CQ Update #4...

Now that the seams are all done, I can concentrate fully on the individual patches.  I know what I'd like to do for most of them.  Or let me rephrase that, I know what I hope to do for most of them.  Here's my progress so far...

Crazy Quilt Block

You can see in the upper left that I've added a tulip patch.  I got the idea (and instructions) from the Ribbon Embroidery & Stumpwork book by Di Van Niekerk.  She has a lot of great ideas in that book!  Here's a closeup of the tulips...

Block #4 - Tulip Patch

I stitched down oval beads for each tulip and then covered them with Ribbon stitches using 7mm persimmon silk ribbon.  The stems are Twisted Straight stitches using 4mm green silk ribbon.  I made a Grab stitch at the base of each Tulip before making the stems.  And the leaves are Twisted Ribbon stitches using 7mm wide ribbon.  The Tulips were really pretty easy to make.  And I added a Bee charm to the patch as well.

I'm spending the day tomorrow with a friend where I'll be working on this, so I hope to make a lot of progress on it.  I've already started on a patch of violets that I hope to finish.

This is a my sister's dog Abby.  She's 12 and an American Dingo. She had a very itchy nose at the time.

Abby scratching her nose

Until later...

"And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully"  

Ephesians 3:18-19 (NLT).

Day and Night...

There's not much to do down here on the farm pet-sitting - other than let the dogs in and out a dozen times and put the cat in the sink to get a drink of water.  It's very quiet and peaceful (except for the occasional serenade from Abby).  It's given me a chance to rest and relax and I'm enjoying the solitude. 

Having said that, this afternoon I dragged my mom's sewing machine into the living room and set it up.  It was simply too quiet in her sewing room and I'm used to having the background noise from the tv while I'm quilting.

Luckily they have a very large living room and I didn't need to move any furniture.  It'll do for the time I'm here.

I have so much free time right now that I've been able to start piecing a prayer quilt for my sister-in-law.  It's based on the Day & Night pattern out of Eleanor Burn's book of the same name.  I don't believe she created the block, just a special ruler that simplifies creating it.  Here are the strip sets for the quilt...

Using her ruler, you cut each strip set into a number of different pieces.  I finished cutting the ones on the left into these units...

I figure tomorrow I'll finish cutting the other strips and start piecing them all back together.  What's so great about this method is you end up with 3 different quilts.  Each unit is put together with it's matching units to make a quilt.  When all is done, I should have a Day & Night lap quilt 52" x 64", a Spider Web quilt 32" x 32" and a Mini Star quilt 21" x 26" with almost no waste!

There are a lot of points to match up when piecing the units together so I'll need to be careful and take my time.  I expect that part will take a while, but I'll be sure to show you when I've finished them.  My good friend Susan is now doing machine quilting so I'm hoping to finish piecing the largest top before I return home so she can quilt it for me.  I know she'll do a much better job than I would and I want this quilt to be special.

I did manage to snap a few more photos of my charges this evening.  They still don't like the camera, but perhaps they're becoming more used to it (and me).  These are the 3 dogs I'm watching.  The 2 black ones are brother and sister.

Abby needs a haircut!

I think Nicky is part Greyhound.  She's both skinny and high strung.

You can see how nervous Bandit is at the camera...

Until later...

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible."

by Thomas Aquinas

March's Package...

My hope this year was to put together a 'quilting' package for my mom each month.  Sort of like the secret sister program I participated in last year on the HGTV Quilting & Needlework Forum.  She always been a sewer and made a log cabin quilt probably 20 years ago, but recently she's started to become more interested in quilting (and I'm encouraging that interest).  I hand delivered her March package to her on Thursday (April 1st). 

And now that she's seen it, I can share it with you.  Included in this month's package was block #3 of JoAnn's Imperial Splendor BOM and 2 magazines - The Quilt Life and Threads.

And this month I wanted to teach her how to make HST's (Half-Square Triangles).  It's a very basic quilt block and is used in so many quilt patterns.  To help her, I printed out instructions for making these units and included some tools that make things simpler.  First is the 'Quarter Inch Seam Marker' by Fon's and Porter which is a tool for marking your sewing lines.  Then there's a 4.5" square ruler by Omnigrid which is the perfect size for squaring up HSt's made from 5" charm squares.  And finally, there's the 'Summer Thyme' quilt pattern by This & That.  This pattern uses a lot of HST's so it'll be good practice and the finished quilt is small enough to make pretty quickly.

And what good is a pattern without the fabric?  So I included all the fabric to make the quilt - 80 5" charm squares from Indigo by Timeless Treasures, 2 yards of Navy and 3 yards of Snow Kona Cotton.  And she should have enough left over to use for another project!

And I think no package is complete without something handmade.  I finished 2 small quilts - both with a winter theme.  Here Mom is looking at Mr. Snowman and I also included Snowflakes.

I'm away from home this week - pet sitting while my family travels to Disney World.  (Who has the better end of that deal?)  Actually, I'm glad to do it.  I think my days of amusement parks are long over and pet sitting is more my pace. 

I'm watching 3 dogs and 2 cats while I'm here.  They're all older pets so mostly they just eat and sleep.  But like all animals, they have their quirks.  My sister's dog, Abby, is an American Dingo.  She's 12 or 13 years old but looks much younger.  She's missing my sister and her kids pretty badly and is crying a lot.  She also woke me at 5:30 this morning howling.  Every so often she breaks out in this mournful song.  I wish I could just explain to her that eventually they're coming back.

And then there's my parents cat, Cricket.  She is actually the mom to my Jack and Sam.  She refuses to drink out of a water bowl and has my dad trained to pick her up and put her in the sink whenever she's thirsty.  (I'm so glad mine haven't inherited this trait.)

She lets the water drip down her face before drinking...

She gets all nice and wet by the time she's done...

We repeat this scenario about 3 times a day.

The other 3 pets are fairly camera shy so I don't know that I'll get any pictures of them.

Until later...

'But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us!' Romans 5:8