Monday

There are other kinds of love besides romantic love - love between family, friends, pets, for example. I hope your day is full of love.

I'm doing a little quilting. 

I decided to follow the seam lines of the pieced squares. The quilting lines don't always go through the intersections of the borders, but they are more evenly spaced and I think that is a more pleasing look.

I finished the binding on the Quilter's Exchange Mystery quilt.

I used a yellowish-green to dark green variegated thread to quilt it.

I didn't have enough of the border fabric to do the binding so I made a two-fabric binding. You can find several tutorials by searching online.

As you can see it is a cloudy windy day. And, cold!

The rest of my time is spent with this little guy.

This is the 3rd day he was in the house.

Here he is today. He's growing and looking so much healthier. He still limps on his front leg, but he runs, plays and scampers up chairs and legs!

 I think he is making himself right at home! He sure is entertaining!

Stay safe and well.

Happy quilting!

Busy, but not sewing much

To see what other quilters are up to go to Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

I finished quilting the Mystery quilt. It is trimmed waiting for binding which I need to make before I can sew that on. Then, I started hand quilting the vintage quilt. 

I loaded it on my quilt machine frame and am standing to quilt. I only quilt for about an hour at a time so it is working fine. I'm just doing cross-hatch stitching in the ditch of the squares. I hope it turns out okay. The squares vary slightly in size, the points are cut off, and a lot of the seam intersections don't match.

And, I am also not quite sure what to do in a situation like the two photos above show. I am running into this at the borders. If I stitch the seam of the squares in the patched blocks the stitching will not go through the intersection of some of the green and white border pieces. If I stitch through the intersections in the border that line of stitching does not line up with the seams in the pieced blocks. I googled antique/vintage quilts online and see that a lot of the stitching lines on those old quilts are not exactly straight, nor do they always go through intersections. So...I guess I will stitch in the ditch with the pieced blocks and have the border stitching fall wherever it falls. I am open to any suggestions/advice.

I have not been getting much sewing or quilting done this week. Well, because, you know, this little guy needs a little bit of attention. What follows next are several photos of the kitten. I put them at the end in case you aren't interested in seeing them. We are very entertained by this little guy! I take many photos every day, mostly to send to my son. He calls daily to see how he is doing.

Husband, a fan of old westerns, has named him Hop-Along, Hoppy for short. He is so cute. I am still keeping a close eye on him. He does use the litter box reliably now. For his safety, we are limiting his access to only three rooms in the house and crating him at night at this time. We noticed the other day that one of his ears is hard and shrinking, probably due to frostbite. It gets smaller by the day. It doesn't seem to be painful though which is good. And, he seems to be adjusting pretty well to his injured foot. I was thinking he might not be able to jump or climb. He is jumping down from short distances, like from the chair to the floor, but is not jumping up. He is however able to climb up short distances, like from the chair seat to the chair back.

I had added three more small plants to my bay window last week before I knew about this kitten. Turns out two of the tree, plus the big Schefflera are toxic to pets. They have all been moved to my sewing room where he can't get to them. but that means I need to figure out a way to protect my fabric, most of which is on an open shelf. 

From that chair, Hoppy was able to explore my sewing table.

He seems to appreciate quilts! 

And he is so playful! and, he plays with anything and everything.

Before I finished this post he did what I knew he would do. I'm glad I moved those plants.

From the chair to the bay window to the TV stand. Interestingly he sat for a few seconds and seemed to be watching the TV. (I was watching Laura from Garden Answer on YouTube make a winter wreath.)

I am thankful that he is doing all the things a growing kitten should be doing. He has yet to purr though. 

Stay safe and well.

Happy quilting!

Something New

 To see what other quilters are up to go to Small Quilts and Doll Quilts.

I am still working away on projects. I just can't seem to post every week or on Monday. I have put the Buried Treasure project away for now. It will be a good project to take to a sew day or retreat. We have sew days at the local library scheduled for Feb. 3rd and 17th. I'm not sure if we will be able to sew on the 3rd as we are expecting snow. Possibly a lot of snow. The retreat is scheduled for the 23rd through the 25th. Our retreats are day retreats - we bring all our stuff and sew for the day, leave it there overnight and come back the next day, and the next day. It is nice to be able to leave things there where it is locked up safe and sound. 

I have also put the 16-Patch project away for now. I need more scraps in specific colors to continue working on that one. I know I will be gifted more scraps at the sew days and retreat. 

But, never fear, I still have projects to work on. I had set aside 2-1/2" squares for the Spools quilt.

I am keeping track of the colors so there will be equal amounts of each in the quilt. So far I have 110 spool blocks. They finish at 4 inches. I will need a lot more.

I have made repairs to a vintage quilt for my friend.

Here is the top before repairs.

This hole is where the quilt was folded. It affected three squares.

Here it is after repair. Can you tell which block was repaired?

Now can you tell? 

It's the one on the left.

I plan to do simple in-the-ditch hand quilting.

I have loaded the Quilter Exchange Mystery quilt on the frame. 

I'm using a green variegated thread.

This is a view of the back.

I have been working on a counted cross-stitch project.

This is the month of May of A Year of Celebrations from Hands on Design.

I got this mini quilt top done a while ago.

It is Olde Glory from Temecula Quilt Company.

I've started quilting it. 

I had planned to get more done, but this happened.

Husband found him outside the barn in the snow Monday evening. He put him back in the barn, but the next morning he was cold and crying. So he brought him to the house. Some food softened with warm water seemed pretty good!

Then he snuggled in for a nap.

He has perked up a lot and is getting playful. 

He has taken over this chair for naps. Son says his dog is going to be upset because he claims that chair when he is here. The plan had been to get him strong enough to go back out to the barn, but Son thinks he might like for him to come to live at his house. He says his dog gets along well with my SIL's cats when they visit them.

Kitty seems to be settling in so I hope to be able to get more quilting time.

Stay safe and well.

Happy quilting!