Podunk Pretties Quilting

Tuesday, March 17, 2020

~ Pinch of This and That ~

Hello! Happy Quilters! Spring is in the air and it won't be long before we start seeing spring flowers peeking up through the dull Podunk winter landscape. The next few weeks will be filled with a lot of extra outdoor chores. So I'm working hard to finish up a few projects. This weeks project is the Gingerbread Man quilt. An afternoon dig through the stash produced this cute little print from Bonnie and Camille's Smitten line of fabric. It's perfect!

Years ago when I first started buying designer fabrics the selvage of fabric was often was blank. Occasionally you would find the brand and designers name. Today's fabric yardage often has surprises and hidden gems on them. I love the little message on this one. Maybe it's the name of this print? Whatever it is, it made me smile.

Yesterday while contorting myself(and cursing) to make some adjustments on the quilt frame I came up for air and to stretch my cramping muscles and saw this. Awe...my studio looks so pretty when it's clean. This too put a smile on my face and made me forget about my current quilt frame issue and body struggles. My Happy Place can make the worst of days seem brighter.

After all the stretching and contorting I needed a break and a snack. So I pulled out the homemade liver pate and made some cheese crackers. This is so yummy! Miss Khaleesi loves it too! We feed her a raw chicken and a smidgen of cooked liver everyday. Liver is full of nutrients and it's cheap. If you would like to make a liver pate you can find the recipe I used here. The cheese crackers are nothing more than melted cheese and believe it or not they are crispy just like crackers. Much healthier than store bought crackers. No wheat, no gluten, no sugars, just cheese. You can find the instructions to make them here.

Fair warning... pate isn't pretty.

How much does Khaleesi like liver? She's focused on it in the picture below. She'll do anything for a little liver. Even if it is humiliating like a silly little hat. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

A little reminder about my giveaway for a jelly roll rug pattern and a tool to help make a jelly roll rug. Click here to enter.

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Saturday, March 14, 2020

Nifty Notions #5 ~ Jelly Roll Rug Binding Batting Tool ~ GIVEAWAY! ~

This week for Nifty Notions #5 I'm reviewing another Purple Hobbies product. The Jelly Roll Batting/Binding Tool was designed by Heather Snow to help with the construction of the Jelly Roll Rug.

There are several different Jelly Roll Rug patterns available and this tool will work with all of them. Click her to shop for a Jelly Roll Rug pattern.

Unfortunately the clip didn't fit my table. So I contacted Purple Hobbies to let them know. They quickly made and shipped a larger tool to fit my table. How awesome is that! Great customer service!

It fit perfectly.

However I was not completely satisfied with how it worked. As you can see below the fabric is shifting as it comes into the tool. This causes the fold to be uneven.

Here's a close up of the uneven fold. This uneven fold would take too much time to readjust.

So onward with making the rug. I tried binding clips and pinning. Both took WAY to much time.

Then I had an epiphany! What if I took it apart and laid it on its side?

This worked like a charm! Much easier to use.

Here's a short video I made to show how I used the Purple Hobbies Jelly Roll Binding/Batting Tool.

It didn't take long before I had a mound of binding sewn and ready to make a rug.

REVIEW RESULTS

1.Cost

Well since you can use the code below at checkout for 20% off your entire cart at Purple Hobbies Website. I think it's a good deal!

PodunkPretties code is good until the last day of 2021

2. Ease of use

Yes it was easy to use.

3. Efficiency

Yes this tool made the Jelly Roll rug much easier and faster to make.

***closed***

~~Okay now to the fun part, the Giveaway! Purple Hobbies and RJ Designs have both donated products.~~

~~Here's what you can win.~~

~~A Jelly Roll Binding/Batting Tool~~

~~and~~

~~A Colossal Jelly Roll Rug Pattern.~~

There will be several chances to win. Each one that you complete will give you another entry in the giveaway. Winner will be announced on all my social media next ~~Thursday March 19, 2020.~~ Friday March 20, 2020.

1. Leave a comment on this blog post below.

2. Go to my Instagram and follow the instructions for this giveaway on Instagram.

Good Luck!

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Wednesday, February 19, 2020

~ 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.

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Tuesday, February 18, 2020

~ 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.