Friday Designs: Cats Rule

I must really learn to accept the fact that the cats in this house are ultimately those completely in charge.

They empathize this to me in many, many ways each day.

Especially where fabric and quilting is concerned.

I gave my BFF’s daughter, Anna, a quilt for graduation. I’ve written about it here before. I gave it to her over a month ago – two or three I think – and at that time, I ran it through the dryer to remove cat hair, bagged it nicely in a gift bag, and kept it out of the reach of the cats. She brought it to the church basement for a quilting day and is STILL picking cat hair off of it.

I got home from the quilting day today and set some of my stuff down in the front entryway. My return home was approved....

This is, of course, in addition to the cat that is curled up in the batting scraps box right now…

Boxes are a natural cat trap, add in some fabric and it’s completely irresistible to them!

“You made these nice soft beds in boxes for us right?”

*Sigh*

There’s also the fact that any fabric on the floor is fair game to them…..

This is the current situation with a quilt I’m working on:

I’m curious to see what it looks like in the morning. Anyone care to take bets on how many blocks are out of place when I get up and/or the farthest location of a block from its original position? I bet one is under the couch and I need to search.

Quilting

This weekend was a “Mini Retreat” for my quilt group. We sewed in the church basement from 4 pm until late on Friday, and then returned on Saturday and sewed for the whole day. We went home to our own beds in between. It’s usually a small, core group of people and I really enjoy the camaraderie. It also gave me no excuse to turn from glass for a while and finish some projects.

Yes, Nancy, quilting/fabric is my true, first love and always will be.

Scraping

I’ve mentioned many times before about “Scrap Tamers”. This is a monthly program that I do. Each year, the group does a “mystery” quilt, and there’s also a new pattern/technique each month. The goal of the mystery quilt – and the program as a whole – is to utilize scraps from your stash to put together a project.

I take the spirit of it to heart and always complete my mystery! Last year, I even did two simultaneously (ok, I’ll admit, I read the cutting instructions wrong and wound up with two sets of pieces (step one was cutting everything)).

This year, the mystery called for lights and darks of the same color and a focus fabric. I picked out a focus fabric, put it on the table, and then cut all the lights and darks in the complementary color (blue). As soon as I was done with the cutting, I picked up the focus fabric, put it back into stash, and cut up a totally different fabric! I’m really quite fluid in my fabric selections for projects….

The last month’s “clue” for the mystery completed all the blocks and this month’s clue gave us the layout for the blocks. Here is my assembled quilt top:

Other Projects

Keeping in the spirit of scrap taming, I only worked on scrap projects this weekend.

Last of the TCQ BOM

I did a block of the month project from Twin City Quilting. I’ve posted pictures of the finished quilt in this blog before in this post. The second quilt in the post is actually made from all the scraps from that project. Today, I used the last of the scraps into a lap/crib quilt. The pattern was inspired by a “Sea Glass” quilt that one of my companions showed up last night.

There are a couple small (table topper) pieces also from the scraps of this project (it was all nice batiks and fine quality patterned fabrics – I had to use them all!). I may eventually post those pictures. However, this quilt was really quite fun to do and I’m pleasantly surprised at how “planned” and polished it looks. Here’s the basic “pattern”.

Trim all your fabrics to use to a common width. Pieces that are over, but close, just leave – you’ll trim them later. I used three inches. Set aside pieces that are 1-3 inches in width and cut the larger pieces into strips. Cut pieces of various widths from the strips. I like to keep them at least 1 inch wide, and now wider than 2 ½ inches. I did use 3-inch wide pieces, but only those that were already that width when I sorted the scraps; I didn’t want to have two smaller pieces.

Sew all the scraps together into a strip (or strips) along the 3 inch (or whatever length you used) side. I created one LONG strip, and then cut it into smaller strips when I determined how much I had/how many rows I was going to make. When all the pieces are sewn into a strip/strips, trim them first to length, then trip to width. I had 6 lengths of 40 inches. Each looked basically like this:

Next, I sashed/bordered the quilt with two fabrics and assembled. I used a thin, dark strip, and a wider light strip.

Then, put a strip of the dark fabric on each end

Finish with a larger border of the light sashing fabric.

The beauty of this pattern is that you can size it to just about any size, use a few or many scraps, and have a unique piece!

Garage Sale

A couple weeks ago, I went to the annual Textile Center Garage Sale. This event is the largest fundraiser of the year for the Center. They collect all sorts of crafting materials – beads, thread, yarn, fabric, etc. – and have a two-day selling event at a local warehouse. Friday night, you can pay $25.00 for the preview sale, Saturday 10-2 or so is the regular sale, and then the bag sale is at 3.

I like to go to the preview sale, but don’t always make it. Last year, I did the regular sale, then went back to the bag sale. This year, I did manage to make it to the preview, but wasn’t able to go back on Saturday.

I was intrigued by a bag of 2-inch fabric squares. I don’t normally buy pre-cuts that small, but the bag was $1, and something about the mix of colors/fabrics got my attention. I combined it with fabrics from two collections of beige/cream pieces. The fabrics had some similarity between the bags so I assume they were the same donator. Also, I think each bag was $2 or $3. Here’s the quilt:

Now, let me tell you about the creative process!

I started sewing with no pattern in mind…. Just starting sewing 2 inch squares to each other….

Brave, aren’t I?

My first semi-solidified plan was to sew the squares into 25 patches or so, combine them, and make a table topper/runner out of just the 2-inch squares. After getting about half way through the first step (sewing two squares together), I decided that while there were a lot of squares, there really wasn’t going to be that much surface area when they were all sewn together. Also, I thought that the essence of the colors/fabrics that attracted me would be lost if they were all crowded together.

Four patches were created instead. Then, each four patch (3½ inches) was sewn to a square of beige it’s same size, then squared off with a rectangle the size of the rectangle just created. Basically, I wound up with blocks where the color was only ¼ of the block and in a corner. I then arranged those blocks into rows. The number of blocks drove the number of rows. I bordered the blocks on two sides only; mostly just to make all the colored pieces interior.

All of them except for the very corner… look for it…. I think it’s a cool little touch

This whole quilt makes me think of an urban landscape – buildings if you will…..

And there were two colored four patches and a few beige pieces left over when I was done, so I put together a little table topper:

Jewelry and Glass

A few little quips about the other hobbies in my life….

(yes, fabric is my first love, but I have to mention a few other things!)

Etsy!

I have an Etsy store!

Finally…..

I’m still working on getting everything up there, but here it is: Friday Designs

It’s that Small?

Insert any bad joke you want here…

I’ve taken a couple metal working classes lately. In the latest one – “Cold Connections” – I learned how to rivet two pieces of metal together. I cut out discs, stamped letters, and riveted, coming up with this for Ana: