Tula Pink and Hulu's Evil Plot

Whee, new fabric from the Fabric Square Shop! These are some of the fabrics from Nest by Tula Pink. My absolutest favoritest fabric is the one in the top right. I love the colors, the design, the flow of it all. And yes, it has brown in it.

Violette Severin did a fun interview with Tula here. And you can read the TulaPink blog too. I'm fascinated by the whole fabric design process, so it's fun to get glimpses of how it works - for instance, the colorways that didn't get chosen.

This next one is another Tula Pink called New Moon Forest.  I wouldn't have thought it (sounds too sweet) but I love the bunny in damask.

These are from another Moda packet, this one called Soiree. Wheeeee, the colors are so bright and happy.

And now for something completely different, a few from City Traditions. These ones are going to work well with the repro sampler I'm working on right now.

Look at how they go together. Obviously I need a few more dark darks in here:

It's definitely been good mail around here. I got this wonderful name and letter blocks from Jude. So wonderful to actually get to hold something from Jude and see the unusual fabrics she uses - they aren't the quilting cottons that cram my drawers, except for that one black with bright pindots...

I'm continuing to hand quilt Raspberry Rumspringa. I'm finally done with the border and am working on my second block. But I'm just not sure how much quilting is too much, and should certain areas be left empty...  I'll keep going. I figure I'll err on the side of too much.

Last night I watched the black and white version of The Mist which was based on a Stephen King novella of the same name. I really enjoyed reading the story but always thought the ending was lame. Well it was a heck of a lot better than the horrible nasty vile ending the movie used. awful. and it really changed the way I felt about the movie which had been really well done up to that point. Lots of suspense, not too gory and the humans could be as monstrous as the creatures outside.

On the much lighter side, I'm watching American version of The Office. I tried watching the British version as well, but as much as I adore Ricky Gervais I couldn't stand the show without Rainn Wilson. So I'm on the second season and loving it. Not as great as Arrested Development, but what could be?

Watched the second season of 30 Rock and loved it as much as the first. If only the season hadn't been cut short. I'm really tempted to get one of those Sabor de Soledad t-shirts... hee hee hee

I also just finished rewatching the first season of The Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles. I really enjoyed it again - it's a show for me. I was hoping that I'd be able to go to the Fox website or Hulu.com and get all caught up with the current season, but no such luck. They'd already removed the first couple of episodes. Guess I'm going to have to wait for the DVD to come out.

Speaking of Hulu.com have you seen the wonderful ad with Alec Baldwin about the evil plot to take over the world? I LOVE this:

If all commercials were this entertaining it would be a lot easier to watch live tv and not just DVDs.

Kitschy Bar

When my friend Susan was here we went to a really fun bar on the Intercoastal Waterway. What can I say, I love Beach Kitsch:

I experimented with exporting file sizes and image quality from iPhoto. Picasa was still easier, but I'll get better at this eventually. These are my small images and they really are small.

My power went out as I was writing this post and now I've completely lost my train of thought...

Repro Sampler

Don't fall out of your chairs, but I'm working with reproduction fabric. Browns and beiges even - what the heck happened? I'm using lots of scraps from Siobhan, as well as a few shirt fabrics from Bonnie, and a couple of the plaids I bought in Holland. It's a fun mix. I did have to sort them into two different bins though, lights and darks.

It became clear pretty quickly that there were some fabrics I had to set aside. Lots of those repros are BUSY and that just wasn't going to work for this project. I'm making letters that are not only larger than I usually work, but also much scrappier. This was a test photo to make sure everything was working okay:

See, it got plenty busy all on it's own when I started adding all the fabrics that go around the letters. I ended up making these blocks larger than I intended - the letters needed room to breathe. These are the blocks I've completed at 7.5". Oh, and I did put some of the extra busies back in - like that red and yellow in the D block - when they weren't going to touch a letter fabric.

I was thinking about sashing them with cheddar and red corner posts, but I'm kinda liking them all together like this. I've only put them together to look just this once. I'm trying to not overthink it. Let me tell ya though, that R was wretchedly bad. Just so lifeless. I added extra zing to the top of it and now it's at least not a total loser.

Oh, and I'm not sure if I should maybe make some more blocks - go for all the lower case letters as well. Could be fun - make it into a lap quilt. decisions, decisions.

My back and shoulders are aching. I am a pathetic specimen - it doesn't take much sewing to do me in.

About yesterday's post, yes Quiltmaker most definitely gave me credit and even a paycheck for the article.

I ended up removing Picasa from my Mac. Yes, I love that program and I think it's a lot easier to use than iPhoto, but I HATED the fact that it always made a duplicate photo and let iPhoto keep the original. I'd make changes and then I swear iPhoto would pick it up as a new photo.... Just had way too many photos floating around. So I don't love iPhoto but I'm making it work. One thing I haven't figured out is how to resize the photos so everything is coming across LARGE into the blog. At least you get to see the details that way.

Quiltmaker

Look at these great name blocks I got from Brenda, Victoria, and Lynne. These are going to be fabulous in my Name quilt. Brenda and Lynne were so sweet and sent additional blocks, so it's embarassing to admit that I pounced right in playing and mixed them up with other orphans - before I got photos. Eeek, sorry. Thanks, guys!

I wanted to let you all know about Small Blocks, Stunning Quilts by Mary Elizabeth Kinch and Biz Storms. The book is about making full-sized quilts with little blocks. The authors dedicated it to Gwen Marston and included one of Gwen's beautiful basket quilts. My favorite (other) part of the book is the medallion quilt where they put Gwen's theories into practice - if something doesn't fit, just whack it off. Woohoo! A great book for taking baby steps towards liberation.

In other publication news, check out Quiltmaker magazine's March/April '09 issue. They took inspiration from my wonky houses tutorial and wrote a fabulous article on free-piecing houses. Pokey is intrigued:

Quiltmaker did a great job of showing the steps needed to build the houses and an even better one of putting the houses together into a top. Lily was willing to pose for me today:

In other news, Florida continues to be good to me. I'm amazed at how much color my skin has already picked up from just walking around - I certainly haven't been laying out. I'd better be careful though or I'm going to turn into a leathery raisin.

Fabric Shopping with Gwen

I know Bonnie already shared several stories about our adventures in Sarasota, so I won't repeat all of that. But I do have to say, the woman offering fabric shopping advice -- so that Gwen could be a real quilter -- was an absolute hoot. Luckily I was behind some fabric bolts otherwise my  snort-chortling would have been audible.

After our lunch at the Amish restaurant (no, I didn't have the Noodles Over Mashed Potatoes) we wandered over to Alma Sue's quilt shop. Gwen is waiting while her fabric gets cut - that's her stack on the right. And whee, she's touching the fabric in my stack!

This is another quilt that Gwen graciously allowed us to photograph. It's going to be in her new book with Freddy Moran called Freddy and Gwen Collaborate Again which Lark Books is publishing in May. This quilt is so bright and happy and I love that fabric with the wavy stripes that she managed to get just right in the border.

A detail shot:

I love the back of the quilt with the big bold flowers:

On the subject of fabric, yes, I definitely bought some in Sarasota. This stack is from Sew Worth It. 

The fabric from Alma Sue's Quilt Shop. They were having a sale on Amy Butler and Kaffe Fassett. I would definitely have bought more of the bright fabric paisleys on the chocolate brown background - that would be a good fabric to help me integrate brights with everything else. 

I stepped out of my box to get some repros at Cotton Patch Quilt Shop, but yes, still having problems integrating them in with my happy fabric.  Some of this fabric is coming your way, Will!

Generally though, have to say I think I did a fairly decent job of buying lights. At least better than I used to do. sigh. It's hard.

My kitties have become quite the loungers here in Florida. It used to be I had fabric out for photography and one of my little kitties would instantly have been on the table. Not so much anymore. Much better to just sleep in the sun apparently. Actually, Lily did visit a bit, but wasn't willing to pose. I guess she needs time off from her modeling job.

Yesterday it got really hot here for February. 82 degrees. That's hot for me anyway, not necessarily for Florida.

This is the last day my friend Susan is in town. I'm going to be sad and pathetic now.

Did anybody else watch Joss Whedon's Dollhouse? I hate to say it, but I was disappointed. Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Those two completely grabbed me and held on from the very beginning. This one, enh. I really wish Joss would change his mind and add more humor to the show, cuz otherwise it feels like a hard slog.