After spending the weekend in the kitchen, it seems fair to give myself a day off. That won't stop me from doing laundry, but otherwise, I'm spending the day in my cool basement sewing room catching up on blocks.
Before heading into the sewing room, I finished off Block #11 for the Bee-utiful Quilt-A-Long. This one is called "Bee Industrious".
The tractor was supposed to be stitched in John Deere Green. To that, we here at the Three Cats Ranch have just one thing to say: Pish Posh! Our tractor is New Holland Blue, and so that is what it will bee.
My little lap cat was keeping me company while I was doing that stitching. She grows more comfortable every day, and she's starting to think that morning lap time is an excellent way to start the day. I couldn't agree more.
For those of you interested in the state of Sadie's stool (awesome alliteration), it's firm as it should be, and so she's on the mend. Her antibiotic was finished up on Saturday. She's been eating a "sensitive stomach" diet for the past week, but we started re-introducing foods one at a time this past weekend. Everything is continuing to be normal. She'll go back one week from today for a second worming, but we're hopeful her health issues will be a thing of the past from that point forward.
This morning she posed for the best pawtrait yet, I think. I like that she's looking directly into the camera, and this one shows her pretty eyes and the coloration in her fur.
The flash is glistening on her whiskers, but her whiskers are actually all black. Nevertheless, it makes it easier to stitch in the whiskers when the show up nicely as they do in this image.
Once I had my embroidery finished, I got to work on Lesson #7 for the free motion quilting sampler. I'd almost forgotten about this week's lesson. This next image is my practice piece. Our fearless leader calls this motif "Tucking in the Baby". The most challenging part for me was keeping those right to left portions curved, rather than allowing them to flatten out.
It wasn't too hard, and after doing one practice piece, I committed it to my sampler. I love the dimension of this motif.
Here's how my sampler looks so far.
After that, I tried to make this month's Spiky Leaf block for the Block Lotto.
blocklotto.com
Oh my...this was an epic fail. It's all curved piecing.
Usually, that doesn't give me problems. In fact, just last month we made a block with curved piecing, and it worked out just fine. I was hopeful that it would lie flat once I had it trimmed, but no dice. Although I started out with an extra three inches in both directions, I couldn't trim it to size. It ended up with the corner cut off in the upper left here. Oh well.
The Block Lotto is a great way to try out new techniques and experiment with different blocks. Most often they work out. This one didn't, and I won't be submitting it for this month's lotto. Moving on.
Now I'm ready to do the July block for
This month's block colors are pink and lime green. I'm still planning to do some more sewing today, and when I get back to the sewing room, I'll be working on this block.
It seemed like a good choice since that heart on the door will be great in a nice hot pink.
That's where it stands today. I'm still plugging away at the mountain of laundry, but most of it is done.
11 comments:
I'm just starting to practice free-motion quilting on my Brother home machine as per Leah Day's instructions but can't find the Isacord she uses in Portland and don't want to order online. Can you tell me what brand you use for your FM? Do you know if the thread sold for machine embroidery is different from what would be used in FM? Thanks. Sorry I can't figure out how to have my email address to be available for you.
Block play is always a good day in my opinion. I only just noticed Sadie's one ear - the pretty mottling inside.
Robin, it's fine to just email me. You can find a link at the top of my right side bar. I have used all different brands for free motion quilting, and I've never used Isacord. It isn't necessary. There are many good threads to choose from. Some will make more lint than others. I buy most of my thread online. I like the threads from Superior Threads, Red Rock Threads, and Connecting Threads. All three give good customer service and have a huge inventory to choose from. Superior threads has some excellent information about choosing thread.
Sadie's pawtrait is going to be fun to make, she has such wonderful markings. Yes, you and Sadie have found the perfect way to start your days. She looks perfectly contented to be snuggled down into your quilt and probably would stay there all day if you would. You certainly got a lot of preserving done over the weekend. We figure most of ours will begin in another 2-3 weeks when the roma tomatoes begin to ripen.
I read Robin's question and I'm pretty sure that the Isacord thread that Leah uses is a polyester which is what I use for machine embroidery. I read that a while back and was a little surprised, but machine embroidery thread needs to be strong since the needle is moving so fast.
Love the tractor done in blue, the free motion sampler is quite pretty it will be stunning when done.
Thank you I will try those.
Thank you - It's just for now for practice on muslin sandwiches. But I'm going to try some of the cotton ones to because that is what I would use on cotton quilts. I just wanted to do everything Leah Day's
way to lean to FMQ.
I did try sngle & dble-clicking on the email envelope but nothing happens for me. Doesn't take me anywhere. This is so typical of my computer skills LOL!
Yep, the blue tractor makes the block for me. :) Nice job!
The FMQ sampler looks very vivacious - love the multi-colored thread you're using too.
Of course you would make the tractor blue. A friend and i are always discussing tractor colors, John Deere Green or FarmAll red! Beautiful close up of Sadie!
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