December Disruptions

It's been a quiet month for blogging.  I've been focused on getting holiday stuff done:  some shopping, writing cards, shipping cookies.

I'm feel a little like Indiana Jones in regards to this year's ornament:  Cats.  Why did it have to be cats?  I love kitties, but have yet to create one with Sculpey that looks right.  I've been proud of the ornaments I've made my nephew in past years.  I fear this isn't going to be one of them.  I'll be glad when it's done.

I sewed!  For all of five minutes.  I finished a few more string triangles.  I'm so close to having that whole pile completed (and then I can make something with it!).  My sewing backlog contains clothing fixes for my sister and making some Frankenstein batting.  Need to finish those before I can return to applique and other fun stuff.  Inspiration and motivation are at a low ebb.

Space

Last year I started feeling guilty that the guinea pigs weren't getting much floor time.  I remember years ago watching Eclair and Teddi running laps around the living room.  I loved watching them bound around.  I've yet to have other guinea pigs that run around like that.

Floor setup was time consuming, with food and the water bottle, home base and grids.  My three level setup allowed my sows to have space away from each other, but not really enough for them to get up and go full tilt.

So last November I started the ramp experiment.  It turned out to be a lot of fun for everyone in the household.  The results were surprising, as well.

Lighthearted Love

Funny how timing can be.  It seems the world needs some more love right now and suddenly I'm inspired to quilt hearts.

The applique and glitter is such a departure from anything else I've made.  I figured I'd go whole hog and embellish it with buttons and ribbons.  But I couldn't bear to cover up any of the colorful threads.  Wherever I placed the buttons, they were over some bit of color I wanted to feature.  So there's one button.  I skipped the ribbon for much the same reason.

It works. 

I still can't manage to bind a sharp corner.  Beyond that, I'm really happy with this quilt.  Everything is straight and true and hangs flat.  The narrow red edging doesn't waver.

It's so hard to capture the sparkle.  I had this finished a week ago, but didn't get good photos until Sunday.  You can get a bit of the feel from a little heart in the photo below.

Lots of Leaves

My sparkly hearts are all done, but it has been too cloudy or too windy to get a good shot of it.  I hope to show that off soon. 

In the meantime, I've started on my last shiny project.  No hearts this time.  When I had pondered what to do with all of my cloth of thread I focused on making simple shapes:  hearts, circles, ovals.  I couldn't decide between hearts and leaves... so I decided to go with both.

I'm making a tree.  I found good trunk material, I just purchased background fabric (that bright blue on the left).  Now I'm cutting lots of leaves.  We'll see how it goes.

Winter Wonderland Piggies

For the first time in years, we didn't have the holiday photo shoot on Black Friday.  Joey from Salem Pet Photo took pictures in October, so we had the day off instead of wrangling rodents.

I spent the afternoon quilting instead of setting up scenery, wrangling pigs and editing photos.  What a nice change.

There were so many great pictures of Boadicea and Wedgwood.  I have a few prints for the holiday cards.  But then there were all of these single shots that I couldn't use.

A Little Love

My little practice quilt is done.  It went together quite nicely and gave me the confidence to tackle my main project.  I've already appliqued most of the hearts - sandwiching and quilting is next.

This was my first time using the Singer 15-91 for free motion quilting.  All I can say is wow.  Just wow.  I didn't have to muck with the tension.  No broken threads, no skipped stitches.  How nice.  And what fun.  I can't wait to quilt some more.

So this little quilt is 10½ inches square.  I put pockets in the back to insert a dowel for hanging.  Not that I bothered cutting a dowel to length for the pictures - I was too excited to catch the sunlight and show this off.  None of my photos capture how it shines.  Oh, well, you'll have to imagine the sparkle.

Let It All Hang Out

The hammock is back in the cage this week.  I've been getting a kick watching Boadicea sleep in it.  In the past I've noted that Boadi has some similarities to Bertie.  This time she's channeling Pinniped.

All That Glitters

Front on top; back on the bottom (with little bits of tissue paper)

Cutting that nifty shiny thread fabric has resulted in lots of glitter:  all over my clothes, the cutting mat, the floor and in my laptop keyboard.  Damn.  At least it's pretty.

I pulled threads from the leftover cuttings and made another piece of thread fabric.  Using a fabric backing had pros and cons.  It's stable and opaque, but bulky, can't be easily appended together, it's not reversible and some of the fabric edges fray when cut).  I understand why some tutorials instruct using water soluble stabilizer on both sides.  I will do that next time.

I didn't have much left stabilizer left, so I tried a tissue paper backing.  The tissue didn't all disintegrate or pull out, but I like this result better that the fabric backing.  It's a bit thinner.  I can easily sew small pieces together to make a bigger piece.  This was a dense chunk, but I considered what a looser "weave" would look like.  You'd be able to see the fabric it's appliqued to through the gaps.  Oh!  So many ways to play with this!

I have laid out my main project - have the colors picked, the hearts all cut, it's ready to piece.  Raw edge applique seemed the way to go with this.  I've never done that before - I don't like how messy it looks.  But these pieces are messy!  I felt a clean edge would clash with the rest of the hearts.  As I pondered how to applique it, I also thought about how to quilt it on the new machine.  So many things new things I've not attempted before - did I want to risk trying them out on this quilt?

I stopped my work to make a smaller version with the extra pieces.