YeeHaw macarons!

I had a fun day visiting with friends in downtown Knoxville this afternoon.

We tried to go to The French Market Creperie to get some yummy crepes - but apparently lots of other people had the same idea!  That place was packed!  I do some embroidery for them and had to make sure to say hello to the owner, Susan.  She's amazing!  I'm so excited that the Tate's business is doing so well!  Before I left, Susan was so kind and gave me some REAL macarons to take home!  I have yet to make macarons, but it's on my "to do" list for this year.

My favorite flavors were the lemon and raspberry - but they were all amazing.  Thanks, Susan!!!

We grabbed some lunch at Nama Sushi Bar, and then I had to bid them farewell.  Miss you girls already!

Before heading home, I had to stop at YeeHaw Industries.  Why had I not been in there before?!  I read tons of design blogs and YeeHaw's sensational letterpress designs have gotten mentions from quite a few of them.  And they're right here in K-Town!  And what a wonderful shop.  Full of original designs printed on t-shirts, cards, stationary, calendars - and my favorite - allll the posters.  Posters in every size you can think of, tons of different designs - so many different colors.  I'd love a whole room of YeeHaw posters thank you very much.

Here's my haul from today.  One of the co-owners, Kevin Bradley was manning the shop and I was just taken aback by his generous hospitality!  Besides signing my Woody Guthrie Folk Festival print there on the spot, he GAVE me the "Butter My Butt" print AND the retro notecards AND the YeeHaw prints!  I love this shop and hope to do lots of gift buying here in the future. My favorite print from today is definitely the Woody Guthrie print.

What a lovely day!

Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning

Well, cleaning is what I SHOULD be doing.  Instead, I'm having fun with some of my fabric!

I've been working hard to hand quilt my pointy sampler - in the "big stitch" style.  I LOVE it.  I mean, the quilting just makes this quilt. The quilting is about 80% complete at this point - not much further to go!  I couldn't find pearl cotton anywhere locally (I'm probably just looking in the wrong places) - so ended up buying a thin crochet yarn that (so far) has worked just fine. 

And here's something teensy I whipped up yesterday!

Yeah.  It's pretty awesome and rainbowy.  These tiny squares finished up at 1".  I had them pre-cut for the Tokyo Subway Map Quilt Along that I haven't finished.  I just organized them by color and value and BAM.  instant awesome.

I added a white border, and proceeded to attempt some straight line quilting.

Looks good from this angle, no?

But alas, I had some major problems with the top shifting while I was quilting.  And I ended up with this:

Still pretty cute.  But just "off" enough to make me wince.  If anyone as any suggestions about how to keep this from happening in the future - I'm all ears?  I used a walking foot, spray baste and the quilt was so TINY I can't beLIEVE it still shifted.  So yeah - definitely need help on that.

One last thing!  We're hosting a modern block of the month for the Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild!  Here's the whole quilt:

So far, I've drafted up the patterns for 2 blocks - so here are the links to those patterns, followed by my blocks!

1.)Woven

2.) Chevrons

It's so fun to see how everyone's blocks are turning out!!  And I'm so glad everyone is being so patient with me and my beginning pattern writing skills.  :)  If you sew one out, let me know!  I'd love to see it!

making points.

I took a quilting class last month and learned how to cut, piece, and press in order to get the most perfect points in my quilt blocks!

Here is the sampler I made - I took the scrappy route:

After I cut out all of my flying geese and the points for my stars for the above sampler, I was left with a stack of triangles, which I sewed into these...

which I sewed into this!

a fun zig zag mini quilt! (I did NOT square up the HST's - so points aren't quite as nice on this one)  This mini just *may* be up to win as a door prize at the Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild's Meet & Greet this month - so stop by if you have the time!

I decided to big stitch hand quilt the pointy sampler, and am finding myself in need of a needlebook/sewing kit of sorts.  Digging through some of my old stuff today, I found this cute piggy cd case that is just begging to be reincarnated into a sewing kit!

Do you think you can help me figure out how to make it that sort of thing?  Here are what the insides look like.

The only thing I was thinking is that maybe I could sew some felt to the CD sleeves for pins and needles.  And of course sew in some kind of loop to hold tiny scissors...and then I draw a blank.  Any other ideas out there?

rainy date.

Chase and I were lucky enough to have a day off together today - be it ever so rainy.  We made the best of it!  We went and saw The Artist.  A lovely film.

We stopped by Nostalgia - one of our favorite antique/vintage markets.  (Hi,Chase - I see you enjoyed all the mirrors!)

And we had to stop by McKay's before heading home.  McKay's is one of those places that I go back and forth on.  Sometimes they have what I'm looking for, sometimes they don't.  Quite often I leave more stressed than I was when I came in - thanks to tiny aisles and crowded browsing.  But all in all, it's worth a visit every once in a while.

Here's my haul from today:

The Cheese Book and Southern Food from McKay's  And of course an amazing Fire King baking dish from Nostalgia.  lovely!

A great day off if you ask me!   So what else is in store for this evening?

Yummy.  That's what.

Incomplete.

I dug through my bins of "in progress" projects yesterday.  I think I have more in progress than I have completed.  That how it works 'round here.

Here are some of my favorites!

This is a block for my sister's quilt.  She asked for a quilt with blues, greens and yellows.  She picked out Lizzy House's Outfoxed fabric line - and I supplemented with Lizzy House's previous collection 1001 Peeps.  This block is about 20" x 20" - so this quilt will come together pretty quickly - and the whole makeup will just be 3 x 4 blocks.

This is a Christmas quilt that probably won't be done for another couple of Christmases.  There are lots of hexagons. and Sherbet Pips by Aneela Hoey.  (Cute blue box is courtesy of The Paris Market in Savannah, GA)  This quilt is adorable and I love it.

This is a ridiculous undertaking, but I love it nonetheless.  A (long) while ago, I decided to participate in Elizabeth Hartman's Tokyo Subway Map Quilt Along.  Except that I am using 1.5" squares instead of 2" squares.  And I'm hand sewing all of them together.  I ended up deciding to do 3 separate wall hangings rather than 1 large quilt.  Each wall hanging will just be about 18" x 24".  I hope to finish one this year.  

Lots more unfinished projects laying around than just these, but you'll see no "to do" list from me.  They'll get finished when they get finished.  If they get finished.

the latest and greatest.

I will post stuff here.  A lot of it will be quilty.  or crafty.  or yummy.  and lots of times?  not finished!  Fun!