Madea Summer Shots

Say hi to our latest guinea pig foster from Dakin Humane:  Madea.   

We've had her for about a week.  Madea loves the cage - she checked it all out in the first day.  She's great at doing laps in the evening so enthusiastically that the cage shakes.  She's a cutie!

I Like Thursday: Wait, It’s July?

Goodness.  I've done nothing but quilting posts for over a month.  I've done plenty of good things that aren't sewing that I'd like to share at I Like Thursday.

Let's start out this post with a guinea pig!  This is Madea.  She's the first foster we've had since October. 

Madea is a sweetie and is settling in quite nicely.  However, she doesn't know what to do with veggies.  What kind of silly pig is this?  She will only eat carrots.  Not cucumber or lettuce or tomatoes or peppers or corn husks.  I'm working on her.

It’s a Flimsy!

Huzzah!  Look at that!  Midnight Garden is a flimsy.  It's so hot off the presses I haven't even pressed the last seams.  It was a cloudy evening with dim lighting - so I just threw it on the bed so you at least get a glimpse of what it looks like.  It's so nice to see it other than on the wall!

I need to iron it and check for any really mangled points to repair before getting it sandwiched.  

Huzzah! 

Oh, so Close

Rolling along with the Midnight Garden quilt.  

See this?  This is the last grey block, finished and attached to it's row.  Yay! 

Whose Bright Idea Was That?

In my last post I had found two mis-matched kaleidoscope corners that needed to be ripped out and reset.  No problem.  I identified the two bad corners and where they actually belonged.  I pinned a different colored pin on each corner (one red, one white) then pinned the matching color to the block where they needed to be attached.  I figured that way I wouldn't lose track of them again.  Next step:  iron the seams flat to make it easier to rip them out.  

I didn't pay close attention where the pins were and managed to press the iron directly over the pin.  It promptly melted and adhered itself to the fabric.

Seriously.  Why make pinheads that melt at the cotton setting?

Trust the Process

I'm on a roll with the Midnight Garden quilt.  I dithered briefly about the edge blocks before plunging ahead with my original orientation.  I've panicked a few times thinking I sewed the corner to the wrong spot or cut the block the wrong way.  

 I keep telling myself:  Trust the process.   

Adding Corners

The Midnight Garden star blocks are finally getting their corners attached.  Normally I'd attach the four corners to a block and move onto the next blocks.  In this quilt, however, I'm attaching one corner to four different blocks at a time.  I attached the first handful of corners one set at a time.  This week I tried doing two at a time and briefly panicked when it appeared I sewed a corner to the wrong block.  Each kaleidoscope foursome is unique, but it turns out a few of them look really similar.

Whew.  

A Void

You wouldn't think an empty spot on my design wall would be cause for celebration but trust me, it is.  This hole indicates my first completed block in the Midnight Garden quilt.  More importantly it means I'm no longer avoiding this quilt (my shoulder and this quilt have both been a pain since mid-March).