Jacks and Cats Progress

There's been progress on many fronts on my Jacks and Cats Halloween quilt. Last time I showed you all the felted wool cats glue basted and ready to sew. Now they are all sewn together and ready for the next step. Somehow the stitching makes them even cuter!

I've also prepped the pumpkins (Jacks). At the end I had an extra set of eyes! I guess the cyclops pumpkins threw off my count:

I remembered early on that the Roxanne Glue-Baste-It is not enough to hold everything together while I stitch, especially since I don't like to use too much. So you can see that I've added a few basting stitches as well. The pumpkin stems, vines and leaves can't be added until the faces are stitched onto the backgrounds.

Speaking of backgrounds (nice segue, eh?), I've sewn eight of the fifteen circles:

I really like those moody dark ones!

After the circles, the next layer is a wonky starburst, which I decided to make from my fall coloured homespuns. They are horrible to work with! Too loose and stretchy by half. But, they do look pretty nice:

I thought these stars would be the perfect opportunity to try out some running stitch applique:

I first saw this technique in Piece O'Cake's book, Applique with Attitude, and I've been waiting several years now to try it. It is stitched with #12 perle cotton, the edges are turned, and the inner corners all have a little crow's foot to hold them down. I love the way it looks! Plus, it feels surprisingly sturdy, and I don't think it will fray. I won't be cutting away the background, though.

However, I still need more practice with it. My stitches got smaller, tighter, and closer to the edge as I went around the star. It was not an improvement! I will probably have to back out some of the last stitches.

Here's an idea of how it will all go together:

It's a bit of a fibre lover's dream, this quilt! The mix of textures, colours and patterns is very satisfying.

In all, I think I am still less than half way, but I'll probably pack it up for a while now. I think I've had my fill of fall colours, because for the past couple of days I've had the most incredible craving for flowers!

Mod Pillows

Back in July I showed you the pile of offcuts that I had from the Scrappy Trips Around the World blocks that I used to make my Mod Trips quilt. Now that the flimsy is finished, I decided to make two 20" square pillow covers from the remaining strips. I had 37 pieced strips left, each with one red square and five light squares. For the first pillow I was able to make a scaled down version of the loops in my quilt:

But, there weren't enough red squares to make another loop, so for the second pillow I opted for an asymmetrical cross:

I think they both have that "mod" feel.

And now, with the pillow tops done too, I am really feeling like I have completed a milestone with this project. There are just a few squares left over for the scrap bin. Next month I hope to start the quilting, but for now I want to see how far I can get with Jacks and Cats before Halloween is upon us. Lots to do!

Mod Trips

Here, finally, is my finished flimsy, made from a variation on Bonnie Hunter's Scrappy Trips Around the World blocks. From the start I wanted to use the blocks in a graphic, modern way, that is hopefully different than anyone else! I used 25 of the 12" blocks, so it is 60" square. To see how I made the blocks, please click here.

The rounded rectangles remind me of the late 1960s "mod" style, so I'm calling it Mod Trips.

I made half the blocks on my old machine, and half of them on my new machine, so the seam allowances were not perfectly consistent. It was a bit of a challenge to get together (!), but on the whole it worked out better than I had any right to expect.

I'm considering some fairly intensive free motion quilting for this, but I think I'll do a practice run before I commit to that! In any case, it feels good to have it done, because it took way longer than expected. As usual!