Slowed Down but Still Moving

Isn’t he cute?  It took a while but I finally found a white fabric that doesn’t shadow the black wings.  He is all stuck together but is currently resting on wax paper, waiting for me to decide on a background fabric.








Somehow I seem to have let my owl BOM blocks (Fat Cat Patterns) fall by the wayside.  So this weekend I pulled out all the put together blocks, I am at least 2 months behind, and got this one appliqued.  I hope, by the beginning of November, to be ready to start putting the newer blocks together as well as appliqueing the ones I already have ready.  This will be a beautiful quilt, someday. 










I did do some quilting on my Halloween tablerunner.  I am using this as a learning tool for McTavishing but sometimes it is a little hard to see where I am going when I am quilting purple thread on purple fabric.  I am having some thread breakage problems but I think it is the thread and not the machine……I hope.






And I knitted.  This is the first slipper: it is made using alpaca wool, oh, so, very soft.   I already knew that reading and following a pattern would be difficult for me, I have never been able to do it in quilting.  So I think I pulled this apart at least 10 times before I could finish the heel/gusset.  This is very chunky yarn and some of the slip stitches became holes but they have been grafted shut and this slipper is done.




And the second one is started.  After reading how so many knitters complete one sock and then have difficulty getting the second one done, I decided that I must begin the second sock immediately on completion of the first.  So far this has been working. 





Several times this week I have had knitting buddies.  Here we are all three sitting on the deck swing where I have spent several happy mornings knitting.










While out on the deck I decided to update Fred so he could cheer for Auburn’s football game on Saturday.
















And it worked!!  With Saturday’s win they/we are ranked #11, pretty good from being completely out of the rankings.










So, now that all the excitement is over I will retreat back to my little studio and see if I can get a little more done this week.  DH came home from his weekend away and all last week dropped in so many times it seemed that I had installed a revolving door.  But I am so very lucky, he really likes being with me. 

I will be linking up with Patchwork Times and What a Hoot.

Have a great week,    Gari

Bits and Pieces

Well, what do you know, I have a very colorful design wall today.  These are two BOMs that I am getting caught up on.  The funny thing was that when I made my new fish I found that I had now made it twice.  And I still have two more to do before I am up to date.  I have added the 3 wreaths to the Christmas BOM and, again, have two more installments to complete before I am caught up. 





Those wreaths are made up of lots of pieces which I cut up on one day and then put them together on another day.









And sometimes I don’t do it right.  In fact I made this same mistake on all three wreaths.  No wonder I don’t like chain piecing!














Saturday I attended my second sock knitting class where I went to learn how to complete a heel and gusset.  Can you see it?  Isn’t it beautiful?  I am now on the foot part, easy knitting, and next Saturday we will be learning the toe and the Kitchener stitch, a skill I was not able to learn when I was machine knitting.  I am really looking forward to attempting it, again. 






On Saturday afternoon/evening we took a break from all this creativity to attend the Auburn football game.  We had great seats and, of course, it was a great game.  I love being at the games, we only go to one a year, because there is so much going on besides the game.  Also, there is something really exciting when the cheering starts and gets so loud it rocks the stadium. 

Now, it is time to get back to work.  I will be linking with Patchwork Times and What A Hoot.

Happy stitching everyone!    Gari

On The Wall

There is finally something on my design wall that I am really working on.  I ordered this panel from The Fat Quarter Shop.  It is the perfect compliment to my swap blocks, don’t you think?  It comes with an unusual measurement (31.5 x 42) so I will get to play with the math to figure out the setting blocks.  I think I will have to “shop” for a good fabric for them.  I think white with just a little, very little, print.  Of course I will have to find just what I am thinking of: I love shopping for something I’ve never seen.






I fused my 8th Funky Chicken this weekend. 













A couple of people have asked how I do my applique so I am showing a little of what I do.  For the larger pieces I “window” the fusible.  I cut the center out, leaving only about 1/4” of the fusible and then fuse it onto the fabric.  This leaves the applique more supple. 












I don’t bother to window the smaller pieces and it doesn’t seem to matter.















On Saturday DH and I went to Auburn, AL for the first home game of the season.  It ‘s a good thing that orange is my favorite color, it was everywhere.


















And of course I love my eagle shirt: I love it.
















We even came home with a new toy.












Now, just for fun, does anyone know what this is? 




There is no prize for this.  I started playing with this late Sunday afternoon and it is truly going to be a work in process.

So while I play, hop on over to Patchwork Times so see what others are playing with. 

War Eagle and the Lost Weekend

My design wall has not changed much. Sunday morning I was able to do a little sewing. I got the last two D9P blocks sewn and all 6 sewn together.

Then I got ready to cut the light beige/yellow for an inner border

But decided to go to the house for something and wound up taking a 4 hour nap.

Why, you may ask, would I need a nap? Well, let me tell you about what my week has been like since my last post.

Last Wednesday I spent almost all day prepping for the two new Weight Watcher’s meetings and then Thursday I drove 364 miles and met with almost 50 really nice women. It was a 12 hour day but lots of fun. On Friday I spent the morning doing the paperwork for the two Thursday classes and then I was off to my Friday class. In the afternoon I completed the last of the paperwork, made my bank deposits and crashed.

But on Saturday I was up, bright eyed and bushy tailed and for a day of football. Auburn is my school and DH gotten us tickets so off we went.

This is a most wonderful place, Priester’s Pecans. They do the most wonderful things with pecans and also sell lots of great gift items. We even were able to do a little Christmas shopping while we were there. After picking up some coffee and snacks we were on our way again.

We got to Auburn several hours prior to the game. The first thing we did was to pick up our tickets and then, because it was such a beautiful, sunny, day, we each bought new hat/visors to keep the sun out of our eyes. Look at the beautiful sky over the stadium.

Here I am, all dressed in my Auburn finery, ready for an evening of football. (Sorry, Ange)

Now, look at the stadium at this angle.

Our seats were up on the top tier. We climbed round and round and round until we made it to the top.

And then this was our view.

Just before kick-off the sun began to set and this was our view.

The team comes on the field with a bang

And the game was on.

I won’t bore you with my other football pictures but I will say that Auburn won and we left the stadium very happy.

We got home around 2 am and went immediately to bed. I got up Sunday, did a little sewing (see beginning of this post) and then found myself in bed for a very long nap (too old for these full days and late nights).

So the plan is to sew Mon – Wed with just a little time out for dishes and laundry. Maybe I will have a new design wall next Monday, I hope.