Fat Cat Quilts

In the Nick of Time

Tonight I finished my March Schnibbles top. Yes, you're seeing things right...it's a table runner. No, I didn't lose half of it. In my quest for Spring decorations, a table runner fit the bill better than a 30" inch quiltlet. I am pleased with the dark brown inner border, but let me tell you, I am in LOVE with the combination of the smashed avocado greens and spa blues. Does it seem like that phrase "spa blue" is everywhere these days? I mean, what did we call it before someone came up with SPA blue? Light blue? Pale turquoise? Cerulean, aquamarine? Who decides that SPA BLUE is the new "it" color? Who came up with the notion that SPA BLUE sounds so much more sophisticated than just plain old ordinary aqua? I want in on this. Let it be known, when Nipple Pink makes it big, it was my idea.

It only took one little charm pack to make this table runner. I used everything. I quite like how it turned out and am thinking of blowing through a few more orphan charm packs with this same pattern. I've decided that the real challenge in the Year of Schnibbles is finding a line of fabric with the appropriate ratio of lights to darks needed for the specific pattern chosen. I have a stack of charm packs waiting to be loved, but as I audition them for Schnibbles each month, this one doesn't have enough darks to make the pattern stand out, this one doesn't have enough lights for a background, or the worst one, no value range at all. I'm talking about YOU, Garden Party. You're pretty and all, but you're just one big pile of medium values. I've cast you aside with a scowl for several months now. Your time will come.

My Quality Control Manager is particularly fond of this quilt. It brings out the colors of her eyes. She's so vain. She probably thinks this quilt is about her.

Good Morning Monday!

Last week was a busy week. This weekend was a busy weekend. Since I've discovered I have no Easter or Spring decorations, I decided to pick fabric accordingly for my March Schnibbles. The pattern this month is Roundabout. I am making mine out of Deb Strain's Cherish Nature. I'm not ordinarily drawn to these colors. Mostly because I think the whole brown and turquoise thing has run it's course and is overdone. Stick a fork in it. But the prints in this line are just so luscious. I couldn't resist. I'm a sucker for scrolly lines and curlicues. And it's full of everything you need for Spring: butterflies, bees, flowers and spotted eggs. 

Now if only THIS would go away:

 
I also scored some super cute shoes this weekend on a clearance sale. That's always a good day.

 
Aren't those little argyle ballet flats cute? They feel like an actual argyle sweater and they even have little bows on the side. I love them!

 
Have a great week! The end of March is almost here and that's just one step closer to Summer!

 

I Have No Easter Decorations.

No cute baskets of blown glass eggs.

No sweet little bunnies sitting on the shelf, doing something cute.

I don't even have any Easter quilts. Or Spring ones for that matter.

I should get right on that.

Last year, I found the pattern for these little funny bunnies on Wee Wonderfuls blog. I thought I'd whip some up in a jiffy and share some with my friends. After my first one, I decided to change the pattern from 3-D to 2-D and just have a front and back. The three sided bunnies looked like little weeble wobbles. I was really pleased with the two-sided version. I also changed the shape of the ears a bit so I could add the pink centers. I used cream flannel for the front and assorted pastel floral flannel prints for the backs. And tacked on a big fluffy white pom pom for the tail. I also stitched on a little pink triangle scrap for the nose, rather than embroider it because after embroidering the first one, my patience was depleted. And I stuck myself with the needle twice.

 
They turned out really quite soft and cuddly. And don't they look cute all nestled together there in a basket?

I ended up giving them all away.

And now I still don't have any Easter decorations.

I'm going shopping.

The Rushin' Tailor & the Self-disciplining Cat

 
 

I still haven't sewn on that last border of my Native Rainbow. (Seriously, what IS my problem? I am in a quilting drought. Send help fast.) Again, and I hesitate to announce this, only to be held accountable.....but I HOPE to do it soon.  As in possibly tonight. Or maybe tomorrow.

Since I have no quilty progress to shout from the rooftops, I thought I'd take you on a brief tour of the quilt shop I work part-time in during the winters. Brief, because we've been busy bees in there this week making kits for the summer, and there were only certain parts of the shop that were in suitable condition to be photographed. But let it be said, it's a wonderful shop, chock full of every single moose and bear print imaginable, and a batik section that will leave your jaw on the floor. If you're ever visiting Skagway, be sure to stop in. Tell them Allyson sent you. It won't get you any big discounts or anything, but it'll make them real happy to know I'm out doing PR for them. Seriously though, do stop in. You'll be happy you did.

The shop is called The Rushin' Tailor. In fact, a couple years ago, there was an article in Quilter's Newsletter about the store, and Pat, a summer employee who comes up to work the tourist season. Pat's a kick in the pants. She's hilarious and if you ever get the chance to visit the shop, be sure to say hi to her. She'll have you laughing in no time.

 
 
 
 
 
We have a couple snowballers who have finished their quilts. Have a peek!

Here's Janice's quilt :

 

 I love this block with the funky chicken peeking out:

 

Stop by her blog and read the story about how she named her quilt. It's pretty funny. Congrats on finishing Janice!

Next up is Sinta's shabby chic snowball quilt in romantic pinks. I just love it!

 
Congratulations on finishing Sinta!

So about my cat. I have a sewing room downstairs. A whole entire room devoted to nothing but quilting. It has pretty cupboards full of fabric, and fun baskets full of colorful threads and bright buttons. But honestly, it's really just a glorified fabric storage room. In the winter, I prefer to sewupstairs most of the time. On a little Costco folding table in the corner of the living room. I can't help it. I feel like I'm going to miss something if I'm holed up downstairs all by myself. And this way, I can still talk with Keith and see what's going on in the center of the house.

A few days ago we couldn't find Tigger. Now remember, Tigger weighs 23 pounds. He doesn't just hide himself in little cracks and crevices where a normal cat would fit. Besides, he's worse than I am about being afraid of missing something. Particularly dinner. So it was odd that he wasn't sprawled out somewhere in plain sight, like, say, in front of the refrigerator. And then we saw him, perched up on a pile of my UFO's on my living room sewing table. I've been going back and forth about posting this picture for days. I think it's hilarious, but I also am embarrassed to show you my quilty mess in the living room. As you can see, the funny cat trumps the dirty living room. (Which, by the way, doesn't always look like this.) We have no idea what he was doing, but my guess is he did something naughty and was giving himself a time-out. Good kitty.

Batik Beauties

Back in 2001, I was a fairly novice quilter. I was also pretty narrow-minded. As in, I didn't think much outside the box. I find something I like and go to town with it. So when I found this book in my local quilt shop, I set out to make all of them. Every quilt in the book. I often confuse craziness with ambition. I set out to build a batik stash. I carefully stacked and folded my newly acquired batiks, petting them and murmuring sweet nothings. In a very short time, I was a batik addict and completely enamored with Laurie Shifrin.

Fast forward two years down the road....

I'm at work one day, when the local quilt shop calls me (at work!) to tell me that my quilting idol is in town on a cruise ship and is IN the quilt shop. NOW. I couldn't get there fast enough. And there I was, standing in the quilt shop, meeting Laurie Shifrin, gushing over how much I love her books. She was so friendly and genuine. We talked like old friends, and then she gave me her card and wrote a message on the back about how nice it was to meet me. I told her how much I wished to invite her back to teach some classes.

And that's exactly what we did two years later. Let me tell you, it is not easy getting a quilt instructor up here. For starters, after the big plane to Juneau, you have to ride it's baby into Skagway. This does not go over well with a lot of people. In fact, the first time I ever came here, I was certain I was being punked, as surely no one rode these tiny planes on purpose. I think the words disposable and airplane came together in my mind. Right before I hyperventilated.

 

That's our dear friend Laurie, arriving in style. Isn't that neat how you actually get to climb onto the wing to get in and out of the plane? It doesn't get any better than that. I didn't tell her about this part until she got here. I was afraid she wouldn't come. 

 
Laurie taught two classes while she was here. Native Rainbow from her book Batik Beauties, and Patchwork Puzzle from her second book Batiks and Beyond. And then Friday night she did a trunk show. That was my favorite part of the whole weekend. Each and every quilt was just gorgeous! And I can't tell you how cool it was to see the actual quilts from her books. And her stories were hilarious! Laurie is a natural story-teller. She has had so many adventures in her life, and shares them in a way that keeps you laughing for two hours straight.

 

 

Here's her Patchwork Puzzle, from the cover of her second book. 

 

This quilt was a fun quilt to make. Fast piecing. I have a feeling I intended to enlarge mine, because as I dug it out this weekend, I found all the pieces cut for several more blocks. But I just wanted to get it done and off the UFO list, so I stuck with the original plan. It's more girly-sized this size anyway.

Our other class was Native Rainbow, but I'll save that for another day. I finished all the piecing for the center, and still need to put my final borders on. I'm hoping to get to that this weekend.

 
Have a great weekend!

 
 
 

 

Stirring the Pot

This is what happens when ten ladies spend too much time together snowed in at a retreat. (The table full of cakes and candy might have something to do with it also.)

 

 

 

If you can believe it, that's a stainless steel bowl we found in the kitchen. Never pass up an opportunity to rock out. 

And here's a few more quilts that saw the light of day this weekend...

 
  
 

 
 
 

 

More from the weekend retreat...

 
One of the gals who joined us this weekend for our UFO retreat was Donna. Donna has a penchant for intricately detailed piecing and hand quilting. I share her love for small pieces, but the hand quilting isn't for me. I hand quilted one quilt once upon a time, and believe you me, it was also my last. End of story.

Back to her hand quilting....check out the close-ups of this gorgeous applique floral quilt. Her quilting is just stunning.

 

I can't even imagine the amount of patience that is required to do something like this. But I certainly do enjoy looking at it and marveling at her detailed work. 

Donna had other treasures to show us this weekend. Her dad gave her this old box of fabrics that her mother had from back in the 40's. As she was digging through it, she found five unfinished quilt tops....all hand pieced!  They were just amazing.

 

 
One of my quilting friends hit the nail on the head when she exclaimed that these were not reproduction fabrics, but rather the real thing. They were just amazing to look at, poring over the variety of fabrics, and marveling at the detailed handwork. Donna's mom had it going on, that's for sure.

 

 
 

Alive and Kickin'

I unintentionally took a week off from blogging. All for very good reasons.

The Great Hack of 2010 wore me out. Then there was all that housework and laundry that I had neglected the week (weeks?) before. And I worked a full week at the quilt shop that I usually work part-time at. Oh, and then there's that teeny tiny bit about just not wanting to. Blogging, that is. I didn't do any quilting last week, and I didn't feel like mustering up enough fluff for a non-quilting related post. So I played hookie and watched seasons four and five of Gilmore Girls instead. I'm all better now. Those Gilmore girls really know how to fix things, you know?

But I'm back in the game and this weekend, about ten of us from our quilt group got together for a UFO retreat. Wow, were we productive! We started Saturday at 8:00am and dug out our well-hidden treasures from the past and finished them right up. Piles of blocks that needed to be sewn into rows, tops that needed borders, and everything in between. We laughed, covered the local gossip, debated the recent news stories, and plowed through the bobbins and stacks of fabric. By Sunday evening, we had new piles of finished quilt tops and the sweet sickening feeling in our stomachs that can only come from eating too much chocolate cake and peanut M&M's. Success all around.

I brought two UFO's from a quilt retreat back in 2005. I didn't finish the tops at the retreat and packed all the pieces up in a basket and took them home. And this weekend was the first time I had unpacked them since. That's really sad, now that I see that all typed out. This is what I started out with Saturday morning:

And by Saturday night, I had this:

The color scheme is quite startling, and quite frankly, I have no idea what I was thinking. But that was then and this is now, and I have since refined my tastes in fabrics. I believe I was enamored with the bohemian look of the shocking pink border fabric and pulled the rest of my colors from that. When I look at it now, all that comes to mind is a string of Disney princesses. So with that, my 7-year old niece will be getting this for Christmas. I hope she loves it. And if the pattern looks familiar, it's because it's the cover quilt on this book.

 

Laurie Shifrin was our guest instructor at our annual retreat that year. I adore her books....but more on that tomorrow. Till then, enjoy a peek at what some of the other gals worked on this weekend.

 

 
 

 

 

 
 

 

 
 

Email Hacked

Hi everyone!

It appears my primary email account has been hacked into. I am not in Nigeria. I am not in Africa. I do not need money. I am safe and sound in Alaska. Unfortunately, my hotmail account is not. Please disregard any strange emails from me. As I do not have access to my address book, I thought this would be the quickest way to get the word out.

Thanks and keep your fingers crossed!

I scream and other random musings

I have neglected my blogging duties this week.

Along with that, I have also neglected quilting, cooking and all house-cleaning in general. I have not had a very productive week. It's a good thing Survivor's on tonight, or this whole week would have been a bust. 

It hasn't been a bad week. Just a lazy one. Do not confuse the two. Because although I have thoroughly neglected doing anything of domestic worthy praise, I have found THE quilt I will start next. Oh, and I also found this little gem:

What? Marzipan? Who eats that stuff? Better yet, WHAT is that stuff?

All good questions.

Marzipan is sweet almond paste and I love it. Maria, of Garibaldi fame, is from Hungary. A few years ago, she went home for Christmas and brought some of these little treats back. In Hungary, they use brightly wrapped morsels of chocolate-covered marzipan to decorate their Christmas tree. Can you imagine? A Christmas tree enrobed in candy! Who comes up with this and why don't we do that here?

I have been a loyal fan of Marzipan ever since.

So as I was rooting around in the Ben & Jerry case at the video store, nobly looking for some frozen yogurt, I found this Mission To Marzipan and couldn't contain myself. I hollered to Keith, who was across the room, innocently looking for a DVD to rent and probably wishing desperately that a hole in the floor would swallow him up. Then I bumped my head on the ice cream case shelf and I don't remember the rest. Just kidding, I totally remember everything. Especially the fact that this ice cream rocks. You should try it. In fact, everyone should try it, because I fear that it does not have a long life ahead of it. After all, how many people actually like marzipan? Mission to Marzipan is the fruitcake of the ice cream world. Incidentally, I also like fruitcake. Oooh, now there's an idea Ben. And Jerry. Fruitcake ice cream.

Ok, back to the the quilt I can't wait to start. In the latest issue of American Patchwork & Quilting, there is a quilt called Two-Pieced Puzzle. And here's a shocker for you: it's red.

Here's the photo from the magazine's website. It's much more aesthetically pleasing than mine, but I don't really feel you get a good look at the quilt's design.

Isn't that just a great quilt? I love it! I especially like how the black hourglasses form the borders around the star blocks. I haven't stopped pouring over this quilt for days. I can't decide if I want to make it like this, in tans, reds and blacks, a color option of which I already have several quilts made from. Or to replace the blacks with navy blues. Or keep the blacks, and replace the reds with rusty burnt oranges for a fall/Halloween quilt. Any of them would be fun to work with, but I can't decide. And who needs to? What fun is it to have a lazy week if you have to make important decisions? I'll decide next week.

Remember the Round Robin adventure three friends and I have been doing this winter? Well, I got mine back. 

I started with the scrappy nine-patch thing going on in the middle, and then it was passed to Peggie in Arizona, Janie in Pennsylvania, and then to Jane in Sitka. Then it came home to me a few weeks ago. It's a good sized lap quilt, but I'm not sure it's done yet. I'm thinking about adding a few more borders to make it a bit bigger. I just love the little prairie point-esque border Jane added on. You can't see in this photo, but the centers of the triangles are the sweetest little red and white gingham. And yes, if you've looked closely, those are, in fact, SQUIRRELS. A big, behemoth brown one, complete with a bushel of nuts, and his little friend down in the lower corner. It's an inside joke between the four of us, and Jane and Peggie, clever little gals that they are, decided it would be fun to add them to my quilt. And before anyone starts sweating, they're pinned on. And coming off. Very soon. I'm just letting them enjoy their winter harvest before I tuck them away someplace dark and damp and nutless.

My green floral print for the outer border of my Verna quilt arrived in the mail today. So as soon as I snap out of this funk, I plan to put that on. And hopefully, I'll have my bowties finished soon to share with you also. We have a weekend UFO retreat coming up in a couple weeks, and I'm hoping to finish up a bunch of these smaller UFO's kicking around so I can actually use the UFO retreat to start the new black and red (or will it be navy and red?) quilt. I'm also thinking of what charms I should use for this month's Schnibbles, Roundabout.  I should use some of the charm packs in my stash, but I really like the new Cherish Nature line by Deb Strain.

 

Maybe I'll decide next week.