Return of the Spools

The spools have just been hanging out on the wall while I moved little bits of the gridded photo around until I got the quilt arranged just as I wanted it. Then I assembled the real life blocks into the new order. Then I thought...maybe I'll move this here and that there. And now its in a completely new arrangement. Looking at this photo I see even more stuff...like why is there a clump of purples down in the lower left corner?

And this is dangerous work. You may notice a cat toy down on the floor in front of the design wall. If you get too close to the design wall, especially the blocks near the floor, a paw from a wild beast may reach out to snag you. The cat toy is used for distraction.

Meanwhile, Molly took her first day trip to the vet for a dental cleaning...except that she flunked the prescreening blood work. She was so stressed out that her blood glucose readings were off. The trip is rescheduled but now every day around 8 am, Molly disappears to some hiding place. She only comes out when she realizes that I am too happy to take the opportunity to get stuff done without her supervision.

Sewing Room Hazards

I now have an owl flying around my sewing room. This owl will have to go back to the drawing board. He looks like he's swimming. Also, I tried to have fancy shading in the wing, but I mixed up some of the strips. (Then used color pencil to fix it). Happily, the next version won't have the fringe on the feathers because I'm going to simplify the piecing on the next one. I may also make him larger...most of the strips are 1 inch unfinished, half inch finished.

I also had a nice time quietly rearranging photo blocks of the spool quilt and finally found the perfect layout.  However, Buddy started to step across it, then had to jump over my restraining hand, then had to scramble as he started to slip on the photo pieces. There may have been threats made on one of his nine lives which has now transformed to my having relentless waves of guilt.

Still Confused

After a significant organization and clearing out of the sewing room, I still couldn't find the project box for my colorful standing bunnies (not to be confused with the plaid bunny quilt). However, when I went looking for orphan blocks, I found the bunny blocks...but sewn together. 

I also found a green and blue baby-sized quilt top made from remnants of a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt I didn't complete. And yes, it's identical to the one I just made.

I took this as an opportunity to test Buddy's artistic prowess and see if he would combine them in one masterpiece or two. He then informed me that he is an artist, not a factory machine. The quilts remain relatively flat, only somewhat victimized by a stand-off between Buddy and Molly.

However, Buddy did complete an outstanding conceptual art work...taking his laser pointer toy and putting it in his food bowl...an obvious commentary on the dangers of artificial intelligence on the survival of sentient beings.

 

Who Made These?

 As with most older sisters, mine is a bad influence. She mentioned that she was cleaning out her sewing room, so I thought I should do the same. (Editor's note: This never happened when they shared a room).

In the clean out, I found this pile of mini-kittens. They finish 3 inches long. Most of them seem to be kittens made from kittens with a Gumby/Pokey and a squirrel mixed in. I have never seen this project before in my life. (Of course, one can use the search feature at the top of the page to find exactly when I started this, but what fun is that?) 

And in case you thought that Buddy's artistic flare was an accident... this is how I found the quilt in the morning after I took the photo of it laying out flat. I think it represents the precarious form of existence with its many twists and turns, or maybe an owl or a raccoon. I'm afraid to ask.

Spool Puzzle

 I need to arrange the blocks to get a bit of movement in this quilt but was not looking forward to stepping up and down from a chair while pinning and unpinning the blocks from the design wall. So I took a photo, printed it out, labeled the back to match the blocks on the design wall, then cut apart the paper version of the quilt. These are much easier to move about. As you can see, I ran out of steam and didn't figure out what to do with the darker blocks so they make up a column on the right side.

 Buddy made a lot more progress with his artwork. It's a still life with catnip banana and mouse toy.

That was the best Buddy could do given the limited materials he has to work with. (The quilt top is roughly 32 inches square.

Not An April Fools Day Prank

No joke here...it's an actual blog post. I just got the enlarged version of the spools up on the design wall. I had to extend the design wall to the ceiling for it to fit. The quilt is now 72 by 84 inches...and now that I can see it, I've decided I want it to be square again. I'll knock six inches off the bottom and stick them on the side to make a 78 inch square quilt. In case you're wondering...that's 2,688 spools, hopefully all different and charming. I say hopefully because as I was adding new spools, I caught a duplicate. 

Meanwhile, we had a brief thunderstorm with itsy bitsy hail, and Buddy started to run and hide. I had to remind him that he is not afraid of thunder because he used to be a member of Team Storm. His name was Typhoon and his sister was Hurricane. He did stick around but only because the boredom from my story washed away his fear.