Kitties in my Sewing Room

Here is one good reason to close the door to my sewing room. This is why I must wash every quilt upon it's completion. Miss Freckles is a rescued kitty and as such she really does get away with a lot at our house. It's taken three years for her to come "out of her shell". She had one tiny kitten and was hard pressed to find food for herself and the kitten when we discovered her hanging around the outside of our house. Her life is free of worries now and she is becoming so sweet and friendly. We just don't have the heart to scold her when she is "bad".

This new pink fabric quilt I am working on is a practice piece for learning how to use the walking foot that came with my sewing machine. I have had it for 5 years now and have not used it once; the walking foot that is. I found a wonderful book that illustrates the use of it and I am having a great time with this small quilt, a lap sized one.

New York and back...

A whirlwind of a trip which culminated from a nearly four month wait for pro bono surgery.

Here is a selection of photos of the crew from Park Slope Productions.

A Cute New Blouse

This cute little blouse is super easy to make and is made from
Simplicity pattern #2596. I embellished it with two appliqued flowers that have little buttons sewn on for the centers.

It's an easy to make pattern and has endless possibilities for personal creativity.

Quilted Bed Topper

After sewing many months for others I decided to take a little time to start a quilting project for home. This bed topper graces the foot of our bed and usually has one or two kitties sprawled out across it at different times of the day.

A Quilting Frenzy

This quilt was made from scraps left over from another quilting project, a bed topper. I am making this one for my nephew who also happens to be my Godson.

It has been a fun one to make and features a new design cut from an X-Square. You can really get creative with these squares.

A Quilting Frenzy

I have not logged on for a few months because I have been so busy sewing and I simply forgot about my blog. So I am back today to show off the fruits of my labors.

This quilt is aptly named "Blue on Blue" and I made it for a gift for a great niece who has graduated from high school and is headed off to college.

The Ides of March ~ or What I Did While Waiting for Spring

Old man Winter is still with us and the weather outside is still frightful so I am spending more time indoors sewing. The calmness of my sewing room is continually broken with the whir of my Juki's motor; thrrrrrr, thrrrrrr. Well, okay, what does a sewing machine's motor sound like? Whrrrrr, whrrrrr? Whatever!

So here is a good look at what I made so far this month. The first quilt is from a pattern called "The Zoey Throw" by Valori Wells Designs. It's a perfect quilt for a beginner but would be enjoyed by an intermediate quilter as well. There are many ways to personalize this quilt and it could be embellished in many imaginative ways.

The pattern called for a pillow to be made with the quilt and I designed mine to match the quilt top using some of the left over pieces for the center of the pillow and framed it in with the tiny striped yellow and white backing. I used the larger print roses fabric on the back side of the pillow. I outlined the roses in a cream colored thread and used mercerized cotton crochet thread in coordinating colors of peach, canary yellow and tango orange for hand tying the quilt. So it was top stitched as well as hand tied. Instead of hand typing any of the roses I used three french knots, using double crochet thread, in the center of each rose and the effect was very nice.

This was the first quilt I had made in five years so my skills were a little rusty in the various components of the quilt assembly, such as in the binding, but with practice I will improve. All in all I am quite pleased with the end result.