Ugly Fabrics..

When I first started quilting 15 years ago, I remember being told that I needed to use 'ugly' fabrics in my quilts so my 'favorite' fabrics would shine. The concept, apparently, was to keep the competition down. I also remember being told that you can't use all 'favorite' fabrics in a quilt. Hmm...not that I necessarily agreed with this concept, it just never occurred to me to question it.

I didn't actually go out and buy 'ugly' fabrics for my quilts. In fact, every fabric purchase I have ever made were all 'favorite' fabrics. And I noticed that the trend in fabric usage has changed in recent years. I read blogs all the time that show absolutely gorgeous quilts where the maker claims every piece of fabric is a 'favorite' to her. I'm thinking specifically of the Australian quilters right now. They just have a flair for bright, happy, gorgeous quilts. And there isn't an 'ugly' fabric to be found. Of course, this isn't limited to Australian quilters, we have lots of quilters around the world that are making quilts that are filled with 'favorite' fabrics.

So, what's this got to do with anything? Well, I've finally finished all the blocks in my Candied Hexagons quilt..


I'm currently working on those last 6 side pieces to square it up. At least, I think I'm done making blocks...it turned out a lot more square than I had anticipated. Anyway...I'm rearranging blocks every time I stand up and I'm realizing I have an 'ugly' fabric in the quilt. I'm not exactly sure how it got there. Notice the 2 whole hexagons on the bottom row? The pink roses on the brown background? I think I was hoping the roses would stand out more. And being that the fabric colors fit the quilt colors, I figured they'd just blend right in. They're not. Those 2 blocks are the first thing I see whenever I look at this quilt.

Oh wait, there are 3 of those blocks! I just realized there's one on the top, too. And another bit of this 'ugly' fabric is in one of the pieced blocks. I think I can handle the pieced block, but those 3 large hunks of 'ugly' fabric are driving me to distraction.

What's the consensus? Should I take them out to follow today's trends of "No Ugly Fabrics Allowed" or follow the trend I was taught in the beginning of "Use Those Ugly Fabrics to Allow the Gorgeous Ones to Shine!"

I don't know...

Here's a close-up of Felix sleeping - seems like that's all any of the pets are doing these days since it's started to turn cooler. I actually turned on the furnace yesterday just to get the chill out of the house. It's been alternately raining or sun shining here today, so a perfect day to get a lot done in the Sewing Room :)

A Little Catching Up..

This is what DH and I were doing on September 11 - celebrating DH's brother's 30th birthday. His girlfriend organized it to be a surprise lunch for him - she lives in another state and came to visit unannounced, surprise #1, then got the rest of the family at the restaurant and brought him in for surprise #2. She did a pretty good job of organizing it, too :) We all had a great time and DH got to spend some time with his family. They live 3 hours away, so we don't get to see them as often as he'd like.


Here is Candied Hexagons on the design wall. I think this picture was taken at the end of August. I have a LOT more done on this quilt. I counted the empty spots on the wall this morning and there are only 12 more spots to fill. Of course, after I get all the blocks made, then begins the rearranging process, followed by the actual assembly of the quilt. But who cares! I'm almost done! LOL

This basket has been holding my Candied Hexagon blocks for me - one glassine envelope per block. That basket is now empty! Woohoo!!

One last shot of Nika. We rescued her from the pound 14 years ago and she was a joy in our lives. We loved how the neighbor kids would talk about her on Halloween night, as she loved to sit on the stairwell banister in front of the door and watch all the activity. Being a black cat, she was quite the hit! We'll miss you Nika. Have fun in kitty heaven.

Well, this was supposed to be at the top of my post, but it showed up here and I'm afraid to move it for fear it might lose it's ability to play...

Anyways, this is my nephew Kendrick (the one I made the Big Boy quilt for last year) and niece Haley (she was visiting us from NC). DH and I took them both to the zoo right after we learned about Laura's death - we needed something to get our minds off it. Anyway, you can see that Haley was having a ball hovering around Kendrick. I was trying to get him to not be afraid to hold the tame birds we were feeding - but whenever a bird touched him, he jumped and they wouldn't stay...looking back, it looks like he was having fun, though :)

RIP Nika

At the risk of making my blog a funeral one, I want to say that we lost one of our kitties today. She was a rescue from the pound 14 years ago. She died in my arms in the back yard, how she would want to go, I think.

Nika

1996 - 2011

Life is running slow...

Things have been fairly quiet around here the last couple of weeks. I think it's God's way of letting us heal after losing Laura so tragically. She's all over the news in Michigan, North Carolina, Texas and Iowa... But like I said, things are staying pretty quiet in our neck of the woods.

I've been working mainly on my Candied Hexagons quilt and the Circles applique quilt lately. It's been waaaay too hot to work on Mom's tablerunner. That particular project has been pushed back to a Christmas gift (I missed her birthday deadline). We've been dealing with temps in the 90's and above for a few weeks and even the air conditioning isn't able to tackle that. The humidity is just horrid, too. I keep telling people I've become an expert sweater this year (sorry if that's too much information).

We had DH's birthday party this past weekend. It was nice, we had burgers on the grill and corn on the cob. Our neighbor brought over 2 cakes! A chocolate and a peach upside down...they were both wonderful :) I got a sunburn, but I blame it on the meds I'm taking for the rosacea...I was only in the sun for 15 minutes, honest!!! LOL

I've been spending some time this past week going through the drawers and places in my sewing room that I don't normally go through...you know those places that collect things you don't want to get rid of, but promptly forget about once you put them away? Anyway, I've collected a small pile of things that I have no use for, or haven't used since I've bought them and am planning to have a give-away soon. I've got to get pics taken of them first. Can you tell the picture-taking is my least favorite part of blogging?? If only my photographer DH was more interested in taking pics I ask him to take....oh well.

I guess that's it for now...I hope you are all surviving the Heat Wave of 2011, too!

RIP Dear Sister

Laura Jean Ackerson

April 30, 1984 - July 13, 2011

You will be missed little sister

We all love you very much

We will watch over your little boys for you

Full Disclosure...

At the risk of shocking some of you, I've decided to post how many projects I have floating around the house in an attempt to motivate myself into finishing some of them (i.e. shaming myself into finishing them).

You see, I had been having the urge to work on something cross-stitch for a couple of weeks now, and thought about starting a new design. I have plenty of fabric (a post for another time) and plenty of floss (you've seen the pictures here), so I could start something with very little outlay of money. I even went so far as to go through the filing cabinet where I store all my cross-stitch patterns and pulled out the three that seemed like the best option. You see, I couldn't decide which one was the best option, so I pulled out three to peruse for the next few days to decide which was the best.

As I sat there perusing, I realized I have this large box where all my WIPs live (Works In Progress). It's a copy paper box - it holds 10 reams of paper...it's not a small box. And no, I don't have a picture to show you of that - someday. Anyway, I remembered this box that I had relegated to the back corner under my working table and decided to pull it out. Let's see what projects I have already started that I might have forgotten about, maybe one of these would be the best option right now....

Yeah. I have a total of 27 bags of projects in this box!! One bag per project. And 24 of them have stitching on the fabric!!!!! This is ridiculous. 24 started cross-stitch projects?? And I'm thinking of starting another?? Yeah....nix that idea. So I pulled out every project I had that was close to being finished. That was, um.....4. Yeah....24 cross-stitch projects started and only 4 can be considered close to being finished. This is ridiculous. Oh wait, I've said that already.

I did find a 5th project that I no longer wanted to stitch, and was very near the beginning stages of stitching, so I'm currently frogging all those stitches. It's going pretty quickly and then I can say I only have 23 started cross-stitch projects!! Yay!!!

Then I remembered I don't only cross-stitch, I quilt and knit, too. Argh. Ok, so how many knitting projects do I have started? That's easy, 3. Three knitting projects? I'm not even an avid knitter, why do I need to have 3 going? But at least it's better than the cross-stitch projects.

Ok, on to the quilting projects. Hang on, I haven't actually counted these yet (I'm kind of scared to...). Let me do that while you wait...

Counting...

Counting...

Fainting...

Ok, I've woken up again....I currently have 22 quilting pojects started. That means it is somewhere between the stages of having either cut fabrics or begun stitching something, and it doesn't have a binding on it. Four of these projects are piecing, 8 are applique, 2 are English Paper Piecing and 8 are in the hand-quilting stage. Whoa....

So, I've decided that I need to get each category (cross-stitch, knitting and quilting) of WIPs into the single digits, under 10. I have no idea if I'll be able to accomplish this or how long it will take, but I'm hoping that by posting about it here, I'll be more accountable about it.

I thought I'd add this picture of Felix. This is how he looked after he got done helping me clip coupons this weekend. I think he's on coupon overload :)

A Framing Happy Dance

I've managed to frame a piece I stitched over 5 years ago. It is Emie Bishop's Warm Christmas Wishes. I found the frame at Salvation Army for $3. It didn't have any glass, and I wouldn't have been able to fit it in the frame if it had. That's ok, this piece has beads on it, anyway, so glass would have just smooshed them.

I found some red vellum at Hobby Lobby when I picked up the foamcore and pasted that underneath the hardanger sections of the design. I wish I had found a better shade of red, as I think this is too bright....oh well, it coordinates with the highlights on the cranberries.

We had our oldest nephew over for the night a couple of weeks ago. He found the piano and just loved to sit at it and play and play and play...boy were we glad for the quiet when it was time for him to go home! LOL

Here is Kendrick and DH playing together. As you can tell, it was a very hot day, so he went around in is diaper for a while...Kendrick, not DH!

Oh yeah, you can see a bit of Pips in the picture, too....He's sneaking a peek at what might have been forgotten on the table....sneaky dog....

And to prove how hot it's been lately, here's Felix melting off the buffet. DH claims he stayed like that for an hour after he got up for work....very unusual, as Felix is normally following us around like Pips (he thinks he's a dog, you know).