I've been doing a bit more foundation piecing. I still love the results. These blocks are not sewn together -- I just set them up next to each other to get a feel for how they work together. At some point I will run out of true scraps, but for now, I continue to have a fairly good supply of coordinating fabric scraps. I'm not sure where I am going with this, but I anticipate that inspiration will hit me as I move along.
I try to take advantage of the fresh produce available during the summer by having some kind of a salad every night with dinner. I have a few stand-by's that I like to make that please the family. This salad was conjured up many years ago. It was inspired by a salad I used to get at the Chi-Cha Lounge in Washington D.C. (of course back in my young and single days). There's not much of a recipe, but here it is:
1 avocado chopped in chunks
1 large plum tomato chopped
a bit of red onion (or green or yellow) chopped small
cilantro
salt and pepper to taste
juice of 1/2 lime
a few drizzles of olive oil
So simple and yet so yummy. If you like avocados, you will love this. I would make it more often if avocados weren't so darn expensive these days.
I know the latest fashion with play room organization is the coordinated-container/basket-on-cute-shelf idea. So far that doesn't really work for us for various reasons. Often, a cute toy sack is what we really need. This one is made of light-weight cotton canvas. I bought the fabric a while ago -- I think I was going to make Rudy and apron or something. By the way, I got the fabric at www.reprodepot.com.
The closure is a little different. It has two ribbons strung through the casing instead of one. 
The ribbons are tied in a knot where they come out and then to close you just pull on both evenly.
Now Rudy has a nice sack for his blocks. A big improvement over this which was making me crazy:
I have been wanting to experiment with foundation piecing for a few months. Here is my first try. I love old-timey log cabin quilts that were obviously made with scraps on hand. To me, these are the most beautiful quilts of all. And really, this was their original purpose -- to make due with what you have and create something beautiful and functional from nothing.
These fabric scraps you may recognize from all of the baby quilts I have made recently. I used muslin as my foundation and in keeping with the this-is-a-fun-weekend-sewing-project, I didn't get bogged down with pressing each step or any other good-sewer's-technique. I absolutely love the results and think this may become my new favorite quilting phase. I would love to see this block one day in a quilt.
By the way, I have updated the Projects Photo Gallery link to include a gallery for my natural dye experiments and a gallery for my quilts. If you click on any picture within each gallery, it will take you to the slideshow for that gallery, otherwise you just see the thumbnail.
The back of the Estes Vest is complete. After reading up on the sweater in Ravelry, I decided to lengthen it by 2 1/2 inches -- 2 inches at the bottom before the waist shaping and the other 1/2 inch at the arm hole. I probably could have lenghthened it more (as I am very long waisted), but I was afraid to fool with the pattern too much.
I am enjoying the pattern very much and not getting too bogged down by all the cables. The yarn is lovely and I like the color more and more. It has a slight irridescence it the light that reminds me of moss -- one of the most beautiful greens in all of nature, in my opinion.
This picture shows the detail of the cable pattern much better.
Thursday, July 30, 2009 at 04:20PM