Feline Friday - 10/20/17

Last Friday Momma had a sew day at her house with her friend Cathy.

Can you believe they took up all the table space?
No space left for me!!
Auntie Cathy used the right paw table - where the snacks were handy!
Momma spread her zipper bag parts on the left paw table.

I helped Momma sew...of course!

Aren't I helpful to keep her chair warm?

Don't worry, I let her sit on the chair too - that's her red sweatshirt.

I can't wait until the next sew day. Auntie Cathy wants to learn how to make Seminole Quilts.

An InLinkz Link-up

Cat Braids

This little quilt has been on my design wall forever. You think I'm joking, I can tell.

I was gifted the cat panel (about 10x10.5") for Christmas 2008 and I stuck in on the far side of the Design Wall waiting for inspiration. Last year I finally decided to copy the braids of the panel as the border and was lucky enough to find the right colors at the LQS.

At some point I posted a pic of the 4 braids and the panel and asked for public opinion. Erin (a non-quilter at the time) told me that it needed a brown border, colored similar to the cat, but the quilt stayed on the design wall for months.  This past weekend I finally decided it was time to finish this little gem and I agree that it's much better even tho the brown isn't a perfect match.

My question for y'all now is how to draw this up in EQ??!! I tried for a while and finally just used graph paper to figure out measurements because I couldn't find a non-overcomplicated way to do the partial borders. TIA!

And, thanks to a great tip from Janet, I was able to finish a second TATW block in record time. I still think it's fiddly to sew together, cut it, frog it and sew it back together (I know how the Hawaiians felt) but I think it's looking good and will continue to make more blocks.

Janet's tip? Lay out the tubes ahead of time so that the seam you need to frog is at the top (or pick any side) of the layout and then just frog away...no having to *remember* which one you just did. I know, you would think I could remember during the 5 seconds it takes to frog...but I can't and that's that!

Squishy surprise!!!

We interrupt today's regularly scheduled UFO Thursday post to share a little surprise I received today!!

I don't get to pick up my mail super often - there is no delivery to my end of the street so I have a PO box that I only get to once or twice a week and only if I leave for work early enough. I almost didn't make it this morning but I was surprised to find a very pretty squishy in the little box.

Denise and I talk tea sometimes...especially when the newest Tea Time magazine comes out and I am biting at the bit to borrow the library's copy. Recently Denise shared that she was sipping pumpkin spice tea and I told her it sounded yummy.

Can you guess what was in my squishy??!! A golden package of Pumpkin Spice tea from Emma's Tea Room and a note card that is perfect because sewing IS my therapy. I can't wait to get home and brew some. This cool weather is perfect for sipping a cup of tea in my favorite teacup tonight :)

Thanks Denise!!!! You really made my day!

For Cheryl

Hi Cheryl - glad to see your comment yesterday - glad you understood my directions. Now we need to get you to sign in with your Google account so I can write back or you just need to get your email to me somehow.

Cya soon

Design Wall Monday

Yesterday Noel, her MIL and I went to the Quilt Festival held at RIT in Rochester, NY. There were over 600 quilts exhibited plus several travelling challenges and 40 vendors. You know I made a couple purchases, right?!
I'll try to show some of my photos later this week...

My first purchase of the day was this tumbler kit to make the flag quilt shown below. I was going to start it last night but I haven't decided where to hang it yet. I'll have to decide where to hang it before I can start sewing because I'll need to move the star field to the left if it will hang vertically..

.

This cute pack of Fat 1/8 shirtings will go towards my Civil War Quilts. The same lady that was selling these was working on a honeycomb project. It was nice to see another project and her fabric selections were gorgeous. She bastes her pieces, one at a time, thru the papers and puts them into tiny, stackable plastic boxes before she puts the blocks together. She had quite a few basted already. Think I might have to get me some honeycomb pieces!!!

My last purchase of the day (only because it took so long to find any black fabric) was this black batik to use as the sashing between my hexie diamonds. For all the other quilts I have seen online using this layout, they all have a fairly neutral sashing. I am using every color available for the diamonds (they aren't all quite this bright) so Noel and I thought the black would set them off better. I do believe she is right! This is more of a blueish black but I do like it. I'll get some of this cut and start to put together some of my diamonds so I can reuse those hexie papers.

I also purchased a few other small items: two quilting stencils, hexagon charm to add to my scissor fob and smoke colored clear thread and black tulle for my housing project.

Chalk Fest Bags

Kim cuts thru piles of donated jeans

This July is the 5th Annual Perry Chalk Art Festival in downtown Perry. For the three years that I have been involved with the planning committee, I have been working with Kim and Felisa to make denim bags out of discarded blue jeans. Their daughters help with the bag painting but they were at college this year so Kim also lent her painting skills to the mix.

For the last 2 Saturdays the girls have met at my house to work on the bags. Remember that I said these are discarded jeans - some have stains and others have holes in various places but then there are also the frayed seams that lend a "rustic" touch.

wouldn't they also make neat catchalls?

We cut strips from the legs, make a box seam at the bottom, add a cuff or use the frayed seam and had a ribbon or cord for a handle. Our chalk dude logo and "Chalk Perry" is added with fabric paint. Later we will stuff these with chalk and other supplies for our artists to use during the festival. Leftover denim parts are being saved this year so we can create some other items for sale.

I have no idea what my giggles were about here...

It's hard to be serious when you're having fun: we broke out a bottle of dry Riesling and there were frosted brownies and rhubarb upside down cake for later!

phooey - Felisa smeared it

UFO Thursday

I was a naughtly little girl. I didn't finish my #1 UFO this month for the Challenge.

• I finished my quilted jacket that was started almost 3 years ago
• I worked on strips and blocks for my Omigosh quilt, a lonterm project
• I made half square triangles for my rollRollCottonBoll mystery quilt that was started last year
• I worked on cutting brown and gold strips towards my sweetPotatoPie that I started 3+ years ago
• I started and completed the top of a hexie doll quilt to use for National Quilting Day Weekend activities at the LQS
• I finally started the hexie project to replicate the bathroom tile floor at work. Have wanted to do this for almost 3 years
• I started another hexie project that will be considered longterm
• I started a fruit & veggie quilt
• I finished up a table runner and 2 quilt top samples for coming classes at the LQS
• I painted the office/library
• I attended 5 non-work related meetings, including dinner for 20 at my house
• I attended 2 birthday parties and other family events
• I answered I don't know how many rescue calls
• I've chased socks all over the house (yes, the saga continue)

BUT

I didn't finish my UFO for Judy's Challenge.

What do you think my punishment should be?
Do you want to stone me with new spools of King Tut thread? Do you want to bury me under fabric cut into 1", 2" or 2.5" strips? You choose and let me know. I'll be in the studio when you decide!

UFO Thursday

I have made no progress on this month's #1 UFO for Judy's Challenge but I did finish a different UFO.

I purchased this fabric and the Cherrywood dyed fabric pack about 3 years ago at the last quilt show I attended in Miami. I knew it would be a good project for the chilly north - can never have enough sweatshirts up here. The problem was deciding on a pattern. I've picked up several over the years but just never got to it. I had spent so much on the fabric, I wanted the perfect pattern. When I finally found the one it turns out I had already owned it. Who knew?

At last month's guild meeting our speaker brought patterns to sell. I was looking at a sweatshirt pattern and Noel was looking at it also. We decided to get together at my house and make them together. A little motivation never hurts anyone. The plan was to get them done in time for guild meeting and I did so with hours to spare. Ok, so the cuffs aren't done but it was good enuf for who it's for and maybe I will leave them as is. We shall see.

I think the hardest part, after picking a pattern, was taking the fool sweatshirt apart. All the seams have to come apart and all the threads have to be picked out. These are serged seams so there are about 3 levels of seams to take apart. Ick. I think it was Linda who said to trace the sweatshirt parts and buy the sweatshirt material at JoAnn's to save taking another one apart. Brilliant!!

I quilted the sweatshirt with fantasy feathers, thanks to a DVD from Patsy Thompson, using a blue-gray King Tut variegated thread. As I posted yesterday, despite being washed several times, the sweatshirt stained my machine. I haven't had a chance to try to clean it yet but I am open to any suggestions.

I think I would like to make another sweatshirt but maybe with less quilting so it's not quite so stiff.






Cali was the Quality Control Officer on duty:

Meghan's Scavenger Hunt

Meghan always has the best ideas to celebrate her birthday. Last year she treated us all to a Zumba class. I had a blast since I love the Latin dance music that it uses. Some of the girls weren't so into it...too much sweat and hard work :) I think it allowed us to enjoy the three kinds of cake with no second thoughts.

This year Meghan arranged a scavenger hunt in downtown Perry. Her husband put together the list of items and we had to fill in names of the 5 hair salons, find pieces of the architecture and even take pictures of certain things. We broke into three teams after meeting at the bookstore and ventured out for about an hour. Some of the scavenging took place IN the bookstore which was a great way to warm up on a brisk day when it was grappling out. We all then went to Meghan's great Victorian house for tea, cake and conversation. Can't wait to see what she comes up with for next year.

The Perry mascot is the Silver Lake Sea Serpent (the sea serpent was "found" in the Castile part of the lake but that story is for another day) and there are many Serpents around down town.  Over the course of the day we found 10 and missed 2 others. Here are my teammates with two tech-savvy serpents:

This is the remains of a great mural:

Proof that I participated - this is the door to nowhere in the bookstore. Can you believe I have never even noticed this non-door and I am in this store every other week or so since it's right next to my office?!?! You can see they offer coffee and fraps, etc.

Santa's Workshop is still set up so two groups posed together for a required photo.

Here's the birthday girl.

Hope you had a great day Meghan!

We certainly did.

And yes, we even take pictures of people taking pictures of food!

UFO Challenge update

I’d really like to blame this on Erin (my friend and local librarian) but I can’t, can I? Oh yes I can! Hello, my name is Sarah and I’m a Deadliest Catch-aholic. AND ERIN ENABLES ME! Basically, all I have done this week is watch season one on DVD. Not a lick of stitching or even worrying about not doing a lick of stitchin. Season two has already been placed on hold for me.

Anyways… a long long time ago in a state far far away….I should have been packing all my worldly possessions to move from Miami back to my hometown in NY. Instead, I was still taking classes at my LQS since I loved my friends and teachers there and feared the quilting here in NY would be different. That’s why this months UFO was never finished although it was sew close. And do you know what the biggest obstacle was to finish it?? Math!

Rusty, AKA Jane Hardy Miller, was a teacher at our store and the person who forced me to learn "color." She had already published the very popular French Braid Quilts and was working on her second book: French Braid Obsession. We were testing a pattern for the book and had we finished our quilts we might have had the opportunity to have it included in the book. Guess mine won't be in the book, huh?!

WWHHAATT?? – in looking up links for Rusty’s book, I see she has a new one coming out in June this year. Better start saving my pennies!

When I pulled this UFO out of it's drawer I found I had all four braids done with their purple spacer strip attached and some notes on the math to get the panel to fit into the center. I would have done things a little different now, such as cutting the panel slightly narrower and the extra spacers I still need to add bigger, so I could save the selvage dots for my collection and I would have purchased more of that great stripe for the binding. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 and when you stall you can’t make changes. Either way, I have checked the math three more times and it still appears to come out ok so I finally cut the panel this morning and tonight or tomorrow (before season 2 arrives) I can get the spacer strips attached.

I didn’t lay out the extra spacers in this picture but that same purple will be used to add a 1.5” finished border around the center panel. Then I add the braids, trim the edges and it’s done. What will that take? A couple hours? And then another drawer is emptied!

I have always referred to this quilt as my wine french braid because of the grape/leaf fabrics and the colors. Maybe I should get some of that wine cork fabric for the back. It would really complement the top. Not that I have the money or time to actually finish the whole thing super soon.

Mainly because I did buy this flannel backing for the t-shirt quilt finished last month for the UFO Challenge. Think 9 patch: there will be 40” squares of the green in the 4 corners, the inner side rectangles will be about 12” of the teal and the center 12x12 square will be the green again. I thought it would be the best use of yardage and would make it as interesting as the front.

Tea for Two + Two

This past Sunday I finally got to host my tea party. It's been in the works for quite a while, after I started going through the Tea Time magazine at the library. I spent months collecting recipes and ideas. I had decided to have the party the Sunday before my birthday, not as a birthday party but I needed to pick a date (I hate making decisions) and that gave me enough time to pick who would attend and plan the menu and decorations. Of course, then I got bronchitis days before my birthday and was not energetic enough to cook or clean. Moving the party then meant that our party of 6 became 4 due to busy schedules which was too bad because I had picked the guest list from different circles of friends, making sure that everyone knew at least one other person. We certainly had fun tho and the girls want another tea party.

Tea parties typically have three courses: Scone, Savory and Sweet. My menu was: Apple Cider Scones, Toasted Smoked Gouda and Baby Swiss on Raisin Bread with apple slices, Triple Decker Ham Salad Stackers, Cucumber Sandwiches, Cumin Cream Cheese Crudites, Pear Puff Pastries, Martha Washington petite fours, Lavender Tea Cookies, homemade fudge and truffles. We voted for our favorite Savory dishes and the stackers and cheese/apple sandwiches tied.

Here's the table set with the first 2 courses: Scones and Savory. You can see the tea selections at the far end of the table but I now realize that my tea pot isn't on the table. It's an elephant that pours from his trunk!

Check out the giftie bags made with mouse-in-a-teacup fabric stuffed with tea bags, lemongrass hand soap and chocolates.

Wow - didn't realize this photo was so out of focus. Work with me here but this is part of the chocolates, the petite fours, puff pastries and lavender tea cookies. I guess I need to tell you that I am obsessed with petite fours, begged Santa to bring me an antique petite four server (he pulled through!!!) and then they were such a PITA to make ice that I may never make them again. Will have to work on the technique because Meghan threatened to make this my signature dish requested for all occasions. In the background is the card that Tyler drew for me. I have a great tan in the picture, no hair, no glasses and a purple belly. Ohh to be 5 again!

And here are the girls having fun. Kim was sniffing the (locally grown) chocolate mint tea bag before steeping it in her cup. From left to right is Kim, Erin and Meghan. Can't wait for the next tea party!

Etiquette lesson of the day: large dinner napkins remained folded in half with the fold towards your tummy in case you need to tuck something into the napkin for later disposal.

Vocab word of the day: doppelganger. I've never heard the ghostly part of this definition, just used it as someone who looks a lot like another person. As in my ex married my doppelganger...true story.

We had some other quote of the day but I can't remember. Hopefully one of the girls will post a comment if she remembers.