Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop!

I'm Cathy and this is what I am working on!

  

Hi there!  Welcome, if you are visiting from the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop that Beth from Plum and June is hosting so fabulously!  I am Cathy and I have been blogging for about a year and a half.  I seriously love fabric.   I make mostly bed size quilts but have been known to crank out baby quilts too. I quilt all my quilts myself and I always finish bindings by hand, just so you know.  That is one of those questions that is often asked.  I also tend to mix up fabric lines and rarely use fabric from just one line in a quilt.  My husband is a great quilt colour advisor.  OH!  And Canadians spell colour with a "u".   I love scraps and try to make sure I pepper my quilting with scrap quilts as well.  I love colour and like to think that I am not afraid to use it!  I work full time as an elementary school principal but manage to find lots of sewing time at home.  We live on a small blueberry farm about an hour and a bit outside of Vancouver, Canada. I hope you have a look at some of my finished quilts while you are visiting.  You can see a few of them up on my blog header and then click on the tabs to see finishes from last year and this year. 

Beth had a few questions for us and here are a few answers...

Favourite quilting tip:  Use good thread.  Hera markers are awesome.  Be careful with your rotary cutter.  I cut my finger badly this summer.  Eek!

Favourite Quilting Book:  I have to say that as a go to book, Elizabeth Hartman's book The Practical Guide to Patchwork is fabulous.  Her blog is awesome too.  

If I had only known before I started blogging:  Hmm.  Just do it.  Make sure you are not a no reply blogger.  And comment on other blogs.  People like to read comments and will often check out your blog as a result.  Link up with lots of linky parties like Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day, Lee's Work in Progress Wednesdays and Quilt Story's Fabric Tuesdays.

And I have a tutorial for you! Beth has said something about novelty fabric and I happened to see some Tinkerbell fabric in my stash.  Then I thought that I should think about boys too and the rest just fell into place. I picked out some Bugs in a Jar scraps and a few other things.   I just love making these!  

Waldo is going camping

pillow and sleeping bag?

comfy!

would fit a teddy or a doll

and the doll version

Doll pillow and pillow case tutorial

Supplies:

Some fabric scraps that suit your fancy, a bit of lace trim (skip if making boy version) and some fiberfill stuffing for the pillow.



For the pillow: 

1 piece of fabric 8" x 10.5"  (I like to use stripes because then it looks like ticking!)

Turn under one edge 1/4" and press.  Fold in half and sew 2 sides together, leaving the end with the pressed under edge open for turning and stuffing.  Use a 1/4" seam.  Turn, stuff lightly for dolly comfort.  Sew close to the edge finishing your wee pillow.

For the Pillowcase:

1 piece of fabric 12.5" x 6.5" (main fabric choice)
1 piece of fabric 12.5" x 4"  (contrast)

Place wrong sides together.  Don't forget to place your lace trim in between the two fabrics! Sew with a 1/4" seam.  Press the seam towards the contrasting fabric and turn under 1/4" along the edge of the contrast.  Pin, carefully matching the seam.  Sew down the long side and the end of the pillow case.  Turn and very carefully fold under the contrast so the turned under edge just meets the pressed seam.  Very carefully sew along the edge.   It is a little tricky but it can be done!  I have taken lots of pictures for you.  If you mess up and you don't like your finished seam, you can very nicely hide the whole shebang with  rick rack or a strip of ribbon.  Dolls are very forgiving!

Press to make it pretty and tuck your little pillow inside the case.  Ahhh, so cute!  Don't you feel so very clever?  And what a lovely little gift for a child.  Great stocking stuffer or a little extra something with a gift.  It doesn't have to go along with a quilt although that makes it all the more special!  Doll quilts are a great way to practice your free motion quilting.  Look!  Stars!  I will put up the sleeping bag tutorial in a few days.  It was way too much fun and my husband tells me I am way too old to be playing with dolls in the woods.  Tee hee hee!  Thanks for stopping by!!!!

Work In Progress Wednesday!

1)  I made a little needle book for the Modern Scrappy Bits Swap.  I hope my partner will like it!!!  I have the Swap package already to go but the mailing date isn't until September.  This is a total sneak peak and is officially a finished project!  Woo Hoo!  It was a lot of fun to make... more on that later!

2)  Baby boy quilt is also done!!!  I finished sewing the binding on last evening.  It was really too warm to be sitting with a quilt on your lap but the things we do for our quilting!  Let me tell ya!

3)  Proverbial Quilt Along...  I am having fun with this!  I actually have "You are my sunshi..." finished.  If I took out the "n", it would say "you are my sushi" but that would be strange on a quilt!  I had a huge boost with Mum tracing out all the letters onto freezer paper.  This quilt involves a lot of singing.  I like that!

3)  I have a half yard piece Kona Modern Quilts designed by Cynthia Frenette for Robert Kaufman.  Cynthia is one of the founders of the modern quilt guild that I belong to.  Happy dance.  Robert Kaufman gave Cynthia a bunch of fabric for a guild challenge.  So I have picked up some solids and have to make something for our October meeting.  This is an official work in progress.  It just still sits as fabric though.  It is stewing in my brain.

4)  My stop on the "Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop" is tomorrow people!  I have to get my post ready today!!!!!!  Eep!

5)  Freezing blueberries.  Canning green beans.  Continuing.  Ongoing.  Never ending.  We sent mum home with 42 bags of frozen blueberries.  I gave my brother 32 bags of frozen blueberries the other day.  Endless blueberries.    Good thing we like them.  The deep freeze is earning its money.

6)  Fabric pulled for another baby quilt.  This one will be a little more gender neutral.  Will work for either.

And I better get busy because I am back to work next Monday!  

Linking up with Work in Progress Wednesday!

What do you do with the fruit?

Yesterday, Mum and I canned peaches.  Some of the peaches were REALLY ripe and we put them aside for something REALLY yummy.  I just happened to have a few blueberries... just a few.  I had a bunch of family coming over to pick blueberries last evening and it is nice to have something dessert like when the picking is done.  This family favourite uses any fruit that you have on hand, fresh is best but frozen works too.

Platz  (I always called it Plops as a child!)

Base:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup table cream or whole milk

Topping
fruit in sections:  plums, apples, apricots or peaches... blueberries too!
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
3 tablespoons butter or margarine

Stir together the dry ingredients for the base, cut in the butter and set aside.  Mix dry ingredients and cut in butter for the topping and set aside.  Prepare your fruit.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Pour the milk into your base mixture and stir.  It will form a ball sort of.  Clump it into a ball and press it into the bottom of a 9" by 13" pan.  You will really have to press it into the pan and work it to cover the bottom but it will do it.  I sometimes sprinkle a bit of minute tapioca on the base before adding the fruit if the fruit is really juicy.  Layer the fruit in a single layer on the base and sprinkle the topping over the works.  If you are really fancy you can organize the fruit so that when you cut into the platz, each person will get one apricot half for example.  But you might not be that particular.  I was not in this case because I was using super ripe peaches that could not be cut in half nicely.    I just sort of spread the fruit everywhere.

Bake until golden.  I check it at about 35 minutes or 40 minutes and see if it is looking good but it is dependent a lot on the type of fruit you use.

If you want to be really naughty, whipping cream or some old fashioned vanilla ice cream would be lovely.

This is a Mennonite fruit coffee cake in fact.  Who knew?  It is delicious!  Grampa had seconds.

Webster watched us canning peaches.  He was most intent.

Design Wall... what's on it?

Lots of things going on here other than berry picking.  This baby boy quilt is already to quilt and I am debating bindings.  I have the greeny dots but Husband is thinking Kona Ruby because of the little bits of red in the quilt.  What do you think?  I am thinking the red is a bit much for a baby quilt.  If it were a red print or red with dots or something to break it up, I would be happier with it.  Hmmmmm.

This is really on the design wall.  My proverbial quilt.  Next up is the word "sunshine".  I am getting in the swing of this.  It was really helpful that Mum traced out all the letters for me.  Big hugs to Mum!!!

Next up.  This is really just in my design brain.  Not yet on the wall.  I have a half yard of this print from Cynthia Frenette's Kona Modern Quilts for Robert Kaufman.  Yep, I do.  Cynthia is one of the founders of the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild and this is a guild challenge.  I must make something using only this piece and any other print from the collection or any Kona solids.  Fun!

Tomorrow Mum and I will can peaches.  Husband will be picking berries and maybe I can squeeze in a bit of sewing time.  I only have one more week of holiday!!!  Yikes, I cannot believe it!  Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Monday!

Flea Market Finds on a sunny Saturday

I had just picked out several new spools of perle cotton at the quilt shop when I popped into a thrift shop with Mum.  Oh my goodness!  I found a giant bag of crochet cotton in all different colours and all of this perle cotton.  Oh my goodness!  The whole shooting match was only $5.  I am going to take all the crochet cotton to school for my girl's craft club to make friendship bracelets or something but the perle cotton is mine! All mine!!!

Mum brought me this wonderful pyrex.  It made me happy.  I have the next size smaller bowl with the wheat on it already.  It is currently sitting on the counter filled with delicious cherries from our friend's orchard.  Seriously yummy!

This vintage sheet jumped up and down and said take me home!  It is 100% cotton and bright, bright, bright!  

Just a few goodies!  Hope you found some thrifty wonderfulness!

Putting Mum to Work!

Mum is here for a visit.  She came to the guild meeting with me last night.  It was great!  We had the very talented guest speaker, Sonja who blogs at Artisania and is an off the charts talented paper pieced pattern maker.  Check out her blog!  She has free patterns.  Gotta love that!  I have signed up for a workshop with her in September.  Happy dance!

And look at how I put Mum to work!  Not only is she an awesome blueberry picker but look!  She is busy tracing all the letters for my Proverbial quilt onto freezer paper!  This has saved me a ton of time.  I was busy sewing away while she was busy tracing.  Oh.  And talking to herself.  Yep!  But I won't tell. You go, Mum!

I love this dahlia.  It is called Wheels.  Just so you know.  Happy Friday!

Sunflower day

We measured them this morning.  10 and a half feet tall and still growing!  So crazy.  The squirrels and the birds are doing a happy dance in the woods.  They just can't wait.  

Lots of sewing done yesterday and quilt guild tonight.  Mum is coming for a visit so she gets to go to the quilt guild with me tonight.  It is a good day.  A sunflower kind of a day and that is a good thing.  

I am off to sew the baby boy quilt blocks together.  Have a lovely Thursday!