What do we call appliqué, if it's done with paper?

FUN!

4 x 6 inches - Copyright © Cheryl Coville 2011

We had an extra idea left over from the Summer Road Trip postcard swap. To paraphrase the slogan of the United Negro College Fund, an idea is a terrible thing to waste! What to do with it? We decided to play with some collaged illustrations made from glossy magazine pages. As always, we learned a lot. We used a glue stick to layer all the paper pieces in place but we only tacked them lightly. Next time, we would glue them down completely using the mod podge stuff that we covered the surface with. That brings us to the 2nd thing learned.....one soooper-doooper layer of mod podge is NOT superior to many thin layers. Next time, we'll know better. And there WILL be a next time because this was beyond fun!

Grandma Coco has added glossy magazines to the list of things she's scrounging.....just sayin'.........

¡Quilt Fiesta! winner and some surprising findings

Copyright © Cheryl Coville 2011

Don't you hate that artificial suspense they put you through on some of those TV shows? We sure do. So, here in the Kingdom of Coco, we're cutting right to the chase......We're pleased to announce the winner of  ¡Quilt Fiesta! – Surprising Designs From Mexican Tiles signed by the author, Cheryl Lynch herself is

Marcia W 

We've already emailed Marcia so as soon as we have her mailing info we'll be sending her the book. It's not too late to win a book. Head on over to Cheryl's blog to find out which blogs are still offering a chance to win a copy.

We were thrilled to have so many visitors to the Kingdom this week. So many new friends. We were happy to find that a substantial number are humble quilters who toil away on old and trusty machines. We must form a club or maybe a support group.

March is definitely coming in like a lamb this morning. Full sun and around the freezing point. Not like yesterday. We had freezing rain and ice and more rain and then some snow for good measure. Usually we fill some containers with drinking water when ice is in the forecast because our water pump runs on electricity but yesterday we got caught napping. Literally. The power went off around 5 am and didn't come back on until noon.

We were toasty and warm with our woodstove for heat and Grandma Coco had a number of projects she could work on that didn't require electricity but Mr. Coco had other ideas. He decided it was the perfect day to sort through some of Grandma Coco's stash of non-quilting fabrics. They've sort of clogged up the closet for a while now. So we dragged the boxes out to the living room where it was warm and set to it.

What a treasure trove! A veritable archeological dig! Old curtains. Upholstery fabrics. Old dressmaking fabrics...some from our grandmother (the original Grandma Coco). Felt. Hems cut off ready-made cotton skirts from the '80's! Metres of polyester that nobody sews with anymore. Burlap - in 3 colours! Silks. Satins. He was right. There was a ton of stuff that we didn't need to store.

....or DID we? Grandma Coco suddenly heard a little voice. A voice she tried to resist. But it was too insistent and too seductive. And what it whispered was this:

Fabric Postcards! 

Clearly Grandma Coco is a weak woman and she has persuasive friends. Monika and Sue and Elaine and Heather and lots more Maple Leaf Quilt Guild members, look what you've done.

Saturday morning for grown-ups

Remember when you were a kid? Getting up and watching the Saturday morning cartoons? Grandma Coco does. She remembers George Jetson and The Underdog and Yogi Bear and Booboo.  And she remembers that her dad used to watch them, too. It's nice when your dad remembers how to be a kid.

Nowadays, cartoons don't really interest her so you'd think that she'd sleep in, right? Well, due to the outright cruelty of her TV provider (Starchoice de Sade Satellite......which may be Rogers, now that we think about it) Grandma Coco is prodded from her warm bed by the lure of Saturday morning crafting shows on PBS Detroit.... the only station that we know of that carries these "wimmin's" shows. So, at 5:30 AM....yes, you read that right....5:30 AM! on a Saturday!....we get our only chance to see Quilting Daily TV, followed by Fons & Porter`s Love of Quilting and then, usually (but not today, oh, no, not today), Sewing With Nancy. Today we got Martha's Sewing Studio. Some Saturdays we get Beads, Baubles and Jewels, but not today. Only 3 shows, back to back. There's something magical about seeing other humans doing stuff we like to do. Often, we learn things. So, week after week, we get up and tune in. And then we go back to bed!!

When we did decide to start our day, we turned our attentions to something different....fabric postcards!!! We're suddenly quite interested in fusing fabric and machine embroidery. We blame that on Cheryl Lynch and ¡Quilt Fiesta! although there seem to be other, equally infectious influences going on. Fons & Porter did an episode where they trimmed the Wonder-Under so the appliqué was a little more supple so we're keen to try that. As well, we figured that a little postcard might be just the place to try out our nonexistent  fledgling machine embroidery skills.

Here's our first effort:

We had hoped to send it to a very good cause. We heard through our friend and fellow member of The Maple Leaf Quilt (online) Guild, Sue at http://cottonartsboutique.com, about an International Fabric Postcard Exhibition in Ireland. There will also be a sale that will benefit the Marie Keating Foundation which is a Breast Cancer Charity in Ireland. When Grandma Coco went back to check, she found out there was a theme (which you can read on Sue's post). We suppose dogs are part of nature but otherwise, our card doesn't really fit. No matter, we tried again with flowers and we think this one's the one. We added French knots for Monika  :)  who is feeling the cold right now, poor thing.

..... off to Ireland in memory of our mother, Grace

Maybe you've got time to make a postcard for such a worthy cause. The due date is the end of May 2011.