New Project Inspired By A Rabbit

Springtime is a busy time.  Pulling weeds, planting flowers and vegetables is in full swing.  Spring is my favorite time of year.  The dull brown winter landscape fades away with the glorious colored spring flowers.  With the fresh foliage comes critters of all kinds to feast at the buffet.  While drinking my morning cup coffee and enjoying the morning sun coming through window, I spied this cute little guy making his way towards my flowerbed off my front porch.

 This must be the little fella who found my pink tulips to be so yummy he ate them all before they could bloom.  It was disappointing but he has to eat.  So, next year the pink tulips will be off the menu and protected by a fence.  This mischievous little fella made me smile with his little nose twitching.  I'm pretty sure he was sniffing out more of my delicious flowers for his all you can eat buffet.  Eat all you want Mr. Rabbit because I'm in no mood to close down the buffet.  This week's yardwork used muscles I forgot I had, and I need a little sit-down time, but your presence has inspired me to work on a UFO.  

All that is needed to finish the block is a few inches of hand stitched applique.  

Within minutes he was finished and ready to become a pillow.  A quick dig though the batting scraps and I found a piece of 100%  cotton batting that fit perfectly. 

In the UFO box was enough fabric to make the envelope closure pillow back.  

However, there isn't enough of any one darker fabric to use as the binding/faux piping, there's enough for the cream background fabric but I would prefer color.  This was good time to switch projects so I can think over my options.

So, it was back the quilting my Chaos quilt that is on the frame.  It's been neglected this week due to the yardwork.  I'm hoping for a next Friday finish.  If it would rain, I would be forced to finish it sooner...come on rain! HAHA!

Just a little heads up....the rest of this post is non quilting things.  

First topic is the circle cropped picture above. 

 Vicki in MN left a comment wanting to know what program I use for circle cropping.  I've used PhotoscapeX pro for about 10yrs.   It has a lot of great features, and it was reasonable priced at the time.  I think it now might be a free download.   It was fairly easy to learn how to use all the features by watching YouTube videos. 

Second topic is my girl Khaleesi.  

We are still battling the Perianal Fistulas.  It's an autoimmune disease that some dog owners have put in remission.  Right now, her treatment plan is topical antibiotics, and a very expense immunosuppressant medication called cyclosporine.  Cyclosporine without GoodRX it's almost $700 a month.  With the GoodRX coupon it's still $198 a month.  The topical antibiotic is $59 with GoodRX coupon and so far we are still using the first tube.  We also give her over the counter pro and prebiotics, $75 a month.  A supplement, $40 a month, to keep her urinary track in good health since she also suffered from chronic urinary tract infections.

Two weeks ago we started a laser light therapy once a week.  It too is costly. $75 every week without a discount, $55 a week with a discount that we get from our membership with Thrive Pet Healthcare.  The Healthcare plan is only $15 a month but it saves us much more than it costs.  No office visit charges, reduced yearly exams, vaccines and with most procedures.

Our thought is to throw every treatment we can at this horribly painful disease and put her into remission.  So far it's looking very promising.

She's doing well and doesn't struggle to poo anymore.  Every time she poo's we clean her bum.  In the beginning of this horrible diagnosis cleaning her bum was painful for her.  Now that it's healing, she doesn't try to bite me when cleaning her bum.

My girl went through hell before coming to live with us.  If your new to my blog, she's a rescue dog and was alone in a cage for 23 hours a day for the first year of her life.  She had almost no human contact.  And when she did it was not good.  Her owner sent her to an abusive K9 training program where she was beat and shocked.

 When she came to live with us, we were given the cage she lived in because it was her safe place.  The cage was left open, she was free to leave anytime night or day but didn't.  She would only come out to go the door to let me know she needed to potty.

She would come out, go to the door, we would let her out and she would come back in and go back to the cage on her own.   On day 10 she finally came out with her tail tucked and head down she made it across the room to the nice comfy dog bed I had waiting for her since day one.  She sat there for about 15 seconds and ran back into the cage, terrified of what was to come.  I'm sure she was confused when I praised and loved on her for being so brave.

She made great progress after learning we were not going to hurt her, only love her.  After a few months of her rarely using the cage for comfort and safety we removed the horrible prison cage from our home.  We also hired a professional dog trainer to help us and her deal with her anxiety issues without medication.

It's been baby steps for 6 yrs.  It took about 2 months for us to gain her trust and for her to untuck the tail.   Her tail hasn't stopped wagging since.  She still has some odd behaviors and is easily startled but she for the most part she's just a happy dog.

Thanks to all of you for your love, support and prayers for my girl over the years. 

 

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Quilt Binding Buddy

 Happy Valentine's Day Quilty Friends!  Wishing you a day filled with love and laughter and of course lots of time doing whatever makes your little ole heart go pitter pat. 

For me that means finishing up the Bow-Ties quilt.  She was taken off the quilting frame on Wednesday.  Trimming the backing fabric away from this 90 x 90 quilt was a real chore.  In my younger years it would have been tossed on the floor for trimming.  These days my knees tell me it's a better to wrestle with her on the cutting table, and I agree!

I won the wrestling match and promptly started auditioning binding fabrics.  That meant pulling my favorite ginghams and striped fabrics.  Surely one of them will tickle my fancy.

A few striped fabrics also made into the auditioning line up.  

While all of them were beautiful, they didn't make the cut.  Instead, I opted to go with plain ole white.  The blocks of this quilt are the stars of the show and they want to be ogled.  A colorful whimsy binding would draw the eye to the edge of the quilt and steal the show.  I wanted the binding to be a bodyguard not a part of the dance.  

The idea of a true quarter inch binding was also scrapped, simply because I didn't feel like a wrestling match with the bodyguard.  A compromise was made.  Two inches wide will give the look I want and avoid the hours of wrestling it into place.

Yesterday was a relaxing day cuddled up on the couch with all my favorite things...quilts, coffee and my sidekick Khaleesi.  Binding a quilt has always been my favorite part of quilting.  I think it's Khaleesi's favorite part as well. 🩷 It's nice having a binding buddy to remind me to get up and move (play with her).  We had a fun day and will get to do it again today.  I can't think of any other way I would want to spend my Valentine's Day.

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Jumping From This To That

 Remember the baggies full of HST's created over my quilting lifetime?  It's time to add a few more to the baggies from my current Twinkler quilt.  Tackling them in small batches as they are produced is easier than doing them all at once after the quilt is finished.

The quilt will produce 336 bonus HST's!  I used my handy dandy homemade locking HST ruler. It makes the process so much quicker.  If you would like to make one of your own, I made a YT video a few years ago.

The HST's from this project are trimming to 1.75 and 1.5.  Obviously my second stitch line wasn't consistent.  That's okay, the first stich line was important.  These little guys are bonus blocks to hopefully be used someday.  Now that I think about it I should put a note in these boxes of thousands of HST's.  Should I die before using them I need to let my family know these should be given or sold to a quilter.  All the work is done!  Someone could sew them into a quilt.

Trimming this smaller batch was quick and painless.  Before I knew it they were finished and in their new home.

Before moving onto my next quilting project I needed to do some outside work.  We have to small veggie garden beds for things like garlic and onions.  As you can see we actually have a weed bed.  A critter of some sort destroyed the garlic and onions early in the year.  Why weed it if there's no produce growing? 

The weeds were easy to pull.  It only took about 30 minutes.  I left this one small tree.

I'll need to dig it out with a shovel in this  morning when it's not so doggone hot.  Pulling on this one is not an option.  Take a look at the thorns.  You should see the size of them on a full grown tree!   Horrible trees in so many ways.  Invasive, thorny and hard as rock.  

It was time to get back to my happy place.  Our porch project is almost complete.  Mr. Podunk still has some work to do under the stairs and we still need to paint the railings.  The wood railings need to cure a bit before painting.  They were oozing liquid when screwed into place.  If we paint them now the paint will peel off.  So it could be this fall or next year before they get painted.

After getting back in the studio I decided to work on the Bow Tie quilt.

The blue fabrics were pulled a couple of weeks ago and have been waiting to be cut.

The rest of the day was spent ironing and cutting about half of the blue Bow Tie blocks.

Of course there was laundry, cooking and cleaning to be done also.  I may finish these up today and I may not.  First thing on the list today is digging up the tree. 

Khaleesi update.  She's a constant work in progress.  We're always trying to teach her something new.   She's not a fan of standing in water.  I bath her in my small shower.  It's messy and not fun.  I've been teaching her to like water in a wading pool.  The training has been going well.  Today it was time to clean the wading pool but someone decided to take a dip!  Click on the video to play.  It won't take you another site, it will play here on the blog.

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Snowman Christmas Tree

 Isn't this just the cutest Christmas tree?

The tree is at our veterinarians office in the lobby.  I tried really hard to get a good picture of my girl sitting in front of the tree.  But there was just too many distractions/smells.  She had to sniff every last inch of the entire building and the tree.  Which made me wonder how many cats had been in this tree.  HA!

I probably took 15 or more pictures and this was the best I could get, her backside.   We go back later in the month for a nail trim so we'll try again.

  

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The Sound of Silence

 Spring is in the air here in Podunk.  And what better way to start the day than with a hot cup of decaf on the back porch.  Me and Khaleesi like to watch the sunrise out here, weather permitting.  On the really cold days I watch from inside.

Watching the sunrise is therapeutic. Letting the sun into your eyes helps to set our circadian rhythm.  I could go into a deep dive talk about sunlight and blue light but we'll just keep things light today.  

This is how I was awakened yesterday.  I like to sleep with the window open year around.  In the winter it's cracked just enough to let in a little fresh air.  Don't worry our furnace is set pretty low because I can't tolerate dry heat.  I'd rather it be a little chilly in the house while cuddling under a couple of quilts.  With the window open, alarm clocks are not needed in the spring and summer.  Here's woke me up to yesterday.  If you listen closely you can also here 2 owls chatting back and forth.  One will hoot from the left side of me and then from the right.  But I love this sound of silence.  No trains, planes or automobiles, just nature and the sound of silence.

An oldie but a goodie.

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

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Walking Lightly

 The Notting Hill quilt is moving along at a fast pace due to the large amount of background.  However with all that background space the process may slow down once it's on the quilt frame.  White space = quilt it to death, right?  Only time will tell since I really don't have a quilting plan, I'm still in the quilt stare phase of the process.

Feather quilting makes my little ole heart go pitter pat but I'm trying to get out of the quilting comfort zone.  Should I go a little more artistic?  This would mean I would need to much more marking of the quilt design before loading the quilt on the frame.  Maybe a pantograph?  I've never used a panto on a quilt so that too might take a long time since I would need to learn a whole new way of quilting.

More quilt staring is needed before I take this girl off the wall.

Staring at the quilt made my brain feel like it's on a hamster wheel.  I need a break to let my mind reset and find inspiration on it's own.  I've found over the years my best ideas come when doing mundane tasks or sleeping.  This is a good time to get outside, soak up some some sun while walking and training my girl Khaleesi.  

Today is the first day of being barefoot in the grass after YEARS of never being outside without shoes.  The grass feels so good on my feet but its the things hiding in the grass that are of concern.  You know rocks, thorns and BUGS!  My feet are not used to being without shoes.  So I tread lightly and become quite vocal with each step.  OOh!  Ouch!  Ugg!  How did I ever run on a gravel driveway as a child.  This is going to be a long process of toughening up the feet.

When I look up at my girl she has this look on her face as if to say "What's the big deal? I go barefoot everyday.  Why are you making those weird sounds?"  

Humans are strange.

Did you know I'm an April Fool's baby?  Yep that's right.  My birthday day is April 1.  So I decided to have a my biggest sale of the year to celebrate my birthday.  

40% OFF  

No joke!  This is a great time to stock up.  I may have other sales throughout the year but none this large. 

Click here to go to my online shop.

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Quilting Paused for a Minor Surgery

 The progress of the Sugar and Spice quilt is moving along at a pretty good rate. I'm not used to working with a kit so I'm being very careful when cutting the fabrics. Included in the instructions is a cutting warning added by the quilt shop not the quilt designer.  Most of the fabrics in this can not be found anymore.   All of the background fabric is cut and I have about 10" x WOF leftover.  Yah! Adding it to my stash.   

Today I 'll start the strip piecing and subcutting for the chain blocks.  This method of piecing I find to be not so easy.  They can get wonky really easy.   Over the years I've learned tricks to keep the strips accurate but I still think aren't as accurate as one piece at a time.  I too write quilt patterns with this method because most quilters like quick and easy ways of making a quilt top.

The blocks should have already been on the assembly line but me and my girl had a little playtime yesterday.  The weather here has been really cold and snowy.  Little Miss Pris has decided this year she isn't as fond of snow as she used to be.  This means she's spending more time inside and wanting to be entertained.

We got a little carried away.  Now pink piggy is going in for a minor surgery.

This happens often with Khaleesi's stuffed toys.  She's a big girl but loves little girl plush dog toys.  We've purchased more durable toys for her to rag doll and play tug of war with but she has almost no interest in them.  So I do a lot of mending.  Maybe I should start reinforcing them before she gets them.  

The only heavy duty thread I keep on hand is blue jean thread due to the ever famous.....Hey you quilt?  Can you fix my jeans?  I know this makes sense to those who ask me to fix their pants, but you and I know this is an eyeroll moment.  Anyway Pink Piggy might end up looking like a Franken Piggy.

My poor girl.  She's on the couch pouting as I preform the surgery.  From this position she can watch me at my sewing machine in the Studio.

Perhaps hand sewing would be better. It would be easier to see what I was doing but I'm going for speed.  Khaleesi doesn't care what it looks like and neither do I.  The chances of me needing to do the again(multiple times) is pretty good.  I can't see a thing!  The hair on her other toys isn't this long.  I'm flying blind, hope I don't crash!

Huh?  Well would you look at this.  The ugly brown thread doesn't even show.  I'm feeling like a sewing rock star.  

However Khaleesi   is not so impressed with my sewing skills and has taken the pouting to a whole new level.  My goodness she is so spoiled rotten.  Oh well, we love our sweet spoiled rotten girl even if she is a little overly dramatic from time to time.  

Since there has been a lot of response on my Sugar and Spice quilt I thought it would be nice to share a little more detail about this pattern.  The pattern release was way back in 2011 by Black Cat Creations.  Here it is at displayed at Quilt Market.

The pattern says the original quilt was made using Flower Sugar 1 and 2.  Oh how I wish I had known about this quilt and this fabric way back then.  

My kit from the local quilt shop came with this mishmash of fabrics.  Several designers and brands.  But still cute as can be.  At the end of this blog post is a video posted on Facebook by our local shop called Back Door Quilts. It a quick look at part of their shop.

It was not easy finding more information on this quilt.  I lost count of all the different searches phrases.  But I did find this beautiful picture of the quilt done in mostly blue.  Can anyone guess the fabric manufacturer in this quilt?  Clue 1....it made me squeal to see this fabric.  Clue 2...I collect these fabrics.  

LAKEHOUSE DRYGOODS!  

It just doesn't get any better than dresden's and Lakehouse.  My two favorites all rolled into one.  I wish Pam and Holly would design fabric again.  Some try to mimic their fabric but none can seem to get the colors right.

Oh well back to reality.  Finding the designer wasn't very easy either.  I finally found Amy on Instagram.  And wouldn't you know it the last picture she posted was of this quilt.  She's selling it on Etsy.  Not the pattern, THE QUILT!  I'm interested but my budget is not.  So here's a link to her quilt for sale.

The border fabric makes the borders look like a lot of work but its a panel print.  The red and white is one fabric but looks like two.

And that background fabric....I love multi colored dots....sigh....heaven.  

I assumed since she is selling the quilt that the pattern was being retired. I was wrong.  Amy has a website and yes this pattern is still available.  Just click right here to go to both the PDF and mailed pattern.  Let her know Podunk Pretties sent you!  Not it will matter but I'm sure she'll wonder why the sudden interest in this pattern.

Thanks for stopping by my little spot in Podunk!

Moo-ving along the Sugar and Spice quilt.  Moo-ve, word of the year, read more about it here.

My local quilt shops most recent video on Facebook.  Back Door Quilts is known for their project samples and huge selection Civil War Reproductions.  This video covers a small section of the store, but does not show the Civil War Reproduction fabric section.   This is the shop where I purchased the Sugar and Spice quilt kit.  I don't think they carry it anymore but you could ask.

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