Underground RR revisited, berries

You know what i just noticed .. I flipped a row on that last underground RR section .. (groan) .. that I have to take out .. no choice in the matter .. I was just looking at it and my fabrics last nite when I noticed it .. I'm like .. are you kidding me .. for crying out loud!!!! bah!!! On a good note .. all I have to do is frog stitch just that section, flip it over and re-sew it .. so it's not like it's the whole section and lucky (yeah right) for me, it was at the edges .. holybiblebatman! twittwittwit - I am TRYING to be positive about this .. yeah right .. **grumbling .. **

I'm working on the centerpiece now .. I pulled out my green (pathetic amount that I have) and started to measure them for the Ohio Star points .. the two dark colours that I wanted to use were only 11½, and I needed 11¾ - course it's short .. soooo I'm using a light green and medium green .. I'll use the darker green in the smaller Ohio star blocks .. will be using purple foregrounds for the sisters star blocks for the middle .. I have the Ohio Star points done and am going to start cutting the sisters blocks just after I post this or find something else to stall with :D

On a GOOD note, I did get my kitty quilt basted and it did take less time that I actually thought to finish it .. cat hork not withstanding .. I was invaded by my dad .. (yup AGAIN - well it didn't turn into a visit, more like a drive by and he did bring milk :D) while I was basting it and he was looking at it and oh that's pretty .. I'm like ... pretty?? (@@) .. thanx .. (dry sarcastic tone) .. he goes .. why's it all wet .. I'm like wet??? where .. and I look .. my darling little Shadow(Pixel leaves bigger offerings) decided to leave a soggy splotch on the quilt .. I'm like .. the truth comes out on how she really feels about it .. good thing it wasn't food or a hairball .. quick dabbing with paper towels and then a damp cloth cleaned it right up .. I think I would have rather had her chase my thimble around the house .. **sigh**

It's a mulberry tree :D .. Thanx to all the ladies that sent me emails telling me what tree this is .. Thank you everyone!!

What are these berries???
I noticed the other day that there were squirrels and birds having a feast in my tree in the back yard .. and then I look closer and see .. berries ..does anyone have any idea what these are .. I thought this was the same tree that my dad had, but his doesn't produce fruit .. then again, he scalps his every year and it just doesn't .. I tasted it, not overly sweet nor tart .. just mild .. can you leave a comment in my blog (as that's emailed to me) or email me directly if you have my email address - thanx .. I really do appreciate it .. I know they aren't poisonous as the birds and squirrels don't fall out the tree and the dogs even eating them .. crazy dog!

Now as for the dog .. I'm going to tie her tail to her whiskers she starts digging again in the backyard .. she started to go to town yesterday just under this tree, and then again this AM ..

You know .. my animals are going to look really funny with them all running around with their whiskers and tails tied together .. and yes even Pix ..

Quilts n Grass n Bagels!!

Yesterday was a busy day for me .. I had gotten no sleep overnite ..I hate when that happens .. and was waiting on a few phone calls that I didn't want to miss, so I decided to stay up as I was afraid I would not hear the phone .. course they called .. in the afternoon :S

I had a whack of things to do yesterday .. cutting the backyard, making bagels, doing the laundry and I needed a break from all the browns in the repro quilt, so I decided to baste my kitty quilt.

The backyard looks GREAT .. maybe one more cutting and Kyle can do that one .. he's gonna love that lol .. I just want to be sure that the latest seed I laid catches and it looks like it's doing just that .. just have to combat all the weeds back there .. they are all on one side of the yard heheh .. I'll pull them slowly and surely .. by labour day they should all be gone - heheheheh

I did that early in the AM so that I could do the bagels, laundry and basting at the same time .. breadmakers are wonderful things :D .. it does all the mixing and all i have to do is shape them, proof them, boil them (secrets in the boiling time .. the longer they boil, the larger and lighter they get), and then bake them .. voila!!! bagels .. I'm doing better at them too .. this is likely my 4^th batch and I've finally got the knack of them .. reg actually said he thought they were store bought :D. I like the recipe I found, it uses both whole wheat and white flour - anything with whole wheat is good in this house. I had tested a few and this one won.

I'm still using Sharon Schambers method and like everything - practice practice practice .. i'm about ²/₃ done and it shouldn't take me more than 2 hours to finish it .. baring interruptions. I could have finished yesterday, but I wanted to spend time with Reg and I was WHACKED!

Normally I don't leave stuff like that out .. i use the kitchen table for this and it's right under a HUGE window - and any window in a house with cats is THEIR territory .. it wasn't so much them sitting on it ... - they do that all the time .. I was more worried about the needle and my thimble - My darling Shadow loves to bat things around .. (remember my seam ripper - that was her work) Pix is more likely to go after fabric and batting strips. But it's all there .. first thing I checked when I got up this AM.

I'm still trying to decide what sections to do next for my repro quilt .. i've not heard back from the people i had emailed about the calico fabric or the simplex star block. I might just do the middle Ohio with the sisters blocks, or work on the Double X sections .. I am thinking I might want a quick section to finish and that would likely be the Ohio / Sisters - I'm also rather stuck on colours .. what to use .. The Double X uses more yardage and would like to have them as close as possible .. so I might have to do them next to ensure that .. I'm not worried about the background fabric .. I have enough of that .. but the foreground .. I would like to do greens and purples in the middle (Reg and I's favourite colours) and they do compliment each other nicely - hen maybe reds and blues for the Double X .. (will only combine those if I don't have enough of one colour) .. heh .. will have to check my math I guess .. :)

menus and galleries oh MY!!!

The past few days I've spent debugging my website and looking for tutorials for flash galleries .. I would prefer to find one close to how I want it and alter it from there, but not having much luck .. course it would likely help to NOT do this when I'm dog tired. I want to find one that allows a description and I've not found that yet .. all sorts of slideshows with or without thumbnails etc .. but nothing with a quick description. It's been a long time since I've done any serious flash and I would essentially have to relearn it all again .. I'm hoping that the tutorials will help jog my memory on the coding.

I also tried to do php for my website .. that way I would just have to update a database, and upload a picture and voila, it would be updated .. but i'm having issues connecting to the server to test the database .. everything seems to be working right, but I just canNOT connect to that blasted server to test - **sigh** So i gave up that idea .. altho, it will stick in the back of mind and if a solution presents itself, I'll be sure to try it :D

I've posted my ads on kijiji.com and there have been some decent amount of hits on them PLUS visits to my website - but alas, no emails or paypal notifications. It'll come. Are you ready for this??? I posted kijiji ads in Windsor, London, Detroit, Saginaw and Lansing .. I check later and the ads for Detroit and Saginaw have been removed. Kijiji is supposed to be a community, free classified ads and I am not in those communities - okay .. i'm 5 mins from Detroit but 2 hours from London LOL!!!!! Go figure.

I can get the space at the Walkerville Trade Center, but wondering on the money issue for it, I was really hoping to have made enough at this last show to cover that cost, but that didn't happen. I have to do some creative number crunching me thinks - I sent my link to the website to the owner of the trade center and this is what she had to say ...

I took a look at your website. Your products are amazing. I have the perfect area that will help to display them off. I have an 8 x 10 foot section that has hardwood floors and a table with wall space that is 6' high and two 8' shelves. There is also a wall space that is 4' high and 5' in length. The area is $150.00 for a monthly rental. When you come in I will show you the area. You will fall in love with it. I figured it would be perfect for your products and it will really help you with having your own business.

bit more than the original quoted price, but this sounds almost like a double space???

Oh well, I'm off to play with coding .. i did find a flash drop down menu that I want to play with .. it'll be very close to the one I have now, but won't cause all the funky issues that this one appears to be doing. Once that's done, I want to make these cute little pouch purses that Judi sent me a link too .. but am hesitant to make much more inventory as I've not managed to sell much of it .. it WOULD be nice to maybe finish my kitty quilt or get started on basting Kyle's quilt .. but i'm driven to get all this website stuff done first ..

Kitty Quilt squaring / Borders

Yesterday and today I tackled borders. I decided on going narrow with the piano keys border - it seems to me that the wider one just took from the whole quilt .. i had qualms about using kitty fabric as these aren't kitties, but with all the colours and fabrics used in this quilt, it was the easiest course of action for making all the colours make sense .. sort of cheating, but I know I would have agonized over my fabric colours - I would still be staring at a pile of fabric with no choices made.

I had a few waves in my quilt top that I couldn't get rid of by squaring, these are from a few pp patterns that I didn't want to frog or redo, I knew i could reduce the problem when putting on borders and then quilt out what was left if needed.

Basically:

Measured in 3 spots from side to side; 52", 51¹/4", 51¹/2" - average 51 ¹/2"

Measured in 3 spots top to bottom; 56", 56", 56¹/2" - average 56 ³/16" - let's call this one 56¹/4" - must be those pp blocks again rearing their ugly heads


For side to side - I needed to ease in ¹/2” on the top row and the bottom row was to size .. I used the longer side down on the feed dogs to help with the easing. Super easy to ease that amount over 52" and that wave that was there is beaten into submission now .. It's nice to see my quilt laying flat on the floor . yes there are a few bumps, but those are seams where I lost the battle of getting them flat and some stretching happened .. In this other picture, I had a nice little ski hill for ants going on .. nice and flat now! :D :D :D

I did the top and bottom borders then called it a night. I was to tired at that point and just didn't want to mess anything up.

The top and bottom went just as easily as the sides did. Just pinned them into place and away i went. There's a few waves there, but nothing i can't live with. I need to trim a bit on my borders, but all in all I think that I can say the top's done :D. Oh geeze .. I think my top's almost done!!

I need to do embellishments; tails, some whiskers - I want to put 4 more cats on, and get the heads and tails for the fan kitties ready for appliquilting - WOW ..

Border Run ..

Yesterday I was going to attach my borders - measure my quilt, almost perfectly square :D .. just a 1/2" difference top to bottom and side to side i am plus/minus 1/8" of 48" .. I did my math and realized i was going to be pretty close with my fabric. Believe it or not, there was just TOOO much purple GASP I never thought I would EVER say that LOL. so the border was a great way to create some space between the top and border. But then i remembered that my original math did call for one border with different fabrics in it .. so I got to thinking - what could i do that wouldn't detract from my kitties .. Linda Marie in NJ inspired me to use a piano key border (Thank you!!!). I decided to do angle cuts so i could have wonky strips .. I've cut these long enough to use this as my binding as well. Heh and at this point, I've got enough strips cut that I can do a kitty fabric sting quilt.

I got a sizable enough piece stitched and cut and put it up against the quilt top - I cut it 4 1/2" wide (4"finished) - hmmm .. i think i have to much border (!) **HELLASIGH** I'm so cursed some days me thinks .. I thought a bit, and said .. narrower .. so i moved the border over by half and it really does look MUCH better - In the pics i took, the wider version looks better .. but live the narrower one is better. Gives it a more distinctive frame

I think that I'm going to do the narrow .. create a nice 'frame' and contrast and separate the kitties from the outer border. heh .. also, i've got my strips half done then if i cut these in half ;)

My mouse inspector Kyle even says that the narrower one is better - amazingly enough this kid has some great taste and makes some really good choices for colours and clothes. Must be genetic - from MY side ;)

Battle of the Meeces & Fish

Meeces .. bloody meeces .. well as you know I had quite the issue with these bloody things (!) They'd not been approved by my family or even recognized. BUT i did get a brain flash yesterday regarding them .. What I did was make them like i was making a stuffed toy - right sides together, turned inside out and fused into place .. I fused taped them for the time being along with the opening i made when i surgically removed the offending ears. I think that I'm going to leave the ears loose and just quilt them at the base - 3D tails was suggested, but with the use that this quilt is going to get, I don't want to have to be attaching tails over and over again .. I think that I will just embroider them in place with floss.

Kyle just came home and I aked him if he wanted to see my meeces .. he likes them and says NOW they look like mice (@@). He asked me what I was going to do with the meeces - meaning new squares - nope so I should him the surgery I would be performing ;). He thought it was pretty cool and is playing with some fuse tape and some scraps at my ironing board .. but this kid doesn't want to make a quilt.. he's made a quilt block for a school assignment, but not on my machine .. I had a BOM from joanne that included the fabric and let him hand sew it .. he did a pretty good job and got A .. he not only had to do the quilt block, but had to explain the process to his class - he was in grade 4 at the time.

The fish gave me other issues as well - or I gave it to them .. I think that I was number reading challenged yesterday .. i thought I read 2 ¹/2" x 3 ¹/2" for the body .. It’s 2" x 3 ¹/2" and I didn't notice until the fish were almost done .. I got the itty bitty pieces for the body and background put together and then the tails done .. so I wanted to make one up to see how it looks, as I was getting ready to put the background strip across the top i noticed that it was wayyy to short .. i'm like .. !?!?!?!? .. so i looked at the pattern 3 more times before i realized i had miscut it .. i was horrified - just sick with it all - I had not been having a good nite at all and was more than a wee bit tense - BUT it was savable .. I just sewed an extra seam down the middle, so they look like HSTs instead .. i don't care - they are done and the right bloody size!! That's saying a lot.

I got 4 more meeces to do .. well 3 ¹/2 as I showed kyle the steps I was taking on the one - then to decide putting it together ..

Kitty Top Done - AGAIN; appliqued Meeces - update on meeces

Regarding my meeces
Kyle walked in and asked me why I was putting hippos in my kitty quilt :\ .. I'm like .. are you kidding me!?!?!? First Reg says they look like igloos with bumps and now this .. Pix batted them around he's so disgusted with them - Okay I get the hint!! I pulled out my pp pattern and was going to just do up the meeces from that - then I look at the picture and see that they have ears on them .. I'm like ?!?!? There's no ears on the pattern .. so i dig out the instructions and saw that they have you premake them and put them in when you sew between 2 sections .. so here I am thinking, I can just add ears like that to these meeces .. frog out the area around the ears, snip them off, tuck the seam under and then make the ears (sew them right sides together, flip right side out), then attach them into the seam .. I would leave them 'loose' for now, but would quilt them down when I do the quilting :D :D :D - Any other suggestions on this????

After doing battle with squaring persnickety blocks, I am pleased with the result. Again the kitties relocated on me, but rather like this much better!

I was working on the meeces today - I was giong to try the fuse tape applique method for the meeces, but the sections are just to small to get any sort of purchase on .. the first one I tried looked like it was suffering from some form of mutantism .. soooo- needless to say, I had to toss that idea out the window. What I had to do, was hand applique. I am not a big fan it and doing 8 meeces didn't change my mind .. maybe for larger pieces, but not for the small piece I was working with .. I'm really tempted to feed these to the kitties at this point .. Not sure if doing paper piecing would be better .. I have a whack of paper piecing patterns for meeces .. I'll just have to see after I do the fish how I feel about them.

My Sunny Stars made it out the bag, separated into roughly 5 piles and ended back up in the bag again :S .. I do know what I'm going to do, just really didn't feel like doing all that measuring of blocks after I had finished squaring the blocks and evening up the rows. Plus these meeces :\ I'll get working on that soon .. might get as many as I can together and make that up into a family couch quilt. We'll just have to see. Reg told me that his quilt is to small for him (!) I measured it against him and made sure it was okay before I put the borders on .. oh well, I've been wanting to try a string quilt ;) Like I needed an excuse LOL

Wandering Kitties / Sunny Stars

Yesterday I measured my quilt for the borders; holybiblebatman!! I knew that it was out of square, but it was bad .. there are 5 rows in this quilt and of the 3 that I measured, not one was the same or even close and the difference between all measurements was 1¹/2". This just wasn't going to do. I did notice that the bottom of the quilt top had a VERY friendly wave it in. I didn't even need to think about it it, Frogging I go. I separated all the rows and took a good look at where the waves were. I didn't have to square up as many blocks as I had thought, but when I did one, I needed to do the rest of the blocks in that row so that the blocks would all be the same size. Fussy? Anal? You betcha - But i do now want to have to see and battle the size difference. Heh, and wouldn't you know, the little buggers moved around on me again .. there was one cat who's tail was upside down that I did take apart and fix, and he's relocated from the bottom of the quilt to the top of the quilt :)

The whole process was very tiring, but I'm glad that it's done. All the rows are back together now and just waiting for me to join them up again .. I was soo bloody tired last nite, I didn't dare. I've started to piece on my 15 and have to find a happy medium between the edge of the machine bed and the table so I didn't want to have to battle the length / weight of my rows. Plus, the sewing room is right next to our bedroom and I didn't want to wake reg up moving machines around .. With the 15 on a TV tray, it's the same height of the table so it can take the weight and I won't have to battle with it. I've remeasured my rows (after I moved them around I didn't know what row went with what measurement) and will trim them soon. The meeces and fish colours have been decided upon, Joanne in NZ is sending me some black to do silhouettes, so things are well in hand again for my kitty quilt.

As I was drifting off to sleep last nite / this AM (?), I started to think about my Sunny Stars Swap quilt that I ran a number of years ago. I got these blocks at all different sizes. There was a test line on the pattern that needed to be measured, but they didn't do it - the result, 5 different sizes. while I had enough for a double quilt, I didn't have enough of one size to make said quilt. What I will do is take the smaller ones and frame them in blue (dark or light depending on block background) and use yellow in the cornerstones - I was thinking of doing a dark light graduation of block colours .. so that will be going up on my design wall later today.

Extremes / Seascape Quilt / Kitty borders

Please click on the images to view larger pics in new window

Today was a day of extremes for me. The right side of the bed did NOT exist for me today. Might have been due to the fact that Kyle managed to wake me up after 2 hours sleep - and he wasn't watching the dog when he let her out this am. She managed to get the gate open and escaped (didn't go far, but not the point - she was after cats down the block) she's about to go into heat and he wasn't quiet about opening the doors, slamming them, yelling for the dog .. woke Reg and I both up .. Okay .. so Reg wakes up to a pin dropping on carpeting .. i DON'T!

I knew I needed to center myself, I was frustrated beyond all belief by not being able to find a rotary cutting pattern for a mouse (!) (and i started last nite). Even getting my DSL back today didn't make me feel better for long. I was ready to cheap out on my kitty quilt and just do fish. BUT .. I stepped away from it and worked on my Seascapes (Sea LIfe???) quilt that Joy gave me. I could't start it until after supper tho as my table can't come away from the wall to accomodate the boards I use. I did Sharon Schamber's basting method again and this time it worked VERy well for me. I took shorter stitches, longer thread, had the quilt on my cutting mat and really really really paid attention to the tension i was putting on my stitches .. I believe that might have also been a larger part of the problem for me the last time I tried this method.

After basting this quilttop, I felt soooo much better - Like I had actually accomplished something .. and while I was basting my mind was working away on my kitty border issue. They resolved themselves in the back of my mind. I printed out my quilting motifs, grabbed the sullivan's and started to plot. I realized that i couldn't try the appliquilt on this quilt after I had laid all the templates out as it would make it to busy i think. I have the whole quilt covered with a sea scene and I just think that that would be overkill. If you look, you can see the seaweed and fish in the bottom left corner, 2 bigger fish swimming around, shells in the corners and waves and shells for the borders. I really don't think that I want to add anything else to this .. that does disappoint me tho as I would have liked to tried that method, but there'll be other opportunities - if not, I'll create them :D

Now for the borders on my kitty quilt; I was at the point where I was just going to do all fish and be done with it. I did NOT want to do paper piecing, nor particularly applique at this point. I am so bloody close, that I want the top DONE NOW. well I almost short changed myself, but something kept me from doing so .. I have come up with what I think is going to be the perfect finish to this quilt .. All i'm going to say right now is it involves fish, meeces (appliqued) and kitties. Oh and it will involve math LOLOLOL But i'm feeling better about everything right now - borders are under control, Seascape is just about done .. I think that I'm going to see about using up the scraps that Joy sent me along with some other fabrics I have here and doing a scrappy binding.. I think that just might be the perfect finish to it

Border Dilemma / sea critters

Now the fun part .. i have decided that i want my border to be 3" wide for the fish and mice .. not going to do the other things (milk jug, yarn) as i really do NOT want to do more paper piecing. So, I have a rotary cut pattern and I can speed piece for the fish .. just need to find one for the mice .. the fish are 3x3 which is VERY good - spot on!! heh .. here's where the torture comes in .. do I want to do these with kitty fabric or other fabric .. i know i wanted JUST the kitties to be made with kittie fabric and the highlight of the quilt - The more I think of it, the more I am not inclined to use my kitty fabric for the border critters. They aren't kitties!! okay .. i'm off the rack .. sort of .. what colours :S .. heh .. just kidding, i'll likely go traditional colours for them .. but we'll just have to see what speaks to me - I guess I've resolved this now .. I love my blog .. LOL

I've also got another project brewing :D. The quilttop that Joy made for me has spoken to me. That's going to be a sea floor scene :D .. I have some really cute sea motifs that I am going to quilt on it; seaweed with a fish poking out, shells, and a larger fish, as well as appliquéing (appliquilt maybe?? see i told you i was inspired!) with various sea critters on it .. I have to decide on exactly what critters I want before I do the motif. I'm thinking of an octopus, a crab and a seahorse. I can' put them on with embroidery floss over the quilting motifs. I can't wait to get started on this, but I have to baste the quilt first. I'll be doing that tomorrow - this should do up SUPER quick! I can't wait to get going on this one

Kitty quilt top done!

The day has finally arrived. I was honestly thinking that it would never come. I finally got the top together and somewhat squared for my kitty quilt. I had actually got it all pieced last nite, but was so bloody tired that I just didn't want to trim it for fear of destroying it. So it sat with ragged edges and all. heh .. this thing was a like a huge fabric puzzle for me. I had one row done and actually ripped it all apart as I moved some blocks. Not a day went by that these blocks didn't migrate to other sections of my quilt. I need to read up on squaring quilt tops as this one as a few little waves in it - i will do this before I cut and baste :).

Quilting this will be pretty straight forward for the most part. I'm going to use freemotion quilting and outline all the kitties in the quilt, will do some other motifs in the blank spaces. Not sure exactly what yet, but I'm sure it will come to me .. for some reason I'm thinking of butterflies **shrug** Lord knows why .. could be Judi's fault ;P.

The only offshoot for the quilting is to be the heads and tails for the fan kitties (notice they are headless and tailless now?? 1^st row and 4^th row). I'm going to use appliquilt for this. Meaning that they will be attached to the quilt and quilted at the same time. I'll use fusible tape to turn down the edges of the tail and head (almost thinking of raw edge applique for the tails so they fray a bit), secure it to the top with either a dab of glue stick or fusible web and quilt them into place in one shot! I sooo like that idea .. I will do a practice piece first to see if I can do .. if it doesn't work, you'll not need technology to hear my scream.

While doing some research today joanne sent me a link from a blog, Mary Johnson has some phenominal quilts and ideas. I contacted her with what I proposed. She also seems to think it'll work, along with most of the ladies from my quilt lists. BTW .. if you have a problem spot in your quilt she has a very ingenious method for fixing it, this could use for anything from bleeding colours to holes. She showed me a quilt that was all done with blues and she had quilted it, then added appliqued fishies to it afterwards .. gorgeous quilt! Be sure to check out her quilts, they are linked off her blog - it will be time well spent. Mary, Thank you!

I also pulled out an old blanket that I was thinking of using for Kyle's batting. It might work-ish. I'll have to trim a wee bit off the top and bottom to make it fit, but if I do do that, I can use those for my binding strips - at that point, I might as well take it from all sides :)

Finished Quilt / Kitties subdued .. for now

My Darling Reg wanted me to watch a movie with him last nite. With basketball season turning me into a widow, how could i say no?? Oh lordy did I want to tho LOLOLOL .. specially considering the movie .. super bad .. it was super bad alright .. blech .. but i did take advantage of watching the movie to finish reg's quilt :D :D :D .. WOOO HOOOO it's all done. it's been washed, dried and labelled. One thing off my quilty to-do list GONE :).

Another thing off my list is getting those kitties in order. Those brats have been all over the map placement wise .. I've hesitated to post a pic of them together as it'll likely have changed by the time you see it. My plan (after a bit today) is to stitch them together - no mind you, this will NOT stop me from ripping the whole top apart as i've done it before when i didn't like the final appearance of something .. would prefer not to frog stitch all that - but it can happen LOL - it's almost the size i wanted it .. 1/2" short from top to bottom and I think it will be 1/2" to 1" short from side to side. My issue was the middle row- while i wanted space to highlight the twisted tail kitties (focal point), i didn't want to add to much more space .. i think that there is an excellent balance in that row and another smidge of space might have overdone it .. now I can always add to the first block if I feel so compelled.

I think that i'm changing the name of this quilt to kitty puzzler as it's like a HUGE jigsaw puzzle with no fast set way to put together.

Director of Security / Squishy Days; Machine update added

Squishy Days are here :) .. My director of security informed me that someone was / had been on our porch. So a few minutes later I go to check the mail .. I saw a squishy!! Just what was needed to uplift my spirits as I was definitely out of sorts from yesterday. I knew that this was coming and had totally forgotten about it as US Postal service tend to load up snails for the mail run to Canada.

But here it is .. Inside the adorable quilt top that Joy had made for me .. it's even more adorable in person, a needle case (purrfectly cute!!) (these items were expected), and the purple that she had used to make this quilt along with other leftovers from the assembly - these fabrics were NOT expected.

I've been thinking about how to quilt this and I'm sure that something will come to me, loud and clear - I usually try to listen to the quilt, i can do birds, butterflies, flowers, cats, sea critters .. all sorts of things .. the TOT that she used is more gorgeous in person and the pics do NOT do this quilttop justice .. not be a long shot. With the discussion that joy and I have been having lately, i'm leaning more towards sea critters, the blues and greens rather lend itself to this too.

I ripped out the row I did on my kitty quilt as I've changed my mind yet again .. shock surprise LOL .. I do have 2 rows sewn up and as I now have house to myself right now, I might actually get something done before Kyle comes home ..

Machine Update

Sick 248 / Mum's Touch n Swear
I contacted singer today and had a wonderful chat with the lady on the other end of the phone .. Turns out she does garment construction and has a few machines herself LOL

What it boils down to is timing or my bobbin case .. I explained all that it did and she says it's not my gears as they are on the top of the machine near the cams ..

It was really great as she was looking at the exploded parts of my machine while I was talking to her and i was telling her all that i had done and the noises i had heard etc - I really hope it's not the timing as I talked to my repair shop today and that will be a hefty bill if they have to redo the timing .. If it's just a wee bit out of whack and needs a slight adjustment / no parts - then it's only about $10.

I wanted to get the bday's for this machine and my mum's touch n sew .. Couldn't get either as the number stamped in the bottom of my machine does not follow the numbering sequence for machines made after 1900 .. Meaning it doesn't have 2 letters starting it .. It's just a bunch of digits .. That came back to me as I was talking to her .. This machine was made for only 2 years tho, 1980 - 1981. Now my mum's machine - production started on the in may of 1960 in St. John's - the records for this time period are missing.. Now I know she had this machine from when I was a little girl .. This might even have been the machine she made her wedding dress on - i can vaguely recall "something" about that .. If so, 1960 is about right .. So I struck out with dating, but had a wonderful chat with a fellow enthusiast and got a better line on what's possibly wrong with my machine ..

sewper bowl; kitty stalls, speed bumps

Sewper bowl Sunday??? not here it wasn't. The best laid plans are usually fraught with interference from outside forces. first was the issue with reg's team on Saturday; i couldn't just let him stew and not try to talk to him and quilt could I??? well maybe .. LOL .. j/k .. i wouldn't do that.

Then there was my 'stall' today .. I hit a speed bump with a serious case of nerves. I was almost terrified to commit the kitty quilt to getting pieced together. I fidge and fudge with the layout in my mind, did some crazy mental math - yup it was mental alright (as my friend joy told me and everyone else LOL) amazing what sleep deprivation will do to you. Then as I'm ready to move on it, I gotta make the chili, then I gotta do this, then this comes up .. maybe i wasn't destined to finish this top this weekend .. It's not like it's going anywhere; until last month, it was just a dream in my head, now it's not .. it's a nitemare LOL .. j/k .. just nerves is all .. something that I've plotted for so long is coming to life and it's a wee bit scary is all .. it's when something you really want finally happens you are stunned speechless type thing ..

But I got the first set of kitties together and it looks better than I imagined .. Maybe I'll have the top done tomorrow ..

heh .. i didn't even get reg's quilt done during the superbowl .. we watched Minority Report last nite and I did 2 more sides, which only left one to do :S .. bah .. that'll get done too ..

Regarding my sick 248, i'm just going to call the shop and see what they say .. i've been going nuts trying to get some help / advise on how to line it back up and i'm beating my head against my keyboard for my efforts; so tomorrow i'll just call the shop .. who knows, they might just walk me through the repair on the phone ..specially if it it's not going to net them much money .. we'll have to see .. they do have 2 locations and we'll see how it goes :)

Kitty Quilts / OST Sew-In

The mini kitties are done :D. These will be used as fillers in my kitty quilt puzzle. It's taken that name in my head. One of my lists has started a month long sew-in and my first project for this is to get this top done and ready for borders. (Which I've still not totally decided on in my mind) These little guys are all paper pieced and measure 4x4 or 4x6. There is 4 of each size and they will be perfect for the blanks that I have. I'll be using blank background fabric to fill in the rest of it. I was going to put yarn, fish, mice etc in there as well .. but I don't want this to be to busy, the focal point are the kitties, not HOW many kitties I've crammed in there.

heh I did these all over a one day period being totall sleep deprived. Might not have been the best way to do it, but I likely made choices for these kitties I wouldn't have if I had been functioning at full mental capacity and the result is actually pretty coo in my mind. I had finished them yesterday but was way to tired to do more than take pics of them. I've removed the paper and repressed them.

I'll likely be putting the mice etc as border pieces instead .. now I had to decide - do i use kitty fabric or just other fabric .. i'm inclined to use the kitty fabric as all the fabric in every kitty is kitty fabric .. the background is the only thing that isn't ..

I've updated the kitty page and all the kitties are in there .. Happy reading :)

My next project for the sew in will likely be finishing the binding on reg's quilt, basting kyle's quilt top (need to find a batting for it), starting on reg and I's bed quilt and maybe the carolina byways quilt (both for our bed; one summer, one winter), working on hand quilting based on the TV schedule ... i'm sure that more will come to me ;), I've got 3 squishes here waiting to be mailed out in the next 2 weeks

Didn't get much else done today quilt wise - does doing the update for the kitty quilt count?

Machines n kitties and cranky OH MY!!

It's been a few days since I posted to my blog - and actually been a few since i've really done anything really quilt-like. I did finish the one block I wanted to for the scrappy red swap; packaged it up and will be sending it out in a week or so. I've also packaged up 2 other squishies for fabric that I'm trading :). Monday Kyle had a basketball game and I went to that. Spent the time before and after just spending time with Reg. Heh .. in my days of basketball widowship I grab my time with him when I can ;). Kyle then had a basketball tourney on Tuesday. He did pretty good and that took the afternoon .. by the time we got home and dinner was done, I was just to bloody tired to much of anything else.

It's not been a total write off the past 3 days;

1. I've been plotting my civil war quilt in the back of mind as well .. researching blocks and habits of quilters back in the 1800s . I'm learning a LOT and having fun!!


2. I've also started to hand sew down the binding of Reg's quilt .. one side down .. 3 to go!

I had a machine 'die' on me on Wednesday .. bloody thing .. was piecing a block for a swap when suddenly my machine sounded like a train .. Clickety clack .. Clickety clack .. I slowed down trying to pinpoint the location of the noise (could have hand sewn faster at that point) I figured I would finish that seam and then stop and look under the machine .. It stopped dead 4 stitches later .. I wasn't going fast at all . The needle did not break - didn't even bend. .. The bobbin case was secure and not lose, I removed the bobbin and casing, the needle was hitting the disc that is UNDER the bobbin case. It almost seems to me that a screw got loose and it spun (!) .. I've joined a few machine groups hoping that someone might have an answer for me .. i've research a lot of possible causes, but none yet .. I'm guessing that this really put me off my stride as I was really cranky for the rest of the day. The above is a copy and paste that I sent to the list.

This is the machine that my mum bought me and while it's not a top end machine, there is sentimental value to it. It is also my only zig zag machine and the one I did all my quilting on. I don't like this for free motion as it skips stitches, but for regular quilting it's just fine. Now I do have my mum's touch n sew, but that machine and don't have any sort of common ground between us ... on one of my lists, someone referred to it as a touch n swear .. I believe it! This machine is also a slant shank machine and all mine are short shank .. feet are not interchangeable.

I have finally done 3 more blocks for my kitty quilt .. I was rather putting these off as they are paper pieced and I've had enough issues with them LOL .. And these were a wee bit different as the lines aren't sewing lines, but guidelines .. well I finally bit the bullet and started them .. I got 3 done and they do go pretty quick .. once you get the hang of pp'ing this way, it is actually pretty easy! I only have about 5 more to go, then the fish, mice, yarn, and milk jugs .. altho, I just might do them for the border instead as this is going to balance out just nicely me thinks. I've not updated the scrapsnclaws webpage yet as I'm going to make more blocks and will update them when I get the set of 8 done I think.

This one's feet are backwards .. I didn't notice it until I took the picture - I just may leave him like that

This one i reversed the fabric for the tail to make it stand out more .. should have been the other way around, but didn't occur to me until AFTER I had him more than 1/2 way done

I really like how this guys face worked out just right! Altho I think that this fabric is a wee bit to busy for the size of this block

Re(a)d all over ..

Red Scrappy swap blocks are done .. For the last block I decided to do the Squares and Diamonds from Quilt Mags Stash Blocks - both blocks turned out VERY well and I'm quite pleased with them. I still have to put frames around the cornucopia block and the disappearing 9 patch, but those blocks are staying here .. I'm not sure if I'm going to red or white framing .. we'll just have to see. I just have to package them as per swap instructions and mail them off .. I can't wait to see what I'll get back from this .. I'm soooo excited .. a new nap quilt for me :D :D :D

I'm still researching my repo quilt .. i've found a listing and some pictures of actual blocks from that time frame and the blocks that i've seen so far are all in Around the Block which is GREAT! Now I just have to decide on the size .. Altho, I think that's going to be decided more on amount of each fabric that I have and actual block count. With a king size bed as my canvas, I'm sure I can have some fun .. but I'm thinking maybe 10" .. we'll just have to see.

I've let my kitty quilt sit for a few days and I will be working on the fillers for that in the next day or two.

Kyle has a pretty busy schedule for basketball .. he made the school team and has a game tomorrow / today?? (monday) and is in a tournament on tuesday. So i might not get as much quilty time, but i'm going to enjoy watching him play!

A sort of 'eh' day ...

Today was 'eh' day. I spent most of the day doing list mail as I didn't do it the day before. One grea thingis that the fabric to trade all has a new home now .. Judi will be using it for her charity quilts! I get to increase my 1800 repro stash :) This is going to be GREAT!!

I did cut out blocks for the scrappy red swap, but after looking at them I want to be a wee bit more rested before I sew them up. There is a LOT of inset seams, and I don't want to be doing to much frogging on these. I'm using the Cornucopia block from Quilt Mags Stash Blocks page. They have some gorgeous blocks here in various sizes.

I'll sew those up tomorrow and then cut out some more blocks. I checked to see if the blanket i was going to use for batting for kyle's quilt is big enough and it's not. I have some warm and natural batting, but the way he treats quilts, I'm not sure I want to put really good batting in it. I'll have to see what I can dig up. since there's no football this weekend, not sure when i'll be doing the binding on reg's quilt. I have to get used to the fact that it's not going to be on anymore .. there is tennis .. oh wait.. that's over now .. **sigh**

that **D**arn Cat & Sleeping Cat

20 kitty blocks done in all .. WOWOWOWOWOW .. and i'm just about done with the larger blocks. There is one more pp pattern that I want to do .. i wish I could remember where i found this one as I would LOVE to give you all the link - it's a kitty sleeping on window ledge and her tail hanging down .. i'll be doing that block tomorrow .. already have the fabric all picked out for her.

These boys almost gave me a run for my money .. for some reason I wasn't reading the instructions correctly tonite. Good thing I make it a habit to re-read instructions a few times to ensure that I've understood them correctly!! Of course I outsmarted myself as I put the body on the top of the head where the ears go and the ears where the body goes .. this was done on my 'problem child' block.

I just have to share something with you .. of course it's cat related :). I laid out my backing fabric and was going to sit on the floor and play with my kitty puzzle .. suddenly my Pix comes to life; that bloody cat decides he's going to do the kitty prix 500 across my backing fabric and the blocks .. THEN the brat decides he's going to attack my thread on my cone (@@) .. blasted cat .. when he was younger I would call him the Brat Prince as he would attack anything coming out of the printer .. I am pretty sure that ever assignment I handed in was christened with 2 teeth holes in the bottom corner .. Of course Shadow gets into the act too .. she comes and sits on my blocks and meows at me like "what are you playing wtih them for instead of me" CATS!! Those **D**arn CATS!!!!

Updated
I decided not to wait until later to do this block. I'm feeling a strong urge to get started on quilting reg's quilt and I needed / wanted to get the 'big blocks' done for my kitty quilt before I let the layout start to gel in the back of my mind. This took me a good chunk of the morning to do as there was a lot of itty bitty fussy parts. Didn't have to do as much ripping as on the other pp block, but I am only going to do one of these blocks ..anymore and my quilt wouldn't look right; this block just filled the spot i was looking at just perfectly. Maureen (Mobird) Sparrow designed this block - you can get this and other of her blocks at Paper Panache

Plaid cats n schedules

After I finished the 3 blocks above, i quickly cut out and sewed up these next too. These are plaid cats from the Cat's Meow again. I did sew the shoulders on backwards, thank God I didn't do the trim first like I always do. The one thing that Janet Kime does in this book that drives me more than a little bug is use the 'draw a line from corner to corner and sew on this line for your HST'. I really do not like that method, i would rather just cut it and get it over with .. so I cut them first and then sew them on. This time I didn't and i'm sooo glad otherwise I would have been cutting more ..

I'll update the kitty quilt page later today .. I'm just to tired right now and I have to fix oen of the uniform shorts for Reg's Bball team .. kids!!

Watched football and ended up falling asleep during the Giants packers game .. my sleep is so messed up right now .. matter of fact, after being up over 24 hrs, i only slept 5 :| Was up at 2am wide-eyed and busy tailed .. well i'm feelng sleepy now, so will post this super quick and try to get some rest BEFORE the kid gets up and wakes everyone up. But while watching the game, I did do some handquilting on my WC kitty wall hanging.