Puppies

My silly pup decided to challenge the temporary fence she had around her yard. It was temporary after all. And she is growing much faster than we anticipated. Needless to say, we spent last night installing a new permanent fence for her yard. And we made it much bigger to accommodate her size.

Since I was basically on total puppy watch yesterday, I didn't get much sewing done.

The previous few days have just been cutting. And more cutting. And then when a blister formed on my thumb from all the work, I did some more cutting just to hit the point home.

Pictures of cut strips of fabrics aren't any fun, therefore I'll not include any. But I'm ready for our retreat in January and have two quilt tops (similar in build as they are a log cabin-type of block), but it's mindless sewing and easier for me to do while visiting with all my friends.

After the cutting commenced, I needed to do something tangible. Something quick and fun. Something with a little whimsy and sense of humor. I haven't been able to get Ben's cow out of my head for about a week, and found the book I based the cow off of (It's titled 'Out of the Box with Easy Blocks' by Mary Lou Weidman and Melanie Bautista McFarland).

I started it yesterday and hope to have a completed top at least by the end of today. More to come...

New Guild

The quilt guild I belong to downstate is going to be a thing of the past in a few short weeks. My membership expires on December 31. I am not going to renew. It's too hard to travel down and back for a weekly meeting with a five hour drive round trip. I needed to find a new "home".

I tried a guild north of our new place. Twice. But it doesn't seem to be a good fit. The women there aren't very inquisitive about me and haven't really made an effort to get to know me much. I said something to a few of the ladies that work at a quilt shop near me and they mentioned another guild south of our new house.

I tried them out yesterday. They meet weekly too! Every Monday morning at 9:00-ish and you can bring whatever you want to work on in the four (or so) hours you're together. I brought the Witches along to work on (which is hand embroidery) so that I could talk and get to know the girls without having to talk over a sewing machine.

Yesterday was their Christmas party and they actually wanted me in the pictures when that time came. I already feel like I've been with the group for ages. They welcomed me warmly and were curious about me and the family and my quilting interests.

I haven't been in the studio much the past three days. Saturday dad and Charlotte came for a visit. They loved the art piece I made for them. Sunday we were in Kalkaska all day with my mom picking out our new dining room table/bar to replace the large dining room table we have/had that is too much table for our new house. Yesterday I was at the new guild.

I did manage to fit in some cutting time to prepare for our retreat in January and an occasional Christmas Vintage block that Katie and I have been working on for a few weeks now.

Today I plan on taking advantage of the poopy weather day and getting some "real" work done in here. I'll be doing a lot more cutting up of scraps to prepare for the retreat, but that's not all I plan on doing because the back and hands can only take so much of all of that.

Merry Holidays Everybody

May the holidays find everybody not so busy to be able to enjoy their peace, their companionship, and their friends and families.

I feel like Christmas, in particular, has found such a commercialism opportunity and it's not the reason for the season. Even quilting stores and web sites have used the holiday to try to ply you with "deals" and "values". Hopefully this is a trend that won't stay around long.

For my Christmas giving, I volunteered to quilt five charity quilts for the ASQ guild in Charlotte. Five quilts in 10 days. They were delivered on Wednesday of this week (thank you mom once again for assisting in getting them here and back).

Four of the Five Charity Quilts

The fifth one was on the frame when I snapped the pic, but it was orange, orange, orange.

Hazel seems to be getting bigger by the day.

Hazel at 13 Weeks with her "cigar"

She is learning about studio time and self-play. She tries to "help" me in the studio and I have relegated to giving her left over handles from various bag projects so she feels like she's actually a part of my studio time. 

Since she's getting so much better at independent play she enabled me to actually get this finished this week for my father and his wife Charlotte. They are coming later today for a visit and I made this for them for Christmas. 

The photo and the finished project

Here it is a little closer...

This took me about a week to complete

I love, love, love doing art projects! This is probably why I enjoy doing my long arming so much. I get to enhance the quilt with my version of art (since drawing and painting are NOT my thing). Here's what's on the frame this week.

My New York Beauty ready for long arming

I have started putting curly feathers into the outer border, curls in each of the "points", half feathers into both small borders strips, and half feathers into the quarter circles. I haven't actually started quilting the quarter circle points or the spaces between since the art project above took up much of my time.

Katie and I have realized we are less then a month before our annual winter retreat! We look very forward to this event every year, and last year, due to circumstance and weather, we were unable to attend. Barb and Margaret are supposed to come along again this year, so it's going to be very nice catching up with them during the four days we get to sew together.

I'm trying to get all my pieces cut before we leave. Everything is cut for the Antelope Canyon top I'm going to make and am now cutting for a pattern Katie drafted (from a picture no less). It's a rather complex scrappy block, so to make sure I'm keeping myself organized I have devised labels.

Keeping things organized as I cut from my scraps stash

That's about all the news as of late.