Kitty Hammock

Funny - Just reading back to some older posts. Regarding the cats sleeping on the pet quilt as read in post: Work all day and stitch all night. I went to put the quilt and frame in the spare/sewing room. It is too big to get through the door! So it is a permanent kitty hammock.



I was doing an edge section last week and one of the cats must have fallen through as it was pulled out of the frame and all that cat hair on it was directional. Ha ha. Only kept them away for a couple of days. Persistent bastards. I mean that in the most loving way of course.

Van Morrison comes to Edmonton!

Crazy but true, music legend Van Morrison is coming to the Edmonton Folk Fest! Plus another talent I cannot wait to see is Sara Harmer! The line up just like every year contains some names you never heard of but will never forget after its over. I joke that it is the only reason to live here - but really, I mean it! Edmonton is okay I suppose, but personally I find it cold, dirty and well there are alot of crazy people here and I do not mean ward crazy, but greedy, money driven I do not care if I drag a pedestrian 28 blocks crazy cause I am a oil worker and I am drunk crazy! Young girls getting shot in the head when they ask someone for a cig crazy. I am a farm girl and even though I have now lived in the city for 15 years - it is messed up here. I have seen a man punch out his own headlights cause he did not like another man's long hair. I myself was almost punched in the face in my own home because I spoke of the Darwin theory and apparently a coworker was so into what the Bible said - I was offending his beliefs?? So punching me in the face was his way to make me believe in god? Not too sure, but that thinking is not my way of thought. I never worried about locking the doors on the farm, or worried that someone would steal my car. Hell, I even had people come into my backyard in the city to steal from my house - while I was in the living room! This is crazy!

Sometimes I wish to reject it all, but it is so nice to have sewing shops so close. Not that I can buy fabric from any of them as they are more then double the cost of fabric stores in the states.

I could live on a farm, feed chickens, I might not eat them, but on a farm you have to have some kind of animals. Actually, I think I would have a pig refuge and save as many as I could from needless slaughter. That is a whole other rant though. Back onto the crazy city .. .. where was I? Oh right, farm, chickens, pigs - I could grow my own food, maybe sell it at farmers markets for cash to buy fabric. I could sew all day when not doing chores, I could sell my creations online. I can order my fabric online.... oh the simple life.

Really if it was not so damn cold here for over half a year, I could grow food year round. Reading the newspaper about some even crazier stuff going on in warmer climates - makes you think Edmonton is okay.... .. .. .

Plus - I have a confession to make. I have gone Poo free! By that I mean shampoo. That is right my friends, I no longer use shampoo! Before you go, "Oh Girl you are soooo gross"!! Let me explain. I use baking soda to wash my hair, and I rinse with Apple Cider Vinegar. It is all thanks to Angry Chicken. I love her blog, she provides a link in this post for how to go Poo free (plus she has a recipe to make your own deodorant - I have not gone that far yet, but I am tempted). Here is the shampoo link. In there you will see that they say it will take two to four weeks for your hair to return to a healthy state from being stripped from shampoo, plus your hair has to readjust how much oil to produce.

So okay - I felt that my hair was for the first 3 weeks - totally gross! But I am a Taurus and that means I am painfully stubborn to a fault. I was going to see this through if it killed me! I almost didn't go through with it. I am a hair twirler, I love to play with my hair and I couldn't even touch it I felt so greasy. But low and behold after three weeks, it is now 5 weeks, my hair has never felt so sexy soft and been so healthy shiny. I cannot stop playing with my hair now. It feels so amazing. I am so happy I didn't break down and use Poo. I will never use it again. Ever Ever, I am getting my hair cut in July before heading off to London, and I am not going to let her touch my hair with their Poos!

Reminds me, I have to ask our family there if they can get me some Baking Soda and Apple Cider Vinegar. For some reason I foresee issues if I try and take it on the plane. Would that not be funny if they confiscated my baking soda! Would not be worth the body cavety search that would most likely go along with it. Ha ha

Wow, that is a lot of text without any pictures... let me see what I got here.. ..

I will leave you with a picture of Tika. Wish him luck - he goes in for surgery tomorrow morning to have his front fangs removed. Poor baby already has diabetes, now he has to lose his teeth. I will post tomorrow and let you know how he is doing.

Circle circles circles - yippee!

I have a billion circles left over from the Bird on a Wire as I have now named it, which I showed pictured of at the bottom of this post. While trying to catch up on the blogs I follow on my lunch break, I came across this nugget of fabulousness that I completely missed in March from I'm just a guy who quilts. I love his blog. He had posted an online tutorial to make these fabulous pillows using circles! I hope to make couple with all my left overs. I would love to start right now on this fabulous project, but I had best finish some things before I get buried in them all.
Anyone interested in this project, click on his blog link above and on the right hand side you will see three links under his tutorial section. This is the circle project. You will have to go to his blog to see what it looks like as I do not want to steal any of his images, I promise it is worth heading over to look at. Super funky!

Sex and the City 2

I finally got to go out to a movie! Thank goodness it was my friends birthday or I would have gone almost an entire year without the pleasure of going out to the theatre. Not that I mind watching movies at home, on the contrary, I love that as well. But there is something about seeing a flick on the big screen - may it be the trans fat filled popcorn or the extremely over priced candy.... or the thrill of sneaking in dollar store candy? I am unsure which, but I love to go to the theatre! My husband however, does not!
I was extremely happy when my girlfriend's husband asked me to go to Sex and the City 2 with her as that was what she wanted for her birthday and he was adamantly not going.
So here is my movie review in just a few sentences. The romantic in me thought it was fabulous - but the realist in me thought it was just too far fetched. For the sake of not wanting to spoil the movie - I will not say which part was the most unrealistic, but there is definitely a segment that is so bogus it made me groan out loud in the theatre at it's la la everything works out perfect for Carrie!
The next movie my friend and I are going to see is the third Twilight movie when it comes out. I am super excited for this movie - yes I am one of those fans. For me however, the romantic is fully satisfied with these movies. It is all make believe, and therefore in my mind can be totally far fetched. That is the beauty of fiction for fiction. Unlike Sex and the City, which is fiction pretending to be non-fiction. Ha, well, that is how I justify it. I did enjoy the movie, I just wished they left the ridiculous part out. 

On another note, we bought tile today! Not only that, we got different tile from what we picked out. After the excitement wore off and the realization that we had to order the tile from a retailer and could not get directly from Ames, not to mention the Ames contractor price was over $20.00 a tile - god knows how much the retailers would charge us! 
We went to Tile Town and found tile almost the same but even better! Instead of 20+ for a tile, we got the floor tiles for just over 5 and the wall tiles for 4.20 per piece! We did get some expensive tile, we got for the tub surround and decorative support beam a mosaic marble and glass tile. The pricey number was $17.98 a sheet. That doubled the bill of the first two tiles! But if we had stuck with the original tile, our bill would have been in the 3500.00 mark easily, with all the grout, adhesives, sealer, trowels, grout float, sponges, spaces - our bill came to $1788.00. We were able to take everything home only having to order and wait two weeks for the marble/glass mosaic sheets. Not bad. The extra value of having the second luxury bath adds so much to the house that even with the tile cost, it is a win win.
Here is a before picture of the bathroom and I will post some after shots as I get the tile up.

Oh- I forgot to post as well, Tika my diabetic cat is losing his teeth! Poor guy, apparently it is very common for people as well with diabetes to get this problem. The correct medical term I do not remember, but basically your body changed your teeth to bone. Bone is not strong enough to chew food and such so they break out. The broken teeth never break of smoothly so when the gums grow over to seal the holes, you get infections and other bad stuff. Tika had some infection causing his gums to be really swollen, his poor mouth looked awful. We have been giving him antibiotics for a week now and they look way better. He already has lost on front fang, and the rest are all being taken out this coming Tuesday. When we took him in to see is Doctor, they wanted to take his blood to make sure he is able to have the surgery, but he freaked out and would not let anyone touch him. It was super embarrassing as we were in the waiting room when suddenly we could hear him screaming his head off. Everyone kinda laughed and looked around and I said, "that was mine". People laughed some more as we are all pet lovers and it is funny that we can recognize their cries like a mother can hear which child is hers crying. The nurse came out and told me they could not take a sample as he would not allow anyone touch him. He was screaming his head off, crouched in the back and no one even touched him. We have to take him in early for his surgery and the will sedate him and take a sample first to make sure they can proceed.

Wish Tika luck!

Table for 4 please

For this long weekend, I wanted to do a project I could actually complete. I choose to take the table runner pattern from American Patchwork Quilting June's issue, "Petal Pushers".

I changed the measurements and design to make 4 place matts and 6 napkins.

I must confess, I have made a few quilts, and never ever did the binding correctly. There never was anyone around whom knew how it was done, I just wanted to quilt so I did. Now, thanks to the Internet, I found a video that really helped along with a website that made sense after I watched the video.

Here is the first quilt I ever made on my own. 

 

Here is the pet quilt in the bed. I think it turned out pretty good. The hand stitching is not done for this picture. I am still deciding if I should send it to someone with a machine to get it done before I'm old. Depends on the cost and I have not seriously looked.

I must end this post with "FREEZER PAPER ROCKS"! It took me a while to find it, but I am very glad that I did. Because of the plastic side, you can use your iron to temporarily adhere your fabric. The pattern tells you leave the paper on the petals while you stitch them almost the entire way around and then to pull it out. I thought this may be too much of a pain, as well I worried of the pieces of paper that would be sewn in. Instead I used it for ironing down my edges of the petals, and then pulled it out right after the pieces cooled. Maybe next time I will be brave and leave them in.

Stencil time!

As I dreaded having to hand stitch my quilt, I started stressing as to what pattern I should use for the huge borders around the panels. Then it hit me, why use a standard stitch when I could make my own? Off I headed to my sewing room and whipped up this little stencil.

Luckily I had some stencil paper kicken around from almost 7 years ago! I knew there was a reason to hang on to it. When I had worked at the paint store I had made a pretty extensive stencil for a customer. I expected to get paid for that stencil, but I was young and naive. Instead I just spend hours of my time to get a God Bless You. Bummer.

Anyhow - I had some sheets left over so this is what I came up with. I do not think I will do this for all the border, but staggered around to give some interest. I hope to take my machine in to the shop to see if they can fix the issue. If yes, then I will do the free motion stitching in some random swirly pattern. Fingers crossed. So far I have only been able to get two of the animals hand stitched on from my stencil.

Maybe I am just extremely slow at hand stitching? I am paranoid about getting my stitches perfectly straight and up and down. Like the fabulous drawing that Anna Marie Horner posted in her blog, on April 07/10.

My trick for the perfect stencil is to trace out my design first with a ultra thin sharpie, then I go over it with a standard sharpie which is the perfect width to use as a guide to cut around. Using a sharp utility knife, cut out around the sharpie lines. Make sure you leave spots in between your joining lines or your pattern will pop right out. When I draw over my fine lines with my standard sharpie, I like to take the opportunity to plan my line breaks. By leaving these spots un-traced in, it prevents me from accidentally cutting too far. You need to have a steady hand, a good light and a self healing cutting mat really helps. For those "Oh NO", I have cut too far, for this type of stencil, you can bandaid it with any type of tape. If you were going to use the stencil for paint, then I would recommend electricians tape. It is resistant to the paint and holds up much better. Make sure you wipe clean and pat dry after each use.

Looks like I am back to hand sewing this giant quilt

My plan of machine sewing has resulted in a waste of a Sunday I am afraid. I have spent almost the entire day seam ripping. I put on the free flow sew foot, set my tension to the recommended setting, I even put in the recommended needle. This is the result I kept getting:

This is the nightmare on the back. I tried increasing tension, decreasing tension. The only problem solving that they have for this issue in the manual is to re thread the needle. I tried that over and over, hoping that it would correct itself. It got worse. Now it looks awful on the top and the bottom:

Kill me, kill me now. argghh I was really hoping to have this project done.

The quilt is back on the frame, at least someone is happy about this:

 Ahhhh, little cutie Lucky is almost laying on himself! He is totally passed out on the quilt. At least I know it must be pretty comfy!

The cats a pretending not to care that the quilt is back out. I know in the morning it will be covered in hair and bowed in the middle from them sleeping on it. They cannot fool me!

If anyone reads this and has a Phaff 2058, if you know how to fix my tension problem, please for the love of fabric, leave me a comment on how to fix it!

Thank you.

Seek and you shall find

We found our tile! Originally we wanted slate, but in the end as it always does - we completely changed our minds! Now we are going to get a porcelain floor tile in a dark slate like color, a light porcelain tan/cream color for the shower and tub surround with fabulous marble for accent details. Here they are together:

After we got home from our tile adventure, we both decided it was time to give the yard a little TLC. Its not very often - at least it feels this way - that we get weather worth going out in. Yesterday reached the same as room temp finally so out we went. Currently with all our reno debris, our yard looks .. .. well like white trash. I mean this in the kindest way possible, but even with repeatedly getting the dumpster bins in, there is always a steady flow of junk in my back yard. The rental fees are too much to get a bin that we could slowly fill, so items get put out into the back yard until we think we have enough. Makes for an unsightly mess. In order to save the neighbors from embarrassment, we keep it all in the back yard - this means my garden is 1/2 covered in gross. I keep telling my husband that his last two buckets are on top of where my peony is trying to come up and he just keeps telling me, "oh yeah" and walks away. I would move them, but they weigh about the same as me. I know when the house gets done, the yard will get done too. I wish to have an amazing yard now is the problem. Thankfully I have retaken up quilting to fill my lack of gardening time!

Here are a few picks of what has managed to survive another freezing Canadian winter!

The blooms are so heavy on this bush that they are forcing the branches to hang down.

This is part of my alpine patch. I love alpine plants and rock gardens. I got these last summer and my goal is to keep them alive until I can make them a real home in what ever location they finally get "drawn on" the plan.

This is more of the alpine plants. I had to post this one as it was funny. The little plant in the centre struggling to come back. It finally showed some signs of life so I was trying to get the hose set up to give it a drink, hubby came over the Save The Day! and he stepped right on it! So much for that one. Then there is the sad one at the bottom left - it definitely did not make the winter - the green in the very center, that is a weed that decided it was a great place to live.

I now have a white "picket" fence. ha ha ha, made out of antique doors in a desperate attempt to keep Lucky the Terrorist out of my plants! It does not really work - he just goes around. Damn dog is too smart.

Speaking of animals - even the kitties got some fresh air yesterday. They normally have to stay inside, to ensure I could catch them if they investigated too far, I made them ribbon harnesses.

Here is Tika - yes, I have a couch outside. Renos renos renos.....

and the lovely Jada Bean.

Have you ever heard of a dog allergic to grass?? Well, ours is. Every summer he scratched the fur right off his tummy, inside legs and thighs. We put him on medication all last summer and took him into the vet every month and a half to see if there was something else that would work - but no. I try to keep him inside now, he has a large play area we cleared for him in the basement. But he still loves outside even though he gets hives. Poor little guy.

See how pink his little thighs are? Winter time that is white with fur that is now scratched off.

We did let him play outside yesterday. He needed to run more then he can in the basement. Anyone whom has or did ever have a JRT understands!

Here is a funny video of him in his pool. He LOVES his pool!

I guess I cannot upload video - sorry about that. I will have to investigate how that works. If anyone knows, please leave me a comment. Thank you!

Enjoy the sunshiny day! Its even nicer today then it was yesterday, I however will be in my sewing room making up for my lack of stitching from yesterday. Hubby cleaned out my sewing machine so I am off to give it another try. Hopefully it works so I do not have to try and hand stitch this huge 100"x100" quilt!

And of course...

I decided that I would be an old women before I ever got my quilt done if I continued to hand quilt it on my frame. (I know I give up so easily). I took it off the frame and lugged it over to my sewing machine. Full of excited energy I was thinking "yes! I will whip through this now, ha ha ha haaaaaa".

Yeah... ... ... that did not happen. hee hee hee

Instead I kept getting these results:

We are off to pick out and hopefully (agree ha ha ha) purchase our tile for the new bathroom downstairs. I will post picks of what we got when we finally decide!
Wish us luck!

Recycled Wedding Dress

So, you know how after you get married, you have this fabulous dress that you will never ever wear again? Well, I had a work function and nothing to wear so I thought ... .. why the hell not! I changed my wedding dress into a lovely cocktail dress and dyed it pink.
I actually wanted to dye it a gorgeous deep plum / purple. To my horrified surprise, I had spent $1500 dollars on a polyester dress. Polyester does not except dye very well. I ended up with a soft pink and the lace detailing went a fab purple color.

Here is me on my wedding day: View of the front in my living room. Check out the cheesy 70's brick archway huh. Is that pretty or what?? Yeah - I took a hammer to it last summer and busted all the nastiness away. Oh, but rest assured, the beautiful wall texture is still there - for now! I cannot wait till we start to reno the upstairs. That my friends is a whole other story - lets stick to the dress shall we??

And here is the back view: I had to hook my dress up on my arm as we did not have a flower girl, ring boy or any other little kids to hold it out of the muck.

You can see the lovely lace pieces. They were sewn on at the sides as well as just under the hump at the back to make the dress seem to poof out at the rear. Why I wanted me ass to look that big, I do not know, but the overall affect was lovely. I took all the lace pieces off and re-attached them to the new bottom of the dress. I gathered it in at the sides at the bottom hem line to give the bubble dress affect. I really enjoyed how the lace pieces went darker and show like highlights of fantasticness (that is so a word!)

Here are some pics of the final dress (although I plan on redying it again with a very large qty of colorant in the hopes of getting the yucky polyester to take in the color). 

And the back:

I had hoped to post a picture with me wearing the dress, but the hubby is cranky. Perhaps another day!

Nightie night.

Work all day and stitch all night

On the weekend just past, I was able to pick up a quilting frame to hand stitch my quilts. My husband was convinced it was a waste of money and that he could build it. Although I agreed that it was extremely over priced, it was 50% off and I didn't think it was worth the hassle. But like a good wife, I went along with it - we checked out the one at Fabricland that was on sale, then off to Home Depot to find the pieces. After walking up and down the plumbing and electrical aisle searching for similar pieces, it was decided to go back to Fabricland and just get the frame. Men are so cute (by cute in this instance I mean stubborn little children!), but in the end it all worked out. He didn't have to figure out how to make the frame (which was going to cost almost the same as the frame) and I was able to start stitching that night. Don't you just love win, wins? Thank goodness to, with the Canucks making the second round and winning their game on Sunday night, I would have had to wait at least a week for him to think about starting the project.

Hand stitching my quilt top is a mixture of feelings. I thought it was a brilliant idea to have that hand finishing touch - not to mention a great excuse to sit in front of the TV and sew! The process is going to take what seems like the rest of my life. ha ha, but seriously - it is slow work! I have been sewing for hours every night, Sunday, I worked at it for over 8 hours straight! My back is killing me and my hip from leaning funny to get to the area I want. All this and I have only been able to outline 1/4 of the tree, the daffodils, and the scillia (the white flowers) on the big panel. I was worried that the colors from the top could stick out too much on the back. I think they are blending in fairly well though. I cannot see the underside unless I get down on the floor. Not a good idea for me, I most likely will not be able to get back up. So you will have to live with this photo I took.

I am using green thread here and it appears to blend in nicely. This could be an illusion, but I will believe it for now.

Tika break, he thought  I was working too hard and needed to relax a moment. I didn't take a pic of Jada, but she was on the loveseat watching me sew. She has taken to sleeping on the quilt whenever I am not there to kick her off of it. I am going to have to hide it in the spare room!

Look what I found!

A giveaway! For beautiful handmade soap. To read the post and enter to win, click here.
Good Luck!

What the weekend is over?

I cannot believe how fast this weekend went! I tried to stay up late last night in the hopes of making the weekend longer but it only resulted in me being cranky. I am already sitting back at my desk, it is 8:59am Monday morning and I feel like I never left Friday afternoon. Oh - it just turned 9am, that is my cue.
Hope everyone out there is having a good Monday- or at least trying to. Soon, the weekend will be back.

I am a machine!

Check out the small panels! They are stitched and ready to be put together to complete the quilt top.

Jada

Tika

Close up of Tika

Lucky..... oh and all the crap I have stored above my wardrobe....lovely. Pretend you do not see all that okay??

Close up of Lucky

I didn't just get these all done, I started attaching my circles on my third project. The third project was started while waiting for my backing material for the pet quilt. This fabulous third project all began as a doodle while waiting in the lobby of my workplace for my hubby to arrive and get me. He was running late, really late and thankfully, my favorite purse mate was with me - my sketchbook!

I was able to draw this fun little sketch. I never thought it would become a quilt, I was just doodling. I didn't even have a proper sewing machine when this came to be in my book. Thankfully I was able to convince the hubby that my 35 year old Janome was ready to be traded in. Now I am running a new Phaff 2058 I got from an awesome quilting store in Edmonton called Johnsons Sewing Centre. They were so accommidating, they met me after hours while they had a class on so I could get a machine.

So this little doodle is becoming my girly quilt. I was imagining it as all pinks, but I thought I had better add some less feminine colors if I wanted it to ever be allowed on the bed. Here are some its staged of life:

I had to decide how I wanted to use my fabric and do some math to make it work for a queen bed.

After completing the bottom diamonds, I picked up the pink for the top at Fabricland and circle cutter which I had never used before. Thank goodness I got it or I would still be cutting circles. I hand basted every circle onto the quilt top to avoid using an iron one adhesive which seem to really clog up my machine and break needles.

And tonight I was able to start sewing the circles on! I should have them all on by the end of tomorrow! Yippee!

Since I could not complete my scrappy quilt, I decided to make one of my quilt sketches I had created a couple of months prior. I hoped to make a quilt featuring my pets for each season. After doing this first one, I have lost some steam while I had many fabric dramas. More on that in a bit, the quilt itself has changed from my sketch to a real life creation and I have to say I am pretty proud of it so far. Originally I thought it would be one large panel, but it has expanded to one big panel and three smaller panels. The smaller panels showcasing each animal separately. Here is a picture of the large panel:

I started with the cats (Tika - white cat, Jada - the grey one) in the tree and Lucky the dog on the ground - the ball in his mouth is typical Lu. He is obsessed with the ball! The birds were a naturel fit as my backyard has so many, may I confess they are all grey and brown little things along with a large amount of magpies - but I thought I could be forgvin to have some color. In the mood of spring, this is the spring quilt featuring spring flowers that were blooming in my mother-in-laws garden as we still had snow. Oh to live in BC, dare to dream while I have my home in frozen Edmonton. It got warm for a good week, unseasonably warm - it was fantastic! But short lived as even now, beginning of May, there is snow. But I digress.

Here are pics of the smaller panels.

Then there was the fabric drama. I thought I would save some money and use the large (ugly) brown sheet you can see around the panels as my framing fabric to bring all the pieces together. I tried to convince myself it would work, but thankfully my hubby knowing me too well said to please stop being so cheap and get a great fabric to highlight all the hardwork I had done. This was great, but then he wanted to have an opinion on what fabric I got to purchase! Ahh, I was scared, but we actually chose a really great fabric together. It is this one:

Heritage Dark 108" Wide

Great isn't it? So the fabric was chosen and I placed my order via Wish Upon A Quilt. However they did not have enough! Ahhh again! After some emailing back and forth with Cathy the owner – she was able to point me in the right direction to get the fabric. I wanted to get it from her as I have ordered with her before and I love her shop, but she still saved the day. Quilter’s Paradise still carries this fabric and had more then I required. The shipping was super fast; I got it a week faster than expected. Phew, thank goodness that drama is over. I was worried at first I would not be able to get it and would have to choose something different and I just was not finding anything. I got the fabric Tuesday, I only have the little Jada panel left to sew and then I can attach everything. This weekend (hopefully starting after work tomorrow, there is a hockey game to entertain the hubby) I should be able to get lots done on this project!

Welcome to my new blog! Please feel free to comment on any of the projects I am making or recipes I am cooking up. Especially if you have any advise to share, I am all ears.


I like most creative people have three quilts on the go right now. This does not include the painting, and other projects in "my room".

My sewing room was originally in the basement, which I did not mind one bit as we have a raised basement and huge windows. That is - until I discovered it was infested (really, I am only exaggerating a little!) with SPIDERS. Aaaahhh, I am horrified of spiders. My husband refused to kill or relocate them (crazy man I know, but I love him so). I refused to go in there. Thankfully his daughter has decided to hang out with us for the summer so she gets the room and I got to move upstairs! YES, even bigger windows and as far as I know (and I am not going looking I can tell you that!), spider free!

I started making a scrappy quilt, years ago I worked for a paint and decorating store which sold fabric via sample books. When the sample books were discontinued, the companies wanted us to through away the books. Well, no way was I throwing these treasures away, I kept as many as I could. Finally after lugging these books through several moves and cities - I took them apart to use. This was a project that I didn't really think through. ha ha, to take the books apart was easy - but pealing the backing off every piece, OMG, it took days, and I had to hand scrub most to get it off. A lot of pieces still have little bits of paper on them, but I was done with cleaning and wanted to get on to sewing. I then spent 4 evenings after work just cutting out rectangles. Finally I started to sew, I discovered I didn't have enough! So, this treasure of saved fabrics is now folded and sitting in the corner, patiently waiting for more scraps to complete it. It will happen eventually... The picture at the bottom of my blog is this quilt. I know it should be ironed after every square, but the fabrics are so mixed, to get one pattern to iron I would melt the next, plus I kind of liked the ruffling effect. More to come!