Just a little something with Oh Cherry Oh fabric

The more I look at the quilted grocery bag holder made with the cherry fabric, the more I am leaning toward doing a little kitchen decorating with cherries.  I don't want to go overboard, just a touch here and there.  I found a picture of a heart-shaped potholder on line and decided I could do that too!  I made things harder on myself by cutting out the front, back, and batting separately, then quilting, and the same with the front panels.  If I had had my quilting head on straight, I would have simply quilted a 15 x 15 sandwich and THEN cut out the heart.  Okay, so I thought of the easy way AFTERWARD, it still turned out okay and I will remember next time.  I had to make a bias binding for the curves, so went to Youtube and watched a few videos on cutting bias binding and chose one that makes it sooo simple.  The speaker on one of the videos suggested using bias binding for all quilts, even ones where you would normally use straight grain binding, because they last longer and have less wear than straight grain.  I had never heard that.  What about it, quilting bloggers?  Do you use bias binding for all your quilting projects?  Anyway, I hung this little cutie pie on my refrigerator.

Pioneer Braid wall hanging

This wall hanging isn't new, but since I basically deleted my blog and started from scratch, and also since I have some new blogging friends, I thought I would show some of my earlier quilting.  I love the pioneer braid quilts, another one of those "one block wonders."  It is a simple rectangle block, sewn one on top of the other, usually in rows of darks and lights.  The only real tricky part is trimming off the triangular edges once you have the strips the length you want them, and then very, very carefully sewing the strips together because they are on the bias and will really strech out if you are not careful.  The key is not to handle those strips any more than absolutely necessary to pin them together and then stitch.  The bias edges also makes the binding a little more tricky, but slow and steady will keep those edges from stretching out.  I had a sweet little lady tell me that she literally threw away a whole quilt top once because she stretched the edges out so much that it was beyond fixing.  I was more than a little bit anxious about tackling this one, but it really was much more simple than I thought.  I wanted to do something patriotic for summertime so I did the braids in dark reds and creams and then added a top of blue and appliqued stars to my "flag."  I ended up quilting with three different stitches --- stitch in the ditch for the strips, blanket stitch applique for the stars, and stippling around the stars. 

Oh Cherry Oh!

Despite my goal to NOT purchase any more fabric until I have started using up my stash, I found this gorgeous fabric by Moda called Oh Cherry Oh and I fell in love with it.  It is just so summery and vintage looking and bright and cheerful ....!  I could think of so many more adjectives but will stop there.  I finished quilting this grocery bag dispenser but bought enough fabric for a window topper, a garter for a Longaberger basket that is sitting on top of my refrigerator, and a big placemat for a marble slab that is sitting on my island.  I really love this fabric, can you tell???

My sweet mom has been gone for 13 years now, but in honor of Mother's Day I am making a supper that was one of her favorites and also one of my favorites that she made ...... spare ribs, potatoes, and saurkraut.   My husband is from Mississippi, where ribs are ONLY barbequed.  They have their secret dry rubs for the slow process over the smoker and Mississippians may differ somewhat on whether the sauce should be sweet, smoky, tangy, or spicy, but they never disagree that ribs are only for Bar-B-Q-ing.  My husband still doesn't care for my method, which probably is German in origin.  But, he smoked a nice pork loin yesterday and I am fixing my mom's recipe on top of the stove for the kids and myself.  We do agree on the sides, fresh greens from a dear friend's garden and cornbread.  I am not sure if the ribs in heaven are "Suhthen" or German, but Happy Mother's Day Mom, I love and miss you every day. 

Dresden Plate, Finally!!!!!!!!!

 I made my first ever Dresden plate block and I do not know why I waited so long!!  They look very difficult and I guess I was just was a little apprehensive about tackling it.  This made an 18-inch wall hanging.  I need to play with the size of the blades in order to make a 12-inch block to put in a shadow box.  I see lots and lots of these in my future .... fall quilt, Christmas quilt, 30s ....

Quilted watermelon

I cannot wait for that first piece of sweet watermelon....one of my favorite things about summertime.  In the meantime, I quilted one of my own to look at --- another bag to store my plastic grocery bags.  The weather sure feels like summertime, may as well make my kitchen look like it.