Cats, squirrels and spool block progress

Our Macy is so special. She fetches toys like a dog and we know she understands what we say. When her food bowl gets near empty she brings the bowl toys.
So funny. Her newest favorite toy is a piece of string from a grass weed whacker.

DD#1 braided my hair yesterday. I so need to get a trim to straighten up my self mutilation. It lasted all day and overnight.

This is some of the fabric that I bought at Quilts and Friends in Roanoke Indiana. We were hired to play during a sale day for the above shop. Of course after staring for two hours as we played and sang I could not NOT buy fabric.

The quilt is still in it's design mode...more to follow.

As I work on the butterfly quilt I am cutting into the swap strips and making spool blocks. Some of the fabric were too light for the spool body but I was able to use them as the backgrounds.

The paper shows 190 made but with yesterday's sewing session I now have 200 even sewn. 1/4 of the way to the 800 needed...

Here is a closeup of our newest squirrel family. The mommy squirrels all bring the babies from their birthing nest to our trees. I am sure it is the food supply. We have two families right now in the front trees. There are occasionally some territory squabbles. But we can stop them by adding more peanuts to the argument. They then get so busy eating that they forget to fight with each other!!!

But this little baby has a very gray cast to her fur. It will make her easily recognized when taming. She is already quite comfortable with me being close to her. I make them peanut butter sandwiches and slices of apples with peanut butter. And tons of raw peanuts and sunflower seeds.

I have all of the quilts quilted that I made from Craig Robison's shirts. He would have been the grandfather to the new arrival (due in June) SO I thought it was appropriate to use the shirt fabrics as baby quilts. I managed to squeeze 4 quilts and all have Minkee backing!!!

XOXOXOXOXO Subee

Help choosing colors

Some of my quilting buddies have a mental block when it comes to deciding on colors for their quilts.
One simple way, I have explained to them, is to look at yarns with multiple colors. The decisions have already been made for you. All you have to do is match your fabrics to the yarn colors.
See below:

 This is my third batch of Log Cabin blocks I have made. The last two batches were in black/white.

 This quilt will be for one of my Grand daughters. I have two with March birthdays. One of them is on my birthday and the other is on my brother's birthday. March is a busy month here in our family.

I keep detailed notes. But then I have to re-read the notes and seem to not understand what I have written. What I am attempting to do is to quantify the amount of fabric needed. Be it strips or yardage.

 Here are two rounds done. I am loving the blue and white combination. It looks so fresh and clean and so totally different from my preferred color pallet.

On the wall and obviously the last round fabric has not been pressed yet.

 And when I tire of sewing in the living room I can move to the cutting room and make some more gray paper string blocks. The grays that are out now are soooo beautiful! I want them all!!

 Once again, cutting for scrappy can also be controlled by keeping like cuts together.

 I made 100 Birds in the Air units with pink wings. These are the same units but using neutral wings.

 They are much more subtle in color but I am sure they will look great in whatever I end up piecing.
I have decided to just make lots of pink units and then see what comes of them. No plans just units.

Snow and I am keeping my critters fed well. The green feeder on the right is squirrel proof. So I add the really expensive seed to that one. The other feeders are easy for the squirrels to rob. I also give them raw peanuts and peanut butter sandwiches. No they are not spoiled at all!

Scraps & Shirttails II is here!

The poor postal workers are really battling the snow here. They have to walk in the streets and up the drives to deliver the mail. I bet it doubles their walking distance easily.

My Scraps & Shirttails II arrived today. Also Word Play Quilts, Schnibbles times two, Scrap Basket Sensations, my new Quiltmaker magazine and some notecards. Whew! I have a lot of reading to do!
In the Scrap Basket book there is a quilt by my friend Mary Flynn (Quilt Hollow) It is a sweet quilt called Blessing from the Hollow and I am going to make it using my newest FQ bundle called Faith by Moda.



Here is my wonderful hubby cleaning off my truck. He has a great system of keeping our drive clear. We park the trucks all the way to one side so he has a straight area to snow blow. He then moves the trucks to the road and cleans them off. He goes back to where they had been parked and cleans that area. He then moves the trucks back in and cleans off the road too. Then he walks down the street and does a few other neighbors' drives. They are older and need this bit of neighborly help.

 We got a total of 12" of snow from Monday night through Wednesday morning. I baked a turkey and made homemade bread. I had candles burning. All in all we had a great time during the storm. Our power stayed on and I really was quite productive in the quilting department.
I managed to get three (3) Strip Twist quilts from my strips of black & whites! I have them all bordered and ready for quilting. I also added the last border of Log Cabin blocks to the Deer quilt I am making for my friend Gladys. I still need to made the binding for it and see if I can squeeze a couple of pillow cases from the scraps I have left.

 Today we have another 5" of snow that has fallen! A winter wonderland. The bushes are buried deep in snow. The birdies poke their little heds up to eat bread from underneath the branches. The hawks are really patrolling the area. They need to eat too!

This is one of my TAME squirrels. She takes peanuts from my hand.

 She learned this from her grandmother, Stubbie.

I am pretty sure this female is just a year old.

She came from Stubbie's spring litter.

She then had one litter late this last summer.

I watched her carry the three babies in her mouth.

She brought them from down the road a ways.

I feel honored that she deposited them here for the winter.

They are still afraid of humans.

I will have them tame by summer!

Life sure is good!

XOXOXOOXO Subee

ragged Squirrel's progress

My vet would not give me any meds for that poor mangy squirrel. She said it could be fleas or mange and could not dispense meds for wild animals.
Despite that the fur seems to be coming back in.

She is way too tame now. She climbs my front screen door to ask for more peanuts. Tries to dash in the house when I open the door. What a mess that would be. Me here inside with five cats chasing a mangy squirrel around.

I have not seen her today. But I am sure she is doing fine. Cross your fingers for this precious wild creature.

Cats and Baskets and a silly squirrel

Can you see the white fuzz in the feeder? The fuzz is some of MaggieMae's fur from a brushing done outdoors. This squirrel (I do not know the sex yet) is one of Stubby's last litter. She showed three of them all her territory and is running off all the other squirrels. Anyway, this baby squirrel has a weird habit. It stuffs all that fur into it's mouth and runs around with it. Then drops it into the feeder, eats a bit and then grabs up the fuzz and runs some more. I think instinct is telling it to gather warm nest lining materials...but it has not figured out how to build a nest yet. So Stubby still has more work to do on these youngin's. They are still afraid of me when I step outside. Stubby comes to get her peanuts and they watch. Maybe they will tame down and maybe not. Only time will tell.

I moved this basket close to the front door in anticipation of filling it with candy treats for Halloween. Bess and Baby have claimed it. They are so much alike.

And here is my big Baby enjoying her turn in the basket.

Star Struck, Rag quilt, swap blocks and a Kaleidoscope quilt!

Where have I been? At the sewing machine of course! And the rain is light and wonderful. Makes for a perfect sewing day. But I am also doing the laundry. A gal cannot do just one thing at a time you know!

I have my Star Struck pink/brown all done and ready for the borders. Pattern is by Bonnie Hunter at : http://www.quiltville.com

Right now it is a comfy 48X55". Then I was caught by another quilt in my head and took it down from the design wall. I do have the borders all cut and ready for a quick finish.

I really like this pattern. I want to do it in all colorways including scrappy. There is not enough of me to go around. I even sew in my sleep!

This is what took me away from the Star Struck quilt. There is a story here. Last week I won one yard of "ugly" fabric at my guild meeting. Next month I am to bring a yard of what I consider ugly fabric to a drawing. Anyway, I loved the fabric and used it in this quilt. This quilt is now 52X66" before borders.

The fabric I won was the guitar fabric. It is by Michael Miller. A beautiful piece of fabric. Hubby and I both play guitar and the fabric fits us to a "T". I told hubby he can have this one when I am done with it. I have been asked to teach a pattern at my LQS and this one will be it. If you make smaller blocks it is doable in one lesson day.

One afternoon last week I got another "itch" to try a technique...rag quilting. This picture is after just one wash/dry. I understand they will bloom the more they are washed. The cats have claimed this one alread. That is fine, I was only testing the technique.

This is before wash/dry. I have a whole bolt of the brown floral flannel. It is so beautiful. I need to start selling some of my stash. What will I ever do with 15 yards of this beautiful fabric? It is made by Andover Fabrics 2002 American Folk Art Museum, Broderie Perse Pattern #2017.

Any takers at $4.00 a yard?

I am in a batik block swap on a Yahoo group and these three sets are what I am mailing out. I just love these swaps. I worked on these last week too. Guess that is why I have not been blogging.

Here are the fabrics all washed. Batiks bleed so bad. These will not.

And this is the project that really took a big bunch of my time. There are 200 3" nine patches for mailing. And I do not have have the other 200 rail blocks pictured. I mailed out 400 mini 9-patches and rails. I cannot wait to get the return swap! It really impressed the ladies at the post office. They love to look at what I am swapping. And it is job security for them.

I moved around some more furniture and added a pressing station to my sewing area. Gosh am I lucky or what!

There is more room for the kitties to help me too!

And here is MaggieMae in her glory. She loves to lay on cool hard surfaces. I think that is because of her heavy fur. Less static or clinging.

Two summers ago there were two baby squirrels born without tails. One did not make it through the winter. But little Stubby made it. I think it large part because I made sure she was fed through the winters. She is now heading into her third winter year. She has had 2 litters each summer and is an excellent mother. She is so tame she takes peanuts from my hand. She also knocks on the door to get my attention. I fear she is going to dash into the house when I open the front door to give her peanuts and what a mess that would be. I fear she would really hurt the cats. They all love her through the window as you can see. Pearl is just calmly watching her. I guess I really love her as I bought 25#'s of raw peanuts this summer for winter feeding. I also make them peanutbutter/cornmeal/birdseed balls.

See? All she has is about 2" of fluffy fur. All her babies have long gorgeous tails. Maybe something got into her nest when she and her brother were VERY small and they each lost the tail. I looked it up on the internet, and she is showing and sharing her terrritory with only one of her last litter. I watched her showing the little girl the boundries and marking them for her. All while I was filling the birdbath with the hose. She has even came up behind me and touched my leg to get my attention. Hope she does not try to use me as a tree.......

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.