Winter's Coming

Over the weekend I altered some clothing for a neighbor and while I was at it some pink flannel started haunting me to make pj's for DD.  Oh alright, it had been haunting me since before the alterations, but today I sat down with what I wanted to do and made them.  What do you think?  It's nice and straight in reality.  The sleeves took more of the pink snow flake fabric than I'd thought they would so the skirt isn't as full quite as I thought it would be so I ran a nice big slit up the back just in case.  I would never do that if we lived up in the frozen North, but we don't and most years we only have a handful of nights where it  dips below  freezing.  As you can see it has a square peasant style neckline which looks so cute on I don't know why anyone fusses over curved necklines.  The flannel is wonderful to touch and I don't say that about all flannel.  The bodice lining is a silky stretch blend.  Now you know one of two things will happen.  Either DD will love it or she will fuss at me about size.  Really?  She's 6 anything that doesn't fit now will fit soon.

Did you know it's nearly October?  The year Autumn has been ringing in loudly for me and I'm looking forward to days fresh and delightful smells coming from my oven and going without the air conditioner!

Foto Finish - Autumn

This week's theme for Cat Patches Photo Finish is Autumn, and while this isn't the picture I was originally going to show I thought it was a more interesting choice from my collection (not to mention it wont make you hungry the way a picture of my house on pie day would have).  This is a harvest moon that my DH and I witnessed in 2005 from our yard.  What a beauty!

Surprise! My Grand Opening!

It's finally here!  The day I've dreamed of since I finished my first few quilts three years ago!  My very own eshop!  My new shop is http://www.zibbet.com/SandandSunshine so please visit me!  Thanks to the folks at Zibbet I can now sell my quilts without having to pay outrageous commissions!  Actually they don't charge commission at all, now wont that be a real change for me?  Did you know by the time you PayPal and Ebay you're out about 20% in commissions just to sell a single quilt?  That really hurts.


I'm accepting PayPal of course and while it says shipping within the United States I able to create shipping quotes on a person by person basis so if you see something you like feel free to drop me a comment or a note. This is a very exciting time for me and I thank you all for standing by me on my shaky journey to this point.

My current listings are my Lollipop Quilt,  My I love you Freemotion Quilt, and Scatty Stars.  It pains me to be selling them especially before the Christmas Quilt-a-long is even done, but I have run out of places to put them in my tiny little house (no kidding) and the sale of these lovely quilts will bring in some much needed funds for things like Christmas.

What is the Difference?

Now I was going to start this post saying I didn't have a very productive day, but the more I thought about what I had to tell you I'm certain it was a productive day.  So you decide, but keep in mind your only option is to agree with me.  First there was 10 days worth of laundry...

I helped DD with her homework.  She has spelling words each week this year, just like clockwork.  She is still on the learning side of the reading hill so when the spelling list comes home I know she doesn't know any of the words, and that causes me a bit of turmoil.  After all, I have one week to not only teach her how to read the word, but how to spell it as well.  I know she'll hate me if I make her write the entire list of ten - five times each and everyday, and there is a part of me that feels without proper reinforcement that wouldn't stick anyway.  So I've been trying to dream up new and different options to present the words in a fun way.  This is what I came up with last week that DD liked so much we did it again this week. I tell DD the word and she finds the letters for the word and puts them together.  This week I also added writing the word down on a piece of paper after it was spelled out, as I thought that would reinforce the connection between the capitalized Scrabble letters and the lower case letters she needs to use on the spelling test.

Tiny looks very disinterested, but she was really just waiting for the right moment to spell her own word. She singled out the letters TELC, which shockingly  seems to stand for language fluency matters in multiple countries.  I have only read two of The Cat Who mysteries so I'm not going to bother thinking she's smart; I already knew that.

After homework I was completely tuckered out, and settled in on the couch to start a new book.  I was to tired to read and ended up sleeping while DD curled up in my lap to watch "Powerpuff Girls" episodes that I record for her every night (they don't come on here until 10:30 pm!).

When I woke up and felt in much nicer spirits so I finished folding the last load of laundry, and started to pin Tropical Waves on the quilt frame.  I had actually started this project two other times. The first time I discovered that the uptake leader is bigger for a reason and mine was in the wrong spot.  So I had to switch all those around.  Then when I pinned it the second time I only thought I started pinning at center, but had really started at the 3/4 mark so I had to unpin everything.  Needless to say after that I walked away and let it sit for a couple of days.  Yesterday the pinning went much more smoothly with the only hiccup being some hamburger helper noodles stuck to the bottom of my pot and trust me no one cared.

So you see how can you call that an unproductive day?  Yet that was how I felt; perhaps it was due to the nap, or the matronly laundry that I somehow forgot I did.  I think we judge ourselves to harshly sometimes.  I didn't get that quilt quilted, I didn't do this or that thing that I needed to do.  But the question becomes what did you do instead?  A nap?  Cooked dinner?  Study?  More to the point, remember that all those things matter too.  Regardless of how you intended to run your day, enjoy this one no matter what it throws at you.

It's Saturday and I remembered to check over at Cat Patches for Foto Finish.  This weeks theme is Look Up.  I think perhaps the best part of this weekend venture is going back through the thumbnails of my old pictures and seeing what there is to see.  This is DD I would guess for her 4th Christmas so she would have been about 3 1/2.  I found it in the 2008-2009 folder so that works out about right.  I think there is something beautiful about the way a child looks at a Christmas Tree, don't you agree?  Though I'd like to state for the record I have no memory of my living room being arranged like that, so I can only figure that must have been the year we moved the furniture all around for maximum capacity for Thanksgiving.  Wont ever do that again to much work instead just grab a seat and sit where ever you can!

Do you see Sunny above DD?  How about out that window?  Do you see my neighbor's green grass?  That's life here in Florida.  Now I bet right now you're all missing snow but just wait until it gets here and the roads are covered in that filthy slush and everything is covered in grime...  Then you'll be back to enjoy my green grass.

Nothing Beats Stretching Out with a Good Book

What will you be up to today?

Tiny is about 2 pounds smaller than her big brother Sunny, though he has his summer clothes on so he always appears small this time of year.  Tiny graces us with about 10 pounds of long sleek muscular cattiness.  She has lovely large skin flaps on her back legs as seen in Egyptian Maus.  Somehow when I photograph her right side up she always looks mad.  That is deceptive as she is a very assertive, playful, and often loving cat.  When she is inverted like this she looks so much more like the darling she can be.  This picture is courtesy of DH and I just had to share it.  It's a shame this quilt is a $10 super clearance special or else it might make a good entry for the Pet's On Quilts Show.

Sewing Room Cats

Here are my two Sewing Room cats. As I've told some of you Sunny likes to sleep on the line. Nearly committed but not really. That line of decorative tile is the threshold of the sewing room. To far in to close the door. Tiny is fully committed but Sunny not so much. This is as close as they will ever sleep together. My cats are not like those lovely curled up cat balls you see sleeping on the Internet. I love them and their visits regardless.

Christmas Quilt-a-long: September Evening

What a day today was!  I think I'm completely tuckered out.  I fused all 5 blocks I had to do and then I appliqued them all down.  For good measure I tucked the threads from the applique work to the back side of the quilt and this leaves me just one block shy of having all of the blocks I need for the quilt.  Now if I could just remember how I decided to place these blocks...

These turtle reverse raw edge applique blocks will square up to 20.5" when that last block is cut and finished, so they are really good size.  Who knows maybe my far fetched thought yesterday of wouldn't it be nice if it was done by the end of the quilt-a-long might actually work out.  In the picture I opened up and spread out the five I did today.  There are four folded up in the lower right hand corner, taking me up to nine completed.  Hope everyone had a good day sewing.

Christmas Quilt-A-Long 2: September Morning

I'm all set up for today's Christmas Quilt-a-long.  I raced ahead and all month long I've been working on our Scatty Stars Christmas Quilt-a-long Block of the Month Quilt and finished it up on Thursday.  What do you think?  I went with a narrow folded border and then a wider border that I quilted a row of stars all the way around, which I thought turned out really nice and I wondered why I hadn't seen borders quilted this way before.  Then I got stuck and didn't know where to go with it so I stewed for a while and eventually came up with flowers and swirls.  The flowers were DD's idea, she wanted Zinnias, so I did those as well as daisies and orchids.  The orchids are fun in the challenge they present.  Each time I form one I stop and think about the shape as I move through the petals.  Flowers are organic so there is no right and wrong way to make them and I found little dropping petals actually made them look better.

When Sue first posted about the BOM, I went to my fabrics and pulled out stuff that matched, I just kept going through what I had and trying to match it to her pattern requirements.  That's how I ended up with this theme of Flannel and Novelty Prints.  I actually had so much fabric leftover I made it reversible.  Hey I said I've been working on it all month, what did you think I'd been up to?
I went with the dark pink binding and I really like it.  There is something so wonderful that happens as you stitch a binding on.  It's as though even the quilt knows it's nearly finished.  As a bonus for finishing Scatty Stars my quilting table is nice and clear so I'm don't have a mess to try and photograph away from.

Does anyone remember this project?  I prepped it all yesterday.  This is my Art for Your Bed Quilt.  It is the Reverse applique bonus from my Hawaiian Ocean Applique quilt and I'll even admit I haven't worked on it since May.  It became my Christmas Quilt-a-long project but then I changed where I kept my active projects and it was out of sight and couldn't inspire me, but I've relocated it and am ready to get back sewing.  As I said I prepped it all yesterday by re-ironing and then cutting all of my rustic brown colored batik and squaring them up.  Now I just need to gab a bottle of water for the iron and I can get started fusing!  Happy Sewing Today.

Kids Say the Darnest Things

Tonight at dinner my six year old told me that 20 years ago there were cave men and dinosaurs alive and walking the Earth.  Needless to say her daddy felt very old.

Scatty Stars is Quilted!

I just finished quilting the Scatty Stars Quilt from the Christmas Quilt-a-long.  I've been trying to make the binding for it, but I keep putting the pieces together backwards for reasons unknown so posting to you seemed like a good break.

After much thought and consideration I settled on flowers and swirls for the quilting.  There are Zinnia/Daisy type flowers, as well as orchids. Once that was decided the actual quilting went rather quickly and I was able to finish it the same day I settled on my design.

Using the mid arm is becoming more natural and as each quilt is unpinned from the frame my arms breathe a sigh of relief that I didn't have to quilt it on my Elna with a mere 6 1/4" throat space. I'm not sure which quilt will go on the frame next.  Any suggestions?

A New Step Forward with Bows!

Yesterday was a wonderful milestone for DD.  She says "okay" so I can tell you all about it.  Granted I would have told you anyway...  DD learned to tie her shoes.  Isn't that delightful?  Long since gone are the days when the school would teach them so it's taken a bit for everything to come together for her, and I'm so proud of her.  You see my mother brought over one of those learning to tie books and while it didn't teach the method I use, the two colored strings really helped her see not only how the book did it, but how I'd been attempting to teach her and then it clicked.  That click is so wonderful I just had to share.  DD looks so goofy happy in the bottom picture, I could have snapped it a second later and had a nicer pic, but this is what I captured.

Not doing much sewing this weekend.  Instead were just enjoying being together, while the back of my brain fusses over how to quilt what I want on Scatty Stars.

Foto Finish - Things on Four Legs

My new friend Dana at Stormy Days has a post about another blog called Cat Patches where they have a photo finish once a week.  The theme is different each week and this weeks theme is four legs.  I just had to join in so here's my four legged photo.  Now as sure as she's sitting there you're thinking she does not have four legs and that's true, but she's sitting on my sewing table that does have four legs.  So there.  And besides this saved you another Meerkat or real cat picture.  Hope everyone is having a good Labor Day Weekend.

What made the Frame?

Scatty Stars!   Sue's Christmas-a-long BOM has made the frame.  Wow!  When I put it that way this quilt shows nearly a year's worth of work.  How about that?  I'm still a little on the fence about how to quilt it, but the star border came to me as soon as I pinned the top to the other layers.  Flash, stars!  Oh the joy of being inspired.  I just love the look of these stars along the top edge of the quilt and I wonder why I haven't seen them used in a border like this before?  Maybe that will become clear to me while I work on the rest of the quilt.

This is the 3rd quilt to make my midarm quilt frame, I wonder how long I will keep track before I lose count.  For the stars I kept everything the same including the tension.  The flannel of this quilt really wants to grab so what would normally be only a bit tight seems to want to be extremely tight.  This is an 80/20 lightweight batting which I think will be a wonderful weight for this baby quilt.  The quilt I just finished was a hi loft full polyester so I was delighted the stars turned out so nice without any fiddling from me.

So while I dream of quilting patterns, why don't you tell me about your week?  It's been a give an take week here.  I'm glad it's September, August seemed to delight in throwing more and more difficult things my way and it's nice to move on.  How about you?