Caturday!

I call this picture "Crazy Loomy". =) I was trying to figure out how to take a picture of a black cat without overexposing it. I tried many things: no flash, different speeds and finally figured out that I can set exposure levels on the camera and tell the flash what type of light the picture is.

This is the result of my adjustments. Loomy is looking less crazy and a bit more handsome:

Loomy belongs to my friends Kim and Peter. Thank you Loomy for being a guest on Caturday.

Snow!

As soon as I posted about Ella and Emilie, I remembered that I wanted to show today's snowfall. I didn't realize that it was forecast to snow last night, so it was a big surprise to see snow on the tree outside my window when I woke up this morning.




The news on the radio said that we got between 1 and 2 inches of snow. Most of it on the pavement melted or turned slushy. The grass and trees clung to it, but it will be gone soon. The weather will hover around 40 degrees for the middle of the week.

I should take this as a warning and find all of my ice scrapers and gloves! I'm always unprepared for winter.

Emilie's quilt is complete!

I've been calling this "Pink/Brown Baby Quilt" or "Emilie's Pink/Brown Baby Quilt", but those are really boring names. So I'm open to any suggestions on what to officially call this! I finished hand sewing the binding last week, just in time to take it to UFO club at Millhouse and put my name in the jar for finished projects. The drawing for a gift certificate is in December and I've been able to get my name in it quite a few times, so keep your fingers crossed that I win.

On Saturday I visited Kim and Peter and gave Ella and Emilie their quilts. As promised, here are pictures of the girls with their new quilts:

Cutie Pie Emilie


She even wore jammies that matched the quilt (notice the flower on the jammies looks similar to the quilting??!!)



Sweet Pea Ella



If you need proof that her favorite colors are green and pink, take a look at her bedroom walls!

I had all kinds of great pictures on my camera (more of Ella and Emilie, Jack and Owen at the children's museum last week, my knitting progress), but somehow I accidentally erased the entire memory card in my camera. =( I was goofing around with my camera while trying to figure out how to take a picture of a black cat without washing out/overexposing everything. Kim's cat Loomy is mostly black and I was determined to get a picture of him. The good news is that I figured it out. There is a setting for adjusting the exposure and one for choosing the lighting (daylight/fluorescent/tungsten, etc.). Between those and choosing the speed manually, I got some good pictures. Instead of resetting each option, I thought I could do a "reset all" step. Apparently reset all includes resetting your memory card. Grrrr. That was a life lesson. I re-took some pictures of Loomy and he might guest star on a Caturday in the future.

I've finished up/made progress on lots of my projects lately and will try to post about them separately. Unfortunately my Star BOM has fallen behind. I have 2 of those to catch up on and really, really, really hope to get to them this week.

Workshop with Bonnie

I met Bonnie this week!



The first time was last Thursday at a talk she did for a guild in Delafield. She spoke about the fabric food chain. I thought I had a solid grasp on this, but I still learned a lot. It was great to see all of her quilts up close and personal. Photos and websites don't ever do justice.



While at the talk, I found out that there were openings in the Saturday workshop!! I had tried to register for this a while ago, but it was full. As it happened, they had room for me and my mom. The pattern being taught was Virginia Bound (seen in the background of the top picture) from her latest book, Scraps & Shirttails. I got my copy that day and this is probably my favorite pattern. The long diamonds really shine.

On Friday I shopped for more shirts at a pay by the pound thrift shop. I bought a bunch of shirts 2 years ago and cut up half of them, but never got around to using them. This is the perfect opportunity! My mom and I spent the rest of the day washing them, drying them and then "de-constructing". We had a great variety of darks/colors, but very few tan/white/neutrals. So instead of shirts, I decided to use tan scraps that were lying around. Perhaps I'll thrift store shop some more and find a few shirts to mix in. There are 79 blocks total and we only have 8 done, so there is plenty of time!

Here is our messy work area on Saturday:



And here is our first star (made from 4 blocks):



The pattern name is Virginia Bound, but because the workshop was held at North Prairie, I'm naming mine North Prairie Bound. =)

Flip Flops are done!

Another finish! Another Hip-Hip-Hurray!


I just finished the binding on the Flip Flops Quilt. (This picture is taken prior to the hand stitching of the binding). This quilt is for my friend Kim's daughter Ella. She's 4 and is a lot of fun. Her favorite colors are green and pink, preferably together! The backing is pink, the binding is green and I quilted it with a variegated green thread.

I'll take a picture of Ella with the quilt when I give it to her. Before that happens, I need to finish the binding on the quilt for her baby sister. Soon!

Funky Boxes - Top done!!

Hip-hip-HURRAY!

Today I finished the final seams needed to put the top together and then added a simple brown border. The quilt is uber-busy, so I think I can get away with just an inch of brown all around it. The timing is just right, because I am going to my parent's house this weekend and will hopefully be able to quilt it on the longarm. This might be the first baby quilt that I'll have completed prior to the baby being born. What a novelty!

In non-quilty news: I am taking a knitting class. As if I needed another hobby! I'm justifying this because knitting is very mobile and I can do it in situations where I can't quilt. The class is at a lovely yarn shop in Verona, The Sow's Ear.

This is my practice piece. DON'T LOOK TOO CLOSE!

They are having us start with practicing the knit and purl (pearl? perl?) stitches without a purpose of making anything with it. After we do that for a while (a week), we get to make a scarf. I've already purchased the yarn for it--it's gorgeous! (Mossy green, part alpaca, part wool--picture to follow).

I wish I could just wiggle my nose and have this whole thing figured out, because I have a lot of practing to do in order to be happy with the results.

Caturday

Before:



It's been a rough week for Putty. In the spring, he started some medication for an overactive thyroid. The good news is that it's worked very well. Unfortunately one side effect of the medication is that he hasn't felt the need to groom himself very much. He has a lot of fluffy fur and it's been getting matted.

This week, I was attempting to trim some of the mats (they appear out of nowhere!) and accidentally cut him. The vet recommended stitches and because Putty wasn't being cooperative, he needed to be sedated. While sedated, they ended up shaving him! He is better off this way, but he wasn't a happy camper when I picked him up from the vet!

After:

Another busy week!

Sew much going on! I've been like the tortoise this week-- Slow and steady. Nothing is 100% complete and I've added a few new things to my list of projects.

I'll start by showing off some shopping. I went to Hancock's last Friday and was able to use a Joann's coupon to get this sewing machine tote bag for 40% off. I've had my eye on the bag before, but wasn't sure if the dimensions were quite right for my machine. I still didn't know my machine base size, but figured if it wasn't right, I could return it. Good news-- it works! It's not a perfect match, but for $17 it is quite nice.

While there, they had Halloween fabric 75% off. I thought these skeletons were fabulous and would make a great scrub top that I could get away with year round. I'm an x-ray tech, so it doesn't get any better than this! Now if only my garment sewing skills could improve...

On the quilty front:

I finished piecing the In the Beginning wallhanging (mitered borders and all). Now it's in the queue to be quilted.

Funky Boxes are almost all together (I'll save a pic for when it's done). Bindings are on the quilts for Baby Emily and Big Sis Ella (again saving pics for later). Hopefully I can get the hand sewing done on the bindings in the next 2 weeks and register them as complete when I go to UFO club at Millhouse.

Last, but not least, Amy, Shelly and I got together Monday to sew and make some fun bags. Here are our results:

(left to right: Shelly, me, Amy)

Caturday

Charcoal is feeling left out, because Putty got two Caturdays in a row. Is it my fault that Putty is more photogenic and a better helper in the sewing room? Honestly, I have such a hard time taking pictures of Charcoal. 1- He's not cooperative. 2- The camera doesn't like his dark, dark fur and always wants to overexpose with the flash.

Charcoal is my 1/2 cat. I always say that I have 1 1/2 cats, because he belongs to my neighbor who works out of town during the week. In order to make things easier, I suggested that Charcoal just stay at my house. Charcoal was once an outdoor stray and is still extremely skittish. When I would try to give him attention at his house, he would run away and hide. Now that he stays at my house, he is much more outgoing. He's still a little crazy, because I can pet him one minute and the next he runs away from me like I'm an axe murderer. Another reason that Charcoal is here, is because Putty likes him. Putty gets bored with me (a hooman) and likes to play in cat ways with Charcoal.

As long as I'm linking to LOLcats, I swear that this is Putty on the right and Charcoal in the middle.

Happy Caturday!