Sleeping arrangements

Someone discarded an Asian fabric star project at Thimbles, so I picked it up. That was at least 3 months ago. 

 Yesterday I got it out, took it apart, flipped a couple of the pieces upside down, added my Sashiko scraps and replaced her inserted pieces with blue ones, stitched it with red perl cotton thread in a running stitch. I thought I would use it for the sides of a bag, but now I am thinking of something else. It will decide for itself what it wants to be. I'll wait.

The livestock and I have settled into a bedtime routine. I bring Joey indoors, and, once he figures he cannot beg me to let him out again, he settles on the bed.

Joey curled up on the bed.

Rosie (a sixteen pound "Maltese" really?) watches my every move. She won't believe it's bedtime until I turn out the light and remove the extra pillows from the bed.

Rose watches, from the back of the loveseat,  for offical bedtime.

 Little Scooter (at 9 pounds still big for a Maltese), is 14 years old. He is a little blind, a little deaf and somewhat vicious when disturbed in his sleep. He has been exiled from the bed, but curls up and sleeps in his own little bed.

Scooter in his little bed, on the floor, where he cannot bite anyone.

 Rocky (same size as Scooter and 9 months younger) is a snuggler and cannot rest until I am close to him.

Rocky watches to see when I will settle down to sleep.

He will crash when he knows I am settling down for the night, but once I am in bed he is right next to my arms. He makes it difficult for me to turn over, but we work it out.

Sweet slumber for little Rocky.

 Kitten is missing. Two nights in a row I have gone from front door to back door calling for her to come in. I finally go to bed worried about her out in the dark night all alone and wondering whether she is safe. Last night I swear I looked all over the house, and could not find her. Two mornings in a row she showed up, from somewhere within the house, ready for her breakfast.

My scarred back yard. Huge white pine is reduced to a stump.

I had some trees removed. Crit (my deceased husband) had contracted the work before he had his stroke, so I went ahead with it. Now I have a scarred backyard. I have planted no flowers this year and the yard has major drainage problems. I am putting off dealing with it until fall. I don't know if I'll ever feel like doing yard work, but at least I can use the heat as an excuse.

Faded, but still fragrant, gardenia blossoms in a birdnest.

I appreciate all of your comments and concern for my welfare. Things are going well. I have contacted all the folks I need to. Now it is just a matter of going to court, completing all the various paperwork and going to the Social Security office. Thank goodness he had an Advance Directive, Power of Attorney and Will. I recommend, if you or your spouse do not have these important documents, get them prepared NOW. Save your loved one the mental agony, on top of all the stress, of having to guess what you want done. As soon as the probate process for my husband it complete, I will do the same for my loved ones.

Value at Work in my Quilts

I got the red border on. I like it better.

But the pinwheels don't show up well.

They didn't show up much better on the original on I made.

I love the fabrics in both quilts, but should have stuck with the two-color scheme. The pattern got broken up when the values of the blues I used varied too much.

I have read about color value in quilt books, but I have not thought consciously about it when putting together fabrics for my quilts. The Irish Chain quilt (below) that I was working on for a challenge (what year was that?), and still have not finished, shows good contrast and use of value.

You can read more about color value in quilting

by clicking HERE.

Since I use stash fabrics in my quilts, I often don't have enough of the fabric to make all the blocks the same. In the Irish chain, most of the big yellow areas are whole pieces with the corner squares appliqued on, but one is pieced. Can you see the difference in the two pictures?

Value is what's wrong with the quilt below.

In Pepper Cory's class sample (sorry you'll have to scroll down through the linked blog post, but the photo is worth it) the background fabrics create diagonal lines through the quilt. My background fabrics were too close in value and the drama of the diagonal lines is lost.

That's why I have not finished it?

I have to say though that Sashiko is really fun, and I cannot think of a better way to get young people working with needle and thread. (See Sophie Rubin on Quilting Arts by clicking this link.)

 I wish the preprinted panels were easy to find.

Let me know if you have a good website for Sashiko supplies, and I'll promote it here on the blog.

Last, for this post, is a little bitty quilt top I made from some scraps I found in Mom's (Linda Brannock's) discards. No lesson about value here; I was just making something useful from scraps, but you can see value at work in it too.