Too Cold for TOGA

This is the second virtual Too Cold for TOGA that TreadleOn has hosted. It was a two day event with only one class on Friday evening for machine maintenance.  That was taught by our brave leader Mea Clift.  

There were two classes on Saturday January 29. I taught the color class and Helen Howes of Helen Howes Textiles taught an amazing class on quilted postcards.  She taught this class using her darling pattern called Counter-Change Cats.  It is available as an e-pattern from her at helen@helenhowestextiles.co.uk

Here are my cats.  One quilted and one waiting to be quilted. Then I trim them to size, back them and put the postcard info on the back.  I loved the class.  Of course I love cats so it was a given.  

My color class was fun too.  I had the devil of a time deciding how to teach it until Dawn Beckwell herded me into deciding that the best would be actually working through how I choose colors for a quilt. We used a picture of a monarch butterfly on Zinnias that I had taken in my garden as the inspiration. 

I had a huge pile of fabrics that were possibilities and as a group we worked through them and came up with a lovely set of fabric.  I am tempted to actually use the fabrics to make something.  

Don't you think we did a great job?

Hugs,

Nancy

Where do we put the snow?

My sister-in-law lives in a high rise in Chicago a block off of Lake Michigan. We were Zooming the other night and I was talking about the snow blower I had bought my husband. I told her it was supposed to be able to blow the snow 40 feet.

This blew her city mind. "Where" she wanted to know "do you put all that snow?"

I tried to explain to her about the space on a farm in North Dakota. She didn't seem to be able to comprehend the fact that we didn't have a house 15 feet from either side of our farmhouse. 

So these pictures are for Deb. I walked around the house and took pictures through the windows.

Looking out the second floor window to the south.

                          The neighbor who rents the bins plowed that "road" in our 

                                        grass so he could get into the bins.

                   You can see where he piled up the snow on the left side of the picture.

Looking out of the front porch to the southwest.  

Looking out the upstairs spare bedroom window to the east.

                      That bump in the center of the far tree line is a mile away.

                                        That is Clifford's sky line!  

Looking out our North window from the second floor. 
The fenced in garden is 40' X 40' and the woods is 70 feet away.

Looking out the kitchen window to the South East.

Looking out the front porch door to the South West.

Looking out the second floor window to the south.  The pillow is for the cats.  They like to snooze in the sun, when there is sun.  

TreadleOn HOUSES block exchange quilt

The finished quilt top

I had a lot of fun with this quilt.  First I had to make 10 house blocks to mail off to the captain of the exchange.  

My 10 exchange houses and some scrappy squares.

Then I had to wait for 10 different blocks to be mailed to me.  

When they came I decided that 10 blocks was a difficult number to work with and that even if I went up to 12 it would still be a tiny little quilt.  I decided I would need 15 house blocks.  Then I decided that I would add some trees to make it more interesting. And THEN I decided I would put some sashing between the houses to make the width a good size.  Since there was no color cohesiveness in the quilt the sashing had to be black and white.  Freddy Moran says so!

I really wanted to have some of the blocks that I had mailed away in my quilt so I decided to do my best to match them for the finished design. 

I liked the cat house I sent so this is the replacement

I went looking for a dog to put in the doghouse I wanted to make.  Instead I found this panel.  It was almost perfect as is.  I had to add some glow in the dark sky to make it the right size.

My dog house block 

I had the beach house all finished when I found the perfect sand fabric.  I HAD to rip out the bad sand and put it in.  Of course I don't have a separate picture of it corrected.  But you can see it in the finished top.  

The beach house

 I do not have a detail picture of this house.
Another cat in the window. ;-)
This is also the only detail of that tree.  

I wanted to have the snowy house in my quilt also.  I did a little tweeking with a lead pencil to make a track through the snow instead of a sidewalk.  I also did some enhancement of the smoke coming out of the chimney.

The winter house. 

After I made the 5 house blocks I made the trees.  I just measured the width of one row and decided how much space I had left in the three other rows and made the three trees that width.  Everything was 12.5 inches long so I didn't have to worry about deciding on a length.

The trees were created by a method I learned from Helen Howes. www.helenhowestextiles.co.uk. 

Her wonderful pattern Twelve Trees shows you the free form way to piece them. 

https://www.helenhowestextiles.co.uk/kitsandpatterns/treepatternsandkits.html

In these trees I decided to have grass or, in one case, leaves at the bottom of the background. Just like the houses I start with an oversized piece of fabric.  It is amazing how much better the blocks look once they are trimmed.  

This tree had added leaves.  

I was inspired by my yard full of fall leaves.

This tree was made before I decided to add grass. 
The trunk looks a little unnatural to me.  Oh well.

And finally, about that border.

The little squares on the border were me playing with scraps.  I decided some of my scraps needed to be larger so they got light fabrics at the corners. Then I had the idea to use them in this border because then I wouldn't need to decide on one border fabric.  I just used WOF strips of different colors that I had laying around for the border.  The left one is Kaffe's shot cotton and was 54" long so that helped keep it asymmetrical.

That's it for now,

Hugs,

Nancy

One drive sent me pictures of Sparkles today

 Sparkles was my cat, or I was her human, for 16 years.  The last 5 of those she was a 3 legged cat. She had a cancerous tumor in her right rear paw and that leg was amputated at the hip. After her recovery she was fine and a happy cat.  She could stand tall on that one hind leg. 

I painted her portrait onto needlepoint canvas and my friend Elizabeth Davies did the needlepoint.  The plan was to use it on a footstool.  

Once it was done Elizabeth decided that I needed to have some sort of design around the outside edge of the footstool.  So I chased my cat Lancelot in the snow on the porch and painted his footprints onto more canvas.  

This footstool was the result.  It has so many memories for me.  Elizabeth and Sparkles are long gone but great memories remain.

Hugs,

Nancy

I love fall colors

I guess it is autumn.  You couldn't tell it by the temperatures lately.  Highs in the high 80's last week and down into the high 70's this week.  Beautiful fall weather and the farmers are making the most of it.  Many of the fields are harvested.  

The fall decor is up in Clifford.  I love that old blue pickup!

Driving through our woods today was beautiful.  I had to stop and take a few pictures.  We don't get a lot of color in our trees in North Dakota so I try to make the most of what we do get.  

Down the road to town.  The leaves are starting to fall.

Fall color in the Cottonwoods.

The road home.

The woods had a bad time this year.  Too much wind.  Many trees were pushed over and the undergrowth is a tangle of weeds and broken trees.  I am sure the wildlife loves it. To me it looks like the Shire after the Orc's took over.   

However if I stick to pictures of the roads you can't see the destruction.

Hugs,

Nancy

Playing with Scraps

 Another day, another squirrel. 

The thing is, people give me little triangles...

 I was starting to trim some little squares this morning when I had this idea.  The squares, when trimmed, are about 2 inches. They would only finish at about 1.5 when sewn into something.

 "Why," I thought, "am I trimming these when I am just going to add them to something to make them bigger?  Why don't I just make them bigger now, before trimming!"

Sew that is what I did! They ended up at 3" unfinished.

Once I had two trimmed I was so in love with them that I had to search out some more "neutrals" a la Bonnie Hunter and make up some more sets to sew.

If I only knew what I had planned for them I would be a happy camper.  

But really, the Journey is the fun part, the destination is not.

hugs,

Nancy

Six and a half inch quilt blocks

Hey Mary and Jeni,

Over the last year I have started playing with quilt blocks that finish at 6 inches. Partly because that is the size for most Treadle-On block exchanges and partly because I saw some cute ones while trolling the net and decided to try them out. 

First of course was stars.            >         

Those were because I was making them for a raffle quilt for the River Rat Toga. I can't show you that quilt. (It is a secret until the raffle) but I can show you an assortment of the stars that went into it. 

After that starry fun time I started working on scrappy 6.5" squares.  I became addicted to them.  I bet I have made close to 200 so far. 

I had to find ways to use them up.  

Lots of runners and covers for my vintage sewing machine cabinets. (I try to keep the cat claws from scratching them.)

< First this lap quilt with black and white striped sashing. That only used up 35 of them. 

Next this sample from a class with   >  Jan Mullen  at  the Quilt Market many years ago.  I decided it needed a frame of scrappy blocks.  I found a WOF strip of the background blue for a wide outer border to tie it all together!  That got rid of 14 more.

< This little table topper was made with scrappy blocks from two different projects.  The angled blocks were from my friend Deb P. who was making a paper pieced quilt from a Judy Niemeyer pattern.  

The straight ones are leftover from a Treadle On block exchange  (TOBE) of Modern Blocks. The colors were perfect to go together!  To make it the size I wanted I had to add in a few extra strips.

Then I used up 10 more in a sewing   machine mat.  It was tricky adding the tool pocket that hangs over the front.  I had to make 4 half square blocks for this design

Enough with the scrappy squares! 

<  I noticed these little flower blocks on another blog - I forget where.  They were making tulips mostly which I didn't care for but then someone made one of these!  

I loved them. I did NOT worry about making the little triangles all the same. It is nature after all and Mother Nature loves diversity.

Yes I have 4 now but don't have a picture. The fourth one is blue.

Next I ran across this cute dragonfly  > pattern at the Moda Bake Shop.  It is designed by Jen Daly.  The pattern shows both 6.5" and 12.5" options.  

I have been saving this shimmery fabric from Maywood Studio for years.  It is perfect for the dragonflies.  And the background is a Benartex Fossil Fern that reads SKY to me.

< And then, just as I thought there couldn't be any more cute little 6.5" patterns, Bonnie K. Hunter came up with these little fishies for this summer's leaders and enders.  

Hers were made smaller than 6.5".  

Well that's OK I know how to enlarge a simple pattern like this.

Most of these 3.5" units were plucked out of my scrappy boxes so I didn't have to even make the HST's.

 

Well if there are fishies then there must be Kitties.  These cute little cats are from a pattern from my friend Helen Howes in England. She calls the pattern Counter-Change Cats.   The pattern can be purchased and downloaded from her at https://www.helenhowestextiles.co.uk/kitsandpatterns/patts.html 

I have had the fabric ready to sew these for several months and just started playing with it lately.  The curve is really fun to sew.  It is amazing how nicely it lays flat.  Just go slow when you sew it.

Whew!

I'm glad I got all these 6.5" blocks off my chest.  Now I can go a do a little sewing.

Hugs,

Nancy

What happened eleven years ago tonight.

Eleven years ago July 18th was a Sunday night.  At about 11:00 I heard the phone ringing.  My first thought was who would be calling me at this time of night.  My second thought was...maybe it's Meritcare hospital in Fargo and they have a kidney.

I didn't think it would really be the hospital because I had been waiting for 5 years and had given up on ever getting one.  

But it WAS!

I was told I was the backup patient in case the person in front of me on the list was unable to pass all the last minute tests to qualify. I was told not to take my evening .81mg aspirin and asked when did I last eat and warned don't eat anything more and be in Fargo at 7:30 in the morning.  

Just in case.

About 15 minutes later I got another call.  The decedent donor had two good kidneys and I was now primary for the second one. 

I don't remember if I was excited or scared or calm.  I told Jim and I know we got ready.  Really I don't remember much until we got to the hospital the next morning. I remember they took 16 vials of blood from me.  I remember I had some kind of heart test.  An EKG?  I remember waiting and waiting.  Hungry and thirsty.

I didn't get into the surgery until after 7 in the evening. I remember being wheeled into the operating room and Dr. Mistry asking if I wanted to see the kidney before the surgery.  Hell NO!

Then it was the next morning and it was over, or just beginning.  The rest of my life.

Eleven years ago. July 18 2010.

Ah, the Elliot neck in full view.