Day and Night...

There's not much to do down here on the farm pet-sitting - other than let the dogs in and out a dozen times and put the cat in the sink to get a drink of water.  It's very quiet and peaceful (except for the occasional serenade from Abby).  It's given me a chance to rest and relax and I'm enjoying the solitude. 

Having said that, this afternoon I dragged my mom's sewing machine into the living room and set it up.  It was simply too quiet in her sewing room and I'm used to having the background noise from the tv while I'm quilting.

Luckily they have a very large living room and I didn't need to move any furniture.  It'll do for the time I'm here.

I have so much free time right now that I've been able to start piecing a prayer quilt for my sister-in-law.  It's based on the Day & Night pattern out of Eleanor Burn's book of the same name.  I don't believe she created the block, just a special ruler that simplifies creating it.  Here are the strip sets for the quilt...

Using her ruler, you cut each strip set into a number of different pieces.  I finished cutting the ones on the left into these units...

I figure tomorrow I'll finish cutting the other strips and start piecing them all back together.  What's so great about this method is you end up with 3 different quilts.  Each unit is put together with it's matching units to make a quilt.  When all is done, I should have a Day & Night lap quilt 52" x 64", a Spider Web quilt 32" x 32" and a Mini Star quilt 21" x 26" with almost no waste!

There are a lot of points to match up when piecing the units together so I'll need to be careful and take my time.  I expect that part will take a while, but I'll be sure to show you when I've finished them.  My good friend Susan is now doing machine quilting so I'm hoping to finish piecing the largest top before I return home so she can quilt it for me.  I know she'll do a much better job than I would and I want this quilt to be special.

I did manage to snap a few more photos of my charges this evening.  They still don't like the camera, but perhaps they're becoming more used to it (and me).  These are the 3 dogs I'm watching.  The 2 black ones are brother and sister.

Abby needs a haircut!

I think Nicky is part Greyhound.  She's both skinny and high strung.

You can see how nervous Bandit is at the camera...

Until later...

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible."

by Thomas Aquinas