Cock A Doodle Doo

http://barbsgoodlife.blogspot.com/2009/08/show-us-your-roosters-party-time.html

Welcome to my rooster party! Come along with me to my Mom's place. That's where all the roosters hang out. She has quite a special collection.

Here we have a kitchen towel hanging from a Fridgidaire stove. The towel is not old, but you can bet the stove has that certain vintage charm.

This rooster is the newest member in the flock. It was a birthday gift to my Mom from a good friend. Right now it is sitting on top of a quilted runner that I made from "Fresh Squeezed" Moda fabric. The rooster usually sits on a 3 tiered shelf in the kitchen.

Here we go back to the 50's for this pair of roosters. This pair is quite charming and even though they are similar, they are not quite the same. The rooster on the left has his head turned at a slightly different angle. The other one faces straight ahead. I guess it is hard to tell from this photo.

Lastly, we have a vintage candle holder set and a matching spoon rest. The bottom photo is the intended way to set the spoon in the spoon rest. Apparently, my Dad broke the spoon rest that was just like this one. Luckily my mom spotted the same spoon rest at her Aunt's house and when she heard how much my mom wanted to replace the broken one, her Aunt gave it to my Mom. These 3 fine roosters are arranged on a carrot table runner designed by my college friend, Shelley Robson.

Be sure to visit Barb at Bella Vista using this link. You'll be sure to see many fantastic roosters at a lot of other blog sites. http://barbsgoodlife.blogspot.com/2009/08/show-us-your-roosters-party-time.html

Quilts by Kids and Art Education

I'll soon have a couple of very special quilts to share with you. They were primarily designed by children, but the actual construction was done by our schools artist in residence, Diana Swim and myself. It has taken a while to do all the finishing touches, but they are nearly ready to hang in our school. I will try to get some pictures when I am at school today and post them this evening or tomorrow.

I have been considering starting a second blog in which I might talk about close up details of the art that I have my students do in class. I have been mulling about and I'm trying to think of a catchy name for an art education blog. Our students return to school next Monday and it would be fun to roll this out on the first day.

Rooster Party With Barb at Bella Vista

I have signed up to join Barb's Rooster party for this Friday on Aug 28th. Tons of bloggers will be posting photos of rooster items. It will be a fun party. Somewhere at school I think I have a rooster painting that was from a rummage sale. I am going to get some photos of my mom's vintage rooster collection too. It should be a great party.

Click here if you would like to find out more or sign up for yourself:

http://barbsgoodlife.blogspot.com/2009/08/show-us-your-rooster-blog-party.html

Moda Postcard Quilt

Moda Postcard Quilt
Originally uploaded by quilterinagarden

This has been a UFO for quite some time. I hate to say it, but I guess I made the blocks 2 years ago when I was going to Moda U. I remember sewing them together as the year was finishing and then I don't think I worked on the quilt until the following summer. Then at about this same time in August last year I believe I got in the mood to finish it at a weekend retreat. That's when I put on the inner and outer scrappy borders. Now this summer I have been dragging it on one car trip after another while I hand quilt it and sew the binding to the back. Believe it or not, it may be complete any day now!

Dahlia

Dahlia
Originally uploaded by quilterinagarden

The dahlia that I've had my eye on is in full bloom out by the alley. When someone gave me these bulbs this spring I was unsure of how they would look, so most went into the garden out back. I have to say they will get a place of honor next year. I will did them out this fall to overwinter them and they will go in the main garden for next year. They are beautiful!

Do you listen to anything while sewing?

Do any of you readers and quilters out there also like to listen to http://www.pandora.com/ while you are sewing? I sure do and I have made many different stations to choose from when I am in different moods. I also enjoy making up my own quick mix from the various stations that I have saved.

I have never tried watching a movie, but that might be fun too. I'll have to look into getting a little tv with a dvd player. Now, where to put that in my very full sewing room???

Otherwise, I often enjoy watching the shows on http://www.thequiltshow.com/ with Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson. Are there any readers out there that also belong to their website?

Anybody know some quilter's podcasts that would be good to hear on my ipod?

Cranking Out the Roses

While most of the vacation in St. Louis was for sightseeing and shopping, I also had some time to piece together 5 more roses for my Little Bouquet. I must get myself caught up for the quilt along! You can find more information at Cherri's blog. Her blog is called Cherry House Quilts. I find it to be very informative. She wrote up excellent directions that you may follow if you'd like to make a Little Bouquet quilt too.

The interesting thing about my vacation quilting is that I constructed the roses using the Singer handcrank toy. It is a blast that this little gem sews as well as it does. The only modification I had to make was to start sewing at the edge of the foundation rather than on the edge of the fabric. That way the chain of thread could countinue to be unbroken. The hotel iron had plenty of steam. It was nearly as good as my Rowenta at home.

Taking in the sights of St. Charles MO

This is a really cute quilt shop I visited while vacationing in St. Louis. It is located in an adjacent town of St. Charles and it is tucked amongst many other cute shops. The name of the shop is Patches, Etc. They have many wonderful fabrics and specialize in redwork quilts.

Every so often there was a break between buildings and a some very fine little gardens could be found mixed in with the shopping venues.

Just down the street from Patches is another cute shop for those that enjoy crafts. It's name is Rock, Paper, Scissors.
I enjoyed this shop very much because they carried many rubber stamps and had many examples of fun paper projects on display. I ended up only purchasing art trading card supplies, but they do have a website, so I'll look them up later this winter.These topiaries were up and down the whole main street of the shopping area in St. Charles, MO. I was really curious about the set up of these floral displays. They had put fence posts in the middle of a large wooden planter and potted up the red begonias in the moss baskets. The baskets had a metal fitting on the bottom that just matches up with the shape of the fence post top. They had really grown in very lush and made a very cute street decoration.

The Jewel Box @ Forest Park St. Louis MO

Here is a beautiful place my husband and I visited on our vacation. We were done looking at all the art at the St. Louis Art Museum and on the way out of Forest Park, we saw this gem of a conservatory. It is has a beautiful display of plants. The center aisle is equipped with a fountain for special occasions. It was a hot day, but the air conditioning was running inside, so the tour was very pleasant.

Little Bouquet Quilt

I have joined an awesome quilt along with Cherry House quilts at http://lizzyhouse.typepad.com/cherry_house_quilts/little-bouquet-quilt-along/.

They have been making Little Bouquet Quilts like crazy over there.

Here's a little photo for you to see my start in the Little Bouquet Quilt Along.

I have a little start on my flowers and I'm planning to make a neutral and pale green background.

Tile Job

Have you ever been just going to fix one thing and ooopps, by accident, you just made something else worse?

That's what happened a couple of days ago when I was just going to put new calk around the shower. I was cleaning out the old calk, and of course 2 tiles on the floor HAD to pop out. Then to make matters worse, nearly the entire row was out.

Good thing I had some practice at making mosaic crafts. I had to think of this home repair as an art project. That is the only way I could do it myself. I kept telling myself, "Its almost the same as a stepping stone with cement or it can't be as difficult as doing a mosaic garden pot."

The job is nearly done. I'll just put the grout sealer on today and run that bead of caulking and it'll be as good as new. But I'll tell you this much, I'd much prefer making a mosaic stepping stones for the garden any day. In fact, I am looking forward to making a garden potting table with a mosiac tile top or backsplash. Can you believe that??? I can do crafty things for the garden with tiles, but I don't think I could do a tile floor in the house!

Anna's Summer Quilting Adventure

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Anna has worked hard on her studies this summer and she's been learning to quilt!

Making Basil Pesto

The 3 basil plants that I have in my garden have become quite large and it was time to lop off the tops for a large batch of basil pesto. So the trimmings went for a cold water swim in the kitchen sink. Then I dried them on a towel while I gathered the remaining ingredients.

For a small batch I put in 25 large leaves, 1/3 c olive oil, 1/4 c grated parmesan, 1/4 c pine nuts, 1 large sprig of flat leafed parsley, the zest of 1 lemon, one clove of garlic (pressed), a dash of salt and pepper, and a pinch of lemon pepper.






I whirred it up in the blender and it turned to a smooth green spread . What didn't go into the pasta and veggie dish was bagged up and placed in the freezer for pizza and sandwich spreads later.





MMM... delicious!

Currently in Bloom

The stargazer lily is a standout in the garden this week. They don't take a lot of work and are beautiful when other plants in the garden have finished. I have 2 planted amongst the peony bushes and they tower above the green leaves of the peony that was done blooming in June.

Close up shot which might be good for making a Kaleidoscope photo using Kaleidoscope Kreator 2.0.

More color blocks for swap

I have 40 more blocks done for the color block swap.. Since red was a color that was behind in the count, I decided to sew these up. I have safety pinned them in 4 groups of 10 as I sewed them. I find that when I don't use the safety pin, I am forever recounting blocks.

Next I will repress them and use Mary Ellen's lavender scented spray starch, clip threads and double check the size of each block against the acrylic 6 1/2 inch square ruler. http://fourseasonsquiltswap.blogspot.com/