Tu-Na Travels: Day Four in Paris and Prepping the Poodle Body Parts

This was the only day it rained during our stay in Paris. After booking our tickets, we read to avoid going to Paris in April because it is their rainy season. But we found it to be beautiful then.

 

Day Four in Paris found us at the Museum D’Orsay but first we grabbed our usual French breakfast.

Nutella for breakfast!! It tasted so much better in Germany and Paris than here at home.

Maybe it didn’t take much to amuse us, but we found this huge jar of nutella fascinating. We spied it on the second level of the Eiffel Tower.

Speaking of large things, I couldn’t help but get excited at the things I found in the market across the street from our apartment.

We can buy celery at the grocery stores in North Dakota but not this big or with leaves. It looked so fresh.

Look at all the variety of tomatoes to choose. Here in North Dakota, we have two choices of tomatoes: expensive and more expensive.

No photography was allowed in the D’Orsay but we found other things in Paris to take photos to remember this day and give us a taste of what Paris was all about.

We saw many motorcycles in Paris, both parked and being driven. They even park them on the sidewalks.

There were many bike racks where one could rent a bike. We saw lots of bicyclists, too, weaving in and around the traffic.

We enjoyed seeing the beautiful architecture

and interesting buildings complete with rooftop gardens.

What I learned today..Samedi, April 19, 2014

1. Ten days in Paris will not be long enough!
2. I can easily ignore “No, you cannot buy anymore souvenirs.” How could I refuse making the apron purchase when the sales person decreased the price, added some potholders, and threw in a free keychain of the Eiffel tower?
3. Crepes with strawberry jam or Croissants and Nutella makes a good French breakfast. We finally got to breakfast on time downstairs–not at the McDonalds. The apartment offered breakfast on another floor at an extra cost.
4. Today at the Museum D’Orsay I heard a quote credited to Renoir, a French painter. “All I like is skin, a young girl’s skin, that is pink and shows good circulation.” That explains a lot of the paintings of nakedness and angel babies that we’ve seen.

Poodle Block Tips:

Part quatre (4) Prepping the Poodle Body Parts.

You’re probably discovering how handy these labels are and if you haven’t, you will.

Sally from The Objects of Design refers to the body pieces as “light” in her right facing poodle tutorial but here I will refer to them as body pieces to continue to add to your confusion. Well, I hope not, as I do find it easier when referring to them this way.

You will need the pieces marked as: Top of head, Nose, Body, Chest, and the two marked Foot. Set the Body piece aside for now.

You will also need 9 of the 1.25″ square background extra pieces. Sally refers to these as “white” in her tutorial. Lay a background square on the right corners of the Nose, the bottom right corner of the Chest, the top two corners on the Top of the head piece, and the right side of each of the feet (Foot) pieces as pictured below.

Now flip those corners. Draw a diagonal line–as pictured above, stitch, trim seam to 1/4″, and press towards the dark side for now. I go into this step in more detail in the Part 3 post.

At this point, I like to square the pieces:

• Top of head and Chest each square to 2.75″ x 3.5″
• Nose squares to 2.75″
• each of the feet (Foot) squares to 1.25″ x 2″

The last seams for this project right now will be adding a 1.25″ background square to the left of each foot piece.

Lay a 1.25″ background square on the left side of each foot with right sides together and stitch 1/4″ from edge. Press. Trim to 1.25″ x 2.75″.

Now stand back and admire your hard work.

We didn’t need to do anything with the piece labeled Body.

There’s these poodle body parts all pampered and prepped and ready for the next step. It won’t be long now and you’ll be hearing him or her bark. In fact, my husband thinks he heard a dog barking and we don’t have a real one, that is. After investigating, we found this in the mailbox from Jennifer, The Inquiring Quilter, from Indiana.

It’s beautiful!!! (Is it a she or a he?) Thank you, Jennifer! And also thank you for the three 1.5″ squares of these wonderful fabrics. They will make a nice addition to my postage stamp quilt.

Here are the previous poodle posts just in case you need to catch up to figure out what we are doing.

Tu-Na Quilts: All Aboard. Fasten Your Seatbelts. We’re Taking Off for… You will find the pattern link for the poodle block in this post as well as why I chose this block.

Tu-Na Travels: Day One in Paris which includes Part un (1): Pattern and Fabric Selection

Tu-Na Travels: Day Two in Paris and Poodle Block Cutting Tips which includes Part deux (2): Cutting and Anatomy Labeling

Tu-Na Travels: Day Three in Paris and Prepping Those Furry Pieces which includes Part trois (3): Prepping the Furry Accent Pieces (Foot poofs, Tail, and Ear) 

Coming soon: Part cinq (5): Prepping the Background Pieces (We are getting closer to done. Oh, no, I may run out of parts to sew before I run out of days that I learned things in Paris.)

What I Learned Today:

1. Everything is easier when broken into steps.
2. I haven’t eaten Nutella for a very long time.
3. My sons are very handy. Today, they installed two, LED, under cabinet, lights above my cutting mat and sewing machine. Of course, that meant that the sewing room was off limits to me for the day.
4. My husband was excited to see Jennifer’s poodle, too. I told him there would be more coming and I said, “Won’t that be fun?” to which he remarked, “As long as I don’t have to take them out for a walk.”

Question: How would you eat a Croissant? Nutella or Jam or ____?