January Hopping! & giveaway

It is hopping cold and snowy here in central Ohio,
but the hopping I'm speaking of is a Blog Hop!!

Hello and welcome to my day to share on 
the Quilt Doodle Doodles Blog Hop!
My winter-y welcome is appropriate
for the quilt that was made for this hop...

My quilt finished at just 22 inches by 26 inches.
It's machine-pieced, with wool hand-appliqued for snowmen noses, roof snow, door wreath & bow, mug steam and skate blades.

Last year, Cindy at Quilt Doodle Doodles  
offered this as a free Block Of the Month pattern 
to make a block or row each month.

I jumped right in!
But, not wanting a bed-sized quilt (approx. 70"x82"),
I choose to downsize my blocks 
so I'd end up with a wall-hanging instead.

I do admit that I thought I was half-sizing the pattern, 
but ended up smaller than half 
because my brain kind of does it's own thing sometimes. :)

The patterns that Cindy offered 

had fabric squares cut at 2 1/2 inches, finishing at 2 inches.

So to make half-sized, I should have 

cut my squares at 1 1/2 inches to finish half-sized at 1 inch.

But, oops, 

I cut my squares at half the size of her cut-size, 

so I cut at 1 1/4 inches, to finish at 3/4 inch.

Besides the down-sizing,
I made a couple of other small changes...
One change was to not put in a row of Christmas-y light bulbs.  
I made them, and love them, 
but wanted this little quilt to stay Winter-y looking,
so I could leave it displayed longer than just the Christmas season.

The second change was instead of the light bulb row,
I used the scrap corners leftover from my Snowman row

 and made these cute little pinwheels!:

Yes, each little, eight piece, white pinwheel is 3/4 of an inch!

My final change was that I re-arranged the placement of my rows to space out my light-colored rows.
Then, on to my quilting.
The whole time I was making this little quilt, 
I was thinking I would hand-quilt it.
I even had it pin-basted in preparation of hand-quilting:

Pin-basted from the back.

WRONG!  Funny, funny me.
The little pieces in this quilt are only three-quarters of an inch!!
That means that the 
seam allowances cover most of the back of each little square!
NOT conducive to hand-quilting.
Instead of hand quilting,  I started by doing some stitch-in-the-ditch on my domestic machine.
Then I loaded it onto the long-arm machine
and did a little echo quilting around the snowmen heads and candies across the top, 
with some clouds and windy-swirls thrown in around the house and trees.

I love my little finish, 
and loved the sew-along qualities of the BOM offering from Cindy.
It was fun checking in each month with others making the same pattern, seeing their progress and creativity.

You can visit today's other bloggers on the January Hop, too:

Kathy-Kathy's Quilting Blog

Nicole - quiltinglikeamaniac

Pam - Stitching Between the Lines

Jill - Hosted by Quilt Doodles
Debra - My Life Is A Stitch  (you are here)

My thanks to Cindy for offering this at no cost, for the great patterns, and hosting this Hop to share all the cuter-than-cute finishes.

Thanks to you also for visiting and doing some January Hopping!

PS - Cindy is offering a new B.O.M. for this year, so visit her blog to check it out!!
ALSO, she's having a giveaway, so when you visit her blog - just leave her a comment to enter.

PPS - Leave a comment here for me,
as I'm doing a little giveaway, too!!  
I have an extra, little string of snowmen to share!

culling the herd

I thought of this today as I was in the sewing room...

an oldie that still makes me chuckle:

A city lady and her traveling companion 

were riding the train through the countryside 

when she noticed some sheep. 

"What a nice bunch of sheep!" she remarked. 

"Not a bunch, herd", her friend replied.

"Heard of what?"

"Herd of sheep."

"Of course I've heard of sheep." 

"No, a sheep herd." 

"What do I care what a sheep heard. 

           I have no secrets to keep from a sheep!"

Hee hee.

So back to the culling of the herd -

Culling the herd is a farm girl reference
to thinning the number of the animals in a herd.
Or in the case of this quilting, farm gal - 

culling my Wooly Stash Animal.

aka:  'downsizing of the wool stash' ,
to help make my sewing room easier to access.

All of this started when I saw that a friend 
posted on facebook that she was looking for a place to find 
wool scraps.
I have wool scraps.  

 Bushels (yes plural) of wooly scraps.

Though this friend lives in another country,
I decided that I could surely help her out. 
I piled, cut, folded, 

squished, packed, and shipped.

Boy do I feel better.  
I've culled the wooly herd! 

(I know she reads my blog, but I'm sure she'll love this when it arrives in a few weeks time.)

Happy

Independence Day!

mylifeisastitch.blogspot.com
wool on wool pillow, my design,
cotton backing

Here in the United States we celebrate

the country's Independence on the

4th of July.

 

Family, friends, laughter, cheer.

 

Hope your day is full of happiness, too!

hibernating

* Snowy Days *

I wrote this yesterday afternoon, but had trouble posting it...
as there was a power outage... read on...

Another pretty, but cold week here
as another "Alberta Clipper" comes through central Ohio.
This is the fifth or sixth of these clippers in the last couple of weeks...
which equals a few inches of the white stuff every other day.

Not too bad,

except for when the snow hits during rush hour...

Oh, and when the snow hits AND the power goes out.

That's not good, either.

Having the power off just slows everything down...

like it's time for hibernating!

 

My brain must have started to hibernate with the coldness setting in,  

as there was the habitual

 flipping of the light switches

when going from room to room.

My brain knows that
the flipping of the switch will not restore power,

yet EVERY time - flip!

Of course, all of the things that I was preparing to do 
involved the use of electricity...

No pressing of the applique pieces...

No machine piecing...

The laundry ground to a halt.

As had the slow-cooker meal...

the slow cooker meal that was put on before the power outage.

With the power off, that SLOW cooker

takes on a new meaning of s-l-o-w.

Off to the fridge with it, to be put back on for another day.

So, guess what dinner was?

Those camp-fire, pie-iron-sandwich-like things... 

made in the coals of the wood stove fire!

You know - buttered bread, buttered side out, with marinara and cheese and anything else that has been pre-cooked that can go in...closing up the pie-iron crimps the edges tight, sealing in all the goodness...shove the iron into the coals - maybe half a minute then turn it over in the hot coals.  Remove from the fire and tap the ash from the iron, then open over a plate.

Hot and steamy goodness!

I haven't had these in quite a while,

and they sure were good,

my mouth was watering as I made them!

 

Dinner, though not as planned on a cold, snowy day...
then back to the lazy-girl chair with a quilt, candles and some hand stitching!

I think I like hibernation on snowy days!!!

*SNOWY DAYS*
the quilt shown above,
(pattern by Heart to Hand)
is a wool applique on cotton wall-quilt
that I have hanging on my kitchen door.
I made it last winter in February, and hand-quilted it.
Called it a finish!!
But I noticed when the lights/electric came back on
that I didn't finish quilting the top-right section...
Oh, well, I'll get it finished the next cold, snowy day!

Hope your stitching is going well!

Who did that?

Yesterday,

I traced all of the parts of some veggies...

and then ironed them onto some wools...

In preparation for this:

Vegetable Stew by Threads That Bind.

I had previously stitched the letters
onto a great piece of Osnaburg that I had added a little coffee stain to.

So, after I had traced and pressed the 30 little pieces?
I could not find the stitched alphabet piece!

So what ensued?
An hour search through all of my hand stitching bags and projects.
I KNOW I had stitched it.
Where could it be?

No luck, so, I took a break from searching
and went back to meandering on the "Big DD" quilting machine.

Then, after dinner, I HAD to search again. 
It was really bothering me.
I re-checked all of the places I had checked before.
Then I cleaned out my desk drawer.
Also cleaned out the scrap box on my cutting table.
I had a trash bag with me this time, so I was pitching stuff as I went along.
You know, scraps of paper, little snippets of fabric.
The packaging that my new pressing sheet came in- why was I keeping that?
Also pitched the little bag that came with my travel iron
that I NEVER ONCE have used for traveling as it isn't heat resistant.

Anyway, after cleaning and pitching for an hour plus,
I went out and sat in my easy-girl-chair
and went through the thoughts in my mind. 
Where could that piece of stitching be?

If I was a piece of stitched fabric, where would I be?
If I was putting stuff away, where would I have put it?
OK, I did put it somewhere.  Just where?!?

Finally, I decided that I had been working at my desk,
reorganizing a couple of weeks ago, 
so possibly,
it could be in a project bag at my desk...
So, I went through all 5 of the project bags again, piece by piece.
Nope. 
Not there, again!

It was now after midnight.
I should just go to bed.
I should sleep on it and look for it again tomorrow.
On the way out of the studio,
I went back to my cutting table and put away some stuff that I had moved to dig through.
You know, putting stuff away,
back onto the shelves above the cutting table.

On this shelf:

In that stack of  brown, cream and tan fabrics?

I found my piece of stitched fabric!!!
It was wadded up and jammed into that stack of fabric!!!
Who would have done that? :)
Why would I have put a stitched piece of fabric into Stash Fabric???

I think it was probably me...

anyway,

Today while I'm watching the football game
from my easy-girl-chair,
I'm going to be doing some stitching...
YAY!

Happy Stitching to you!

work, not

At last week's guild Quilt Show,
I was really there to WORK. 
Yes, work. 
I was "working" for the LQS at the shop's booth.
I was there to vend on Friday.
I was also there to do a demonstration.
My demonstration was "Fabric Embellishment with Color".
Or, Let's play with Crayons on fabric!!!
Yep, that's work! NOT!

So, my demonstration was the two latest projects that I've been coloring/stitching...
The new Crabapple Hill patterns,

Which Witch's Boot:

and Calendula Patterdrip's Cottage:

That sure was hard work!!!

Sharing my tips and tricks for

"embellishing with color" :)

Me and my box of 64 Crayolas!

Also,

I already shared that I NEEDED more wool

for an already started project,

so I got a big chunk of white wool...

Well,

I also purchased a few pre-cuts of wool...

How can you turn this down when it's this cute??

Just needs a little stitching and wa-la, finished table mat!

Then,

I saw this pattern across the isle...

not very eye-catching, is it???

But then I saw the sample that was made:

Yep, bought that pattern!!!

That sure was a fun job/day, let me tell you.

WHAT is wrong with me?!?

I picked up more wool.
MORE WOOL!


I have a project that I've been working on,
(read that as:  started & in a pile on my ironing board :)
It is called "10 cents a Chance"
and was a McCall's Quilting magazine Web Bonus LAST summer.

Anyway, the "kit" had a chunk of blue fabric printed with white stars.

BUT, if you cut the blue star fabric into the size required for piecing,
it cut THROUGH the stars.
I don't think that is acceptable for a "field" in a flag. 
No flag should have partial stars in my book.
So, I decided that I should applique stars onto this quilt. 
And, I should have a few shades of creams/whites in wool. 
This would "make" the quilt, I decided...
So, at last weeks' guild quilt show, I hit up the booth of the "wool lady".
Thank you, wool lady.

I now have plenty of wool. 
Like I didn't have wool in my life already!


Only 288 woolen stars to cut and applique!

summer "Stew"

The summer's sweltering heat and humidity have hit!!!

and the air feels a little like stew. 

Speaking of stew...

I worked on my hand/wool stitching
just a little this week-

yeah, I know,

wool

 plus heat & humidity

don't really go together,

do they?

But I have this pattern by

Threads that Bind...
called "Alphabet Stew"

AND,

I belong to a very informal

Woolly Wednesday Group

that meets about once a month,

whenever we can get together-

(sometimes even on Wednesdays!)...
In the next week or so
we'll meet for our monthly woolly gathering.

So,

I have been prepping this project

As you can see, I have the "alphabet" stitching done,

now to get the woolen "stew" ready to attach!

I think "Alphabet Stew" 

will eventually hang above the doorway into my kitchen.

The wall surrounding the doorway into my kitchen

is also the wall where I've been hanging my
"small quilts" aka: wall hangings
over the past years,

so if Alphabet Stew doesn't seem lost there,

that's where it will go!

Happy Summer Stewing Stitching!

hopping

As in Shop Hopping!!

How do you spell success?

Well, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words...

OK, this is not really my

stash accumulation

from one day

of shopping the local shop hop!

Well, part of it is. 

It all started when I pulled out some fabric

that I wanted to add to

whilst I was hopping.

And the pile just grew and grew...

so I took a picture of the fabrics I had on hand.

That picture I carried with me on the shop hop excursion.

Guess I really didn't need to add much for this project, from the look of things!

This is what I really

 picked up

while hopping:

from top left:

miscellaneous fabric that called my name,

wools for the Primitive Garden quilt,

blues and whites for another

"Walking in a Winter Wonderland" quilt,

patriotic fabrics and ribbon for a needle case project,

and needles for wool applique.
(not pictured: 8 - third yard cuts of French General's Lumiere de Noel)

It was a good day!

Visited all ten shops in the hop,

arriving at the first at opening at 9 o'clock in the a.m.

and the last before the 7 o'clock p.m. closing time! 

Had a sit-down lunch at a Chipotle (yum)

and a sit-down Italian dinner after the hop was over.

And then got out all the stuff and drooled.

And planned.

And yawned.

Hopping all day is tiring.

Wacky Wool Wednesday

So...

last night I hosted our monthly gathering

of the crazy, woolly ladies --

 as opposed to those "woolly hookers".

There were NINE of us.

Although the temperature was Africa Hot,

these nine gals ventured out,

most of them from the far side of town,

and brought their woolly projects!

Did I take any pictures?

No.

Did I have a great time?

Yes.

Did we accomplish much?

Don't really know, doesn't really matter.

Consensus was we had a grand, woolly time.

Here's an after-the-group-left shot of my corner of the table...

I started A Primitive Garden.

Yes, I needed to start another woolly project!

(a couple of the gals in this monthly group are doing A Primitive Garden as a block of the month from Primitive Gatherings; I am using their start as my push to work on a block a month also.  You know, a little push in the behind?!).

Notice in the background,

I have my "baby wash tub" full of wool scraps. 

(It's only holding wool scraps

until called into service for it's intended use,

in case my daughter  anyone was wondering.)

Also in the background is the corner of my "Wool Crazy" project. 

And a bag of goodies from The Good Wives.

There was an earlier in the day field trip: 

The Good Wives field trip

that some of us were able to do before the whole woolly group met.

Dangerous, Good Wives Company.

Dangerous, but great.

Now, I really should go do some quilting...

I'll check to see what the temp is in the Sun room/quilting room.

If it's too hot, I'll have to work on my wool!

acquiring knowledge

I recently took a class...
when I saw this pattern and the sample
shown in a not so local quilt shop's class schedule:

Sew I Gathered by Renee' Plains.
(You can find her patterns at your LQS, or they can order them in for you.)

I just wanted to make it. 
Now.
Yesterday.
And it was wool!!

I know some of you out there will scoff at the idea of doing a wool project in the summer.
I do admit, I won't be sitting on the deck in the middle of a summer afternoon with wool thrown across my lap and stitching my little ol' heart out.

But, I do stitch on wool year round. 
Usually small projects. 
Or wool on a cotton base.

Anyway, a friend and I forayed up north and made ourselves a sewing kit book.
I chose purples for the flowers, she chose rusty oranges.  Just too cute, both of them!

It was a 5 hour class - pack a lunch and stitch away!

Isn't it just the greatest?

Here's a pic of the inside envelopes and wool for needles:

Now to fill it with my wool stuff!

Threads, needles, wooly shapes cut out and awaiting application...

It will get good use, I'm sure.

and I learned something...

a little book-binding and that I like the patterns by Renee' Plains!

flowers, wool and real

My next project???   

 From this book, of course...

I have chosen wool!  Imagine that!

I grabbed the pre-purchased wool from the kit...

I gathered my little pattern - and starting cutting.

 see the white, four petaled little piece of freezer paper? 

That is my pattern!

Only need 85!  The size of a dime...

Not a problem!

Snipping, trimming, mini scraps...

on the arm of my lazy-girl chair

(though I'm not usually so lazy in this chair,

as this is where I stitch every night;

I may have to re-name my chair!).

One, one-hour silly television show later:

All of my geranium flowers cut and ready for pillow making.

Then, today I went to a large garden center/nursery with garden club gals...

and I chose this:

A very nice geranium to put out on the back deck!  And the picture probably doesn't show, but there are soooo many more of those little flowers and blooms on this plant than I cut last night.

I am really going to like this working on this project

and seeing the blooms open on this geranium at the same time!