I am almost packed for my weeks visit with my mother. We will be celebrating her 92nd birthday as well as doing some shopping and visiting. She recently moved into a new house so I am excited to be seeing it and, if necessary, helping to unpack some of the boxes.
I also have packed three knitting projects: green socks (just started on the foot), brown sweater (working on the yoke), and dishcolths (bought new yarn). I probably won’t get a lot done but if we have some just sitting time I can keep my hands busy.
I also have completed the laundry, did the dishes, watered all the plants so that pretty much all DH has to do while I am gone is care for himself and the puppies, cats, and birds. And this is why you see him resting
while I was getting it all together. 
And speaking of being busy, I started working on my replacement for the HSTs some of the owls were surrounded by in the designer’s layout. First I cut strips of my tree fabric. The strips are longer than the background fabric: you will see why soon.
I then backed the end sections of the top and bottom strips with fusible and cut out the dark parts, not an easy job, by the way.
When I was done this was the frame I came up with. I am so excited at how this came out. As you can see there are only 6 owls that will need frames so with one down we are on our way, again.
Because I have another quilt to put on the frame I decided to finish this little baby quilt. It is not a very large quilt, based on how much fabric I had, so I decided to leave the tumblers uncut.
Of course that meant that I had to bind all those angles. I guess I really like a challenge cuz it was one. And I used leftover 30s binding (I keep using that fabric but I can’t use it up 
)
I even got the label on it. This quilt is going to a student of my husband’s so I didn’t put my name on it, just the date. The baby isn’t due until October so this one will have to wait a while to be loved.
On a completely unrelated note, here is Stubby, sleeping in his 4th floor loft. She can be found in any one of these shelves which keeps her up and away from the dogs when they are out on the deck.
So I will be up early tomorrow to pile everything in the car and hit the road. It is about a 9 hour drive, longer if I stop at a quilt shop or antique mall, so I need to get an early start.
Have a great week and be sure to check in at Patchwork Times. Gari
This is our Halloween table runner. I am going to square it up and put it on the table, then I will bind if after Halloween.
It just came off the frame just this morning. I really enjoyed this McTavishing practice and, by the time it was done, felt a little better about my attempts.
Also off the frame is my Weave quilt.
And now it, too, is ready for binding. I plan to bind it with brown and it will be a charity/comfort quilt.
I quilted it with a large meander so it didn’t take too long. But it didn’t get off the frame until the table runner was done.
I also appliqued another owl. I am amazed at how long it takes to do one of these: in, out, stop, start, and all that over and over again.
And here is the real problem: he is only the first of three in this block. I have made 6 of the 18 blocks, with only 1 1/3rd appliqued. I think I better get a move on if I want to see this completed. I love owls and really want this quilt to reside on my bed.
I have been doing some knitting, too. Here is slipper #2 and the heel is done: gusset coming up. I also have done the heel and gusset of a second sock, first can be seen here, and I am well on my way through the foot.
These were my knitting buddies to begin with, and
then there was a switch. Please note that the cat is still in place. Although we are having cool mornings the afternoons have been very pleasant and perfect for swinging and knitting on the deck.
This coming weekend our grandson is getting married. The wedding is about 50 miles from here in a somewhat remote area so I spent about 40 min. looking at maps trying to figure out how to get there. And then a wonderful idea came to me. There is a quilt show about 30 miles south of the wedding site. If we go to the quilt show in the morning it will be really easy to get to the late afternoon wedding from there. How about that!! It looks like Saturday is going to be a really great day!
Hope you have fun, too. gari
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
I am almost packed for my weeks visit with my mother. We will be celebrating her 92nd birthday as well as doing some shopping and visiting. She recently moved into a new house so I am excited to be seeing it and, if necessary, helping to unpack some of the boxes.
I also have packed three knitting projects: green socks (just started on the foot), brown sweater (working on the yoke), and dishcolths (bought new yarn). I probably won’t get a lot done but if we have some just sitting time I can keep my hands busy.
And speaking of being busy, I started working on my replacement for the HSTs some of the owls were surrounded by in the designer’s layout. First I cut strips of my tree fabric. The strips are longer than the background fabric: you will see why soon.
I then backed the end sections of the top and bottom strips with fusible and cut out the dark parts, not an easy job, by the way.
When I was done this was the frame I came up with. I am so excited at how this came out. As you can see there are only 6 owls that will need frames so with one down we are on our way, again.
Because I have another quilt to put on the frame I decided to finish this little baby quilt. It is not a very large quilt, based on how much fabric I had, so I decided to leave the tumblers uncut. 
Of course that meant that I had to bind all those angles. I guess I really like a challenge cuz it was one. And I used leftover 30s binding (I keep using that fabric but I can’t use it up 
I even got the label on it. This quilt is going to a student of my husband’s so I didn’t put my name on it, just the date. The baby isn’t due until October so this one will have to wait a while to be loved.
On a completely unrelated note, here is Stubby, sleeping in his 4th floor loft. She can be found in any one of these shelves which keeps her up and away from the dogs when they are out on the deck.
