An update

Remember when I said that I would keep this up and then dropped off the face of the earth?  Well, yeah, I remember that.

At any rate, I'm clearly on a hiatus.  I think I might start this up again in October or November.  I have to change a few things about the blog.  I sold my house this summer and am moving into town with the cat army.  We are all moving in with my special man friend.  He and I are buying a house together that is on the national historic registry - to my UK reader this means it was built in 1928, that's what we consider old here. :)  The house will be within walking distance to work.  Which sounds great now but will be less exciting when the January downpours occur.  I won't care, I'll be happy, in love, and with my own sewing room.  Life is good my friends.

Until the fall…. I miss you all and hope to get on-line again.

Metallics contest

Happy day before Mother's Day.  I just realized that I am a bad child because I hadn't planned for Mother's Day until just now.  One call to a random florist in Wisconsin later, and flowers are on their way.  The florist I called is from a small town and is a part hair stylist, part florist.  Love it.  She also spoke with a thick Wisconsin accent and it makes me wonder how I managed to escape the state without it.  (Yes, to my friends, my accent isn't nearly as bad as theirs.)  If you want to know what the accent sounds like, think of the movie, Fargo.  It makes for a surreal flower ordering experience.

Knowing that  have finished one thing today has filled me with a sense of accomplishment that can only mean more good is to come. I plan to go for a walk and buy groceries today, nothing can stop me.

Speaking of nothing stopping me, look at that quilting in the pictures above.  I did straight line quilting on my home machine.  These lines are rather addictive and I was okay with them being wobbly because the stars in the quilt are wonky and I thought that would tie everything together nicely.  This quilt is a smallish quilt and measures 44 x 45.  It is for a contest my guild has entered and consists of metallic fabrics provided to us for the contest.  I added the white and the yellow, but the rest was contest material.  The challenge was to design a Modern Metallics quilt and after several false starts I came up with a large wonky paper pieced star and several wonky pieced stars.  I like how it ended up, but this isn't really my thing.  I kind of wished I had added some brighter colors to go with it.  But, it is entered and ready to be accepted or rejected into the contest.  My quilting makes me hope it is rejected, but that's just me.  I'm just glad I had a chance to play with quilting on my home machine which makes this project worth it to me.

The next challenge is with some lovely Michael Miller fabrics.  During a long car ride through Seattle traffic yesterday, I came up with what I am going to do with them.   I had 3.5 hours to contemplate it so I'm fairly certain this has been well thought out.

I might be able to get started on that tomorrow.  Today is errands, fun in Olympia with some awesome people, and more errands.  And, a Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there - human or feline moms - we don't discriminate amongst species here.

Color value and proof that I still live.

Well, I was gone for too long a time and I have been so neglectful of the blogs that I like to read.  I have a lot of reading to catch up on and quilts to plan.  My busy season at work is over and has been for about a month.  I've been doing lots of quilting at home, just not blogging about it.  And, not reading others' blogs which really bums me out.  I need to dig through my blog list and get caught up! 

The good news here is that the cat army is happy and healthy and have made a friend with the neighbor cat who I've been calling Frank.  Frank is not to be disturbed when it comes to hanging out by the windows and watching the army in action.  The army is familiar with him and even go nose to nose with him.  As long as Frank stays on his side of the glass we will be okay.  Frank doesn't really understand that last one.  I had the carpeting replaced on the staircase here and had the front door open with people going in and out with loud sounding equipment.  I had to escort Frank out of my living room twice during that.  My own cats were hiding underneath beds upstairs.  Frank is a tricky one.  

So, the quilting…

I took a class during the winter on color value.  Why take a class during my busy season?  Apparently, I like to add to my stress level.  Actually, it was a welcome break and I'm so glad I did that.  We cut 6 inch blocks of light, medium and dark fabrics to make varying groups of half square triangles, like so:

The first few light colored fabrics.

The final group of fabrics for class - dark, medium and light.

The final product from class.

Am I making this bigger, with more fabrics?  Of course I am.  I have almost all the extra HSTs sewn together and cut down to 5.5 inches.  Then I get to make more blocks and get this little sample up to about a 60 x 60 inch quilt.  But, are there other projects I've been working on?  Yes, yes there are.  I hope to update soon and share.

And, I hope that you hear from me on your blogs soon.  Just don't drop your cats off in the yard.  The army is not taking new recruits.

Dresden plate - finish

The pretty front

The pretty back

People who don't know me and who have read the last two postings must think I just tear through my quilt projects and do nothing but share the final version.  I only wish that were true.  But, I was very lucky to finish this and send it to its new home where I have been told the cats there approve of it.  I think that is the test of all great art - whether a cat would be willing to sit on it.

This "little" quilt is gigantic and heavy and really makes cats happy.  My work here is done.