What????

This is what we woke up to this morning on April, 14th in the land of cherry blossoms and green grass.  Can you believe it?  All my lovely daffodils were bent over from the weight of the snow.  The branches of the trees that are heavy with buds were all burdened with the extra weight of the wet snow.  CRAZY!!  The snow is gone now but it hung around until at least noon before rain washed it away.  Our pour wee hummingbirds were not happy!

DS Quilts Collection From Heather Ross's blog

On the sewing front, apparently the Joann's in Bellingham, Washington does not yet have the DS Quilts  fabric.  Darn!  The quest will continue because that fabric looks beautiful!  And for those of you in Australia, apparently Spotlight will be carrying the fabrics, at least according to True Up.

100th post today!

How funny is that?  I see on that this is my 100th post!  Who knew???  I am on the quest to find the perfect paper for my paper pieced string blocks.  I was using printer paper and a pretty good quality paper at that.  It was really hard to tear off the blocks.  Not impossible just gave a great finger work out.  I thought of lined, 3 hole punched paper as a student would use.  I gave it a whirl here just now and this is what I thought.  Firstly, the paper is thinner so does provide as stable a base for the paper piecing but still very satisfactory.  I was a little worried how it would stand up to the trimming or squaring up of the block but it was just fine.  And secondly, totally easier to tear away the paper at the end.  Much better and less expensive too.

I must say I am totally jealous that Joann's is selling Denyse Schmidt prints and we are sitting up here in Canada without.  Boo hoo.  The line looks really nice.  And it does not seem to be available on line.  Double boo hoo.  I might have to take a field trip to Bellingham!

Ready to quilt...

The jelly roll quilt is ready to go.  I am still debating the quilting aspect though.  I am a little bored of stippling so I will be thinking about a method of straight line that will still work with this type of block.  I did piece the back with a leftover block, then some of the prints and then a snazzy thrift store sheet.

I have the string pieced blocks on the go.  I think I have made about 30 blocks so am half way there.  They go together quickly but strangely enough the box of scraps does not seem to be diminishing.  It is like a bottomless magic pot.  I think I had a children's book like that.  Tina and the Magic Pot.

I am back to school this evening for the opening night of the dramatic event, "Follow that Rabbit," an Alice in Wonderland play.  Most exciting!

yummy

Husband made cookies.  Darn.  They are really good.  I will have to be on the bike longer.

Butterscotch Honey Cereal Crunchies

Preheat oven to 375 degrees (F)

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup liquid honey
1 egg
1 3/4 cups butterscotch chips
2 cups corn flakes
2 cups crisp rice cereal
1 cup flaked coconut (optional)

Combine flour, baking powder and soda.  Cream butter and sugars, honey and egg.Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture, mixing well.  Stir in the remaining ingredients.  Drop by tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake 8-10 minutes or until golden.  Cool for 5 minutes on the sheet then cool on a rack.  Yum.

Using up the scraps!

Okay, this is almost addictive.  I have been making paper pieced string blocks all day.  I make them in batches and then go and sit beside Husband to rip the paper off the blocks.  That way he doesn't miss me too much.  He was in front of the TV today because not only was it golf but curling.   All he needed was darts and he wouldn't have been able to speak for the excitement.  It was that kind of day.  It poured rain.  POURED all day!!  Hence the poo, from the great manure delivery of yesterday, is still waiting for its moment in the sun.

I threw the blocks on the design bed to get an idea...

And I did sandwich the jelly roll quilt.  Spray baste is my friend.  Man, who needs pins?  It just goes together so easily with the spray.  I did not start quilting, however, because I was having too much fun with scraps.  Never did I think I would say that.  My only question now is, how do you know when a scrap is too small and should be tossed?  I think I am a fabric hoarder.

almost ready to be tossed scraps

Happy Saturday!

Found some good quilting cotton at the thrift store this morning.  3 metres of tone on tone cream quilt backing was quite a lovely find.  A light green print from Henry Glass fabrics.  I think there are about 3 metres there as well.  Another print from Henry Glass... the red plaid.  Some stripes.  And the Disney print is to make Daughter a scrub top.  Making scrub tops is just like making doll clothes but a little bigger.  Daughter doesn't mind if I use rick rack and have fun.

Although I was a bit of a farmer today, what with waiting for a giant delivery of manure for the garden and helping Husband burn all the blueberry prunings, I did have time for sewing.  I finished the jelly roll quilt top complete with borders and prepared the back so tomorrow, should I feel so inclined, I will sandwich and spray baste it.  Secondly, I found a great tutorial here for making paper pieced string blocks.  Be still my beating heart.  Finally something that makes me want to use my scraps.  I grabbed a stack of paper from the printer and cut the paper to 8 1/2" blocks with a fold on the diagonal.  I grabbed my bags of scraps and found all the strips and made strips from bigger scraps.  The strips range from narrow, at a little less than an inch to 2 1/2".  I did not adjust my stitch length for the first block and it was difficult to tear the paper away.  Curses.  I did make the stitch length smaller the next time around and it was much easier to tear the paper away but not super easy still.  I am using fairly good quality paper.  I think it would be better to use cheap, thin stuff.  The tutorial from Film in the Fridge, even suggests that some people may use pages from a phone book.  Go figure!?

bag-o-scraps

block before squaring up, still with paper

woo hoo!  paper pieced scrap string block

We never have any phone books in the house because Husband always recycles them.  He is thinking, and rightly so, that phone books are old school.  When is the last time you actually looked up a number in the phone book?  We always use the computer. I suppose you could use catalogue pages too.   Oh wait.  Those were recycled too.

And I have forgotten to mention our record golf ball harvest from last weekend.  In one small area where we have made a new flower bed along the fence, we found 12!  Yep!  12 golf balls.  Crazy!

TGIF

I have another thing to put on the list of things that are potentially harmful to one's marriage.  I already was fully aware that income tax completion and moving furniture were definitely on the list of things that could do in a marriage.  I will now officially add installing window blinds to that list.  Absolutely and totally not good for marriage.  Husband and I did successfully install a lovely wooden window blind in one of the living room windows.  It looks lovely.  We are still married.

Aside from that it was yet another glorious spring day.  I managed to sew the blocks of my Hunky Dory jelly roll quilt together and now that they are all co-mingling together, I am much more fond of the whole shebang.  Husband liked it too!  I had him help me pick the solid for the inner border.  He is just so good at that.  And here are the border choices.  A solid blue something or other from the local quilt shop and Hunky Dory blue vines.  I think it will be great!

And I found a fabulous sheet to use for the back.  It has the perfect vibe.  (And it is really green on white but for some reason my photo looks pinkish.  What?)