7 Weeks vs. 7 Months

Then - 7 and 1/2 weeks

vs. Now - 7 and 1/2 months

Odie's grown a bit, to say the least, weighing in at roughly 45 lbs. His unusual color (black sable) has turned a few heads as it is quite striking. 

Never expected it would change this much when I first saw him at 3 and a half weeks but I love it. And him, too!

Challenge!

Oh and what's this???

Did someone sneak in a new quilt challenge? Why, yes, yes I did! 

If I get really motivated, I may actually get something designed for the 2018 Hoffman Fabrics Challenge. Haven't done one of these in years, so why not. Of Course, I'll need to pick up a few more fabrics for this project.

Sweet Treats

I'm still job hunting. 

It is a long, drawn out process, that can be an emotional rollercoaster at times. Everyone faces it during their life time, so I'm not special in that regard.  How I balance out the ups and downs is by giving myself a few small rewards. 

Sometimes it's a special yummy treat to eat.

 Sometimes it's a special yummy addition, or two, to my Stash.

Low calorie coral!

Balancing blues!

The blue and white sea creatures in the upper left corner is NOT a batik - it's a printed In The Beginning fabric. Had me fooled for a minute at first glance.

Simply stunning seashells!

The small blue and white whale square is a neat little pincushion.

If looking at the new fabric isn't enough to balance the mood, I just remember that it's 5 o'clock somewhere.

Color Me Cream!

While I haven't been in the studio much the last few weeks, I have been busy with color, projects, bits and pieces.  It's time to get my late Aunt's condo on the market. In order to do that, some repair, cleaning, and painting needs to be accomplished.

Starting in the dining area & living room - check out the Mint & Mocha color scheme.

While I'm not saying I like it or not - the milk chocolate brown needed to go. The walls of the dining room area are only 7 feet tall. It leads directly into the kitchen and neither space has a window, so no natural light.

I started with a coat of Kilz latex primer before the new color went on - Behr Premium Ultra Paint & Primer with stain blocking, satin finish in Belgian Cream.  It took two full coats to get it to this point. The green is staying and being refreshed. Everything else will be Belgian Cream, and I mean everything else - walls, ceilings, trim, even parts of me! 

Unfortunately, my Aunt was a smoker (ICK!) and the walls in the primary bedroom were, well, gross and the paint about 13 years old. The second bedroom wasn't as bad but obviously still needed to be painted.

And the ceilings, and the hallways, and all the trim. Miles of trim. Multiple coats. So far, I'm about 4 and a half gallons of the Cream paint in and will definitely finish out the last half gallon.  Of course, some of this lovely shade of Cream has landed on me - my hands, my hair, my clothes & my shoes!  

I removed all the ceiling tiles from the kitchen, labeled them (much like quilt pieces) and gave them a fresh coat of paint before reinstalling them. You can see the color age/change difference on the picture I labeled. 

All the fan blades were taken down & bleached clean. I am here to say that Scrubbing Bubbles Foaming Bleach spray cleaner has been a lifesaver! Totally cuts down on the amount of elbow grease and overall time spent on cleaning.  The trick is to let the product have enough time to work.  For the fan blades, I used Dawn dish detergent and a scrubbing sponge, as the thin wood could not be left to soak.

There's still more to do - my brother is repairing a section of the bathroom ceiling before I prime & paint it, the fridge and stove need a deep clean, and a few more odds and ends, as well as cleaning.  The last big thing is to have all the carpeting replaced - I need to get some quotes on that in the next two weeks. 

That's been keeping me busy in my spare time and unfortunately, out of the studio.  Need to balance that better.

New Mini Finish!

I had thought I would do an aqua binding on the mini Mystery Quilt.

And then I thought again! Sometimes I wish I could just leave well enough alone and not always have this urge to make everything "better".  I know it's part of my DNA, but come on already! 

Anyway... the aqua binding became an aqua binding with a dark blue flange. 

There was some wrestling to get the navy flange placed properly and while it's not perfect, it got stitched down so I could move on.  I always love the trimming off part of the quilting process.  There's just something so satisfying about getting to this point - all nice and clean edges.

I should have trimmed the batting a 1/8 inch past the flange edge to give me a better line to follow for attaching the binding. It would have lined up with the stitching guide on the bed of the workhorse.  As it was, I had to eyeball the  path down the center of the right toe of the presser foot - harder than it had to be!

I think the dark blue flange gives a good, contrasting visual stop for the cream and coral.

The size of this mini meant the binding hand stitched down in a jiffy. The label is already attached, though not completed as it still needs a name!

Mystery Mini Under the Needle

My miniature version of Bonnie Hunter's On Ringo Lake Mystery Quilt has been in parts and pieces since right after Christmas.  Once the whole quilt layout was revealed on New Year's Day, I've been on the fence. My problem stemmed from the fact I was short 3 blocks for the planned on point layout. I couldn't get myself to sit down and stitch up the needed parts.

Fast forward to this past Friday's Snow Day - time to get the parts stitched together before they ended up scattered all over the Studio and in the paws of Odie. The puppy has discovered a taste for tiny batik bits.  We're working on fixing that.  And he managed a 'snatch and run' with a square of batting, too, though he didn't get far. 

Since I wasn't going back to making more blocks, I needed to go forward and figure out what I could/wanted to do with the 10 I had. 

I decided a straight set of 9 blocks would work, along with the pieced sashing. 

It actually stitched up quick as a wink, though it reads more coral/neutral than I thought it would be. I even got it layered and the quilting started before calling it a day and making dinner.

Probably going with a narrow aqua binding to frame it out.  

February 4th - Back in the Studio!

Well, January 2018 was interesting. I'm kind of glad to see parts of it in the rearview mirror. It is time for me to get back in the Studio and get busy!

Of course, the Studio was in state of disarray, much to my dismay.  I haven't been at my most tidiest lately - more of a drop and run, dashing around trying to avoid winter kind a girl.  The long, cold winter evenings have been begging for something more productive than scrolling through Facebook. 

I recently found this Northcott Water Garden Heron panel and decided it would make a great hand quilting project.  Love the colors! All of them!

I hung it up in the studio where I've been walking past it several times a day.  At some point it occurred to me that it would benefit from some extra batting (trapunto style) in the heron to make it more 3D. Yesterday, I finally got to work on it.  I basted close to the edge of the heron's outline.

It was a little nerve wracking cutting away the excess batting, for fear of slipping with the scissors and cutting through the panel itself. I originally left the breast feathers all padded.

Then decided to remove that area, following the curve of the body instead.

But as usual, I can never stop with my first idea. The water lilies in the foreground needed some enhancement too.

And I thought cutting away the excess around the heron was stressful! 

I popped open an adult beverage, put on another episode of Downton Abbey and soldiered on.

A short time later, I was able to get the whole pieced layered, pinned and ready to stitch. I may or may not add borders to this or maybe only a narrow black binding. Either way, now on those nights when it's too cold to be in the Studio, I have no excuse to not be stitching.