Puss in the Corner quilt

Quite some time ago (Nov. of 2017, to be exact), I decided to make a small quilt to line the cardboard box that my cats had commandeered for use as a cat bed (more of the story available here).  I made the top from fabric out of my stash.  The plan was to use it as an opportunity to practice my free-motion quilting.  Well, over 2 years later, I finally got around to quilting it.

I'm generally pleased with how it turned out.  It's not perfect, but as I kept telling myself while I was working on it, "It's okay, it's for cats."  I learned that I have a really hard time quilting a star shape unless I start in the bottom left-hand corner.  If I tried to start from any other position they turned out really wonky.  I also learned that it's difficult for me to quilt a more open pattern.  I had planned to try to not have the quilting as close together as I had in my previous free-motion quilting endeavors, but it turned out about the same.  I think it may have something to do with having such a small area to work in, since I'm using my regular home sewing machine to quilt it.

I also machine attached the binding, which I don't normally do.  I usually attach the binding to the front on the quilt with the machine and then turn it to the back by hand.  But again, since it was for the cats, I decided to do it with the machine.  I watched a tutorial on YouTube from the Fat Quarter Shop on how to machine bind your quilt and generally followed their directions (I trimmed mine even with the edge of the quilt top and didn't leave the extra quarter inch or however much they said).  It turned out okay.  The stitching only missed the binding in one small spot near one of the corners, but I really can't imagine using that technique again.  I felt like I was sewing a porcupine instead of a quilt with all those pins sticking out all around the outside edge of the quilt.  Ouch!  Literally.  I stuck myself many times.  (Watch the tutorial and you'll understand.)

But now it is finished and Cleopatra seems to be enjoying it.  Dusty, my other cat, is still leery of it, but he's a totally scaredy cat about everything.  Clearly a quilt in box is some type of trap.  I mean, what else could it be, right?

Another Simplish Quilt

This is the quilt that I mentioned in the previous post.  It is made with the Simplish pattern, that I've done before.  This one is made with Jardin du Soleil fabric.  I'm making it for a friend who is graduating from college on May 1.  She likes flowers and loves sunflowers so I thought this fabric would be good.  The sashing fabric is printed with lots of different flower names, and I think she will like that, too.  I hope so anyway.

I took this picture inside and at night, so I don't feel like the color turned out exactly true to life.  Hopefully when I get the quilt finished completely I can photograph it outside with better lighting.

Block #2 - 20 Years of KTQ

Here is my second "block" of the 20 Years of KTQ sampler quilt.  This block also had some mistakes in the cutting directions, but this time I already had the corrections from the website, so that was good. 

I made a little change in the fabric color from the colors given in the directions.  Since I'm using a gold color for my background, I decided to use brown for the squares that were gold in the directions.  I considered using a gold print where the directions called for a cream print, but decided that I wanted to stick with the cream there.  I like the little sparkle that it adds to the quilt. 

We were assigned blocks 1-3 for today's meeting, but I didn't even get started on block #3.  I had another project that I thought should take priority.  It needed to be pieced so that I can get it to the longarmer.  It needs to be finished completely by May 1, so I felt time was of the essence there, more so than with the block of the month blocks.  I can catch up on them later.