Simply Quilts Inspiration and Haunted Apt

Carla and Siobhan make fun of me because I get up at 6:45 am to make sure I don't miss Simply Quilts on HGTV. I don't care, I am taping all the shows because there's a lot of good tips, even if I don't always like the projects. This mornings show though was an inspiration and something I want to try in the very near future. The person who was the guest took a lot of different fabrics (she said you could use as few as 14 but as many as you want; one of the examples had over 70) and cut them into 1 1/2" strips and then sewed the strips back into a large piece of fabric. She kept color families together so the there were waves of color across the fabric; blues, yellows and purples in the example she was making. She then made a large ( I think it was 9", but I'd have to back and check) set of templates for a Drunkards Path. She cut the L-shaped pieces out of both the pieced and non-pieced fabrics, and did the same with the circle pieces. It all went back together looking very very cool. She said she usually starts with a focus fabric and then pulls in all the different fabrics that go with it. One piece was a Christmas wall hanging, and the focus was a poinsettia print. She also has cut out a poinsettia here and there and then appliqued them randomly back on the quilt top. I am really excited about this because she used a ton of batiks and mottled fabrics, so the possibility of using hand dyed fabrics for part of the piece is intriguing to me. I have a show tomorrow and I have some things to do for it but if I have some time later today I am going to pull out the dyes and play around with them. I could make a small piece, like a cushion cover for an experiment.

I made this sweet little pouch which I listed in my Etsy store but I hope it doesn't sell; I love the fabric so much and I only had a small piece of it, less than a 1/4 yd. I inherited it from a friend who had to downsize her stash dramatically a couple of years ago and I got a lot of her fabric. I also made a little wristlet purse too. I like it too, but the little pouch is so much cuter. I have no idea what I would use it for, which is why I listed it right away, but if I think of something I will unlist it.

John and I went to Chris and Richards to watch football last night, and a buddy of Chris' from work was there. Somehow or other we started talking about the apt. and Chris insists both the apt. and the bar are haunted. His buddy, who has lived in Lombard his whole life says it is, too. Chris said things get moved around quite a bit and even with his own sleepwalking habits (he has been walking in his sleep for years and has been known to do a fair amount of moving of objects himself), there are things that go missing or are moved even when there is no way he could have done it. Plus he doesn't sleepwalk in Punkys Bar, when he goes down there he's always awake. He said you can feel the ghost sometimes. I know Carla said she thought the place has a ghost. The building is pretty old; I would say that it was built in the early 1900's or late 1800's. I noticed a historical plaque at the other end but I couldn't see the date in the dark as we drove past. I'm going to look this weekend if we go over there. According to Chris' buddy, the upstairs apt was a tattoo parlor in the 60's and maybe early 70's. The bar has been a bar for 40 or 50 years, although it wasn't always called Punkys. Rich had said he thought the whole place was some sort of boarding house at one point, but Chris' friend said he heard it was a half-way house. Anyway, my curiosity is up now and I want to find out as much about the building as I can. it's possible that one end is newer than the other, both Punkys and the cleaners next door is faced with a different stone than the other end of the block, although the apt. is brick like the other end, so maybe the different stone is just a facing put on over the brick. Chris said the cellar is made with those old stone blocks they used to use, and the woodwork in the apt certainly seems to be a style from the late 1800's or possibly a little later. Pat at work belongs to the Lombard historical Society and I'm going to see if she can help me dig up some info.

I sold a Christmas stocking on Etsy the day before yesterday, it was my first sale in over a week.