Look what I got at the Post Office!

Spring must be around the corner in Central Texas.  As some of you may know, my hubby has a little Feed Store in Pflugerville and from time to time I help out there.  This time of year we start selling chicks.  We order the chicks from a hatchery in Cameron, TX and they get MAILED to us! 

When the chicks arrive at the Pflugerville PO, I get a call early in the morning--'You've got a package.  Come pick it up.  It's loud!'.   As soon as you open the door at the PO you can hear the little chicks chirping away behind the counter.  I make a lot of friends at the PO when I get the birds.  Most people in line to mail a package are surprised to see a BIG box of birds leave the mail counter.  

Here they are, save and sound, back at the feed store.  Next stop is a nice warm brooder with their first meal of chick starter and fresh water!

I think I feel like making a chicken quilt now . . .

Working Quilts

I hardly ever used to use any of my quilts in our house.  With two teens (now young adults), two or more dogs at any one time, and lots of  the 'outside' coming 'inside' our country house (and not in the Martha Stewart 'bring the outdoors inside' sort of way), we were just too hard on nice things around here.  I didn't want to have to fuss at anyone for eating gooey PB&J while curled on the couch in the Bear Paw quilt, or have one of the guys flop on our bed after mucking out the pig pen, so I stashed my quilts away in closets and cupboards.  But then, in the last couple of years, my quilt 'output' outpaced our home's storage space.  Except for my bestest, most pain-in-the-butt applique-all-the-way quilt, my quilts became working quilts.

I gotta tell you . . . although there has been a certain amount of destruction--a few stains, buttons eaten off here and there (by the dogs, not us)--it's been well worth it.  I love having quilts laying around the house.  And with more quilts in circulation and out of the linen closet, there's more space for the new quilts I'm making.

Here's to working quilts!

Cats and Mice

I dug my cookie decorating paraphernalia out from the very back of the kitchen cabinet last month so I could make Christmas cookies with my daughter.  It was so much fun, I decided to make room in the front of the cabinet for my cookie cutters and such.  I'm glad I did, because on a whim I decided to make cat and mouse cookie.  I have a cousin nearby who loves cats.  These will fun to take to her house.

These are fairly easy to make.  I use Wilton's roll out cookie recipe but I add quite a bit of extra flour and I use salted butter. (I like a particularly salty cookie taste to balance out the sweet icing.)   Then I make Wilton's color flow icing recipe.  The only thing I change on the icing is I add a tsp. of clear vanilla.  Load the icing in a decorating bag with a No. 3 round tip and outline the shapes.  Add a little water to the remaining icing to make the 'float' icing.  Brush it into the outlines shape with cheap plastic 'craft' paintbrushes.  While the icing is very wet, I add detail icing.  For example, I filled the 'pouncing' cat with grey icing, then immediately added large blobs of white flow icing for the paws, tail tip and cheeks.  Use a toothpick to 'draw out' the sides of the cat's cheeks.  For the yellow cats, I added white streaks and then 'marbled' with a toothpick.  After the cookies are fairly dry, I add the noses and eyes.

Table Runner Pattern

Look what I made today!

It's been a rainy day here in Austin so I've pretty much stayed indoors and sewed.  I'd been wanting to try a raw edge applique method my mom sometimes uses and I had a charm pack of Aneela Hoey's Posey fabric I've been wanting to do something with, so here's what I came up with.   

I really like the applique technique.  Just fuse your applique shapes down, thread your machine with a contrasting colored thread, lower the feed dogs and sew 'outline' stitching around the pieces.  --Oh yes, you might also want to put a darning foot on your machine.  An 'open toed' darning foot is even better.  Now that I've got this beginner project under my belt, I'll be doing more applique this way.

If you have a couple of hours to sew and think you'd like to make one of these too, I've got a link to the free pattern on buttonsandbees.com.  Look for the Springtime Runner link on the bottom left side bar.

          

Bout Time

Well it's about time I get back to the blog.  In fact I've been away so long I had to get the nice folks at Blogger to help me reset my password.  Anyway, it's good to be back.  And this time I'll keep my password handy so I have no excuse not to keep in touch.

I hope y'all have all had a great holiday and are enjoying the new year.  While I enjoy Christmas--and I do--it's AFTER Christmas that I especially look forward to.  After the business of December, I'm more than ready for the slower pace of January.  If there's a better time to sew than on a cloudy, chilly January afternoon, then I haven't found it.  For the last week I've been finishing up a couple of projects that I really meant to have done by . . let's see . . . last November . . . and as a reward for finally finishing those projects, I've treated myself to a couple of new projects with  fresh new fabrics.

Bo is sitting on one of my new pattern quilts in the picture above.  I used one Layer Cake and a couple yards of a Bella Solid.  The twin sized quilt went together so quickly I decided to make another one.  The bright colored quilt is from Marmalade by Bonnie & Camille (Moda) and the blue and white version is from Spa by Deb Strain (also Moda).  These are so simple, you can seriously make one in a weekend.  I even got brave and machine quilted one of them on my home sewing machine.  It was great to try something new.  Note however that you can not see quilting on the photo--I'm not quite ready for 'close ups'.  The good news is that no body at my house cares one bit.  --More posts later on learning to quilt a small quilt on a home machine. 

One more pic of things to come.  This was one of my 'reward' projects--a nifty messenger bag for my daughter, just in time for Spring semester.  Luckily I can get two of these from a Layer Cake, so I can have one too!  (Pattern coming soon.)

Fabric line is Spring House by Stephanie Ryan (Moda).

A Fun Time Had by All . . . Despite the Wind

Boy, did I have fun at the Hennig House Quilt Show on Saturday.  I could hardly believe how many people came!  It was wonderful to see so many folks and such beautiful quilts.  We are lucky to have so many many talented quilters in our area.  THANK YOU to everybody who let us hang your quilts.

Here's a picture of a brand new quilter, Kaylee Jo, and one of her quilts.  Kaylee was in my beginner class and I can't tell you how proud I am that she's already designing her own quilts.  Way to go Kaylee!

I had BUNCHES and BUNCHES of help in getting the show going.  Thank you to Barbara for rounding up so many quilts and helping me get them hung up.  And Gail, you and your cute granddaughter, Molly, were the life of the party--thanks for all the work and good cheer.  Huge thanks to Debbie and Shirley for manning (or womanning) the cutting tables--I know how hard y'all worked.  Thanks to Osie, Paula, Jennifer and Shannon for pitching in and helping things go smoothly.  And thanks to Ashley for coming at the break of dawn to help set up--your flowers are great--more to come on Ashley's business later.  Finally, thanks to the Linus Ladies and to Linda and Yvonne of the Taylor Quilt Guild for showing their beautiful raffle quilt--so sorry about all the wind. 

One more thanks . . . thanks to Monique for taking so many pictures.  I wish I had had a chance to take more, so I'm especially grateful that there were others out there shooting.  If you'd like to see some quilt show quilts, go here  Monique's Photobucket.

And there should be more to come.  I'll post a link to Jennifer's blog real soon.  I think there will even be some video of the show.  Woo hoo!

After-Party Time

We hope our friend Meghan is sitting down right now with her feet up enjoying a well deserved rest.  Some of you from Redwork/Embroidery Club may remember Meghan.  She came in last month for some background fabric for this fabulous quilt.  In the quilt Meghan paper-pieced blocks depicting all the houses her family has lived in.  How neat is that?

Anyway, Meghan was finally able to unveil this very special quilt on Saturday when she presented it to her very special mama, Alice, at her mama's birthday party  I don't think I've had the pleasure to meet Alice, but I have to assume that Alice worked real real hard for many many years in order to raise up such a fine young woman --one who would not only sew her mama a fabulous quilt, but would also organize out of town guests and a whole lot of food in order to celebrate their mama's birthday.   Meghan and Alice--you girls rock!

Some other cool things about this quilt . . .  Meghan was inspired by a cross stitch sampler her mama did years ago.  She re-did the sampler design in her center applique block.  There's mama and daddy, Meghan and her brother.  So sweet!

And . . . Meghan's friend designed this fabric and had it printed by Spoonflower.  In the fabric, the words from mama's cross stitch sampler are reproduced.  One day soon this will be the backing fabric for Alice's quilt.  No hurry Meghan--right now you just need to rest up.