{Blogtoberfest Day 19} Blah...

Today was kind of a blah day. I was so cold all day long, all I could do was wrap myself in a blanket and watch TV. Ok, it was not that cold, but I was soo lazyyyyy! :)

I blame these guys! They sleep all day and jump on my lap every chance they get!!

A little piece of me :)

Julieta wanted to say hi :)

Cute kittens by SandyOwn :)

Sandy's little helpers...

Julieta

Nico

I'm a pushover, I know...

And I know work would go so much quicker if I could stand up for myself, but I can't...

They always win...

My cat is telling me... ::: A minha gata está a dizer-me...

... I have to stop working for today and pay attention to her, so the basting will have to wait until tomorrow! This is what she does to let me know enough is enough :)

We've been having an amazingly hot and sunny weather over here, I hope you're having great days and pleasent evenings as well where you are. See you all tomorrow!

...tenho que parar de trabalhar por hoje para lhe dar atenção, portanto o resto terá que esperar até amanhã!
Isto é o que ela faz quando ela quer que saiba que já chega :)


Temos tido um tempo espectacular e cheio de sol por aqui, espero que estejam a ter óptimos dias e noites muito agradáveis onde estão. Até amanhã!

Presenting to you...

... my kittens. This was taken yesterday evening, it's really cold over here, they just love to sit by the heater. And yes, they have beds, they just prefer their card boxes. hehehe. Miss Mushi and Mr. Nico, the whiskerless cat ;)

Technical Difficulties :: Problemas técnicos

Kittens :: Gatinhos

Sandy: Kittens, please, mommy needs to get up and go to work!!
Kittens: Err... NO!!  (in kitty tongue, of course, as nails come out to grab my legs to keep me still)

And so they continue to sleep on top of me until I find out I'm already late and get hectic and they get scared and run away, only to follow me around the house and THEN, as soon as I dress my jacket, Mushi starts ranting and pacing in front of the door, trying to keep me from walking out. Every single morning...


Sandy: Gatinhos, por favor, preciso de me levantar e ir trabalhar!!
Gatinhos: Err... NÃO!! (em língua de gatinhos, claro, e ao mesmo tempo que as unhas começam a aparecer para agarrar as minhas pernas para me manterem quieta)

E assim vão continuando a dormir em cima de mim até que descubro que estou realmente atrasada e fico stressada e eles assustam-se e fogem, para depois me seguirem pela cada e DEPOIS, assim que visto o casaco, a Mushi desata a refilar e a andar de um lado para o outro em frente à porta, para não me deixar sair. Todas as manhãs...

Just how exactly am I supposed to get up in the morning??

They want me to stay and I want to stay too!

The Complete Christmas Twinkle Collection

Here it is, the Complete Collection.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. hehehe. It saw me free motion quilting for the first time, and it saw me outgrow my first ever sewing machine and learning how to work with the intimidating new one. It saw a whole lot of fabric and batting purchases. It saw a lot of stress and a lot of hapiness, a lot of frustration and breakthroughs. It saw Autumn and Winter. Four of them are already delivered, four of them to go till Christmas.
Neither of them are perfect by any means, neither of them is as I wished it was. But I know that I'll love them even more when I get there.

Next one will be even better.
Now, if I could only learn to quilt to mke the back look as good as the front... My newest New Year's Eve resolution I guess!

Just because...

Mushi and Nico wanted to come here and wish you a very Merry Christmas, so I said sure!

May you, your families and all of your furry babies have a very Merry Christmas.

Nico promises to keep working hard on those Christmas presents and share them with all of you as soon as possible!

There aren't enough hours in the day...

Which is a shame, because I could really use them!
Progress has been too slow on my current projects, I feel like I'm taking baby steps when I needed to take giant ones...
Yesterday the binding continued, and Nico managed to sandwich the last quilt.

Sandy's little helper

Also yesterday I got an early Christmas present! Fabric! Yay! :) Also a couple more items, because fabric can sometimes feel very lonely...

I've been meaning to get these purse straps for a while now, so now I have them, just don't really know what I'll do with them, but I'm not worried! I got a couple of cottons and an Amy Butler flannel that winked at me the last time I was there.

Also, the store decided to give me Christmas gifts of their own. Thank you Dot Quilts!

So for today, some quilting and binding are in order. This will be the binding...I think... I'm still not sure, but it will give it character... I'll let you know how it goes!

WIP: The Brick Christmas Quilt

Yesterday I continued with the Brick Quilt I previously showed you. The last of seven I've been making since September as a part of what I fancily called the Christmas Twinkle Collection.

I must say the first time I ever sat in front of a sewing machine was in June. The first time I sat in front of a proper sewing machine, that was actually capable of doing what I asked, was in November. So I'm very pleased with the results of this collection. It's far from perfect, but I'm still very proud. Yes I wish I could match the top straight lines with the back's wonky lines, but I love them all. And I love all the people who'll get one or who already have one, so they are perfectly matched! And I know they love me enough not to mind a couple of flaws. I have learned something new with each and every one of these quilts and I'm hoping I'll keep on learning for years to come!

So back to the quilt in question, I decided to make a small frame for the back fabric, because frankly it just didn't blend in as well as the previous fabric I've been using. Actually I doubt that fabric would blend as well, seeing as this quilt has a very different color palette than the previous ones, it's all about the blues and the reds, so a pinkish backing wouldn't work. Neither would an orange-yellow-pink-beige one. So I framed it with the blue from the top and I think it worked out great. The only photo I can show you are these, because Nico just wouldn't move. Even if I picked him up, he would just return. Faster than me of course, who would have thought cute chubby cats could be this fast?? His colors actually work well with the fabric ;)

So I'm hoping I'll get to show you more of this once it's finished. I am now at the binding stage. I decided to use the blue from the back frame and just sew it on top. I hope it will work, I'm still not convinced...

Finished Quilt: Christmas Twinkle number 5!

Here it is, the fifth completed quilt from the Christmas Twinkle Colection. It was the first one that I machined quilted with my amazing new sewing machine. Using my 1/4 foot meant the squares were a bit bigger than usual, which meant this is one of the larger quilts from the series.

Some hexie action in the back was necessary, as you know. This is the first quilt I've bound with a pattern fabric and I love it!

This is also the last quilt from the series with this fabric as the backing. Can't wait to try the new one.

So 5 down, 2 to go with less than a month until Christmas and a really hectic working schedule. I'll either make it or break it and I'll most probably be sleeping before midnight on the 24th once everything is done. Wish me luck and speed! ;)

Christmas is here!!

Hello!

Yesterday was the day for bringing Christmas into my home. I, Miss Mushi and Mr. Nico decided it was time!
Since these two cuties arrived at our house, Christmas trees started having an expiration date. Usually two years before the twigs get so bent out of shape that we have to get a new one. Well, our former Christmas tree served us well, it was all white and very different from what we used to do, perfect to go with the new living room. But this year we returned to green and it was so lovely! Maybe less fashionable or modern than the previous years, but definitely more Christmassy and cozy!

It's a bit smaller than usual, but it was also much more easy to light. Also it fits better in the living room, the others we felt were too imposing.

Every year we buy new decorations which means that the amount of decorations keeps growing and the tree remains the same size or, in this case, gets shorter. Some decorations though are all time favorites and keep coming back until they are too old or the kittens decide to reform it, of course...

I strongly advise doing the tree with your pets around, they are such a great help!

They always let you know if a branch isn't looking good or if it's not attached correctly and, of course, they will always test its resistance and balance by examining every single level of the tree, all the way to the top! It's really a precious help...

Here are some of my favorite decorations. The first two are from a trip to Bruge, I'm so pleased to visit places with all year Christmas shops.

 My cooking fairies. Who would cook our Christmas dinner if I didn't have them?? They used to be a couple more, but they were to tired so now they just eat!



This lady got a bit of a flash in the face, sorry about that!

As for the getting the rest of the room in the Christmas spirit, I must say I haven't done much. I have however decided that the couch should keep up and bought this amazing Ikea cover for my lovely Erktop. It is usually white during the year, but on Christmas, it looks like this:

Well, it looked better before Mushi inspected it, but I was in a hurry to leave and wanted to bring the photo so I could do this post ;).

And of course, the lovely faux poinsettia. Since I discovered poinsettias were poisonous for cats, I decided plastic ones would do fine. And these actually look cute and real-like.

Now, it's always a guess how we'll find the Christmas tree and the decorations when we get home. Usually they are fine, because for some reason cats only misbehave when you're there to witness it, but you never know. Exciting, hum? :)

It's still a work in progress, but it's official, Christmas is here!!

The Hexies are back!

Since they were such a hit with one my previous quilt, I decided to incorporate some hexie action into this quilt as well. More on that later.

I must apologise for the bad quality of the latest photos I've been posting. However I can only find time to take photos at night and I seem to have misplaced the battery charger for my camera and so I've been taking pictures with my mobile in order to keep you up to speed, hence the bad quality / lighting of my latest developments.

Also, I'd like to share with you what has become a usual scene from my evenings. As the cold nights become colder, particularly where I live (well, not that cold, it doesn't snow or anything, but we are used to warm weather), there always seems to be a cat under a quilt or on top of it and most times I only notice it as they tend to leave some part sticking out. In this case Nico is sleeping, under the quilt I'm sewing, streched across my lap with his little white mittens sticking out.

Mushi seems to prefer the batting pile lately. She looks like she's sleeping on a cloud. It's just hard taking her picture while she's sleeping because as soon as I come close she'll want to see what I'm doing...

It's great to see they love my new hobbie/obssession as much as I do and take part in their own little ways :)

A brand new Christmas Twinkle

Sunday was my day off and I made sure it was free to make peace with my lovely sewing machine. And I must say we really made up for lost time!
As you might remember, I had a quilt sandwich ready for quilting. It is now quilted and now has an almost finished binding.

 I decided to do some straight line quilting, as I had never tried my walking foot before and was quite pleased with it. I quilted close to the ditch and it made for a nice squared back.

Regarding the binding I decided to go big with the colors and chose this lovely orange flowery fabric. It will be the first time I use patterned fabric for the binding and I must say I am very pleased with the results.

I managed to machine sew the binding to the quilt yesterday, but I also chose to finish it by hand, I prefer the clean look of a hand sewn binding.

Of course this part of the process might have been faster if this didn't keep hapening:

I guess cats really do love quilts! But I also think there was an element of "You've neglected me long enough. Stop paying attention to this thing and look at me please" going on. And so I did, of course... :)

Today I should finish this quilt, I've already bound most of it. I think It's looking great!

This is also the last quilt I'll be making with this backing, I can't wait to try the new one out, I hope i'll be as pleased as I have been with this one.
Also, I don't know if this happens to you but I think with every quilt I finish I learn something new and I'm always really regreteful that I can't take the previous ones back and redo them in order to make them look better with the knowledge I now have. Does that make sense?

I think you could probably put them all next to each other and notice the evolution from one to the other, which makes me real nervous, as I wished they would all be just perfect!

Christmas Twinkle Collection Update

This is where it stands. Two tops done and ready to move on.

The "blue" one

The "green" one

Can you tell the diference??;) The one I made for my sister was the "red" one! I'm hoping to start quilting one of these babies today!

All packed up and ready to go :)

It's my friend Joana's birthday today, so another one of my babies is going to her forever home. I hope she loves it as much as I loved making it for her... And I hope Maria loves it too. My cats always love my quilts, so I'm hoping for the same efect. But just in case she doesn't, I'll also be prepared to make her happy ;)

Bought the same ones for my cats and Mushi actually climbed up my legs to get one. Good idea, I supose :)