Fat Cat Quilts

Boo!

Happy Halloween! 

Round Robin and so on...

Remember the Round Robins we were working on last winter? I got mine back. And I love it! It's perfect for fall. 

I started with this as my center...

I asked the other gals to keep it fall-esque and to please only use batiks. 

And this is what I got back...

I am thrilled with the outcome and can't wait to get her quilted and binded and ready to snuggle under. I think I'm going to add a 4" border of the gold leaf batik that was the background for the row before the flying geese. It will float the flying geese border and really make it stand out. Plus, it will make it big enough to cover the bed. I just love those scrappy little flying geese. They are always so fun to look at.

I was able to snap a photo of Linda's round robin during Show & Tell last weekend. She started with the snazzy paper pieced iris center, and after we all worked on it, here was her final quilt...

I love the appliqued wavy vine border. Fun and different. I still need to get pictures of the other three in our group. Every single one of them was a winner. And they were all so different and fun to work on. 

This weekend I was a busy little bee and got so many projects done around the house. This includes the dreaded errands. How is it that you can spend the entire day running errands, and then at the end of the day, feel like you've accomplished nothing? I don't get it. After the errands, I unplanted all my flower pots (some of which are still alive today! Unbelievable! My black thumb is losing a bit of it's blackness and edging dangerously over to the grayish-green side) and put them up for the winter. I had to make room for my unshiny new black upcycled (funny how that word is everywhere right now) chair on my front porch. I've got it all painted and looking very...ominous. I used a flat matte finish spray-paint, and it looks so much more gloomy than a shiny black. Perfect for the impending doom of Halloween. Rather than three pumpkins spelling out B-O-O as I had originally intended, I got one medium pumpkin and put the entire BOO on it. I loved the look of three, but it needs a longer surface to be appealing. The seat of a rickety old chair didn't cut it. I set chair and pumpkin out on my de-flowered (hah) front porch, amongst a throng of bright gold Cottonwood leaves and was thinking it would make the prettiest picture for fall. Then I went inside and got distracted by something shiny and by the time I made it back outside, Keith had swept off the entire front porch. He's helpful like that.

So I'll wait for more leaves to fall. 

I also got my new sewing room all vacated of yet-to-be-unpacked boxes and ready to paint this week. I'm hoping to paint a coat Monday night and the second coat on Tuesday. Then I'll get my storage units all moved into place and can begin the fun part - unpacking my fabric. I am beside myself with giddiness over the prospect of unpacking, folding, and petting my fabric. The Type-A in me really comes out when I'm organizing my stash on the shelves - every pile of fabric not only color-coordinated, but all folded to the same size. It's tedious and completely extraneous, but it would cause enormous amounts of undo stress otherwise. And admittedly, it looks fantastic when it's all said and done. So fantastic, actually, that I never want to dig in and use any of it. Lest I mess up one of the piles. 

Weekend Warriors

This weekend we sewed. And sewed. And sewed. And ate. And ate. And ate.

When our local quilt group gets together for a mini-retreat, there's one thing to be said. We eat like queens. If any of us were to miss our mark as quilters, we could all surely fall back on cooking, cause let me tell you, we got it going on. It's a wonder we get any sewing done in between the pulled pork, pumpkin bread and spinach dip. And then there were the scones...

Saturday and Sunday, we put the {sewing} pedal to the metal and zipped right along, whipping out UFO's and starting new projects. It rained outside like nobody's business, but we were tucked inside warm and dry, having a fantastic time. None of us could have asked for anything more.

I fished out my Fandango quilt I started last Spring. I had all the blocks assembled and just needed to row them up. I've been dragging my heels on this project, because (cover your eyes, Alicia) I really don't like the fabric. But I do like the person who picked it out, so I put on my big girl panties and plowed onward. 

I really like the latticework in the finished design. You can't tell very well in this photo, but the sashing lines are a dark eggplant, which will match the walls in the room it's going in. Below is a picture of the original pattern, which featured large appliqued flowers. They're cute in the fabric lines shown in the model, but Fandango is so busy with mostly larger prints and I was worried it would be too much. Plus, we voted. And the flowers lost. By a long shot. 

I've ordered backing and some cute striped fabric for the binding. As soon as it gets here, it's ready to be quilted and bound and off to live in Utah. 

With the leftover scraps, I made a not-so-little baby blanket to go with it. And then with the scraps leftover from that, I pieced a scrappy binding for the baby blanket. I really made good use of that fat quarter tower. 

Here's a peek at some projects the other girls worked on this weekend ~

This was from a class we had a while back, where you sew raw-edge squares on squares, cut them into quarters, and then re-sew them up. After you wash it, it frays along the edges like those raw-edge flannel quilts. I can't remember what they're called. 



And again in different fabrics...

As you can see, we like bright colors around here. Maybe it's the lack of sun. 

A Little Bit of Everything All Rolled Into One

Doh! I just had an entire blog post all composed and Internet Explorer stopped working and restarted. All on it's own, without even asking me! How rude. Curse you, Internet Explorer, curse you!

So I left Internet Explorer and joined the Google Chrome Team. They play well with others.

Monday Tuesday morning blog post...take two. 

I haven't done anything quilty this week. I want to, trust me, but I have a list of two dozen other things I should be doing first, and sewing keeps getting bumped further and further down the list. But next weekend, our little quilt group is having a two-day sew-in and I am totally stoked about it. Do people even use that word anymore? Stoked? I can't wait to load up my car with machine, cutting mats, rulers, iron, all the requisite quilting snacks (Think chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate) and a basket full of projects to work on. All weekend long. First up: Fandango. Remember that quilt? Yea, me neither. It's been so long. It's so close to being done. I think I can get the top all put together by afternoon on our first day there. Woot! Then quilt it, bind it, wash it and in the mail it goes. Then I'm thinking of working on some little fall or Halloween project. Something cute and fast. I'm in the mood for Halloween.

Speaking of Halloween, I ran across this great tutorial for stack-and-sew stars over on American Quilting's blog.

*picture from American Quilting's tutorial. I haven't made any yet to have my OWN picture.       

They're adorable and super easy and you can go HERE to see for yourself. I LOVE them! I want some. I can't wait to make some! American Quilting is one of my all-time favorite quilt shops. They're in Orem, Utah, and if I could, I would climb the highest mountain and sing them praises all weekend long. I love them that much. They always have a storeful of the best models (quilts, not hunky men) and piles and piles of all my favorite fabrics. Seriously, it's like they have a little bug inside my brain that keeps track of all the latest fabrics that I covet, and then they STOCK them in their store. Like magic. Or....voodoo?

Last fall when I was on my annual pilgrimage to Utah, I got together with some friends for craft night. Chamaine was making some Wiggles name tags for her family's Halloween costumes (they were adorable) and Alicia and I made some banners.

Alicia made a gorgeous one in teals and oranges that said Autumn and I just might have to steal her idea and make my own someday. I worked on a traditional Halloween one that was going to say SPOOKY on it. But I couldn't find a font I liked and never finished it. And since I know where this project is, unlike all my UFO's which are boxed up in the guest room still, maybe I'll dig it out this weekend and finish it up. I'll make up a scary font if I have to. I loved how the flags turned out. I scratched them all up with sandpaper and I love how they look. Even without any letters.

Won't those look cute with some scrolly, ghoulish letters that say SPOOKY and all strung up on a black ribbon? Yes, I definitely need to finish these up. 

Haven't got any pumpkins yet for my BOO that's going on my repainted chair, but I did get my black paint. Our little supermarket, and I use that term loosely, won't stock pumpkins, if at all, until a few days before Halloween. I may have to flee the country and go to Whitehorse to get some. I'm hoping the rain holds off for a few days and I'll get my chair painted out on the back deck. I don't want to paint it inside, because I think the cats will sit on it. And while little paw prints might look perfectly charming on the seat of the chair, it's not quite the look I'm going for. 

More later....Typepad seems to be liking Google Chrome. It might be a keeper.

Check back soon!

When Typepad is done having their temper tantrum, maybe they'll let me make a blog post.

Anyone else having problems with Typepad?

Falling for Fall

 
I love this time of year. Everything about it. The crisp, clear mornings. The crackly leaves. The bright colors everywhere - in the trees, the last of the summer flowers, apples and pumpkins and gourds. Oh my. I love the onset of the Holiday season. The calm before the storm so to speak. The first few weeks of October are stress-free, blissfully so, and the future lies open and wide in front of me. Well, for the next seven months anyway. But for those seven months, I can do pretty much anything I want. And believe me, I want. My list is long and I can't wait to dive in.

 
September 23 was the last say of our 2011 tourist season and this is what greeted me as I drove up the pass to our Fraser depot:Can you believe this? I think it's so exciting! Granted, it was gone in a few hours, but for that brief morning, the summit was white. The tourists eat this stuff up. They love it when it snows. I mean, come on, who doesn't come to Alaska and expect to see snow and igloos? Well, contrary to popular belief, we don't live in igloos, but we can definitely do snow.

And while we're on the subject of tourists....I know I often refer to the tourist season as hectic and chaotic. It is. But please know that I'm not saying that with disdain. Any time four cruise ships unload 12,000 people in an area as small as Skagway, it's bound to get hectic. And chaotic. But it's the good kind. Like the crowds at Disneyland. Well, I think the crowds at Disneyland are fun; most probably don't. But I just wanted to clarify to anyone who's been here or to anyone who is coming here, that I love the visitors we get all summer. Sure, it's a wild ride, but I enjoy every minute of it. I am very fortunate to experience this every summer, to meet people from all over the globe. I have no complaints.

This afternoon I was perusing some quilty sites and decorating blogs and found this little pumpkin trio on Crafty Vegas Mom's blog.

 
I love this! How cute is that? Now, we don't have house numbers here in Skagway, but for this, I'll make some up. Hah. I have this old wooden chair that I bought at a garage sale this summer for a buck. Keith's eyes popped out of his head at the thought of me paying ANY amount of money for it, and he stared at me in disbelief (or was it disgust?) as I struggled to shove it in the backseat of the car. (Note to self: Acuras were never meant to HAUL things. Well, for that matter, I'm pretty sure they were never meant to live in Alaska either.) Back to my abandoned old chair. I was thinking of painting it red and sitting it out on my back porch with a summer quilt folded over the back. But now, I'm totally painting it black and sitting some fat pumpkins on it with my made-up house numbers. Or maybe I'll skip the numbers and spell out B-O-O. Oh yes, let's.