I finally finished the I-spy wonky reversible quilt for my grand nephew. It's roughly 46 X 58 inches.
I began making this quilt because I loved the banner (and quilt) on the wonderful blog QuiltNCards. I got a bit carried away and had enough fussy cut blocks for two quilts. And then I heard the news from the grandmother that this perfect child did occasionally get tired and become slightly less than perfect. So I decided to sort the blocks into good and evil. Admittedly, everyone has their own life experiences so please don't judge me because I put all of the kittens and teddy bears on the evil side.

This is the quilt on the reverse, "evil" side.

The blocks are extremely fun to make although they do require partial seams. I describe how to make the block here.

It turned out easier than I thought to make the quilt reversible. I started by sewing the back to the batting--just quilting in the ditch and making a grid through the batting. Then I pin basted the top to the batting and backing using the grid as the guide. Then I quilted a zig zaggy pattern across it in both directions.

And if you would like to view more wonderful quilts, here's a link back to the Blogger's Quilt Festival.

I may have mentioned that I have kittens on my brain right now. You can see why Tommy had to supervise me quite closely and set up restrictions to prohibit me from viewing Petfinder.

Absolutely irresistible! Friends and relatives are trying to talk sense into me. Quite futile. So I had to pull out the big guns.

While I might be able to meet the expectations of a kitten, cats expect more.

And I was such a disappointment...

I finished the quilting on the reversible I-spy quilt! Yesterday I quilted the back to the batting making a grid by quilting in the ditch. Then I pin basted the top to the batting aligning it with the grid. Then I quilted a zig-zag line that went through the block intersections and through the I-spy borders. The one drawback is that those intersections are quite thick.

 And I'm going to use this stripe as the binding. I am trying to be as productive as possible because otherwise my unsupervised mind wanders in misguided directions...

Tommy would note that dressing like Harry Potter for Halloween lacks imagination.

 

And before I forget, I made another red, white and blue Placid Curves quilt to donate to an auction for a local nursing home. It, among others, is currently available in an online auction that will be finalized at an event on November 1. 

So today I am starting the adventure of putting together two sides to make a reversible quilt. For this I-spy quilt, I have an evil side and a good side. I am beginning with the evil side which I machine quilted to some Quilter's Dream Cotton Batting. I stitched in the ditch to form a grid on the batting. In theory, I will be able to align the "good" or top side to this grid, get them to line up and then pin baste the top to the batting and "backing".

Stitching the "evil" side to the batting was surprisingly easy given how light it was.

And yesterday I finally finished weaving the endless purple towel. It is 3 feet by 6 feet, and just off the loom it felt more like a rug than a towel. Cutting weaving off the loom is definitely the fun part. Next I zigzagged the ends to hold it in place for the finishing...a wash and dry.

Here it is straight out of the dryer. When I make chenille scarves, they come off the loom stiff and then become very soft and cuddly once washed. This purple towel is still giving off more of a rug vibe. It has pearl cotton for the warp and then alternates pearl cotton and cotton chenille in the weft.

I was super impressed with how well a double set of zigzag stitches held up in the wash, so I decided to make a bit of a fringe ending. But only on one side. I had already sheered off the extra warp (i.e. the fringe) on the other side. I'll pretend I'm doing a test to see which holds up better, the fringe or a regular folded and stitched hem.

It's that time of year when the little woodland mice look for a warm place to stay such as building a nest in the woodpile...

Or sneaking inside to hide out with the rainbow mice...  It's also the time of year that the sun blasts into the sewing room, lighting up sections of the design wall and making it almost impossible to take a good photo. But I'm not complaining! Now its time to go see how other woodland quilt blocks are fitting into the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge.

Today I thought I should actually sew some drunkard path blocks instead of just talking about it. This is supposed to be a Drunkard's Path quilt along, not a procrastinate along. Here is a particularly unsuccessful arrangement.

I think the mouse ear setting is more agreeable. And it might even look better with the rest of the brown mouse.

I must say that it is a lot harder generating random numbers without Tommy Cat. You can tell from the photo above that he took that job seriously and always came up with excellent random numbers. He also enjoyed packaging the prizes, although all of the singing almost drove me over the deep end.

In any case, this time I had to use a computer to generate the winning numbers and they are:

Batiks....#19   Joan G

Black and White...  #21  Lee

Novelty...     #6  Cathy     !!!!!!    from Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting

You choose (orange)....   #27    Diann

Brights....    #12     LA Paylor      from Not Afraid of Color

So obviously, if my computer picked Cathy to win novelty fabrics and Lee Anna to win brights, it has an excellent sense of humor too.

And thanks to Vicki W. for hosting the Fall Giveaway and all of the other quilting blog conspiracies she may have up her sleeve.

As some of you gathered, I was out of town last week and had tried to schedule my posts in advance...unsuccessfully...and then I tried to fix it with an iPod...and well, hilarity ensued. In any case, I was happy that no one had problems leaving comments. That I know of! And today is the last day to leave a comment on posts from last week to enter the fabric giveaways. Tomorrow I will pick and post the winners.

While I was in Portland, I made a couple of trips to Fabric Depot during their 35 percent off sale. So do not worry that last week's giveaway might deplete my stash. Here are small novelties that I couldn't resist.

Here are some larger novelty prints including pigs and kittens. I will have to make some kitten preserves as soon as I can before they develop that slightly bitter cat taste.

And here is a sampling of some of the general fabric that found its way home with me.

October is the month to be on the dark side of the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge.

Today I am serving up spicy blackened fish.

Plus, today is the sixth and last day of Vicki W.'s Fall Giveaway. As you can see, I have a tendency to favor bright colors. So while the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge enjoys the dark side, let's give away a baker's dozen (13) of bright multi-colored fabrics. And because I can't remember the last time I saw the sun, how about leaving a comment about whether you saw the sun today or yesterday and you'll be counted in the random drawing for brights.

You have until Oct. 22, 2014 to leave a comment for each day and the daily winners will be posted on this blog on Oct 24, 2014.  And for those of you participating in the Scrappy Rainbow Challenge, you may want to check out Friday's giveaway because that was pick your color day--a chance to fill in colors you have run out of.