Welcome back, Mr. Rogers…

I seem to be finding videos this week. I heard about this one featuring Mr. Rogers on All Things Considered last week and finally hunted it down. You may have seen it – I had not. It literally brought a tear to my eye. More than one tear — and it put a big grin on my face.

(This is the best use of Auto-Tune ever.)

 

You might also love the Bob Ross ReMix (remember his happy trees?). What the hay, here it is. More grins.

 

You might also love the Julia Child Remix. Click the link, once there you'll find other videos from NPR. 

 


Use your muscles…

(I apologize in advance to those of you who might not want to watch a heavily muscled man in admittedly small shorts. If this is you, just ignore this post. But if you're up for it, this is really sort of amazing.)

You may already have seen this, but I had not until just a few minutes ago. It's fun to watch, but then wait a bit when the video ends. It's not over. 

Here's a tip: when you see the record button, click it, then hit some keys on your keyboard.

Old Spice Muscle Music from Terry Crews on Vimeo.

 

 

For Addyson Grace…

No, that's not a typo. Both babies have Grace as their middle name. And their first names are 3-syllable names that start with "A". I have to stop and think before I say (or type) either name – but I don't see them often. I'll bet the members of the family that see them all the time have the names down pat. 


ButterfliesForAddyson copy

Alea, Addyson's mom, didn't have any color or design preferences. This quilt is just about the fabric. The center is a background that I had in my stash that didn't have a home. It found a home! I added borders and scattered butterflies from Applique With Attitude over the surface of the quilt – stitching them with #12 perle cotton and a running stitch.


ButterfliesForAddyson-02 copy

Addyson's name isn't appliqued on the quilt top so I quilted it in with my signature. I had fund with the quilting – combining lines and flowers. I especially like the look of the two motifs meeting in the border. I hadn't done that before, but I will do it again.


ButterfliesForAddyson-05 copy

I intentionally did not put a lot of applique on this quilt and I kept the pattern on the busy side. I want Addyson, like her cousin Annabelle, to use her quilt and love it to pieces!


For Annabelle Grace…

Both of my nieces, sisters Alea and Rachel, had babies in July. I don't always promise a baby quilt because I can't always get one made but this time I did promise. To both of them. And I finished both quilts before the babies were much more than 1 month old! Here is the quilt made for Annabelle Grace:


Annabelle-04 copy

Rachel requested color combined with black and white. I decided to play with progressions of color and size to give Annabelle something to think about. Small strips lead to larger strips, light yellow blends to darker blue. The dark blue strips are centered and act as an axis in the design.


Annabelle-07 copy

I wrote her name in my best longhand and enlarged it to make a template. I used the cutaway applique technique and appliqued it in place with perle cotton.

The quilting is fun! I quilted lines in the strips but switched to flowers in the prints. (Note: you can click on any of these photos to see it larger.)


Annabelle-06 copy

I made this quilt to hold up to wear and washing. The more it is washed the softer it will be. I mostly used prints so that stains won't show so much. If it gets dragged around on the floor – that's just fine. I hope Annabelle uses it for a very long time.

Tomorrow I'll show Addyson's quilt…


How to separate an egg…

I found this video via Valerie Hearder's facebook page. As she says, you really don't need to understand the language to see how this works. I can't wait to try it!

UPDATE: I tried it and it works! I had a very fresh egg – I think a regular one from the store might work even better. I used a really short plastic bottle – I think one more the size shown would work better. But, as I said, it works and it's better than using my egg separator. Who knew?!

 

Now I need to get back to doing something that is actually on the to-do list for today.

Magen’s Flower Garden…

Look what Linda made for her neice, Magen!


MagensFlowerGarden

Linda rediscovered the joy of English paper piecing and has been going to town with hexagons. She made the flowers and then appliqued them to the quilt. I've just put the pattern up on the web site. Click here for more information about the quilt and the pattern.

It's always interesting to write instructions for a technique that I haven't written about before. Linda gave me the tips that she had come up with as she worked on this quilt. I combined that with what I know from my own English paper piecing. Steve took the photos to illustrate the techniques… all of that went into this new pattern. Here's one of the how-to photos:


HexPrep-09

I really love digital technology! Imagine, 10 years ago it would have taken a lot more time and money (and printing, warehousing, and shipping) to get this pattern from us to you. It's amazing when you think about it. (FYI – I'll probably upload a movie showing how to English paper piece in the near-ish future.)

I'll send a newsletter soon announcing this pattern, and new fabric that isn't online yet, and there is one more pattern to get up… but before then I thought I'd share Magen's Flower Garden with you.