Sunday, September 23, 2012

Chinese Coins Quilt Reveal

I finished the Chinese Coins quilt last week, but it has taken me some time to take quilt reveal photos. I wanted to try to make a nice vignette instead of showing just a flat quilt, and was trying to think of things to use. Since I am new to making vignette, I tried several different options.



When I went to Target, I saw a little scarecrow and pumpkins that I thought would be good for the display, but I didn't buy them because I decided I should be able to find things around the house that would work.  Then I went to the thrift store.  I have been looking for a doll bed.  I still haven't found one, but I found two chairs and this doll.


As you can see, I haven't quite mastered the art of the vignette.  The doll is a little bit early for Christmas, dressed in red and green. I now have enough chairs for a classroom, but still no bed.



The pattern is in Kathleen Tracy's book. It was a fun little quilt to make. I especially liked the fact that it did not have any half square triangles!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Home Again Commercial






My daughter is back home, after spending a year out of the country going to school in England.  Picking her up was incredibly easy - we found a convenient parking spot right by the door, and there was a very short wait time before we saw her arrive.  The luggage came right away, and we were on our way home in practically no time.

On our way home, my daughter announced that she would like to make a stop at Taco Bell to pick up the new Doritos tacos.  It was hilarious, and we thought it would make a grand commercial, so my sister tried to record the conversation.  Since we missed the initial announcement, we made it an interview format and everyone thought of questions to ask her:

How long have you away? a year
Where were you? England
How long ago did the plane land? about 20 minutes
Where do you want to go?  Taco Bell
Are there any Taco Bells where you were in England? no
Don't you like soft tacos better than hard tacos? Yes, but these are made from Doritos
Um, aren't you a vegan? [laughing]

Unfortunately, we missed the whole interview because someone was recording without actually pressing the record button.

What made this even more striking, though, was when she picked up the first sauce packet.



It says: "I knew you'd come back for me."

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Yet another quilt and more ramblings

Magazines

Once upon a time, was it only last year?, I vowed to myself that I would never subscribe to all those magazines again. They kept piling up, and I never had time to read them.  Most of them were free and I thought I could use them to make collages, or learn something new, and then donate them to the local charity, which even picks up the stuff.   How quickly we forget.

Remember the Italy and the England trip?  Well, I managed to get some frequent flyer miles, and they are expiring.  Do I have enough to go anywhere else, maybe even across the state? No, I have just enough to pick up some magazines. Lots of magazines.  I hate to lose out on all my points, but I am not going to jump through any hoops to keep them active, or to figure out what the hoops are, so I will be supporting the USPS this year with tons of magazines.  I'm sorry and you're welcome.

To get ready, I went through (some of) my current magazine collection (current as in they were from 2010, but I hadn't gotten around to reading them yet) and donated the whole lot (except the quilting magazines, of course, cause they weren't free, and 'cause I can never get done looking at them.)  The charity thrift shop and its magazine buyers will be happy, I'm sure, especially if I can speed up the cycle and send not too outdated magazines.

I'm going to have to keep a box handy and create a system to fill the box as soon as these magazines start coming.


Quilt

I've started yet another quilt.  Yes, another one. The Small Quilt newsgroup headed by Kathleen Tracy (Prairie Children and their Quilts, Remembering Adelia, etc.) has a challenge where they make one small quilt a month. I like small quilts, because they have a quick finish, and I want to make more.  It's funny, when I showed my friend the other ones I made this year, she didn't understand their purpose.  She suggested sewing them up together, and adding an extra layer of batting so they would be really useful, of course.  Maybe I've been hanging around quilters too much (online) since I now think that thin quilts and small quilts are normal. Every person I know who isn't familiar with quilts thinks of quilts as bed size comforters.

In the photo, I am auditioning the background and border fabrics.  I am sewing on the binding now.  This one turned out to be much bigger than my other small quilts.  I thought about using fewer "coins" but instead I added an inner border, so it is even bigger than the pattern.  Oh well, the quilt wall will need a variety of sizes, and this one will fill up the wall much faster.  Of course, I still need to get a nice wall for the quilts.

Daughter

My daughter is coming back, not soon enough, but after a year in England, the plane ticket has been bought.  I am doing my belated spring cleaning, now that I finally have the time, and it feels like I am getting ready for her to come to a fresh clean house.   I'll have to think of something else special for her return.

HubPages

I have joined the Apprentice Program on HubPages.  They teach you how to properly write articles that will generate traffic and revenue.  The first month, they give you a list of 8 articles to write, and after that you learn to choose your own topics and titles.  I am planning on writing 24 this month instead of the minimum of 8.  So far this month, I have written two:

How to Finish a Quilt Back is one of the ones that was chosen for me. It is about choosing a backing fabric. I asked Barb from Fun with Barb if I could use some of her photos, and she said yes. Thank you so much Barb. Your pictures provided great support to the hub.   She always has such interesting backs on her quilts, that as soon as I saw the assignment, I thought of her.  We can only provide two links to each hub to any one site, so I tried to limit myself to just two of her pictures, because I wanted to link them to particular blog posts.  I wound up using three, and just skipped the link on one of them.

Avoid the 9 Most Commonly Broken Driving Laws is one I chose for myself. These are based on actual statistics from the state of Florida.

I am going to let you know all of the hubs I write during this program so that you can keep track of my progress.