Mickey Mouse Pillow

When I attended the Long Beach International Quilt Festival with my two granddaughters last July, they were fascinated by an embroidery machine that was stitching an image of Minnie Mouse. The previous day, when we were not there, the demo embroidery sample had been Mickey Mouse and we got to take that sample home with us. It has about a 4" border on all four sides of Mickey before trimming. I promised the girls I would make Mickey into a pillow.

 

These embroidered images take literally hours to stitch completely. We had to leave before Minnie was finished but the girls were thrilled that we had Micky Mouse as a souvenir.

Based on the rectangular shape of Mickey Mouse, the pillow would be a non-standard shape. Even if I could, I would be unable to buy an appropriately sized pillow form. I had stowed away an old worn and and torn white bed sheet which I'd cut up, planning to use it as a base for a strip quilt. Cutting a piece of that sheet to the correct size, I used it and a bag of polyester stuffing to make my own pillow form. 

All the light blue swirls in the embroidered background fill reminded me I had the perfect fabric in my stash for the pillow backing. There was enough that I could make a generous ruffle all around as well. Since I thought it was unwise to deal with a zipper next to all that bulk of the ruffle, I made an overlapping envelope back instead.

The Mickey Mouse embroidered section measures 10½" wide by 15¾" and I added a 2⅜" wide ruffle all around. The pillow is very plump and, taking that into account, the pillow measures approximately 15" wide and 19" tall. I can't wait to give Mickey to the girls when they visit at Thanksgiving. Yes, they liked it!

My DL2Q Blog Book - Vol. 19

When Blog2Print had a 35% off sale I seized the opportunity to publish my 19th DL2Q blog book. The site has sales often enough that I rarely, if ever, pay full price. Here are two pair of pages from inside the book. The first pair is images of my "Third Saturday of the Month" outdoor quilt displays. The second pair is my daughter, visiting from Oklahoma, sandwiching her Story of the Sky creation to quilt on my Sweet Sixteen Handi-Quilter. Those glossy pages seem to enhance everything. Blog2Print really does a nice job. I am always pleased with the finished bound hardcover book.

 

DianeLoves2Quilt - Vol. 19: October 20, 2022 - June 15. 2023
Volume 19 contains 248 pages over a time period of nearly 8 months in 23 posts. I picked a cover design, Mini Print - beige, that blended with the gray Christmas Cars quilt and complemented all the blues of my daughter's quilt Story of the Sky.

The Dedication for DianeLoves2Quilt - Vol. 19 and the subsequent Table of Contents read as follows:

Spectating at the Houston International Quilt Festival starts off Vol. 19: participation in the Stir Crazy Museum Show closes it. In the intervening pages are visits with my daughter and grandkids, sharing sewing and quilting with them. A crocheted cardigan is included, tucked away among small sewing projects and finished UFOs.
- Diane Chambers

I added DianeLoves2Quilt - Vol. 19 (far right, beige) to my shelf with the others. They all look relatively the same thickness, but are not, really. DianeLoves2Quilt - Vol. 8 (middle, medium blue) and DianeLoves2Quilt - Vol. 9 (middle, sage green) are the thickest at 429 and 355 pages respectively. This number of pages is actually a bit awkward to handle when holding the book and browsing through it so I like to keep it to between 200 and 250 pages. The number of pages and number of posts do not necessarily track with each other chart. The nerd in me cannot be suppressed as I show this lack of correlation in the following chart of number of pages in blue columns and the number of posts in a red line.

The number of pages also does not reflect the time period covered. The thickest books do not necessarily cover the longest time period. In the following chart, the red line of "months covered" do not directly follow the blue columns of "number of pages".  When I just started blogging, it took me almost a year and a half (17.8 months) to build up enough posts for a 228 page book. Mostly I get these books printed about twice a year. For any of my readers who want to try these books, for me and my post style/length/photos I've learned the following rules of thumb:

• 200-250 pages is a comfortable thickness for holding and browsing
• the number of months covered depends on how long the posts are; I aim for 6-8 months
• 24 posts makes a one-page table of contents
• keeping track of cover colors gives me variety when displayed on the shelf; in my humble opinion, consistent colors are not as exciting and also run the risk of a style or pattern being discontinued

These are links to previous volumes and reminders to what covers I selected. Volume 12 has the best, most complete, selection of hints.

• DL2Q Volume 19 posted 11/12/2023 cover choice Mini Print Beige
• DL2Q Volume 18 posted 01/25/2023 cover choice Polka Dots - yellow
• DL2Q Volume 17 posted 07/05/2022 cover choice Red Swirls
• DL2Q Volume 16 posted 01/29/2022 cover choice Strawberry Chocolate
• DL2Q Volume 15 posted 01/29/2022 cover choice Orange Swirls
• DL2Q Volume 14 posted 12/28/2020 cover choice Red Hearts
• DL2Q Volume 13 posted 04/24/2020 cover choice Solid Green
• DL2Q Volume 12 posted 02/23/2020 cover choice Waves-N-Whirls
• DL2Q Volume 11 posted 03/04/2019 cover choice Tree
• DL2Q Volume 10 posted 07/05/2018 cover choice Brown Swirls
• DL2Q Volume 9 posted 06/22/2018 cover choice Polka Dots - green
• DL2Q Volume 8 posted 06/27/2017 cover choice Polka Dots - blue
• DL2Q Volume 7 posted 06/27/2017 cover choice Polka Dots - pink
• DL2Q Volume 6 posted 06/27/2017 cover choice Red Swirls
• DL2Q Volume 5 posted 12/16/2015 cover choice Green Swirls
• DL2Q Volume 4 posted 03/18/2015 cover choice Plum Flowers
• DL2Q Volume 3 posted 03/18/2015 cover choice Flowers - yellow
• DL2Q Volume 2 posted 04/14/2014 cover choice Flowers - pink
• DL2Q Volume 1 posted 04/17/2013 cover choice Blue Swirls

Pumpkin Pleasures at Wooden Gate

I got an email from Wooden Gate Quilts that they were having a sale on Fall fabrics. This pumpkin print caught my eye since I like to collect pumpkins of different materials and patterns and sizes. I bought online and paid for 1¼ yards to make two 22" square pillows, planning to make the trip to the store nineteen miles away a couple days later to pick it up.

Wouldn't you know it, the day I went to pick up my fabric there was a trick or treat Halloween event at the Danville Livery Shopping Center where the quilt shop is. It was a zoo and parking was a challenge but it was kind of cute to see all the kiddos meandering around in costumes. As a fuddy-duddy, I would not have chosen to go on that day; but thrown into the situation, it was a pleasant diversion I most likely would have tried to avoid. The horse team got priority over my parking spot.

Browsing the store I got a couple more items other than the yardage I had pre-paid for. This book, Modern Halloween ©2107 attracted my interest and was included in the fall sale so I bought a copy. The prelude read

Halloween isn't meant to be cute. Leave that for the Easter Bunny. Or at least Halloween for adults doesn't have to be cute. There will be no smiling bats wearing pink hair bows here. Halloween is the one time of the year to embrace the spookier, scarier side of things. The designs in this book are for the modern and mature Halloween enthusiast (doesn't that sound official?) Really, these are projects that can add a unique seasonal touch to your home without making it seem like you have decorated the place for a preschool party.

I am happy with smiling and whimsical pumpkins that can do dual purpose for Halloween and Thanksgiving, even as a grandma. I paged through the book and did like the clean lines of some of the patterns. I was going to get a second copy for my daughter but decided instead to hold off until I saw her at Thanksgiving and see if she wanted a copy. As I browsed Amazon to get a screen grab image for this post, Amazon informed me I had purchased this book before. I immediately felt guilty and careless if I'd already purchased it and stashed it away, forgetting about it. Then I checked the detail of the order and realized I had sent it directly to my adult daughter in Oklahoma in June 2019. She, her husband, and kids are into the ghoulish and zombie type of Halloween. My daughter and I laughed about the book over the phone today, and she was going to look for it first thing when she got home. 

At Wooden Gate's fall sale I also picked up a plush, squishy, fuzzy, pumpkin in a peachy orange. It is the one in the foreground of the next image. I added it to my collection already on the hearth. In the image after that, I typically turn those two jack o' lantern pumpkins on the far right around to face the wall so they do double duty at Thanksgiving. I hope their feelings are not hurt but I would think they would prefer an extended stay on the hearth to plastic bin time in the attic.

Determined not to stash away the pumpkin fabric and forget about it, I order two 22" pillow forms from Amazon. I already had two 18" zippers so I was all set to make up those pillows right away. There would be little waste or leftover scraps since I'd gotten just the right amount of fabric. But I thought the selvages were so cute with the row of itty bitty pumpkins that I did not want to throw them away. I was able to salvage two rows and decided to place them diagonally across the top corner of each pillow. I cut ¼ " away from the white section of the selvage and used that as a seam allowance. Then I flipped over the strip and stitched very close to the edge with white thread, below the dotted black line, leaving the bit of fuzzy fringe intact.

The diagonal selvage bands came out cute but small relative to the entire pillow. Next time I do this I will cut a longer strip of selvage, even if the text shows, so it will be farther down from the pillow corner and more visible.

The two pillows are now deployed on either side of my hearth. I expected the pale gray to play a larger role. But the dark gray is dominant enough that the pillows have more of an orange/black Halloween vibe. I do love the plaid of the pumpkins, though.

Oh, by the way, I did buy two patterns from Etsy, one for sewn pumpkins (Kim Kruzich) and one for knitted pumpkins. (Marie Mayhew). Oh, well. Maybe I'll get to them next year. They look like fun.