Last Week of Vacation

Transfixed by my own feet, I have not been doing much quilting.


Perhaps when one is not quilting, one does a bit of cleaning. This "linen" closet certainly needed it (may my Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors not read blogs):


See ancestors, it is all better now:


Packed away my vintage collection of five and dime dollies from another closet. Aren't they cute? And these are just the short ones:


Rembrandt...

She's been watching the ticker tape news scroll along the bottom and trying to grab it:

May I compare and contrast reading material found within one's home? On the left, the boy's choice; on the right, the mother's:

Harpers Ferry Houses

Got this quilt top together of Houses using some of the Windham Harper's Ferry fabrics. It looks rather blendy in a photo, doesn't it...the pink gingham chimneys especially disappear...although it's cute as can be in person.

Coverlet Corner Pattern

I've added the pattern for Coverlet Corner to my website if you are interested:

A Finish: Coverlet Wall Quilt

With safety pin basting help from others...

I finished my Coverlet Wall Quilt. A finish, Peg!

Stars Around the Garden and Kute Kitty

Time to make two more Stars Around the Garden blocks, one for each set. This set is so well-behaved, block completed without crisis:

Here is the group so far. Really am not sure how to set them or what to do for the central medallion. I guess I could actually follow the pattern and make the central floral applique for it, but let me know if you have any attractive notions. I have a lot of the background fabric and the one with the pears on it:

EQ can be a little trickster. You have to remember to check the size block it is going to print out templates for. I have this notion that it should remember what size I'm doing in which project file, but it remembers whatever you printed out last time, no matter which project. I did not look and did not realize until it was almost assembled that I was creating a 6" finished block, not the 9" finished block that I needed. Oh well, maybe I'll put the miniaturized one on the back next to the label.

My little pal Rembrandt:



Oh pleeese, pleeeeeeeese play with me:

Rembrandt discovered the fireplace screen today. She pulls it towards her with her teeth:

and watches it swing back and forth until it comes to a full stop:

Uh oh wouldn't want to come across this on a dark rainy night:

Spider Web Top Complete

a morning scene...

Gaston, rescuer of homeless kittens:

The homeless kitten's favorite possession is my mouse cushion. Here she is making a sneak approach via the keyboard tray, intent on getting the cushion:

If I can just get my paw on it...

Is that big one watching me? She doesn't like me to get this wonderful cushion...

And she pulls the cushion back into her "lair":

Got the spider web top completely put together. I really enjoy the vintage homemade look of it and am intent on getting it done to use on my bed in the autumn.

Newly-Hatched and Ancient

Named the kitten Rembrandt Palette:

As I stumbled out of the hallway at 5am a few days ago, Rembrandt swooped at me waist-high out of nowhere like a rabid flying squirrel. DS Timothy says that too many things make me scream.

Much straightening up and thinning of the fabric and project areas these past several days. Pulled out these old/rejected/ugly fabrics, determined to dispose of them:

I'm glad they're out of the reproduction cupboard and the fabric closet, but this stack started to look pretty good:

so I tried making a big Spider Web with seven of them. What fun to experiment with a new block and to suddenly use up a bunch of old stash:

Also thinned, adjusted, or relocated pending projects and groups of fabric that I want to keep together that are housed in these plastic containers:

Hooray, there are now seven empty large containers (the top guys).

Of course all of this straightening led to some perusal of old projects. This set of nine antique feedsack blocks have been lying on a shelf for years, puzzled as to why they had been sashed with a reproduction blue feedsack print busy enough to completely obscure the blocks themselves. I took all apart and re-sashed them with ugly/old/reject fabrics. Machine-quilted it and bound it with a Kaffe Fassett Lichen print:

Oh, and here's the back of it, also from old stash:

A finish, Peg! Ended up putting the Uglies and Oldies in their own area since it appears they may still be useful.

Ongoing and a Finish

The Pennsylvania Stars Around the Garden quilt so far. Had to piece the remaining strips of the Michael Miller red-and-chartreuse fabric like mad to do the center section. Hence doesn't look as good as it could. Maybe somebody will respond to the missingfabrics.com ad for it and I can re-do it. Amazingly, I looked through my stash stack of solid fabrics and found another full yard of the brown mottled fabric; so I was able to finish the sashing...talk about luck. Did one block over to fix the colors. Did one block early in the top row so that I could see how they would look all sewn together. Anyway, I'm back to liking this set of blocks. They were in peril for a while there.

Peg, a finish! Two done for the July Challenge. This is my Christmas quilt. Did the binding on both sides by machine and it looks just fine. Never had the nerve to do that before.



The next three Dear Janes. It's nice to have one of the ones done that have so many pieces.

If I don't get a chance to post tomorrow, Happy Fourth of July to all of you American bloggers and blogger-readers!