Letting the Cats Out of the Bag

I need to make cats and the cats need to make tracks. 

Between the thunderstorms today, I have been playing catch-up with some blocks

I need to make and mail.

These are for bunch of sweet birthday gals in my 

Me and My Kitty Swap group on FB.

I cut and bagged all the pieces last month.

Yet I am late to the June birthday parties.

So I am letting the cats out of the bag and sewing, sewing, sewing.

Assembly line kitties.

I am following my 

Katitude Block Tutorial Here

Hopefully I will have these kitties on the way to their new homes tomorrow.

At least I will be early with the July birthdays.

And if I get all of them sewn, I will be ready for the August 

and September ones, too.

Back to sewing before the thunder and lightning descend again

or I fall asleep counting kitties jumping over the sewing machine.

Tomorrow is forecast to be hot and sunny again.

Have happy quilty dreams tonight! 

January Swap Blocks

My January Swap blocks are done!

This was an easy block, Woven Ribbons from Quilter's Cache, in country colors and white.

Hope they play nicely with all the other blocks!

I think I have my Dare To Dresden idea and design.

My scrappy mystery background fabrics are waiting.

Time to sew!

:) 

December Swap Blocks

Box Kite Block

My Stitchin' Sister Cindy picked the Box Kite Block from Quilter's Cache for our Q&N December Swap Block.  I had looked at this block before but had never felt inspired to make it.  I am really happy to have made this block.  Since it is just squares and half-square-triangles, it is easy to make and has many layout possibilities.  Marcia Hohm has a nice quilt layout on the last page of her block instructions. I played with the blocks and found several different layouts that I liked.

As usual, I followed my own quilty muse and used my own method to piece the units.  I used my 8 HSTs at a Time Tutorial to make the HSTs for these blocks. I cut one 10" square per each color and two white background to make two blocks. This yielded 4.5 inch trimmed HST to sew with the 4.5 inch center squares to make the 12.5 unfinished blocks.

First the fabrics ... all pieces from my stash.  I did not have enough of the yellow print to make all the blocks so I made some with the light blue dot, too.  Since these only one each of these blocks is going home to one of my swap friends and we are making scrappy quilts with them, they did not all have to be alike.

Then I cut the 4.5" center squares and 10" squares to make the 4.5" HST.

Drew on two diagonals  with 1/4" seam lines on each 10" white square paired with a colored square.

Chain sewed four times through my machine.

Cut into 8 HSTs

 

Pressed to the white side. 

 

Trimmed and squared the HSTs to 4.5"

Laid out my blocks.

Chain sewed the units together into strips
 

Quilty Supervisor #1
 

Pinned and sewed strips together, removing pins as I sewed.

 

Note: when sewing the blocks together and into strips, I found there were two combinations that lay flatter by nesting the seams, so I pressed one these seams the other way on one of the HSTs.

Quilty Supervisor #2

 

Pressed and squared the blocks. These blocks worked up to perfect 12.5 inch unfinished blocks with little or no trimming.

Blocks are ready to mail!

Katniss says she can relax now and rest up for the next project.

Our next quilty project is quilting my Tumbling Blocks Table Topper.

But first ... a concert tonight!  My Girl is playing her piccolo at the local university where she is a grad student.  Always my favorite way to spend an evening.

Have a happy quilty day!

 

:-)