Thimbleanna – Page 10 – My little online diary.

Quilt Festival Quilts

8 Comments / November 1, 2019 November 1, 2019 / Quilt Market Report

Well, here we are, flying into November already! I thought, for the first time in quite awhile that I’d have two posts in October, but I didn’t manage to make it. Anyway, I went to quilt market last week and my tradition has been to post pictures of market, but, to be honest, market wasn’t terribly exciting this year. (I did post a few pictures over on my Instagram account.) Maybe it’s because I missed the Aussie twins so much, who knows. But for sure, market was smaller than I remember it in the past. And Sample Spree was definitely a bust — there were several vendors who didn’t even bother to have booths. Sample Spree used to be one of my favorite things about market, but I doubt I’ll spend the money to go again.

Luckily, the week after quilt market is the big International Quilt Festival in Houston and the quilts from the quilt show are all set up during quilt market. The quilt show seemed much bigger than I remember them this year and there were lots of beautiful quilts, so I thought I’d show you a few here. This is the 40th year of Quilt Festival and they celebrated by having a beautiful display of blue and white quilts. You’ve probably seen lots of pictures of the quilts on Instagram and other blogs, but here are a few that caught my eye.

The blue and white exhibit was so big, I couldn’t get a picture showing the whole display.

Note the Girl in the Pearl Earring quilt — top row, second from the left. I love the diamonds and what a fun idea — I wish I had taken a better picture.

After I looked at the Blue and White quilts, I seemed to migrate to the applique quilts. This is Sophie’s August Morning by Lynne S. Dahllmeyer-Hartman. It looks a lot like the Love Entwined quilt-a-long that was online a few years ago from a free pattern, but the card with the quilt said this quilt was from a pattern by Michelle Hill.

When This You See Remember Me by Donna Gilbert.

Joy in the Journey by Lahala Phelps.

Look at ALL those appliqued circles!

This next display was several quilts by Yukiko Hirano and they were gorgeous and all hand appliqued and hand quilted. I’d be happy if I could make one quilt this beautiful in a lifetime!

I loved the colors on this one.

Bouquet of My Gratitude by Midori Horie.

Promised Season by Sachiko Chiba.

LOOK at all those little appliqued pieces! And hand quilting!

Past and Future Meet by Noriko Kido.

This is Crazy for Ewe by Janet Stone. I saw somewhere that it received a well-deserved award. It’s an alphabet quilt and many of the fabrics are flannel. The applique pieces were raw edge and sewn down with a blanket stitch. I LOVED all the fun ideas for each letter of the alphabet.

Here are a few other random quilts that caught my eye. The Performance by Linda K. Ainsworth. A fun use of bear paw blocks!

Momotaro, The Peach Boy by Keiko Aso.

Baskets by Susan K. Haslett-Scholfield.

Color My World by Sue Bleiweiss.

These next two quilts were from a challenge of quilts with a total of 100,000 pieces. I didn’t realize it until I was looking at these pictures that they were all made by the same quilter — Amy Pabst. Now I wish I’d taken pictures of all the other quilts that gave her a total of 100,000 pieces.

Stars and Stripes – 5480 pieces.

Sawtooth Star – 3600 pieces.

Facing the Future by Kat Gay. I don’t usually like pixelated quilts, but this was just pretty. It has 8,000 half inch finished squares.

There was also a small exhibit of some quilts from the collection of Joe and Mary Koval.

Isn’t this one interesting without a side border? I’ve seen them without a top or bottom border, but I don’t remember seeing one without a side border before.

And this one is a 1976 Bicentennial Folk Art quilt. Above the elephant it says I’ll Try and above the donkey it says Let’s Be Friends. As the sign says, the workmanship isn’t that great, but the content says it all. Very appropriate almost 50 years later!

There were so many beautiful quilts at the quilt show and this is just a small sampling. Thanks for sticking it out to the end!

XOXO,
Anna

Whoosh!

16 Comments / October 11, 2019 November 1, 2019 / Sewing

Well Hello Invisible Friends! Calling you invisible friends is probably true now more than ever — is anyone even out there anymore? We’ve reached a new blogging standard low here in ThimbleannaLand – I had no idea it had been so long since I’ve posted here. The last few months have sped by — it makes me dizzy! And really sad — time is fleeting {sigh}.

I can at least account for the month of September — July and August are a big fat blur — probably adjusting to the fun of having the grandbabies living so close again. What fun it has been and I’m loving the chance to see them so much more now. As for September, we took a few trips. First, TheManoftheHouse and I went to Utah for a week. We love our little Utah getaways and it’s always a chance to catch up with the world’s greatest Aunt. She’s amazing and this trip, she taught me how to make relish. I don’t even like relish, but MeMum and TheManoftheHouse love Aunt Annie’s relish, so I thought I’d try to learn how to make it — it was great fun!

Then, I was home for six days before I left on a trip to Iceland with TheSecondChild. He was unable to go with us on our last trip (it hardly seems possible that that was six years ago), and it worked out well to go this year. We had a fantastic trip — the weather was beautiful most of the time and TheSecondChild is the perfect travel companion. Always cheerful and willing to go anywhere — even yarn stores! And, of course, the scenery in Iceland is always gorgeous.

I have been sewing and knitting during the little blog break too. A few weeks before our Utah trip, the nice people at Zakka Workshop asked if I would make a sample for quilt market from their new book Sew Cute Quilts and Gifts by Atsuko Matsuyama. I happily said Yes!

I chose to make the yoyo bag that appears on the cover, but I had such a hard time choosing fabrics that I ended up making two little bags.

I raided my stash to make the first bag and had lots of fun randomly piecing the patchwork panels. I was happily surprised at how well the Tilda ribbon from her Apple Butter line went with my little bag — I love it on those straps.

For the second bag, I raided my etsy shop and used the adorable fabrics from Kirsten Sevig. The house and meadow prints are my very favorites and it turned out to be perfect timing. I was getting ready for a trip to Iceland, and she was inspired by two years of living in Reykjavik when she created this line. (Can you spot the little kitty peeking out of the meadow fabric?)

I used my clover yoyo makers to make all those yoyos — it really doesn’t take long when you have the right tools.

I’m planning on going to quilt market in a few weeks (yay! it’s been a few years since I’ve been), so, hopefully I’ll see my little bags there. ;-)

Ok, must run — I have lots of blog-reading-catching-up to do LOL.
Have a great weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

A Picnic Quilt

12 Comments / July 7, 2019 July 7, 2019 / Around the House, Quilting

I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve had a quilt finish, but here’s one for the summer. Knowing that TheFirstChild and his little family would be moving here this summer, I felt the need for a picnic quilt to use in the backyard when the grandbabies come over to play. I started this quilt a month or two ago and finished it just a few days after the move was completed — perfect timing!

This quilt was so quick and easy, I almost feel like it’s cheating to call it a quilt finish. I’ve had a big pile of blue jeans that I’ve been hoarding for years. (I know this because when we lived in Minnesota over 20 years ago, TheManOfTheHouse and I used to play a little game with his jeans when they were worn out. He would put them in the garbage and I would sneak them out and into my hoard. Sometimes he would catch me and throw them out again, but I always won LOL.) Anyway, I finally cut into some of those jeans. I cut my pieces into 8″ squares and then pieced them into 10 rows of 10 patches, making this a finished quilt just under 75″ square.

The backing is a piece of fabric that I bought at Ikea several years ago after seeing someone post it on the internet. It’s a heavier weight than normal quilting cotton, and I bought it thinking that someday it might make a cute backing for a picnic quilt. Sometimes, my plans actually do get implemented! I used DMC cotton thread (in pink, green, yellow and orange) and big-stitch quilted the squares in a big “X” pattern. Here’s an in-progress shot on the quilting frame.

Quilting through denim wasn’t exactly easy, but I ended up taking just one stitch at a time and using pliers to help me pull the needle through, so it didn’t seem so bad.

This was a really fun quilt to make! And the best thing is, it’s already been pressed into service. Grammy had a little babysitting session this afternoon, so we had to break-in the new quilt and have snacks in our secret little place under the Ugly Tree. It was perfect!

Happy July (Already)! And Happy Picnicking!!!
XOXO,
Anna

Mouse Houses

12 Comments / June 22, 2019 June 22, 2019 / Around the House

Hey Hey — it’s Saturday!!! Otherwise known as the weekend — YAY! I love the weekend — it gives me a little extra time to try and catch up on things around here. I’ve been meaning to update you on Mouse Houses for months now, and yesterday, I got an e-mail (which I’ll explain later) that has given me the little extra reminder that I needed.

I’ll back up a bit … long time readers might remember when I posted the picture below of a cute little mouse house that CrazyBIL built for DadLovesMeBestSister when they were remodeling their house.

I’ve always wanted a mouse house in our house, so, when we had a bathroom remodeled about a year ago, we had the contractor set us up to make a mouse house of our own. (Well, “we” didn’t really have the contractor do it — I kept it a secret from TheManoftheHouse ’cause I was afraid he’d think it was goofy, but I’m glad to report he’s very happy with it.)

We have a landing at the top of our stairs to the second floor, and the wall between the bathroom and the hall was the perfect place for our mouse house. I had the contractor turn the light switch in the bathroom into a double light switch and the second switch turns on the mouse house. From that switch, he dropped a nightlight cord down the wall and then just cut an opening into the wall on the hall side so I could access the space in the wall.

It was so easy and fun! So far, I’ve only added a little tricycle for Mr. Mouse, photos of Grandpa and Grandma mouse (from this fabric), and a sewing machine (naturally) to our little house, but I’m dreaming of lots of other fun little things to do with it. (At Christmas time I added little battery operated Christmas lights around the door — that was fun.)

Several years ago, a man named Carlos found my original mouse house post and contacted me asking some questions. I wasn’t very helpful (sourcing a mouse was a problem) but he figured things out and has built a mouse house of his own for his little boys. If you’re at all interested in mouse houses, you must go watch THIS video he has about his house — the picture below doesn’t come close to doing it justice. His little mouse (I think since they couldn’t find a mouse, his wife worked so hard to hand-craft their own gorgeous little mouse) actually moves AND he has a motion sensor in his hall to make his light come on and off. (I think that’s a brilliant idea and now I want a motion sensor for our house too!) And look at his perfect little furniture — I need more mouse houses so I can still have a sewing machine AND a reading nook just like this one.

Because I’ve had many questions about the details of these little houses in the past (the original mouse house is one of my most popular pins on Pinterest), here is a list of where I got some of the pieces for our mouse house:

The Light – We used THIS single night light from Lowe’s and our contractor hard-wired it into the light switch in the bathroom.
The Door — I found THIS door and it turned out to be the exact same door that was used on the original mouse house.
The Mouse — I searched and searched online for a little mouse and had no luck — the ones I did find were just SO expensive. I had almost decided I would have to figure out how to make one, when one day, MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I were going through MeMum’s Christmas ornaments and we came across our little mouse. MyDadLovesMeBestSister said “Hey, this is just like the mouse in my mouse house.” I’d never noticed he’s a Christmas mouse — shhhh, don’t tell. In the meantime, Awesome Carlos mentioned that he found some super cute little mice HERE that would work perfectly for someone searching for a mouse.
The Walls and Floor — I bought scrapbook papers at Michael’s to decorate our mouse house. You can’t really tell by the pictures, but the paper on the floor is a wood-grain looking paper and it’s perfect to make a little wood floor for the house.

So, there you have it. I LOVE our little mouse house and happily, FinallyAGirl loves it too. One morning she jumped out of bed and ran over to say good morning to the little mouse. Carlos said his little boy says good night to his little mouse every night too. I’m thinking we might need to make our mouse a bed (with quilt of course!) so we can put him to bed each night and wake him up in the mornings. And, for even more fun, I’m thinking, when the grandbabies are big enough for chapter books, our mouse might have to go on a vacation while The Borrowers move in for a little while. How cool would THAT be???

If you stuck it out ’til the end of this post, The Scruffster would like to thank you. Don’t worry — he’s keeping a watchful eye on his little mouse friend ….

XOXO,
Anna

Smocked Dresses

15 Comments / May 30, 2019 May 30, 2019 / Sewing, Smocking

Well, here we are at the end of May, and I’ve finally finished a little project I was hoping to have finished by the middle of April. Completing projects that have handwork is easy enough, but I really struggle to get time on my sewing machine. Now that MeMum lives with us, she wants me to be with her all the time, and my sewing machine is in the basement and she is upstairs in the living room. I need two of me. Anyway, I made little smocked dresses for our little cherubs. (Please note my fancy new clothes hanger — it’s a trampoline for 2-yr olds LOL.)

I used the Lee pattern again — I seem to always go back to it, because, why mess with a good thing. The pattern only has a traditional Peter Pan collar, so I altered it a little and added the little ruffles around the necks.

For fabric, I used the Danjo Libery Tana Lawn print in pink . It’s a classic print and I love it. I also used the Spechler Vogel little pink check that I have in my etsy shop for a few of the contrasting pieces. I struggled with what to do for the smocking and had pretty much decided to just make something up, but the day before I started smocking, the summer 2019 issue of Classic Sewing (featuring a dress with this smocking pattern) arrived on my doorstep. Perfect timing!

The smocking is pretty subtle and that’s the way I wanted it. The star of this show is the beautiful Liberty fabric! Little details are also fun — I haven’t used a hook and eye in a long time.

Grammy lucked out this time and those little dresses both fit. Here are our little dolls in their new dresses. It’s really hard to get a picture of two little girls both smiling and looking at the camera. Maybe next time LOL.

Have a great week — unbelievably, summer is upon us!
XOXO,
Anna