Pink

Here's the rabbit that lives in my garden. He's eating all of the pink flowers off of the carpet phlox, in case you were wondering where Easter candy comes from.

And keeping with the pink theme, the azalea in the side yard is strutting her stuff.

And regardless of how showy a dogwood on the side of the road might be, there is usually a redbud photobombing the picture (far left).

And speaking of photobombs...

And here are the stack of spiderwebs I made today...waiting to be trimmed. Buddy started to shred the paper off but I suggested it was better to wait until after I had trimmed the triangles. So he ran off and played with his mousie toy instead. Now you might think what a good cat he is to play with his mouse toy, but the fact that he did what he was told proves he is a dog and the mouse toy is just a ruse.

Tutorial tutorial

Today I began to work on the tutorial for the sheep's wool coat. This is the fun, fast and easy part. I am not showing you the sheep tutorial today...but rather what its like for me to make a tutorial. You know, a tutorial tutorial...except I wouldn't recommend this approach to anyone.

In any case, the sheep's wool coat is made from six 2.75 inch squares, a 2 by 2.75 inch rectangle and two 2 inch squares.

I like to show the pieces laid out as they will fit on the block. In this case, its a right-sided sheep and the squares/rectangle fit around the outside of the sheep. The 2 by 2.75 inch rectangle is the tail. It will have two flip triangles in two corners...upper right corner and lower left corner. All the 2.75 inch squares get two flip triangles on the same side, and each 2 inch square gets a single flip triangle. I take these to the sewing machine and chain sew them. For this part, I also need sixteen 1.25 inch squares of background fabric for the flip triangles.

I carefully laid out the entire chain on the design wall so I can photograph it in sections. This shows the first part of the chain featuring a few of the 2.75 inch squares and how I can sew the flip triangles in one long chain.

What you can't see at this point is the cat that just streaked up the design wall. You also can't hear my shriek.

However, you can see the chain of piecing laying on the floor.

You can also see the cat looking back over the top of the design wall to check her work. And yes, this cat looks surprisingly like the sewing attachment I showed you on Tuesday.

And just to show the final part of the chain, you can see the tail section and the two flip triangles for the 2 inch squares.

And Molly suggests that any tutorial on how to make a tutorial should end with a photo of the key contributor.

Sheep ears

Today I made sheep ears. I took pictures of the steps along the way, but I made so many mistakes it became hilarious. So this isn't the tutorial, its more of a show and tell of making the tutorial. However, if you are thinking about making sheep, you can think about the fabric selection and the ears are a good place to start. First, the background fabric needs to be very light. And the sheep eyes are going to be very dark, probably black. And to have contrast for the sheep, you need a medium light and medium dark that have enough contrast for the nine patch ears. They also have to stand out against the light background.

So the ears are made from 1.25 inch strips. I will give better instructions in the tutorial. You can see from this that I cut the large background squares too large. They should be 2 inch square instead of 2.5 inches.

So the nine patches have a strip of medium light fabric on the part of the ear closest to head. The large 2 inch square is put in the top corner and a flip triangle diagonal is sewn parallel to the diagonal of the nine patch. The small 1.25 inch background square is sewn as a flip triangle in the opposite corner.

The rest of the sheep is not that complicated. The ears aren't even that complicated, but they seem to give me the most trouble.

And speaking of trouble, I thought I would show you this photo again of the sewing machine attachments when they were first manufactured...that is, captured, collected in a cardboard box, and dropped off at the local animal shelter. And yes, those are four gray and white female kittens and one beige puppy that will grow up to be Buddy and not a sewing machine attachment.

Spiderweb continued

Here are the spiderweb triangles I made today. And for those of you thinking of making this someday, I am using the free pattern that Bonnie Hunter provides on her website.

I have to also give credit to my super advanced sewing machine which comes with a supervisory attachment.

This attachment "helps" to take the foundation paper off as you sew.

If you can't afford such a special sewing machine with supervisory capabilities, you can strip the paper off by hand. I don't make a smaller stitch because I often make mistakes that need a seam ripper. I find that even a regular stitch lets me pull off the paper easily. But yes, its strip by strip. This activity is best accomplished with the help of a kitten.

Meanwhile, Buddy is helping me pick fabrics for the sheep tutorial that I'm going to be providing soon.

Spiderwebs

With my house on the market, I am spending a lot of time clearing out spiderwebs and putting away cat toys. Poor Buddy. I heard him in the closet playing with his turboroller...that was stacked up on top of something else. And dedicated sewing time seems to suffer...mostly from a lack of focus. I obviously have to make it easier to do. And because the spiderweb is such fun sewing and requires little mental muscle, I am happy to bring this project out of hiding.

This project got stalled when I realized I was only half way finished. I made enough newspaper foundations, but I needed more wedges and yellow strips. I have now made enough of these basic parts to finish the rest of the blocks.

And here are the scrap bins...strips and chunks that will fill in the rest of the spiderweb. All set up and ready to go.

Meanwhile, if you are a well-educated cat with advanced degrees in sunshine management, it is quite an easy task to settle onto a couch and maximize sun exposure.

And it doesn't hurt if you look good while you're doing it.

Spools

This month at the Rainbow Scrappy challenge we are using multicolor fabrics. My spools project is perfect for those colors, although I obviously skewed toward darker values.

Here are a collection of the spools I've made before. What you may not appreciate is that the design wall is bulging from behind these spools as Molly is attacking them from behind.

Who me? Don't you love a cat that has no idea that a camera is being pointed in her direction?

And here is a photo of a jack rabbit that my brother took on a recent camping trip. Apparently the rabbit wasn't camera shy either.

Buddy isn't camera shy as long as he can't see what you're doing.

More pickle dish wedges

Another handful of pickle wedges. Quite appropriate given Molly is often finding herself in a pickle. In preparation for house viewings, I sometimes forget to close closets promptly, which gives Molly an entrance. Although she gets in easily, after intense exploration, sometimes her exit requires some assistance.

She also is studying Exploration and Manifest Destiny where she is exploring every surface in the house. And this morning I was quite startled to hear a loud voice talking in the sewing room. Molly decided she would like to play back answering machine messages, because apparently the play back button was just the right location for one of her paws.

Meanwhile, Buddy is specializing in being a lap dog. Here he is trying to avoid the camera by hiding behind a storage unit to have a private face scratch...well, not as private as he might have liked.