Guess Who's Two Today!!

5 Weeks

Emma

My goodness it is difficult for me to believe that my two little darlin's in fur coats are a whole 2 years old today.  It only seems like yesterday when I first set eyes on them, they were so tiny, only 9 days old. Their little eyes hadn't even open completely yet and their noses were pink instead of the liver brown they are today.  I had to wait until they were 2 months old before they could come to their new home.  I even baked a human cake for the human folk to celebrate this event!! The girl's cake will be a piece of pot roast in their dinner. LOL I'm sure that is just like cake for them!!  Their hair looked better this morning.  It tough playing all day and remain looking spiffy at the end of day.

Bella

We have been home from our other home for about 6 weeks.  The first few weeks were dismal to the point of depressing.  The weather is nice now, mosquitoes are out (sure sign of spring); the leaves are coming out on the trees, grass has turned green and everyone has moved into high gear preparing the flower beds and filling with a vast array of beautiful blooms brimming with brillant colors. The stores are packed with people piling their shopping carts high with gardening paraphernalia, bedding plants, bricks, shovels etc. It closer to a frenzy, these folks are on a mission.  Will wait a few more days and let the hordes of people get down to a more doable number.  Our Peony bushes have finally made an appearance, along with the other perennials that are in the back flower bed.  This is the third year for them and they should be amazing this year.  Their blooms impressed me last year.  I wished I was more inclined to having a green thumb, but it's not to be...sigh.

Waiting for border.

Since getting home I've been very busy with my quilting, especially with the latest and great effort, this is a continuation of last blog's entry regarding the Fiesta de Talervera.  With what seemed like hundreds of hours (minor exaggeration, but not much) all the pieces were cut, put into place, sewn and blocks were finally assembled.  All that is left is to make the borders, I believe there is over 300 pieces that need to be cut and sewn - truly not for the faint of heart.  After everything is said and done then the quilting will begin.  I have approached a professional quilter to give me some ideas as to how to quilt it when it is ready for that stage.  She does amazing work not to mention, I have the utmost confidence she'll be able to guide me in the right direction.  There's a thought in my head about entering it into competition, but we'll see how well my quilting skills can enhance the quilt.  At this point, it's nice to just have gotten this far.

Lumber Yard Quilted

Finished quilting two quilts that I pieced while in Yuma this past winter.  Of course, after a six month hiatus from the quilting machine it's always like learning all over again.  Trust me when I say, my learning curve was pretty steep this go around.  Was actually hoping that I would be able to pick up where I left off last fall, unfortunately that wasn't going to be the case.  There is absolutely no point in bolstering my confidence now is there.  Silly me to think that would happen!

close up of chocolate leaves design

The quilt  called the lumberyard and is made with 2x4" rectangles.  I saw an edge to edge quilt design called "chocolate leaves" and felt that this would be great for this type of design for it is so open and free flowing.

No Name

The quilt named 'No Name' for it was just made up by me.  Finally got off the frame yesterday. Definitely a love/hate moment.  About a week ago I was having a multitude of issues with tension, thread breaking, top and bottom it was just plain UGLY, no other word for it, but UGLY.  Did a lot of picking out stitches, quilters call it 'frogging', not sure why, maybe its because it is so UGLY!!  My desperation was growing exponentially - at one point all I wanted to do was rip it off the frame and throw it into a corner and stomp on it with my clogging shoes on!!  Now I was really miffed.  After consulting with a Prostitcher group on Yahoo, I got all kinds of great feedback by which time my mood kind of simmered down from my original thought of throwing the blinkin' thing into the corner.

The top thread was the problem, and I should have clued into this fact sooner, for I knew with years of embroidery work behind me that black thread can be very troublesome due to the fact that it is so over dyed/processed.  Once this thread was replaced with another thread everything went well, that is really hard to imagine when this 'troublesome' spool of thread cost $32. One always thinks nothing but the best for your work, obviously the best wasn't working.  Very seriously thinking about sending the thread back to the manufacturer.  Usually this thread is wonderful and looks so nice on the quilt.  I like the back of the quilt, it really show cases the quilting.  I think overall this makes a nice 'masculine' type of quilt.  Next step is binding.  WooHoo!!

Until next time.....'dance like nobody is watching'!!