Mystery Methods!

As the saying goes, there is more than one way to “skin a cat”! Now, I’ve never personally considered the different ways you can skin a cat, or why you would want to do so….but in this case, those late night foot cramps gave me time to think things through.

For some --- the easiest way to trim those string blocks in Part 4 would be to simply square the blocks to 5-1/8”, slice them on the diagonal and be done with it.

Why use the Companion Angle Ruler at all? I guess it is like my favorite cooking spoon. I have this one slotted spoon that I like to cook with, and if I can’t find that one, I go looking. I just prefer it.

So here is what I thought last night…

Here before you is a 5-1/2” foundation square covered with red scraps. It was easier for me to cut 5-1/2” foundation squares from a flyer that was already 5-1/2” X 8-1/2” than it would be to cut everything at 5-1/8” to begin with. And I knew I wanted a bit extra because it makes for a cleaner trimming down…I don’t fall short on my strip lengths as badly!

We generally don’t like all that excess hanging off the edge of the block, and so I was pre-trimming before sizing down. I don’t know why it has to take leg cramps and an anvil hitting me on my head to see THIS in my mind --- The paper is our guide! Instead of squaring everything up first, just slice from corner to corner on the back side of the messy block!

Then use the companion angle ruler to trim it to size, through paper, rough edges and all. Then remove the paper. Of course, if you want to, you could slice it in half and remove your paper and THEN trim to size.

What matters is that you end up with TWO of these from every block that you do for a total of 128 trimmed triangles.

Don’t you love my Maryland crabs next to my lucky cow fabric? There are cherries with gold glitz in there too..FUN!

So as far as skinning cats goes ----use whatever method gives you the results that you want, with the method that makes the most sense to you and makes you the happiest, knowing that not everyone will choose to do it the same way as you, and that is okay too.

Happy Stringing!

Yard Sale Saturday!

I’m getting another late start this morning….I had one of those nights where you wake up with foot cramps at 3am and the only thing to do is get up and stumble around and walk them out! Does that happen to anyone else?

After that, I lay there thinking of what to do with the Part 4 steps……really…and I have some ideas to streamline things, and I’ll post that in a bit. It will take me making one more block and some more photos! So come back this afternoon for that.

Remember me telling you I wanted to do a Yard Sale Saturday thing? I’m thinking we can use the LINKY and it would be like a neighborhood yard sale!

There will be some ground rules…These items need to be QUILT RELATED. Patterns, Books, Fabric, Notions, Partial UFOs…whatever you want. This is for gently used –white elephant type items, not new-sell-at-retail-stuff or new crafts you have made to sell for Christmas. Understood? Think YARD SALE. When your item has sold, mark it sold on your blog page so people know.

You must link your post back to THIS POST, not the whole blog --- The url to use is http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2011/12/yard-sale-saturday.html

You write the post on your blog, you come back here and link it up. It is up to you to decide how you are going to interact with your buyers. I’m going to use paypal, and the selling price does not include the shipping. The shipping price will be figured depending on where the person lives, and the shipping price will be added to the purchase price.

***Notice!! These blocks have SOLD to Miriam! Thanks Miriam!***

So what did I sell today?

How about a set of 16 vintage churn dash blocks! And not just ANY Churn dash block..these are pieced differently than I’ve ever seen!

Block Front Block Back

She’s used SMALL triangles around a center framed square….it’s really unique! Maybe all she had was smaller pieces to work with and this is what she came up with?

This brown one is even more interesting….there are two long bars…and then the corners are added only to one side…Here is the back of the block, I think you can see it better by viewing the seams:

By my closest guess ---these fabrics date from around 1900-1910. There are shirtings, ginghams, plaids, double pinks, polka dots, solids, and lovely mourning prints and burgundy resists. They measure just a bit over 10” on average.

Check out ALL the blocks here:

		1900 churn dash blocks VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

There are stains, some yellowing, lots of wonkiness and loads of character. The blocks are big enough that they could be taken apart, and reassembled or used as an addition to your vintage fabric collection.

I was able to sell my blocks within a couple hours of posting them --- isn't this great?!

Do you have something to unload SELL!? Write your blog post, and link it below! We’ll leave the linky running through The weekend, the entries will close on Sunday at 11:59pm. Monday starts our Mystery Monday Link-Up so be sure to come back for that too!

Evening Edition..Free Kindle Book!

It’s on the machine….the last quilt for the next book is on the machine! I am so excited I can barely stand it..I love this quilt..it turned out every bit as terrific as I hoped it would.

AND…I was thrifty…last year I bought a set of King sized flannel sheets on sale because I thought they’d be cozy…well---

DH isn’t crazy about them, says they are TOO HOT…so today, they became BACKING! And I’m happy about that too.

Speaking of DH’s and those of us that have them, and have to deal with them through the Holiday season, dropping hints, or shopping for ourselves, etc…..Here’s a fun freebie from Amazon:

A Married Man's Guide To Christmas, by Robert Henry, is free in the Kindle store.

Book Description

In the great tradition of guy-humor everywhere, here comes humorist Robert Henry’s growling, good-hearted rant about holiday madness, A MARRIED MAN’S GUIDE TO CHRISTMAS.

Henry reveals the truth about Christmas through the eyes of a typical married man. “Remember, it’s not how you celebrate the joyous season. It’s whether you are still alive, married, sleeping indoors, with a healthy prostate, and without a rap sheet on January 4th that counts.”

Husbands will laugh out loud. Dads will slap their knees and keel over (have CPR ready). Wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, female co-workers and sales clerks who dread seeing men mumble and mutter their way through the Christmas section at BIG BOX DISCOUNT WAREHOUSE will nod in recognition at the syndrome best described as “CAN I SURVIVE UNTIL NEW YEAR’S?”

A Married Man’s Guide To Christmas is a must for every guy who wants the women in his life to understand why he’d rather buy them gift certificates than brave the treacherous online world of lingerie catalogs. Why have just a joyous season, when you can have a Christmas filled with laughs that don’t include finding pictures of Uncle Herbert in a teddy?

Irreverent, honest, and biodegradable, Robert Henry has captured the essence of the holiday season for all men in A Married Man’s Guide To Christmas.

So grab it today for all the beleaguered males on your Xmas list and all the long-suffering females who just want the lights strung on the front porch by Christmas Eve, the honey-do list completed before Aunt Sookie arrives with her flatulent Pekinese, and that expensive bottle of Scotch left mostly full until the tinsel is hung, the presents are wrapped, and the home owner’s association has accepted your apology for spelling out a less-than-jolly greeting in solar-powered candy canes on your front lawn.

Sounds good to me! I just downloaded it and it is still free --- but double check before clicking just in case it isn’t any more….

Back to the quilt in the machine!

Mystery Stuff !!

This is one of those reasons why I am home when running mysteries--- QUESTIONS come in!

Please, please believe me in the sizes for step 4....the directions ARE correct. I've gone over this and over this. I’ve already MADE the quilt, I know what I’m doing :c)

Please don't second guess me when you don't know where these triangles are going to go or what they will be added to.

If you cut a 5-1/8" square on the diagonal, it is the SAME shape and size as the triangle cut with the companion angle ruler using the 3.5" markings down the center of the ruler. I laid them on top of each other. They match. They are the same.

You have to trust me ----That said, if you decide to cut some other size, I won’t be responsible for how your quilt turns out – or doesn’t ;c)

I’m TRYING to accommodate everyone here by giving traditional rotary cutting measurements AND the Easy Angle/Companion Angle measurements. I don’t have to do that ---but I take extra time to make sure that things work.

I use these rulers for EVERY MYSTERY we do and will continue to do so. They are standard rulers for me and I use them all the time with terrific results. I have included them in the last book, and will in the next one.

This is why screw-drivers come in so many sizes --- there is no ONE screw driver that will work for every job you have.

I don’t consider myself a “ruler hoarder” But I do want the right one for the job. These rulers are so inexpensive when purchased with a coupon.

A Reader wrote:

I want to get this fixed quick if it is wrong so I sent a note to the quiltville yahoo group but I thought I would send a note directly to you.

This is the piece I am worried about. If you are cutting 3 ½ inches on your companion ruler shouldn’t we be cutting them to 4 ¾ inches for quarter square triangles--

UH-OH!!

Guess what Santa is bringing me for Christmas this year?!

Actually, I hope it shows up a lot sooner than that! I just placed my order ---

This is my extension table for my Bernina machine, and --- ooops! I was reattaching the legs, and I don’t even KNOW how this snapped! But let’s just agree that it is NOT fixable :c/

((I may find myself resorting to some duct tape and some flat paint sticks as a bottom brace until the new one gets here—I’ve got projects to finish!))

This just puts a GRRRR in my day, Ya’ll!

But to get me in a better mood, here’s something I thought I’d share with you…

This is Cathy’s Tree!

Do you see what is ON Cathy’s tree??! Look closely!

Yay to Cathy!! But now she is going to have to wait until after Christmas to take them down and iron these suckers..LOL! Or at least until the next step that builds upon these units is revealed!

Tomorrow is the release of Part 4 of the Orca Bay Mystery! Will you be ready?

JoAnne McKee is! This morning she posted this silly poem to our Quiltville facebook wall!

Dear Bonnie Hunter;

Do you even have a clue?

The wild things you started, with your little strings of blue.

My husband thinks I’m crazy. My friends all think it’s sad

I used to be so normal…Now they think I’m mad!

I’m chopping up the phone books-- I’m slashing up old shirts.

I sew and sew into the night until my body hurts!

I rush into my best friend’s house, start digging through her trash!

She doesn’t care as long as I just stay out of HER stash!

I cut and sew for days and days and finally I am done.

Those little strings all blue and cute-- oh they were such fun!

So everyone is relieved and simply shake their heads,

Until I tell MORE STRINGS TO COME --BUT THIS TIME THEY’LL BE RED.

Hahahahah!! I love love love this! And with this cheerfulness around, how can I be so upset about a little cracked machine extension table?

Now just WHERE is that DUCT TAPE?!

A Night with Trans Siberian Orchestra!

We had an absolute blast last night…

I’d always loved Trans Siberian Orchestra’s music during the holidays, I was familiar with some of it, even had a few CD’s that I’d dust off at holiday time to play ---

But this was the first time I’d seen them live, and WOW!

((Though I have to admit there was way too much theatrical 80’s hair band style hair flipping going on…it cracked me up! Just play the MUSIC folks!))

We had floor seats, and I could hardly wait for the thing to start.

The music is phenomenal of course, but the light show adds so much to it.

Did you ever stop to think how color can effect mood? Look at this:

I loved the bright blue with the lime green! Almost quilt colors, don’t you think? Colored lights like this enhance the feeling of the song…just like colors in a quilt can affect the feel of a room --

Look at this one! I see blue, green, yellow, orange, red…and purple! How would these look in a quilt. How would these colors affect your mood?

Hot stuff baby! Yellow/orange/red/black!

This was awesome, and reminded me of concerts from my highschool years! LOL! But look at the colors….Red, Orange, Yellow, and Hot Pink! And maybe some royal blue -- do you see it there in the picture just below the platform?

And the colors went from flaming hot…to cooling shades of green/aqua/blue.

The colors of the lights changed with each song, changing with the dynamics and feel of the music….

The colors of our quilts can completely change the energy the quilt gives off too. That’s one of the things I love about working with color, texture, pattern and design.

Next time you see a photograph, try to pick out the colors in it…break it down…find combinations that will give you the same feel, see if you can work up a design in those colors.

And just to get you in the spirit…here’s a youtube video I found of Trans Siberian Orchestra to give you a glimpse of our fun from last night!

You just might see the evidence of copious amounts of hair flipping at the beginning!

Now go play with some color!

Afternoon Additon --- Free Kindle book!

And we’re off! Heading out to the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert…and meeting up with friends after for dinner. It should be a fun evening.

I just downloaded this little freebie ---it’s a mystery, and it sounds cute. Wait – can mysteries BE cute??

Dead Air: A Sammy Greene Thriller by Deborah Shlian and Linda Reid is free today from the Amazon Kindle store, and has received an average user rating of 4 out of 5 stars based on 15 customer reviews.

Category: Mystery / Suspense

Book Description:

This likable mystery, set in 1995, stars Sammy Greene, a “freckle-faced” communications major at a conservative college.

She also hosts a daily talk show on the campus radio station, encouraging callers to discuss subjects that might be a bit outré for the mainstream.

When she discovers that a professor has been murdered, she picks up the scent of real journalism and decides to investigate. But she doesn’t count on exposing the dark side of the college in the process.

The authors have created a series-worthy heroine who has plenty of room to grow. Fans of light mysteries with a hard edge will enjoy this one.

Sounds worth a free-try, yeah? Just remember to double check before clicking that it is STILL free – things can change in the blink of an eye, and what was once free might not be later ---

Oooh! And be sure to click back to our Mystery Monday Link-Up post from last Monday --- we're close to 100 link-ups as I write this...check out everyone's progress! Great job everyone!