New Quilt Project

My goal of not starting another quilting project until I finish the top for That 70s Quilt has been crushed by Pinterest. Thanks.

After seeing a picture on Pinterest of a quilt block that looked like a bunch of Polaroid pictures scattered across the floor, I thought this would be a super cute way to showcase fabrics that I love. It also would mean fussy-cutting and a lot of waste, something I don’t love. However, I decided to grab a stack and start cutting. I would have clicked on the picture on Pinterest, which probably would have led me to a tutorial or something, but instead decided to wing it. Sometimes the less information I have the more informed my decisions are… when it comes to quilting that is!

For the Polaroids themselves, I decided to fussy-cut a three by three inch image with one by three inch strips of white on either side, a one by four-and-a-half inch white strip on top and a one-and-a-half inch by four-and-a-half inch white strip on the bottom. This creates a four by four-and-a-half inch Polaroid. I then gathered various shades of grey and started cutting out strips to create the outer edges. At first I was cutting them out on angles and sewing them together to create the wonkiness and scattered look, but then I figured that if I simply cut rectangles and chose my direction afterwards it was less of a headache. I highly suggest the latter approach if you plan to make these yourself. To further the scattered look, I threw in a blank grey square and plan to have anywhere from one to three of these in future blocks.

I highly suggest that if you love this block as much as I do, you visit the blog Stitched in Color (http://www.stitchedincolor.com/2012/04/polaroids-on-cloudy-day.html) and read about her approach.

Clumping Cat Litter

For years I’ve been against clumping cat litter because, well, I really hate clay-based litter. Now there is a natural alternative.

While shopping for kitty litter the other day, I decided to take the advice of an article I read at the veterinary clinic about having at least one litter box for each cat in the house filled with whatever litter they normally use, but also have a large open box with clumping cat litter. Well, we have two boxes, one for each cat, and also an extra that we simply keep filled with the same Good Mews newspaper-based litter, so I decided perhaps I should just bite the bullet and see if this works or at the very least helps curb their sometimes nondiscriminatory out-of-the-box urinating habits. Looking over the clumping litters, I figured I’d go with the cheapest reliable brand, which at the time was Arm & Hammer. I was about to lift the twenty pound bag into the cart when I saw a ten pound bag that said it did the same job as the larger one and bonus, it was made with corn fibers and plant extracts instead of clay!

Arm & Hammer Essentials Natural Clumping Litter has been in use for the last five days in the house and so far there has been absolutely no litter odor, ammonia smell or anything other than a fresh scent. I’ve also noticed that both cats seem to prefer it, as one of the two other litter boxes has been left untouched and the covered one has only had a lonely poop. The only drawback is that while the Good Mews litter leaves large pellets that are easy to pick up, the clumping litter leaves sand-like particles everywhere. I can already tell which one of our cats it is, since he is rather exuberant about scratching after using the litter box. Alas, if the only downfall is that I have to sweep or vacuum more, I’m all for it. That and as long as the price stays low enough to continue using it.

Garden

This last week I planted some tomatoes and squash in the vegetable garden boxes. Here are a few tips I used.

Making sure your garden boxes or beds are thoroughly prepared is essential to a good crop. If your soil or mixture is too heavy, most vegetables will not thrive as they would in looser, sandy soil. This isn’t true of all plants, but any that dig their roots deep usually prefer a loose, well draining soil. Last fall when I pulled up everything from the boxes, I added a thick layer of straw, shavings and chicken manure I took directly from the henhouse on top of the boxes and let the girls and nature do most of the work. Personally this is the simplest way to prepare a box, but if you don’t have access to hot manure, simply buy compost and work it in well right before planting.

Once the beds are prepared, it’s time to plant! For tomatoes, a few things that help ensure a fabulous harvest of juicy fruits are plenty of calcium, aspirin and Epsom salt. After digging a good sized hole to cover about two-thirds of the tomato plant (and tearing off all leaves that will be underground) I throw in either a handful of crushed egg shells and a couple aspirin. I like to lightly break up the root ball, but with loose soil it isn’t all that necessary. Fill in with soil and tap lightly around the base of the plant and sprinkle a couple tablespoons of Epsom salt around the plant. This is also when I put wire cages around the plant. I’m trying something new this year, only planting three in a four-foot-by-four-foot garden box with one plant in the northeast corner, one in the northwest corner and one in the south center. We will see if this helps not only with overcrowding but available sun. I also inverted a wire cage between the three and wrapped the ends that normally would go into the ground around one of the rings on each of the cages. Hopefully this will help with stability. If not, it’s just an experiment. For the squash, of which I planted two different kinds of zucchini and some butternut, I used the same technique as the tomatoes as far as placement, but put them all in the center of the box. Squash tends to grow out and over, so I put the mounds only about eight inches apart and will train it go where I want it to go. We’ll see how well this goes.

Out of the Hoop

Do you ever step back from a project and wonder, “Where did all the time go?” That be me with the Fall Quilt.

After months of work, the Fall Quilt is done being quilted. It barely looks like I spent a day on it. I can say that some of it is due to the fact that I only spent a couple hours a week on it during lunches at the veterinary clinic where I had to fend off one rather obnoxious and attention-grabbing cat on more than one occasion, or I could simply say that this was my first attempt at hand quilting and I was learning as I went. Methinks the latter will be my official answer.

So, with the quilting done, it is time to bind the quilt. While part of me is thinking it would be great to hand bind, the other part of me is not sure if this is a wise decision. Since I am simply using the backing as the binding on this project, perhaps I should just fold it over the top and straight stitch with the sewing machine. Then again, with no machine stitching showing on this quilt, perhaps I should instead fold the remaining backing, machine stitch it in place, then hand sew the binding to the front. Decisions, decisions.

Prize Money Spent

After much consideration, the one hundred dollar gift certificate I won to Fat Quarter Shop for the Dress Up Your Roll competition hosted by Jane over at Want it, Need it, Quilt (http://quiltjane.blogspot.com) has been spent. I can’t wait for the fabric to arrive.

Ever since my good friends Sarah and Rob got me a few fat quarters of The Lorax fabric from Robert Kaufman, I’ve been obsessing over what to do with them. Well, as soon as I was informed I had won the Dress Up Your Roll international prize, I immediately looked to see if the rest of the line was available in the Fat Quarter Shop (http://www.fatquartershop.com). It was. Excellent. They not only had the fat quarter bundle in the Earth color-way I wanted, but also the more vibrant Brights. I nearly got both, but decided I really needed to find another fabric or set of fabrics to stretch my style even further, something outside of my normal realm of Moda Fabrics and Sandy Gervais or Kate Spain. What can I say, I’m a sucker for Sandy’s retro-contemporary designs and Kate’s artistic-architecture sensibility. In the end I found a layer cake that immediately reminded me of thread art and the sheets in the guest room, Stitch Organic by Betz White… also for Robert Kaufman.

Making Time to Sew

My 1963 Singer Touch and Sew Deluxe Zig-Zag Model 600 Sewing Machine has been looking sad and neglected this past week. That or she’s enjoying her rest.

With another round of a crazy-busy schedule about to begin, perhaps I should make time to sew today. That is, after going to the bank, feed store, Costco and grocery shopping. Of course, once home I’ll need to vacuum, change the litter boxes, do the dishes, clean the kitchen and bathrooms… ugh.

I will persevere. I will make the time to sew.

Food

Do you ever stop to think about where your food comes from? If not, why?

Last night after work my husband and I watched the movie Food, Inc. with our pastor’s wife for an upcoming adult education session they were preparing for church. We’ve seen it before, but it seemed like we all discovered something about ourselves while watching the film again. For me part of it is that while I like to be informed and prefer to eat natural and not chemically engineered foods, it isn’t going to necessarily stop me from having a Coke every now and then, even though our United States variety is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, an ingredient you can’t buy on the shelves but is in practically every packaged food.

I’m not an advocate for going one-hundred percent all organic or anything, but a few things I don’t understand are how we’ve allowed our food supply to be taken over by multinational corporations. So many of the seeds farmers grow are made and patented by the same company that created Roundup. Seed saving, a common practice among farmers in decades past, is now threatened by lawsuits for patent infringement, even with farmers who didn’t plant those seeds but instead had seeds migrate over from neighboring farms. Personally I buy heirloom seeds when I can and won’t purchase anything from Monsanto. Well, anything except Roundup. Actually, I haven’t bought Roundup in six years, but the bottle of concentrated stuff I have still works.

We decided years ago to be just a little bit more self-sustaining. I mean, I’m not plowing the entire yard and planting wheat or anything radical like that, but we did get chickens for eggs and have a small raised vegetable garden. Of course, if we had more land, I’d love to have a fully working farm. I’d want a couple goats and cows as well, for milk to make cheese and butter and for drinking as well as field mowing. I’d probably plant more vegetables that can be canned or frozen for later consumption in the winter and early spring months. But if I had to fend for myself, I’m afraid I’d become an instant grain-free vegetarian.

Next time you are in the grocery store, make a conscious effort to find out where your food comes from. Better yet if you are unable to grow the food yourself, shop at local farmers markets or go to the farms and buy directly from them.