Mom's Apple Pie block

 I finally decided that the best representation of food and home was Mom's apple pie, not that my actually mom made apple pie, but you know.  I adapted the pie slice from a pattern in the July 2004 issue of McCall's Quick Quilts called "Pie in the Sky".  I set the slice down flat and put it on a plate to match the tea cup.  The tea cup (or coffee cup, whichever you please) came from "Java Jitters" published in the May/June 2002 issue of Quiltmaker.  The fabric across the bottom is supposed to be a table cloth.

 Here is the finished row.  The three blocks are set together with 1.25 inch strips in between them.

Here is the row at the bottom of all the other rows for this quilt so far.  I think it fits in pretty well with the others.

Fabric Fortune Cookie

Here is the cute little fortune cookie I made the other day after accidentally coming across this easy tutorial over at Mollie Makes.  I was actually doing a Google image search for food related quilt blocks for my "There No Place Like Home" row swap quilt when I saw a picture of an adorable fabric fortune cookie.  Since I just happened to have some felt on hand, I felt compelled to go down to my sewing room and give it try.  In a matter of minutes I had this little beauty made.  What took the longest time in the whole process was finding something to trace around to make a 5 inch circle.  I ended up using a large can of canned chicken I had in the pantry.  For the fortune inside the cookie I wrote "You will smile while reading this".  I smile just seeing it.  So much fun!

There's No Place Like Home

The theme for the row swap quilt that I got at last week's guild meeting was "There's No Place Like Home".  The idea is to do a building and things that remind you of home.  I really feel like this is the hardest one that I've worked on so far.  I went around and around in my head for a week before I even got started on it.  So far, there has been a lot of applique in the rows, but I'm not that great at applique.  Most of the rows were somewhat scenic, but I couldn't come up with a scene that I felt like I could do.  Finally I decided to ditch the scenic idea, and following more in line with the middle row pictured above, do individual blocks with a home theme.

I tried to think about the things that seemed special about home.  Finally I hit on the idea of thinking about what you miss most about home when you are away on a trip.  I thought about it for myself, and I asked my husband and kids about it.  The number one response was "sleeping in my own bed".  The next most common answer was, "a home cooked meal".  So I'm trying to translate those ideas into blocks.

So far I've made two 10 inch blocks. The one on the left is, of course, the house block.  The pattern for this block came from the "Home is Where the Heart Is" pattern in the Jan/Feb 2004 issue of Quiltmaker magazine.  The main fabric of the house front is the focus fabric for this quilt.  The other block is my adaptation of a block I found online at Le Borse di Gaya.  I did actually download the pattern on this one, but I had to adapt it, because the original block was for Halloween and had a pair of creepy eyes and a claw hand under the bed. . .not my idea of home.  The fabric for the bed frame is the other focus fabric she is using in the quilt - her border fabric.

I'm still not 100% sure what I'm going to do for my last 10 inch block.  I have a pattern for a slice of pie, but it is a 7 inch block.  I could blow it up to be 10 inches, or I could shrink it down to 5 inches and put a tea/coffee cup next to it.  I'm just not sure yet.  Once I get the last block done, I'm going to join the blocks together with 1.5 inch (finished) strips and add 1.5 inch (finished) strips to both sides to make the row 36 inches (finished).

Little Mittens

When I finished the "Pineapples in the Pumpkin Patch" quilt top this afternoon, I moved on to another UFO I had on my list.  This one is from the Quiltmaker pattern "Little Mittens" (Nov/Dec 2000).  I started this one quite a while ago.  I like to have hand sewing to work on when we take long trips by car, so I worked on the applique for this one over several trips to New Jersey.  I also learned that I'm not particularly fond of needle turn applique.  The applique has been finished for some time now, but I just got around to trimming the blocks down to size and cutting the blue sashing strips.  This is a picture of the blocks and sashing laid out on my design wall.  I haven't started sewing it together yet, but I'm happy with the lay out.  Once the top is sewn together, there will be more applique yet to do.  The matched sets of mittens have a "cord" to keep them together.  It is a bias strip that will attach to each mitten and loop in the white squares that don't have hearts in them.  To that I can only say, "ugh, more applique."

Pumpkin top complete

I got the borders added to my "Pineapples in the Pumpkin Patch" quilt.  I kicked around the idea of doing a pieced border with halves of the pineapple blocks (to put all the pumpkins inside a square like the center block), but ultimately I decided against it.  As much as anything, I just didn't want to make that many more of those little pineapple blocks.  I decide to go with a 1.5 inch border in the light green fabric and a 2 inch border in the dark green.  The binding will also be the dark green fabric.  I think it makes a nice frame for the little pumpkin patch.  Now, as always, the big question is . . . how do I quilt it?

Pineapples in the pumpkin patch

I finally decided on my alternate block for my pumpkin wall hanging quilt.  I decided that I wanted something that would make a secondary pattern, and when I came across a pineapple block in one of my quilting books, I knew that was the one.  Pineapples in the Pumpkin Patch just seemed like a perfect name and a perfect idea.  I found some cute fabric with little pumpkins on it that fit just right into the center of the pineapple blocks.  Now I need to decide what I'm going to do for borders and binding fabrics.  And, of course, the ever problematic question of how to quilt it. . .