Etsy Goodness

When I spent a week in Louisiana this summer catching up with my family,  I was quite taken with my SIL's lovely utilitarian gadgets, some vintage, some used in a slightly eccentric way.   Jadeite juicers and beautiful bottles to dispense fabric softener for the laundry, lots of enamel pots and scoops.   I kinda wanted to squeeze lots of citrus fruits and wash loads of dirty clothes. 

 Maybe that was the Tom Sawyer psychology behind it.  Worked on me.

  I sat down at her kitchen table to find my own juicer, by gum.  And Etsy delivered.  This metal stand juicer was from atticfinder on etsy.  I liked the red color, the scratchy paint (which doesn't contact the food )  and the "DeLuxe" promise inscribed.  It works like a vise, clamping down on that lemon and yielding every bit of juice it has to offer.  I've actually had a lot worse results with modern gadgets. 

It's a keeper.

Whilst I was looking for interesting vintage kitchen things, I got completely distracted by sparkly shiny things, of course.  
This beauty is an enamel floral brooch from AllieEtCie.  Allie is a lovely shopowner, also at etsy, who carries all sorts of vintage goodies, including mirrors, porcelain, pottery, and a very retro bar set I have my eye on.  Allie was a great help from start to follow up.  Give her a visit this week.

I'm also collecting old Ball jars with the zinc lids with some idea of putting a pump dispenser in them so that pumping out some dish detergent to tackle a sink full of  bowls and glasses will be a real Martha moment for me.

Vintage, it's a good thing.

Sunny with a chance of Pajamas

Well, here we are, at the end of a long summer holiday.  Next week we officially start school and all the things that go along with it:  making lunches, car pooling, signing long legal agreements so that the kids might play-sports-go-on-field-trips-march-in-band- not-take-drugs-or-wear-spaghetti-straps and other very important things.  I always think I should proffer my own document for the ones-in-charge.

I could just sit here and think of all the things that could go horribly wrong and make some one else entirely responsible.  Such as," If said child does not want pinto beans as a side she may be offered another helping of rice, and we shall presume we understand that NO FOOD SHOULD BE TOUCHING ON SAID CHILD'S PLATE."

or..."if said child's phone loses charge and she does not remember aforementioned guardian's number, ones-in-charge shall unfurl the document that said guardian signed previously with her cell and home phone number, place of work, and six emergency contacts and offer it to said child to call for a ride home after day long field trip of orchestra competition which ended much later than school hours or bus schedules.

and so forth.

Oh, I got on a tangent there, didn't I.

Anyway, although we could have never fathomed it the first week in June, I think we're all about ready for the school season to begin.  There's a certain rhythm to getting up early, having a chaotic whirlwind leave the house and then...the quiet...before scooping them all up again and taking them here and there throughout the evening.  

It's that little slice of quiet I'm looking forward to.  I may stay in my pajamas for a while longer and just have that second cuppa ...alone.

Hope you all are finding some extra time to wear pjs where ever you are.  And if you'd like to make some like these, get 20% off Heather Bailey and Amy Butler's Love fabrics at my shop with the code

pajamadays in message to buyer.

Running, jumping, swinging.

In ancient party dresses.How do they come up with these ideas?

Here's to girlish adventures in party dresses. 

A pop of red

Black and grey and red.
These colors have been swimming around in my head since I saw a quilt on flickr.  And it wasn't so much the same color palette, you can see for yourself, here.  It was this formula for 25% red and everything else reads as a neutral.  Not too much red.  Not overwhelming.  Just the pop.


First I did a single improv block...thinking maybe it's a pot holder.

Then I did some string blocks...then some more...and I've bought more gray and red fabric...for more blocks...maybe more quilts, actually.

I'm almost done with this quilt.  So of course I have lots of strips leftover.  I could do this, or this next.

Or more koozies.  Never enough of those when you're having people over.

Imagine my surprise when I saw a sneak peak of the next issue of Fat Quarterly.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Someone's been peeping in my window!

And they have excellent taste.

LQS on Kauai

Local quilt shop....

no, not really local to me.  Not this week, anyway. 

*sigh*

If only I did live in this little round island of tropical paradise.  I was really getting into the batiks.  The swirly purples and greens and aquas, tonal prints with dolphins almost hidden in pools of turquoise.  The lovely Hawaiian ladies showcased their beautiful hand appliqued quilts.  To be recognized as a traditional Hawaiian Quilt, these guidelines are used: 

1) the design is primarily appliqué work
2)the design is a circular repetition of 4 or 8
3) the design uses one or two fabrics (there are exceptions)

Although I hear there are some break out modern Hawaiian Quilters blending some new ideas with the wonderful island traditions.  That's me and my S-I-L with one of the quilters (below).  Looks like we all learned to manage our island hair with the same pony tail style, huh?  My hair would have taken up considerable airspace in that room had it been unleashed.   And in my defense, we were about to go zip lining in a tropical jungle...after I got my fabric fix.

I'm such a tourist.

 This was such a charming store,  loaded with the batiks, japanese novelty prints, and a small selection of exquisite kimono silk fabric from Japan, as well as some cotton kimonos and custom made Hawaiian shirts.  It's been in business for some thirty plus years and I read countless positive reviews from TripAdvisor submitted by tourists awestruck at the local island flavor's offerings...tourists who admitted they did not sew or quilt or plan to do either.

It is a must see if you go to Kauai.  

Deadlines...

Let me brush the cobwebs away and get myself acquainted with this blog again.  I disappeared for a while there, didn't I?    Nothing major keeping me away.  Kids' rehearsals and concerts and "graduations" (myself baking 20 pizzas for that one), family gatherings for a birthday...Life.  Good things.

But I was sewing as well.  I've had my fat geese project going since I first spied Katy's in Fat Quarterly.  I knew I wanted to use MeadowSweet with the reds and browns and pastel pinks, celery greens.  I made this for my mother.  She has geese.  And that other broderie perse thing?  It's never going to be finished.

There's no beginning-middle-end to embellishing is there?  I'll work on it some more when the weather is cold.  I promise.

I am thrilled with this quilt.  I want one for myself.  Enthralled with the whole idea of half square triangles.  I free motion quilted some little flowers in there as well.  Don't see a close up of it?  Well, I'm still a beginner, so let's just call it ambitious and leave it at that.  I self-imposed a deadline of this morning, 7 a.m. to finish this one.  That's the time my nephew leaves for work.  And since he's going to see Nanaw this weekend, I thought I'd save on postage.

My daughter wanted a quilt for pajama day at school. (top) She wanted it to match her pajamas (an earlier effort), so I pulled out the Mendocino stash and made her a quick little blanket.  In a day. Because that's how much notice I got. 

And finally, my last deadline is June 8th for this little guy here.I'm officially early!  La la la.

This goes to the local Project Linus Charity.  They pass blankets out at local  hospitals on children's wards.  The theme for this session was "puzzles" so I looked up some  puzzle quilts on flickr and drew it up on graph paper.

That was fun.  I didn't work out all the seam allowances in the beginning, because there was a line of steam coming out of my ears just from manipulating the pattern to be symetrical.  So I worked that out later. 

la la la.

Just ticking things off the list this week.

It's Friday, and I think I'm done!

Here's to a lazy weekend!

And we have a winner...

The winner is number 256,  Miss Prickly.

Congratulations, you and thanks so much to everyone who commented.

Miss Prickly, I've sent you an email.  Contact me and let me know your address so I can send you some dots!


Thanks to my husband for excel spread sheet calculations I can't begin to understand.
Beats pulling a number out of a hat!