Kool Kats Kwilt Finish

It feels so good to have the quilt done, packaged up and on its way to Indiana. It feels even better knowing how excited my customer is to receive it!

You can read how the commission came about here. I dodged rain and wind (the horrible storm that came up from Texas and ransacked eastern Ontario and east into Quebec was just lots of rain and high winds down here. We had our terrible ice storm at the end of February, very very scary when the weight of the ice fells ancient, metre-thick branches and crushes cars.

Rainbow Neighbourhood QAL Official Kick-Off!

And....(drum roll)....welcome!!🎉🎉🎉 to my seventh, yes seventh(!) annual Quilt Along here at mmmquilts. Thank you so much for being here and for those of you participating, a huge virtual hug of gratitude for your time and enthusiasm. As per usual, the QAL starts on a special day, April 3, with the flimsy due on another even more auspicious day, June 15. What's with these special days, you may ask yourself? You've never heard of them? Well, long-time participants well know, and probably mark their calendars as my dad did, for the June 15 date for sure. However, if you are new, allow me to explain before I give you your homework for the week!

Kool Kats Quilt and RSC Update

A few weeks ago I had a message through my Etsy shop telling me she was interested in the cats quilt I had for sale but would I be able to make a throw, and in softer colours? We chatted back and forth, and I got the go-ahead for this commission. I was such fun to paw through (see what I did there) my bountiful collection of fabrics to give her lots (in retrospect, too many, but I wanted her to be completely happy) of choices for her cats. She was pretty specific in her colours and motifs, and probably as strong and vocally so in her intense dislike of anything remotely teal or turquoise, as my mother was with blue. I am happy to share the finished top!

Gratitude #73

Hello, and welcome to my monthly post of things I've noticed the past month for which I'm grateful. I also note simple things I just like or love. You can find more of these uplifting posts at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color.

1. I like no, I love animal sanctuaries. They do so much good. One that I particularly enjoy is @totes.the.goat on Instagram. They are Black Goat Farm Sanctuary in the Hamilton, Ontario area. The photos of little blind lamb Paisley’s "first adventure outside" enjoying the warm spring sun was a much-needed boost to my heart today.

DrEAMi #71

Welcome to another Drop Everything And Make it! post, where we celebrate those projects that distract us from our 'supposed-to-be-making' projects, aka as squirrels. We've all been bitten/smitten with a project we see somewhere, be it online, at a guild meeting, in a magazine, and we stop sewing our current project because we 

just

have

to make

this thing

right

NOW!

I don't know about you, but these things usually hit me at the worst of times. I'm making a quilt for a reason, a person, and wham! out of left field comes this attractive bauble. Quilter ADD I also call it.

Project Quilting 14.6 Conquer a Fear

After quilting for some 25 years, there isn't anything in quilting that I fear. Avoid/hesitate? Yes. As in life, there are certain things we love to do, and certain things we ... do not! Over the course of the first couple of days following the release of the challenge, an idea was forming, to symbolize fear in a mini quilt, from the debilitating 'darkness' of feeling fear to the release, the blossoming and lightness that happens when you work through it and have such a sense of accomplishment. I wish I'd had more time. I had another deadline, the SAHRR, and so I devoted the majority of my week to that, since Cuba had 'robbed me' 😉 of a week's work on it. In the end, I pulled this together in a few hours. I do love it, and have used it every day since Sunday!

This is my new favourite mug rug.

Wild and Wonderful SAHRR Quilt

It's been some time since I wrote a post; I really didn't intend to take more than three weeks off blogging. Hope you check in on me on Instagram because I do post fairly regularly there. If you don't, I'll catch you up with Rounds 5 and 6 for the SAHRR, as well as what I was up to during one of the weeks:

Looks fake doesn’t it, but I assure you it is real, taken with my iPhone, and not photoshopped or colour enhanced.

Ahh, as on our previous two trips to the idyllic island of Cuba, I found several sources of inspiration for colour and design. It felt good to do something normal as well, though I did and will always wear an N95 mask on an airplane. All was well, and we've returned healthy and didn't catch anything, but that is thanks to masking on the airplane and in close quarters in the airports, as well as lots of outdoor time, even eating en plein air, which I love any day!