Quilting Again!

I did a bit more work on my latest cat quilt today. I finished the letters for the quote. In the last word I've worked in some cats. Now I have to decide what fabric to use to join all the pieces together.

Canda Day

For Canada Day I made Chinese food using the Sun Lee Cookbook. I now have a new respect for Chinese restaurant cooks! Timing is everything. I had to make lists and notes. Lots of chopping ahead of time and lots of last minute stir-frying. Good thing I had a some help. My favorite was probably the lemon chicken or maybe the Peking Duck.

In the picture above, Peking Duck with scallion pancakes
Lemon Chicken, Spicy Bean Curd, Cold Sesame Noodles, Bean Curd Salad, Ribs Wuxi Style, Orange Beef, Broccoli with Garlic Sauce and Rice. Oops, the rice wasn't on the table yet.

Our eldest granddaughter (far left) just got home from Halifax and was able to be here for July 1st. These are four sisters. Aren't they fabulous!

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.

Vegetarian Feast

Every couple of months a group of us get together and make a feast with a theme chosen by the host . Each person picks a couple of recipes from the chosen cookbook and then we get together and eat, eat, eat. This time the theme was vegetarian using one of the Moosewood cookbooks. The picture above shows some of the food but none of the desserts are shown here. By the time dessert rolled around nobody had energy left to get up and take a photo. This was a truly amazing meal with lots of different salads. The round yellow loaf at the back is gluten free bread and was totally amazing. The cold beet borscht was to die for. The cubed baked tofu would convert the most anti-tofu person. Center front is a cabbage-mango slaw, also amazing. I contributed knoephela soup and my lemon pie which are not in the cookbook but everyone wanted to try. It's going to be hard to top this one!

Changes

I didn't really like the black border so yesterday I dyed some mottled gray fabric and I like it much better. The first four strips are sewn into two double strips. I am using Elmer's School Glue instead of pins. So far, so good.

Gifts

My daughter in law recently visited her parents in Japan and brought this gorgeous piece of fabric back for me. It is not only has a beautiful design but also a very interesting texture that you never find on fabrics here. It will be awhile before I'm brave enough to cut into this one!


My twin grandsons turned 18 on Thursday. That is a big milestone here because it is the legal drinking age. They had a family party yesterday and, as requested, I made lemon pie instead of cake. I found a new recipe and it turned out great. I'll be making more of them soon.

It Looked Fine From the Front...

Hint: If the machine sounds a bit off, it probably is.

Getting There

The One Block Wonder, at this stage, is a bit boring. Lots of short bias seams to sew. I have eight of the thirteen rows assembled. For a bit of light relief, I have loaded the Teddy Bears on the frame and will spend part of my time doing some creative doodling on it.


I'm thinking the black border will have to go. Maybe a gray similar to the medium value on the boxes would work better. I'll have to dye some though, because I don't have enough left of that piece.

Thrifty Day

These were my two best finds at the thrift store today. I love the square sushi plate. I don't know if I'll use the chocolate fondue set or give it away. It looks like it has never been used. maybe it's time for a fondue party.

First Row

I got the first row sewn together this weekend but that's about all I got done. It was finally nice outside so I decided to enjoy the outdoors. I sewed the first full patterned row because I'm not entirely sure I like the black for the border. There are many, many more seams to sew before this one is done.

Swimming Fish

One picture was too dark and one was too light so I went with the lighter one. The fish are fused on and now I'll go around them with gold thread since they are all outlined with gold. I just realized that the whole thing is far from square so I'll have to trim the right side off quite a lot. I'm still bothered by the bottom of the middle box. Maybe a flower or something there?

Help From Some Fish

I am going to hide the worst of my mistakes behind these cute fish. I'll back them with fusible interfacing and then hopefully, insert one end in the seam and handstitch the rest down. Maybe even a tiny bit of batting to make them puff out would be nice. The other method would be to fuse them. I'll see how turning the first fish works before I decide which method to use.

Sewing Multiple Boxes is Frustrating

The last strip on each side is not sewn on yet. There is a mistake on the lower corner of the middle box. The gray is too wide. There should be a small dark triangle there. The seams don't match very well. I may have to applique a lot of flowers or beads on it to cover the worst mistakes. It has been interesting but a bit like Paula Nadelstern's technique, it's just not me.

Tie Dye Shirts

My friend Jenn and I did some dyeing today. These are the best results.

Open Boxes Again

Sorry this picture is a bit blurry but it's cold and wet outside and I don't feel like trekking back to the studio to take a better one. I thought I'd use this piece for a bag but it's getting huge. It covers the whole middle of my ironing board and it's not done yet. It will match a bit better when it's sewn together but I may go back and re-do a couple of the first pieces that didn't fit properly. There are also some light spots on the green fabric that need to be colored or changed. I'll see if I have any paintsticks or markers that match.

Open Boxes

I have designed some open boxes using the method from One Block Wonders. The designing was difficult enough but sewing them is even harder. My seams are far from perfect (ever try matching angled seams?) but I'm not going back to re-cut them. I am looking on this one as a total practice piece. Hopefully, I'll get it all figured out and do a better job on the next one. If there is a next one...

Values

Here I have arranged it with the lights in the upper left corner to match the light on the boxes. I can already see some red ones on the left that have to be moved up higher. Then when you move a couple of them, some more look out of place...



This is the black and white version so I can check on the values. It's very hard, with such a busy pattern, to tell which blocks are darker and which are lighter. I want to make some more boxes to spill out into the border.
This is the second of many versions.

A New Layout

This is the latest arrangement. I put most of the boxes in the middle with lights around them and darks toward the edges. Then I saw that there was a hole in the upper left corner so I made some more boxes. I'm going to try darks near the boxes to make them more subtle. Then I'll try darks to one side and lights on the other. So many possibilities. I'll probably make some more boxes too, just because they are fun to do. I have some triangle graph paper to design some of my own ideas for boxes.

More Boxes

This morning I made some more complex boxes. I'll make a few more and then try to figure out how to integrate them into the overall design. I'll probably take down all the hexagons, sort them into colors and then start with the boxes first. This is the part I like the best.

Cheese

I have been experimenting with home-made cheese and yesterday I made Quark. Today I mixed in some extra ingredients. They are, from left to right, Ancho Chile cheese, Guajillo Chile cheese and herb cheese. They are all quite tasty. I think the chile cheeses may get stronger as they age a bit. I guess I need to make some crackers to go with them.

Thrift Shop Find

This is a set of tube turners. Apparently they can be used to turn tubes of fabric. They could come in handy for making purse handles or flower stems for appliques (not that I ever applique, but I can never resist a gadget). Judging from the instruction book I think this set has been sitting around in someone's sewing room for quite awhile.

Hexagons are Done

I have done all the hexagons and made a couple of boxes. The next task will be to make some more boxes and then start re-arranging the hexagons. I have to decide if I want it light in the middle and dark at the edges or to shade from light to dark, side to side. Or I could go for something completely different. Now the fun begins.

Hexagons

I have been sewing hexagons. I have about thirty more to go and then I want to make some boxes to put among them.

Quilt Show

Sorry this picture is a bit blurry but it's the only one I have of one of my favorite quilts in the show. I love the different blues and I have always been a fan of black and white. It is done in three pieces so it looks like curtains over a window. It was made by Marilyn Stuart Stothers who is the featured quilter this year. The one below that is cut off in the photo is also hers.