snow in summer

there should be a picture of Snow in Summer here... 
sigh... 
there is not a single blossom left on our plants...

remember Awesome! ?!?

i do love this quilt ... it is Awesome!!!

well...
i had some extra yardage (long story for another post) of the fabric that i am using to stitch Snow Days by Meg Hawkey of Crab-apple Hill
and came up with the brilliant idea of making a winter version of Awesome!
which is what it is actually supposed to be...

so ... the same pattern as Awesome!

Over the River by Meg Hawkey of Crab-apple Hill 
but
uh huh - there's that but 
different...

blues and purples - i lurve me some purple instead of neutrals...
variegated blue and purple DMC #4240 Mid Summer Night floss instead of #310 Black...
and any other kind of pieced blocks that are not the original pattern...

the embroidery is done...

 fabric is Stonehenge Glacier Blue 

 that's LuLu in the backseat

the flamingos are practically covered with snow!!!

and i've started on the pieced blocks...
Awesome! has falling leaves
and i thought that maybe a winter OTR ought to have falling snowflakes...

seriously?!?
after paper-piecing four snowflakes for Auntia's tea towel quilt i thought i would never never ever make another paper-pieced snowflake ...
but then i found this pattern...

by Paper Panache
and ordered it
secretly hoping that it would be out of stock or lost in the mail
it arrived safely...

sigh...

 i took it to Kinkos to make some copies and give it a try...

so...
what do you think?!?


“Layer upon layer of soft-packed snowflakes settled in near silence, forming a quilt of feathery ice crystals.”
Rebecca Nichols Alonzo, The Devil in Pew Number Seven 

if you can't say sumpin nice

don't say nuthin at all...

Thumper's mother's words to live by

Mr. Nutz cooling his mmphms on a hot summer day months and months ago ... i have nuthin nice to say about Mr. Nutz ... so i won't say nuthin at all...

we have been hanging out at our not-so-local quilt shop for several years ... we know the owners, have taken a few classes, participated in Blocks of the Month, and spent thousands lottsa dollars there ... so we have had hundreds lottsa opportunities to hear different politically correct ways of saying 

holy crap!!!

U G L Y - you ain't got no alibi! that's ugly!!! 

it looks like a dog chewed it up and spit it out! 

ahem ... interesting take on your block/border/quilt...

my Personal Favorite is uttered by one of the shop owners when she is at a loss of something positive to say regarding a Miscreant Quilter's latest production...

it's your quilt...

which is always followed by a pregnant pause and some serious head-shaking

she utters these words a LOT at the monthly BOM meetings ... and i don't think that Auntia and i are the only ones who know that she is really saying...

tsk. tsk. what were you thinking?!?

anywho ... i brought Awesome! with me to a saturday meeting for show and tell ... i wasn't going to take her because ... well ... because there are some Not Very Nice Quilters in the World and the last thing that i wanted to hear about Awesome! was any Negative Criticism ... not that Negative Criticism would change the way that i feel about Awesome! because i truly did put my Heart and Soul into making her, and she is even better than i had hoped she would be ... yikes ... i just realized that Awesome! is female ... i don't think i've ever made a not-male quilt before ... anywho, Auntia told me that i ought to share Awesome! with the Real World, and so i did...

and then i remembered something that i already knew about me - i am not good with more than one source of audible input at a time ... i can't process everything that everyone is saying around me, and i am uncomfortable when lottsa people are talking at the same time ... which means that the one phrase i heard was... 

"Good use of color."

when we left, i turned to Auntia and said...

seriously?!? good use of color?!?

to which she replied...

it's your quilt... 

ha ha ha!!!

Awesome!

waaaay back in september of 2010 i posted about a quilt that i wanted to make for Thanksgiving  (you can read about it here) ...  (and you can read more about it about here) ... most of the fabric that i decided to use was the 

Awesome! 

line by Sandy Gervais... 

the Economy had tanked and i found myself deep in Financial Kimchi, so i was spending a LOT of time communicating with a home refinance officer whose favorite word was 

Awesome! 

or Ruh Roh - depending on whether the news was good or bad...

it was easier to forget the Ruh Roh stuff if i kept busy with the Awesome stuff - planning, redesigning, tracing, stitching, drawing and redrawing, drafting and paper-piecing, embroidering, adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing, cutting and piecing ... and ... well ... all the stuff that goes with making a quilt my own... 

fast forward to december 28, 2012...

i placed the last few stitches of binding and took out the leftover paper-pieced acorn that i had saved for a naming block ... and gave my quilt a new name ... here is Awesome!

Awesome!

this is how it was supposed to look...

Over the River by Meg Hawkey of Crab-apple Hill

Liz Bowman (Milan, Michigan) worked her longarm quilting magick on it ... she did NOT disappoint, lemmetellya...

wind swirling and leaves - just like i asked!!!

my dream home - complete with flamingos and a dragon weather vane

and my dream truck

i don't think that i could be happier with this quilt ... cuz it is Awesome!

trimming trees

second (and final, officially - but prolly not around here) FNSI for december ... i FINALLY got around to piecing the trees for Over the River...

oh autumn treeee ... oh autumn treeee

how are thy leaves so solferino

 and now i need to take a moment to thank the on-line thesaurus for another word for the color purple (even though the leaves and branches are more puce than a moderate purplish red - the word puce is not nearly as poetic or fun to say as solferino, right?!?)...

the trees will finish at 3 inches by 9 inches and they are gonna be the bookends for the OTR embroideries... 

it was NICE to not have to work on the teetering tower anymore ... it did occur to me that my grandkids prolly don't look at this blog - and i could post pictures of the actual quilts before the solstice ...... but not today ...... today i am going to watch this little person...

Gumdrop's wish for christmas

dance dance dance!!!

we interrupt this program...

to bring you this breaking news...

i think that the embroidery for Over the River and Through the Woods is done...

there we are - toolin' down the road in our truck, stocking hats on our heads cuz it is COLD outside

and i think it is pretty doggone cool...

headed for home

i am loving the wing at the back of the house that has every little thing we need for creating...

our house is a very, very, very fine house

i thought it was done a few days ago, but then i remembered the missing element...

tacky, tacky, tacky

and now we will continue with our previously scheduled program...

barn raising

the barn done been raised...

it will not always be summer; build barns

Hesiod

most barns are used for horses and other livestock, right?!? 

 

well, my barn is gonna hold horses of a different kind - a shiny collection of classic muscle and pony cars, and maybe even a couple Chevy and GMC trucks...

 

 if i'm gonna dream, it's gonna be big!

The barn really smelled like a barn with all the hay.

Dakota Fanning

a great wind is blowing

 and that gives you either imagination, or a headache.

Catherine the Great

a loooong time ago, i bought a weather vane ... not an ordinary weather vane with a rooster or a pig pointing in the direction of the wind ... my weather vane is a dragon ... a copper dragon

i had and have no place to actually put my weather vane ... the gazebo i was going to build, complete with a cupola on the top, and my weather vane on top of the cupola, has been eaten several times by the Economy and Poor Choices ... and so my copper dragon is packed away in a box in the garage ... but when i started stitching Over the River's embroidery, Opportunity knocked...

north by northwest

and i actually opened the door before it went away ... this is the pattern's original weather vane...

what IS that?!? 

 i think my dragon is waaaaay cooler ... maybe tonight i will finish stitching the barn - that door is getting lonely...

Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.

George Carlin

under construction

last night was the FNSI for september ... i put on my tool belt and put up some fencing...

that oughta keep 'em out

then i planted a bush by the side of the house...

it looked bigger at the nursery

pruned a few trees ... and shut the barn door...

gonna hafta fix that latch

which seems kinda silly since the barn isn't even built yet...

good golly

ms. molly ... those paper-pieced leaves really DO exist...

leaf fall! we have leaf fall! 35 minutes past the hour!

and their little acorns, too ... they were in bits and pieces in little ziploc bags till i had a marathon git-er-done session a week or two ago ... and now they are in a bigger ziploc bag, waiting patiently for me to get back to them and theirs...

the falling leeeeeeeaves

drift by the windooooooow

the autumn leeeeeaves ... of red and gooooold

i looked up the lyrics - i always thought it was my window, not the window ... which means i've been messing up the lyrics to yet another song all these years .... yeah ... we won't even talk about desperado

i have been drafting leaves for the awesome quilt that i finally get to start working on cuz i couldn't find a paper-pieced aspen leaf and cuz i didn't want to pay six dollars each for a maple leaf or an oak leaf pattern ... i always tell myself that i have more time than money ... well, i guess i am willing to work for 29 cents an hour cuz that's how long it took to save twelve dollars...my oak leaf
i messed up one of the blades of the oak leaf and had to reverse sew and redraft it - but i think i have it fixed ... i have a pattern for an apple leaf table runner that i was gonna use cuz i have apple trees in my yard and it wouldn't be cheating too much ... but i really wanted to make aspen leaves cuz they are the only gold i've found in colorado ... so i changed the apple leaf block from a triangle to a square, and then messed around with rounding it out...do you recognize the maple leaf's fabric, Thelma?
maple, oak, aspen and acorn ... nothing is ever easy
and i even managed to put petioles that's stems for those of us who are botanically challenged on each of the leaves ... last night's Friday Night Sew-In was all used up by the time i tested out the oak leaf and acorn ... i dunno if i will ever again try to draft a paper-pieced design ... and i have an even greater respect for those who make it look easy cuz it ain't, lemmetellya...

the same ... but different

i wanted this pattern from Crab-apple Hill in the worst way ... so Auntia gave it to me for christmas last year...Over the River and Through the Woods

and i was ever so grateful ... and then i looked at it again and decided that i didn't like the colors which, i am sure, surprises everyone cuz they are neutral shudder and dark double shudder ... so i decided that when i started stitching - it was gonna be brighter and lighter ... and i wanted it to be more autumnal ... and i didn't like the words cuz my grandmother lived in california and it was over the mountains and through the desert ... and i didn't want the sleigh cuz i've never even ridden in a sleigh so why would i want to stitch one ... and 51 x 57 isn't big enough...
so ... brighter autumn colors ... with a different layout ... and not exactly the same stitchery ... and bigger
sigh
i wrote down the fabric requirements and kept the yellow sticky with me till i forgot to take it outta my pocket and washed it with my jeans for months...

when i saw Saltbox Harvest i knew i had found exactly the right fabric to autumn up the quilt ... and when we went shop hopping i looked for a charm pack of Saltbox Harvest so i could do some more planning ... Auntia found the perfect fabric for the embroidery and i took the bolt over to the charm packs and placed those lovely Saltbox Harvest prints on my chosen background ... and i thought

bleck - i don't like it. i don't like it at all. maybe i need a different background? wait ... what is this? Awesome! seriously? isn't this the one with the panel that has a squirrel shudder? i hate squirrels. it can't be the one with the squirrel. oooo! i really like these fabrics! seriously, i really do love these fabrics! this can't be the line that has the squirrel cuz these fabrics are .... well ... Awesome!

Awesome by Sandy Gervais
and so i bought the charm pack ... and i bought enough of the background fabric for the embroidery ... and i took it home and put them with the pattern...doesn't that background look like it was made to go with the charm pack?!?
oh ... wait ... it was made to go with the charm pack!
and then i went to the lqs that is closing its doors forever and found some yardage that was marked down a bit...
oooo! it's even prettier when it's in big pieces!
and i really, really liked it ... but ... why are there stars in the middle of the quilt instead of around the edge? and there are still those troublesome words ... what if i take out the middle embroidery ... and move the other two stitcheries to where the stars are ... and piece leaves for where the stitcheries used to be...ooo! batiks! i knew i would find a reason to buy batiks!
and keep the flying geese ... but make an outer border of stars for the top and bottom ... and i still want to replace the sleigh with a ... uhm ... five window wrap around pickup truck ... Auntia is collecting the supplies for this Crab-apple Hill design and it has a pickup truck that i could use ... and i'm gonna need more fabric...fat quarter bundle - score!!!
so i splurged and bought the fat quarter bundle ... this is the second fat quarter bundle that i've allowed myself to buy and it is ... well ... Awesome!
expensive, but Awesome!
a luxury, but Awesome!
frivolous, but Awesome!
and now i have everything i need to start ... except embroidery thread
and time

to dye for

there is a story behind this fat quarter bundle...Awesome!

but that is for another post ... this post is about prewashing ... i've heard and read lottsa advice about whether or not to prewash ... some people say that when you buy quality fabric prewashing is unnecessary and/or a waste of time ... other people say that all fabric should always be prewashed ... Auntia and i have a lotta allergies and brand new fabric fresh off the bolt makes our sinuses go crazy and irritates our skin ... with very few exceptions (charm packs and jelly rolls - cuz they disintegrate) i prewash my fabric before i put it in a quilt - and i'm not very nice about it ... i use hot water and Synthrapol for batiks - and if they're gonna be in the same quilt, they all get it at the same time since i'm all about learning to play nicely together ... fabric (including Synthrapoled batiks) gets the same treatment before i cut into it that it is likely to receive after it has grown up and become a quilt or an apron or a hooter hider or a whatever... all of it is thrown in the washer's normal cycle on warm/cold with laundry detergent and fabric softener if i remember ... after the washer has done its best to pulverize the fibers into submission it all gets hung on drying racks cuz we live in the high desert and the air can always use a little moisture - right?!? till it's almost dry ... it gets fluffed in the dryer and then it gets pressed ... for the past year or so i've been throwing a Dye Grabber in the washer ... a brand new Dye Grabber looks like a very white washcloth ... it sloshes around with the rest of the laundry and collects migrating dye...Dye Grabber - my new best friend
we don't always buy quilt shop quality fabric ... but this fat quarter bundle is quality fabric - look at the dye that migrated out of the bundle and into the Dye Grabber ... sheesh!