Workshop results

I am pleased to report that the workshop was a success!! Turns out that most of the other participants knew each other already, but they couldn't have been any more welcoming to me. They made me feel like one of the group. It was great:)

We pulled names from a tin to determine whose quilt we would work on for each round. Then a technique was pulled from another tin. Our first round was 'flying geese'. It didn't matter how or where, but there had to be a goose in there somewhere! Everyone was very creative and we all had different geese. This was the round I did...
The next round was 'triangles'. Once again, it didn't matter where or how, but there had to be a triangle somewhere. I got the teacher's quilt, and thought it needed an inner border and some trees....
The third round was do whatever you want. I just did some scrappy strips and filled it in best I could - after 6 hours, fabric was running low at this point!

The teacher was Beth Helfter of EvaPaige Quilt Designs. She was so lovely and friendly - such a great teacher! She made everyone feel like nothing was wrong, the mistakes weren't dreadful, and it was OK to not be perfect! There were NO quilt police in our class, uh uh, no way :)

My quilt turned out completely different than I had ever imagined. For some reason I thought it would be done with lots of orange and would be perfect in my kitchen. Boy was I wrong!! Funny how complete strangers can't read your mind! BUT it will be just perfect for my daughter's pink room. I love it!

Here are some of the other quilts from the day. See if you can pick out the centers and each round....






Now go back to the photo of me holding my quilt - notice anything different? Huh huh?!! Oh yes, I am no longer a blonde, but have joined the ranks of brunettes. I do this every so often, (I think my real hair color is a lovely shade of boring mousy brown) so to me it's not that strange, but you should have seen the eyes of the kids I teach singing to in church yesterday. They just couldn't fathom how it happened! I pretended that I had no idea and thanked them for telling me :) Here'a a before and after, complete with zebra strip shower curtain...

See, not as much like my Dad with makeup on, right??!!! LOL!!

Finally, Applique

Firstly, yes I know I've taken a blogging break, and it wasn't really on purpose, I just didn't really have anything quilty to blog about! I need to keep reminding myself that I have that no blogging guilt button on my sidebar:)

I have indeed kept up with my sewing goal. Not as well as I would like, and sometimes it has been 'technically' keeping my goal, but not keeping it in the spirit it was made - eg I have sometimes been woken up by my hubby, and gone to my quilt room at 11.55 at night and sewn a two inch line on a scrap of fabric, then crawled back into bed! I know, I know, terrible!! Other times I have fixed hems, sewn up seams, sewn on buttons, but not a lot of quilting has gone on the last couple of weeks.

I am here to fix that though!

On Saturday I am going to a quilting workshop at a local quilt store. It is free (yay!) as it is an experimental workshop for the teacher. We are to take an 8 1/2 inch block, and it will be the centre of a round robin quilt. We will go home with a 22 inch square quilt top, and the 'rounds' will be determined on the spot - drawn out of a hat. Should be a lot of fun!

I have thought quite a bit about what my centre block should be, after all, it will set the tone for the whole quilt. I decided I want something to go in my orange kitchen, so of course, orange had to be in my centre. It's been a while since I've done any applique, so of course that had to be in it too.

So last night, I did some cutting, and this is what I came up with...
The first one is on my design wall, the second in where it is right now, on my nightstand waiting to be appliqued...I think I have some applique to get done today! You will be able to see those yellow windows a lot better once those pesky seam allowances on the sashings are turned under :)

And now you just know I will have something to blog about after the workshop - I can't wait to see what my simple little house is turned into, and also what I will get to work on for the other ladies.

Other happenings of late? Well there's always the snow. Or rather, here in New Hampshire, there's ALWAYS the snow!! I thought we were done for the year. Really! I mean, I could see our grass!....That's the three handsome men in my life, AND do you see the grass in the background? And my lasagne garden in the front of the house, completely snow free??? Well a few days later, this is what happened...

But I suppose there are good things about snow. We got to go sledding at the park, only the snow was too fluffy and soft to sled, so the kids played on the snow-covered playground instead!

And just how deep was the snow? Well here you can see that it reached my knee...I actually think we were a little crazy. I mean, look - we are the only ones in the carpark!!
But you want to know the scariest thing of all? How much I look like my Dad in this photo...
That's what happens when you spontaneously decide to go to the park in the snow with no make-up on!

Time for hearts

It's Valentine's day! Or at least, it will be by the time you read this:) I have had an education in Valentines Day since I've lived in the States. For example, I went shopping this week to buy the requisite goodies for the kids to take to school for their classmates. I had presumed they just gave cards, but I had the niggling feeling to text hubby and ask him if I was supposed to buy candy to go with the cards too. He texted back one word.... "Yes", which I think really meant, "of course you do...do you really think you would give a card without a piece of candy stuck to it??". The kids even bought home written instructions from the teachers on how to do the cards. EG Coleman, who is in Kindergarten, was to only write "From Coleman" and leave the "To" space blank. After teaching in the same class for 20 years, his teacher understands the madness of a class full of 5 year olds trying to read names and get them to the right person in an orderly fashion! The kids came home with big heart shaped bags full of cards and candy. It was sugar-rush central around here at dinnertime!

Anyway, to keep with the heart theme I have some little snippets of a quilt I've been working on to show you. I can't show all yet, as it's in the works of being made into a pattern, but it is quite lovely for the occassion today, and chock-full of hearts...and applique!
When I went down to my quilt room just now to take these photos, there was a light on - most unusual, since I hadn't been in there today. Turns out my daughter had snuck down and made good use of my piles of strips next to my machine... Do you think she's been influenced by all the wonky log cabin blocks I've been making?!I am still up-to-date with my goal. Have done quite a bit of quilt-related sewing, and also more mundane sewing like stitching up the armhole on hubby's sweater. He was going to throw it away but I rescued it. Does he not realize he's married to a sewer yet?!!

I hope you all have a lovely Valentine's day and eat lots of chocolate, and if you feel like a laugh, head on over to my other blog to read about our experience roller skating on Thursday night!

Still sewing

I have had busy week (hubby has been home a lot with gall bladder problems - he's seeing a surgeon in 2 weeks - yay!) but part of being busy has been sewing. I have kept up with my goal, 28 days so far! Project Improv has inspired me so much. I have made more wonky log cabins, and more and more...I replaced a lot of my first ones. I fell into a log cabin groove and figured out how I wanted them to look, so of course that meant starting over with some of them.

I also started some 'string' blocks. I am loving these so much! This piece below will become a table runner... I am off to the fabric store today to get some solids for the borders, and there will be some applique somewhere on the borders. Not sure exactly what or where yet. Still thinking on that. I am excited to get some hand applique going again.

And this long strippy piece will become placemats. I have two of these long pieces.

I also decided to do some string blocks in colors that I just don't work with. Why not stretch myself??? Brenda (from Pumpkin Patch Primitives), you will like these colors a lot better lol!! The long red strips are felted wool. Still deciding which configuration to use, the 'X' or the square...


All of this sewing has meant I have been spending many hours in the basement in my quilt room. It gets pretty lonely down there sometimes, and I have a radio/cd/mp3 player my hubby bought me for Christmas, so I actually took it out of the box and started using it. After giving up on talk-back radio I went to the library and got a talking book on CD. I read all the Twilight books this summer, so I stuck with the whole Stephanie Myer theme and took out "The Host". That sucker is 24 hours long!! I am onto CD number 5 of about 20. Believe it or not, a science fiction/alien story can be good to quilt to:)

Kitchen Love

When we bought this house 1 1/2 years ago, it wasn't for the kitchen. It has 40 year old cabinets which are just ugly ugly ugly, and faux brick on the walls from the 70's. The old owners had put it up themselves, and thought it was quite the selling point. I didn't want to point out the ugliness of the orange-tinged cabinets with the pink-tinged brick. But with there not being a spare 50K or so in the budget right now, it all gets to stay!! There was however $25 in the budget when we bought the house for paint! So my ugly kitchen got a little taste of the good life with new orange walls. I know you have all heard me talk about my orange kitchen, and even seen photos of it. Well last week it got stepped up a notch.

A friend from church, Shannon, is an architect and a phenomenal organizer. She offered to help one person re-organize any one room in their home and give them lots of pointers on how to make it a better workable space. So we all put our names in a hat, and mine.....wasn't picked. Not what you were expecting, right?! But I just KNEW that I was the person meant for this mini-makeover, so I wasn't surprised at all (OK so I was totally surprised!) when Shannon called me to say that the original person drawn couldn't do it, so they pulled another name was drawn and it was me! Woo Hoo!!

So Shannon came over, took lots of before photos, then we got to work. (I will get her to send me some before photos and add them here when I get them)

I chose my kitchen to be re-done. She took everything out of my cupboards and re-organized them in ways that I had never even thought of, but which make so much more sense. Then she wrote a list of homework for me to do over the next week, such as clean out my junk drawer, (admit it, we all have one)so here are my newly cleaned out junk drawers - yes I had more than one...
There were several things I needed to get, including shelving. Her idea was to put some shelves up high along two walls and move all my 'pretties' up there, which would in turn create more space in the cupboards where they were stored. I LOVED this idea, as I miss having space above my cabinets to do this with.

I bought the shelves and brackets ($44 for everything at Home Depot), and really got into the spirit of it all and made curtains and the bag bag which you saw in a previous post. I already had a bolt of white muslin, so I just bought 2 yards of the orange polka dot at Joann's and made some simple but cherry curtains.
I had some Homegoods/TJ Max gift cards, so I bought some orange cooking utensils and a few things to put up on my new shelves.

Well when Shannon came back to install the shelf and take 'after' photos, she was so excited to see that I had made the curtains etc. She said not everyone does their 'homework'! I will admit that I didn't do one thing on the list - I was supposed to clean out my fridge. I just ran out of time, BUT Shannon, if you are reading this, it's all done now!

Shannon and I installed the shelves, and when we put all my stuff on them, it was like magic - I fell in love with my kitchen!
I have always loved my orange walls, but I knew it all needed to be pulled together better. For some reason, the cabinets and faux brick don't seem so bad anymore, and my huge table/chairs seem smaller. Best of all, we seem to be spending more time in there. I actually look forward to being in there now! I do plan on painting the cabinets and brick, but am waiting for warmer temperatures to do that.

And as usual, it all looks so much better in person...so you are all invited to come on over and check it out - I'll even make cinnamon rolls for the occassion ;)

And now you know the story of how I fell in love....with my kitchen:)