Quilting – Page 20 – Thimbleanna

Quilts from …Well, You Know …

39 Comments / April 21, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Quilting

Thanks for all your nice comments about my friendship quilt. I hope you’ve all been having fun checking out all the quilts at Amy’s Quilt Festival. Amy must be wondering what kind of a monster she’s created — there are sure a lot of beautiful quilts to enjoy.

I wish I could tell you something exciting. I spent my weekend wrestling my have-to quilting project. I’m determined to get these t-shirt quilts done for a friend — they’ve been sitting here nagging me for over two years. I’ve promised myself that I won’t start anything new until they’re finished. The tops are put together (two of them) and I quilted the first one this weekend. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Oh, to have a long-arm. My dear Hester didn’t like that heavy t-shirt material one little bit, poor girl.

I hope to never make another t-shirt quilt. Maybe in a weak moment, but, in general, I’m just not a fan. In the meantime, not being able to start something new and fun has been torture. There are so many pretty, new quilts and fabric on blogs — the inspiration is endless. Only one more weekend to get the other top quilted and then maybe I can work on something fun.

I’m off to NJ in the morning for a quick trip. I’m hoping you’ll all keep me entertained in the evenings!
XOXO,
Anna

A Virtual Quilt Festival

60 Comments / April 17, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Quilting

Well, Hello There! By now you’ve probably heard that Amy is having a virtual quilt festival.

Since we can’t all go to the same quilt show, Amy has decided to bring the show to us and she’s asked us all to show our favorite quilt. You know, that’s kind of like asking a mother to choose which one of her children is her favorite. Oh, the pain! I’ve already shown you my very favorite quilt (several times), so I’ll give you my runner up.

There are so many beautiful, modern quilts being shown today, so, I’m feeling a little frumpy with this throwback-to-the-80’s quilt, but I love it anyway. This is the very first quilt that the quilty peeps and I made together. We formed our quilt group and I got to go first because no one had been in a “friendship” group before, so we used my quilt to learn how to do it. (And btw, I took pictures of the quilt on the really cool big ol’ dump truck in our driveway. We don’t have a dump truck — so you know what that means? It means the roofers are in on the house! WooHoo!!!)

We started out with 11 girls in our group and I gave each of them the background material and the pattern for the bear’s paw and requested that they make the bear’s paw out of their own red and blue scraps. I love how everyone chose different fabrics. Then I asked them to embroider their name, where they were from, the date, and something they loved. Of the 11 blocks that I got back, 1 was unusable, so I asked MeMum and MyDadLovesMeBestSister if they would each make a block to round the number out to 12. Here are blocks from my best buddy quilty peeps and MeMum. They love(d) houses, old jukeboxes, cats and fairy tales. I wonder what they would put now, 21 years later?

I love that everyone chose something different. (Other fun things were “my dog”, daffodils, chocolate, rainbows, wee babes, flowers, baskets, and crafts.) And I love that you can see everyone’s handwriting. And I really love that of our original group, four of us have stayed together and we’re best quilty peeps!

So…now, you’ve seen one of my favorite quilts. Git along lil’ doggies and run over to Amy’s — there are enough quilts being shown to make your fanny tired from sitting at the computer! (Oh, and Thanks Amy for hosting — what a fun idea.)

Have a great weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

P.S. If you want to see something funny, go check out the quilt that Carolyn just finished for the Quilts of Valor program!

February Recipe Box Swap

36 Comments / February 5, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Bunnies, Quilting, Recipes

Oh well, once again, it’s the first Thursday of the month so that means it’s time for another recipe box swap.

Our hostess, Randi, at I Have to Say, has chosen Fun Foods as our theme this month. In my book,

Fun = Easy.

For fun and easy, I have one Go To snack … but wait, how many of you remember THIS commercial? (And while we’re sidetracked here, can someone please tell me how to embed a video into a wordpress blog? I’ve done it before, but I can’t seem to make it work. ???)

I’ve always loved that commercial. It’s one of my favorites — that’s one of the few old commercials I can actually remember (and now, through the magic of YouTube, I can re-live my childhood commercial experience — woohoo!)

Rice Krispy Treats are one of my very favorite FUN foods. Kellog’s Cereal company feels the same way, because if you go to their website, you’ll find lots of fun things to do with Rice Krispy treats. (And, apparently Judy and I think alike too, because she has posted a recipe for Scotcharoos — Rice Krispy Treats on steriods.)

And, because the hardest part about making Rice Krispy Treats is throwing flour all over yourself, I wanted to show you another of my favorite fun foods that you’ve probably already seen.

The Pear Bunny Salad. MeMum used to make this little salad for us all the time when we were little. It’s so simple to make. Put a pear half on a piece of lettuce. Add a cottage cheese tail, raisin eyes, almond slice ears, and a red hot nose. The cottage cheese and pear are a perfect compliment and one bite sends me instantly back to my childhood.

So. A little weekend sewing coming up. I hope you have some fun plans too — and if not, make some Rice Krispy Treats and turn it into a fun weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

The Christmas Quilts

76 Comments / January 6, 2009 February 18, 2011 / Holidays, Quilting

Wow — little cupcake bunny is sure feeling the love — Thank You! I’m thinking maybe there will have to be a two-bunny giveaway. Don’t forget, if you want a chance to win a bunny, leave a comment on my blogaversary post by tomorrow (Wednesday) night, midnight eastern standard time and I’ll throw your name in the hat.

I didn’t make very many Christmas gifts this year, but I did manage to make some Christmas quilts.

I’d been thinking about making Christmas quilts for my family for several years, so last year, when CrazyMom posted her Christmas quilt for a friend, I knew it was just the ticket. I filed that idea away and this fall, I shamelessly copied her. I made four quilt tops: 1) MeMum and BigDaddy, 2) MyDadLovesMeBestSister and CrazyBIL, 3) TheFirstChild and SweetiePie, and 4) one for us. I only got three of them quilted and bound, so I’ll finish the one for us soon. (Ha! I’m getting quite a stack of UFOs from when I make a gift and make one for me at the same time — somehow I never have time to finish mine LOL!)

The pattern is the Happy Hour pattern from Atkinson Designs. It’s a fairly quick pattern — especially if you’re only making one. I’m kind of surprised that I like this pattern, as I’m a fairly traditional quilter. But, I do love it — maybe my tastes are changing a little?

I don’t know if my giftees have noticed yet, but I sloppily quilted “Merry Christmas 2008” into the quilting. Have I ever told you that I really don’t like stippling? Yeah, I really don’t like stippling. Someday, maybe Santa will bring me a fancy longarm to put an end to my suffering. In the meantime, I can’t really think of any quilting method that’s as quick as stippling when you need a bevy of gifts.

I backed all the quilts in flannel ’cause I love the weight and comfy factor that flannel adds to a quilt. SweetiePie got the polka dot background ’cause she’s a polkie girl. The other two got flannel with Christmas wishes on them. Our quilt will be a combo of the two backings, and since I’m short on both of them, I’ll probably have to take the flannel shirt off of TheManoftheHouse’s back and throw that in too, ala Fons and Porter.

I would say, if you don’t know CrazyMom, you should run over and visit her. But who am I kidding? EVERYone knows CrazyMom! She’s Crazy. Her quilt output is A-MAZING!

And to you, dear CrazyMom (do you like how I talk about you as if you’re not in the room LOL?) — Thank you SO much for your daily inspiration! You might have days when you wonder if all this quilting and blogging is worth it, but all you have to do is look around blogland and see your footprint. Everybody loves you, CrazyMom…especially Me!

XOXO,
Anna

Emergency Sewing

59 Comments / December 7, 2008 February 18, 2011 / Quilting

Ok, show of hands….how many of you treat yourself to a little present while you’re out there Christmas shopping? C’mon, tell the truth — a few of you ‘fessed up last year! My little treat last year was the Williams Sonoma peppermint hand and dish soaps and this year I just couldn’t resist Ina Garten’s new cookbook. I LOVE, LUV, LUUUURRRRVE Ina. Her recipes are so straight forward and she uses normal ingredients. As much as I love Martha, I’m not a huge fan of her recipes — she uses too many weird (to me!) ingredients. (And while we’re talking about Martha and Ina, whatever happened to that twosome? Did they have a nasty split? I kept looking for the scoop on the Enquirer front page in the grocery store, but it never appeared.) Anyway, I’m embarrassed to say I have all of Ina’s books and when I saw that she had a new one out I just couldn’t wait for Christmas. (It’s awesome, btw.) Sorry loved ones who can’t think of anything to get me LOL!

On the sewing front, Hester’s back all healthy and happy. WooHoo! I picked her up yesterday and rushed home so I could make an emergency tile cover-up. I’ll be hosting my book group this week and I just couldn’t face another year of bare-naked ewe-gly tile. I have the most hideous tile on this side of the Mississippi River. No…make that the Pacific Ocean.

I hate it so much, to paraphrase a Brigette (who just put up a fabulous nut carmelized tart picture and recipe link!)-ism, “it makes me want to throw up a bit in my mouth”. Eeeewwww! Whoever put that tile in this house, was smoking sump’in. Forgive me if you’re a counter-top tile fan, but this tile has made me hate tile. I mean…you can’t roll out a pie crust or cookies on tile. And spill anything. It all runs into the grout. Sugar? Into the grout. I can’t wait until we can Get. Rid. Of. It!!!

Since the tile’s all green-y, Christmas-time, with all the red and green stuff, is the only time it even remotely doesn’t burn my irises. I had some Christmas fabric scraps, so I just hurried and stripped them together. I was feeling all Crazy Mom-ish. Speaking of which, how does that woman get so many fabulous quilts done — she’s amazing!

The emergency tile cover-up runner will look even better on book group night when Ina’s fabulous raspberry cheesecake is sitting on the end of the runner that’s empty! I’m off to bed — hope you’re all having a great weekend and getting lots done!

XOXO,
Anna