Merry Penguins - done!

Woohoo! Merry Penguins is finished. It measures 31" x 27" This picture unfortunately makes it look a bit washed out.

I pieced this top in Cairo, Egypt on 18 August 2006. I quilted it in Maryland and Florida in the U.S. as well as here in Paris. You can read about the making of it here and see some quilting details here. It is quilted in plain old red quilting thread. I started out by going around the entire border with unmarked fans and then went back and quilted the interior in rows going up. Made for some interesting patterns in the yellow border.


A picture of the back. I just use up part of my stash, the one that fits the size best. Don't care about the pattern at all.

I also finished up this gift bag. Probably spent way too much time doing the hand quilting on this one, but I love how it looks.

On Sunday I basted my Orphan Train quilt instead of sewing or going for a walk. I'm now quilting it. Feels good to be working on such a big project again.

A Trip in the Way-Back Machine

Posting old photos of Paris from 3 June. This is part of the Opera Garnier.

Clive Owen shilling at the Magasins du Printemps.

And George Clooney. The billboards are down now and the building is covered with lights for the holiday season.

Beautiful door on the Avenue de l'Opera.

The door handle.

Statuary at the Jardin des Tulieries, you can see the Egyptian obelisk there at the Place de la Concorde. I've been calling that thing Cleopatra's Needle, but it's not. Cleo's obelisk is in London.

Headless cherubs wrestling a crocodile. Some of this stuff is just bizarre.

And a roman looking dude who's lost his wrist. That must have hurt.

Here are a couple of fun places to see santas: over at Comicbooklady's here and Kristin's here. An absolute hoot: A Cats Christmas website with kitties Iris and Fern "helping" to put up and decorate christmas trees.

There's been sun this morning, but I don't know if I can pry my husband out of the recliner to go out and take a walk. Might have to go on my own. On the other hand, I could stay here and do some of the sewing I've been neglecting. agh, too many options.

Christmas is Early

The mail carriers have been working extra hard getting packages to me. Look at what the mail has brought me: Blocks made by students in my First Ever Quilt Class. I am so overwhelmed that I barely know what to say. Thank you all for these marvelous blocks - I am so thrilled that you've played with the letters and made these blocks to reflect your own personalities.

From the top we have MJ in Michigan, Tracey in CT, Comicbooklady, Keryn, Quilt Diva Julie, Hedgehog, Tanya, Mereth, and Wendy.

I won't go into raptures about these marvelous blocks (and I know there are more coming!) but do check out my sidebar and go to everybody's blog (who has one) and tell them what a great job they did - they've posted their individual blocks. There is some amazing work here - I'm learning from my students.

Keryn and Mereth very kindly included some fabric hand-dyed by Lisa Walton. It's gorgeous and I love it. So does Lily.

A bit of photographer geekiness. I had to turn off the automatic flash in order to get this shot of Lily. I think it looks great and I didn't even jiggle the camera too much.

We've had some sun here and there. Not enough, but that's another story. I had the best light the other day when I was near the Louvre. I've taken pics of these ships coming out of the side of the building before, but here are some more. It was three in the afternoon and the light was golden (that's cuz the sun is going down early this time of year) - it looks completely different than on a sunny summer afternoon.

Dr Seuss Christmas Quilt

My favorite color combination for Christmas is red, green, and purple. It gives my husband-- Mr Traditional--fits. You can see a better picture of the Merry crusty pictured in the upper right and another red christmas tree quilt here.

This is our Christmas tree. It's up on a table so that we can see it, and the table is crammed with other things so that the kitties won't jump up. The three Santas were made in Egypt.

I have been searching for French Noel decorations, but it's pretty skimpy. Lots of imported Chinese santas that you can find anywhere. Very little Father Christmas or things with french words. The exception is the ornament that says "J'aime le Pere Noel".

This is my Dr Seuss Christmas Quilt. I made it a few years back. I have my usual assessment of my earlier work: needs more quilting!

Still working on making Christmas, particularly name tags.
One of my family's traditions was to open one present for each kid on Christmas Eve. My parents always chose it and when we were younger it was a game we could all play together. When we were older it was always a book. My husband and I have continued the tradition of opening one gift, but it's pretty hit or miss. My husband can never remember what gift could be where. This year I made special tags and told him in particular that a quilt book would be a great choice.

I make these tags the same way I make a crusty (follow the Susan Shie link in my sidebar). The batting and backing are a quarter inch smaller than the top and I just fold the top back over and use embroidery floss to hold it down. I have no idea what stitch that would be. Then I stem stitch or quilt the words in.

For my tag I used a silvery Madeira thread along with white perle cotton to stem stitch the words. I like how it looks although it's lumpy. But all that fraying is a pain in the ass. Certainly wouldn't do a big project like this.

Here's the back of it. You can even see where I've sewn on the safety pin.

For my husband's tag, I used 3 strands of embroidery floss to stem stitch the word "open." I quilted "24 Dec" with white perle cotton thread and then wrapped the green floss through to get this great candy cane effect:

On Sunday we watched Christmas in Connecticut, a Barbara Stanwick movie about a Martha Stewart character who's actually a fraud. It's fun, but I got hung up this year on what a goober the sailor is. bleck, didn't like that character at all. I definitely choked on the spending 6 months worth of salary for a mink coat. Aiyee. No kind of clothing item is worth that. Never. That's a car or house remodeling.

We finished up Jonathon Creek Season One as well. Jonathon is a brilliant Englishman who creates magic tricks (for a stage magician played with a horrible american accent by Giles, sorry Anthony Stewart Head) and uses his skills to help solve murders. It's along the lines of Columbo or Monk, none of the grisly CSI stuff. The puzzles are always great and I have a thing for British crime shows. And nerds. 4.5 out of 5.

I can also recommend Jenny Bowker's blog Postcards from Cairo if you're not already reading it. Jenny is currently posting pics of her desert trek to see cave paintings. She's far more adventurous than I am, although that doesn't take much. No toilets or showers? I'm out.

I have to go now and wrap presents that are too oddly shaped to go in bags. They're for me of course. Now I'm not only choosing my own presents but wrapping them.

Habibi and Quilting

Since I recently posted a picture of my first ever houses quilt, thought I should post this one, a variant on the same theme. I completed Dear Santa in December 2001. I wrote a post about this quilt 2 years ago, which includes lots of detail shots.

Go take a look at how I added in so many details with the quilting. Your top doesn't have to be "complete" when you baste it. I add lots more after all the layers are together. I know some people like to add their buttons to the top, but not me. I add them through all three layers (after I've done the quilting) so I get the 3-D effect. Not that there are buttons on this quilt, that's just an example.

I've gotten very frustrated with gluing on velcro to close up the gift bags. I've had a couple of the velcro pieces rip off when I open the bag. Phoey. I'm sewing them all down now. Think I'm going to stick to snaps and buttons for closing these things.

Habibi is my big sweet loving kitty, but he does make it difficult for me to work on a project. (by the way, those horrible zebra-striped pillowcases are on the back of the sofa because they are easy to throw in the washer and get the cat hair off.) Anyway, here's Bibi, wanting loving and getting distracted by the thread:



This is my favorite of the pics. Bibi looks like a demon kitty with those red eyes. And look at the claws. Eeek.

Yesterday I worked at repairing/reinforcing velcro on the gift bags while my sweetie and I watched several Christmas movies. First off was the wonderful Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn movie Desk Set. Definitely my favorite movie starring those two - they have such chemistry. And hey, it takes place in a reference library - good stuff.
Next was Shop Around the Corner with a young Jimmy Stewart. That's for my husband. I just think it's an okay movie, but he loves it.

The finale was Die Hard. Sorry, I know that's not really christmasy, but I love that movie. "Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho." I was just looking at the IMDB trivia for the movie. It says Bruce Willis was the fifth choice for the main character. It originally went to Arnold Schwartzenneger, Sylvester Stallone, Burt Reynolds, and Richard Gere before the studio "settled" on Willis. The movie would have been either very different (and not in a good way) or outright horrible with some of those other choices. Richard Gere? Bleah.