Tree Skirt

I am back to working on the tree skirt. I cut the remaining 5 inch squares into quarters to fold for prairie points. I also had to cut into some yardage for more red squares. then I had to find something in my stash to make up for not enough blue.
I am stitching strings of prairie points together getting ready to sew them on the tree skirt.







This is fabric for my other project, window coverings for our bedroom. I almost bought something geometric and neutral but Jack came looking for me and changed my mind. He said "get something colorful that you really like"; so I did.

Snow

I really wouldn't want to live in a place that didn't have 4 seasons I just wish winter did not have to include SNOW.
When I got up this morning there was a light covering of snow and there was fine snow coming down....... and it came down all day long. I think it stopped around 5 PM but I am not sure as it is dark now.This is what it looked like at 4 o'clock, looking toward the street. Hmmmm .....these photos look like they are black and white but they are color photos. It seems to me that the first snow of the season should be a light one not something like this.






This is on the other side of the house looking out the living room window, same view from a slightly different angle. We stayed home all day and I only ventured out once to fill the bird feeder.

 I did what I usually do when I am snowed in, I cleaned and did laundry. I did a little sewing as well. I started some improv blocks for another kitty quilt. I have a bag of unsorted scraps and I looked up some cat fabric. Here are a  few of them on my sewing machine table. If I make 12 - 8 inch blocks that should be about the size I want.

Kitty Quilts

Kitty likes to sit on my lap in the evening and she likes to sit on my sewing chair when I am at the desk. At any time of day or night she likes to curl up on the sewing chair or on the couch. I put a folded quilt on the couch for her and I put a quilt on my lap when she sits on my lap. She seems to prefer the quilts to the fleece throw that I have folded on a foot stool.

So........ I made a small quilt today for the sewing chair. I found and old cheater panel and layered it up and did some quilting around the cat and flowers and border, just enough to hold the layers together. I used Bernina #4 serpentine stitch close to the edge and trimmed it leaving the batting exposed. If it doesn't hold up after washing I will stitch over the edge again.




I considered piecing 2 smallish quilts one for the couch and one for my lap when she sits there, something that can be more easily washed. Instead, I am going to cut up the quilt that is on the couch and make smaller ones.  It is an old quilt  that has seen a lot of use and it has worn places. It is one that I made from block swap blocks and while I have always liked, it it holds no sentimental value. It is still  colorful and kitty seems to like it so I think that it is a good use for it.







I picked her up to put her quilt on the chair and here she is, thinking it over. I thought maybe she would be unhappy with being disturbed but she seemed to accept it OK. She used to be a cranky cat but in her old age (almost 14) she is really sweet.

I think she likes it. 

Tree Skirt - Getting There

I am slowly making progress on the tree skirt. I had all the wedges laid out in the order I wanted to sew them in pairs. after all the pairs are sewed together there is always some adjusting to be done when something shows up that didn't before sewing. I kept everything in order pretty well but then when I sewed the pairs into 4's I got the order mixed up and I had to lay everything out again on my bed (no design wall yet). Every time I sewed a few more seams I checked to see how it looked and made some more adjustments. I finally sewed the last seam and I see that there are a couple of places that have two patches of the same color next to each other. They are not the same prints so it will stay the way it is.  After all "Random is Random" and after all my arranging and rearranging and getting things out of order it sure is random.

This is half of it pinned to a design board. Behind it is one of my bulletin boards, foam core covered with gray flannel. I covered my boards with gray because a couple bloggers, who seem knowledgeable about photography, said that if you have some gray pinned to the design wall or photographing area the colors are more true. My photos with the gray behind the tree skirt look more like the real thing than the photos without the gray.

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Tree Skirt

I am back to working on the tree skirt. The 9 degree wedge ruler I ad ordered from Amazon came yesterday; it took a long time to get here partly due to being sent to my old address. I cut all my wedges in the afternoon and arranged them in the order I want.I had arranged the strips of charm squares the way I wanted them but after they were cut in wedges there were narrow wedges that needed to be placed where they look the best.

Here is  the stack all ready to sew in pairs. that little pile of trimmings is about 1/2 of all I have left. Using Annie's tutorial,  You get 1 wide wedge and one narrow wedge that are used in the tree skirt and one very narrow wedge that is scrap. Last year I used those narrow scraps as a gag prize for the Basement Divas annual Jellyroll Race ( they were probably thrown in the trash). This time I took off the narrowest 2 pieces and sewed the rest together. This piece is 22 x 13 after trimming I will layer it up and quilt it and probably just add binding or or maybe turn it pillowcase style and then quilt it.
It might be good as a large hot pad for the table. LOL, when I showed it to Jack he said "what is that hodge podge." He is usually far more diplomatic than that.







Yesterday when I posted a photo collage of the Mary Ellen Hopkins tribute I did miss some quilts and I am sorry to say I do not have photos of them. I missed 2 of Kathy's and one of Lynn's. I even remember talking about one of them and for some reason I didn't get a photo. If I get photos from someone I will post them.

I'm so sorry Kathy and Lynn.

MEH Tribute/Challenge

The Wildwood Quilt guild in Mentor, Ohio had their annual quilt show on Sunday. It has always been a very nice show and it was again this year. Several of the Basement Diva group are members of the guild and though not all of the Divas are members of Wildwood, our tribute to Mary Ellen Hopkins was hung at the show. Mary Huey, the owner of the quilt shop where we all took the "It's OK if You Sit on my Quilt" classes and continued with the "It's OK Neighborhood meetings, was also invited to hang her Mary Ellen quilts with the rest of the challenge.





This was the first chance I had to get a photo of my quilt after it was quilted.








Below is a collage of the rest of the MEH quilts. I think we all learned a lot from Mary Ellen and probably there are a large number of us who would not be quilting today it it were not for her. We also owe a lot to Mary Huey.

Here is a collage of the rest of the MEH tribute quilts; I think I got them all.