is the craft book that I LOVE!

I'm not really somebody who can design her own handbags, so I really appreciate the instructions for all the sweet little purses.

My absolute favorite:

This is a book with lots of quilted projects. If you're a fairly skilled piecer and quilter, the fact that it's all in Japanese would only be a tiny impediment.

My own version of the Retro Fruit Bag (with a little help from Sublime Stitching!):

This month's Tie One On theme is "A smock to wear out," and I couldn't think of a better way to make an apron that can double as clothes than to use some old clothes. This is made from a halter top that I love, but don't wear because finding bras to go under it is a real bother, and the bottom of an apron whose top I just loathed, but saved because I love gingham. It has two sets of ties in the back, and doesn't cover TOO much, because I really like to have access to the pockets of my jeans. It really comes in handy, though, when I need to wipe glue off my fingernails when I'm in the middle of Blythe cosmetic surgery!

Filled out at the request of the What's cookin'? hostesses.

1. first apron (that you can remember) : I had a few very fun, frilly hostess aprons from my great-grandmother when I was little. I used to play dress-up with them, and I wish I knew where they were now.

2. last (most recent) apron : I'll be submitting to Tie One On this weekend! Watch this space!

3. dream/favorite apron : I love this halter apron I bought at Bazaar Bizarre from HouseWears

4. dream sewing machine: Probably a Singer Featherweight.

5. what do you put in your pockets? or what strange thing have you ever found in them? My apron pockets? At home, nothing. If an apron has big pockets, I wear it to craft shows and use it to hold my change.

6. condiment(s) you can't live without : Does olive oil count? I don't use a lot of condiments, although I have a real fondness for Heinz ketchup, because I grew up in Pittsburgh.

7. do you wear more showy aprons or dutiful ones? Both.

8. favorite cooking gadget: I think my cheese grater.

9. cooking gagdet that promised the world but didn't deliver: My hand chopper from Pampered Chef. It's easier and less messy just to use a knife.

10. a recipe that you know by heart and any stories behind it: Probably just freeform stuff like cola ham and marinara sauce and soup. And if I mix a drink once, I seem to remember it forever.

I've been trying to get the house in order, which means I really ought to be getting my studio in order, which is, all in all, a good idea.

But it's so tought getting from point A (here, a thread tangle as big as my head!) to point B.

Dayna, aka The Crafty Scientist contacted me about swapping EVEN more blocks. We're both in the predicament of wanting a bigger quilt than we've got the goods for (and of course, we have extra fabric from the first round of block construction) so I whipped up a couple of curry-heavy blocks in exchange for a couple of mint-heavy blocks.

We have both discovered that color balance is a real challenge when you're piecing together work from 9 different strangers. Who knew?

Looking at the pic, I'm kind of taken aback by how personal these are. I've been raiding my scrap pile to make my blocks, and every fabric I've used here, other than the solids, is left over from another quilt. The fabrics in the curry on the left (is it obnoxious that I want to refer to these like Indian food?) is made up of leftover bits of a quilt I made last year and haven't sold yet, and some binding from one of my eye quilts that is long gone. The curry on the right is made up of more bindings from eye quilts, plus scraps from these commissioned quilts that were only in my life for what seemed like seconds.

Fans of improvisational quilting will probably think it's bunk that curry #2 was pieced in just that style - but I can't help it if I have a more leftover straight-grain binding than the average crafter!

So these are packed up and ready to go, and won't make into my quilt, but into Dayna's. I can't wait to see what she does with them.

Yesterday I was on about the beauty of solid fabrics and seams, and, never being one to leave well enough alone, put this together:

I found the method at Quilter's Cache, which is a great site for free quilt blocks. This one is called Planned Patchhood, which totally cracks me up.

Of course, like everything else that strikes me as instantly charming, it didn't yield the right sized finished block, so I added a cute dotty border that also appears in a block I received in the swap.

When I first saw, in person, my laundered Kona cottons for my swap blocks, I decided I just HAD to try a log cabin.

Log cabin quilts never appealed to me much before, but that's because, in many of their incarnations, they are too darn busy for me. But one of the cool things about sewing solids is that you can really notice the beauty and craftsmanship in a seam.

I know, I know. You pretty much have to be the ultimate quilting nerd to fetishize the SEAM the way I do, but and intricately pieced block all in one or two solid fabrics just gets right down to the point: cutting the fabric and sewing it back up just makes it better. It may sound like an exercise in futility, but if you look at a log cabin block, you know that's not true. Materials + time + effort + know-how = craft. It all adds up.

So a two-tone log cabin seemed perfect, especially since I wasn't loving the squash and curry fabrics in and of themselves, but I did like the way they contrasted with the mint and robin's egg cottons.

So I eagerly got to it, and here's what I made:

Pretty, isn't it? Too bad my know-how is a bit lacking on the math front, and it didn't add up to 10.5 inches. I set it aside, disappointed, but reasonably sure it would make a nice potholder or something.

After receiving my final blocks, the dearth of mint led me to want to make a whole mess of new blocks of my own to add on. Unfortunately, I'd used up so much mint on the blocks I sent away, I wasn't sure how to make that happen, unless I really embraced the old, "use what you have" spirit. And since I was already doing that with the blocks I received, I decided to pull out my inadequate log cabin and add a funky half-border.

What's funny is that, initially, that's exactly what I didn't want to do. I mean, I could have saved the whole situation by adding that little border and tossing it into the out-going pile, but I just wasn't feeling it then. I didn't want to throw off the symmetry, or add another color or pattern. Now, though, I'm happier with the log cabin + paisley version than I was with the perfectly symmetrical log cabin. Go figure.

Being accepted into The Sampler's MTV Style Lounge boxes has been such an emotional roller coaster.

Overall, I've been so proud to be part of the effort, and it's a really exciting opportunity. But hand-making 26 eye quilts has been a ton of work, and knowing I'm not going to be paid for that work isn't my favorite feeling.

Sorry to be such a mercenary. It's just another of those business risks, I guess. I just need to cross my figners and hope for a good return on my investment.

Here's the pile that went out today:

In other quilty news, I started a new blog for one of the quilts I'm working on now. Please stop by!

I've already linked to the Seedpod block swap, but since a little bird told me it was Jessica's birthday, I wanted to give her a shout-out for arranging the whole swap for us. She did a ton of work, including posting all these beautiful shots of various blocks, so you can see what kinds of submissions there were.

So, thanks again, Jessica, and Happy Birthday!

Today I received nine quilt blocks from a block swap I signed up for a few months ago. The rules were to make 10 blocks (1 for charity) using fabrics from your own stash combined with Kona cottons in some combination of four colors: squash, curry, mint, and robin's egg. Under the "links" section of this blog, you can find a link to the rest of the rules.

I participated in the swap thinking that when I got blocks from nine strangers, I'd turn them into a quilt, and that would be a done deal. However, when the blocks arrived, I was immediately fascinated with their history, and even more fascinated with their future.

I started blogging about them to investigate the past of each of these blocks, and to brainstorm ideas about what they might become.

People are always asking me about my quilts, and it's ironic that, as a writer, I'm not better at telling their stories. This is an effort to change all that.