Scrappy Blue Saturday; The Cat Edition

Welcome to Scrap Happy Saturday!  We are continuing with blue for the month of January for our 2016 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Everyone links up over at Angela’s blog, So Scrappy.  We invite you to check out all the great blue eye candy!

First up: cats.  I adore Sally’s kitten pattern, so decided I had to make a litter.  But before they were all even born, they began mewing for a mom. So I drafted a Mama Cat pattern and sewed them up a mom. I didn’t like any of the patterns I found online because they either had weird ears or no tail or no paw or were just otherwise unsatisfactory.

To Sally’s kitten block I added a strip at the top so that the blocks came to an even 6.5 x 6.5” unfinished (6” finished).  Mama cat is 12” finished, so I decided that this setting (above) was perfect. All sewn together it measures 24.5 x 24.5”.  So, nine colors should make a nice 72x72” quilt.  That way I can skip a color if I don’t have enough scraps.

Here are my Mama Cat pieces cut and laid out on my mini design boards.  Yes, one of the boards has a cat fabric border. 

If you like the Mama Cat pattern and would like a copy, let me know. I’ve written it up in pdf format and can email you a copy. Feel free to share. 

I had enough large scraps to do three Dresdens, but they are not yet appliquéd to blocks. It took me forever, auditioning all sorts of background fabrics, to decide what I wanted to do. The point was to use my existing stash. Eventually I decided to stick with Plan A, which is to to use pink and yellow background squares. I’ll make as many Dresdens as each color’s scraps allow and alternate between putting them on pink or yellow backgrounds. I hope to have enough by the end or the year to make two quilts - one pink and one yellow (backgrounds). 

 

I saw a Dresden quilt on Pinterest where the maker had used old doilies for the centers, so I am going to borrow that idea (see below). 

Each doily will need to be backed first so the centers are solid. I have some white linen I may use for that. Altogether, there are about 18 or so doilies. I'll have to dig deeper to find more. There are bins of linens I need to go through - things that will eventually make it into my Etsy shop.  :-)

In addition to cats and Dresdens, I made 10 scrappy 16-patch blocks using my 2.5” squares. There are 12 squares of color in each, with for black and white patches in the center. I will continue making these and figure out a use for them later in the year.....

I also squared up and pressed over 160 blue and white HST’s for heaven-knows-what. But I will make HSTs every month and throw them in the box with those. 

And last but not least (well, they probably ARE the least) for this week are the miscellaneous blocks I either dredged up or sewed. The top tiny Dresden is a vintage piece I found in with my vintage blocks (more about that some other time). There are three strip blocks; 2- 8.5” blocks that I did straight instead of slanted (what was I thinking?), and one that is slanted strips @ 6.5”. The other two 6.5” blocks are left over from last year. I think I will just throw together miscellaneous 6.5” blocks as I near the end of the scraps every month. Eventually they will find a purpose.  

I’m still continuing with my blue scraps for next week. (Will this month ever end?)  I’ll play with the selvages and make a block or two with those.  And finally, I have the remaining bits and pieces and will make some blue crumb slabs.  So, I will have all that to show next week. Hopefully!

Finally, I did manage to sew something besides blue this week. I pieced a very large block quilt in red and gray for my brother-in-law. It’s his favorite color. Yeah, it’s pretty simple and pretty ugly. I’m calling it “Seeing Red” because I hated working on it. It will get basted tomorrow and quilted over the next couple weeks when I need a change from the blue.  And a spur-of-the-moment Valentine Quilt is waiting in the wings.  

Thanks for dropping by! Until next time,