APPLIQUE PAINTBOX-I LOVE APPLIQUE

BEEN A LAZY WEEK HERE AS SUMMER DRAWS CLOSER TO AN END.
I don't have a lot to show for myself.  I made only 3 blocks this week and just puttered the week away. I did go to the city and visited my two favorite fabric stores.  I had been looking for some fabric with little houses on it and finally found a suitable fat quarter with which to make a little town.

This fabric is very cute with its little shops and houses.  I found the cobble stone fabric in my stash and its works okay as a cobbled pathway through the town.

My other blocks are from Chuck's book.  

In this pretty wreath, I used my four main colors: peach, aqua, yellow, and green.  I use Karen Buckley's perfect circles to form the shapes of the flowers.

This block is simple but very nice in the combination of angular shapes and curved shapes. 


Well, that is it for this week-not too much to show for myself-I did not even do my free motion quilting homework.  Do you find that this lack of focus happens as a project nears its end?  I have been going over my beautiful Kona solds fabric chart and choosing colors for the sashing for Chuck, Susan, and me.  It is wonderful to have so much to choose from. I have narrowed it down to 16 different colors-4 of each main color in the quilt.

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My husband was caught up in the Delta Airline shutdown.  He spent 24 hours going from Roanoke to Atlanta to Cincinnati to Minneapolis to Kansas City.   He felt he was trapped in some alternate universe composed of airports and all humanity crowded into a tiny capsule. He was looking and feeling so frazzled towards the end of this odyssey that Delta upgraded him to first class which allowed him to catch up on some sleep. 

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Look what I captured with my fabulous camera:

Is this a perfect shot of a hummer or what?  I took several shots most of which were blurry.  But the nexus of focus and cooperation on birdie's part created this great photo.  She is a female ruby throated hummingbird-our most common hummer in these parts.

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I have told you of my terrible piecing skills-no matter how hard I try either the block is (usually) too small or is too big so corners have to be cut off.  In a blog post I saw a quarter inch foot with a wonderful guide on it that would ensure that the seam was was correct size.  I thought that's what I need.  So I go online to find one for my Juki, search around without much luck until I happened upon http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/. When I saw her blog photos, it was like an epiphany:

The Juki Manual calls this a compensating foot and not knowing what it could possibly be, I tossed it into a drawer.  Fool! It is obvious now that I know! Now I can sew perfect 1/4 seams and to think I had this little miracle in my possession all along.  This is very freeing and broadens my horizons in quilting. This happens at a opportune time because the sashing for Chuck, Susan, and Me will be made up of one inch squares.  The quilt will finish at about 100x108 so we are talking lots of little squares and a lot of 1/4 seams.  I guess this was not such a wasted week after all.

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Here are two more blocks from my version of the Caswell quilt:

This block has the leaves and berries of the A-3 block but I changed them around to add the pond, the dragonflies, and the butterflies.  The birds are based on birds in the A-1 block except I gave them the turned up tails of wrens.

This was my favorite Caswell Block which I left unaltered except my pattern called for a block 14 inches wide instead of 11 so I lengthened the birds and added some more flowers.  The color is off on both these blocks.

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My blog has had a visitor from Argentina.  I am so glad you stopped by and have added the Argentine flag to the list of international visitors.

I receive wonderful comments on my posts and answer all of them and check out those blogs as I am very interested in what you are doing.  However, it is impossible to respond to some comments as they are no-reply bloggers.  It is very easy to change this status.  If you are interested, here is a link which will help you: http://morefromyourblog.com/no-reply-blogger-how-to-fix-this/ 

Not exactly helping:

Though Blossom did teach me to use the ~~~~ which she entered on her own.  Actually this cat can do things with her fanny and petty paws that hackers can only can only dream of. 

That's all for now.  I hope you have a good week.  Lots of kids go back to school this week which is both a relief for mothers and a feeling of missed opportunities. 

I am linking up with the very fun and informative linkies listed on the right.  Stop by for some great quilts.

HAPPY QUILTING!