So far, so good....

....this week I'm going to add another small strip to complete the houndstooth border. Then sew a gazillion 2' squares together for border 2...

DD and i got mail last week! Fav quiltshop has closed the brick&mortar shop (I'm still trying to get to terms with that!) and continued as a webshop (with a possibility to visit, take lessons or participate in a bee). We wanted to order a fq as soon as the webshop was opened. I tried when things weren't working just right, but soon after DD was the very first online customer.

DD was so happy with the fun mail, that she took pics:)

Green for me, squares for DD and a free yellow fq, for being the first online order!

How nice is that!

Barking..

When the quiltbug bites me, it bites hard. As I was happily quilting my evenings away, I suddenly realized that the Happy Joy quilt I was working on, could be finished in a few weeks. OMG! There would be nothing left to quilt then! I usually sew during the day when I have the time and don't like spending my evenings in my quiltroom too. I already imagined me, drumming my fingers in front of the tv, snapping at everyone.

I rushed to my PHD's (projects half done) to see on which one I made the most progress.

Ah, this one!
Middle part done, small innerborder half done.
Next step; add a dogtooth border.

I spent the entire afternoon struggling with dogteeth. According to the pattern you needed to eyeball a 1/4" seamallowance to stick out on either side of the cut triangle: the blue point in the pic and the red should both be 1/4"

Well, I eyeballed these so called dogears. I measured, fingerpressed a seam and pinned and had a 20% succesrate. So my seams were uneven and when I added the border to the quilt, I missed EVERY SINGLE point. GRRRRR!!!.

Then I made myself a latte, smoked 2 cigarettes (I know...) and saw the light!
What I did was adding a triangle, clip the dogears and added the next triangle. Wrong!
I just had to leave the dogears and use those as a measurement......

...making sure they were both the same height!

Then sew the 2 together.....

and flip the seam in the direction I wanted at the end

Tadaa

Perfection!!!!
Even seam allowances, no stress, no seamripping and a perfect dogstooth border!

For the experienced machine quilter this might be nothing special, for me it was a hallelujah moment :) Dog parts in quilts? Yes I can!

Given up on me :) ?

....Well I almost did! Gave up the blog, that is. Not posting was easy, starting over is another matter. What to say after all those months of silence and no sewing/quilting
No use to update, wouldn't know where to begin. I do want to share one picture of what happened in my quiltroom..

Yes, a bomb exploded there. I tossed everything out, got rid of ancient ufo's, replaced worn out cabinets, repainted and started over. And most important:hiding underneath a pile of  rubbish, dustbunnies and fabricscraps i found my quiltbug! So happy to recover that one!!
So what better way to make a fresh start than to show a finished quilt! The black and white experience aka Houndstooth XXL is finally done.

 In a vain effort to make a sassy pic I tossed it over my bike. Not the best idea. A motorbike always has some oily dirt on it and that doesn't go well with a black and WHITE quilt..

I'm also turning back to the routine of quilting in the evenings, while listening to the  television, so who knows...the HappyJoy quilt might get finished too this summer..

( C just stept in for a cup of coffee saying: "WHAT are you doing??? POSTING??" lol)