WiP - Slow Stitching

I'm back from our adventures on the East Coast! My mom's sewing machine was under a pile of construction, but I did get some hand stitching done at their place.

Mom taught me to blanket stitch so I could fix my sister's Cinderella quilt. So far, I stitched the shoe in place and started ripping out the words. See the words in the light pink? No? Yeah, that's why they're out.

At my MIL's, I visited her neighbor who imports threads from Germany. My thought - uh, Gutermann? Nope, turns out it's hand-dyed, artist palettes, all kinds of weights and decorative things that I don't understand. But I understand sparkly and now I have a small sample to play with. As soon as I learn a running stitch.

I also did a lot of binding stitching and got my mother's table runners finished. I'm working my way around the daisy ones next, and then I still have a nice stack waiting to have binding stitched to the front. Sigh.

Once I got home, I pulled together the rows for Luscious Picnic. And a bonus doll quilt from the scraps. And the backing, and the binding, and it's all ready to go when my babysitter comes back.

Then I made five of the flannel stars for Grandma's quilt. I'm going to try to knock out five a day, because that's all I can stand of trimming flying geese.


And California Girl became my leader/ender project, and goodness gracious, she is perfect. LOVE!

Full disclosure moment. What I have to deal with every time I want to take a picture.

And then I realized I hadn't done any BOM stuff. I don't know where I am on churn dashes because it's green...again. Apparently May was emerald green and August is bright green, and all of my May ones were bright, so...maybe dark green? Maybe something totally different?

Anyway, instead of making a decision, I whipped out Part Five for Ripples and Reflections. I had to skip steps because I miscut Fabric Nine. It's been replaced but not yet recut. This step was fairly simple, but as there's sixteen of them, fairly boring.

And finally, my blue palette, borrowed again from Lori Barbely Photography. She goes to Maui and takes these gorgeous pictures, and all I get is a couple yards of fabric. Not fair. And look at those Kona names! Oasis, Breakers - yes!

Linked:
BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot
Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times
Color Mondays @ Porch Swing Quilts
Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River
WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced
Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy
Slow Sunday Stitching @ Kathy's Quilts
Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric

Cat Tails - Finished!

This one didn't linger too longer on the UFO pile. It was slowed down by the move, and a delay in getting more background fabric, but it got done just over a year after I started it. That's really not that bad, for me!

Cat Tails was born from this pattern, although I knew from the start that I didn't want any incomplete cats. That means, of course, I planned it out and knew how many fewer cats to make when I started the quilt.

Haha, yeah, right. I just merrily made cats until I was done with my fat quarters, and only when it was finally laid out did I realize that it was going to be HUGE.

But, you know, my family expanded this week with the finalization of my younger son's adoption, so we need a bigger couch blanket to snuggle all of us. See, I did have a plan!

I used Civil War reproduction fabrics because I love the rich tones with this pattern. I can't quite imagine it in the neon of the original pattern. Plus, I got to use some fat quarters that I got for free in shop hops, giveaways, or just didn't know what I was thinking when I bought them.

Weird blue ferny-thing looks okay as a cat.

If you care about matching directional prints, this is NOT the pattern for you. I normally care, but decided to throw caution to the wind on this one.

I used the same background fabric in several different projects, and to my horror, ran out with a half yard to go. And no one around here carried Dimples, which I thought was the most basic of basics! I ended up sending a scrap to the actual Dimples store, and they quickly matched it and sent it back to me. Excellent service!

I'm still not sure how I feel about the quilting. On the one hand, I watched a series of videos on swirls and I love the quilting in the background.

I knew I wanted to do more than an allover design with the cats, but I wasn't sure what. Because - ugh - the thought of changing colors so often, and all those threads to tie off...

After consulting with my long-arm rental place ladies, I decided on a spiky...thing in each cat. I don't love it, but I'm not changing it, so I'll learn to at least like it.

And it makes the back look weirdly impressive.

Wrapped it all up with a binding from the thrift store. It's more of a 50s reproduction, so the blues and reds are bit brighter than the cats, but I think it's a good frame.

Quilt Details

Fabric: various reproduction fabrics, Dimples beige

Backing: blue flannel

Binding: no selvage info

Size: 78x87"

Pattern: Kool Kats Kwilt {modified}

Linked:

Blogger's Quilt Festival @ Amy's Creative Side
Whoop Whoop @ Confessions of a Fabric Addict

TGIFF @ My Quilt Infatuation

Finish It Up Friday @ Crazy Mom Quilts

Link A Finish Friday @ Richard and Tanya Quilts
Sew Darn Crafty @ Sew Many Ways
Fabric Tuesday @ Quilt Story

I Quilt @ Pretty Bobbins

Needle and Thread Thursday @ My Quilt Infatuation

Let's Make Baby Quilts @ Michelle's Romantic Tangle

Feline Friday @ Sarah Did It!

Finish-Along @ The Littlest Thistle {FAL List}

April - The Adoption Month

Our adoption was finalized this month. Does anything else really matter?

Well, actually, since that was all done in Korea with no input from us at all, I had plenty of time for other stuff this month, actually.

Like finishing the Little Man's quilt - my AYOLF goal.

And finishing Pretty in Pink, which was one of the several quilts listed on my Facebook page and already sold.

I also finished up a bunch of quilting, mainly of the striped table runners, but also of Cat Tails. I'm saving Cat Tails for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, so only sneak peeks for now.


Since the table runners have hand-stitched bindings, they finish up slowly. This one went to a silent auction for my church, so that's why it's done.

In piecing:

My four weekly churn dashes. Definitely a range of purples!

A couple extra RSC'13 blocks.

Finished the block piecing for Spin Cycle. I'm setting them aside now because I don't feel like sewing sashing I'm waiting for the release of MISS KATE for the borders of this Bonnie & Camille tribute quilt. I mean, really - obviously they named the new collection after me, so it only makes sense.

Some progress on Celtic Solstice. Last month I decided on a new layout and unpicked all of the secondary blocks. This month I actually started on the new design. I like it. The pinwheel was just too distracting, IMHO.

And then I made it all the way to the 29th without a NewFO! Instead of whipping out a kit, I decided to work on a quiet book for the Little Man. No iPads allowed at the embassy, so I have to have some way to entertain him. I know, weird, right?

But it is a sewing project, so I think it counts. The Dude and I have been having fun Pinteresting and designing the pages. The monster is completely his design. Unzip the mouth and unroll the tongue!

I'll have a post on Friday with more pages, or you can catch a sneak peek on Instagram. {@katiemaequilts}

And in family news, besides the whole finalization thing, the Dude became a Webelo. Momma cried. So did the Dude, when we had to rip that mustache off.

And I realized CC is the same size as Tycho now - and she's only eight months old. He still barely tolerates her. She manages to snuggle up with him if she creeps up slowly while he's not looking.

Linked:

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

A Year of Lovely Finishes

Fresh Sewing Day @ Lily's Quilts

NewFO @ Cat Patches

Weekly Progress - Not in Korea

I was supposed to be leaving for Korea this week. But, I'm not... So my sewing plans changed up a little.

Goodnight Monkey - I did finish the Little Man's quilt.

And I quilted Cat Tails and allllllll the table runners.

And then, since I now had another week, I thought about prepping something else to quilt. But, eh. I decided to spend this coming week on a couple of projects for my boys, and cleaning up the sewing room, rather than rushing through some backings.

So, in other sewing...

Bound one of the table runners to donate to my church's silent auction.

Weekly Churn Dash - I'm almost positive this one was in Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Maybe. Gah, is purple over already??

But while I'm complaining, I also pulled out some of the good purples from Fractured Four Patch and made a couple more RSC'13 blocks. Sad that I don't have enough of any of these for churn dashes.

Spin Cycle - three blocks added. Four to go! {Oh hey - it's Bad Kitten!}

And then I realized I made it all the way to the last week of the month with no NewFO! Oh no! Hmm, what to pick, what to pick?

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric

Weekly Progress - Final Approval!!

Sewing? Who cares about sewing? WE HAVE FINAL APPROVAL!!

This long, long, loooooong journey is finally at an end. But not without another little government hiccup - the embassy is closed for most of next week, so we have to wait just a bit longer to go pick him up. Because of course.

But, deep breath. It's almost done.

And I did get some sewing done this week!

Pretty in Pink - finished!

Goodnight Monkey - quilted and binding prepped. That will be finished off ASAP so it can go with us to Korea. Because I get to get my son soon!! {Have I mentioned that? I don't know if I mentioned that.}

Striped Table Runners - started quilting the myriad of these. I finished the daisy ones and the long spring-y ones. Hexagon spring-y ones are pinned and ready to go, witch ones are on the bottom of the long backing piece.

Oh, and once I remove the daisy backing, I'll add Dutch table runners. Because when you cut one off, another grows in its place. {Hail Hydra!}

{I should probably remove my row markers before quilting...}

And since by the end of last week, I knew I wasn't going to be flying to Korea this week, I went ahead and finished Cat Tails and scheduled quilting for tomorrow. Just because I really want to finish Cat Tails.

Weekly Churn Dash - this one...hmm. I know I've used it before, because it's not a full FQ. But I can't remember where. I told you the purple scraps weren't all that meaningful!

Spin Cycle - two more blocks added. 18/25 done.

A random question. I've been working on updating my pages at the top. Since I do a lot of baby quilts, there's...a lot of quilts. I think I have 50-60 finished ones?

Anyway, what do people think is the best way to display that? Quilts by year? By category? Smaller thumbnails so you don't have to scroll past twenty quilts? Collages? No one actually ever checks past works so who cares?

And lastly...I finally gave in and joined Instagram. In case you want to see daily pictures of Bad Kitten being bad, instead of weekly ones. {Or Korea pics. Because I'm going to Korea!! To get my son!!!}

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric

Weekly Progress - Still Moving Along

Still doing a pretty good job knocking things off the UFO/to-do list. It helps that I have so much stuff allllllllllllmost done, plus nervous energy to spare. 

And I know this is the home stretch - in less than a month, the Little Man should be home with us, and my sewing time will be severely limited. Since I've been waiting, oh, almost two years for this, I plan on enjoying the break.

Finished

Skorca! - and after promising it to the Dude for two years, it was a good finish to knock off the list!

{Oh, and there's a giveaway on that post. You might want to check it out.}

Quilted

Chunky Log Cabin and Central Park Sudoku - Chunky just needed the borders, and CPS was pinned to my zippers, so it got ahead of Reverse Hearts. I do have binding for Chunky, but not CPS, so it'll still be a while before CPS becomes a finish.

Piecing

Okay, it's not quite piecing, but I cut out the letters for the growth chart that went with the H is for Henry quilt panel. That meant the teal leftovers were finally free to...

...become a Weekly Churn Dash. Henry was my first ever long arm finish, so of course one of his teals would make it into the churn dashes.

I started a table runner based on my Hearts and Cabin, for a friend. One more heart and it's into the quilting box!

More Spin Cycle blocks, slowly moving along here. Really wish I could get a good shot, but we've got some rainy, dreary weather out here.

And I strip-pieced the main body of the Monkey quilt. It's supposed to be a "bed," with the white as a sheet and the blue dots as a pillow. I can't decide if the monkey applique is too small - it's only about 10" on a 44" quilt body. But the monkey will also have paws and a tail appliqued onto the "sheet," so... I don't know. It seems like a lot of white space for a kid's quilt!

And gratuitous kitten pic. What, were you USING this?

Linked:

BOMs Away Monday @ What A Hoot

Design Wall Monday @ Patchwork Times

WiP Wednesday @ Freshly Pieced

Linky Tuesday @ Freemotion by the River

Rainbow Scrap Challenge @ SoScrappy

Scrap Basket Sunday @ Kim's Big Quilting Adventure

Fabric Frenzy Friday @ Fort Worth Fabric

Messes and Mess-ups Monday @ Sewing by Moonlight