Cupcakes Quilted

 

It got layered and quilted and just needs the binding (the orange around the edge ) pinned to the back and some hand stitching.  I just did an overall meander in a light yellow thread over the center — to make sure any edges that didn’t get appliqued down tight are secured.  And a circlique in the border similar to the print in orange.

The backing has the large cupcake with a label with info on what the quilt was made for and I’ll have everyone who made a block sign the top of the cupcake – pink ribbon fabric since it’s a Komen fundraiser.  The fabric through the center was leftovers from a prior year’s Komen Fund quilt and had all the right colors to go with the cupcake print.

And just for a little more eye candy –  look at the Crocus Clusters quilt made by Janet P.  It turned out beautiful.  Her daughter, who will be the recipient, helped pick out the colors.  One lucky daughter to receive such a beauty.

  Denise

Crocus Clusters

As many of you discovered, I forgot to add the template pattern to the Crocus Clusters instructions.  It’s now loaded.

 Go to the Crocus Clusters link under Pages on the right sidebar.  Then go to the bottom of that page and click on Instructions for the file download.  The leaf template is a separate download on that page below the instructions.

Two more red pear tomatoes from the garden tonight.  I really hope some of the other tomatoes start to ripen soon – those plants are loaded, but there’s a whole lot more pear tomatoes waiting to ripen too.  I may be toting some of the excess into the office if they all ripen at the same time.  The pear tomatoes are really good tho – just was them off and pop them in your mouth.

I’m hoping this weekend to finally get back to some sewing. Other than two test blocks for a new quilt pattern, that’s all I’ve sewn since the beginning of the month!  Withdrawal is definitely setting in! I don’t know that I’ve ever gone so long without working on a quilt.  But pattern writing has taken precedence.  I’ve got one design for Hoffman I need to write up and then I can get back to qulting.  It’s now the end of July and I STILL have not started quilting that wedding quilt.  Still a month and a half before I need it but I need to get busy soon!

Happy Birthday to meeeee!!

The day started with many treats from the gals at the office so we munched all day on good stuff – carrot cake, raspberry pie (one of my favorites) chips and salsa, dips, crackers, spinach dip (another favorite), cookies, chocolate (of course), banana bread — all good stuff!

But on to the important stuff you’re waiting for. 

First, Crocus Clusters instructions are posted!  Go to the Crocus Clusters link under Pages on the right sidebar.  Then go to the bottom of that page and click on Instructions for the file download.  Enjoy!

And, just in time for my birthday,

the two Snowglobes kits finally arrived!!  So my plan – use the random number generator to pick a winner based on the number of comments on the post about the give away.  There 39 total numbered comments, although some of those were my replies, so if I landed on my numbers, I’d just pick another.  So the first two random numbers landed on my comments. Wouldn’t it figure.   Keep picking.  The third time was a charm. #24 is the lucky winner Kim Petershack!  Congratulations Kim!  It will be coming your way soon!  It’s great fun to actually see the fabrics in person – even more gorgeous in person than the image I was working with – with all their gold glitz in them.

 Check out the great birthday tote Anita made for me. It’s just so bright and fun.  Carried my birthday treats to the office in it and I think it will now be used for my knitting.  That fabric just has to make you smile.

 

 

 

 

And here’s the new yarn I got this week from the Loopy Ewe. It’s called Sweet Potato Pie by Fiberphile.  Can’t wait to get started knitting  with it.  I plan to make this Boxleaf Triangle Shawl.  First I need  to finish off the shawl I’m currently working on tho.

Now I think it’s time to break out the birthday wine glass and celebrate.

Denise

49 and counting….

Tomorrow’s the big day – my 50th birthday.  It seem sold when I say it but I don’t feel old so I guess that’s a good thing. LOL  I just finished the final changes to Crocus Clusters so the directions will be ready to post tomorrow.  Look for them tomorrow evening since I won’t have time to post them before then.  I’ll be toting my treats to work in a cute little birthday tote a quilting friend made and send to to me – bright balloons all over it.  It’s just a happy bag!  Thank you “bad” Anita. 🙂

Still waiting on those Snowglobe kits to arrive – they must be circling the globe.  Hopefully tomorrow.

My Loopy Ewe yarn and pattern I ordered did arrive so I’ve got a new shawl to work on.  If I get it done in time, it will be the perfect color to go with my dress for my niece’s wedding in September.  That’s a big “if” tho but there’s that week at a cabin which should give me lots of knitting time.

Crocus Clusters Yardage Update & Label Bonus

I found one definite change to the Crocus Clusters yardage while writing the directions.  See the Crocus Clusters page on the right sidebar to get the new download.  One of the measurements was 1″ short of what you actually need.  There are some additional notes added to the yardage page to help you decide whether you want to add a little more yardage for security in case you make a cutting error.

How long does it take to write directions – well I’ve been at it for almost 9 hours today!  It just needs a final proofing with a fresh eye.  If I get it done before the 28th, I’ll post the cutting instructions ahead of time.  Otherwise, look for the directions on the 28th!

As an added bonus for those who finish making this top before the end of 2010, if you email me a photo of your top to share on the blog before the end of the year, I’ll email you back a lablelyou can print on Printed Treasures or other printable fabric that looks like this…. with your name filled in on it.

The label will print out about 8″ square.

Stashbusting Report

No a huge amount of fabric busted from the stash  this week – just two yard sfor borders and binding since I’m working on some projects already in progress.  So net busted 119.75

I did finish sewing the top for Crocus Clusters.  It’s hard to get a photo of it since it’s large and I can’t back up enough in the sewing room, but I slapped it up on the wall – none too smoothly since it kept threatening to fall down since it’s larger than the design wall – and quickly snapped some photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here’s my pickings from the garden today – prewashed so a little dirty looking.  I kept thinking my peppers would never get ripe and then I remembered I planted a kind, whose name I can’t remember, that is a pale green and more long than a bell pepper.  So these will be part of a salad tonight.  I’m finally getting lots of green little tomatoes on the plants so there’s hope for some of those some day.

Denise

Just in the nick of time

I have actually accomplished what I set out to do as my Saturday project.  Crocus Clusters is now a finished top — finished at 11:50 p.m. — still on Saturday but cutting it close. 🙂    And it went together very nicely EXCEPT…. I had the top sewn into two halves with the sashing attached and joined that last seam.  Laid it out on the floor and then had to say many bad words because I half flipped on half upside down.  Yes rippit rippit rippit.   But once I took it apart and fixed, the borders went on great.  I’m always a bit worried when adding pieced borders to plain ones — were all those seam allowances right? will it fit?  Yep no adjustment at all needed.  They fit perfectly. WHEW!   I’ll take pictures in the light of day.

Also thank you Aurora for letting me know the EQ file for Spring at the Crossroads was downloading with a notecard error.  I’ve deleted the link and marked it temporarily unavailable.  I’m not sure why it’s doing that since my original file opens fine.  Even tried reloading but still an error so when I get time I’ll try to figure out what the problem is.

Saturday Stuff

The shawl for Mom is finally finished.  It’s the Multnomah pattern by Kate Flagg. You can find her pattern here.

I added more rows to make it longer and wider and I really love the pattern stitch for the scallopy edge.  My photo doesn’t show it off well but look at the pattern – it’s really pretty a pretty looking stitch and super easy.

So what to knit on next – probably back to some socks.  I think I’ve got some in progress that hae been languishing while I’ve worked on this.  And there’s more yarn for a second shawl waiting too.

Look who I found outside my door this morning.  My dog used to have a fat robin stuffed toy and at first I thought someone had lost their toy.

  Talk about a puffed up chest.  I walked closer after taking the photo to see if he was actually a real bird since he seems to be sitting there at sort of an odd angle.  Well, that ticked him/her off and away it flew.  It think it must have had a dip in my birdbath and was just drying off in the sun.

So now on to some sewing.  I think Crocus Clusters is first on my list to get the top sewn together so hopefully I’ll have that to show you tomorrow.  Haven’t found the missing border strips so think I never cut them so now to find that fabric.

I’ve got another design for Hoffman Fabrics to do – just waiting on the fabric images but got a sneak peak so have two potential designs all done.  And Fabric Trends has a disk of fabric images on their way and wants to use a design I had made up an previously was posted in the EQ gallery so that’s an easy one since I managed to find the disk that that had the pattern file on it (someone should really label those disks with what is on them but that’s a job for another day).

Denise

July 4 – Stashbusting report

I nearly forgot it was stashbusting report day.  This week, 4.25 purchased, 12.25 used.

YTD used: 194  YTD purchased: 76.25 so Net fabric used YTD is 117.75 yds.

I got my Continuous Chain shown in previous post all cut out.  And laid out Crocus Clusters on the design wall – or at least most of it since I was running out of wall.

 You’ll have to imagine the plain inner purple border going all the way around.  I put just some scraps of it in the upper left corner.  I’ve either hidden the strips I cut for that border or was too anxious to get sewinng and never cut them.  Have to go back and see if I marked them off on my notes before I start the search to find them. I think I might have just not cut them yet.  I also didn’t put the plain border strips up on the wall between blocks but I like the way it turned out.  I used three greens for my leaves instead  of two and had extra fabric of the light green so decided I wanted that in the outer border instead of the dark green I originally drew the pattern for – I always seem to change something on my own version from the original drawing I did – artistic license. 🙂

 

Denise

And don’t forget to vote in McCall’s Design Star Challenge – whether for my quilt, Ode to Spring, or another one you love.  (My MOm has been busy casting her vote every day) 🙂  There’s 147 quilts to provide viewing eye candy.  There’s a link to the contest in the right sidebar.

More Crocus Clusters

My Crocus Cluster blocks are progressing.  The four grouped blocks are my center and are all done.  The block on the right is one of the outer blocks and I decided I wanted to add a third green into my version of the quilt to add a  more little variety on the version I’m making.  And those stems shown in the original pattern I’m not going to be putting on mine – I plan to quit in the leaf veins or maybe feathers down the centers of the leaves so decided to leave off the stem applique.

My greens are looking a bit blah in the photo.  The darkest leaf is sort of pea soup color but the green in the squares that meet up are actually a really pretty celery color – just don’t want to photograph right.

But remember, it will be your quilt your making and no reason it has to be purples.  See some images below where I switched out some of the colors.  The pink reminds me of rosebuds.