Book Quilts: Field Day & Small Town Girl

Now when it's this time of year in Northeast Ohio, I find myself making the most colorful quilts of the year. Why you ask? This is why:

 Usually, this time of year there is next to zero color outside. And if you're wondering, yes, this was Lake Erie frozen over a couple years ago. I haven't been up to the lake lately, but last year our winter was so mild it never got close to this.

So that's why I find myself making quilts bursting in color and Field Day is no exception. Now, following in the concept of the book, this relatively large quilt uses precuts, probably just not the one you're thinking of! Any guesses? Well, this quilt actually uses a charm pack and just some additional yardage.

Copyrighted Image provided by Martingale, Brent Kane, photographer 

This quilt was super fun to make and super quick. The fabrics I used were designed by the one and only Kate Spain, this was her Terrain line. I did blend in a fabric from Me & My Sister for the white polka dot, but the fabrics worked so well I couldn't resist.

You really can't see it in this picture, but you'll be able to in the book because the pictures are AMAZING! I had a little fun while quilting Field Day, I decided to use both custom machine quilting AND utility quilting. The results are incredible and I have mixed quilting techniques on other quilts since I first tried it on this one.

Copyrighted Image provided by Martingale, Brent Kane, photographer 

And here we have Small Town Girl. Small Town Girl is not small at all, actually she's one of the larger quilts in the book. When I designed this quilt, it was one of those instances where everything fell into place perfectly, almost. I had this design drawn up eons ago it feels like but it wasn't working. I rediscovered it while I was working on the book and had an idea which developed into the quilt above. The best part was I already had a fat eighth bundle of Ruby by Bonnie & Camille sitting at home that was perfect for this design.

If the background looks a but dark, that's because I had to search and find the perfect print to go with this quilt. I was thinking about using a solid white, but I wanted something different. In the Ruby line, there was this teeny tiny gray dot that I knew I just needed. After a few minutes on the Internet and it was being shipped to my house and it looks so much better in person than in photos. It really makes the bright colors of the rest of the Ruby line pop.

Two more quilts down, a few more to go! I'll be showing quilts from the book through the weekend up until Tuesday when the book is released! Yippee!

So which quilt do you like the best so far? Inquiring minds would like to know :) Toodles!

How Does Your Garden Grow???

Before I get to the garden, I forgot to show you all this bag I made out of Bliss. Yeppers, it's another Charmed Living Tote (small version). This one is uber girly and I just love it! I made it a few weeks ago and promptly took it to the quilt shop to show it off and forgot to take a picture first!

 And can I say, I am so proud of my garden - it's been so nice to have! And some of those plants are just growing so big! The tomatoes, cilantro, dill, and corn are all waist high on me...

 The herbs have really taken off and it's been wonderful to just run to the garden and grab some fresh whatever for dinner that night. So far the purple basil and cilantro probably have been used the most.

 And the tomatoes!!! They're HUGE!!! Can you see all the green ones in there?

 But the coolest thing of all about this garden are the tomatillos. These are just big puffs right now, but eventually we are going to have Mexican night quite often around here to use up some of these. And I might try and make my own Salsa Verde - any suggestions on a good recipe???

 Look at the corn. It was knee high last week, this week it's waist high. At this rate by next week it'll be taller than me!!! And I thought it wasn't going to grow...

To go along with Mexican night will be our first crop of Cubanelle Peppers!!! I foresee plenty of tacos, burritos, nachos, and whatever else we can think of very soon - which is fine with me!!!

And this all started here on Memorial Day... big difference a little over a month can make!!!

Are you gardening? How is it going over at your place? Also, if anyone has a suggestion for a good focal bush or plant for the shaded area of my yard, ideas would be appreciated. I'm having a hard time finding something "pretty" with substantial size to fill this shaded void of my yard. And unfortunately it's the first spot your eye goes to in the yard and right now it's a pile of dirt...

Oh, and FYI - poison ivy has berries on it for those of who who might not have known that little tidbit like myself. Luckily I'm not allergic, but we have a corner (well, you could see it at the top left of the last photo) that was getting overgrown with this stuff - we had no clue what it was but it looked like poison ivy...

Meanwhile some little berries started to grow, we live in a wine-ish country and we have wild grapes in other areas of the yard, so naturally we thought it might be grapes. To shorten the story, killed the plants anyway, then decided to double check today... It's poison Ivy alright. And the worst part is all 3 of our neighbors at that corner have it in spots that they don't take care of so it grows over, under and through my fence into my yard and I can't get rid of it!!! I'm running out of options...

Do I just let it grow and avoid it at all costs while having this horrid corner to an otherwise well kept yard, or try to kill it and kill it and kill it every time it creeps over from one of the neighbors...I'm feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one...Any ideas on this subject would help too!

Thanks for chatting and please let me know if you have remedies for any of the "stuff" I mentioned above. I thank you in advance for any suggestions you could throw my way.

Gotta go sew for a bit and work on some other projects before heading back to work tomorrow. I'll talk with you later!

A Little Here...

The last week has been a complete whirlwind, but a good one. I've done a little this, a little that, some here, some there. Wanna see?

So, I've mentioned before about how I wanted to put in a garden this year. Well, mission accomplished and to top it off instead of just one, I have 3!

 Hubbin and I created 3 raised beds, one a bit larger made out of Architectural Splitface Block (from job #2) and two kits purchased at a local store.

The first bed has 12 different kinds of herbs including some off-the-wall types like purple basil, lemon thyme, golden oregano... And the front row is shallots and onions. 

 This one has 7 different types of tomatoes including Mr. Stripeys, Pinks and Tomatillos...

 Last one is mostly peppers including sweets and some spicy, green and yellow beans, and a small attempt at corn. (You should see it now, we planted the corn and green beans a week ago when we built these and the corn is already a few inches tall!)

There's also my lilies that seemed to grow over a foot in a few days and we have a window box with ever-blooming strawberries and carrots. I can't wait to start canning!

 And now onto my trip to Shipshewana. I was so busy once again buying fabric at Lolly's in the Davis Mercantile that all I remembered to get a picture of was the huge tree in the center of the building. It doesn't look like it here but this goes all the way from the basement to the roof above the third floor and is probably close to 3 feet wide at least if not closer to 4 feet wide. I promise to show you what I bought soon, I'm soooo excited about it.

 Here's where I was for a couple days, setting up, then working the show itself and tearing down. My spot was in the corner back there. We line all the latest and greatest quilts of upcoming fabrics up along the walls. It was really sunny all day so that's why some of the quilts look like they're glowing, there's huge windows all along the one wall.

 Lynne Hagmeier from Kansas Troubles Quilts was at the show with us (what a doll!) And Sandy Klop from American Jane was in the area for a nephew's wedding and decided to stop by! It was such a pleasant surprise!!!

Lynne and Lois (Lynne's Assistant) were so fun to hang out with and their quilts are gorgeous!!! If you love Fall, you have to check out her new line Cattails and Clover - it's wonderful!

 Here was my little corner of the booth... some Moda Bake Shop projects, the newest patterns and Stars All Around from American Patchwork & Quilting's June 2011 Issue (only on newsstand copies).

 Lynne's Booth was full of treasures just unpacked from Spring Market.

And I got to see a quilt (a whole quilt) out of Ruby by Bonnie and Camille! It's even better than I thought it'd be!!! Once again sorry for the bad picture, I should have snuck into the Conference Center after Dark, but I was busy watching the Voice - alright, who else loves the Voice?

So basically that was my week in a nutshell. Lots of fun, I got to meet several wonderful shop owners - some familiar and some new. As mentioned before, Lynne and Lois from Kansas Troubles were so much fun to hang out with. And my garden is in and thriving!!! Simple pleasures, but that's all it takes some days.

So tell me, what did you think? Also, I'm trying my best and it's only been a week but my garden is still going strong... That may change. Do you have any gardening tips for me? I'm planning on making tons of recipes and canning what I can this year for the winter months. Wish me luck.

Have a wonderful rest of the weekend and a good week this week. I'll show you what I got in Indiana this week and show off some other little tidbits later on! Until next time!

Pictures as promised...

Here are some of the other pictures I took that didn't make the cut. I had a blast taking some of them at my friend Donna's house in her garden with her awesome red rocking chair. The lighting was perfect, I don't get it, but the quilt was overexposed.

So we tried again so this is my wonderful sleigh bed that I love and my chest of drawers in the next pictures.

Word to the wise next time you think about buying a sleigh bed or other bed with a large head/footboard - find somebody you know with a similar style bed and try to put sheets on it before you buy it. It's a bit more challenging than you might think.

Sometimes it's hard to pick just one or a couple pictures to show off the quilt in a way that will showcase it's greatest features. A picture will not do a quilt justice about 98% of the time, but it's fun to try different layouts and props and see what will emerge. (Like a crazy dog who decides to lay on the quilt as you're attempting to take pictures of it)

Once again, don't forget to enter the drawing in the post Give Away (click here to go straight to the Give Away), you have until Friday night! Keep entering and don't be shy of who inspires you. I have read all the entries this far and am becoming inspired myself by a few names I was not familiar with. Isn't it just wonderful we all love similar things but can have our own style or flavor that makes us unique?

I'm off to go quilt myself and get something accomplished tonight, until next time!