Slowly they go-winter and quilting

The third row of my Sylvia's Bridal Sampler/Quilt is coming along nicely.  I try to do a block a day but usually it's a block every other day... but I have finished six more of them.

 

I'm contemplating how I should position the blocks and how I want to sash it.  I think it looks good 'on point'.

I'm also continuing to hand-quilt to finish up my Dear Jane quilt.  Jules looks very innocent here but he likes to dig items out of the basket that I keep my quilting things in... and he's not as innocent as he looks in this picture.

He loves tossing around the little bird I made so maybe I should make him some little mice stuffed with catnip.  He loves catnip mouseees.

One More...

The 8th block of the second row of Sylvia's Bridal Sampler quilt was very time-consuming and not my 'cup of tea'.  It seemed to take forever to paper piece the various parts.  I think it would have been faster to make half-square triangles but it's done and I'm glad of it.  

That square took me the better part of 6 hours to get it put together, but I am also trying to read for 2 - 3 hours a day and I'm making some Norwegian slippers.  What? you ask.

I fell in love with these slippers as soon as I saw them.... and I'm not a knitter.  However, they didn't look that tough.... just knitting 8 squares, then performing origami to get them to look like slippers.  Washing them in hot water felts them so they're thick and luxurious.

So, one is done.  I had to felt it at once rather than wait to do both of them because I didn't want to take the time to make two slippers if they didn't come out right.  Believe me, looking at the knitted slipper before felting absolutely didn't look right.

Anyway, now I'm working on the other slipper.   Go here to get the pattern and make your own.  I'm sure they're very fast for an actual knitter to make.... takes me days to do one, never mind two of these.  But I like them.

Block looks better....

When it's done right, the block looks better.  See for yourself....

The star points are illuminated by being set into the blue block. 






It previously looked like this....

See the difference?  I'm surprised that I didn't notice it until long after I pinned it up on my 'wall'.

And, yup, the Christmas bird is still hanging there.  I forgot to put it in a box when I stored the decorations away last week.  So it will most likely stay there for a long while until I put it away... I'm getting attached to it.  lol

Today, we have snow on the ground... melting fast... but I'm going to finish up another block instead of going 'oot and aboot'.  That's my canadian accent; even after 50+ years, it's still there and people call me on it often.  I've got the american spelling down good... but talking, not so much.

And I've got some books to read too.... mysteries about Jane Austen by Stephanie Barron.  But first, the block!

Two More Blocks

It's been more than a few weeks since I added a block to my yellow quilt but today, I completed two of them.  Well, I started the first one yesterday but Jaik the cat decided to lay on the almost completed block and have a snooze... so I took his advice and stopped work.  But today I finished it up.

  It is the 6th block of the second row.












There was plenty of time to work on the next block.

Though I wasn't certain that the Kaffe Fassett corner fabric and the main fabric of the center would go well together, it seems to be quite striking.  I like it.











While I was looking at the first two rows of the quilt on the wall, I noticed that the 2nd block in the second row had been assembled incorrectly.  This is a problem I often have... sort of a dyslexia of the eyesight where I reverse parts of the block and notice it only weeks or months later.  I'm just happy that I noticed it now instead of after it had been put together... but it has to be taken apart.  Grrrr.....

The blue points should be facing the other way which will make a nice star around the center.  Tomorrow will be spent disassembling and re-sewing.









This is a picture of the wallhanging that my daughter gave me for Christmas.  It's lovely and I've hung it on the wall beside where I read.

A New Year

It hasn't been easy getting through the holiday season, but I did what I could while not putting pressure on myself.  I did almost no shopping so sent no gifts.  Some people got Christmas cards but not as many as I sent to last year.  After I sent them out to old friends and family, I got a call from one of them telling me that an old work friend had died suddenly just before Christmas.   I look forward to the new year.

Had a nice time with my family and ate some good food.

... and I did buy a couple of fat quarters of Christmas fabric on sale at Joann's and I managed to sew up a quick door hanging to decorate my front door.

And, I hung up my previously-made kitty cats.

Quilting during blackouts

Last week, a big storm blew through and our lights (and everything else) went out on Monday afternoon and stayed out until Wednesday evening.  I had a one-burner propane camping stove, lots of flashlights and candles but with no heat it got very cold inside.  Whereas friends and family had fireplaces to keep them warm, I had to resort to sweaters, gloves and hats.  It got very boring by the second evening but I did hand-sew a block when I got tired of reading.  Had to sew in the daytime when I had natural light since sewing while holding a flashlight... or by candlelight... would have been tough.

Appliqué techniques continue to challenge me and the handles on these baskets look like a beginner did them.... but I'm still a beginner.... at least I feel like one.  My points are always a little too close to the 1/4 inch.  My stitching isn't the greatest.  But they look good when they're done and I'm not entering my quilts in any contests.  lol

So, after the lights came back on after 48 hours, I couldn't wait to cut out and finish up another block with my machine.

I paper-pieced the blue and yellow star points and the rest of the block was pretty simple cutting, measuring and seaming.

Jaik was sweet enough to help me.  haha!

 This doesn't look like a lot of snow but it turned into 4-6 inches over a three day period.  Because I don't put winter tires on my car (because we seldom get much snow in this area) I couldn't drive my car.  We have lots of hills on this island and I didn't want to go slipping and sliding down one of them or into other cars.

Because I couldn't cook, I cancelled my Thanksgiving dinner and invited myself over to my son and DIL's to spend the day with their guests and my grandsons.  The outage didn't seem to affect their house much at all.  Dinner was delicious.... Seafood Cassoulet with clams, shrimp and scallops.   Mmm, good.

Call for Healing Hearts

Twenty-nine miners are trapped and feared dead in a New Zealand mine tragedy.  A quilter is requesting 6 1/2 inch heart blocks to be made into Healing Heart quilts by her for the families of those miners.

The instructions to make the blocks and where to send them is here.  Please help if you can.  I'm going to do as many heart blocks as I can today - Thanksgiving.   I'm staying in today because of icy roads.  This sounds like a project for a day on which we give thanks.