Outer Space?

The Teddy Bears are now ready to quilt. I will put it aside for awhile until I feel like quilting with a lot of thread changes. This one is quite small (about 25x30 inches) so it won't take long to do.


Meanwhile, I took a hand dyed fabric made from all the leftover bits of dye at the end of a session and cut it into 6.5 inch squares. I chose that size because it's the width of my ruler but also it's big enough to show up the patterns. I had it arranged with the red in the middle but I forgot to take a photo before trying this arrangement. I'll do some more playing around before I sew it together. The big question is, what color should the sashing be? I originally thought I'd use white or off white but maybe black or navy blue would be better. Opinions?

Teddy Bears

Since this is only about 25 inches square it will be a wall hanging, not a quilt, so I decided that it should have the houses all facing the same way. I have put the bears in the middle with green around to represent woods. I found a little piece with dragon flies that I really wanted to use but didn't have enough of it. The words will probably say Teddy Bears Picnic unless I come up with something better.

Blue Bear Houses

When I looked closer at my bear fabric, there were, in fact, bears having a picnic on it. If I put it in the middle I could easily call the piece Teddy Bears' Picnic. (BTW, where should the apostrophe go? Is it the picnic of one bear or all of the bears?) I don't know if I like the arrangement though. It is a bit confusing although it could be hung any way, but is that a plus or not?


This piece was kind of boring so I over-dyed it with the leftovers of my last session. I like it much better now.

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.

Blue Bear Houses

I found a piece of fabric that has blue bears on it and thought it might be an interesting change after all the cats. Yesterday I sorted my scraps into colors. For this quilt I took out only the red/pink and the blue/green bags. I am trying to think of a more interesting way to arrange them than in rows as I did the last two.