Beauty

Another poem of Mary Oliver's spoke to me.  And tied so many drifting thoughts together.

Black Swallowtail

The caterpillar,
   interesting but not exactly lovely,
humped along among the parsley leaves
    eating, always eating.  Then
one night it was gone and in its place
    a small green confinement hung by two silk threads
on a parsley stem.  I think it took nothing with it
    except faith, and patience.  And then one morning

it expressed itself into the most beautiful being.


"small green confinement" Isn't that beyond a perfect description?  To borrow her phrase, here's a "small blue and red HST"

that is becoming a beautiful quilt for our bed.

Sharing

Happy First Day of Spring! Happy International Day of Happiness!

So sharing is a rather à propos topic for this day, and for this week for those of you who read Sew Fresh Quilts on Wednesday.  Most quilters share.  They share fabric, sources for fabric, patterns, quilting tools, tips, advice, designs, photos of our projects, the list goes on.  I have benefited from this sharing so many many times. I hope I have reciprocated as much in return.

I gave you a sneak peek at a cow muzzle a few days ago.  I have two entire cows done now! These are January (blue) and February (pink) blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge at SoScrappy. Yellow is March, so she will have to wait until we are back home in Kingsville to be made.

Itty Bitty...

Knitting Bag!  Bet that wasn't the completion of the title you first thought of!  It started with a plastic bag which didn't quite cut the mustard for carrying around the fingerless gloves I've been working on.  I thought I should make a small bag for this small project, one I usually take in the car on the trips up to Sarasota for yoga twice a week.  I thought it should be scrappy.  I just happened to have a block left over from Scraps of Calm.  That is where it started.  I added a row to make a 16-patch, almost started cutting some 2.5" squares, and then I remembered!  I have a bunch already cut!

Do you see the scrap from the Seashell runner? Lower rh corner

Chickpeas and Stars

I made this recipe, another one from Pinch of Yum, two weekends ago, and have been meaning to share it on the blog, as it was soooo delicious.

It is called Roasted Veggie Pitas With Avocado Dip. She doesn't often have a short and sweet name, but the recipes are often just that: short, as in easy to make, and oh so sweet as in delicious. This was no exception. I will type out the recipe below just so you have it in one place, and let you know what changes I made, but click on the link I provided to see that it turned out pretty much exactly as Lindsay's photo!

Serendipity Strikes

Again!

Ta da!  My Seashell Runner is tout fini.  And I couldn't be happier, because it fits absolutely perfectly on our coffee table!  I had not planned that when I bought the pattern and some of the batiks in oh, 2008.  I had envisioned it perhaps on a dresser if we ever did buy a home in Florida.  Which we did.  Later that year.

It was fun to make, even though the directions were fairly ambiguous.

The back, which looks pretty cool too - I need to sign and date it

It took over an hour to tack all the shells together in various small overlap spots.  I started to do it by hand, and then said, nope, ain't gonna happen, and slightly overlapped them here and there to hold it all together.

Each shell is double-sided, and has warm 'n natural batting between the layers.  Lots of satin-stitching was done on each shell.  No satin-stitching on the sharks' teeth, which I made all black, as that is how they look, that or a dark grey.  The pattern had them grey tips with black roots.  I have found a couple of real ones on Manasota Key, not far from here.  They are fossils, don't get excited.

Trying to get some more daylight on it, as well as a straight-on shot.  This is another of my goals for the first quarter finish-along at On the Windy Side.  Of the 8 on my list, I now have just 2 left!

One last one, just because.

Quilt Stats:
Size:  48" X 19" approximately
Pattern: Shell Runner by Cracker Country Creations
Fabric: batiks plus one marbled fabric for the sharks' teeth
Warm 'n Natural batting scraps
Threads: pieced with Gutermann and Aurifil, satin-stitched with Sulky rayons and one Mettler polyester, oh, and one Sulky Blendables

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict and TGIFF. 

She Sells Seashells...

Slow going on the runner, but my machine is getting a workout with all the satin-stitching! She hasn't had to do that in some time.  We've also been to two Spring Training baseball games in the last week, which were good, yesterday's especially.

Shells, and a starfish, completed as of Saturday

I'm pretty happy with the selection of batiks I picked out for the shells.  It also helps a lot that I have quite a large selection of actual shells here to look at for added inspiration and detail. The starfish was a bear make that a crab (haha) to turn right side out.

Shells as of yesterday; two of the clamshells have yet to have their detail stitching

So I have two conch (I learned from the most excellent book, An Embarrassment of Mangoes, by Ann Vanderhoof, that it is pronounced "conk") shells to make and two shark's teeth.  I need to buy some black batik for those as I did not bring any with me.  A few days ago, I finished Ann's second book, The Spice Necklace, which tells of their second sail to the Caribbean 9 years after the first. Both were such good reads, and both of them sent me to the Internet to Google information, look up various images of trees and plants she describes. I love it when books educate me!

I do have a finish for this Work in Progress Wednesday:

Finally. I had to rip out the first glove a third time, the second glove twice in order to have enough yarn from the ball to finish them. Good thing Brianne's hands are small, like mine, as I omitted 3 rows from the hand part of the gloves, and one row from the knuckles part.  I had about 60" of yarn left!  This pattern cuts it that fine. 

One of the few times Naala wants to be in a picture and Rocco has to get in on the act like the annoying little brother he can be; can you see how she's just smacked him?!

Now, I just have to finish Brady's DVD movie of their trip to see us last Fall, and then I can send these off.  And I can start on Dayna's, but think I'll unwind the ball of yarn and divide it exactly in half before I start! 

Linking up with WIP Wednesday and Let's Bee Social.

One Down, Fourteen to Go

This is another of the projects on my list of eight for the first quarter finish-along.  There are 13 shells and two shark's teeth in the runner.  The pattern leaves a lot to be desired as far as method goes, but the design is great.  Batiks are perfect for the shells' variance in colour.  This one is called a Turk's cap.  Who knew.  They are quite plentiful along the southeastern shores of the Gulf coast. Love the white sugar sand that fell out of one!

A quick note about markers.  I did a post last year on my favourites here so I won't go into much detail other than to show you the difference in three washaway markers.  I traced the shell pattern onto the wrong side of the batik, and used 3 different ones I have.  I've laid each marker over the line I drew with it so you can see the difference.  I was quite surprised just how much thicker the Mark-B-Gone line was!  There is no discernible difference between the Chako or the Water Erasable one (which I bought form Leah Day).  The only issue with the two über-fine ones is that at first the line is almost non-existent, but it darkens within a few seconds. The urge is to go over it a few times, but there really is no need.  It really is a fine line.

A view of the back; you can see how much the Mark-B-Gone bleeds through!

The good news, however, is that each one disappears with just a light spritz of water.  So this is my WIP.  I still have two after this to complete by the end of March.  Three if I pick something for ALYOF.  For this one, you are allowed to have something like a quilt top, or a set of blocks as your finish; it doesn't have to be a fully completed item, so I do have an idea of a project for which I'd like to at least have the flimsy by the end of the month.

I did finish the kitty mats for the Humane Society.  I ended up with three!  I'd planned on making two, but miscounted squares needed and had half of another one done, so a third was born.

Here they are before washing:

Isn't that stripe fabric just wild?

Here are the backs:

Recognize the houndstooth?!  Leftover backing fabric from Shamrock.  All that now remains is a couple of strips.  Why is there a chunk out of the backing in the bottom mat?  I needed one more rectangle (two squares) for the front, so I pieced in a little extra of the other squares fabric.

Rocco in his favourite spot

This was fabric given to me by my brother (well, when I saw it, I asked for the leftovers!). He and a couple of colleagues did a Laugh-In skit (that's dating us, I know; it ran from 1967-73, but it was mainly our parents who watched it as we were too young) at the office Christmas party and when I saw their set, I fell in love with the fabrics.  I'd hoped to use one for kaleidoscopes, but I don't think there are enough repeats, so it might become another mat.  The Humane Society gives their cats each a mat in their cage on which they sleep or repose, while waiting for their forever home.  I made them a couple last year too.  It's great for leftover pieces of batting.  It's also great for playing with FMQ.  I did both walking foot quilting and FMQ.  Each mat measures 15X18"; the squares were cut at 3.5".

Washed and cuddly

One of Naala's visits to my sewing room with one of her babies, Rudy.  Rocco killed all his. Naala still has all four, although Bird is sadly missing most of her stuffing!

Linking up with WIP and Let's Bee Social; see the buttons on the sidebar.  Speaking of buttons on the sidebar, you will notice a new one, Craftsy.  Thanks to Cyndy at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework, whose blog was one of the first two or three I started following about a year ago, I am now a Craftsy affiliate.  Those of you who have followed me for any amount of time know how much I love the whole Craftsy experience.  It's brilliant.  Reasonably-priced classes that you can watch from home or on the road, anytime, anywhere.  You can replay them to your heart's content, back up the video and replay a section five times in a row if you like. They never go away; they're yours forever. There are loads of free classes and free patterns too, a variety of topics from sewing to knitting to cooking to photography and more.  I've sung their praises for some time now, but if you use the link on my sidebar (I think) or one of the text ones above and  then decide to take one of their classes, I can now earn a little moola!  If you are interested in how to become a Craftsy affiliate, shoot me an email!