Month: January 2009

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Round Robin

My friend Lindsay and I are starting two Round Robin quilts which we will exchange back and forth throughout the year. We are donating these quilts to our church for a fundraiser. This is my center – the Illinois Star from Carol Doak’s Simply Sensational 9-Patch Stars book. I increased the size to make it 17″ finished. And what are the visiting cats doing lately?
Well, Rudi is ON the bench watching what I am doing,

while Elliot is IN the bench having a quick nap.

Today I am grateful for –
1. Hazelnut coffee
2. Fleece (it is very cold where I live)
3. Time to sew and knit today
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Puss in a Corner

Jeanne of Spiral (California) has been doing a block a day from Nancy J. Martin’s 365 Quilt Blocks a Year perpetual calendar. Today I had to wait for my computer to download something and I decided I would give January 23rd’s easy block a try while I was waiting. I grabbed my bag of scraps and before I knew it I had a block completed. Thanks Jeanne for the inspiration. I’ll have to give more of the blocks a try when I have time. I don’t know if I will tackle some of the more difficult blocks, but seeing what Jeanne has done is an inspiration to me.
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A little time for sewing today……

Ever since I made this mini quilt I was not happy with how it looked. It just didn’t come out how I had envisioned. I really wanted the batik fabric to be the focus, but the yellow dot fabric kind of took over as the dominant color. Today I appliqued three little pieces of the batik fabric onto the yellow to tone it down a bit and take the focus away from the yellow a little. I like it better now. Even though there are three unfinished projects on my table (not to mention the 30 or more UFOs tucked away in containers), I started on a new project idea today. This flower fabric appealed to me perhaps because outside there is nothing but snow and cold, cold weather.

My visiting cats make a sweet picture cuddled up on the sofa. Black & white cats on a colorful quilt……….lovely.

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Cleaning out

In my waste basket is a pair of blue slacks that I am reluctantly throwing away. They are old, the elastic is gone, some seams are ripped and the color has faded. However, these pants are so comfortable – loose and soft. Alas though, they are too big and when I saw myself in the mirror with these pants on, I had to face the truth that they are baggy and make me look frumpy. Who wants to look frumpy! I know that I could just wear them around the house, but if something makes me look frumpy then I feel frumpy and even at home when no one is looking, I really don’t want to feel frumpy. For the past week I have been working on cleaning out my office. I won’t bore you with the long list of things I am donating to charity or throwing out, but suffice it to say that I had way too much stuff packed into file cabinets, drawers, and shelves.

After re-arranging the shelves the visiting cat discovered a new place to inspect. He is saying “Wow, look at all this space back here”.
This cleaning project is almost done but I now have a pile of papers to shred – such a boring job. I think I will take a break and go read for a while.
Quilting? Maybe next week…………
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Lazy Girl Pouches

Here are some Lazy Girl pouches I made for the owner of my visiting cats. I made a new design element (mistake) on the pink and black one – the fabric is upside down. Hoping to distract the eye from my clever design element, I added sparkly paw prints. And for a gal who reluctantly gets flamingo gifts from all her friends, this paper-pieced flamingo with some iron-on sparkles.

(Reminder – you can click on the pictures to make them bigger.)


While I am busy sewing and making design decisions, my cats are busy meditating, thinking, planning, and dreaming of tuna.

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Stash Report

0
Zero – nothing
No fabric added this week.
No fabric used this week.
I’m hanging my head in shame as I confess my lack of progress. I did work on some projects, but they are not done and I don’t feel like I can count them yet. Sigh.
Total for the year so far – used 1/2 yard, purchased zero.

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Question….

What do you call the husband of your niece? Nephew-in-law? Well, in my case I call him my Angel. See that beautifully shoveled driveway below? That is my driveway and an Angel came this morning to remove all the snow. My Angel is also handsome, a wonderful husband to my niece and a great father to two fantastic young adults. I know that no one is perfect, but he is getting mighty close.

When I walked back into the house after taking the above picture, my two visiting cats were staring at me. “What on earth is she doing now? Doesn’t she ever sit down? And why is she taking pictures out in that nasty snow? She is weird, that’s for sure.”

Today I am grateful for –
1. Angels in my life.
2. Funny cats
3. The incentive to clean out files today.
4. Neat, organized file drawers.

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Blocks Done

Tonight I finished up the house blocks for the Come-on-a-my-house quilt. If you click on the picture, it will enlarge and you can see the little girl and the rabbit in the windows. As I sewed and got up to iron the pieces, my visiting cat, Elliot, took over at the sewing machine. We argued over that chair all evening.
In the tub with the Come-on-a-my-house quilt pieces I found another project that I had forgotten about. At first I couldn’t figure out what it was, but fortunately I left an EQ print-out of the planned quilt with the clue I needed to figure the mystery out. I’m going to keep it a secret for now so I will only show you this bit of fabric.


In the meantime, Rudi is watching out the window for the Quilt Police.

Thanks Rudi.

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From July

Determined to get some productive work done in my Quilt Studio today, I dug out the quilt I started last July and made six more house blocks. Only four more house blocks to go and I could start putting the quilt together. Please notice that my houses have such realistic colors – tourquoise siding and a paisley door among my savy choices.

By the way, do you think that I may be spoiling my visiting cats?

Wouldn’t you like to be as stress free as this purring cat?