Becky's birthday table topper

Found this cool cat sayings FQ at a quilt shop on a recent shopping trip and bought it to make something for my son's girlfriend, who is a real cat lover. It's from a line of fabrics called XOXOXO The Cat. I couldn't decide what to do with it because I didn't want to cut up the cool sayings. But, if you leave something on your sewing table long enough, inspiration will come eventually :-). I received my package in the mail from Mr. B's Preview Pack Club. This quarterly's pack of squares feature London cats...sophisticated cats visiting London and checking out the double decker buses and other tourist attractions in London, England. I sewed an assortment of the squares around the center panel and added a navy blue border with a little motif that looks a little bit like cat's paws and made a small table topper for Becky's birthday. Here is the cat panel....if you click on the picture, you should be able to read the sayings:


The finished table topper. I quilted around the squares printed on the panel and meandered through the large squares and the border putting a cat in each corner. The cats did not show up on the picture as it was too dark :-).

E 3 Paddle Wheels

I finally got another Dear Jane block finished on an impulse this afternoon. I was cleaning out my sewing room when I came across a pattern I'd printed out a long time ago. Since my cutting table was empty and my blue and white fabrics accessible (because of the cleanup :-), I had just enough time to make this little block. It does look like paddle wheels! This makes 52 blocks out of 169 and I've got my first year in of my 10 year aim! Should be able to get the project done within my 10 year goal.

Jenn & Scott's Quilt

Jenn and Scott were married on Saturday, September 20th. I made this lap quilt for them and finished off an old UFO in the process. I had originally done these blocks for my granddaughter, but couldn't get the quilt together. I finally found the border fabric and the triangle setting square fabrics up North while we were on vacation one year and it began to come together. The fabrics are from a line called "Lauren" and they are very hard to match up with anything else. One of the pink triangle setting fabrics is a Jinny Beyer and the green narrow border and striped binding are Robyn Pandolph fabrics. The border polka dot fabric really pulled it all together. I went over to my quilt buddy, Gail's place one evening this summer and we experimented with the layout of the blocks to come up with this. The quilt is about 55" square.

I put in "lippy's" (as Lucy from the Quilt Rack in Ancaster likes to call the flat piping between seams) of dark green around the center blocks which tied the narrow border in well. The quilting in the center triangles:


The diagonal grid in the border was great since I could follow the lines of polka dots:


It was difficult to decide on quilting for the four patch blocks. I didn't want to take away from the blocks. A friend suggested a curved line. I put a dot 1" away from the edge of the block in the centers of the four sides and 'eyeballed' the curve...worked great!

A closeup of the quilt motif in the triangles:


This quilt was pieced and quilted on my trusty Singer 15-88 treadle. The free motion quilting was done on a Bernina 830 that I just picked up and had to take for a test drive :-).

I have a vintage walking foot, affectionally known as a penguin foot, for my low shank Singer machines and this foot does a fantastic job of stitching in the ditch.


Here is a side view...doesn't it look a little bit like a penguin? :-)

One more Psalms block

It's slow going, but I did get another Psalms block finished. I'm so close to being finished, but life keeps getting in the way. This block is based on Psalm 116 and is called Cups and Saucers. I'm not really sure where the cups and saucers are supposed to be. The yellow areas look more like baskets to me, but with some imagination, they could be cups and saucers :-). In any case, I do like the block!

Placemats for Meals on Wheels

One of the small quilting groups I belong to has a project going where each member makes two placemats which will go out with the Meals on Wheels program sometime this fall. I had a package of charm squares which made two placemats exactly. The leaves are appliqued by machine.

E 11 Wagon Wheel finished

I finally finished the next Dear Jane block that Nancy challenged us to do when we got together a few weeks ago to work on Dear Jane blocks. I used the back basting method to applique the center onto the white background, then added another striped square and reverse appliqued the circle and the curved corners. I worked on it while waiting for my car's emission testing :-). Did I ever mention that I LOVE back basting!? Thanks to Susan for teaching us how to do it!! I've had a few inquiries as to what back basting is. There is a great pictorial guide on the internet for back basting on Apple Blossom Quilts.

Lauren's JK quilt

I got the quilt finished for my dear granddaughter, Lauren, just in time for school to start! She begins a new adventure today and needed a nap blanket for the first day of school. An I spy quilt is the perfect nap blanket for Junior Kindergarten! This one is the same layout as Natalie's quilt except the sashing colour and the borders are different. There are a few different blocks in the quilt. After doing so many I spy quilts for boys, it sure was nice to dig out the pink and yellow blocks; the princesses and paper dolls and shoes and girls themes! I found it very interesting that this very light checked print worked for the border of this quilt. It isn't often that a light border works on a quilt, but this one did. Here is the finished quilt:


I did funky flowers in the squares, swirls in the sashings and leaves on the border.


Sashing quilting and some of the blocks in the quilt:

I found this wonderful beige with pink teddy bears print in the sale bin for $2.00 a yard! It isn't often that you go to the store to buy backing for a specific quilt and find it in the sale section for such a good price :-). And, yes, I did buy enough to do at least one more quilt!