Meow-y Christmas, y'all.

Butterscotch 4-Patch Circle Quilt

I didn't love this pattern when I first saw it. It is a Jaybird Quilts design and appeared in Quilts and More. Then I saw my friend Bry's version of it and quite liked it. (She hasn't posted hers yet.) I said to her, what if the patterned fabrics were 4-patches? and went home to look through my stash. I found a layer cake that was a perfect candidate. I also had on hand the butterscotch Kona solid that went perfectly with *some* of the line, so I pulled the patterns that 'went', cut them into fourths, sewed them back together, cut out the circles and placed them on the solids. I'm not a fan of the frayed look so I loosely zigzagged the circles into place.

I also have a second, slightly smaller version made with the rest of the layer cake--though I didn't do the 4-patch thing with it.

Here is a photo of when I was trying to find a lay out I liked.

Oh My Goodness

This has gone much faster than I thought it would. I'm not quite done, but only have a small corner left to do and, perhaps you can tell, I even have begun to put the binding on.
If I had until Christmas, this would have been no problem, but I leave for the Heartland next Wednesday. Now, I think I can put the unbound quilt in my luggage and finish the binding in the evenings after I have spent the day with my Mother.
I'm pleased because I had told her I wasn't going to be able to get it done for my next visit. She doesn't remember much but she keeps asking about her quilt!

Why is finishing a project so much work and starting a project is so much fun!

This is what I am itching to start on. I have wanted to make one of Elizabeth Hartman's New Wave quilts for a long time now. I have anguished over fabric choices. I think I have *finally* come to a decision with these.

First Blog Post

mom's quilt
Originally uploaded by smazoochie

I spent several hours today machine quilting this quilt.
It would have been simpler had I decided to do some simple, over-all lines. Instead, I (foolishly) chose to outline all of the shapes in the quilt: the stars, the squares, the parallelograms. It is going faster than I thought it would but I am only about half way done and my shoulders ache (lots of twisting and stuffing the whole quilt (fortunately is is fairly small) through the arm of my machine).

The quilt is for my Mom. It should look pretty in her room at the nursing home. I just hope that she'll use it and not hide it so that it won't be 'stolen'.

It must be cocktail time somewhere. Wait, it's cocktail time here!