One Down

12 to go

Jeezus, these things are a lot of work.

Unfortunately, I'm not in love with this block right now. I hate that. Usually I put the block together, I love it and then I'm completely motivated to do more. But this one isn't speaking to me that way. I'm hoping that when there are more done, I'll change my mind. I've got to keep going, I have too much done to stop now.

In the meantime, I finished another block for that toile quilt:

This one has a bit of beading on it, which is fun (because it means less stitching!). Two more of these to go. I like the way they are coming along.

****Don't forget the yard sale here on October 1st! It'll be a big one!********

364 Half Square Triangles

Is that what you thought that would look like? I thought 364 half square triangles would look like more. It just seemed like a lot of triangles. I thought I'd be looking at something like this:

But no. There are fewer than I had thought there would be.

That part is done. Now onto sewing them together!

I did get a bit bored, but not too badly. When I was not sewing the triangles together, I planned another 2 quilts in my head, and I did this piece at night:
It's part of this quilt:
Isn't that a terrible picture? When I saw the pattern at a quilt show, I said ick. The picture is terrible! But then another vendor had made the quilt up and hung it in their booth, and it just changed my mind totally. The quilt is really beautiful when it's done. I bought the pattern and fabric right then and there. And it's been sitting in my studio ever since. No more! It's Stash Only September, so out it came, and I'm making progress!

SOS #4

Another little quilt:

This one is not my pattern. It's the "Everyday Table Topper" from Heather Mulder Petersen's book, Charmed and Dangerous. Luckily, though I never have any ideas for those charm packs, Heather does. Yeay! I borrowed this one. I think it's cute and bright and fun. It uses the charm pack from the It's Snowing line by Moda.

My new project is to make a quilt similar to this:

You can click on the picture for the website. It will give you a much better view of the quilt.

I am intrigued by this quilt. I have been wanting to do a tree of life quilt for a while, but I was never happy with any border option I came up with. I like this one because it has no border but still ends well. I have chosen my fabrics, which will be more vibrant than the original, and I have changed the tree block a little. I will also not be making the quilt as big. This one is 84x88 inches, which is pretty large. I have mine at about 68x68, which is still large for a lap quilt, but the size will also make it very snuggly. The block size of the tree I drafted is 14x14, so I will need 13 blocks. That means 364 half square triangles to make those leaves! I will be busy for a while.

These are some of the fabrics I've chosen, primarily they are the leaf colors. The browns for the trunks are not shown here, and neither is the background fabric, which is like a warm tan that looks like parchment. The background fabric really makes these colors shine, so I'm very happy with it.

The challenge here will be to get through making 364 half square triangles without drifting off into another project. When things get repetitive like that, my mind tends to wander, and off I go onto something else-or many something elses (just ask the crazy quilt I've been working on since February). So I'll try to stay on course. I'll keep you posted!

SOS # 3

One more down! This is another table runner made with a charm pack. This pack is Candyland Christmas, another Moda line.

I really like this line. It is (to me) 50's in the color and the way that the things were drawn. To that end, I made the setting very simple and used the solid deep green to sash the blocks with. I originally had quilted it with the in the ditch method, because I thought it would be true to the style. I think it was, but I have discovered this year that I really like things QUILTED, so I requilted it with a meandering design. I really like the texture it produces.

Sorry about the not great pics of this one and the last. It's been raining here, and I can't take pictures outside, like I'd prefer. When the sun comes back out, I will do that!

SOS -#2

You might remember me mentioning this fabric here. It's named after me!! Woo hoo! Thrilled as I was, the fabric is TOO cheerful for me, and I'm not that cheerful. I did want to own some of it, just because it has my name on it, but I wasn't sure how much or really what I would do with it. So I bought a charm pack. I like charm packs because you get the whole line in little snippets, so if you want to try the line out it's a great way to do so. Or if you like the whole line (that gets into big $$), the charm pack is an inexpensive way to get it.

But I also don't like charm packs because they are hard to work with (for me). I never have any ideas on what to do with them, so they usually sit on the shelf where I fondle them occasionally and put them back.

That is, until Stash-Only September, baby!! Now I've got to dig deep, stop the fondling, and use up that fabric! So out came the Jocelyn charm pack. ...And it's still too cheerful. Every time I put it together, no matter what I did, it just looked like spring threw up on the floor. Too many flowers, too much happy color. Then it occured to me that maybe the fabrics would behave better if I separated them a bit by something neutral. That worked. So I present to you this:

I call it "Jocelyn's Bloomers"! Many thanks to Blogger for putting the picture sideways. :( Grrrr. I don't know why it does that.

The white keeps the flowers in check, so it doesn't look like there's a cacophony of spring jumping into your retinas. That's a good thing. Yeay! I used the happy fabric! Kudos to me!

So that's project number 2 for Stash-Only September. I was going to make a blog tag (like those awards that go around), but I don't know how. If I figure it out though, I will.

Have a great day, everyone!

Stash-Only September

The following is proof that I do things other than can food, raise children, garden, rant, and cook.

Taaaa Daaaa!!

I'm back in the studio again! Yee haw!

This here, pardners (now I'm all on a cowboy tangent--sorry--I will self-correct), is a quilt I made up with the 12 Days of Christmas panel by Nancy Halvosen for Bernatex. I have a confession: I love these damn panels. I don't buy them (usually) because I never know what to do with them, but I always like them. Actually, I lie. I don't like things like this, and I have no desire to own this, but there are a few panels I have looked at and thought hmmm.....

Usually I don't buy them because they are hard to work with. You either have a panel that's hard to cut apart without ruining it (right? that one you'd destroy if you took scissors to it--I mean, where do you cut?), or it's a panel that's like a whole quilt, and that's just cheating (hence the name cheater panel). But sometimes I've been tempted, and this one tempted me. I succumbed to it without actually knowing what to do with it. In order to NOT have it hang around the studio for months (or years), I tried to figure out what to do with it. The above is what I came up with. Basically I used the panel as the centers of a log cabin block, put in some sashing, and made the border with extra strips from the blocks. Nicest thing was, I used my stash to do it. Yeay! So anyway, making this quilt from my stash leads me to Stash-Only September, when I will spend this month making things only from what I have. And I'm not even going to cheat by not sewing--I will, in fact, sew a lot, and hopefully get a lot done.

So there you have it. A challenge for myself. I have a lot of fabric stashed away, so I should be pretty busy. In fact, I have this fabric to get to next, since I was going to make it for my kids for the winter time. I'm still thinking on that one. And no, I did not get the panel. I wasn't loving it. But I did get a bunch of other fabrics from that line, and I'm stymied. Oh well. It'll come to me.

I will keep you posted! Expect to see more!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Oh, and as an aside, my daughter did finally open up about school. Yesterday at dinner, she sat and told us about her whole day. I mean, her. whole. day. For 45 minutes, and that was mostly because she kept telling the story and then saying "wait, wait, I forgot something", and then would go back over everything she just said, adding tiny details here or there. I just sat there with a huge doofy grin on my face because I was thrilled to hear it. I didn't even know what part of the day she was talking about sometimes, but it didn't matter. I was thrilled to hear every "wait, wait, I forgot something". It was good. So, Cathey, turns out you were right. She had too much to process that first day. The second must have done enough for her that she felt ready to tell.

Either that, or she just kept talking so that her brother wouldn't get a chance to talk about HIS day.....

Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head

It's been raining here-a lot, and almost every day for a week. It seems the April rains we should have gotten are not missing, but only delayed until June. So, I guess we're catching up.

I like the rain, but it's just odd for this time of year. Yesterday, we got downpours. So much so that (get this) the school held the AM kindergartners until the rain stopped. I'm voting overcautious on this one, personally. This school called for snow days this Winter when it didn't snow, and now didn't send home the kindergartners because it was raining. I did not know this, so I stood outside in the rain, waiting for my daughter. When I had been outside quite a while, I figured something was up. I came back in, and discovered that the school had left a message that they were holding the AM kindergartners until the rain cleared. This is something I could understand if there were say, major lightning, thunder and wind, but this was a fairly garden variety thunderstorm, so I don't really understand the issue. I'm guessing they sided with over caution because of the litigious society we've become. Who knows, but that's my guess.

It is the end of the year. My daughter has 2 days left, and she's out for the summer. I am still making the plans as to what I'm going to do with my two while there's no school to occupy the one of them. We'll have to find things. The end of the year also brings about that dilemma of dilemmas--what to do for teachers and bus drivers and such. Does anyone else get hung up about this? I can never decide what's enough and what's too much? Do you give a gift to a bus driver? What if the bus driver has only been the driver for half the year? What do you get them? Do people give the teachers gifts anymore? What do they give? Does the teacher really need any more items with apples on them? Do they like items with apples on them? My vote would be no, and that teachers, if they are going to get a gift, would probably prefer something more personal or useful. But what? Does anyone actually know their kid's teacher well enough to get them the perfect gift? I don't think that's possible, is it?

I'm not going to say I'm losing sleep over this whole thing, because I'm not. But it is something for me to think about yet again. For the bus drivers, I think I will bake something (so I'd better get on it). But for the teacher, well, that's a whole other kettle of fish.

My daughter LOVES her teacher. And, though I've only met her a handful of times, and spoken to her little more than that, I really like her too. But more importantly, I like the WAY she taught. And not so much in the curriculum sense, though my daughter learned a lot during the year, it was more in the way she delivered the information. She has a very straightforward, honest approach to teaching. If she thought something was off, she told the students. She challenged them to think. In the day and age of "memorize and spit back at test time" teaching, that's not common. One time, my daughter brought home a little story they had read in class. It was basically a conglomeration of words in form of a very loose "story" to teach the words to the kids. My daughter read through part of the story and then stopped. She looked at me and said "My teacher said this story is weird". She then finished the story. And yeah, it was weird. It made no real sense. But I found it completely refreshing that her teacher would call that to the kids' attention. That makes them think. It makes them look at things that are written and challenge the ideas within. It's totally something I would have done. So I appreciated it immensely.

As I wanted to do something nice for this woman who has meant so much to my daughter, I made her this:

What do you think? Good? Too much? I hope it'll do. I think it's pretty. I don't know if it's my daughter's teacher's taste, but I hope so. That's a hard thing to judge. I thought to personalize it, my daughter could write the quilt label for the back. This is what she wrote:

I hope that will be nice for her teacher. I hope it's not too much. I never know what's appropriate in this situation, or if people give teachers gifts anymore at all. Ugh. I hope it's all right.

On Thursday, I am going to the Vermont Quilt Festival. Woo hoo! Vacation! I'm off with my mom for 3 days of fabric, fabric, and more fabric. I am looking forward to it. it'll be the start of my summer, and I'm hoping that when I come back, I'll have ideas for how to manage the couple of months my kids are off, so that we don't go insane altogether. Or at least I'll have a fresh outlook on things. I need the break, I really do.

So, until I return friends, enjoy your days! I will bring home pictures, that's a promise. I am packing my camera as I type!

Slowed Down

UGH! This broken toe has slowed me down, and more than I would like. I'm not a person who likes to slow down. I am busy, busy all the time, if I can be. So this has been a bummer with a capital B.

Luckily, with all this "resting" time my toe is feeling much better. I'm only limping around a tiny bit, and that's mostly when I'm wearing shoes. I was able to walk around quite a bit more today than yesterday (though my foot is pretty tired now), and I think tomorrow will be even better. Yeay! Back to my normal routine! The lovely sunshine we've had has made me want to be productive, even though it's 30 degrees outside. But the weird daylight savings time has unsettled me, to be honest. It's just not natural. It looks like Spring out, the sun is out longer, but last night it snowed. (((Shudder))) Freaky. I do not like it, Sam I Am.

I did get a couple of things done in the last few days, while I was "taking it easy". For one, I finished that blue and yellow quilt.

Ta DA!!!

I couldn't pick which one of the bad pictures was the best, so I put them all in. I am going to call it "Picnic in the Sunshine". I like it, it's cheerful.

I also read a book:

Is it wrong to say I really enjoyed it? I really did. I thought it was well-written, and gave an interesting perspective on Anne Boleyn's ambition. Who's to say how ambitious she really was? Was she really that driven, I don't know. But I found this an interesting slant to it. I have read a number of Alison Weir books, one of which was The Six Wives of Henry the Eighth and though Anne Boleyn was talked about quite a bit, the books are from the perspective of history. It was interesting to read about it from the perspective of it all happening right then and there, though I know it was fiction. The author did take a bit of the book from actual fact, and that was really good.

I also could completely sympathise with Mary Boleyn, who just wanted to be live in the country and own land and whatnot. (Don't we all, Mary? Don't we all?) I enjoyed reading about her "escape" from courtier life, and found some times when I was holding my breath, wondering what was going to happen (even though I already knew). I think that's the mark of a good author, and I will be looking for another Phillipa Gregory book soon.

Oh, and no, I haven't seen the movie. I heard it was pretty bad. I think I would like to see it just to compare/contrast the two. This book is long--660 pages or so, so I'd be interested to see how they "squish" that down. The book was good--I would recommend it!

That's it for me! I hope you all have a great day!

A Twist

I thought a lot about what to do with the quilt "center" I have. I thought about wide borders, lots of skinny borders, vertical borders, pieced borders, you name it. I did even think about leaving it and having it be a table topper, because I thought maybe it was telling me it was done. I was stymied. But then I said to myself, "Self, you're looking at this all the wrong way". So, I did this:

That worked.

Damned if I can get a good picture of it, though.

Sorry about the wrinkles. I had just brought it out of my studio without stopping at the iron first. Shoulda done that...

Does putting Sam in the picture(or him putting himself in it, as it was) make it better?

....Not really. I've got to find a better way to do this.

Anywho, I have one yard and 7 charm squares left. It needs finishing, just to "stop" the middle. Hopefully tomorrow....

Have a great day, everyone!

Border 1

Added the first border:

It helped pop it.

This is a little challenging because using the rest of the charm squares left me with only two fabrics--one a blue with a large print, and one a yellow with a med/small print. I have only 2 yards of one, and 1 of another. It sounds like a lot of fabric, but the quilt is really still small, and I have to "grow" it without adding 10" borders (that would be sucky). As a challenge to myself, I won't buy any more of this fabric to finish this quilt (I don't even know if I could find it anyway). But I have an idea. Stay tuned...

The giveaway is over, and hmm..... didn't go so well. Lesson learned: no more giveaways for quite a while.

But, I got two entries, so you both win!! I have one more teacup and a whole lot of cool bits and pieces and ribbons, so I can make another pincushion and send you both one. Seems only fair since you were the only two to comment. Jan and Cathey, please send me your addresses, and I will send them post-haste. Thank you both for your comments on that post! Congratulations!

A Center

Last year, probably right when it came out, I fell in love with the Sunshine collection by April Cornell for Moda. I think a lot of people fell in love with that collection. It's a nice and cheerful one. I liked the line, but I did not know what to do with it. So I decided to buy a few of the charm packs and a little yardage to make a quick quilt. I figured when I saw the fabric in person, I would get inspired and whip up a little something.

No such luck. I got the fabric, looked through it, really liked it, drew a blank, and promptly shelved it. I have pulled it down quite a few times, but never has inspiration struck.

Not to say that 1000 designers haven't designed quilts for this line, because they have. There are tons of patterns out there featuring this line, and furthermore, featuring this line as a charm square quilt. How much easier could this have been made for me? Fabric... pattern... DONE. But none of the patterns grabbed me. So the fabric stayed on the shelf.

I have become ashamed of myself for letting it sit that long, and so I've pulled the fabric down and have started a quilt. I have no plan. This is a first for me, making it up as I go. It'll be an adventure, and I thought I'd take you with me.

This is part one:

The middle. OOOOOOOOHHHHHH!!! Middle-ish!

First thing I did was remove all the green squares from the charm packs because that green was icky. It just killed the whole flow. Really yuck. So there won't be any green in the quilt, other than what's accenting the flowers as stems and such. Once I removed the green, the quilt sort of opened up. I put the squares on point with a color arrangement that is random, but not that random (I actually have a hard time being random--it doesn't come easily for me). And now I will build it from there.

I don't know what I will do next. I have a bunch of charm squares left over to use, and a little yardage of two colors for the border. It needs punch, so that'll be the first thing. And it's really quite small right now (I think 37"), so I have to work on that too. I hope this experiment works. I'm really more of a planner than a "fly by the seat of my pants"-er, so this is going to be interesting. But you'll be able to see it every step of the way, whether it flops or not!

PS--The giveaway is still open, so please leave a comment and be entered!

Thanks, Kids!!

So the fish quilt has a new home. I donated it to Project Linus yesterday, because not only have I heard of the charity before and like what they do, they also have a chapter in Orange County, and fortuitously, their drop-off point is right where I was going to be. It was kismet. I hope that someone will enjoy the quilt. Surprisingly, I felt a slight twinge of regret when I laid it out to take this picture. I thought for a moment that maybe I should keep it, because of all the work and the fabrics were somewhat expensive and.......then I snapped out of it. I feel it's more important to donate it to someone who will (hopefully) love it rather than just keep it around "because". I think I made the right decision.

But that's not my story. My story is about my kids, whom I love and adore. While photographing this quilt, my daughter, who is 6 and very good at it, looks at it and says, "Why are you giving it away?".

I say, "Because I don't like it. It doesn't fit in the house well". And it doesn't fit me, and I think I made it because I was just following the fabric to it's logical conclusion, instead of really thinking whether or not I'd want the thing around afterward. (But I don't say that, obviously.)

So she says, "Can I have it?".

I think about that for a second, because I was having the twinging little doubts about donation, and I'm flattered that she wants something I have made, but then I remember she's 6 and her normal thing is to want something, get something, take care of it for a few days, and then forget about it under the bed or in the closet or something like that(this does not hold true for My Little Ponies, but quilts, yeah, that's the case). Then most likely I'll take possession of the thing again. She's 6. That's what kids do. And since that'll leave me in the same predicament of wanting to give it away, only several days later, I say "No".

Then my son chimes in and says "Why you don't like it?" (he's 3--we're still working on grammar)

And I say "It just doesn't really fit. I guess I just don't like it too much."

He says "It's ugly?"

"No," I sigh, "it's not ugly. I guess I just don't like the way it came out. That's all".

But the notion that the quilt is ugly is now implanted in his little boy brain, and it'll come back to bite me later.

We head to Middletown, which is where we were going for several reasons, and do our errands. Then we head to the AC Moore, which is the dropoff point for Project Linus here in Orange County. I get to the counter, and show the package to the cashier and ask her if they take the donations at the counter, or if I need a manager.

"I can take it", she tells me. And she looks at it, all wrapped up and says "Oh, it's all wrapped and everything".

It was wrapped because I didn't have a bag big enough to stuff it in. Plus, I felt bad just shoving it into a bag. But of course, it's wrapped, so you can't see it. So you can't tell what it looks like. Which is fine, except that now my daughter speaks up and says, "My mom doesn't like it".

I mumble something about how it wasn't what I was expecting when it turned out, and it just doesn't fit in, or whatever, and then my daughter speaks up and says "So we're getting rid of it."

Thank you, kiddo! Now the woman looks at me like I'm dumping toxic waste on her, and giving the charity something ugly and horrid. So I mumble something else about how we're not getting rid of it, it just doesn't fit and blah blah blah, I don't even know what I said, but the whole time I'm fighting the urge to grab the package back and rip it open and show her it really is a nice quilt, and my son, my lovely, lovely son, whom I adore, opens his sweet little innocent mouth and says, "It's ugly".

Ah, there it is. The final nail in the coffin. I was waiting.

Of course, now the woman is positive that I've dumped some horrid thing on her to give to someone. I can't reach the package to open it and show her that's not the case (nor should I--let's try to be mature adults here, right?), and I can't say anything to dissuade her thinking, so I just slink away. And once outside, thank my children for being wonderful and honest, but perhaps next time if they could just not be quite SO honest all the time, I would appreciate it.

864 Clamshells

I wore out my stencil (I didn't even think that was possible, but look at this thing! sad.)

The pouncer's seen happier days.

I breathed in enough "chalk" dust that my lungs are probably coated in white, and my studio's floor certainly was.

But it's done.

I would like to donate it to charity. Does anyone know of one that might be able to use it?

Thread in the Freezer

Nope, it's not a typo. And it's not a funny story about how I once went to get ice cream while I was quilting and left the thread in the freezer. Though I've been known to do things similar to that (I've left it in my purse when I went to get my keys, and left it on the counter countless times when getting a snack or drink), it's not that sort of thing. This is thread that my mom bought to quilt her flannel quilt with, but it kept breaking. Understandably, she got very frustrated. Every 6 inches of stitches she made, the thread would break and she'd have to re-thread the machine and start all over again. Super annoying stuff. So she put her quilt aside and only worked on it in bits and pieces until she got super annoyed again and stopped. Finally one day she told me she was stopping for good. She put the quilt aside and went on to other things.

When she told me this, I volunteered to quilt it myself. This quilt is very my mother. The colors are her, the subject is her, the warmth of the flannel is her, it's just a quilt that if you knew my mom and didn't know she made the quilt, you'd still look at it and say "I know she made that quilt". It's just so HER. One of the snowpeople even kind of looks like her--NOT that she looks like a snowperson, it's just that it's got on this hat like my mom would wear and a scarf that my mom would wear and it's holding a BIRDHOUSE, which is SO my mom it's not even funny. (She's crazy about feeding the birds and housing the birds and keeps 100 pounds of seed in the yard at all times.) So it's just so my mom. This is why I volunteered. But, like any mom (or woman for that matter), she turned me down, with a "no, I'll get to it eventually, I'll just do it in bits and pieces". What is the matter with us women? We never want to put anyone out.

Anyway, I let it go for a while and then asked again a couple of weeks later. She said yes. I took home the quilt, and the thread she had wanted to use, put the quilt in my studio, and put the thread in the freezer. Ok, this is why: I know two secrets about thread and sewing machines that most people don't. Wanna hear?? First: they won't tell you this when you go shopping, but not all machines will work with all types of thread. They won't. Don't let anyone tell you they will, either, because they lie. I have owned 4 different machines in the time I have sewn, and I can tell you that with the Elna machine I used to use, Sulky thread breaks like it's made of glass. It doesn't matter how many different types/sizes of needles I use, how many different tension settings I try, it doesn't even matter what I sew on, Sulky threads break and break. I can tell you that on the machine I own now-a Janome-it still breaks, but not as often. I can tell you that on my Kenmore, which is the machine I use for classes, it doesn't break at all. I can tell you that Coats and Clark, which I use for piecing and all purpose sewing, never had a problem in my Elna or my Kenmore, but if I site it the wrong way in my Janome, it will break, so I have to be careful. And I can tell you that the Singer Featherweight I started sewing on when I was a kid up until about the year 2000 will sew without a problem with any type of thread at all, as long as it's a 50 weight or better (which makes sense, since it's a machine from 1920 or so). So it really is true. But this leads to secret number two: if the thread keeps breaking on you, put it in the freezer. Some thread, when you get it, is old. It sat on the shelf for 1000 years under lights in the air because no one bought it until you came in, and it's old and dry and cracky. And who knows how long it sat in whatever warehouse before it even got to the store. It needs humidity, and the freezer is the ticket. Take the thread, put it in the freezer for a couple of days. Then take it out. Put it in a plastic baggie and let it defrost. By being cold in the freezer and then warming up in a confined space, it absorbs moisture back into itself and it will break less. It works. So, I put the thread in the freezer for two days and let it thaw for one, and voila! The quilt, she is quilted!

I think it came out well. I am not a professional, obviously. I only have a home machine, so there's the inevitable little jig-jags here and there from stopping to reposition now and again. The stitches are pretty even, but here and there there's one that's not. Flannel is heavy and doesn't move nicely all the time. And the thread was still ugly. It only broke twice (woo hoo), but look at that fuzz!! ICK!! I was cleaning the needle every 10 minutes or so. Pretty yucky. I don't even want to open up the throat plate. I'm afraid there'll be a whole fuzz tumbleweed in there. But I hope my mom is happy with the quilt. And I'm thrilled it's done. It makes me happy to have done something for her (and I'm thrilled that she trusted me with it), and I'm really glad that something that is so HER is going to be able to be used and loved.

That's my story and my secrets for today. So if you have a problem with your thread, know it could be your machine, but also try the freezer trick. It really does work!!

I hope you all are having a great weekend! Thank you for all your comments!

Fish IN the Water

Hello everyone!

I finished the "water" quilting on my fish quilt, so I thought I might share some pics. Out of the two stencils I had chosen for the quilt, it was the easier of the two. It went quickly, mainly because I converted the stencil to a continuous line design, rather than the stop/start design it was supposed to be. I think it worked out fine. This is a shot of the whole quilt (with Percy as accessior). It's good and bumpy.

This is a close up of the quilting, with the fish block and the copper frame unquilted.

This is a shot of the water quilting and the clamshell quilting added to the fish block. I got two of them done. It's going to take a while, though. It's the harder of the two stencils to work, not to mention that the pounce pad that I'm using to mark the stencil has chalk in it that's supposed to stay on until I iron it off, except for the fact that my hand seems to brush it away really easily. I wind up marking the block in sections, and in some cases re-marking again. It's super frustrating.

I'm sorry it's difficult to see the quilting with all the chalk on it. I find it crazy distracting myself. But Percy likes it. That's enough for me. :)

Thank you for your comments about Bill. I feel we hardly knew him, but I had thought my kids would be upset about his passing. They were not. In fact, after scooping Bill's little body out of his bowl, my son plopped him in the toilet and said "Well, bye.", and then flushed. I guess no love lost there. Kids are so resilient :)