the cat quilt (and more)

After my realization that the cat quilt was not listed in my sidebar of finished quilts last week, I am very belatedly blogging about that finish.

(I think the reason I never blogged about it finished is because I never took a photo of it after I sewed the binding down by hand.)

Anyways...

Waaaaaay back in 2017, I joined the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  It's still a thing, but I haven't participated recently.

I had a great idea to make The Cat Quilt, using the assigned colors each month.  That would keep it scrappy, but also somewhat controlled.  I did some math and figured out how many I'd need of each color to get the quilt throw size and how many of each color and then I set off to make them.  As I made them, I posted photos.  Well, some of them.

I'm missing orange, blue and pink at least.  I have no idea what happened.  But I did make them because eventually I finished the quilt.

The background is harder to see here...

...it's a dark grey chambray.  And boy does this stuff ravel!  Thankfully with smaller pieces (the cats are 3" x 4" finished), even if it did so, the strings weren't too long.  But I had to be careful.

After months of sewing a dozen or so each month, I had enough for the top!

This felt really good, but next up was the dreaded long seams.

I found this cute back at a quilt shop near my mom:

(Yeah, the photo was taken after quilting, but you can still see it.)

This could not have been more perfect and they had just the right amount.

Next up was top construction.

On a nice sunshiney day I got a photo minus actual cats.  That's nothing short of a miracle around here.

And then it was on to the longarm.

I opted for a simple motif to just get this done.  I think.  Maybe I was being lazy.  Maybe I was trying to avoid putting swirls into ANOTHER quilt?

See?  Simple.

And then to the scrap binding for binding!

I sewed that on and took this photo with the help of the hubby:

You can see the binding edges flopping around some.

And then I took no more photos.  To this day.

So this is going to stand in for the finished quilt.

I've used it a lot.  It's one of my favorites.  There are a lot of memories wrapped up in this quilt - I can tell you where most of the fabrics came from - what project they were purchased for.  Or perhaps who gave them to me.  It's not quite as expansive as the Tiny Stars from last week, but it's still a lot of variety.

Quilt Stats:

Pattern: The Cat by Elizabeth Hartman

Size: 70" x 80" or so

Pieced and quilted by me

And now on to more current news.

The wedding quilt is now a top!

I finished this Saturday afternoon while waiting for the hubby to get home from work.  We were headed to a niece's birthday party.  He was running late, so I not only finished the top, but got the back pieced:

And also got the binding cut, sewn and pressed.  (It's just one of the reds in the quilt.)

This back isn't exactly what I wanted - it's a little stiff and a little Valentiney, but the selection of reds that weren't tone-on-tone (which was great IN the quilt) was abysmal.  I didn't want to go elsewhere, so I just went with what was best.  And it looks like the reds faded, but I assure you, it had a pink background before I washed it.

So that is up for quilting soon.  The wedding is New Year's Eve.

I also got a little work done on the Bramble Blooms project.

Not a lot, but I do like the yellow centers now that I'm sewing them down.  This still needs quite a bit more work, but I'm getting there slowly.  The gal in charge said the next step likely won't be until next week, which is good since I have a fair amount on my plate this week.

A lot to do?  Let's add more!

Meet Salem.  Discarded by the same family where Finn came from, she was in need of a real home.  We didn't want another cat.  Toby is a jerk.  She didn't need to be abandoned.  Toby is terrified of her.  All about-5-pounds of her.  She just wanders around the house, headbutting things, wanting pets, exploring, eating a few crunchies, purring and is completely chill about everything.  She'll hiss back, but all the boys are afraid of her.

We got lucky and today already she will go in for her first vet checkup ever.  Vaccinations, fecal screening and scheduling for a spay.  Merry Christmas to us.

I'm sure she'll learn to be a quilt cat in no time and you'll be seeing more of her.  She has white on her chin and belly, so even in photos, you might be able to tell her apart from big brother Freddie, who is all black.

Happy quilting!

Katie