Apology to February

After my last post, I'm sure it's no secret that I tend to get a little blue during the cold weather months. By February, the charm of icicles and snow-covered vistas has worn off, and I find myself gazing longingly at my flip-flops. I got to thinking, and it's not February's fault that the weather is frigid or that I live in Kansas. So as an apology to February, I thought of some positive things about the month. Here goes:

• Cold weather is great for using my crockpot, especially for soups.
• Valentine's Day
• Lots of time in the evenings for sewing.
• My sister was born in February.
• Driving on the ice is tricky, but I needed a new paint job on my bumper anyway.
• It's the end of football season - I get the t.v. back until August!

Okay, I'm spent. I had thought of more positives than that, but I can't remember them now. Just a little interesting fact about February... last year we had a lot of ice and snow in our area, and in October (9 months later) the hospital had a record number of babies delivered. So I guess that's what everyone around here does during bad weather that doesn't know how to sew? Never thought of sewing as birth control before...

Anyway, on to quilting. Here's another quilt I started before Christmas. This quilt was actually my mom's Christmas present, but since I was sick I didn't quite get it done in time. I did have one row done that I wrapped for her to open on Christmas Day. I finally got the borders on today, and now I just have to quilt and bind it. Piece o' cake, right? Well, borders seem to be the biggest quilting hurdle for me, so maybe the rest will go quickly. One can hope.

February sucks

In Kansas anyway. Today it's cloudy and cold, and there is about an inch or so freezing rain and sleet on the ground. It's getting kind of soupy right now, but after dark it will freeze and form a solid sheet of ice. If it's going to be cold, it should either be Christmas or snowing. Otherwise, I have no use for cold weather...bring on Spring! This weather is also irksome to me today because the bad weather is keeping customers out of the store, so no one has seen me on one of my rare good hair days. Sorry, all of that makes it sound like I'm in a very crabby mood, which I am not. I'd just be happier if the sun were shining... who wouldn't?

The up-side is that I've a full day of longarm quilting with very few distractions. Here is the quilt I just finished...
And here's the back. You can always see the quilting better on the back.

I've been practicing my feathers, so I thought I'd put all that practice to good use. I hope the customer likes it! She lives out of town, so I doubt she'll be picking it up today due to the weather.

My local quilt guild met last night, and for the program everyone brought a project to designate as a (one-month late) new year's resolution. The goal is to finish your project by February 2009 and show it at that month's meeting. It was really fun to see what everyone is working on...one person even had a project that had been started in 1981! We all had a good laugh because I was born in 1980 and that project is almost as old as I am.

Anyway, here's the project I chose.

I bought this Santa fabric and some coordinating pieces in 2005, and I've yet to finish it. So far, I've got these blocks and drawer full of wrinkled strips. I don't have to have it finished for guild until Feb. 09, but I'm hoping to have it done soon enough to use at Christmas. That should be plenty of time, but you just never know with me. You know how I don't like to finish things.

I can hardly contain myself

Are these not the coolest containers ever?! I saw the Coats & Clark ones at another vendor's booth at the OKC winter quilt show, and I knew I had to order some. I love the vintage look. I have a couple of antique Singer sewing machines in their original cabinets, and these tins look so cool next to the machines. Plus, they're just so useful. I mean, who can't use a container for fat quarters, thread, marking tools, trims... all sorts of stuff. By the way, these are available on the shop website.


And this Disney Cars tin... my nephew's birthday is next month, and he is going to flip when he sees this. I'm going to try to find some small toy tools to put in it. If I can't find any, I might just go with candy. He already has a Cars quilt, or I would roll a quilt up and stuff it inside. I'm getting excited just thinking about him getting excited.

And....what's this.... is that a border? On a quilt of mine? It certainly is. I love this quilt, and I'm determined to finish it by the end of the month. Period. Because if I don't self-impose a deadline, it will never get finished.

On that happy note, I'm off to sew more borders!

My kind of bouqet...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Apron-y

I promised you last week that I did some crafting over my extended blog break, so here we go. First off, I made an apron for a Christmas family gift exchange. I actually won it back, which I was quite excited about! Most of the people on that side of the family like country/farm stuff, so I used fabric from Moda's Bunkhouse line. I love the worn-looking "bandanna" prints in this line.

The pattern I used is the Four Corners apron pattern by Vanilla House Designs, which I actually mentioned here in my very first blog post! I love this pattern...I talked about why I love it in my first post. In short, it is very quick and easy, and made a perfect gift (especially since I ended up bringing it back home!).

This apron is pictured in my first blog post, but here I am wearing it at my booth at the Oklahoma City Winter Quilt Show in January. (Not my fave picture of myself...looks like it needs be stretched vertically a bit. And I've had my hair cut off shorter since then. But at least it shows what the apron looks like on an actual person).

And because just about everything is cuter in a smaller size, here's the kids version!

So cute! I especially love it in this "convenience" printed patchwork and oversized polka dot fabric by Loralie Designs. Makes me wish I had a little one to dress up in it...my niece needs to hurry up and grow into it!

I've also been trying to catch up on cutting fabric for quilts I have planned (before all my fabric is gone!). This pile is for the 2007 Kansas City Star block of the month, Borderland in Butternut and Blue. It only calls for 12 fat quarters for the blocks, but I want to have options!

I need to choose fabrics for this year's KC Star block of the month also. If you don't live in the KC area to get the newspaper (the blocks come out on the third Sunday of the month), you can buy the patterns here, or wait for the book to come out in October. Since I missed January, I think I'll wait for the book to come out...I won't get started on the quilt until then anyway!

Pajama quilting

Where does a week go? I mean, I know where mine went...I heard the flushing sound at the end of last week that cued the slow but inevitable drain of this week down the proverbial toilet. Sunday was the Superbowl, so I was at the shop in the afternoon and then watched the game that night. Monday went okay until my husband and I both came down with the stomach flu, which put me out of commission through Wednesday. Thursday.... that was just yesterday... let's see, what did I do... oh yes, scrambled to catch up from everything that doesn't get done when you're sick. Oh, and I got a mini-makeover! A quilter friend of mine sells Mary Kay, so we went to an "eyes-cream social" and ate ice cream and got eye make-up done...fun! I ordered a facial highlighting pen and a brow definer pencil. These are two items that are currently missing from my makeup repertoire (which is a very fancy word for the 4 or 5 make-up items that I actually use), but I'm very excited to get them. What a difference they make!

Sorry, that was starting to sound a lot like whining until I got to the makeover part, so let's move on to quilting. I've been using any spare moment I've had at the shop lately to longarm quilt. I'm really getting excited about longarm quilting lately. Quilting is just a fact of quilt-making that I never really considered much before. But now that I've been quilting for almost a year (eek!), I'm starting to spread my wings and experiment a bit more. I ordered Dawn Ramirez's new Pajama Quilter Reloaded DVD, and here's what I've done with it so far.


Cindy pieced this top the last time she was in the shop...before she broke her ankle. (Did I forget to mention that? Well, she did - slipped on the ice. I'm afraid I've been a bit self-absorbed lately =)
One of Dawn's basic flowers...
A flower, a ribbon, and some loops....
And more of the same. This is really just part of the basic stuff on her DVD. I really recommend this DVD if you've been wanting to learn some good freehand quilting designs. You don't need to have a longarm machine.. in fact, in the DVD she demos here designs on a whiteboard. Very easily translated to quilting on a domestic sewing machine.

I've got so much more to learn. As Dawn would say, practice and chocolate will get me there eventually. Sounds like a good plan for this evening, actually....

Changes

I feel like I've made a lot of posts apologizing for long absences, so I won't do that here. I will say that I didn't mean to go without posting for so long, but I've had lots of changes going on in my life lately, and blogging just got pushed to the back seat.

I'll start by telling you the biggest change... my husband and I have decided to move to another city (town?), out of state. As a result, I am closing the quilt shop. I will miss the shop, but I am going to continue to longarm quilt. In a way, I am looking forward to being able to focus on doing one or two things, instead of doing 5 or 6 things very quickly. The good news for all of you is that everything is the shop is priced 20% to 40% off, including books, patterns, and notions. I haven't had a chance to update the prices on the website, but I will apply the discount in the shop before I ship.

Another change that had has a more immediate impact on my life this week is that our dog, Heidi, passed away on Monday. She was only two years old, but we think she had a heart attack or something like that. My husband was there with her, so at least she wasn't alone. He came home for lunch, and he said as he was walking in the back gate, she just fell over. About a minute later, she was gone. I was pretty upset earlier in the week, but it's getting easier as time goes by. Being home is the hardest part...it's so quiet around there. I keep expecting to see her run in, jump up on the couch, and settle in for a nap. Or push the bathroom door open while I'm in the shower. Or maybe chase her tail or bring us her stinky duck toy or rope bone. She loved to go on walks, and I will always think of her when I drive by the park where we walked. She also loved to go in the car. It didn't matter where, and more than once I had to drag her out of my car in the mornings so I could go to work. These are all memories of her that I will cherish. She was good girl, a gentle yet playful soul, and she will be dearly missed.

I have been crafting a little since I posted last (and geez, what a crybaby I was being. Turns out I was pretty sick though), so will catch you all up on that stuff soon. For now, here are some pictures of my sweet little Heidi girl.

Sleep tight, little Heidi. Sleep tight.