Kristin LaFlamme: NW Quilt Guild Speaker

Tonight, Kristin LaFlamme is going to be the speaker for the NW Quilt Guild. I am hoping that she is going to bring Zeitgeist--a quilt of the likeness of Grumpy Cat that she made in response to the national feelings at the time. She made this quite a while ago--during a warmer, fuzzier time.

I originally saw this quilt in Charlottesville...when Kristin moved there. I regretted not stealing it at the time. So if you don't hear from me for a while, you'll know that this quilt and I are on the lam. Buddy thought I said lamb...so he said yum!

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Winding Spools

Add thirty more spools to the pile...and oh yeah, first deduct two because they were duplicates of fabrics I had already used. Tomorrow is the quilt guild, so I also made three quilt backs for their donation quilts. As I write this, Molly is squirreling around the kitchen cabinets. I think she is trying to reprise her feline magician act of disappearing under the stove.

And for those of you with a medical inclination, here is a catscan of Tommy. I tried to take a catscan of Molly today, but she wasn't having it. Darla and Alfalfa over at Crazy by Design made a fuss over Molly's bloomers, and I thought Tommy's catscan could also serve as a rebuttal, so to speak. And please don't forget that Tommy had his own blog where he gave fashion commentary/advice to shelter cats.

Buddy is just chillin' on batting remnants. After the big reorganization of the sewing room last week, I put it back the way it was. Molly enjoyed riding around on the furniture as I pushed it around. To be extra helpful, sometimes she rode piggyback.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Green pinwheels

As we head into the last months of the year, I'm looking for RSC projects that I can finish this year...and so I unearthed Pinwheel Garden. It has a few green blocks, but none that were a nice dark green. So I added these six blocks. For other dark leafy green patchwork, don't forget to visit the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge.

I started with the scrap basket. Each pinwheel garden block requires a 3.5 by 4.5 rectangle and a 2 by 10 inch strip. I only found a few scraps that were large enough so I looked through some of my ancient fabric.

But sometimes danger lurks beneath larger hunks of fabric.

Oh nevermind. It's just Molly being adorable.

Here's Buddy under the table pretending to be a cat but looking more like a very large loaf of bread.

As I made the pinwheel garden blocks, I also made spools as leaders and enders. These are the tiny ones that finish at 1.5 inches.

Here they are close up.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Spool Factory Reopens

I finally got back in the spool business. However, I have been cutting all the scraps down into the spool parts...first I try to cut the parts of the 3 inch spools, then I try for the medium size spools, and then the 1.5 inch spools. I keep thinking I will get to the sewing part, but the end days before anything is sewn.

Many of these fabrics are the scraps from the Stitchin' Post and they definitely have a more modern (bright) feel than most of the fabrics I've used so far.

This brings the count of spools to about 600...so only 120 more to go.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Quilted Bunnies

I haven't posted recently because I have been hand quilting the Bunny Hop quilt, and showing the progress of hand quilting is a bit like watching paint dry...except slower. Along the way, I have been fighting with Molly because she loves this quilt. It has a wool batting. Unfortunately, many of its plaids are woven fabrics and cat claws and wovens don't mix well.

And yes, Molly is miffed that I took a picture of her rear quarters and/or don't appreciate her digging her claws into this quilt. She will be even less pleased to find out I posted it.

And there is the border I added. Once I sew a new label on the back, it will be ready to be shipped to the Pacific International Quilt Show in Santa Clara, CA. It is going along with Pigs in a Blanket. I also have plans to go to the show so I can see Faberdashery's Nearly Insane quilt. Her quilt is part of a special exhibit and puts the International into this particular quilt show.

And here are the medium sized spools I haven't been making while I am hand quilting.

 I have been processing two bundles of scraps I picked up at the NW Quilt Expo. These were remnant bits and strips packaged by the Stitchin' Post. Some of the strips were very thin and I could barely pull one inch sections out of them for the smallest spools and loonie log cabins. After cutting out various size spools, I cut down the rest to go into my current Spiderweb quilt.

Buddy loves the scrap bundles because I dump them on the floor so he can slide into them as he chases his laser mouse. Today he stole my sewing machine brush (for cleaning out lint) and tried to take it to his toy hoard under the bed. You might notice that there is a toy wool mouse behind him (just left of his head). He does not acknowledge that as a toy. When I throw it, he will run after it, but when he gets to it, he looks back at me, affronted. 

reade more... Résuméabuiyad