pieces of my day and snapshots of my quilts




Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Winner....

Wasn't that just awful of me, making you wait in the dark for a full day before I posted the winner. I know, I'm an awful person.

The winner is (by completely random choice of my son)..... Lindsay! She said:

I love your blog kendra....I can hear you talking while you type. LOL! I'd love your throw away fabric! I've recently started sewing a whole lot of doll clothes and little pieces are perfect because I HATE cutting anything longer than a m. (bad I know). As a side note. For my scraps I use a see through shoe organizer on the back of my door. It works great. I can organize straps by colour just by shoving them in. Best of both worlds. ~Lindsay

Congratulations, Lindsay! You didn't tell me what colors you like, but I think I might know.... or you can drop me a quick note. I will have these scraps off to you very soon! (I need your address - can you fb me?) And thank you for the scraps tip. I love that idea!

Nothing much has been happening on my sewing machine lately - I've started doing some random jobs for my husband's business which has taken up some sewing time. But, I did order another 40 yd bolt of batting, which means I'm committed to do something.... soon.... or risk the wrath of a certain wonderful man (the wrath part was a joke). Maybe one of you could send me threatening messages dealing with the lack of quilting and then I would start again....

Thursday, January 20, 2011

My stash... and a giveaway!!!

I am a snoop. When we are driving home from somewhere and it is dark out (it's dark a lot at this time of year), I ask my husband to slow down so I can look into people's houses. Yep, I'm that person. The person that you close your drapes for just in case they drive by. "Oh look," I say to myself, "They hung their art way to high." "Ooooo, I like that paint color." "Time to rip out those 1970's room-divider shelves...."

I am pretty sure that there are more of me out there - or more like me - who like to see how everyone else lives. So, I'm gonna show you my stash today. I don't know if you frequent other quilting blogs, but oh my goodness!! the stashes that some of them have! Mine is shamefully tiny compared to theirs.

Here's my quilting fabric. Usually I have a huge roll of white too, but I happen to be out of it right now. It's loosely arranged by color, or theme, or by how I happen to be feeling.

I also have another cupboard of non-quilting fabric, but I'm not showing that today. You'll have to come peak in my window to see that.

The white box on the shelf contains my fat quarters or similiar sized pieces. See?

Then I have a big cardboard box that I throw my scraps into. Some people have their scraps arranged by color and size. Not me. I have a box. It's better than the floor.


Also, I have these fabrics pulled out for the current project.


Now, I organized my cupboard slightly for these pictures, and while I did that I pulled out the fabrics that I don't want anymore. Either I was given them and I hate them, I've over-used them and I'm sick of them, or I'm just not inspired by them (and I'm not gonna tell you which is which).


Does anybody want them? If you think you might use them (I'm not looking for a promise here, just a hope that you might find them useful), leave a comment on this post. I'm gonna send something little along with it, just as a thank you for taking these fabrics off of my hand, so I want you to put in your comment what you might sew with these scraps, and what your favorite color is (although I'm not making any promises that it will be included in your surprise). You have until Monday, January 24 at midnight to comment, then I'll randomly select the winner. The pieces are all around fat quarter size - some a little bigger, some a little smaller. I will ship this anywhere. Anywhere. Or I'll bring it to your door with my 4x4 if you live close enough.
And why would I need to use my 4x4? Well......

We've gotten some snow lately. I don't know what measurement it's at for snowfall, but I do know that the piles I've made by shovelling my driveway are over my head. The above picture was taken before we got the last 10" or so, too. I like this picture 'cause there is a cornice on top of the gate. This is our deck, and there is 12" or so of snow on top of the railing, and about 2' on the deck itself. I love it.
I love it because it makes me feel all warm and cozy and like I should be sewing. So I did.


This is a quilt top for my darling niece... more story coming later.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

My other skills...

I have 2.5 kids in school (kindergarten counts as half), and all my kids are so blessed to have completely wonderful teachers. There have been some issues lately that have affected them, causing extra work for these wonderful teachers. So, I decided to bake them all something.

I'm a half decent baker. Give me a recipe, and I will modify it to taste good almost every time. Usually my modifications are born out of necessity, not any stroke of baker's genius. Case in point: This morning I decided to skip the grocery store and deal with it tomorrow. I got home from the morning school run and wanted to quickly bake some treats for the kids to have as school treats and after school snacks. Half the ingredients were in the mixer for a poppyseed loaf when I realized I was out of milk (it had been on my list that I decided could wait for tomorrow). Not a problem. One and a half cups milk became half a cup of sour cream and one cup of water. I moved on. The last ingredients in the recipe were almond extract and butter flavoring. I always have almond extract in the house and never have butter flavoring in the house (I'm not so good at pre-reading the recipe). A quick check of the pantry revealed mere drops left in the almond extract. So, I used the remainder of that, and threw in some maple flavoring. The poppyseed loaf turned out so delish that I made a mental note to not follow the recipe next time (writing down the changes would be too easy - I like to challenge myself with the mental notes). My husband complains that the exact same recipe will turn out to be a completely different dish each time I make it. I don't see the problem - they are all delicious, right? Variety is the spice of life....etc, etc, yada, yada....

I digress. I baked for the teachers. French bread. 50% whole wheat, 50% white. I followed the recipe ( I think I have this recipe memorized already, I've made it so often). It turned out beautifully, like always. It was still warm when the teachers got it. 5 points for me!!



However, there was one small problem. One of the teachers is a celiac. I'm always up for the challenge. Recently my husband was diagnosed with something that makes us have to cut almost all meat out of his diet. So, for the most part, we eat as vegetarians (except at Christmas, we cheat then). I know that it gets frustrating when there aren't options for him, so I wanted to do something nice for this particular teacher. Chocolate mousse, anyone??

I'm not gonna lie to you, I scraped out the bowl and licked up every remaining morsel. It was goooooood. And yes, I know that chocolate mousse isn't a baked item. I'm a half decent cook, too. Just saying. Also, those are scraps from quilting tied around the lids. It probably didn't really help with the appearance of the jars, but I wanted something pretty-ish wrapped around the top and was running out of time.

Now, if there are any other vegetarians out there, or anyone who wants to get a few more veggies in their diet, here are my favorites so far: Lettuce wraps (the lettuce used as the wrap with a bunch of stirfried veggies and noodles as a filling, use hoisin sauce to season), African Peanut Soup (look it up on allrecipes.com), and Potato Curry (I actually just throw whatever vegetables I have on hand into a pan and add one can of mushroom soup, almost 1/4 c curry powder, small splash of mustard, maybe some ginger and garlic.... and serve over rice).
Do you have any good recipes for me?

Saturday, January 8, 2011

The long return...

Forewarning: This post is loaded with images. If you come here to read primarily about quilts, feel free to scroll all.....the....way....down.... Otherwise, be prepared to read all about my family.

I inadvertently took a long Christmas break. It's been two weeks (!!) since my last post. I don't blame you for being annoyed - I am slightly annoyed too (only at myself). But I'm back now, and one of my New Year's resolutions is to be more constant with my social media opportunities.... so here's to that!

We have only had one ornament calamity this Christmas. Sadly, it was a dear one....

I should be knocking on wood right now, since the decorations have yet to come down and be put away (hopefully later today). This is my youngest's Christmas ornament from two years ago, and she was overly eager to help decorate the tree. Glass ornament and hard floor met, and tears resulted from mommy and daughter. I really need to grow up when dealing with these kind of things.

Remember the quilt that I finished in the last post? Had I mentioned that it was a gift for my Dad? He had asked for one, but had been told that it wasn't going to happen for Christmas.

This look makes the extra work to surprise him totally worth it.
I don't know how it is with the men in your life, but I find it difficult to elicit a large level of excitement from them over gifts they have received. So, with the photographic evidence from the picture above, and the picture below, I will chalk this Christmas up as a success in the "eliciting excitement over gifts" category.

This is my husband expressing his happiness over the box of cigars that were brought back from Dominican Republic for him by my parents.
While at my parents, my sister took the opportunity to try out the new equipment for her camera that she got as a gift. I happily obliged by allowing my children to be photographed....

Khyler


Campbell



Graydon


Scarlett
Our Christmas days (we have three days to celebrate with different families) were spent happily in the most predictable ways. Eating, visiting, playing outside, hunting for a gift in an elaborate scavenger hunt my wonderful in-laws planned, playing games.....



And overall relaxing..... (a sleepy boy, what is better??)....


The week between Christmas and New Year's was spent doing as little of the activities that resemble normal life as possible. I treasured the days off with the kids, and made a point to steer clear of the sewing room (as much as I love quilting, I needed the quantity of time with my family).
We spent three nights, including New Year's Eve, out at sled camp. I can't help but relax when I'm there. Last time we hadn't brought the sleds out, but this time we had five. We took the kids on a trail ride to see Kakwa Falls. I didn't bring my camera along for fear that it would get broken (I'm not such a great sledder and didn't trust myself not to crash the sled and in the process wreck my camera... Writing this down makes me feel a little silly...). The falls were frozen, and since I didn't have a camera, go here to see approximately what they looked like. For some reason, I had expected them to look like water falls perfectly frozen straight down, without that huge pile of ice leading up to the top. I guess I hadn't put too much though into it.... You learn something new every day.....
The kids thought it was fun just to sit on the sleds....

And pretend they were racing off into the great unknown on their own.....


My parents came out to spend New Year's Eve with us.


And we made sure to teach the kids some important fire safety and outdoor skills (aka fireworks at 8:30 pm).


Our New Year's Day brunch.... Tower o' Pancakes.


That's all I have for our Christmas break. Now those of us who live in this area settle in for the long hibernation that lasts until the snow melts in April....
Now, finally, for those of you who scrolled all the way down for the quilty goodness. This last week has been a stretching one for me on the creative end. I took on a quilt intended as a birthday gift for a friend, ordered by her husband (who felt very proud of himself for knowing she wanted this). I love custom projects, and I love a challenge, but once again I found myself questioning my sanity while attempting to quilt a queen size quilt on a standard machine. I can only handle a queen size about three times a year, because by the end of it I am ready to never see a sewing machine again! Okay, that's exaggeration..... That feeling goes away once it is done and I see the finished product - beautiful as always (sorry if that sounds braggy). I learn something every time that I stretch myself, though... so I think I need to keep on making it difficult for myself.
The finished quilt - picture taken before the sun had come up since it came out of the dryer half an hour before this picture and had to be delivered half an hour after this picture. Talk about cutting it close...

Final measurements were approximately 100" x 100". Mammoth. This is why there is no full picture of it. I learned something else too - I don't have a 100" x 100" spot in my house to lay out a quilt. That makes life interesting when one is trying to baste a quilt by stretching it out on the floor. Mental note made....
Here is a detail of the binding. I tried something new - the zig zag. I'm digging it. You?


Close up of the piecing. The quilted lines are purposefully very organic and randomly spaced (I guess I feel like I need to point out the purposefully part so that you don't think I can't sew a straight line for the life of me).

I'd like to do a post with a collage of all the quilts that I completed in 2010. My goal (or last year's New Year's resolution) was to finish 20. I know I passed that goal, but I don't know by how many. This year I plan to try new patterns and techniques, as well as expand my online presence. Any requests for things/quilts you'd like to see?
I've learned so much these past three months - that's about when I got quite busy with custom orders. Timing, my likes/dislikes, my kids' ability to put up with my work schedule..... The learning curve has been steep, and there are a few people that I could not have coped without as I added this sometimes full-time job to my already full-time stay-at-home mom position. My sister, Erika, has often insisted (against my protests) that I drop off a kid or two at her house so I can get my work done. My mom has randomly picked up a child or two and dropped off miscellaneous groceries. My dear friend Dara (please check her out here) has been a faithful ear for venting about home-based business start-ups. And Krista, whom I think of as a sister, has fully acted like family and stayed my friend even when I haven't had the time to act like one.
I'd like to thank you, my readers, for simply reading my ramblings... I like this thing we got going.
More soon....