Sister's Choice Quilts

Madeline, All Grown Up

Isn't she gorgeous?  This is Madeline, all grown up.  All 25 blocks of her.  I am so pleased with this quilt top!  It ranks right up there with my all time favorites.  And it may be number one in terms of color combination. I think there will be a narrow light containment border, then an outside border of the large red floral print.  She is about 60" square now, so the final version should be around 70" square.  "That's all there is, there isn't any more".  Those were the concluding lines of all the Madeline books, did you know that?

Since I was prisoner in my sewing room again today, I got all the blocks together, as shown above, and then started in on Elizabeth.  I have finished 12 out of 24 Delectable Mountain blocks.  Staying home is a good thing if one wants to get some sewing accomplished!

And, yes, that is my new gorgeous flooring underneath the blocks!  It is turning out better than my wildest expectations.  My husband is going to be blown away when he gets home Friday night.  Worth every penny of the gazillion dollars it cost.

On the Sophie front, she is still managing to be a complete pain in the butt.  See these little red rubber spacer thingys?

The workmen placed about a hundred of them along the edge of the new floor boards and the base boards.  And Sophie went around and collected them all.  I had a pile of red rubber spacers to hand off to the Flooring Boss when he showed up this morning.  My dog needs a job.

She would happily become an apprentice to the flooring installers.  Except for the banging and long stick things.  She doesn't much like those things.  That is a huge pail of floor glue she is wanting to get into in the picture below.  It is going to be a long night.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Now this is a novel concept.  Not sure if it would work for me so much, but interesting idea. 

There have just been too many men in my house this week.  The place is teaming with testosterone.  The men are very nice, but they are just so, so, masculine.   They joke around, laugh loudly, bang things, operate really loud machinery, and generally just do not act like women.  Sophie just about can't stand it.  First of all, she doesn't care for strange men.  Second, she abhors banging (remember when she bit me on the butt when I was smashing garlic?).  Third, she finds long sticks, boards, brooms and things of that sort extremely threatening.  As a result, she has spent much of the week in her dog crate and is very grumpy about it. 

I just let her out for a split second Tuesday and she got into all sorts of trouble.

Today she kept me company in the sewing room while I worked on Big Madeline. 

 

I have made almost all the 25 blocks, but didn't have room to lay them all out.  My floor space is all occupied by men with flooring boards, don't you know.  I had room in the guest bath to lay out nine of the blocks.  It looks just like the Madeline Schnibble, only bigger!  My blocks are 12 inches unfinished.   Kind of a weird size, but it doesn't really matter, since it is a straight set and can be any old size top I want it to be.  I have to start considering ideas for the border.  Since I have decided to use my leftover fabrics to make Elizabeth (another Miss Rosie pattern), I don't want to use my scraps for a border, even though I love the look.  I may have enough of the large red floral print (my favorite) to be the border for Madeline.

I might just finish this project this week, while I keep busy staying out of the way of the workmen who are in every other room of the house.

Wednesday, Already?

At least my flying geese units for Big Madeline are finished.  Next step will be to construct the 25 Sawtooth Star blocks I need for the top.  My plan is to work on those when the hardwood floor men are here this week.  That is going to be a great quilt!

Sophie is still in the dog house for messing up the fresh concrete in the master bathroom.  The tile boss was surprisingly philosophical about it.  "Won't be the first time that's happened", he commented as he tried to smooth down the biggest divots in the floor.  He graciously said that it would all be covered over with the new tiles, so it wasn't the end of the world that Sophie happily scampered hither and yon back and forth through the wet material.

Thank God we had the tile done before the new carpet was laid.  It would have been ruined by her wet paw prints.  Whew.  No real harm done.  She is staying outside until all this work is finished.

I kept myself busy packing a few boxes of fabric from my sewing room stash closet.  To look in there, you would not even know I had removed anything!  In the new house, I will have a large sewing room, with an entire wall of cabinets in which to store things.  However, my fabric needs serious editing.  Surely, I will not be needing all of it?  I suppose the time to get rid of things is now, before I spend the energy packing it all, but I just can't face it.  Let's see how much room I have in the new room first.  When I get there, we will have a big discussion on how to best organize fabric.

 

One thing I know for sure (as Oprah says), is that at least half these books need to go.  I have my favorites, but most of them I could give up and not even know they were gone.  I think the local library is going to get a box of books...

Nooooooooooo

 

The tile men came to re-do the master bath floors.  They put down new concrete to even things out and left for lunch.

Sophie got away from me and before I could catch her, she ran through all the wet concrete.  She ruined their beautiful smooth work.

Why do I have dogs?  Does anyone want them?

The tile boss was nice about it.  He says her prints will be there forever, all covered up with the new tile.  Great.

I Hadn't Planned On All the Dust

Cough, cough, ack, ack.   My goodness, these men are creating a lot of dust!  Take two men with jack hammer like tools and let them at my tile master bathroom floor, and the air is swirling with dust.  Woo.  Hope the worst of it is over.  Today they lay the new tile.

In other news, we took Ozzie to the dog groomer this weekend.  He had gotten so shaggy, he was hardly recognizable. 

He wouldn't look at the camera for the picture, as he was busy trying to plan his escape.  You see, he does not like to go to the dog groomer's.  Hates it in fact.  You think your dog doesn't like going to the groomer's either?  Well, Ozzie makes such a fuss, the groomer has to call my husband to come back in and help hold him down.  Honest to Pete, I have never even heard of such a thing.

We may be asked to find a new groomer after this latest episode.  Ozzie was a complete wretch and my husband wasn't too pleased at having to interrupt his work to go sit on him while he had his hair cut.  Needless to say, the groomer wasn't too thrilled either.  Ozzie just gets into an hysterical mind set and thrashes around as if he is about to be killed.  There is no reasoning with him.  I wonder if having someone with a mobile grooming service come out to the house would be any different?  Or finding a groomer who is a big burly guy who won't take any of Ozzies' guff?

There is no after photo.  No sense in showing a picture of a dog who has been shaved bald.

Oh, ok.  Here he is.  Bad dog.  He is sitting so he hides his under belly, where things got trimmed a little close.  How embarrassing, and wearing a hat isn't an option.  Pants?

 

I didn't get much sewing done Monday while the work men were in the house.  I am in the midst of making flying geese units for Madeline, and hope to make better progress today.

Where'd It All Go?

Here is my poor living room, almost empty.  We are preparing to have the floors redone and had to move all the furniture out.  My gosh, that room is as big as a barn without any furniture.  So where's the furniture?

Why stacked up in the garage, naturally.  See those boxes in the foreground?  They are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the boxes of china I packed up on Saturday.  I had to empty the buffet and china cabinet before they could be moved, you see.  Gracious, I have a lot of dishes.  Now why didn't we look for a butler's pantry feature in our new house? 

And just when you think you have thought of everything, you realize that you forgot to move the elephant in the room.

Martinique

Wow, there was so much interest yesterday in the information on how  to expand the size of the Schnibbles Madeline block!  If you would like instruction from the quilt designer herself, the fabulous Miss Carrie of Miss Rosie's Quilt Co., go to her website, where she has provided the information on expanding a block by adding setting triangles.  Go check it out, LaVieEnRose, "Random Stuff", on her left side bar.  A simple click and you can print out all the information.  And, just so you know, you can use this technique to expand ANY block....any size....

This is Martinique by 3 Sisters for Moda.  Howdee do.  Isn't this muted color palette soothing?  I do not have all the pieces from this fabric group, but have just ordered more reds and browns.  There is a pink in the collection, but I am not letting it play with the others at this time.

I don't know exactly how I will use this fabric.   Another basket quilt?  lol  No, not right now.  I have a pattern that I was considering, which I showed you previously, before I got any of the fabric.  I would leave out the pink and use the large brown floral for the border.  Or maybe the pink should get to be part of things?  What do you advise?  Pink or no pink?

By the way, today is my last day of work!!!  At 5:30, wherever you are drink a toast (imaginary or not) to Nicole reinventing herself.

Figuring It Out

I love this pattern.  (Madeline, a Schnibbles pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.).

I love this fabric. (Rounenneries by French General for Moda).

I want to make this quilt, but I do not want a Schinbbles size quilt.  I want a BIG quilt.  Well, at least 70 inches or so square.  But I don't want to make a ton of small Schnibble size blocks.  So what does a gal with a feeble brain such as mine do to figure out how to expand the block size?

She of the Feeble Brain calls in her friends.  I asked Thelma.  She said she was on her way out the door to the Paducah Quilt Show, but could help me when she got back.  I looked it up on the internet.  Plenty of Sawtooth Star patterns, but how do I figure out the corner triangles that surround each Sawtooth block?  I even considered buying EQ6, a soft ware program that quilters use to figure out stuff like this.  $150.  No, not now.

I took a deep breath and emailed the designer of the Schnibbles pattern, Miss Carrie Nelson herself.  She laughed at me.  Not because she is mean, but because the solution is so easy.

She said if I wanted she could go all Math-y on me, with nineteen digit equations.  No thanks.  You all know I couldn't handle that.   I just want to know how to make the block bigger.  So, she gave me a tip, and said I could share it with you.  She sent me a PDF file, which she said she thinks she got off the Moda website ages ago.  It has all the directions for cutting triangles to put around another block to expand the block size and give you an opportunity to add in all sorts of great fabric.  If you would like me to email you the PDF file, let me know.  I tried attaching it to my post, but it didn't work.

I easily expanded the size of my Sawtooth Star block, by copying the directions off of the Miss Rosie pattern Elizabeth, which has a nice 8" Sawtooth block in it.  Yes, my pattern has a big bite taken out of it, courtesy of my dog Ozzie.  He liked this pattern so much he wanted to eat it up.  Good as shoes, don't you know?

Good lord, that is a gorgeous pattern.  I cannot believe I have not made it yet.  Would it not be amazing in Astor Manor by 3 Sisters for Moda?  But I digress.

 

Here's the bottom line:  If you have an 8" Sawtooth Star block, you need to cut squares 6 5/8" and cut them on the diagonal once to get your triangle surround units to make the Madeline inspired block. 

Oh my gosh, I was so excited, before you know it, my cutting table was covered with all the patterns and instructions and rulers I needed to make these blocks.  As you know, I love the Fit To Be Geese ruler and got busy making my flying geese units for the Sawtooth Star block.

 

All my block components were coming out perfectly, so I made a test block.  It turned out totally stupid looking because I confused which units were "Sky" and which were "Geese" in my flying geese units.

Yes, it is an ugly block, but the dimensions are dead on perfect!  Yay.  So, I got serious and made my first real block.

Yes!  It is Madeline, only bigger!  I am going to be working on this quilt non-stop until it is done.  I need this quilt as soon as possible.  It could sell my house it is going to be that pretty.

Update:  While I was working on making my expanded Madeline block, Sophie ate my Lush Buffy the Backside Slayer bar.  I don't care.  Figuring out how to make this block is worth a dry, scaly, bumpy behind.

She sure is trying to get that taste out of her mouth. 

The Birds and the Bees

Just so you know, I am not All Moda All the Time.  I am All Moda Pretty Much of the Time, but do collect fabric from other manufacturers as well.  The collection shown above is The Birds and the Bees by Keri Beyer for In the Beginning.

This is such a fresh and energetic group of fabric!  It makes my heart beat a little faster just to look at it.  Look at that bird print?  You could use that as your border inspiration fabric and pull corally pinks, buttery yellows, and limey greens, with a touch of black and come up with an outstanding quilt.  All sherbety and feminine.   I am not familiar with Keri Beyer, but I can tell you that I will be looking for her designs in the future.

Here are some other pieces in the collection, along with a pattern idea for their use-

Ooops, it's early and my eyes aren't working at full capacity yet.  I did get that pattern upside down, didn't I?

 

That's better.  I like this pattern choice because I wouldn't have to cut those prints up too small, and one would still get the full effect of their wonderfulness.  And the solid black and a fun white and black scrolly print as a frame, would totally set off the prints.  I bet a quilt made from this pattern would go together super quick too.

Now, I am off to look for some lime greens, butter yellows and corally pinks to go with that bird print.  I love it when I come up with more than one idea for quilts made from a fabric group!  Of course, my idea is half baked at this time, but I must Be Prepared.  I do love a fabric mission.

Three more days of work!!  And I'm FREEEEEE.

New Fabric--Rural Jardin

This week I want to show you some new fabric that has come into my life recently.  The group pictured above is Rural Jardin, the new collection by French General for Moda.  A generous benefactress, who pays me in fabric, sent it to me last week!  Does it get any better than this?  Will Work For Fabric.  No problem.

Look at that stack of wovens--so high it is leaning over!   One great feature of this collection is the number of light backgrounds.  This gives one so many wonderful block options.  I am basket block obsessed at the moment, so I can envision baskets of blues, taupe and reds on the various lights.  Vive la France!  Seriously, forget about the 4th of July, I need to do a Bastille Day quilt!!!!  (Don't you love being a part of my stream of consciousness?  I definitely do not plan these posts ahead, they just sort of evolve as I chat with you).

I adore this collection of fabric.  I could spread them all out and lay on them.  Oh.  That's what I get to do when I finish making my quilt, isn't it?

The collection is very compatible with French General's previous group, Rouenneries.  Same reds and pinks.  However, the addition of the blues takes things to a new level.  I could totally redecorate my house around those two fabric groups.  You could have quilts in every room of the house made from them and they would look different, but flow perfectly from room to room.  I guess I need to get started with my sewing.  But first:

Here are some closeups of some of the fabrics-

 

Be still my heart.  Is that not the best toile you have ever seen in your life?  I swear, I am ordering five yards of this for the backing of whatever quilt I end up making!  I would love your suggestions as to great pattern ideas!!! Please do share!  I find that people read my blog not so much for what I have to say, but for all the comments I get from you Friends!