Favourite Things Friday: Needlework

She watched and taught the girls that sang at their embroidery frames while the great silk flowers grew from their needles. –Louise Jordan Miln, The Feast of Lanterns

There is something about taking a needle and thread to fabric that I love. Hand-stitching a binding? You bet! It is one of my favorite parts of the quilting process. Appliqué? Yes, please. Needle-turn or raw-edge; either one will do. Embroidery? I've got an awesome collection of embroidery floss at the ready. Although hand work takes longer than sewing by machine, there is a calming rhythm to it and a huge amount of satisfaction in completing a piece where it was just you and the raw materials.

We all know that I am the queen of works-in-progress. My list of projects started is HUGE! Sew, naturally I have more than one hand project in the works at the moment. I keep each project in a ziplock bag with floss or thread, a needle, and instructions {where applicable}. When I'm in the mood to do a little stitching, I already have something at the ready. I especially love that if I'm going somewhere where I know there will be a bit of sitting and waiting, I can grab a project and a pair of small scissors and have something to keep me occupied.

This is what I'm working on right now; the label for the back of my Snowball Quilt. Somewhere along the way, I decided that embroidered tags were the way to go, even though they are pretty time consuming. I use a word processing program with cute fonts to design the labels. After I have the sizing and fonts and layout just right, I print the 'pattern' out on paper and use a light box to trace it onto my fabric in pencil.

Most of my spare hand stitching time has been taken up with quilt labels, lately. I traced this block out for my Woman's Work quilt in December. The quilt is comprised of needle-turn appliqué and embroidered blocks and I have loved working on it. I had to put it on hold in December for Christmas projects and since then I have only managed to squeeze in a tiny bit of time on it. Still, I'm that much farther ahead when I get back to it {which will be right after I finish my Ph.D. Challenge quilts}.

High on my list of 'what to work on next' is my Boo to You appliqué quilt. This cute little witch is currently in production. I hope to finish the quilt and Zelda's Fancy Hat in time to display for Halloween this year.

This is a previously undisclosed Ph.D. I'm making an Escaping Bug Jar quilt with my mom. Our jar pieces are cut and ready to go and we've nearly finished all the paper piecing blocks. This spider needs his legs satin-stitched on. I added a bit of blending filament to the floss to give it a little shimmer

This panel of trees for my Twilight Quilt is a project long in the making. I started this two years ago. There are actually four panels and each panel has 13 trees. I wanted to secure the trees down with more than just Heat 'n Bond, but I also wanted it to be subtle, so I'm doing a whip-stitch along the raw edges. Each tree takes between 45 minutes and an hour. I'm about a third of the way done with the this little project.

Sew much hand work. Sew little time. I think I'm going to spend my summer doing lots and lots of appliqué and embroidery!

Today's post brought to you by:

The 2011 Ph.D Quilt Challenge

A goal is a dream with a deadline. –Napoleon Hill

Somewhere, I have a list of all the quilts I've started that need to be finished. It's a pretty long list. Some of them were interrupted with more pressing things that had to be done right away. One or two of them I'm just procrastinating because I'm scared of quilting them because it means trying something new. A few are in progress because the tedious paper pieced blocks take squillions {that's an Aussie word that means really a lot} of hours each and I get bored and want to do something that shows more progress. And I have one that is on the back burner as I passively work on it as leaders and enders. They are all still projects that I love and want to finish, so when I heard that Myra was hosting a Ph.D {Project Half-Done} Quilt challenge, I decided that a little accountability would be a good thing to help me get these quilts finished. I'm committing to finish three Ph.D's during that time, although I plan on working on other Ph.D's and am also hoping to start and finish a couple of other quilts during that time.

High on my list of priorities is my snowball quilt. I started two snowball quilts when Karen announced her Snowball Night Quilt-along at the end of May. I finished one for my sister and gave it to her as a wedding gift, but due to quiltus interruptus {thanks, P. for the awesome term }, I still need to finish mine. I have it all stacked and ready to sew into rows. Then it needs its stacked coins/piano keys border, and I need to put the baby snowballs together and get them into the back. Then it is ready to be quilted, bound and washed to wrinkly, bumpy, quilty goodness.

Another quilt high on the list is my pinwheel sampler. This was Rachel's quilt-along over at p.s. i quilt. I've got it sewn together into eight sections — only seven seams to go and the top is finished. I'm procrastinating though, because the quilting is going to be tedious and a little bit scary, with lots of starts and stops and tying off. I want to do straight-line echo quilting inside all of the triangles, and I want to do it free-motion, so I don't have to turn the whole quilt to go around corners with the walking foot. I'm also debating whether or not I want to piece teeny tiny windmills to go on the back.

Another quilt-in-progress I would love to finish is my Woman's Work quilt. I started working on this quilt in mid-September, and hoped to be able to finish it in six months' time. I'm at the half-way point and feel like this is a reasonable goal, even throwing in about a hundred other things and so this is the third of my three committed-to-finish Ph.D quilts for Myra's challenge.

Now, if I can just get the Christmas projects finished . . .

Woman's Work: Would You?

Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways.
–Samuel McChord Crothers

When I was collecting fabrics for my Woman's Work quilt, I got it into my head that I needed blue gingham for the back and binding. I'm pretty sure that's what Lori used on her quilt. The pattern includes a picture of just the finished quilt top, but I've seen her finished Woman's Work quilt at my favorite LQS, and I think that is what she used. In my travels, I'd seen some ⅜" gingham that had pretty daisies all over it and it stuck in my brain that it really needed to be used in this quilt. When I went back to get it, I discovered, to my horror, that it was a blend; 35% cotton and 65% polyester. What kind of quilt shop carries poly-cotton blends? I bought it anyway.

My original plan was to use a piece of it as one of the pieces of laundry in the laundry basket block so that the back and binding would all tie in together {I'm neurotic that way }, but when it came time make that block, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Meanwhile, I've almost decided to use the pretty yellow {100% cotton} Carolina gingham I used in the window cleaner block. But my mind keeps returning to that cute ⅜" blue gingham check with the sweet daisies all over it. So I'm posing my question about this to the quilting/blogging internet at large.

Is 100% cotton for quilting a hard and fast rule?

Before you answer, lemme s'plain just a little. This quilt is going to hang on my wall and will, in all likelihood, never be washed. I'm guessing that one of the reasons polyester is an outcast in the quilting world is because after a few washings it gets all pilly and ratty looking. But are there other issues, like affecting the quilting quality? I want to know what your personal thoughts and feelings and opinions are on poly-cotton blends for quilting. And does the cuteness of the ⅜" blue gingham check with the sweet daisies all over it make up for its content defect and make it worthy to put in a quilt, or would you just keep on looking?

If you don't have time to comment {or even if you do}, please vote in my poll.

Would you use a poly-cotton blend in a quilt?
	Not in a million years.
	It depends on the quilt.
	Sure, why not?
pollcode.com free polls

Woman's Work: Apron

Aprons don’t hold us back, they take us back. –EllynAnne Geisel

I kind of have a thing for aprons. This one is no exception. Look at that adorable baby rick-rack. Aprons with rick-rack are awesome. If you click on the picture for a closer look, you can see that it is stitched on with some pretty yellow embroidery floss. This method of attaching the rick-rack is the genius method of Lori Holt, quilt designer extraordinaire. You'll see rick-rack again later in this quilt, applied using the same cute method.

I'm wondering if I can count this apron towards my total even though no one will actually wear it? I think it took roughly the same amount of time to make as it does to make a wearable life-size apron. Or maybe a smidge more.

This apron is section six of the quilt, and so now I have seven of thirteen sections finished, but not quite half the blocks done {15 out of 31}. I love the huge amount of progress that I have made on it on the last three months. My original goal was to have it finished in six months' time and that might still be possible. For now, this apron has to go back in the box with all my other finished blocks and fabrics for this quilt and be tucked back under my bed because it is time to finally stop procrastinating the Christmas presents. I'm going to do one thing, though, before I put it away for a few weeks. I'm going to sew the scrubbers block to the top of the dustpan block. I was looking over the pattern to see which blocks are coming up next {and then the ones after that} and also had a look over the finishing instructions. Lori has the quilt divided up into groups of blocks when you piece it together and then after you get the groups pieced together, you put them together to make the whole quilt top. The scrubbers and dustpan are next to each other in a group, so I'll be ahead when it comes time for that if I put them together now. Wohoo! After I finish the next section of blocks, I'll be able to sew a whole group together. I'm kind of excited about that. But for now, anything that is not a Christmas present is getting put away. Wish me luck. I think I've procrastinated it exactly the right amount of time to arrive at Christmas Eve completely frazzled and worn out, cursing myself for not starting sooner, and vowing to never procrastinate again.

Woman's Work: Bucket, Mop & Scrubbers

My idea of superwoman is someone who scrubs her own floors.
–Bette Midler

This is section five of my Woman's Work quilt, all finished . I have six {of thirteen} sections or fourteen {of thirty-one} blocks done. I got my fabric and patterns all ready for these blocks, but paused before the construction because I decided I wanted to mop my floor to see if it made me feel like superwoman. It did. For like 20 minutes until someone {me } spilled something sticky on the floor. It's only been three days and I'm feeling like I need to mop again already to preserve that my kitchen floor isn't crunchy or sticky, and I totally wouldn't mind if someone dropped by unexpectedly because the kitchen floor is clean feeling.

Appliquéing a mop was no less satisfactory than wielding a real mop and comes with its own rewards. I've had a bit of difficulty in taking good pictures of the white-on-white fabrics in this quilt {which leads me to wonder if there is a tutorial out there somewhere on how to photograph fabric}. The mop head is made up of a paisley white-on-white; the swirls remind me of the motion of a mop as you work it across the floor. But you'll just have to take my word for it. Or, you could come over and I'll show you. We could sit in the kitchen and sip warm cider or hot chocolate and I could feel all superwomanish because my kitchen floor is clean {except for that one sticky spot} and someone came over to witness it.

For the bucket, I used silver ironing board fabric. The instructions say not to wash it, but I wash everything before I put it in a quilt, so of the yard I bought, I washed a fat quarter to see what would happen. It kind of took some of the silver shine off it, gave it a veined sort of texture {from where the fabric wrinkled in the wash}, and made it look a little bit darker. I debated back and forth about whether or not to wash all of it. In the end, I decided that this quilt is one that will probably never get washed, so I used the shinier, silverier not washed fabric as the outside of the bucket and to give it a little bit of contrast {though you can hardly tell} I used the pre-washed fabric as the inside of the bucket and the little grommet on the side. And whenever I embroider, I find myself wishing for a hand-stitching regulator. Is there such a thing?

Just look at this scrub brush and bit of steel wool. Cute, no? Lori is an appliqué quilt genius. My tracing skills leave a little to be desired, though. After I'd finished, I noticed that QC inspector missed the scrub brush. But I give extra points for the striped fabric that looks like bristles {and also makes cute ghosts}. For the steel wool, I used Platinum Fairy Frost {which wasn't an original idea; Lori uses it for all the silver pieces in her quilts} and silver blending filament to stitch the swirls in.

When I bought this quilt pattern, there were a few blocks that were my favorites. They drew me to this quilt and sold me on it. I find it interesting that as I work, even the less glamourous blocks become my favorites as they emerge, and I'm pretty sure now that it wasn't just a few blocks that drew me to this quilt. It was the quilt as a whole. I am nearing the half-way mark and am really excited about it. I think I'm going to try to squeeze in one more block {the most adorable little apron ever!} this week before I absolutely have to give up procrastinating the Christmas projects.

Woman's Work: Laundry Basket

I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don't have any clean laundry, because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life? –Unknown

Of all the household chores, laundry is the one that I will never complain about. Or perhaps I should say it is the one I mind the least, because it is funny and dramatic to say, Mt. Saint Laundry is calling, or, I have to conquer Mt. Washmore today. But if the truth be told, the machines do all the work and we have it really easy. When I lived in Brasil, I did my own laundry by hand for about a year of that time, and washing jeans and towels {or really anything} in a stone sink basin and then wringing them out to dry is a very laborious process. I knew women who would start their day, every day, at the crack of dawn with their family's laundry, and not be finished until well into the afternoon. I count myself lucky that sorting a week's worth of laundry takes all of twenty minutes; that I can throw a load in the washer in less that five minutes {counting pre-treating all the stains} and come back 50 minutes later to find all the hard work done. With a few exceptions, all of that can go in the dryer and in 30 to 60 more minutes, I have a load of clean, bright, fresh smelling clothes which can be folded at my leisure while watching TV. Yes, laundry may take all day, but the bulk of the work is done by machines.

This laundry basket was really fun to appliqué. As I was selecting fabrics for it, I thought, this has to be the worst-sorted load of laundry in the history of laundry, because I sort my laundry not just into darks, mediums and lights, but by color. Then I realized that a monochromatic basket of laundry would have been very boring in this quilt, so I just had fun with it, imagining that this is what was left in the basket after several loads has been dumped in and picked through. I took inspiration from Lori's quilt, using red with big white polka-dots for one piece of laundry and choosing a really cool striped fabric for one of the socks. But for the most part, I picked fabrics that I thought looked nice to make up my basket of laundry. And the basket itself? Well, I searched high and low before I found this perfect basket-weave fabric and I absolutely love how it came out.

Over the years, I've honed my laundry skills and I think I do a fairly decent job. It is totally because I let the machines do all of the work. Here are a few tricks I've learned.
• Hot water sets in stains. I wash every load in cold water, which is good for several reasons; it is green {saves energy on heating the water}, it keeps clothes from fading, it keeps clothes from shrinking {if you don't put them in the dryer}, and if you missed anything in the pre-treat, it is more likely to come out in cold water.
• When treating clothes for stains, do it just before you throw the clothes in the wash as the water is running {rather than when you take the item off and put it in the laundry}. Also, most stains happen on the front of clothes, so if you're pressed for time, you can skip the backs of shirts.
• Let the machines do all the work — set every load to agitate for the maximum time setting on your machine.
• Don't overload your machine. Your clothes will come out better in two medium loads than one extra gigantic load. Also, use the right amount of soap for your load size. Too much detergent is just as bad as not enough.
• Contrary to popular belief, it is the washer, not the dryer, that eats stocks. Stick your head in the dryer and have a look around. There is no place for them to go. They slip down the drain in the drain/rinse cycle in the washer, so if the mis-matched sock pile drives you nuts, put your socks in mesh laundry bags in the wash.
• When drying sheets and blankets {or cuts of fabric for quilting} throw a set of dryer balls {or jumbo-size bouncy balls, which I like better} in with them. It helps keep the fabrics from wadding up into a giant ball and they will dry faster.

I hope that helps lighten your load a little. I'm off to conquer Mt. Washmore .

Woman's Work: Retro Chic Vacuum Cleaner

I'm not going to vacuum until Sears makes one you can ride on.
–Roseanne Barr

Once upon a time my front door was open to anyone. I would jump up to answer no matter what I was doing and greet each visitor with a smile. Our neighborhood is popular with the door-to-door sales people, and so I found myself constantly turning away magazine and book and frozen food and cleaning supply sales people. One day a young woman knocked on my door and wanted to know if she could clean my carpets — the carpets with the heaviest traffic. She assured me that I would be under no obligation to purchase anything and it was a completely free service that she was offering. Of course I let her in because we had that awful light-tan-goes-with-everything-but-is-impossible-to-keep-clean carpet they've put in every new home since 1996.

She brought in a vacuum cleaner and proceeded to show me how much better it would clean my carpets than my current vacuum; she actually hooked up a filter system that showed me exactly how much dirt was coming out of my carpet with the two different vacuums. She showed me every attachment that came standard and told me all the ways to use the attachments for cleaning the blinds and vacuuming out the couches and how much easier my life would be with this vacuum. She then had a moratorium for my vacuum cleaner, covered it with a cloth and proceeded to offer me a huge discount on a new vacuum, a Kirby Vacuum Cleaner, which involved her throwing in a couple of extra accessories and some cleaning supplies, giving up {part of} her commission, arranging for six-month financing at 0% interest, and made it clear that this offer was only good for as long as she stayed in my house. If she left and had to come back, the price would go up. For the grand finale she set up the vacuum with the carpet cleaning attachments, mixed up the carpet cleaner and went to town on my living room. I went to my bedroom and called Mr. Bug, because I had to have this vacuum cleaner. It was the vacuum of my dreams and was going to make my chores so much more pleasant. Never mind that it cost more than my first car. I was convinced that I needed this vacuum. And Mr. Bug was at a loss to tell me I couldn't have it.

This absolutely adorable vacuum cleaner is not a Kirby. But I love it. A lot. It is section three of the Woman's Work quilt. The plaid is a bit of Cider Mill Road by Nancy Halvorsen. I picked up a fat quarter of it a year ago at Shop Hop and since then I've been looking for its coordinates because I knew that plaid had to be used on the vacuum cleaner. But I couldn't find any that would work for a vacuum cleaner block. So I picked a sickly sort of pea-green from my stash that went well with the light stripes in it. When it came time to make the block, I needed a third fabric, and so I rummaged through my stash some more, but couldn't come up with anything perfect to go with the plaid and pea-green combo. When I pulled out these terrific Cherrywood hand-dyed fabrics that my kind friend, Iris, had sent me for my birthday, the coral was an immediate in because I can't think of anything that would make vacuuming funner than a plaid-and-coral-pink vacuum cleaner. There was a pretty tan in the bunch {I think the fabrics are from the Melon Patch collection} that was a shade tamer than the pea-green and I used some ironing board fabric for the silver in the wheels, giving me the perfect components for a so-ugly-it-is-cute Retro Chic Vacuum Cleaner.

I've had my Kirby for 8± years. And I find I don't love or hate vacuuming more or less than I did before, although it is nice to have a reliable vacuum that has lasted for eight years without incident. It doesn't make the vacuuming more exciting and less of a chore, because a Kirby is, after all, just a vacuum. And the moral of the story is this: a No Soliciting sign on the front door is a wise investment.

Woman's Work: Good Housekeeping

She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. –Proverbs 31:27

The first block I did on the Woman's Work quilt was the Paper Towel block. The idea of appliquéing and embroidering a roll of paper towels was just so appealing to me. I mean, how cute can you get? That block was in the middle of the pattern and because I like order I had to go back to the beginning and work through the pattern's outlined sections { }. I got through section one {the most adorable broom with an embroidered quote} and part-way through section two {embroidered chore day blocks and a dustpan to go with the broom} when I realized that the embroidery in this quilt was kicking my timeline's butt {I wanted to finish one section every two weeks, in between other projects, and have the quilt finished in six months} and I had to come up with a new plan. The new plan is this: work on it when I can, keep moving forward and don't stress about the timeline.

Just because I wanted to see what I was up against, I counted out the major embroidery blocks in the quilt and discovered that there were nine; one in section one {already done!}, three in section two {Yesssss! } and the other five scattered throughout the rest of the sections. One of those sections with an embroidery block was the paper towel section. I saw that it would be to my advantage to finish off the blocks that are in the paper towel section because that would push me past the half-way mark on the embroidered blocks. I'm not sure if you really need to know all of this, but there it is; the crazy train that is my thought process, which lead me to doing these blocks out of order {and unless you have the pattern, you wouldn't know which order they were supposed to go in anyway} .

This Good Housekeeping embroidery sits in the lower center of the quilt and is another of my favorite blocks and one of the reasons I bought the pattern. Before I left the quilt shop with the pattern, and perhaps even before I got to the cash register with it, I knew exactly which white-on-white fabric from my stash I would use for this embroidery {I have to say here that my stash is not by any means extensive, but at the time I was working on the white-on-whites, picking up prints that were particularly appealing to me}. Unfortunately, I can't get a good picture of it to show you the neat sort of swirly vines that are in the fabric. If you click on the picture for a close-up, you can almost see the pattern. Photographs hardly ever do quilt blocks justice and I'm slightly frustrated that I can't show you what I want to about this block.

Lori has included several scripture references on the blocks in this quilt. I really like the one in this block from Proverbs {quoted above}. As I was working, I pondered the irony of me making a quilt about good housekeeping when I'm not such a great housekeeper myself. I wondered why, when I like order so much, do I let my house deteriorate into chaos so frequently? It suppose I find it hard to take satisfaction in something that is going to be undone so quickly. Also is is more fun to sew . I'm still looking for a better balance in my housekeeping as well as my sewing.

This cute bottle of window cleaner is the other block that goes in this section. I love the appliqué blocks because they go pretty quickly, even if they do have a bit of embroidery on them, like the spray on this one. I used a couple of fabrics from the Stephenie Meyer quilt in this block. The red is the batik I used for the borders, sashings and tulips blocks and the stem of the squirt mechanism is the white I used in the checkerboard. I think I am totally in love with the pretty yellow 100% cotton Carolina Gingham in the background. And I think I'm going to use it {on the bias } for the binding.

Up next: a vacuum cleaner with almost all appliqué and hardly any embroidery.

Woman's Work: Monday Wash, Tuesday Iron

When it comes to housework the one thing no book of household management can ever tell you is how to begin. Or maybe I mean why. –Katharine Whitehorn, "Nought for Homework," Roundabout, 1962

Section two of Lori's Woman's Work quilt had these three cute embroidered blocks in it. Which took kind of forever. This is all I've worked on for the last ten days. In like every spare minute I've had.

As I was working, I had this brilliant idea to use some art pastels to color in the blocks when I'd finished. I pondered on it and asked a few people what they thought. LadyBug was all for it {she loves 'painting with chalk'}, so I spent an afternoon colorbooking these blocks, all the while worrying that I was completely ruining them and that I was going to hate the result and have to start over again because the chalks have enough oil in them that they won't completely wash out. I still have mixed feelings about these blocks. When I looked at the picture of the blocks above, I had a little remorse for coloring them in. On the other hand, I think I like them better colored in. What do you think?

Monday Wash:

Tuesday Iron:

Friday Clean:

The fabric that I used for these blocks is not solid white. It has a really pretty flower-and-vine pattern printed on it, but after I washed the fabric, the pattern sort of disappeared and you can only see it in the right light. I was hoping that the pastels would help the pattern show up a little better, but it didn't really.

While I was applying the chalk to these blocks I was thinking about the naughty messes that some kids make. I know of some kids who, when they were little, got into a bottle of conditioner their mom left unattended on the kitchen table for 30 seconds while she was putting away some other groceries, and smeared it all over themselves, the couch cushions and the carpet. These same little kids would get into their mom's crafting supplies and pour glitter and embossing powder into the carpets. And pour out whole boxes of oatmeal in the middle of the living room. I've heard other horror stories of kids who get into things they're not supposed to and make the naughtiest messes. And I feel so bad for those mothers.

My Little Bugs never really made naughty messes like that, except for one time. And that one time I did have a naughty mess on my hands was really my own fault. I left my box of art pastels open and on the edge of a folding table in the living room. The temptation was too much and LadyBug reached up with her tiny, cute hands and pulled them off the table, spilling them all over the {impossible to keep clean light tan carpet they've put in every house built since 1996 because it goes with everything} carpet. Once the deed was done, Grasshopper couldn't resist a little play time with mom's fancy craft stuff and so they had a party. It was so hard to be mad at them. First of all, I'd left the chalks where they could get to them, so it really was my own fault. But secondly, LadyBug had a stack of the little chalk squares piled up and was holding them in her two little hands {I have a thing for her hands} in the most adorable way when I found them. We picked the chalks up and put them back in order in their box and really no harm was done. Hearing the horror stories of messes kids get into, I consider myself very lucky.

Anyway, back to the Woman's Work quilt. Section two also included this cute little dustpan, a counterpart to the broom in the first section. The appliqué goes really quickly and I love it. As a side-note, the embroidered 'ridges' in the pan took a little bit longer to do than it took me to appliqué the entire block. It was still really fun to make.

This quilt has nine embroidery-only blocks and I'm really slow at embroidery. However, I have four of those nine finished now and I think I'm going to go back and finish the two other blocks in the section with the paper towels next {I started with the paper towels because they are just so cute, but didn't do that whole section, so now I need to go back and finish it}. One of the blocks left in that section is an embroidery block, so that will push me past the half-way point with the embroidery. After that, the next two sections I'll work on are appliqué blocks, with only a little embroidery in them.

Woman's Work: Broom Block

My grannie used to say, 'A woman's work is never done when it never gets started!' –G. Gaunt

Housework is a funny thing. It looks deceptively simple. It can be parceled out into jobs that can easily be completed 10 minute increments, but it can also expand to fill any available amount of time. You can spend hours and hours scrubbing the house spotless and washing every stitch of clothing in the house, but can you ever really call it done? I've been wrestling with a feeling of inadequacy in my housework for years and wondering how good is good enough? I go between being overly obsessive about how my house looks to devil-may-care. For the most part, it's been more devil-may-care. I've discovered that the world doesn't end if the vacuuming isn't done and nobody really complains if the end tables and book shelves are dusty as long as they have clean undies and something to eat.

Finding a better balance between obsessing with and settling for how the house looks has been on my mind a lot lately.

I have fallen completely in love with Lori Holt's Woman's Work appliqué quilt. It is a quilt about housework – the chores that traditionally fall to women. It was originally a year-long appliqué club. I'm hoping that I can finish each of the twelve sections in two weeks and be able to finish it in six months instead. I started with the roll of paper towels because that block is just my favorite! Then I had to go back to the back to the beginning of the pattern and start with section one; this super cute broom and the embroidery above it. After that, I spent a little time with a real broom and did a few other chores around the house.

I loved what Lori had to say about housework in her pattern liner notes: The things we do as women everyday to take care of our homes and try to keep them in order is a constant struggle {for me anyway} and oftentimes taken for granted by our families – but work always has great value even if it does come without praise or notice.

As I have designed this quilt, I have had a desire to appreciate housework more. Instead of feeling 'overloaded' with laundry or becoming frustrated with small handprints all over the glass on my front door 'again' – I've tried to have just a bit more patience as I have come to realize what it would mean to have no tiny hands in my home leaving 'evidence' of where they have been or even no 'large' hands to leave whiskers in the bathroom sink! Considering the alternative, I'm happy just to keep cleaning and HOPING that my work never will be done.

It helps to put things into the right perspective. Thanks Lori!

Favourite Things Friday: Lori Holt

Her needlework both plain and ornamental was excellent, and she might have put a sewing machine to shame. –James Edward Austen-Leigh, about Jane Austen



Lori Holt is one if my favorite pattern designers. She creates the cutest vintagey appliqué quilts, ever. And her hand work is absolutely amazing. Not only is she creative and talented with appliqué, but everything she does is done with precision, beauty and style. And she's one nice lady.

I first saw one of her quilts at my favorite LQS during Shop Hop in Spring 2009. It was hanging on the wall half-way up the steps to the loft where all the best fabric treasures are hidden. I marveled over it for what seemed like hours. I couldn't get enough of looking at this amazing quilt that had a vacuum cleaner and a broom and a mop and furniture polish and a roll of paper towels appliquéd on it. The tag said it was made by Lori Holt. And I loved it. Then I noticed a basket on the stairs under it with the pattern sitting in it. There was just one pattern left in the basket, so I snatched it up and marched straight back down the stairs and bought it.

As soon as I got home, I read through the pattern from start to finish. I loved looking through it and soaking in all the amazing details in this quilt. As I was finishing up, I noticed on the back cover that Lori Holt was the pattern designer and she had a web-site. I got right on the computer and browsed through her projects. I fell absolutely in love with her work. I ordered two more of her patterns on-line that night. Then I started collecting just the right fabrics for these fabulous appliqué quilts. I prepared all of the freezer paper templates for that Woman's Work quilt, and then I got involved in other projects and my appliqué quilts have been waiting patiently for me to get back to them.

What with Grace being on holiday and everything, I thought now might be a good time to bring out the hand work for something to do in between cleaning the refrigerator and organizing the Little Bugs' toy area. But let's face it; making an appliqué quilt about housework is way more fun than actually doing housework, so I fear that all my plans of being Wonder Woman while my machine is in for repairs might just come to naught. Look at what I've been doing instead of cleaning the living room carpets.

A roll of paper towels! In fabric! I mean, how cute is that? Go ahead and click on it so you can see it in detail. I'm doing the broom next. And I suppose when I finish with it, I'll find an actual broom and do some actual sweeping with it.

Lori has been doing her quilts as a block of the month appliqué club at a couple of shops not too far away from me. Last fall I discovered that she'd just started the cutest quilt called Paper Dolls. They were already three months in when I found out about it, but I very nearly joined late anyway. My only hesitation was that the holidays were coming. I always get a little crazy with the making presents at Christmas. I decided it would be in the best interest of my mental health not to join the appliqué club, but to wait until she released the complete pattern. It is finally here. And look how absolutely adorable this quilt is:

{Photo © Lori Holt
Used with permission}

To celebrate the release of her newest pattern, Lori is giving the Paper Dolls pattern away to three lucky winners {check out her web-site for details on the giveaway and more pictures of this super cute quilt}. I'm hoping that I'm one of them. LadyBug would make the cutest paper doll ever. She looks just like the cute little blondie on the right {and has her personality too – look! Bandaids in the very same spots!}. And I think that Miss Butterfly would be the perfect paper doll playmate for the LadyBug paper doll. Which means I that if I don't win a pattern I'm going to have to buy it. And I might have to make two paper doll quilts.

If you're not into appliqué, don't count Lori out yet, because she is 12 kinds of awesome. She gardens, cooks, crochets, collects vintage, does traditional quilting, sews with her daughter and is an awesome grandma. Her blog is definitely worth checking out. Her Hexie tutorial {Part I, Part II and Part III} is the best I've seen and will definitely come in handy.

Thanks for the inspiration, Lori! I'm off to sew a broom.

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