Finally Nearing a Flannel Finish

Good morning, my friends. It was necessary to blow out of here early yesterday morning. My appointment with the new dermatologist was at 10:30 a.m. As a new patient, I was asked to arrive at 10:15 to fill out the inevitable paperwork. By 10:50 a.m., I was still waiting to be taken back to the exam room. It's irksome to be asked to arrive early, and then left to wait well past one's appointment time. It wasn't long before I was taken back, but then I waited another 10 minutes or so in the exam room. Oh well. I did like the new doctor, and she gave me a clean bill of health. Except for the wait, I have nothing to complain about. 

There was just a little time to work on my slow stitching before I had to leave home. I'd barely started on Day 5 of the Tiny Hearts stitch-along. When I got home, I went straight to work. By then, I needed it. This one has stem stitch, buttonhole stitch, French knot, and double lazy daisy stitches.

I had some lunch, and then made a little more progress on the Story of My Day block. It was tempting to take a nap, but I really wanted to finish the flannel quilt. Sadie was there to cheer me on.

It took most of the afternoon, but I finished it off.

Here's how it looks from the back. It was distressing to realize I'd messed up the checkerboard pattern on the back, but I like how it turned out. The quilt will be Mike's and he likes this arrangement better. Works for me.

I was kind of tired of sewing by then, but there was still a little time left in the day. Since I know I'll probably finish the second Story of My Day block this morning, it seemed like a good time to trace November's block for The Joyful Journey quilt. This one is called "Gather Together." I'm going to try to finish this off before we leave on our trip March 1st.

In other news, I received a box of happy mail from my quilting fairy godmother, Ila, yesterday. This is all flannel yardage. Aren't these pretty together? I told Ila I can already see the colors of my next flannel four-patch. Thank you, Ila. These will get used in a new quilt for sure.

So today, I'll get to work on the next Tiny Heart, and I expect to finish the embroidery for the second Story of My Day block. Of course, I want to get back to quilting the Dot-to-Dot panel. Also, I want to get to work on my challenge quilt for Project Quilting. The prompt this time around is "Inside Out." It took me a bit, but I know just what I want to do. It shouldn't take long. 

If I can finish the challenge quilt, I'll want to make February's red cat for the Cats in Pajamas quilt. I have just one block for that quilt so far.

And, of course, it's time to get clipping. The flannel quilt is lying on the dining room table, and we'll get to work on that today. I showed Mike how to do it, and I expect he'll do the bulk of the work. (I know him...that's how he is.)

Annoyingly, it's a run-around day. We have several stops to make. We accumulated dozens of cardboard boxes in which to store our stuff while preparing for the carpet installation. Those can all go to the recycling depot now. Mike has some more stuff to drop off at Goodwill. Our piggy birds have eaten all the bird seed again, so we need to stop off at the local feed store for that. Let's see...what else? Oh yes...grocery shopping. It never ends, does it? It seems as if there was one more stop, but I've forgotten it now. Probably something like car parts or hardware. In any case, it's going to seriously cut into my sewing time. A few days ago I had Rude Awakening #334: Daily life is just a series of obstacles getting between me and my sewing. (My apologies to my Facebook friends who have to read about this rude awakening twice.)

Okay, so a busy day is best started early, and I'm off to do just that. What's on your to-do list today? And if you're in California, I hope the list doesn't include digging out of a mudslide. Sheesh. It brings to mind something I heard in my youth while working on a lab experiment for my chemistry class. Everyone in the lab heard the unmistakable sound of a crucible breaking, and someone's experiment ending up literally down the drain. A funny guy in the class was heard to mutter, "Better you than me, Man." Forever after when I hear bad news, I say to myself (usually silently), "Better you than me, Man."

Sew Much Variety

After spending three solid days on Maggie's Pawtrait, it was nice to take a break from it and work on some other things. Today is

and so I'll be linking up to show my embroidery and my quilt binding. First the embroidery. The Hocuspocusville block is about half finished now. I moved my hoop yesterday, and here's where it stands.

It's hooped up again and ready to continue on now.

I'll be setting it aside for a few days, however, because I'm working on Block #45 for the Live, Love, Teach quilt. The next block is Rachel's block.

The bus and details are fusible applique, and then the details were stitched in by machine. The rest will be hand embroidered. I think I might take some yellow crayon and highlight the headlight like it was done in the original submission. Anyway...I got started on that this morning. It will probably take a couple more sittings to finish all of it.

Also, I made the March block for

blocklotto.com

When I first saw the block for the month, I gasped, thinking it was paper-piecing. And you all know how I love to whine about being forced to do paper-piecing. It's not. It's pieced in the good old fashioned way.

Then, finally, I decided it was time to quilt Samson. This is the "make and take" project I made when I took June Jaeger's class at the Northwest Quilting Expo. It's the class that put me onto making pet portraits. It was sandwiched and ready to go, but then I realized I hadn't stitched in any whiskers, or eyebrows, or ear fur. Well. A cat can't live without all of that, and so I finished off those little touches and then did a little quilting on it.

It's a small piece at 11 x 14 inches, and so it was only about half an hour before I was ready to sew on the binding. That's a binding scrap left over from another project. Using scraps is good. To my way of thrifty thinking, using scrap bindings is better than ever...probably because I have a whole bag full of them.

By day's end, I'd also hand-stitched the binding, and Samson's long wait for finishing is over.

Only when I took this picture, I realized I'd forgotten to give him ear fur in his ear there to the left. Sorry Samson. I'll fix that today.

Looking at this, I realize it's much more primitive and less detailed than the pawtraits I've made since then. Nevertheless, it was a good class, and I learned a lot about creating quilts from photographs and about how to make the eyes look realistic. I'm kind of teaching myself how to do this and building on the concepts I learned from June Jaeger. Please bear with me while I think out loud in print. 

With these pet portraits, I've come to the conclusion that it's really all in the eyes. For one thing, you need a good photograph in which the pet is looking directly into the lens. I held Maggie's favorite toy next to the lens to encourage her to look where I wanted her to.

In so doing, you can create a pawtrait in which the pet appears to look directly at the viewer from the fabric. Can we agree on that much?

Also, I've realized that the rich and varied colors of batiks give the eyes the variation in color that they need to most closely resemble the actual iris.

So, now I'm getting myself geared up to top-stitch and quilt this, and I'll probably work on that next. Today, however, we have a wine shipment to pick up at one of the local wineries. As we discussed it this morning, we decided it was a good excuse for a lunch date. The weather is crappy and rainy, and so there won't be much more going on.

Rude Awakening #438

Rude Awakening #438:  It is no longer possible to pluck all the gray from my eyebrows.