Herb Garden Revisted

I thought for sure I would be able to get to do some quilt related things but I am thinking it might have to wait till the later. There is a quilt I wanted to start, one I wanted to finish and one I wanted to work on the middle of.

I got a great suggestion from Patty the Quilt Lady  when she said Chalk.  I headed to the hardware store and got chalkboard paint (not chalk paint, there is a BIG difference).    The can of spray paint was cheaper than the can of brush on.  After I got it all home, Carrie told me I might be sorry because her friend told her it took like 20 coats of paint to be able to write on it.  geez.





I wanted it to look cute so I made a a template.  Here's how.

Cardboard!I cut out a window.  But who wants a plain square?

No me!

 So I used the corners of the waste to add back into the opening.

 Make it easy right, like my daddy always said, you won't see that in the end product if you use enough tape!

 Ihad to recruit Frank to spray the can for me.  Muscles, you know.  I couldn't hold the cardboard and do the can at the same time. 


And he is a spare with spray paint as he is with a dime.









 I was concerned about being able to write on the fancy chalkboard spot, remembering what Carrie said abot all those coats.  This is only one "Frank" coat.

And all I had was dressmakers chalk, not sidewalk chalk.

It seemed to work though.

 I tried to make it look like it was as random as the rest of the whole project is, here and there.  In the end, it will all taste the same!

Thanks for the great suggestion, Patty!

Happy Mardi Gras!

Keep reading, there is a quilt in here somewhere.  

Still in full swing as I type this, Mardi Gras won't end until the Kings of Rex and Comus Krewes meet at the  foot of Canal Street.  Canal Street is the main street in New Orleans.  For those who have been here before, it is generally in the area of the Harrah's Casino.  Harrah's Casino is the only land based casino in the state!  All others float in some river or other body of water.

I am sure your local news has great shots of the partying in the French Quarter.  But the best parades are in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans where Frank and I grew up.  He was born in St Bernard and I was born in Arabi next door to St Bernard.  Kinda in the area of the 9th Ward that saw so much publicity from flooding after Katrina. 

Both St Bernard and Arabi saw plenty of flooding in Betsy and again in Katrina.  My friend said a 6 foot wall of water came rushing down her street while Betsy was in full force.  It is widely believed authorities blew the levee in St Bernard/Arabi to save the more exclusive subdivisions further down the river. 

We had just moved to Metairie about 4 months prior to Betsy.  Frank's family was one of the first in our subdivision and was already there by then, but his  extended family still lived in St. Bernard in the same house when Katrina hit.  His Aunt Emma didn't live to make it home.  Neither did my Aunt Evy see her home in Metairie again.  She died just weeks before house was to be completed.

We always went to the parades Downtown (as opposed to Uptown) when we were young.  We would park at my Grandma Graci's  house on Frenchman St. and take the bus to see MidCity.  My mother would make the most amazing costumes for my brother and I for Mardi Gras Day.  Then we would go to see Rex on Canal Street and catch glass beads.

They used to throw really beautiful glass beads; not the plastic junk they throw today! 

Last year after the flood, my friend Patty the Quilt Lady made me this Louisiana Quilt.  It is part of the rotating hangings I have in my bedroom and quilt  room.  Sometimes it is in one or the other. 

It is a t-shirt piece and done with Patty's impeccable handwork.  Every time I stop and look at it, I am wowed all over again by the work in this piece. 

And in the mail today came my Treasure Trove win!  Purple and green fabric with a package of Mardi Gras beads! 

Rayna Gillman Meets Sujata Shah Meets Patty the Quilt Lady

Let me give you a snow update first.  (oh lordy, I forgot to do a bird today......I will do two tomorrow, don't worry Lynne.)  We had snow hanging in until mid afternoon today.  As we drove to buy me some rain (or currently snow) boots, I snapped some of the SneauxMen still hanging around on street  corners.  This is the longest surviving snow I have ever

seen!       






Even Frozen got into the fun!  I thought this was hysterical.  A couple days ago this Frozen guy was on green grass!  LOL







So here is my sewing chronicle. 


I did those green blocks as an exercise from Rayna Gillman's book.


 I started at this point yesterday.  That is actually white at the top, it just blends with the design wall. 

Then I decided it needed large areas of just open space.  That is mostly because the green I needed was only fat eighths.  Really.  I actually got a lot of squares out of those 6 fat eighths.  I had 4 greens plus black and white.  I added the green trellis because it played well color wise and read as a solid.


I decided that the piece needed to be larger.  It was like a baby quilt at this point.

So......





LOL.....Ignore the diamond leftover from Diamond Dogs!

I have Sujata Shah's book on improv piecing and Patty the Quilt Lady's technique for making improv triangles.  Patty makes these long strings of triangles and Sujata pieces them one at a time.  I sort of combined the two.

And made Improv Triangles.  I tossed in some yellow, since I no longer had three greens. Yeah.

I made some.

then some more.

Then I moved them around.

You know, it is too busy now.  The integrity of the two unrelated sides is disturbed.

In the picture above you  look at one side, then the other.  Now it is too jumbled together and you don't know where to look.

Trouble.

So I moved them around a bit.

And filled in some blank spaces.

Remember that space at the top is white.

I really like the triangles on the side of the  green blocks.  Not sure what to call them so green blocks seems to be it.

Those blocks on the right side pull the idea of the left side into view.

I like it.

I can't even imagine how to quilt it!  LOL

Challenge Bird and Improv Quilts

(I am linking up with a kokaquilts' Sew Stitch Snap Share #18) click here to go to see the post

Do you see this?

I love Rayna Gillman and her Improv Quilts!

My friend Patty the Quilt Lady has a quilt featured in Rayna's new book.  And somewhere in there She and Rayna discussed me and the flood........and there was a book headed in my direction!

Thank you Patty!




I spent a couple of wistful hours reading and looking at the pictures, as you know you would, right!  This is while I was waiting for my Guildmates who never showed up..........

Patty signed the page her quilt is on.  I totally love it. 


Bird Challenge?  You don't expect me to pass up a Challenge of any sort, do you?  Oh, wait.......

You probably knew that, huh?

OK.  Bird.

This is Sawyer in his new wheels.  It makes vvvrooom-ing sounds when he pulls that gearshift lever.  Which he finally figured out how to do.

And the various things light up.  It is bright and happy and he loves those yellow eye things on the front. He leans over and looks at them all the time.

So I took the colors from his walker to make a Sawyer Bird.

His beak is dark blue like the bottom bumper.  And the lip looking things on the wing reminded me of the eye things that fascinate the boy.

And the legs are fat........just like Sawyer's little fat legs!  LOL.  

I seem to have an issue with something on every bird.  See the 'square' head.  It is pretty accurate, because Sawyer's head is a bit flat in the back.....

But I went ahead and ripped it out and fixed it........hmmmm.

I guess it still can be a bit less square, but then it wouldn't be Sawyer-Accurate, would it......

You really can't tell unless you look at the kid sideways.  That is his other grandma he is talking to here.




Don't worry, I will fill his head with all kinds of trivia and it will pop out round like all the other kids........at least by first grade, huh?