Labels!

I love labels. I spend more time reading labels than actually shopping when I go to the store. If I forget my glasses, I have to go home and get them. I just must read labels!

Many years ago I figured out that those little 'Chiquita" labels that were on bananas had some interesting info on them. They had the country in which they were grown. I loved seeing where my banana came from each week. Wonderful, hot, tropical places where bananas could be grown! They fascinated me! This week's bananas are from Ecuador. Neat,eh? And my nectarines are from New Jersey. See? I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't read the labels on them.

I am even label bilingual! Because French is our country's official second language, everything must be in English and French. I have become quite good at reading labels in French. But don't ask me to speak it. That's just not going to happen. I can read "papier photo glace", "confiture de fraises", "jus de pamplemousse", "sans gras", "mode de preparation", "creme glacee" and "moka et amandes au fudge". (sorry, I can't figure out how to get the accent marks in there) Okay, I have to stop. This is making me hungry.

When it comes to fabric, I also love to read the labels. The salvages are a wonderful source of information. They have the name of the company, the colours used in painting the fabric, often the name of the designer and maybe even the country where the fabric was produced. In the past I always cut a small piece of salvage and kept it somewhere just in case I needed more of that fabric. Of course, I could never find it when I needed it.

Today, after seeing so many wonderful things made with selvages, I cut them off and save them. I even look for fat quarters with selvages on them. I have a huge bin full of selvages! But until now I have not made much with them. Then I saw Exuberant Color's blog yesterday and I got inspired to make a journal cover using some selvage scraps I had sewn together a few weeks ago. Here it is. It doesn't fit quite right, but I learned a lot in the process and I think I see a few more of these in my future. Maybe something along the line of Em's Scrapbag's journal cover, which she also made yesterday. Isn't hers great?

I also spent a few hours trying to decide what to do about the picnic quilt. I really like the watermelon top and I don't think I will make a picnic quilt out of it. My DD understands. So I will go back to the blocks I started at the beginning of the summer. I plan to finish these - most are already started and almost done - and sandwich them and quilt them before I put them together in a quilt-as-you-go technique. I had to figure out the size of the strips for the sashing that holds them together. I have used this technique several times before, but I have to figure out the size of the sashing strips each time. You'd think I could remember that, but........ Here are two blocks put together. I am using a red fabric for the front sashing.

And on the back I plan to use a gold colour. I think it will look okay. And maybe I will have it ready by next summer's picnic season!