NYE Mystery from Fabricholics

Four patch parade through the machine. I really like making these pieces. Power piecing...no stopping and starting! I bought a 1/4" foot and then ripped the metal guide off ( one came with my machine so I did not alter that one). I love this foot. Gives an accurate 1/4" seam allowance.

I have to keep the kitties from "skating" on them.

I have two of these plastic trays. They are great for moving pieces from the cutting table to the sewing machine. In the background you can see some of my bolts of fabric. I am a true fabricholic.

MaggieMay is sure that I have plenty of room to do my sliver trimming. I found the little brush and dustpan at a dollar store. It works great to sweep my cuttings. And then I brush MaggieMay with it. She loves helping!

Bird Sanctuary Quilt

I have all the machine quilting done on this small quilt. I want it to lay on my machine table to help with the kitties toenail marks and the stray furs that accumulate on/in my sewing area table.

I simply machine quilted with a sage green thread all the straight lines on the design. I am hand quilting all the leaves and the birds. I started this on Christmas morning and was hand quilting by noon the same day. I am in love with the leaves on this. After hand quilting a couple of the leaves I love the effect of all the veins in the leaves. When this is done I will take another picture...closeup.

My Pearl...my precious Pearl. Her nose is so out of place because of MaggieMay's arrival. Pearl was the "baby" in the house. I got her when I first was on sick leave and we were so very close. Then I worked until I retired. So she was so dependent on me for her "human contact". She resents MaggieMay so much. I go out of my way to spend quality time with her. She is coming around slowly but her heart is broken. She still loves me so much. We will get back to where we were. I will not give up on her.

MaggieMay has to help with every project!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NYE Mystery from Fabricholics

This is the group of fabric I have chosen for the NYE quilt. The focus fabric is a really large floral that I totally love. The dark is a chocolate brown batik I guess I have been saving for my next life (ha!) and the medium I have been saving for the same reason. The background is Ecology Cloth. I heard great things about it on the internet so I bought a whole bolt. I have been working with it and love the feel of it.

Here is the beginning of the pre-sewing before the actual clues begin. I made 320 HST in the BG/medium and 160 HST in medium/dark. Yikes! That is 480 HST's!!!!! And they are all done!

I use the sandpaper (glued into a file folder) as an underlay to draw the lines on my squares. There is no shifting with this method. I use the ruler to lift the finished square off the sandpaper. It can ruin your nail tips if you use your fingernails.

Final sliver trimming to make the unit measure 2 1/2" unfinished size.

480 of these beauties!

Friday night furniture moved

I moved out my recliner that I use for hand work to an inside wall. (Will be much warmer though I lose my good view of the birdfeeders) I moved a desk to the right of my machine area. It made the work area into a large "U" shape and I totally love it. MaggieMay approves too.

I was able to move in my plastic roller bins of threads. Now they are so handy. I am planning on using it as an ironing station while piecing. I have a small watt iron and a Fons & Porter ironing mat. I have not tried this set-up yet with the iron, but I sewed all day and it feels "right". You know what I mean!

I am now drinking a glass of fine wine and eating pretzels, olives and two kinds of yummy cheese. Yes...this will be my supper.

BTW...our temps outside were in the 60's. We opened up the house and cleaned and dusted. Best way to move furniture. Felt like Spring here, at least for a few hours. The ice is all gone and the snow is melted. We had lightning and thunderstorms of ice this morning then it warmed up to be stormy and warm.

more ice storm pictures

This is our front yard tree. In the past it has dropped limbs on my parked truck during the summertime storms. We had it trimmed out. Now with this storm is has dropped lots of big limbs and tons of ice chips and tiny branches. When they hit the front windows the cats go nuts!

My poor big spruce trees. When we planted them they were only 5 feet high. I sure hope they make it.

These two shrubs are at our front door. The poor things are leaning so bad.

Hubby had to work cutting up trees today. It is only 6 degrees and there are wind chills of -25! We are expected to receive more snow and ice tomorrow. Yikes!

Today I did 4 loads of laundry. I did them one at a time for fear the power would go out. It took all day but now the laundry is done and the dishes are washed. We kept the house warm with a big pot of chicken broth cooking. Then I made chicken and noodles. Yummy!

A friend of mine who has a Persian cattery is still without power. She has many little kittens. They are using a propane heater to keep one room warm for them. Poor kitties.

Ice storm pictures

These pics were taken a couple hours apart. The ice grew...almost doubled! There are still 50,000 Fort Wayne residents without power! We were so lucky. Our power was only out about 14 hours.

More cat beds

These were made after hubby was called in at 12:30 a.m. to begin his fight of the ice storm. I told him I would stay up and suffer the sleep loss with him. At 7:00 a.m. we lost our power! I had just unplugged the sewing machine as I was worried about power surges. I am so glad I had all my Christmas sewing done. These were bonus gifts!