A Bit More Piecing on "I Love My Cat"

It looks so much better with more pieces laid out. I have finished the 4 sides. I can't do the other two cats until I get my roll of fusible applique paper. I bought it online on Fishpond and it is coming from the UK. It worked out cheaper than buying it from an Australian seller.

I plan to make it a bit bigger with some borders.

It will look something like this. The rectangles in the last border will be made from the same fabrics in the quilt as much as possible.

I will put it aside for now while I wait for the applique paper. In the mean time I will be making some Splendid Sampler blocks.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Friday Night Sew In - I Love My Cat Quilt

I have been working on this one for a while. Since I was sorting all my scraps for the Splendid Sampler I decided to do a bit of this quilt as I went. (Just before posting I checked the post I did of the first of the cat blocks. I can't believe it was this time last year that I started this!)

I don't know what I was thinking when I put that dark blue check as part of a back ground block but it will end up blending in I think.

I carefully worked out where the dark, medium and light fabrics were placed and tried to stick to that layout even though my colours are completely different to the photo I am working from. I am sticking to red, green and brown.

I have matched the strengths of the fabrics to the design in the instructions. Where there is dark blue I have put a strong red. Then there are some light greens in mine and some medium red, green and brown.

Adding some applique hearts

I have done the top and bottom and a few of the in between bits.

I have just laid out the sides. I shuffled things around a bit until the patterns fit together OK. I tried to stick to the order of dark and medium and light as best I could from the photo. The dark strips are reds only with the light and medium being greens and browns.
I wasn't perfectly happy with this layout. I thought it looked a bit dark. I found some lighter left overs from the top and bottom that I have since substituted in. It made a big difference just putting in a few lighter strips.

I didn't do all this on Friday night. Luckily I don't have to juggle much with my sewing so this is how

far I have gotten over 4 days.

I hope everyone had a successful night. A big thank you to Wendy for hosting Friday Night Sew-In.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Stumpy gets very tired watching me work.

Working on 'I Love My Cat' Applique Quilt

Thought I better bite the bullet and try to find some background fabrics for the cat quilt. I have been putting it off because I have lots of dark novelty prints and large patterns that are difficult to work with in a quilt. Great for tote bags though.

I have very few blenders or even light colours. I decided on a fairly dark background for this block because the lighter florals that I tried made the cat look a bit washed out.

Another thing I noticed is that I seem to have a smaller cat than the one in the magazine. I enlarged this pattern ages ago and probably had another use for it in mind. I just assumed I had the right size for the quilt. Never mind. I will make the other cats the right size. This block has some foot prints on it so it will fill up OK.

This cute quilt is by Lynette Anderson. See my first post about it.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

I Love My Cat Wall Quilt

I love this quilt by Lynnette Anderson. Earlier this year I tore out all the patterns I liked from my magazines and threw the magazines away. I kept out a couple of patterns that I thought I might try this year.

The pocket was in view just under my sewing machine and I kept looking at it. Then last week I pulled down my scrap box and moved the pocket to the top of the box. Yay! I had started.

Yesterday I put together a cat body and I feel very pleased with myself.

However, today I have found a bag making challenge for November with tutorials and tips and give aways. Over at Elm Street Quilts. I already have my eye on my zipper box and will use scraps to make a little pouch to enter in the competition this week. Well, that's the plan anyway.

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Sewing is such fun

I still have the little bits sewing bug. Yesterday I made a yin yang cat mat, a fabric pen cup and a pillow cover front. I think I feel a HST frenzy coming on too. I love the 8 at once method!

The yin yang cats were inspired by a pendant I saw on Pinterest made by Loja Yarr. I made some adjustments so it was suitable to use for applique. It is easy. You just make two bodies and two tails in contrasting fabrics using fusible applique paper. The image is already reversed for tracing. They slide together and overlap. The tails go on last.

Save as and print. Vary the size as you like.

Layout

The fabric pen box has thick bag interfacing and a big metal washer in the base so the pens don't make it fall over. I used this tutorial as a starting point.

The pillow cover is made from HST pieced using this design. I left out the petal pieces and will bind the front to the back with the red fabric instead of doing a seam. I used the 8 at once HST method from here. It worked well because I used a 1/8 inch seam each side of the pencil line rather than 1/4 inch (2/8 inches).

Today Pixel Scrapper started up a free mini kit a week thing. I already get several free elements every day just for registering for free. It is great if you like scrapbooking. The mini kits are here.

Comment option:
Flickr

Happy Quilting and Crafting,
Val

Geometric cats

I found a lovely painting by Azul de Andruchak of cats done like Picasso. There is a picture of the original painting in thisBlog just scroll down a bit to find it.
I couldn't bring myself to give them only one eye each so I added more eyes. It was a bit tricky to get all the pieces to meet in the right places.
It is only small, about 12 x 8 inches.

Linking up with Link a Finish Friday 64
Also linking up with Applique Thursday

Happy Quilting,
Val

Posted with Blogsy

Sew, sew, sew. Blog, blog, blog

I am so glad I am retired and have time to sew and blog.

Lots of positive things happening .

I received a lovely gift of some woven felt wool from Mel at the House on the Side of the Hill. It was a nice welcome to the Summertime Sewalong she suggested earlier in the year. There are not many sewing along because it is a fairly piecy looking appliqué and even I have decided I will only make 9 of the blocks to make a square wall hanging. It is nice to play and sew with felt.

I purchased some new fabric called Avalon from the Fabric Patch online .

A lovely lady sent me some photos of two block keepers she made with my cat appliqué on the fronts. I was so pleased she liked the patterns. You can see them at Mairsmusings.

I had a great time meeting some of the people behind the blogs at a sewing meet we had for the Brisbane Stitchers Inc. It is basically Brisbane bloggers but all sewers are welcome. Believe it or not I won the lucky door prize of a lovely pattern and a pincushion made by Maree of Ollie and May

I had my first go at needle turn appliqué when I started the Holiday lap quilt from It's Quilting Cats and Dogs. I have nearly finished two of the blocks. They both have some finishing off to do. I plan to make the quilt from the Avalon fabric.

 

I have also been doing more of the Debbie Mumm sampler . Some little log cabins, the fish and I have started the stars.

 

And the weather is just perfect today.

Happy Quilting,

Val

 

Posted with Blogsy

Friends handbag and Mug bag

I bought the Lynette Anderson book It's Quilting Cats and Dogs. I love it. I made the little satchel handbag using images of my dog and cat. My dog was a Newfoundland with his distinctive forehead and big size. My cat has cute cheeks and a bobtail that doesn't show when he sits. They loved each other and I know Stumpy is a bit lonely now he has gone. You can see them on Stumpy's page.

You are welcome to download my dog and cat.

I also finished the mug bag I started a while back.

The cross stitch makes a pocket for a tea bag and I made a little coaster that fits in too.
The pattern is at Redbrolly. It is at the bottom of the really long post.
Happy Quilting,
Val

Posted with Blogsy

Finished the Catnip Quilt

Just some photos of my cat quilt. I am so happy with how it looks.

I finished the bag.

I finished the quilt.

The back.

Ready to give.

I just wrote the label so it is not really picture worthy. It says the quilt is 90% cotton and 10% cat fur. Stumpy was there for the final stitches.

This quilt is for my daughter. I am going to give it to her when she visits for our family day on Good Friday.

Linking up to 

Link a finish Friday 

and 

Finish it up Friday

Happy Quilting,
Val

Bomaholic!

Has anyone else got this problem? I know there are quite a few ladies out there who can't resist all the BOMs around the web and now I am one of them.

Have you seen the owl bom from fatcatpatterns ? I missed the first block and had to make it up from the picture. That pointy border was a trick.

 

There is a cute sewing theme one I want to make and I found a lovely looking pieced one that I might just make things out of the blocks rather than a quilt. I am sure you saw Hello Sun last year well there is now Hello Moon. I want to make them both this year.

I made another apple.

I forgot to reverse the pattern so the swirl goes the other way.

The big news is that I finished the cat quilt and I am just making a bag for it.

It just happened that I made one cat too many so I saved it for the bag. I have some left over border for the top edge and some small squares that I will sew together to make the handles. It is sitting on the folded quilt so I could see if it would fit. I will take some photos of the quilt on a sunny day soon.

Stumpy was there for the final stitches :)

I have started collecting BOMs on Pinterest. Rather than fiddle with links in this post just click on my P button in the right side bar and find the bom board.

Hope everyone is getting some sewing done.

Happy Quilting,

Val

 

Posted with Blogsy