Catty Kitty quilt: A finish!

Finally, the kitties have a home because I finished what I'm now calling the Catty Kitty Quilt (aka, the Catvent baby quilt). The quilt (which went in the mail yesterday!) is a baby quilt for my cousin, a cat lover, whose name is Catalina, but everyone calls her Catty (hence the quilt name). And no, her nickname has nothing to do with cats. Confused yet?

Anyway, on to the quilt! If you've been following along, you've seen all of the individual kitties over the course of this quilt's creation, but in case you're new and want to see them up close, you can see all of the past posts here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Each kitty is a combination of one solid color and coordinating patterns. I managed to create all but two of them from my stash, which was pretty awesome.

For the backing, I kept it simple with just a little piecing. I could not resist these cats from Lizzy House's new Catnap collection (ah, I wanted to use so many of her prints in this quilt!), but I also wanted to add in a little color, so I paired it with a lovely coral zig zag from Dear Stella.

I originally planned to quilt it using straight diagonal lines in just one direction, but after that was finished, it looked incomplete, so I decided to create a lattice instead, and I love how it turned out. It really pops on the back. I quilted it using a light gray thread color. The close lines are about .5" apart, and the wider spaces are 3".

I used Essex Yarn Dyed in Indigo for the sashing and border. The fun binding (machine stitched using my favorite method) is an old Amy Butler peachy dot (Don't be fooled by its tangerine name, as I originally was. It's peach.). I love how it adds a little spunk to the front and works so well with the colors on the back.

I'm currently working on finally finishing up my Kitchen Windows quilt, and it occurred to me the other day that when it's done, that will mean the last three quilts I finished were all Elizabeth Hartman patterns (the third was the Glam Garlands quilt). Hmmm, I might be obsessed.

I hope Catty (and little Elin, due in June!) love it. And that their real cats don't get jealous. :)

P.S. I'm linking up to Sew Can She's Show-Off Saturday.

Meow #5

This weekend, I spent a lovely Saturday afternoon sewing away at a STLMQG sew-in. While I'd hoped to make progress on a few items, I ended up spending all of my time on the Catvent baby quilt, which turned out to be okay because I finished the top!

First up, let's meet the last three kitties. Here's Lucy (love that coral!):

And Mia (well, kind of. I accidentally flipped the bottom two pieces from the original version, but it's close enough to count.):

And Violet (who was actually kitty #26. I originally made this one in a hunter green palette, but I didn't really like the way it turned out and how the color worked with the rest of the quilt, so I remade it in lavender, which incidentally works better with the name anyway.):

With all the pieces in place, I added in my sashing and borders and then pressed, pressed, pressed. Tonight I'm on to the backing!

Can't get enough of the kitties? You can read all about them in the other posts here, here, here, here, here, and here.

WIP Wednesday #60

Howdy, Wednesday! This week, I pressed ahead with my cat blocks and brought back an old friend.

Completed:
Nothing quite yet

In progress:
After last Thursday's post, I kind of stalled on the Catvent baby quilt. So far, I've finished 23 kitties (you can read more about each set here, here, here, here, and here), but I didn't have all of the solids and prints I needed in my stash to finish the last two colors. I finally made it to my LQS on Sunday and got everything I needed to fill in the blanks, so I'm hoping to finish these up tonight.

I'm definitely going to use the lavender and coral colors, but I'm also debating on whether to replace the forest green in the original Violet block with the new emerald green.

I think it will work better with the other colors, and the amount of white in the Denyse Schmidt print bothers me.

And can you believe it?? I actually worked on my Kitchen Window quilt! This long-neglected quilt (the first one I ever started) has been set aside so many times, and I'm determined to finally get it done.

While I was waiting to get the fabric for my last few kitties, I spent my time adding the sashing to the blocks, so now they're ready to be pressed, and then I can assemble the top!

On the "to do" list: 
Mystery HST quilt

Charger pouch for the hubs
Car travel pouch for B (this, this, or this)
T-shirt quilt
Kitchen Window quilt
New tie for B (with a tutorial, finally!)
Superhero cape for B
Re-covering the downstairs chair

New pillows for the downstairs chairs
A mug rug for me
Ironing board cover
Another divided basket from the Noodlehead pattern 
Reusable snack bags
Living room quilt
Washi dress/tunic (I bought fabric!)

This week, I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

Lately

Times are busy around here. So busy that I'm terribly behind on personal life posts. (In fact, I realized I never wrote B's two-year update. He turned two in November, so, yeah ... .) But that doesn't mean I haven't been taking pictures, and I couldn't resist posting a few of the things we've been up to the past few months. Now, at least, I can start fresh.

 Play-doh and parks

 Goofing around

Cleaning, reading, and coloring

 

Cheese!