Go Big or Go Home Dresden Plate

Dresden Blades

Ever since I started fiddling around with fabric I've wanted to make a Dresden Plate quilt but it was always in the "someday" column of my wish list...until today.

Dresden plates are made up of 20 individual "blades" that form a flower around a circle center. Most folks make them small enough to applique on to a 12 or 15 inch quilt block and then sew a quilt of many blocks, many plates. I am not most people.

I found a terrific template for the beginning quilter at a tiny shop in Wakefield, Mass. I've seen small wedges you can purchase to make the standard size block, but I wanted something spectacular, and I found it, in this Trace'N Create Quilt template from Clover:

Trace 'n Create Quilt Dresden Wedge

Yahoo! This thing is game changing, even magical. Simply pick out the size of Dresden plate you want to make, trace out the easy pattern on to fabric, rotary cut, pin, sew and go! Sizes range from 12" blocks to 40" blocks! Start to finish this 40 inch wonder took about 6 hours. That includes cutting a lot of other fabric for pending niece and nephew quilts and ripping apart the Singer 301 five times due to feed dogs/bobbin case/throat plate issues--so I could probably do it again in three. But I prevailed, and now have this to show for it:

Go Big or Go Home Dresden Plate

You can see my BlackBerry in the lower right corner--I tossed that on the full-sized bed to show the scale. Now I just need to pick out a center and figure out what in the heck I am going to applique this to! I'm thinking either white canvas or flannel to make a nice opaque window treatment for my kitchen, or heading to Marshall's to find a twin-sized simple white cotton quilt or throw and then applique right on it.

I'll keep you posted.

Until then, try strawberries, They are just coming into season and taste amazing right now:

Summer Supper

Also, here's a hint of what's to come:

Tangerine Dream

XO Terez

Herons and Turtles and Coons, Oh My!

Toll Troll

Nest Bandit

I'm Taking The House With Me

Mama?

Sunday Swim

Spotlight Stealer

Yesterday my Bird Buddy and I spent Mother's Day morning at my local bird sanctuary. The blustery wind and gray skies kept a lot of our usual tiny birds hidden but we had a terrific show put on by:

--A raccoon making a big to-do about climbing into a huge nest in the tree-tops,
--A heron that could not get enough of us,
--Mr. and Mrs. Goose and Six Goslings out on a Sunday stroll, and
--A finale by Mr. Turtle ascending the half-submerged log. 

We also had special guest appearances by morning doves, chickadees, warblers, red-winged blackbirds, blue jays, mallards, robins,  catbirds and too many squirrels to count.


XO Terez

There is Only One Mamacat

Mamacat and "My Angel" 1978

My mom was an original hipster in Portland before all the yahoos started moving there and has the hipster glasses, cute baby girl, trendy dress, hand crocheted afghan and cute renaissance man (taking the photo) love story to prove it.

{How did this happen?}

In 1976 my father ended up on a sight-seeing tour in Salt Lake City with two older Mormon missionary ladies on a whim to see the Salt Lake Temple. He joined one of the said ladies at a family friend's barbecue. He put together a plate of food started sauntering across the lawn, saw the most beautiful woman in the world and wouldn't you know it, tripped on a garden hose and dropped his food into her lap.

That renaissance man was my father. And the most beautiful woman in the world? My mother. It was her dad's barbecue.

HH asked Mamacat out for a date (remember, he was only in town for a few days!) and she said yes.

Three days later HH told Mamacat she should marry him and she told him he was crazy.

He went back to Portland, but guess what?

Eight days after she told him he was crazy, she decided he was right.

34 years, five kids, six grandkids and three cats later they are still the most happily married couple I know.

Six months after she said yes they were married. Mamacat packed it all up in the 'blue honey moon pickup' and they drove to Montana (to meet the new in-laws) and after vehicle trouble (Grandpa D said, "you're going to break down if you haul all of those books!"--and he was right!), meeting the in-laws (rumor is Grandma and Grandpa H picked them up in their pickup and Mamacat rode with them--next to Grandma H smoking cigarillos with a  beehive hairdo up to the roof) repairing the honey moon pick up, honey mooning on the Oregon Coast and settling into a teey tiny house off SE Duke street, they decided they were going to need a bigger house. Then I was born.

Mamacat and Terez's First Thanksgiving with Cousin

It's hard to put into words how much my mother means to me. Instead I'll treat her to a list of reasons why I love her so. Because really, this post is for her:

10. Because she went face to face with Mrs. Edner who gave me a B+ in 6th grade study hall because I didn't make 100% attendance due to chicken pox.

9. Because she had hipster glasses way before I did.

8. Because she got on the carousel with me at Jantzen Beach to just cheer me up after I graduated from University of Oregon and the job prospects weren't looking great.

7. Because she gave me my love of reading: "Teresa, my eyes just aren't happy unless they are reading a book."

6. Because she gave me my love of libraries. We both worked at one through college.

5. Because she's not just Mamacat to us kids but to our friends and in-laws, too.

4. Because she loves each of my brothers and I just the way we each individually need to be loved.

3. Because she didn't get mad when I told her I was going to move to Boston. Instead she made me a polar bear quilt to keep me warm here.

2. Because we talk on the phone nearly every single day, even though we live on opposite coasts and three time zones apart. She never gets mad when I call at 5 or 6 a.m.

1. Because she has always said, "Teresa, no one will ever love you as much as your mother [except your father]" and she has proved it.

I love you Mamacat!

XOXO Your Angel

Mamacat Today

Under the Rainbow

Under the Rainbow

Forecast calls for two days of cloudy skies and scattered showers. Under a rainbow such as this, who cares?

Rainbow umbrella: $14.99 at Brookline Booksmith.  There's also the slightly fancier version at the MOMA Store for $40 with a few more colors slices, see that version here.

Stay dry!

XO Terez

Cape-arium

Cape-arium

For the past few years I've been fascinated by the terrariums I've seen on Etsy and featured in the New York Times, but I haven't taken the time to try my hand at miniature enclosed gardening until inspiration struck this weekend.

I was staring at one of my glass globes from China Fair in Newton, and loving the way a collection of Cape beach rocks looked nestled in the curved base. I didn't want to use it as a traditional vase with flower stems and water mucking things up...and then I remembered I had a teeny tiny spider plant {also attained from friends on Cape Cod!} sprouting roots in a dish of water and a teeny tiny terracotta pot...and after some maneuvering and planting the plant with dirt pilfered from another potted plant via tea spoon...voila!

One important thing I have learned in just a few days--the terrarium stays really, really humid, and a little water goes a long way. 

XO Terez

A Quilt for Grandpa-Grandpa on the Occasion of His 90th Birthday

One More Row to Go

Yesterday I spent some quality time stitching in the studio with the Norwegian Knitter. Now that the new window treats are up it is so much cooler and enjoyable to be back there this time of year and it's really hard to pull myself away.  For all of the hours I spend in there,  I can never seem to finish anything because I am too distracted/discouraged by the Black Hole Craft Closet.

This abyss holds all of my fabric...and most of my beads...and most of my carving materials...and all of my holiday decorations...and all of my empty shoe boxes I might need someday...and three unused yoga mats...and a broken Hello Kitty sewing machine...you get the idea.

At 7:30 a.m., after an hour of birding, I was fed up with the looming closet.  I was getting sucked in by the magnetic-color-wheel-explosion-pull and order needed to be returned.

I pulled everything out of the closet and was determined to regoranize so I could actually get to my fabric stash. That left me facing this:

Reality

What a mess! I post this to show you I am not Martha by a long shot.


And then I unearthed a real treasure.  Something I had started last summer.  Something that I had been meaning to finish and never got to after Hello Kitty gave out:  A Kaffe Fasset charm quilt.  I had five nine-patch blocks finished and just needed to complete four more to have a finished top. I dusted off and oiled the Singer 301 and got to work.

One More Row II

I kept sewing and sewing...and guess what? I came to the conclusion I am not a great sewer...yet.  My seams are crooked and I have no idea how to nest properly when I iron, but once I got the top up in the window to take a look, I was thrilled (big reveal in a moment).

I love how the colors and the prints play, and the way the rows trickle down like the seasons--pale winter/spring bursts at the top, failling into bright spring/summer patches and finally the saturated summer/autumn tiles complete the cycle.

I was pretty happy with my 81 patches. And then I got to thinking...Grandpa Grandpa is going to be 90 years old next Saturday. If I added one more row of nine patches, I'd have 90 squares. And I have been wanting to make him a lap quilt.

Bam! Brilliant! Of course--this will be a lap quilt for Grandpa-Grandpa on the occasion of his 90th birthday!

I got to back to work. Brewed a pitcher of Passion iced-tea for sustenance. Ate some yellow and chocolate cake. Got back on the sewing machine (oh how I have missed her!)

Passion Tea

A few more pins, seams, tucks and 'oh shoot' s later, I finished this:

Grandpa Grandpa's Quilt

Now: I have to beg Mamacat and HH to back and bind the thing, because I have no idea how to do that...yet. I've got to get to the Post Office and Priority Mail this sucker! I'll keep you posted. And for the record, I hauled down about 20 cubic feet of junk to curb-cycle, and it's all gone. But the studio is still trashed, and that's ok.

XO Terez