Pugtastic Tuesday: Pug on a Rug

Welcome to the first edition of Pugtastic Tuesday!

When I brought home my darling Romeo almost 16 years ago, I didn't realize that I was unleashing a giant Pandora-size box of pug ephemera that would come to live with me as well. I'll admit to buying some of the pug collectibles that fill our house but a lot of our pug paraphernalia has been gifted to us by well-meaning friends and relatives. Pug socks, pug t-shirts, pug sheets, stuffed pugs, pug stickers, pug mugs, I think that we have it all.

So in honor of my pug boys, I'm starting a weekly series called Pugtastic Tuesday. I'll showcase some of my pug collection and the pug boys will visit. And perhaps even guest author a post or two.

Here are Elvis, at left and Romeo, at right as young pups in April 2003. Elvis was six months old and Romeo was almost a year and a half old. Romeo and Elvis were actual half brothers, having the same father (a stud named Hercules). Romeo passed away last April. He was almost 15 and a half.

If want to join me and you have a pet themed collection of your own, I'm happy to link to your blog at the end of my post. Just send me an email at PugMomQuilts (@ gmail.com).

Here are the pug boys today in their new big boy bed that I bought for them after the holidays. LarryPug, left is 8; Elvis, center is 15; and Caesar, at right, is 4.

This week, I'm sharing my pug rugs!

This rug is in our bedroom, next to Mike's side of the bed. I bought it more than ten years ago from a home decorating catalog. It is a very nice quality wool rug and it has held up well.

Here's a close-up. He reminds us of our handsome Romeo.

This is the rug next to my side of the bed. I bought it a few years ago, also from a catalog. It is my favorite rug and the upside down pug makes me smile. He reminds me of our crazy LarryPug.

I now have two of these rugs, since my friend Carol gifted me with one yesterday as a belated holiday gift. It is a smaller size, so I may put it in my bathroom. If you want a rug like this one, I think that Carol may have bought it here. They even offer it in three different sizes.

Here are close-ups of their adorable faces.

Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

January Brown Bagger Sunday: Finished Projects

Sunday was our holiday party. The room was filled with yummy goodies. Three crock pots treated us to Mexican chicken fiesta, sausages and peppers, and minestrone soup. We also had delicious salads, baked goods of all kinds and Val's homemade fudge. Normally we hold our Yankee Fat Quarter Swap, but three members were sick, so we postponed it until our next meeting, which conveniently is this upcoming weekend.

We had a few finished projects to show off.

Sandi's double-sided improvisational pieced modern scrap quilt was a masterpiece. I think she should enter it at QuiltCon. No pattern is available. It is Sandi's original design.

As always, Sandi is very modest and says she just made it from some of her solid color scraps. Sandi calls this side the "front" of her quilt.

Here's a close-up of one of the blocks. She did the matchstick quilting using her walking foot. The front of the quilt uses light grey thread.

Sandi calls this the "back" of her quilt, but it's even more gorgeous than the front.

Sandi had fun with the quilting on the back and used up all her different colored bobbins.

Here is Val with her completed Halloween pillow. I'm not sure if she's late for 2017 or early for 2018!

Val's pattern is from Kimberbell Designs. It can be found here. She made the sewing version. A machine embroidery version is also available. Val made the pillow insert inside and the pillow has an envelope back.

Marion finished the binding on her birthday blocks quilt. This is from an ancient birthday swap probably from 10 years ago or more. This was the hardest block we've ever done as a group. It required a special (expensive!) ruler and very precise piecing. It was in a magazine. I have no idea what the pattern was called, so please don't ask.

Marion is all smiles because her quilt is done.

Marion's Asian backing coordinates perfectly with the front of her quilt.

Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

A new bag for Anna

Hello My Darling Quilting Peeps!

I didn't mean to stay away from you so long. After all, my work projects are finished and I went on a lovely vacation, but then my computer died... Anyhow, a visit to the Apple Store, lots of technical assistance from my wonderful husband, and voila, I'm back! Oddly, the less I write, the more followers I have on Bloglovin'... not sure how that works... you don't want me to write??

Anyways, this is technically my last finish of 2017. This is the City Zipper by Quilts Illustrated. I've used their patterns many times and I highly recommend them. My bag looks different than the pattern cover because I used one solid piece of fabric for the outside, instead of making a patchwork panel.

My darling friend Anna asked me to make her a diaper bag two years ago when she was expecting Cameron, who will turn one this year. She still needs a diaper bag, PLUS she is expecting a baby girl in June (whom I'm optimistically referring to as "Baby Nancy"), so I had to stop procrastinating and make it.

This is my lovely co-worker Julie modeling the bag.

There are lots of lovely pockets inside this bag. The pattern calls for one large inside pocket on each side and directs you to to decide how many to subdivide. After a phone consultation with Anna, I made two large pockets on one side of the bag and three medium size pockets on the other.

Anna picked out all three fabrics on eQuilter (don't look for them now, Anna bought them almost two years ago. Luckily for me, she is very patient.) When they arrived in the mail, I was stumped for a while with her color choices until I decided to use the olive green for the lining. All three fabrics are batik.

The bag has optional zipper panels on top. They were super easy to make.

This is the outside fabric, which I quilted simply in a two and a half inch grid.

Hopefully, in the next week or two, I will get myself organized and I will write a post with some technical details and give you some tips on the bag's construction. UPDATE: Here is the post with construction details.

Here is our baby Caesar all toasty warm in his coat despite the Siberian-like New England weather conditions this week. Don't worry, the pug boys have only gone out for a quick potty break. It is too cold to do anything else.

Linking up on Tuesday with Connie at Freemotion by the River. Linking up on Saturday to: nd to some great Friday Finish parties: Crazy Mom Quilts,  Confessions of a Fabric Addict, Busy Hands Quilts and MMM Quilts.

Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

Aloha!

Mike and I have left for a long overdue vacation. We'll be back soon!

In the meantime, here are the newest photos of the pug boys for you to enjoy.

Here is our beautiful Elvis, age 15.

From left to right: Elvis, age 15; LarryPug, age 8; and Caesar, age 4.

The photos were taken by Fred Levy of Fred Levy photography. He specializes in taking photos of black dogs!

Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

Happy Thanksgiving

Our friend Jeff from Black Thumb Studio took some new family portraits of us last month at Brookwood Community Farm, which is a local farm near our house. Here are my five favorites.

When he took this photo in the tall, tall grass, all I could think was I hope there aren't any ticks crawling up my pants!

We are about the farthest thing from a farm family but I couldn't resist taking a picture with this old tractor. I thought my friend Colette would get a kick out of this.

I love this photo because the four of us look great while LarryPug, at far left, is having a meltdown moment. Classic LarryPug.

My very handsome husband Mike and our baby Caesar.

It's all just a walk in the park!

I can't decide which photo I like the best. Which is your favorite?

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy

Drop Everything And Make an Elmo Quilt!

Why settle for delayed gratification when you can see the finished quilt at the top of the blog? It took seven photos before I could get all three pug boys on the quilt, all looking in the right direction. From left to right: LarryPug, age 8, Elvis, age 15, and Caesar, age 4.

My friend Sandra who blogs at MMM Quilts hosts a monthly link-up for DREAMI (drop everything and make it) quilts. Here's my first DREAMI quilt.

This week is Thanksgiving and we will get to see Baby Nate. He is into all things Elmo right now. So I thought it would be great to make him an Elmo quilt. Of course, there is no Elmo fabric to be found, even after scouring the Internet except for a lonely panel, which I bought because it was better than no Elmo at all.

A close-up of the fabrics in Baby Nate's quilt. They're all flannel.

On Friday during our Cape retreat, we visited Tumbleweeds in Barnstable. We had also visited on Thursday, but serendipitously, on Friday we entered through the back door of the shop. Lo and behold, there were several bundles of Elmo flannel in the clearance rack, which I hadn't noticed the day before. I restrained myself from buying all the bundles and only bought one. Baby Nate doesn't need a king-size Elmo quilt.

Here is the top assembled on Nancy D's design wall.

The fabrics in the bundle were different sizes. Some were large squares and some were large rectangles. I was able to get eight large squares out of each print. I opted for simple and fast since Baby Nate will only be a baby for a short time.

Here is the finished quilt, sans pugs.

The quilt went together quickly. Originally it was set in diagonal rows, but I laid it out in the other room at our retreat. I sewed half of it, by chaining the pieces together, but they kept getting tangled. So I picked up the second half in rows and neglected to check my work. A design opportunity occurred...

I quilted it myself by simply crossing each square in an "X" and finished it with a wide satin binding because all babies love satin binding the best! There is solid red flannel on the back. It is fairly large, about 60 inches square. I started this quilt on a Friday and finished it the following Sunday. After the pug boys did their photo shoot, I threw the quilt in the wash and it is all soft and crinkly.

Linking up on Tuesday to Freemotion by the River. Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,

Nancy

Here is LarryPug to say, Have a great day!

A visit to the Proper Bostonians Quilt Show, Part 3

I had intended to write an I like Thursdays post, but after fighting with photo software on my computer for several hours, "I like my computer" wouldn't have made the list, so I'm just going to finish up the quilt show post.

Part 1 and Part 2 can be found on their respective links.

This stunning modern interpretation of a log cabin was the first quilt that I saw when I entered the show.

Amish Cabin by Pat Kelliher, West Roxbury, Ma.
Pattern is Urban Cabin from Modern Quilt Designs for Classic Quilts by Kelly Biscopink and Andrea Johnson.
I think I have this book. Might as well add this to my list.

Asteroids by Eileen Thurston, Hyde Park, MA.
This quilt was made for the guild's summer challenge which was to use three to five analogous colors.

Black and White with Spots All Over by Barbara Winrich, Natick, MA.
The pattern is from Victoria Findlay Wolfe, Fade to Purple.

Snow in Summer by Linda Scollins, West Roxbury, MA.
This pattern is Snowflake from Laundry Basket Quilts.
It was enlarged from a 3-inch square pattern to a 4-inch square pattern.
Let me tell you, the pieces in this quilt were tiny!
I can't imagine how small they would have been if they had NOT been enlarged!

Kaffe Tuffet by Mary Ellen Berman, Milton, MA

Cities Can Sparkle by  Marguerite McDonagh Gallagher, Roslindale, MA
Modified from the pattern Urban Legend by A Quilter's Dream.

We went to the Bead Affaire the same weekend as the quilt show. A double-header!

My purchases from the bead show. I didn't buy anything at the quilt show. Really.

Here is LarryPug sleeping with all of his babies.

Thanks for visiting!

Pugs and kisses,
Nancy