Sweet Salvage Now Showing

Friends, seriously, if you are in the Phoenix area, you must experience this unique shop!  Last month Diane and I went and had a great time.  See the photos here and here. They are only open 4 days a month and spend the rest of the time replenishing their stock. How cool is that!

The monthly theme this month was Now Showing -- a movie theme.  From the moment I walked in the door music from various movies filled the air!  If their were room, how could you not want to move to the beat of "Working 9 to 5"?  Each vignette was either from a specific movie or filled with items that were movie related.  It was a trip down memory lane even if I had seen the movies long after they were filmed.

It was a sweet day!

Who were the members of the Rat Pack?

I'm not much of a movie buff and rarely see movies, but grew up watching old movies so am probably as familiar with the Rat Pack as the Brat Pack. Thanks to our daughter I probably saw  Sixteen Candles and Breakfast club a hundred times!

Who wouldn't want to have "Breakfast at Tiffany's"

Many stars dreamed big!

A log of small towns, at least in the Midwest, had free movie night in a parking lot.  What fun those were!  Old, movies, but as a kid, it was a lot of fun!

Birds in a cloche.  Why didn't Hitchcock think of that as a way to confine those Birds? (Love the idea of the chicken wire on the cloche!)

For this one you had to supply your own birds!

This bride could not runaway!

This chicken wire cloche held parchments paper, hmmm, what movie would that be?

Love the cow tray - a little boeuf bourguignon, anyone?

Perhaps a Croissant under glass?

Lots of French cooking tools for Julie Julia!  You did guess, didn't you?

I missed taking a photo of the big white rabbit, but he had lots of reminders he was late!

More reminders!  There was the mad hatters hat, too, but it's with the rabbit - no photo!

I think I need to make another clock pillow!

A favorite book with several film versions.  I have her keys -- seriously that's what I bought -- big keys!

Where has the time gone?  Was it really 1975?

I love these bags!  They do remind me of one of our daughter's 6th birthdays.  I made little bags for each guest and put money and candy bars in them before we headed to the movies for the first part of the party.  They loved buying their own drink to go with the candy.

Of course they loved the chocolat! 

Love the chicken crate, but don't be chicken.  this is what the checkout line looked like -- I spent an hour in it before heading to my car which was parked in a vacant lot behind Sweet Salvage. 

See the shelves in the back?  That was the checkout.  It was a lot of fun listening to people talk about their purchases and seeing others hold onto theirs.  Mine were waiting for me under the number 06. I love their system of numbers on a lanyard to free up your hands while you shop.  I met other sweet shoppers as they asked questions about why I was photographing the vignettes.

It was a sweet place to be.  Hope to see you there next month sweet friends where the theme is "Let Them Eat Cake!"  It's Sweet Salvage's first birthday in August.

I do have more photos, so there will be a Sweet Salvage Now Showing part 2!

Until then,

xoxoXOXOxoxo,

Lois

 

Pastel Logs Option 2

I know, two posts in one day! That's a first!  But, Jo asked to see another option, so here is option 2 for Pastel Logs.  I think I like this one better than option 1.  What do you think? 

In this option, the green and purple blocks had to "help out" the blue ones to make their rows of the barn raising pattern.  Just goes to prove that value is far more important than color in a scrap quilt!

I've only made one other log cabin using this setting and I gave it away and apparently did not take any photos of it.  It was a true scrap quilt in that it used many different colors.

I've made two using the straight furrow setting -- at least that are quilted.  I have another straight furrow log cabin that is waiting to be quilted.  I told you about those here and here.  Lincoln Logs was made for my mother-in-law and does have a piano key border which I will probably do for this one too -- or not.  The jury is out on that yet.

What do you think?  Option 1 or Option 2?  You vote, OK?

xoxoXOXOxoxo

Lois

Pastel Logs Option 1

Yesterday I took a day to just do some fun things for inspiration.  I took a ton of photos and will share those as soon as I get them edited.  One of my stops was to Sweet Salvage that I told you about here and here.  This month was certainly not a disappointment!

Remember when I started the pastel log cabin at our sew day in June?  The blocks have been complete a couple of days and I put them up on the design wall in one of the ways I'm considering sewing the center part together.  I will be playing with them some more and show you those, too, but here is Option 1.

It's got a lot of pink in it.  I'm not sure how that happened, though I was trying to use up some left over pinks from some quilts I did for granddaughters.

It's also not exactly pastel.

Apparently I don't buy much pastel fabric.

Joyce and Diane had to send me some purples and greens.

They don't buy pastels much either!

I'll show you a couple of other options for block placement.  I'm pretty sure I will use a piano key border as I do like those on a log cabin quilt.

Now my studio needs some serious clean up.  I keep saying I'm going to do that, but other, more creative things as well as just life things keep getting in the way.  But it's time to clean!

Hope you are having a wonderful, creative and fun day!

xoxoXOXOxoxo

Lois

Custom Ironing Board Cover

Ironing just isn't fun is it?  I've never heard anyone say, "I just can't wait to iron."  Well, except for granddaughter E, but that was during a quilt lesson and she'd never ironed at the time.  She was thrilled. And then there was the Turkish girl when I was teaching quilting to a group of Turkish women.  She was so proud because her job was to press as we worked on the blocks.  But still, usually people are not thrilled to iron so why not make it as pleasant as possible.

About 10 years ago I purchased a Quilter's Ironing Board from Shared Ideas, two friends in Iowa who were at the time making these boards and selling them. Now they live in different states so I don't know if they still make them.  They read my blog so if they do, they'll let us know.

The board is 48" wide by 16" deep and attaches with elastic to a regular ironing board.  It's perfect for ironing fabric and even sheets!  I keep mine on my board all the time.  But I need to have a pretty, coordinated cover on it so I make them.  The board came with instructions that included the small end of the actual ironing board, but I cover just the rectangle of the QIB which makes it easy when I do decide to remove it for some reason.

This is much more attractive to look at than metallic silver, don't you think? This same toile fabric forms the skirt on my cutting table.  I show you that in future post.

Start by measuring your board.  If you have a regular board, you can just trace the old cover.  You will need to measure the depth of the board and add the amount you want it to wrap to the back plus 3/4 to 1" for the casing that will hold the elastic cord and add that amount to the length and width of the board.

Because the fabric I used was 108" wide, I tore the fabric to make sure it was on the straight of grain.  I can get two covers out of 108" wide fabric so I can have one in the laundry and one on the board.  I use a lot of starch and though I usually cover the area with a piece of muslin, I sometimes forget and the cover needs to be laundered to remove the starch.

For a rectangular board, mark rounded corners and cut on the drawn line.

Serge the raw edges all the way around.  If you leave selvages on, you do not need to serge those.

Baste the curved corners.

Pin at least 3/4" for casing and gather the corners by pulling the basting thread.

Pin and press all the way around.  Notice the two pins going from the opposite directions?  They are to mark the beginning and ending of the stitching leaving a small opening where the elastic will be inserted.  By pinning from the opposite side, it will be a reminder for you.

Stitch close to the serged edge being sure to leave that opening!

Thread narrow elastic through a safety pin.  I tie the elastic through the hole and tie securely.  I don't want the elastic to come out part of the way through the process!

Insert the elastic into the casing and pull it through until the pin comes out of the opening at the other side from where you began.

Pull the elastic taut and tie securely.  The goal is for it to be taut, but not so tight that you cannot remove and replace the cover from the board.

Smooth the corners as much as possible.

Put the board back on top of your ironing board and you are ready to tackle that fabric.  Even shirts and other items can be ironed with this board in place.

If you used your old ironing board cover as a pattern, the process is much the same, but you will only have two square corners to deal with.

Hope you enjoy picking out your own favorite fabric and making a cheerful cover for your ironing board.

Have a wonderful, creative and peaceful day!

xoxoXOXOxoxo,

Lois

String Pillow

Happy Sunday!

We had a wonderful rain last night -- okay, so some streets were flooded for a while, it happens.  In the desert there is no place for the water to go until the ground softens up enough to absorb it.  It was still refreshing!

When I was working on this quilt a saw tooth star, I made the setting squares from string -- those left overs from straightening fabric or, in this case, specifically cut varying widths of fabric.  I loved the neutrals for this, but when I came the corners, I was baffled.  I made a couple of triangles, but they just didn't work for the corners so I changed how I was doing the triangles on the corners so that the strings "turned" the corners instead of going straight in like the triangles on the four sides did.  That resulted in a couple of triangles that didn't get used.  Instead of wasting them, I made two more and turned them into a pillow.

Four of the triangles shown on the top below were used to make the pillow.  Triangles half that size, but sewn the same way were used for the saw tooth star quilt top corners.  I liked the way that looked so decided to make two more of the larger for the pillow.

This is a small pillow, only 12" square.  I didn't even have a pillow form the right size so I stuffed a pillow I no longer plan to use that was only slightly larger inside until I can buy the right size form.  I had no fiberfill even to make my own form to use for this pillow.

This pillow is what convinced me to make the ticking pillow I showed you here. Of course the ticking stripes go the other way so instead of getting a chevron as in the string pillow, the squares just get larger from the center out forming a sort of maze. 

Have you ever worked with strings? Tell me your experiences with them, please.  Just leave a comment or e-mail me.

Hope you are having a nice relaxing day!

xoxoXOXOxoxo

Lois

Bastille Day Breakfast

Good Morning Friends!  Happy Bastille Day!  You did know it was Bastille Day didn't you?

If not, that is the celebration of the French Revolution which began in 1789.  There are celebrations all over the world today wherever there are French people or descendants.  So let's celebrate with breakfast!

Won't you join me for quiche?

Of course we'll have French Roast Coffee or perhaps you would prefer French Lemonade.

Seriously, friends, French Lemonade from Safeway!

And Le Bon Lait for our cafe au lait.

Here's your quiche with a few strawberries, too.

Won't you have a croissant?

A little fresh strawberry preserves - made yesterday, honest!

 Note we'll be using the French Press for our cafe.  Alas, this one only makes 1 cup so be patient, OK?

The French enjoy and linger, n'est pas?

Al Fresco, of course!

Un petit dejeuner.

Mmmmmm!

There is room for two more, come join us!

Hope you have a wonderful day whether you celebrate Bastille Day or not!  Merci for joining me!

xoxoXOXOxoxo

Lois