Spinster Quilt Action and Smitten too

Pine Tree

 I showed this block to a friend of mine who said that the pattern looks like hops which makes me think I should be working on a beer themed quilt.  Nothing with novelty fabric in it, mind you.  It would have to be less literal.  I think blocks featuring colors used in labels from regional breweries would do the trick.  Don't worry, that plan won't be coming into play any time soon.

Practical Orchard

Outside my hometown in Wisconsin is an apple orchard.  We'd get some of the best apples in the world from there in the fall and visit it on school trips to see how cider was made.  My brother told me last fall that he picked up some apples from there for his family.  Best of all, it was still being run by the man who ran it when I was a kid.  By my calculations, he must be about 200 years old.

Cat on Fabric

Puss in Corner

Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!  Okay, enough of that.  I have a chair in the corner by my sewing table that the cats like to sleep on while I sew.  They also try to sleep on the fabric I'm working on and the chair I try to sit in, but that is just annoying.

Railroad

I liked this Kaffe Fassett dot print for this block.  It reminds me of the warning lights around railroad tracks.  The result here is busy, but I don't think too busy.

Prairie Queen

I'm watching the Tudors for the third time and just saw the episode where Anne scandalized the court by showing up in purple.  How dare she wear purple when she isn't the queen?  How dare she!

Rainbow Flowers

 Blue skies for my rainbow of blue flowers.

Block #12

Block #13

I only have three blocks to go for my Smitten quilt. The fabric for block 14 is on my cutting board, but a cat is testing it and slowed production considerably.

FNSI - Spinster quilt

Old Windmill

Trouble at the Old Mill!  I used blues for this to mimic wind.  The print is nicely offset by the solids here and that brighter blue is rather yummy.

Ozark Maple Leaf

I'm sticking with the fall theme for leaves.  This sat out for a couple of days until I felt like I could put these together.  I'm listing this and the Old Windmill under my FNSI post, but in reality both were done in small increments during the course of the week.  When I felt that I needed to play with fabric this week, I went ahead and played a little and got it out of my system for the moment.

Peace and Plenty

Have you ever had Good and Plenty candy?  I never liked that candy as a kid.  Licorice is one of those old timey candies that your grandparents told you how they used to eat it as kids and how it was such a treat. Then you thought long and hard about how awful growing up back then was if all they had was licorice candy or candy buttons stuck on paper that you could never get off without ripping the paper with them. All I'm saying is people were tougher back then. This is a long way of saying that the Good and Plenty candy came in a bright pink package.  I actually have fabric that mimics that package a little better, but I didn't think that it would be all that peaceful if I went full on Good and Plenty here.  By the way, I love licorice now - especially if it is in fennel or Ouzo.

Periwinkle

Could I do anything with this other than make it periwinkle?  I actually thought about using some snail fabric I have but was concerned that it would not fit in with the rest of the blocks.  See?  I'm all about the restraint here.

Postage Stamp

Well, those seams didn't match up, did they?  I'm going to live with it.  After quilting I don't think it will be so obvious.  At any rate, this is inspired by the Inverted Jenny a most famous postage stamp.  Come to think of it, that stamp isn't perfect either.

Mothers, Night, Noon, and Northern Lights

Noon and Light

I could have gone with brighter shades of yellow for my noon and light block, but it is just not light here right now and this is really much more accurate.

Night and Day

Are you kidding me?  Are you kidding me?  Look at that!  Boo. Yah!

Mother's Dream

 At this time of year, my mother dreams of flowers and spring.  She is an amazing gardener and she dreams of having her orange rhododendron bloom.  It won't because the Wisconsin winters are always cruel and unusual, but if it did it would be a dream come true.

"What? I cured myself thank you very much."

Sam had a hematoma on his ear which required a trip to the vet.  I made the appointment, told my co-workers I would be late to work and got up at 5:00 am to get him to the vet's very first appointment at 7:30 am.  I did all of this only to discover that the hematoma had mostly gone away during the night.  Here's the thing, Sam curled up on my lap the night before his appointment and Angry Bob lumbered in, sat down by us, and spent five minutes cleaning Sam's ear.  The next morning the swelling was down considerably and I decided we could wait for the weekend for his appointment.  Today it was completely gone and Dr. Angry Bob once again spent five minutes on his patient keeping his ear clean.  Sam has bald spot where the bubble was but is letting me touch it and seems okay with it.  Bob gets extra treats for taking care of business and I get the satisfaction of knowing that I live in a Disney movie.

Peaceful Hours

I could spend several peaceful hours staring at these blue fabrics.

Northern Lights

We just had a display of the northern lights here and I missed it because we had cloud cover.  The lights were green, but I chose this fabric because I saw it in my stash and wanted to use it.  Sorry, not every story will be nominated for the Booker Award.

Modern Blocks and Spinsters! Oh, my!

Everything Equal

 Over the weekend, I decided that I couldn't live with the improv block I made for Sew Mama Sew's Modern Block of the Month series.  Instead, I pulled out the Modern Blocks book and picked one that I thought would fit in nicely.  This is the result and I have to say I like it more than the improv block.  Guess I'm just not an improv kind of gal.  While I was at it, I decided that the February block for the MBOM series was too difficult for me to do.  So, I picked this block:

On the Plus Side (pieces)

On the Plus Side

 ...which somehow seemed easier to do at the time.    At any rate, wow, that was a day full of work and I took a nap after doing this.

Linoleum

 After getting caught up with the Modern Blocks of the Month, I settled in for some more Spinster blocks.  This one is Linoleum and is grey because I'm not going to lie; my linoleum really needs to be cleaned.

Morning

 This block is all yellow and flowers because I can't wait for flowers, springtime, and light in the morning.  Of course, daylight savings time is this weekend.  I didn't handle that information very well - I said a very dirty word when I found that out.  I'm not sure why I reacted that negatively, but I guess I'm not handling change very well.

Maple Leaf

 Speaking of change, my Maple Leaf is orange for the pretty, pretty fall leaves.  One of my neighbors had a beautiful maple tree that produced leaves about this color every fall.  I say, "had" because he had to cut it down after it was destroyed during the recent ice storm.  That was a loss and it will be much missed.

Handsome boy, with both ears.

This guy gets his picture here because he is going to the vet tomorrow.  You can kind of see the bubble on his ear.  I need to get that checked out and lanced if necessary to avoid being the worst cat owner in the world if it is causing him pain.  He actually doesn't seem phased by it, but I need to make sure he's fine and stays so very, very handsome.  Wish him and me luck at the vet tomorrow!

A night to remember

My beautiful lady slipper.

She keeps putting up more buds.

From my parents at Christmas, still striking.

Another picture of my rebloomers.

My friends who I work with with agree - last night was a night we will be talking about for years.  It will be the night that we use to scare new employees when they are foolish enough to make plans, "Well, in the session of '12, I thought I was going to go out for dinner too, except when I got off work nothing was open because it was 2 a.m."  So, I'm going to drink some coffee, brush myself off, go for a walk, and get ready for another day.  I can't wait to see what will happen.

Home, Birds, and Kitchens

Homeward Bound

Home is in Wisconsin, the land of Badger Red and White.  There was no doubt that this block would be in Badger Red and White.  Once a Badger, always a Badger.

Honeycomb

Of course I made this block golden yellow, with dots to mimic a honeycomb.  Now that I look at it, it kind of is disturbing to me.   There is something about groups of circles that I find slightly unsettling; I guess they are too much like white blood cells or something along those lines.  This will be the honeycomb, white blood cell block.  Blergh.

Hovering Birds

Did you know that the Pied Kingfisher hunts by hovering above water?  Did you know that this black and white bird can swallow its prey mid-flight and thus can fly over great distances of water?  Well, now you do.  Got a little David Attenborough on you just now.

Hovering Hawks

My hawks are Red-Tailed Hawks.  These are North America's most common hawks and can be found in open areas because they prefer fields and deserts in which to hunt.  The Red-Tailed Hawk displays aggressive posture when it holds its body and head upright while its feathers are standing erect.  But, then, you probably would have figured that was aggressive behavior if you saw that in the wild and wouldn't need me to tell you this.

Jackknife

Last time I was home, my dad gave me a black jackknife.  It's a great knife with a blade that will actually be big enough to slice an apple with when I go hiking.  That's the thing about why I like that knife; it isn't a cute girl knife, but an actual knife that will perform a function and doesn't have to be cute.  It replaces the cute girl knife I got from a now ex-boyfriend.  For some reason it was pink and way too small to be of use. You could kind of poke at an apple with it, but that was about it.  Oh, but so cute!  Seriously.  Not everything made for women needs to be pink and small.  Sometimes a welcome gift is one that actually works.  Rant ends here.

Kitchen Woodbox

I made this block out of kitchen chairs.  I cheated a bit to use more of the print, rather than have a solid white center.  I like it this way and wish I had kitchen chairs that looked like this.  Someday.   Someday.

Smitten - Blocks 10-12

Booyah!  Three more blocks done for the Smitten quilt.  I also have all the pieces cut for a fourth block, but I've decided to put that away and take out a few more Spinster blocks.  It's all good.