Laundry Day

I did a little paper piecing. I love paper piecing it because it still challenges me even after all these years. The "sock" on the right is wrong. Oops. Had to start over.

Paper carnage. This is a teensy block. Finishes at 4" x 6".

Cute, huh? You can purchase the pattern at The Tartan Kiwi. Psst, color your sections so you don't mess up like I did.

I used my Artisian bread dough to make a flatbread version of Pissaladieres (onion, anchovy, and olive tart). This is before it baked. Silly thing stuck to my pizza peel, so I scraped it off and put it on some parchment paper. It was really good. Not pretty, but it tasted good.

Have you seen the "banned" movie, "The Interview?" I'm watching it right now and it's pretty funny. Crude, but hilarious. If I don't show up back on the blog, North Korea bombed me.

Snap!

And snap, just like that, the holidays are over. I found Mr. Elf while tidying up my studio. He had fallen from the wall clock and rolled under a stool. I guess Hollywood's "tick tock, tick tock" clue was quite literal. He hung with sock monkey for a few days and today I spotted him hanging from a small Christmas tree. The guy gets around.

I printed these paper pieced Santas out before the holidays, but never had time to whip one up. He's kind of cute, isn't he? To get the pattern, visit the talented Imagine Gnats. I used a sunny yellow background because it was 84 degrees for our holidays. It's still hot three days later. I could use some snow. For a day. At least it was nice out to grill the holiday ham and turkey. That's my idea of fun!

I'm all caught up with the lite version of Quiltville's Grand Illusion mystery. Linky party here. I'm only making half the pieces, so I'll end up with a smaller quilt. Bonnie suggested it as an option, so I'm sure it will work. I almost had enough spare time to go back and make all the units, but I came to my senses. I've enjoyed being with family, cooking, baking, and relaxing. My spice cabinet still didn't get cleaned.

During a cleaning spell, I dumped all the trimmed triangles in my triangle box. I'll deal with those later, or maybe that box will fall into the trash. It's a culmination of many binding miters, and stitch and flip units. Eight years in fact.

Also during the cleaning/organizing/put crap away, people are coming for Christmas preparations, I unearthed a chunk of fabric I can use for a backing. Buying scraps, fat quarters, and one-yard cuts can really bite you in the butt when you want to use your stash for a backing. I think someone gave me the light green floral print on the very right. It's cute and will work perfectly. Flowers go with pirate skulls and Peter Rabbit, right?

I'm Probably at Work

I started this paper pieced block at Sew Day and finished it up at home. I may have an idea of where to use it. I started a Mary Engelbreit baking themed quilt a while ago. Now to unearth that little project. Our guild has a UFO (unfinished object) dare for members. I haven't had the heart to fill out my list, but maybe I'll take a day to document my attention span of a gnat. Or maybe I'll just start a new project. : P

Look at the pretty fabric from the Modern Quilt Guild and Michael Miller. It's their "Petal Pinwheels" collection. I really like it, such great colors. Citrus is my thing. The challenge is to make something quilted. By July 25. Doable, even for a slow poke like me.

Julie gifted me a bag of gorgeous selvages at Sew Day. She loves Kaffe fabrics more than me if that's possible. There are some Brandon Mably and and Phillip Jacob lovelies in there too.

I used a few to make Julie a coaster. The rest went into my collection. I just love playing with them. It's about time for a bigger selvage project. I have four selvage string blocks made, so maybe I'll just add to those.

Whipped up a little pouch while watching a movie. The jellybeans are getting low, but I bought the "kids" Target clearance candy since the Easter Bunny stiffed them candy wise.

Hope your week is happy!

Challenge, Indeed

Yanick encouraged Orlando Modern Quilt Guild members to try the Double Wedding Ring Challenge the New York City Modern Quilt Guild was hosting. I was a little late to the party, but I still wanted to give this block a try. It's a challenge all right! I chose a paper pieced pattern from McCall's to play with.

The paper piecing part was fun and easy. I used my colorful scraps and stitched away. Sewing the white melons was also not terrifying. Well, maybe a little. ;)

It went downhill from there. Fitting that white center part was easy, but I had difficulty matching everything up for the Y-seams on the connector blocks. Gah!! Unsewing was involved. I contemplated taking out the white melons and appliqueing the rings on top of a white background, but that would have been more unsewing. Then I relaxed by ripping paper off the paper pieced sections.

Finally I was ready to sandwich the quilt. I'm low on batting, so I had to Frankenstein my last two big pieces together. No biggie. This was the last of the bamboo/cotton batting I bought to give a try. I really like it.

I decided to quilt the dog out of it to get my less than perfect joins to behave. Simple, organic wavy lines in white thread. I used my walking foot and went to town. This baby has mad texture.

Round quilts need bias binding. Eek. There's a first time for everything. This mini quilt is a learning adventure. I used this tutorial by Tinkerfrog and was on my way. Six years ago I didn't know what a bias was.

The binding was hand sewn to the back. Boy, I almost ran out of orange thread too. I think a trip to Jo-Ann's is in order.

Whew, challenge complete. I wasn't able to enter the contest because my quilt was a bit larger than 20", but it was a fun challenge none the less. I hope you'll go see the entries and how clever they all are.

Rene's Double Wedding Ring Mini

Yanick's Modern Beauty

Kathryn's DWR Mini

My guild buddies made some beauties too! I hope they don't mind me grabbing photos from their blogs. I'm moving on to Canoe Ridge Creations' Giant Starburst Quilt Along and the Quiltville Mystery Quilt. The fun just never ends!

Blahblahtoberfest (aka Blogtoberfest)

Warning, warning, it's Blogtoberfest. Also known as Blahblahtoberfest. Blogtoberfest is an annual blogging festival that encourages you to blog every day in October. It's an opportunity to meet other creative bloggers and share what you're doing. I guarantee you'll meet some kindred spirits and laugh daily.

This is my sixth(!) year of participating and if anything, stick around to see how "creatve" my posts get by the end of the month. I apologize in advance. I do find it a unique challenge and love seeing how others enjoy the process of sharing. Plus, you'll see tons of inspiration, free patterns and projects, and a few giveaways too.

Stolen from the Internets

Awww, piglets are so cute. We've been on a pork kick. Bacon, ham, Italian sausage, pork chops, oh my. I stuffed our homegrown jalapeno peppers with feta cheese and wrapped them with bacon. Only 200 more jalapenos to deal with. The guys had Italian sausage and pepper sandwiches Monday night and I'm making rosemary pork chops tonight.

The ham I cooked was awful. Dry and not a lot of flavor. Luckily the Inspector likes ham salad. If you have a good recipe for ham salad, please share. I made these sweet potato biscuits to go along with the ham. They were excellent. We were joking that the pig that supplied that ham must have been into aerobics and only ate parsley. The ham produced no drippings, so it ruined my butter beans too. I may need Ham 101 lessons.

Spotted this adorable Eiffel Tower paper piecing pattern yesterday. Just the project I needed to start my week. The tower is part of a quilt along {Big City Girl QAL}, but I didn't have time yesterday to figure what it was all about. I may have to go back and check out the other contributions. This is why I love blogs! I learned to sew online and thank each and every person who inspired and continues to inspire me. Let's get this Tuesday going.

Linking to Made by you Monday and During Quiet Time.