A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Sunday morning....time to enjoy a little extra slow stitching time.

It's a dull, dreary start to the day here, I hope it clears up a bit because it certainly can affect one's mood. 

I've been trying, slowly but surely, to become a slightly more organised person. This week I had help in this endeavour from an unlikely source...Cooper, one of my dogs.

I have a spot in the living room that I have always done my handwork, like many of us I'm sure. And on the table at my side there is always an assortment of threads, scissors, etc that I'm using on a regular basis. Never been a problem, until this week.

I came home one day to find Cooper had chewed up a spool of thread...so dangerous for dogs. I really believed that it must have rolled onto the floor, as he is not one to go up on that chair and bother with my sewing stuff.

A few days later, we were sitting in the dining room...I look up and see Cooper chewing on something....yes, another spool of thread. I can't believe another one had been on the floor, he must have jumped up to help himself, so time to clean up my act.

Probably 35 years ago (or more), my mother gave me this as a gift...

I'm sure many of you have the exact same one! Well, it's probably been 25 years since I've actually used it...in fact, last month I had thought to put it in the donate pile. Now I'm glad I didn't....all of my daily supplies are now in this storage box (what are they actually called???) and the table beside my chair is nice and neat. Thanks go to Cooper for the motivation...although in a dangerous way :(

In my last post, which you can read HERE, I mentioned that I'd be meeting with a friend to do some wet felting...that we would be making "cat caves".

It was a lot of physical work, due to the size of the piece. Here is how it looked when I got home...not very pretty, really...

...but then I crammed more stuffing in to hold the shape, and I beat it into submission with a wooden spoon.

Much better...

Not technically great work, but I am still a beginner at this, so I'm pretty happy with the result. Now to get the cat to accept it!

I put a couple of treats inside to lure her in...

She's still not going in just for the sheer pleasure of it. When I get up in the morning I can tell that she does like laying on top of it though, lol. 

I wanted to add a couple of words of advice to those of you who are doing an temperature quilt this year. 

1. Keep your design choice simple so you don't lose interest through the year because it may be too much work.

2. You don't have to actually "do" it every day. You do have to record the temperature each day, but if your design choice is simple enough you can pick it up just a couple of times a week to quickly get it done.

Here is mine after 4 days of January...

I probably won't have time to do today's bit, but I have recorded today's forecast high on my calendar. 

You'll notice that I'm still old-school when it comes to EPP, but basting the segments to the paper instead of using glue. Nothing wrong with the glue method, I just find I don't get the same results and it really doesn't take me long to thread-baste.

It's not too late to start your own temperature quilt since we are just a few days into the new year :)



I also stitched this morning on the next block of my Over The Hill...

This is another instance of how I prefer to take a slower method. I do like to do a whipstitch around all the wool pieces with fine thread before beginning the decorative stitches with perle cotton. Perhaps not necessary, but I do like the stability. And, as a longarm quilter who has worked on quilts with wool applique that hasn't been whipstitched, I do see a difference. Again...personal choice.

Here's a reminder of the first block of Over The Hill...

Thankfully, not all the blocks have quite as much work as the first one!

How about that...by the time I've gotten to this point of the post the sun has come out....what a wonderful mood-booster!!

I'll be going out shortly to enjoy some of this beautiful sunshine, but will take a bit of time to visit with other slow-stitchers, as I am linking up with Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching.