Texas Hill Country Yarn Crawl!

Howdy, y'all!  It's time to put this event on your calendar--

saddle up and get your passport and join in this roundup of exciting

yarn shops--It's the Hill Country Yarn Crawl!

Join us for ten fun-filled days crawling your way through 19 yarn shops around and about central Texas! Bring family, meet up with friends, make new ones, and see all the great things each shop has to offer. To add to the fun, you will have lots of chances to win PRIZES! Along the way, we hope you discover new ways to fuel your fiber passion and meet local fiber artists up close and delight in their wares. Best of all, rekindle your love for all the yarn and fibers the Hill Country has to offer.

Pay an entry fee of $15, which entitles you to: 1) Yarn Crawl Passport and Passport Stamp Page,and a commemorative stitch marker. 2) two exclusive, specially-designed patterns at each shop you visit, 3) a 25% discount on 2 yarns highlighted for the patterns at each of those shops, and 4) a super cool commemorative yarn crawl bag to the first 1000 participants.

How to Win?

Each yarn shop will be giving prizes away daily! The more shops you visit, the better your chances of winning cool prizes. Turn in your passport card at the last shop you visit because this year we are having three grand prizes!  This provides more opportunities to win.  In addition to the daily prizes, will be having grand prizes for those who make it to at least 8, 13 and all 19 shops.

Rules of Engagement: We’re easy! Each participant must:

• have their own passport card
• fill out the contact information on the passport card (having pre-printed labels with this information will help speed you through this process)
• be present at each yarn shop to get your passport card stamped (i.e., no proxy crawling)
• be at least 10 years of age

All passport cards must be turned in by end of business on Sunday, October 16th. Remember to print clearly on your passport card – we need this information to contact you!

Winners will be posted here and will be contacted by the shop they have chosen to hold their prize*.

Grand Prize winners will be drawn on Oct. 28th, 2016.

September--To & Fro

I love Fall!  There are so many wonderful things about Fall weather--and so many wonderful quilt patterns to sew up!

Here we have fall presented in a different way--This pattern comes from

The Quilt Block Cookbook by Amy Gibson

Here is how it looks in a quilt

Love! Love! These Maple Leaves, "Maple Sky" by A Quilting Life

There are so many Fall-Autumn Quilt patterns just fit for the working!

Happy Fall!

Let's Build A House! Or Several!

Here is a great quilting adventure--especially if you enjoy building houses as much as I do--

this is an easy way to build houses!

Bear Creek Quilting Company is hosting a "Be My Neighbor" Block of The Week event.

Every Friday a new free block will be released.  Sign up for their newsletter

so you can keep up with the neighborhood!

This is the block for week of September 9th

Here is my block from that week

Oh, dear--some remodeling needs to be done!  

The chimneys are following off the roof--

that's a job for Mr. Ripper!

Myth of Sugar Wrappers

Have you heard that early American settlers used the blue paper from sugar cones to dye their fabric?
I have!  And why not?  It was there from the sugar cone wrappers.  Why just throw it away?

I found such a blue wrapped paper sugar cone on my visit to the Farm House at Washington on the Brazos Historical Site.  The following article debunks the logic that Early American Settlers used this for dye--Read on!

A sweet story, but experts in historic crafts say that no actual instances of this practice are known in America’s colonial era. Apart from lack of evidence, it is illogical. Refined sugar was an expensive, imported luxury—think caviar—that only the wealthiest could afford. Not the sort who are scrimping and recycling their wrapping paper or dying their own fabric. (If the family budget couldn’t stretch to include sugar, what did folks back then use for sweeteners? Maple sugar, honey, molasses, or muscovado sugar. Or nothing.)
But lo and behold, several household management books published in the mid-nineteenth century do mention this practice. In one of them, The American Frugal Housewife (1835), author Lydia Childs tells how to make various cheap dyes, including “a fine purple slate color” by boiling sugar wrapping paper in vinegar with alum and boiling it in an iron kettle. In another, Eliza Leslie’sLady’s Frugal House-Book; a Manual of Domestic Economy(1850), the chapter on domestic dyes tells how to make a slate color by boiling vinegar and alum in an iron kettle with some pieces of “the thick purple paper that comes round sugar-loaves.”
Why then and not earlier? Probably because that’s when sugar became cheap. The expansion of Caribbean sugar plantations flooded the market with sugar and prices dropped, bringing sugar loaves, wrapped in traditional purplish-blue paper, within reach of most housewives. And the average housewife is just the sort who might be interested in learning to dye her own fabric on the cheap. So this myth is false when heard at early American sites and true for later, nineteenth-century sites.
Where did the purplish-blue paper custom, as opposed to white or brown or another color, originate? Probably in the Middle East or North Africa, where sugarcane cultivation originated. In certain North African countries, sugar is still sold that way in grocery stores, as large cones wrapped in blue paper. I saw them in a Moroccan grocery store a few years ago, and also in a market in Jordan.

 /

An Afternoon Spent at Washington on The Brazos

Recently, the blond headed daughter (bhd) said, "let's take a picnic and go on a road trip!"

Well, not a long road trip--please--no, let's just drive about 1.5 hours from the house to one of the 

most historic places in Texas History--Washington On The Brazos.  It is said to be the

birth place of Texas Independence.  Oh, okay, let's go, but let's not take a picnic--it's just too darn hot!

We'll find that airport diner in Brenham for lunch--all agreed and we're off!

I'm glad we took the ranch walking tour--where I found some textile treasures.

like this overshot woven upholstered chair.

sad though, as it has faced the sun way too long and has faded--

this would definitely happen without window dressings in 1800's

The bed covering was a fancy applique

and in the other bedroom, this lovely pieced plaid quilt adorned the bed

In the dining area, we found a floor cloth-- used in the place of carpets or rugs

We ventured to the museum, which was across the road from the farm house and

upstairs I found more wonderful textiles--like this Grandmother's flower garden quilt

A super great applique quilt--with star borders

Look--a lazy kate!  I never could find the reasonings behind calling it lazy kate!  

The Lone Star Quilt!  One of my favorite patterns and very difficult to piece in the 1800's

and a remarkable piece of overshot pattern with weaving shuttle and quills (bobbins)

a variation on the Lone Star Quilt

Hand quilting in circles

At the foot of the bed--wouldn't you like to cover yourself with this delight?

hand quilting!

another example of overshot coverlet

Here you can see how the strips were seamed to make a full size coverlet.

Okay, even though it was a hot day, it was an enjoyable day visiting Texas History again.

Quilters Exchange!

The other day we exchanged 5" squares of fabric.  We'll blame Sandy!  She brought her quilt that she made from 5" floral fabric and the idea of fabric exchange popped into our heads.  It was not my first fabric exchange or will it be my last as exchanges are always fun!

This is the quilt that Sandy made from Susie's Scraps, only Sandy add some extra borders to make a

bigger quilt

Don't you just love Judy's pumpkins!  Anyway, here is another photo of Sandy's

finished quilt

You can see that the 5" floral prints make for a nice size block.

We each received a good selection of Texas wildflowers and Western theme fabrics.

There were 9 of us in the exchange--we each cut 14 different fabrics (total 124) for each person.

Now, we're off to make this quilt!

Maybe, you'll join in with us.

Work in Progress--WIP

Whenever we travel I make sure to take plenty of projects with me--you just never know when

you'll have some down time--a flight delay, long plane ride, or just plain boredom.

This past trip I took a UFO that I found in the bottom of the bin before I left.

I faintly remember when I bought this

pattern from Crabapple Hill--oh dear!  I just flipped to the website and saw another

pattern I want to do!  Anyway, I like their patterns and this one was no exception--just

let it age way too long!  And with fall approaching, it was time to get to it!

So, I traced off the pattern, gathered my supplies and packed!

Luckily, I had this box of Crayolas--I LOVE Crayolas!  Just love them!

I have several boxes, tins, special collections--and the worse thing about me--

I hate, yes, hate to use the Crayolas!!  I Want to keep those sharp points, you know!

It was time to use these though--what am I saving them for?

I have no little grandkids anymore

This collection contains, 'retired' colors (hard to believe they retire some of my favorite colors!)

plus this box of 64 colors--just what is needed for this pattern.  Then I'm looking at the pattern

and the colors--did you know there are such color names as 'goldenrod', dandelion, tumbleweed,

wisteria and macaroni & cheese!!?  I never took the colors out of the box--I just collect!

It was a surprise to me!

you're saying--why do you need colors?  Because with this pattern, you color first before

stitching--this was way too much fun!  I enjoyed fondling my colors and reading each

name on the wrapper--I think I was good with the points too.

I know--Crazy me!