Prints Charming, to the 9's
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 12 Comments »
As some of you may recall, I've discovered charm packs. Truth be told, I've been infected with the Charm Pack Virus. It's not my fault. I was surfing the quilty web one day when I happened upon Sisters Choice Quilts, where I was told I needed to join the Between Charming Friends Quilt-along. And having no will power what-so-ever, I did just that. I even blogged about it here.
For those of you who have taken The Process Pledge: we picked out fabric, then we cut out fabric, then we started to sew. Then along came my darling daughter's wedding anniversary & the need to fill a very large, blank space on her kitchen wall. Wouldn't you know, that little quiltlette I was charming along with was exactly the right size to fill the Katie's kitchen wall void. Instead of waiting for instructions, I barged ahead, put it all together, quilted the darned thing, bound and labeled it. How serendipitous. Turned out pretty well, and she LOVES it. Of course she loves everything I do (grin). Well, almost everything......
Ta Da!! Finished size: 27.5" x 33".
Not having enough to do, I also joined the 9 Patch Project which started on Karen's blog. I found a jelly roll of Kansas Winter, by Kansas Troubles hiding in a trunk, and started patching. The tan, green, burgungy, black and dark gold patch combination will make a perfect cold weather throw for our family room. The idea is to make a patch a day from June 1st through mid-August, netting about 76 patches; I've got 39 done. Here is my progress so far:
I'm always looking for ways to make my sewing space less helter-skelter. Those plastic take-out entree containers make really good storage trays for pre-cut strips; I have them sorted by color. They stack up on each other very nicely & fit quite well into my Art Bin storage box. Take 'em out to work; pack 'em up when I've had enough.The Charm Pack Virus continues to rage. I've been making myself project packs for Schnibbles quilts. I'm taking a Schnibbles pattern, doing all of the sub cuts from a couple of charmers, and packing everything up in pastic bags to create ready-to-go project kits. The Schnibbles work up so quickly they make a great diversion from weighter efforts, and I can manage quilting them myself on Bernie. With any luck, they will work in happily between other stuff and make great Christmas presents.
Oh, and Patchwork Penguin, a.k.a. Nancy, got me started reading Earlene Fowler's Benni Harper mystery books. Funny, light summer fare -- just the ticket to sooth a schnibbled brain -- the books have a quiltish theme without the (sometimes) cloying sweeness of a few of the Elm Creek books. My favorite quote in the 1st book, Fool's Puzzle is from one of Benni's old friends. She and Benni are trying to figure out what they ever saw in a particular boy 'way back in high school: "I don't know where my mind was. He kissed like a vacuum cleaner set on thick plush." I laughed out loud, eliciting stares on the commuter train this morning. I'll go back to the "good for me" books in the winter.
