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.

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.

Finally

After several days, I finally finished block 8. It took a really long time. And I think it could have been easier than it was. Instead of those little solid color squares that are right next to each other, it might have been easier putting in a rectangle instead of two separate squares. The seams from all these pieces made it really bulky. But it looks decent. The angle of the photo also makes it look like it's uneven, but it actually isn't. It's one of those times that it looks better in person than it does in the photo.


Bowie was also back to his destructive ways. He was obsessed with the thread when I was winding the bobbin. The photo is a little blurry, but I think it captures his mischievous expression. He was going after the thread with his claws. I guess I should spend more time training him not to do these things instead of laughing and taking pictures, but the latter is definitely more fun.

Block 7 and progress on 8

I'm coming close to the end of the blocks for the quilt-a-long! I finished block 7, and am working on block 8. Block 7, called Stacked, was pretty easy and I really like it. It's supposed to look like a stack of books. I was just excited to work with pieces that weren't really tiny.


But the next one is back to the tiny little pieces. I'm still working on it, and hopefully I'll get it done tomorrow night. But I might not get to it again until Friday. Here's my pile of little triangles and squares:


I also changed the color of the blog temporarily because I've been working with so much blue, I couldn't handle everything being blue at once. So it's just green for a while. I haven't decided how I feel about this color yet.

Tail Spin

I got the kitties to leave my fabric alone long enough to make the next block. This one was really hard for me, with even smaller triangles this time. I would have finished it last night but I ended up watching the news. This is what it looked like in progress:


And here's what it looks like finished. The corners lined up pretty well except for the white triangles on the right. But I think those will be covered up in the seams later on.

Some cuteness, some destruction

Now that I have some time off from grading (yay!), I wanted to start in on the next block. But the Big Kitty decided it was his turn to nap on that particular pile of fabric. It's a good thing that black and gray fur work well with these colors - because it's going to be everywhere. And I decided not to bother him and worked on some other things instead. They're just so cute when they sleep!


So then I worked some more on the baby girl blanket. I decided that there were a few pieces that didn't go well with the purple fabric, so I'm putting in small gray borders around the blocks and then putting in the purple fabric. I hope it turns out okay. But it's been difficult, because Little Kitty has now decided that the ironing board is his new chew toy. Some of these are claw marks, and some are tooth marks. And yes, that is the culprit in the upper left corner.


Eventually he also figured out that he can stand on his hind legs and reach the top of the ironing board with his front paws. He managed to pull it over on top of him. He did realize he should run away before it hit him, so he was fine, but it made a nice loud noise. He's such a little ball of destruction. Lucky for him he's a cute little ball of destruction.

Diamond Mine

Today I made the 5th block in the quilt-a-long. Which means it's over halfway done! There will be 9 total. I have a hard time with making triangles. In order to make the corners line up correctly, it takes seams that are a little too accurate for my patience level. But I still like it. Big Kitty also sat on the couch next to me when I was working on making the triangles. I took the photos of him with my phone - I didn't want to disturb him to get up and get my camera. The camera on my phone does a decent job, but I do like my real camera better. And Big Kitty is still on the couch next to me.

One block, two colors

There are two blocks for the quilt-a-long again this week. I've only done one so far (called Ninth Inning), but I did it twice. I didn't like how the colors turned out when I made it the first time. And I'm also looking for things to distract me from the pile of grading I have to do. Following the pattern, it didn't use the white fabric at all, and with the colors I chose, the light blue and the grey blended together too much and it looked too dull (the one on the left in the photo). I really like using the white with the grey and blues, so I wanted to try it again with the white added in. I also changed up the order of the dark blue and grey fabrics because I like how the white contrasts with the dark blue. My second one is on the right in the photo. I think it stands out a little more than the first one does. It's really interesting how changing the order of the colors makes it look so different. But I haven't decided which one I'll end up using.

Quilt a long blocks two and three

This week there were two new block patterns. One is called Center Aisle:


And one is called Biggest Fan:


The second one was pretty easy to do. But the first one - let's just say that I'm not very good with tiny little squares. There's not enough room for error. But I do like the way it looks. It also didn't help that Big Kitty decided to nap on my white fabric, so it took a while before I could cut out the pieces. He was just too cute to wake up.

Quilt-a-long

I've started working on the baby blanket again now that I feel well enough to not sneeze all over it. I also decided to try something new. Some of the blogs I read have quilt-a-longs - they post patterns over a specific period of time, for free, and people join in and put up photos as they go. I decided to try one that's from this blog, that uses solid colors. I finished the block for this week. Every week they'll have patterns for one or two blocks. It seems less intimidating that way, and since I'm trying to learn as much as possible, it's really nice that people do things like this for free. So I don't know how it'll end up, but I'm enjoying it so far.