Fat Cat Quilts

Baskets of Flowers

 
I finished the top of my November Schnibbles....Picnic.

And I love it!

It took some real focusing to get in the mood to work on little baskets when the holidays are upon us and snow is falling. I thought...picnic? In November? I really wanted to do Christmas baskets, but this time of year, I want to do everything in Christmas fabrics, and I had to reign myself in. I chose Mary Englebreit's Baskets of Flowers for two reasons. The colors were bright and cheery, much like a summer picnic. And secondly, I already had two charm packs in my stash. Bonus!

I ended up doing the outer border a little differently than the pattern called for. I had lots of charms leftover from my two packs, so I just sewed them all together and didn't cut it down the middle to make the border 2 1/2" wide. I kept it at the full 5" wide. But most of the leftover charms had white backgrounds and it looked too blended when it was up against the white center of the quilt and your eyes didn't know where to rest. I thought it needed something to define the edge of the border where it met the center of baskets, so I added a thin 1/2" inner border of green. At first, I was going to go with red, but when I laid it out, you instantly saw a big red outline of a square and I didn't want to take away from the pretty baskets. So the green is mellower and just keeps all those piano keys in check.

 

Can't wait to see what December's Schnibbles is! I hope it's Lincoln, cause I am dying to make that little quilt!

Be sure to tune in next week for my first (annual?) A WEEK OF CHRISTMAS! Every day a tribute to Christmas memories, traditions, recipes and songs. Oh yea, and a daily giveaway! Don't forget to stop by!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

I don't know where this picture came from or who to give credit to, but it sure makes me crack up. 

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. 

Be safe.
Be warm.
Be thankful.
Be happy.

And check back Monday for day one of a A Week of Christmas!

 

Lazy weekend

I didn't do anything productive this weekend. I didn't even get dressed yesterday. And by that, I don't mean I ran around naked, I just didn't get out of my pajamas. My stomach was bothering me and it's much more comfortable to hang out in the bathroom in your flannels than in real clothes. And because I didn't go to church, or cook any real meals that didn't involve cold cereal, I was forced to spend the day sewing so as not to completely waste my time. I worked on my November Picnic Schnibbles. I am LOVING this little quilt. Really, is a 36" square a quilt? It's more like a quiltlet. I am using Mary Englebreits's Baskets of Flowers and it is perfect fabric for these little baskets. I'm hoping to get the top finished this evening.

 
And speaking of finished.....have you seen THIS? Thelma, over at Cupcakes n' Daisies has finished her Red and White Snowball Challenge quilt. I think she is the first to finish. I think there should be a prize for that...  Her quilt is gorgeous and you should stop by and see for yourself.

Also, in other Red and White snowball news, here's a picture of Christine's progress. She doesn't have a blog, but emailed me a picture of what's she 's been up to. Looking good, Christine!

 

How are the rest of our red and white snowballs doing? Be sure to blog about your progress so we can all see those quilts in the making.

Have a good week!

 

Brown Bag Challenge 2004...last installment

This is the last of the Brown Bag challenges I have pictures for. Pictures I can find, anyway. This is good, cause I figure four days of someone else's bad quilt show photos is about the limit before you start throwing cyber tomatoes at me.

The secret fabric chosen for this year was a fun, bright cat print. I think the line was called Catnapping by Kaufman. With it were three coordinates from the same line, which wasn't the norm. Usually, to make it extra challenging, there was some odd, totally random fabric tossed into our brown bag mix to throw us off a bit. While this was true, let's be honest, for most, the REAL challenge was just finishing the quilt.

This was one of my favorite challenges. The fabric was so cheerful and leant itself really well to a whole variety of designs. It is amazing what different people can come up with, given the same thing.

Enjoy the show!

 

 

 

This one above was unbelieveable. The line going around and around is the cat fabric. Well hidden, I'd say. Must not be a cat lover. It was a very cool design.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which one's mine, you ask? This is mine:

Yep. This is what it looked like in 2004 when I started it. And this is what it still looks like today. In fact, this is the first time it's been out of the box since I packed it away on the UFO shelf five years ago. That was the year I bit off more than I could chew. I had come up with the bright idea of making everyone quilts for Christmas. I finished those, but something had to give. This gave.

I was, once again, trying to make a quilt from a picture after not being able to find the pattern. In this case, it was this picture on the cover of this book.

 

Really now, there should be laws about not including patterns for the cover photo in a book. Isn't that what grabs the customer and entices them to buy the book in the first place? Worked for me.

This quilt is nothing but a glorified Round Robin. Row after row of borders. Hence, the name of the book. As I recall, making the center of this quilt was alot of fun. Maybe I need to move it up a notch on the UFO list. It really was turning out quite cute.

Brown Bag Challenge 2002

This green and yellow quilt was the first Brown Bag challenge I ever participated in. Incidentally, it was also fairly soon after I began quilting and had wild ideas about mixing colors. (What was I thinking with that pistachio green???) I've since repented and found my way. The challenge fabrics were the yellow floral, the rust tone-on-tone and that grass green you see in the four outer X-blocks. The green fabric was the most challenging part. It didn't really match any of the greens in the focal fabric.

I had seen a quilt on the cover of an older Quilter's Newsletter and was just mesmerized. I couldn't find the pattern for it anywhere, so I broke it down on my own, block by block. By the way, if anyone knows anything about this pattern, please share the wealth and email me. I'd still love to get my hands on it.

Like I said, I was a newer quilter and there are many errors in the quilt, most obviously, a bunch of corners that don't line up on my square-in-a-square blocks. My quilt is only one small portion of the larger quilt. It was also the first quilt I ever machine stippled. I was very ambitious and had the crazy idea of a small stipple. It took forever and I can still remember how much my shoulders and neck hurt as I was leaning over my machine while quilting. While I like the finished design, I never was a fan of the colors or fabrics and have often entertained the idea of making this quilt again with fabrics that I really love.

Here's some other quilts from this challenge. These photos were scanned from actual pictures, so they may not be the greatest. And before that, they were taken with a camera that wasn't the greatest. By a photographer that is not the greatest. You get the idea.

This was the winning quilt that year. The center was paper pieced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lover's Knot quilt in the above two pictures is not the same quilt. Two of our gals made the same exact quilt. Aside from the borders being different, they even chose the same fabric placements for the center. And they crossed their hearts twice and swore they didn't know what each other was making. Uncanny, is what I say.
 
 
 
 
 

Brown Bag Challenge 2005

This little brown quilt is the challenge quilt that never was. I didn't get it finished in time for the show. The challenge fabrics were the Alexander Henry snow and cabin print, and two other coordinating prints that I didn't even put in the quilt once I realized I wasn't going to get it done in time anyway. I didn't like the other two prints and since I missed the deadline, I just made what I wanted with the snowy cabin print. I love the results. I used a pattern from one of Laurie Shifrin's batik books. I loved the look of the light to dark run of fabrics and had the most fun auditioning reds and browns. This was my first foray into mitered borders. They turned out okay, but I'm pretty sure I said some bad words while I was doing them.

Other quilts from this challenge included:

 

 

 

 

 

This was the Grand Prize winner that year. I just love the layered trees in the center. And the checkerboard border was perfect.

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Brown Bag Challenge 2003

The very first quilt I ever blogged about was my cherry quilt, which was my second Brown Bag challenge quilt. 

This is one of my all-time favorite quilts. I loved the fabric from the minute I saw it. It's by Hoffman, and I really liked how the cherries had some gold in them and weren't just all red. I also had alot of fun with the red and yellow combination. The feathered star blocks are from a book by Marsha McCloskey called Feathered Star Quilt Blocks: Really Hard Blocks That Take a Long Time to Make. This is no lie. Each of the stars took me about five hours. If you like feathered stars, this is the book for you. The quilts are gorgeous, and challenging, and you'll learn everything you ever wanted to know about Y-seams.

This week, I thought I would take you on a tour of some of our previous Brown Bag Challenges. The cherry fabric was from our 2003 challenge. Also included in the bag were a red tone-on-tone and a small yellow floral print. Here's some other quilts made with these same fabrics. See if you can spot them in each of the quilts. *Sorry for the poor quality of some of these photos. They are 35mm pics from an old school camera and I scanned them.

 

 

I wish I had a better picture of the quilt to the far right in the above picture. It was simply amazing. Inside each of the twelve star blocks was a little redwork embroidered block, one for each month of the year. So much work and detail went into this quilt. 

 

This last one is just the top. The gal who made it wasn't able to finish it before the show, but it sure turned out cute!

 

Oh, and this is what THIS YEAR'S brown bag challenge quilt looks like so far. I sewed all weekend long and just need to get the setting triangles sewed together and the borders on. Then I'm going to quilt it and get it to my binding angel. This quilt is going together so quickly. I'm really pleased with how it's turning out.

 
 
 

Swap Success and Brown Bags

Today brought the last of my swap envelopes in the mail. It's been alot of fun looking forward to these little manilla envelopes each day. We should do this more often. I now have a very nice selection of deee-licious creams, off-whites and even a couple tans. I love it! I can't wait to dig in and start cutting my strips. Or maybe I'll just leave these out on the table for a while and admire them.

I also found a package in my mailbox from Thelma of Cupcakes 'n Daisies. I was the lucky winner on her 50th post giveaway last week. She sent me the Rolls Royce of seam rippers. A Gingher seam ripper! It's a beauty too. I'm sure I'll be developing a real close relationship with this thing very soon. Thelma, being the wonderful person she is, also included some little goodies in the package, including this darling little cupcake pin. I've been seeing (coveting) these on other blogs, and now I have one for my very own. Thelma, thank you! You made my day.

Wednesday was our sew-in at the quilt shop. There were six of us who enjoyed an entire day of girl talk, good food, and sewing. I ironed open all 480 of my red and white HST's. Now I am in the middle of trimming them all to size.

I also cut out the pieces for a new quilt I am going to start for a challenge our group is having. Every fall/winter, our local quilt group participates in a Brown Bag Challenge. We receive secret fabric in a brown bag and are to make a quilt and finish it in time to display it at our annual quilt show in December. There, the challenge quilts are judged by the locals for Viewer's Choice, as well as by a panel of judges for the Grand Prize. The fabric inside our bags is the same for everyone, and we are supposed to keep what we are doing a secret. But being as we're women, and we frequently like to sew together, we rarely keep it on the DL. However, there was one year, when two women DID keep it to themselves, and actually ended up making the exact same quilt. It was both incredulous and hysterical. The looks on their faces as they came to see the show was priceless.

This year, the challenge fabric is from Kaufman's Holiday Flourish 2 line. It is absolutely stunning. If you haven't seen this line, run, don't walk, to your local quilt shop and check it out.

 

I really like that our challenge fabric this year is a Christmas fabric. It's so much fun to work on a holiday quilt during the holidays. It makes me want to put on my Christmas playlist, stick in the virtual fireplace DVD and heat up some hot cocoa. And sew all night long in my flannel pajama bottoms and fuzzy moose socks. I am doing a very simple star pattern that I found on About.com with the blocks set on point. Nothing fancy. I want to keep it simple to really enjoy the gorgeous gilded fabrics. Plus, I want to keep it simple so I can be sure to finish it in time for Christmas. Here's the picture from the online pattern. Very plain. Very simple. But all those wide open spaces will be perfect for showing off the large poinsettia print.

 

Have a good weekend! We have a little dusting of snow on the ground. I'm secretly hoping it will keep up all through the night and I'll wake up tomorrow to two feet of the stuff.

Busy Bee

That is me.

I have been sewing like a maniac for the past week. I'm loving it. My house needs cleaning, the laundry could be piling up and I've spent more time in my slippers and pj's than I care to admit. But I've had a blast and I'm getting little projects finished up and moved off that UFO list. It's just what me and my list have needed.

 
I finally finished this little baby quilt for a friend's daughter. Let's just say she's no longer a baby. It's embarrassing that this has sat unfinished for so long. All it needed was to be quilted. And yes, if you're looking closely, that IS skull fabric. On a baby quilt. All I can say is that it was a special request. Who even knew they MADE pink skull fabric? The line is called Baby Goth by Kaufman. It's a simple quilt that went together in a jiffy. Nothing too busy or intricate. Don't want to steal the thunder from that stellar fabric, you know. For the most part, I even made sure the skulls were all facing the same direction. They seem less scary that way. Mom and Dad loved it. Little girl....not quite sure what to think of it. She likes the pink.

 
This is a little table runner I made for Chamaine's kitchen table when I was down in Utah in October. It's made from a charm pack of Pumpkin & Spice, which is gorgeous. In fact, I liked it so much, I got a pack to make one for myself. I pieced the top for mine this weekend and just need to quilt it. The pattern is in the Little Charmers 2 by Anka's Treasures. I love this little pattern and have made it several times. It goes together like lightning and really shows off a cute pack of charms.

 

My fabric strips from my swap partners are arriving. I got four packages in today's mail, including some mysterious unmarked enevelopes. It seems there is a Sneaky Swapper on the loose. And I am the prime target. Thank you! To all of my swap partners, as well as my secret swap friend! These little strips really make my day. They're so fun.

It's Raining Red!

I am up to my eyeballs in HST's for the snowball challenge. I've sewn all 480 of them. 

Four. Eight. Oh. 

Now I need to cut them all apart and iron them open. I'm going to hold off on that for a few days. Wednesday, about six of us from our quilting group are having a sew-in at the quilt shop. We're putting on a big pot of chili, kicking off our shoes and not leaving until the sun sets. Ok, the sun sets around 4pm right now, so maybe that won't work. We're not leaving until at least five o'clock. Or when our families start calling asking when dinner is. Whichever comes first. More importantly, I am going to spend the entire day ironing open my 480 HST's. I know you're jealous, you don't have to say it.

In other news, I've got my fabric for my November Schnibbles all lined up. I'm using two charm packs from Mary Englebreit's Baskets of Flowers line with whatever white background is closest to the top of the pile in my sewing room. I know all that's left in the background pile is white, because all the creams and off-whites are in the Snowball Challenge pile. I really like this little line of petite flowers. I like the cheery mix of brights and pastels, and the fun checks. Not quite gingham. Not really a plaid. Checks? And I love the red and white floral. I bought yardage of that. I think I'll use some of it for the backer. This is a fun little summery pattern to work on as winter creeps in.

I also made THESE tonight and your friends and family will love you forever if you do too. They were yummy! And they made the house smell like Christmas. Who needs candles when you have cinnamon chips?