Barn There, Raised That...

Let's see...what else came out of my Secret Society of Barn Builders adventures?

Well, last fall I took part in a swap with my guild and made a pretty cool quilt for my lil friend Linda that was modeled after her families fish store in Prospect, Nova Scotia.  I'll share the process pictures here again but won't rehash all the details about it because I blogged about it in this blog post that tells the whole story...it was a very special momento for my pal and she got a little misty. It was so hard not to spill the beans about the book at that time! Knowing how much she would love this made the building of it so much more exciting...sometimes the connection is the really special part of a gift like this.

In the picture above you can notice that I made the door on the left really short. Why? I have no idea...it's not like the folks of Prospect are all little people...I guess I was just not really paying attention. Linda recently consoled me after one of my seemingly frequent stunned-as-me-arse moments by saying, "Don't worry, at least you're cute!" When I noticed my mistake, I just added on a chunk to the bottom and made it bigger. That's the beauty of free piecing! Add more on, take some off...do what makes your heart sing!

This building is just a bit fancier than the 2 that went to Julie for the gallery...this one has more dimension as it's not viewed straight on. For Ale was only marginally more challenging to build...I just had to consider the angles of the left side so that the perspective would be right. I am still loving the fabric choices with the bird laden sky and the fish infused water under the wonky wharf stays (that's local wharf rat speak for poles). Here in our oceanside villages the gulls are a dime a dozen, they are ever-present. The fish? Not so much...but it is still pretty commonplace to look down over the side of a wharf into the water and see some pollock swimming around.

And then at Christmastime the SSOBB decided to do a Secret Santa Swap, I got paired up with Julie. I'm so over-the-top busy in December with hairdoos that she graciously agreed to do our little exchange after the holidays. So right after, I got to work building her something special.

My regular readers by now have a pretty good idea that I am typically unimpressed with the amount of snow fall we've had the past few years; I have come to call this fair province Snova Scotia and am admittedly jealous of Julies less than frigid, open winters in Tennessee. So, I just knew I had to send her some snow...

I did a little scrounge through my stash, because at that time The Stashpocalypse had come upon me and I wasn't fabric shopping. I found lots of treasures and potential bits and pieces kicking around to put into play. With these in hand and a rough sketch on the table I was off!

See that little angled empty area under the door? It was a big gap left in my free picing fury. When I stepped back to take a break I decided I didn't really want to cut off the bottom of the building so I very carefully set in the ramp piece...measure twice (don't forget to account for your seam allowances), cut once! Those Y-seams are sometimes tricky but if you're careful you can put them in lickety-split.

In another of my stunned-as-me-arse moments I penned the date on the label 2015. I suppose the whole swap started then so that's why my "cute" lil brain defaulted to 2015...but I made this thing start to finish in 2016 and by the time I noticed my blunder I couldn't exactly scratch it out. (*Sigh... Sorry Julie.) Maybe one day I'll be not-quite-so-cute...but what then? Just stunned? Dog help me.

Free pieced barns and letters...what could be better?

I thought she'd be able to use it with her seasonal decorations on a table somewhere, but she liked it enough to hang it in the cozy spot where she does her writing.

How about you? Have we inspired you to attempt building a barn of your very own yet? Let me know with a comment below about a barn that might have tickled your fancy enough to give this barn building gig a go and I'll enter your name in a random draw to win a signed copy of the book so you can get started!

Leave a comment before the morning of June 19th to be included...I'll draw for it while I'm partaking in my weekly, bleary eyed Sunday morning ritual of brown holy water, a lap full of springy things and Johnny Cash on the airwaves.

A Cuppa & A Catch-Up

Mornin' peeps! Been a crazy week around here...
Despite having a hairy week in the shoppe, I managed to get in some quilty stuff.

Sister PurpleBoots has given into the the pull & started her first
quilty project, a dog bed cover. I say it's a matrimonial quilt for
Izzy and The Mexican...see their pictures? She chose, cut and
pieced these squares without any alcohol or temper tantrums!
She's got a way to go yet, but I can't wait to see it all finished!

I figured it was time for The Robot to start earning his keep. A friend told me I could do whatever I wanted to this scrappy string quilt so in the end I settled on this edge to edge pattern called Starlets, designed by Lisa Calle. It seemed to work because I was really drawn to the red star fabric...red sucks me in every time...it demands my attention. It's really rather bothersome to me, I blame it on my ADHD.

Other people scraps are so entertaining! 

Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, it was...after I ripped out a whole row of robot stitching from the first design choice that I absolutely hated. And...in order to do hours of said stitch ripping I had to swallow my pride and dash out for a pair of magnifying glasses. Why? Because I couldn't see a damn thing! Apparently this is a cruel joke that Mother Nature plays on the 40 something crowd; bitch steals our vision! It's official, I'm old.

After I got the Scrappy String Quilt finished up I figured it was time to add the last of the bits and pieces to The Robot: an idler rail.  This piece took its good ole time coming in and then I took my good ole time getting around to installing it. Such a great feature, I wish I had been motivated sooner to open that box! A little help from Mr. PurpleBoots got me back up and running in no time! This means I no longer have to adjust the take-up roller as the bulk of quilt accumulates on the roller...and what a difference it makes! I loves it!

A super-special someone is having a super-special birthday so I am quilting up some ponies for her. She loves her horses, even though they try to kill her occasionally! At least now she will be able to wrap herself up in a cozy hug next time she gets hurt. It's possible I may have just ruined the surprise but I was just so excited by this and these fancy dudes are too cute not to share!!

On Saturday I went to a paper piecing workshop that the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild was hosting; not so much because I needed to learn but because I love hanging out with my quilty peeps! I even brought my buddy Miss Maime along so she could meet some of my guild mates.  We always have so much fun together laughing, stitching, bitching...you know how it goes, right? I made this sweet 16" block that looks an awful lot like the one Linda made! We swapped fabrics so we'd have more variety and now we have matching pillow tops! Afterwards, we shopped at Atlanic Fabrics for a some new stash additions and popped in to rescue Anja who was having a Wee Wiggler emergency. 

Well peeps, my brown holy water is all but gone and The Robot beckons. 

Happy Monday!

Avoidance Is Key

Or is it?

It's tax time.
This means my avoidance skills are currently being used at their highest capacity. I am absolutely allergic to book work. It has been the bane of my existence since starting my small business in 1995; the albatross around my neck every single spring for 20 years.  By now you'd think I'd have overcome, put into place a system that helps me deal with it or even hired someone to look after it...but, no. I avoid it like the bubonic plague every single year, put it so far out of my mind that is all but forgotten until Mr. Purpleboots starts reminding me.

Here we are again, crunch time. A years worth of paperwork needs done and receipts are scattered in every nook and cranny of this cluttered house of mine. The tax form software sits under a layer of dust on the desk waiting, taunting.

But there was other madness on my mind. A pot of brown holy water that required my full attention, a boxing class that couldn't be excused again, a shelf of novels that needed immediate thinning and a floor full of Tula Pinks insanity that begged for three final seams.

Months of grumbling came to an abrupt halt yesterday.
Finally, a finish! A little avoidance goes a long way. 

Today's finish has been brought to you by
the letters C-R and A...and by the number 31.

Oh, and in case you wondered...I did manage to haphazardly compile and do a preliminary sift & sort for the dreaded paperwork marathon that lies ahead this week. I also managed to drink some wine, cook dinner and watch some Netflix.

Not half bad for a days avoidance, eh? I think I'll call the day a success.

Linking up with Lorna over at Let's Bee Social! 

Sunday Morning Coming Down

It's no secret that I LOVE Johnny Cash...listening to Cash, having some coffee and a lil chocolate makes a pretty perfect lazy morning in my eyes.

My Enabler Peep gave me this little gift...a new vessel for the Brown Holy Water.
Must have been made just for me, it's like the designer knew me.

Hard to believe it's Sunday already, time does have a way of sailing by when you're having fun! Yesterday was the monthly sew-in for my guild, the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild. Lots of us braved the winter slush covered roads to enjoy a day of laughing and stitching together...there wasn't even too much bitching going on yesterday, but then again there was plenty of chocolate around so I guess our souls were soothed.

I hadn't put any prior thought into getting ready for the day, so in the morning I just threw a bunch of stuff in my bag, grabbed my machine & some sweet provisions for the day and went on my merry way. After helping to baste The Enablers quilt top,  I sewed the last border on Kaleido and messed around with the charm squares from last months swap. All the squares were dots and stripes which made quite a selection of colourful modern madness of the cloth variety. What to do with them? 

 

Make funky fishes! Of course I jumped right in with my cutter and started slicing things up...6 weird little fish and a handful of wonky letters came together in a table sized mat over the course of the afternoon. It's so freeing to just see where you end up once you toss out your compass and move forward in a general direction; blaze the trail. Some of my peeps we're excited about the process, some were overwhelmed by the idea of not having a map to the finish line. I was trudging along, just enjoying the chocolate, until things took a slice in the wrong direction...

One hap-hazard cut too many I guess.

Back in November I had a similar catastrophe with my cutter taking the side of my finger and nail clean off. That was the first accident I had ever had in 20 years of quilt making, and it made my hair-doo-ing day job rather difficult for a long while. My poor finger had just started to feel normal & the nail had decided to grow back quite nicely. Seems I have unleashed a sharp, slick demon this winter. 

Clearly the universe is trying to tell me something...and in true Valerie style, I am simply not listening. I shall pour whiskey in my wound and carry on.