Echo Fall Photos

Echo endured a photo shoot.  We needed some glam-shots for her adoption page at Dakin Humane.  

She was a little unsure of her surroundings.  A little red pepper was enough to keep her facing the camera rather than hiding behind the pumpkin. 

Echo

We have a piggy in the house! 

A bunch of guinea pigs came into Dakin last week.  I had my eye on a couple of pairs and thought I had missed out on all of them.  But it turns out one little piggy, Echo, was still available.  Sadly, she had just lost her cagemate.  

Echo is calm and curious.  Took the car ride and the new surroundings in stride.  Wheeks every so often and I've seen a popcorn or two.  

She's an expert at hiding.  Within hours she'd discovered the cozy on the third level, dragged the hay over to block the front of it and snuggled in.  

 

Up Next: Binding!

Do a little happy dance - Midnight Garden is quilted!  (Not including thread burying and any potential fixes.)

Quilting grey on grey (green in the photo so you can see the pattern) has been a surprisingly soothing process.  It's a swirly pattern that I enjoy but have struggled to stitch evenly; I tend to have tight stitches in the center and really (really) long stitches on the outside of the swirl.  This time I've been able to focus my attention on moving the fabric at a steady pace instead of focusing on the placement of the swirl.  

I've also been pleased with how smooth the grey squares finished up.  A few of the unquilted squares were really puffy and I was anticipating puckers or pleats - but most of the fabric eased out as I quilted over it.  I pulled out a single pleat and any of the faint ridges will blend in the first time the quilt is washed.

I've dug through my fabrics and picked out binding.  I'll have to start cutting that next.

But now... back to burying threads. 

 

 

Invisible Quilting

I've started my last round of quilting on the quilt.  Woot!

I wrapped up the stitching with the white thread.  Finished the last crosses on Wednesday and fixed any partial seams.  I hope I caught them all!  I'll have to give it another close inspection.

I cleaned out a ton of lint from the bobbin assembly, reset the tension, swapped out thread and tested a few sections.  Can you even see it?

I Like Thursday: Chicks, Chocolate and Quilting

Ooh, wow - I spent an amazing week on Cape Cod with my chicks!  A few of the group couldn't attend, but those of us that could make it had terrific weather and good times all week.  

Every day was an adventure:  day-trips to Chatham, Wellfleet and Truro.  Long walks on the beach.  We enjoyed the sunset every evening and even roused ourselves out of bed one morning to see the sunrise.  Even that was an unexpected adventure:  5:45am and traffic was backed up on Bracket Road between the high school and Nauset Light beach.  From our vantage point two cars behind a cop car (with flashing lights) we could make out people walking down the street in the morning gloom.  So I hopped out of the car, jogged up past the cops, joined the end of the procession and asked them what they were doing.  Turns out we caught Senior Sunrise - an annual tradition of the seniors in the beginning of the school year to walk from the school to the beach for the sunrise.  Interesting tradition!  

I Like Thursday: Family Throwbacks

Another I Like post full of throwbacks.  I hope you don't mind. 

My mother, sister and I continue to sort through boxes of slides this summer in the hopes of keeping the best ones and making digital copies (and documenting when/where/who).  It's been a fun trip down memory lane, with a bunch of OMG-remember-this? plus a few who-the-heck-are-these-people?

It's so great to see Dad beaming.  I remember him as a happy guy.  I have so many cousins from both sides of the family - it's fun to see them so young.  And me with that afro?  I cried when I got that perm because it was so tight - but it makes me laugh, now.

Plugging Along

I managed to squeeze in quite a bit of quilting in a week.  I'm between 60-75% done with the white thread (then I'll swap over to grey for the last bit).  I'm currently working around the edge (having started in the center).  Always exciting to get to that point, since the edges are easier to maneuver under the sewing machine.

Little green fabric pinned to the quilt indicate sections I need to fix - either where I ran out of bobbin thread, or where there was wonky stitching that needs to be ripped out and replaced.  Well, then there were two spots where I let the backing or batting fold back under the quilt and stitched it to itself.  Drat.  For the most part the quilting has gone smoothly.  Maybe a dozen fixes so far?  Not bad.

I Like Thursday: Into September

Ahh.... late summer/early fall.  I love the sounds of the buzzy-bugs and watching the antics of the swarming hummingbirds.  My garden is rocking with the summer blooms, and if the @#$%^ groundhog didn't eat all my produce, I'd be enjoying my vegetable garden.  Nobody seems to like cucumbers, so I was fairly successful with those.  I'm making notes for next year.

I kind of went overboard planting the marigolds this year.  On the other hand, most of them were hearty enough to survive the drought and the voles (unlike the zinnias which all perished due to groundhog or lack of rain).  The cosmos also kind of went a little wild.  The bees and hummingbirds have been loving all the blooms, and I discovered that the goldfinches like cosmos seeds.  The garden has been a very active place!  Oh, and the hyssop I planted last year is finally starting to bloom (I had just about given up seeing any flowers on them).