This & That

It's been a busy week here at the Painted Quilt.  

I'm happy to say that I have finished working on my new BOM which will be revealed on the 1st of April.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, my friend Alice who does the custom quilting for me is on vacation in the sunny south until the end of February so I'll have to wait until she comes back all nice and tanned before she can start on it.

In actual fact it will be a six month "row along" rather than a traditional block-of-the-month.  I have included all of my quilting favorites...piecing, redwork and wool-on-cotton applique which will be presented as an optional step that could be substituted with traditional needleturn or machine applique...or left out entirely.  This will also be a great scrap busting project!

Here are a couple of sneak peeks...

Can you guess the theme from these clues?

Yesterday we went up the valley to take Ollie to a new groomer.  Boy did he need it!  We weren't happy with his last cut and decided it was time to seek out a new "stylist".  Well this gal did an amazing job and now he looks like a true Westie.  An added bonus is that she's definitely an animal lover and Ollie fell in love with her.

Before...

I know, I know...I need to visit the beauty shop!

and after...

Aren't I beautiful?  Frankie thinks so.

While Ollie was in the beauty shop, Mr. Painted Quilt and I went to the mall and I managed to find the neatest cotton twill ribbon which I plan to use in some future project.

Cool, huh?

Our 175 year old house has random width pine floors on the second floor which is where I have my studio.  The spaces between the boards have turned out to be a great place for my pins to fall into when I inadvertently drop them while sewing...and they are a pain in the you-know-what to try to get out.

See the yellow heads hiding in the crack in the center of the photo?  Grrrr.

While we were in the mall, we had an errand to run at the hardware store and while standing at the checkout, I spotted a bin of these...a telescopic magnet.

Of course I had to buy one and as soon as we got home, I had to try it out.  

Well guess what?

It works like a charm and I can't believe how powerful it is!

It now sits in the little tray right next to my machine with all the other things that I use most often when sewing.

In addition to working on March's First Friday Freebie, I decided to try to participate in Kathy Tracy's small quilt a month challenge which she talks about here.  Scroll down to her February 1st and January 22nd posts if you'd like to find out more about it.  

I haven't started on January's yet because I wanted to complete the BOM quilt but I'm hoping to complete both the January and February flimsies by the end of this week.  And it's not too late to join in!

Kathy also hosts the Small Quilt Talk forum where they are having a 6" reproduction and Civil War swap.  I finished cutting my forty one 6" squares this morning which will be in the mail this afternoon to the gal who's hosting the swap.  If you'd like to find out more about the forum and swap, just click on the link above.

Frankie hasn't been feeling too well for the past couple of days and he really has us worried so we're off to the vet this afternoon to have him checked out.

I hope they find out what's wrong cuz I've sure been feeling yucky.

 Please say a little kitty prayer for him.