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...

All Clear

Yay! I finally got all those miscellaneous projects off the wall. 

I ended up with seven completed quilt tops, which is one more than I started with. The problem is I can't stand having leftover quilt scraps hanging around. I'd rather sew them all together into something scrappy then leave them in a pile someplace. So I ended up with an extra 'leftovers' quilt from the trimmings of my on-point quilt experiment. Those two are shown below. 

Of the next four, two are also mini leftovers quilts. The green Christmas tree block (lower left) was an exercise in sewing 60 degree triangles. And the white with green vine block (upper right) is a test of painting on fabric. 

Most of these design wall orphans were leftovers or just little projects using up odd pieces of fabric or testing an idea. Only one was a drawn out and planned quilt top that got sidelined along the way. I'm very happy to finally have my Valentine quilt square sewn. 

And the puzzle heart block.

This one is small enough to be hand quilted and possibly embroidered in some way. 

Now I can move on to new projects. Next up, Halloween fabric. 

Make Room on The Wall

Groan...  I have to clear off my design wall to make room for new exciting projects. Of course the projects up there now were new and exciting at some point in the past. And I left them up there determined to finish them because I get attached to them. I really do want to finish them. I have already migrated a few things off the wall. This is what's left. 

I just have to sit one day and sew. For quilt projects on the design wall I complete sewing the top. Then it goes in the cabinet on the 'to be finished' shelf. The quilt top has to be completely sewn to quality for that shelf. Otherwise it's just an unfinished quilt and goes someplace else. I have a couple of those. 

So I have multiple stages of 'doneness':

Genesis - idea, sketched, designed, fabric picked out. 

Unfinished - cut pieces or most pieces cut, maybe some blocks sewn. May or may not be on the design wall. 

Top Complete - the quilt top has been sewn and put away. 

Ready to quilt - top, batting and back are basted and ready to quilt. 

Partially quilted - quilting design decided on, thread picked out, quilting has been started. I do this by hand. 

Ready to bind - Quilts done generally don't get stuck here for very long. Once the quilting is done all I want to do is finish. 

Complete/Waiting for embellishment - This is a special category for wall hangings or art quilts. The actual quilt piece is complete but I have embroidery or beading I plan to add.

Now I want to make room for the Star Trek quilt, some Halloween placemats and Christmas fabric projects. 

I actually have another category. 

Completed - Quilts I've made but don't have a use for. They are brand new, never used, stored and waiting to be given away.