Might As Well Bake

 Sometimes when you sew

 

 it all goes perfectly.

 O Happy Day!

The next day,

it can be totally different.

What's going on?!#*

What do you do?

On days like that I just walk away

 

and bake.

 O Happy Day!

My daughter, the teacher, needed

treats for the teacher's lounge this week.

Who doesn't like cupcakes? 

So I knew it was time to bake.

I had seen the recipe over

at Your Cup of Cake.

and knew I wanted to try it.

I love Lizzy's ideas because she generally 

starts with a cake mix and doctors it up

by adding good things like 

buttermilk and sour cream.

I started by taking Oreo cookies apart 

and decorating the half without the filling with

white chocolate lettering and edible glitter.

The other half of the cookie
 got placed at the bottom of
the cupcake liner and
the cake batter poured on top.
There's some extra goodness!

I made the cream cheese frosting light green.
I didn't want the teachers walking
around all day with their mouths tinted green.

Then the tombstones were added
to make a fun Halloween treat.

I heard they were a super hit.

A chocolate cupcake

with butter cream frosting,
and a hidden Oreo cookie,

what's not to love.

Happy Halloween.

  Until Next Time-

Easily Distracted

 Finally,

I can say I've completed a

few projects that have been on my list.

Time can slip away.

I've been meaning to stitch the binding

down on this.

It's the quilt I machine quilted myself

on a long arm.
Plus it was made entirely from
long forgotten and hidden at the bottom
of the pile fabrics.

So, in just a couple of hours

it was done.

Why do I procrastinate?

Because

I wanted to do

this instead on a beautiful fall afternoon.

I also finished my 

fall pillow before the season

 was officially over.

Why did it take me so long?

It was more fun to play

with these sillies.

(We take Halloween pictures early around here

because we have a history of blizzards 

on Halloween night.)

I also got the top done on this baby quilt.

It's the Falling Charms pattern

by Missouri Quilt Co.

Super cute and super easy.

I improvised on the borders.

I didn't have enough for all four sides.

No, problem.

 I even made a little doll quilt to match.

There are still many things on my list

but...

you know,

it's easy to get distracted.

Until Next Time-

I Went to a Garden Party

I've been waiting all summer

to get to the Denver Botanical Gardens.

Well, now that it's fall,

I finally made it.

There's been a celebration of color and glass 

 mixed with the beautiful surroundings of

 the gardens going on.

Dale Chihuly's Garden and Glass

 exhibit was on display.

The colors were brilliant on

 

this beautiful fall day in Denver.

 The shapes and colors 

engaged your imagination.

The sculptures fit into the

garden landscapes

making you wonder if you were

looking at real flowers

 or glass ones,

a blazing red maple

or a object made of glass.

The sculptures really seemed to belong there.

Of course, we all wondered

how all of these glass sculptures

had survived some of the fierce hailstorms

the area had had this summer.

 It has interesting to 

look how he interprets our environment

 

 through the medium of glass.

As you can see,

 it was engaging

  for young and old alike.

If you ever have the opportunity to see

one of Dale Chihuly's exhibits

 be sure and take advantage of it and 

enjoy his work.

 Until Next Time-

A Super Seminar

 I spent last weekend with

 Alex Anderson

and

Ricky Tims.

 It was the kind of seminar 

that makes your head explode.

Not in a bad way, but

in a way that gets your juices running.

We heard about 

improvisational patchwork looking at 
Caveman style Convergence quilts

to

radial symmetry using his
 Bohemian Rhapsody (2002)

as an example.

This is Ricky's current project

a string quilt using all the leftover pieces from students
from the last 7 years of teaching classes.

It's being  machine quilting on his Bernina  home machine.

Then there were some his  prize winners

Linelines III: Can Something Come from Nothing
 Houston, 2012

I loved the couching technique,
all done on a regular sewing machine.

Alex shared her techniques

for adding squiggles into her patchwork.

 

 and much more

These two wonderful hosts from the Quilt Show.com 

have a great chemistry, bantering back and forth

and sharing their quilting techniques,

as well as, sharing their passion for quiltmaking and

stories of life.

The main thought I walked away

was the idea that you have to

find what you like and

follow your heart.

There's no one right way to do things.

There's no one style that is better than another.
Just make what you love, and
make it your passion.
 

It's not that I have to get out of my "box",

but maybe be willing to invite some new things

into my comfort zone and see how they might fit in.

( Bears in Bertie's Log Cabin.)

I like that idea.

Until Next time-

Listen to the Rhythm

 All week I have been trying to think

of something interesting to write about.

I've been a bachlorette for the past 5 days,

so I was using this time

 to work on a number of projects

without too many interruptions, except

for the ones I created for myself.

But as much as I thought I would actually

finish something, it didn't happened.

Instead, I found myself doing more

prepping than anything else, 

which is not too exciting or clever to write about.

I kept hearing rhythms in my head.

Quilters rhythms like,

 prep, prep, fuse,

A-Z with Ewe and Me

Finally the borders.

 I was also hearing

cut, cut, sew a little,

I wanted to use some of the leftover fabrics

 from the A-Z with Ewe and Me sampler

 in the Falling Charms pattern from the 

Missouri Quilt Co. that

Paulette was using for a baby quilt, 

(I'm making two different sizes)

and

I had to make a few more nine patches to go

with the ones I'll be getting in the mail soon

from the nine patch swap that Barb organized.

 

 How about

trace, trace, cut

(more Noah and Matilda blocks)

I had to recut two of the blocks from

last month because I left them on the AIRPLANE!

and

pin, pin, sew together.

The Home for the Holidays quilt

Today, though, I will be doing something

very interesting.

I'm attending Ricky Tim's Quilt Seminar

with guest appearances with Alex Anderson.

So maybe next week,

I might be quilting to a whole new rhythm.
Who knows.

  Until Next Time-