I was cleaning the gecko houses yesterday and took a few pics while everything was soaking.

Hades jumped on my hand, which was a perfect opportunity to get a pic that shows how big he is.  This was right before he jumped off.

They're Grey's pets, but I got to name them.  They were all young when he got them, so we had no idea if they were male or female.  Hades was originally called Athena.  

He's looking a bit dull because he's getting ready to shed.  He has his own housing, as he was aggressive towards Aphrodite, the female and used to chase the others away from the food bowl.  When we swapped him out, he would be food aggressive with me when it was time to get his bowl out.  He would stand over his bowl and I would have to chase him off.  He calmed down and he is quite used to Food Lady now.

This is Aphrodite.  She lost her tail.  They're nicknamed frog butts when it happens.  We're not sure if she's gravid (carrying eggs).   Crested geckos are kinda chunky at the best of times.

She's been sticking her head in the substrate, which is a way for them to check the humidity and temperature before they lay eggs.  There's a couple of eggs that Grey has incubating.  We'll know if they're good or duds in the next month or so.

I couldn't get a good pic of Heracles.  When they are babies, they use their tails to hang on to things.  We used to be convinced they'd all lose their tails, as they droop back when they're upside down.

Gecko feet use electro static forces (thank you Google).  Heracles is upside down here.  They are great jumpers and move fast.   The first time I handled one, it was a surprise to find out how soft their skin is.  I'd assumed it would feel like the skin of skinks.

 

The appliqué is done!

The pot has been tacked within an inch of it's life.  It doesn't need to be shifting around when adding French knots to all the little red dots as part of the hand quilting.  Now the top is finished, it'll become a 15 minutes a day project.

A blast from the past.   

My hand piecing skills are rather rusty.  I'm sure they will be much improved by the time this quilt is finished.  

It's being made without the sashing and cornerstones.  The blocks have been enlarged slightly to 5 inches.  

Not the best pic of my fabric choices for the first block, but you get the idea. lol

The starting block is the top left one and blocks will be joined diagonally as the rows are finished.    

This will be a long term project.  I'm not getting my knickers in a knot over getting the blocks made in a certain time, as I want it to be enjoyable.  

 

The dresden plates are almost finished.  The top four just need a press before the next step.  The bottom one has a seam that was pressed a bit weird and is bugging me, so it needs fixing.  If not, it will bug me every time I look at it.  My rule of thumb is if something bugs me, it's a mistake and needs fixing.  If not, it's a design element.

Here's one on the background fabric.

These are the threads.  They're both really nice matches for the fabrics.  The orange is Coates & Clarke sewing thread.  The blue is Aurifil 50wt.   

 

Just finished baking a batch of ANZAC biscuits.   Of course I had to test a couple out with a cup of tea.  Delicious!  I make a batch every year on or close to ANZAC Day (25th April) and send them to work with Grey to share with his shift.  

I was a teacher in Australia and over the course of 24 years, I taught over 1, 000 children how to make ANZAC biscuits.  Sometimes it was small groups of about five or six kids.  Other times, it was a whole class.  That's somewhere between 24, 000 and 26, 000 biscuits!  It's just something you do when you're an elementary teacher in Australia.

What's Sue on about, you may be asking right now.  ANZAC Day is part of the Australian identity.  If you're interested in reading about it, click here.  If you would like a recipe that is in U.S. terms click here.  It's a simple recipe made with pantry staples.  If you do give it a go, I'd love to know what you think.

 

We were at the Arts Council a couple of weeks ago and I took a pic of this quilt.

This one, too.  It's all Kaffe Fasset fabric and hand appliquéd.  They're both lovely and I really can't pick a favorite.

Totally random pic of a thrush in the 

yard this morning.

 

I've shown this dresden plate before, but this is the first pic I've been able to take that shows the colors properly.

This one was taken at a crazy angle.  They're all the same size.  The more I thought about making a runner, the less enthused I was about it.  The current idea is to make a nine patch on blue fabric for the background with orange sashing.  The dresden plates will be in each corner and one in the middle.  The other blocks will be hand quilted.  Haven't a clue what that will look like yet.

The quilting will be with Aurifil 2810, which is a really nice match for the fabric.  It blended in well when I sewed on the circle, so should be fab for the quilting.

 

Perfect!

I really like the way they look.  I spotted them at the clearance section for a dollar at Michaels recently and as soon as I saw them, I knew they were just what I needed to finish this wall hanging.

WonderFil Tuti Col. TU24 is the thread i used to quilt it.  I'm really pleased.  A bit surprised,  too.  I didn't expect it to work with the background.

I like using the variegated colors on a plain colored background and it's the first time I've used a variegated thread on a background that's not plain.

It's what I'll use on the appliqué wall hanging.  There's only the pot and one third of a leaf to go before I'm ready.  

This is the next small quilt I'll be making and hand quilting.

It's from this book 

This is the blurb about the quilt.

I'm not a huge fan of pink, but I have blue, pink and white color combo for it, with a specific recipient in mind.  This thread is another Tutti.  The color is TU33 and it's called Woorose.  I'll test it out on a scrap and see how it looks.  

I'll be playing with Liver of Sulphur today (smells like rotten eggs....yuk) as a follow up to a middle of the night hammering session in the basement on some copper circles on Friday night.  I have my eye on this texturing hammer set.  Grey's checked it out and has given it the thumbs up.  It's going to be here tomorrow.  Thank you Amazon!  I think it will be an improvement on Grey's hammers and chisels I was using.   More on what this is all about soon! 

 

I was gifted a few quarter yard pieces of duck cloth a few years ago.  It sat in the stash until about a couple of weeks ago, when I dug it out and used some of it to make a case for my "sensible" pens.  

A zipper and a knitting progress keeper were added and now I don't have to rummage through the gel pens to find them.

I like making zippered pouches and this is one I made a few years ago for aluminum crochet hooks.  The scottie was foundation pieced.  I made it about seven years ago.  It has a lot of wonderful quilty memories attached to it.  I bought the pattern from the first big quilt show I went to in the U.S. at Charlotte.  

Stitching down the appliqué.

There's granny knot galore in the tacking.  The background is blue, not the bluish grey that's showing up here.  

The first leaf is finished.  I think this is the first "proper" project I've used freezer paper appliqué on.  It lays flatter than needle turn (or it might be how I did it).  Starching the fabric didn't make getting the needle through the fabric any more difficult.  I do like being able to just keep stitching rather than having to turn the fabric under every few stitches.  I don't know if it's any faster or slower than needle turn.  I just enjoy the process of hand stitching pieces.

The only thread that was close to the fabric color is lighter.  I prefer a tad darker if I don't have a match.  I just like the way it looks on my projects.   Do you have a preference?  

 It's hammer time!

We've got a booth at NC Trail Days event coming up in a few weeks, so I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the basement hammering and getting up to all kinds of other shenanigans.

The binding is on Crescent Angel.  It's almost finished.  There's just a bit more quilting to do on the top corners.  I just need to figure that part out.  I dyed the fabric for it and am very happy with it.  There was a hanging sleeve for it, but I think that may have ended up in the rubbish bin!  If it doesn't turn up before Halloween, I'll just make another.  No biggie.

I rolled all the panels I found when organizing the stash (about a dozen) onto a pool noodle from the Dollar Tree to keep them neat and all in the same place.  That's one more thing off my organizing list.  I had many more than I realized.  I rolled them up in the order I'd like to make them.  

This one by Debbie Mumm is a 13 day Halloween advent.  

Maybe an overall quilting pattern on this one?

There's two panels which are the same on this.  Perhaps a double sided pillow?  They're 21 inches square.  Or a pillow and wall hanging for the sewing room.

Digging through and joining batting scraps for these is on the to do list for this week.

Primitive Gatherings has a new free mystery quilt along.   It's called O Say Can You Sew.  I saw it on their YouTube channel "Stitch With Lisa Bongean".   

One pdf clue is released on the first Monday of each month.  The clue is free until the next month is released, then it's $5.00.  The first pdf clue is here.  It is clearly written.

Lisa's using red, white and blue, but says so long as you pay attention to value, any colorway will work.      

I'm thinking about using white with small polka dots for the neutral, different black fabrics for the blue and I'm not sure what color yet for the third color.  If there's enough dark fossil fern, I'll use that.  Fingers crossed there is!

Now the tubs are organized, it's time to tackle the hunks, chunks and scrap bags.  These are sorted by color, labelled with tags and in alphabetical order.  Having them alphabetized doesn't make much difference, because there's not that many pouches.  I just like keeping them that way.  The orange crates they live in are from the Dollar Tree.  

These are starched, pressed and ready to go.   

Since there's not a huge amount of variety, I'm making 3 lap sized quilts to spread the different fabrics out, then add to them from stash, for variety and even more importantly, be able to make 3 quilts!  lol

These are the dies I'm using.  All three are going to simply be alternating light neutral and colored blocks.    

This is what my sewing table looks like.  Getting organized can be a messy process.

The quilt stash boxes have been reorganized!  It is stored in six 58 quart/55 liter Sterite bins.  Each bin holds two layers of folded fabric, sorted by color or theme..  This top layer is all the yellow, orange and red fabrics in the stash (not counting the scraps).  Halloween fabric is on the bottom layer.

Neutrals are my favorite colors....always have been.  They're split into two boxes....dark and light.  The bottom layer has most of the white background fabrics.  

This is the dark neutral box.   I like the way these fabrics are folded.  I've been doing this for a few minutes a day, which makes it feel more like petting fabric than a chore.  They'll all be like this eventually.  I find it easier to keep tidy, plus get to what's on the bottom layer.