Christmastime!

Well, I was sad to realize that it would be unsafe for me to put up my tree this year. Crazy Cassy the kitten would knock it down for sure and probably eat some of it too. My holiday decor would not be complete. Luckily I'm a resourceful quilter so if I can't have an actual Christmas tree, the next best thing is a quilted Christmas tree! How fun it was to make and decorate this little tree!

Happy Halloween!!

I made this quilt for Halloween and I think it's as cute as can be! But it's missing one thing.... a little black cat!!!

Awww... Cassy just blends right in!!

Cassandra

I recently adopted an adorable kitten. Her name is Cassandra, but I call her Cassy. She's just as cute as can be. These pictures are, of course, of Cassy, but they also illustrate some of the many quilts I have around my home.

Cassy is full of energy and excitement. She loves to follow me around from room to room and always has to sleep near me. In fact, she is on my lap right now as I type! She seems to have no fear ( for example, one of her favorite places to sit is the refrigerator!!) but I found out tonight that she is afraid of one thing: my sewing machine. She doesn't like the sound of it at all and even ran to the other room when I started sewing! Silly kitty!

Recent projects!

So it's been a while since I posted. I've been working on two projects:
1. a series of baby quilts to donate to carewear at Christmas
2. a crazy quilt for my bed

I have 7 baby quilts done so far. I am making them very tiny (some only 14"x 14") for the NICU. Because they are so small, I can make them very quickly. I am using this project to practice new techniques and machine quilting methods. The one thing I haven't remember to do yet is take pictures so hopefully those will be coming soon.

The crazy quilt is, well, crazy! It started out as one square, using a crazy quilting method I read about in my Quilter's World magazine. One square turned into enough squares for a full sized quilt. And the crazy part is that I had enough fabric at home for the entire quilt top!!! I am working now on embellishing and embroidering the top, using both machine and hand sewing. I hope to have it done by winter, so look for a photo soon!

Dress Shirt Quilt

So, I've been wanting to make this post for a long long time, but I thought I "lost" the photographs on my computer. In an effort to be more organized with my digital pictures, I started putting all my quilt photos in a folder called "Quilts." (Clever, I know!) But then I forgot I had started doing that so I was searching and searching around by date, trying to find these particular shots. Finally, they resurfaced!!

When my parents were cleaning out my grandmother's house, they found a quilt top. My mom had no idea the story behind it, but she kept it to give to me. My grandmother always told us stories about important things in her house ("This vase was a wedding present." "This silver spoon belonged to your great-grandmother.") so I was shocked that we had never heard a word of this quilt, even though I had been a quilter for years, and my grandmother used to brag to her friends about her quilting granddaughter! Anyway, the quilt top was very cool because it was made out of what appears to be men's dress shirts! So I wonder, was this quilt made of my grandfather's dress shirts? Or had it belonged to one of my great aunts? Or did my grandmother pick it up at a yard sale? (All plausible theories)

This was the "easiest" quilt I've done because the hard part (which is also the fun part) -- cutting and sewing the fabric for the top -- was already done. All I had to do was get binding and a backing and put it together. I decided not to put on any borders because there was no way I would be able to find fabrics similar to these old dress shirts. Plus, the quilt was already queen-sized, without borders, so I didn't want to make it any bigger (I only have a limited amount of space on my living floor to spread out my work!). Here it is being displayed on my bed. Because it looks so good on my bed, I didn't want to give it away, but I had planned from the start to give it to my brother!

I made this quilt for my good friend for her 29th + 1 birthday. When I make quilts, I always have colors in mind, colors that remind me of the person, either because of what they wear or how they have their home decorated. This fabric was fun. I bought just a small amount on E-Bay, coordinating cat fabric with cream and maroon backgrounds. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a solid background color that was the same shade of maroon (silly dye lots!) so somehow, I was able to contact the seller who I bought the fabric from last year and ask the name of it. And even more remarkably I found it on the internet. I ordered 6 yards, and they shipped from England. The quilt came out great!

Holidays, continued

So though today isn't a national holiday, I think it should be. Es mi cumple. :-) Therefore, I am going to write about an actual national holiday -- Christmas! My first year in the apartment with my roommates, I made a crazy quilt tree skirt as well as stockings:

(Whoops! We hadn't decorated the tree before it crashed into the TV... luckily, there was no damage!)

After I moved to my own place, I continued my Christmas decorating with a quilt (mentioned in the previous post) as well as a Log Cabin pillow:

Merry Christmas in June, everyone!