Feline Friday & the REAL Studio Tour

The kids were all excited to host today's post for the The REAL Studio Tour but they are still frozen after their little adventure this morning!

Hmm...maybe it's time to take the bunting down.
It was snowing faster than I could shovel this morning.

I still don't let Zorro stay in the house if I'm not there so he was very ceremoniously taken to the porch while I went out to shovel. Apparently the porch was lonely tho cuz he followed me up and down the driveway as I dug my way out. It was very cute as he would sit near me for a while and get covered in snow flakes and then run back to the porch for a few minutes. He would be back soon enough. Sadly, I couldn't get him to play in the snow.

LOVE YOU, Momma!

After shoveling was done, every one came outside:
Squeaky wanted outside.
Zorro wanted inside.
Midgie didn't really want outside so I carried her and then she really didn't want to go back inside either so I carried her again :)

Sew, today's topic on The REAL Studio Tour is all about storage ideas.

As a certifiable crock-aholic, there are several crocks very prominent in my studio.

I didn't get the 3rd crock in this picture but there are 3 at the corners of my cutting mat and ironing board. The largest holds my most often used rulers and the two-colored crock you see is a trash bin. The hidden crock holds ... wait ... can you guess? ... Chocolate! And for those of you who stopped by last week, YES, that is 3 containers for choco in my studio. LOL.

This 20 gallon crock is just as it was this morning when I was taking pictures - a dumping ground from when I cleaned something else off. If I had taken the time to clean, the bottom of the crock holds packages of batting and a trug full of scraps waiting to be trimmed sits on the packages. It has the appearance of being 20 gallons of scraps and I assure you it is not!

I forgot the 7(?) gallon crock that is the perfect height to hold rolls of wrapping paper, interfacing, etc.

This curio cabinet was a hand-me-down from my sis-in-law. I've filled it with baskets and boxes of UFOs. Yipper, probably half of the projects in the top section are hexie related.

Ok, you've probably been waiting for this on pins and needles - this here is hexie central!!! It got to the point that I couldn't keep all the slippery little bags of hexie papers neat and tidy in a basket so I got these drawer units at Dollar General and created a chart in Excel of all the shapes and templates I own. Each drawer holds a specific size and then there are a few drawers left for random sizes or supplies. It's so easy to pull out what I need or want to play with.

Don't forget to stop by next Tuesday for HeLP for Hexie-aholics and again next Friday for the big reveal of our REAL studios!!!

I hope all your pussy cats are warm and dry!

What a crock!

After showing my new crock last week...several people said they would be interested in seeing the rest of my crock collection. I hope y'all really meant it because here they are!


Newest crock - purchased in Lewisburg, PA.



This twenty gallon beauty was purchased for a pretty penny at a local auction a couple summers ago. It takes two people to carry it and luckily still has the wire handles altho the handle at the tip of the arrow has lost it's wooden dowel. Yes, those are scraps in the crock but NO it's not full, there is batting at the bottom.



This 6 gallon crock was begged off of Mom. It has been relegated to her basement because it was broken.
You can just barely make out the v-shaped piece I super glued back in place.
 It's certainly sturdy enough to hold wrapping paper. The lid is still at Mom's.



These three are used the most and for obvious reasons! Trash, rulers and choco rule the cutting table in my studio :)
The 2 crocks on the left were also from Mom, not sure where I got the choco filled crock - it's not in great shape.



This crock was actually found in a kitchen cupboard when I moved in to my house. It had costume jewelry, old skeleton keys, broken army men and the like.  This is the same kitchen cupboard that would randomly open itself when I was out of the house or asleep. We blamed it on Melvena, the previous owner. It's obviously a little small for an umbrella stand so I'm on the lookout for a larger one. Mom has several still in her basement...



Melvena's crock is the only one that has a makers mark.
My research shows this pottery was only in existence from maybe 1902 to 1905 or so.



Last, but not least, is this ugly brown crock I picked up somewhere and relegated to the kitchen.
I know you're jealous of the wallpaper on the backsplash! Ugh!

Antiquing in Pennsylvania

The drive to Baltimore this past weekend is only about 5.5 hours according to the GPS. Why then, do you ask, did it take 8.5 hours??! Outside of the obvious gas and lunch stops, we stopped at Roller Mills Antique Center in Lewisburg, PA!! I could have spent twice as long there to check out nearly 400 antique "booths" inside this gorgeous old mill. Be sure to check out the history of the four story flour mill.

You are gonna laugh but what do I spy in the entry way but a hexie table! I texted a photo to Denise who promptly told me I "needed" it but the table remains in PA.

Just beyond the table I found this great quilt. You can barely make out the old beams of the mill. A "tad" out of my price range, the quilt also remains in PA.

I like the combo of hexie shapes in this next quilt and the colors are great too. I think I already own these paper shapes so this baby goes on the bucket list :)

Dad thinks he can replicate this little rack for me. I have a pretty extensive collection of hankies with tatted edges but they are in a box for lack of a good display rack.

What did I come home with tho??

I happen to have a thing for crocks and really liked the shape of this one, including the blob of glaze on the side. I also picked up the brass key in the photo. I think this was the first one I've seen with the rectangular top. Someone spent a lot of time polishing the brass (I kinda wish they hadn't) but it's a nice key and was clearly used as the end was bent. LOL!

I could do a post on my key and crock collections if anyone is interested...

Batiks fabrics

I've been playing with Batiks...check back next week to see the doll quilt I am donating to the American Girl Tea Party, a fundraiser for Cordelia Greene Library. This event is so popular and so many generations of ladies who attended as kids now take their own kids that tickets were almost sold out before the flyers were even posted!!

I'm not sure I'll be able to attend this year but I will take photos if all works out...

No, this is NOT a family bonding moment. It's just that the two bleep-ing squirrels in the bird feeder didn't seem to mind 3 furry faces drooling over them through an open window/screen.

it's tuesday...

...and I don't have much to share. I'm afraid I got sucked into watching season one of Greatest Catch after making a yummy dinner of sauteed onions, mushrooms and garlic served on garlic bread with roast beef and swiss cheese.

It snowed a lot last night. I knew it was supposed to and since I have been lazy about shoveling since last week, I got myself outside early to shovel before my neighbor would be out. I need the excercise and I don't mind shovelling but I just really don't want them to think I wait for them to do my drive. Low and behold she was also out early and saved me tons of work with her snowblower. Four trips up and down my drive with the blower and she was done. What would we do without these kinds of neighbors?! I just need to think of an appropriate thank you as they have helped me numerous times already this year. I don't think the homemade ice cream and pie last year was sufficient altho they tell me they do it just to be good neighbors.

And, for lack of any other photo - this is the remains of what I worked on this week.
The chocolate was quite necessary!

Roll Roll Cotton Boll update

I’ll be honest, now that the whole RRCB pattern has been posted, I'm working out of order. I work on what I feel like and what I can do with the parts already sewn. Essentially it will come down to the string blocks (part#3) being done last. I don't particularly care for making them so I don't keep strings. I'll have a lot of cutting to do before I can make those blocks and I need to locate a phone book I can dismantle.

 I haven't made much progress partly because I saw someone’s string blocks with black as a neutral and I was trying to decide if I wanted to do mine that way. I no longer can find those pictures online but this weekend it dawned on me that I have already used brown for some parts (which I am not going to redo) and I didn’t want black and brown in the same quilt. That finally got me back in gear!





These are my trapezoids from Step 6. I love the bright pinks and greens and  the dark browns together.

I'm almost finished with Step 4. The 9" strips are sewn together and I have just a few more to subcut while I am eating lunch today. I didn't trim the neutral strips to 9" as directed. That means some of them were long enough I could also get some 2" blocks for my Oh my gosh quilt. I need a bazillion 2" and 2.5" neutral squares so any opportunity for variety is appreciated.

 Ok - this one is weird. You probably noticed I keep old crocks near the cutting mat for trimmings and before I dumped it in the actual trash, I just liked the way it looked. I mean your "trash" says a lot about a person, right? Like the couple who live across the street and have 2 overflowing garbage cans every week for my one or two grocery bag bags. Ok, back to quilt stuff. I just like to see what makes the trash and what doens't. Maybe I can make this a periodic pix of what I chose trash. Needs a MUCH better name tho. Ideas?