Open For Business on Etsy.com

Day 1 of 365 days ~ Dusty

Many of my friends have suggested I should sell my quilts.  Well, I finally did it!  I have opened a quilt shop on Etsy.com.  Please take a moment to browse through my shop.  Link to QuiltinCats Quilt Shop on Etsy.com.  I know a lot of you think the prices are very low, but I would rather sell and share my quilts than let them collect dust waiting for someone to buy them.

I finished the two Baby's Choice quilts. Since I used fabric with teddy bears, I decided to appliqué
teddy bears hanging hearts and stars on the quilt.  I love this pattern!  It is amazing what a difference color placement can make on the same pattern. I might have to make another one since I thought of a third color variation while playing with my EQ6 program.


Pink Baby's Choice Crib Quilt



A better look at teddy



Blue and Lavender Baby's Choice



Teddy helping to hang the stars

We are making our way north along the East coast. We have made it as far as southern Georgia. It is soooo Hot and humid here that I can no longer sew outside. Even in the morning and in the shade! Whew! If I take one of the cats outside, they immediately look for shade and start panting. Since I cannot sit outside, Dan suggested I setup my folding table inside so I could keep quilting. There's just enough room to slide by if one of us needs to go outside. Now I can sit up front in the passenger seat and quilt until I drop! I have a great view out the front window and air conditioning!

Sizzling Hot! Day 2 of 365

I have also taken on the challenge to post one picture each day for 365 days on 365 Project website.  I think this will help me to improve my photo taking and to become a little more creative.  Okay, it is just another excuse to take more pictures!  LOL!

Playful Kitten

I just finished another small quilt.  This appliqué is my favorite one.  I'm calling this one "Playful Kitten".   Below shows some of the prep work I did a couple of months ago.  Yep, it has been sitting for a while.



Preparing for the applique.



I did the same ol’ pattern Crazy Eights with lots of bright kitty fun fabric.  I know I should come up with a new pattern, but I like how it uses up all those fat quarters I bought during a weak moment.  Okay.....Several weak moments!  I also like the fact that after the patchwork is done, it feels like a blank canvas just begging for me to appliqué something on to it. 

Playful Kitten

To give the ball of yarn a little more texture, I used the Portuguese Stem Stitch.  I think the twisting thread gave the illusion of twisted yarn.

Backing and applique

I found another quilting series!  I have already read all of the latest Elm Creek Quilter's series.  I am so happy I found Marie Bostwick's Cobble Court Quilters Series.  Marie's fourth book comes out on 31 May and I can't wait!  The first book starts out with a newly divorced Evelyn leaving Texas behind.  She decides to settle and open a quilt shop in Connecticut.  Soon she has a quilting circle filled with new friends.  There's no mysteries this time.  Just good friends supporting each other during the good and the bad with lots of quilting and quilt talk.....

Before we left Clermont, we got some photos of the local Sandhill Cranes. We have never been around Sandhill Cranes. Big bird! Very big bird! And very protective. We had a family come by a few times.  Mama and papa would dig around looking for grubs to feed to their younger ones. Yea, not so little. They were as big as mommy and daddy! While they were near our site we watched a stray cat trying to sneak by the family. One of the parents would have none of that! It sounded the alarm to warn the others or the cat. Now the sound they make – it sounds like something out of Jurassic Park’s movie. A little prehistoric sounding if you know what we mean. It certainly got all of our cats’ attentions! It then confronted the poor cat with its wings out. If it was trying to look bigger, it was succeeding! The poor cat decided to take a different route through the wood’s underbrush.



I'm the pretty one! ~ young Sandhill Crane



Sandhill Crane ~ parents

Happy Quilting!

Busy as a Bee - Quilting



Great Blue Heron

I really let time get away from me!  We spent all of April at Patrick AFB near Melbourne, FL.  We had a wonderful view of the Banana River with many sightings of dolphins, ospreys, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, and Great Blue Herons.  We did a lot of walking along the beach and I finished another quilt while sitting outdoors in the screen house.  Once that was finished, I had to give up sitting outdoors.  Either it was too windy or too hot.  Not to mention, very noisy.  We decided we could never spend a winter at Patrick’s FamCamp.  Our Key West relaxed attitude was becoming a little frazzled.  Noise from the base terminal, gun fire from the firing range, and low flying helicopters were just a few of the noises we heard though out the week.  It took the cats a few days to get use to it, but we have discovered that nothing will come between them and exploring the great outdoors.



So, I moved my sewing machine indoors and finished two more tops using a block suggested in Emilie Richards book “Sister’s Choice”.  The blocks name?  Sister’s Choice, of course.  One of the characters said the block made a great baby quilt.  I had to agree once I looked up the block.  Now that the tops are done, I’m trying to decide what to applique on each one.

Sister's Choice blocks

Below is the quilt I was working on at Patrick AFB.  I call this quilt Purple Lotus.  I went outside my comfort zone on this one.  I love bright colors, but I was a little unsure about the purple and lime green fabric.  I have had this material for a while and I found myself wondering “what were you thinking when you bought this?”  I have to admit I am quite pleased with the end result.  Oh!  And would you believe I found the perfect backing?  Purple with tiny specks of lime green! 

Purple Lotus

I found the material while visiting a wonderful and very friendly quilt shop called “The Quilt Place” in Rockledge, FL.    Their store ad boasted of having 8,000 sq. ft.  Oh it was!  It was 8,000 sq. ft. of quilters’ heaven.  It was jam packed full of bolts (10,000 or so), all the items a quilter needs or wants, a class room, and four long arms.  Sigh!  Dan had to run an errand and said he might be a while when he dropped me off.  “Take your time” was my answer!  After six plus months of no quilt shops, I needed a big quilt shop fix!  Oh yea!  I got it!

I was also a little sidetracked with my new camera.  I got a Nikon D7000. I wanted to spend time reading up on all the new functions it offered and taking photos before we spent a week at Disney World.



Magic Kingdom

 On 1 May, we moved to Disney World’s Fort Wilderness camp for a fun filled week at the theme parks. We would leave early, get back late, apologize to our accusing cats, and spend the rest of the evening recuperating. Ah, the colors, the imagination, and the energy had me thinking about new quilts to make. Very inspiring. We had a lot of fun, did miles of walking, ate lots of good food, and I took too many pictures.


Now I am trying to get caught up on e-mails, blogs, and photos while we spend a few weeks in Clermont, FL just west of Orlando. Winter season is over and the campground is very quiet. I am hoping to get some more quilting done as well.

Welcome Neighbor! Got any food?



Good-Bye Key West! Hello Patrick AFB, FL - uh, did you say Tornado??

On 30 March, we left sunny Key West and arrived at a stormy Patrick AFB near Melbourne, FL.  We no sooner had parked the motorhome in front of the RV Office when the high winds and driving rain hit this area.  Since our rig was getting hit from the side, it was really rocking and rolling.  On the following day, a lot of the counties in and around Orlando were in Tornado Warning or Watch condition.  What a great way to start our trip Back-to-Civilization.  Well, at least it is a little bit cooler here and we have full-hookups with a view of the Banana River.  I know our cats are a lot happier.

A very alert Hitch.  First day after storms.

Before leaving Key West, I finished two more quilts!  I'm so happy we bought the screen house with a floor.  I can keep the floor clean and I don't have to worry about my fabric flying away.  I could not quilt on Vi's quilt.  We were in dry camp for the last two weeks and Key West felt like a steam bath even at 9 pm.  We had cats sprawled all over the floor and across the table.  Anyplace that felt cool to them or had a breeze.

Bear Hugs

Upclose of appliquéd bear's face with embroidery.

Baby's Toys

RolyPoly Clown upclose.  Ribbon is tacked down so baby cannot pull it loose.

I have to say spending the winter in Key West was very inspring for me.  We have a lot of new friends and I hope to see them again.  We will probably spend next winter either in Arizona or in Texas.

National Quilting Day! Happy Quilting!

March 19 is National Quilting Day.  I won't be able to quilt today.  I am volunteering to be a Docent for a Key West House Tour.  I did the tour yesterday (no photos allowed - darn!).  My favorites were their gardens.  So inviting.  So relaxing.  Many of the houses had a lot of character with a wide range of colors giving me a feeling of being in the tropics.  And of course, it gave me lots of ideas for more quilts.   hmmmm, just what I need - more ideas.

I did prep-work on 4 Dresden Plates yesterday.  The unfinished Dresdens were donated to Project Linus.   I don't have any matching material for borders.  I might have to go shopping if there is nothing in my stash.  In the meantime, I will start hand sewing the Dresdens to the background.  A good project to do while we are traveling to our next location.

2 years ago on 19 March, I retired from my job to full-time with my husband in our motorhome.  I can't believe it has been 2 years!  On 22 March, we left Albuquerque and started our adventures on the road.  Wow!  Our second anniversary of freedom and full-timing.  And yes, I would do it all over again.

STAR BABY Quilt

This winter weather has been perfect for me to get back into my quilting.  I have spent a lot of hours outdoors with kitties just quilting away the gorgeous days. The salty air, the vibrant colors, and the cry of Ospreys overhead.....Sigh! I am really going to miss Key West. I hope we can come back here someday.

I had started this top in September.  The top took only a couple of days to sew together.  I decided to appliqué 'BABY' and crooked stars to the top using freezer paper.  I did not leave the paper on since I ironed it to the right side of the fabric.  This time I marked the fabric with a water soluble pen, pulled off the paper, and used the turn-under as you sew method.  I used bright bold colors so a baby can see them.

The appliqué is done and the top is a wrinkled mess!  Time to iron!

All done.  I used the meandering quilting.  The binding is made from the same bold material I used for the stars and BABY.

I just had to show you the perfect t-shirt I found at the Navy Exchange.  I had just washed it so it is a little wet.

Oh, you can't see it?  Here's a close-up!

I have my sweatshirt saying "Life is Simple:  EAT, SLEEP, QUILT" for cold days and now - I have a t-shirt with a one white sock orange kitty saying "Life is Good".  Oh yea!  (break out into song) And these are a few of my favorite things!