WIP Wednesday

It's Wednesday again. Already. And we are half-way through October. Already!

I have spent most of my sewing time working on my donation quilt. I finished the first block. Love it. Until I can figure out a better name, it will remain the same as the pattern, Crazy Traditions. 

I can feel myself getting attached to a quilt that will belong to someone else. So here is how I am solving the problem: Ticker Tape Parade (color palette borders based on Bottled Rainbows, but see the original Ticker Tape quilt here).

I made myself some rules.
*There has to be a piece of every single fabric included in Crazy Traditions.

 *I can expand the color palette and include some other favorite fabrics, and I'm okay with white space.

 (See the tiny houses and the Sandi Henderson Henna Garden?)

*And at least one selvage has to be included in every block.

That should do the trick and it will be easier to let go of Crazy Traditions
.
Four blocks were completed for Farmer's Wife Friday.

 That makes 46 blocks so far.

And I started this today, when I took my granddaughter to her piano lesson, the beginning of a knitted log cabin block.

Be sure to see what everyone else has done in the past week. Thanks, Lee, as always, for hosting this.

But wait. There is more. Unbelievably this is my 500th blog post! Even I can't believe I have had that much to say! So how about a little giveaway to celebrate? The winner can choose a charm pack--either Dream On or City Weekend. Random Number Generator will work its magic on Thursday, the 20th, at noon PDT. I'm super close to 500 colorful friends too. But you don't have to jump through hoops to get a chance to win. You just have to leave one comment, and make sure I can contact you.

Let's see. How about this: Are you happy with where you live, in the city or in the country? Or do you dream on about living somewhere else?

The Name Game: Cut to Pieces

Angela is here today from Cut to Pieces. I'm sure many of you are well acquainted with her. And if not, you will love all the pictures, just a small sampling of what Angela has to show you on her blog. Not only is she a quilter, she is a "chef" at Moda Bake Shop. So let's start with her most current pattern, Picket Fences.

Angela, how did you choose the name for your blog?

Choosing a name was difficult.  I struggled with it for a long time.  I knew that I wanted to be able to keep the name indefinitely and I needed something that I felt represented ME.  I didn't want to use a name that others expected from me.  

I already had an Etsy shop which I had started a couple of years earlier, named Tweedledee Designs.  But at that point I was focusing on making baby items for sale.  So the whimsical name was very appropriate for that "company".  I joined Flickr with that name as well.  But it became clear to me about a year ago that I was no longer focusing on baby items and wanted to have a name with broader appeal.  

There were some other things I thought of as well.  I didn't want the name to be too "cutesy" for ME.  I love it with others, but I didn't think that it was the right fit for me.  So I stayed away from anything with "Sew" in it...despite the fact that when I asked friends on facebook what name they liked the best all the ones that used "sew" were wildly popular.  lol.  

I'm a bit of a dork though and I still wanted to use something that has a play on words.  Cut to pieces could mean how I felt, what I was doing, or has the sweet way of sounding like Cut 2 Pieces...which is what I also do!  I liked that the name has a bit of an edge to it with the word "cut" because I'm not always feeling "Sew" wonderful. ;)  And this name gave me the opportunity to be able to morph my content into whatever I chose.  I'm not locked into being a quilting ONLY blog.  I could suddenly become a scrapbooker or clothing designer and the name would still be perfect!

Were there other names you considered, and can you share any of them with us?

Yes, as mentioned above, I considered a lot of names with "Sew" and many with "Quilting/Quilter/Quilts" in them.  These were all the blog names that family and friends actually liked.  But for some reason that made me want to do "Cut to Pieces" even more.  I liked that they didn't quite get why it was a name for me.  After all, Tweedledee Designs was so "sweet".  I considered that as well, but as I mentioned above, I wanted to step away from the overly juvenile nature of that name.  Though I still adore it! (And it's still the name of my occasionally running Etsy shop.)  Just to be ornery I even considered Tweedledum...the slightly off version of Tweedledee. ;)

Now that you are recognized by your blog name, Cut to Pieces,are you happy with it, or do you wish you could change it to something else?

Am I recognized by my blog name? That's fun! Yes, I do still like it.  I'm working on developing a logo for the blog and redoing it so that it is even more ME.  The only hard thing has been switching my flickr name over to match my blog.  I became one of those people with too many names...so I had to change my flickr name to be a hybrid of my previous Tweedledee Designs and my current Cut to Pieces.  Tweedledee Designs was too hard for everyone write out anyway, so it always got shortened to Twee...so that's the part I kept.  And I threw in the Cut to Pieces with some scissors, just to make things even harder to write out. lol

(Another Moda Bake Shop design)

 

My one regret is that there is a small online company in Australia maybe that makes something that has the dot com version of my name.  So I can't switch over.  My computer savvy brother always gives me a hard time for that.  But thankfully, blogs are pretty much an industry standard in the quilting world right now, so I'm good.  I'll figure something out later if I NEED a dot com. 

This book just arrived in the mail the other day.

Angela has two blocks on the cover! I think she has eleven blocks altogether in the book. Awesome design skills!

I hope you will head over to Cut to Pieces, say hi to Angela, and check out all the awesome designs she has to share (and her new blog design is easy to navigate, so spend plenty of time looking around).]

Thanks for stopping by, Angela. It was lots of fun having you here this week!

Farmer's Wife Friday: The Threads of Life

This week's writer is a farmer's wife from Wood County, West Virginia. Eight of her twenty married years were spent in the "National Capital," where she and her husband "lived the comfortable lives of the great, middle-class." Her husband worked long office hours, and she was not happy about her lack of family life.

#105 Wild Goose Chase. There was no question that the colors in this block needed to grey, against a sky of blue.

Other than those eight years, she was born on the farm where she currently lived. When she returned to that farm, she and her family "took up the threads of life again, in the old homestead--which, though homey and substantial, lacked all the improvements of our recent modern home." Perhaps there was a spider web or two.

#83, Spider Web. I chose kind of a silvery grey, the color of a web in the sunlight.

But she was happy to be in a place where "the birds sang, the flowers blossomed everywhere and the trees whispered their soothing secrets." Sounds idyllic.

#42, Fruit Basket. I changed the color scheme just a bit so there is a definite basket, filled with blackberries.

She raised two farmer's daughters, girls who "grew, with God's wonderful outdoors and dominant influence...too busy with the real things of life, and with their education, to be frivolous or superficial or artificial, as are so many modern girls."

#32 Farmer's Daughter. The color choice for this block seemed obvious--it had to be pink!

I'm really happy with how the blocks are progressing and love the look of them together.

Getting closer to the midway point--46 blocks so far!

See what fun and cheery fabric Carla chose for these four blocks. And enjoy her observations--they are always insightful and interesting!

To Knit...or (K)not...

Long before I became a quilter, I had a knitting phase. Mostly in high school and college. A couple of sweaters, lots of afghans. This one still lives with my parents:

Several weeks ago this book arrived in the mail: The Gentle Art of Knitting by Jane Brocket.

Jane's style of writing and beautiful photos alone are worthy of the purchase. I flipped through the pages and she had fascinating sidebars, like this one

and this one

and beautiful pictures like this

and even some crochet:

These were projects you would make without a huge commitment of time or finances. Suddenly, there it was: the desire to pick up my knitting needles once again.

I made a craft caddy

and a needle roll.

I enlisted a knitting partner. I made her a craft caddy

and a needle roll.

So now we have matching containers for our supplies.

I didn't think I would ever knit again. But maybe. Maybe just a little. Just a couple balls of yarn. Just a couple...

That thud you just heard? Um, that could have been Mark.I think he started banging his head against the wall when I said, "Honey, really, it's only a couple balls of yarn. Really.  Only a couple..."

The Name Game: Fluffy Sheep Quilting

When Sarah was here from Fairy Face Designs, I might have mentioned that the place at the top of my list for international travel is Ireland. Featured today is a fellow Irish quilter, Cindy from Fluffy Sheep Quilting. How did she pick such an interesting blog name? Let's find out!

How did you choose your blog name?

I did not plan to start a blog.

I was beginning my online search for a community of quilters, so I was following a few blogs.  I did not realize that the quilting/blogging world was so huge, but I was dipping my toe in the water.  Anyway, one night I was bored and looking for something to do.  I started writing my first blog post entitled “Why Not Me Too?” (http://fluffysheepquilting.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-not-me-too.html) Well, once you have a blog post you’re going to need a blog. 

What to name this new blog of mine?  Well, I wanted it to be a happy place.  What makes me happy?  Quilting, obviously.  What else? This whole process was happening during spring, a time of year that Ireland is just chock full of little playful, bouncy, warm, cuddly lambs.  Sheep in a field always brings a smile to my face.   Fluffy Sheep Quilting was born.

See what lack of sleep can get you into? 

Were there other names you considered, and can you share any of them with us?

No, there were no other names in the running.  I didn’t plan this at all, so there was no list to choose from.  Boring, I know.

Now that you are recognized by Fluffy Sheep Quilting, are you happy with it, or do you wish you could change it to something else?

I like the name Fluffy Sheep Quilting, so I think I will keep it.  I do, however, get awfully tired of typing it.  Writing the full http://fluffysheepquilting.blogspot.com or fluffysheepquilting(at)gmail(dot)com is a lot to take when signing up for linky parties.  By the time you get the name and the contact information on a business card, half of the printable area is gone!  I wish I had cindy(at)gmail(dot)com or quilts(at)gmail(dot)com to make life easier, but I did not think that through.  It’s too late now because Fluffy Sheep Quilting is here to stay.

Thanks so much for letting me play along, Cindy!  This was fun!

How to fun to get to know a little more about the creative person behind the name Fluffy Sheep Quilting. Please head over to say hi to Cindy and look around. If you are interested in improving your free motion quilting skills, you will want to check out Free Motion Friday! Each Friday Cindy is posting a free motion video and an example photo. Practice your skills for a week and then come back and post on Cindy's linky. What a great way to practice FMQ skills and learn some new design ideas.