Lazy Days

.....We've been taking things easy at Corgi Cottage this May. 

 The temps have been in the 90s... and the only thing this type of weather is good for is plenty of ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ......

 The garden continues to put on a show with very little effort on my part....

      The sewing machine hasn't seen any action since my last post. When the temps rise thoughts of sitting in the sewing room, with the lights blazing, the iron on and dealing with all that fabric.... well it holds no appeal. So my BOMs have come to a screeching halt. 
     I completed the outlining on And All Was For An Appil and started the endless fill-in stitching. This is what the sampler looked like when I last posted.

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 Catherine posted the following comment to my last post:

"I am still chuckling at the outlining as it looks like Eve has just sucked the life out of Adam!!"

Your comment left me laughing Catherine and in your honor I've decided to wait until the last before doing the fill-in on Adam.

I've spent some time this morning decorating the Cottage in honor of Memorial Day.

I hope you've had a relaxing Memorial Day weekend. Emma and Owen wanted me to remind all our faithful readers to take time to relax and catch up on your ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...............

 

Quilts, Quilts....Everywhere

I like to try to tidy up any loose ends as the end of the year draws near. I received several quilts back from my long-arm quilter, Pat, and all that was left to do was to sew on the bindings. Those quilts sat on one of my dining room chairs for close to a month. Finally, this past weekend, I decided it was time to get the binding on those quilts. I sat on the living couch, a pup nestled close by, and tuned in my audiobook - The Outlander. Let the sewing begin.

Worn and Loved II c.1865

Designed by Carolyn Goins

Featuring Fabrics from the Worn and Loved II Collection

by Jeanne Horton (Country Sampler)

Quilted by Pat Butikofer

 

Jelly Bellies

Miss Rosie's Quilt Co.

Quilted by Pat Butikofer

Jo Morton's Stripy Quilt

Quilted by Pat Butikofer

 

  I love Jo Morton fabrics and have quite a collection of her fabrics in my quilting stash. I wanted to feature the blue fabric in a quilt top. I wasn't successful in finding the perfect pattern to showcase the fabric, so I decided to create a stripy quilt using  nine-patch blocks between the blue feature fabric. I'm very pleased with the outcome.

I've also finished the piecing on my Gettysburg quilt top. I love the way the border is constructed in this small 41" x 51" quilt top.

Gettysburg

Civil War Battle Series #10

Clothesline Quilts

The final quilt top of 2009 is my Red Zinger. I still need to add borders to this quilt top, but I'm having trouble deciding how I want to handle the border treatment. 

Red Zinger

Karen Griska - www.selvagequilts.com

Quilter's Home - Sept/Oct 2008

Emma was very put-out that she was not included in the photo taking of the quilts. She was a bit too frisky when it came time to set-up the shots and was banned to the bedroom with her brother Owen. I'm making it up to her by including a snap of the Christmas ornament I had made for Emma.

The Emma with Santa egg was created by Cathy Santarsiero of The Christmas Corgi.  Don't you think that Cathy has captured Emma's likeness to perfection?

Before you go thinking that I've given up stitching in favor of quilting.... I wanted to share a snap of what I've been stitching on this past week. I went searching through my WIP closet and brought out Sheepish Designs - Alpha sampler. I'm stitching all three samplers as one long sampler with some minor changes. 

I'll close this post with a snap of the lovely cube that was finished by Deb, Artistic Needle.

Oops I have to include one more snap. Someone (Tanya) complained about the lack of snow in my Holiday snaps... here you go Tanya.

Corgi Cottage all Decked Out for Christmas

 

 

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

Tis the Season

Tis the Season - Blackbird Designs 

40 ct. Lakeside Pear with Belle Soie

I made one deviation from the charted colors. My Poison Apple was too pink, so I switched to Tulip.
This past week we had our monthly quilt guild meeting. Carolyn gave a wonderful program on Tessellating Star quilts. She included a demonstration on creating a Magic Pinwheel quilt. It's a wonderful project for using those lovely charm squares we've been collecting. I couldn't wait to get home and try my hand at Magic Pinwheels. I chose the French General - Rouenneries charm pack.

First you sew the 5" squares into rows and add a 3" setting border on all four sides.

Now the fun begins. Using a 3" square, marked plexiglass ruler, which you carefully line up at the intersections of  charm squares:

You cut out your pinwheel squares using a rotary cutter, preferably with a new blade.

Carefully lay out your squares in the order in which they were cut. Sew all the squares in a row together and then sew your rows together. You will end up with a Magic Pinwheel quilt top: 

What a fun project. Thank you Carolyn for a wonderful program. 

As promised, a few more snaps of the Holiday decorations at Corgi Cottage.

This small feather tree is set up in my sewing room. The tree is decorated with Springerle cookies that I purchased at our local Farmer's Market. The angel was too large to hang on the tree, so I rested it at the base of the tree, along with two bars of Christmas Honey soap from the Farmer's Market. I was told to wrap the cookies in tissue paper for storage and my Springerle cookies will last 100 years. 

 This is the view I have of my bedroom when i'm sitting at my sewing  machine.

Here's a close-up snap of the wall quilt:

 I'll leave you today with a snap of the Princess.

Thank you so much for visiting Corgi Cottage and taking the time to leave a comment. Your compliments on my quilting and stitching are so very much appreciated. I'm still working on the selvage quilt top and hopefully will have an updated snap soon. I did want to point out that the idea for the selvage quilt was featured in an issue of Quilter's Home. I just didn't want to give anyone  the false impression that it was an original idea.

I can't decide if I want to stitch another Christmas design or return to Dorothy Ians... suggestions anyone?

Till next time my faithful readers....

A Busy and Productive Thanksgiving Weekend

I hope you, my faithful readers, had a joyous Thanksgiving weekend. My niece, Alison, invited the entire family for a Thanksfiving feast. The dinner and company were both lovely. I spent the long weekend stitching, quilting and decorating for Christmas.
I recently got my Flag Day Farm quilt back from my machine quilter, Pat. It takes me a l.o.n.g time to get that binding attached. 

Flag Day Farm by Moda

Fabric by Minnick & Simpson

Click on the snap to enlarge. Pat did a wonderful job with the free motion quilting of the stars and loops. The 1776 plate is by Ginger Cazan. Of course the posting of a new quilt would not be complete without a snap of Emma.

I stitched a bit more on Dorothy Ians:

On Thanksgiving Eve I started my 2009 Christmas piece:

Tis the Season - Blackbird Designs

40 ct. Lakeside Pear with Belle Soie

No weekend would be complete without some time spent at the sewing machine. I made eighteen of these blocks:

The 5 inch finished blocks will eventually become this:

Gettysburg by ClothslineQuilts

I also worked on these:

Yes...those strips are created with the selvages of  fabrics used in quilt tops that were constructed over the  past year or so. Stay tuned to see what will happen with those Selvage Blocks.

I got a good bit of exercise over the long weekend as well. Numerous trips up and down the attic stairs to gather some Christmas decorations. Corgi Cottage is starting to look very festive.I thought it would be fun to share a snap or two of the decorations with each of my December postings.