By Request

I had not intended to look for foster guinea pigs until after NEFFA weekend, but when Dakin Humane called and asked if I could foster a pair of young boars, how could I say no?

Meet Moses and Brownie.   

They're certainly cute.  However... the reason I was asked to take them was that shelter life was stressing them out.  Moses and Brownie were chasing and spatting.  We had a calm ride home and the two boys settled right in, explored the cage, then took a nap.

That was the quiet before the storm. 

The in-your-face chattering and ninja leap attacks started after dinner.  My first impression is that Moses is getting a little too full of himself.  He was right in Brownie's face.  Brownie doesn't look eager to engage, but is not backing down to this pipsqueak punk.

The shelter may have triggered the stress fighting, but these two are acting like teenagers.  Ugh.  Teenage boys - I think that's worse.  

Bobbin Tension Bliss

I have been quilting away.  I cannot believe how correctly setting my bobbin tension has solved ALL my quilting issues (well, except for user error...).  Even stitches.  No weird looped or breaking threads.  The bobbin doesn't rattle so much.  I only need to stop stitching when I've finished the area I'm quilting, I've run out of bobbin thread, or I've messed up the pattern.  

It's bliss.

It also means I'm nearly done quilting the Lone Star quilt.  Red should be wrapped up today; only the white and pink on the edge is left.  

Inkblots and Green

All sorts of projects in the works.  Two quilts pinned and ready to quilt.  I just need to figure out what pattern I want to do.  

Spent way too much time surfing Pinterest for scrappy, crumb and string ideas.  Ooh, what do I want to do next??

I also got around to cutting the fabric I originally bought for the kaleidoscope blocks.  Look how they turned out!  (Design floor in use because I used all the batting that was on my design wall.  Need to replace that soon!)

Project Quilting 17.6 - A Handful of Guinea Pig

One last challenge for Project Quilting this season - something that could be held in my hand.  I've done my share of post cards and mug rugs for small projects, so I wanted to do something different.  Hmmm... might be the perfect time to make a guinea pig?  Years ago a blog reader brought this Gertrude Guinea Pig pattern to my attention; I bought a copy.  It's been sitting on the shelf ever since.   

The pattern shows the guinea pig in colorful prints but I wanted more realistic colors.  I pulled a bunch of browns, blacks, white, greys and tans from my stash and Rob and I picked the ones we liked best.  I've been hording that brown fabric for ages - I loved it but never quite found the right project for it.  The black fabric and the funky white fabric were both excellent finds at Swanson's (the amazing "no-kill shelter for your fabric stash").  I didn't have any ¾-inch buttons for the eyes, but a trip back to Swanson's yielded a pair of shiny black shank buttons.  How perfect are those?!?  What a score.

Quilted Cushion Fabric

My sister wanted some seat cushions for her dining room chairs.  She asked my mother to stitch them up... at which point they came to me to see what fabric I could offer.  

I dug through my stash, brought out some orphaned blocks before pulling out several sets of crumb blocks.

Piecing and Pinning

The last Project Quilting challenge comes out later today - so I was able to focus on clean-up projects this week.  I have almost cleared out my backlog of Winter Stars scrap.  Whew!  I pieced together a backing for the Lone Star quilt.  Then I ripped out a few of the center star's seams and restitched to get rid of the bulge I had complained about in an earlier post.   The center points are a total mess but absolutely no one is going to notice those.  The quilt is flat enough to ease out any other ripples when I quilt it.  

I started sandwiching it before I noticed a few jagged edges along the black and red Vs I had intended to address (the other missed points are more forgiving).  The frustrating thing is two of them had already been ripped and restitched.  Thankfully third time was the charm (and kept to my two-rip-and-restitch rule).  This quilt is officially sandwiched and in need of quilting inspiration.  

Project Quilting 17.5 - Cyan & Orange Pizza Box Cozy

This week's challenge for Project Quilting was to create something two dominant complementary colors.  Excellent!  This was a chance to clean out some of my stash and to make an insulated pizza box cozy (which has been on my to-do list for some time).  Our nearest pizza place is a ways away and we're hoping this will keep it a little warmer on the way home.

Mystery Wall Quilt

I participated in a mystery QAL (quilt along) last spring for the Colour Value Mystery and pieced together this wall hanging.  It then sat for several months until I had a chance to quilt and bind it.  I'm pleased with the result!

I started the quilting with a walking foot.  My design required pivoting the quilt back and forth and that got tedious pretty quickly.  I switched to free motion quilting which sacrificed straight lines and precision but the process was a lot more enjoyable.  (Especially having fixed the bobbin tension issues.) 

At some point I started to quilt some curves, but disliked the look.  I ripped them out and continued quilting straight lines.  I really like the designs over the gold and white (the black is quilted, too, but does not stand out).  I extended those patterns across the border as well.