Cats and Dogs - Part 7

I have been working on the paper pieced cats and dogs quilt for one of the members of our small quilt group. This is where we drew a name of one of the members of our group and are making a quilt for that member. Initially everyone made a set of paper pieced cats and dogs that we traded back in September so that every quilt will have a cat and dog from each member. Then each person can add more cats and dogs, and or other items to the quilt. We need to get the quilt top finished for our meeting at the beginning of March to reveal to the person that we picked.

I did make a few more batik cats and dogs to add to my quilt top and here is the layout so far. Now you may be wondering what is going in the blank spots in the top left hand corner, the middle and the bottom right hand corner. Well I decided to take on my own personal challenge and I'm paper piecing something that is more specific for the person that I picked. The problem is I can't show you right now because it will become obvious who I'm make this quilt for by what I'm paper piecing so it will have to remain a secret until the quilt top is revealed on March 8th. Some of the gals do drop by the blog and see what I'm up to so unfortunately it will have to remain a secret until then.

Scrappy Valentines

This Monday the small quilt group that I belong to, Quilters Pets, is making heart blocks for Valentines Day. There was a paper pieced method and a template method for doing these blocks. Given that you have to deal with bias cut fabric if you are going to use a template, I decided to go with paper piecing.

The look is suppose to be scrappy in that each of the red fabrics is suppose to be a different red, with the top 2 red sections and bottom 2 red sections being a darker red and the middle 2 red sections being a medium red. I had a few reds in my stash but had to go out and buy some more. The biggest problem was finding medium red fabric. When you look at fabric on the bolt in large sections it can look different than when that same fabric is only a 2 or 3 inch square piece in a block. So after a couple of shopping trips this was the best that I had and I wasn't in the mood to go out again to find more red fabric.

Below was my first block that I had made before I realized that each red fabric had to be different and sent me out shopping for more fabric. So by the third shopping trip and the colours still weren't quite what I had in mind, I decided that they would just have to do.

These just might become part of a charity quilt. If anyone is interested in the paper pieced pattern, this is it. Please note that the finished block size is 8" so when you go to print this pattern out you will need to print it to larger paper (11" X 17") so that you can get the 1/4" seam allowances around the perimeter in. They are not drawn in on this pattern.

Art and Cold Cash - Part 4

After reviewing the quilting with Jack Butler on this piece, he decided that he wanted to add some Inuit script in the borders at the upper left and right hand sides.  I have now finished that and this is being handed over to Bernice this weekend for the beading.  Once that is completed, there may be either some additional quilting or perhaps some hand quilting / embroidery to finish the piece. 

Below are some detailed images of the additional quilting.

The goal is to have this completed by the spring.  Time will tell given that this is a collaborate piece and requires the time of multiple people and coordination between everyone.