Pink Owl

Here's a pink owl to say goodbye to the month of February. To see WHO else is sewing along with pink, visit the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge.

Teddy bear surgery completed

How fast does time fly? Very fast if you are this bear. He went in for surgery in early December.

 

Here's the bear recovering from surgery at the end of February. He still can't figure out how he missed Valentine's Day. Bear isn't really complaining though because the last thing he really remembers was being a dog toy. Then after being buried in a backyard, he was dug up during construction of an art studio. After that he had a bath and was shipped across the country.  

I should also mention that there was a sacrificial lamb, both literally and figuratively. Lamb was quite weathered when I found her at a local thrift shop and preferred to donate her body to science to becoming a dog toy. I'm still not sure if she understood that "science" meant plastic surgery for a bear.

Legos update

I've accumulated a few more lego quilt blocks. I have a pile of 1.25 inch strip bits next to my sewing machine that I throw together when I remember. And I can't really blame Rabbit for mistaking them for nesting material.

Driveway

With the help of neighbors with snowplows and an assist from the weather...

Flamingo 1.0

Today the theme is pink flamingo in a snow storm. This is only the second snowfall for me this year. And today, snow is falling on snow, which is odd for this area. Usually we enjoy a few days of mud between our weather events.

And, of course, pink is the color of February for the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge. So the pink flamingo joins January's blue jay. And if you are looking for a pink bunny, you can go to an earlier post from this week. However, I have to warn you that it is R-rated (for Rabbit).

Bunny graphs

Here are the bunnies laid out on graph paper. Rabbit thinks it is important for bunnies to run in all directions. He also mentioned that rabbits do not make bunnies one at a time. They like to make lots of bunnies and then make lots more...and that's why I have not been able to get near the sewing machine lately. Meanwhile, I went for a walk in the snow and followed fox tracks. This might be one solution for getting my sewing machine back.

How to make a bunny

This rabbit puppet followed me home from Santa Rosa, CA. And he is not very happy with his new home. He thinks Nurse Vulture is scary, and he doesn't like kittens or fish. I'm not exactly happy with the rabbit puppet either because apparently all rabbits like to do is make rabbits. So today, Rabbit is going to show you how to make rabbits.

This is the bunny that we're making. Rabbit has been reading Mystic Quilter's blog and thinks her hydrangeas look delicious. So one of the pink fabrics is a hydrangea floral.

First, you will need a background fabric, and also a darkish and lightish color.

This block is based on a .75 inch grid and the finished block will be 6.5 inches wide and 6 inches tall.

This may look like a lot of pieces, but I prefer to use flip triangles whenever I can. As you can see, there are only 2 half-square triangles used to make this bunny, and all the other triangles you see are made by sewing a square in the corner, sewing on the diagonal and then ironing over the flap to make the triangle, like for a snowball block.

Here I have laid out all the pieces as they will be sewn together and I have combined the simplest elements. For example, the bunny's head is the 2.75 inch light pink square. I have attached two 1.25 inch background squares to shape the bunny's nose.

And in this step, I'm just sewing more of the elements together.

Hopefully at this point, the bunny shape is recognizable. And this shows the four basic shapes that combine to make the bunny.

And here are the last two sections before they are joined.

And that's how Rabbit make rabbits.

Spins and first snowfall

A few weeks ago I pulled about 16 pairings for vintage spin blocks and I am very slowly cutting them and then sewing them. So here is the latest batch of blocks.

And for those of you in the Northeast USA, please look away. If you can believe it, this is our first snow of the winter. This is the accumulation after about 8 hours. It is a very light granular snow which means I won't be snow dyeing with it. This picture is the view of a bench on the back deck.

Pink fish

I still feel a bit underwater from being away for a week but am swimming in pink. I was hoping to have more fish to show, but was only able to catch two. And don't forget to visit the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge for more of the Valentine's Day Pinkstavaganza.

More Spinning

Here are some more vintage spin blocks for my Pretty Weird quilt that will be reversible:  pretty spins on one side and weird ones on the back. In any case, I am still having quite a bit of fun digging deep into the stash for my combinations. The spin block in the upper left uses a dark blue swirly fabric from a dress I wore in the 60s and a Marimekko fabric from who knows where with 1989 printed in the selvedge.

Lion 2.0

We're back to drama in the sewing room. Apparently the kittens from New Zealand were making fun of the lion I made at the end of January and were calling him a blockhead. I didn't realize lions were so sensitive. And I foolishly left off the mouth so the lion couldn't eat the kittens and end the teasing that way. So I redesigned the lion to form an octagon and used more dynamic fabric for the mane. Now he's demanding a whole quilt as his kingdom instead of just a block. Time to book another vacation...

Pukeko Kittens

I just got back from visiting my brother in California. Apparently, I got there just in time for rain and wind advisories. But hopefully now that I've returned home, their weather can return back to normal. And I was quite nervous to leave an unattended sewing room. Fortunately, the devastation I returned to was the devastation I left.  However, these two kittens sporting the New Zealand pukeko showed up...once and for all proving there is some mysterious cat portal under Mystic Quilter's control.

White Singer Featherweight

My niece said she was thinking of taking sewing lessons but her mother didn't know what she would do for a sewing machine. My sister-in-law had an old featherweight that she had inherited from her mother, but she couldn't imagine her daughter would want to sew with that old thing. Needless to say "that old thing" is now getting a spa treatment and will be quite a cherished birthday present for my niece.

Pink February

Now that I've gotten your attention...

Here's a pink card trick block that is very easy to piece. I show how to construct it here. Other amazing feats of pink are on display at the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge.

Pink Flamingo revisited

Thinking pink.

I was able to remove the tree from driveway, but unfortunately it involved a fatal chainsaw accident. We are often told to wear protective clothing when using a chainsaw, but I have never heard of protections for the chainsaw. As I was maneuvering around the log, I tripped over my girly battery-powered chainsaw and broke the latch that holds the battery in place. If the chainsaw had been wearing a helmet, it would have survived this fatal blow. So all you chainsaws out there...be careful around people...they are very dangerous!

High Wind Advisory

I always find Cathy over at Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting so inspirational. So when she described her power outage and fallen tree, I thought "Count me in!" Of course, I don't want to be just like everyone else, so no snow was involved. Just wind.

Card Trick Easy Piecing

I have to confess to being an extremely lazy piecer who plays the game "the one with the fewest seams" wins. I started quilting just before the rotary cutter made its debut, so at that time there was a lot of emphasis on how to make things simple. Needless to say, I have been amazed at the intricate piecing techniques of the card trick over at the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge. But I do have to protest when quilters claim that piecing the card trick on the diagonal is easy.

In particular, I remember back in the late 70s when Mary Ellen Hopkins advised us to tip blocks on the diagonal to look for easier construction. And she often used the card trick block as an example.

This is what I would call the easy way to assemble a card trick block. Because I have an abundance of 1.5 inch strips, I made the pink card trick block using a one inch grid. Admittedly, if you are making your card trick to meet the size requirement at the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge, you will have to adjust your measurements. For the turquoise card trick, I cut 2 inch squares and 2 by 3.5 inch rectangles and my final card trick block came to 6 5/8 inches square...overshooting the 6.5 inch mark by 1/8 inch. Of course, your results will vary and you will want to cut, trim or sew accordingly.