East Coast and West Coast Purchases

I've been traveling. I was in North Carolina last week visiting my sister and the weekend I returned my husband and I took a 90 minute drive up north to Sacramento so I could check out a quilt show there. Here are some of my purchases.

In North Carolina...
I picked up a half-yard piece of each of these boy-like flannels for burp cloths.

I bought three fat quarters of this orange and white  stripe to go with some bathing beauty fabric I already had at home. It is a pretty darn good match on the oranges based on memory alone.

It also reminding me of summertime as a kid and the Creamsicles brought by the ice cream truck in our neighborhood.

Somebody else must like Creamsicles, too. While searching for an image I came across this wall sculpture on bungalowww.tumblr.com. It really tickled my fancy.

I bought some pinkish fabrics. The one on the left is 1 yard, just enough for an apron for my sister. The one on the right came home with me because I liked the squiggly pattern and it reads like an interesting solid. I plan to use it as sashing so I bought 1½ yards to minimize piecing long stretches. It seems versatile enough that I am sure it would also be good filler somewhere.

I've noticed I am into asymmetry of late and I bought a card of three buttons because I liked the offset flower. The gray and yellow combination seems to be everywhere now, but this gray had a slate-like bluish tone to it that caught my eye for some reason that I could not quite put my finger on. When I got home it clicked. These buttons will be the perfect accent on a periwinkle sweater I am knitting for myself. It is one of the projects that just got set aside and others intervened. I bought a second card of three buttons at my local store. The buttons are large but then the knit is rather bulky so I think it is fitting. Funny, but just a acquiring a set of stimulating buttons has renewed my interest in this project.

And in Sacramento...
At first I was practical, buying only fabrics that read like a solid. My sister in North Carolina had been unable to find turquoise pin dot for an Easter dress for her granddaughter. Believe me, we tried and hit every store for miles around while I was visiting there last week. Of course I had to buy it when I found it out here in California and mail it back to her.

But that purchase whetted my appetite for pin dots so I got a yard each of grey and orange for my own stash.

I have a boy grand baby on the way, so these two blues will definitely be useful. They read like a solid and I think the term for that these days is low volume fabric...? I bought one yard of each.

I bought one yard of this purple because I liked the whimsy of the irregularly shaped polka dots.

Then that whole "stick to practical solids and low volume fabrics thing" went awry. I could not pass up these fat quarters. I think they will add great dimension to a quilt so I bought one in each colorway. Although I could only get one fat quarter of each, that is a good thing since a fabric like this is best taken in low doses. A little goes a long way. Crazy! I hope I do not get dizzy working with them!

I bought this pattern. I was drawn to its asymmetry and think the construction will be quite different and maybe a bit challenging. I actually like the colors and fabrics it is made up with. I may keep the white, gray, and charcoal but tip the orange more toward red and tweak the turquoise to a blue that better matches my décor.

My daughter has a friend who loves pirates so I bought this pillowcase kit. But then my granddaughter loves pirates, too, so... ♫ YO-HO, YO-HO, a pirate pillowcase will be ♫.

Ok. I have not determined a use for this fabric, but how could I pass it up when I have two granddaughters?

Then at home...
After traveling I am usually tired and take a couple days to recover. So I launched into a couple of quick projects to relax. Doing this also further delays my FMQ in waiting, which demands my courage and concentration. I made four burps cloths, each of which take two fat quarters or a fat quarter and a regular quarter yard. And I made an apron that took 1 yard of fabric.

I paired the race cars flannel I'd bought in NC with a multicolored chevron graphic print from my stash to make two burp cloths. I made both cloths the same, instead of complements of each other as I usually do, since I had the chevrons in a quarter yard cut and not a fat quarter.

The two blue zoo animals burp cloths I made today are not complements of each other, either. Again, the orange flannels I had were quarter yard cuts and not a fat quarter format. I'd bought a clearance kit of fat quarter cuts about two years ago that was intended to be made into a patchwork flannel blanket. I have been pirating the pieces for the central section of burp cloths instead.

Here is the apron for my sister, also sewn today. The night before I'd left from visiting her we had hastily traced her favorite apron on a sheet of newspaper for a pattern I could take back with me. The waist ties are extra long, just as she likes them so she can criss cross them in the back and tie them in the front. The neck tie is not adjustable simplifying its construction. It is attached at just the custom length that is comfortable for her.

I got to practice using my handy-dandy Clovis Bias Tape Maker. I only steamed my thumb twice! Ouch! Not with using the bias maker, though, but afterward when ironing the tape output from the end of it in half along its length. I've got to get better at that part of the process. I made the ties along the length of grain and did not bother with making them bias. They are simpler to cut out this way, the straight of grain feeds though the bias tape maker just fine, and in use they are not as stretchy, so they work well.

Here is the apron all tied up with a scrap of leftover ties and ready to mail off.

Now I am linking up to this to look at others' Works In Progress at this week's Freshly Pieced.

Yay! My Blog Books Arrived

Volume 3 and Volume 4 of DianeLoves2Quilt arrived on January 20th and January 22nd. I guess I was pretty prolific this year, since I exceeded the page limit of shared book and had to split it into two volumes. I just plumb forgot to blog about the blog book arrival I was so intent keeping up the momentum on my Simple Gifts quilt and helping my son and daughter-in-law move at the end of January. Then, in March, I forged ahead on my Classic Cars and Overlapping Squares UFOs.

I picked a bright sunny yellow for the binding on Volume 3 and featured a cover photo of myself with my daughter, my daughter-in-law, and my two granddaughters. They were all visiting on a gloriously sunny Father's Day weekend. The dedication of Volume 3 reads:

"The first half of 2014 saw the addition of a second granddaughter, born April 6, 2014. Keeping up with sewing for the new baby and her toddler cousin, born October 11, 2012,  kept me busy."

The back cover is a Dr. Seuss tongue in check tribute to the two granddaughters, who we lovingly dubbed Thing1 and Thing 2. See? That bright primary yellow also really sets off the red and blue of Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Volume 4 covered the holiday portion of 2014. The oranges of the tree sweater in the front photo and the green of the stockings and Grinch Quilt in the rear photo inspired me to go with a purple for the binding. Why not? Primary colors for Volume 3 and secondary colors for Volume 4. Volume 4's dedication reads:

"In the second part of 2014 there was a bit more knitting, a bit more decorating, a bit more visiting, a bit more remembering and a bit more of a seasonal theme."

The rear cover photo features some of the Christmas decorations at our house in 2014.

My post about my first blog book was April 23, 2013. I discuss in that post my lessons learned. I talk about changes I implemented in Volume 2 in my post for April 14, 2014. Obviously I am happy with this company since I have used them for five blog books now, four volumes of DianeLoves2Quilt and one smaller blog book to go along with a gift quilt Color Play of the Day containing posts just about its making (completion post on July 19, 2013). The link to SharedBook is http://blogspot.sharedbook.com/blog2print/googleblogger/index.html. The site is user friendly. I intend to continue periodically collating my posts into a coffee table style book I can enjoy paging through when not at the computer and that I can pass on to my kids someday.

However, I'd like to make folks aware of a limitation of shared book that I just encountered. I wanted to extend making hardcover books to my other blog. I compiled a book over a period of posts but, when I previewed the blog book online, the captions were integrated in, and indistinguishable from, the main text. I contacted the SharedBook help line with the issue thinking perhaps it was a WYSIWYG ... what you see is what you get... preview quirk. Unfortunately, with my caption style, the software treats formatting the captions in a way I found unacceptable. I do not caption in DianeLoves2Quilt so it was a non-issue for this blog. In the other blog though I would need to go back and add blank lines and additional manual line breaks, which was too daunting a task for the number of posts and pictures I had. Maybe I will change my format from this point on and, perhaps when I am bored on a rainy day, go back and play with older posts if I still want to make historic blog books for WanderOrPonder.

But now, I am on to more quilting-centric works in progress by linking up to this week's Freshly Pieced WIP.