Pleated Pillow is Finished!

I did this as a sew along that Craft Buds has been doing.  I had narrow strips left over from the Craftsy QAL that worked great for it.

The tutorial (you can get it here) calls for making the pleats less uniform, but I just could not bring myself to do it that way.  I kept going back and fixing it until, eventually, the pleats were pretty much uniform.  In addition to the downloadable tutorial, there are posts covering each aspect. I probably should have paid more attention the the casual pleats part, but, actually, I'm happy with the finished product.

To show you how simple it is, here is the front panel prior to pleating.

 In retrospect, I should have just ironed in a couple of pleats at this point since I prefer the "neat" look."

The back has two overlapping pieces to slide in a pillow.  If you've got some little scraps you can't bear to toss out, this is a great way to use them up.

First Clover and Violet Garden Steps Quilt Block

So there it is!  All hand embroidered and everything.  My hand stitching is not the best, but it looks good in a  folk art kind of way.

Fortunately we will only get one small bit of embroidery every few weeks for this quilt-along.  I have no idea what I'm doing despite watching some videos on embroidery stitches to get ready.  My stitches came out nothing like the ones in the video.  Close enough for me, though.

This is a whole new experience for me.  I've never had to work this hard at keeping all the pieces in order when quilting.  The fat quarters get used with only an average of one inch or less off the ends!  Not much room for error here!

As you can tell from the fabric piles on the floor at the top of the above picture and the unbelievable mess on the other side of the table in this picture:

I'm not the neatest worker. (It's just my craft room that looks like this. Really! I swear!)   I'm gonna have to clean it up tomorrow so that I can put together the rest of the blocks.  Doing a block every few weeks leaves me way too much time to get everything mixed up.

Fabric for the Garden Steps Quilt

My fabric and thread arrived from the Five Monkeys shop on Etsy for the Clover and Violet blog quilt along!  Beautiful, isn't it?   I decided to get the kit the shop put together for Clover and Violet after hours of indecision staring at my own hoard.  I don't usually do hand embroidery, so being able to buy just the amount needed for this in the matching colors from Five Monkeys is a big plus for me.

It's gonna be a courthouse steps block with small bits of embroidery in the center white square of each block.  This is my first fat quarter project.  I generally over-buy on fabric.  In fact, asking for a yard is hard for me.  More often than not, I quickly change the cutting order from one to two yards when I see that pair of scissors about to cut into fabric.  I am freakin' nervous about messing up these lovely little fat quarters!  Today is the big day, though.  The scissors hit the fabric.  Am I the only one with fabric cutting anxiety?  Wish me luck.

There's still time to join in the fun.  This will take a year after all!  The button below will take you to the information.

My fabric and thread arrived from the Five Monkeys shop on Etsy for the Clover and Violet blog quilt along!  Beautiful, isn't it?   I decided to get the kit the shop put together for Clover and Violet after hours of indecision staring at my own hoard.  I don't usually do hand embroidery, so being able to buy just the amount needed for this in the matching colors from Five Monkeys is a big plus for me.

It's gonna be a courthouse steps block with small bits of embroidery in the center white square of each block.  This is my first fat quarter project.  I generally over-buy on fabric.  In fact, asking for a yard is hard for me.  More often than not, I quickly change the cutting order from one to two yards when I see that pair of scissors about to cut into fabric.  I am freakin' nervous about messing up these lovely little fat quarters!  Today is the big day, though.  The scissors hit the fabric.  Am I the only one with fabric cutting anxiety?  Wish me luck.

There's still time to join in the fun.  This will take a year after all!  The button below will take you to the information.

Megan's Star Block for the Virtual Quilting March is Finished

Lauralei, this month's "queen bee",  wanted a fussy cut of a beast in the center.  The colors could be brown, gray, cream, and muted mustard.  I didn't have much hope for it, but I actually found an animal print!  Now let's hope Lauralei  likes the elephant.  This is my first fussy cut.  I was a bit nervous about it.  Turns out that it's pretty easy.

The book we're using, Modern Blocks by Susanne Woods, has this as one of the modern blocks.  There are lots of modern blocks in the book, but this is definitely an old favorite.  Perhaps the fussy cut in the center makes it modern.

One monthly sew-along/virtual bee down, three more to go.

Commenting and Word Verification

In addition to appreciating the comments I receive, I love leaving comments, too. I do it a lot.  Some of you regular posters may have noticed that.   Really, I'm not virtually stalking you.  I comment on the majority of the blog posts I read.

Lately, however,  it seems that a large portion of bloggers have set up word verification.  Often the "words" are ridiculously difficult to read such as these examples posted on  Markd60's blog:





Who has the time to try to figure out what these things say?  A big thank you to Mark for taking the time to collect these. I haven't had the patience to stick around and copy them.   I'm usually so frustrated by that point that I just click out.  Of course my nice, carefully written comment is then nothing more than wasted time.

I know that I could just NOT comment on your blogs while still keeping them on my list.  However, there's no way to know that word verification is needed until after I've taken the time to compose a comment.   It's the equivalent of starting a conversation with someone and then. just as that person is about to respond, asking them for two forms of identification. I read too many blogs to keep track of which ones are using WV.  If you're on my list, I obviously love your blog, but  I have to say that I'm seriously considering dropping some blogs to avoid the frustration and wasted time.  

There are two possible solutions I want to share with you (with tutorials for Blogspot blogs).  Please, please consider either:

• giving a warning that verification is needed BEFORE the comment box or
•  removing the word verification.

Tutorials for each:

Removing Word Verification (preferred method to keep me following your blog AND commenting):
1.Go to your dashboard:

2. Click "Settings"

3. Click "Comments" in the Settings submenu  (There is also a tab named "Comments" along side the above mentioned "Settings",  but that is the not the place.  First click "Settings", then there will be a "Comments" there for you to click on.

4. Scroll down to where it says "Show word verification for comments?" and click on the "No" button.

5. Scroll down and click the "SAVE SETTINGS" button.

Keeping Word Verification with a Note Warning Would-be Writers of Comments (I'll keep following, but probably will not comment):
1.  Go into "Settings" as above
2.  Click on "Comments"
3.  Scroll down to "Comment Form Message"
4.  Type a note in the box there stating that word verification is needed for commenting.  It could be a simple," Word verification is needed in order to comment."   This forwarning will let allow readers to decide whether they have the time and/or energy to deal with the extra work involved.
5.  Scroll down and click on "Save Settings" at the bottom

If you use something other than Blogger, I'm sure your blog support company would be more than happy to show you how to do these.  Thanks for your consideration.

Stitch and Quilt Along with Clover and Violet and Hoopla Embroidery Book Review

I've decided to join Clover and Violet's Stitch and Quilt Along!  The quilt will be made up of courthouse step blocks with a little bit of hand embroidery in the center of each block. If you want to check it out, click on the quilt-along button on the sidebar or on the lovely little pic here.

I was hesitant to join because of the hand embroidery.  It's been years since I did any hand embroidery.  However, completely by chance, Melissa brought an incredible book on embroidery home from the library yesterday.  What are the chances of that happening on the very same day?   I'm taking it as a sign that I should join the quilt along.

The book is Hoopla:  The Art of Unexpected Embroidery by Leanne Prain.   Melissa thought I would be interested in it.  Truthfully, had she called and asked if I would like to see a book on mostly hand embroidery, I would have said no. Taking on another form of stitchery would have seemed too daunting.  Thumbing through the book when it arrived, however, I realized that some of the simplest pieces shown were such special expressions of conviction and emotion.

Embroidered poem by Jamie Chalmers

I can think of a lot of places other than an ouch pouch
where I'd like to embroider a band-aid.

 (And, some are just plain fun!)

Embroidering on photos!  See the mustache on the baby?

Who wouldn't want to send a special someone who's far from home a photo
like this embroidered with hearts!

IMHO, anyone who sews beyond simple repairs, has a need to express themselves creatively.  Prain's book shows you how to do just that with beautiful, contemporary, artistic embroidery from the absolute simplest lines to the most complex.  The book has gorgeous photos, instructions on techniques, full directions for some of the projects, and interviews with artists.

As for a few of the more complex--but still doable, how about embroidering your furniture?

Sorry for the distorted photo.  It's the best I can do.
Wish I had embroidered a little something when
I reupholstered my denim set.  Not this much though!

How cool is this map!

You know I own this book now, don't you?  Well, it's on the way from Amazon, anyway,  for $19.77, down from the $29.95 list price.  Check it out at your library or click on "Amazon" above to see more about it online.