Monday, February 27, 2006

Blogging Random Act of Kindness


Blogging Random Act of Kindness
Originally uploaded by lasassone.
Recently I was looking at pictures in the Flickr group called Corners of My Home and I made a comment about a picture of a cabinet that had been posted. The cabinet was the focus of the picture, but atop the cabinet were some cute miniature chairs that attracted me since I collect them. Another member also had mentioned in a comment that she was a collector of miniature chairs as well and I followed the links to her pictures. Her name is Kim and her blog is Little Somethings.

We eventually ended up emailing each other and compared collections. I had made a comment about a little chair she had in her picture that was like the little "modern" in this picture. She mentioned she had a duplicate she would like to send me.

My intention was to do a trade with her but when she sent me this HUGE box of other duplicates she found when she went looking, her address wasn't on the outside of the box!

So, you see, this wasn't QUITE a random act of kindness but we treated it as such.

Very shortly after receiving the little chairs I was reading another blog that I love called My house is cuter than yours and I discovered that the owner of that blog, Mary, collects salt & pepper shakers.

A lightbulb moment! I remembered I had the remains of my Mum's collection of Salt & Pepper shakers around here in a box somewhere. So, I took pictures of the many pairs left in the box and offered them up to Mary to pass the kindness on.

She received them last Saturday and today she blogged about it and posted a picture of her new treasures.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Fat Quarters going Bye-Bye


Fat Quarters going Bye-Bye
Originally uploaded by lasassone.
Surprise! I'm still here and I haven't finished another Redwork piece yet.

This is a picture of the results of the past couple weeks of cutting, pressing and folding.

In my major cotton stash reduction, I'm cutting and keeping only 1/2 yard of most of my cotton yardage. So far I've filled these 13 boxes with fat quarters sorted by color. I'm not quite half way through the shelves yet!

I'm down to cutting the novelties and these color boxes don't really work for novelties. I need more boxes so I can sort the novelties into catagories like tea, coffee, sweets, golf, sewing, etc. Alas, I have no more of these wonderful boxes and don't want to go buy anymore.

All of this has really brought it home to me how much I have indulged my fascination for novelty fabrics over the years. I'm a bit embarrassed.

So now I've resorted to making stacks in a laundry basket. I just have to remember to put something over the top of the basket at night because I think Katie (our feline boss) thinks I'm doing all this work for so she will have a well-padded bed to nap in!

Ah well, back to cutting & pressing. At least moving around like this is keeping me warm. After a lovely period of Spring-like warmth, it's raining again and they are forecasting snow for tonight. It's been many many years since we've had snow in this area; they are probably wrong!

Monday, February 13, 2006

Children of the World - Scotland!


Scotland
Originally uploaded by lasassone.
I must confess! During periods on UNinspiration while I was working on the Crazy Quilt block, I completed another block in the Children of the World vintage set.

I think this one is number 8 - 12 more to go! Now in the evenings I can get moving on these blocks again!

I've been spending days for the past couple weeks cutting up my extra fabrics into fat quarters to sell on eBay. My user name is lasassone if anyone is interested.

I'm only keeping 1/2 yard of any fabric except those which obviously need to be kept for quilt backings. I have to admit I have had rough patches where letting go of some fabrics has been really hard.

Of course if I didn't really love them, I wouldn't have bought them in the first place.....

RIGHT?

CQ Block done!


TXcancercenter
Originally uploaded by lasassone.
FINALLY! Today I finished my embellishment work on the 7" block for the Texas cancer center quilt. I just returned from the post office where I sent it out & away.

I actually really like this block. I generally don't work in this particular color palette so it was a growing experience for me.

The fabric with the seagull on it just about jumped into my hands when I began piecing and it was the inspiration for me to add the word "Soar". The colors seem a little distorted in my photo. Everywhere you may see a wierd gray color, it's actually a muted green and goes lovely with the other fabrics which are peach and rust.

The leaves were dyed with Ozcraft dyes last summer. The web was done with Coats & Clark metallic sewing thread and for the spider I used 1 strand of Splendor silk floss. I painted the face button with glass & china paints that are cured in the oven. The dainty flower trim on the curved seam is a purchased trim.

NOW BACK TO THE REDWORK!