My Mom just posted pictures of all of the postcards she sent out, plus she included the “letter” that was on the back of her cards. Each one is different, and they are all very cute. I wasn’t going to mention the fact that she scorched mine, but since she outed herself…
You should go look!
Mary Ann’s Home Sweet Home postcards
I’ve been very remiss in acknowledging the really wonderful postcards I’ve gotten in this most recent round of postcard exchanging at MQResource.
Our theme was Home Sweet Home, and it took me until…well, the day before the mailing deadline before I decided what to do with mine…
Here are the cards I’ve gotten so far:
(from Judy W)
(from Vicki W., it’s a topography of her sewing room floor. funny, i thought maybe it was MY sewing room floor…)
(from my mother. it’s the old woman of mother goose fame’s new digs…she included a really funny “note” from the Old Woman. each shoe was different colors, i think. not that she shared them with me ahead of time)
(from Michelle W. I was sure I had rotated this before uploading. those are windows and doors that you can open, behind them are the different things in her home sweet home: family, trust, memories, friendship, etc…)
(from Helen H. hers had a note about when she’s on a trip, when she calls home and hears the dog and her squeaky bone in the background, that’s what makes her homesick)
(from Jami C, who is dreaming of a log cabin in the woods…)
(from Deb L. Do you suppose she used her die cutter??)
Thanks everyone, it’s so much fun to get such great mail!
My cards? Yeah, I forgot to take pictures of mine before I mailed them. I haven’t heard anyone complain that mine didn’t make it intact, but I’ve been worried that one of my “embellishments” might get damaged in transit. I hope that someone that received a card from me will scan or take a picture show I can show my goofiness.
The IQ stopped in the middle of a pass, better go see what it wants from me…
Later!
Suzanne
And I’m going to have a pair of ball-shaped bruises, one each leg, to prove it.
And by “play baseball” I mean act as catcher during batting practice. Mark pitches, one boy bats, the other plays outfield.
And by “act as catcher” I mean stand as far away from the plate as I can, and let the balls hit the backstop before I grab them. Clearly I wasn’t very good, vis-a-vis the aforementioned matching bruises.
I’ve long accepted that I’m afraid of the ball. Damn thing HURTS when it hits you, seems like a pretty reasonable fear.
Baseball practice was a follow-up to a wienie roast (with smores for dessert). Yum.
Several people asked about a pattern, and the short answer is that I’m not following a pattern that would tell you exaclty how I did mine, partly because I’m genetically incapable of following a pattern exactly.
Here’s where I started:
Bonnie Hunter’s Cathedral Stars
I started playing with it in EQ6:
That’s basically the quilt as made by Bonnie, though I had already decided that whatever I made it was going to bigger, and I think I oriented the chains a little differently.
I wasn’t really crazy about the black and red triangles, though, and when I took a tour through my stash, I wasn’t really sure what I’d use for those.
So I got rid of them. And thought I’d see what it would look like with half-chain blocks around the edges:
And then I took another tour through my stash, and couldn’t decide what to use for the blue star points.
Plus, I had a conversation with myself about the fact that it was starting to look like the color palette for every other stinking quilt I’ve made, and maybe I should try branching out from RED WHITE AND BLUE, and try something different.
I’m not sure how I flashed on brown and pink, but it wasn’t much work to turn the design above into the design below:
The blocks finish at 9 inches, there are two: a chain block and the star block which is a modified “54-40 or Fight”. Oh, plus the half and quarter blocks around the edges. I forgot to do snapshots of those.
I did use my Tri-Recs rulers to cut the units for the star points, I need to order some of those for the shop.
Bonnie doens’t give any yardage information on her pattern, hers was completely out of her stash.
According to EQ6, my pink and brown quilt as above, excluding the borders would use:
5 1/4 yd pinks
7 yd whites
1 1/2 yd brown
My experience with previous version of EQ was that it vastly overestimated the yardage needed. I haven’t tried to figure out if this is close or not to what I would estimate if I sat and did the math myself. For my quilt, I just started cutting and cutting and cutting, and then cut some more when I ran out, so I don’t really know what I used. I would guess that’s pretty close.
Because my project was based on hers, I don’t feel it’s appropriate for me to do much more than tell you what I changed, and give you some notes about how I accomplished my end result. She has some pretty good pictures and instructions about how to make that star block using the Tri-Recs rulers. My chain blocks are just like her Jacob’s ladder block, but with plain squares instead of the HSTs.
And to be honest: mine’s not done. I don’t know that I’m going to do the borders as depicted above, and I bet you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I’ve got some ideas for using some appliqued text…
I hope you are having a great day: the weather is beautiful (if windy) and I’m getting my haircut in 45 minutes (hallelujah). Tonight’s the meeting for prospective band members and their parents. I’m finding it hard to believe we are 5 school days away from finishing 4th grade. I’m pretty sure they were in Kindergarten just yesterday.
TTFN-
Suzanne
Way back on April 29th, I showed you this pile of fabric. I don’t think it will surprise anyone to see that I’ve already turned that pile into a quilt top:
The funny thing about Internet time is that while it might seem to YOU that I got that done really quickly, to ME it seems like I’ve been making pink and white four-patches for infinity. Several times I almost decided to just call it a day and make it smaller, but then I looked at the pile of already cut pieces and decided to keep going. And going, and going.
So even though you wouldn’t know from my blog that I’ve been sewing, I have been sewing a lot. I just don’t seem to be very good at making the 13th post about the same project as interesting as the 1st post, like some people are…
Now, it needs to marinate for a few days, before I decide how to finish it.
(For reference, there are 49 stars and 36 alternating star blocks, plus the 28 partial blocks around the edges, for a total of 459 four-patches. I haven’t measured it, but mathematically it should be about 90 by 90 right now).
(And before you ask, the other quilts are hanging from the balcony after being washed. We had fleas. Well, we have a dog who had fleas who slept with us, and…yeah. Aren’t you glad I told you that? The quilt on the left is a Minnesota Hot Dish, made about 3 or 4 years ago, the one on the right is…sawtooth stars, but the pattern had a fancier name. I made it…5 or 6 years ago? Before this house…)
Suzanne
