Curlicue Crush

I really, really should just keep my eyes shut. I was on a trail of clicked links, you know, when you see something interesting and it leads you to a page that leads you to another page until you run into something you just can't live without? Yeah, well, it lead me to this lovely pattern, Curlicue Crush. I can see this done in lime green and red and white Christmas fabrics. It reminds me of ornaments. I probably won't be making this anytime soon but I do just adore it.

Strip Poker!

This past summer one of the guilds I belong to played a game of strip poker. It was loads of fun and we all had a good laugh. Of course I lost my shirt but then again I've never been good at this sort of thing. ^^ It was still fun though.

I was telling a friend of mine about it and she asked for the rules so that her guild could play but I couldn't for the life of me remember where I'd put them. Well, wouldn't you know it? I tucked them into a book I was intending to read way back in July... I just picked it up and out they fell. So since I was typing them all up for her anyway, I thought I share with you too. Enjoy!

RULES FOR QUILTERS STRIP POKER

• Each table should have 9 or 10 players but absolutely no more then 10
• Each player should have 12 charm strips 2.5" x 45" (or width of fabric)
• Be sure the JOKERS are taken OUT of the deck. Shuffle the cards thoroughly!
• To begin, each player must ante one strip into the pot
• The dealer gives each player a card (face up), if the card is a diamond, club or spade, the player must put one of their strips into the pot, but if the card is a heart, the player gets to take two strips out of the pot. If ther are no more strips in the pot, the player who gets a heard loses the opportunity to take strips out of the pot, however, the player who gets a diamond, club or spade must put a strip into the pot.
• Repeat above step until all the players have five cards. The winner of the pot is the player who has the most duplicates (5's or kings or 9's, etc) of the highest card value (Ace is high, 2 is low). NO OTHER standard poker hands are valid. If two or more players have the same duplicates, the face value of the next highest card in the hands determines the winner. For example K-K-Q beats K-K-J because the Q is higher then the J.

ORDER OF WINNING HANDS FROM LOWEST TO HIGHEST
Two of a kind
Two sets of two of a kind
Three of a kind
Four of a kind

Fabric Fix

Well I made it to the fabric store and managed to only find one of the former cream fabrics that I was using before. I found a second one in the same pattern but a slightly different colorway. There are so few blocks left and they'll still be intermingled in with the other lighter blocks that use the older creams, so I don't think it'll be overly noticeable. I also have just enough of the dark teal pieces left to finish the inner part of the quilt. Whew~ I also found a beautiful fabric for the outer 7" border.

I got a few minutes to work on it tonight. It was so nice to sit and sew with Snookie (who's just turned five). We hit up a craft store this afternoon and I got her a beading kit. She LURVED it! She made little necklaces for her cousins for Christmas while I sewed. She also wanted to listen to Harry Potter audio books. Sweet! So we hung out together being all crafty and geeky. I love that my little babe is turning into such an awesome kid. ^^

Oh and I think I've finally figured out what quilting I'm going to do once I get it all basted together. While I really wish I had a long arm (saving, saving, saving!) I'm still shoving all my quilts through the Bernina which is a bit more challenging then putting it on a frame but I'm hoping for help from a few quilting stencils. It feels kinda like cheating but then again, not. Heh.

And just so this post is not totally devoid of pictures I'd like to share a lovely little quilt that I might have to stick in NU list. This fun little jem is from Barbara Brackman's Blog. I believe she refers to it as Fireball. In my head though I like to call it Dots and Diamonds. I'd love to make it in a bunch of really bright whimsical fabrics and colors. Maybe the strips a collection of dots on white/light ground? The big dots hot pinks and the diamonds in... blacks with dots? That's just my off-the-cuff idea for it.

FAIL

So *sometimes* I don't really plan out the quilts I make but just sort of start making them. This is lovely most of the time and works out if it doesn't really need to be a specific size or if it's really scrappy (have I mentioned I like scrappy?) so I can just chunk in fabric or two if I run short. Well... this time? Not working out so well. Ug.

I promised my sister I'd make her a quilt so back in June, so I bought some fabric, picked a pattern and off I went thinking I'd just add a bit more if I hadn't bought quite enough. Well... then I was working on it and you saw the picture from the last post. I finished more then half of it and (foolishly) sewed together what I'd done. Now I realize that I don't have enough to make all the dark squares. I'm a dozen shy of finishing it and thought I *must* have some of the left over cream colored fabrics somewhere. I ripped apart my sewing room looking for them yesterday afternoon. Alas, I either don't have them or can't find them. With a limited amount of space and lack of planning I'm thinking I just ran out. I was able to find a few scraps of them in my scraps bin but nothing substantial.

So last night I ran off to Fabric Depot to see if I could find any of the original fabrics from the cream set I'd bought in June. HA! Fat chance.

I was really surprised to actually find one. Their turnover is amazing (being the largest fabric/quilt shop in Oregon and possibly the US) they bus people in to shop there. So yeah. I had to buy more fabric than I probably needed just to get the variety of scrappiness. I guess there's always a need for light/cream colored fabrics in blocks so it probably won't go to waste.

Anyway now my beef is I'm going to have a whole new set of creams to mix in - which would be lovely, except to say that I've already sewed up so much of the quilt. Gah. I've got four rows of seven blocks left. I guess I can sew two to the top of the five rows I've already sewn and two to the bottom. I just really do NOT want to have to rip seams to get a better mix. Meh. I just really, really hope I have enough of the dark teal fabrics left to finish the dark blocks.... It's gonna be close. Guess I need to go count triangles.

Next time I am SO pre-planning! lol

Progress

Making progress on my sister's quilt for Christmas...

I have about half the inner part of the top pieced.


Still am not entirely sure how I'll quilt it - always the hardest part for me.

Celtic Knot-Work Quilt

I might have mentioned I've been tossing a few original quilt designs around in my head. This would be one of them...

I've always been very partial to celtic knot-work and Ireland (having been more then a few times) so it seems appropriate. However I'm a bit stuck on color and texture ideas. I don't know that I want to go so cliche and make it in off whites and greens, however appropriate. I want to somehow modernize it, use scraps and lots of colors but still make it work as obvious knot-work. It would be easy to make scrappy as it's basic unit is a 2" block, everything is based on that and comprised of half-square and quarter-square triangles. Guess I'll have to think about it some more.

I need to win the lottery

I love all the fabric bundles from fabricworm... too many quilts, too much beautiful fabric, not enough time!

Another NU

Yeah, I forgot one, ha! I actually have had the magazine with the pattern for this quilt laying around for a number of months and I've been drooling over the idea of making it. However, Cherri from the Portland Modern Quilt Guild beat me to it. Not that I mind. I absolutely love her version!

NU's

Well since I've been on vacation I haven't done any machine sewing in the past two weeks. I have however been working on the hexagon quilt steadily since it's all hand pieced and I was able to take it with me. However, it was worth giving up any and all other crafti-time to take Snookie to Disneyland for her fifth birthday though. She had a BLAST... actually so did DH and I. ^^ We took a long drive down into California and hit loads of fun places along the way (Monterey Bay Aquarium, Winchester Mystery House, San Diego Zoo, etc). It was super fun but now I need a vacation from my vacation! Heh.


This is us at a coffee shop in San Diego having a mellow afternoon.

In the meantime however, you know I was busy thinking up new quilts to make! Yeah, sick disease it is... the lure of the NEW. Since I'm always adding to the NU (Next Up's) tab but not sure that anyone ever checks it (besides me). I thought I'd share the latest entries. I think going forward I'll make a brief post about each one before adding it to the ever growing list. In a way it's satisfying to just have the list even if a good majority of them never get made.

Without further adieu...

NEXT UP'S

• STRING PLATES
  I bought a little bag of stringy scraps from a single line for another project that I actually only needed very little of the fabric for. Now I have this lovely little pile of fabric that needs a project. For once the fabric will dictate the pattern! (I usually decide on a pattern first then find the fabric to fit it.) Anyway I was rather inspired by Andie's quilt and I think it would be the perfect match of pattern and fabric. Isn't her quilt adorable? Now I just need someone to have a baby to give the quilt to! (Oh wait! I need to make it first! lol)
  
• GENEALOGY QUILT
  Similar to a signature quilt but obviously with family names and dates... maybe a brief pictorial history of some kind? No idea really. This is something that's way on the back burner and I just wanted to mention it here so I can remember to think more about it. I like the fan lay out for showing names but not sure that would work as a quilt. I could do a traditional tree image but I feel like that's been done to death. I want something visually interesting but simple and dynamic.
• DEAR JANE
  I started a Dear Jane Quilt a few years ago with the idea that I would actually finish it. Heh. I did about twenty blocks but lost steam on it. It's one of those projects that I was feeling really guilty about not finishing and was considering letting it go. Now however I think I'll make a very modern version of a Dear Jane with the blocks I did finish. The idea is to create a strip out of the blocks and place them on a large solid ground at about horizon level. I'd like it to be seamless but I'll have to play with it a little before I decide.