Happy Halloween, my friends! Halloween is kind of a non-event around here because (a) it almost always rains, and (b) in 14 years at the Three Cats Ranch, we've never had a single trick-or-treater. For the first few years, I actually bought candy, just in case. I gave that up a while back. Now, we don't mark the day beyond my posting a Halloween cat picture here. You're welcome.
You all surprised me with your enthusiastic response to my discussion in yesterday's post about the Washington state King Arthur Flour Baking School. As I've told some of you already, Mike and I talked about it (even he was enthusiastic!). We had a look at the calendar last night. I don't see how I can fit it in before 2018...which actually isn't as far off as it sounds. For now, I'm going to continue on reading my book, and keep the baking school on the for-sure-and-certain back burner. But y'all are very good enablers...and that's just one of the many things I love about my bloggy friends. More on that later.
Yesterday I started on the fifth block for It's Raining Cats and Dogs. This is a pattern by Bunny Hill Designs. I first saw it made up when I attended the International Quilt Festival in Ireland in 2012. They were sold out of the pattern when I saw it, but I was able to get it when I returned home. The finished quilt will look something like this.
The block I'm working on now is smack in the middle of the quilt. The first step for these blocks is always to make the background, and they are quite large. This one is 16 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches. The most time-consuming part is choosing the fabrics.
Before quitting for the day yesterday, I was able to fuse the three dogs at the top.
Today, I finished the rest of the applique. I had to make a few adjustments. First I turned the main part of the house 90 degrees, and so I wasn't able to fit all of the windows. Also, I neglected to reverse the applique when I made the bird, so it's facing in the opposite direction from the original. To be clear, these aren't mistakes...just design decisions. Right.
It still needs top-stitching and embellishing, and so I probably need to spend another couple of hours on it before I'm finished.
For now, I've stopped long enough to have some lunch, write this post, and then I'll get back to it. There isn't much else going on today, although I'm hoping for a rain break so I can get outside for a while. There probably isn't much chance of that, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed anyway.
11 comments:
This is such a cute pattern and you are slowly making progress.
Another wonderful quilt -- it will be fun to see it come together. :)
Another good looking quilt, love the dogs on this piece especially the one by the house.
Nice job on Cats & Dogs.
I'm staying home & the outside lights are off for tonight. I may eat some more Candy Corn as my Halloween celebration.
We haven't had kids in years, either but I bought some anyways, you know that is when someone would stop by, lol. I just have Bill take it to work and they eat it up. Love that quilt, you really do keep up with your projects, I need to get my brain into that mode, but still just trying to keep up. For now I need to get out my christmas things and see what I can get done in time.
Debbie
No trick or treaters came here either. Halloween is starting to get a bit more popular here in Australia now but we don't do it. I hope Smitty and Sadie are getting jealous of those dogs!
Reading all of the comments I'm surprised at the lack of trick or treaters, we didn't have a single one either, so sad. David has already stashed the candy in the freezer and he will slowly work his way through it. Where's a picture of Sadie? She's the perfect Halloween cat, all black and orange.
Enjoying seeing your Cat and Dog quilt come together.
We do get trick or treaters. People drive to our neighborhood to give their kids the experience. Unfortunately it started to rain around 8:30, which was fine with me. The bigger kids usually are the only ones left and they may or may not have costumes. I give more candy to the little ones and those in costumes. We probably only had 50-70 people due to the rain. I have more candy than I know what to do with. I bought enough for 125 to 150 people. No work groups to unload the candy on. Would you like the rest?
We weren't sure what to expect this year for Halloween as we moved house a few months ago, but didn't have a single caller. It was raining so that probably didn't help but now I know that all that chocolate is just sitting there waiting to be eaten!
You made some good design decisions there :)
We do not do Halloween either. We did not even hear any kids on the block!
We didn't have as many trick or treaters this year, I guess because Halloween was on a school night. Looks like you made good progress on that last block.
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