Dimples and Duckies Quilt

Ernie (the rubber duckie's #1 fan and my hero) has, of course, brought duckies to PBS for years on Sesame Street. As a quilter I brought duckies to the Fons & Porter's Love of Quilting set on PBS in the form of a rubber duckie quilt project. Does that bring me closer to my dream of meeting Ernie?

Here I am with Marianne Fons on the set. Marianne is such a joy!

(Note that the Oliso iron is appropriately yellow. It did NOT just happen to arrive home with me, though I was tempted.)

The duckie fabric is my own design. I created it in Corel Draw and then uploaded it to Spoonflower for printing. A week or so later a package arrived at my door and voila! my very own rubber duckie fabric!

The half square triangles are made from Andover's Dimples line. They so look like water!

I hand sttiched a simple running stitch with embroudery floss around the edges of the duckies.

Master quilter Mavis Rosbach of Quiltbird Studio worked her magic on my quilt with custom quilting which she designed on her Statler Stitcher and stitched with her Gammill long arm quilting machine. It sure came out cute!

Mavis stitched umbrellas over the half square triangles and galoshes in the border. And bubbles around the duckies–naturally!

The pattern is published in the 2009 issue of Baby Quilts. And you can buy a kit for the quilt, including the printed rubber duckie fabric panels.

Squeak!

~Jodie

Moonlighting Duckies

Here I am working away at my computer having a few Dove chocolates. I happened to notice that there is writing inside the wrappers. Sayings. The chocolate spin on fortune cookies I suppose. Can you believe that I'd notice this when I have this one in my hand?

Has to be the work of my duckies. I suspect the one on the left is the culprit! This one:

~Jodie

Hooray for Spoonflower!

I don't know when I have last been so excited. I arrived home from Des Moines to find the package I had been anticipating from an online company called Spoonflower. To say that I tore into it is an understatement.

But let me start at the beginning.

Several weeks ago I squeezed some time out of my day to use my Sunbonnet Sue Rubber Duckie designs to create designs to be printed on fabric. I had heard about Spoonflower over a month before, and was invited to participate in their beta stage. I simply had to try it. I've been using Corel Draw for years, so I created a design to fit yardage for duckie cheater cloth and possible border designs. My design spans an entire yard; most designs can be tiled, so you only need a small part of the design for the final yardage. (There's lots of helpful info on the Spoonflower site to explain all of this.)

I then logged into Spoonflower, uploaded the TIFF file I had saved in Corel Draw, and paid for my yardage. Two yards for $36 plus $3 shipping. A deal!

Isn't this amazing how it turned out? And best yet, it is printed on high quality 100% Kona® cotton from Robert Kaufman Fabrics.
To see other fabrics Spoonflower designers have created go to their Explore function and click your way through, or visit the Flickr site. I'm blown away by the designs I see! The idea is that someday we can buy other people's yardage.
Spoonflower changes everything. Designers are having their fabric designs printed and then are sewing the fabric up into true original pieces. I'm excited about what this means for books and patterns. Oh so Web 2.0, Spoonflower makes anyone a fabric designer. It's a beautiful world!

~Jodie

Rubber Duckie Applique Class

What fun to see my Sunbonnet Sue Rubber Duckies come to life!

I taught an invisible applique class at the inaugural Georgia Quilt Show a few weeks ago.

In just four hours most of my students had all but completed their blocks. Wow!

Nothing is better than the sound of a classroom full of humming sewing machines.

Now I'm super-excited about pitching a book to a publisher. The patterns were a great success. Duckie Fever!

Kimberly also took my Soup to Nuts Paper Piecing Class. A hat and eyes and this duckie is done.

My Quilting Rubber Duckie approves of this message.

~Jodie

P.S. You can get on the list to keep up on the duckie patterns by going to my web site and signing up for my newsletter. When I get time, I design new ones and make them available for free for a limited time.

Sunbonnet Sue Rubber Duckie in Invisible Applique

The Sunbonnet Sue Rubber Duckies are a blast to sew up!
In getting ready to teach a class in invisible applique, I'm stitching up the four blocks I've designed. I've enlarged them to double the size from those I designed for satin stitch applique. The larger size makes it easier to turn the edges under. Plus, the larger size makes a nice size block for many projects. In my book I think I'll offer both sizes. As I design them I'm offering them for you to try for free. Sign up for my newsletter and you'll know when new ones are available.
~Jodie

Artist Rubber Duckie Applique Pattern

The Sunbonnet Sue applique pattern collection is growing with a new character; an artist. She's all dressed up and has her palette of paints ready. Bet she paints great bubbles!

You can find this pattern at Jodie and Company.

~Jodie

A Quilted Rubber Duckie for Bernina

What do you make for the president of your favorite sewing machine company when you are off to Switzerland to film a show at his factory? A quilted rubber duckie of course!

The sign is a take off on Bernina's ad for their revolutionary machine with BSR: a stitch regulator for free motion sewing.
The waves are quilted, and she's swimming on white cotton pom poms.

So what was the reaction? "Is there meaning here, like lame duck?

~Jodie

P.S. We won a Telly award for the show! Members of QNNtv can watch the show here.

Paper Pieced Rubber Duckie Quilt

This evening after dinner I turned my attention to binding a little paper pieced wall hanging that's been waiting in the Finish me!" queue. It's a simple consisting of three paper pieced rubber duckie blocks. cut fabric strips, stitched them together, pressed them in half, and sewed them to the edges of this little quilt top Here's the quilted quilt and the strips I just cut.

And the finished bound quilt.

The waves are inserted into the blocks so they are 3-dimensional as are the duckies' beaks.

The result is rather cute. I think it will bring on a few smiles--which is the intention!

Rubber Duckie Brewery

Naturally, when we moved my brewing hobby out of the kitchen into its own space in the basement, complete with a fabulous new state-of-the art system from More Beer, the brewery needed a name. Guess how long it took to come up with one?

It's a ten-gallon capacity Ranco-controlled brewery, with automatic recirculation so I can maintain temps within two degrees. And those glorious pumps have eliminated all that lifting. Five gallons of beer weighs a lot!

The hood (can't see it in the picture) is ten times the hood we currently have in the kitchen. Talking about priorities! That will all change with our new house. And the brewery will be close to the kitchen. Yeah!



Making beer is a fascinating process. I started with the cake mix approach, pouring a dry malt extract into a soup pot on the kitchen stove, bringing it to a boil and adding pelleted hops per a particular schedule depending upon the bittering andflavoring profile I was after. (i.e according to a recipe)



For better flavor--not so boxed tasting as a in the cake mix comparison--I started steeping my grain and doing partial mashes, adding the steeped grains to the boil kettle.



Then I went whole grain. I bought Gott coolers retrofitted with spigots. I turned out some great beers with this setup. But was making a mess of the kitchen and having to lug equipment and beer up and down stairs and outside.


Brewing beer is magic. Here's a simplified play-by-play:


Crush some whole grain (malted barley mostly) and steep it in a pot of water at temperature x. This is called "mashing" and smells incredibly wonderful. We used to make bran mashes for our horses, so this reminds me of those cold evenings when the horses would slurp the steamy stuff.


Drain the resultant sweet liquor into the brew pot. Bring it to a boil. Add hops at different times. (The scent of hops is so wonderful I'm tempted to market hop perfume!) Essentailly the early ones add bitterness and the latter ones flowery notes, a citrusy tang, depending upon hope variety. At the end of the boil (one hour usually) cool the wort through a chiller into the frementing vessel. Add yeast.

















The next morning the thing will be bubbling up a storm. When it has finished fermenting (a gadget called a "hydrometer" assures no bottles will explode) you bottle or keg the beer. Give it a little time to condition, then a few days to chill, and enjoy!

I've been super busy in the last two years so haven't entered many competitions, but I did win a best of show and always enter the Queen of Beer--and manage to always get a ribbon. Go girls!

Cook Rubber Duckie Applique Pattern

The Cook Rubber Duckie

Second in our series is a duckie who is quite the connoisseur of gourmet food--make that gum drops, of course. With her chef's hat and jacket on, she is whipping up a batch of every rubber duckie's favorite; Gum Drop Cookies.

Life in My Rubber Duckie Bathroom

I'm not the only one who enjoys spending time in the rubber duckie bathroom. After he has coerced me into letting the faucet drip so he can have a nice drink, Matanzas Creek aka Manny the Maine Coon enjoys a nap in the other sink. He agrees with the duckies that cleanliness is the highest of virtues. Although he goes about it sans bubble bath thank you very much.

We got press!

The Quilting Rubber Duckie has graced the pages of magazines, including this profile of me in Quilter's Home.

Rubber Duckie Gardener Applique Pattern

Introducing...
Jodie's Sunbonnet Sue Rubber Duckie Applique Block Series

The happy and colorful Rubber Duckie is a perfect subject for quilts, and even better when paired with the idea of Sunbonnet Sue to create a collection of characters for quilt blocks.

Since I love duckies and quilting the two obviously had to meet. Several years ago I shared patterns for bird blocks on my web site so people could test them for a book I was working on. I'm using the same idea for my series of rubber duckie personalities based on the Sunbonnet Sue design that has been loved by quilters for generations. You can find each block on my web site for a limited tim: http://www.jodieandcompany/.

Are you wondering what kind of bush she's watering? A gum drop tree of course! What else would rubber duckies eat?!

The Quilting Rubber Duckie Makes Her Debut at The Trade Show!

The duckies were supposed to be ready to sell at our industrtrade show in Houston at the end of October. Of course, there was a hold up at the factory and another p with the container getting to California, so we had a box air shipped to arrive at my hotel in Houston so I could show them off. With the craziness off preparing for Market and getting a film crew there, meetings, etc., I was surprised when I checked and was told I had a box awaiting me. "The Duckies!" Hopefully no one was in neighboring rooms heard as and squealed with delight as I opened the box in my room .

That evening, the day before the trade show opens, is the day distributors hold their sales meetings. I was told the duckie was shown full screen during a presentation in one of them!

To set the stage and spice up the openings to the new product shows we were filming at the quilting trade show in Houston (I run an internet TV network devoted to quilting) Karen Shields (Sales and Marketing Director) and I made some "finds" on the trade show floor. The folks at United Notions had created an adorable display with a duckie swimming in a dishpan--which Karen and I "discovered." You can watch it on http://www.qnntv.com/

Mail Order Duckie!

The Quilting Rubber Duckie has appeared in mail order catalogs and in Web stores, such as this one, Keepsake Quilting. Doesn't she look great in print?

The Quilting Rubber Duckie--Pincushion?

I have the honor of being considered a national sewing instructor for the Bernina Sewing Machine Compnay. This means that not only do a get a wonderful loaner machine, I am also invited to a retreat each year. This past year was special as it was held at the Bernina factory in Steckborn, Switzerland.
Each year we have an informal challenge with fabulous prizes--just between us teachers. This year's theme was "I've got a Notion." The night before I left for Switzerland (this is serious stuff!) I heated up my glue gun, ran some basting stitches around a circle of blue terry cloth, stuffed it with Airtex stuffing, and glued the terry to a soap dish. Then I glued a Quilting Rubber Duckie to the terry cloth and stuck in some pins, and pins with beads (bubbles!) into the terry cloth. Voila! What everyone needs: A Rubber Duckie Pincushion! It won a prize. Oh that's right, everyone won a prize. Seriously, the event is a huge hoot as these are among the most creative people in the industry. My pincushion now sits on my sewing table as a remembrance of that magical trip.

For the last task in the creation of the duckie I wrote up some silly sayings and a message for the back of the box. And then waited for word that the duckies had shipped. To save on frieght charges, which can be significant, the Quilting Rubber Duckie was to ship with several new Celebridcuks, including Captain Hook. As is goes with most things, a little problem cropped up in that Captain Hook's arm didn't quite fit in the box, so the entire shipment was held up a little.

In the meantime the large quilt trade and consumer shows held annually in Houston were upon us. Two boxes of ducks were air shipped to my hotel. Upon arrival I retrieved them and hustled up to my room to open the box. She is everything I envisioned and more. She's beautiful!

... just a few days later these photos arrived. That's it! That's my Quilting Rubber Duckie!

And she's more beautiful than I had ever dreamed.


The magic word must have been "pastel" for her coloring is right on. I realized as I stared at her photos that I had been totally successful--because I was beaming ear-to-ear.


Now, how many to order and how to market them?

I was stuck in Atlanta traffic on my way home when Craig called to tell me he had e-mailed me photos of the molded and painted duckie. Wow--that was fast!

My eyes must have been saucers as I waited in anticipation of the photos coming up. Yow! She's gorgeous! So, so close. Just a little bright. Too primary for my intended audience. So I sent my suggestions to Craig and...

Having given my a-okay, the sculpt was off to the factory in China to be molded.

Meanwhile, in preparation for the following step in producktion Craig asked me for the colors I wanted the duck painted. I sent him a tracing of David's drawing with the colors painted on and the Pantone numbers accompanying in. I wasn't very happy with the way my colors looked. Afterall my medium is fabric, not paint!