Pink Cat

I made this on Christmas night for my niece. Because of the sleep deprivation on Boxing Day I totally forgot to take a photo of her backside, on which I attempted my first ever hand stitched embroidery. I did a fancy E for her name.

I initially called her Pink Cat because I'm nothing if not original but Jasper rejected that and called her Colourful Cat.

 
The googly eyes were a bit of an experiment and someone (RicRac maybe?) gave the tip of using tooth-threader to really hold them in place. They're stitched on but then I used some threader and tied them off on the back.

How good is my blanket stitching these days! (Especially considering I was doing it at around 1am on Boxing Day...

Her belly is this gorgeous fabric (maybe a Prints Charming?) that I just adore - it's all oranges and yellows and greens with fairies and love hearts. I fussy cut this bit to get the gorgeous fairy on her tummy as well as some love hearts.

At first I thought it was a dud gift as another relative had given her this life-like cat which purrs and meows and probably makes breakfast but then I discovered she has been taking her to bed every night and well, I'm just tickled pink.

Here's the dress

The dress

Holy crap people. I was sewing along on a merry dream of unicorns and rainbows until I got the the sleeves.

Oh sure, I did a placket. A PLACKET!
Apparently very tricky and fiddly but something I found relatively straightforward and not so fiddly at all.

Oh sure, I unpicked the whole goddamn thing because my bosom needs two darts not one and a hell of a lot 'deeper' than what the pattern said.

But sleeves. SLEEVES are a BITCH.

I've just finished one. Again.
Yeah. I finished it the other day and then realised there was a whole CUFF section I had completely forgotten to attach.
Holy crap one hundred times over.

Now I know why I chose a floral. It hides so so so many sins.

Pictures tomorrow. As tomorrow is my birthday and GOD DAMN IT I am wearing this god forsaken dress on my birthday IF IT KILLS ME.

Oh, it's Simplicity 2885 and I'm making the dress on the top row, second one in from the left.

Felix's quilt - FINISHED!

OK, so I've learnt my lesson about being slap-dash and not measuring on this one. Whoooo boy was there some sweating and swearing yesterday when I realised I hadn't trimmed it well enough and had to unpick the entire binding. Anyway, I am pleased with the result and Felix LOVES it.

Felix's quilt update

Reading for quilting!

But first, I discovered it was too short:

by three rows. Awesome maths on my part.

But it then came together. Behold:

I had so much fun piecing the back, just making it up:

neither of these pics do it justice but I am loving it sick.

But dudes, some things I've learnt on this quilt:
- this is meant to be a single bed quilt with a slight overhang. See that pic up there of the top with the borders on it? That is laid on on our KING size bed and it is as wide as that. It's HUGE. Anyway, I have no idea what happened as the ladies at the fabric store and I worked all the measurements out.
- measuring can be good. I really think a lot of quilt makers would be sweating over my laxidazical approach to this - the back of this quilt I have measured by holding it up to the front. This was really dumb because I totally forgot you need to make the back a bit bigger than the front as it draws up when you add the batting and do the quilting.

and now, I'm stitching it together to get ready to quilt it. And suddenly I've really nervous! But basically Felix is GAGGING for me to finish it (he is IN LOVE with it and keeps kissing and cuddling me and saying thank you over and over) so it'll be done over the next few days.

Felix's quilt

So I've just started on Felix's quilt. Here are the colours:

Does that not just scream teenage boy. Not that Felix is a teenager yet. He's in that weird tween zone between being a kid and a teenager than yawns on and on for what feels like a decade.

We're doing an Amish Four Patch for him.

this is me about a tenth of the way through making eleventy hundred 2 1/2 inch squares. I thought I'd loathe it but really, I love the process as much as the end result!

Here I'm playing with the squares:

The pattern called for the coloured four patch squares to contain all the colours - in this case a red-pink/purple and a red-pink/green but the way Felix collated them (I'm trying to get the boys involved when I'm making a quilt for them) was for a purple square and a green square. Of course, once he saw them all sewn (I did this when he and Oscar were at Dad and Sue's) he thought there'd be a red/purple and a red/green in each patch. Oh well. He's happy.

The way I've currently got the first few rows laid out has them going in a diagonal pattern across the quilt. I'm not convinced this is the best idea, fancying the idea of randomising them all but always having the red-pink in the same placement. What are your thoughts?

Here's a better idea of the colour palette and how it will ultimately look

The outer border will see me using my first ever Kaffe Fasset fabric - the pictures here do not do it justice, making it look a bit muddy when in fact it is fabulous.

And the yellowy-green fabric just works magically with it all, creating a real zing.

They are certainly not colours I would have worked on together but it's what Felix wanted and yet another lesson in how things you don't think of do come together nicely.

Now to start sewing all the squares together.

Voila!

Check.it.out.

I'm so very chuffed with it. The boys love it and have been badgering me as to when it would be finished.

I've loved gaining the knowledge about fabrics and colours - and how fabrics you would never consider work together. I'm really pleased with the polka-dot and the striped binding.

It's a bit wonky and I know there are myriad technical mistakes in it, but that is what it is all about. I've got the fabrics for a quilt for Felix and also one for Jasper and am chomping at the bit to get into them.

Everyone who quilts has said to me that once you start you can forget stopping. And how right they are.