or Margaret's Hope Chest.

I'm going with coins. The couple's favorite colors are blue and green. Being up north, normally I'd shift and do more dark colors, but they'll be moving down to North Carolina just after the wedding into off-base housing (he's in Afghanistan at the moment), and wanted something a bit more fresh. They're also only 20, so it needed to be a bit more hip and mod. Now, to sit down and weed out some of the flower prints from this stack! The trouble with boys--not so big on the flowers, as a general rule. *sigh* Go figure. :)

The good, the bad, and the owie.

First, the good. I was one of the winners of a new Moda Sampler Box (due in shops next month) from FQS.com's Jolly Jabber blog! SO excited. For those who haven't seen it yet, it's like 12 mini charm packs--2.5" squares of the full ranges of 12 different collections coming out in the spring. I got word yesterday, and there was much squealing and flailing.

The good and the bad-ish. Got a good start on my 4SQS mini quilt for the holiday swap. 3 of 4 little blocks are done, and I love them. Only, by the time I started the 4th block, which is bigger than the others, it was after 11 and I wasn't at my best anymore. I miscut the middle strip twice before I chucked it in for the night and went to bed. Frustrating!

And this morning, the owie. Went to the dermatologist this morning to have a lump on my shoulder looked at. I hadn't expected to come out with stitches!! Ouch! A little cranky and sorer by the minute as the local wears off. :( May not be any sewing for a day or two til my shoulder feels a bit more like itself. Hopefully then I'll be able to cut straight again!

A rare flash of brilliance

I've mentioned it in an entry or two that I've been sweating the design for my 4SQS mini quilt swap--this one has a holiday theme. Tomorrow starts the beginning of the 1 month window to get our quilts and their accompanying package-y bits finished and sent out. So I've been KILLING myself on this, stalking my poor swapee's flickr and blog, getting a feel for her style, and also thinking constantly about design elements for the approximate dimensions we were given in the guidelines.

What about stars? How Christmassy should I go with the fabrics? Most of my Christmas fabrics are a bit...muddy?--deep reds and greens, dark golds--but my recipient favors bright colors. How crazy do I go with this? Can I just go with Christmassy colors and not worry too much if there isn't holly or snowflakes or trees on every print? What about simple 9-patches? She does like improv-piecing and wonky blocks, I can do that, should I go with that? Can I come up with fabric that screams holiday enough to make that work?? *clutches head and cries*

On my lunch hour, I was perusing a flickr group on quilts, of course, and it suddenly came to me like I'd been struck. I knew EXACTLY what I was going to do. I knew dimensions, layout, colors, block styles, absolutely everything in a sudden flash. I dropped everything, grabbed my pencil and a ruler and some scrap paper and got it all down before it was gone. I can't wait to get home and pull fabrics for it. I wish I could share, but a) I'm at work and my camera isn't, and b) I think I'd like to keep this something of a surprise, just in case she reads my blog. I doubt it, but better safe than sorry. :)

First Swap = SCARY!

So, I joined the autumn swap over at 4SQS, which is actually a winter/holiday mini-quilt swap. It's my first swap.

And I am absolutely stumped.

I've got just about a month until I need to start thinking about mailing it out to my partner. I know just what else will go along with the quilt.

I just haven't got a clue what to do for the quilt itself.

Her style is MUCH different than mine. Do I follow my style? Hers? Meet somewhere in the middle?

Every time I think I have it figured out, I start second-guessing myself. She'd like something Christmassy, and I have lots and lots of Xmas fabrics. No bigger than 20"x20". Stars? Coins? Improv piecing? Something more traditional?

Something tells me I may have several to give as gifts to other people as I work through this, trial and error. In the meantime, I'm back to overthinking. :)

When it's too hot to sew...

Yes, even with the AC right next to the sewing machine, it's too hot to sew. I've done a little here and there, but the bulk of this past week has been spent cleaning and prepping the house and menu, because I'm having guests tomorrow night. 7 people, grilling out on the back deck, so not TOO stressful, but these are "grownups" (as opposed to kids like Jay and myself, haha), my in-laws and out-of-town friends of theirs. And then there's the dietary restrictions to take into consideration: diabetes, vegetarians, gluten allergy... So we're having hamburgers and hot dogs, grilled portabellas for my husband and I. Potato salad and green salad. Veggies, chips and dip to snack on while I cook. And flourless chocolate cake and berries for dessert. With a bit of luck, the cake, which is a birthday cake for my father-in-law and also a bit of an experiment, will at least be edible. If it is, THEN I'll share the recipe. :)

Last on the to-do list is the cake and the dip, and I'm getting up early tomorrow morning to get the baking out of the way before it gets hot again. 90 and humid every day is starting to wear a little thin. I have a couple of window AC units, so I can be a bit more comfortable as long as I stay in one room. Sadly, the larger spaces (living room, dining room, kitchen) are not air-conditioned, and those would of course be the places that needed the most cleaning. *sigh* Oh well, the worst of it's done.

But it's also WAY too hot to iron, and I have a bunch of seams which need pressing before I can can finish the next 12 blocks for AmandaJean's 9-patch quilt-along. I'm staying fairly close to where I should be, and having a ball with it.

Speaking of having a ball... Have I mentioned how excited I am to be taking part in swaps and bees? I have? Because I am absolutely giddy. I have my fabrics and inspiration board done for my bee, The Beehive, which starts next month, and I am waiting with baited breath to get my swapp-ee for the Holiday mini quilt swap over at 4SQS. So much to look forward to! Especially when it cools off enough for me to work a bit more comfortably!