Shameless dog photos

They are having fun. This makes us feel pretty good. We did not realize that it was pretty sad being here alone with the 2 geriatric dogs. They are certainly loving but there is a lot more sunshine in the house with the little one added to the mix. Here is a collection of random shots over the last few days. I promise not to become obsessed with posting their photos though.

Working through the Ugly Fabric challenge

These are the pieces I had to work with:

The dogs of course were not very excited about my preoccupation with the sewing machine rather than them.
I decided to try out the "Thangles" and chain sewed them (I really love my sewing set-up like this).
It was very kind of me not to photograph each of the many ugly variations that I was able to lay out before I settled on this. I had wanted to do something with "flying geese" and point them in all directions, as if they were blowing away from each other in a big windstorm. The reality however is that the poetic description of the idea and its visual reality were very different from each other.

I thought it was a perfect size for a nice blanket for Jeeg to lay on. I put 4 layers of a fluffy Poly batting in it and machine tied it together instead of quilting it.

Ta Daa! Not too bad for an ugly quilt. The prints however were very hard on my eyes, or the camera lens... whichever. Any way, the light area around the center is the polka dots fabric and the light triangles on the left is the birds fabric. There was only a 8" piece of the birds.



And Jeeg seems to be quite comfy on her new blankie. This should keep her old bones from feeling cold when she is laying on the floor this winter.

Ugly Fabric Challenge

I have been trying to pull together a project using the fabrics from our Jamboree Ugly Fabric Swap. I had been thinking that black would be the best complement. My plan was to match every piece of the "ugly fabric" with a black by making half square triangles. I only have 6 pieces from that selection above. (Thank goodness-although there are a couple pieces that do not seem ugly to me at all).

So all the squares are made and I have spent a few evenings arranging, re-arranging and then arranging them again. These fabrics are looking pretty butt-ugly.

Eventually of course, as do all things, the game has to come to an end. I have the squares laid out and I will sew them together tonight.

I will be making this into a soft spot for Jeeg to lay on. I think I will machine tie it (using a fancy stitch) and fill it as fluffy as I can. Jeeg has old sore bones.

Back to quilty stuff

I know, sometimes these posts have nothing to do with quilting at all. Or so it seems. Actually everything has to do with quilting; if I am actively working on a project I am sewing, quilting, planning and if am doing something other than quilting such as housework, my daytime-get-paid work, watching TV or feeding a dog I am really only preparing myself to get back at quilting, sewing or planning quilting and sewing. Is that circular logic? It must be but I am certainly not a logician. The only part of my life that is not quilting is family. Family is the living and loving part of my days.

The project laying out on my sewing table is a machine quilting job. I want to finish this up. I especially love the birds in the pink floral print. After this is completed I have nothing left ready to be quilted and will have to start making tops again....

My new someone special

Meet Shiraz (and I figured out that I pulled the wrong colour wine to name her but oh well... it feels like the right name)

Shiraz and Jeeg will even be friends. Both are sweet.

Silly quiz...What Time of Day Are You?

But it was fun. If you know me very much at all you will laugh when you read what time I am:

You Are Midnight

You are more than a little eccentric, and you're apt to keep very unusual habits. Whether you're a nightowl, living in a commune, or taking a vow of silence - you like to experiment with your lifestyle. Expressing your individuality is important to you, and you often lie awake in bed thinking about the world and your place in it. You enjoy staying home, but that doesn't mean you're a hermit. You also appreciate quality time with family and close friends.

What Time Of Day Are You?

More Postcards

I am setting up a mail box at the London Friendship Quilters Guild for a postcard swap. If you bring a postcard and place it in our mail box you will receive one back in the mail. Of course we hope people remember to put a return address on their card so that we know to whom we need to address the return cards.

Here are my September Post Cards (Thanks to Jill for the raggy threads):

Here I am with the Blue 2nd place ribbon:








The story miniature quilt won a Red first place ribbon:











My Stripes and Circles just makes me happy to see it hanging:










The Horticultural exhibit featured floral arrangements to look like 9" quilt block which was interesting to me, here are a couple of them...

The end of the Long Weekend, beginning of a new year

Today I spent the better part of 7 hours at the sewing machine but
really only managed 3 1/2 hours of productive quilting. I really fought
with the Brother for 4 hours. I changed needles (twice), cleaned and
oiled it, re-threaded multiple times, changed threads and regardless of
my remedies the thread shredded every inch of free motion. I managed 3
of these Free Motion flowers yesterday with no problem but today... NOT.

So I moved over to the Lily and tried to see how she would do at this game. And she did wonderfully, enough so that I finished the other 22 free motion flowers and also did a doodle of hearts strung together on the border. I stitched on the binding so that Lyla can tack it down on the back. There are threads to clean up and maybe even 1 or 2 of the flowers to tidy but all in all Grace's Mazey Daze quilt is complete for me. One more item off "the list". I can now add one more thing to "the list".

I will start quilting the Fun with Bricks scrappy quilt next.

My magical Amaryllis story:

Last winter I purchased an Amaryllis package from Sam's Club because it came with a nice looking pottery vase and not the little 4" plastic pot that tipped over whenever you so much as looked its way. The instructions said to pour 1 1/2 cups of water into the top and leave it alone. I did, on January whatever it was, and it grew. A beautiful red multi-bloomed amaryllis. I know that when the leaves finally die back you cut them, put it into the fridge for "wintering" and then in December you can coax it to grow again. There is little magic in that. The MAGIC is that the plant never needed to be watered again. I finally cut the leaves back in August and have put it in the fridge but it had never been watered since that original 1 1/2 cups of water in January. AMAZING, it just kept growing and growing. This is a photo that I took just before I cut it down to the top of the vase a couple of weeks ago .



Enjoy the start of the new year...

A Long Weekend

It is absolutely wonderful to have the luxury of an extra day off. The weather has been fantastic! I have been working away on the quilting of Grace's Mazey Daze but I just had to enjoy the afternoon outside. A book and a Margarita slushie were perfect accompaniments to the Muskoka chair and the sunshine.

The kids visited, the dogs visited, life is good. European chocolate was had and shared (thanks Wendy). Lyla and I had a great Saturday night sewing.

I should be able to finish the quilting on this one tonight. All the straight lines are done (walking foot) and I will switch to free motion next for the center motifs and the border.

We have an application out there to adopt a new little dog- think good things for us. They will let us know in 48 hours if they choose us, otherwise nothing. Jeeg went to the groomer on Friday and this was the first time that it made me feel sad to see her done. After the wonderful shave she had it is easy to see that the tumour is indeed much larger and that she is really becoming bony. We stopped at the vet's for a weigh-in and more Deremaxx. He said that it was becoming very expensive this way ($190 for 30 day supply for the 2 dogs ). She has lost 4 more pounds since early July. I am hoping that a new friend will be good for them both and us too when Jeeg is no longer her happy self.

We did have plans to buy a little one from a quilter friend but she decided to keep her for further breeding, she sounded like a real sweetheart though.