After three out of town trips in just five weeks, I was happy to have a couple of days at home. I needed the time to catch up on a mountain of laundry and some house cleaning chores. What looked like a week of meetings cleared a bit as one meeting was canceled and an appointment moved, and I was able to stay home on a very rainy day. Piddling around in the sewing room, I found this butterfly embroidery that I stitched out some time ago. As I was pulling fabrics for other projects, I came across this purple butterfly print. I think they go well together, so I need to figure out a project for them.
The priority for the free time was to clean my iron. After having it ruin a project last week, I needed to figure out what happened. I got out the iron cleaner I use (Iron-Off on sale at Fat Quarter Shop), but there wasn’t really anything sticking to the soleplate. There was a fair amount of oily lint on the underside of the soleplate, but there is no way to take it apart to really clean it. I vacuumed it out as best I could. The only remaining possibility is that it burped up something rusty in the water. But, I’ve used it since and had no further issues, the water has been clear. Still, maybe it is time to replace it as I have had it for a long time. I really like it because it will stay on for a full 15 minutes, which is 6 minutes longer that every other one I looked at.
I feel like I am in a holding pattern, with the quilt show next week. I’ll be at the venue 5 out of the six days for set up, show, and take down. Because of that, I am having a hard time starting a quilt project. I did spend a bit of time with EQ8, trying to come up with a new design, but nothing is appealing yet. Since I didn’t have a project to work on, it was a good time to pull fabrics for the sew-in our area is having in June. The challenge was to draw a Villa Rosa card from a stack, and make the quilt you drew. All the quilts will be donated to Safelight in September, so we have all summer to finish. I got a card for a design called Kayla. It looks fairly simple, done with mostly half square triangle blocks. There are three long sections of just a print, so I’ll use the blue and yellow rose print for those. I have time to do the cutting after the quilt show, but for now, I have a plan.
One thing I did accomplish this month was to set up a display in the main Hendersonville Library before our MINI trip. As the publicity chair for the show, I hope it will get local quilters and sewing artists interested in our guild, as well as advertise the show. I decided on a theme of “Not Just Bed Quilts” for the display, and gathered interesting items from our members to feature. On top is an extraordinary thread painted cat by Camie Keeter. Also in the display are a number of three dimensional pieces including quilted felt flowers, a quilted metal piece, wool applique, beaded and hand quilted vessels, crazy quilted purse, a strip pieced frog, modern wall hanging and my quilted jacket and purse set. I made a display card with the quilt artist’s name and information on the piece for each one. The display will remain up until May 31.
So, what could I do as a quick project? Well, I had those rocks prepped for painting so I sat down at the bench to do a bit of playing with them. I pulled a few of the irregular shaped ones, and painted leaves in two tones of green for a base.
I added purple flowers with yellow accents.
On some, I used stickers, and sealed them with ModPodge.
These round ones are base painted in red. They will become ladybugs when the red paint is dry and a second coat is done.
I’ll put labels like this one on the back sides.
Then I thought it might be fun to do a few to place at the quilt show venue. So I got out some thread and button stamps, and stamped the rocks with those motifs. I’ll need to let them completely dry and then spray with a clear varnish. I’ll show you more of those later when I can get them finished. I can’t varnish them when it is raining as I have to do that outside.
So, a little of this and that this past week. Sometimes it is OK to just piddle, not having any deadlines or goals for the week.
What have you been up to this week?
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From My Carolina Home 
You know how to make good use of your time! I love your rocks — they’re really cute. This is a project I want to do with the boys this summer. (We’ll see how that goes. A couple of years ago they were painting on the patio; Molly went in to make a sandwich and when she came out they were both purple from head to toe!). It must have felt good to have a putter day after all the time on the road!
excellent well spent time piddling. I have been too. I have been binding quilts and sort of half heartedly cleaning up but mostly just piddling.
It is nice to do stuff around the house sewing and such and have this on. We are lucky to live at a time we can really watch live nature, peek into boxes.
Other than that, working on down sizing
Enjoy your quilt show
The butterfly embroidery will be so pretty with those fabrics! I like your pull for the Villa Rosa quilt, too. You have some lovely floral prints! Those rocks would be a treat to find for someone who doesn’t expect it. Sometimes flitting from one thing to another is the most fun to do!
You have been busy and yet you find time to make little things! The rocks are fun and will delight the “finders”. I think that Villa Rosa pattern will be fun…I just finished up one of the ones I did and really enjoyed it.
Your fabric pull for the Villa Rosa quilt is lovely. The rocks look like a lot of fun too. Do many people post when they find one? I like the idea of the stamps that you used on them for the quilt show. I’m in a holding pattern as well. We go off in 12 days on our GRAND adventure and will be gone until the end of June. I am going to spend this rainy day getting some clothes ready for packing. I think I need to bring an iron in out of the sewing room, as I don’t have one in the house anymore. I’ve quit using steam in my irons because of that yucky brown stuff that will sometimes just ruin a project. I keep spray bottles of water now and mist anything that I want to steam. Good luck finding one that doesn’t disappoint. When you find it, let us know what you got.
Oh but I love your rocks. I just bought some and we are going to paint them with names of our flowers and herbs. I love the idea of the stems and flowers on them. Thanks for sharing. Oh what types of paints did you use? I will be getting varnish since they will be outside. Lori Smanski
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Carole,
How creative to have quilters choose a Villa Rosa pattern! Like the fabrics you’ve curated for your design.
When my Black & Decker iron failed after 5 years of use, the model I had was no longer available so I needed to find a new iron. A fellow guild member told me about the Singer Steam Craft Plus iron. I bought one and really like it! The iron stays on for 30 minutes before the auto shut off kicks in and it is sufficiently hot. It also has a 10-foot cord – longer than most irons. It has a stainless-steel soleplate which I prefer to Teflon. A-n-d, it comes in your different colors.
The rocks are eye catching! The notion themed rocks will be a fun find for the quilters!
Good luck with the quilt show and all the prep work to make it successful!
Jo Anne
It will be fun to see what you do with the butterfly embroidery. I love finding random things and putting them together. You can sell your sewing themed rocks at the quilt show – call them pattern weights LOL.
I just replaced my iron too. They only last so long and when they start leaking it gets scary. Your rocks are so sweet. Anyone who finds one will certainly feel special. Your display window should capture a great amount of attention. So well thought out and a great display of quilted articles. Nice to have a day to play around with no definite goal but accomplishing a good number of small projects. I am tackling a t-shirt quilt for a niece to gift to her FFA educator who is moving. Love creating special memories.
How simply wonderful to have a day to piddle around 🙂
My Sewing Room iron is a steam iron but I use it dry – it has a wobbly plate which clunks in and out when in use. My house iron is 50 years old, a dry iron, and still going strong. It might be a ‘forever’ iron. At least it hasn’t ended up in the ‘landfill’, yet!
I love making and having decorated stones and I dot them around my garden. But I would be thrilled to find one with a message on it. Great way to advertise your Guild and hopefully increase your numbers.
Your Kayla design looks good with the fabrics you have chosen. Be nice to see as you progress.
Maybe you might get another ‘piddling’ day before commitments take over again.
Mary :))
The rocks look like a fun way to relax before quilt show week. I hope it all goes smoothly!
You made some very pretty rocks.
I hate having to run errands on a rainy day.
There’s nothing like some solid time at home after traveling. The display looks nice. It’s a great idea to show things other than quilts. Cute rocks! I went through so many irons so quickly. I finally got an iron where the water is not stored IN the iron. I got it at Wawak.com back in 2016. It is still running perfectly, gets plenty hot and DOES NOT automatically shut off. I’ve always hated that feature on irons.
I shopped for a new iron this Spring and bought a 1700 watts Black and Decker. Not bought one for many years. The sole plate was copper color on this new one. When I raised it up, the darn quilt block would come up with it then release and fall in a little heap. Can you say “irritating” ?
I used it for 2 weeks, it never got better, so returned it to Target. Digging around the display, I found another Black and Decker 1800 watts. More watts and marked down so cheaper ! Works like it should.
By the way, what’s up with irons (and other merchandise) not priced ? I’m going to have to learn how to involve my phone now.
Carole, check out CHI brand irons. Our snowbird quilters in Yuma AZ bought 2 and we really liked them. Shortly after that Costco had them on sale for $60 so I bought one for home~~it stays on for 30 minutes I believe so I’m able to jump between sewing and pressing without waiting for it to reheat.