Mine, All Mine

Or so says Cassandra, who has decided that all new quilts in the house are hers!

"My cat quilt!"

Here she is cat testing the new cat print table quilt. 

"Oh, another quilt. Also mine."

"Don't bother me. Can't you see I'm having a cat nap!"

"Go away now, I'm sleeping with my new friends."

Purple Collage - Fabric, Paper, and Acrylic Paint

Several weeks ago, after I cut 4" squares from over 100 different purple fabrics, I started work on a collage project.  

First I made paper collages of the purple fabric scraps. 

Then I started on the background canvas. I'm using trash trim strips of fabrics saved from various quilting projects as a texture layer on the canvas. I use gesso or acrylic medium to 'glue' the fabric to the canvas.

 

 

After a texture layer of scrap fabrics has been added I start adding more paint to create a multi-shade abstract background for the pieces of purple collage that will go on last. 

There is really a lot of texture here. But I'm not done painting. I really don't want the colors of the bottom fabric layers to show, just the texture. 

I plan to add more color to this layer and the texture provides nooks and levels to fill in with different shades of purple and colors. 

But the ultimate goal is to add pieces from the purple fabric collage pages for the final composition. 

Here I'm auditioning a possible size and layout for the purple collage pieces. These are 1 1/2" square and the edges have been painted dark purple. The background will have more color than shown here but I plan to have it light enough to provide good contrast.  We'll see how it actually comes out!

Thanks for reading. 

Aileen

Black, White and Red Cat Quilt

After I finished the last cat quilt I decided to make the same pattern but with more contrast. I had some cute black and white cat fabric and added some other red, white and black prints. The high contrast really shows off the pattern better. 

This is the completed cat patchwork from my last post. It's the same pattern as above but not as obvious. 

I've considered sewing the rows in a more random staggered fashion. Each stacked row of cat face blocks is a pattern unit by itself. There is no reason why they have to be lined up exactly horizontally. It would be interesting to see a high contrast example with randomly lined up rows. I guess I'll add that to my 'Ideas to Try' list. 

Thanks for reading.
Aileen

Simple Cat Face Tessellation Quilt

The Cat placemat I made for Halloween came out so well I decided to make another Table Quilt using the same pattern but with some cat themed fabric I've randomly picked up along the way. 

I've cut all the fabric pieces and put them up on the design wall to preview. Now I just have to sew the ear pieces to each block. This is the basic cat face layout. I'll sew the ears for each cat face on the square above it to make the pattern. 

These will be the cat ear triangles. 

These are the basic blocks used and the construction and layout. 

Sewing the rows of cats. 

I'll repeat this until done. 

Only a couple more rows to go. 

Very simple. Thanks for reading. 

Just One More

Halloween placemat. I finished the four placemats from my last post but I had an idea for another one that I wanted to make while the idea was fresh and all the Halloween fabric was out. This one focuses on the spider themed fabric and has a nice little spider right in the middle. 

After I finish this placemat all the 'spooky' fabric goes on the shelf of "holiday" fabric for another year. Maybe I'll make something else next year, maybe not. I never did use the Bat theme fabric. I had an idea for a pieced Bat made with the grunge black fabric surrounded by the bat prints, or better yet, an applique bat on a pieced background. But now it's time to think about Christmas projects.  I'll write a note to myself about the Bat placemat idea with a sketch and put it away with the fabric. Next time I get that fabric out I'll have jump start idea to work with. 

Patchwork Halloween Placemats

In the last two days I have managed to get four Halloween themed placemats pieced. I have ideas for a couple more and plenty of extra Halloween theme fabric to work with, but first I am going to machine quilt these and bind them. 

The first one I did was with the scary cat fabric. I looked up several cat patchwork patterns and ended up designing my own very simple cat face tessellation pattern using just two sizes of blocks, one 4 1/2"  square and two 2" squares for each cat face. 

Then I went with a simple checkerboard pattern for the black and white skulls fabric and some other assorted light and dark fabric. 

Finally I worked up the idea I had for a tombstones patchwork using some assorted grey and dark brown fabric I had on hand. Using a strip piecing method I sewed a tombstone dark light strip and cut it into random widths, added dark strips of fabric in between random height light tombstone blocks, and stacked them up in rows. 

I also planned to do a spiderweb like pieced block but I'm going to finish these four placemats first.

Halloween Deadline

Talk about last minute projects. There's nothing like a looming deadline to motivate action. We'll see how much I actually get done in two days. I'm not trying to do too much, just a couple placemats. And I don't usually get into Halloween that much but I found some really cute grungy Halloween fabric (Eerie by BasicGrey) and had to have it (on sale of course), and the scraggly cat Sebastion from the Ghastlies fabric line was also a 'must have'. 

And I found some neat spooky cemetery fabric at JoAnn's fabric store (also on sale, there is a benefit to waiting until the last minute). I plan on using a solid piece of that for one side of a  reversible placemat and patchwork a tombstone design for the other side. I'll post the results, hopefully in two days!

With all this fabric I'll get ideas as I go along. Each placemat will be different, spiderwebs, skulls, cats, cemeteries, bats. Lots of creepy spooky stuff. Mwahahaha...