Oodles of Poodles

Another day, another poodle. The block finishes to 13.5 inches square and it is built on a .75 inch grid.

The good news is that I figured out a way to organize the construction and I took plenty of pictures as I made this poodle, using the organized method. Okay, I did sew a triangle to the wrong corner along the way, but with the miracles of Photoshop, I expect to pretend it never happened.

And although there are a lot of moving parts, this block does come together quickly and doesn't require a ton of precision.

And Miss Poodle had a major surgery today. I had cut some of her pieces too large and she turned into a waffle poodle. But now she is better aligned with the universe. Which means I expect to pull together and post the tutorial tomorrow. 

And yes, I have to acknowledge the real force in the sewing room. Today we had a rather long philosophical argument. Molly thinks that she should pull the thread out of the sewing machine in order to prevent me from making mistakes. I say that is what a seam ripper is for. Molly thinks it is more efficient to just make the mistake while there is no thread in the machine and omit the seam ripper step. I'll leave it to you to pick sides.

And here is Molly giving her dog brother Buddy a bath. Although a lot of the time this activity resembles fighting.

Return to the Poodle Pattern

Quite a while ago, I began a poodle quilt where the poodles are pink, turquoise or black. The background fabrics are various black and white fabrics where the white predominates. I am preparing a tutorial for making this poodle.

Here are the poodles I made earlier.

And here are a cat and dog striking similar poses.

Buddy is very full of himself these days. Here he is taking Molly's place on top of the shelves behind the design walls. He also took over Molly's new tunnel toy which he had been avoiding. Molly is not too happy with this turn of events.

But always the professional, Molly is helping me prepare the tutorial.

Purple Fish

I did not intend to make a fish with a flower in her hair. Nor did I intend to post a sentence using the phrase "fish with a flower in her hair." But here we are. Today is misty purple day at the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge and here are two fish that came to investigate.

Here they are joined by the fish I made during the last purple month. Since one of the earlier ones looks a bit on the dusty purple side, I added a grapey purple fish. And now before I inflict any more damage on the English language, I suggest you swim back to see what others are doing with purple this week at the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge.

Dear Jane B13 and C13

This is Dear Jane block B13 or Four Corner Press.

And it occurred to me that I should mention this great Dear Jane ruler. It is particularly handy for the way I make blocks. For example, I oversize the borders a bit, and then trim the block down using the ruler. This means I don't have to worry about the crazy distortion you can get from sewing, handling and ironing thin strips. And if they get off kilter, the diagonal lines are very helpful.

And this is Dear Jane block C13 or Lakota Sioux.

Many of us have shown how we store our scraps and fabric stash. But I thought I should also show you how I store my quilting supervisor. She gets cranky if I put the lid on, but draping fabric over her is appreciated.

New Fox and Dear Jane H13

Today I made a new fox. The original fox seemed to dark and looked a bit like a blob.

Maybe its the difference between a winter fox and a summer fox. In any case, I think the next fox will be turned with the tail pointing to the left so the two foxes can touch tails.

I also made Dear Jane block H13 or Farm Fields. Fabadashery is celebrating her one year anniversary since starting her Dear Jane and yes, she is almost done. I started a few weeks later and I have 56 more blocks to go. And I have decided to skip the pieced triangles because they weren't very effective with the Kaffe fabric. Instead I'm planning a triangle border that alternates light and dark Kaffe fabrics. That's assuming I get all the blocks made and put together.

I should also tell you about Molly's terrible day yesterday. Molly was left all alone by herself without an audience. Staff left and took her puppy brother with her. And then when we came home, Buddy was blathering on about some imaginary trip to the vet instead of consoling Molly. Of course, Buddy was being melodramatic and mentioned sitting in my lap at the vet's office and then having a vet tech pet him without his permission. Unauthorized touching. He had to go back in the carrier to prevent a recurrence.

Molly asked him if he had shots or his ears packed with goo, and he said no, but he was given treats that he refused to eat. Molly informed him he obviously had not been to the vet then, so now when he tries to tell his vet story, we both roll our eyes at him.

Dear Jane G5 and C4

This is Dear Jane G5 or Poof.

And speaking of Poof, Molly is busy training her puppy Buddy. Molly knocks the Dear Jane blocks off of the design wall, then Buddy pounces on them, rips the freezer paper label from block and runs out of the room with the label.

This is Dear Jane C4 or Tic Tac Toe. I spend a lot of time looking through the Dear Jane book trying to figure out which label to match with which block. I saw this block and thought it would be interesting to make. Except now that I'm looking at it, I realize I need to adjust the top right seam. And so I guess its obvious that I didn't use paper piecing for this block either.

Dear Jane C5 or Eye of the Cyclone

Here is Dear Jane block C5 or Eye of the Cyclone. This turned out to be surprisingly easy.
First, I made a pinwheel and cut a circle with extra for the seam allowance.

Then I made a running stitch around the outer edge of the circle, and used that to pull the circle tightly around a Karen Buckley mylar circle. And yes, I was careful to make sure it was centered.

Here is the backside. I took out the mylar circle because it gave off too much reflection. Again, the back looks a bit wacky, but it was the front I was worrying about. Then I made the wing-like wedges using freezer paper templates. I ironed back two sides of the wings over the templates. I don't bother with glue or starch. I tucked the four wings under the circle. Then everything was appliqued in one go.

Although slightly different than the template in the Dear Jane book or even in Jane Stickle's quilt, I like Fabadashery's version the best.  And although it looks trickier, I realized all I would have to do is make a pinwheel, then sew two strips together and cut out four moon shapes from them. Finally I would only have to applique the moon shapes on top of the pin wheel.

 And Molly would like to point out that the name "Eye of the Cyclone" is ridiculous. Her sister was Cyclone, and the patchwork doesn't look anything like her eye.

And I would like to point out that Cyclone was half of Molly's size but twice as naughty. She liked to climb up me to get to higher places to snoop around. Also, she was the first to climb up the design wall. And she only had two speeds: fast and faster. No off button for her. Yes, I miss her very much. But almost every naughty thing Molly does, she learned from her sister Cyclone.