Graduation

This week my grandsons, Sky and Free graduated from grade 12. Here they are with their sister, Summer and cousin, Ariana who were escorts. It seems like yesterday that these four were tiny tots . Summer and Ariana will have their turn next year. Congratulations boys.

Cats

Due to various birthdays, graduations etc, I haven't been spending much time in my studio lately, but today I finally got some piecing done. I decided that the quote for this quilt will be "A home is defined by the presence of cats". The original quote used civilization instead of home, but I wanted a more personal tone. I'm not sure that there is quite enough contrast between the letters and the background but I think it will be legible. I could up the contrast with quilting or embellishing with embroidery thread when I'm done if it is hard to read.

Design Piece

This is another exercise from Intuitive Color and Design by Jean Wells.
I suppose this will end up as another pillow top unless I decide to make it a wall hanging. Maybe it's time for some more embellishing...

Basket/Bag

I thought the basket the my granddaughters gave me for my birthday was cute enough to become a purse, so today I made a liner for it.


The inside has a couple of pockets and velcro to close it. The liner looks blue in the photo but it's actually more purple.

Birthday Gifts

Today is my birthday so we had lunch with some friends and then I picked out my own gift. (That's the best way to ensure that you get what you like.) I have wanted a pressure cooker for awhile now so that's what I chose. Now to learn how to use it without taking my head off.


My granddaughters do know exactly what I like though. They put together a basket of my favorite things and they know me well! Gardening gloves, gin and tonic for later and a road map because I love road trips. I'm going to make a nice liner with a drawstring for the basket and use it for a purse. Maybe I'll make several liners and then I'll have more than one purse.
Thanks a lot Sacha, Ariana and Micha!

Practise Piece

Awhile ago I bought Intuitive Color and Design by Jean Wells.
Today I tried the first project which was piecing soft curves. When I had finished the square I thought it needed something else so I inserted the tree shapes since the colors were supposed to indicate earth and sky. The big branch on the left turned out a bit too big so I added another tree. I'm not totally satisfied with it but it was an interesting exercise in color and curved piecing.
I liked it enough to make it into a pillow top.

Done, Done and Done!

I spent a lot of time in the last two days sewing down the bindings on these three quilts. It's nice to have three finishes.

Prize

Today I received these two beautiful fabrics in the mail from Lisa at Upstatelisa. I won a draw on her blog awhile ago. I'm pretty sure that if I went through her stash I would have picked these two fabrics since I have a collection of black and white fabrics, not to mention my collection of fabrics with circles, that I enjoy augmenting whenever I can. Right on two counts!
Thanks a million, Lisa.

Building Houses

Today I made two more cat houses. Now I get to the place where I wonder how to put them all together, what words to use, what other things like trees or flowers that I need to make.
While debating all this, I finished quilting The Teddy Bears' Picnic and most of the Dancing Stars quilts. I had to quit with the Dancing Stars because I ran out of thread with about three inches to go. I'll get thread tomorrow in town and it will only take a few minutes to finish.
Now I have three quilts sitting there waiting to have their bindings hand sewn down. Time to rent a couple of movies I guess.

How to Relax

This is so relaxing after the precision and planning that went into the One Block Wonder. No points to match, no precise seams to sew, no worries about bias seams...in other words, anything goes.
I am going to make some words to go with these houses but haven't decided what yet. Maybe Cheeky Cats...
Any ideas?

It Only Took an Hour

The repair went much faster than I thought it would. This one is far from perfect but I think that once it's quilted it will be better.



Now all the light is hitting the boxes in the same place. The bottom left box was upside down before.
I'm really glad I bit the bullet and fixed it. Now I have to find some backing.

The Other Mistake

This is the other mistake that I discovered after it was all put together. The dark blue should form a U shape and the yellow triangle should be against the gray. Sigh. It's going to be quite a project to correct it but I will give it a try today. If it messes up too much there will be some appliqued flowers appearing here and there, especially there.
Oh no! I just found another even worse mistake on the boxes! I can see that my work is cut out for me for the next few days.

Together at Last, But I Need a Fish

This one is finally pieced together. There must be a thousand short little seams in this quilt and quite a few long ones with points to match. Thank goodness for Elmer's School Glue. I do need a fish to cover up the mistake in the box below.


I am undecided about taking this section apart and trying again. The two reasons are: glue and bias seams. I'm afraid that by the time I pull the glue apart it will be stretched out and even worse than it is now. If I wet the seam well the glue should disappear though so maybe it's worth one try. I'll think about it tonight and see how I feel about it in the morning.
My question is whether it is finished or not. It is about 67inches by 65 and I have no idea how it ended up such an odd measurement. I'm pretty sure it should actually be square. I'm wondering if it needs another border. I have no more of the gray but maybe a pink border or perhaps a wide border of the original fabric? I'll be doing some auditioning tomorrow.

Thrifty Tuesday

This was my score for today. All it lacks is the peel but I have one of those. All of this for $12.
Do I really need any of this? Not really but it was too good a deal to pass up. I don't have the cheese grater or the shakers or the serving utensil and my pizza wheel is much smaller. I can also use a second stone when I want to bake flat breads. Then I'll be able to do more at once.