Cat quilt top done!

    For anyone who has been waiting to see pictures, I just finished the cat quilt top for my grandbaby. Here it is! I haven't decided how to go about quilting it.

 

    It was very sunny when I took the picture as you can tell, that the only reason you can see all my seam allowances. You may recall that I had more snail trail blocks cut out than I needed for the cat quilt. I sewed up the extras, and made this bonus charity quilt. It's not that big, but I am not cutting out any more snail trail blocks, so that's the size it's going to stay!

    

     This charity quilt I will save and quilt on my quilting machine after I get some practice. My next quilting goal is to make some fast tops to practice on, after my first few plain muslin practice quilt sandwiches. 

     I am making pretty good progress on my guest room quilt, which I'm doing as leaders and enders. I need to cut out the rest of the blocks for my double delight, and do it as leaders and enders as well. At least if I do that, I'll be making some progress on it.

Weekend Progress

      I have been working on so many projects at once, I decided to push this weekend and get at least one to quilt top stage. I had lots of scraps from the flannel baby quilts, including all the HST's left over from making the snowball blocks. I had double sewed while I was making the snowball blocks, so the HST's were already together. I still haven't made a design wall, so I threw a piece of flannel over the door and started playing with the HST's on there. I debated on pinwheel blocks with sashing. I make a lot of pinwheels from leftover HST's, and from snowball blocks, it always works out right because you need four HST's for each pinwheel, and you've cut four corners off of each snowball block...it works. 

     I wasn't liking the way it was coming out because of the fact I had different amounts of each color, and I didn't want to make any more. Instead of fighting the uneven color amounts, I decided to go with it, and came up with this.

     I'm pretty happy with it. I wasn't too concerned about everything matching perfectly, This is a bonus quilt, and besides scraps I pulled one flannel fat quarter from my stash to do the inner border. I've already cut most of the remaining flannel from these projects into squares, and I think I can get at least one more baby quilt out of them.

     While I was concentrating on getting this top together, I was sewing the snail trail (cat tail) blocks for the cat quilt as leaders and enders. I got the ten I need for the grandbaby quilt done. I started on the other snail trail blocks that are cut out, that I'll put in a charity quilt. I already figured out a layout for the charity quilt. I debated on starting the cat blocks, but I figured while I was making such good progress on the snail trail blocks, I might as well go for it. Besides, with all those little pieces, I was afraid I'd lose some if I waited too long to get those together.

    Today's focus, working on the rest of the snail trail blocks, using the guest room quilt as leaders and enders. If I get the snail trail blocks done, that's iffy, I'll start the cat blocks. Also, I need to get some muslin washed up and ironed. I want to cut out all the corners for my String X string blocks, and cut some squares to use for a double four patch quilt. I need some quick quilt tops that I can practice on with my quilting machine, and I have a bunch of four patches I've made as leaders and enders. I think a double four patch will be fast to whip up, since the four patches are done. I won't be assembling that until after I finish the cat quilt, but if everything is cut, it will go fast when I'm ready. If I have time, I'll make a couple string blocks. We'll see.

first cat blocks

  What do you mean you don't see any cats? Fair enough, how about cat tails? These blocks are much more complex than the actual cat body blocks, so I decided to get these done first. I need 10 of these blocks for the grandbaby quilt, but I have enough pieces cut to make 20, so the extras will end up in a charity quilt I'm sure. I had a blast choosing fabric for this quilt. The dark blue fabric has dogs on it (dogs chase cats), one of the bright greens has mice (cats chase mice), the yellow balls of yarn (cats play with yarn), one of the whites has paw prints, one of them has umbrellas (raining cats and dogs came to mind), and there is a big cat print with the leopard spots. These blocks only represent 20 of the 43 fabrics that will be in the quilt.

Quilting machine set up

   We finally had time yesterday to set up the quilting machine. I have a Little Grace 2 frame with a Juki 98QE. My husband was quite the trooper, he had so little idea of what I bought, he was surprised when he opened the box and saw it was wooden. Here is the first opening of the boxes. I was very impressed with the packing, and the labeling of parts was fantastic! All of the nuts, bolts and such were in separate Ziploc bags with labels saying exactly which size and type they were. Very helpful.

   Here it is partway assembled. I have an old double school desk I use as a coffee table and it really came in handy for this project. We are setting it up in queen mode, this frame can't do a king, and if I only made crib size quilts, I doubt I would have ever bought a frame. The only place in the house it will fit in is the living room, so that's where it goes. You can see one of our dogs, Bianca, in the picture. She is not sure what to think of this big thing, and was slinking around all day.

   This is the picture of the frame all assembled. DH did the wiring today, but we haven't taken a picture since that's been done. We did a bit more rearranging of furniture, and are storing the frame up against the wall under the big clock. I'll have to pull it out to use it, but that OK. I need to attach my leaders onto the poles, but that will probably wait until next week. There were a couple of pieces missing, that I am now waiting for. I called the company and they are sending them out today. They were very helpful, and only one missing piece was their fault. The box with the fourth rail had broken open during shipping, and all of the hardware was lost. Definitely not the companies fault, but as I said, they were very nice about replacing it.

Secret Sister and string blocks

     I belong to the yahoo group Quilting On a Budget. We are having a secret sister exchange, six mailings during the year to the person we are matched up with. We don't send to the same person we are receiving from. I just received my first package from my secret sister and I am so excited! I got the cutest greeting card with a place to put a photo, a novel, my first ever charm pack, and fat quarter of fabric. I saw that fabric and my mind started to turn. I have some great fabrics in my stash to compliment the fat quarter, and I've been wanting to try playing with a charm pack. I've been trying to stop sewing earlier in the evening, and take some time to read so even the novel fits in perfectly with my latest plans.

  

   I finished cutting out the cat quilt, and I decided to make a charity quilt out of scraps from the flannel quilts, so now I am actively sewing on three quilts again. I still haven't cut out the extra pieces I need for the Double Delight mystery quilt, and there is a ugly fabric challenge on the Stashbusters yahoo group that is really catching my interest. So many projects, so many good ideas, only so much time. 

   Never the less, I did start yet another project. As I've been trying to tame the scraps, an ongoing battle, I started saving strings. For anyone who doesn't know, a string is a long piece of fabric left over from cutting strips, or squaring up fabric, or cutting squares or whatever from fabric. They are too narrow to cut into normal sized strips, and often not even. I have so many now, that I decided I either needed to start using them, or pass them to someone else who would. I'm starting with the strings I have left from cutting up the 100% cotton men's shirts I've been collecting. Here are my first attempts-

    I decided to make 3 1/2 inch squares, 6 1/2 inch squares, and that odd shape for Bonnie Hunter's String X pattern (when I get around to adding triangles to the long sides it will be a square, really). I'm sewing them onto paper templates, then squaring them up. I just got yet another delivery of phone books the other day. I think there are 4 different companies that deliver phone books to our neighborhood, so every year, I get at least 4. The company that left them the other day, gave me three copies of the same phone book. What a waste of trees! I have been unable to figure out how to get them to stop leaving phone books, and I never use them, I look up numbers online. Anyway, I just bought a new guillotine-style paper cutter, to use in my recipe card project, and I decided to cut up a phone book to use for the paper templates.. I got about 200 sheets of paper from the phone book cut to size in about 30 minutes, because I can cut so many pieces at once with that cutter. Finally, a use for those phone books! Any quilts I make from these blocks will be the ultimate in recycling. Phone books pages for templates, used shirts from thrift stores, and the odds and end pieces of fabric that are normally thrown away!