IowaQuilter

The Craft Room - Before the 29 Day Organization Challenge

2012-01-25T15:49:00.000-06:00

This poor, sad, little room is where I churn out quilts and cards and other decorating stuff (unless I need more space in which case I will move to the dining room table). There's not a lot of space in here, and that's magnified by the fact that this room has become a hot mess over time. I need inspiration, and that's why I'm going to take part in OrgJunkie's 29 Day Organization Challenge.

I'm posting my before a little bit early because I may get some extra special help with this project.

The view from the hallway - that's a dining room table I use for sewing and that weird brown thing in the back is part of a cat condo I was going to do something...with....once.

The view from the exterior wall back in - I know you're jealous of my high quality quilt design wall back there. The string hanging off the knob of the dresser drawer is a cat toy. Really.

And a peek inside the closet where there is a true attempt at organization - at one point in time it was very neat and tidy in here.

Based on the first photos you might think that I have zero organizational skills...not so! This is actually on the landing in the attic. See how all my altered book stuff is neatly organized and labeled? I can do it! Really, I can. That room just calls to chaos and clutter. Part of the problem is that it's the gateway to the attic, so anything coming down or going up tends to make a pit-stop on the crafting table or the floor. It was worse than ever a few weeks ago because of all the holiday decorations that I'd dragged down, then put back up into the attic again. Ok, some of those decorations were Halloween still. But now they're all back up where they belong. Imagine what this room looked like a week ago. *Shudder*

On to the fun part- what will this room become? It depends on a few factors.

Challenges

I want to put my house on the market soon, so Ineed to fix up the plaster walls and avoid putting a bunch of holes in themonce that’s done. Plus the wall behind the ironing board is actually the chimney wall and defies even Command hooks most of the time.
There are three doors all on one interior wall –hallway, closet & attic access. I wanted to get a picture of them all but I couldn't get far enough away. Here are two of them -->
Small space…and I don’t have the budget rightnow to replace the table as my work surface, plus I need a big area for cuttingfabric.
This room stores craft crap for quilting, alittle traditional sewing, altered booking, card making, beading, and randomprojects I come up with.
I have WAY too much quilt fabric but did a purgelast summer of everything I thought was ugly at the time – not sure how muchmore I can force myself to part with.
I don’t do window coverings – as in curtains - but I do need to put up white wood slat blinds in this room yet, I was holdingoff until I repainted the trim.

Opportunities

3 doors I where I could incorporate over thedoor storage on at least one side.
Replace the dresser with a big Expedit unit fromIKEA or a similar smaller cube style storage unit I saw at Menards (not sure if I’llget to Chicago during this challenge period).
The closet has a decent, if not ideal, storagesystem for fabric inside, I could probably find space by re-organizing andrefolding things.
There is more easy-reach space just up the atticstairs if needed.
Ok, and I work for SpaceSavers - I can get my hands on cool organizing stuff pretty easily, but I still want to stay low budget on this job.

Redecorating Plan

Walls will be painted Benjamin Moore “SilverFox” or “Abalone”.
Trim & doors will be touched up bright white.
Accent colors will be orange, lime/Kelly green,and maybe sky blue.
I need to buy a new chair, or else create acover for that one with some of the ridiculous amounts of fabric I own.
I plan to put down carpet tiles either in themain area of the room or wall to wall – undecided on that just yet, it may dependon how far the box stretches. I just ordered them in Shaw Living Berber Ocean Blue

That's where I'm at. I promise not to touch anything until Feb 1...or at least not to organize. I might go make some more mess if I start another project.

Antiquing Day

2011-09-19T22:15:00.000-05:00

I went wandering today and ended up in an antique shop with my friend. What a surprise. He's far more knowledgeable about antiques than I - he's had some big successes with finding things and flipping them on eBay. I tried to pick up some tips, but instead I just ended up picking up stuff that appeals to me. Anodized aluminum glasses that I keep collecting, remember the ones that were kept by the the well pump at Grandma and Grandpa's farm, and how cold the water tasted when you drank out of those glasses. I think I need to find a way to set a table with those as the stars of the show. I probably have a dozen of them now...maybe more? And the enameled cup was just cool and cheap, so I couldn't pass it up. Perhaps someday I will be convinced to camp again and I will need it for my coffee..

And then the piece I fell in absolute love with - the cake carrier. Isn't it cool? So much better than the plastic ones you can get now? It's orange and lime green and black- how perfect, right? And it's TALL - I would be unlikely to squish any cakes in this one.

It's sturdy too - that groove keeps the lid from sliding around, and the clips on the sides hold it down securely so you can carry it by the handle on top. Thought I'm not sure I'd trust the handle with the weight of some of the cakes I pull together, I'll keep my hands under the cake, thank you very much.

Yes, I'm in love with this thing. I will need an excuse to carry it around with me very soon. Maybe cooking club next week. This made me nostalgic for when Jen and I used to go to auctions and watch people go crazy bidding on things we thought were junk, then outbid us poor younglings on anything we thought was cool.

Honey Bee Cookies

2011-09-18T16:13:00.001-05:00

I made cookies for the ICNC Honey Fest. Don't get too excited...it ended at 4:00 today. I had grand plans of maybe getting this posted before the event was over in case anyone needed a reminder to go, but that just didn't happen.

The idea for the bake sale is to make products with honey in them, so I did an experiment and replaced half of the sugar from my go to shortbread recipe with honey for these cookies. I was a little worried that it might affect the texture of the cookies, but happily it didn't. And they have a really good honey flavor...until you cover them with frosting. Then it gets drowned out a little.

I love this recipe because it holds its shape so very well. Look at how crisp the edges are after baking (and thick).

The blue cookie is a flower - I didn't want to send my little bees out into the world hungry so each one got bagged up in a cello bag with two flowers. Awww... I know- quit gagging, I wanted it to be cute for kids. Instead focus on the scratches in my poor aged countertop. Who needs new counters? Yeah, I do.

Jen's Birthday Cake

2011-09-18T16:00:00.001-05:00

This is a sad story. Not the fact that it was Jen's birthday, no. But the cake did not travel well. I was groovin' on time to get it baked, get it frosted, and get it decorated. I was done early, well before dinner. I had a box to transport it in. I put it into said box and closed the lid - it didn't quite lie flat so I tucked it down...and smashed the top of the cake (it was a rather tall cake). Crap!

Since I'd had everything done so far ahead of time I'd also cleaned up all the decorating tools and thrown away the extra icing. There was no way to fix it. Man- how does one screw up her best friend's birthday cake? Fortunately she forgave me and it gave us plenty to joke about at dinner. *sigh*

So, as promised (a little late) here's what your cake looked like before it went into the box:

You might have guessed what it was supposed to say...it was "Happy Birthday".

And I'm pretty sure that some of the frills that spilled off the top to the sides disappeared...

The sides were still pretty intact, but I thought I'd share a shot of those too.

Renewed My License to Quilt

2011-09-18T15:44:00.000-05:00

No, literally, I'd let my license for the machine quilting rental lapse so I just got around to refresher course last month so I could get back to quilting. My first effort was to finish a quilt top I'd made for a quilt guild challenge (several years ago) and never finished. The theme was black, white and one color. The central part of this quilt I actually purchased off Etsy, thinking it was pretty cool, but it was a little bland once I got it. (I knew I would never get the quilt done in time for the challenge, but the idea intrigued me, so I wasn't concerned that I was 'cheating'.)

I tried a couple of techniques I'd been leery of on the quilts I made to give away. First I did some outline quilting around the blocks in the border. This is all freehand, no rulers or anything except the 1/4" guide on the hopper foot on the machine. Straight lines? Not so much, but I got better with practice.

And then I've always thought that all the circles on this piece look like raindrops on water. I wanted to create a ripple effect coming off each of the teal 'drops'. I quickly learned that I cannot create a smooth circular line so my ripples ripple much more dramatically than the perfect-edged ripples you'd see in a real pond. I want to try this technique again and have the ripples intersect and reflect off each other more than they did in this piece.

Last, but kind of least, (?) here is the back of the quilt. I think you might get eye strain from the pattern if you looked at this one too long- especially at the reduced size of the pattern in this photo.

I've got several more quilts in line to be done. They built up a little while I was unlicensed. And then there's the holiday pile I haven't even gotten started. Can't wait until the shop re-opens on Sundays for the fall so I can get in there and finish up more.

Quilt Guild Round Robin - Project 1

2011-02-21T23:06:00.001-06:00

We're doing a round robin challenge at quilt guild - no, not the whole guild, just five of us. I was so bummed when I found out that the challenge wasn't going to go over through the entire guild...but I think it's going to be ok. It sounds like the few of us who do want to follow it through are going to have a blast with this. Or I'm going to have a blast with this, and maybe the others will too if they don't hate my free-form style of quilting. And blogging - because I'm starting my 'series' with a post of the first block I did a border for. I forgot to take a snapshot of my block, so that will remain a mystery until I get it back.

Round one was triangles. The block I got to start on was this amazing organic, baltimore album style block centered in concentric circles...and I was supposed to add triangles. To me, triangles are not organic, and they rarely meld with circles. So I did try a traditional-esque pieced border on the one edge of 60 degree triangles (because I love asymmetry) and then I incorporated this print I picked up at the AQS show this fall in DSM that just happened to go with the color palette from the block but is not something I'd normally have in my stash.

But it felt boring, and even though the rules said I only had to have 4 triangles to meet the requirements, it wasn't enough. So I appliqued on a strip of half square triangles and let them meander across even though the next border is supposed to be applique. I'm thinking that this style of block really needs applique throughout to make sense of it though, yeah? I'm not sure I'm done yet - I have until March 14, it might need some honey bees or bumble bees floating around yet.

Ignore the camera strap hanging off to the right there...bah!

Grace Goes Double Digits

2011-02-21T22:48:00.001-06:00

It's that time of year again - another Gracie birthday party...and I went a little crazy on the sugar. She had the planned a movie themed birthday party so I found a cake at Martha Stewart that had Hollywood Walk of Fame theme that I was going to use as inspiration.

I actually wanted to do the hand print cookies too - but time was not with us. I still had a ton of decorating doo-dads left over from my trip to Calico Bean in Dubuque for our work holiday retreat...so I went a little nuts with the glitz and glam. But I wanted my cake to look more like the sparkly marble and gold of the actual walk of fame (or how I interpreted it from the photos I found online.)

And notice the little inlays there for what type of art the person is famous for? I created a birthday cake one...though it got so tiny in the end I was try to place individual orange nonpariels into the shape of a flame with tweezers for my candles. (Not so successfully)

A count of all the ways sugar was incorporated into this decor:

Chocolate buttercream frosting tinted black
Silver/Gray sugar granules for the 'sparkle' on the black
Yellow flow icing for the star
Gold dragees for the 'pearls' as the girls put it around the edges of the star
White jimmies for the candle sticks
Orange nonpariels for the flames
Gold shimmer dust painted onto the yellow surfaces for just a little more shimmer.

And yes, I probably should have made the star from fondant and I could have had perfectly straight edges, but I still don't like the stuff. Maybe I'll get over it some day.

Happy Birthday kiddo!

Bean and Barley Stew

2011-02-20T06:50:00.001-06:00

I couldn't resist snapping a photo because the crock pot looked so pretty as I started this stew:

Hearts a-flowing

2011-02-14T08:00:00.001-06:00

Cookie play for Valentine's Day. I made the chocolate cookies out of my beloved Cookie Swap cook book and played with flow icing again. I think less is more - it's so super sweet. I managed to make a few rounds to drop these off to folks...but I got sucked into a series of novels the weekend leading up to V-day and on the day itself so didn't distribute all the cookies I meant to. I should have gotten them out of my house and away from me.

Cookies for Clicks

2011-02-06T11:16:00.002-06:00

I'm finally recovering from the holiday bake-o-rama and subsequent let-down where I didn't want to crack the cover on another cookie recipe book. I tried another two recipes from the BH&G holiday special edition magazine I went nuts with for winter cookies to take to work. I made a chocolate chocolate chip cookie that was Mexican chocolate style with chipoltle powder mixed in. You could taste the heat and smokiness from the chilies while it was still batter and when the cookies were warm...but after they'd cooled it wasn't very strong at all. Weird.

I also pulled together some blondies with white chocolate chips & hazelnuts - I don't know why I don't make blondies more often, they're really tasty but I overloaded with the white chocolate chips. Scale back next time, Jen.

In case you needed something to make you hungry...here's one of those chocolate cookies still warm from the oven.

Health/Substitution note - I used half oat flour in each of these recipes, half regular flour. No negative effects. I may up the percentage of oat flour next time and see what happens.

Oh, and I made cute little labels for the box I took to work since I had all my scrap booking/altered booking stuff out to organize it. And then there's my handwriting...I should have stamped the copy.

Valentines Sentiments

2011-01-29T15:51:00.000-06:00

I was working on Valentine's Day cards today...and though I may not use these some were too precious not to record somewhere that I could find it later.

"The most eloquent silence; that of two mouths meeting in a kiss." - Unknown

"Kisses are like tears, the only real ones are the ones you can't hold back." - Unknown

"A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature, to stop words when speech becomes unnecessary." - Ingrid Bergman

"Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen." - Jerome K. Jerome

"Love is a game that two can play and both win." ~Eva Gabor

"Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don't say." Anon

"A kiss can be a comma, a question mark or an exclamation point. That's basic spelling that every woman ought to know." Mistinguette

"If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?" Anonymous

Bag Lady

2010-12-15T00:31:00.000-06:00

Last year I meant to make market bags for friends and family - I even had several cut out and ready to sew. But it didn't happen. This year I picked up that project and finished it...then decided I wanted to use up some quilting cotton I had laying around and made more - of course, some didn't have coordinating lining fabric, so I had to buy that and it kind of snowballed.

The pattern is the Practical Bag by Tanya Whelan. I have bought many bag patterns in the last 2 years and this is hands down the winner. It's sturdy, it has style but is simple to sew, the handles are practical, and it holds a lot. I get compliments when I carry the bags around and use them...so you know it's a winner. I also modified the pattern a bit to make it even simpler... You can cut the main body of the bag on the fold if you buy 45" wide fabric, just remember to adjust to remove the seam allowance on the folded edge. You can do the same for the straps, again cut 2 on the folded edge instead of 4 and remove the seam allowance. I like the fact that the pattern isn't interrupted with a seam on the 'front' and 'back' of the bag this way plus it saves sewing 4 additional seams. When you're compelled to make dozens of these things for no apparent reason that saves you a lot of time. I may be nutty, but I'm efficient.

So, any females in my life will probably be receiving their next gift wrapped in one of these bags - fair warning. Although some are staying with me...like the blue and orange lemons and the stripes and circles above.

C is for Cookie! And Christmas!

2010-12-15T00:10:00.001-06:00

I love baking for the holidays. And this year, for the first time in a long time I had (or is that took?) time to play. I picked up a wonderful BH&G magazine full of cookie recipes, plus my cookie decorating book and went to town.

The weekend before decorating we traveled to a work retreat in Dubuque where I was able to go to the Calico Bean Market and stock up on all sorts of sanding sugars, and dragees and sprinkles and flavored chips. (The shop itself is MUCH cuter than their web site.)

I made gingerbread and cut it into various shapes and decorated it with royal icing and those dragees that are so pretty but we're warned shouldn't really be eaten; others had flow icing and when my flow designs weren't quite what I wanted I added some pearlized white sprinkles. I love the dreamy blue white and brown. (Hello, been in my dining/living room anytime recently? lol.)

You're going to sense a theme here. I also did a trial of the sugar cookie recipe and ended up decorating those with more royal icing and sanding sugars.

Here's a close-up of the lime green sanding sugar on the white cookie - it really did add sparkle.

I took a break from the shaped cookies to make some Mexican Chocolate Chipoltle bites - this was my first foray into sandwich cookies. And these have some kick (when you're a woos like me) with the chipoltle powder in them. I used real organic Mexican chocolate in the bits that went into the cookies, but went with Ghiradelli for the ganache filling. And I had problems with the ganache - at first it was perfect...it whipped up after cooling in the fridge exactly like it was supposed to but halfway through putting the cookies together the texture went all crazy; as if I'd added water to the chocolate or something. I'm going to have to figure out what happened there.

My other 'simple' cookie was a caramel corn cookie - they have cornmeal, butterscotch chips, and honey roasted peanuts baked in, then they're rolled in sugar before baking like a peanut butter cookie. To me, these were too sweet when all was said and done. But they turned out very pretty.

Then, it was back to shaped cookies - these cinnamon cookies have a very basic sugar-cookie like dough, though it's laced with cinnamon. Then you melt white chocolate chips and cinnamon chips separately and 'frost' with the candy, swirling some cinnamon glaze into the white chocolate for a marbled effect. I wasn't thrilled with the intensity of the cinnamon on these either (picky, picky) but again I think they look really pretty and if you like cinnamon more than I do, they probably taste great too.

I missed getting a photo of the last batch of cookies - these were chocolate peanut butter blossoms with chocolate stars. I usually make this cookie with just a peanut butter cookie and the start squished in the top when they come out of the oven. This recipe added cocoa powder and had you roll the pre-baked cookie balls in crushed peanuts. They looked much fancier than my usual version.

And I tried truffles. These are really really simple to create - and they have orange liquer in them which gives them a serious yum factor. The chocolate ones came from a recipe that uses sandwich cookies (Oreos or fake oreos) as the base - the cookie is the bulk, the cream filling when mixed with a little corn syrup is the binder...then you just add flavorings and viola! Freeze briefly, then coat in chocolate thinned with vegetable shortening and top with a snowflake sprinkle. I used this same formula to combine flavors from another recipe into a vanilla version - the crushed vanilla cookies are mixed with cashews and craisins.

This weekend everything got boxed up into cookie boxes or tins for shipping and either delivered before the weather turned icy on Saturday, mailed Monday morning to far-flung folk, or they're in the freezer waiting for people to get back from a certain big party in Arizona or me to make the trek to the last few houses I missed.

Very few stuck around for me to eat but those that did are all gone already. I love cookies...

Stockings

2010-11-28T23:30:00.000-06:00

I found my way back into the craft room finally...and whipped up 17, or was it 19 stockings for a gift drop-off. It was one of those feel-good projects, until I got to about 12 stockings. Then the french seams and careful finishing just got incredibly tedious. I did the french seams to add bulk to the outline of the stocking and help it keep its shape since the stocking is just unlined quilter's cotton (not awesome quality, but decent quality cotton) and I didn't want there to be any visible raw edges.

I really wasn't up to playing with fake fur, so I used polar fleece for the trim, and the fact that it doesn't require hems is a godsend. I'm sure that saved my sanity. As did refraining from sewing a snowflake sequin and bead into each of those scallops as I was originally planning.

Anna's Bowling Birthday

2010-10-29T23:16:00.000-05:00

This cake is my second attempt to do a fondant cake. The first was for cooking club last month and I have to say...that one went a little better than the bowling cake did. I had grand plans - a marble look fondant base, then krispy rice treats covered in candy melts for the bowling ball and pins.

Everything started out just fine...much like her sister's Eiffel
Tower Cake last year...but once I started covering up my base materials is when I ran into trouble.

Coloring the fondant and getting it to marble went pretty well. The purple and blue food coloring even came off my fingers after I worked it into the fondant after a day or two. I got a neat pattern - but I didn't realize that the cornstarch you use to keep the fondant from sticking to you, the rolling pin, the countertop and anything it remotely comes in contact with would reach critical mass and fail to absorb. Which meant that even though my rolled fondant looked perfectly smooth on the counter, once I had it laid out on top of the cake (there's no going back without starting over and re-frosting) the 'seams' between the colors began to separate and while I didn't have gaps I did have cracks and crevices.

And I ended up with ripples where the fondant had stretched (?) when I laid it on top and there was too much of it around the base of the cake. I had this happen last time too - but only one wrinkle which I covered up with a strategically placed paisley. Grrrr...this time there were more. I need to learn how to fix this. So later I created a bunch of 'bowling balls' and slapped them all over the cake. And I mean ALL OVER - they covered wrinkles and cracks wherever possible.

Coating the ball and pins didn't go quite as planned either. First, I was out of dark chocolate candy melts and didn't want to lose time with a run to the store so I colored some black fondant and wrapped the bowling ball instead - that worked out fine (and I used it again on the cut-outs to great advantage.)

It was the pins that were the problem. They were more delicate than I realized. I had formed the pins around a skewer thinking I could dip them in my white coating (inspired by Bakerella and cake pops) and all would be well. Not so - the coating was too heavy for the pins. I think I should have been stingier with the marshmallow in the krispie treats (I followed the standard recipe - next time I'd cut it to 3/4 or half the marshmallows) so that the shapes were firmer. In the end the freezer was once again my friend. I dipped the pins, then stuck them in the freezer to set up, then dipped a second time because the krispie shapes were visible through the first layer.

Chillin' in the freezer between coats.

My next problem was the stripes - I tried to use flow icing that I had in the cupboard because it was already tinted a nice deep red. FAIL. It's too drippy - don't even try it. I did...three or four times before I finally gave up and colored some more fondant.

Drips! And smears...flow icing was a stupid idea (but it was already mixed.)

Final assembly went well though, the skewers in the pins allowed me to place the pins at angles to it looked like the ball was knocking them over. The win of the day? Hearing the birthday girl exclaim "I love it - I didn't know it was going to look real - I thought it would just be a picture on the cake." Score.

Happy birthday Anna banana.

Cookies and Flow Icing

2010-10-22T20:35:00.000-05:00

I bought a very dangerous book this summer. "Cookie Swap: Creative Treats to Share Throughout the Year".

It has so many recipes that I want to try, and now I want to have parties just so I can make fancy cookies for them (ok, I'd still make cakes too.) For the fund auction this year, I decided to have some fun and both make cookies someone could take that night, and give a coupon for holiday cookies later in the year.

But first, I wanted people to know how good the shortbread cookie recipe from the book is, and I found these tiny fall cookie cutters I just had to play with, so I filled a small cake plate with 'tastes'.

See how tiny they are? I used chocolate candy melts for the acorns and then flow icing (from the bottle -I'd link to it but apparently it's a hush-hush secret shortcut, I can't find it on the Wilton site or the Michael's site) to make the leaves, dotting the wet orange icing with red and using a bamboo skewer to drag through the dots to make the designs.

After the taste, the idea was to get people bidding on the cookies that they could take home that night or the coupon. It didn't really work, they went for pretty low dollar despite the time and effort I put in. Most of the cookies were 'tasted' and eaten though, and I did get compliments on the Roller Girl Style cookies that they were fun. Half of the cookie is dipped in pink candy melts, no extra flavor added. The black is color flow icing but royal icing would've been better the way I used it. They had the skulls with the other decorating items in Michaels' Halloween section. I plan to use them again next week on a cake for work.

And then the stiletto cookies - I've had this cutter for years and never managed to use it. These are decorated purely in color flow icing. One of my friends got a kick out of them though I didn't really hear any other comments. I had the most fun making these, especially the zebra stripe ones.

Lesson here- making the cookies is great fun (and a huge mess, as usual) but they are not lucrative for a fundraiser. Save them to brighten someone's day and bring a smile.

Caramel Apples

2010-10-22T20:07:00.000-05:00

autumn.

I love that word. It means sweaters and fires in the fireplace and pumpkin pie and walks in the woods on crunching leaves while the air is brisk but the sun is shining.

This fall my apple tree in front of the house went nuts. They were perfectly imperfect apples with blushes of pink where the sun managed to reach them through the leaves and lots of spots that looked like freckles or appaloosa speckles.

However, I don't particularly care for apples; I'll eat them raw but I don't care for them cooked and what are you going to do with them? (Note that I did not plant the tree, it came with the house and it's beautiful in Spring with the flowers...but every other year I'm on apple clean-up detail.)

This is one of the three buckets of apples that were low enough for me to pick on foot or with a short ladder. There were many more that got composted because they fell and rotted, or I couldn't reach them and they're still falling and I'm too lazy to go out and pick them.

Just because I don't much care for apples them doesn't mean they aren't fun to play with. I decided to try my hand at caramel apples. I thought I was going to have a bunch of perfectly cute specimens to drop off with people. I started by eschewing the popsicle sticks in favor of sharpened twigs for the handles.

I made a lot...

And then it was time to add the caramel. Even though they make the little caramel balls that you can buy in a bag with no wrappers I went authentic and did the Brach's caramels and unwrapped two whole bags. I also planned to dip the bottoms in nuts or sprinkles so they'd be less sticky and more decorative.

I had to try the pose of the ingredients like all my favorite food bloggers. Plus I had several cute sticks I wanted to show off. However, I don't think the white quilt and white cakestand managed to pull off the lightbox effect I need for these photos.

I'm hoping to learn how to do it for real soon. But I think I need a better camera to make that happen.

I melted all of the caramel and tried dipping my apples. That part worked just fine, I had a nice thin, smooth coat going that wouldn't rip out your teeth when you took a bite. But - it wouldn't stick on the apples. It just kept sliding off onto the waxed paper.

I headed online for tips. I found I should have chilled the apples, and tossed them back into the refrigerator as soon as they were dipped. I kind of did that on the rest of the apples, but I also let my caramel thicken a bit much so I had to spread it on the apples instead of dipping. Oh, the sprinkles and nuts were a complete failure too - they just turned into glop with the pooling caramel on the first try, and wouldn't stick to version two.

In the end I got a dozen or so good apples, with really heavy caramel that did threaten to loosen a tooth or two.

I took them to my friends' house for the Iowa vs. Iowa State game. I did not go wandering around the neighborhood with caramel apple goodness for all the children I adore like I daydreamed.

It was a fun day in the kitchen nonetheless, and a great start to my favorite season of the year.

Even though I'm writing this post well after the fact, apples are still falling in my front yard. Want some?

Mother's Day

2010-05-08T19:57:00.000-05:00

I've been sick and felt totally unprepared for Mother's Day until today. I don't like to shop last minute...but I think I did ok. And then I decided I'd put in extra effort into the wrapping and play with some of my altered book ephemera to brighten up the packages.

Front Porch Throwback

2010-04-20T19:36:00.000-05:00

I just had to gush - I found these chairs at Lowe's, I saw them earlier in the season and just couldn't get past the fact that they reminded me so much of my grandparents' house. I finally gave in and bought some for myself. Warning: these are a bitch to put together. But oh so worth it for the nostalgia when they're done!

Book Party

2010-04-19T19:32:00.000-05:00

I picked up a book at Tuesday Morning about elaborate parties...of course I immediately decided I wanted to try one of my own. I decided a book swap could be a fun theme. I realize now why these 'celebrity' style parties are so expensive - not only do they have the venue costs and catering (of course) but making just 20 elaborate invitations takes a very long time. Sure, the first one's fun and cute and exciting. By 19 you're wishing you had fewer friends. *grin*

So here are the invites (the card catalog image came from iStockPhoto.com and I used pages from an old encyclopedia set for the other decor):

For the interior I found templates for a library card pocket and library cards. One library card had the date/time/location info. The other had a list of all the book categories that were going to be available at the party. Sorry this photo is a little blurry for some reason.

I decided the party needed a centerpiece so I took more of the leftover twigs from my tree-trimming and created a book tree. The leaves are cut from more encyclopedia pages and glued to the branches where real leaves would have grown if I hadn't cut the branch's life short. I also added some white flowers to give it a dogwood look. I found butterflies at the time I got the silk flowers - but they're too pale and don't stand out well.

I used old cabinet doors painted with chalk paint to mark my 'dewey decimal system' for where books were shelved. (I was going to really dust off the dewey decimals but I ran out of time setting up.) For each section I had treats set out and tried to match them to the theme of the books. Candy for the kids book area, coffee brownies on the coffee table for the coffee table books, mixed nuts with the business books...

Some people dropped off books early, which allowed me to build the library along with my books before the first guests arrived. Others brought their books with them and we shelved them as they got settled in. At the end of the party, leftover books would go to the public library for their book sale. (5/8 update - the books are still sitting on my dining room table - tonight they get packed up, I swear.)

Twig Fences

2010-04-10T19:08:00.000-05:00

I trimmed a bunch of the trees around the house this Saturday and had a pile full of supple twigs as a result. I also have a problem with my dogs tramping through the flowerbeds until the plants are established and sometimes even afterwards. Needless to say, a Rottie's paws can do a lot of damage to tender flowers. So I decided to use the twigs to create some natural fencing. It turned out pretty well. I think once the flowers are blooming the twigs may even start to disappear and let the flowers take center stage.

Cheryl's Birthday Cake

2010-03-14T19:02:00.000-05:00

(I'm playing catch-up on posts. I took the photos, but didn't get things on the blog like I should have.)

Dawn pulled off a great surprise birthday party for Cheryl this year. I got to make the cake for one of the loveliest people I know. And I love the big green centerpiece flower even though it's a spider mum.

This is with some staging using the floral paper they had where I purchased the flowers. I thought it was very pretty and it matched the color scheme I already had going.

Cabin Quilts

2010-01-16T20:24:00.001-06:00

When I gave Jen her birthday quilt this year, Anna seemed very impressed and thought it should be for her. While Jen wasn't willing to give it up, I thought it would be good use of some of the brighter fabrics in my stash to create what I'm calling 'cabin quilts' for the girls to have up at Leisure Lake.

These quilts are part of their Christmas gifts...but I still haven't managed to get together with them so they can open said gifts. Sure...it's only January 16th...plenty of time, right? Sheesh.

Getting these quilts photographed has been a challenge - the main prints seem to be too busy for my camera, but they really aren't that crazy on the quilt. I suggest you click the images below for a larger view if the images are making you a little dizzy at this size.

Quilt 1 (The girls will pick which present they want, I didn't predetermine who gets what.) This actually has teal binding - but it got cropped out because I hung the quilt on the fireplace which wasn't the best choice for getting squared photo.

Here's another shot with a close-up of the fabrics and the quilting. Nothing fancy here - just the good old meander quilting. I'm looking forward to trying some other patterns on upcoming projects that don't have a sense of urgency.

Quilt 2 - yep, it's the same pattern, different color scheme. The outer border prints were fabrics that I picked up thinking they'd make great backing fabrics for kids' quilts. But...I've done that way too many times. I spent much of New Year's day going through all my quilting fabric and giving up anything I don't love or see myself using in a project in the next year or so. I'll give some away to friends if they're interested, then the rest of the fabric will go to the quilt guild to make into kits for charity quilts. (As soon as I manage to get to another meeting.)

And the close-up of this one too. I thought this border fabric was utterly cute, but then I just couldn't come up with how to use it until I paired it with the brights in this pattern. For about five years I found myself collecting florals and I have a lot of them to use up. Of course, now a lot of the modern/graphic fabrics keep catching my attention.

Barbara's Bed Quilt

2009-12-30T00:39:00.002-06:00

This is a quilt that I made for Barbara for Christmas and apparently I only took one picture of it. This one was a challenge since she wanted me to use the dragonfly/pond fabric I'd had in a quilt for myself (that I gave away by the time I finished it because I didn't like it anymore.) If only I had realized my sister was so was fond of it I could have saved time. But she only wanted an earthy palette. Matching the sage greens was more difficult than I anticipated so I stuck with a simple old-fashioned pattern to keep the color theme going. I kept itching to pull out the purple, pink or yellow to add a pop of color to the center of the blocks.

All that Glitters

2009-12-15T22:07:00.022-06:00

...probably has no tie to actual gold, but there is some silver plating, lots of metallics, decorative glass, shimmer and sparkle. Work was stressful this quarter so I spent many evenings playing with my overabundance of beads which meant that nearly everyone (of the female persuasion) that I know got a gift of jewelry for the holidays.

I also purchased a number of new beading magazines for inspiration and tried to expand out of my box a bit by ordering some beads online from Artbeads.com.

I'm not going to label who's getting what...but here's what I ended up with.

Just a note: I'm not so sure .png was a good file format to go with here - I seem to have lost some color quality along the way.

Katie's Christmas Quilt

2009-10-02T22:04:00.000-05:00

The camera and I were definitely not in sync for this set of shots - the red really did not come out well, it's not quite as intense as it appears in these photos, it's a deeper red with a tone on tone floral design and the red isn't quite so overwhelming in real life.

I think I've worked with the concept of scrap quilts so much that it's hard for me to plan a simple palette of colors. All of the fabrics that I used in this quilt had strong, rich geometric patterns (that aren't coming through so well in the photos.)

You can see the design of the red fabric better in this photo. This time I went for a simple backing - this pattern was already over the top.

Jen's Birthday Quilt

2009-09-09T21:29:00.015-05:00

I think this may be the first bed quilt I've actually completed for Jen. And how sad is that? We've been friends for what, forever? I know I was living with her when I first started quilting and we're not even going to talk about how long ago that was, I'll just say "Iowa Avenue".

She wanted blue and white for the cabin. This is a rather simple pattern, but it worked with the blue and white fabric collection I've been working out of for some time.

Here's the border fabric, fell in love with this one even though it's not strictly blue and white.

I played with stripes again on the background, this time I was thinking she'd have the contrast of traditional versus contemporary so it could be, you know, a mood quilt sort of thing.

Tommy's Baby Shower

2009-09-01T21:19:00.004-05:00

I am playing catch-up here - at the time I'm dating this post we didn't know Tommy's name yet. But since I have a tradition of both posting late and using the kiddos' names in the titles, here's to Tommy!

So, last September Jen, Lynn's Mom Laura, and Rob's Mom Mary and I coordinated a baby shower for our beloved Lynn and Tommy. We did this all long distance of course...so there was very little time for last-minute anything which totally weirded me out. So did the fact that we would be road-tripping the cake to Chicago-land.

First off, the invites. Jen and I thought we were rather clever here with our tie in to the murals in the baby's room. (click the image for a larger version so you can read if desired.) We bought a pack of the cutest scrapbooking paper with all the soft colors and sparklies. I crafted the invites - there were a load of those itty bitty brads to hold the shebang together, let me tell you - and we sent each recipient a selection of papers so they could craft a wish for the baby. At the shower, we collected all of the wishes into a scrapbook/photo album for the family.

The Quilt
Then, while the invites where in the mail I tried out a new hexagon template I'd bought to pull together a boyish baby quilt (that's Pi in the bottom of the frame - she approved.)

Check out these FROGS! Aren't they fun?

And here's the back of the quilt, partially I wanted to use up the leftovers but really I just prefer to do a fun/pieced quilt back when I can. Once again, quilted on the rented longarm. Have I mentioned that service is a godsend for actually getting a project done???? (I'm sure I have)

The Cake
Then...it was time to work on the cake. Boys...cake...hard to plan. Remember I didn't know his name yet when we did the cake, and I wanted to play with geometrics. I've also gotten into the monogram idea so I did "H" for Hoff. Sadly this was not abundantly clear to those who viewed the cake, some tried to puzzle out if it was two people holding hands...or what. I also used colored sugars to tie in the sparkles from the invites (and name tags - we didn't take pics of the name tags but we needed them to sort out the m ix of ladies in the room.)

Other things I didn't get documented in photos: the food, the lovely wish pages, the beautiful momma-to-be. Jen outdid herself with the main spread and the Hoff family pitched in even more so the table was groaning...and so were we. I was so engrossed in what was going on in the room I forgot to get my camera out at all.

Becca's Baby Shower - Wright On

2009-07-03T12:57:00.000-05:00

We had a baby shower for one of my co-workers in the Creative department and I forgot to take any photos of her final cake! Here's a snapshot from my phone which I took to share with another colleague before I brought the cake in because I was nervous doing a cake for the Artsy side of the building. The final cake had a gerbera daisy centered on the top, but you can't see that because...well, the whole forgetting to take photos thing.

(Oh - and just an fyi - I spent an hour this morning figuring out how to get a photo off my phone camera. Still don't know how to do it at a decent resolution, but I did find the nifty 'cartoon' filter I used for the small pic.

When I couldn't figure out exactly where I wanted to go with this cake...I ended up trying for a Frank Lloyd Wright vibe. And the colors were inspired by the fact that it's an apricot filled white cake, and Becca hasn't found out what sex the baby will be yet.

Charity Quilts

2009-07-03T12:52:00.001-05:00

I've been working on this quilt for years. I actually started it at the beginning of the Iraq war when our first soldiers were coming home injured in droves to send to a charity that sent quilts to the VA hospitals. Unfortunately, I got derailed and it didn't get completed. So once I got access to the long-arm I pulled it back together and kept it as my 'extra-time' project. It's finally finished and I'll take it to the quilt guild to give to the local VA as soon as I get a chance. It's not very exciting...just stripes in subdued patriotic colors.

Another charity quilt came out of the excess of flannel fabrics after I finished Paula and Cary's quilt and the quilt I did for Sharon. I pulled together a couple baby quilts with leftover blocks and scraps. This I machine quilted at home...still can't get the tension right with free-motion on my home machine, so I did this with the feeddogs up. Then I went ahead and washed it to shrink the batting a bit for the 'old-fashioned' look. I should have quilted the center octagon (snowball block) more.

Harry's Baby Quilt

2009-06-28T10:43:00.001-05:00

I don't usually like character quilts...but Barbara and I made a trip to Galena a month or so ago, and did a little roundabout in Dubuque where we stumbled on a street of cute cute shops. One of which was a quilt shop and there I found the most adorable baby fabric I've ever seen. Sheep! Cartoon sheep for the four seasons. It was cute, but not too cutesy and I just couldn't resist. I bought panels...and Harry got the first quilt.

Here's a close-up of one of the adorable sheep:

And yes, this was one I quilted myself on the rented longarm. It's going into my record of mistakes made...I must have pinned the backing to the zippers 90 degrees off from what it was supposed to be. The backing was about one inch too short! I had to quilt as far as I could go, then come home, add a strip to the back, and simulate the final edge of quiliting on my home machine. How frustrating!

Eric's Graduation

2009-05-31T18:51:00.001-05:00

The youngest nephling is out of high school now. Eric will be off to college this fall, and he's turned into a great young adult. I'm really looking forward to seeing where he goes next.

His gift from me was a graduation quilt, of course. This one was designed, sewn and machine quilted by me. I'm still loving having access to drive the big quilting machine, and it's making me wish I had a room where I could install one of my own.

Here's the front:

And here's a shot of the backing fabric.

I also made the cakes for Eric's graduation. I have a problem with stuff for guys, I just wasn't sure what to put on the cakes to take up space, so they're pretty simple. And apparently my attempt at an interlocking '09 didn't quite work out - both Eric and Mom asked 'what is C9?' Doh! And yes, fondant does still scare me.

Barbara's Birthday

2009-05-31T18:44:00.001-05:00

This post is pretty late - it should have been up in April. But here's the cake I made for Barbara's birthday. I hadn't done leaves in a while...so they could have been better, but it was fun and bright. I also got to use one of the antique plates I picked up when shopping with Jen and Lynn to showcase her cake.

I seem to be fixated on monograms on cakes these days - maybe because it's easier than making sure the full name is spaced out correctly and in a perfect line, but I think I'll go with it. It looks classy, right?

Grace's Birthday Cake - a saga

2009-02-24T19:59:00.005-06:00

For Grace's birthday this year she wanted an Eiffel Tower theme. Jen found this great example of a tower made out of sugar wafers and I thought it was a fabulous idea and we could recreate it no problem and I would document the cake process in photos because I've not done so before. Well...the cake went fine, it was the tower that was the problem. Here's the original, and here's the photo documentary:

Everything started out just fine. The usual cake build - I thought I should capture a picture of the crumb coat stage because it used to make me sooooo nervous how awful the cake looked at this stage:

And while that dried and sealed in all the crumbs. I got to work constructing the eiffel tower components. At this stage, everything appears to be going great even though I massacred a number of hot pink sugar wafers before I got the angles right.

So now the frosting for the tower is drying, and I can switch back to decorating the cake. I got a coat of white frosting all over the cake, then added the black design work. On the top I was thinking the loops had an overall french feel, and then on the sides I started an alternating spiral and dot pattern design. After about half of the cake I decided the simple spirals weren't quite enough, so I added more frills and 'legs' to the spirals so they had more of a filigree/ironwork look.

I also left space for a medallion on the front with a big 'G' for Gracie. Everything was piped with a pencil tip except the border along the edge of the plate, that was done with a star tip.

The next step was the hot pink accents. This is what would take the cake from kind of grown-up in black and white back to a kid level with some playful accents. I left plenty of room on the top of the cake to highlight the tower...darn it. The flowers were all made with the 5 petal drop flower tip.

So the design of the cake itself went very smoothly. I was happy with how it turned out and ready to finish the top. This is the point where the documentation stopped and the swearing began. Either my frosting glue needed to set up overnight or my wafer construction was too heavy, but when I flipped the base piece over the legs immediately collapsed. I swore.

Then I tried to put it together again. And swore again when it failed a second time.

I didn't have much time before the birthday party so I started looking for a plan b- I didn't have any candy melts in the house, which would have made a good, strong glue (and just recently I *had* pink ones but I used them up.) So chocolate was the next best I option. I melted some chocolate and used it to reinforce the legs.

This appeared to work... I set the top piece on it and started piping some black dots to cover the chocolate and liven up the tower - compared the rest of the cake it looked a little bland just pink.... until everything collapsed again - this time not only the legs, but the mitred corner for the bottom edge fell apart too.

I dissected all the bits and realized that residual frosting might have been what kept the chocolate, which had appeared very solid, from holding the piece together. So I scraped off every bit of frosting I could find, re-cut a few pieces, and slathered the whole base in chocolate and tried to get the legs back on. Then I threw the whole thing in the freezer to set as more swearing ensued and I called Jen to let her know there might not be a tower on the cake.

She said, ok - if not, just bring the rest of the wafers back and Grace can try to build one. Ha ha - I'd killed all the wafers. There was only one, crumble-edged wafer left.

When I was dressed in clothes that didn't have powdered sugar and frosting all over them, and had everything gathered for the party I took the tower out of the freezer, tossed it into an empty cake pan and took the whole lot over to the party to see if I could pull it together. Amazingly, perhaps with birthday girl magic, it did hold once I got to the party:

I attempted to pull the heavy chocolate layer into the design with more black piping, and hopefully for a group of kids I pulled it off.

Back to Quilting

2009-02-24T19:25:00.009-06:00

♠I haven't been quilting much. At all. But, as a birthday gift to myself I took a class on driving a long-arm quilting machine at Common Threads Quilt Shop. It's amazing! Leaves all my attempts to machine quilt on my home machine in the dust.

This weekend was my first rental time with the machine. And aside from pinning up the backing to the zipper system incorrectly (I did it at Midnight the night before, at home...then redid it at 1pm at the Quilt Shop.) And forgetting to turn the feed off and making alarm bells ring once, it went pretty well.

I managed to quilt two small quilts in my three hour block. Both were 'experiments' that I'd thrown together while I was fidgety with the flu the weekend before. This is the 'baby blanket' I did.

I also pulled together a lap quilt for Mom for Mother's day since she said she wanted something bright. It is completely quilted and bound, which is what has me on cloud nine - a finished project. I love finished projects! The quilting has been my hold up, so now that I have a way to get to the finish line I have a renewed interest in my quilting.

I need to plow through the pile of fabric in my sewing room. I see lots of charity quilts coming up soon because I need considerable practice in thinking ahead with my continuous quilting so I don't back myself into a corner. While these two quilts turned out really well (I was surprised even) there are several places where I had to stop, or cross back over quilted lines because I wasn't thinking about where I'd end up.

I had a close-up shot of the quilting pattern too, but it came out blurry for some reason. The camera and I have been having arguments about focus recently.

Special Valentines

2009-02-16T13:36:00.000-06:00

This is a bit of a sad story...I saw these cute little candy-coated pretzel hearts at the store and was dying to try something out with them. So I thought I'd get all creative and make Valentine's gift bags for the little girls in my life...and just have an excuse to play. Unfortunately I got ridiculously sick as the actual day approached and couldn't deliver the goods...and once I was well, the sugar wafers had soaked up too much humidity and they no longer had a crunch to them.

Catch Up

2009-01-01T13:09:00.003-06:00

I'm going to call this a new year's post...but really it was a July 3 post and I found a whole bunch of photos that never got turned into blog posts. I really was bad about posting for a while. And to be honest, I can't match dates to all of these - I'll just try to remember what they were for.

Woah, that's PINK

That one's pretty darned PINK now isn't it? An Anna birthday cake - for her...4th birthday, I think? And I used a bunch of candy melts for accents, and heck, why not just make a child's birthday cake that much sweeter? I didn't have to corral the children who ate it.

Paid for Cake

I don't usually decorate cakes on commission...but since Sharon asked for a significant birthday event for her mom, I caved. What are friends for, right? Topped with flowers, of course, this one was an adaptation of Marsha and Kirk's handfasting cake.

And look at this...set on a platform AS IF I thought I might want pictures for a portfolio. I must have actually been considering selling cakes. Silly Girl!

Bookish Baby

These pictures really feel like ancient history. This is Tracy's baby shower - we held it in the library, well before the flood, and the shower theme was all about books. The 'T' monogram is actually because the baby's last name would begin with a 'T', not for Tracy (thought it obviously covered both bases.)

And one of the tablescape

Purple Strands

2008-01-01T22:08:00.000-06:00

One more piece that I worked on - this one did find a home. I was experimenting with multiple strands and seeing what beads I could mix together. When I was looking through beading magazines I saw a number of people who were more adventurous with mixing sizes and textures of beads. I think I have the same problem with mixing beads that I have with true scrap quilts.

Random Jewelry Creation

2008-01-01T22:04:00.000-06:00

This piece was one that didn't end up getting gifted out - it was an experiment with chain and re-purposing an earring dangle as a center medallion.

Rouja = Red

2007-12-28T22:12:00.000-06:00

This is another piece that I loved as I created it. It's using the same dogwood flowers beads as I used in Mom's piece but in a very different color palette. I hope that Rouja can find the occasion to wear it - it seems very ornate to me, so I don't know if I could wear something like it - but maybe it would go with the little black dress.

Jewelry for the Holidays

2007-12-26T21:54:00.000-06:00

I tried to kick up the jewelry design notch and experiment a bit more. Here are some of the designs that I gave away for the holidays:

Barbara's necklace done in brown and turquoise with twisting strands and a focal piece, also matching earrings:

Lynn requested a piece in black - I had a hard time finding a focal bead that went with black, or quality beads - seems like there's a lot of black plastic out there, but here's what I came up with:

The necklace that I made for Mom is one of my favorites - I love these beads that look (to me) like Dogwood flowers. The photo doesn't do the color justice, it's a lilac-rose mixed with green that shifts color depending on the light.

Mom's Christmas Quilt

2007-12-25T21:51:00.000-06:00

I wasn't getting a lot of quilting done - but I managed to complete a quilt for Mom with a Santa theme for Christmas 2007:

Caught up for Now

2006-11-27T23:37:00.000-06:00

So with that flurry of posts I think that I'm caught up for now. There were some other cakes in there that I apparently didn't photograph and I have a few more finished quilts that need photos but they're so large I need to take the pictures out on the clothesline and now it's wet and dreary outside so I don't want to risk the mud. (Okay - and it's 11:30 at night - I was thinking ahead to the likelihood of sunshine tomorrow.)

I'm also in the process of re-designing my website in case I end up freelancing rather than returning to work. I'm not sure if my intro copy is corny or appealing, I'll have to run it past a few other marketing folks before long. It still needs some work.

Anna Banana's Birthday

2006-11-27T23:30:00.000-06:00

Here's the cake from my goddaughter's birthday party - it was much cuter in person than in this photo. The polka dots repeat on the sides of the cake and it was a much more playful yellow (for Anna) and pink (because her big sister likes pink and Anna's always willing to share.)

I think this was the most fun I've had at a party since I was a kid. There were so many children there, and they were mostly at the age where they don't pay attention yet (Anna was 3) and would rather play with the tissue paper than the presents that it was hilarious. I had a great game of peek-a-boo over the couch with Garrison while his cousin giggled in a pile of colored tissue paper. The birthday girl was adorable too, and kept bringing her new clothes over to show me and stopping the flow of gift opening.

Kirk & Marsha

2006-11-27T23:25:00.000-06:00

This cake has to be my favorite thus far - I really like the rustic look of the edging tip scrolls, and the colors just scream fall to me. This was the cake for Kirk & Marsha's handfasting celebration. Real flowers once again, but this time a profusion rather than the single stem. Underneath it was a spice cake with maple-flavored frosting.

Annabelle

2006-11-27T23:17:00.000-06:00

Here is the baby quilt and cake that I did for Patty's daughter, Annabelle. The quilt was my first attempt at following Grandma Visser's lead and doing a trip around the world. I've done another Paula's daugther since, but don't have a photo yet to post.

The theme of the cake was a butterfly garden. The butterflies are made with the Wilton candy melts then tucked into the frosting, the Gerbera Daisy is a real one - I'm still not proficient with frosting flowers and I really prefer putting the real ones on the cakes.

November SOS Quilt Tops

2006-11-27T22:25:00.000-06:00

Here are photos of the 4 quilts I submitted for the SOS at guild this month. I'm really not too happy with the color values in these, but I was working with the "What possessed me to buy THAT" fabrics from my stash, trying to turn them into tops rather than just hand over fabric to the charity project. And there's something about the challenge of using up those fabrics you don't love too.

Quilt Top #1
Um...*ouch* on the eyes in the photo - those stripes really became dissonant in the photograph. Wow. I think the flash wasn't on for this one too - which isn't helping.

Quilt Top #2
I love the primary print in here but never knew where I'd use it. I thought I was doing something clever by breaking up the alternating squares by pulling colors out of the focus fabric, but now that I look at it again I wish I'd found a second turquoise somewhere rather than interspersing the green in the center. That looks odd.

Quilt Top #3
This one was pretty quick - somewhere along the line Trish had done a swap for flannel squares. I didn't submit enough to be able to group mine into quilts that followed a theme ('cuz we know I can't do real 'scrap' quilts) so I forced myself to just put them all together for this quilt rather than go out and buy stuff to coordinate with the plaids or the florals or the rustic etc., etc.

Quilt Top #4
Country. I think I was actually into country fabrics at one point and time. Not so much now. I still think the angel fabric is cute, but I could never see it in my house.

November Quilt Guild

2006-11-27T21:57:00.000-06:00

Ok- my blog has been ignored for a long time. My job took over my life. Now the job is gone, and I have some catching up to do. I joined the East Iowa Heirloom Quilters this October. So far the presentations really have been great. Ok - tonight's presenter was a bit too derogatory of anything she considered non-Christian, but she still made absolutely beautiful quilts and quilt patterns. I don't think I could buy one, partially out of principle and partially because I don't need any new projects added to my plate - but hopefully the non-offended bought things from her tonight. I'm really curious about the SExpo that was held in Minneapolis that got her undies all in a twist because it was in the same convention center as a quilting fabric wholesale event though.

I also learned what some of the little pins that people wear on their guild name tags are for. For every quilt you turn in to the SOS (it's a charity thing, but I don't know what the acronym stands for) you get a little gold pin with a green ribbon on it. I don't have a name tag yet, there was a challenge to make your tag for the November meeting that I missed, but now I have four little pins for the quilt tops I took in tonight. I was just trying to use up fabric...now I feel like I need to play the game. So a name tag will have to be a project soon. Maybe I'll sew a little dominatrix on it just to be perverse.

Dragon Block

2006-04-16T18:02:00.000-05:00

I have managed some quilting- this is a block I need to send out for a dragon-themed swap. All hand applique and it's probably hard to see the separation between the dragon's forelegs, body & hind legs within all the swirly patterns, but I couldn't decide whether to outline them or treat it as the dragon's natural camouflage. I went with natural camouflage because a black outline seemed too heavy-handed; I'll let the recipient decide if she wants to do something to the block to increase the contrast.

Cakes, not quilting

2006-04-16T17:39:00.001-05:00

I haven't gotten a lot of quilts done recently...there hasn't been time. But I have been decorating cakes, so I'm not completely lacking in creativity. Here's what I've been up to.

January - Charley's baby shower cake, the theme was butterflies:

January - Mom & Dad's 50th Anniversary, I managed to set the cake down so that one of the separator legs landed right on top of a dowel, making it crooked...and no way to fix it. Argh!

February - Grace's birthday cake- the theme for this one was also butterflies or a butterfly garden. Each of the butterflies is on a wire so they're floating above the cupcake. The thought was that cake distribution would be easier and the girls would feel more special with their own cupcakes:

Charley's Baby Quilt

2006-01-30T22:22:00.000-06:00

Add another Baby to the Fiserv Brood. Melanie's little girl is absolutely lovely and I got to give her (her mom) her baby quilt last week at her shower. It's a sort of random, sort of planned design. The center fabrics were a Moda retro collection of fat eighths that I bought at Cottage Rose, not realizing that they didn't carry the actual line. So I had to punt for the borders and backing. The colors are actually softer than they appear in this photo...I must have gotten a little heavy handed with the color adjustment tool.

Journal Cover

2005-12-29T10:05:00.001-06:00

So, where have I been? Well, new job + new freelance design clients + consulting on the old job until they replaced me = no time for quilting. I did get a baby quilt pulled together for a co-worker's granddaughter during this time, but I have no photo as leaving my job left me with no access to a digital camera. Mom & Dad fixed that by giving me play money at Christmas, so I've got a camera of my own now - no more borrowing!

The Journal Cover

Here's my first true cross-over between quilting and altered booking, so this baby goes up on this blog as well as it's new sister, quiltersab.blogspot.com. My goal was to make quilted journal covers for several of my friends for the holidays-- I only got one done. But I have several blank books left for future experimentation.

This piece includes some traditional quilting elements, piecing, and free motion quilting with the addition of layering, beading and fibers. A true altered booker would probably still find my work too constrained...I have a hard time getting away from structured layouts and getting all-out creative. But I am getting better at free motion quilting- still have tension problems, but the machine has an appointment with the doc next week, so maybe they can help me figure that out

IMAF Auction Wallhanging

2005-09-13T20:34:00.001-05:00

I'm not really a wallhanging sort of girl most of the time- somehow it seems like a quilt should fit a bed, even if it's displayed on a wall, but I wanted to make a quilt for the Iowa Medical Aid Fund auction, so it seemed time to suck it up and go with a wallhanging which would be doable in terms of time commitment and my machine quilting skills.

I like the bright colors and black combo of this piece- I'm not thrilled with the image- I wanted to do something more like a temple or a dancer but I couldn't find the right inspiration image and those concepts seemed to require a more soothing background than the brights that I used. I was very happy with my hand applique on this piece. It was pretty well executed, even the points on the flower- years of practice seem to have paid off. I'm definitely faster than I used to be. The machine quilting... I think I've gotten the hang of rotating the fabric to create the stipple pattern, but my tension is still inconsistent on the back. This was driving me absolutely nuts. Enough so that I wasn't going to put it on the auction, but had my coworkers take a look and they all really liked it and said go for it, so I did. I don't know who eventually bought it, but it sold for more than I valued it, so that's good.

The auction is part of what kept me from posting for so long. I did the set up for the silent and live auction, as well as all the prep and window dressing (with volunteers helping.) It took a lot more work than I envisioned, but it went off well. And we raised $14,000 for the fund to help women who need/have chosen abortion but are denied medical coverage for the procedure. Another small victory against the religious nutcakes who think the government should use its programs to dictate morality. If you feel this is as outrageous as I do- there are abortion funds like ours helping women all over the country. Visit http://www.nnaf.org/ for more information.

Finished and Displayed!

2005-09-13T20:32:00.001-05:00

True success! I got my star quilt back from the machine quilter, got the binding on it, AND hung it on the wall. Pretty amazing in my book. Not only did it stay in my collection, but I get to look at it too. This is the fireplace in my living room.

JJ's Granddaughter's Quilt

2005-09-13T20:29:00.001-05:00

This is another quilt from the same day of playing with scraps. I think I actually got the butterfly fabric in a grab bag from one of the Kalona shops. Isn't it darling? I love the tones- hopefully they come across well in the photo. Not too bright, not too girly, just soft with a sort of deepness to them.

I really do need to win the lottery and go back to college for that art degree so that I can describe color better.

Anya Violet's Baby Quilt

2005-09-13T20:24:00.001-05:00

Finally - new posts. Life has been hectic, but I did get some quilting done in August, I just didn't manage to download the photos.

This quilt is for a friend's new daughter. It wasn't the quilt that I originally meant to make for her- this top was actually a top I'd made one on of my I-must-create days when I was playing with scraps. The original concept was a rainbow colored set of 4 double wedding rings. However, I ran out of time for that and pulled this one out instead. It was only after I'd taken it to a meeting to work on it that a friend pointed out that it was perfect because the new babe's middle name is Violet.

For once I took the time to do some more detailed quilting than in-the-ditch or echo quilting, and I really do love how that looks. But the patience it requires! Aiee!

Interim Update

2005-07-12T14:30:00.000-05:00

I just felt the need to indicate to my readership of ... 3 if I'm lucky, that this blog hasn't gone the way of the dying masses of blogs. I just haven't had any time to commit to quilting for over a month. Too much work work work and then enjoying the sunshine to burn some calories getting back into running and biking. I have stolen a few moments to work on blocks for a 'summer flowers' swap that I'm hosting, but I need to get photos to share.

And there's a double wedding ring baby quilt (yeah- it sounds weird, I know) on my design wall that hasn't been pieced. It's going to look very sweet when done and no, it's not going to make you think of arranged marriages for infants. At least I don't think it will - I can't really control where your mind goes with stuff.

Toile Inspirations

2005-05-16T06:05:00.001-05:00

This is the quilt that is the result of my search for toile for the backing of Andrea's quilt. I probably should have taken a close-up photo of the toile so you can get a better look at the design, but the tree that is appliqued in the upper right corner is taken from one of the toile elements.

It is one of those pieces where I almost felt driven to complete it. And I've been brought back 'round to my earth-tone roots. It was probably the result of being stressed about finishing several other projects so my mind rebelled and inspired me to create something else. I'm quite pleased with it now that the top is complete.

Cranes

I was also thinking of re-using the design layout for another quilt in a different color scheme if I can find a suitable border print for inspiration.I have a beautiful oriental crane fabric in blues and reds and golds that might work but the treatment would have to be different as I only bought a yard of it (because I couldn't resist it) and that won't be enough for borders. That quilt might work with a corner element a framed section of the print, a silhouette of the crane across the coins and a solid border. I don't have the fabrics collected for the coins yet, of course, and that will have to wait a bit. I've already invested a hefty sum in quilting supplies and services this month.

Stacy's Quilt -- Done

2005-05-16T06:00:00.000-05:00

Thursday night (5/12) I had a fabulous phone call on my voice mail - Joann had finished Stacy's quilt and I could come pick it up a week early! Bless her. I couldn't go Thursday night, but Friday I headed straight over to Marion after work and picked it up. I dedicated Friday night to binding so that it too, was done, done, done.

Bland Backing

There wasn't any controversy with the backing of this quilt - I was able to find a blue on blue 90" wide backing fabric early on. Now I'm thinking it might be a bit bland after my other adventures in choosing backing fabrics.

The colors of the quilt are actually a little more vibrant. It was cloudy outside when I took these pictures and the photos came out a bit greyed out, even after Photoshop adjustments. I thought I had moved on to the realm of accepting scrappy quilts, and I'm not even sure if this one truly qualifies as 'scrappy' as I've planned the color scheme but it's still a little too chaotic for me. Perhaps if there was more white space between the stars like I did for Andrea's quilt they'd 'pop' more and seem less muddled. That may be my problem with the scrap quilt concept - that it appears too muddled.

Ready for Graduation

So it seems I'm ready for graduation without last minute panic this year. I'll be decorating sheet cakes for Stacy and one of her friends on Friday night/Saturday morning, and possibly helping Barb set up for Stacy's party - though it sounds like that's pretty much under control too. Good thing as it's also the Marion Arts Festival that morning and I'm really looking forward to being able to get there too. I wonder if the lady who makes batiked cotton underwear will be there again? They're pricey, yet fun to wear.

Andrea's Quilt--Done

2005-05-03T13:50:00.000-05:00

Done

Andrea's quilt is done. Done. Done. Done. And several weeks early too. It's amazing how panic about getting things done at the last moment can push you to get things done early. I still need to de-fur it again after taking the latest photos, but then it should be good to wrap.

Controversy

I had a terrible time trying to figure out what to use for backing for this quilt. Before I went shopping I was certain I would be able to pick up a red on white toile and that would be my answer. But once I got to the stores there was not a red toile to be seen. The only one I found was black on a mottled brown background (and I did buy some of that but that's another project.) So that left me searching for another backing fabric because I was determined to get to work on this quilt and get it done. I couldn't find any red on white prints. None. I could find red on red, and black- but those just didn't seem like Andrea at all- she's not exactly a goth child.

Then I ran across the pink flowers. Pink really is Andrea, and her Mom had first suggested she'd like a pink and purple quilt, but I wanted to do her school colors. And then I realized the red outlines on the fabric matched the red in the fabric for the stars perfectly as none of the other red fabrics I'd seen did. I hemmed and hawed- does this backing really go with this quilt? I was in my second fabric store, it was getting late... this was a bit outrageous, but I was really starting to like the look.

Then I took it to the cutting table and another quilter was talking to the store employee about quilting, so I asked their opinions. They both were really against it. The quilter told me the print was too busy for a background and went so far as to go back to the fabric wall and pick out one of the red and black prints I'd already discarded as being too dark and too small of a print. And they took the tack that I was some novice quilter who just didn't know any better. And that, of course, bugged me, so I decided I liked the fabric even more.

The woman at the register also took a look at the project and she actually liked the combo and told me she thought it was up to the artist to decide what color to use. As you might guess, I liked her better. As I worked with the fabric, I really did grow more and more fond of it. Here's a closer look at the print. It doesn't have much purple, but it's got quite a variety of pink and I love the goldish-orange and blue accents. Hopefully Andrea will like it too!

Graduation Quilt 2

2005-04-20T09:26:00.000-05:00

This is the quilt for my friend Kathy's oldest daughter for graduation. Her school colors are black and red, but I thought a large field of white would make the quilt a little easier to transition to life past high school. I think this might be my last quilt with this star block, though I do like the spacing on this one.

Or I might just put together a couple more baby quilts since I have a number of white squares already cut to size. Maybe a single star as a medallion in the center and a nine patch border around it... Ok- so I'm not done playing with this block yet.

Stumped: Blue and White

2005-04-11T10:58:00.000-05:00

These bits and pieces of previous blue projects and swaps have been sitting on my design wall for two weeks and I can't figure out where I want to go with this quilt. I'm working on it out of UFO guilt and because I just love the blue and white look, but I wasn't getting anywhere this time so I bagged it back up so I could move on to a new project. This entry is really just so I have a reference point of where I was on the design when I pull it out to work on it again. Too bad my other blocks are 9" instead of 12" or I'd add in some Annie's Choice blocks (see other post) in blue and white. I'm not sure I want to reduce it that much as it was a bit difficult to get it all lined up at 12"- it'll be worse at 9".

Annie's Choice

2005-04-11T10:49:00.000-05:00

This is a block that I chose to make for James, a member of my online group, who was looking for some purple and white blocks for a project. I think I've fallen in love with this block- it's quite pretty and it comes with speed piecing instructions. It comes from Quilter's Cache- Annie's Choice. Of course if it was my friend Annie's choice it would be pink and white rather than purple.

This Week and a Charity to Note

2005-04-01T09:19:00.000-06:00

Quilting

No photo this time, but I did get Stacy's graduation quilt finished and taken to my favorite local machine quilter, The Cottage Rose in Marion. I thought I was doing ok for time... but the crunch is on, they're actually projecting finish times in June already. I'll have to beg Joanne to take my plight into consideration and have it ready for me in time for the Graduation party. This causes a quandry for me for Andrea's quilt though... I haven't even started the top and I doubt that I can beg my way up into the schedule if I can't get that quilt to Joanne before next week. Ouch. Time to get creative, I guess...

Charity Note

An enterprising man in Canada wrote to one of the geek newsletters I read about a fundraiser he's doing and asked others to link back to his site. I know this blog doesn't get a lot of traffic, but I said I'd link to him, so I shall. |Learn more about the 30 hour fast and Darren Barefoot's fundraising goal.

UFO: Bright Stars

2005-03-15T06:56:00.000-06:00

Here's the result of this weekend's sew fest. When I first joined online quilt lists I joined every swap that came up and hosted a few of my own... which means I have a large stash of blocks that I need to incorporate into quilts. This means I also have quite a pile of UFOs (UnFinished Objects) in my quilting closet. This quilt top used up all but two of the Texas Star blocks that I had in bright colors.

I'm not sure when I started to like bright, obnoxious candy colors- I was an avowed earth tone girl for a long time, but I love the riot of color quilt top. I'm keeping this one for me- and I'm considering sending it out to be machine quilted instead of adding it to the pile of quilt tops that are waiting for me to hand quilt them.

Project Linus Quilt Two

2005-03-08T10:56:00.000-06:00

Here's another quilt for Project Linus that I just got done. I'm not sure if I like it or if I think it's really ugly. It's built out of blocks I got from a monthly swap I joined where there was a color theme each month and you made a set of 9 Patches with a light and a dark from that color. Now- as you can see just looking at this quilt, some of the others had very loose interpretations of the color 'green'- I see some fabrics that are definitely predominantly brown and one that is just plain yellow. As you might guess- I dropped out of that particular swap.

The quilt has the added bonus that I'm trying to learn to machine quilt- and I usually am quite happy with a diamond pattern on quilts but the color combinations on this quilt and the pale cream backing I used left me in a quandry for what color thread to use. I went with cream and of course it shows up on the front much more prominently than I like- In retrospect should have gone for something that would blend better. But then, my inconsistencies in the quilting would have been more obvious on the back... I'm really not happy with this 'learning' phase- I'd like to jump straight to expert machine quilter, if you please. Especially with my free motion quilting where I can't seem to get a consistent tension on the reverse.

The quilt does have an interesting play of light and dark when you look at it from a distance though, see?

Getting Started

2005-02-24T06:16:00.000-06:00

Over the holidays my brother asked if I kept a journal of my quilting online, as would be logical since I do web design for my day job. The answer was no. The year before my sister had given me a photo album with copies of all the photos of my quilts that she had ever taken so that I could keep a record and I've been trying to keep that up - getting my digital photos printed through the magic of Shutterfly.

Of course, my brother doesn't get to my house very often, and my cyber quilting group hasn't ever made it to the house to peruse the photo album, so I thought it was about time I tried to keep an online record of my quilts. As a web designer my personal web site gets the least of my attention, so I figured a blogging tool would be a much more logical way to make this happen.

So here goes... I think I'll keep the text posts and individual photos as separate entries to keep things tidy.

Project Linus Quilt

2005-02-24T05:30:00.000-06:00

This quilt will be donated to Project Linus, I've gotten behind on my donation quilts, so this one's getting me back in the groove. I should have photographed this on my design wall- the orange looks quite awful next to the wood floors.

I've never done an all flannel quilt before and didn't realize quite how bulky this was going to get- especially the binding. The cat flannel is leftover fabric from pajama pants I made for Lynn and Jen several years ago for Christmas and then cut up into 3" squares because I can't seem to throw fabric away. The blue was for another project- my thriftiness in saving those fabrics required that I buy the orange for the borders and blue with white stars for backing... not so thrifty in the end. My goal to only build my charity quilts from my expansive stash of fabrics isn't going too well so far.

Garrison's Baby Quilt

2005-02-24T05:20:00.000-06:00

This is the baby quilt for Josh & Jess's new baby boy. I've been using this pattern for several baby quilts and they're all turning out quite differently. Somehow Garrison got the 'Eddie Bauer' edition of the quilt

I had a hard time picking the fabrics for this one while I was at the quilt shop, and the plaid was the first piece that finally spoke to me, half an hour later I'd finally picked the rest of the palette. I kept gravitating to blues at first, but the shop didn't really have the right colorways to complement the blues in the plaid and it just seemed too cold until I added in the goldenrod and red.