How I Spent My Morning

The MCC (Mennonite Central Committee) is requesting quilts for Haiti. They want 60x80 inch or 82x90 inch sizes. I went through my pile of quilts and found a few that fit those requirements. I had a piece of that dandelion fabric (is it dandelions?) and started putting a new one together. The problem is that so far it's turning out too small. I don't have any more of the flower fabric so I'll have to keep adding borders until it's large enough. Unfortunately I'm also out of the dark green. I think I'll put one more border before the brown but I'll have to go through my stash and see if there is anything of a suitable colour.


I finished quilting Kitty Corner and sewed on the binding. Now I just have to hand sew it down.


I had to piece the back but I really like the look of the strip down the middle.

School

I have been quilting away at Kitty Corner today. I particularly like how the shingles turned out on the school.

More Houses

Today I started quilting Kitty Corner. I am doing the sky in vaguely cloud patterns. This area is not the best example because the design works better in an open area. The snow is loopy and the roofs are stitched to look like shingles. It's fun quilting but involves a lot of thread changes to match the colors of the area I'm working on. The bobbin thread is all black because the backing is black. It will take me a few more days because I can only do a bit at a time before I get sore eyes. I'm thinking I need a magnifier that fits on my sewing machine. I read about one on a blog and need to do some research.


A few more bears have moved into the neighborhood and some trees have grown up overnight. Amazing. The tree on the lower left is fused. The rest are pieced.
I thought this was my 999th post but it turns out it's the 1000th. Stay tuned tomorrow for a give-away.

Town Planner at Work

The new town planner was hard at work today. The houses are sewn into rows but the rows are not sewn together. I may do some more arranging yet. I am thinking of leaving off "Winter At" because that is pretty obvious. I also think it looks better with only the two words.

Kitty Corner Gets a Town Planner

This morning I made a skating rink for Kitty Corner. Every Canadian small town has a skating rink. I should probably make a curling rink too but I'm not sure how large I want this town to become.



Here is the town with the rink so you can see the scale.
And in this news break, my application for Kitty Corner town planner was accepted so now it's official. I am the new town planner. I hope I am up to the job. I did have to lie about my previous experience but luckily, they didn't check very closely.

I Need a Town Planner!

Here is the Kitty Corner Store. Every village needs a Corner Store.


Here is the school which is right beside the store at the moment. That may change. The flag is not finished. I was trying to see what size looked best. Thank goodness the Canadian flag is very simple because I didn't find a small one today so it looks like I'll be making one.



Here is the whole village so far. My favorite house might be the one in the top row, second from the left. That fabric looks exactly like a log cabin.

Kitty Corner Grows

More and more cats are moving to Kitty Corner. Vacant lots are getting scarce. I think somebody will have to open up a store and school.

Kitty Corner

I am debating the idea of a red border between the houses and the words. I am also wondering if there should be something between the rows of houses, or should I make them all face a center square? I'll make a few more and try that. Now I'm wishing I had used all the same snow fabric. Maybe there are two or three quilts here...
This is my 970th post. I'll soon have to start thinking of a blog draw to celebrate 1000. Time flies when you are having fun!

Kitty Corner

Today I made some words for Kitty Corner. I ran out of the fabric behind winter and at. I am pretty sure I have more of it but I just can't find it so I made Kitty with a different background. I still have to make Corner. I am a bit at a loss as to how to arrange the houses. If I make two rows it looks a bit odd to have snow, sky and then more snow. I have previously done some houses in a square with writing in the middle. Or with a dark line between the rows of houses as I did on the last Kitty Corner.
I want the words to go around the corner (kitty corner) on this one so having the words in the middle is not really an option. If I put the houses in a square what would I put in the middle? Should Winter At be on the bottom or does it look better going around the corner. Maybe it will be more clear once Corner is done.
Is that too many questions?

Repair Job

Here is an ugly repair job. Plus there were four of them to do. Both of us have worn holes in the heels of our snow boot liners. I thought I'd try to repair them before investing a lot of money in new ones. I stuffed each hole with wool batting and then glued on a leather patch.


It looks a lot better now but it all depends on the strength of the fabric glue I used. I had to put a patch on the inside of two of the liners because they were worn right through. I don't have high hopes of those patches staying on.



For my own pleasure I made a few more kitty houses. I will make words saying Kitty Corner Winter or Kitty Corner in Winter or Winter at Kitty Corner. I'm not sure what color the words will be but I think I'll use the swirly dots for the background. I made all the windows bright yellow to give a feeling of warmth and homeyness. I like to imagine that there is hot chocolate or eggnog brewing in each of the houses.

Quilting the Cats

I think a lot of you follow the blog 365 Days of Free Motion Quilting Filler Designs.
I thought that this quilt would be perfect to try out some of her ideas. You can't really see the one on the brown border outside the rick rack but it is from Day 30 and is called Trailing Tears. It's very nice for a narrow border but it was difficult to see what I was doing on the dark color. That's why I didn't use it on the brown area inside the rick rack.


This one is called Hardwood Floor but it looked fine as a house wall. Maybe I should have made it go crossways. I'll try that on the next house.


The walls of this house are done with Tree Bark and the roof is Checkerboard from Day 19. The sky is done with a cloud pattern that I have used often on my skies.
I can see that I need to do a lot of work on accuracy. I also have a bit of a problem seeing where I am going with the FM foot that came with my machine. I may have to look for a more open one or try to alter this one.

Kitty Corner

Here is Kitty Corner all sewn together. I bought the rainbow rickrack awhile ago and thought it just suited this piece. When I was done there was less than a quarter of an inch left over. That was a close call! The picture is a bit faded because I had to use the flash. It's overcast and raining a bit here right now.
This one was so much fun that I think I'll start another one.

Three Options

Here it is with the words at the bottom.



One word at the top and the other at the bottom.


Words in the middle. I might have to make three more houses if I use this option. Right now I am leaning toward the first one with the words at the bottom. Of course, there are hundreds of other arrangements that would look fine.
Any opinions out there?