Even though it was pretty tough to get home at 9:30 pm Thursday night from Florida, and get to the weekend retreat for Friday morning (I did not make it for 9 am!) I am so glad I went. Cows were the order of the weekend. But first, I made Brady's Olaf pillowcase with leftovers from his pj shorts, and some other scraps I pieced together to make the snow-like main part.
It will be on his bed this Christmas! Eeek.
You can see the paper piecing templates and red fabric in that picture, because this is what took me a long time:
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| Say hello to Mary...as in Bloody, lol |
I don't know if it was different surroundings, interruptions, (all good), or just being rather tired, but this girl took longer than any of them! A little swearing occurred, which led to the bloody part of her name. I do love her blue batik eyes. :-) Her blaze is fabric from smocked dresses I made Brianne and Dayna for Christmas 1989. Cranston VIP. I know my aunt will love that detail. Red was the colour for July.
I took a break from paper-piecing and made up two blocks that I had already cut out and started assembling. They are replicas of the one I sent to
Eileen...sure hope she's okay.
No clue where these are headed...but I did think of making more in green. Maybe I could follow the So Scrappy Rainbow challenge for 2016 with these? Hmmm.
I also made time to take Rocco for a good walk on Sunday. I missed our walks while I was in Florida. He missed me walking him I think too!
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| He is not happy in his hoodie, but otherwise he would be too cold as he has no fur to speak of on his belly and inner legs. |
Yep, we got our first little snowfall Saturday, just in time for the town's Santa Claus parade and Festival of Lights. Rocco is looking at all the sculptures that are set up in the park! Most of the snow went by the next day, although the temperatures hovered in the low 30s. That's not Celsius, either! Brr, especially after I had just spent 10 days in 30 CELSIUS temps! (high 80s, even 91 the first day)
I finished these two gals after the retreat:
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| This is Ethel. Don't you love her muzzle fabric? It's tufts of grass!! Bahaha. |
Bright or dark green was the colour for May, so I did dark. Her blaze is scraps from a quilted runner I made for my Auntie Joan, my mum's sister who, sadly, is no longer with us, passing away a couple of years ago, much too young, from ovarian cancer. Note how these last two cows have an extra 1/2" along the top? They are unfinished 12", a royal PITA, and up until the retreat, I'd just figured I'd add to 1/2" strips along two sides, and then, with a few other quilters admiring all the cows, we hit upon being able to add along the top edge, as there are only two pieces there.
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| Interesting in that I auto-adjusted this one, as I do all my photos. However, I didn't like how dark picmonkey made dark green Ethel in auto-adjust, so I undid it and left her as is. The light background fabric has a much better definition in the aqua cow, but it made the eyes seem more electric than they actually are, although they definitely are arresting! |
Aqua or light blue was the colour for June. Her blaze is a piece of fabric my sister Wendy brought me back from a Caribbean cruise she was on several years ago. Hence this cow's name is Carib, not to be confused with carob, native to the Mediterranean area. ;-) Recognize the wave fabric? It's from Cloud 9 Fabrics, and the
quilt I made of the same name.
So that brings my herd number to 8. Indigo, orange and lime green are the remaining colours I need to make yet. I also need to make
Maartje's Mad Bull who will be black for Black Angus cows. At the retreat, two of the gals to whom I gave a copy of this pattern were farmers, and one told me when I said some of the cows have named themselves as I sewed them, that it is the correct thing to do, name your Holstein milk cows! Who knew. All my aunt's cows had names, some of them not so creative, like B3, lol, or Jersey who was, you guessed it, a Jersey cow!
So now that I have three more cows done, I have to get quilting on the Bento Box, which is loaded onto the Avanté. I also did a little stash restocking while in Florida as well as at the retreat, so more on that, as well as on some of my warm fuzzy feelings about said retreat in another post. :-)
Linking up with
Freshly Pieced and
Sew Fresh Quilts. It's been a while! Remember to check out what
Craftsy has in store for us with Black Friday approaching....did I hear the phrase "stash restocking" somewhere recently?! If you click through to Craftsy on the button on the sidebar, I will get a little compensation, so I thank you. :-)
