Sunday, June 1, 2014

Eat Your Way to Interesting Templates

I recently joined Weight Watchers - 9 pounds down, thank you very much - and really, everything about this program is brilliant, and I totally recommend it, except for one teeny little thing: their relatively low-key peddling of processed junk food deserts.

Knowing that their clients grapple with excessive food lust, dangling this stuff in front of us should be beneath this corporation's dignity. I vowed when I joined that I wouldn't fall into the trap....but then, well, heck, they've got the words ICE CREAM and WEIGHT WATCHERS on the same box.  So I caved and bought. I'm only human.

Then, even worse, I ate the first one while sitting at my computer, contrary to all weight loss psychologist advice (I'm supposed to eat isolated at a table, staring at it.) I'm also supposed to eat slowly, but somehow, in an all-too-brief amount of time, I was left with this.
 I stared at it intently. First, because I felt like I could eat seven more.

But then, because I quite liked the graceful shape. It reminded me a bit of Cheryl Lynch's  futuristic quilting template I'd used to make this 'modern' baby quilt, described in a recent post.
Since the wooden stick was at my desk, and my desk is a few feet from my trash basket, requiring exercise to get up and throw things away, I started making tracings/doodles with it on the backs of scrap paper. Like this:
 And this:
I was falling in love with my stick. I decided to turn it into a quilt, and doodled another page expressly for that purpose:
But then I decided I liked my first page better. So I traced that onto white fabric, then sandwiched the fabric with batting and a turquoise fabric backing, and quilted around all the shapes in black thread. Next I filled in the shapes with colored pencils:


Here's the back:
Kinda cool, but needed more. I considered painting the background, but I didn't want to get paint on the black thread outlines. I did some freemotion squiggling in the blank spaces:
A corded edging finished it up. I like it!I'm thinking about bleaching out the shapes on the back. I'm also thinking of stitching the original stick to it. Maybe set it horizontally on top.  

It might also make a nice clutch in which to put an ice cream store gift certificate for someone who is young and/or does not yet need to join Weight Watchers.
If you are interested in having this template as your very own to fool around with (plus a low-point processed junk food ice cream treat), these graceful sticks can be found within Weight Watchers Dark Chocolate Dulce de Leche Bars (and some of their other flavors). 

This experience also made me wonder what other templates I had lying around the house. I looked in our plastic tableware compartment and found these: 
Tracing them has great potential - or, come to think of it, I could simply stitch them to a quilt!

Have you made a quilt from templates found around the house? 

12 comments:

  1. OMG Cathy, you totally make me smile with your blog posts. You are a very engaging blogger. Those sticks also come on Blue Bunny ice cream bars which my husband loves. I use them for stirring paint and other fun stuff. Maggie Winfield

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    1. Wow, Maggie, I bet after stirring paint with them they get gorgeous!!! That would be another cool quilt, with tie dying the interior of the shapes!
      Thanks for the comment!

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  2. So creative, Cathy! I have just returned from Home Depot, where I always ask for a few free paint sticks. These I collect, paint with chalk board paint, and use as plant markers in my garden. If you have any extra sticks, I know another use for them!

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    1. I think my ice cream sticks are a little too small for your garden, unless you're planting microscopically small things!?

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  3. It's so fun and lovely. And you are also pretty trim. I dint think you need to lose weight.

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    1. Thanks, Margaret. I can show you the relevant data. In private, of course.

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  4. Such a creative mind, Cathy! Ever since Cheryl came out with her wonderful template, I've been thinking that I'd rather have a miniature version of it. I don't make large projects, so the large template wouldn't work for me much. Now I know where to look for what I need, LOL! Thanks!

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    1. Thanks, Debbie. I just wish the ice cream sticks came with nice round holes at each end, like Cheryl's template! (You get what you pay for!)

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  5. so clever! I like the way you write and the idea was interesting. It's great as a clutch, which then makes me remember about cropping, and sets me off on another tangent... good to talk to you again. I always have fun with you girl! Congrats on the lost pounds. Apparently I found them so....
    LeeAnna Paylor

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  6. Thanks, LeeAnna, and I'm so sorry you found my lost pounds. They come and they go so mysteriously around here!!!!

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