Let the fun begin

It shouldn’t have taken me this long to finish a simple project like this, but time is precious right now. I goofed up on some of the colour combinations, but overall I like the way it turned out.

Maybe tomorrow night I will have some time to cut the batting and backing for both of these pieces and then…. I am ashamed to admit that I haven’t done any freemotion quilting since Christmas! I am so bad. Especially after learning so much about it last year. Use it or lose it. We’ll see how much I’ve lost – although I am really  looking forward to the next part. And then maybe I’ll get back to my stars.

Until next time,

The flowers are up!

Seeing flowers popping up in my flowerbed makes me so happy – even if they are Snowdrops! And even if there is still snow on the ground (yes, that is snow in the foreground), It’s been melting like crazy for the past week, so there isn’t much left. I can finally walk out to our back fence without having to trudge through the snow (or mud). While I was in the backyard this afternoon, looking around, I noticed some big, beautiful turnips in my vegetable garden that I hadn’t pulled out before the snow came. Just didn’t have the time. They were sitting half out of the ground, so I pulled one out expecting it to be mushy with having been frozen. I don’t know what it will taste like, but it was nicely firm – neither mushy nor woody. Guess I’d better grab the rest of them tomorrow. At the least, I can cook and mash them, and freeze them. I’ll toss a couple of them in a stew tomorrow night and see how it goes. I wonder if the beets and carrots out there are still good.

Still having fun with my cups. Some of them have turned out better than others. I’m still experimenting and learning about colour combinations. I used four of my more favourite results to make a little wallhanging for the office coffee room. The rest will be a runner for the shelf we dry our coffee mugs on.

While I was deciding what to use for a sashing, I rediscovered a fat quarter of this coffee bean material. I had picked out another fabric that I thought would go better colour wise, but the coffee beans were just too appropriate.

Until next time,

Friday Furball - Frustration

This is for Karen in Nova Scotia, if she’s reading. She told me that she’d never seen a magpie. They are as common as sparrows here – big, fat and sassy. And smart. They know how to drive cats crazy by luring them close and then flying away at the last minute. These pictures are of a neighbour’s cat and our clothes line a couple of years ago. She and the magpie went through this at least twice before the bird got bored and flew away. Poor Ellie May.

It’s also Feline Friday over at Sarah Did It and there; a little bit of Furry Friday at The Drawing Board

And then there were four

Still working on my “Cup, Cup, Cups!” paper piecing pattern by Karla Alexander. Boy, I have a lot of scraps! So far I’ve been able to avoid cutting into my fabric: I’ve been sticking to only what is already in my scrap bags. They are going together easily and I’m having fun coming up with funky colour groupings. They also fit very nicely inside the tiles on my kitchen floor! One of these days, I’m going to get a design wall to hang my blocks on! But until then, Ginger has graciously agreed to model the occasional block for me – like block #5. The only trick is to get he to stop moving long enough to take the picture…

Until next time,

Friday Furball - Mr. Lucky

Cups and stars

Just a very quick post to prove that I’m still alive! Good riddance to January.

Not only was it crummy weather-wise with almost every day gray and gloomy or foggy (we only had sunshine for a few hours every Friday), but it seems to have seeped into my head as well. Every project I began, I did wrong. Sewed backwards, sewed wrong. Rippit, rippit, rippit! Between the weather and the mistakes, I was going insane. But the sunshine is back (although not today) and just about all of the foot of snow that we’ve had since before Christmas is gone. Hallelujah!

I have my stars put together, but not sewed. I’m thinking that I might use something different for the corners. I haven’t decided. It looks like I’m going to have to make at least one more star, also. After I took the picture above, I noticed there’s a bit of an imbalance between the light and dark stars that I need to fix.

So, while I’m thinking about that, I started another project (!) I picked up a pattern of paper pieced cups by Karla Alexander called Cup, Cup, Cups! while I was on vacation last summer. And last week, while I was rinsing out my coffee cup in the office, I noticed a ragged looking towel covering the shelf where we dry our mugs. I thought it would look better with a little runner made out of these cute mugs. Plus, I have sooooooooo many scraps to use up. And paper piecing can be a great way to do it – if you do it right. If you do it wrong, you end up creating more scraps!

Until next time,