New Face in the Studio

       After a long search using Petfinder, and more than a few deadends, Rosie came to be the new cat in residence. She was fostered from a tiny kitten who was abandoned when renters moved out taking the mom cat, but leaving behind the kittens. She was rescued in a trap that was put through a window. The siblings did not make it. A local cat rescue, CatbyCatInc.org had her on the Petfinder website. 

Petfinder photos

     I filled out some online papers and made an inquiry after a lot of other dead ends. The foster mom called me and we chatted about what I was looking for (a loving female who would like to be a studio cat). We met up at the headquarters and fell in love with Tiffy as she was called then. She was a little adorable bundle and seemed to love us. We filled out the paperwork and she was all ours.

     Rosie is named after my mother in law. She has been such a wonderful cat and very loving. The first day she was here, she got up into my batik stash shelves and fell asleep for almost 6 hours. We she finally came out, I swear she was a whole size bigger. She has totally explored but not rearranged the studio except for a few pencil push offs. She is definitely the queen of this studio.

Sewing machines are good nap mates

Is that how you sew that?

Yes, your paintings are acceptable for cards now

The Great Dig Out

 

First, had to shovel/chip/hack a slot to open the garage door to get the snowblower out.

Had to shovel out the side door so it could open wide

Back deck, slider door frozen shut

Driveway blown out, next the walk way had to be chipped
and blown out.

The tree peony

Back yard drifts

Christmas Whited out

      I live one block north of the Buffalo city line. Usually, the Lake Erie snowbands stay south of the city due to westerly winds. Because of a southwest storm, the wind came directly down the Lake and dumped itself for 2 days over my house and the surrounding area. Friday morning we had all green grass. At 7:30 am, the rain instantly turned to snow and heavy winds started (60-70 mph gusts). It stayed the same until 10:30 pm Saturday (Christmas Eve). On Christmas, the sun came out, but we were stuck and everything was closed. Then the snow band came back and gave us another 6" but lighter this time with no winds.
     It took us 2 days to dig out out the driveway and walk. The snow was comparable to concrete in weight and hardness. None of our Christmas plans were realized. I do thank God that we did not lose power or heat like many in the city. We were not in peril, we had plenty of food as I had stocked up for the holidays and storm.
     I can't tell you how sad I am people froze to death and the looters have destroyed many businesses. They are ticketing people for driving around, but the looters go free. I cannot understand this. I believe the leaders were unprepared with workable plans. The National Guard should have been here. Snowmobiles and ATVS should have been enlisted beforehand. Apartment complexes should have had generators, especially the federal and state subsidized ones who only have electric heat. Oh, it is so distressing for so many families here.
     I have so many photos. I will show the storm and the sun on Christmas day. In a later post, I will show our cleanup efforts. Because of such strong wind, the snow made huge drifts and in some places the grass showed.

My sister in law's car got buried.

What driveway?

Those dark clouds in the back is the snowband as it moved south.

The lineup, drumroll please

      Finally, after a lot of sweat and tears, six kids quilts are quilted, bound and labelled, ready to go to my friend. One more is at the longarmers and the binding is ready. Fronts and backs. The first finish is on the previous post, so 5 are here.

This one I quilted

      I was only able to quilt one of the kids quilts because I had to keep sewing backing, bindings and quilt and I have not been able to do two things at the same time. This quilt seems appropriate to show today as the Buffalo Bills won their game, which is big news in this city; doesn't matter to me. The whole mood of the city rests on the team's performance which is really not an ideal situation, especially if you know Buffalo's history.

Parade of Kids' Quilt Tops

      As promised, here are the rest of the kids quilt tops. I previously showed 1 and 2. Here are 5-7. As I am typing this, 1 through 6 are quilted and bound. Number 7 is at my friends who are the longarmers. The done quilts are going one at a time through the washer.
     Miles of stitching and pressing. The big squares are 5" and the small ones 2.5" unfinished. Borders are 2.5 and 3.5 unfinished. Choosing that many borders and making all those backs and bindings has drained the brain for the time being which is not good when I have all kinds of Christmas stuff to attend to.

 

Backing for the above quilt, No. 7 being quilted now

 

 

What was I thinking? Or how to overload your life...

      Sometimes, a great idea is only as good as how well thought out it is- how to accomplish it and what it will actually entail. I get great ideas, foreseeing how to make them work is where I get into trouble.
     My dear friend was diagnosed with ALS in August. Went to lunch in September, she drove. She is the one who chose the Blue Bargello. By October, she had to sell her car and had to be helped to her feet and supported walking. By November, she is in a wheelchair, unable to move or reposition herself sitting. And in a lot of wincing pain. She is one of the most creative people I have ever known. She can make anything- collage and jewelry her favorites. She was a fabulous elementary art teacher.
     My heart was just breaking seeing her unable to do anything creative. I had this bright idea that I could take my kid/novelty boxes of cut 5" and 2.5" squares to her house, with a fleece I drew a grid on and she could layout, with help, quilts for her grandchildren. My thought was we could layout one quilt a week, I could sew it, bring it back and we could decide borders, take it home, quilt it and start another. Apparently the idea took ahold of her. Everyone who visited her helped her layout quilts and tape the blocks together, putting them in columns for webbing. When I returned after sewing the body of the first quilt to work on borders, I was given bags of seven quilt layouts. I should have asked how many grandchildren at the beginning.
      After I started breathing again, I had to figure out how to get these sewn and quilted. Once the squares were sewn together as you can imagine, the quilts were a lot smaller. I figured out to add lattice to the column quilts and coping strips around the smaller squares to fit the 5" ones. I ordered Bills fabric (the only fabric I bought). I made a chart for the quilts and all the component steps and freaked out. I took some quilts to the November retreat and one dear friend, Carolyn, sewed one all squares one, and one columns components for the lattice strips one. I had all those backings to make also.
      No matter how fast I sewed and figured how to do the borders and backs, I was far behind. I got the Bills quilt on the longarm, but no time to quilt it. I had a flash of brilliance and asked some friends who own a longarm business, Chasen Dreams, for help. They are incredibly generous quilters who quilt tons of kids quilts for camps, vets, and other community needs. They said they would help me out. I dropped 5 quilts with them on Friday. Today, I finished sewing quilt 7 top and backing. Now onto the longarm for quilt 1 and then all that binding for 7 quilts- omigosh- get panicky thinking about it. They are about 55 x 68 roughly.

Quilt 1 in squares

Ready for the longarm, backing made

Quilt 2 needs lattice to separate columns. Instead of pins, they used tape to hold 4 patches together.

Quilt 2 all sewn with lattice and borders, gone to Chasen Dreams

     The other quilts will be in the next post as this one is way too long. Quilts 3-7 coming.