Star Struck progress

I have oddles of extra triangles by sewing double when adding the squares. I took these blocks to the guild meeting last night and trimmed them all. I had two containers and managed to keep the pink and light ones totally seperated. Love being organized!

I can tell that I will want to make Bonnie's Star Struck in several color versions. At retreat this weekend I am doing the pattern all in batiks with a consistant background.

Baby and Bess in the background doing some bird, squirrel or chipmunk watching!

Love this already. I had to stop...want to sew on this at the retreat too. So I put it away though it keeps calling to me.

Baby and Bess two versions of tortie cats

Here is a picture of my 20#plus Baby. Honest, when she was young she was so small! It was all the bottle feeding I am sure. She was really too young to leave her feral Momma...my daughter caught her in a wood pile when her Momma was moving the kittens. She is colored like the Momma but Momma had long fur like Bess. You have to get ferals young to really tame them. She is beyond tame. She has a fetish for chewing rubber (baby bottles) edges of cardboard boxes, my pages of patterns, any spool of thread left out, stray strings on fabric and plastic of any kind from bags to containers.
Her fur is real short and very thick. She has little pink toes and a lovely tiny meow. She loves to ride on my shoulder. And at times attempts to leap to my shoulder with less than perfect results. She is not agile as when she was little. She has knocked me over and often rakes me with her nails by accident. I try to anticipate her leaps...she has a lots of signals. Love her to death!

Bess came from the same feral cat colony 2 years later. Hubby caught her when she was 5 months old. She tamed down to a point. We cannot carry her. She freaks out. But she loves to lay on our laps! At the vet's she is still feral...an event to be sure. She is small and long furred like the feral Momma. She and Baby have the same markings but in reverse! You can see the pink toes in front are left on Baby and right on Bess. And Bess weighs a demure 6#'s.

Sadly or not the feral cat colony is now gone. No more to rescue. I have 5 indoor only cats. Guess that is enough for loving!

French Farmhouse progress

I have the crosshatch quilting all done and had a brainstorm to use my embroidery machine to add motifs in the open blocks. Unfortunately, after 30 some hoopings my wrists gave out. It was very hard to get the bulky quilt sandwich into the embroidery hoop. My right wrist is so swollen and sore I could not finish the job. After I heal I will start up again.

There are no repeats in the quilt of the embroidery motifs. And I am only on page #2 of the design disc. WOOOHOOO!

I will post pics when I am done with this quilt. This one is staying in my house. Hubby really likes the colors.

Raw peanuts and my squirrels

The squirrels come to me when I leave the front door. They expect peanuts and I have them in excess now. I was buying them in 10 oz. bags at the grocery store. $$$$$$$
I found them online much less expensive. www.nutsonline.com
Fast shipping and PayPal convenience. The squirrels, chipmunks, bluejays and I are very happy with them!

This is a youngster. He eats them instead of hiding them for later. That's ok...his Momma, Stubby (who has no tail) hides any he misses.

Star Struck preview

I started sewing before daylight this morning. Hubby went on a trip with his sister and I had Sunday all to myself.

I love sorting through my bins for just the right fabric. I have them all controlled by color so all I have to do is open them and pick a strip.

I have all the strip units sewn and pressed and cut. I am now cutting pink squares for the accent in the Bonnie Hunter pattern Star Struck. I am going to a Camp Mack retreat in Indiana this weekend and Bonnie will be there teaching this pattern. I wanted to be comfortable sewing this so I am trying it before I leave. I love pink/brown combos...this will be mine. The one I am doing at the retreat will be all batiks...totally scrappy...no color control at all and should end up as a BD gift to one of the grand daughters.

A visit from my past- a guitar playing friend

Joanie and I met at work and soon were fast friends. We had so much in common in work ethics and in music. She is a guitar player as was I. We went on a few trips and played together joyfully many times. She is a great cook and dedicated mother to her daughter and son.
And I was sewing away today....house and me trashed...and she drove up on her cycle!

I had no idea who this person was on the cycle. She looks like a young man on the bike. That is until she took her jacket off!

She says this is her third cycle. Loves the freedom of the road and the speed. She used to have sportcars. Now she has motorcycles.

Here she is leaving after we had a wonderful couple hours reconnecting. It was so nice to see her. She is a great lady!

Ugg boots

I ordered a beautiful pair of Ugg boots in a nice medium gray. I have wanted a pair of these forever. Decided to splurge! I have a new pair of snow boots from last year I wore only one time that rubbed my shin until it was bruised and raw. Too stiff. I know these will not do that!
http://www.whoogaboots.co.uk/

Enjoy!
I added a button to take you directly there at the bottom of my page by the counter.
XOXOXO Subee

Progress on Christmas Lights in rainy Indiana

I love machine quilting and I love my cats. The problem is they will not wait until I am done with the quilting. Pictured are MaggieMae and Macy. My two torties.

I am all ready for the third installment of Bonnie Hunter's newest mystery. The pattern is called Christmas Lights. The fabrics I decided on will make this quilt be called Autumn lights. The gold is all leaves. The green is pinecones and evergreens. The brown is all pinecones. Yep! Autumn it is! My favorite time of year...next to Winter.

I still have good ties to my ex's family. His nephew just became a father to identical twin boys. The babes were early so they are still in the NICU. I made matching quilts for them. So far they can only be identified by their little bands. They are really identical! I plan on embroidering their names on the quilts before giving them to the lucky parents.

All done. I used chalk to mark the straight lines. Easy peasy quilting.

Clover's new black needles

I just received my order of these new needles. I am very impressed with their smoothness and sharpness. I was able to baste my batik hexies without using a thimble.

AnnaMarie's birthday quilt

I wanted to make this more complicated than it wanted to be. As a result, I listened to the fabric and got this 72" X 98" quilt all sewn together in one day. AnnaMarie's birthday is August 25th so I am right on time. I have a bit of fabric left so will make a pillowcase or a totebag for her!

The only "fancy" thing about this quilt is the mitered corner treatment. I had 3 yards of the stripe and cut it at 10" wide. This fabric also said it wanted mitered. And again I listened.

Twilight Block swap status

I belong to a Yahoo group called blockswappers. I have been very pleased with this group and am currently in 4 more swaps with them.

This swap is to use only black/gray/white and maybe a red. Thus the name Twilight. The block size is 12" finished 12 1 /2" unfinished.

I am sewing away today as Hubby is with his famous brother at a senior bowling meet.