Day Off

Don't you love how a "day off" never really plays out as planned?  I did buy groceries, made 3 pies (2 pumpkin, 1 fresh lemon w/ K's assistance), turkey stock for tomorrow's gravy, diced and cubed bread + herbs for stuffing, and I  a made family heirloom recipe for cranberry gelatin with pineapple and grapes that is far more complicated than it needs to be.  (I had never made it b/c I hate Jello and am so-so about cranberry, so I never eat this dish at mom's house. One daughter and my hubby thought it needed to be on the menu since we are staying home.)  I'm also prepped to make a gourmet version of green bean casserole (fresh beans, crimini & shitake mushrooms in a cream sauce, freshly fried onions on top.)

My favorite view today is the fruit piled up on the cyprus bowl carved by my friend Sparky.  Just above the oranges you can see the baby pictures of my girls who are now 15 & 18.

I was ABOUT to make brownies & lemon bars to add to the feast...I even pulled pans out of the cupboards.  But the reality is that I'm not big on sweets, so I decided to drink wine and piece instead.   Here's a sneak-peak of today's progress.

Surprisingly, I have only one person who has correctly guessed the outcome of my mystery project.  That person is going to be my GRAND PRIZE WINNER.  The winner was informed early on about her/his successful guess.  All the other entries still qualify for runner up prizes which involve a packet of Friendship Square Batiks.  Keep posting your guesses about what this quilt will become to qualify for yummy 5 inch squares of phenomenal fabric.

Hint?

My mystery project enters day 2.  I had forgotten how great a 9-patch can look! ( And how much variation there can be in white-on-white)

If you haven't checked in for a while, or you are here because of WIPs on Wed at Esther or Lee's blogs...on Monday, I started cutting fabric for a new project and issued a challenge.  Each guess posted on the previous or this post that identifies what the final project will be, counts toward a very cool prize.  In case you are too lazy/overwhelmed/busy to check the previous post, the basic rules are:  a gift certificate to my local quilt shop (who ships internationally) will be awarded  to a contestant who guesses what it is that I am going to make.  One entry per guess, with extra credit (guesses) for being right, or ridiculously wrong in a way that makes me snort coffee out my nose when I read your entry.   Contest ends whenever I get this thing done (could be tomorrow...could be next month).

And I don't want to make light of serious addiction...but when I ran out of spray starch while pressing these blocks...I was in a serious panic.  Until I remembered that I had a secret stash of dollar store spray starch.  Oh yea, that's pathetic (but a huge relief).  

My other project that I'm working on is my revised Heart's Desire...which I tend to refer to as Heart's Whim or that @#$% Heart quilt that I broke up with.  Follow the link for details...but this is my medium-tech version of showing what I think it may look like (when I get another 30 hours of applique done).   Planning to add more leave and vines around the outside.  Will keep you posted.

Piecing Guess Challenge

Yes, it's true.  I hate piecing.  But sometimes an idea comes up that requires it.  A lot of it actually.  I've had this idea rattling around in my brain for a couple months, but tonight decided to dig through the fabric stash to see what I have that will work.  The criteria:
1) Must have a strong contrast that "reads" as black & white.  (Dark blue/green & white-on-white)

2) Must be fabrics that I like enough that I don't lose interest before the 1089 pieces are combined. (Batiks collected over the past 2 years with the criteria that it goes with my stash.
3) Have nearly 5 yards in mixed colors that go together and read as a single color. (Don't EVEN ask.)
4) Fabrics are not my most favorite fabrics in the universe so if it's an utter failure I would have cry myself to sleep for months.  (The muddy step-batiks that I liked enough to buy, but went.."hmmm"  when they started to hang out with the others in the stash.)

Since this is Thanksgiving week and I'm taking some time off, my goal is to get this pieced by Saturday and find a friend with a specific type of technology to see if "it works" (the silly visual trick I'm going for).  There are probably dozens of people who have already thought of this and posted about it, but I'm feeling delightfully clever.  So clever, in fact, that I will award a prize...a gift certificate to my local quilt shop who ships internationally, to a contestant who guesses what it is that I am going to make.  One entry per guess, with extra credit (guesses) for being right, or ridiculously wrong - but making me snort coffee out my nose when I read your entry.   Contest ends whenever I get this thing done (could be tomorrow...could be next month).

What is it?

Blooming Good!

I made a lot of progress on flowers over the past 2 days.  This one is my favorite.  I love the way the pink/green print really connects the flower to the stem.

This was my progress by the end of Saturday.

 And by the end of Sunday, I can almost declare this section done.   (Just 3 leaves to go)

 But there's another weekend worth of leaves to be done on the right 2/3 of the panel.

I don't have Photoshop so my photo splicing is really rough, but this is kind of where I think I'm going.  I want some open space in the middle balance out all the vines.  I'm considering trying some trapunto. If I extend the vines under the bird to the lower right corner, and same from the circle vine going toward the upper left, I'd end up with a 15" x 30" rectangle in the center.


I'm open to suggestions.  What would you do with the center?

Petal Progress

I got one of the small flowers stitched last night.  I was thinking of the large flowers when I was picking fabric placement, so I'm not entirely happy with this one.  But not unhappy enough to  un-sew it.

Unfortunately, I already had the outer 3 petals stitched on this one too.  Clever color placement, however will make for improvements.

Henry Glass Blog Hop

A really cool thing about knowing a fabric designer is that you get to see stuff before it's available to the public.  I got to see Renae Allen's Patriot Dream fabric for Henry Glass back in May.  The center panel is printed with traditional quilt blocks (perfect for those of us who hate to piece)  and was designed with Quilts of Valor in mind.

And, I just found out that Renae has started to blog!  Not only will there be cool things to win with the Henry Glass Blog Hop, but she's doing a blog give-away  of her Skillsbuilder Series.

That was where I got the idea for this particular feather design I attempted on this baby quilt.

Looks like my limited quilting time today is going to be spent blog hopping and trying to win prizes.  (It could happen....I won something cool.  Once.  A long time ago.)   Maybe by next Wed my WIP post will have more that 2 petals progress on my Heart's Whim.(Started as Heart's Desire but the passion is gone.)

Leaves

My daughter had friends over Saturday to watch movies and eat pizza to celebrate her birthday, so I was displaced to the bedroom to applique and listen to football on the radio.

I have a rather alarming pile of green batik scraps.

Which means that there's a lot of variety in my leaves.   13 leaves finished over 2 days.

As is the one blossom that I made months ago using the freezer paper method.  The others will be back basting.

Thanks for all of you who took the time to leave comments about format. I like the classic format too, so you'll keep seeing posts this way.