snowflakes?!? seriously?!?

it's my own doggone fault ... i just HAD to ask...

Auntia, what do you think of this fabric for your outer border?

MORE plaid and snowflakes - what's not to like?!?

ooooo!!!! i LOVE it!!!!

'kay ... so what would you want in the corners cuz we all know i am NOT up to matching plaids in mitered corners?

do you really have to ask?!? i want SNOWFLAKES!!!

urk!!! no, seriously - do you want some more snowball blocks? or maybe some bow tie blocks? or how about dog bones* or water bowls*?!?

nope - i want snowflakes!!!

groan...

five hours and a LOT of bad words later...

MacDubh seems to approve

now i just have to make three more...

oh well, at least when they pile up i won't have to shovel them...

*dog bones and water bowls were EXCELLENT ideas, by the way!!! and bag pipes - oh my gosh - that would be awesome, huh?!? Amy, you get me into a lotta trouble!!! i have ordered the bag pipe pattern from Heleen Pinkster - but i am NOT gonna make it for anyone other than dianne!!!

what next?!?

searching the www (does that date me?!?) for just the right linen calendar tea towels for medallion quilts was fun except for the loss of dozens of hours of sleep whilst entering just one more key phrase... 

and when i found this one...

1986 - it was a VERY good year ... not really ... but i DID get to meet Auntia for the first time In This Life and that has proven to be an INTERESTING experience

i was really, really excited cuz it was not only the right year, but the right EVERYTHING for Auntia - she lurves plaid and she lurves scottie dogs and she lurves red and black and green ... i thought it was gonna be a slam dunk ... till it arrived and i realized that planning a largish (Auntia said she wanted a table runner - but i scoffed that away with a loud, "pish on that!!!") quilt around a too long (26"), too narrow (8"), little bitty center was gonna be a problem for me ... let's face it, i'm not all that inspired ... after waiting months and months and months for inspiration, i finally decided to just start making some blocks that i hoped might knew would find a place somewhere...

i knew i wanted to incorporate bigger scottie dogs with plaid bows... 

 paper-pieced scottie dogs ... not much fun to piece, lemmetellya

and that those dogs would need some balls to chase...

snowball blocks - also paper-pieced ... i was gonna use the flipped corner method and let the balls bounce where they may, but Auntia thought that i oughta make them the hard right way

and then i took a few deep breaths and trimmed away the edges of the towel, added some cream-on-cream borders and came up with this...

hmmmmm...

and found myself asking for the umpteenth time what next?!?

i said it out loud... 

and often... 

till Auntia said something about more plaid did i mention that she lurves plaid? and i added this...

 is THAT enough plaid?!?

the flimsy was getting too big for me to take a picture of all of it... 

Auntia to the rescue...

she was saying TA DA!!! 

and i was saying GET OFF OF THAT CHAIR!!! YOU ARE GONNA BREAK YOUR NECK!!!

never a dull moment around here... 

right... 

i thought i had a plan for the outer (and FINAL) border ... plaid bow tie blocks with black backgrounds ... so i made a practice block, but it looked too icky to even bother taking a picture ... and then i thought that a red ribbon/black background border with bow blocks in the corners would look kinda cool ... i found a paper-pieced bow pattern and made a practice bow with scraps...

It's not about what it is. It's about what it can become.

Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

and thought that i had a winner ... till i showed it to Auntia, explaining that it was just a practice bow and the REAL bows would be red with black...

know what she said?!?

it ... uhm ... it looks like the Lorax

 now i can't look at a bow block without seeing the Lorax...

and here i sit, waiting again for inspiration...

what next?!?

i guess i could go searching for more linen calendar tea towels...

uhm ... no!!!

“But now," says the Once-ler, "now that you're here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear. UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” 
Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

done been given gone

an update...

three of the tea towel quilts were finished in time for christmas and have gone to live in their new homes...

Angela's Aspens was the first to go to its Forever Home...

 Angela's Aspens

here's a picture of Mrs. Moth (and LuLu) opening the box...

 hey!!! what's so doggone funny?!?

i was kinda worried when i saw the expression on her face till i remembered that i had folded it with the backing side up...

oh yeah ... hunky construction guys

i figure that if the focus of a quilt is an ooooooold tea towel, there oughta be some kinda compensation, right?!?

anywho, next to go was Liberty Bell...

 Liberty Bell ... that's right, i was FINALLY able to name SOMETHING Liberty Bell

and its new owner likes the backing best, too...

hot chicks on fast cars ... in red, white and blue

which wasn't a big surprise ... the cars don't match up, but i don't think Earth Science minds too much...

and then and Vice Versa went to live elsewhere...

 Happiness is Love ... and Vice Versa

 i hit a home run with the backing of this one, too...

remember these guys?!?

because it turns out that Mrs. Myson wanted a red, black and white quilt ... of course, if i'd known that to start with, the front wouldn't have been so very, very blue...

the Plan at the beginning of the year was to have all of the tea towel quilts done by Christmas ... sigh ... Auntia's was delayed because i had no clue of what to do with this...

hmmmm...

till inspiration FINALLY reared its ugly head a couple of months ago (more on that some other time) ... and Michael Myson's needed some extra special quilting and hasn't made it back from Liz the Quilting Wizard ... speaking of Liz, she did a phenomenal job quilting all three of these quilts - aspen branches on Angela's Aspens, eagles on Liberty Bell, and girly swirls on and Vice Versa... 

and now...

on to next year's Plan...

fruitcake revisited

i decided to listen to the advice of those of you who know FAR MORE about running fabric than i do ... three more times through the washer - with HOT water (switching the dial over to HOT was a lot more difficult than i thought it would be - my mother would have been appalled) and Synthrapol and a handful of two different brands of dye grabbers...

still pink - but not a pretty pink anymore ... sigh

live and learn, eh?

 my TALL quilt-holder-upper was no where to be found, so LuLu took over...

hey, Nona - i could use a little help here!!!

hmmmm ... try holding this one...

Twisted Fruitcake

what big brown eyes you have!!! 

here, give this one a go...

Re-Gifted Fruitcake

and her hair just kept getting messier and messier...

so Auntia took over the camera and i joined LuLu behind the scenes...

Fruitcake - the Gift That Keeps On Giving

the quilting is pretty doggone awesome ... Liz the Longarm Quilting Wizard quilted pine cones...

pretty cool, huh?!?

they are keeping us warm or covering table tops for now ... maybe i'll give them all a good soaking after christmas...

couldn't hurt, right?!?

pink snowmen

have you ever seen pink snow?

yep, there IS such a thing...

i HAVE seen pink snow - it was drifted across the front yard last year

it looked weird

and it didn't look tasty

even though some people say it tastes like watermelon

(here's a link to why you shouldn't eat it if you should ever stumble across any) 

there wasn't enough to make a snowman - not that i would have because snowmen shouldn't be pink

they should be white!!!

anywho ... i didn't think too much about it after it melted...

fast forward a year

i FINALLY finished the three Fruitcake by Basic Grey for Moda quilts that i started in 2010 ... i threw them all into the washing machine along with five dye grabbers, some laundry detergent, and the wash & rinse cycles on cold...

i am a prewasher ... i treat fabric like it's gonna be treated after it is made into whatever...
but all three of the Fruitcake quilts were made from precuts - a layer cake and two charm packs - and i didn't prewash the fabric for fear of them shredding into tiny unusable bits...

however...

if i had known that this...

 pink where it oughta be white ... sigh
was gonna happen, i would have taken my chances on tiny unusable bits

ALL of the white is now pink - and that is after washing and rewashing and rewashing and rewashing and rewashing and rewashing...

grrrrr!!!