You CAN Teach An Old Dog New Tricks

The bougainvillea around us is spectacular this year, maybe because we had a fair bit of rain this winter.

That incredible pinky red and neutral sand are the main colours for this post's finish.
As you know, Naala turned 9 years old on March 4, and has had some shoulder issues this past month again, so earlier this week we took them for a shorter walk in a really pretty park our friend John showed us this year.  She still looks pretty amazing for a 9-year-old Rottie. She couldn't jump up on that wall that day, but Rocco, who is 6.5 years old this month, can, and did.  He learned this trick from Brandy, his red-nose pibble friend.  Rocco and Naala, in turn, have been teaching Brandy to enjoy the water:

a fun frolic at the beach a couple of days ago

Old and older dogs can learn new tricks. Pibble love is not a new trick for either Brandy or Rocco...or for their doubles. Check this out!  Just over a week ago, because Naala was on the DL, John and Brandy, Rocco and I went for a walk in our 'hood...

Four "vicious" pibbles -TWINS- meet on the street outside the one pair's house for the first time!

The only difference is that Lulu is a female blue-nose pit, and Danny Boy, their male red-nose pit.  Sweet sweet dogs, all four.  Oh, one other difference:  Rocco had to have his tail amputated from a condition known as "happy tail syndrome", where from wagging so hard and hitting hard objects like corners of walls, or coffee tables, it would bleed, and eventually cause an ulcer that wouldn't heal.

Anyhow I took a short video of them kissing each other and being the happy, lovin'-life type dogs that these sweeties are.  I have a feeling it will get hundreds of views when I put it on Instagram.


So this old dog (moi), learned some stuff this past few weeks too.  In actuality no, I am NOT old, I hate to even say but I guess I'm maybe middle-age, since I plan to live until around 100.  Anyhow, in February, I tried to do the Scrap-a-Palooza quilt, which was improv piecing with a red corner triangle.

The bottom row shows the playing around with layout ideas I had, with nothing grabbing me.  Until the third layout reminded me of the bottom of a heart.  Hmm, maybe a red square in the corner with two improv HSTs to round the edges might work?   You see what I got in the top picture.

So I decided to go with it.  After all, I did want to make a Valentine quilt this year.  See my Q1 FAL list.

Some of the hearts looked a tad gooby, so I pulled apart a few seams and inserted a small triangle to make them flow a little better.

Yep, that's better

Sewed two blocks together with sashing.

Kinda cute!

Bella, as always, supervised.

And once I took the photo, had to test it out.

Liking it, yep, yep, do the other two now.

Finished flimsy:

I'd mistakenly cut 3 extra 1.5" strips of Modern Background Essentials by Zen Chic for my Swoon Mini, because I couldn't find the safe place I'd put the first ones in.  I got to use some for the outside frame here. I like that!

That Kona Cotton patterned strip across the centre?  Um yeah, had it since 2001:

Beautiful fabric but it's got a kind of scotchguard feel to it; not much left now.

The flimsy sat on my design wall until earlier this week, when I posted about the Shadowed Star cushion.  Hello?!  This "Valentine quilt of some kind" is on my Q1 FAL list!!  I can quilt this up next, since I seem to be on a mini quilts roll this year.

Trying out a new design for me, one of Angela's fillers for negative space

I decided to do a different background fill behind each heart.  I have FMQ-ed for 20 years, but I am always game to learn a new motif, or try something new.  This fill turned out really well, and I just drew it once on a paper and then went for it.  Improv is a also a new technique I've been mucking around a bit with this past little while.

Two hearts quilted down; see how the other two poof up?  No worries; they did smoosh down just as nicely as the first two did.

Very pleased with the new-to-me 'Signature design' of Angela's.  I was also very pleased with how square this mini stayed.

Added Susie's Magic Binding.  This is another new trick for this girl, second quilt I've done it on, and I just love it.  I learned of it thanks to my friend Tish.  I used the rest of the inadvertently extra cut 1.5" Zen Chic strips and cut one more, and then used up almost all of my Dear Stella Chevrons pink and white fabric for the flange.

I call it Crazy Hearts

There was a bit of a ripple across the bottom, so I dampened the quilt and blocked it on my sewing room carpet overnight.  Do you see the pink dragonfly patch? I FMQ-ed over it in the same magenta thread I used for the hearts.  The dragonfly comes from labels fabric.  These flitted around between the labels, which have all been used up now.

The back - I like how the pink hearts show up

The label, which had its written information all but obliterated with the pebbling I did.  I went over it though.

I forgot to put two triangles in each of the top corners for a dowel to go through, so it is getting hung using Right Sides Together's Lazy Ass method.

Very close to the Swoon Mini in size

These two quilts both feature the Zen Chic Modern Background Essentials fabric, and that fabulous binding.  Both are heavily quilted.

Trying to get a bit of an angle to show the fabulous texture you get from all this quilting

I'm happy that I have another finish on my list.  I have not done very well this quarter in that regard.  I am most happy that I am wholeheartedly committed to lifelong learning, and that you definitely can teach this 'old dog' new tricks.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  original design, inspired by Scrap-a-Palooza
Size: 19" square
Fabric: stash scraps
Batting: Pellon Nature's Touch 100% cotton
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads: pieced with Gütermann; quilted with Essentials 50 wt 20869 white and 21241 Magenta

If you would like to learn some of these and many more fabulous FMQ techniques, then you might want to check out Craftsy's classes.   I learned so much in Angela Walters' Machine Quilting Negative Space, and her Small Changes, Big Variety classes.  Her Free-Motion Quilting with Feathers class is well worth snagging at this price too.  I reviewed the latter two of those in this post.

Why you might want to consider taking a class if you never have:  I have both of Angela Walters' Quilting books, and the designs you see in both these minis can be found in her books.  However!  I find that SEEING her execute the designs on either a longarm or a domestic really helps me to see how the design is executed.  I also love the fact that I can watch her do this over and over either using the 30-second repeat feature, or I can go back to a design maybe 6 months after I bought and watched the class to review it.  There are many more reasons why I love Craftsy classes, and I go into them in the review post if you are interested, or just email me if you have specific questions.

The newest class I am super-excited about that I just got is Christina Cameli's latest one, Wild Quilting.  It reminds me of Karlee Porter's Grafitti Quilting and the Graffiti quilt I did last summer.  I cannot WAIT to play around with Christina's designs and learn more new tricks which I will share on the blog.

Happy Easter everyone!

Dapper boy

Linking up with:
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Quilting is More Fun Than Housework
Fort Worth Fabric Studio
A Quilted Passion
Cooking Up Quilts 
and
She Can Quilt for the FAL party!

Wings...takes flight!

Prewashing, in the sun to show off that lovely texture, mmm!

The quilt sat for an entire week while I hemmed and hawed about binding.  Consulted my three J's.... Julie. ... Judy.  Thought some more.  Mentioned it to Jasmine.  Ha!  There are FOUR J's......
Even dragged J...., er MacGyver, downstairs to ask him his thoughts.  (I'm not allowed to use his name or his photo, except for the one shot where you see his hooves in his proverbial flipflops as he holds Blue Ribbon Stars).

Jasmine's random comment, "Have you considered...?" (which I had, but dismissed, thinking it would take too long and be too fiddly) ended up being the binding decision:  scrappy rainbow binding using fabrics in the quilt.  I'm so glad I did do the extra work for this!

I might have gone a little cut-happy on the 2.5" strips...yep they're more than half the height of the Isacord spool!

Oh well, the way I see it, I have the makings of yet another scrap quilt!  This is Cynthia's Scrap-a-Palooza quilt #16 from July.  I loved the effect I got when I rotated the top two blocks in the set of 4: the spots became wings.  You can see the spots layout in this post.  I really really like that layout too, so you never know...another may just happen in my future!

This gazebo is in the park that is on one side of our lane.  I've thought it would make a good spot for a quilt shoot for some time, so decided to try it out tonight in the setting sun.

I realize just how important it is to get sunlight on the quilt to show the quilting and the texture.  Here you don't see much at all, but the colours are true.

Can you see evidence of the squirrels' busyness, stashing walnuts (there are no less than 3 visible) in various safe places?!!  Ha, much like we quilters do with favourite fabrics...

I changed threads a lot.  Remember Avril was not a happy camper with the Sulky Blendables in 12 weight?  My Bernina loves it.  Avril was also not really a fan of the Sulky Blendables in 30 weight, but she grumpily did what I asked.  She loves Isacord, Aurifil, So Fine, YLI, Coats and Clark variegated.

I used The Bottom Line in the bobbin in ivory for all of these thread changes.  I was really really pleased with the tension (the Bernina was used for the majority of the Blendables)

I had taken the quilt off the Avanté with two echoes of the cloud-like swoop-dee-swoops in the wings, and then I thought, nope, too much unstable fabric, too much poof...

so I went back in with my Bernina, and did a third echo of the outside swoop-dee-swoops, and then a wavy line in the inside ones to flatten things down a bit.  It really wasn't that much more work, well it kind of was, but it was totally worth it.

I used one of the ratty chairs in the gazebo for draping the quilt.  I noticed there are nails in the top face boards(?) of the gazebo, so maybe I can get some rope, grab some clothespegs, and make myself a better hanging line for my quilts.  Never mind what the neighbours will think of me now...

Here is the back, that delicious paisley-sculptured Minky Cuddle I got at Miller's Dry Goods this summer.  I'm so glad I treated myself to some of this!

Cloud-like quilting, cloud-like backing, mmm!

Bella is in love with this quilt.  She cracks me up; as SOON as I lay a quilt down to either look at it, decide on batting (in this case) or a backing or whatever, she does this:

Mademoiselle Twinkle Toes

She has tried to burrow under it, lie on it, à la Tish's Oliver, while I was quilting it and binding it...sigh.  Cats just have to be a PART of every stage.

Oh, I did a loose loopy and simple flowers meander in the background.  The shot below also shows the third echo and wavy line I added a little better.  This extra quilting didn't detract from the plushness of the Minky one bit.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Scrap A Palooza #16
Size: 69 3/4"X 53 1/4"
Fabric: scraps for the top and the binding (note, there are about 550 fabrics in this top, as I repeated only a few of them, 576 total pieces) Minky Cuddle for the backing
Batting: Warm 'n Natural
Quilted: on my Avanté (approximately 80 000 stitches), and added some echoing on my Bernina
Threads: pieced with Gütermann, quilted with Isacord 4421, 5210 and 5450, Sulky Blendables 12 wt 4007 and 30 wt 4117, Coats and Clark 40 wt variegated blues, YLI 40wt variegated plum, So Fine 40 wt 403; The Bottom Line in the bobbin

Linking up with Oh Scrap! At Quilting is More Fun Than Housework. Lots of scrappy ideas over there!

Wings - Flimsy

Thanks to all of you who gave me your input into which setting you preferred for Wings.  The majority went with B and that was my first choice, once I played around after making A, which was the first first choice!  Here it is:

The wind yesterday did not permit a great outdoor shot, so I took this in the inside front entrance.  Yay for a retracting screen door so that I can get great light on quilt here!  I still tweaked two blocks.  I didn't like the two "non" colours, brown and black, to be both in the same row, so I brought some "light" into the bottom row and moved the brown beside the orange to help make it sing a little more, since the brown tones are a bit rusty or orangey.

Hard to believe it started here:

Had to haul the bench over to reach the top row! Forgot to take it away...

I love those circles; you never know, another one may just evolve into being yet.  Somehow the scrap boxes and ziploc bags do not seem to have reduced in bulk , even though there are over 500 logs in this quilt.  528 to be exact.  Amazing.  Also amazing that just turning two blocks a quarter turn resulted in the wings layout.

Quick outside shot before the breeze took it!

I love the dappled light on that one so had to include it.  I put this as my August ALYoF goal, to have a finished quilt.  It is Cynthia's 16th Scrap-a-Palooza quilt at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework.

I won't be doing much quilting this weekend.

Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy! Pinch me!

I am volunteering once again this year at Kingsville's second folk fest.  It is held at Lakeside Park, half a block from my house which is SO exciting, and once again, they have a terrific lineup.  Last night was the volunteer appreciation soirée, cool to see so many familiar faces back, share pizza and drinks from a local winery, Cooper's Hawk Vineyards, and brewery, Walkerville Brewery.  :-)  With a name like that, their beer must be awesome, right?! And yes, it is Hiram Walker himself, not just a whiskey connoisseur, no relation, but I wish he was! As for Donnell Leahy, I saw him perform several years ago with his entire family, Leahy, in Edmonton.  I took my parents, because he was playing Don Messer's violin for the tour.  I was just a little girl, but I remember that show...and that dates me.  I haven't seen Natalie MacMaster yet, but I've been a fan of hers for years.  Ashley MacIsaac, J.P. Cormier, and Guy Davis are also here, all of whom I have seen, all terrific.

I was thinking yesterday how much music is a part of my life, something I have written about before.  I am not one who can 'watch' TV while quilting; I once tried to watch "Frozen", thinking I wouldn't really need or have the desire to pay attention to the screen...uh, yes I did.  I only missed about 10 minutes of that great movie.  Therefore, I listen to music ALL the time when I sew.  I love all kinds of music, except for country (2 songs and I'm ready to stick a fork in my eye), crazy jazz (same fork feeling), and, sorry dear brother, intense opera for prolonged periods of soprano singing...I can handle maybe 3 arias.... However, I love light opera, "Carmen", "The Barber of Seville", "The Magic Flute"... I digress.  With the rise of groups like Mumford and Sons, and Of Monsters and Men, I've rediscovered folk music.  If it is anything like last year, this year's folk fest will be a blast.

This morning--eeeep!

Linking up with Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

A? B? or C? Layout Decisions

I decided what shape I am making with my offset log cabin blocks.  Yay.  Today I got all 12 blocks sewn together.  Now I need to figure out a layout.  I know which one I'm leaning towards; if you want to weigh in, do so in the comments!  The quilt is named Wings.
A.

Here the wings go from dark to light, sort of ROYGBIV but not really

B.

I flipped some of the darks to the opposite ends to balance it

C.

Totally random, winging it, ha

For that last one, I took all my freshly ironed blocks, threw them in a Rubbermaid container that holds batting, closed the lid, and pulled out random ones without looking.  Put them up in order starting at the top left.  I only ignored this total randomness on the second draw when the dark green came out right after the first pale green block. I just put it in the second spot but the second row as opposed to the first.

I could not believe how not one of the low volume strips touches an identical strip in all 3 layouts.  I did not plan to have so many different final 8.5 and 9.5" strips.  That's why it's good to have LOTS of scraps, right?!

As suggested by Judy, I edited a photo to tonal to see the values.

Interesting how you see the more even distribution of lights and darks in black and white.

I'm thinking that this is going to be my August goal for ALYoF at Sew Bittersweet Designs.  I had no idea I was going to make this quilt, no idea how it would turn out, or that I would even be near to a flimsy a few days into August, so why not see if I can't get it quilted by the end of the month?

So which do you prefer?  Let me know, and why.  If you haven't seen this before, it is Cynthia's Scrap-a-Palooza quilt #16 found here.  Sixteen.  I have made nine of them so far, I think...and my scrap bins have not gone down much at all...

I actually have an idea for a scrap quilt of my own to be used as another wheelchair quilt for seniors.  My guild has decided that as the charity event for our Christmas party this year, they want members to make one to donate to one of several seniors' residences in Essex County.  I get to do the demo at the September meeting.  Eeek.  Since I already gave away the two I made using Scrap-a-Palooza patterns, I will have to make another.  Oh darn.

This afternoon:  since there was no cushion on the footstool, Rocco decided to take advantage of the cushion on the patio chair I had just vacated! He is such a funny boy.

He had a big day today: we walked to the library, where he got to go inside with me, a first for him, to pick up a book I had on hold (the second in Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series, Young Adult books, the first one was excellent, inspired by actual, very odd, old black and white photographs).

He walked sedately beside me up to the desk and, much to the delight of the two librarians, promptly hopped up on his hind legs, front paws on the counter, as if to say, hi!  We then trotted a few blocks over to the bank, where we went just inside the vestibule to the Instant Teller, been there, done that, although he pulled to go all the way inside to the real tellers!  Figured he'd been allowed inside the library, why not inside here too?!

Linking up with WIP at Freshly Pieced.

A Hodge Podge

Seems like that is the phrase for the past week or so.  Life stuff, and a little bit of a hodge podge in the sewing department as well.

The first order of business is that it is Week 4 of the New Bloggers' Hop as of yesterday, with more prizes in the giveaway.  Check out our hive mamas' posts:
Late Night Quilter
Meadow Mist Designs
Quilt JET Girl
Childlike Fascination

where you will find the giveaway, (fab prizes), and links to the other three hives' newbie posts.  For my hive,

you can check out these new blogs from my hivemates:
Margo at Shadow Lane Quilts and Crafts
Deb at The Farmhouse Quilter
Emma at My Handmade Home
Josi at Avocado Quilts

I've been picking away at Cynthia's Scrap-a-Palooza quilt #16 and so far have made 24 blocks, just when I feel the urge to piece something.

I love her circle layout.  I haven't played with other layout possibilities but they're going on my design wall in the circle pattern for now.

After I made the rich royal purple block, I decided to do a forest green one.  It doesn't show up as rich here even though I adjusted and enhanced the photo.  Eventually you'll see.  I always am so intrigued by what happens when you randomly mix several shades and tones of colours.  The mustard in the yellow didn't work as well as the gold with the brights.  I don't mind; it's staying with me  most likely and I do love little glitches like this.  I also love thinking of all the quilts and projects these fabrics were a part of...some I recognize, but can't bring the quilt or project to mind!  Need to dig out my quilt photo album.

I'm also picking away at Scrap Vortex.  It's going to be a very slow-growing quilt. I'm okay with that.  Mindless, grab a few small scraps that I keep tossing in one of my Nesting Bowls and put 'em together.  Ahh.  Massage for the creative part of my soul.

Part of my soul...my pitbull, pibble, Rocco, who decided to take advantage of my footrest since I wasn't yet out there using it:

The sunshine has been calling, so I make sure I get a 20-minute or so dose of vitamin D apart from Rocco and my daily walk.

Lake Erie was pristine this morning.  I could have sat on that new stone bench for some time

Another of the hodge podge event of life and in this post is the classic car show at Lakeside Park on Sunday.  Workmanship, pride, appreciation for the past, detail, inspiration, this small local show had it all.  Massage for my husband's creative car-building soul.  Like a quilt show for me.  I love these shows too.

Could not resist this Chevy coupe from Rocco's (!!) Speed Shop

Or this Chrysler Saratoga from SUCH a good year, lol:

My colour too!

To end this Hodge Podge post, which, like a good goulash, all blends together in the end for a fantastic flavour, here is a sneak peek of the heart quilt.  Quilting is all done. I just am SO in love with the minky Cuddle I got.  Thank you to Jasmine of Quilt Kisses for her expert help and advice in this new-to-me fabric.

All right! Hope you found a common thread in this post, and I hope you check out those new blogs for more great inspiration and like-minded creative souls. I've now made my final decision (I think, ha ha) on the binding for this quilt, so I'm off to the basement, out of my chair on the patio (Rocco's out of my footrest) to finish up this quilt so I can take it to our Erie Shores Guild meeting tonight!  I will be linking this post up with Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework.  :-)