Quilting – Page 13 – Thimbleanna

The Children are Here!

103 Comments / August 16, 2011 August 22, 2011 / Quilting, Store

Look, Looky, LOOK! Sarah Jane’s Children at Play have arrived in ThimbleannaLand and I Luuuuvvvvv them so! They’re adorable and I even passed up a few hours of painting in the kitchen so I could play with them. (Ok, it wasn’t a stretch to give up painting for quilting.) I started by piecing a courthouse steps block — keeping the pink and aqua in separate ladders.

Then I decided to play a little in photoshop and copy the blocks. The plan for a quilt like this would be to use different little motifs in the centers of each block. (And happily, my piecing skills at the sewing machine are better than in photoshop, but you get the idea.)

I also decided to do a little copy/paste in photoshop and edit the aqua steps out. For a more aqua quilt, I could have edited the pink out. (Sheesh, I think I need EQ7!)

After the courthouse steps block, I decided to piece a few star blocks. I love star blocks — they’re so versatile and you can do so many things with their centers.

I could easily have spent a few hours playing with different layouts, but I ran out of time. (That hopscotch print is killing me! I spent many hours drawing chalk hopscotches on the driveway when I was a little girl — what fun memories.)

As I was putting my fabric away, I noticed that it matches some of my Divine Twine. How Fun!

There’s even twine to match the boy fabrics. If only I could make those big toe grabber stitches with it.

I can see a TON of possibilities for this fabric. It’s my new Ghastlies and I might be a little obsessed. I couldn’t help it, so I put some of my favorite prints in the Thimbleanna.com shop. I hope you’ll love them as much as I do.

And Wait! There’s More! If you spend more than $50 in the Thimbleanna.com store, I’ll send you a free pair of ginsu knives these cute little polkadot scissors — another of my favorite little finds. (If you have a color preference, make a comment on your order form and I’ll do my best to honor it.)

And while we’re giving away ginsu knives, let’s have a little giveaway. Leave a comment by Monday, August 22 (Happy Birthday to my bigboy FirstChild) to win a quarter yard pack of my favorite boy prints. In your comment, would you mind telling me which version of the courthouse steps layout you like best? Aqua or white?

Good Luck!

XOXO,
Anna

A Ghastlie Night

38 Comments / August 3, 2011 August 7, 2011 / Holidays, Quilting

Wow — thanks so much for all of your wonderful comments about Dad. It was really fun to read them all. Dad was pretty excited that people on the other side of the world know that he had a birthday. Isn’t the internet an amazing thing?

After Dad’s birthday this weekend, the stars all aligned and I managed to sew. WooHoo! It felt SO good — I’d been having major Hester withdrawal. I HAD to sew — the new Ghastlies arrived and I was beside myself with excitement.

I mean — LOOK! It’s the long awaited knitting witches. I LOOOOVE them! I made the ghastlie quilts before the knitting witches were available. If I’d known there were going to be knitting witches, I would have waited to make the quilts. The only thing better would be quilting witches. (Hmmm, maybe that will be on the next line?)

Anyway, since the knitting witches aren’t in the quilts, I decided I’ll make some pillows to coordinate with the quilts. Well, ok, just one pillow for now. I did an envelope back with orange buttons and put a little ghastlie cat on the back. PaulKitty decided to pose for a picture with his new kitty buddy. Do you think they look alike?

I occasionally get questions about how I made the ghastlie quilts, so I made a page with some ghastlie quilt info. It’s not even close to step by step instructions, but hopefully the info will be helpful to anyone who would like to make their own ghastlie quilt.

I also had a lot of requests for the original ghastlie fabric but I didn’t have any. So, this time, I put some of the new ghastlie fabric, “a ghastlie night”, on my fun fabric page in the Thimbleanna store. (Update: The Ghastlies are all sold out — Thank you so much for your orders!) There are three main scenes in “a ghastlie night”, as shown below (the knitters, the Dr. and a big dinner table scene). I think I love this new print even more than the original one for quilt backs – the ghastlies are much more social this time around.

Now I can’t wait for Halloween to decorate — it’s just around the corner you know! ;-)

XOXO,
Anna

My Washer is Possessed

37 Comments / April 10, 2011 April 21, 2011 / Quilting

It’s a beautiful weekend here in ThimbleannaLand. I spent a little time working on my Bliss quilt yesterday. I’m pretty happy we didn’t get rid of the ping pong table when the boys grew up and left home. I’d rather have a basement full of noisy boys making a mess of things, but at least the table knows it’s still well-loved.

All was not sweetness and light yesterday though. As you may know, I’m a pre-shrinker. I ran out of pre-shrunk solid red fabric, so I threw another piece into the washer. Lookie what happened! (Warning: Objects in mirror picture are closer redder than they appear.)

Can you see the difference? I washed the fabric all by itself, but it came out of the washer with some blue added and now it’s a little wine-y looking. ??? So, now I’m afraid of my washer. Something’s in there. Maybe I should call Quiltbusters.

And totally unrelated, yesterday I was blog surfing and saw a little embroidered bunny which made me think of a little Fat Bunny I embroidered for MeMum years ago. About thirty minutes later, I came across Wendy’s cute Fat Bunny, which I thought was funny, so I took a picture of MeMum’s well-loved Fat Bunny.

I put him into a simple one-patch quilt (made just like Isabelle’s quilt) nestled among 30’s repro flannels. Big one-patches (these are about six-inches) are really fun to make — especially with a little embroidery thrown into the mix.

Now I’m off to pick up sticks in the yard — it’s going to be ridiculously warm here today. I hope you’re having a good weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

March Hangover

43 Comments / March 14, 2011 March 14, 2011 / Chat, Quilting

Did you all have a nice weekend? I had a good one — I made the trek to visit TheSecondChild and check up on him. And cook and clean. And do what moms do. His freezer is now stocked to keep him happy for awhile. I was tempted to go down there and make him come home. He’s doing well, but I miss the little booger. Oh, and I forgot — I fixed the fly on the boxers that I sent him for Valentine’s Day. I’d accidentally sewn it shut. Oops!

The trip was only marred by the awful weekend news. It’s a six hour drive each way and I was glued to the BBC (love that satellite radio) the whole time. Then tonight, I’ve been watching a few of the videos online. I think we should just take March off of the calendar entirely — have a do-over and skip right to April, where there won’t be any natural disasters and spring will have sprung in the Northern Hemisphere. Garrison Keillor definitely nailed it when he said March is like a hangover. If March didn’t contain the first day of spring (TheSecondChild’s birthday), it would surely be my least favorite month.

Ah well, sorry it’s been so boring around here. Too many un-exciting things going on. I hate to leave you without a picture though, so here’s a peek at a new quilt I started a week or two ago. I’ve made about nine blocks out of I-can’t-remember-how-many-I-need. With the limited amount of time I have for quilting during the hangover, this project promises to take some time.

One other little picture. It was Pi Day today at work. Due to my weekend absence and the fact that TheManoftheHouse worked all weekend and didn’t get the groceries needed for the pie, we failed to take some pie goodness. We’ll have to have Pi Makeup Day. Anyway, the spread looked much like last year except for this guy who brought in these yummy salted peanut marshmallow bars and put them in the shape of the Pi symbol. He also brought Moon Pies which I thought was pretty funny.

Ok, I’ll stop talking now. Hope you have a good week!

XOXO,
Anna

Finally, The Ghastlies

82 Comments / January 10, 2011 February 22, 2011 / Quilting

We finally have a quilt finish around here! I actually finished the Ghastlies before Christmas (just barely) but I couldn’t show them to you because I made three of them — one for MeMum and BigDaddy, one for MyDadLovesMeBestSister and CrazyBIL and one for us.

I love that they’re getting their little photo session in the winter. Ghastlies should be surrounded by the stark black and whiteness of the cold, not the pretty greens or autumn colors of the other seasons.

I had a hard time deciding how to quilt the little creepers. Since the pattern is a wonky log cabin and I chose to “float” them on a bed of gray, the gray sashing isn’t straight. I ended up quilting big wonky zig zags in the gray. In my mind, I was thinking of the visual version of that screeching music from the movie Psycho.

Then I free-motioned around each little character and did 1/4″ quilting along each color of the log cabin. Try that on a domestic machine — it was a pain in the behind. Stitch down a side, turn, stitch down the next side, turn…round and round to complete each block. I didn’t think I’d be able to keep the stitching straight if I tried to free-motion it. I’m really happy with the quilting, but it was very time-consuming.

I backed the quilts with a solid piece of the ghastlie print. This is the only picture I got of the back — rather sinister looking in jail, I think. The blocks are each 14″ and each quilt measures 56″ x 70″. Perfect for snuggling while listening to werewolves howling outside.

At the end of our photo session, I took the Ghastlies for a little swing in MyDadLovesMeBestSister’s tire swing. They seemed to really love the ride.

What they didn’t love was the snowy adventure. Little hammer girl was very unimpressed.

And the coven of witches were downright whizzed off. They were whispering about me and when I tried to get close enough to hear what they were saying, that skinny little witch on the right turned around and gave me a death stare.

Fine. I dried them off, folded them up, and put them in the cupboard. They have until October to wipe those scowls off of their faces!

XOXO,
Anna