Sunday Potpourri

WOW - yesterday was just a very very interesting day...

First, DH offered to iron - - yes, IRON...  he said he would iron as long as the Indianapolis 500 was on TV....  that's HOURS of IRONING...  oh wow... 

 Kittens decided to help....they thought it was 'make a tent day'.

OK, so I guess that's not really DH above, but a web shot , ha!)  But the kitten shot was real.  One of the ironing conditions was "you can't put my photo on your blog!"   

I gave him a shoe-box full of tangled, wrinkled scraps - and 200 laps later, I had a fabulous pile of sharply pressed fabric!  And then I went to work on some paper piecing, and periodically he ironed that, too!

And now I am trying to figure out how to make this happen again...  hmmm... football season?

He did ask last night "honey, do you have more scraps that need to be ironed?  I said quietly, 'oh, maybe a few'....  OH MY LORD, i have giant bins of scraps from my early quilting days when I did not know that if you put those suckers away in a bin, that's where they stay until forever....

The other interesting news from yesterday - I AM GOING ON A TRAIN TRIP.  I love train trips.  I have taken a couple of long train trips - one in Alaska, and one down the California coast last year.  Oh it is the most pleasant way to travel.  Fast it is not... but relaxing... oh yes.  Let's see you hand-sew, then you eat, then you hand-sew, eat again, hand-sew, eat.... watch a movie, eat, hand-sew!

This time I am going from San Francisco to Denver... across the Sierra Nevadas and the Rockies...  it should be fabulously beautiful... 32 hours.... sleeping overnight.  In July.  It's a business trip, but I am taking one vacation day to compensate for the train time.   I will feel guilty for the extra time it takes... I will get over it!  There will be photos.  Since we plan to move back east in a few years, I must enjoy the West at every opportunity. 

So - Happy Memorial Day Monday...  I have so many things I want to do today - sewing, of course, and all those little chores I had planned to do this weekend but have not even begun!

Sorry to be so wordy today - if you need visuals, scroll back up to the man-cake above. And have a lovely holiday.

Kate

The Beauty of the Three-Day Weekend

Oh what a lovely, lovely weekend this is being... today I worked on five or six different quilt projects...  some time on the tiny pineapples that are moving along toward completion...

A little time spent tidying up some fabrics that some unknown person dropped on the floor in my sewing room...

And a nice few hours were spent with charity quilts for the sunshine Guild..quilting and binding this cute little nin-patch....

 and quilting on this darling bright four-patch quilt.... some kid will just love this...

 and, like the questions on those standardized tests:  "Which of these things is NOT like the others?".... Jumpin' Jeehosaphat, Kitten, get your tail off the cutting area!

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The Lady Victoria handkerchief quilt dried nicely, is now much more square, and tonight I am putting the binding on it - tomorrow I will choose some beads for it... yummy, yummy....

Hope you all have lots of nice sewing to do tomorrow!

Kate

Need Help From the Muses !!!!

oh my oh my....

VICTORIA, aka Hankie Quilt No. 1, is all quilted  -  hooray !!

And, if I may say so myself, she is a very lovely girl.  That's a vintage hankie on Dupioni Silk, quilted with Kimono Silk thread...  She has good taste, doesn't she????"

 
 Next will come the beading, which will make her personality really sparkle.... I bought a bunch of new beads recently, so I can't wait to have bead tryouts!

 BUT - she has one little problem -  don't tell anyone - but she IS NOT STRAIGHT!!!!!  GRRRR.
She was straight when I started, but has come off kilter in the quilting.  And, perhaps that serpentine border was not such a good idea, cause it highlights the stretching that has occurred..

So - the only thing I know to do is spray her up and T-pin her to the carpet and tug her into square...  anybody have a better plan, do let me know...  AND WISH ME LUCK !!!  If I can get her square, I can move on to binding and beading!

Happy Quilting,
Kate

The "NO FUN" Point

Hi everyone -  

In every quilt, there comes a moment when it stops being as much fun - when the newness of the colors and pattern are done, and it's just doing more  to fill up the space of the quilt...  well, I knew when I had two gigantic tiny-pieced quilts going, that they would both reach that point at the same time -

ugh,  I am there..................  I love this pineapple quilt, pattern from Bonnie Hunter... (by the way that middle vertical seam is not sewn yet, that's why it looks out of line... I am building it in two halves and then will sew it together... 

 To take my mind off the pineapples, I finished up this charity quilt for the Sunshine Guild - someone else made the top, I quilted and bound.  It's all finished and is taking a trip through the washing machine just now.

 and my little cactus that I have had for three years suddenly burst into bloom - the first bloom we have ever seen on this plant!

Well, I think it's just time for a Sunday afternoon nap - it's a beautiful Sunday afternoon here, with a cool breeze through the house...  Kittens are asleep.  What smart kittens!! 

Kate

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Happy Sunday Morning Everyone!

Have you entered the Blogger's Quilt Festival yet?  Go to amyscreativeside.com to learn more about it, to see the entries, or better yet, to enter your quilt...  There are LOTS of categories and LOTS of prizes! 

 I am entering this piece called "Pas de Deux" which is a piece I started in a Cindy Needham class.  it opened a whole new world to me, as those of you who regularly read my blog already know.  The next piece, already underway, is called "Victoria", and looks like this at the moment.  

 If you haven't enter's the Blogger's Quilt Festival, hop to it!!  

Happy Sunday Quilting,

Kate

Weekend Sewing Rambles

Geese?  Did someone say Geese?  Geese taste yummy, if you can just catch them as they go through the sewing machine!!!!

 Harder to eat them once they are sewn into this Lotto block for the Sunshine Guild - this month is "florals"...

 What a great weekend.   Kitties played outside in their playpen tent.

 Hummingbirds sucked up fresh nectar,

 and we got our potted arrangements planted... so fun!

I made some good progress on the handkerchief quilt named "Victoria"...  there's be more to show tomorrow, but I am really liking this

And this three-year old UFO finally got bound - this was a Mystery Quilt from The Quiltbug in Esperance, NY... 

And, as Scarlett said in Gone With the Wind - "tomorrow is another day" - - more quilting to come!!!!

Yippee..................

Kate

Oh What a Day !!!!

Hhello everyone, and I hope you are having a fabulous weekend - I know I am...

Recently I entered this little quilt in our local guild show...remember it? I started it in a Cindy Needham class , and it was oh so much fun.

Well, I found out yesterday that a slide show featuring some of the quilts from our show was on the FRONT PAGE of TheQuilt Show - - wowee...  it is the Amador Valley Quilters slide show.  Alex Anderson was our guest artist, and she arranged this , surprise to us. 

Well, I am just tickled pink !!!!  wow, one of my quilts displayed on The Quilt Show.... 

Well - BIG NEWS - I started a new quilt .... alert the media........... you see, I had finished all the ones I had started (not), and used up all my stash (not) and just had nothing else to sew (never), sooo

VICTORIA was born...  here's what she looks like now:

She is a piece of Appenzell-style linen handerchief, mounted on a lovely Dupioni silk.   Lots more work to do...  and, yes, I will show you pictures over and over until you are sick of this one, too...

BUT THE BEST?  I have decided that VICTORIA will have SISTERS...  she is going to be part of a set......................   my head is exploding...................

love love all the fun I am havin..

take care,
happy quilting
Kate