Slow Sunday Stitching--Copy Cat Pillow

Slow Sunday Stitching--the Copy Cat pillow I am making for Sewtopia's Windham Fabric Challenge is nearing a finish. The fabric line is Five + Ten by Denyse Schmidt.  I got all the machine quilting finished and attached the binding and backing. 

I used the recommended quilting design from the Copy Cats book pattern (By Dawn Navarro). 

Some stitch in the ditch around the legs and a couple rows of quilting in the border finished that job. 

Years ago I used a wool batting for a quilt and could not bear to throw away the cuttoffs.  I'm slicing the leftovers into bits and pulling them into fluffy pieces to use for the decorative balls--that will give the kitties the look of two front paws.  I should have done attaching job before I added the pillow back and binding, but that's a minor issue.  Only two more days to get ready to fly out to Florida! 

See more Slow Sunday Stitching on Kathy's Quilts blog. 

Slow Sunday Stitching--Cats Faces

 I've got a much later start on Slow Sunday Stitching today than I planned. See lots of great stuff on Kathy''s Quilts Blog.

There was some necessary reshuffling of stuff in the sewing room first, as the mess was becoming completely untenable.  I cleared some space to set up the light box and trace the faces for the Copy Cat block.

I have no idea why this looks so blurry, but the stitching commenced as soon as the tracing was done. 

I used perle cotton for the eyes and 6 strands of DMC embroidery thread for the nose and whiskers.  Once both cat faces are on, borders will be added and the pillow front quilted.  I'm running out of time to get things done before we depart for Sewtopia Orlando at the end of the month.  This challenge project has to be turned in upon checkin, so I need to have it all ready.  Better get myself organized--I'll get my suitcase laid out on the spare room bed and throw stuff in there as I think of it!

Easy Breezy Detour

It is time to finish up last year's leader-ender, Bonnie Hunter's Easy Breezy block on Quiltville.com.  For my alternate layout, I am planning a 3x6" rectangle spacer block in a light blue.  This makes the rows wider, but does nothing to increase the quilt's length.  I had originally thought to do an 8x10 block layout --counting only the EB blocks, that is--but increased it to an 8x13 layout to balance the width to length ratio.  There will be borders added to the quilt top when the center is complete. 

There are a couple of rogue blocks in the pic, where I used dark prints for the rectangles instead of lights.  Time to cut more pieces!

Plenty of choices in the blue-green-purple scrap drawer. The red-orange-yellow drawer also provided many options.

I'm hoping to get all these blocks sewn up as leader-enders during Sewtopia.  There will be a lot of use of the GO die cutter this week for the main project I want to make.  

There is more to do for the Windham Fabric Challenge but I have finalized my design choices and will get lots done on that tomorrow.  I'll be adding faces to the cat blocks for Slow Sunday Stitching. 

I've severely depleted this drawer of precut 1.5 and 2" scraps since this pic a year ago!  The scrap kitty always needs to be fed, right?

Design Wall Monday--Windham Challenge

Design Wall Monday--I am working on the Windham Challenge for Sewtopia.  See more Design Walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I got started on sewing up all the pieces cut so far for the tessellating cats, pattern in the Copycat Quilts book, by Dawn Navarro. 

The cat's heads and backs first were assembled. There are some pretty small pieces in this section. 

An oops in the assembly of the legs portion.  Fortunately not difficult to unstitch and redo two seams.

That's better!  I'll finish up the red cat's leg section and give all a good press before adding to the cat figures.  Next step is to embroider the cat's faces.  

Two fat quarters have not yet been cut into.  There are borders, backing, and binding, and two stuffed balls yet to construct.  I believe I will have enough fabric, even if I end up piecing the pillow back from chunks. 

Another Easy Breezy block from leader-enders.  I'm still shy of the number of blocks for my quilt plan, though I am using a different setting of far fewer blocks than Bonnie Hunter designed for her large quilt.

Six years ago...

We learned another grandchild was on the way, but didn't yet know Cove was getting a brother!  

Weekly Doings

I had every intention of posting during the week, but that obviously did not happen.  We were watching different documentaries regarding the remembrance of the 9/11 tragedy several evenings. I was home that day from work and watched all the horrifying scenes and tragedy.  I posted a remembrance about it here

There has been no piecing this week but I did complete cutting some parts for the Sewtopia Challenge project, from Windham Fabrics (Five + Ten fabrics by Denyse Schmidt).

While the pattern called for the large triangle to be cut from a square and sliced twice diagonally; with only one required for my project, I used Bonnie Hunter's Essential Triangle tool instead, to save fabric since they are only fat quarters. Other pieces for the pillow front and back are yet to be cut. I'd like to start some sewing first. 

I did quilt a baby quilt that has been sandwiched for some time, even the binding was made.  This will be donated to guild. 

Left over blue/gray HSTs from another guild project got some corner triangles from a mini charm pack I won.   The black graphic print yardage was in stash. 

Closeup of the prints.  Ditch quilting and some very random double lines for the quilting. I did not mark anything so they are "organic" straight lines, haha.

There was some slow stitching of binding misses, as usual.  I accomplished some of this while babysitting youngest grandson, Dane, as he napped.

He can be kept busy by putting pieces of Mr. Potatohead back in the toy bin and letting him fish them out, as he is obsessed with that toy:)  We also spent time outdoors while Mama had a Zoom meeting in her home office.  

It was the opening weekend of soccer season for the older grandsons.  Cove put himself under Grant's beach hat and called it "Papa Shade". Little Brother Hunter's first game resulted in a win.  

Green Lightning is the team name.  Hunter is the far right in the team pic above.  The girls playing in the next field wore purple uniforms and were The Purring Kittens, lol.

Cove (#2) scored a goal at his game, which is fortunately played at the same location as his brother's. I believe the game ended in a tie. He was very focused and expended a great deal of energy following the ball and getting any action he could.  

Ten Years Ago: 

Ten years ago this month, daughter Elaine was getting fitted in her beautiful wedding gown, for her October wedding.  Hard to believe it has gone by so fast!  

I made snap bags for her bridesmaids' gifts.  She put a necklace in each one with a personal note.  It's time to make another one for myself, with a wristlet for easier carrying. 

Design Wall Monday--Labor Day

 Design Wall Monday--see more Design Walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

This Labor Day I'm working on the Windham Challenge project for the upcoming Sewtopia sewing retreat my sister and I will attend late this month.  These fabrics are from Denyse Schmidt's new line, Five + Ten. I love her designs. 

I'm making a pillow with this collection.  

I became concerned about all the pieces needed for the pattern I chose (which I wish had been given in a cutting diagram!), so I drew them all on paper and cut them out, to try to make my fabric cutting the most efficient.  I will likely need every bit of the 5 fat quarters for my pillow, since I am not adding any additional Windham fabric.

Tesselating design and applied stuffed balls.  I have had this book for some time, but the original pattern was in an insert from the LA Times, and I have that from the 80s! but never made one. The new book includes modern techniques for cutting and piecing. 

Cross-stitching: A reader of yesterday's post (Hi Debbie!) noted she had never heard of a scissor weight.  I must agree, but this was the pattern cover for the cross stitch I just finished.  I assume the scissor weight keeps your scissors on your lap or surface so they don't slide away.  

One Year Ago: 

Our two older grandsons Cove and Hunter met their new baby boy cousin, Dane, being held there for the first time by Auntie Erica (not the baby's mother).  The boys just started Kindergarten and Second Grade last week!  Time flies.  

Pets: 

A year ago Mini stuffed herself in a project box I had just emptied.  She's lost a lot of weight since then and can fit much more easily now, lol.

Slow Sunday Stitching--A Finish and a Start

 Slow Sunday Stitching--see more lovely items being hand worked on Kathy's blog. 

I have a finish and a start--I think I'll start with the cross-stitch first. I'm stitching a scissor weight on linen to accompany the Pomegranate and Poinsettia pincushion stitch. Both of these are on the same piece of linen.  It is SMALL, 32 count; in retrospect, working on this at night wasn't the best choice. :)

The pinkeep will be petite.  However, after completing the whole border after this pic, I found that I had made it too small by two stitches in each direction, and the center design would not fit.  I directly moved over on this big piece of linen and began again. 

This small stitch should quickly be completed and then I'll construct the pinkeep and scissor weight. I started this UFO at least 6 years ago.  Sheesh.

The other slow stitching was a binding finish.  I made a quilt from 6" reproduction print swap blocks (Fun with Barb blog) and used single-fold binding.  It has been waiting weeks to be turned back and finished but at last is done.

The wind made the quilt dance a little; it is not actually that shape! 

Stash fabrics for the binding and borders.  

...as well as the backing.  This has been in stash a long time and I love the colors. 

Isn't the pumpkin print sweet? The binding looks bowed here, for some reason, but is not.  

The quilt is about 22x32.  This patch of weeds is about the only green thing in what used to be a lawn in the backyard!  Currently in SoCal we are in excessive drought and conserving water.  Hoping for some rain and ending the worst of the fire season relatively unscathed in our county!