~ Something New and Something Old ~

Come on in happy quilters!  I'm so excited about today's new project.  This is something I've been wanting to make for over a year.  As soon as I saw this pattern I knew what fabric I would be using.  SEW CHERRY 2!  Love, love, love me some Lori Holt prints.  My color pallet is getting harder and harder to find in a full line.  Lori is one of the few that is sticking to her guns and not going with the very warm muted colors.  I hope she continues to stay in the cute cool pallet.  The newer lines of fabric remind me of the 1980's and 90's which I do not care to revisit.  Any guesses what I might be making with this jelly roll?

A Jelly Roll Rug!  The HUGE one called The Colossal Round Rug.  Not sure if I should make it round or oval but it's going to be amazing either way.  The reason why I've finally decided to make the jelly roll rug is because I was sent a new tool to review that will help with the construction of this rug.  So make sure you come back Friday for a new Nifty Notions review.  You can find my previous reviews by clicking on the Nifty Notions image in the sidebar of this blog or here.

Now for the something old part of this post.  As many of you know every week I visit my dad, fix him a nice home cooked meal.  This week dad had a surprise.  While I was cleaning up after lunch he ran off to the other room.  Normally he helps me clean up.  I knew he was up to something.  My first thought was he had a new DVD(movie).  He loves watching movies, me not so much.  I like to sorta watch movies while I do something else like quilting, of course.  After finishing up the dishes I strolled into the living room where dad was grinning from ear to ear.  He was so proud of his sneaky little surprise.  I'm sure some of you recognize this old metal Whitman's Chocolate tin.  There's no chocolate or sewing notions hiding in there.  I recognized it from my youth and knew what was inside.  We had talked about finding this way back in September or October.  Dad never forgets anything, he's one of those people who takes mental notes all year long about what you say.  Then he uses that information to buy you the perfect gift or as in today the perfect after dinner surprise.

I bet most of you have seen these and know exactly what they are. But for the younger ones let me fill you in.  These are silent 8mm film.  I haven't seen these in years.  Such a blast from the past.  Not only do we have store bought movies dad has home movies of Easter egg hunts, vacations and family get reunions.  What a wonderful surprise!  I can't wait to watch them. 

As dad loads up a reel on the projector he tells me how he took apart the projector earlier in the week.  Cleaning it and making sure it was working properly.  Then he sat and watched every one of the movies in one day.  He was so proud of himself for finding all of this stuff mom had hidden in a closet.  

Lights, camera, ACTION!  And then nothing. The film was moving but their was no light.  The bulb had burned out.  Poor dad, he was so disappointed and felt he let me down.  I felt so bad for him, and myself truth be told.  I really wanted to watch the old home movies.  It was still fun.  All we need to do is find a bulb for this old Bell and Howell.  Nothing that a good ole Google search can't fix,right?  I found several of these old projectors for sell.  $10-$50 each.  But wouldn't you know it, all of them said "NEEDS BULB".  After finding the bulbs online I understood why folks were selling the useless projectors.  One tiny bulb is $100 and more!  On Amazon they are almost $200.  WHOA!  Do we really want to watch these that bad?  Of course we do.  Here's the bad thing about the $100 light bulb.  There's a no return policy.  What if it doesn't work?  Sounds like a good way to scam me out of $100.  I'm going to search around locally to see if I can find one that can be tested before I put out $100.   Wish me luck and if you have one(that works) you would like to sell let me know.

~ Color It Red Blog Hop ~

Today is my turn in the Color It Red Blog hop hosted by Carol at Just Let Me Quilt.  The rules of the blog hop are simple, make something with the color red in it.  

Well you know me and red, I LOVE it!  One might even say it's my signature color.  Instead of whipping up something new I thought I would use this as a opportunity to finished a UFO.   One of my most recent UFO's laying on the top of the pile was my Happy Little Things BOM quilt top. I didn't get it completely finished for this blog hop but I came close. 

It shouldn't take but an afternoon to complete the binding.  One good movie should be enough time to hand stitch the binding to the back of the quilt.

 The binding might be a little bit tedious due to it being so small.  The binding strips were cut at 1.5 x WOF.   No, I didn't want it to be that narrow.  But I wanted to use the same blue fabric for the binding that was in the quilt and I only had 10" x WOF.  

Oh!  I almost forgot to show you the back. I was so excited to finally be using this cute little calico.  I've been hoarding it for a few years.  It's nothing special, I think its a Choice fabrics print.  I fell in love with in the quilt shop and had to have a few yards.  Now I'm wishing I had a whole bolt.  

Don't forget to visit each of the blogs below for more RED inspiration.

February 17^th

Creatin' in the Sticks

Websterquilt

Vroomans Quilts

Hill Valley Quilter

Selina Quilts

Kathy's Kwilts and More

Samelia's Mum

February 18^th

Ms P Designs USA

Podunk Pretties  YOU ARE HERE

DayBrook Designs

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Bumbleberry Stitches

Sew Many Yarns

Karen's Korner

Stitchin At Home

February 19^th

MooseStash Quilting

Quilted Delights

Everyone Deserves a Quilt

Storied Quilts

Just Sew Quilter

Kathy’s Quilts

Just Because Quilts

Words & Stitches

Scrapdash

February 20^th

Life in the Scrapatch

Songbird Designs

High Road Quilter

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Patchwork Breeze

Lynn's Blog

DesertSky Quilting

Seams To Be Sew

February 21^st

Just Let Me Quilt

Quilt Fabrication

Beaquilter

All Thingz Sewn

Karrin’s Crazy World

Den syende himmel

Daughters of Dorinda

Quilt to the Edge

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

~ Sunday Shout Out ~ Quilted Twins ~

Hi quilting friends!  Just wanted to pop in real quick today to share a new to me quilt shop.  They have a brick and mortar business as well as an online shop with great prices and tons of free scrappy quilt patterns.  The Quilted Twins is a family owned business who's specialty is shop quality fabrics at DISCOUNT PRICES. 

 As with any super discounted fabric store you won't see newly released fabrics but you can find some great deals on fabric that is a year or more old.  It didn't take long for me to fill my shopping cart(wish list) with some super cute half yard fabric bundles.  They also have other precuts as well as yardage.  You can shop by brand, color, style you name it, they have it broke down into many different categories. 

And if you need some help with a pattern for all the great fabrics overflowing your shopping cart or stash.  They have over 60 FREE scrappy PDF quilt patterns available!   Below is just a sample of the type of free patterns available.

 I thought this one was super cute!  I wonder how many pieces are in this? 

The Quilted Twins can also be found on Facebook, click here to go to the group and request to join.

And on Instagram click here, you don't need an Instagram account to view their account.  

Have fun shopping!

~ Nifty Notions #4 ~ Aleene's Ok To Wash - It Glue ~

This week for Nifty Notions #4  I'll be reviewing Aleene's Ok To Wash - It glue.  I purchased Aleene's glue on Amazon.  By clicking the link I receive nothing.  I'm in no affiliated with Amazon or Aleene's.  To be honest you can find it cheaper with a simple Google search.  

This will be an honest review of good, bad or indifferent.  While I love that you trust and value my opinion I encourage each you to seek out more opinions and reviews on any products in the Nifty Notions reviews.

In this review the Aleene's glue will be used as a fray stop and a applique basting glue.  Normally I use two different glues when making turned edge applique.  Since I do both hand and machine applique I'll be testing it in both situations.  

The first thing I need to do is make a tiny hole in the nozzle.  It was really easy to poke a hole in the top of the tip using a pin.  Thank goodness!  I don't have any fine tip nozzles to fit this bottle.  Cutting it with scissors would have allowed to much glue to flow.

It doesn't take much glue for this project.  Well I should say that with the other glues I have used a small amount is sufficient.  So I'm assuming this glue will be the same.  In the picture is an example of the amount of glue needed.

One little drop on each inner point, then I rubbed it in with my finger tip.  This should stop the inner points from fraying.

Next I added a few more tiny spots of fabric in the seam allowance of the applique.

This is where things might get a little scary.  The bottle says it's a permanent fabric adhesive for ribbons, trims and applique. The instructions say to add the glue, let stand for about 3 minutes then press together.  Let air dry for 24 hours.  Wait 7 -10 days before washing.  Well my goodness who has time for all that nonsense?  I've made a few changes to instructions to help speed up the dry time.  

With the glue still wet and my iron set to wool I pressed the applique into place.

  I continued adding the rest of the applique in the same manner.  So far so good!  The applique is sticking to the background fabric.  Now let's get this cutie machine stitched into place.

Everything went well.  No issues at all.  The fabric doesn't seem stiff.  There's no signs of glue stains on the front of the applique.  Since the glue is dry I'm going to assume it will be safe to wash.  Just to be a little on the safe side I'll give it 24 hours of air drying.

 The next day I threw it in the wash with my husbands work cloths laundry.  His work cloths are washed in Era, which I find to be a very harsh detergent.  If the glue can hold up to Era it can make through just about anything.  I'll throw in some color catchers because of the red and black fabrics.

The block and the color catcher both look pretty good right out of the washer.  So in the dryer for 15 minutes.

After removing it from the dryer it was pressed using the cotton setting.  All seems well.  No fraying or stains.  It doesn't feel stiff.  I gave the inner points a vigorous rub with thumb and finger nail.  Trying my best to make them fray.  They held up well with no fraying!

I made another small flower shape and added the glue in the same manner.  Then I hand stitched down.   The test here was to see if stitching through the glue was difficult. With no thimble it was a breeze to stitch into place.  I'm impressed!  

REVIEW RESULTS

1.Cost

 At about $5 a bottle I think this is a bargain.  The total cost of the 2 glues this will replace is $16.  

2. Ease of use

Yes it was easy to use.  I thought it might be hard to make a tiny hole in the top of the nozzle but the pin slid through pretty easy.  Cutting off the tip would have allowed too much glue onto my project.  Not needing to buy a fine tip nozzle makes me happy.   Also the glue DID NOT make the fabric hard to hand sew.  I could barely tell it was there.  

 3. Efficiency

While it's not going to reduce the time spent on applique by much.  I'm going to say YES it will cut a little time off the process since I won't be needing two bottles of glue.

Would I buy it again, you betcha!

~ A little of This and That ~

Hello Happy Quilting Friends!  I've been working hard in the studio this week.  With all the hard work you would think I'd be posting everyday.  I wanted to but you know how it is, things don't always go as planned. So today I'm going to give you a sneak peak at the different on going projects.  Instead of saving the best for last lets start out with the best first.  Below is a small test block I made yesterday using one flower and 2 leaves from Block 1 of the Home Again BOM by Erin Russek.  You can find all the information about this FREE BOM over at Erin's blog One Piece at a Time.  It may be out of my color pallet but I still love it.  Very Mary Engelbreit-ish, don't you think?

The black background is a little out of my comfort zone.  I'll share with you later in the week why I choose the black.  This little block was made for a tutorial and product review that will be posted on Friday as part of my Nifty Notions series found in the right hand side of this blog.  If you're new to my blog or haven't stopped by in awhile Nifty Notions is where I review new or new to me quilting notion reviews.  When you click on the image in the sidebar it will take you to all Nifty Notions posts from oldest to newest.  This weeks product review on Friday will be Aleene's Ok to Wash It glue.

Earlier in the week I also used Aleene's Ok to Wash It glue for a binding video tutorial.  I wasn't happy with the video when finished.  So I'm debating if I should share the awful thing or not.

Since the binding tutorial didn't go well I decided to make another video for the flower block in the first picture.  And once again I was unhappy with the video.  In both of the failed videos this week I stumble around my words, bumped the camera and can't seem to keep my project in the video.  So if you don't mind poor quality I can share them anyway.  There have been many set backs this week  but that's just a part of quilting and blogging.  Playing in my smallest bits of scrap stash kept the frustration at bay.  I love playing with fabric!  No big surprise there, huh?!  HA!

Taking a break from those frustrating moments in life is one of the keys to happiness.  No matter what is going wrong it's important to let go, find something to take your mind off of the hardship.  Laughter and smiling is the best thing when things go wrong.  If you can't laugh at your problem at least find something to make you smile.  This week I've found great joy in a new internet viral sensation.  A BALANCING BROOM!  Of course it's because the planets are lined up perfectly or the Earth is tilted differently(eye roll)🙄.   Yes it gave me a chuckle.  Who knew a broom could balance on its own?  At first when a friend of mine posted on Facebook his broom standing up like this.  I thought it was another one of his corny magic tricks.  Nope!  I started seeing them everywhere.  People (and by people I mean quilters) balancing their brooms.  So I had to give it try with my broom.  TADA!  I no longer need a kickstand for my ride!

Linking up this post over at Quilt Fabrications for Midweek Makers.  Click here to hop over to Midweek Makers for lots of quilting inspiration!

~ Home Again and Playing ~

Howdy Sweet Quilting Friends!  Today I'm doing what I do best, making a HUGE fun mess.  Pulling fabric is the best part of quilting, don't you think?  I'm digging deep into the stash to find my most loved pieces of out of print Lakehouse Drygoods fabrics.  Some of these I forgot I owned.  My original plan for this quilt was to work only from the scrap bins.  But there just isn't enough variety of prints and scale of prints.  I'll use what I can from the scrap bins then supplement with the larger pieces.  In the picture below all but the solid yellow is Lakehouse Drygoods.  The solid will be the background fabric, well at least that's the plan as of right now.

The pattern I'm using is called Home Again by Erin Russek.  It's a free block of the month.  You can read more about on Erin's blog One Piece At a Time here and here.

Not all the fabrics in the scrap bins are Lakehouse prints.  There's a little of everything from Moda to Walmart fabrics.  

The birds are giving me a little trouble.  I can't decide on the perfect combination of prints.  A little more digging might be in order.  Before you know it I'll have every fabric out of the cabinet.  This is how most quilters work fabric magic.  For those of you who struggle to match fabric here's the secret...Play with your fabric a lot.  And then pull more fabric and play a little more.  Then if needed go shopping for more!

Maybe the fabrics in my little test bird is a better option for color?  Well I'm going to be here for a little while longer.

After I make a plan for the center Medallion block I can move onto the smaller blocks. Aren't they just the cutest!   See you in a few days with the results!

Just a little reminder that you can still gt 20% off you entire purchase at The Purple Hobbies website using the code PodunkPrettiesJan20  

Offer ends February 29, 2020.   Make sure when adding the code to your shopping cart that you click APPLY.  You can see my review of the BladeSaver Thread cutter here.  And the Third hand Binding Folder Clip here.

50% OFF Sweet Sixteen PDF pattern 

expires 2-15-2020