I Promised Pictures

And here they are!

This is Kendrick's Big Boy Quilt. I finished this about a month ago and just can't get motivated to get the label on it. I think it turned out pretty well.
Here is a close-up of the quilting. As you can see, I used a variegated blue thread and did a simple cross-hatch design over the whole quilt. I did outline the half dresdens at the top, though. I have decided that machine quilting is not for me. The nieces and nephews will get it for their little kid quilts, but as soon as they're old enough to respect them, I'll be switching to hand-quilted ones for them, too. Just too much angst involved in the machine quilting for me.

And what is this stack of muslin you might ask? Well, it's 388 6-inch blocks, to be exact! I've gotten all the muslin blocks for my version of the Delft Tile Quilt all cut and ready to have the patterns traced on them. Wow, that's quite a stack!

Here's another little thing I did this summer. I saw it on another blog and thought it was a great idea, so spent an evening painting my wooden needle tubes. I only had three. I think they're really cute :)

And last, but not least, DH and I spent a lot of time this summer growing a little garden. We don't have a lot of real estate on our property, so we needed to keep the garden small - it's about 4 ft X 8 ft. We have rabbits so DH made this little fence for it. It was pretty effective, too! We grew sweet corn, string beans, carrots and beets. I wanted to pickle the beets, but there weren't enough :( The carrots we gave to our neighbor. The corn came out mushy - we don't know if it was overripe when we picked it, if it didn't get enough water throughout the summer, or if it got too much water. We'll try again next year. The beans were a big success, though. Oh! And I planted 4 tomato plants in containers. Those have been doing great, too.

It's Been a While..

Hey everyone. I know, it's been almost 2 months since I've been here, I'm sorry about that. I didn't intend to be gone so long, it's been a busy summer.

You all know I got a new nephew in June that was born 8 weeks early. I've been helping my sister anytime she needs help, which was a lot in the beginning. She's getting used to things now, so my help isn't needed nearly as much. But I'm still at her house about once a week, which is a lot less than the 3-4 times a week that I was over there when they first came home. Greyson is doing great :) He's a healthy little boy that is now over 8 pounds. He still doesn't have that chubby look that new babies have, but he's definitely a cutey. He got our grandpa's big ears - I hope he grows into them soon. He got off his lung/heart monitor a couple of weeks ago. He only had one true alarm after they brought him home, so after being on it for 4 weeks (I think), the doctors decided it was time for him to be off it. This makes things much easier for my sister.

We also got fleas this summer. We've had animals since the first month we moved in together over 15 years ago, and this is the first time we've ever had fleas. I blame the fact that I'm still jobless and we let Pips' flea regime lag a bit this summer. It was a stupid thing to let slide, as now we have to spend the money to get rid of the things. Flea treatments and flea shampoo isn't cheap. So, this week, I'll be buying all the goodies and all the cats get a flee shampoo - I'm sure they'll just love it - NOT!

I have been getting some things done in the quilting/stitching front. Unfortunately, I don't know where DH put the camera cord, so I can't share pictures right now. I will post some as soon as he tells me where he put it.

I managed to get Kendrick's Big Boy Quilt finished this summer. I machine quilted it (first time for me). I can't say as I enjoy machine quilting - I had to force myself to sit down at the machine each day and do at least one line of stitching before I'd let myself do anything else. It eventually got finished - but I realize now that I am a hand quilter, through and through. I decided this quilt needed machine quilting, though, as it's going to a 2 year old - and it'll be through the washer/dryer more times than I care to imagine. At least it'll last a bit longer this way. I just need to get the label sewn on the back and get it delivered before any more time passes...

I also started work on a new project. I've designed a new layout for the Delft Tile Quilt that calls for 388 applique blocks - so I spent some time this summer getting all the muslin blocks cut out. I'm slowly cutting out the green fabrics that I will be appliqueing the muslin to. As well as getting the designs traced onto the muslin. I haven't actually started the applique yet, but it's getting there.

I also pulled out my tiny hexagon quilt. The quilt isn't tiny, the hexagons are. It's still at the stage where it's a good travel project, so I've been taking it with my when I go out and about this summer. Everywhere I go, I get people telling me I'm crazy for making it. But I love it and I'm sure I'll be working on it for a long time yet.

I also started Teresa Wentzler's Unicorn this past week. I had all the supplies kitted already, as well as having the fabric gridded. All I needed were working copies of the pattern and I was good to go. It's been going pretty quickly so far, but then again, I've been able to work on it about 8 hours a day for a week now. I guess anything would move fairly quickly with that much time put into it.

Ok, I think I'll wrap things up for this post. I promise pictures next time.

The Quilting is Finished!!

I just finished all the quilting on DNephew's quilt!! It's definitely time to celebrate - I hated that machine quilting!

Now to get the binding strips sewn together and then onto the quilt so I can get it done done! I'll post a picture when I hit that stage...Time to start thinking about the label :)

Update on the kitties - Tiger is doing pretty poorly now. She isn't eating much anymore - we expect to lose her any day now :(

Felix took off out the front door on Thursday afternoon and we haven't seen him since. I'm going to the animal shelter tomorrow, hoping somehow he ended up there. It's not been a good weekend around here on the animal front :(

Life Around here Lately..

Life has been pretty eventful around here lately. I turned another year older at the beginning of the month, and DNephew did, too. We had a sweet little birthday party together - he got to take home the bulk of the haul. But, he turned 2, so it makes sense :)

I didn't manage to get his quilt done for the party. In fact, it's still not done yet, but I am working on it every day. And yesterday I learned that my sewing machine is designed to save my life in the case of a catastrophe! Yay! I replaced a blunt needle when I sat down at the machine yesterday, and apparently I didn't tighten the screw that holds the needle in place well enough. About 2 lines of sewing later, the machine blew up at me - well, that's what it seemed like anyway - because the needle fell out of it's assigned place and the machine made a lot of nasty sounds before I could get my foot of the peddle. So, after I settled myself and the dog down a bit, I started looking things over. Apparently, when something like this happens, the button to disengage the needle arm (you know, you hit this when you're winding bobbins) flicks automatically! Yay Singer! I was so impressed with this little detail and how they saved my life - or at least an eye ;)

So, I replaced that needle to find that the new needle was a dull one to begin with. Ugh. That was enough excitement at the machine for me. Time to go back to my hand work :)

And what have I been working on lately, you might ask? Well, 2 things, actually. One is a new knitted afghan that I've fallen in love with. You can see a pic of it here (it's episode 219 and is the green afghan). It's a challenging pattern for me, being a new knitter and all, but I love it. I can do all the stitches, which is a major hurdle for me, and I'm loving watching the pattern develop. I also love the feel of the knitted fabric. I grew up with crocheted afghans all over the house (Mom is a master crocheter) and this is a very different feel. DH has proclaimed he likes it, too :)

The other project is a hexagon quilt I started about 6 years ago. I had just finished a queen-sized hexagon quilt that was scrappy, (I'm still quilting that one, by the way) and wanted to downsize the size of the hexagons drastically. The first quilt has hexagons that are about 4 inches on a side. This new quilt has hexagons that are 1 inch on a side. I spent months designing the layout of the quilt and have the bottom border done at this point. This is one of those projects that I work on like crazy for a month or so, then don't touch it for a year - which explains why I have only a bottom border done in 6 years. Well, anyway, I've been working on it again and loving it. It's especially good to work on while listening to a book on tape. I'll get pics for you next time I post about it.

The last thing I'm going to talk about today is the new arrival to our yard yesterday. Two of our five cats are indoor/outdoor cats. One is allowed to be this way, the other is an escape artist. So, yesterday they are both outside (it was gorgeous and sunny) and when DH got home from work, we notice Felix is stalking something across the road (he's not allowed across the road), so we start yelling and hollering at him to stop whatever he's doing and get back in the yard. He complies, and we then notice that there is a baby bunny across the street from our house - so cute and so tiny! He wasn't even tall enough to have his ears top the curb. Ok, so all is well, we go inside and proceed with our evening of dinner and TV and knitting ;)

Fast forward to 11:00 and we start to hear this screaming outside. Well, Mookie, the other kitty, is still outside. Guess what she found? The baby bunny was in our backyard and Mookie was playing with it. Luckily, I got out there fast enough to break them up, but that bunny was petrified. Mookie went back inside and the bunny hopped over to the neighbor's yard...but now I have to contend with kitties that want to go outside and can't so we can save a baby bunnies life. Ahhh, life in the city. The things you never expect to see. It reminds me of the possum we saw waddling down the street a couple of weeks ago...

Long Time...

Ok, I admit, I've been missing in action for a while....lots of stuff happening behind the scenes that just isn't fun, so we'll ignore all that for now.

I've been working on DNephew's quilt for some time now. I spent a day at Mom's new apartment getting it basted - Thanks for the help Mom! - and have been attempting to quilt it by machine. For all of you ladies out there that do this frequently, what's the trick? I am having the hardest time getting this done! I've managed to get the main lines quilted - horizontal and vertical - and am now attempting to do all the diagonals. There was a slight hiccup when I realized my chalk pencils just weren't cutting it and I had to make a pitstop at the local quilt shop to see what they had for chalk markers, but other than that, I've been working on it a little bit each day. And that's about all I can do! I sit at the machine shaking because I'm terrified I'm going to really mess this quilt up. I am not a machine lover - give me handwork anyday - so I know that's part of it. And this is my first time attempting machine quilting - I understand it's not easy at first. But the anxiety I'm feeling is unreal! I have to force myself to sit down each day and do at least one line. When I finish with that, I jump up and run to my comfy chair and my handwork project and attempt to control my hyperventilating.....it's crazy.

So, needless to say, DNephew won't be receiving his Big-Boy quilt at his birthday party this Saturday. I thought 3 weeks was enough to get it quilted and bound, but it just isn't happening. Sorry buddy! He'll get it soon, though, I promise!