More Quilters for the Diary Quilt Along

I have 2 more quilters interested to join up with the Hazel's Diary Quilt Along that Shelly has planned.

My mom has blue and yellow fabrics set aside to do the smaller version. I am going to print Shelly's swatch sheet to get her organized. We are on the look out for a good stripe to use for the binding and the sashing strips. We'd like it to have blue, yellow, cream, and a touch of red and a smidge of green. Perhaps a nice woven plaid would also work. I am going to check if our local quilt shop might have some Portugal fabric left from April Cornel's line a few seasons ago. I think one of those plaids or stripes might be just right.

My good friend Deb has decided to jump in and do a flannel version of the big quilt. Her fabrics are in the shabby rose style and she'll be using some beautiful large floral prints in sage green, peachy pink, and tea dyed ivory. We tea dyed the fabric that had the white background and it came out perfectly for the project! We liked it so much the ivory fabrics went into the left over tea and came out equally as nice.

Making Mittens from Recycled Sweaters

Front view of mitten:

Palm view of mitten:

My sewing friend had the idea to make a project from felted wool sweaters. She was inspired by friends that had shown her some finished pairs which were given as gifts for Christmas. She found a really good tutorial on line and we watched the video several times before getting started with the project. My friend worked ahead of each step and coached us through making more pairs on Saturday afternoon.

Here are the shrunken wool sweaters are ready for cutting.We printed out the copies of the 3 pattern pieces. We watched a tutorial video and printed off our patterns at a Utah tv station's website. The printed directions are right on the same page as the video and the link. The pattern for the 3 pieces is provided at the bottom of the page.
To view the full article and watch the video demonstration, go to Studio 5's website.



Making felted wool mittens was SO MUCH FUN!!! It was a pretty easy project too! Now of course, I'd like to make a fleece lined felt wool hat to match.

Blocks for Thimbleberries 2009 Quilt

I am glad to say that I have sewn all the blocks I need for my 3's Company quilt from the 2009 Thimbleberries quilt club. The main block was 12 1/2 inches and the other blocks are 6 1/2 inches. There are 36 pieces mini ones and 30 appliques style. The applique ones come from a panel, so there wasn't any sewing involved with those, only trimming! In the past, I didn't really care for the colors of Thimbleberries fabrics, but having made a quilt in 2008 with entirely those colors made me change my mind.

Singer Cabinet

I did have to bring the sewing cabinet in before the snowflakes flew, but it's paint isn't finished the way I'd like it yet. I happened to think about my old paper sculpture from college days and I went over to my Mom's to get it. She was happy about that! It just fit perfectly into the opening for the machine. At least both items are seeing the light of day, instead of being stuffed into a closet somewhere. The assorted knob seen sitting to the left of the pin tuffet are from a gift shop. I may use one on the front door of the cabinet as a replacement for the very boring brass one that I took off while base coating the wood with the white primer.

The machine that goes in the cabinet is underneath the legs right now. It is a turquoise Singer (Vintage 1950's) I'd guess. I intend to put it back into the cabinet sometime this summer. My thought was to use a mixture of brown and turquoise glaze to antique the white finish. The extension is being repaired by my brother. Some of the laminated wood had lifted and he is injecting it with glue and clamping it down. I think it will be pretty cute when it's put back together!

Zucchini Moons

A recipe my husband and I like for a side dish is full moon and half moon zucchini slices. Here is a photo showing the simple ingredients.

If the zucchini is large, I cut it in half before slicing it. If it is a baby zucchini, I keep it whole and make round slices. I toss the slices with a tablespoon of olive oil and coat them in a breadcrumb and Parmesan cheese mixture with a little salt and pepper for seasoning. I lightly press the breading into the zucchini slice before placing the tray in the oven.

Then I bake them off in the oven at 425 degrees for 15 min. We like to serve them with sloppy joes or meatloaf. It is a pretty healthy side dish.

Preparing Bindings

Yesterday I cut several different Tuscan reds for both sizes of my quilts for the quilt along. The small one is made from a stripe that was too small for all the setting pieces, but large enough for just the binding. For the large quilt I thought it might look unique to piece together several different reds! I do like the look of a scrappy binding.

Fabrics for Large Quilt

Fabrics for Large Quilt
Originally uploaded by quilterinagarden

It turned out that my quilting friend, Deb had just the right striped fabric to go along with my red and tan color scheme. Yesterday afternoon we went up to her spare bedroom (we call it her personal quilting shop) and it was sitting right on the corner of her cutting table. We hardly even had to look at any other fabric, it was so perfect.