Pink Saturday

I'm not sure why, but I' having trouble uploading photos today, so this is all I have to share this time for Pink Saturday: Jo Pie Weed in bloom. Several of my posts this past week have focused on my work in progress -- the Starter Quilt Simple Project tutorial using the pink fabrics from last Saturday's post. I've covered yardage and cutting measurements, and explained fussy cuts. So you'll find more pink mixed in if you scroll on down.

To find other Pink Saturday posts don't forget to visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.

Fussy Cuts

"Fussy cut" is the term applied to cutting out, for quilting, only the part of the fabric pattern you want specifically. This method is used to isolate figures, like the parachuting duckling blocked out on the fabric here: I'm going to use the template method to fussy cut the 3.5 inch squares.
If you haven't got clear vinyl for templates, I have used vellum paper successfully for small projects. The main point is to be able to see through your shape, it's so much easier to get the right part of the fabric that way. Notice how I've marked the quarter inch seam allowance, and marked the center of the square? When I lay the template over the fabric that will ensure that I get my medallion motif centered every time.
Like that. (In case you couldn't see the inked cutting lines where I traced around the template, I've highlighted the corners on the photo.) I could have picked a different fabric and not worried about a fussy cut... actually, I probably didn't really need to fussy cut this fabric, I just thought it might be fun.

A Time to Remember

The Japanese festival of Obon is celebrated in mid-August. At that time hundreds of wooden boats carrying candles are set afloat in on the evening water, to follow rivers out to the ocean and guide spirits of the departed to the next world. What a beautiful ceremony. The flicker of hundreds of candles, lit in honor of departed loved ones, slipping along the currents and out to the next life.

I have always loved the idea of candles floating on the water.

One special birthday my mother, inspired by an illustration by Tasha Tudor, floated my birthday cake down the stream to where we children waited on a bridge. The flickering candles would no doubt have shown up better at twilight, but the memory looses none of it's magic. Candles and cake floating downstream, carried on currents of love.

These ideas come together for me now, as we remember Tasha Tudor on what would have been her birthday. Happy Birthday Tasha.

Tudor Tea Stories

Have you been Here?
I agree with most of the things "Granny" taught Winslow Tudor, but today the thing that stands out to me is this:
"Never use tea bags, use real tea instead."
To which I might add: and a mug in the microwave is not the same as a nice pobbly teapot either.
I'm sure Tasha would have agreed with me.

Starter Quilt Simple Project: Step Two

We talked about fabric selection in step one, now we're ready to talk yardage and cutting. For those of you who object to doing mystery quilts, just wait until all the posts are up. Those of you who love adventures and prefer to look at the work one tiny step at a time... begin now. I will clue you that this is a really easy square baby quilt or wall hanging.

Yardage. Whenever possible buy more than you need -- not more than you can afford -- but enought to buffer if you make a mistake in cutting. I prefer having a quarter or half yard left over to having to go back to the store and not be able to find more of the fabric I need to finish my quilt. That said, in the following measurments, I've cut it close with a couple of them so if the yardage has an asterisk (*) beside it you may want to buy a little more than I list.

Fabric:

A) Stripe -- one and a third (1.33) yards*
B) Accent #1 -- quarter (.25) yard*
C) Main Block -- two thirds (.667) yard
D) Contrast Block -- half (.5) yard
E) Accent #2 (could be the same as D) -- quarter (.25) yard (or scrap)

We will cut our pieces for the whole project.

A) Cut eight (8) pieces 3.5 inches by 15.5 inches and twenty-four (24) pieces 3.5 inches by 9.5 inches. This is your stripe, you can cut across the stripe or lengthways (I'll demonstrate in a sec.)

B) Cut twenty (20) 3.5 inch squares. (This could be fussy cut -- I demonstrate that in another post.)

C) Cut five (5) 9.5 inch squares

C) Cut four (4) 3.5 inch

D) Cut four (4) 9.5 inch squares.

E) Cut eight (8) 3.5 inch squares. (could be same fabric as D)

Now, for the stripes:
You can cut the stripes sideways, like so:

Or you can cut the stripes longwise, which I will demonstrate in a Michael Miller yellow stripe, because that's what I have step by step photos in.
You will have some "waste" but I have another project that we can use leftovers for, so save them.

For a 3.5" strip you need to find your "center" line and line it up with the 1.75 inch mark on your ruler. Make your first lengthwise cut.
Your second cut will trim the extra, making the piece 3.5 inches wide.

If you have selected a stripe wider than 3.5 inches or with a repeat that is several inches apart, you will have more waste and will need extra yardage to use the stripe lengthwise.

You can also mix your cuts.... I am cutting my strawberries across the stripe for the 9.5 inch pieces and with the stripe for my 15.5 inch pieces. Something to keep in mind with wider or more varied striped fabrics:
Isolating the strawberry stripe for those eight 15.5 inch pieces meant getting extra fabric. There are only five strawberry stripes across the width which means I needed 1.75 yards (I bought 2) in order to get the pieces I wanted in the directions I wanted them. There's alot left over but like I said, I've already got a project in mind for the future that will use leftover stripes. Actually, I think the leftovers project is even more fun that the original... But I'm getting ahead of myself let's finish this project first. On to Step Three.

Making Prairie Points

I feel like making prairie points. Prairie points are all about the math. Okay, the math and the ironing board. But once you know how to make them they're repetitive but super easy. People love them, especially on baby quilts.

So let's make some.


First cut 6 inch squares.
If you want a 2.5 inch point, plus a half inch seam allowance you will need folded triangles that stand at 3 inches which means you will need to cut squares that are 6 inches. This is easily done with a rotary cutter. Cut 6 inch strips of your 45 inch wide cotton fabric, then slice those strips into 6 inch chunks (squares).
By the way, you'll get seven six (6) inch squares out of one 45 inch strip of fabric.

Fold diagonally matching the corners of the square, and diagonally again. Pressing as you go. And you get a prairie point.

Now that you have the idea, let's make a project with prairie points:

Because I'm still sewing-by-hand until the machine gets fixed, I've opted for sample size... a ten inch prairie points potholder. Just big enough to show off the prairie points but not big enough to make my whine about the fact that my machine is still at the repair shop.

So how many p. points do you need? Back to the math:

If we use the same size (6" square = 2.5 inch high, finished) for our points, that gives us a placement of roughly one roughly every 3 inches. You could space them out more, but I like mine overlapping. So on my 10.5 inch piece of fabric I'll use 12 p. points. (A 45 inch square baby quilt would require 58-60 p. points this size.)


Arrange your prairie points facing into the center of your "quilt" and pin in place. The way I do it, they are allowed to hang over the edge by 1/4 inch.



Stitch down. (If you're hand stitching, a basting size running stitch is fine.)
Next, layer the back on top, right sides together, and sew leaving an opening. Use a quarter inch seam allowance. (Hand sewers, here I used a running back stitch -- to make it easier to get tight seam through all the layers.)
Once you have it sewn together, trim the bulk away from the corners and flip right side out. Take your batt, cut to the finished size, and insert it. I've used a 10.5 inch square, with .25 inch seams [math: 10.5 - (.25+.25)= 10] so I'll use a 10 inch square of batting. (Actually, because this will be a potholder, I'll use three layers of batt; but quilts only need one layer.)

I use an invisible stitch to close the opening, and then it's ready to quilt. This small size doesn't need to be basted, but a larger quilt would obviously require some basting. Some people also prefer to sew the prairie points to their quilt top, then layer and quilt normally, following which they trim down and hand sew the backing to the stitching line of the p. points. If I ever do a queen size with prairie points I think that method would make sense.

A Late August Bloom

These daisy-like flowers bloom on the feverfew plant, an herb whose name reveals it's traditional usage. They are self seeding, cheerful additions to the dusty late-summer garden when little else withstands the drought and heat of August.

"Not worlds on worlds, in phalanx deep,
Need we to prove a God is here;
The daisy, fresh from nature's sleep,
Tells of His hand in lines as clear."
--- John Mason Good,
Said to be found in the "Naturalist's Poetical Companion" by Rev. Edward Wilson (I found the quote here.)

Fire and Ice (well, snow anyway)

Schotzy drew my attention to the fun digital snowflakes to be made at this site:

Isn't that a fun site?

And, while I'm learning how to embed widgets... Today I got an email with a link to the site for this movie. I hope the movie is as good as the trailer, because I can't wait to see the movie now.

Nine Dozen Little Cookies

Remember how I said I never follow a recipe? This is sometimes a good thing. It's always edible, mind you, sometimes the results are just more wonderful than at other times.

Such is the case with my Vanilla Refrigerator Cookies recipe. Let's start with the basic recipe:


Vanilla Refrigerator Cookies

3 cup flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoon salt
1 cup melted butter, margarine, or shortening
2 cup sugar (or sugar substitute)
2-3 eggs (depending on size of the egg)
2 tablespoons real vanilla extract

Cream together margarine and sugar, add eggs and extract, stir in dry ingredients, then roll in wax paper. Store in fridge (can also freeze for up to 1 month). At your convenience cut slices ¼” thick bake on greased sheet 375 for 8-10 min. Let cool and serve.

But I didn't leave it there. Everything is the same except on the line where it reads "2 tablespoons real vanilla extract" instead I used 1 tablespoon Flavorganics pure peppermint extract and 1 table spoon vanilla extract. These are shown in the photo. That dough never made it to the fridge, I rolled it in 1 inch balls and baked for 5 minutes at 375 degrees -- it made nine dozen, perfect for a church potluck.

Here are some of the other things I've tried (the more successful ones anyway).

Refrigerator Cookie Variations

1. 2 tablespoons McCormick's Butter and Nut Vanilla and a handful of chopped walnuts or pecans.
2. 2 tablespoons Wintergreen extract, before wrapping in waxed paper roll in red sugar, when baking add 3 red hots (or teaberries) as decoration on the top of each cookie.
3. 2 drops LorAnne Gourmet Tangerine Oil, add 1 cup diced candied orange peel.
4. 6 tablespoons cocoa powder, and about a cup of mini chocolate chips.
5. 2 tablespoons lemon extract, couple drops of yellow food coloring, when you slice them up to bake save some of the dough and shape it into rays around each circular cookie to make sunny sunshine cookies.
6. 2 tablespoons strong peppermint extract, and add crushed candy canes. Take your broken peppermint candy canes, crush them up into small chunks using your food processor or like I do, with the rolling pin and ziplock bag method.

The possibilities are endless. And what's not to love about an honest-to-goodness "from scratch" homemade cookie that's as convenient as those tube'o'cookies you can get at the store?

Step One: Picking the Right Pink

This stripe print is 1639 Strawberry Splendor by Kris Lammers and Maywood Studio.
I have plans for this fabric. I have plans for a Starter Quilt Simple (SQS) project that uses striped fabric. Any stripe, not just this one, but this one's Pink... and it's Saturday... so Happy Pink Saturday.

We're going to take this project really slowly.
Step One is picking your fabric.

Select your Stripe. You saw that one coming right? Now, on the selvage edge of the fabric will be a row of colored dots with numbers in them. Looks like the printer used 16 different colors when printing my strawberry stripe.

These dots will help you match your fabrics, they isolate the colors so you can better see what, exactly, the colors are in the first place. We'll need a "light" I'll be using a Kona cotton (not pictured) that matches the color number 4.

Now I'm just pulling fabrics out of my stash for this next part, but you could just as easily stand in the fabric shop and sort through all their fabrics instead. I want to emphasise the color of the strawberries. You may have purple sea monsters or orange race cars you want to match, the principle is the same no matter the color. Find the fabrics that say "Strawberry" (or "sea monster" or "race car") to you.

Here's my pink/berry stash spectrum:

Not all of those are going to work with my stripe fabric, and for this project you only need a couple. Here are four from my stash that will work with my stripe:
Numbers 5, 7, and 11 of the color dots are the same tones as these four fabrics. The "honey comb" print is a definite, and then I need two more... not three more, but I'm still deciding. So we'll talk yardage next time. Tonal prints, I think, work better with this project but they don't have to be all the same color. If your purple sea monster swims in aqua algae with a yellow fish, feel free to select purples, aquas, and yellows. I'll illustrate other steps of this SQS project using other "colorways" as this tutorial progresses so you can visualize your options -- but today it's all about PINKS.

Other pink postings can be found through Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.

Congratulations to Dana, from the Stone Rabbit. She won my giveaway.

Pieces of Paper: Snowflakes

I know it's not winter yet, but I'm making snowflakes anyway. I made some for a friend once and twenty years later her mother still has them -- she laminated them and hangs them in her windows for the holidays. I just make new ones every year.

Frost Crystal Style

I really like how they look against my blue file folder. Last Christmas we backed them with black card stock for a more dramatic look. I don't know about real snowflakes, but no two of mine have ever turned out the same, and I've made hundreds over the years.

Classic Style

I was thinking of making some using acid free papers, and framing them for sale. What do you think?

Victorian Style

Would you rather make your own?

Fold your paper diagonally and trim off the long edge (or start with a square piece of paper).

Fold in half and in half again, into eighths, triangularly. Trim off the long corner (if you opened it now you'd want to see a rough circle).
On the CUT edge begin the shape of the snowflake, cutting it so you create points.
Then begin to hollow out the snowflake. Working from the outside edges towards the center cut varying shapes -- be sure to leave areas of the folds for connecting the parts of the snowflake. Try to leave more "negative space" than paper for a lacier effect.
When you have finished cutting, unfold the paper carefully.
I didn't do this before taking the photos, but you can press lightly with a cool iron to remove the fold lines for a flatter, smoother flake.

Note on Giveaway

I found a photo of the Hobbit's Foot in bloom.

Dana,
You won the seed packets.
Please email me (piecefulslumber@gmail.com) with a postal address, so I can send them to you.

The Language of Fabric

My poll indicated people are most interested in reading about pieces of fabric, followed by pieces of paper, then "piece of my mind". Sewing tips, flower photos, and quilting history tie for interest, while dressmaking, knitting, and chocolate finished last. (Yeah, that one shocked me too. Who would have thought my random thoughts ranked above chocolate?)

So Pieces of Fabric.... well, while my machine is at the shop, it's hand sewing only for me. And I had a great project in mind to share. We'll do it when the machine comes home, I promise. In the meantime, I found a listing of the word for fabric in other languages on the True Up Blog. Here are a few:

Dutch: Stof

Hebrew: “areeg” or “bahd”

Hindi: kapra

Japanese: “nuno”

Finnish: kanga

French: tissu

Italian: tessuto

Russian: “tkan”

Spanish: tela / tejido

Welsh: defnydd

And I can add: the Gaelic for fabric is aodach. Only, don't ask me to use it in a sentence.

Picking Up Thread

Nothing picks up thread off the floor of my sewing room floor faster than the flannel backs of quilts laid out to prepare for machine quilting. Why don't I vacuum up the thread? You ask. I do, but somehow there's always more thread lurking in the rug, just waiting for it's chance to sneak up on some flannel. Thus the lint roller. With this handy tool I can zip-zip over the back of the quilt and it's cleaner than ever. Ready for quilting.

Getting To This Point

To begin at the beginning there is another view I should show, one from the rocking chair lined porches of Ridgecrest, NC. BRMCWC 2008, aka The Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference changed my writing, and took me to this point of the Appalachian Trail.

How? The short story is that I arrived at the conference in May, convinced I was supposed to supplement my poetry with writing Bible Studies and that sort of thing (not fiction) and a week later I was making reservations for the Advanced Writers Conference, aka the Autumn in the Mountains Novelists Retreat.

At the time I made my reservations, I had no novel in progress. I'm sure you realize, a novel in progress constitutes the minimum requirement for attending a novelists retreat.

What I did have were some notes, hasty ideas on plots and characters, scribbled down in Yvonne Lehman's "Novels and Novellas" -- a class I hadn't intended to take but ended up in anyway (God does things like that) -- and the kind encouragement of several professional writers, among them Ann Tatlock.

Oh, and multiple nudges or outright confirmations that the Lord wanted me to give this a shot.

On my way home I remembered a park that used to be a resort spot in the early 1900s. A setting suddenly gelled. Work on a novel (really still a novella at the current word count) began.

Internet research is a wonderful tool, but there are only so many things you can learn on the Internet. If your main character will insist, as mine did, on taking the Appalachian Trail as a shortcut to walk from the reality-based road she fictionally lives on, to the reality-based park the story revolves around.... Well, then, you need to do some reality-based hiking so you know what that really looks like, because the Internet doesn't say.

The Internet cannot tell you that how the dark center of the dead tree across the rocky trail will make you lose count of the tree rings somewhere after 91. Nor will the web offer the insight that this tree, over one hundred years old is sliced narrowly, just wide enough for hikers and chipmunks to pass single file through the wooden gap.

The Internet doesn't explain the smooth worn feel of rubbed bark, where that hands of every passing hiker have grabbed the young sapling for support as they climbed or descended along the ravine. The Internet doesn't even tell you that the bridge across the stream is wooden, and the Internet certainly didn't tease me about the "buns of steel workout" involved in climbing up the other side of the ravine with my friend.

Really all the Internet told me was that it would be about a mile, and there would be a view when we got to the park. Which is true; but to know the story of that journey, to write that story, sometimes you have to walk that mile. Sometimes you have to do the work to arrive at that point for yourself.

Seeing Red

New leaves on Sugar Maples.

Alpine Strawberries.

Flander's Poppies.

Hemmerocallis, Red Daylily.

Japanese Bloodgood Maple Leaves in the sun.

And The Winner Is

But first a word from our sponsor (me):
I broke my sewing machine -- Here's what I learned: when you're tired is not a good time to start a machine quilting project, and sewing machines will not stitch through basting pins without breaking, no matter how tired you are. Oh, yes, I was that stupid.
But that's okay -- I don't need to sew anything for today's post. Because today we are drawing names today for my first Pieceful Slumber Giveaway!

I used the old fashioned method: Names in a hat.
The first name out of the hat is: Dana from The Stone Rabbit wins the packets of seeds. (Dana, you need to email me with your postal address.)

And the second name out of the hat is:

Jenny of Cottage On Fox Hollow will receive the seed envelopes.

Congratulations Ladies.

Pink Quilt

In my box of unfinished quilt tops waits this simple pinwheel. The plan is to hand quilt it myself someday, filling that large open white space with close quilting. (You know, perfect my stitch lengths with lots of practice.) I found a Celtic knotwork cross I'd love to use as the quilting template.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share it for Pink Saturday. It's pink in two ways. First, there's the pink in the printed fabric.


Secondly that pink fabric is from an early Quilt for the Cure collection. Although it doesn't flaunt its purpose with obvious pink ribbons (like some pink ribbon fabrics), Quilt for the Cure actually donates part of their proceeds to breast cancer research.

Sounds positively pink to me. Check out more pink with Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.



[Note; there's also a touch of pink in the flower seeds and seed envelopes you could win in my Giveaway. If you haven't entered yet, just scroll down to the next post to leave your comment and enter.]