Finished - Jungle Baby Quilt

This cute little baby quilt was just delivered to a very sweet, very special baby boy in North Carolina.

I knew the nursery theme was jungle animals so I set off to make something fun and colorful.

It started with this panel I found at the Fabric Depot in Oregon.

Simple squares with smaller animal print frames should give the little guy lots to look at during tummy time!

The quilting is a edge to edge figure 8 (sort of). And, yes, I realize that the main fabric (Doodle Zoo by Taylor Rae Studio) includes some animals that you might not find in the  African jungle.  Oops.

Welcome Selasi!  Until I can hug you in person, this quilt will have to do!

Linking up with AmandaJean's finish it up friday event!

First WIP Wednesday of 2015

I haven't taken down my Christmas trees yet.  Yup.  All five are still standing, fully decorated.  In my defense we have been quite busy celebrating the holidays and reality just set in yesterday.   Bummer.  So, when we got home, I did the only rational thing and went right into my sewing room to work on a couple of projects with deadlines.  I promise to at least focus on the one REAL tree before it becomes a fire hazard.

While in New Hampshire (or "New Hampster" as my little buddy Michael says), I have been working throughout 2014 on the Tula Pink City Sampler blocks.  This has been a lovely project to pick up when the mood to play with a block or two hits.  By the end of the year I had 82 blocks completed.  This weekend I cut the fabric for the remaining 18 blocks.

And stuffed the pieces into the book.  Yikes.

I suppose the logical next step will be to sew these final blocks.  However, then I will have to finally step up to the issue I have tabled for a year...what to actually DO with these 100 blocks.  I am inspired by the beautiful City Sampler finishes I have seen (this one in particular) but don't be surprised if procrastination sets in.

I enjoyed this individual block construction process so much, I am looking for my next challenge of this kind.  My son and his girlfriend must have known this because look what they gave me for Christmas!

Perfect!  I am a little hesitant about the template approach used in the Farmer's Wife blocks but I like a challenge!  (So long as none really expects me to make a quilt out of these blocks...)

To distract me from the sadness of the holidays being over and my sons all going home, we went for a little shopping trip to Fabric Corner.

 Arts and Crafts inspired by Michele Hill for In the Beginning Fabrics.

 Cherie by Frances Newcombe for Art Gallery Fabrics.  And because my husband was with me, he not only found puppy fabric but one that had Bernese Mountain Dogs on it.

Happy Wednesday!  Linking up with Lorna's Let's Bee Social and Lee's WIP Wednesday parties!
Kathy

Finished - Penny Patch for Chicago

For Christmas I gave this quilt to my son and his girlfriend who live with two cats in Chicago.

 I like the quilting more after washing!

This is the second quilt I've made using Rachel's Penny Patch quilt tutorial.  The first one I made was in the radiant orchid color theme that was all the rage last year.

In selecting the fabrics for this gift, my goal was for a primarily low volume quilt with touches of yellow and blue (colors they've painted their apartment).  There are some special fabrics chosen with the recipients in mind:  map of the Chicago Transit Authority, eye glasses, states fabric (with their home states and Illinois fussy cut), literature quotes, coffee pots, cats (to coordinate with the keyboard cover) and so on.  Not quite sure the finished quilt qualifies as "low volume."  Fortunately (?!), I have lots of LV still in my stash, I will have to try again.

I wish I had photographed their faces when they opened the present.  That was a gift to ME!  I know they will enjoy many hours snuggling under this large lap quilt watching movies during the cold Chicago winter.

Linking up with AmandaJean's finish it up Friday!
Kathy

2014 It's a Wrap!

I know this is a couple of days late.  You can interpret what you'd like about our celebration of the New Year!

2014 was my third year of rediscovering sewing, in particular learning how to quilt.   As much as I love to quilt, it is just one of the activities that keeps me busy.  2014 was a wonderful year of travel, family and friend visits, projects around the house and (not so wonderful) wrist issues that all added to the decline in the number of quilt finishes.

And I am perfectly OK with that!  I also had a few smaller finishes this year that are always fun to yield accomplishments between quilts.

I am a list person.  Perhaps a carryover from my life in the corporate world, I make a list of goals at the beginning of the year with specific implementable tasks and the quarter of the year to accomplish the tasks.  The best part is that now I look at this Annual Goals exercise as general guidance in the areas that I would like to improve in, not a hard pass/fail if there is a shortfall in accomplishments by year end.  Why create stress??

In 2014 the quilting related items on my Annual Goals where I made some progress include:

• Joined a quilt guild (Boston Modern Quilt Guild)
• Bought as little fabric as possible 
• Made a reduction in the quilting queue (started at 6 now down to 4...and not all the same ones!)
• Continued to practice and improve free motion quilting skills
• Learned new techniques (machine appliqué, paper piecing precision, table basting)
• Jumped into Instagram (and doing less with Flickr oddly enough)
• Donated two quilts and several blocks, quilted two charity quilts

Not the stuff of quilting rock stars but a good year for me.  Here is a little collage of some of the FMQ'ing fun I had in 2014.

Life is good in all the areas that are really important.  Quilting progress is frosting on the cake.

Thank you all my quilting friends for your support and inspiration!  Happy 2015!
Kathy

PS  Thank you Chelsea for the technical assistance with creating collages!

Christmas Gifts - The Pouches

I love to give and receive home made gifts (and/or the materials required to make something!).  My two lovely nieces needed new pouches.

















Thank you for Anna for this great tutorial.

And then I happened across this wonderful pattern for a double zipper pouch by Svetlana at SOTAK and completely jumped into my stash looking for combinations of fabrics and zippers.  The first one:
The second:

The third:

And then the fourth (aren't those cats adorable?):

And the fifth and sixth:

I highly recommend both of these patterns!   They are so much fun to make (how nice to whip up something quickly) and are so appreciated!  I hope you are enjoying these last days of 2014!

Kathy

Christmas Stockings

It's the time of year when I can't show you what I am working on.  But you know what I mean.  Many of you are in the same situation.  So I thought I would take this opportunity to catch you up on a little Christmas cross stitch work from the past.

As the children arrived, I had in my mind that I needed to make Christmas stockings for everyone.  First the oldest:

Then the twins:

As a working mom that traveled a lot in December I found myself looking forward to long international flights to finish the stockings.  The time my flight was delayed in Reykjavik, Iceland I swear I was the only person on board happy about the delay!!

After the children had their stockings I made a stocking for me:

And for my husband:

New followers may not know about my husband's love of all things Charlie Brown.  For example, one (!!) of our Christmas trees is dedicated to Peanuts ornaments and other goodies.

These Christmas stockings have had many wonderful years of being filled by Santa.

(Yes, I am not sweating the details this year...please ignore the green cord of lights leading to the wreath over the mantle.   I am.)
Kathy

200th Post and SMS Giveaway Winner!

How are you all doing at this busy time of the year?  First,  I have to announce the winner of the Christmas fabric bundle...and that would be #47 tpott:

tpottDecember 9, 2014 at 12:50 AM

I follow through Bloglovin.

I had so much fun reading all of your posts and where you live!  Wow!  So interesting!  And welcome to my new followers!  I hope you enjoy your visits to KayakQuilting!

And on top of all this excitement, this is my 200th post!  It has been a fun two plus years sharing my quilting adventures with you!  Many more to come!

Kathy