Some cook, I sew and write: creativity brings joy

I'm also on BlogLovin now: <a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/18313149/?claim=j9n4n6k9uuw">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a> Today I spent more time on a Christmas present that I will not be able to reveal until after Christmas, and I'm bursting to tell!  I am quite excited about it but I can't tell yet. Yesterday my son and I spent some time together at the Krohn Conservatory for the 2016 Holiday show to see the Christmas decorations.  I enjoyed touring it with him, and then we hit Five Guys for lunch.  Yummy! Steven in a train carved out of a tree trunk: Pretty cool, huh! Finally a view of part of the holiday scene.  The buildings are miniatures of buildings in Cincinnati, as is the train that circles throughout the whole thing. And finally, some quilting!  I cut out 13 hexagon shapes from paper for my modern quilt from Craftsy's 2012 Block of the Month by Amy Gibson, and 13 3 1/2" squares.  Here's decis...

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat! It's time for caroling and happy energies this season because of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Peace can be had in spite of the world's turmoil.  In spite of personal turmoil.  It really can. Add a bit of quilting to lessen anxiety too or at least something creative helps spill off stress.  Maybe it's cooking, coloring, dog training, or biking.  Find it though.  I'm not being overly light about it:  stress is real and so is anxiety.  Add some scripture and meditation time and this season should feel lighter still. I added another journal to my collection.  I've been wanting a paper journal again rather than typing up entries on the computer.  This takes me up to three journals.  A small 5-year journal that I'm gleaning events from past calendars and Facebook, a spiritual journal, and now this one.  After I took the picture, I colored on the front cover since it looks just like the...

My son came home from his mission on November 7.  It was awesome to see him again. Then Thanksgiving happened and we spent it with cousins.  They breed golden retrievers, golden doodles, and standardbred poodles so I couldn't resist this fabric to make a couch pillow: I made a snowman wall hanging.  It was designed to be a table runner, but I doubled it over to make a 2-sided window decoration.  I got the directions from the holiday 2016 Block magazine from Missouri Star Quilt Company.  The tutorial is here:   http://quiltingtutorials.com/product-and-tool-demonstrations-and-reviews/scrap-buster-snowman-wall-hanging/ Next up is a Christmas tree skirt.  I've pieced it, added the binding, and pieced the backing fabric so now I get to sandwich and quilt the skirt.  Hopefully I'll be able to post the finished product this week so we can put up our Christmas tree on Sunday.

I've been a slow comer to the world of modern quilting, but Amy Gibson's Craftsy 2012 Block of the Month (BOM) quilt has roped me into the fun of it!  The class is labeled as a beginning class, and that's because Amy carefully explains how to do each step.  She shines at encouraging the viewer!  I made my first Christmas quilt from a tutorial on her blog because she made it seem so simple.  Otherwise, she teaches fairly complex skills.  I just completed the foundation piecing lesson and am getting ready to learn to make paper-piecing blocks. The first foundation-pieced block made a square: I love the looks of this block.  I followed her directions on this one for experience even though I had watched the next block where she showed a different technique of cutting away the foundation piece.  This block has the strings (strips) sewn directly to the foundation piece, making it a little thick. First, I had to cut strings between 1 1/4" ...

One of the challenges I have struggled with in quilting is trusting myself to choose fabric that works together.  I suspect, given the number of blogs, videos, and classes, that many others struggle with it too.   As a result, I have chosen colors and fabric lines pretty much as directed by the pattern designer. And that's okay. But this time I can't.  This block of the month quilt was created back in 2012, and whatever fabric line was sold with it at the time is no longer available.  So I began exploring my stash possibilities.  Not being happy with that, I purchased a set of Rowan from the Kaffe Fassett Collective.  It opened up many possibilities for me but I still wanted to use other colors and designs I already had. The first thing I did was consider already-completed blocks. Then I started choosing colors and patterns I liked that I thought might play together well.  I really wanted to use the abstract fabric at the bott...

Have I ever mentioned that I love Amy Gibson from Stitchery, Dickery, Dock ?  She is so encouraging!  She's doing a Sugar Block of the Month this year, but I picked up Crafty's 2012 BOM by Amy to do earlier this year.  Can I just tell you how much fun it is?  I'm really excited because she leads the viewer through all kinds of blocks, including a few I've not had the courage to try on my own. Amy has also published a book, The Quilt Block Cookbook , that I'd love to have! Go to her site and follow her Quilt Block Cookbook Blog Hop to see why. That was a long preamble to say that I've finally made the third block in the Craftsy 2012 BOM.  I've been concerned because my first block was made from cool colors and my second from warm (hot) colors.  My third block, the Balkan Puzzle block, married both color schemes together. The first one, the Asterisk block, is in cool tones; the second, the Wonky Pound Sign, is rather hot; and the bottom one is the ...

So much has happened in the last month!  How about a quick update? Starting with non-quilting activities: I spent four days prepping our house in Missouri for more open houses.  In the process, I found a boxful of pencils to bring home for my husband.  There's probably a quilt in this somewhere! We took our visiting German student Laura to the Newport Aquarium the first day after she arrived. My daughter hosted her annual Young Women's Halloween party.  This is after the party with her and our German student.  Next year she's thinking she'll probably invite her whole early morning Bible-study class since it will be her last year home. On to the quilting-related activities although not actually quilting, I finally splurged for a sewing machine case.  I have a Janome Skyline S5 so it isn't a small (or light) machine, and I almost damaged it on a trip outside the house.  I finally found a Tutto case on Walmart.com for ...

Last summer I collected Row by Row quilt strips from a number of places we visited in the past and this year, and I have begun constructing one from Kentucky's own Quilt Box .  Actually I'll make two from The Quilt Box so I can use one as a wall hanging and one in a quilt.  Here it is, pressed and ready to appliqué.  I used double-sided WonderUnder by Pellon to attach each piece.  The big pieces were fairly easy, but the logs on the little cabin were NOT!  They kept wanting to curl up.  I found that a good press flattened them down.  Apparently I had forgotten to reverse the pattern for the state so initially it was backward, but thankfully I caught that before pressing the WonderUnder to the fabric.  Oh, and one piece that I ironed onto the iron.  Oops! Once pressed, I began to sew the appliqué with a blanket stitch. It's all sewn now although I need to draw the threads on top to the back and assemble the quilt sandwich...

Time flies! I have been getting prepared to teach the young women at my church some basics about quilting.  I'm borrowing the idea from Missouri Star Quilt Company for their Super Easy Hourglass Quilt.  Their tutorial is here . Last week, I cut 5" squares from about 6 different fabrics from my stash, hoping they work together well in this quilt. Since then, I've cut 2 other fabric pieces so the girls will have 8 prints to choose for their blocks. I also made one 4-patch block.  Here it is with some of the cut fabric squares. I made a second 4-patch to sew 1/4" around the outside to the first one.  Then I cut diagonally from corner to corner to make 4 half-square triangle blocks.  I've laid the half-square blocks out as if I was going to sew them together.  Of course I'll wait for the blocks the girls will make so they are all mixed together and totally scrappy. After the quilt is done, I'll take it to the Ronald McDonald House....

I began making my very first quilt on December 6, 2015 here .  I ran into Amy Gibson's blog at Stitchery, Dickery, Dock where she explains how to make a Disappearing Nine-Patch quilt here .   Yesterday afternoon after 2 days of not sewing anything, I pulled this quilt top and the fabrics for the quilt back out of the Committed Quilts bag and started cutting.  It's a simple quilt back.  I had decided to take one fabric and run it lengthwise down the middle and then cut the other into 2 long pieces and sew them to each side like this: That was perfect until I realized that the quilt top was 96 inches, giving me no leeway for the quilter so I added a 10-inch strip in the center like this: Don't you love my high technology?  This is my large kitchen white board that started in my husband's office, then used exhaustively for homeschooling, and now keeps track of grocery and to-do lists as well as ideas for quilt design. I figured that it w...