Star Quilt and Communist Plots

I finished up a quilt today - leafy/curl vine in the outer border, up & down leaves in the inner border, then a leaf/curl meander in the body. The thread was a pretty variegated which doesn't show up in the photos.


DH was hard at work starting to set posts for my (soon) new railing. I have sooo many customers with bad knees/hips/other body parts I know they will appreciate this. It is crazy warm weather - you can see he's working in shirt sleeves. Tonight they are calling for over an inch of rain. If we were having NORMAL weather this would be 10 inches of snow (according to About.com). Hah - that puts me in mind of the joke about why women cannot judge distance... men have always told them that this (space you finger & thumb 3" apart) is 6 inches.

Today's commentary is regarding the energy-friendly CFL lightbulbs. There is no way in hell these bulbs are saving us money. According to Wikipedia, the life span of a cfl bulb is between 6000 and 12000 hours. I think they have at least one too many zeros on those numbers. 6000 hours = 250 full 24-hour days. BOTH bulbs in our front hall burned out Monday night at the same time. These lights are on maybe 100 hours per year. And there is no way they have been in the fixture for ... umm, no I can't do the math. But you get the idea. Last week one bulb burned out in the powder room (which is also only on for wee periods of time - I mean, how long does it take to have a 'P'?). Today there is another burned out in the main bathroom. I think it's a communist plot. Along with the weather.

Funny little jobs

This week I've been working on funny things.

One normal quilt. Mostly normal - one of the butterflies is made with (I think) a plastic tablecloth fabric. I was very surprised Floyd stitched through it without incident.

One little project I'm planning for the Caledonia Guild.

One quilt restoration. So far I've replaced 13 fan blades and added a patch over some torn muslin. Tomorrow I will finish, up to the customer's $$ limit. If I didn't have a limit I could keep stitching on this all week.

Step 1 - find a similar fabric in my stash.

Step 2 - pin the heck out of it.

Step 3 - applique with tiny stitches, colour matching the thread to the patch piece.

UFO and final class

I completed a UFO on Monday. This was a 'tinner' from the Binbrook guild - the theme of the tin was Cats & Dogs. The only dog block was made by me after I got the tin back from the exchange. Maybe I stumbled on a secret Cat Society Group??? Because the dog looks so funny surrounded by the eight cats I wanted to name the quilt "What the F**k???". However. I gave this to an old friend who had a brain tumour removed yesterday. I figure she is quite likely to have kids around at the hospital and that would not be appropriate on the quilt. I have been so sad for her. She was the person who raised funds for the SPCA. She was the person who organized a donation box for a needy family at Christmas. She was the person who collected for the Women's Shelter. She was the person who always made you see the funny side of any situation. If you have a minute, prayers for Kathy, please.

Yesterday was the final class for Morning Out. The gals all had their tops done or were adding their final border. Yaaay - good job ladies!

Dinner Parties

Broken Star Quilt

Hubby and I need a vacation. On Thursday while I was out with my Red Hat girls, he was doing his 'man thing' in the garage. The phone out there is cheap, old, and covered in several years worth of dirt, oil & grease. Well, duh, it doesn't work very well. As he was bashing it about and punching all the numbers it seems he called 911. The two nice lady constables insisted on going through the house (to make sure I wasn't laying in a pool of blood) while the 6'6'' gorilla constable waited with hubby. As for me - yesterday I spilled a bag of flour in the pantry. That settled the issue of when I was going to vacuum up the cob webs and dust bunnies settled in behind the 14 cans of tuna, 12 cans of tomato paste, 3 bottles of apple juice, 8 tins of chick peas, etc., etc. (Belonging to a bulk food discount store is not always a good thing.)

Here is a lovely Broken Star quilt. Enough said.

Quilts & Dog Theory

Today's Horoscope:
Wednesday, November 18 You might not be feeling terribly ambitious at the moment,
Am I allowed to live up to that? Apparently I didn't - I've been working all day. Mostly. Except for the half hour I took for a walk with stinky-dog. And the half hour for today's Sudoku puzzle. And the 20 minutes to watch Quilting Arts on tv.
On the subject of stinky-dog... I have come to the following conclusion: a country dog that is happy and stinky is the canine equivalent of a man hanging out in the garage wearing a plaid flannel shirt and baseball cap.

Here are two finished quilts. I made the star quilt - it's going to the Caledonia Rotary Club for their auction next weekend.




The Sundays With Seurat is a customer quilt. The body is quite busy so I quilted that with clamshells, then did separate border treatments. I love the little monkey in the cornerstones.

Quilting, Shoes & Zucchini (still???!!)

I love this scrappy quilt. Black makes the colours really pop. I quilted it with purple thread - feathers in the black background and continuous curve in the print fabrics.



My friend Anne (I am using the term 'friend' loosely here - you'll see why!) felt that I was making too much progress on my UFOs. At guild on Wednesday she gifted me with a Tinner she won a few years ago, knowing me well enough to be aware of my penchant for shoes. I'm ticked about the extra UFO but I really like the blocks, so I guess she is still my friend.

And this week's surprise in the mailbox. Someone made me laugh out loud when I opened this. Anyone willing to fess up???