WIPs and Kitty

It's been a crazy week. I think it was the full moon and lunar eclipse effect. We completed two WIP blocks from different quilts. My guild was a recipient of some WIPs of a lady that had past away. Lo and behold two of the many WIPs are from block of the month quilt programs that I designed when I had my store. Some of you will recognize them Spring Crocus and Garden Trails.

LOL, following my instructions I revised the pressing instructions. Oh well that's what happens when you do something that is 12 years old.

How many of you are participating in Splendid Sampler II? This is the 7th free block "For The Love" by Sharon Burgess of Lilabelle Lane Creations.

Mine is raw edge applique. However, I made the yellow piece all one instead of eight pieces stitched together. All you have to do is trace the A and reverse A templates as one big template four times. Do not cut out the square as it is used as a guide for placement.

Remember when cutting template B you only have to make the bottom of the diamond almost 1/8" wider so that there is just enough fabric to put under the yellow and so that the decorative stitching just covers the slight shadow.
I was able to continuous decorative stitch alternating between blanket, straight and daisy stitch.

Now, for some exciting news. But first the sad news. It's been a few years since my cat, Lucky, died. Her death was not peaceful. I believe that the drugs I gave her for her liver made her hallucinate. The more I gave her the worse it got. It was hard for me to continue to give it to her and hard on her mental state. Her last night was extremely awful and her last morning was awful for me. I've had a hard time because I had always told her that she was my last cat as she was the best I've ever had and that I was going to get a dog. So between my deceit to get another cat and her awful death and the fact that I didn't have time to properly look after a dog, I've been animal-less for a few years with no one to talk to at home. LOL, as my friends can advise, do not be the first person Kat sees in the morning because you're ears will hurt from the blah blah and blah. 

Today I introduce you to Kitty. She is 13 yr 7 months 7 days. 6+ kgs (2.2 lbs = 1 kg) instead of 6+ lbs. Her previous two families over loved her. So both her and I are on special food, ie no junk food and table scraps. Kitty is just starting and I've been on this for 2 weeks already. I have to admit, going without refined sugar has sure helped my brain fog.

This is Kitty, in the closet on a furry mat instead of the hardwood floor. From the first night she has slept at the foot of the bed. This made me very happy that she felt comfortable enough to do that. The shaved fur on her leg is where the vet had to do something when in the shelter.

From Kitty and

Two Sundays Mercury to Jupiter

Did anyone else notice that there were two Sundays and no Saturday last weekend? The first Sunday comes, I get up and do all my Sunday morning chores, ie change the sheets, do laundry, check the tv schedule to see if my two shows are repeats. What, they aren't on! Oh yeah, it's summer and they are on holidays. So downstairs to the sewing room I go. Tired of looking at the mess of fabric scraps piled up on the table,

I decide to make some Slab blocks, a block I learned from Cheryl Arkison,

20 blue slab blocks shown. From Cheryl Arkison  blog

Then there is the bin in the sewing room, on the shelf full of scraps that need to be sorted

by color into the smaller bins.

But, alas, it's time to go to High Tea at Reader Rock Garden with my sister. She answers the door in go out to work in the garden clothes. So I'm 20 minutes early. She shows me a quilt she just made using doilies made by grandma, mom and her. Gorgeous.

'So, are you going to get ready. ' I ask.

'What for?' she asks. 

'It's time to go for High Tea. '

'That's tomorrow on Sunday.'

'Today is Sunday.'

'Oh brother. See ya tomorrow.'

So back at home, feeling dumb and like it is still Sunday, shaking my head and still disbelieving it's Saturday, the sorting begins. 

Overflowing, before pic of inside small bins.

Now the small bin is all organized and only fat quarters and larger smaller pieces are neatly folded. The strips and odd squares, rectangles and whatever stuffed into a 13"x15" zip bag for a charity scrap quilt making person because, let's get real, I'm never going to make that slab block quilt. The yardage that was in the bins got wrapped around the Original Mini Bolt Centers. Even had room to pull small pieces from the yardage shelves to fill the small bin. 

Now the second Sunday is here. Chores were done yesterday. Relax and watch the Sunday morning show, do some piecing then off to High Tea with my sister at Reader Rock Garden near downtown Calgary. 

Reader Rock Garden is a hidden gem in Calgary. You park at the bottom and walk up to the restored home of William Reader for High Tea. You must go more than once a year as different flowers are in bloom at different times.

High Tea was excellent. Even had a snapdragon in my lemonade.

Sister and lemonade

Did anyone see '60 Minutes' Hubble Telescope Space segment? It was exciting as to what upgrades they have done to Hubble so that more galaxys and stars trillions of light years away are seen. And what was even more exciting, was that when they were talking about some of the stars and galaxys in space I actually understood them because of the space info learned. How cool is that? 

This week we are travelling from Mercury to Jupiter.

Happy travels!

Rose and Dot

Ah, a fresh farm yard egg with fried onions.

Rose and Dot by Lori Kennedy. It was such a delight to make Splendid Sampler II's 6th free block.

Mine is raw edge appliqued and I didn't use the batting option, Step 4. Using the batting option with raw edge applique would be cool because it would soften the rose edge look. I would have used a black batting for mine.
My tips this week are:
- used stitch witchery for the fusible because it is very thin and pliable especially when fusing three fabrics on top of each other.
- used heavier variegated thread around the rose center.
- offset the flower to give attitude
- the top of the stem has only 1/8" or less under the rose, just enough to cover the raw edge and when decorative edge stitching it doesn't show through as much and is slightly curved.

Enjoy.

Hot Day In AC Paradise

It was another hot day only this time spent inside in the AC proofing my upcoming pattern Scientist. It is for Northcott's Big Bang collection that is coming out in the fall.

Below is my quilt for proofing in odd fabrics.

Point Taken

Point Taken by Susan Ache is Splendid Sampler IIs sixth free block. Finally a pieced block that you can go crazy with because there are no points and it uses connector corners.

A super easy block. I had fun adding the stripe, bacon, and even managed to somewhat match up the stripes. 

The tip this week is to pay attention to the pressing because it helps with nesting, matching and piecing seams. 

See Susan's instagram page for cool cross stitch and quilt projects.

Be sure to post your block on Splendid Sampler's fb page.

Calgary Stampede Space 10

Howdy and Yahoo! It's that time of year in Calgary. It's Stampede time, where everyone dresses western and parties for 10 days.

This is my fourth year serving a free breakfast of pancakes and sausages and juice for 8 mornings at various malls around the city. I'm over in the kids area where you can make your own rope, rope wooden steers, ride real ponies and pet the barn animals in the petting zoo. If you are in the Calgary area be sure to come for breakfast. Family day was on Sunday at the Stampede grounds. We served about 20,000 people from 8-11 am. Always very interesting.

Afterwards, I love walking through the barns, especially where the heavy horses, draft horses are. I had a chance to see some of the competition. This video is the Unicorn competition. One horse is in front and then two wheel horses behind the lead horse. The lead horse is usually the showboat and pays attention to what is happening ahead of them, ears a almost always forward. The wheel horses, because they are directly in front of the wagon, listen to the driver, ears are back, and do most of the pulling. All three hitches are pulled by Clydesdales. I love the hair, what they call feathers, around their feet. Also on Youtube here. Stampede is streaming live as well.

During Space Block 10 we are travelling to the Moon to see if there is a man in the moon and if it is really made of cheese.

Have a great week and see y'all Thursday for Splendid Sampler's 5th free block.

Balance

Splendid Sampler II's freebie Block 4, Balance, by Wenche Woldff Hatling from Northern Quilts in Norway. Remember to get your order in for the book so you can follow along after the 20th block.

This is such a cute block. It reminds me that balance does occur even when a big thing is on a small scale. 

Where is the egg for Sunny Side Up you ask? Look carefully, can you see it? Why it's the ear.
My first tip is for the stand. At first I cut out all the little triangles and had problems lining them up because I'm raw edge fusing and decorative stitching around the edges. Solution: Cut the stool as one cylinder piece and then cut the two top triangles as one piece. So now, I'm only working with two pieces.

The next tip is based on the elephant fabric. I fussy cut the fabric so that the elephant eye would be in a flower. I didn't get it the way I wanted it but I think the eye/flower placement turned out better. It seems the subconscious knew better than the brain. 
Enjoy!

"Life is all about balance. You don't always need to be getting stuff done. Sometimes it's perfectly okay, and absolutely necessary, to shut down, kick back, and do nothing."
- Lori Deschene

Canada Day Scientist

Did everyone survive Canada Day?
My Canada Day started at 3:45 am. Up and at it for the 1.5 hour drive to Canmore to flip pancakes and sausages at Canmore's annual Canada Day celebration, parade and all. Then over to the Sugar Pine Quilt Shop for some goodies for testing my new pattern for Northcott, Scientist. Unfortunately, Northcott's fabric isn't out until this fall but am working on getting the pattern ready for August. Stay tuned. It'll be fabulous for the big or little science person in your life.

border - background - flask - chemical reaction.

On the way home, made a stop in Bragg Creek at the candy and ice cream shop. If you ever get a chance try Limezilla ice cream. Oh yum! If you like lemon or lime, it's the best. Then at the counter there was this taffy treat from my childhood years, some 50 years ago. If you are old  er young enough you'll recognize this. What a great way to finish up the day, ice cream and taffy.

It's Monday, hooray, a hike to wear off the pancakes, sausages (had to taste test for quality control), ice cream and taffy. The rain stayed away making it a glorious day seeing all the woodland flowers.

ridge view

Enjoy.