Sheltering In Place

I know I have been quiet but we are all ok over here.  

I am not at work (we have to work from home) so my computer there is not the best for posting stuff.  I am doing a quick check in while I am at work for a little bit today 

(somethings just can't be done at home). 

 We are off possibly until the beginning of May.  

How crazy is this!!??  

Please, my friends, self isolate as much as possible.  We need this to pass quickly.

That being said, I have been working on my Mad Science quilt.  Thought I would show the progress.

These are the side blocks.  DNA and a Microscope.

 An atom and a mouse looking into a flask

Here you can see the glassware and the bunny block I am working on.

This is the bunny after I hand stitched around her to make her stand out from the background a little.

The background is all different immune cells.  I found it at Spoonflower.  

This is what the bunny looked like before I outlined her.

This is what the real orange balls look like that we give our bunnies to play with.  I think mine is pretty good.

I am making this to go in the center of the quilt.  Still working on that bit.

(My boss's last name is Kunkel)

 Progress is being made.

Mad Science quilt patterns by Quilt Genius

Bunny pattern by Violet Craft 

Letters by From Blank Pages

Just in case you need a little more entertainment to hold you over here are a couple videos of the cats.

Cole is playing "fetch" with a pipe cleaner.  

He kept bringing it to me in my sewing room and I would throw it.  

He would meow very loudly if I tried to ignore him, LOL.

Finny goes for a "walk" every night with my husband.  Then they sit together on the porch.  

He cries incessently and scratches at the window if he doesn't get to go outside with Chris.

OK Friends, everyone stay safe and I hope to be able to post more later.  

It all depends on my silly home computer.  

~XOP~

Christmas Tree Remembrances

I finally got the house decorations up and got the tree decorated!  

I have decided that I will put an ornament on the tree for each cat from our family 

that has crossed to the rainbow bridge.  

I thought I would share the latest two with you.

We lost Mosen in the fall of 2015.  He was a beautiful tuxedo cat. 

 He was the brother of Aiden and Autumn.  

I was able to train him to say "mama" when he wanted my attention.  

Oh my sweet, sweet boy, you are so very missed.

This is the ornament I bought to represent him.

We lost Aiden last March (2016).  

She was the sister of Autumn and Mosen.  

We called her Fatty McFatty and she was super sweet. 

 VERY much a talker and loved to lay next to me whenever I was sitting on the couch.  

I miss her sweet, purr infused voice.  We miss you too Aiden!

This is the ornament I bought in honor of her.

Since I don't have ornaments for some of my past cats, I decided a Day of the Dead cat could represent all of the cats that have crossed over to the Rainbow Bridge.

I worked on another Christmas stocking too.  

I got all of the Christmas cards addressed and ready to send out. 

 I made some banana bread and did laundry.  

Hubby did all the snow blowing since we got a crap ton of snow on Friday night.  

Also my car got a flat tire and he had to deal with that today.

I leave you with a fun photo of Beep "bird watching".  

She will be over for Christmas as well as our dog Abbey and our nephew's dog, Segram. 

 It will be a house full of people and pets!

I hope all my friends are gearing up for a fantastic holiday season too!

~XOP~

Going Into The Weekend

It seems like life is on overdrive and I am just hanging on! 

 Weeeeeeeeeeeee.  

I did sew a few bee blocks last night.  

This is a square in a square in a square, HA! 

 There is a great tutorial to make these any size you want right here At Cat Bird Quilt Studio.

I also made this improv block.  I can't wait to see how this quilt turns out!

My cat Hallie found her way into one of my fabric cubbies and thought that was a grand way to keep me company while I sewed.

That's it for my sewing right now. 

 LOL. 

 I am hoping to get to some this weekend but it is my daughter's bridal shower on Saturday so I have some prep work and shopping to do tonight.  

It will take up most of the day tomorrow.  Hopefully I can find some time on Sunday!

What are you up to this weekend??

~XOP~

Who's Tripping Down The Streets of The City?

Everyone knows it's Windy!
I said I would talk about my friend, Windy, coming to visit.  

She drove 2.5hours just to go out to lunch with me and go shopping.  

Now THAT's a friend!

She picked me up at work and we drove to Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, for lunch. 

 Zingerman's is an institution.  

The food is fantastic, but a little pricey. 

 I bought our lunch since she drove all the way to see me!

Number 13, Serman's Sure Choice, my all time favorite!

While on her travels, Windy came upon some Lizzy Dish fabric.  

She knows how much I love this line so she texted me and then brought it to me at our visit!

We went to Treasure Mart, a local thrift shop but the big excitement was going to Pink Castle Fabrics.

I knew I wanted to pick up a few of the prints in the Whisper Pallette by Lizzy House.

I was especially interested in the ghosts, mice and swans.  

Particularly the swans.  

I love it even more in person than I did in the photos of it!  

I also got the beautiful teal to make the School House tunic in.  

I am waiting not so patiently, for the tracing paper to arrive so I can try making one.

These were in the FQ bin and...resistance was futile!

All In all it was a great day and I loved spending time with my friend.

Little did I know that my Instagram friend would turn into one of my best IRL friends!

The internets (all of them) has made this world so much smaller.

Happy Caturday from this silly girl and me!

I hope you get a chance to enjoy your friends this weekend.

~XOP~

Easter Weekend

I hope that if you celebrate Easter you had a great day!  

We were having a small celebration with 2 of my three children. 

 Every year I make a dessert and every year my husband doesn't like what I make.  

So this year I decided to make a pineapple upside down cake.  

I was nervous about making one as I had never done it but the directions seemed easy.

  I wish all those folks on IG that said their mom or grandma used to make them would have shared their recipe, but I found mine on the internet.  

This is what it looked like in the cast iron pan before I turned it out onto a plate.

This is what it looked like after I turned it onto the plate.  

It was really pretty. 

 I know now why my husband likes it so much. 

 This cake was more the consistency of angel food cake.  

Are they all like that?  

I prefer a more dense cake, he likes light and fluffy. 

 If anyone has a favorite recipe for this I would love to try yours!  

Here was our spread minus the cheesy potatoes, which were in the crock pot on the counter.  

Main meal was ham, cheezy potatoes, Caeser salad and rolls, supplemented by spinach artichoke dip, cheese and salami, deviled eggs, assorted relishes, veggies and dip and some chips.

I managed some sewing time and got another Splendid sampler block completed.

I also got my March bee blocks completed.  

These might be fun to make in Tula fabrics.  

We were to use navy and low volume.  I chose some navy Tula and of course my Pearl Bracelets.  

I have to pop these in the mail tomorrow.

My cat, Hallie, who never gets on my sewing table thought it would be fun to join me.

She is kind of like a ball with legs.

I'm glad she is liking to spend more time near me lately.

They are not getting any younger!

I hope everyone out there enjoyed their weekend!

~XOP~

Dreamy Stars is Finished

I've been working on completing some of my unfinished projects. 

 I did not realize how many of those I actually had until I began digging them out!  

I joined the All People Quilt 2016 UFO Challenge. 

 I listed out 12 and each month they choose a number and you are supposed to work on that one. 

 I also joined up the 2016 Finish along . 

 For that, I made a post and listed projects I wanted to finish in the first 3 months of the year.  

You can carry them over to the next quarters if need be, no penalty. 

 I think there are prizes for finishes.  

Just a little motivation for me along with all the quilts I "need" to finish this year.

The first project for the month of January was my Dreamy Stars quilt.  

All it needed was binding!! 

 I cut out the binding from a vintage sheet.  I love this diagonal gingham for binding. 

 The nice part was that I only had to cut 4 strips for the entire quilt!!

Doesn't it look great?  I used a vintage sheet for the back and I could not love it any more!

It has been cold and GRAY here in MI so this is not the best photo but you get the general idea.

Here is a close up of the quilt.

I was hoping the quilting would show up better but it is really nice.  

My friend Liz did the quilting on this one. 

 Also, note the corner stones?  

They were cut from actual vintage sheets too.  

Sometimes it is difficult to work with this drama queen and all her "help"!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish it Friday.

Also linking up with the Finish along here
See my original list here

Have a great weekend!!

~XOP~

Bee Positive Quilt Along Anyone??

I have a friend that is making a quilt for another one of her friends that has cancer. 

 She called me to tell me that she is copying off of me (LOL) and making a + quilt for her friend. 

 I offered to make a few blocks and send to her as they are fun to make and go together quickly. 

 Her color scheme is purple, pink and orange. 

 Interesting, but as it turns out really pretty when finished.  

Here are the 8 blocks I made for her.  

I posted these on Instagram and there were several people that thought this was great and wanted to know how to make them. 

 I thought about it for a bit and it seems like there is some interest in learning the technique to make the blocks and to learn how to put it all together.

  

I have decided that I will run a Bee Positive Quilt Along. 

I will begin in January and we will talk about fabric selection then.  

Next up will be me showing you how I build the blocks and then you are off to do this.  

After that we will go on to talk about assembling the rows and finally about putting the rows together.  Sound like fun?  

These blocks would be a great way to use up scraps.  

You could go totally scrappy or use just a few colors.  Make it bed sized or lap sized.  

These quilts really lend themselves to charity quilts too.

So after I was done making blocks I decided that extra pie crust needed to be used up. 

 I cut out some circles, and put them in the muffin cups. 

 I opened a can of peach pie filling and used the left over dough to cut into strips for the top. 

 I brushed the tops with egg and sprinkled raw sugar over the top. 

 Popped them into the oven for 20 minutes at 375 and VIOLA Individual peach pies!!

Cats be like,"Hey what do you think that crazy woman is doing in the kitchen?" 

Pardon the dog food bag, I use this for paper recycling!

So please let me know if anyone is even remotely interested in learning this technique and how to make a great + quilt and we will make that happen in January.

~XOP~

Sewing Machine Heaven

I was fortunate enough to get to visit David (aka Fred Sanford) at his warehouse

 in Munith, Michigan this past weekend. 

 It was a beautiful fall day and I needed to get three vintage sewing machines out of my house. 

 I had inherited one from a friend that was a Montgomery Ward machine. 

 I had no experience with this brand so that was the first to go.  

I had 2 more that I had picked up for relatively cheap.  

One at the Salvation Army and one at a bird swap (don't ask).

This one was a beauty but was missing the bobbin case and had a few chips on the paint.  

Cabinet was in great shape too.

This one is the one I got at the bird swap.  

She was sitting in the grass just begging someone to take her home.  

I haggled with the guy and bought her for $12!

What I was really after was a new cabinet to put my 185J into.  

Since it is a 3/4 size machine most of the vintage cabinets won't fit her. 

 Off we went to see David with all three machines loaded into my Civic.

When we walked into his place it was cabinets as far as we could see!  

The second room looked like this

For perspective this is me standing in the sea of machines!

I managed to go home with a cabinet for my 185J, a new spool pin and felt and the manual. 

 PLUS, I cleared out three machines for someone else to love.  

He had this little beauty there but not for sale.  Awwwww JAMIT, now I want one of these!

Hubby wanted to stop in Chelsea and on our way there was a beautiful rainbow.  

Stopped off in Chelsea MI, home of Jiffy mix.

Picked up some new mittens and are they ever nice!

We stopped off at the Chelsea Alehouse where I got a Lost Lenore beer. 

 It was so good we bought a growler to take home!

I worked furiously on finishing some binding 

(sorry Ellen, but I had to do something while watching the game). 

 I had a little help.

I also received some more blocks for the Bee Positive 2 quilt over the weekend. 

 It was now time to get that baby made into a top!

How was your weekend?

~XOP~