Get out your fine-point Sharpies! I made a new Winter Matchbox House for the holidays for those of you with both time and matches on your hands.
I couldn’t manage to take a decent photo of the downstairs with my new camera. I’m not blaming my new camera per se, but it’s the only new variable here. I’m just saying. If I manage to take some better photos, I’ll post them.
Oh yeah, we did. We spent a Saturday making Lego miniman heads for our annual neighborhood Halloween party. Those are hours we will never retrieve.
But of course it was worth it. We bought concrete form tubes (also called Sonotubes) at the hardware store: 10″ diameter for larger grown-up noggins, 8″ inch diameter for kid craniums. We sawed the tube into individual helmets, then traced cardboard circles for the tops. We used sponge for the “connectors.” And spray-painted the whole deal bright Lego yellow.
We skipped the rest of the costume because, even though we made an effort, we weren’t going to go overboard on effort. (Here is a link to some folks who went above and beyond in making Lego costumes.) The Lego miniman smirk was the best part of the helmet, I think. The worst parts: no peripheral vision and gradual, but undeniable, aphyxiation. Happy Halloween!
Brigit, I’m so glad you’re metaphorically holding my hand through this quilt project. Of course, I wish you were actually here because I’d find a way to get you to make the quilt for me. Ask any of my family members: I’m good at getting people to do stuff for me.
But I did the work myself and have crippling carpal tunnel to prove it. I cut out 728 4×4″ squares over the weekend. Before I began, I was beguiled by the the term “self-healing cutting mat” that’s mentioned in all of my quilting books. It sounds so New Age, right? But 728 squares later, my cutting mat is anything but healed. It is rather gouged, in fact. Apparently I don’t have a light touch with the rotary cutter.
Next purchase: Three hundred safety pins! My god.
I can’t bring myself to actually buy fabric for my first-ever quilt. Putting down hard cold cash is such a commitment. And entering a fabric store as the guileless, eye-batting quilt virgin that I am, I may end up with a real schmuck (yards of polyester? cordoroy?). So, I’m settling for a noncommital trip to the fabric store–a lunch with the fabric store, not dinner.
One thing I learned: fat quarters don’t have anything to do with Mardi Gras (I imagined Fat Tuesday plus French Quarter). They are quarter-yards of fabric, usually 18″ x 22.”
Some things I still don’t get: Brigit and other quilters out there, what do you use for backing? And where do you buy it? My pattern recommends unbleached cotton muslin, but I’m not sure that makes sense for my quilt. What do you suggest?
Batting–where do you buy cotton batting? Is poly just too grody? (And is that how you spell grody?)
A month or so ago I resolved to make my first quilt–something that still seems like a sin of hubris. The Audacity of Quilting! So here I am, taking my second, wobbly step. I have a pattern (the Ollalieberry Ice Cream Quilt by Alicia Paulson of Posie Gets Cozy). To avoid the real next step (fabric selection), I sneaked in a half-step: palette!
For a long time, I’ve loved the colors of Ray Eames‘s Crosspatch fabric design (this is a sketch of it, from 1947). The fabric lends itself to quilt inspiration: all those little squares.
Inspired by Brigit’s origami paper sketches, I cut out squares of Benjamin Moore paint chips and played around. Very satisfying–I highly recommend paint chip collage. If only quilting were that easy . . .
The quilt calls for a mix of patterns and one solid, so this is a generalized color scheme not an actual one. I think I’d like the solid to be pale gray and the patterns to be pink/red/orange. Brigit, what do you think? Should I stick with white as the solid? I like all the pretty flower prints that Alicia uses in her quilt but know they wouldn’t fit into my house–so I’m guessing I’ll end up with brighter, geometric patterns.
Next step: fabric store.
homemadecity.com 