Leaving the Leaves

Good morning, my friends. Let's hope this morning goes better than yesterday. After things had improved weather-wise, they turned sour again yesterday morning. We ended up with another 3-4 inches of snow accumulation...enough that I didn't feel comfortable leaving for my pedicure. I hated to cancel last minute like that, but safety was my first concern. Even if I could get out to the main road, there was nothing guaranteeing I could get home again. So...morning pedicure canceled. The snow let up later in the day, and we were able to get out for our grocery shopping. Sheesh. Honestly, I keep saying this because I'm relying on the forecast, but I really do think we'll get some warming/melting rain today. Fingers crossed.

Oh well. That left plenty of time to finish quilting the Dream Big Leaf panel. I started with this large corner leaf and did a traditional feather with a spike. The leaf veins stood in for spines on the feathers.

I filled in around the edges with a looping meander.

And no quilting day can be complete without a visit from my very helpful quilting cat.

He was as disgusted with the new snow as the rest of us.

For this next area, I tried doing an S-curved meander. It didn't work out exactly like I envisioned it, but it's fine.

For the last large leaf, I filled in with a flower motif. I like this motif. I can just echo around the center flowers all I want in order to travel to the next area.

To fill in that corner, I decided to try quilting a feather around those odd curves and around the corner. That worked out pretty well.

Finally, this last partial leaf was filled in with a square meander. 

When it was finished, I laid it out on the floor for a picture. Smitty was on it in a flash. The snuggleability test can never be performed too soon. Also, he sometimes finds mousies under piles of leaves. He thought he might get lucky with this.

Here's how it looks from the top.

Flipping it over, it looks like this from the back. That's a whole lotta stitching.

With such dense quilting, it doesn't want to lie flat. After the binding is finished, I'll try blocking it and hope it helps. 

It was hard to decide on a binding. Solid grays were too boring. Blues were too blue. Whites too white. I finally settled on this fabric I've had in my stash for a while. I like the fabric, and I believe I originally saw it as a potential binding fabric.

By the end of the sewing day, the binding was sewn on. Now it's boxed up, and I'll take it along on our camping trip next week. We always expect plenty of rain on these winter/early spring camping trips, and so having plenty of stitching along can never hurt.

The only other thing to happen yesterday was the delivery of this cat toy I ordered recently. I was taken in by a video I saw on Instagram. This is a "pixie mouse" from Petlibro. You can read more about it at that link I've given you. 

It's a rechargeable mechanical toy. On bare floors it moves FAST! On carpeting, it kind of moves back and forth. Smitty was completely freaked out by it, and he fled the room whenever it was operational. It is active for ten minutes, and then it shuts down for a half hour (I think) before it turns itself on again. Or...you can shut it off completely. Sadie was more curious than anything else. I thought it might be a fun toy for them, especially when we're in the RV. Kitty reviews are mixed so far. We'll keep working on it. These matters must be handled delicately, as I'm sure you know.

Okay, so I'm happy to be finished with my quilting for the time being. I'll get busy with my list of WIPs today, starting with the first block for When Quilters Gather. 

I'll be using scraps from my stash for this, and I'll have to bone up on what I've learned from Ann Shaw. I'll take plenty of pictures so you can see how this freezer-paper-piecing technique works.