pink patchwork

A million years ago, I lived in a bubble gum pink bedroom.  Groovy 2-D animals covered my green bedspread and my mom's friend's painted my dresser with green chalkboard paint and used chalkboard erasers as drawer pulls.  A hot pink heaven.

My much adored grandmother Kingsley much adored the same deep bluey pink.  Her kitchen walls, corner kitchen cabinet (only one cabinet in those old kitchens) were all painted chalky pink.  Her avocado fridge broke up the pink and her big monster white stove took up a whole corner.  It probably just seem huge to me, with it's oven used for storing cereals and a pilot you had to light with a match every time.  Grandma, with her chestnut hair and Revlon's cherries in the snow lipstick, had very strong feelings about colors.  She hated lavendar and mint green - no pastels for this lady -- but she loved deep purple and kelly green, almost as much as pink. Can you guess which one is her in the picture?  Oh, notice my great Uncle Mike's shorts & suspenders.  To say nothing on the black socks.  Hey, I didn't say we were royalty.

So as I was taking pictures of this pink & green quilt top, I thought it might be too pink.  And then, I thought of Grandma and realize, for someone, it will be just pink enough.

Too Many of Me

I just googled myself, which not being a celebrity, a published spokesperson or a paid professional, is something I very rarely do. But I had just reset all of my facebook privacy settings and wanted to see what worked.  Anyway, to my extreme annoyance, there's another person with my name who comes up first.  I knew she existed because she has friended me on facebook (in a fit of name-ism, I declined) but I noticed that two of her friends were really my friends.  It's one of the perils of the Google age which never existed before.  She lives in my state, but our paths would never have crossed.  Now, I understand how Howard Stern must feel when he is confused with Howard K. Stern.  I might have to start using my middle initial, because honestly, I think she had the name first. 

I did finish a pink and green quilt top today. It's really quite pink . Wow. I think I got a little enthusiastic over the recent birth of Charlotte Ann.  I don't even know if the mom like pink!  Photo tomorrow, but you can see where I'm going here...

primary patchwork

primary patchwork
Originally uploaded by Grey Cottage Studio

The little patchworks, the relatively quick gratification of the sewing machine, a few hours here and there and it's done. I made my first quilt. It's a little thing. Just 30X40-ish. Too small really even for my toddler. But now, I'll add quilter to my list of titles (right before chief bottle washer).


Anyway, it was actually pretty simple and quite fun. I used a charm pack from American Jane's happy camper line. The results are a little too matchy-matchy for my taste, but at least they all work together and I didn't have to cut little squares or buy a bunch of fat quarters at once. I used a free pattern posted on Sew Mama Sew written by Elizabeth of Oh Fransson!


The quilting turned out to be simple simon because I backed it with a diagonal plaid. So I just followed the lines which were already there. My craftsmanship is shoddy, but my little guy doesn't mind and it doesn't have to fit anyone (always my downfall with knitting). My fellow crafters out there can understand the happy glow I had all day after pulling my new creation from the dryer. Others may think I'm mad, but you know it keeps me sane.  Too many more pictures on my flickr set.