I should have had a finished flannel quilt to show you today. Quilting Flannel Adventures was my plan for the weekend before Relic pulled his little disappearing act.
But then Saturday I spent stressing out until he got home, and Sunday, I was just too wiped from all that emotion. So instead, I focused on something new.
One of the things I love about the blogsphere is the inspiration I get from all my bloggy friends. Nancy of Wyoming Breezes makes some wonderful quilts. A few times, she’s flashed a quilt with Friendship Stars. You know I love stars… how is it I’ve never made that block before? And it’s such a simple one.
I had a charm pack that was just perfect for them
So I made 12.
Now 12 stars wasn’t enough for a baby quilt, so I dug in the stash and pulled out some sweet (tweet?) little bird fabric and made a pile of nine patches to go with them.
Can you see where this is going?
They still need to be sewn together into a top, but it was a good day’s work!
And the charm pack was called My Imagination, so I’m calling this one Imaginary Friends!
I did indeed finish the second sleeve on Rowan’s Christmas cardi, but it was not under good circumstances.
The majority of it was knit between midnight and 5:30. on Saturday morning as I waited for Relic to come home. He had gone out at 3 on Friday afternoon and hadn’t come home for dinner on that evening(he’s a very scheduled cat, so I was already on alert). Then. he didn’t show his face at all Friday night. When midnight hit, and as the hours ticked by, I sat staring at the back door, trying not to panic, while the needles went click, click, click.
Relic is a very street-wise cat. He knows where he lives, so if he wasn’t coming home, something had happened. Either something fatal had happened (I wasn’t too worried about this, as I said, he’s very street-wise), someone had taken him in (unlikely, he’s wary of strangers), or he’d gotten stuck in someone’s shed or garage.
By 5:30 a.m., I was casting off, but there was still no Relic. I managed to catch a couple hours sleep, but was up again at 7:30, posting to lost pet groups, notifying the microchip company, and checking the local shelter’s intake list. Still no Relic.
By 10 a.m., I had a pile of posters and was hitting the road around the neighbourhood.
When I returned home, I sat by the door and picked up the cardigan again, this time picking up the hood. Obsessively checking in with the facebook groups, my email, and messenger, I only got an inch or so done. The hours dragged by, still no Relic.
Running on two hours sleep, I tried to get a little shut eye on the couch. But of course, I kept opening my eyes just incase Relic showed his face at the door.
Around 7 pm, Rupert woke up from his 16-hour nap and came downstairs. He took up residence on my footstool, which faces the door.
Dave was at the computer, and I said to him that I could probably finally get some sleep because we now had a perimeter alarm set up. Rupert would let me know if Relic came into the yard.
About five minutes later, I was just starting to drift off, when I was pulled back to wakefulness by a loud “mrrrrrroooooooooooooow!” (Rupert is a small cat, with a big voice). I sat up, and there was that sweet, unrepentant Relic face staring back at me through the door!
I opened it, and he booted in and went straight for the food dish, confirming my theory he got locked in somewhere. If someone had taken him in, he wouldn’t have been so hungry.
He filled his belly, then immediately took over the couch.
I’m happy to have those sleeves done, but I’m even happier to have my couch hog back where he belongs!
Is any one else having a crazy November… weatherwise? It’s been an absolute rollercoaster here – two days freezing, three days warm, three days freezing, one day warm… and today we are supposed to get an inch of snow.
I don’t know what to think any more. And neither do the gardens.
The catnip has started to bloom again.
My newest mum has pushed out one, small, bright bloom.
And I introduced you to my reblooming iris last year. It bloomed at the end of October last year. This year, it was freezing at that time, so I didn’t think I’d see any flowers on it. But this rollercoaster month has it very confused.
Although I’m not sewing a much as I would like, the snowballed blocks for my Leader/Ender quilt are still stacking up.
I have a little over 40 left to make. Once they are done, they will be paired with the four patches already completed.
I’d love to have this one a completed top by the end of the year, but we’ll have to see how things go. There’s still lots of work to be done until it’s ready to be sewn together.
Here’s where everything else in my quilting world is at:
Blockheads: Burton and I are still banging out a block every week. Just a few more to go
Rosey Posey II: Just have to sew those pretty petals into a top.
Leader & Ender : Just 47 snowballed blocks to make!
I know… that’s not much on the go – especially for me. As I said earlier this week, work has been keeping me hopping. (A good problem to have because it means I still have a job!)
I do want to get moving on re-stocking the store, but I have some small Christmas gifts to make. Most are one-day projects, so I hope to get them done in the next few weeks. Then I can really ramp up the production line!
In my younger days, I was never much worried about making the bed. But now that I make quilts, I make the bed much more often. What’s the point in having a beautiful quilt, if you’re never going to see it because it’s all bunched up in a pile?
So… now, most days, I make the bed at some point during the day (it’s not always first thing in the morning… I’m not THAT crazy). On these days, we almost always end up playing a little game I like to call, “Where’s Rupert?”
Can you guess? It’s kind of like playing Where’s Waldo, but way easier.
As you know, he loves to nest. But that’s hard to do when the bed is made. So now, he waits until I leave the room. Then he pulls the edge of the blanket down over himself to make his own little hidey hole!
As you know, on Saturday, Mom and I had a bit of a drive to deliver our quilts. Three-hours round trip, to be exact. Since Mom was driving, I decided to make good use of the time and get some work done on Dave’s Christmas socks. I’d been focusing on Rowan’s cardigan, so they hadn’t seen much love.
The drive was very productive and I got through to leg, heel and gusset decreases.
I took the above picture and figured that would be that for a while, as I had to get back to the second sleeve on Rowan’s cardi.
As you know, I spent a chunk of Sunday sewing the flannel quilt, and the bam – the power went off. Because it was so stormy, it was pretty dark outside, despite only being 2:30 in the afternoon.
There was still enough light to knit by, though
The picture makes it look brighter than it really was. Because the light was dim, I figured working on the sock would be easier than the cardigan, which involved counting rows, and switching colours.
We figured the power would be back on in an hour or so, but the hours passed, night fell, candles were lit, and I just kept knitting…
I had lots of blankets and furry companions to keep me warm, since there was no heat. As the hours ticked by, we realized the power was unlikely to come back on before bedtime. So I just kept knitting…
And, when I got up in the morning….
All that was left to do is to close the toe! So that’s one sock done… one more to go!
I may have mentioned that I haven’t been able to do as much sewing as I would like. I don’t like to sew at night, so I do a fair bit of it during the day, around my day job (which is project- and team-based, so I often have an hour of work to do, then an hour of waiting for someone to do their part, then another hour of work…) I mostly piece blocks during the week, as they are easy to slip in between work sessions.
Sewing all those blocks together takes more time, so I save that for my weekends. It usually takes all (if not more) of one afternoon to sew blocks into a top.
But work has been crazy busy, so there’s been little to no time for piecing. And my weekends have been unusually packed too… so no top assembly either. That is until this past weekend.
The blocks for my brother’s birthday quilt have been waiting since the end of September… it rarely takes me this long to get a top together. Obviously, Saturday I couldn’t do it because Mom and I were delivering all our quilts (I still can’t believe that happened!). But Sunday morning, I got up and got started on assembling them first thing:
And it was a good thing I started early – about 15 minutes after I shut the iron and sewing machine off, we lost power (crazy windstorm). It didn’t come back on until 4:30 Monday morning (14 hours without power).
But back to that quilt – isn’t it lovely? It’s all flannel… and let me just say, I’ve learned a thing or two about sewing with flannel. It definitely has more stretch than regular quilting cotton. I don’t think I’ll do a lot of intricate piecing with flannel again. And the dark colour really picks up every little bit of lint and fuzz. But it is oh so soft.
I love the secondary pattern the blocks created when they came together (you can see here, my piecing is a little wonky because of that extra stretch).
The plaid I used for the border will also be the backing. And I have just enough of the navy I used for the sashing to do the binding too. This one wrapped up like a perfect, flannelly present!
With any luck, I can get this quilted on the weekend and get another present marked off the list!
The first sleeve is done, and now I’ve picked up stitches for the second one. Can I finish it by the end of this week? That’s the goal, but we’ll have to see how it goes.
There was more 1-1 twisted ribbing on the cuff, but it wasn’t as bad as the body – this was all in the round. I don’t mine knitting through the back of the loop, but purling through the back? Now that takes some serious skill. I will have to do more ptbl on the bands, but I won’t be there for a while yet.
Thank you for all your lovely comments about the sale of all my quilts. I am busy working on more quilts for the shop, but in the meantime, there still a chance to get your hands on one of my creations.
For those who don’t have/use Facebook, here’s the details:
This Christmas Cat quilt is 52″ square (lap size) and: 😻 100% cotton prints on top. 😻 100% cotton flannel on the back. 😻 Batting is 80/20 Cotton/Polyester. 😻 Quilt is machine washable and dryable. I am paying for shipping to anywhere in Canada OR the U.S., so this is open to our Canadian AND American friends! DRAW will be held Sunday, November 29! Tickets are 1 for $2, or 3 for $5, or 8 for $10 or 18 for $20, and anything over $20 is $1 per ticket. When you pay for your tickets, Natalie will send you your ticket numbers (tickets are virtual – She will record your numbers with your name on an Excel spreadsheet.) On the day of the raffle, the winning ticket number will be chosen by a random number generator, and the winner will be notified by email or PM the day of the draw. 😻E-transfers can be sent to: info@beemeadowfarm.com 😻If you are buying tickets from the U.S., please contact Natalie for Paypal info! Please make sure you include your email address in a message with the EFT – sometimes the e-transfers come from a bank email address that she can’t reply to. All proceeds to the foster felines of Bee Meadow Farm!
Earlier this year, our first quilt raffled raised almost $3,000 for the foster kitties, and it would be a wonderful Christmas present if we could do that again.
COVID shut down the farm’s biggest fundraiser (the annual open house) and like everywhere else, has made it more difficult to make up the shortfall.
Natalie has a few special needs fosters that have run up a pretty big vet bill:
Like Harley and Mama. Mama is almost 12, and her son Harley is almost 11. Harley has a tumour (adenocarcinoma) in his ear that is unfortunately terminal (although slow-growing) and Mama has high blood pressure ( treated with a small daily pill .)
It take a special kind of person to take in special needs cats, so I love to support Natalie and her farm anyway I can.
And if you’re looking for other ways to help them out, they also have an Amazon wishlist!
