Got some 'splainin' to do

I made the chocolate quilt top and took progress pictures as I went along. I know what I did and how it went together, but now I have to explain how to do it so I can put out a pattern for others to follow. I have 10 draft pages of Dear Hearts so far. I will look for a pattern tester to try it out in another color-way. I'll show the tester my project and hand over the pattern draft pages. I won't add any verbal explanation. If she or he gets terribly stuck we can talk and I can add more words or pictures. It is an interesting process to come up with a final, salable pattern.

 

Where did Feather go?

Last evening, way past dinnertime, I started to worry about my cat, Feather. I called and called him but his big white form did not emerge from the darkness outside. By 10:30 PM I was really worried. I had to go to bed. I passed by my sewing room door and thought I'd peek in there. To my great surprise, there was Feather. He had not made a sound. I did not go into my sewing room all day yesterday. I don't even remember opening the door once during the day. Very strange. I am sure he was comfortable because he had lots of soft piles of fabric to cuddle with.

 

And, speaking of cats, we have a new resident in the house. Her name is Phoenix. She is less than a year old. She was abandoned by a family which moved out of a rental house on Taylor Road in late March. The day after they moved out, the house caught fire and burned to the ground and burned up the house next door, too. A cat rescue organization found her and she was in "foster cat care" for a while. A friend called me and asked if I wanted a cat. I did not want a cat, but when I heard her story I said, "bring her over." When I saw her I was so surprised because she looked just exactly like our old cat Aucuba who lived with us for 18 years. Phoenix seems to be the right name for her because her coat looks as if it is "sooty." She knows her name now, is very pleasant, and gets along very well with Feather. I've tried and tried to take a good photo of her with no luck. She looks grumpy in her pictures, but she isn't.

Chocolate craving

This project has increased my craving for chocolate. The top is finished and I can sandwich it and quilt it. Ice cream sandwich? Next I am going to do a vegetable one -- you must have all the food groups. This is for my Dear Hearts series.

Filling the box

I'm halfway with my chocolate box quilt top. I had to run to the store and buy a Hershey bar because I got so hungry while working on it.

I started at the top left corner and pinned the patches on my design board. Halfway done now. We have dark chocolate, milk chocolate, strawberry, raspberry, a gold foil-wrapped surprise, chocolate-marshmallow, butterscotch, and I am just adding a honeycomb (or seafoam) piece now at the bottom left.

My mother used to make honeycomb candy and I believe See's Candies still sells it. I looked up recipes for seafoam candy on the web and here is a good site with step-by-step instructions and a video -- http://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/honeycomb/

Delicious fun

Sometimes you need a bit of inspiration to get going. I received a gift certificate for See's Candy. It's been sitting on a counter that I pass by every day. So tempting.

I've got it! I'll make a chocolate box quilt. I pulled fabric from my stash. I had everything I needed -- lots of browns and a few accent colors. Now I am putting it together. At last, I am making a table runner with my "Dear Hearts" pattern. I'm photographing the steps as I go along and writing the instructions. Such fun