Kite Flight: A Finished Quilt Top

Howdy y'all! I have excitement to share! I have my first finished quilt top of the new year! I wasn't able to get a picture of the entire thing since my camera wasn't agreeing with the lower light of the kitchen, but at least you get a sneak peek before it gets basted. :)

If you peruse Craftsy's sale section, you may recognize this quilt. A little after Thanksgiving, I was scrolling through admiring all the kits and fabric. I kept coming back to this one though! I'm not normally an all-solids kind of person, but this Kite Flight kit was calling my name! A stunning quilt and a killer price, a win-win in my book. And you know what? I bought it. With barely a second of hesitation even! :)

My very first jelly roll! Such scrumptious bits of Kona! :)

One of my New Year's goals was to treat myself and that's exactly what this was. I've worked on it for the sheer joy of working on it. No deadlines, no pressure. Just getting to play with Kona solids at my leisure. And I'll tell y'all, it has been...absolutely wonderful.

There were triangles everywhere! My Dad was quite amused that I was sewing fabric together, cutting it apart, then resewing it back together. :)

Despite this being a 'treat yo'self' purchase, I won't be keeping this quilt. You ever have those times when a quilt just whispers in your ear where it needs to go? This one did about halfway through piecing the top and, honestly, it really surprised me. It's going to go to somebody I hadn't talked to in a while - she was an RA for a summer nerd camp I went to during high school. I bumped into her at college on occasion and she was always a lovely, nice person. She's going through a tough time right now and I wanted to let her know, even though we aren't that close, I care and wish the best for her. I'm not very good with words, especially during times of distress, but I'm hoping this quilt will convey that sentiment to her. So after this one is finished up, it will be jetting across the country to Colorado! How exciting!

With 3 dogs in the house, this was what most of my outtakes looked like. I can't complain when they're just so darn cute! :)

In other news, I caved and joined Instagram! You can find me here or look up littleblackcatquilting!

The Quilt With No Name: A Finished Quilt Top

Howdy y'all, and happy Friday! I'm excited to unveil my latest finished quilt top! You saw a sneak peek of it on Wednesday, but here it is in all its glory! :)

The lovely Belle, back and ready to continue her quilt modeling. :)

As I said on Wednesday, this is a pattern of my own design, though only because I couldn't find one that suited my idea. I couldn't find an on-point square that fit the image in my head, so to the drawing board I went! It was easy enough and I'm thrilled with the result. Funnily enough, the design idea came to me back in the winter while playing video games with my husband. We were waiting for a game to load and the loading screen really struck me. I doodled the basic image in my notebook and hung onto it for inspiration to strike.

Those little intersection squares finish at 1 inch square! :)

That inspiration struck with my Alison Glass fabric! But what to pair it with? If you've followed for a while, you know I admire Kitty Wilkin over at Night Quilter. She really has a way with color, especially rainbows! And she really made me want to use Essex Linen in a quilt. For my birthday, I splurged and got, not regular Essex Linen, but a METALLIC Essex Linen. Oh. My. Goodness. I was giddy when I opened it and saw the shiny!

Depending on how the light hits the linen, it can appear metallic or flat. Makes for interesting pictures! Lol.

To my surprise, I plan on hand quilting this one. I know, weird for me, right?! But the buzz from hand quilting Technicolor Galaxy: Pocket Edition seems to have hung around because all I can see is rainbow hand quilting when I look at this quilt top. I figure I'll wait until the quilting is done to trim off the excess fabric around the edges, even if it looks funny right now! Lol.

This one really shows off the shimmer!

I had hoped for a better photoshoot for this top, but alas, not all wishes come true! So I took it with me when I went to my parents' house to do some work. I tried hanging it on the clothes line, but eventually just spread it out in the yard. The girls, Belle and Jasmine, couldn't help but get involved! Belle, of course, thinks she's a quilt model after I told her how much everybody liked her last time! ;) Now it's just time to dig through my batting pieces and hope I find one big enough for this!

Linking up with Finish It Up Friday, TGIFF, and Finish or Not Friday!

Faux Baby Cherries : A Finished Quilt Top

Howdy y'all, I'm late to Finish it up Friday once again. Seems I can't make a deadline for anything! Lol. I'm excited to share a finished baby quilt top this week. For this little one, I used the leftover tan fabric from the last quilt top I finished and used the charm pack I recently received. I used the well known Charm Pack Cherry quilt pattern, but didn't entirely follow the instructions since I was short on fabric, so it got a little wonky in places.

Although these fabrics aren't my normal choices, I really do love when they get put together. They just work and I love it. :)

This one has been added to the stack that I'm forming, waiting for backing fabric and quilting time. Also, I added that last picture to remind myself on bad days that there are times when I can match seams, if nothing else. LOL. 

Also, I figured I would share that I made a twitter! It's mainly quilting related, but snippets of life are inevitable when it is so easy to update. Elvis has been the main focus so far, but I've been sharing a little bit of quilting as well. :) If you have a twitter, let me know so I can follow some more quilty friends!

Finally A Finish: Miss Kate's Crooked Pie Plates

Howdy y'all! I had hoped to get this post out by Friday Saturday, but a Saturday at a vet clinic never leaves time for plans. We had 3 or 4 emergencies come in, one of which led to an emergency surgery that kept all of us over by a few hours. But in between all the madness of this weekend, I managed to finish putting my Miss Kate quilt top together. I hadn't shared much progress on these, but I've been making slow progress on this bad boy for a while. All those little pieces take some time to put together!

The crooked white sections makes the tan sections look like stars!

I never could get the white rings to flow smoothly. I checked it out on Craftsy, where I bought the kit, and it seems I'm not the only one who encountered the problem. Thing is, it doesn't bother me much. I actually like this one a lot despite the choppiness and the not-normally-me fabric. I was worried I would hate it after all the hard work I put in so far, but I just want to snuggle into it.

Can't wait to give this one a proper photoshoot in some sunlight, those colors are lovely, I promise. :)

Now is just the waiting game of getting a backing on a budget. I had read on another blog that you can use a sheet as a backing...Has anybody had luck doing that before? Let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading y'all! :)

First Finish of the New Year: Orange Peel Quilt Top!

Happy Friday Saturday, y'all! I've got my first finish of the New Year to share! The Orange Peels are now a top/flimsy and off the design wall! Yipee! I wanted it to be bigger but I'm happy with the cozy lap size that I've ended up with.

 I've learned a lot after piecing this, but the biggest thing I want to remember is to make my background squares bigger next time and trim them down once the applique is done. You can see on quite a few blocks that points were chopped off (or dangerously close to it!) and as I was piecing, I realized my error. Despite that, I'm still loving it. :)

I still need to iron this one before I do anything else. It was just too late to bother with that by the time I finished! Lol

I'm just proud of myself for hand sewing all those orange peels, I never thought I would hand sew much of anything when I first started sewing! I machine pieced the squares together though because my sanity could not take that much hand sewing. Lol. I have plans to machine quilt it, it's just a matter of getting some backing material, which may take some time. In the mean time, I'm most likely going to be working on City Blocks! I've been mulling over quilting ideas and while I baste,
I'm sure the right one will snuggle with my brain. :)

Low Volume + Scrappy makes my heart smile

Also, I know I link up to her a lot, but the ever-fabulous Jenn @ A Quarter Inch from the Edge has deemed her year, The Year of the Stash. Many have followed up with her (here for example), making their own rules and guidelines for the coming year to keep our fabric stashes from expanding further. Although I feel my stash is pretty small, I'm joining in for the practical aspect that Jenn highlights in her manifesto. New fabric can be purchased, but it needs to be purchased with purpose, not just on a whim. I don't typically buy fabric willy-nilly anymore due to the money aspect, but I want to join along to put it in writing that my fabric purchases this year must have a plan/job in mind before they come into my home.

I hope everybody had a safe New Year! Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for stopping by! :)

Progress Check!

Happy Sunday y'all! I've been buzzing along slowly with my work this week and just didn't have the time to document and blog it until now. I've got 3 different things to share, all in different states of progress.

The more I look at it, the more it grows on me.

The smoothest basting I've ever had, I couldn't believe it! Hahaha

I Spy Supernova dots!

First up is the baby quilt! Since you last saw it, I've got the top pieced and basted! It's not at the sewing table, ready to be quilted. I had leftover backing from my Supernova that seemed to fit the bill and I had juuuuuuust enough for this little quilt. If that doesn't say destiny, I don't know what does! Lol. I'm thinking some FMQ-ing on it, though I haven't decided 100% yet.

Next up is the primitive/Americana quilt I talked about previously. I also finished piecing it this week. I have to see if I have enough scraps to make a back or if I'll have to buy some backing for it. I'm not sure what kind of quilting to do on it, so suggestions are appreciated!

And lastly is something in the very beginning stages. Val over at Purple Boots and Pigtails is doing an awesome project. She is challenging the quilting community to help piece blocks for EVERY color of Kona fabric. That's right, EVERY SINGLE ONE! She wants to make all the blocks into a quilt and asked for everybody's help in accomplishing this goal (if you're interested in joining, just let Val know!). Check out some of the blocks she has made already here and here! I hadn't planned on participating at first; I've never took part in any sort of project like this before and, honestly, I wasn't sure how much it would cost to ship something all the way to Canada! Lol. But after a little talking, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and at least make a couple of blocks. I originally decided on Canary and Flame, but at the last moment, I saw Bluegrass was a color. Being a born and bred Bluegrass citizen (GO KENTUCKY!), I could NOT pass up the opportunity to let the Bluegrass State have a place to shine in this Canadian quilt. :)
                                          

So there you have it! Not a ton of progress, but enough to make me happy. :) If I get to feeling better, I'm hoping to get cracking on those Kona blocks this evening! Take care y'all!

Finish It Up Friday: City Blocks Top Complete!

Happy Friday, friends! Another week is coming to a close and I can't wait for a weekend off. I managed to get this little booger finished up this week! I'll be honest, I'm glad to see this one done. Though these blocks were fun, they were time consuming and started feeling finicky. When a project stops being fun, I know it's time to wrap things up because I quilt for fun, not because I have to.

I ended up picking a seam on one of the columns to change the layout from 4 squares high to 3 squares high. Rather than make a 3x4 quilt and have to make quite a few more of those blocks, I decided on a nine-patch layout that wouldn't need anymore blocks. And you know, I'm super glad I did. It's not as big as I wanted, but the square layout has its charms. I like the few odd bits of white in the sashing as well, that was a good idea on SewKatieDid's part!

I'm not sure when I'll have a backing for this one, so for now it's on the 'to-quilt' pile which will hopefully be joined by another top soon! Thanks for stoppin' by y'all, have an awesome weekend! Linking up with NTT and Finish it Up Friday!

Finish It Up Friday: Sleepy Supernova Top

As I type this, it's nearly midnight on Thursday night. I had a CE dinner (continuing education) after work today, so I wasn't home until around 9pm. After catching up with the hubs and chasing the cat off the couch because he kept trying to eat the blinds, I snuck upstairs, already tired before my work even began. Despite being tired, I settled in fairly quickly and was enjoying myself as I sang along to my music (rather badly, I might add. Lol). The clock struck 11:30 as I pressed my last seam and got to appreciate my Supernova top in all its glory. :)

I don't know about y'all, but KY is pretty dark at 11:30pm. Also, I don't have many places I can lay a quilt top this size out flat in my apartment and get a picture of it. This meant my pictures are kind of craptastic not quite as good as I'd like. But I managed to clear off the bedroom floor and lay things flat and snap a few pictures. At one point, I just held the camera above my head in an effort to get a picture of the entire top. I even kicked a pile of unfolded laundry into a pile so I could stand on it. Hahahaha!

I'm stoked with how things turned out with this top! I was nervous from the start with my fabric choices, but this turned out just perfect in my eyes, which is what matters most, right? :) I need backing fabric and batting, so I'm not sure when this lovely will get quilted. If I can find a good coupon, I might drop by Jo Ann's soon since I've got a gift card burnin' a hole in my pocket. ;)

Linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday, Finish It Up Friday, and TGIFF!