Another 1 year milestone

This time, it's not sewing related. One year ago I went to the local animal shelter and brought Little Kitty back home with me! I can't believe it's been that long. Here he is the first day at home, when he was approximately three months old:



Big Kitty seems to have adjusted to Little Kitty's presence, and will even occasionally let Little Kitty cuddle with him. Even if he only tolerates it for a few minutes at a time.




And sometimes Little Kitty cuddles with me. I especially like it when he sleeps with his paws over his face. He's sleeping on my lap in this photo.


Little Kitty loves sitting in the window to watch the dogs, cars, and people go by. I'm pretty sure that's the right order.


He also loves sunbeams. Unfortunately, with winter fast approaching, I don't know how much more he'll get to enjoy the sunbeam.


Thanks for being a part of the family, Little Kitty!!

Slow progress

Surprised to see me in his favorite napping spot.


Looking for a good place to nap.


And they're both settled in for the day.

Hot Pads

During my move, I managed to lose at least one of my hot pads, and the others that I have are kind of grungy. So I decided to make some new ones! These were really quick and easy to make (which is pretty much the only type of project I can handle right now) and I really like the colors. I just used fabric and batting, so they won't protect against anything really, really hot, but they're good enough to take stuff out of the oven. Which is all I need anyway.

Here are the front sides:


And the back:


I originally thought I'd like the pink and blue one better. But I ended up liking the orange one even more - it's just so bright and cheery in my kitchen.

I also don't know why the colors are so different in each photo! The first one is much more realistic. I'm going to have to take a look at what's going on with my camera settings.

Pets on Quilts Show

I was procrastinating by reading through some of the internet sewing blogs that I like to browse and I came across this online quilt show called "Pets on Quilts" on this blog. I was excited to see that so many people have the same kind of "helpers" that I do, which makes me feel a little less like a crazy cat lady. So I decided to enter my photos as well, since that's basically what this blog is about. However, as many of my photos are of different types of sewing projects, I have to define what I consider a "quilt." Basically, if I've made (or are making) a blanket/quilt that has a pieced top, batting, backing, and binding, I'm calling it a quilt for the purposes of this post. Here are my favorite photos that fall under that criteria. All of these photos are from the past year, as I just completed my first year of sewing!

This is my favorite photo of Little Kitty. For anyone coming across this blog from the show site, I adopted Little Kitty from a shelter last summer. He had been abandoned with his brothers on the side of a road. In this photo, I'd only had him for a month or two, and he was 4 or 5 months old at the time. He's napping on a baby quilt I made for a friend, and I love this photo because it really makes me want to cuddle with him. It's hard to imagine that this sleeping kitty is the same one who wakes me up at 5 am every day.

Several months later (as evidenced by March Madness on the tv), I made a patriotic quilt for a friend who just became a U.S. citizen. Little Kitty decided he'd rather nap on it than let me quilt it. Although I preferred this to the destruction he did as I was finishing it...

Luckily, this went to a household with two other destructive cats (who I heard decided the quilt was theirs pretty immediately), so the recipient was very understanding. I know the photo to the left isn't technically a photo of a cat on a quilt, but it is a photo of the result of a cat being on the quilt.



Now, Little Kitty shares the apartment with Big Kitty. I've had Big Kitty for six years, and he finally seems to be adjusting to Little Kitty's presence. He definitely liked being an only cat. I know that again, this isn't technically a photo of a cat on a quilt, but it's a cat on quilt batting. So it's a cat on a quilt in progress. Big Kitty loves to sleep on batting. Little Kitty loves to eat it. I definitely prefer Big Kitty's approach.


Here is Big Kitty awake and standing on the beginning of a star quilt for my niece. It's still in progress, and hopefully will be done while she's still seven :). She picked out the colors and the fabric. I think she has great taste. Big Kitty thinks so, too. He and Little Kitty love this one, and I have to hide it from them so it doesn't end up covered in black and gray fur. Luckily I've invested in some lint rollers that help...but it's hard to get rid of all of that fur! And lastly, here is Big Kitty chilling on the quilt top in progress (before I hid it from him).
You might notice I have no shots of the two kitties together on a quilt. I do have an occasional photo with the two of them together, but here's what usually happens: Big Kitty lies down on a quilt/piece of fabric, Little Kitty comes over to cuddle with him, Big Kitty lasts about five seconds before he becomes exasperated with Little Kitty and heads off to a different spot. Little Kitty either takes over Big Kitty's place, or follows Big Kitty to the new spot and the process starts over again. They're not siblings, but they sure act like them!

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you like the photos!

Some sewing for myself

After spending the day wrestling with SPSS to figure out some stats that are probably above my head right now, I decided to take the night off from working on the star blanket and do some sewing for me to cheer me up. And what's cheerier than Christmas? I think this will end up being a table runner. Or a wall decoration. It depends on how many blocks I end up making. But I figure if I work on it sporadically starting now, I might actually get it done by the holidays. The pattern is called "garden fence" and I saw some photos of it online (if you search "garden fence quilt" through google images you can see lots of photos). I'm using pre-cut squares for the middle designs, so I did the math based on that and figured out how to put it together on my own. I like how it's starting out.

The colors are a little off - I think the nighttime lighting in my apartment skews the colors a bit. They're brighter in person. And there will be white stripes in between the blocks, so they don't have to line up perfectly.


Here's Big Kitty with his ears back, annoyed because I'm encroaching on "his" space. He's sitting on some of the other squares. And the scissors. I don't see how that could possibly be comfortable.


What I like about sewing, is that even when it's not finished, there's still a tangible product. I worked all day studying and looking at stats, but I don't have a product to show for it. Even though this sewing project isn't finished, I still have a physical thing to make me feel like I've accomplished something today.

One year!

I'm a day late on this, but I spent yesterday cleaning out my office so I was a little too worn out to do anything else. Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my sewing machine! Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the wonderful present. Did you really think it would actually get a full year of use? I'm glad it did.

Just to celebrate, I'm putting up a few of my favorite pictures of sewing with the kitties. Hopefully I'll have more progress on the blanket to show soon, but with the start of the semester looming, it's hard to find as much time now.

Waiting

The most time-consuming part of my sewing? Waiting for the cats to get off of the fabric.


I finished the 4th row, and laid it out to pin it to the rest of the blanket to sew it together. The kitties immediately jumped on it, as they do every single time I put out a piece of fabric (or paper... or books... and occasionally my computer). They are going to be very sad when this is all done and sent to its new home.

Top two rows

Here are the top two rows of the quilt! There will be seven rows once it's finished - so it's still a ways off. And I'm sorry that it's a little fuzzy, but it was hard to get the whole thing in the shot so I had to hold the camera up above my head, and I couldn't keep it completely still.

The Beginning

Here is the progress I'm making on the blanket. It started out as a stack of squares (297 pictured, not including the solid azure):


Then I started making the points for the star. I'm following parts of this pattern here, but the squares I'm using are a little smaller and there won't be a star in every block. First I take a small solid azure square and sew them together, using a diagonal line across the small square (it's a little hard to see, and the lighting makes the colors look odd).


Then I cut the bottom triangle off, leaving one triangle of azure attached to the big square.


And when I press it open, it becomes a star point! I do the same thing on the opposite side of the big square to make two star points. It isn't hard to do, but it does take some time, so I hope you're not expecting this to be done really quickly...


I repeated the process to make four squares with star points, and then I put them all together. The completed star is on the left. It will alternate a star block with a block of squares, in a different order each time. This is how the bock next to it will probably look.


Progress: 1 star block done, 17 more to go
0 regular blocks done, 17 more to go.

Azure

One more color question. I've had a hard time finding a solid light blue that works well with these particular fabrics, because the blue is actually a little bit teal. So a regular light blue looks a little off. Here is something I've found that might work. The color is called Azure. In the photo, the colors didn't quite come out correctly, so I adjusted it and tried to at least get the blues close to what they should look like. The browns look really dark in this picture, and they're not actually that dark, so ignore that part. Let me know what you think. I'm completely willing to keep looking for a different blue if you don't like it - so please be honest!

Also, I changed the background color of the blog to make the teal stand out a little more. I think it helps.


Also, I've been putting together fabrics to work on a table runner for my coffee table. Little Kitty jumped on my newly washed fabric the second I put it down. The kitties just can't leave anything alone.

Experiment

I'm trying to see if I can embed a video in the blog. It's not the greatest quality, but I didn't want the file to be too big. Here are Big Kitty and Little Kitty playing with some fabric. I hope this works.

Brown?

I have brown fabric that matches the blue fabric in the blanket. Little Kitty seems to like it. The question is, use it? Or keep it all blue? I might look for another blue fabric if the brown is vetoed. I think it will need more than four fabric patterns in it. Also, now is the time to let me know if you don't like any of the blue patterns.

Here's Little Kitty helping me iron the brown fabric.

Squares with the brown.


Squares without the brown.

Finally back into it

Now that I'm finally settled in Michigan, I'm ready to get started on my next project. I don't have all the fabric for Emily's blanket, but this is what she has chosen so far:


I cut them into a whole bunch of small squares. Eventually, there will also be white and brown squares, plus plain light blue in the shape of stars. I haven't found a good light blue to match yet, but I'm working on it.

Sporadic

I don't know if I'll be posting much over the coming month or so, with all of the moving to a new state and starting school and everything. I don't know if I'll have the time to do much sewing in that time. But I thought I'd put up a few photos I haven't had time to post.

Big Kitty and Little Kitty both helping me with the binding. Please ignore the messy floor. Little Kitty liked to lie on the fabric, while Big Kitty played with it as it hung over the table.


And here it is being put together. It was so long I had to roll it and unroll it as I went.

All Nine Blocks!

Here is my quilt-a-long top put together (but unironed). Little Kitty is mid-yawn. I just love his face in this photo.


I've been trying to put it all together with the back, but the kitties decided to have a fight on the fabric. I guess the little claw holes will give it some character.

Little Kitty Cuteness

I swear, the kitties must be able to smell fabric when I put it in a new place. I put the baby boy blanket on top of my bookcase, someplace Little Kitty shouldn't have seen it. But he found it anyway and curled up on top of it. And he was sleeping in a funny position. This was after he played around in more of my fabric that was hanging off of the ironing board while I was trying to iron it. He has his "crazy eyes" in that picture.

Last one!

They finally posted the last block in the quilt-a-long. And it's amazing how productive I can be when I'm not planning for class or grading! Unfortunately, I probably only have a few more weeks of this kind of productivity. Anyway, this last one is called Pyramid Collection. I think I might have done something wrong. My measurements are just a little off. It's supposed to end up 12.5" x 12.5", but mine is more like 13.5" x 11.5". All of the other ones were pretty much right on target, so I don't know what happened. And some of my points on the triangles didn't come out as well as I'd hoped. Oh, well. I blame it on the whole triangles thing. If I've learned anything from all of this - it's that I'm not a big fan of triangles. But it's good to learn something.

Something Different

I'm waiting for the 9th and final block to be posted so I can finish the quilt-a-long. Meanwhile, I worked on a new baby boy blanket! Okay, so I haven't finished the baby girl blanket yet. But I'd like to get this one done by this weekend so I can hand it over in person. I have the top done, and I'm debating doing the back in either the same bright blue fabric, or the really soft light blue fabric I have left over from an earlier blanket. I'm thinking of going with soft fabric. And if you look really closely at the white fabric, there is a little dog in the back of the blue pickup truck. I thought the fabric fits the family's personality pretty well. I hope they like it.