What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

Good morning, my friends. The day has come to reveal my newest art quilt for The Endeavourers art quilt group. Our prompt this time around was "Sashiko." If you're unfamiliar with sashiko, the word is Japanese for "little stabs." Wikipedia defines it in this way:

[A] type of traditional Japanese embroidery or stitching used for the decorative and/or functional reinforcement of cloth and clothing. Owing to the relatively cheap nature of white cotton thread and the abundant nature of cheap, indigo-dyed blue cloth in historical Japan, sashiko has a distinctive appearance of white-on-blue embroidery, though some decorative pieces ...

Good morning, my friends. The day has come to reveal my newest art quilt for The Endeavourers art quilt group. Our prompt this time around was "Sashiko." If you're unfamiliar with sashiko, the word is Japanese for "little stabs." Wikipedia defines it in this way:

[A] type of traditional Japanese embroidery or stitching used for the decorative and/or functional reinforcement of cloth and clothing. Owing to the relatively cheap nature of white cotton thread and the abundant nature of cheap, indigo-dyed blue cloth in historical Japan, sashiko has a distinctive appearance of white-on-blue embroidery, though some decorative pieces ...

Good morning, my friends. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, it was going to be a bad day for Smitty. He had an appointment with the vet. The kitties are pretty amazing in their ability to detect even the slightest of changes to our morning routine. When I went downstairs from writing yesterday's post, I found them like this:

They're up to something, Smitty. I just know it.

Happily, it was a quick visit. I'd forgotten that both kitties got health check-ups last spring because we needed documentation to ...

Good morning, my friends. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, it was going to be a bad day for Smitty. He had an appointment with the vet. The kitties are pretty amazing in their ability to detect even the slightest of changes to our morning routine. When I went downstairs from writing yesterday's post, I found them like this:

They're up to something, Smitty. I just know it.

Happily, it was a quick visit. I'd forgotten that both kitties got health check-ups last spring because we needed documentation to ...

Good morning, my friends. I'm writing fast again this morning. Poor Smitty has to go to the vet. It's his annual check-up, and he's due for some vaccines. We'll load him up in a little while. He won't be a happy camper. I've also noticed he's kind of lethargic on a day when he has his vaccines. Poor guy. Except for being alive, he did nothing to deserve such harsh treatment.

Before heading out to the grocery store yesterday, I took the first stitches on July's block for A Year in the ...

Good morning, my friends. I'm writing fast again this morning. Poor Smitty has to go to the vet. It's his annual check-up, and he's due for some vaccines. We'll load him up in a little while. He won't be a happy camper. I've also noticed he's kind of lethargic on a day when he has his vaccines. Poor guy. Except for being alive, he did nothing to deserve such harsh treatment.

Before heading out to the grocery store yesterday, I took the first stitches on July's block for A Year in the ...

Good morning, my friends. It was a mostly sunny day yesterday. Like us, the kitties were suffering from cabin fever after so many days of heavy rain. They were champing at the bit to get outside.

Here are the two blocks I have for this quilt so far.

After that, I took a walk on the treadmill, and then got to work on my quilting. The straight-line diagonal grid is finished now. All that remains is to quilt the two borders ...

Good morning, my friends. It was a mostly sunny day yesterday. Like us, the kitties were suffering from cabin fever after so many days of heavy rain. They were champing at the bit to get outside.

Here are the two blocks I have for this quilt so far.

After that, I took a walk on the treadmill, and then got to work on my quilting. The straight-line diagonal grid is finished now. All that remains is to quilt the two borders ...

Good morning, my friends. We had another day of rain...some wind, but not as much as we expected. Mike tells me the storm came at us from the south. Since we're just over the crest of our hill on the north side of the mountain, we had a bit of shelter from the wind. Once again, Sadie gave an excellent demonstration on how to spend a wet and windy day. She is an expurrt at this.

There were a couple of easy household chores to do ...

Good morning, my friends. We had another day of rain...some wind, but not as much as we expected. Mike tells me the storm came at us from the south. Since we're just over the crest of our hill on the north side of the mountain, we had a bit of shelter from the wind. Once again, Sadie gave an excellent demonstration on how to spend a wet and windy day. She is an expurrt at this.

There were a couple of easy household chores to do ...

Good morning, my friends. It's a happy day. My quilting project is finished and ready for binding. When I left you yesterday, I was still mulling over how to finish the outer border. I ended up doing a sort of diamond motif all the way around. It's a little hard to see, but I have the elongated diamond in the middle, and then a shorter diamond at each point.

Here's another look at that border. Sorry for the weird angle. It's sometimes hard to take a picture that ...

Good morning, my friends. It's a happy day. My quilting project is finished and ready for binding. When I left you yesterday, I was still mulling over how to finish the outer border. I ended up doing a sort of diamond motif all the way around. It's a little hard to see, but I have the elongated diamond in the middle, and then a shorter diamond at each point.

Here's another look at that border. Sorry for the weird angle. It's sometimes hard to take a picture that ...

Good morning, my friends. What a nice day we had yesterday. For whatever reason, it felt less hurried than usual. I finished one project, and I'm on the cusp of finishing another. Possibly the lack of projects half finished made it seem less busy. 

Of course, I have lots of projects half finished, but I take them in stages. When I'm talking about "projects," I'm meaning whatever stage it happens to be in currently. Take the Barnyard quilt as an example. I made the blocks one per month. When they were all finished, it went to the ...

Good morning, my friends. What a nice day we had yesterday. For whatever reason, it felt less hurried than usual. I finished one project, and I'm on the cusp of finishing another. Possibly the lack of projects half finished made it seem less busy. 

Of course, I have lots of projects half finished, but I take them in stages. When I'm talking about "projects," I'm meaning whatever stage it happens to be in currently. Take the Barnyard quilt as an example. I made the blocks one per month. When they were all finished, it went to the ...

Good morning, my friends. Before I could do anything else yesterday morning, I had to fix that dratted block for the Kittens in Teacups quilt. It was bothering me even though we were in separate rooms. 

And then, I decided to move my hoop to the right to encompass the rest of the opening to the bridge. Where so many lines intersect, I like to do all the lines ...

Good morning, my friends. Before I could do anything else yesterday morning, I had to fix that dratted block for the Kittens in Teacups quilt. It was bothering me even though we were in separate rooms. 

And then, I decided to move my hoop to the right to encompass the rest of the opening to the bridge. Where so many lines intersect, I like to do all the lines ...

Good morning, my friends. Our yesterday started out with a dense fog advisory. Before noon, the sky had cleared and it turned into a pretty nice day. I had some things to do around the house, but I got an early start on my sewing.

My first priority was to finish quilting the blocks for the Barnyard quilt. It was hard to know what to do on some of these blocks. For a few of them, I simply put my needle down somewhere and then let my hands decide what to do. This one, for example...picking some points I ...

Good morning, my friends. Our yesterday started out with a dense fog advisory. Before noon, the sky had cleared and it turned into a pretty nice day. I had some things to do around the house, but I got an early start on my sewing.

My first priority was to finish quilting the blocks for the Barnyard quilt. It was hard to know what to do on some of these blocks. For a few of them, I simply put my needle down somewhere and then let my hands decide what to do. This one, for example...picking some points I ...

Good morning, my friends. It was a productive day yesterday. I finished most everything I wanted to during the day, and even started on a new slow-stitching project. When I left you, I was getting ready to quilt the aqua barn for the Barnyard quilt. The quilting is going well, but quilting with rulers is a little tedious. I broke yesterday's row of blocks into three sittings to give myself a break between them.

Starting with the aqua block...it was hard to know what to do here, but I figured it out eventually.

Good morning, my friends. It was a productive day yesterday. I finished most everything I wanted to during the day, and even started on a new slow-stitching project. When I left you, I was getting ready to quilt the aqua barn for the Barnyard quilt. The quilting is going well, but quilting with rulers is a little tedious. I broke yesterday's row of blocks into three sittings to give myself a break between them.

Starting with the aqua block...it was hard to know what to do here, but I figured it out eventually.