word play

My Fresh Modern Bee blocks for July 2011 were completed over this past weekend. Mandy of Mand-A-Lin asked for word blocks made in the style of this new quilting book:

My initial reaction to this request was not very enthusiastic. I guess I was in kind of a slump, and I had convinced myself that it would be difficult and time consuming to figure out this method. So I put it on the shelf in a pile where it sat. And sat. And sat some more.

Until my local library came to the rescue, and my number in the hold queue for this book came up. And then I put the book on the shelf, where it sat, while I continued to pout about making this block. I'm not usually a pouter, but for some reason I just couldn't make myself work on this one.

Again, the library to the rescue. The book came due with no possibility for renewal since others were waiting. Put up or shut up time.

I dove in, and to my surprise and unbelievable joy, it was easy and fun!! Cutting and piecing directions for each letter were a breeze to understand and execute. Here are the letters from my assigned word "give" before adding the background fabric - you can already tell the identity of each letter:

Side background pieces have been added:

And lastly the background pieces between each letter. How fun is this block?!! All squared up it measures 5" by 18". The whole thing took me about 45 minutes.

Mandy also wanted some wonky stars to scatter across her word quilt, so here they are both together:

Thanks Mandy, for forcing me to try something new! I loved the fabrics you chose, and I'm so glad to have a new skill added to my repertoire. I even made some notes with phrases I'd like to incorporate into pillows or wall quilts using this method! :)

quilting meets Laugh In

So I'm really showing my age here, but doesn't this make you think of Rowan and Martin, Lily Tomlin, and Goldie Hawn??

This is a block for Lynne at Lily's Quilts. March was her month (yes, it is very late) in the Fresh Modern Bee. She asked for a block with NO straight seams. Only curves and wavy lines. Yeah, not so much fun for the left brained crowd.

I've had an apple core block template stashed in the drawer for a while, so I thought I'd pull it out and give it a shot. I knew that I wanted to put the bright orange and red on the block as appliqued flowers, so I cut out apple cores from the blues, greens, grey, and brown Kona solids Lynne provided. The print is a gorgeous one from Prints Charming - didn't she pick great fabrics?

Turns out that piecing this block on the machine was nearly impossible for me. So with complete [completely unfounded] confidence, I pulled out my trusty hand-sewing kit.

Slowest. Block. I. Have. Ever. Made.

Hence the missed deadline.

I hope you like it Lynne. It's a one-of-a-kind. My first, and last, apple core block... probably... But then again, it really kind of grew on me after those crazy flowers were added.

Anybody out there ever made a quilt of apple core blocks?  Any tips for me?

Christmas Blocks and Caramel Bars

I finally buckled down and finished my Fresh Modern Bee blocks for September. Janice of sewgirly asked for Christmas themed pictoral blocks, so here's what I came up with...

a tree with a mini-dresden skirt and...

a bundle of Christmas gifts. Hope you like these, Janice! Most of the credit for these blocks needs to be directed to Patrick Lose - I took the pattern for the tree from a 1994 magazine of his titled "Folk Art Christmas", and the gift and bow templates came from his "Merry" wall-hanging pattern. The dresden skirt, however, was my idea. And thanks to Lorrie who provided me with all those lovely Sherry Berry fabric scraps for the skirt :)

And now for the dessert portion of this posting. If the first word of the recipe title is "Oatmeal", then it's got to be healthy, right? Even if it contains an entire stick of butter, a mess of chocolate chips, and 35 caramels in an 8" x 8" pan?

I made these Oatmeal Caramel Bars for my sewing group get-together tonight. The recipe is right on the back of this Betty Crocker bag of Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookie mix (or you can find it here.) Pretty easy, the hardest thing about it was unwrapping the 35 caramels :)

Well, "Betty's Tip" from the bag back states that you should line your pan with foil to make cleanup and cutting easier. So I did that, but the result was that the entire block was stuck to the foil... really stuck... better than stuck to the pan, but still...

After they cooled completely, I lifted the whole brick out of the pan and decided to cut all the edges off with a big giant chopping knife to make it nice and pretty. Here's a little known (but pertinent to this story) fact about me - I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THE CRUST OF ANY BAKED GOOD. So since this is the first time I've made this recipe, I decided I'd better "poison-check" the crusts I had cut away... well they're definitely not poison, but I did almost make myself sick eating the parts that I could peel away from the foil.

It's a very good thing that these bars are going to a meeting with me tonight.

I don't think it's safe for them to be alone in the house with me...

Plan B

I just finished my Fresh Modern Bee block for August. This one is for Jolene at Happy Modern Quilts; she will be making a quilt for her daughter with our blocks using pinks, oranges, yellows, and a few pops of lime green - a very happy palette!

I really struggled with this block - my original layout turned out to be waaayyy too busy, and then it took forever for me to come up with a Plan B after I had paper-pieced those flying geese segments (and used up most of the fabric she sent.) But I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I hope you and your daughter are too, Jolene! This is going to be a fabulous quilt judging from the photos in the flickr pool :)

On a completely unrelated note, I've had the Partridge Family song "I Think I Love You" running through my head ALL day. I'll bet you didn't know that every time David Cassidy sang that song in the 70's, he was singing it to me... did you? But I had to turn him down so I could finish middle school... *sigh*

HAHAHAHA - Have a great day :)

conquering the procrastination bug

My name is Shelley, and I am a procrastinator. Been one ALL my life. Sometimes I think I should just embrace it as part of the wonderful-ness of me, but most of the time I am trying to fix it. And I am only marginally successful at that.

But since joining an online mini-quilt swap, an online bee, and signing on for a row quilt exchange in my real-life sewing group, I am really going to have to buckle down and beat this bug!

Good news is that week one of Procrastinators Anonymous has gone quite well for me. Today I finished the top for my Modify Tradition Mini-Quilt Swap! Here's a sneak peek:

Hope my secret swap sister likes it!