More Spring Fever Randomness

No, I haven't got all my mental marbles back yet. My mind is still off wandering somewhere and shows no signs of returning. I wish it had left a note. Am I going to be like this until Summer?

Meanwhile, some more Spring Fever randomness:

I made a skirt. It's fitted and has a zipper.

Of course, since I don't have a brain right now, I made mistake on the waistline. I made the waistline a little too big, but that's better than too small...right? More room for strawberries.

I made the skirt from this book:

Sew What! Skirts. Fantastic book. You can make custom fitted skirts easily, even if you don't have a brain!

Uh oh....mind wandering alert. Do you have this problem:

Piglets overrunning your yard? We do. These are wild piglets and they're soooo cute...but they're accompanied by their very agressive mama, who storms out of the bushes to charge anyone who walks into the yard. It's a problem.

This is what the adult pigs look like:

These are the neighbor's pigs, but they're quite tame. I can't get a good picture of the wild mama that's charging me because I'm usually too busy screaming and running back toward my house. It's a problem.

This is a horse that visits us occasionally. He keeps the pigs away.

Speaking of visitors, we have a pigeon that started visiting us recently. I don't think we had pigeons before Wal Mart came to our island. Now they're at Wal Mart, Kukui Grove Mall, and Lihue McDonald's. They're spreading to all the people-y places. I don't think we should be feeding him, but look at that cute birdie face! We're keeping him in captivity so he doesn't breed. Don't want to displace any endangered Hawaii birds! He seems happy enough in his cage.

This one's name is Mr. Pidgy. He growls when you get close to him--it's really funny. Have you heard a pigeon do that hiss-growl thing....or is that just our Kauai WalMart variety? Maybe he learned it from the pig.

Here's another project I've finished lately, which has nothing much to do with anything else I've written here...

Mr. Wise Owl. Made from an old Aunt Martha transfer pack.

More animal pictures:

Mr. Bigglesworth is wondering why all the animals that come live with us have the prefix "Mr." or "Mrs." I guess it's because I respect animals. And also...they have their secrets, don't they? I don't really think you can ever really name an animal. They have their own name for themselves that you can never know. So I leave their secret first name up to them.

Of course, when they're not big enough to be a Mr. or Mrs.:

Awwwwwwww. Mr. Bigglesworth, just a few days after we got him from the Humane Society. His name was just "kitty" here. What a lovely little creature he is.

For the life of me, I can't think of a segue into this next picture:

My chocolate chip cookies. My favorite recipe is the Tollhouse recipe which is printed on the back of the chocolate chips. But why do my cookies always come out looking like this:

Flat and wrinkly. They taste good, of course, but why flat and wrinkly? My cookies used to come out puffy...do any of you know what the problem could be? Thanks in advance for any insight, and also thanks in advance for not telling me that my cookies are just going through menopause. They're very sensitive these days...

Yay! The last topic change....I think. Maybe.

My husband and I will be celebrating our 24th anniversary this Sunday. I'm the luckiest woman on earth. I love being married to him and love him with all my heart. Happy Anniversary, Honey.

And more good news...my son Grayson will be home from college for the summer on May 9th! This will be one wonderful weekend. With any luck, my brain will check in briefly in order to enjoy it.

Saggy Baggy

Remember this mail bag that I made last year from Amy Karol's "Bend the Rules Sewing" book?

It's been a great workhorse for almost a year now. But we have a growing problem at our house:

This is a typical day's mail run to the post office. This stack includes quilt pattern orders, clock pattern orders, a quilt shop pattern order, and a couple of Netflix videos. I've overflowed and strained the handles on my mail bag, and I've seriously abused my back-up pillowcase bag. Look at what a year's worth of post office runs have done to my poor, poor baggies:

Pretty droopy, I'd say. Poor little saggy baggies. We need a new mailbag around here!

It is for this reason that I made ***SUPERBAG!!!*** (Insert theme music here.)

It's HEFTY! It's STURDY! It's BIGGER THAN A SOUP CAN! It's able to carry large postal loads without sagging hopelessly out it's reinforced-with-tagboard bottom!!

Here is its backside:

You know...I deserve a special reward today for not making the obvious puns about age, saggy bottoms, baggage, being an old bag, wishing to reinforce my droopy bottom--a veritable gold mine of age-related puns! I hope you all appreciate the self control it took.

And speaking of self-control, here's what happens when you run out of the self-control required to make an entire shaggy knitted rug:

Pulling all those knots through this cotton rug-to-be was not fun. I didn't feel like fighting with it any longer. So I seamed what I had knitted into a tube, sewed up the bottom, rolled over the top, added a fabric inside, a snazzy i-cord strap, and a few buttons. Et voila!

Monster Bag. He's watching you. Even Superbag can't help you now....

Feel like going on an outing? Next post, we'll journey to Kauai's south shore. A hui hou!

Sewing Day

Its a beautiful day outside on Kauai today, but then again, most days look like this. Even in mid-winter. We don't have snow day excuses to stay inside and sew all day--we just have to do it anyway, in spite of the weather. Tough life, eh?

Here's Anne, hard at work on her project:

Here's Mary at her Featherweight, and Roberta's blurry hand:

We made Pink Penguin's fabulous baskets! My friends really liked the one I made from this tutorial, and they wanted to make some, too. I love how different they all came out.

Mr. Bigglesworth supervised from his spot in front of the slider:

After Paige made her basket, she worked on her UFO--a half-square log cabin project that I taught at Kapaia Stitchery...what...a couple years, ago, Paige? But we're not keeping track. Ahem.

Besides...why would you want to rush this?:

Neat, huh? I love the colors...the turquoise really "pops" this one. Jo and Paige played with layouts on the design wall. I think they decided on this layout (I have NO idea what the layout "rule" was on this one...), so Paige needed to make more blocks.

A group basket shot. Say "cheese"!:

They're all so happy! These are so adorable--you just HAVE to make one. Baskets by me, Roberta, Paige, Mary and Anne.

Jo had a different basket plan:

She embiggened her basic basket plan and put handles and a flap on. Nice, huh? Her fabric selections are always so elegant.

Since I had already made two baskets the previous week, I worked on something else, too:

I didn't know I could doodle/quilt daisies! These aren't too bad. Funny what you can accomplish when you just dive in and do it. It's not perfect, but that's how I like things (as you know). I got this much done:

Is is a basket? A tote? A trash can? A feed bag? A pillow? I'll show you the finished project in my next post.

We all decided that we need to do more sewing this year. We let other activities get in the way of getting together--and that isn't good. Our next sewing day will be in a couple of weeks...right, ladies? 2009 is the Year of Sewing, right? We promised. Sounds great to me.

Currently Inspiring

I'm in love with this fabric. It's so happy! It's also very Seventies, don't you think? My first inclination was to make an apron from it, but that's my first impulse with all the fabric I buy. Aprons, tablecloths, or kitchen curtains. I wonder what that means?

But I resisted the kitchen-y urge and made these:

I LOVE THEM!! I can't stop playing with them. They're so fun to toss around. I found the tutorial on how to make them at a wonderful blog called, "Pink Penguin." The link to the tutorial is here: Fabric Basket Tutorial by Pink Penguin She has some other great tutorials on her site, as well as some adorable things for sale on Etsy.

I've seen some of these baskets made up on other crafter's blogs, but I never could tell how big they were. So, I thought I'd give you an idea of size:

Cute basket and soup can for scale. As a matter of fact, look how cute the soup looks IN the basket!:

Hello little soup! Are you stalking me? Are you wanting to come out for lunch?

This basket would make an excellent two-can soup can holder. I'm not sure why you'd want to make fabric baskets for your soup cans, but hey...after thirty years of sewing, I'm running out of reasons to make little baskets. So soup today...maybe green bean cans tomorrow. Gotta sew.

This is the pallette that's currently inspiring me. Two years ago, I NEVER would have paired pink and orange! And after living through the seventies, I didn't think I'd ever be attracted to that dark chocolate brown, either. And yet...here they are and I love them! I don't think I want to put this assortment away yet--perhaps I need to make another tote bag or something. Yeah...a grocery store soup tote. I don't have one of those. All my other totes are for other things, like crackers and tea. I don't have a tote for soup. Well, I know what I'll be doing today!

I would love it in this colorway, too:

This green colorway would make a good broccoli tote, yes? I need a broccoli tote.

And how about this colorway for donuts?:

Funny how I keep ending up in the kitchen with my fabric choices. Maybe I'm just hungry.

Look Marsha, I'm Squiggling!

A few weeks ago, I visited Marsha at her blog "Threadbender" and saw her fabulous quilt, "Squiggles at Night." It was love at first sight. Her quilt is so whimsical and colorful and full of life--I just had to make one like it. I emailed her and asked her if I could use her design to make a squiggle quilt of my own, and she kindly gave her permission. Thanks, Marsha! I am SO enjoying making your wonderful design. I'm squiggling with joy!! These are my first squiggles. Not bad, eh? Let me tell you, squiggling is addictive! All these beautiful colors on black are fun right now. I haven't made a bright quilt in quite some time. Once I started squiggling, I just couldn't stop!
I was squiggling only four squiggles per block, but I decided that more was merrier. Here are the squiggle blocks I've made so far on my design wall:

The alternating blocks are Marsha's design, too. They're sort of wonky and free-pieced using Marsha's formula.

I think I'll name my Squiggles quilt, "Box Jellys" because to me, the squiggles look just like iridescent jellyfish tendrils streaming down from glowing box jellyfish. The "box" part is a little joke because the blocks are square like a box, see? Hee hee. I crack myself up.

I spent the day totally blissed out in my sewing room, wading through my stacks of batiks. I started out with nice color-coordinated stacks, but a few hours in, total chaos ensued: Gosh, they're even beautiful in a big tangle. I haven't worked with batiks in a while; I think I was sick of them for a time. So dragging them out again for a project--and setting them against black--whoo hoo! I'm appreciating how beautiful they are all over again.

And what does one wear if one is planning on spending an entire blissful day immersed in one's sewing room, playing with gorgeous fabric?
Bedsheets, of course! This sheet skirt is the most comfortable thing EVER. As soon as I can get to Wal Mart to buy some more 1/2" non-roll elastic, I'm going to have a whole week's worth of these puppies. I may even make some lounge pants, too.
Mr. Bigglesworth watched me all day from his curtain vantage point. He's probably wondering why I'm wearing my bed.

Kisses, At Last

"Little Boy Kisses" by Lisa Boyer, 2008

I finally finished my "Kisses" quilt. Remember that little boy quilt I needed to go with that little girl quilt? I'm so prepared now!



The fabrics in this one make me so happy. There are a lot of Piece O' Cake fabrics in here, I think. I don't really follow the designers, but I seem to end up with lots of Piece O' Cake's wonderful fabrics on my shelf. What isn't Piece O' Cake in this quilt is stash fabric and vintage, including an old apron. I LOVE string quilts. They're so exciting.







I rely heavily on my imaginary Grandma when I made scrap quilts. My imaginary Grandma quilted in the 1930's during the Great Depression, so she had to make do with what she had. I consult her a lot: "What Would Imaginary Quilt Grandma Do?" She tells me to use up what I already have, don't be too fussy, but don't be lazy either. She cringes when I hand quilt with a length of quilting thread that's longer than 18 inches, for instance (lazy!). She hates when I throw any kind of scrap away, no matter how small (wasteful!). But she loves it when I'm inventive--and of course, she's my biggest fan, no matter what I make.



I used two different fabrics for borders in this quilt. This is because I couldn't decide between them, so I used them both. My imaginary Grandma said it would be okay.


In a planned quilt, I often use the same strategy. If I can't decide between two or three fabrics that are similar and read only slightly differently, I alternate and use them all in the same position in the quilt. I think it gives the quilt more dimension and makes it more interesting. Besides, it saves me having to make a decision. I like that.




Here's the viney berry border I like to doodle:
I make berries when I don't leave myself enough room to make a leaf. Berries are just a little swirl ball. If I have a wide border, I make bigger swirl balls and call them rosettes.
See? You don't have to be an artist, you just have to be inventive with the skills you have. I can't make a rosette, but I can make a swirl ball.


Here's how I make my vine:

I put the quilt in my regular sewing machine and make one irregular wavy line around the whole quilt. This is my "vine" skeleton.
When I get back to the start of the vine "circle", I start up one side making leaves and berries.
I quilt leaves and berries/rosettes all around the quilt on one side of the vine. (This quilt has been rotated--I feed the quilt toward me and over my left shoulder while I quilt. The rest of the quilt is rolled up to the left of my machine.) When I get to the beginning of the vine circle again, I repeat on the other side of the vine, all around the quilt. It doesn't take very long at all, and the leaves can be big, small, short, long...nature is like that, so you can be too. Every leaf does not have to be perfect and uniform. At least, that's what Imaginary Quilt Grandma says.

That was going to be all for today, but I can't stand it when my posts are only one set of colors! So here is (yet another) box bag I made this week as a gift. I tell you, there is something addictive about zippers. They make me feel like a real seamstress.
Zipperific, eh? Oh yeah, and this:

Sweet dreams, kitty.