12/9/18

End of the Rainbow and a Winner!

It's time to choose a winner for my most recent giveaway of the 20 Little Patchwork Quilts book. Mr. Random was roused from his Sunday morning slumber long enough to announce:


#46--Stitches

Congratulations, Stitches! I've sent you an email, so check your inbox. And thanks to all of you who played along in last week's giveaways. Your kind comments were very much appreciated.

As for yesterday, there was a little more productivity on the sewing front. I even did a little housework. First, I finished stitching all that I could on the Appalachian Memories quilt...


and then I was ready to move the hoop to the left. There was just a little bit of grass to stitch on the lowest part of the piece.


I stitched that first, which allowed me to position my hoop to encompass the last of it.


There's still quite a bit to do on this, and so it's doubtful that I'll finish it today. Sometimes I surprise myself though, so who's to say?

After that I sewed together the strips for the final blocks of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Here are the browns I chose for December.


After they were trimmed up, I laid them out with their black and white corner triangles. If you have sharp eyes, you might notice those two at the top and in the middle are facing the wrong way. I had to sew one of them onto the brown piece before I discovered it. It gave my lazy seam ripper something to do.


When they were finished they looked like this:


And then I was very curious to see the whole thing laid out. It's pretty big now, and hard to get a good picture. Nevertheless, I think you can see how it's going to look when it's all sewn into a flimsy. There are no borders, and so what you see here is what the finished quilt will look like.


I want to rearrange the blocks a little. I had them stacked to try to get a good mix, but you can see that the blues and aquas all ended up in rows together. Also, the light and dark greens are side by side. I'll shuffle them around a little before they're sewn together.

I took a break then and did some housework...anything to avoid the dreaded Wind in the Whiskers quilting. It occurred to me as I contemplated my future that the thing most distressing about this was this section where the iris applique had come all apart. I don't really know why this didn't stick at least as well as its neighbors. I can only guess there was something wrong with the fusible I used here. These pieces were probably all fused at the same time and from the same section of Heat 'n Bond. I've never had such a drastic failure before, but there you go.


It was all pinned together to avoid losing all the pieces, but one was already lost when I discovered this disaster. Enter the product below...606, cousin of 505. This product has saved my bacon more than once. It's a spray on fusing medium. I laid down some large sheets of parchment and then carefully sprayed the pieces that came loose. Also, I remade the center section of the iris that was missing.


And, voila! All better now. With that repaired, I'm feeling much better about this project, although I'm still dreading it...just with a little less misery mixed in.


Also, since my last session with it, I've discovered a smaller needle for my mid-arm machine. I can't remember what had me reading the manual for the machine last time around, but I noticed to my complete surprise that 80/12 size needles were available. And so I checked in with my good friend Amazon and found some there. This will help with the size of the needle holes left behind as I stitch around the edges of those batik applique pieces.


So now I have the new smaller needle loaded onto the machine, threaded, and poised to start quilting this morning. I suppose I could have started right then and there, but why do a dreaded task today when you can put it off for one more day? It's my life's motto, and I've survived since the 14th Century. No reason to change now. Am I right about that?

My cat agrees. We decided to take advantage of the dry weather and fill the bird feeders. He's a willing partner in anything related to birds.


That's a handsome hunka mancat there...a veritable stud muffin...wouldn't you agree?

So no more messing around...it's going to be all quilting all the time today. I'm hoping to be well along finishing up Wind in the Whiskers by day's end. But first, Sunday morning pancakes. If I have my way, it's going to be a good day here at the Three Cats Ranch. Be gone with you, thread tension issues!

15 comments:

Charlotte M. said...

Good luck with your quilting today. I hope it goes smoothly! Hubby and I are off for our yearly date to look at Christmas stuff at the mall. We get to walk and look and get a nice lunch out together, so well worth the trip.And yes, that is a nice hunka man cat. I think he knows it too.

Quilter Kathy said...

Your RSC project is awesome! It's like a colour party!!
Lovely hand embroidery... such a relaxing scene with the horse in the barn... enjoy stitching!

Julierose said...

You have some lovely browns there for your December strips...
Your RSC is looking beautiful...nice work and nice save for the irises...
You will be SO Happy when you've gotten that quilting done...;)))
hugs, Julierose

Quilting Tangent said...

Mix up the rainbow more or figure out a pattern.

The Joyful Quilter said...

Have fun shuffling your RSC blocks around!! I'm looking forward to see them come together into a quilt.

Lyndsey said...

I love those blocks. Just a little mix of some of the blocks will give a great colour balance. As for your handsome cat, he is a very fine fellow and is doing a good job of appearing not to know he's so adorable.

quiltzyx said...

I wasn't sure about the brown in the RSC, but I do like them mixed it with all the others. Yay!

You will get through the Wind in the Whiskers, you will, you will!

Yes, Smitty is an adorable hunka man-cat indeed! Ruler of all he surveys!

Sandra W said...

You might think about moving the two dark squares on the bottom right in your layout. Just a though.
And Smitty is a stud muffin for sure. He seems/looks so intelligent.
I'm envious of your long arm. It's not in my future that's for sure.
I just finished doing a large (and I mean large) Kaffe fabric and pattern on m domestic machine using a walking foot. It turned out quite well and didn't take all tat long. I did it on a q retreat. If you go to my Instagram page you can see it there. I used the serpentine stitch on my B790. People at the retreat were amazed that I could do a quilt that large. It was 110" square I believe.

Vivian said...

It's funny when you look at 4 blocks alone they may not look impressive, but when laid out in the quilt, they look great! I like this quilt! Great progress, and all you have to do is sew it together ( and yes quilt it, and bind it but you are close...). As for your McKenna Ryan quilt, plug away at it, applique quilts are a pain in the neck , hers have so many little pieces but you will be so proud when its' done. Smitty is certainly a great man cat, every hair in place for his picture!

piecefulwendy said...

I think you and I would work - or procrastinate - well together, or we would be really bad influences on each other. It all depends on how you look at it. Ha! Getting those needles and getting one all set up in your machine is task enough for one day, especially when you have quilting trepidation. I know you will do a great job on the quilt, though. I have no doubt about that, and it will feel really good to be done with it, right? I haven't heard of 606, so I may have to put that into my memory bank for future projects. Smitty is definitely a hunk of handsome!

mangozz said...

...why do a dreaded task today when you can put it off for one more day?" That has always been my motto too, and the next day I am kicking myself for not getting it done yesterday. I do like your brown RSC blocks as they remind me of chocolate. And Smitty is definitely a stud muffin, and he knows it.

Stitches said...

I am so pleased that I have won the book on your giveaway!! I love little quilts and have made a couple that I have displayed on my mother's old doll buggy. Thank you so much for being so generous..I really like your Rainbow quilt too, such a good way to use smaller pieces of fabric! Scrappy quilts are one of my favorite..

Natureluvr57 said...

What type of Mid-arm machine do you have and are you happy with it? I'm thinking about getting one but no time soon.

Natureluvr57 said...

Hi Barb...if you see this comment could you just let me know if I'm still a no reply. I don't see anything about replying but did click on show email address. I hoping that will correct it. Thanks!

QuiltGranma said...

Hubby was in a rock hounding group, and looking at your beautiful brown blocks reminds me of Cats Eye gem. How appropriate!