Jane Austen and Eagles - All On A Mardi Gras Day

In my book it has been a good Mardi Gras.  The weather was cold (for New Orleans!) and overcast, but we were snug at home enjoying a Tuesday off from work and watching all the festivities on television.  As my friend called it - "Jammie Gras"!  Best of all, our oldest son came by and joined us for ceremonial cheeseburgers as our farewell to rich food before the abstinence of Lent.  (We often have a steak feast on Mardi Gras, but we did that on Thursday with our youngest son who flew in for the crazy weekend before Mardi Gras.)

 

I added the outer borders to the brown version of the Austen Family Album quilt.  The final border is a damask-type floral print.  I like the soft finish to this version.  As I worked on the the border, I wondered if Jane Austen would enjoy Mardi Gras.  I decided she would find the culture and traditions (and snobbery) as amusing as Regency England.  

 

Here's a close-up to give a better picture of the sashing and border.

Once I had the Austen Family Album borders tackled, I was ready for my main Mardi Gras project:  prepping block one of my Quilt Like An Eagle quilt project.

 

I will be out of town for some new job training for the next few days, necessitating some nights in a hotel.  I wanted to get the block all prepped for applique, so I'd have something to do after work.  I used the freezer paper and starch methods to get all his raw edges turned under and ready for stitching.  He's not pinned or basted at this point, but that will be easy to do tomorrow evening.  He has two different color talons because I couldn't decide which color I preferred.  I think I'll go with blue.  I'm pretty excited to finally have this project under way - I just hope I have the energy to work on him for the next couple of nights!

 

Mardi Gras will be over soon - the festivities traditionally end at midnight when the courts of Rex, King of Carnival (above) and Comus, another of the oldest Mardi Gras krewes, meet and salute each other.  In the French Quarter, police on horseback ride abreast down Bourbon Street, ceremoniously announcing "Mardi Gras is over!"  

Me, I'll be fast asleep and dreaming of quilts to come.

 

Hand Stitching to Stay Sane!

My house has been torn up for the past two weeks while some long-postponed repairs and remodeling were done.  We needed to update the lighting in our kitchen, which necessitated some drywall installation.  While the contractor was working with drywall, we also needed to have some repairs done in the great room where water leaking around the chimney damaged the ceiling and wall.  On top of that, the shower plumbing in our bathroom also needed repair/upgrading.  Since the bathroom was going to be torn up anyway, we pulled out the bathtub and had a walk-in shower installed, along with new cabinets and counter top. Between the drywall dust and construction noise, it's been a long two weeks!

Fortunately, I was able to use some hand stitching to help me keep my sanity. 

 

I started this mini eagle quilt last July, as a kick-off to the Quilt Like An Eagle Quilt Along.   I thought it would be a quick project, but it wound up taking more time than I ever expected.  This week gave me the opportunity to finish the quilting and binding.  The fabrics are all scraps from Minick & Simpson's Paisley Parade.  The Paisley Parade quilt also needs some hand-stitching love - the binding is attached and just needs to be stitched to the back - it's definitely next in the queue!

Tomorrow I have lots of cleaning to do - there's drywall dust inside my kitchen cabinets! - but tonight I think I'll relax and enjoy some more hand stitching time.

Of Eagles and Blog Buttons

Audrey from Quilty Folk and I recently started an eagle quilt challenge/QAL to motivate ourselves and others to make that eagle quilt that's been on our quilting bucket list forever.  Quilt Like an Eagle was started over the July 4th holiday after a week of being inspired by patriotic quilts throughout Blogland.

Every good QAL needs a blog button to spread the word about the project of desire, so I dug through my collection of Victorian trade cards to find something worthy of button making.  I found a great illustration from a Davis sewing machine booklet.

After I edited the picture a little, I was ready to deal with the blog button code.  I had made one blog button before, but I didn't remember anything about the process other than it was a pain in the neck. 

Fortunately, Google search came to my rescue!  I found a website, The Willingham Enterprise, with simple instructions on how to create a blog button.  The best part of the instructions was the link to a free blog button code generator!  Once the code was created, it was a simple matter of copying the HTML for the blog button and pasting it in Bogger's HTML gadget.

 I was so impressed with the ease of the whole operation I wanted to share the information in case any of you find yourselves in need of a blog button.  The finished product is easy to install on your blog and easy for friends and followers to "grab" and post to their blogs.  I give it a big thumbs up!

Scrap Happy Saturday: Red Rules the Roost

I've been looking forward to playing with the color red as part of this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  Finding red fabrics with enough variety in lights and darks to create interesting red quilt blocks is something of a challenge.  I certainly didn't have that much variety in my scrap collection.  But I've been picking up fat quarters here and there to add to my scraps.  Mainly fabrics with white background and red prints so they "read" as light in contrast with other reds in my scrap stash.  I'm looking forward to making this month's Carpenter's Wheel block with all my new varieties of red!

 

Because of the American Independence Day holiday on Friday, we took off for our camp on Thursday afternoon.   I didn't have time to throw a lot of scraps together to work on RSC projects, but I did complete my red 16 patch blocks.  These will become red Scrap Jar Stars before the month is over.

Thanks to all the wonderful patriotic (red, white and blue) quilt shows throughout blogland this week, I've been inspired to start a new project that has been on my wish list for a long time.  

Inspiration in red: eagle crib quilt from Skinner Auctions

I've wanted to make an eagle quilt for some time, but just never took the plunge and got started.  An email conversation with Audrey of Quilty Folk lit the inspirational fuse for both of us, and before you could say "firecracker!" we had designed and set up an eagle-themed QAL.  I hope you'll stop by our QAL blog, Quilt Like an Eagle and maybe get inspired yourself!

Looking forward to a lazy summer afternoon and lots of scrappy red inspiration from the Rainbow Scrappers!