Bathtime

Time for some cat pix?

It was bath time at my house this afternoon. But it always seems that Libby is the bath-giver and Toby the bath-accepter.


He tucks his chin and presents the top of his head to her... but it's almost never reciprocal. Do you think it's an older/younger thing or a female/male thing?


If she stops too early for him, he'll give a couple of desultory swipes of his tongue across her face to get her started again, but he's never held her down and washed her, like she does him.

Don't you just hate it...

When your day starts this way? Flat as a pancake, it was.


And as my boss said when I called her, this was NOT a good day for this to happen. Looks like I picked up a bolt somewhere. I'm just glad it went flat at home in my garage, instead of on the road in traffic.

Quilts and Tomatoes

Finally, two-thirds done with the jewel box quilt. Here it is hanging on the fence. I had to work at the library today (Sunday) so didn't get home to take a picture of it until right at sunset:


And I was just recently asked about my tomatoes. Still producing away, and in fact, doing better now than they were during the hot part of the summer. This is the Goliath plant. I won't buy Goliath next year. The tomatoes are nice and big and pretty, but they just don't have that good homegrown flavor that the better boy and cherry tomatoes do. Even the birds don't like the Goliath as much.

Not sure if the CD ornaments you see there have done anything to deter the birds at all, but once I took the scissors to them and cut one side to fit it on the tomato cage, I might as well leave them on there, hmm?


Here's the Better Boy plant, the tomatoes grow all lopsided, split on the top, but mmm, when I can beat the birds to them, the taste is superb. With the quilt on the fence as background, you don't see the tomatoes quite as well, so I added the red arrows, pointing at the tomatoes. :)

The Cherry tomato bush is still producing too, I'm not getting the numbers I did earlier, but 4 or 5 ripe ones a week is still great for snacking or a salad.

Jewel Box Continued

Yes, I am still quilting - just working on this same jewel box quilt means all my photos would look the same if I posted about it. A king size seems to go on and on and on and on. Here's some of tonight's blocks and rows, which look like yesterday's blocks and rows:


Yes, I am getting tired of making little 16 patch blocks. :)

And here's my tip for keeping a quilt all straight in your head as to what block goes where, if you're doing a big quilt with a lot of different blocks. I found magnet clips (supposed to attach to the fridge, I guess) that also stick to my sewing lamp. I made a screen shot of the quilt top from eq6... but pasted it in word and enlarged it till I could only see half of the quilt. Now I move that white card up or down, depending on what row I'm working on, and voila, no more getting lost as to if I'm making a block with 2 blue squares or 4 or 8.


I'm making it scrappy. That's what's taking me so long, it's a very anal scrappy where no fabric is repeated in the blocks immediately to the right, below, left or above the one I'm making... lol. Pitiful, aren't I?

Finally, here's the September block of the month for the quilt guild. We did this one as a part of a presentation on EQ6 for the guild's program - showed all the members how you could design a block, color it with different fabrics, print it in different sizes, or as templates or paper piecing patterns... I was surprised at how many said they have the program but never design a quilt with it.


The web BOM page for it is HERE with instructions AND along with a free EQ6 file for the block for anyone that wants it. Your reward for reading to the bottom of this post. :)

Quilt Ruler Storage

Well, I finished the heart on the churndash block the day before the guild meeting... nothing like a deadline to make me get it done. :D But I do like the way it came out, I'll have to remember it for the next time I do a baby quilt:


I quilt in my living room, so I wanted some neat way to store all my squares and rulers and small mats. It needed to look nice and match my living room colors. This is what I came up with:



I planned it around all my ruler sizes. The little bargello block fits those odd shaped triangles, and under it, a pocket for my 6 and 6½ inch squares. Under THAT, a pocket for either my rotary cutter or scissors. On the right, a big pocket for my 12½ square, my rotating cutting mat, and the big triangle shaped kaleido-ruler from Marti Michell. The long skinny pocket along the bottom, made from the log cabin squares, holds my 18 x 3 and 18 x 4 rulers, (one printed in black and one printed in yellow, quilters understand why you need both) plus a couple of EZ angle rulers, one 60° and one 45°. The backing fabric has 4 layers of interfacing instead of batting, so it folds, but it's pretty stiff.

Only one problem, it's really heavy when it's fully loaded, I've got to find a sturdy way to hang it. I want to be able to take it down if I ever have non-quilting guests come over, so I can't just hammer a nail in the four corners. :-D

I originally had five loops at the top that fit over a hanging rod, but the fabric sagged in between, so I took them off. Now I'm thinking a sturdy thick dowel, in a hanging pocket with a couple of gaps, and I'll put some of those coated mug hooks up to put the dowel in. Then maybe I can come up with something else to fit on the cup hooks when company comes... lol

Any other suggestions?

Website Updates

Well, haven't been doing too much quilting lately, mostly been watching the Olympics and working on web pages.

But I have made one block, here's the EQ design for my guild's block of the month. They could choose any shade of yellow, and any blue to make the six inch churn dash, then applique a red, pink, burgundy or maroon heart (or two) on it:


And the block I've made, but haven't appliqued the heart on yet, mostly because I dislike hand sewing. I think I'll do one heart with that pink fabric on the bottom of the picture:



If you want directions to it, it's on the bom page of my guild's website:

Churn Dash Heart

I've also been working on my own website, updating the contents page. Check it out if you like cats telling jokes. My favorite is the Matta Baby joke:

ForestJane's site

And I decided to try to collect all the pictures of my quilts and put them on my personal website, one or two pictures per quilt, to make a record of what I've done, quiltwise. It's a bit more complicated than it sounds, because I may have started a quilt in early 2005, and spent most of that year on it, sent it off to be quilted in November, then got it back and bound and finished it in Feb. of 2006... so does it belong on the 2005 page or the 2006 page? Right now the page is both years.

Quilt Record

I'll be working on this for many nights yet to come, I think.

Tomato Update and Chickens

Here's the latest status on my tomatoes... there are 19 cherry tomatoes, and 9 that are close to the size of a tennis ball on down to egg sized ones. And I ate a medium size one for lunch, on my sandwich. :)

Don't tell, but half of the ones in the bowl are destined to meet their end tonight, in my salad. :D


I've also been making sample chickens for the "Fowl Play" class I'm teaching at my quilt guild's retreat in November. Here's the one I call Spring Chicken, made with floral fabrics. All her half square triangles are leftover from mitering binding. I plan to add eyelashes, earrings and a necklace. She insisted on a closeup, she's such a diva:


These next two I'd like to introduce you to are Tom Turkey and his wife, Plain Jane. Jane is made from 4½ inch squares, and Tom's made from a couple 4 patch blocks with a grandmother's fan tail. Both of them are stuffed with a mix of polyfil and split green peas.


I also wanted to show that they could be made larger (I used two 6 inch orphan blocks) and not in 'chicken colors' so here's a bird made of blue fabric and stuffed with rice... so she's the Country Chicken with Rice, naturally. :) I'm trying to think of a double-barreled name for her... Rae Ella? Emma Lou? any suggestions?


These last three chicks are made from 3 inch squares, and went together really fast. They're my protest group... :D I decided to make the signs folded cards, with a pocket where I can slip them over the popsicle stick when I want to change their message.


Then, if I made new computer cards, I could use them in the library display case, they could say... REED MOR BOOK
or maybe instead... SPEL MOR BETR, next to a display of grammar books and dictionaries.

Visit with Schnoodle!

I stumbled on a quilting blog about a month ago, I guess, and added it to my list to check every few days. Lindsay has a block-a-day quilt calendar, and has been actually MAKING every block on the calendar, one per day. In some cases, she's sticking pretty close to the colors given in the calendar, and in others, she's experimenting and changing colors up. There's a lot of inspiration here.

Pause here, and go look at SCHNOODLE! and scroll down to see the collages she's made of her completed blocks to date. Also note her Milky Way block for Saturday, July 19. She didn't like this one, but I had to go put it in EQ and see what it'd look like on point. Here it is in the colors she made it with:


Then I set it horizontally, but did each star in a different color. I kinda like this one, but something about it reminds me of barbed wire, so I put it against a pale pink background. Pale pink not being something you'd think of with barbed wire:


And then I had to see what it'd look like against navy blue instead of pale pink. The deep purple stars didn't show, so I swapped them for pink and added some pale orange. It would be a pain to make unless you had a design wall, but I really like the woven star look:


Sometimes playing with EQ is just as addictive as a computer game. ;)

Assorted Blocks and Jewel Box

Are you ready? A post without pictures of tomatoes! :D My 3 plants are going great guns, the Goliath has about 18 on it (ping pong to tennis ball sized, but all pretty green yet) the cherry tomato bush has uncountable little ones on it, and the Better Boy has about six, one getting orange.

And what I've been doing quilty lately - First, the top third of the jewel box quilt:



Here's the guild block of the month for July. Instructions on the UCquilts website. I gave everyone that wanted to try it a strip of green fabric for the bottom, then they were to come up with their own flower and stem. This is mine, I traced around a spool for the red posy petals, very simple:


I've been making string blocks for Heartstrings quilts, (link and logo on my sidebar)and I decided to do one using four 7 inch squares of foundation, in 'my' colors. I have a never-ending UFO sampler quilt in brown, green, and cream... and every time I think about it, I'll make another block for it:


Our guild past-president gets blocks from everyone in the guild, as a thanks for being the prez. They choose their own block design and colors - here's her cat block in pink and cream. I liked this one so much, I did one for me in brown, with an extra little triangle of fabric at the tail. I think I'll give my cat a strip of forest green fabric to sit on, and more cream around the edges, till I get it 12½ square - and add it to my sampler block box.


Last, here's Toby, giving his best innocent eyed look. He has a real gift for sitting on the blocks I'm trying to photograph. I'd just chased him off again, but he was obviously not scared enough to run far.

My Jewel Box instructions

Several people have asked how I got from the design to the instructions to make this Jewel Box quilt with the medallion center and pieced border, so I'll show you how I planned it out. First, the picture of the EQ design I made. If you don't have EQ, I certainly recommend it, it's great.


I divided the design I made with EQ into nine sections to make it easy to sew. I'll assemble the nine sections at the very end, like a huge nine-patch, so I'm not dealing with a king size top until the final seams.

Then. looking at my sections, I counted out exactly what combinations of blocks I'd need to make the four corners. For each corner section, I will also need 6 solid navy rectangles to complete the border edge.


The middle of each edge section needs just two solid navy rectangles for the pieced border, but also had the most different block combos:


And the center of the quilt was the simplest, needing mostly blocks with the navy blue, except for those 4 white triangles at the corners:


If you don't like half square triangles, don't start this quilt... I made 396 white-to-a-color hsts and 184 blue-to-a-color hsts to use in the whole quilt, then divided them up into 9 piles (and nine ziplock baggies) to spread out the different fabrics to the different quadrants. I was afraid if I didn't, I'd end up with a glob of lime green or red in the last corner... lol

I used a paper template to make the half square triangles. You can print them free on your computer from sites like Block Central. Here's a link to the size I used in this quilt:

Half Square Triangle paper

In order to make this bright and scrappy, I used some 4 inch squares I'd ordered on eBay to make the hsts, plus cutting into my stash of fat quarters. The only fabric I bought is the navy blue that makes the pieced border. Even the white on white used in the quilt is scrappy. It's been a great stash buster.

I made a lot of the sixteen-patches using Bonnie Hunter's leader/ender method, but I also sewed together strips cut from fat quarters to strips from the navy or white on white fabric, then pressed them and sub cut them into two-patches. If anyone is counting, I needed 784 white-to-a-color two patches, and 512 blue-to-a-color two patches to make my 16 patch blocks. :D But I AM making a king size, and that's a lot of bed to cover. This will be my summer quilt, bright colors and lightweight batting in this one, when I get it quilted.

Tomato Crop and Jewel Box Quilt

Here's what I've been working on lately... :)   My guild had a board retreat, and I took a bunch of unfinished things to finish. Here's one, a crib quilt from April's bom blocks. I added sashing to this, now I'm trying to come up with a decision on border color.


I also got a bunch done on my jewel box quilt, this picture is of TWO ninths of it, can you see the pattern start to emerge? I'm on vacation this week, so on of my goals is to get this top one third done:



And my tomato status - too many to fit in the bowl! The large one on the right in the bowl, and the two orangish ones outside the bowl are Goliaths, the one on the left side in the bowl is a Better Boy. My cherry tomato plant has been the best producer so far. I would have had more to show you, but I've been eating them... five last night and four today! The nine cherry tomatoes in the bowl need to get just a little redder. Even that green one I kept is starting to get ripe. I'm going to cut that biggest one into wedges for supper tonight, dribbled with just a little zesty italian dressing, I think. *licks lips*

A Birthday and more Tomatoes

We celebrated my Mom's 80th birthday today. Here she is sitting in her new birthday swing, a gift from her husband, Fred. He bought the swing, but made the frame for it himself. Now they can sit in the front yard, in the shade, and watch the neighborhood go by. :D


I'd bought her a bottle of lotion and some perfume, and also gave her a pillow made of this 18 inch kaleidoscope block:


It matches this king size quilt they got for Christmas last year. I put a border around the edges, (some of the same royal blue ferny fabric from the quilt border) then a zipper down the middle of the backing so it could be used for a storage pillow... now it's stuffed with winter knit caps, but in the winter, it could be stuffed with t-shirts or beach towels.

And here's the status of my tomatoes... one of the medium size Goliath tomatoes was red enough to pick, and 14 of the cherry tomatoes. There's one very green cherry tomato that fell off the vine when I tried to pick the red one next to it, I've put it in the same bowl to see if it ripens enough to eat. I'm going to choose the five reddest little ones for supper tonight. :-P

Jewel Box and Tomatoes

Well, I have been quilting, and here's the evidence, one ninth of my jewel box quilt. All the half square triangles are done, all the 4 patch squares are done, all that's left is to combine them together into blocks and put it together. This is my absolute favorite part of quilting, assembling the blocks, then sewing the blocks into a quilt top.


Here's a link to what the whole quilt top will look like, my original EQ design.

And of course, what would a June blog post be without a tomato update? Here's three of my Goliath tomatoes, not near getting red yet, just getting bigger and bigger:


All sizes still popping up and growing on my Cherry tomato bush. The number of growing tomatoes on the bush is holding at about 50, because I keep picking the orangish ones:


And last, the fruits of my labors, the ones that were ripe enough to pick. They're all sizes, and so sweet and juicy. If you break it down, I've picked about ten little cherry tomatoes ... and way back at the end of April, I paid around $30 for the dirt, pots, fertilizer, three plants, and tomato cages. I try not to think about the fact that those tomatoes have cost $3 each so far... :D

Tomatoes, yet Again

Believe it or not, yes I HAVE had a request for a tomato update... :D Here's the Goliath tomatoes, there's 5 big ones growing on this bush. You can see three in this picture (4 if you click on it and look carefully.) They don't appear to be anywhere near ripening yet, maybe they're going to be huge tomatoes:


And here's the cherry tomato bush. Last time I counted there were about 45 tomatoes on here. Easier to count than you'd expect, mostly they're growing in clusters of 5 or 6. I've picked 5 of these so far, and eaten three of them, yum. The only thing I don't like is they all have the thicker skin you find on most home grown tomatoes.


Can you spot the one orange one there? I hope I'm not inundated with tomatoes when these ripen, they all look about the same size to me... lol. Maybe I ought to search for one of those cherry tomato/pasta recipes, you think?

My third tomato plant, the Better Boy, only has two tomatoes on it, but then, it was a couple of weeks younger than the other two when I bought it, and in a smaller pot, too.

First Tomato

*Sings* I've got a tomato! I've got a tomato!

It's actually a little more orange than the picture shows, so I'm going to give it a day to ripen here inside on the counter. I just didn't want the birds to get the first peck at it. Here's the arial shot, next to a nickel for some idea of size:



And the view from the side: :D



And best news of all, I'll bet that tomorrow I'll have another one to pick, it's getting some color too. Think I ought to go get some lettuce now?

Bird Scare CD's

I'm getting so many tomatoes, I decided I'd better put my bird scare program into effect. ;)

From my internet research, there's several things that should work... flaps of fabric to blow in the breeze, glittery things like cd's, noisy things like piepans and windchimes, predator-looking things like fake owls or snakes. But the key, it seems, is to keep rotating the things, so the birds don't get complacent, like the birds you see that sit on the scarecrow's outstretched arms. So here's part one of my bird scare - a length of old peach polyester cloth and some old freebie cd's. Looks like a carnival, doesn't it?


And here's one of the new clusters on my Cherry tomato plant:


And (as if you haven't seen enough) ... ONE more:

Tomatoes part 4, eight days later

Here's the status of my cherry tomatoes - they just need to ripen, I think... :) There's another 8 or so little green-pea to marble size ones on this plant, it's making bunches of tomatoes. There's 5 here, all tight together in this little spot:


I have lots of blooms, two little tomatoes, and this ping pong ball sized tomato on the Goliath tomato plant:



Finally, the one tomato on the Better Boy plant (it was the smallest plant of the three I bought, in a little peat pot, not the ½ gallon container like the other two) but there's lots of blooms here too: