Monday Miscellaneous

Christmas Gifts:

I was the ever so fortunate recipient of this lovely piece of quilt-work from P. at The Way I Sew It:


The colors, the funky designs in the fabric, coupled with the black border..., well, it just makes me happy.  Every time. 


I left it on the floor, where I could admire it no matter where I sat, until this fuzz butt quilt inspector decided she needed to test her claws on it.

To quickly remove this already cherished piece from danger, I grabbed it and put it on the back of the couch.

It looked so good, that there is remains.

I also received a lovely purse and tissue holder (although I keep my driver's license and credit cards in it) from my mom at Suzi's Stitchin'.  She is one talented lady. 

She used all my very most favorite colors in the creation  Talk about "custom made!"

A Tale of Two Table Toppers...er Wall-hangings:


For Christmas I got on a handmade kick.  I showed off some of my work here and here.  But there were two items I didn't show because the recipients read my blog.

The first was made for P. at The Way I Sew It:

The second was made for my cousin:

Same pattern ~ one I've decided I like a lot.  I enjoyed seeing it made up in two different fabric groupings.  While my cousin's uses the traditional Christmas colors, I used one of the later Christmas fabric collections for P.'s.  (Actually, I won that bunch of fabric in a giveaway a year and half ago, so it was nice to finally use it.)

I put the border around P.'s, but as I knew my cousin would likely use hers as a table-topper on a very specific table, I left the border off.  The border would have made it too large for the table. 

I am quite pleased with them both.

If you look carefully, you'll see that besides the color and the border the two are not exactly alike.  

When I was making P.'s, I accidentally inverted the pieces attached to the center square.  I decided it looked pretty cool and left it that way.  I think I may actually like it better, design-wise.  A happy accident.

And I must add that I really enjoyed quilting these. The free motion holly ~ well, it's organic, and proved to be a lot of fun to do. I remember when I started free motion quilting, I was terrified.  Now an unquilted project is my playground! (Cue the maniacal laughter.)

The Other QI

Many months ago, I introduced you to Marko, my cousins' Maine Coon.  He proved his quilt inspection abilities early on.

There is another cat in the household though.  She goes by the name of Molly Baggins.  My cousins rescued her.  They were told that she is only three years old, but she acts like an old lady.  She's overweight, and behaves like she is in pain when we pick her up.  The vet gave her a clean bill of health, but we're considering getting another opinion. 

With her rather sloth-like demeanor, Molly Baggins has always excelled at laying on anything soft.  I was not convinced that proved her ability as a Quilt Inspector.  However, yesterday with a considerable effort to haul her not insignificant mass up onto the sewing table, she has now clearly earned the title.

Doesn't she look like she's smiling?

I removed her from the quilt with much protest on her part, so I could continue my free motion quilting.  When a couple of phone calls took me away from the quilt, I returned to find her planted on it yet again.  I took that as a sign to call it a day and permitted her to fulfill her quilt inspection duties uninterrupted.

Meet My Newest Quilt Inspector

When I moved in with my cousin and her family, I gained another Quilt Inspector.  (A quilter can never have too many, right?) Meet Marko.  He is a Maine Coon with an adorable personality.  Very laid back, very affectionate.

At the age of three, and never having spent much time around quilts, I didn't know if Marko was up to the QI job.  However, apparently Quilt Inspectors are born; not made.  He was just waiting for an opportunity to show me he had the right stuff.  The quilt upon which he is lying had not been there long before he discovered it.  No hesitance at all on his part.  Up he went and into the long sprawl shown in the photo.

I guess he wanted to make a good impression, because he inspected that quilt for at least six hours.  What a thorough job.

Miscellaneous Monday

Painting:

Although I do not care for the paint job in our new house, the wood work is absolutely lovely.  Unfortunately, it is not really noticeable at this point, because the wood kind of fades into the colored walls.  Although I didn't get much of the slider (sliding glass door) in the picture below, if you look carefully, you'll see that the door is framed by wood.

Dining area BEFORE

Notice how the wood work pops with white walls?  (Please ignore our fancy window covering.  We're waiting for Home Depot to install our vertical blinds.)

Dining area AFTER

Speaking of blinds, normally we would install them ourselves, but we have a window over a stairway that we are unable to reach, and since Home Depot would do a whole house for $118, we decided to let them install the three blinds that we need. 

Quilting:

My mom is starting a new quilt.  She is making it for her cousin who was so helpful in regard to our move.  Naturally, the quilt inspector could not let her sally forth alone.

Let me make sure you're doing it right.

This fabric is delightfully relaxing.

It's Curtains For Me:

The previous tenants liked dark colors--dark paint and dark curtains.  I'll admit that I don't see the appeal, but perhaps the colors felt cozy to them?

These curtains were in my bedroom.  My bedroom is in the basement.  While the window lets in a lot of a light for a basement window, it's not exactly glaring.  Yet these curtains could block out the searing desert sun at high noon.  When I wake up in the morning, I have to look at the clock to ascertain if it's daylight yet, that's how dark these curtains make the room.  The only good thing about them is that they make the tan paint look light.

A quick little sewing project and I had new curtains.  You can't imagine how wonderful it was when I woke up this morning to find daylight coming in through these light-colored lovelies.  You can also see that the tan paint isn't as light as it looks, however, it is one of the lightest colors in the house.

I intend to make some beaded tie backs for the curtains like Mrs. P at Quilting in My Pyjamas made for hers.  I got permission from Mrs. P. to use one of her pictures of the lovely beaded tie-backs she made, but Blogger will not let me load it.  Not sure what's up with that.  Maybe Mrs. P.'s blog is snubbing mine?  Trying to keep this bit of loveliness all to itself?  So I encourage you to click on the link for a bit of eye-candy.

Quilt Inspectors, You Gotta Love 'Em

There is no quilt police, but there are quilt inspectors. Mine happens is black, furry, and of the feline variety. His name is Charley. He takes his work very seriously, inspecting partially completed tops, work laid aside for the moment like the quilt being hand-quilted below, individual blocks, pieces of fabric, and of course completed quilts.
His favorite technique is laying on the item in question, even if I'm in the middle of trying to work on it. Kind of like the little prince and the pea. Or perhaps seeing if he looks good on it. (He does look rather good on that purple backing, doesn't he?)

Then there's the ever-popular diving under the quilt top or even a mere block. Charley's inspections always take precedence over my appraisal of the work. Just ask him.

He inspects guitar cases too.

Since Charley was 4 months old, he's worn soft paws over his claws to protect our household items from his natural tendency to scratch. It's worked fairly well until recently. He was always a bit fidgety about the process of putting on the soft paws, but tolerated them well. Now, at the age of 5 1/2 years, he's suddenly developed a full aversion to having the soft paws put on, although he still tolerates them well once the process is done. I don't know why, but the simple answer is that he IS a cat.Not wanting to fight with Charley every few days over soft paw application (with 10 claws to keep covered, it seems we've got to re-do one or two every week), it was time to look into other alternatives.

I've got to give a big thanks to the quilters on the rec.crafts.textiles.quilting newsgroup. The majority of them have a quilt inspector of one pursuasion or another, so I knew I'd get lots of good help when I posted my questions. I was not disappointed. I now have a plan.

First of all, it seems the number one, all around, terrific cat scratcher is the cardboard cat scratcher. Tried to buy one locally, but had no luck, so I co-opted my dad into helping make one. He's been cutting the strips and I'm rolling them into a circle. It's not much to look at, but it ought to be effective. At approximately 9 inches in diameter, we're probably about half done at this point. Since this homemade variety needs to be able to stand on its own (no external container to hold it), it needs to be large enough to give it some weight.

Next, we'll work on other cat scratching venues--perhaps more cardboard scratchers, and some kind of posts. I'd like to have several cat scratchers around so Charley has no excuse to use the furniture.

The third part of the plan is the double-sided sticky tape. I'll apply it to any place on the furniture Charley can't resist. Here's where I've got to give a special thanks to Sherry in Oklahoma for sending me a sample to try. Thanks Sherry!

Hopefully, when this transition is complete, Charley will be happier and so will I. After all, it's important to keep our quilt inspectors in top form.