Two More Backs Created

I confirmed that my arm is not quite ready to use a rotary cutter just yet!  Quite painful, in fact.

So I had to cut the yardage by using scissors.  Like in the old days.

I was able to find the material I bought for the back of the Mystery Houses and sew it together.   If you make the photo larger by clicking on it, you can see the fabric line with houses on it.  that is the backing.

This quilt is HUGE at 98 x 98.  It is like the one that is on my bed  I
made for the mystery.  It has Aboriginal fabric and I quilted it with kangaroos.  It won 3rd place in that challenge.  But......do you see the lower section?   The quilt is constructed in 9 sections like a nine patch block.  And I switched the two on the bottom! 

I only noticed it when I took this photo at home after the meeting!

 
Here is the Baby Elephants Quilt.

I made this one 3 or 4 years ago.  It was a patter in one of the magazines.   I liked it.  But when I saw the fabric in a kit at the quilt store, I LOVED it!


I  need to get into the corner of my Quilt Room, but I think that these 7 quilts will have cleared out a box!  I am in shock!

A Little Help From My Friends

For the last two months I have been looking for the next great mystery quilt.    I hve looked through websites and contacted designers and Google searched through Pinterest. 

It just ain't happening.  Nothing looks good to me.  Not sure why, because there are several I  saw and downloaded tht would work.

So.......do any of you have any suggestions?   mystery you did in your guild group?  One that you liked (or didn't!)

Don't tell me about it in a public post, there are many of my mystery followers read my  blog.

Email me at

obed101(at)cox(dot)net

Thanks!  You hve no idea how I would appreciiate a nice mystery to drop in my lap about now!

glen

The Quilt I Can't Show You - Karen don't look at this post until we have lunch tomorrow

I just finished the quilt I can't show you.  I can't show you because it is my mystery quilt for this year.  But I have mine to the top stage as of now.  I love it.

I did make a mistake and need to rip out a section and turn it around.  I didn't notice that I had done it incorrectly until I had it on the design wall and was trying to design a baby quilt  around one of the corner blocks.  I realized that the two corners were not the same.

Easily corrected.

The other problem I had was not having a large enough difference in my value between my print fabric and my light.  The dark is dark!  But the Print and the Light are too close to medium, so remember to not make that problem when you get your fabrics.

You need a print first.  And take the print to pull two colors, a dark and a light.  And if you have any question shoot me a picture or bring it to a meeting and let me look.  I thought mine would be no problem and it way.  Big time.

I wish I could show you, I really do love the mystery quilt once again.

I will be meeting my cousin tomorrow to bring Matt's Saints Quilt to him along with his pillow and Karen's Siamese Kitty Duffle bag.  Remember that?

I hope to remember to take pictures tomorrow!

And it has rained steadily all day, and maybe tomorrow even.  Travel is not recommended!

glen

I have gotten a ton of requests for the potatoes!

Several things:  

mystery 2012

One is that if you want to do the Cotton Robin you need to JUST DO IT!
this is the last opportunity to sign up, http://cottonrobin.blogspot.com/

mystery 2012

Come on, it is not a lot of work, it is fun and challenging and stretches your minds!

mystery 2009

2.  Do you want to do the mystery quilt I have for the guild with me?  I can post the one I am doing with River City online for you to follow each month.  Or I can create another blog and do it there, all special like .....I have presented a mystery quilt for 4 years now and they love them.  Even those who resisted and swore they would never do anything like this, and joined in this year have loved it.

mystery 2009

3.  McGee has 1 1/2 weeks to go before being retested for heartworms.  Provided he is negative, which should be the absolute case, he will be free to walk with us again.  I have been illicitly letting him loose in the yard over the weekend.  Alone, he mostly sits under the trees watching the squirrels tease him as they race overhead.  He is quieter than DiNozzo, who barks and barks and barks unceasingly at the stupid beasts who won't come to him.

And both dogs are learning to down.  McGee caught on in one session, DiNozzo has a dumbfounded  look on his handsome face, saying, No, no, no, no, oh ok........

Chloe, patiently downs and waits for me to deal with the stupid boys.

4.  Gorgonzola Potatoes from Italy!

The potatoes are so very simple and so very elegant!  This is great for a company dinner or special family meal.  Everyone loves it.  

Parboil peeled and sliced potatoes

Shock them with cold ice water to stop starchy texture

Line baking dish with butter on sides

Place potatoes in evenly

Mix 6 oz heavy cream, 6 oz Gorgonzola cheese crumbles, 1 egg,

Pour over potatoes

Bake for like 45 minutes, I have a convection oven and yours may vary in time, but the potatoes can be pierced with a fork when done. 

I put Pecorino shavings on top.  Like Parmasean but a bit saltier and stronger.

I did not have heavy cream so I used my 2% with two tablespoons of flour mixed cold before I added it to the mixture.

The most amazing deep flavor from that cheese.  If you don't like gorgonzola, which is like bleu cheese, try another kind like feta or swiss or cheddar........endless possibilities.

Close up of The Dogs Mystery Quilt

You know what?  No one mentioned the new look!  LOL.  That is my winning quilt from the Paint Chip Challenge!

It is so good to work on a quilt you like to be near.  I was just plain tired of Dan's quilt and all the ripping and reworking of the lizards.  For the quilting on The Dogs I chose a simple star.  However, when Frank kissed me goodbye this morning, he leaned over and got a puzzled look on his face.  

Why, he queries, are you quilting your dogs with marijuana leaves?

Huh?  Oh, hey, I guess they could look sort of like the infernal weed, I'll let you decide.  And hey, how would he know anyway?  Maybe I need to call the quilt Mary Jane's Dogs.  Or Dognip.  

Here are some closeups of the fabrics.  As I got to snapping photos of the various dogs, I realized just how many of them there are.  I still don't think I even got all of them.

The STARS are done with Essentials Thread in Tomato, which perfectly matches the red of the dogs and the dot fabric.  And the major fabric on the back of the quilt came from Ann who saw it in Phoenix when she was visiting her great grands.  It is perfect with the stars and the tomato thread and the whole shebang on the front.

Here's a little Boston Terrier with a decapitated cat?????  Let's hope it is just a toy he is playing with.

The backing is very interesting with a number of dogs in flags of British and American ilk.  Here is a picture of DiNozzo.  Can you tell which one is real and which one is the fabric?  I guess not!

He doesn't have a window seat in the dining/quilting room so he has to look out under the frame until he falls asleep.  He usually curls up on the fabric and batting that is draped on the floor in the early stages.  And he delights every time I crawl my creaky body under there to check my stitches and figure out why the machine in not working.  I am paranoid now since the last quilt and check each row at the ends and in the middle.  

And I had the wires get caught up twice.  And once my stitch regulator unplugged itself.  So I don't need to go to the gym, I had had enough exercise already thank you.

glen

Design Wall Monday 8-20-12

OK, in my zeal to use up fabric on my Paperweights pattern, I think I cut up one of the remaining two borders for my Jack and Gourdy Throw a Party quilt.  Aughhhhhh!  I found a piece of one border but not the other border.  I can kill myself for that act of stupidity!  Can you believe I did that?

In other news, I finally have Dan's quilt and the lizards off the quilt frame in my dining room.  So I can put another on there and actually get some work done again.  I rummaged through my EXTENSIVE UFO top collection and came up with a couple of possibilities.  I finally settled on the Dogs.

I started Dogs as a Planet Patchwork New Year's Day Mystery and finished it in the next month.  This was about 4 years ago maybe.  So it went into the pile to be quilted.  You probably can't see but the black is bones and the beige is Scotties, Spaniels, Setters,  Retrievers and Dalmations with red clothes and leashes.  It is 80 x 80 so it needs to be on the frame.  That means an overall pattern, which is fine, I just want to move some of these pieces out and get some stash used up for backings.  Dogs takes 4 1/2 yards of backing material!  Yes.  I have to piece several dog fabrics to get coverage, but that is perfectly fine!

And on my machine piecing portion of my quilt room, I began work on a new top called Paperweights by Aardvark Quilts.  It is pure love.  Until.........

And I am using up a lot of stash stuff there as well.  I had a very large learning curve with the piecing and cutting.  I ruined 3 of the circles before it finally hit me what I needed to do.  I cut up some fat quarters because she calls for 1/4 yard of 14 fabrics.  Never thought about it, but you cannot use FQs, it must be length.  So last night I was in there cutting up some more fabrics.    You would think she would put that little note in her pattern tips, but no.  I would have appreciated that bit of knowledge before I cut up my fat quarters.

I have ordered a kite ruler and that should be here on Monday.  I thought a tri recs ruler would do for the background parts, but you need a 45 degree ruler, which NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE CITY HAD.......so I had to buy a petal ruler and am making do.  Sigh.

The Paperweights are testy things, you have to do every thing so perfectly and that is not really how I sew.  This may be the thing that gets my goat.  But so far, so good.

glen:  patience is a virtue, especially in quilting

Progress

OMG!  I got the perfect book in the Birthday Raffle tonight.  It is incredible.  I can't wait to try out some of the stuff in there, it is right up my alleyway!  It is called: Quilts From Europe.  Wow!

I worked all day on the mystery quilt.  I have the center complete and the blocks sewn together.   It is pretty cool.  I sure wish i could show it to you guys.  You would love it.

Mine is done with all three fabrics coming from my stash.  I counted them in this last week I think.

Tomorrow I go to get the ultrasound and meet with the surgeon next week.  We shall see what he says.  He is a likable guy.  I actually babysat him when he was younger and his parents were staying at the camp that was next to my Uncle Buddy's camp on Bayou Manchac.  He remembered me too!  LOL.  His dad was Carrie's pediatrician, that is how Uncle Buddy knew him.  Uncle Buddy would deliver them, and Dr. "Pete" (as Carrie called him) would raise them up!

I wanted to complete the Mystery Quilt so I can work on Judy's UFO #1 - the Sri Lanka Elephants I have dreaded for the last three years. I can probably start putting those Ellies together by the weekend.  You will love them when I get it together.

The Tiny Tiny Houses have stayed where they were since I came home from Norma's.  I had such a migraine from the very sweet house she has.  And really didn't feel any good till today.

I need an elephant in one of the windows.

You need to go to see the progress other's are making on their houses.  It is incredible.  You will love that too!  The blog is in Dutch, but she does translate some of her words.

http://buildinghousesfromscraps.blogspot.com/2012/02/hier-ben-ik-weer-here-i-am-again.html

If you are in River City -- Don't Look!

I have a new and exciting quilt on my design wall today.  It is the beginning of the culmination of the Mystery Quilt I presented to River City Guild, here in Baton Rouge, LA.  I missed a meeting because of of a problem with my mother last month and I was supposed to give out the 7th installment of the quilt.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that a lot of people are actually doing the mystery.  That is a great and wonderful thing!

The mystery is from Planet Patchwork and we did purchase the rights to present it, so we are totally legal.  The only thing is, I have found several errors that have been difficult to deal with when it gets to the masses.  People don't adjust easily. 

The center is complete but not sewn together, the dark will be the inside border and the snowballs will alternate in and out on the outer border.  I probably will bind it in the dark. 

I really like the quilt.  Of course I chose it because of the way it looked!  But I do like it.  And it has been very easy to do.   And I am doing another one as well.  Why I began two I will never know, but I will have two quilts soon enough.  The other is a light batik background that is orange and yellow and blue with an off white (to the slight orange tinge) light center.  It Will probably be on the design wall next week!

Oh, and I am babysitting the grand dog Hugeaux the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who eats through metal crates when a storm hits.  And has also eaten through the two soft crates.  And yet, had not a single problem with me during the storm yesterday.  Sigh.

glen in Louisiana