At Least I've Never Attacked a Rabbit With an Oar...

My name is Janice, and I have lusted in my heart.

I have wanted this fabric, "Flower Sugar" for over a year. When the Fat Quarter Shop sent me that email that it had finally arrived, I bought every single speck of it that very day. Love.

Love, love, love.It came out a while back, and I loved it then, but it had a weird stripe, and a multi-colored polka dot that I wasn't crazy about. Then they re-released it without the very prints that I didn't like!They read my mind.
So I have it all, and I can't wait to turn it into the most beautiful quilt ever. Something a little old fashioned, but still jaw dropping.
Isn't it gorgeous?
It's 40's fabulous. I'm thinking it might need a touch of black in there, to cut the sweetness.
We'll see.
And the following will only make sense if your name is Lisa.
See Lisa?How cool is that?
We're on our way, Sista!

And Another Thing...

What's new? It's been a while, here's what I've been up to.

I made some pillows, that match a quilt made with "Fandango" that a friend made.

I made some Bee blocks, here's September, based on "Map of the States" by Oh Fransson.

I love the screen printed bird fabric that Lauree sent!

And here's a house block that Heather requested.

Houses are hard!

I have been humbled by the house block. They are definitely harder than they look. This is about my sixth attempt. There were a lot of remodels before the final result.

She wanted bright, and I would absolutely live in a hot pink house. With a flower petal roof. And a pink flamingo in the yard.

Who wouldn't?

What else? I saw Kathy Griffin.

She's a tiny little pocket person, and never took a breath the whole time she was on stage.

Fabulous.

And I went to the Pacific International Quilt Festival with my dear, dear friend.

I fell in love with this one, by Carol Taylor.

I seem to remember falling in love with another of her quilts last year at the show. I think I might be in love with Carol Taylor. I just Googled her and found out that she's going to be teaching locally in January. I need to take me some classes! I don't think it's stalking if you pay to see someone, right?

I didn't catch who made this quilt, but it's awe inspiring.

I can't begin to imagine how someone made it.

My brain doesn't work that way.

And what else?

I finished the binding on the Sultry quilt.

And I started a triangle quilt out of Origins.

I love me some Origins. It looks really yellow in this picture, but it is a yellow background, so maybe it's closer than I think.

I used the very scientific "SIAH" process to pick the background of Bella Butter fabric; Stuff I Already Had. I think it works.

You'd think I'd have more things to share, it's been so long, but I don't. I'm a pretty boring person at heart. I watch a lot of TV, I try to make my dog snuggle with me, I work full time. Today IS the Sweet Baboo's birthday though, THAT'S exciting! We're meeting friends at a Fondue restaurant tonight. Should be tons of fun.

I'll let you know.

Hellllllllo August!

Where did July go?

I swear, I'm going to blink and be 95. I have no idea how the time gets away from me so easily.

July was filled with working and vacationing, and searching for the perfect fish tacos, and camping and napping and panic attacks and a small bit of sewing and cleaning and movie watching and lunching on the wharf and more work.

This is one of the only pictures I took while camping in Pismo Beach, showing just how cold it was the whole time we were there.

And this is a Christmas quilt I'm making for my sister-in-law (I don't think she reads my blog...) from the Old Red Barn Co quilt along.

I'm not in love with it yet. It's made with "At Home for the Holidays" fabric, which I think will suit my SIL just fine. I deliberately don't have any red pieces on the outside edges so that I can add on a red border and then maybe a piano key border of all the leftover fabrics. I'm not sure though, it's pretty big already. I'd like to find a nice flannel for the back, without spending a fortune. Don't you hate when you get to the backing and it costs more than the whole top? Or maybe it just because we don't buy a giant four yard piece all at once. It's easier to ignore the cost if only see it in small bites.

"$2 for a fat quarter? I'll take five! $10 a yard? Ridiculous!"

The fabrics are nice though.

I added in a couple others just because.

I had to order one more yard for the border, and also a border for this quilt...

I've got it all pieced together now, and I'm waiting (searching? pining?) for inspiration for a border. I don't want to just slap a plain piece of fabric on it, but it should be something that reflects what's going on in the quilt. You know? You know? I know you know. This woman ruined me. I LOVED her quilt as it was, and then she went and added on the most amazing border!

Dang it! Always someone upping the ante!

Any ideas?

SewFun2

Man, talk about addictive!

Chelsea requested wonky quarter log cabin blocks for her July pick in our quilting bee.

I could make these things for DAYS!

I might have to start my own quilt with them!

I was so impressed when I got her fabric, because I don't think I could have put these fabrics together in a million years, but it works!

I definitely need to push myself in my color choices. Get away from the precuts and fabric bundles. Mix it up!

My first two blocks looked too much alike for me, (it's the angles and placement of the dark brown) so I had to squeak out the third block.

I hope she likes it!

Just so you know...

Fabric.com is having a sale. I just got 18 half yard cuts of Anna Marie Horner's Good Folks line, with a little Tina Givens thrown in for $28. Free shipping on orders over $35, PLUS 20-25% off the sale prices!

Get in there and get you some!

(photo stolen from Anna Marie Horner's blog)

Chickens and Lizards and Bindings OH MY!

Soooooo... ummm...

Remember when I said I did all my bindings on the sewing machine? Remember how I said I would never, but NEVER attempt a binding BY HAND?

Remember when I was so smug about those who would attempt it, and how I rolled my eyes and quietly called them freaks under my breath?

Ok, I might have done that last one in private.

But now I'm rolling my eyes at myself, which is just very hard to do and will give you a migraine, because here I am, me, smug bastard that I am, DOING A BINDING BY HAND!

What has the world come to?

And what's more?

I LIKE IT!

So here's the Kitchen Chicken quilt. I took pictures of it and shared it with you.

And in looking at the pictures, I was struck by the yellow chickens.

They looked a little lost.

A little disjointed.

And there's nothing sadder than a disjointed, lost chicken.

I had to give them somewhere to roost.

So when putting the binding on, I included a little flange of yellow chicken fabric.

Like piping, without the pipe.

I tried to cut all the red out of the fabric, because the Metro Market fabric with the yellow background has red and black chickens.

I missed one tiny spot, this little guy looking out from the corner.

How cute is that? Completely spontaneous, I didn't try to land him there.

But I love him.

So because I did the fancy pipeless-piping on the front, I didn't want to ruin the look by machine stitching the binding.

So there I was.

Quilt across my lap.

HAND SEWING the binding to the back.

Who woulda thunk it?

And the more I sewed, the more I loved the look.

I have no idea if I did it correctly, and it may all come out with the first tug, but I did it.

And it's cute on the back too.

And every time I took a stitch and hooked the thread with my middle finger to pull it through, it was as if my Mother was in the room, looking over my shoulder.

She would have been AMAZED.

She always commented on how she tried and tried to teach me to sew as a child, and I always resisted.

It amused her so much to be able to say:

"My daughter - the quilter!"

I think she'd be proud. I'm proud of myself!

On another note, the Sweet Baboo has been doing a lot of yard work, and scared up this little fella.

Looks like he lost his tail at some point, and grew a new one.

I think there's a lesson there about not letting things stop you.

Just get over it and keep going.

Thanks Lizard!

Message received.

Like the Mona Lisa in Fabric...

Drum roll please!

Boy, I am on such a roll with the blogging these days.

What WILL I talk about tomorrow?

So this is the Sultry Braid Quilt.

It started as a kit, but then expanded and expanded into the beautiful quilt it is today.

Its big, pretty much bed sized.

Look at the amazing job my quilter did.

Look at those feathers!

Look at the 'ribbon candy' in that pink border!

I can't stand it.

She said while she was quilting the borders, (amazing!) she kept thinking "big floppy bunny ears... big floppy bunny ears..." because we didn't want, as she put it, the "quilted to death" look.

I love it.

Absolutely love it.

I have a stripe fabric for the binding, but now I really want a dark brown binding.

A frame.

For a work of art.

'Cause that's what it is.

I'm so in love.

My "What If?" Book

So there's a lot of talk on the quilt blogs these days.

A couple of things caught my eye.

One, was a call for quilters to try harder, and work at making "art" instead of churning out simple patterns.

The second is a pledge to blog more about the process of making something, as opposed to just posting a pretty picture and saying "Look what I made!"

I'm of two minds.

On the first; I've written before about the life changing revelation that not everything has to be a masterpiece. This is something I struggle with. As a perfectionist, with some anxiety problems, if I start thinking about each quilt being "ART" in capital letters with quotation marks around it, I'll become paralyzed and never complete anything! Sometimes it's enough to make something because you found some pretty fabric. Or because you just felt like sewing something. Or because someone is having a baby.

On the other topic, I agree that I always like blog posts more when it shows some behind the scenes work.

So towards that end, today I share my process!

Here's my inspiration book.

I made the cover in my "covered notebook" phase.

No pastels for me!

(sorry for the crappy picture quality)

It started out as just a place to put quilt patterns that I thought I might like to make, but became instead a place to work out color combinations.

Sometime just putting the colors together in this book is enough to get it out of my system.

Other times they go on to become quilts!

Like this one.

My friend loves pink and brown together. So I found some pictures, (most on Flickr, apologies for not having credit for these pics!) that highlighted some pink and brown combos that I found appealing. And on the right is little Olivia's quilt!

Here's an idea that's been rolling around in my head; four seasons quilts.

Winter

Spring

Summer

Fall

This is where I worked out that instead of just orange and brown, what about some grey?

This idea of blue and green, with a dash of orange became my "Ninja Star" quilt.

And this combo...

teal and yellow, rolled around in my head for a while.

And then, during a particularly boring meeting at work, I started wondering if my Nicey Jane fabric would play well with my Verna fabric. And what if some Darla came to the party?

It turns out that yes, yes they all play very nicely together!

It's a little more complex pattern than usual, so maybe I HAVE been influenced by that "art" talk.

The Sweet Baboo doesn't approve of the darker green crosses.

They're actually a dark teal crossweave fabric. One thread is blue, and the other is green.

I think that they are very necessary, to keep the whole thing from become a mish-mash.

Masterpiece? Maybe not.

Or maybe the masterpiece is just in the creation.

Maybe everything is a masterpiece.