Cutting for a queen

There used to be two of these little bins filled with 1930s prints. Soon there will be one -- still heavy in yellow -- and one queen sized quilt. It's been a good cutting day.

One small treasure

Karen and I went treasure hunting today. Not much luck, with the exception of this little beauty, which will be repurposed into another little treasure at the appropriate time. For now, however, it will just be a cute little pink cup and saucer.
Lovely colors are the drawing me in lately. Maybe it's the additional 6 inches of snow on Monday and Tuesday. Maybe it's the 5-degree morning temperatures at the end of March. Whatever the reason, spring colors are calling and I am answering in patchwork.

A quest to use up my 1930s prints has turned me into a piecing wild woman. I blame Alyssa, of course. If she hadn't asked for a yellow and white quilt, I never would have started collecting these. Yup. Entirely her fault. I have to admit though, these spring flower colors do brighten up a dreary day. As soon as the snow melts enough around the clothesline, I'll get them all hung out for a little show. Maybe I'll even have some of the quilting finished by then.

For now it's off to bake banana bread. And just in case you think that is not related to quilting, I'd like you to know that the absolute best banana bread recipe ever is from Autumn Gatherings, a beautiful book filled with delicious quilts and recipes from Lisa Bongean and Carole Charles of Menasha, WI. Yum.

Mellow yellows

I have tons of yellows left from Alyssa's quilt, but thanks to this tutorial posted on another of my favorite blogs, Cluck. Cluck. Sew, I spent a few hours this afternoon cutting blocks for what promises to be a very pretty little quilt. For what, for whom, how big? Not a clue, but it will be cute.
First I cut strips 2-1/2" wide. 1 yellow and 1 solid white. These were sewn together, pressed with the seam toward the yellow and cut into to 1/4 square triangles. (Cluck. Cluck. Sew shows you how to make your own templates, but since this groovy ruler makes its home with me, it was put it to good use.)Looking at the picture of the finished block shows how to assemble the pieces. One strip usually yields two blocks. It doesn't get much easier. Really.
These blocks will finish at 8", which is a nice size to work with. It might make a good baby quilt, or just a throw. It definitely has me humming Donovan tunes.

Just One Star

I follow a few quilting blogs. It goes along with the same line of thought that if you want to write you have to read. At one time, I wanted to write. I still read a lot. I also quilt quite a bit, so it only makes sense to follow the blogs of quilters I admire. One such blog is Minick & Simpson where I learned about the Just One Block project. Quilters are asked to make and donate just one star block to this great project. The goal is to produce 100 star quilts by Flag Day for wounded soldiers. The guidelines are pretty simple: medium blue or red and cream. Here's my block:
You can make one, too. Go to Minick & Simpson's blog for a nice tutorial and here's the link to Moda's blog for the explanation of the project and a PDF of the pattern. It is a quick little number to make (you don't even have to trim the block!) and cute as a button when finished. Mine will be sent off tomorrow. Hope yours can join it soon.

Whew

It's such a bitter day today. My way to book club this morning was marked by sliding through the intersection when arriving in Stevens Point. Good thing it wasn't a weekday; my car (and probably me) would have been toast at this normally busy intersection. Whew. Another good book club meeting at the Wooden Chair. The book was disappointing, but the company and the breakfast were great as always.

Another Whew to report as well. The guys started tapping on Thursday. Today's cold and wind will not last forever and the maple season will soon be in full swing. But, before the first tap went into the first tree this year, I managed to complete this yellow and white quilt top. Whew. Made my goal. At last ...
It took me a long time and lots of false starts to decide on the borders. While draping it over the couch doesn't give the best view, you do get the idea. It's off to Yolanda for quilting tomorrow. The borders are on the sides only, which is something completely new for me. Of course because I was afraid I would not have enough triangles somewhere along the line, I had lots of extra 2" triangles so decided to place some of those as 4" triangles sporadically in the border. They add nice bit of quirkiness, don't you think?
Now I have a lot of 4" yellow triangles left over, but that's a concern for another day since today's mail delivered these beautiful solid 5" squares. I just had to dig in and start marking.
Never a day without a project. Whew!

On Sundays I cook

A Barnes & Noble gift card is always one of those Christmas gifts that never gets time to cool in my hot little hands. The one received this year went to purchase Dough by Richard Bertinet (it even comes with a DVD for those of us who are suffer from an unnatural fear of bread failure). My New Year's resolution was/is to learn to bake good bread...something that has always eluded me.

Nearly every weekend since then has included a bread making attempt. The first few weeks proved that my family loves me as they choked down chewy and rather yeasty morsels, generously proclaiming, "the flavor is good." No more. They are starting to get really good bread. Not loaf-shaped tennis balls, but good hearty bread. Today was a two-batch day. Light rye with caraway and whole wheat poppy seed stars. Finally. Hearty bread worthy of the lamb, mushroom and wild rice casserole in the oven.On Sundays, I cook.

Barbara Ruesch's Day Off

Monday was a snow day for all school districts around here. I don't get paid if I don't show up, but since the weather was really awful and the first thing I saw when turning on the TV at 5 am was a commercial of our governor declaring me and all other public employees Public Enemy Number One, I decided not to risk my life getting to work. I emailed my boss, got the OK and stayed home.
I made bread again since the loaf from the day before disappeared...and finally finished this.In the process of finishing it, the problem of those pesky blocks made of the black fabric from which the fruit and berries were cut was solved too. They were all sewn together and became the quilt back. Pretty darned classy I think.
The quilt has a nice plaid binding that seems to frame everything -- front and back -- very well. Good thing I have this stash to tide me over on snow days. It's also a good thing that I own Ferris Bueller's Day Off to watch while doing the hand stitching on the binding. There's nothing quite like the parade scene from this classic stay-home-from-work movie to lift the spirits.

And while hunting up the perfect binding, I also pulled together this lovely little grouping of fabric friends.
I'm not certain what they'll be when they grow up, but I'm excited to find out. First, however, there's that yellow and white number to finish. I'm working on it. I'm working on it.