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.