Lucy the New Dog

We were unexpectedly offered a 3 year old boxer/shepherd mix dog last weekend.  Our neighbors moved and can't take her with them.  She's a super sweet dog and the kids love her.  We agreed to keep her for a week to determine if our 10 year old beagle would tolerate her existence.  We're still deciding, but here's a picture of Lucy (and my son's leg).  She was getting disgruntled by the picture taking by this one.

Bad Quilts - February's Quilt Guild Article

Hee hee.  I love MOBA.  Ugly quilt night didn't go over as well as I'd hoped, but it's always nice for the newer quilters to see that more experienced quilters didn't always know what they were doing and that they can still take a wrong turn here or there.  Pretty much, if you're new to anything, don't compare yourself to experts.  Do what makes you happy.

February is the SCQ “Display of Bad Quilts” Month!

As I mentioned at our January meeting, we’re going to celebrate our bad quilts this month.  We’ve all made something that wasn’t quite what we’d hoped to make.  Often we’re too obsessed with matching corners, pointy triangles and perfect color balance in our quilts.  We typically bring in our best quilts for show and tell.  This month we’re going to show our quilts that fall short of our intentions.

I was inspired by the Museum of Bad Art (http://www.museumofbadart.org) in Boston.  Their tagline is “Art Too Bad to Be Ignored”.  I don’t think that our quilts will quite live up to their low standards, but it should be fun to try!  Go check out their website.  I highly recommend viewing “Lucy in the Field with Flowers” from their online collection.  This painting started the museum when it was rescued from a trash pile on the street. 

Don’t forget to work on those quilts for the displays at the Old Jail Museum and the library!  They’ll be due sooner than we all think.  To help you make more time in your day, here’s a link to a blog with lots of crock-pot recipes.  The writer made something in her crock-pot for a year. http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/  The recipes are all reviewed, too!  Just start dinner in the morning and quilt all day.  When it’s time to serve, smear a little flour on your face and pretend you cooked all day!  Your family will never know & I’ll certainly keep your secret!

-Cindy

New Year's Goals - January's Quilt Guild Article

I should really keep up with these.  I could go for a little chilly weather (ok, something in the 60s) and more football right about now!

This past year has been great for the Sugar Creek Quilters!  We’ve had lots of quilts donated to charities.  We’ve had great participation in our Study Groups, fantastic programs and lots of opportunities to learn new things.

My main SCQ goals for the new year are for all of this continue and grow.  I’d also like to see our group grow in membership numbers.  Try and think of someone that you know who may be interested in seeing what our group is all about!  Then invite them to a meeting!  I’m considering a special night for guests later this spring, too!

My personal quilting goals are simple.  I plan to finish some long-abandoned UFOs.  There are three in particular from past workshops.  They are the appliqued initial wallhanging, the reversible log cabin tablecloth and the primitive applique piece.  Yes, a couple of these are close to 5 years old.  I’ve found that in the last few years it is much easier to finish projects that are for other people than for myself.  What are your quilting goals for 2010?

As I write this, it’s 15 degrees outside with a wind-chill of 4.  Brr!  I’m certainly happy to be inside and watching the Colts play in Buffalo and not one of the fans watching in their outdoor stadium!  I love being a quilter in the wintertime.  There’s nothing better than draping an almost-finished quilt across your lap while you are sewing the binding to the back.

Holy Cannoli - My Nephew J is 14 Today!

I called my nephew J to tell him "Happy Birthday" today.  I jokingly asked if he was turning 11 or 12.  He says, "No, I'm 14.  I can drive in a year and a half!".

Wait, WHAT?!?!

Someone is going to give him a learner's permit in a year and a half?

This is the boy who, when he was small, downed a Kool-Aid Burst while his little friends egged him on with a chanted "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!", giving my sister an unpleasant glimpse into the frat-boy years.

This is the boy who went to a birthday party, had a smidge of pizza, and a whole lot of brownies, came home and ate some candy, then was too full for dinner but miraculously talked his dad into a Mountain Dew.  We peeled him off of the ceiling 3 days later after the sugar buzz finally ended*.  The entire event made Hammy the Squirrel from "Over the Hedge" look lethargic in comparison.

This is a kid that's going to get a learner's permit in 18 months?  Stay out of Wisconsin after February 12, 2012.


*My sister would leave me alone to care for our mother in her elder years if I didn't say that she wasn't there when crapfest happened and that she's very conscientious of what her kids eat.

Quilting Time Out - County Fair Bake-Off

So last night my friend sent out a message that her group was sponsoring a bake-off at the county fair. (Sounds awfully Kermit meets Miss Piggy at the beginning of The Muppet Movie, doesn't it?)  She gave a few details, like event time and the focus ingredient (apples).  I thought, what the heck.  The little girlie and I can whip out an apple cake in the morning.  So we did.  It's called "Harvest Pound Cake" and is from the Betty Crocker site.  I didn't use the nuts though, because I don't like them in baked goods.  I figured we'd go, support my friend and then be stuck with a cake that the judge hated, even though I've enjoyed it.  No way was I going to ruin my tasty apple cake with nuts.  It didn't come out of the pan quite the way it should have & I lost a chunk.  I did pick it out of the pan & stick it back on.  Since the cake was glazed in a caramel sauce, I had something to make sure it stayed there.  Other than that, it looked pretty good.

With cake baked, we headed off to the fair, where it promptly began to rain once we were ten feet from the car.  Awesome.  Now I'll be wet & told that my cake sucks.  Luckily we parked fairly close to the bake-off tent.  We had about 45 minutes until the start of judging, so we wandered around looking at rabbits, chicken, sheep and llamas. 

Back at the judging tent, we sat through the two items in the crusted category (a pie & a dumpling) and the two items in the bread/muffin category (one bread and one muffin).  The pie and bread won their respective categories.  Then came the miscellaneous category.  It was my cake vs. some apple cookies.  The cookies went first.  The hubs and I thought my cake wasn't going to make it.  So far, the judge had chosen the first item tasted for each category.  Mine was being tasted second.  She commented that the cake didn't seem to want to come out of the pan, but that it was common in Bundt pans.  Whew - at least that wasn't the issue I thought it would be.  Then she commented on the apples - apparently they sank to the bottom of the pan.  I say that apples will be apples & to leave them alone... (picky, picky, picky...).  She did say that it had good flavor!  YAY!  Then, as my daughter would say, BAM, she picked mine to win. I did not, however, win overall bake-off champion.  That went to the apple pie.

Eight Year Quiltiversary! - December's Quilt Guild Article

Musings on the start of my quilting addiction...

This month marks my 8 year quiltiversary (the anniversary of my first quilt).  My niece’s 3^rd birthday was coming up and I decided to get her a doll bed.  I found an unfinished one at a craft store and painted it.  She needed bedding, so I made it a little pillow and mattress.  I crocheted a small afghan.  Something didn’t seem quite right though.  I decided that the little bed was not complete without a patchwork quilt.  I’d never used a rotary cutter, sewn tiny squares together or actually quilted anything before, but I didn’t let that stop me. First, I checked out some books on quilting from the library.  It seemed simple enough.  I decided what I wanted to make and headed out to the fabric store.  That’s not a place that I’d been in often since my childhood when my mom would drag my sister and me there to buy some plaid double-knit atrocity that would later become matching bell-bottoms (she made us go out in public in them.  We’ve since burnt the pictures).  I spent an hour or so trying to find four or five fabrics that I thought had a perfect little girl quilt feel to them.  I took them home, cut them up and sewed them together.  Most of the seams matched.  One was about a quarter of an inch off.  I decided it was ok & moved to quilting.  I did a stitch in the ditch without a walking foot and then finally managed some little free-motion hearts.  I had no clue how to even set up my machine for free-motion quilting.  I was thrilled to have it done and my niece loved the set (again, she was 3).  I vowed never to quilt again.  Six months later I was in a machine quilting class.  Shortly after, we moved to Crawfordsville and I joined the quilt guild.

I’m so grateful for all of the advice and assistance I’ve received from everyone since joining.  I can match seams now and hold my own quilting.  We are very lucky to have such an amazing group of talented and helpful quilters here!

Graduation T-Shirt Quilt

I loved making this quilt.  The colors are fantastic!  It's a graduation gift for a lucky young man with an awesome mom.  Have shirts?  I'll make more!

Importance of Organization - November's Quilt Guild Article

This is more of a do as I say, not as I do kind of article.  Those of you who know me won't argue with that statement!

I’m not the most organized person.  To top that off, I have two very active young children.  At any moment, it looks like a Toys R Us exploded in my living room.  I never feel like there’s enough time to get anything done!  In an effort to get things under control, I’ve started following the FlyLady online (flylady.net).  She encourages you to tackle big jobs one step at a time and tells you that, even if you only have 15 minutes, you can get a job done 15 minutes at a time.

I know that most of us will sometimes get to a point where we don’t think we have time for quilting.  I say you can get a lot done if you just spend a little bit of time here and there.  Organization is the key.  If you only have a short amount of time, you don’t want to spend that time looking for your rotary cutter (not that I’d know anything about that… ahem).  Keeping all of your materials for one project together is important.  Some use pizza boxes to store materials.  I like to use small plastic dish tubs.  They’re inexpensive ($2 at WalMart), have no openings and won’t fall apart if something gets spilled on the table next to them.  They’re large enough to hold everything for your project except the batting.  You can also stack them on top of each other.  Since fabric is flexible, it won’t hurt anything in the lower bins!  Once your materials are in one spot, you can make a list of tasks for each project and keep it in the bin.  No matter how you organize, when you have a short amount of time, pull out a project and do a little work!

However you get things done, just be sure to have a special place for your chocolate!*

*One of the ladies in our quilt guild is known for bringing chocolate to every workshop.  I think it's as important to her quilting as her machine.  That comment was for her.

Quilting Time Out - Coffee Filter Flowers

Welcome to end-of-year teacher gift season!  This year we needed gifts for 6 teachers/caregivers.  My son has 4 people who help care for him at MOPS and my daughter has 2 fantastic pre-school teachers.  We made some sugar foot scrub for each of them, but this entry isn't about that.  This is about the coffee filter flowers that we made to decorate the packages.  They're inexpensive, cute and handmade.  What more can you want?  Here's how to make your own!

For each flower, you'll need 3 round (not cone) coffee filters and one pipe cleaner (these days they're labeled as chenille stems, but I'm feeling old-school today).  You'll also need regular kid markers (not permanent), paper towels, a water spray bottle (or squirt gun, anything to spray water) and a microwave.

1.  Flatten each coffee filter and color it with the markers.

2.  Lay colored filter on paper towels and spritz with water until damp or a little wetter than that.
 

3.  Microwave the filter on paper towels on high until dry, checking every 30 seconds or so until you know how long it takes your microwave to dry the filter.  It took mine 2 - 2 1/2 minutes.  Allow the microwave to cool a bit between filters.  Mine overheated after a while.  It's ok now though.

This is one wet, then dried.  Sometimes it is more spectacular than this.  The more water you use, the more the colors mix.  Also, getting more color on the filter helps, too.

4.  Stack 3 dried filters.  Pinch in the center to create a flower look.  Wrap a pipe cleaner around the center in the back for a stem.

5.  Add to an already thoughtful teacher gift for a stunning presentation!  I tied the stem into the ribbon on these jars.

Quilt from Softball Shirts & Gymnastics Outfits

I recently made this "T-Shirt" quilt.  It's mostly softball shirts and gymnastics outfits with a couple of t-shirts thrown in.  It was a little bit of a challenge using the different fabrics together, but I think it turned out great!  I can make a quilt with any fabrics you can wash.  This even has part of a kimono, crushed velvet & sparkly silver stars on stretch velour.  What can I make for you?

Use What You've Got - October's Quilt Guild Article

Yeah, I'm a little behind on these...  This was my President's Article from last October.  My son is still turning everything into drumsticks and baseball bats.

I have a friend who is involved in everything.  She doesn’t say, “No.” often.  I get drawn into her craziness periodically.  She lives in Texas.  If she were local, I’m sure I’d be drawn in much more.  This week she’s making felted wool items for one of her many organizations.  She called me to ask my advice on rotary cutters, mats, scissors and anything else that might help her make a lap-size felted wool blanket.  I think I take for granted that we have so many wonderful tools at our disposal.  Even then I see many of us using everyday things to help in our quilting.  I see my son do the same thing.  He’ll be 2 next week and loves football, drums and baseball.  He can make anything work for his passions.  His sister’s Dora bike helmet is now his football helmet.  Pencils, straws and sticks become his drumsticks.  And everything can be a baseball bat.  He’s used his wooden train whistle and a rocket launcher.  This morning he held his stuffed Curious George by one leg and took a swing at a Nerf basketball.  I hope we can all have the creativity to use the things we have on hand that he has!

(As a side note, my friend’s craziness can be really fun.  Long ago, before children and husbands, we once took a long weekend and went to New York for cheesecake.)

Act your age not your shoe size.

My oldest nephew, the one who coined "Aunt CindyLand", will be 15 soon. Really. He'll be 15. (Funny, I don't look old enough to have a 15 year old nephew).  He's 6 feet tall & wears a size 14 shoe.  My sister is sad because she can't use the phrase "Act your age, not your shoe size".  Luckily, she has a 13 year old son who is only in a size 9.