Checking in before checking out...

Here are some little green cherry tomatoes and some basil from my back stoop garden.  I am off to spend some quality family time for 3 weeks.  (Maybe, just maybe, I will get a little stitching done in the mean time...maybe very little, LOL!)  We'll definitely be eating ripe, home grown tomatoes soon!

I will certainly be doing some summer reading (Stephanie Plum book #16 by Janet Evanovich and a small pile of "Bubbles" books - thanks Mary J!!), some original applique scheming and dreaming, and visiting the new "World of Harry Potter" section of an Orlando, FL theme park with my husband and this excited young lady (freshly back from New York City and her first Broadway show)...

I can't believe she talked us into a Harry Potter "nerd convention" (Infinitus 2010, in conjunction with the opening of the park).  What were we thinking?!?

We'll let you know how it turns out...

In stitches (and in a wizard robe...),

Teresa  :o)

Going around in circles...

Oh my.  Is anyone else doing this fabulous Joseph's Coat Quilt-Along from Kellie at  Don't Look Now???  I have been at this for a while as a baby quilt for my new nephew (now 6 months old...oh my...).

I have to admit it has not been an easy project for me.  First of all, I broke my rule and let my sister see it in progress in February.  Sometimes it takes all the wind out of my sails when I do a partial reveal.  Then the cat turned over my tea cup and I ended up having to re-make a few circles (since I glue my edges under, I couldn't plunge the pieces under the water to get the tea stain out of the bright white background).  Then I bled on one and didn't realize it until it was too late for my spit to remove the stain...had to re-do that one too.

Somehow I managed to finish all the little whole and half circle blocks...now to put them together so that the pattern is continuous.  I don't have a picture of that for you yet as it looks like A COMPLETE MESS!!!  I'm following the tutorials, but it is awkward folding the excess background out of the way in order to connect the circles in a continuous pattern...bulky, bulky, bulky. 

I think it is going to work eventually, but I am very clumsy trying to do the hand applique with the weight of all that excess, folded-out-of-the-way background fabric...especially when trying to get those 6 little points to meet PERFECTLY.  I may need to do some pre-mature trimming...

I got really spoiled by the ease of hand-appliqueing all the little circle blocks...la-tee-da!  Then I hit the wall, which I will push over...at some point.  I'm feeling the pressure of Asa possibly being in second grade before he gets this quilt!!

I will show progress on how it is going together next time...until then, off to work at the quilt shop!

In stitches,

Teresa  :o)

Not in Kansas any more...

"Wickedly Liberated" is finished and ready to quilt.  I wanted to have it machine-quilted, but some of the bulky trims/embellishments may remove that option.  Weasley jumped in the picture...he got all excited when he thought we might be "getting" some doggies!  Here's a picture without him...

I'm pleased with the bottom-right corner house, and I ended up free-piecing a witch hat in the top-left corner to balance.  I had an extra one of Mary J's liberated witch blocks...I wish I had put it where the witch hat is now, but I think I have another, SMALLER, project in mind for that.

Thank you to all my liberated lady swap group for contributing to my top: Ola, Mary J, Judy E, Ellen, Kathy, Jean, Judy T, Chris, Mary H, Mary Liz, Margit, Barb N, Marilyn, Cindy, Cheryl, and Beth.  And thanks to Tonya of Lazy Gal Quilting (and Lynne of Patchery Menagerie and Bonnie of Quiltville's Quips & Snips) for all the visual inspiration on making the free-pieced letters.  There are many more of THOSE in my future!

(Weasely, waiting to "get" the doggies...where are they?!?)

(Nessa the witch is having a "bad house day"...)

We are having another blazing hot day in southeast lower Michigan...be careful of the heat (or cold) wherever you are!

In stitches (and in Oz),

Teresa   :o)

Cloudy and a chance of falling houses...

I needed to fill a little space in the wordy border corners of my liberated lady quilt and thought I really needed a house falling on a witch.  (I think I will make a witch hat for the opposite corner.)  I cheated!  I tried and tried to free-piece the legs and slippers but it just didn't work out.  (I justified it by observing that some people in my swap embellished their blocks a little with applique...).

MAJOR ETHICAL NEW FABRIC DILEMMA:

To rip or not to rip?!?

I just dropped in on a quilt store in the center of the state (Michigan) this afternoon while running an errand in that particular small town.  I decided to support the local economy by getting some fabric from the shop on the village square (my patriotic duty, after all...), and to my horror, they ripped it!!  I know, I know...some people think that this is the best way to get fabric, but it seems so violent to me.  We rotary cut at the quilt store where I work part time, unless it is double wide stuff for backings.  AND, I always measure with "fat thumbs," which means you never get exactly 36 inches of fabric when I am cutting you a yard of goods.  Maybe I wouldn't have minded the tearing so much if I had known that I got 37 inches of fabric.  I know what the mark-up is on fabric...does it really hurt to be a tad bit generous??  I mean, really!!  I think I made a face when the owner ripped my selection, because then she proceeded to give me a lecture to justify her violent act (like I had not been quilting since 1982...).  Blah, blah, blah...

I do try and cut most of my long boders perpendicular to the selvage, but I also deal with things cut WOF as well.  I "press rather than scrub" with the iron (thanks Mary J. for that quote and reinforcement...), so I don't have much trouble with "squirrel-li-ness" of piecing, even when I cut things on the bias.

After ripping one particularly bad, screwy bolt, she tried lining up the edges to prove that everything would be fine for cutting across the width of the fabric.  She could not get the huge wrinkle out, no matter how many times she stretched out my poor cut  "rip" of fabric and re-adjusted the fold.  I nearly cried, paid for my purchases, and couldn't wait to get out of there with my wounded pieces of fabric.  I drowned my sorrows in a tall diet coke (wanted a milkshake, but got a hold of myself in the freakin' nick of time...LOL).

So, how do you feel about tearing versus cutting with a rotary cutter or scissors when purchasing fabric??  And, how do you feel when you ask for 1 yard of fabric and you get 36 inches exactly of fabric (instead of a smidge more....)??

Bitching, I mean, in stitches,

Teresa   :o)

I need a bigger design wall...or a bigger family room floor!

Weasley likes it enough to take a whole bath on it while I was staring at it and thinking.  Maybe I should have made the letters shorter...they seem a little big.  Oh well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!  Not bad for my first attempt at these letters.  Of course, Mr. furry britches is lying right on top of the witch, which probably makes you wonder why I picked that particular phrase...how do cats know these things?!?

I need to purchase a little more champagne colored "Fizz" by P&B to finish out the word border...it's amazing how much background fabric it takes to be liberated.  Then I need to think of a small outer border...

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

Word games...

The words for my Liberated Lady swap block quilt are done...this is just five of them (for those of you trying to make an intelligent phrase from what you see in the picture...LOL).  The rest are sloppily pinned to my too-small design wall...not pretty.

These letters are in the spirit of Tonya at Lazy Gal Quilting.  I intentionally did not read her tutorials...I was trying to be totally liberated!  I probably should have read the tutorials first...especially when I got to the letters S, G, and R.  I've always been bad about reading the directions...

I was battling all day with my perfectionism, which wanted them to be the same height and perfectly spaced.  They look far better in all different sizes and with wonky spacing, which is really easy to accomplish if you loosen up and just let 'er rip!

Because the quilt center is so busy, I decided on one color for the letters and one for the background (I just love the new "Fizz" by P&B!).  Now I want to make more in lots of fun colors and fabrics.

The next step is to decide how to place the word phrases around the quilt center.  I am enjoying the "fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants" design style.

In stitches,

Teresa  :o)

Darn it, but I've been "dashed" out!

I think I have almost recovered from working at the shop (The Quilting Season, Saline, Michigan) for the Michigan Stash Dash last Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  I know quilters love these things, but they can be a killer to get ready for and live through for store staffs!  After 12-hour plus days, I came home and didn't go near my stash.  I think I was on cotton overload (I didn't think that was possible!).  Shocking!

I have a few new baskets to add to the others.

I've also been doing a little stash scrap maintenance...washing, sorting, putting stuff away.   Rae Ann was nice enough to ask me to post on Stash Manicure this morning.  If you have not checked out that site, it is a MUST SEE!!!  GREAT ideas for using your stash from all kinds of invited guest bloggers!

Today is my daughter's 13th birthday, and she leaves later in the day for a church youth group trip to New York City.  I will miss her, but I am SO looking forward to some SEWING and ME time!!!!!  Shocking!

In stitches,

Teresa  :o)

Uh-oh...a new crush...

What is wrong with me?  For 7 months, I was a one-quilt-woman...didn't even look at another quilt with lust in my heart while working on the Civil War Bride.  Now that the bride is done, I'm like a drunken sailor on shore leave!  Little houses in a quaint village, Liberated Ladies, a baby quilt, Blackbird baskets, Aunt Clara, Klosjes, Civil War Sampler, log cabins...these are just a few of my on-going projects, some long-term, some with a deadline in mind. 

While at Borders Books with my daughter on Monday afternoon, I picked up this magazine and saw the quilt on the cover.  My heart skipped a beat.  I opened the magazine to the proper page, and there she was...Annabelle.  (Don't tell my husband...)  Has anyone else fallen for this vixen??

The magazine is sharing the pattern, which is nice.  I'm going to hold off on any starts...just daydream about it for a while.

I know, I know...SUCKER!

In stitches,

Teresa   :o)

And the winners are...

A pot of tea and a drawing.  The winner of the neutral bundle is Barb.  The winner of the smaller blue and green bundles is Moramargaritaster.  Congratulations!  Please send me an email with your postal address and I will get this cotton moving!

Thank you to everyone who participated...I wish I had a prize for everyone as you were all so sweet and generous with your comments!

I managed to finish assembling the center of the liberated ladies top.  Now it is on to the borders, including free-pieced phrases.  I stripped out all the ladies with my stash of small to medium florals and bugs/butterflies.  I tried my hand at some trees to fill a few holes.

There were some cool embellishments and "bling" on some of the swapped ladies, which I removed temporarily during construction and quilting.  I will put them back in place when the quilting is finished.

Don't you love the chick in the bikini???

As I was chain-piecing all these strips, ladies, trees and doggies, I was sewing through my "leaders and enders" (thanks, Bonnie!) to make these kinds of blocks.  Here are 4 little blocks that I have done...2 light chain, and 2 dark chain.  It is a great way to get rid of 2 inch scraps!  If you don't know about leaders and enders, check out Bonnie's blog.  Having scrappy blocks ready to piece as I piece another project, sitting in a basket next to my machine, gives me basically two quilt tops for the effort of one.  And I do love scrappy!

And last but certainly not least (should have been first!)...Susi was kind enough to offer templates to make the fabulous scrappy Aunt Clara quilt that she is making here.  I experimented with a small handful of scraps, and now I am totally hooked!!  I need to spend some time cutting out some scraps to keep going on this fun little hand-pieced project.  Here is my embarrassingly feeble start...I have chosen to use scrappy neutrals for the squares then anything goes for the elongated hexagons!

Thank you susi!  This will be another one of my enjoyable little projects on the go in a magic box (along with my spools and little appliqued baskets).

In stitches,
Teresa  :o)

Happy Blog-day to me!! (finally, the give-aways!)

Oh no!!  Headless kitty!  No, Weasely is not the give-away...

My blog is one year old this week, and I finally got out and about and found a couple of fabric give-aways worthy of the occasion. 

The neutral fat quarter bundle on the left contains 13 gorgeous pieces of Jo Morton's "Attic Shirtings."

The second give-away contains 2 fat quarter bundles of Jo Morton's "Compliments" line, 5 lovely pieces in each one (blues and greens - my picture makes the green look darker and drab, they are really quite lovely!).

These are absolutely beautiful fabrics!  Leave a comment before Monday morning, June 14 at 8:00 AM Michigan time, and you could win one of the bundles!  In addition, everyone who has already well-wished me on my last post and leaves one on this post as well will have their name entered twice! 

Thank you for visiting my blog and my projects this year.  Your comments have been so warm and nice!  Good luck!  Here's one more shot of Mr. Weasley...(my daughter named him...he's Harry Potter's red-headed friend...).

In stitches,

Teresa  :o)