Out of the Doghouse

A little progress on the CTS quilt in my effort to get the top done in July as my Christmas in July project.  I wanted to remake the doghouse block so headed to the sewing room so I wouldn’t get sidetracked with something else.  It is now done, except for hand appliquing the opening, which is good since I’m starving and haven’t had breakfast yet!  Definitely time for more coffee and something to eat.

I still haven’t found the little embroidered dog I was going to place in front of it so I’ll probably just go get a new one.  I think he’ll look very cute watching over his side of the neighborhood.  I may have to see what other little embroideries I can find to embellish the borders a bit.

 

So now I’ve got all the blocks complete.   Time to clean up my scrap pile,  get the center quilt blocks up on the wall in whatever final order I’m going to use, and start cutting those sashing block pieces.

Christmas Town Sampler

   Friend Janet P sent me this photo of her Christmas Town Sampler quilt.     She’s like the quilting version of an energizer bunny — toss a pattern out there and she gets busy.  There’s no doubt that she’s finished making more of my quilt designs than I have.  😉  And it’s always so fun to see the fabrics she chooses.   Course the question always is — will she be able to keep it herself or has one of her children already staked there claim in this quilt when it’s finished.

 

It’s lovely Janet – thanks for sharing!

A few other CTS block ideas

 While this dog house block is okay — after I made it I got to thinking about the style of dog house my Dad has made for our first dog, Zip.    I’m thinking I may remake the doghouse block to make it more like Zip’s house — which would look like this.

 

Zip (a black cocker spaniel) loved to play “king of the hill” – laying perched atop the slant roof of her dog house surveying her kingdom.

And I may take out one of the house blocks and replace it with the other building below.    I need to stop switching out blocks so I can start sewing the sashing!

 

Dog house

The Dog house block is now done – at least until I find the dog applique or get a replacement.

As you can see on the EQ drawing – I have an archway to represent looking into the darkness inside the dog house.  But I’m going to wait to see if I really want to add that.  It will depend on what color the dog is and if it would show up against the black.  I think perhaps the dog will be sitting at the back of his house rather than in front.  I also decided to make a flat spot on top of the roof — you never know, another dog, a cat or a wee little bird might want to perch on top of the house.  (Oh yeah – and I decided to change up the trees a bit rather than follow the drawing.)

This isn’t the order they will be placed in but I think they will mix in nicely with the houses and other buildings.  And actually – without the dog in front, it looks like someone’s little tool or garden shed out in their yard.

Flag Raising

 

I settled into the sewing room finally and pulled out my fabric scraps from Christmas Town Sampler.  After one false start – I reversed the tree placement in the block below so had to rip  them off and switch them – that’s what I get for  not paying attention.

But with the flag block  done,  now just the doghouse block to go and I will have all the blocks made and can move on to the sashing.

 

I just love this block and am so glad I remembered that flag applique which finally got put to excellent use.

In the doghouse

 So the flag block is drawn and as I was trying to think what to do with the other block I need, I remembered there is also an embroidered applique somewhere around here of a little cute scruffy dog.

So the other block will have that dog outside his doghouse.

    Now the only problem is the dog is not on the bulletin board, which is where I thought he ended up.  For ages (literally years)  he was sitting on the shelf in the laundry room — why — I don’t know.  I think I found him stuck in the box I keep tools in and took him out and he never made it out of the laundry room.   However, a couple of months ago I cleaned off that shelf and thought I moved him to the bulletin board but no.    The search will continue at some other point because I know he’s got to be here somewhere and will turn up  unless I finally tossed him.  If he doesn’t show up by the time I need him, I’ll just have to get another one.    The Wisconsin Quilt Expo is in September and there’s one vendor that has the most gorgeous embroidered animals (and any other design you can think of) so I can always find someone to take up residence in that doghouse. 🙂

I think these blocks will end up opposite each other at the top and bottom  of the quilt.

Happy 4th of July!

  Happy Fourth!  It seems strange that it’s already the fourth of July since it seems like we haven’t had any real summer yet.  Last year it was drought and excessive heat and humidity at this time — I do not want that back.  But we seem to have the opposite – cooler temps and lots of rain.  Today, however, seems to be a lovely exception – mid 70’s and sunny.  The first day I’ve actually put the cushions on the patio furniture and sat out there to sip my coffee and listen to the wrens screech at me.  The wrens have a nest in the birdhouse right across from my patio and have a gaggle of babies in there they are feeding.  I don’t know if the same pair always lives there, but ever since I put the house up several years ago, it has been inhabited each spring through fall.  And wrens are very noisy if they think you are too close to their house full of babies.

I’ve puttered most of the morning — I wish holidays always fell on Friday or Monday — this having a Thursday off and going back to work on Friday – well that’s just weird LOL   But I’ve been doing a few chores that I won’t have to do on the weekend then like laundry.

I did start to gather the stuff I’ll need to work on my Christmas Town Sampler as my  Christmas in July project.  Pulled out the box of finished blocks and the container of all the leftover fabrics I had been using to make it.  As I was doing that, and thinking about the fact that today is the 4th of July, and thinking about a sort of flag design I’ve been tweaking off and on in EQ, and thinking about the two house blocks I still needed to make for CTS, and thinking maybe I wouldn’t do two more house blocks but maybe just some tree blocks like a park area (yes my mind wanders to all those things at once – or in very quick succession) LOL.

Anyway, all that led to me remembering a mini flag I had and all those thoughts came together to one
” light bulb” (as in why didn’t I think of that sooner) moment!  (Friends Sheryl, Susan and Judy are glad it was only a “why didn’t I think of that sooner” light bulb moment rather than my sending them an email to tell them “I’ve got an idea” light bulb moment since that usually means there’s something that I want to twist their arm on to help with — like when they got the “light bulb” moment message about designing CTS. ROFLOL)

The flag image above is the mini flag I was thinking of.  It’s been buried on the bulletin board in my sewing room for years.  I can’t remember where I got it – I think at a quilt retreat – but like many little items that make it to the bulletin board, I knew there’d be a purpose for it some day.  (I may have to clean off a few layers of the bulletin board to see what other goodies I find there since it’s so cluttered up I had to search a while to unbury the flag.)

 Here’s the flag in relation to one of the house blocks.  It’s the perfect size!    So I think my two remaining blocks to make will just be park type blocks.  One will have trees and a flag pole with the flag in it.  I’ll have to see what I come up with for the other one – just trees or if there’s some other inspirational little goodie hanging around here that will prompt an idea.

Cobbled Path update

WordPress deleted the beginning of this post so it may start off a bit wierd if you get the feed from my blog.

 

Anyway, what I said was :

Ii don’t know why I procrastinate on getting the blocks set into rows so much – perhaps my mind is already moving on to the next project. but I didn’t want to take Cobbled Path off the design wall until it was a top so got it all sewn together this afternoon.

And now that the design wall is emptied, I’m going to clean up a bit of my mess and pull out the storage box with Christmas Town Sampler in it since tomorrow, being July 1, not only is the start of Camp Loopy, but it’s also the start of my Christmas in July  push to get CTS done.

It looks like the last photo I took of it was  October 15, 2012 and at some point after that I took it off the design wall.  So here’s where I left it — I have two house blocks to make for the borders and then on to all the sashing.

I think there may have been some new developments in town – I may make either a different style house or building or more trees or may  be a church — lots of choices — so feel free to stitch along with me if you need a bit of a push to get your CTS done too.

And one more photo – I’m enjoying Leftie – fun to see each color added as it grows.  I was carrying the yarn along but didn’t really like that and since I’m going to be removing some color sections that are too dark or blend too much with the gray, I just breaking the yarn at the end of each leaf stem and knitting it in during the next row so I won’t have ends to bury when I’m done.

Now on to the CTS box and figuring out what I finally decided upon to use for sashing since I remember buying several options and rejecting some of them.

Christmas in July

Christmas Town Sampler – A Collaboration Among Friends

Re-edited to put back what WordPress mysterious ate when publishing this post…..

 

June is flying by and soon it will be that “Christmas in July” time of month.  Did you make the Christmas Town Sampler – A Collaboration Among Friends when Susan, Sheryl, Judy and I presented it last year as a mystery/blog hop project?  Did you get it finished?

 

Mine is not finished and it got packed up and set aside.  So my plan is to get it out and work on it during the month of July.  If you need to finish yours too, you’ll find moral support and encouragement here all during July. 🙂  I believe when I left off I still had two blocks for the border to make and then I can move on to the sashings and setting everything together.   My goal – to have the top completed by the end of July.  So that’s another reason why I need to stitch those blocks I currently have on the design walls into tops — I need to make room to put this one back up on the wall to figure out where I left off, and it takes up a lot of space.

Knitting and Fabric Enhancement

Now if you’ve read Judy’s blog today, specifically her Knitting Fever post here , you will note that I am being blamed for causing her to buy yarn.  Sighhhhh…. the burdens I must bear. ROFLOL  Okay yep I sent her the link to the sweater shawl pattern but I in no way shape or form suggested she buy yarn for it. 😉  But there’s one thing about Judy that scares me so much — heck it scares both of us.  We’ll be emailing about a pattern or yarn or something and either I’ve just ordered it or she has – like within a day of each other (or hours).  Do you hear the Twilight Zone theme song playing?   

Well Judy’s done it again (cue Twilight Zone mustic).  Just yesterday I saw the Loopy Ewe info about the first quarter challenge.  I was clicking on all the pattern links Shery had posted on her blog and trying to decide if I want to join in.  I love the look of cables, I’m just not overly fond of making them.  But I too picked out the same cowl pattern as Judy — I just love the way it looks.  And the shawl pattern on the bottom of her post  – I haven’t actually bought the pattern yet but it’s saved in my Ravelry library for a future project.   I still haven’t decided if I’m going to do the 1st Quarter Challenge, but if I do I actually may use yarn I have here….. maybe….oh no I think I truly have Knitting Fever thinking about passing up the add’l Loopy Dollars I could get buying new yarn for the challenge!!  😉

 
 This is what I’m currently working on tho it’s hard to spread out so that it actually looks like something on the needles.  I’m past the armholes on Greta .  There is a little bit of darker shade stripeness going on in the lower right of the photo — 5 or 6 hanks were one dye batch and 2 or 3 were another — hence the difference but nothing to do  at this point but love it. LOL  And it’s actually a bit less obvious without a camera flash on it.

 

Now what I whole hearted take the blame for trying to convince, coerce, cajole Judy into purchasing was the two bird fabrics below.     I love the signing birds — especially the purple bird singing and the yellow one holding it’s hands wings over it’s ears.  The blue background piece – check out the “hear no evil, see no evil……” birds.   They are all so bright and cheery…

The last fabric is one I bought thinking I may use it for my final CTS border and yes — the colors of the snowflakes go so well with the tone on tones I used in my quilt.  The navy tone on tone with snowflakes I had originally bought for sashing and outside border  just was not going to do the job – it looked too dull against the fabrics I used in the quilt –  so I’ve been searching all the holiday fabrics looking for something better and FINALLY found one.  Now I need to search the stash to see if I have anything in the bright blue, green or red or mayb e even black,  to use for my inner sashing pieces but there must be something in the stash that will work.  So now I’m excited to get back to working on that one.