Vlieseline has arrived ...

and I am dreading it! On second thought, I could always divert myself with starting the prairie points ... all the measuring up and fretting that will take!

All dots present

and vlieseline ordered ... we are making good progress here!



The fuzziness is awful but you can see the creature with all its spots.

Meanwhile I have made plans for a birthday quilt for my mother-in-law who turns 75 next February. I'll use one of my many Bassetti panels - see UFOs No 10 - and a jewel coloured fleece blanket. Easy and quick enough. With maximum effect hopefully, as my housewife sister-in-law will no doubt purchase a gift (insert evil grin here).

Done: one Lion with refurbished ears and highlights

Iaio aka Lion has successfully gone through ear reconstruction surgery and as a reward had his head of hair fixed.



He now comes with highlights ;-)



And this will hopefully be the temporary end to posts involving him.

How to fix a lion's ears:

My younger daughter loves chewing her lion's ears, which makes them disappear, which makes her cry. I have therefore been enlisted to fix them. For the second time. This lion has already had a new suit made and new ears. All that remains of said ears is the fabric I used on the front. The terry-cloth of the original ears has been chewed off. They are literally hanging by a thread.



I've been putting off this project - much as the repeat fixing of Entie, the Duck - for weeks, under much protest. Now I've settled on Anchor embroidery thread and crocheted two ears that will be affixed to the fabric from last year's surgery.



Lion also needs to have his hair fixed, which I will just mend using embroidery thread and needle. One of the bonusses of this project was that I had to hunt for my crocheting and embroidery needles that I had not seen since about three moves ago. And I found them!!!

Courage, she muttered ...

I have started sort of assembling the Friendly Dragon in order to see what's what. This is the dragon on its background. It seems much darker in the photo than in real life.



So far, I'm pleased with the results ... or rather, I was until I realised that I had apparently forgotten some of the creature's dots.



I'll finish those tonight. Then the plan is to steam-iron every part to within an inch of its life to safely remove the pins and paper. I'll use bondaweb to actually assemble the whole thing. Once that's done, I'll machine-quilt it all to its background. Once the whole thing is lined, I'll hand-quilt around the dragon.

The backing of the quilt will be a light blue fleece blanket with a dark blue frame for stability. The frame I still need to construct. Lots of machine-sewing in my near future!

Like I'm not distracted enough

I think I found a suitable pattern for all my Kaffe Fassett fabric: A Chinese Coin Quilt like this one:
This graphic originates from Maryquilts.com and when you click on it, this is where you will be taken.

Changed my mind again ...

So, here I am beading this flower to go onto my Turning Twenty quilt, that I already used during a quick nap yesterday and found it to be very comfy and just-warm-enough. The flower in and of itself is coming along nicely but I had second thoughts about it going with the quilt, so I unfolded it and looked at the whole thing and decided: naw!



I have now decided to apply leaves lightly adorned with beads. The leaves are made from left-overs of the fabrics used in the quilt. I may even venture into my laundry room to fiddle with bondaweb or similar to help with the fraying. Also, for the embroidery, I may indulge in some thread other than the one pictured because I'm looking for something more chunky.

What will become of the half-finished flower? I do not know!