A Snowball's Chance

Summer is the time for snowballs, didn't you know? At least it was around here this year, as I finished up my latest scrappy pattern, "A Snowball's Chance." I woke up this morning to the happy email that a couple of people had discovered it on Craftsy last night, so I figured it was time to officially give it a blog post all its own in celebration. Around here a pattern has to prove its worth first, apparently.

So does everyone remember this quilt from last Halloween? It was one of my Scrap Squad projects and the first Halloween project I ever made, because in all honesty, I despise Halloween and never had felt I needed a quilt to remind me it was the time of year of gross disgustingness all around. I still haven't figured out what possessed me to make a Halloween colored quilt, but I also have to admit it really is one of my favorites now. I actually really love it. Probably because unlike other "celebrations" of Halloween, this one isn't dripping in gore.

Supernatural Snowball Fight

 I'd never really worked much with the snowball block, but I kind of found it a relaxing way to bust some scraps, so I decided try a little something for my "inspired by" quilt pattern using snowballs. Those paying attention will recall that each of my Scrap Squad projects resulted in an "inspired by" pattern or project - otherwise my "Give it a Scrap Slap" lecture would be very short indeed. After playing around for a while I came up with the these blocks, which have snowballs sort of in a frame, or if we are being honest, the grey fabric almost makes them look like snowballs in a dirty window. Whatever.

The blocks themselves were pretty simple to put together, and used up lots of my pink scraps in my bin. Not that you'd ever know.


As much as I know I'm not supposed to give big sneak previews of my new patterns on my EvaPaige Quilt Designs facebook page or IG, and as much as it is really not to my advantage because it takes me so long to get the directions like I like them and bring the pattern to completion, excitement always gets the better of me. I want to share, so I do. I am a rebel after all. So I did post this photo of the unbordered top, lounging on my outdoor lounge, back in June. You can tell it is June by the maple wingy things all over the deck and couch that I so fabulously didn't sweep away before taking the photo.

Almost immediately it garnered a ton of response, which let's face it, boosted my ego and sometimes you just need that. So that's another reason I break the rules. I'm a showoff. To their credit, not one commenter mentioned the maple wingies.

Obviously it needed a border, and I decided on some smaller snowballs to mimic the strippy borders of the Halloween quilt. So it was back to the old machine to chain piece my face off.

Eventually I was at the point where I had to face the fact that my cheapo fabric buying ways meant that I had no possible fabric in my stash that would both work color-wise or be big enough. Since my cheapo fabric buying ways also mean that I head directly to the sale racks for backings, always, this is the fabric I came home with. Another post on FB left the question of "Is this ugly or not?" unanswered, but was an entertaining debate.

This was the summer not only of snowballs, but also of teaching my girls how to sandwich a quilt, which left them little time to fight amongst themselves over the crisis du jour. While I won't set them loose on it quite yet, they did a great job helping, even caught a wrinkle or two I didn't see, and I was able to get down to quilting that much faster. I chose to "curvy wave" (a technical term) the snowball parts of the blocks, mimicking what I had done in the Halloween quilt. It was easy the first time around, and I liked how it looked, so why not. Sometimes decisions are just that simple.

The light green snowball shows it best here

More curvy waves, this time linear, filled the background and borders. I'm a big fan of Leah Day's ideas about "busting through" to fill in your quilt with machine quilting with big patterns. The patterns don't have to be complex to get the job done and look good. You might even trick people into thinking you know what you are doing.

Is there anything like that feeling of trimming a quilted quilt? Am I right?

Since despite my cheapo fabric buying ways I managed to way overbuy on the backing, because math schmath, and because the possibly ugly fabric was not offending me much by the time I was done quilting, I decided to use it as the binding as well. A extra pop of yellow with the pink and grey was actually kind of surprisingly okay. Plus who can see it in this photo anyway? You also can't see the pool toys under the deck, which we so cleverly disguised with the length of this quilt.

Using my Quilt Vannas one more time before school starts.

But a photo with headless children and lots of dying grass does not a good cover photo make. So it was up to my photo guru chick to fix that problem. And voila! Once again, she amazes me. I refuse to even listen to her apologies about the wrinkle she couldn't remove because for the love of all that is holy, it looks amazing!

"A Snowball's Chance" is available now; pattern includes two sizes (50" x 50" and 60" x 80") and is appropriate for confident beginners, which I define as "anyone who has used a rotary cutter successfully, made a quilt once on their own, and is ready for a new project."

I'm really excited to bring the actual quilt with me to Wisconsin Quilt Expo next week, where it will take part in my "Give it a Scrap Slap" lecture at 10am each day. I'm so looking forward to meeting several of my midwest peeps and bringing my wacky to a whole new area of the country. If you are coming to the lecture, I might even let you touch this quilt. If that isn't a reason to sign right up, I don't know what is!

Let's do a little Scrap Slapping, Shall We?

I have a new favorite lecture, and its name is "Give it a Scrap Slap." Kudos to Kelli Fannin, who helped come up with the name; it's both edgy and fitting for what I would loosely describe as a rollicking romp through my scrap bins over a year. Read on for a tighter description of the fun!

I've been planning this lecture since the moment in December 2013 when I found out I was on the Quiltmaker magazine 2014 Scrap Squad. Scrap Squad, for those who aren't aware and have clearly not been reading this blog over the past year, is a group of Quiltmaker readers selected each year to scrap up one assigned project per QM issue, and the projects are then highlighted on the Quilty Pleasures blog. Since I am not a huge fan of "fabric line" quilts (again, hello to anyone who finds this news!) and when I see a magazine project I immediately think "How can I scrap this thing up?", it was really like Scrap Squad was created just for me and it would have been a crying shame had I not been chosen. Thankfully QM realized this, right?

I spent much of 2014 and early 2015 creating quilts to show off to the hoards and masses that I sincerely hoped would flock to this lecture. I started advertising it on this blog and in my newsletters last fall for bookings May 2015 and beyond. As April 1, my first practice lecture date, approached, I was in a total tizz of planning, excitement, and that fabulous mix of ego trip and self doubt known intimately by artsy people the world over. Could I pull this off? Was it going to be as amazing as it was in my head? Would the actual people in the audience enjoy the talk as much as my dining room chairs seemed to when I practiced? As seen in this photo, we can at least surmise they paid attention as the woman in read is staring transfixed straight ahead.

We can also surmise that my hands never stop moving. Ever.

 "Give it a Scrap Slap" is a delightful (if I do say) presentation of not only why I really love a quilt made from as many fabrics as possible, but how a quilt transforms from a pattern in a magazine to a masterpiece, or at least a quilt with some more vim, vigor, and velocity when a quilter takes the bones of the project, adds their scraps and flair, and runs with it. It also shows how each project inspired me to create other quilt projects or designs of my own, based on either the colors I had chosen for the scrap versions or some element of the design taking on a new life and begging to show off. Observe the premise of the lecture:

Start with this, "Pup Tents" by Janice Averill, one of our assigned projects.

Definitely my most challenging assignment. Find out why by seeing me in person!

 Scrap it up and do a little "block rotation and switcheroo-ing." It's a thing. Haven't you heard of it?

Eva does have a head. Really she does.

 Put the whole project away for months because you are so sick to death of flying geese you could swear them off for all time, but eventually become inspired by the basic idea of them, do a little more block rotation and switcheroo-ing (See, told you. A thing.) and voila! A new design entirely.

I call it Harlequin Shake. Again, welcome to the newbies who haven't seen it yet!

April 1 arrived, and with it my Squanicook Colonial Quilt Guild meeting. This group of close to 150 members had graciously agreed to the first humans to hear my thoughts on how I had taken the assigned Scrap Squad projects up a notch. Even though I was brutally honest as I walked to the front of the room, warning them that I had "no idea what is about to happen, so brace yourselves," we could not have had a better time. They were so open and accepting not only of my often brazen disregard for proper staid and upright lecture conduct (actually, I'm kind of known for that disregard and it works, so consider yourselves warned) but they were also seriously fascinated by my thoughts on the whole process of being given a project and told to change it, and how I went about each project and made them my own. Not to brag, but what the heck I'm half way there already, members used words like "hilarious, down to earth, authentic and so creative" (actually one member used all of them, so there you go.), "very talented", and "super entertaining." I was blown away, considering I didn't even have to pay them to say these things.

What I was not expecting, but what I absolutely loved about this dry run and I hope it continues for other groups, was all the give and take from the audience. They were not afraid to ask questions along the way, offer what they might have done differently, or suggest names for some of the projects that are still nameless. In all honesty, if I had to describe them as an audience, I'd call them "delightfully rapt" and I hope all audiences will be so! I'll find out soon enough - this lecture is heading to a couple of local guilds in the next two months, as well as flinging itself off to Wisconsin Quilt Expo and Tucson Quilt Fiesta with me in tow over the next 10 months. I seriously cannot wait to start sharing it with audiences everywhere as one booking in, I can already declare this to be my favorite lecture and finest offering and I'm really proud of it. Can you tell?

So how to do you get me to come share the scrappy fun with your group? The best place to start is HERE, where you can read descriptions of all of my programs and workshops and see my current schedule. I'm hugely in favor of guild sharing, so if you have a guild or two in your area who might be interested in discounts or combining your meetings to host me, let's talk! I'll be the one using my hands while we do!

I don't want to brag, but I'm pretty much a Hot Mess

It's time to admit something: I can be a complete idiot.

Like most creative people, I can often be a tad disorganized. While I abhor general household clutter and regularly admonish Mr QH about saving every piece of mail that comes through the door, piling it all up on a counter to make me completely insane every time I walk by the kitchen peninsula, and regularly take a trash bag to my daughters' rooms while they are at school to toss random crap they won't even notice is gone, I'm actually okay with a certain amount of clutter in the studio. I think most quilters are. Call it "a studio in creative mode." At least that's what I call it. Whatever makes us feel normal.

Unfortunately, my creative mode has gotten a little out of hand this year. Since I have to blame something and obviously the problem couldn't possibly be me, I blame my year of Scrap Squad and the need to always be delving into my scrap bins and throwing them about the room to find the right one and the lack of elves to come along and put the bins back.


In further unfortunate news, this organizational chaos has resulted in a six week search for some photos I know I took, but cannot find, of the three blocks I submitted to Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 10. I'm thrilled that they accepted one of them to be included in the issue, which comes out in just a few weeks. I'm thrilled to be participating again in the blog tour, during which I'll regale you with the process of creating my block which will be included, called "Puddle Jumper."

I can hardly wait. Because like you, when I get my issue, what this block looks like will be revealed for what will feel like the first time. That is because I somehow lost all the photos I had taken of the creation process of all three blocks, and I named them all on a whim, filling out the form moments before I shipped them all off. So this is the only remaining photo of my blocks.

That's helpful.

 So what can we surmise from this photo?

1. Batiks were heavily involved in my creative process.
2. I remembered to sign at least one of the blocks.
3. I like a light background.
4. Folding and stacking blocks makes for a pretentiously artsy and stupid photo.
5. My handwriting really does look a bit like knitting.

What it does not help me surmise is which of these blocks actually made the cut, and WTH the winning block looks like. A block I need to not only recreate since I apparently have no photos of the original, and which I also have to play with in EQ to come up with some more stunning items for my blog post during the tour. 

You may have guessed I am too embarrassed to ask. Here's hoping someone at QM takes pity on me after this post goes viral.

It's pretty much my motto.

Summer Survival

It's the third week of summer vacation, and while I must pat myself on the back for the zillionth time over my way more awesome than usual summertime attitude this year, I also must admit that I am very ready for dance and drama camps to start next week.

Very. Very. Ready.

It's been almost three weeks since I logged in to post here, and for that I deeply apologize. This apology is thrown out there in the assumption that you even noticed in your own summer whirlwind crazies.

My biggest excitement of the summer arrived in my inbox while I stood in line at an amusement park the first Monday of summer vacation - an enthusiastic invitation to be the featured speaker at Tucson Quilt Fiesta 2016! WHAT? Tucson? Me? Really? I don't even know how to spell Tucson and I messed it up EVERY SINGLE TIME on the contract that I forced myself to wait three days to send so as not to appear overeager and desperate for the love of a group somewhere decidedly outside of my region. I'm still blown away. Anyone got a good source for cowboy boots?

I hope they'll all be wearing socks under their boots, so I can knock them off.

  The next big excitement came from Cherrywood Hand Dyed Fabrics, who graciously agreed without even making me beg to be my sponsor for the second annual "Two for Teal" mug rug swap. What does that mean? Basically that not only will their fabric be the one everyone gets as a focus piece to use in the mug rug, but also each participant will receive a coupon code for their online shop equal to the amount of the donation to OCRF required for participation. So really you get two amazing prizes for the price of one - the joy of donating to a cause that hopefully will save many a life, and the ecstasy of fabric shopping with a big fat coupon.

Have you seen these fabrics? They are to dye for. hee hee

I'm working out all the details and making some (I think) cool changes to how the swap will be run, and will be announcing all of them along with the opening of sign ups by mid-August. For now, if you want a taste of how last year's swap went, check out the blog post announcing sign ups 2013 and the flickr group where we shared our mug rugs. I really hope you'll want to participate this year so we can help kick ovarian cancer to the curb and then run it over with the car because it deserves nothing less than the worst we can give it.

 Now let's revisit my list of summer projects from my previous post and either end up feeling triumphant or depressed:

1. Secret plans I refuse to divulge because I will likely be rejected soundly and then I will just be embarrassed. - I actually did this yesterday. All we can say at this point is "We'll see how hard they laugh."
2. Get Quilty Pleasures blog post done for Goose Poop. My reveal day is 7/11. May the poop be with you.  - Also done. Wow, two for two! Also I believe my mention of the word "poop" on my FB page cost me a fan or two. Which I just find entertaining.

3. Smack these HST blocks into quilt/new pattern for my new lecture, debuting in May 2015, about my Scrap Squad experiences and consequent inspirations. - Here is the stumbling point. I have several times sat down to sew, only to be interrupted almost immediately (literally 48 seconds later, at one point) by a child who couldn't find her shoes, which I then tried to assist her in finding by helpfully suggesting various locations throughout the house where we often see shoes hiding that she could go look, only to have her come back in tears because they were "Gone! They are just GONE!", and finally being dragged from my seat after three blocks of stitching to find the shoes sitting in the exact spot of the mudroom I told her to look. At that point a gin and tonic always seemed more appropriate than going back to the basement studio.

I'm rejoicing in the little progress I see here.

 4. Finish quilting this sucker. - Yep. Haven't even touched it. With needle and thread or a lint brush.

Also, a lint brush would be a good idea.

5. Send this Modern Instabee block to its new owner. Remember to make time for July and August blocks too. - This is a fine example of "Put something on your list just so you can cross it off." It may have been sent already when I wrote that. Haven't started July or August yet, though.

I'm not adding "lint roll design wall" to the list. We all know I won't do it anyway.

6. Scrap Squad project #4 will be due in September or maybe late August. It's a doozy, but an attractive doozy, and I plan to do some out of the box things to it. My main concern is that I need to remember to work on it as it hasn't been started and therefore is not lying in pieces all over my sewing room reminding/taunting me every time I walk in of its very existence. - It is actually started! This is my main project for camp weeks, and I hope to have it done as soon as my daughters are all camped out.

7. If time permits, get top done for this, even though I'm all annoyed that the idea I had for this quilt just showed up in a new book. Great minds, not enough ways to set circle blocks, I guess. So it's back to the design drawing board as far as what I am going to do with these blocks. - This may or may not be still lying in the exact same spot on the floor of the studio. My toenails are now sporting a lovely shade of dark periwinkle, though, so times have changed slightly.

Hi pretty and coordinating with my blocks toes.

8. Various marketing sorts of things to stay on top of or I'll be dead in the water in September. Or more accurately, January. - Definitely. As sad as it can be, marketing often has to take priority over actual sewing in this business, and summer is definitely when this is most evident to me.

So three weeks, two items down, lots to go but some definite progress. While I can't say I can't complain, I guess I shouldn't so I won't.

Now I'm off for today's exciting adventures, including a trip to the dump and berry picking and pie baking. I promise to wash my hands after the dump or the pies might be especially flavorful.

"Charlie Brown's Happy Dance" revealed!

I'm the girl of the week today over on Quilty Pleasures, showing off how I made Charlie Brown discover the miracle of anti-depressants. So head on over and check out how I made this:






go through some new design permutations

 




and end up hanging off my deck with the help of my charming assistants.

My apologies for the smallness of my photos. I'm going to talk to Diane about that today and see if I did something wrong. The answer is most likely "Of course you did. This involved computers so why wouldn't you?"

Enjoy! And please let me know what you think. I'm having a great time creating these scrap versions of Quiltmaker projects and would love to know if you feel I am doing them justice or not!

DAGMT Days 1-4: Samoa Sewing

I'm going to come right out and say it: When DAGMT starts on a weekend, I am doomed from the start as far as staying on track. Unlike the normal people who see the weekend as a blank slate of time to do things they want to do, most of my weekends are filled with things like this:

No errand to Old Navy is complete without a visit with the manequins.

 Or this:

I'm the fun mom willing to take groups of preteen girls tubing. I'm thinking of becoming the boring mom who stays home and reads a book now and then.

 Or this:

Sometimes I get to be the dance mom. All the double stick tape nightmares become worth it when your kid is so happy to have won.

 Or this:

If only we could somehow force them to stay there for hours. Oh wait! They do that willingly. Love the water trampoline.

 And this is what my first weekend of DAGMT looked like:

Yes, Annaliese, you are adorable. As is Eva the cookiehead. These two never fail to crack me up, really.

I'll say it now - Best Cookie Mom ever. Giving up my sewing time to hang out with a bunch of girls wearing samoas on their heads. I'm living the life, hotties.

But not to be outdone by weekend crazy, I managed a few things this weekend. Behold.

Accidentally created 3D modern art I decided to call "Lettuce Quilt, Shall We?" while pulling fabrics for the backing of a quilt. Then I destroyed the masterpiece and made the backing. It may well be the ugliest backing of all time. I mean LOOK at those fabrics. And then look away quickly before you hurt your eyes.

Sleeved a quilt that had been needing a sleeve for months. Attempted to hang quilt up on wall in family room, but discovered it was 14" too long for the rod in place on the wall there. Measuring is for wimps.

 Aside: Want to know how I put that sleeve on without threading a needle or handsewing? Check out the Sleeve Tute I posted about a year ago. I might change your life. That is, if I haven't already.

Opened a package of piecing thread and needles purchased from Purple Moose. She turned me on to this thread years ago and I just can't live without it. I was running low and this made me happy.

 

Things went really well with some machine quilting. And then they really didn't. So this has been fun.

 Given the fact that I have pretty much had enough of the pink and green quilt for a few due to having spent over two hours pulling out stitches last night, I decided to tackle another project during today's sewing session. I've been wanting to both give these flying geese papers a try, and make a new block to submit to Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, so you know, two birds and all.

Make that lots of birds. Flying geese are my life lately.

 I've been getting in the group swap blocks, which contain flying geese, and several quilters have had some troubles keeping their geese straight and getting the blocks to come out the right size, so I gave a shout to the hotties at Triangles on a Roll, who had offered months ago to let me try their products if I liked. Not being one to grab freebies just to grab freebies (usually, although I do enjoy stumbling upon the Trader Joe's wine tastings while shopping), I waited until I had a block that might benefit. After using them today to make a different 12 1/2" block, I do have to say that while making separate flying geese with them seems a bit wasteful - as you can see the papers are meant for continuous flying geese borders - my block came out utterly perfectly 12 1/2". I bowed down to myself and treated myself to a celebratory avocado tucked into my sandwich, because doggonit I deserved it!

I like this kind of geese. They don't sing their mating songs at 3am while pooping on my front lawn.

 You know you want to bow down to me too when you see those points. Don't be shy, go right ahead.

 As much as I would love to sing the praises of paper piecing all day long with you, I am not going to. One reason is I don't sing. The other is this:

I made ONE block. ONE. This is my garbage can. It was empty before I started.

So I guess we focus on the fact that the block, which I am not showing you because it is already in an envelope, is perfect, and not on the fact that it may have been responsible for mass deforestation of the USA.

It's like the song goes .... "You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have...four flying geese. And a young George Clooney." Or something like that.

Finally today, you all know how I've been drowning in pink and green scraps lately working on my first Scrap Squad assignment, right? Well, if not, there you go. I have. I can't reveal my version of the quilt yet - that will happen when it is my turn on Quilty Pleasures on Feb 28 - but I am allowed to reveal which quilt the six of us have been assigned to scrap up:

Summer Love by Kimberly Jolly

I've been able to see sneak peeks of the other SS members' versions, and I can tell you that you are going to be astonished and amazed by how different this quilt can look in scrappy versions! Margaret Kennedy will be revealing her version first, this Friday on Quilty Pleasures blog, so make sure you check it out.

I'll be over here picking out my quilting on my version.