Quilt Market Present

Today my friend Brenda from Pumpkin Patch Primitives visited me to drop off some Pampered Chef goodies I'd bought and in the bag was an extra treat...

Oh yes you know I got excited when I saw fabric! Maybe even more excited than I was to get my Pampered Chef bowls! Brenda went to Quilt Market in Houston a couple of weeks ago and brought me back this brand spankin' new panel of Sue Spargo's new fabric! Isn't it lovely?!

Brenda went to Sue Spargo's Quilters' Schoolhouse and Sue showed a quilt where they incorporated these panels into the blocks and then stitched over them with embroidery stitches - if you know anything about Sue Spargo then you'll understand just what I mean! Brenda said the quilt looked amazing - like the panels really were applique! The funniest part of Brenda's visit was when she told me how BRIGHT this panel is. Oh boy bright to her primitive-loving heart and my modern-loving heart are two different things! Everyone needs a friend like Brenda!

What To Do...

I have 14 of my mini quilts sitting here on the couch next to me, and I have no idea where to put them!

They were originally in the hallway, then in my quilt room, but that's been all changed around (will have to do a big post about that one of these days!) so now once again, they need to find a new place to live. I was thinking of using a kitchen wall but that might be overkill. Same with the living room. Maybe they can go back in the hallway. Sigh. I'm so indecisive!

Election Day

Well, here I am - 3 days without posting. Aaargh I already failed in my goal! Oh well, it's about how many times you keep trying, right? Yeah yeah yeah I'll keep telling myself that ;P So the big news today here in the U.S. is the election, and in my little world, it was a big deal for me as it was my first time voting, as I became a citizen in February. I did my duty, and the world is still turning. This is a photo of me right after I voted...I was helping at our school's bake sale and thought one of the decorations would make a great patriotic hat...

In other news, I spent some time today framing some super cute stitcheries I found at the thrift store a few weeks ago. I saw these and fell in love - they were unframed, but I saw the potential in them!

Plus, the price was just right...

I bought 2 white 11x14 frames which were the perfect size. The only problem was the stitcheries were mounted to very thick cardboard - too thick for the frames, so I remounted them on thin cardboard which was perfect. When I took all the old tape off, I saw this printed on the edge...

How cool is that? These stitcheries are only one year younger than me! This isn't their final placement - I just had nails already in the wall so took advantage of that to take photos of them hanging. I have plans for my kitchen walls...stay tuned!

Applique At Last

Since the name of my blog is Applique Today, I thought it was about time I did some applique...today! A few years back I designed a quilt, made mostly of heart shapes and did the entire quilt in brown, pink, green and cream. I absolutely love it, but now there are so many gorgeous fabrics out there and I'm remaking it using some more modern fabrics. Here's a sneak peek, as seen while sitting on my bed. Applique, beds, and TV somehow just go together!

Books Galore!

Remember the other day when I wrote about how my hubby likes to surprise me with random gifts? Well today he did it again! A big box from Amazon arrived. He told me I should open it. Here is said box...

I ripped the tape off and looked inside. Through the bubble wrap I saw what looked suspiciously like a Kaffe Fassett book. Could it be?

Yes! So I picked it up and not only was there a Kaffe Fassett book, but there were THREE of his books including his new autobiography!

Even the hardcover under the dust jacket is gorgeous!

Boy oh boy I am going to need some Mommy alone time this week to get through all of this loveliness! Thanks darling...you did it again!

Halloween!

One of the fun things about living in the U.S. is the way they celebrate holidays. My kids talk about Halloween all year long! FINALLY tonight was the night! We have a zombie, a peacock, and a graduate. What a crazy mix!

Sofia made her own mask and headband, and I had fun doing some peacock eyeshadow...

Last night at church we had a trunk or treat and looked who showed up...

Since it's an LDS church and Mitt Romney is LDS I must say it was a popular costume! (It was my neighbor's son who came with us!) By the way, since I became an American citizen this year, I went to City Hall last Thursday and I am now an official registered voter. But who am I voting for?! Hmmmm I'm not saying! I registered as an independent. I'm not even going to tell my hubby who I vote for!

Fiestaware

All is well at our house - Sandy came and went and we are damage-free! The power went out a couple of times but for no more than 30 mins, which is far better than the 5 days this time last year! We are off to a trunk-or-treat at our church now, and I'll save Halloween pics for tomorrow, so today's post is something completely Halloween and Hurricane free! My hubby isn't that into gift giving for holidays like Valentines, Mother's Day, Father's Day etc. Christmas and birthdays yes, but card-company-money-making-holidays, no. BUT he does thoroughly enjoy surprising me with random presents and last week he did just that. He knows I love Fiestaware - I have a nice little collection going, so he ordered me a whole set of one of their new colors, Lemongrass, which I have realllllly been wanting. Here are some of my dinner plates...

It may be my favorite color of Fiestaware! You can see the Lemongrass plates sitting on top. It also came with bowls, smaller plates, saucers and cups. He knows me so well!

Sneak Peek

I am scheduling a couple of posts ahead of time to publish just in case we don't have any power because of the hurricane! So if you see this, you can pretty much assume we lost power :( Sunday night Sofia and I worked on her Halloween costume. I showed you the base/dress for it a couple of days back, and now we have another component...

I bet you can all guess what she's going to be now! This is the back of it. Talk about a fun thing to make!

Pumpkins Galore

It's pumpkin time again! I have all my pumpkin 'stuff' put out and this is what I see from where I'm sitting as I type this...

Does anyone remember these little fabric pumpkins I made last year?

I'm guessing you don't, but the good news is you can make your own. I did a tutorial last year on how to make them. Just click HERE to see. I'd LOVE to see pics if you make any! Wish us luck - Hurricane Sandy hits here tomorrow. I'm hoping our power stays on as long as possible! Hmmm maybe I shouldn't have promised to blog every day until AFTER the hurricane!

Costume Time

Halloween is fast approaching and with that, comes costumes of course! My almost 12 year old girl had very definite ideas on what she wanted to be, so we off to the fabric store and came home with the following...

Any ideas? If you need a hint, here is a picture of her trying on the base of the costume...

It will look much different when all done, but you'll have to wait a few more days to see!

Ironing Board

Wow oh wow I can't believe it's been over 2 months since I last posted. What a bad blogger I have become! Nothing is wrong on my end - I'm still here alive and kicking. I just seem to have lost my blogging mojo this year. I decided today to make a goal to blog every day for the rest of the year. I figure if I did it for 365 days last year, I can surely do it for just 2 months, right?! So here we go... I've been wanting a tabletop ironing board for a while now. It's always such a pain to be sewing something, then have to get up and walk across the room to iron. My set-up is such that my regular ironing board won't fit anywhere near my sewing desk, so a smaller tabletop version was in order. (There's a whole big story about me changing to a different space in the house to quilt in but I'll save that for another post!) I was in the Salvation Army a few days ago looking for drawers for my son's new room, when what did I see but the perfect sized ironing board! Sure, it was butt-ugly, but I had a vision for it! Here is the wonderfully ugly ironing board before...

And here it is, all prettied up with a new cover...

It only had one thin layer of batting on it, so I added two more layers...

...repurposed the string it came with, and Bob's yer uncle - a gorgeous and very non-ugly tabletop ironing board! And what did this thing of beauty cost me? The sticker says $2.99, a bargain in itself...

...but it was half price day, so it was $1.50. I used 1/2 yard of designer fabric I bought on clearance for $3/yard, so that's another $1.50. The batting I used was just a scrap leftover from another project, so pretty much free. All up that comes to a whopping $3! Oh how I love being frugal. Old top and new top, side by side...

And here it is in use, ironing a block I'm turning into a candle mat, and some scraps of fabric to be used for applique.

I can't explain how great it is to have an ironing board right next to where you sew. What a time saver! I'm using the above scraps to make an "Applique Today" quilt to use as a new banner. Fun things are in store, so you can now keep checking in for FAR more regular updates! Yes I know I've said that before (as in every post I've done this year) so I have a lot to prove. Thanks for hanging in there folks!

Book Bag

On Saturday one of my best friend's little daughters had a birthday - she loves everything pink so I had to make her a monogrammed book bag with a big white detachable flower - isn't she the cutest thing ever?!

My daughter Sofia wanted to make her something too, so she found some pink squares from a charm pack, sewed them together, added a back, stuffed it and sewed it closed to make a pillow.

I was SO pleased - she did it completely by herself. That's a huge accomplishment for her, and it actually turned out pretty good! We are still working on her pink quilt from my last post back HERE. All the blocks are made and we now need to add the sashing and get the top put together. We have a good thing going - I've been doing all the sewing and she does all the ironing. We make a great team! More pics of that coming soon! Also, I'm teaching at a special crafternoon event coming up in September - look for a blog post about that in the next couple of days!

Quilting By the Pool

Our neighbors have been away on vacation and very kindly offered for us to use their pool. With hot temperatures it's been a life saver! I've been reading a book (Insurgent by Veronica Roth - so great!) while the kids swim. I jump in now and then to cool off, but I finished the book last night so what is a girl to do? Quilt of course! Sofia has been itching to make a new quilt for her bed, so she chose a pattern from one of my magazines, and we went fabric shopping - both at the store and in my drawers. So today while the kids swam I started cutting...

I absolutely love the pattern she chose - great for beginners, with good size blocks to show off beautiful fabric.

She went with a pink and orange theme, with the pink zebra print replacing the dark green, and orange replacing the brown sashing. That's my girl - nice and bright!

Loving the scraps sitting on the poolside chair...who says you have to quilt inside?!

I'm excited to have a Mom/daughter summer project underway.

Getting Woolly

Today was the day for our 4th annual celebration of my prim-loving friend Brenda's birthday! It's becoming something of a tradition! You can read about previous ones HERE, HERE, and HERE! My girl Sofia made the cupcakes and all three kids and I had fun piping the frosting on them to decorate. Can you say yummy? White cake with vanilla lime buttercream frosting! I did discover tonight that carrot cake is actually her very VERY favorite, so next year we might have to mix it up a little! She wasn't complaining about the lime this year though! It's fun each year to come up with something different to make for her present. Brenda is one of the few people I love to make presents for, because she really gets the time and effort put into them and really truly treasures them. Since she's the one that introduced me to wool applique a couple of years ago, I thought I'd go in that direction for this year's present, a little pillow/pincushion. I had to take some pics outside with it - it was gorgeous outside today! I had SO much fun making it, and truth be told, it's sadly one of the only pieces of applique I've made this year. It has given me the bug again though, so once again here I am vowing to quilt and blog more!! Happy birthday Brenda!