The Cat Vomit Quilt – Explained

So, I promised an explaination about the Cat Vomit Quilt and so….to make a long story long…

Once upon a time, I told my husband that I had heard, on good authority, that you can’t be a crazy cat lady if you had a husband. That was when we started calling ourselves the crazy cat couple. And, with one thing and another, we wound up outnumbered in our sleeping arrangements with five cats sharing the bed with us. (Griff often declined to sleep with us but Jack, Zoe, Winnie, Milo and Gizmo loved to snuggle up with us. Sharing your room with multiple cats leads to some serious laundry issues. I don’t know if you have cats but mine seem to have a rare talent for hairballs and upset stomachs…usually right after laundry day!

So there was a need for a utility quilt. Something that could go in and out of the washing machine on a weekly (at least) basis. Enter the blog post for the Scrap Vortex Quilt over at Crazy Mom Quilts! I love, love, love playing with scraps and the idea of tossing all my wee bits of scraps into a fun utility quilt lit a fire in my heart. A word of advice, do take Amanda’s advice and cut your blocks into regular-sized units. I decided to keep just improving it and it did get me into a few sticky situations!

I kept thinking that the quilt was big enough and we had several auditions like this one..

Jack modeling the CVQ

I kept thinking I had it almost big enough like in this photo. My plan was to add a to the width after this round but I managed to put the next row on the wrong end. With one thing and another this quilt got pushed to the side and then, when I picked up it again, it still wasn’t big enough!!!

I added a few more blocks and, when it wasn’t big enough yet, I decided to add a navy border and piano keys made from the 2″ strip drawer. Then, I needed a backing. I cobbled together six different flannels to get enough width and still only had about four inches on each side to spare! Somewhere along the way, it occurred to me that flannel on the back of all of those seams might make for a very heavy quilt. And, by the way, adding another 11 inches to all sides of an already big quilt makes a VERY BIG QUILT!

I think I realized I might be in a little bit of trouble when I got the quilt on the frame and it took over most of my 12-foot frame. It looked big spread out on my porch stairs but it looked REALLY big when I put it on my bed!

Suddenly, my queen-sized bed looked much smaller and, in order to accommodate the quilt, I had to fold the end like this…

Yes, you could totally go right up and over the pillows with this one! I had a very real concern that my “wash and wear” utility quilt was not going to fit in my washer and dryer but, courtesy of the cats, we’ve tested that theory already. It did take three cycles in the dryer but the Cat Vomit Quilt is freshly washed and dried and is ready to conitnue it’s sworn duty to protect other well-loved quilts on my bed and to serve as the first line of defense against kitties with a hairball agenda! And as an added bonus, there’s very little chance of me ever being cold at night again!

So, there it is…the Cat Vomit Quilt explained! I hope you’ll come back soon as I’m starting a new quilt with fabric from a new line and a new designer! I’m so excited!

Happy quilting (no matter what size your quilt ends up!)

Beth

Wonderful World of Color

Oh my goodness, this is a first…I was sure my day was Thursday and then I got sidelined by a migraine and like the White Rabbit… I’M LATE! My apologies, my friends ans especially to our fearless leader!

I love bright colors and have been playing with them a lot lately. Here are a few

But the quilt I’m sharing for our hop has all the colors…. here’s my scrap vortex quilt aka the cat vomit quilt (long story, more later.)

Proof once more that all the colors really do go with all the other colors!

Again, my apologies for the mix up!

Please visit the other bloggers and hop over to moosestashquilting.com and show some love for our fearless leader, Joan!

Happy quilting!

Beth

Happy Easter!

Spring had sprung in the Pacific Northwest and my oldest daughter and I made a trip to the tulip farm which was chilly but always so beautiful!

However, the very next day, we had a snow day! In April!

I was excited for the extra sew day, though and thoroughly enjoyed it. By 5, it had melted, the sky was blue and school went off without a hitch the next day.

This weekend was our quilter’s tea and we got to see some terrific finishes! The black and white quilt blocks were ones we made for our youngest member when she got engaged. The blue and yellow is a quilt that is headed to the Ukraine and is wonderfully quilted with words of hope in both English and Ukrainian. We opted to postpone our Easter brunch because one of my younger daughter’s housemates was ill so we will be celebrating next week instead.

Now that Project Quilting is done, I’m working on rehabbing the sewing room. In keeping with my “tiny tidy” approach, this week was the ironing station. Here’s a little before, during and after. I love, love, love my Oliso irons, by the way (and, no, I’m not affiliated, just a fan!)

So, the Wonderful World of Color Blog Hop starts today! My day is later in the week but get ready for lots of fun and inspiration!

Monday April 18

Creatin’ in the Sticks

Ms P Designs USA

Samelia’s Mum

Kathleen McMusing

That Fabric Feeling

Scrapdash

 Tuesday April 19

Just Let Me Quilt

BeaQuilter

Songbird Designs

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Purring Cottage 

Stitchin at Home

Time4Stitchn

Wednesday April 20

Patchouli Moon Studio

Quilting Gail

Quilt Schmilt

Words & Stitches

Quilted Delights

Lynn’s Blog

Homespun Hannah’s Blog

 Thursday April 21

Just Sew Quilter

Days Filled With Joy

Selina Quilts

Karrin’s Crazy World

The Darling Dogwood

Beckys Adventures in Quilting and Travel

 Friday April 22

Kathys Kwilts and More

Pieceful Thoughts

Karen’s Korner

Inflorescence

Crafts and Math

MooseStashQuilting

I’ll see you back soon but in the meantime, I hope you have some fun stitching time in your week!

Happy quilting,

Beth

PQ 13.6 – Flying Geese

The last prompt for Project Quilting Season 13 was Flying Geese and I can tell you that ideas flew around my heaId like crazy! There were literally flocks of ideas but they didn’t colalesce until Wednesday and the serious sewing started on Thursday. I was inspired by a quilt I saw on a Fons & Porter page while I was googling flying geese. I loved the idea of “super sizing” my geese…they are finished at 12×6″. While I was pulling fabric, I made a whole bunch of false starts until I remembered a stack of fat quarters that had been stocking stuffers from my youngest and my husband. I will admit that I’m a bit of a fabric snob and these “big box’ cottons were a tad on the thin and papery side so I had shelved them together and thought I would put them all together in a quilt. That way, the fabric should shrink at a similar rate and wear about the same. I’m delighted with how this came out and even managed to get a photo in the last dregs of daylight! This measures 64×64” and contains 50 flying geese units. Fun fact, if you are using fat quarters, you can get all the pieces for three geese (centers and sides) out of each fat quarter. I pressed and layered them up and then sewed pairs of geese. By reversing the placement, you can use two geese to make a chevron. I would love to try this again and play more with the color placement but I’d need more than a week!

Fresh off the long-arm machine and unbound but I wanted that daylight shot!

OK, maybe dusk is a more apt description but still….;

The leftover binding bin came into play again this week and I put three together to bind the quilt

Milo is tired from supervising! And, a pile of quilts is great for napping.

So, thank you so much to the whole Project Quilting Team! I feel like a winner every challenge because I have done something new and pushed my comfort zone out just a bit.

Happy ‘Quilting,

Beth

Time in a Bottle… it’s my day!

I had so many ideas for this blog hop! I love the look of hourglass blocks and they’re so fun to piece and so quick to stitch when I cut them with the accuquilt…bonus, no dog ears to trim! I had been making the 16-patches out of the leftovers from the string border on the Cat Vomit Quilt (still waiting to show you that when it’s quilted.) It occurred to me that if I sewed my piano key strips (2″ strips from the scrap bin) into sets of four, the leftover bits could be sub cut into a row of four squares. Four strips sewn together gave me sixteen patch blocks! And, to my amazement…the 2″ strip bin actually started to diminish! So, I decided to throw together some hourglass blocks and a quilt start was born! Now, I didn’t quilt this because I have decided that I’d like to make it quite a bit bigger. This section is 48×48 and, if I make four of these, I’ll have a nice queen-sized quilt. This is just the kind of scrappy quilt I love seeing on a bed. Bonus, if you can’t sleep, you can spend hours looking at all the different prints!

Of course, I noticed after I took the picture that I had managed to put one hourglass block in the wrong position but it will be an easy fix with the seam ripper. If you’re not ripping occasionally, you’re not actually sewing, right?

I’m excited to be sharing this day with these great bloggers…

March 17
Ms P Designs USA
Quilt Schmilt
That Fabric Feeling
Quilted Delights
Words & Stitches
Selina Quilts

Big thanks to Carol over at Just Let Me Quilt for pulling this together!

Now, I’m off to start my Project Quilting Challenge…wish me luck!

Happy quilting!

Beth

Time in a Bottle? Yes, please!

Wow, if I could really bottle time…what would I do…well, more quilting of course! (I mean, what answer did you expect?) Well, we didn’t really bottle any time but I’m having a grand time working on my hourglass project and Carol at Just Let Me Quilt has put together a great lineup of “time turners.”

Come back to see me Thursday but in the meantime, check out these wonderful blogs:

March 14
Creatin’ in the Sticks
Vroomans Quilts
Patchouli Moon Studio
Samelia’s Mum
Days Filled With Joy
Elizabeth Coughlin Designs
Stitchin At Home
 
March 15
MooseStashQuilting
Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel
The Darling Dogwood
Quilting Gail
Time 4 Stitchn
Beaquilter
 
March 16
 Inflorescence
Lynn’s Blog
Karen’s Korner
Stitching Farm Girl
Scrapdash
Familypatchworks
 
March 17
Ms P Designs USA
Quilt Schmilt
That Fabric Feeling
Quilted Delights
Words & Stitches
Selina Quilts
 
March 18
Just Let Me Quilt
Bumbleberry Stitches
Karrin’s Crazy World
Lianne Makes Stuff
Crazy’boutquilts
Songbird Designs

PQ 13.5

More late night photos…. update in the morning! Sunflowers, approx 58×58

But, we all know that daylight changes things!

Rhythem & Repetition was the prompt this week and with the Ukraine on my (and everyone else’s mind) this week, I decided to try my hand at a Sunflower Quilt. This block is a variation of a block I used for my Sunshine blog hop but I upsized it to a 16″ block and changed the corner. I’m not sure I’m quite happy with the corner yet but that is the beauty of a one-week challenge. I don’t have time to overthink it, it’s just a “grab an idea and go” situation! If I’d known when I started that this would end up with 1050 pieces, I might not have taken it on but it sort of took on a life of it’s own. The biggest trick I have up my sleeve is my Accuquilt. Between using it to cut all the squares and triangles and the strips for subcutting the rectangles, I saved a whole bunch of time! It was a gift from my daughter and I am so glad to have it! I have to admit that the power supply issue is ongoing (I’m on my third one but I’m hoping they’ll get that resolved soon.)

So, having spent the week in the sewing room, I need to spend today catching up on the rest of life’s mundanities…laundry, cleaning, cooking…well, making salads in a jar for this week and a pot of soup. And, of course, more quilting!

Happy quilting!

Beth

Project Quilting 13.4 – Diamonds

Ah, there’s nothing like the morning after of a successful quilt finish! No hangover, just an intense desire to get back in the sewing room and play some more! Unfortunately, after focusing on this quilt all week, there’s a little requisite housework that needs doing! I also need to catch up on some putting away and scrap management work in the sewing room. So, here’s the “morning after” photo…the wind was not my friend this morning so I had a tough time getting a good shot.

Project Quilting Challenge 13.4 – Mining for Diamonds

Here is the badly lit picture from last night. It’s so interesting how lighting changes what you seen in a quilt.

Another late night photo!

This is one of what I call my “free” quilts. The top is entirely made of stuff that was on-hand. The pink was leftover from my Tickled Pink Blog Hop project. The strips all came from the 2.5″ strip bin. I have to admit that the strips were all the ones left over from the pull of the Tickled Pink project and there are still a really large number of them left. I swear those strips multiply like rabbits when you turn your back for even a minute!

There was no rhyme or reason to my fabric choices in the block other than “is this long enough for two sides?” Since this is a one-week challenge and I know I could get stuck on the arrangement piece for DAYS, I only allow myself about 20 minutes to arrange blocks once they’re finished. So, of course, I look at the quilt and think of things I might have tweaked in the block placement. But overall, I really, really like it!

The block is an offset log cabin and I used two different size center squares. There’s a great tutorial over at Aunt Em’s on making these blocks. https://auntemsquilts.com/blog/scrappy-quarter-log-cabin-quilt-tutorial

I’m so very grateful to Kim Lapacek and the whole team at Project Quilting for the work that goes into organizing this. I love starting the year with a chance to stretch my creative process and try things that I might not have otherwise done!

So, with that in mind, I’m off to install the idler rail on my Qu’nique system. This whole “I finished a quilt” energy is so much fun that I think I’d like to repeat the process. What’s the old saying, “Cut, sew, repeat”?

Happy quilting!

Beth

Tickled Pink Blog Hop and No-Math Borders

I LOVE Pink! It’s my all-time favorite color so of course I wanted to play along on the Tickled Pink blog hop! I love pink in all it’s shades from the brightest fuschia to the palest baby pink. (I even love the singer Pink!) I never have to look too far for pink fabric in my sewing room but for this project I did make an excuse, ahem, “force” myself to pick up some nice deep pink Kona solid. The rest of my project came from my 2.5″ strip drawer (thank you, Bonnie Hunter for your Scrap Users System) and from a free pattern and video from Jordan Fabrics.

Here’s my project (sorry, just a top but I’m hopeful I’ll finish it soon…and, I had to hang it sideways because it was just a smidge too long for my fence.

So, along that theme of not knowing the quilt’s size, I thought I’d share the No-Measure border technique I use. I’m sure I learned it somewhere along the line so if I remember who it was, I’ll happily give them credit.

First, I give myself an idea of how many border strips I need per side and cut those (I used 6 3.5″ strips for this border.) I join them with a mitre seam and make one long strip.

Then, I fold the quilt in half either vertically or horizontally depending on which border you want to put on. Frankly, I’ve done both, I’m not picky. Fold carefully so that the edges line up neatly. Then lay the border strip across the middle of the quilt and fold it to match the fold in the quilt. I like to go ahead and do both strips at one time. This quilt had a seam right at the top so I made sure I lined the fold up with the stitching line and not the edge of the fabric. Then I trim the pieces on a small cutting mat that I slide under the end of the piece. I use a pin to mark the center of both the borders and the top and pin before sewing. This way, you don’t stretch anything out of shape. Press your borders and then repeat the process by folding the top the opposite direction and cutting your next pair of strips. Pin and add your strips and, voila! A math-free border solution! With the possible downside of having no real answer when your friend asks, “How big is that?” And, of course, if you have additional borders, just repeat the process after each addition.

So, please make sure to check out the rest of this week’s Tickled Pink bloggers and be sure to say thanks to Carla at Creatin’ in the Sticks for putting all this together (she, Carol and Joan are cat-herders extraordinaire to pull all this fun together!) There are lots more fun blog hops to come….watch this space for updates!

Happy Quilting!

Monday, February 14th

Just Let Me Quilt

VroomansQuilts

Beckys Adventures in Quilting and Travel 

DayBrook Designs

Creative Latitude

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Karen’s Korner

Days Filled With Joy

Tuesday, February 15th

MooseStashQuilting

Stitch and Quilt

SameliasMum

Ms P Designs USA

lynns blog

Storied Quilts

Songbird Designs

Wednesday, February 16th

Selina Quilts

Quilt Schmilt

Quilting Gail

Scrapdash.com

Lianne Makes Stuff

Karrin’s Crazy World

Dragon’s Heart Quilting

Bumbleberry Stitches

Thursday, February 17th

Creatin’ in the Sticks

Beaquilter

Stitchin at Home

Happy Cottage Quilter

Patchouli Moon Studio

Words & Stitches

Inflorescence

http://www.quilteddelights.com/

Project Quilting 13.3 – Kitchen Inspiration

What a fun challenge! I just love these prompts and the chance to stretch my creative legs a bit. When I made the big star for the first challenge, I got a few questions about how I got a larger quilt done in a week so this week, I tried to pay attention to my process. Now, for what it’s worth, I’m a widow and my daughter works nights so I have a lot of free evenings. I’m also not opposed to eating leftovers…lol!

So, here’s how the week went…

Sunday – Kitchen Inspiration is announced. I spent the afternoon finishing the piano key border on my “cat vomit” quilt (I’ll explain that some other time) and working on ideas…food fabric? Blue food? Kitchen plates? I’d been eying up the Chandelier Pattern by Lella Boutique and, guess what? It’s a free download!

Oh, and on that note, if you want the pattern, please download it here. I’m going to explain how I sped up the piecing process but the pattern isn’t mine and I want to respect the designer.

So, Sunday – inspiration found….a stack of Fiestaware plates in my cupboard. A few years ago, I asked for Fiesta for Christmas (now that our house was full of adults.) I love the bright, happy colors and even doing the dishes is more fun with all that color! Next step was fabric….I didn’t have to look far to find a trio of 1/2-yard ombre cuts that I’d picked up somewhere.

Monday – no forward momentum just some contemplation of how the pattern would go together.

Tuesday – first blocks and strip sets…and why is ombre so much fun in strip sets? Because you get so much variety and it looks like you worked much harder than you actually did! So, here’s where I changed up the process – instead of using the squares in the original pattern, I made two strip sets to create blocks. One strip is two background and one ombre. The other is a much wider background and one ombre. Then you sub-cut your strips to make the units. The math was simple…the original uses 5″ squares so my colorful strip was 5 inches wide. The pattern called for 2.5″ squares so the strips of narrow color and narrow background were 2.5″. The pattern called for a 7″x2.5″ background strip so I made a strip set with 7″ wide of the background, added it to one ombre strip and cross cut them every 2.5″ inches.

Wednesday – finish blocks and throw them on the design wall to marinate.

Thursday – audition one color for setting triangles, dislike it, cut them again, begin sewing rows on the diagonal. I allowed myself a 20 minute window to rearrange the blocks…I wasn’t liking how all the yellow in the lower left sort of “faded away.” I also know that I can spend hours rearranging so I set a time limit.

Friday – finish piecing the top and find fabric for back in the stash. I had almost more trouble finding a back (not for lack of fabric) than I did choosing the front.) I ended up using a much older Jenny Beyer border print that I had found at a thrift shop and knew would make a good back. I ended Friday evening’s sewing with the top finished, the back chosen but not pieced and the batting cut.

Saturday, piece the back, get the quilt on the longarm (I have a Grace 21 pro that I LOVE!) I’d love to have explored some different quilting on this but, again, the is a timed challenge so I used my tried and true swirly quilting. A bit about my Qu’nique, It’s a 21 pro on a continuum frame. The thing weighs a TON and glides like a feather! I can quilt one handed on this. I’m still new at this and had to stretch to get into one but I’m loving it and saving up for the module that does the programmed quilting. In the meantime, I’m learning a lot! (Thanks Leah Day, Angela Walters and HollyAnne Knight for amazing youtube content that inspires and encourages me and the the Just Wanna Quilt team for being my Grace dealer and tech support all in one!)

Can I just say for a moment that I thought I would have had ACRES of that tone on tone fabric but it turns out there was very little of it in my stash. So I cut an entire set of side triangles out before I decided they jsut weren’t working for me! Thank goodness for big hunks of Kona white that live in my sewing room for just this kind of situation.

Saturday afternoon/evening – finish quilting, bind the quilt, bemoan the fact that I still have to add a daylight picture tomorrow, take the dog on a walk and then write a blog post. (And, yes, I’ll upate pictures tomorrow.) In the meantime, here’s my fiestaware-inspired quilt…

And here’s my morning photo! The wind just did not want to pause for my photo (so very inconsiderate…lol) so that lower corner was as flat as the wind would allow.

And that is how I made this quilt in one week. Now, I need to see if I can do that to move a few of my other projects along in the off week. I did spy three that just need a binding…wish me luck! And, thanks as always to the PQ team for this challenge….sew much fun!

Happy quilting!

Beth