And Now, For Something Completely Different

So, I am sewing here. It is very off and on, based on my energy level and my desire to sew. When I get revved up about something, though, I can feel the ol' creative mojo and that excites me. Sometimes I am not sure where it is.

On the Sew Mama Sew blog, they are celebrating 6 weeks of softies. I love looking at softies, but making them, eh...my grand kids don't really need any more, so I have been just looking and resisting making any. Until I went to one of the featured artist pages and started noodling around. I found...Felt Food!!

My youngest grandson loves to play kitchen and has lots of plastic food and stuff, but this felt stuff is amazing. The creativity and detail of some of this is so cool and it's just so doggone much fun to make. So I decided to start making some and see how much I could do towards his birthday gift. He is getting some felt food. Here is what I have so far:

 Breakfast is the most important meal of the day...Bacon, eggs and strawberries.

My sesame seeded bun

 Hamburger, with grill lines as requested by my daughter. There is no end to the creativity on this stuff. Your imagination is the limit.

With a few side items.

Woven corn on the cob

A whole plate of side items

Enough to share with his brother

 Now i am working on some veggies. Gotta have balance in the diet. I have several more to make.

 And, again at my daughter's request, a doughnut with icing and sprinkles. He is apparently intrigued with these, even though he has never had a real one.

This was yesterday's food makings

And, the raw materials. I had some on hand to start with, from  Pearl Soho. I bought some at Michael's and then, I needed a few colors they didn't have so I ordered some larger pieces on line, made by National Nonwovens. If you have little ones, or just want a wee bit of fun, check it out and make some. Just Google "felt food" and you will be amazed at all the tutorials that come up. This has been the most fun week ever. Thanks, Sew Mama Sew for the great ideas.

My Favorite Quilt

Molli Sparkles did a post on his favorite quilt that is on Sew Mama Sew. Turns out, there is a link up for this, so I decided to write one up on my favorite quilt and join in.  Choosing my favorite quilt was easy. It is the first one that pops into my head.

What is your favorite quilt? When did you make it? What pattern? What fabrics?
This quilt is one that I adapted, just a wee bit from one shown in an issue of Quilter's Newsletter. It was in either 2005 or 2006, and called Hearts Afire. There was to be one heart on fire and I think there was supposed to be a ribbon swirling through the hearts, but I am not sure if I am remembering that correctly. All the fabrics were from my stash and it is meant to be very scrappy. I am not usually a fan of doing so much applique, but this quilt cried out to me to be made. I began piecing it in the winter of 2006. I wanted to have a hand quilting project ready to take to Savannah with me when my first grandson was born. I was going for the labor and delivery and to help out for a week or so afterwards. I can't live that long without something to work on.  It worked out well, since my daughter was put on bed rest for the last week. I sat by her side and stitched as we talked and watched TV, waiting for the time to pass.
Have you shown it at any quilt shows or entered it in any contests?
I did enter it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival one year. I was not blogging when I finally finished it in 2010, and I wanted to share it with people. I even worked on it some when I went to be with my middle daughter for the birth of her son about a year later in 2007. Lots of quilting on this baby.

 What memories or people does the quilt make you think of? My family, my grandsons. I remember that time, waiting for them to be born.

 What do you like best about the quilt? I like all the different fabrics. This is the scrappiest quilt I have ever made. I also love the hand quilting.

How did you grow as a quilter while making it? It taught me patience for sure. It takes a lot of time to had applique that many hearts onto fabric squares. Each heart is quilted with an eye to the fabrics used in it, so each is different. The only machine quilting on it is around the hearts at the borders.

If you could make this quilt again what, if anything would you do differently? I would like to have hand quilted the entire thing. My new found patience wore a bit thin near the end.

Where is the quilt now?  It is folded in a stack of smaller lap size quilts that I rotate on my couch and chairs in my living room.

Would you like to add anything? Just that this quilt is now extra special, since it is one my daughter chose to hang up and be married in front of a few years ago. That cemented it's position as favorite as far as I am concerned.