Selvage Bag

Do you save selvages from your fabric? I heard quilters were saving them to make pincushions and small zippered bags so I started doing so about a year ago. When I was at the fabulous Road 2 California quilt show last month, I saw a woman carrying a great bag made of selvages and decided I had to make one!

I found a pattern I really loved and some bright Alexander Henry stripe-y fabric (to go in the opposite direction of my selvages) and started making it right away. I'd post the pattern title for you but, truly, it is written so poorly (missing pattern pieces, other pattern pieces the wrong size) that I wouldn't recommend it.

Getting all the selvages centered and sewn together on a foundation just the way I wanted them took several hours and the bag construction took several more but I just love it! Hope it inspires you to save your selvages and make something out of them!



Thank you, as always Judy, for allowing us to show off our wares!

Color Palette Challenge

This is a stretch for me, that's what's so great about Judy's blog--she stretches us, challenges us, makes us better quilters!

I'm kind of choosy about my colors and there are certain colors I'm uncomfortable with but I decided I'm going to do this!

It looks like Judy's making a whole quilt each month but I can't do that so I have a plan: I'm going to make this same quilt block each month with the monthly color palette THEN make them into a quilt at the end of the year. This block is from one of my favorite books, "Knockout Blocks and Sampler Quilts" by Judy Martin. I feel the blocks in it are so different and original. With this particular block, I can use 5-6 different colors easily and I can't wait to see what the next month will bring! (In this photo it looks like I used black but it's really a really dark blue.)

Oh, and the best thing about this challenge: that we get to use all those fabrics from our stashes that are at the bottom of the stack, wondering when they're going to be chosen to appear in the next project! I have LOTS of those!! LOL!

UFO #5--All Done!

By the hair of my chinny-chin-chin I finished my UFO #5, "Anteitum"just in time . I started this quilt at a mystery retreat last June and finished the top there then put it away. I pinned it a couple of weeks ago but didn't remember I needed to finish it until yesterday! Can I quilt it and sew on the binding before tomorrow, I wondered? Well, I spent 5 hours today quilting it on my domestic machine (Janome 6600), put the last stitch on the binding at 11:48 pm, took a picture (that's my adorable DH holding it for me) and typed up the blog.





I did a small meander on all the light, background spaces and put a little swirly stencil on the blue spaces, (haven't washed out the markings yet!) and let the rest "pop out". I love it! It will go to the next person who requests a quilt from me for one of the local charity auctions we have so often where I live in northern California.
Thank you, Judy, for inspiring all of us to finish our UFOs!

Wool Applique ala Primitive Gatherings

Thank you, Judy, for letting us show our design walls every Monday. I am so inspired by what I see every week!

I've been a member of the Valley Quilt Guild in Yuba City CA for 15 years. I've lived 45 miles from there for over 11 years now and even though there are many quilt guilds closer to me, I still go there for meetings every month because my very favorite quilting buddies are there. Last week, we were lucky to have Lisa Bongean from Primitive Gatherings in Wisconsin teach us how to wool applique! What a character! We were thoroughly entertained by her lecture and her techniques and amazingly wonderful wool and patterns. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get hooked on this 'new' process as the wool is SO lovely to needle through and the sewing goes SO much more quickly than traditional applique. Instead of spending weeks or months producing a work of art with cotton, you can get a beautiful wool applique project finished in a fraction of that time. I'm all over that!!  This is the project we worked on in the class.

I'm also in a Row Robin group and this is the row I'm to be inspired by. I plan to add a tree, another type of house and a bear in the row I make to go with this one.

Fabulous Chili

Found a good-looking chili recipe on the Better Homes and Garden website and thought I'd try it. Made a few alterations and, wow, it's fantastic. Don't let the ingredients put you off. Make it and try it!

FABULOUS CHILI

              Serves 12

      1    Recipe Chili Seasoning, (recipe below)

      1 1/2
pounds ground beef chuck

      1 1/2 
large onion, chopped

      3 
stalks celery, sliced

      2 1/2 
tablespoons smoked paprika

      2 1/2 
teaspoons ground coriander

      1 
teaspoon crushed red pepper

      3/4
teaspoon ground cloves

      2   15 ounce can diced tomatoes

      1   can kidney beans

   1 
32 ounce container beef broth

      1 
6 ounce can tomato paste

      2 
ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped or

             1 semi-sweet, 1 unsweetened

      1/2
cups dried plums, chopped

directions

Prepare Chili Seasoning Puree. In 6-quart Dutch oven cook beef, onion, and celery until meat is browned, stirring as needed. Drain fat.

Stir in Chili Puree, paprika, coriander, crushed red pepper, and cloves. Cook and stir 2 minutes. Stir in undrained tomatoes, beef broth, kidney beans and tomato paste. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Add chocolate and plums. Simmer, covered, 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Makes 12 servings.

 Chili Seasoning Puree

      2 
dried chili peppers

      ¼ cup 
jarred, tamed jalapeno peppers

      3/4
cup beef broth

      5 
pitted dried plums

directions

Place dried chile peppers in a bowl. Add boiling water to cover. Let stand 30 minutes. Drain; remove stems and seeds. In food processor or blender combine drained chile pepper, jalapeno pepper, beef broth, and dried plums. Cover and process or blend until smooth.

Another One Done!

First things first: Did you all get a copy of Judy's new book, "60 Pieced Borders"? What a fabulous book!! There are so many quilts and borders I want to make! What a design WIZARD she is! If you haven't gotten the book yet, I'll tell you, it's the best value in a quilt book I've ever seen--and I have a couple hundred quilt books! Go get it!

Now, for my design wall:

I'm on a roll--two quilts finished in one week! How did this all come about? See, the part that always holds me up with a quilt is the PINNING! I simply don't have a place big enough (the floor is not an option with my bad back) to comfortably get this part of the process done--until this week!! My DH come up with 2 long tables and cleared a space in our well-lighted garage to put them up, got me a chair and everything so I could sit and pin--YAY!!!.

So, I pinned 3 quilts and quilted 2 of them! You saw the first in Judy's last Design Wall Monday (the baby quilt for my daughter's friend) and this one is for my daughter and her wife who will be closing on their first home next week. It will be a throw for their new sofa. Their color plan is white, black and Tiffany blue, the condo is bright and modern and they're young so I wanted something hip and fun. I decided on "Happy Hour" by Atkinson Design.

They don't know what the quilt looks like but I gave them a choice of back fabric knowing full well what they would choose: Zebra print Minkee! I quilted it with big flowers and leaves which I know they'll love too. I named the quilt "Happy Hour, Happy Home". I hope they thrive in this new space that's totally their own!

A word about the little orange rectangle: My daughter is trying to find the perfect rug for her living room and I told her last week to find one with a complimentary color in it as a boost to the palette they chose. That would be orange. Since they were married on Halloween, I included this orange fabric which has little pumpkins on it; a salute to their very happy, 3-year marriage.

Do you like the binding I chose?

One more thing: I just came back from arguably, the best quilt show in California: "Road 2 California" down in Ontario. The quilts! The people! The classes! The SHOPPING!!! Here's what I bought: 4 new patterns I just MUST make NOW, enough thread to last me a lifetime  including 72 pre-rolled bobbins ('Superior' thread is my fav brand--2 miles of thread on each of those big spools), 4 kinds of needles, pearle cotton, some new gadgets to try and a few pieces of fabric to fill in my stash. PHEEEW! What a fabulous time I had!
Now I have to get into my sewing room!

Baby Quilt Finished!

Is there any better feeling than finishing a quilt? My daughter's wonderful friend is expecting her third child next month. I made quilts for her first two and she says they won't go to sleep without them. Well, how can I NOT make one for baby III? I took a panel meant to be made into a book with Mother Goose rhymes, cut them out and inserted pinwheels for the sashing. Of course, a plush Minkee is on the back--nothing else will do for a baby quilt!

I'm a member of a 7-quilter group who has decided to do a Row Robin. This is the first of the rows and  I wanted mine to be a summery, bright one. Each of us will pass our row, every other month, to another person in the group until we have 7 rows that we will then, each put together as we wish.

So what did YOU make this week? Check out everyone's beautiful design walls on Judy's blog.