4/9/15

Three Block Day

It was a fairly productive day in the sewing room yesterday. I managed to finish three blocks, which allows me to check two items off my monthly checklist.

First, I finished up the 2nd block for It's Raining Cats and Dogs. When I left it on Tuesday, I had all the fusing done, but none of the top-stitching, embroidery or embellishment.


When I was ready to sew, I started with the top-stitching. As I wheeled my chair back, I realized my little quilting buddy was right beside me. Glad I didn't run over his tail!


"Smitty here . . . at your service!"

Thanks, Buddy. I'll let you know if I need anything.

When the top-stitching was all finished, I was ready to hand embroider the tips and handles onto the umbrellas and add the eyes and door knob. The rest of the stitching was all done by machine. Oh yes, and there's a little button on the collar of the middle cat. Here's my finished block:


When I work on this again, I'll be making this block:


I don't know about you, but I think these are impossibly cute.

It was time for a little break then, but when I went back to it, I made up my two sample blocks for the May "We Bee With It" block bee. I'm the hostess in May, and I've settled on this "Pinwheel Star". I've been wanting to make a quilt in patriotic colors for a long time, and this seems like as good a time as any. Here are my two blocks. The other five members of my bee will also be making two blocks each for a total of 12 blocks.



You can find the pattern for this block in Quilters Cache, where it's called a "Pieced Star". There are quite a few names for this block when one starts searching for tutorials. Since I wanted mine in three different colors, I also found this link in McCall's Quilting. It's useful in matching the right colors when doing your cutting, but it's a really terrible tutorial. For sewing it together, the Quilter's Cache tutorial is better.

And about that time Mike called, so that was an end to my sewing day. Today I'm heading out to the grocery store. I'm hoping I'll still have some time to sew when I get home. If so, I'll start catching up on the two blocks I need to make for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I need a yellow one and a purple one to get caught up.

9 comments:

Teresa in Music City said...

I'm so enjoying seeing your RC&D blocks - you always add the perfect embellishments :)

evelyn said...

Love your blocks for "It's Raining". I see Smitty is watching that the dogs don't outnumber the cats!

evelyn said...

Love your blocks for "It's Raining". I see Smitty is watching that the dogs don't outnumber the cats!

Marei said...

The blocks for "It's Raining" are very cute and have lots to look at. How big does this quilt finish?

Dana Gaffney said...

I agree, those blocks are impossibly cute, it's nice to see dogs getting a little play time too. :)

quiltzyx said...

Another fine job on the embellishments, etc. on the Raining quilt block. :)
I love those pinwheel stars - will you ask for the other Bee members to use solid-ish fabrics too? Great colors - red, white & blue always look good together.
The 9th was my guild meeting & I've been handing out & collecting back blocks for the President's quilt. Looks like everyone is doing a wonderfully scrappy job! Hoping to get all of the blocks back by our May meeting. Our speaker was one of our own guild members, Anne Sonner. She did a wonderful trunk show about memory quilts - most of them are wallhanging size & all were so interesting. She talked about using the google for researching her ancestors and how it was so much harder to find things out about the women back then. The last quilt she showed us was one she made for another of our members. It was about her multiple-great uncle, Mr. Flake who, with Mr. Snow, founded Snowflake, AZ. Mr. Flake spent some time in the penitentiary (for bigamy) & when he got out, he continued to wear his black & white striped shirt & pants all the time! LOL Guess they were comfy. (He is also in the Cowboy Hall of Fame!) She'll be teaching a workshop about making these quilts too.

Kate said...

The raining cats and dogs blocks are very cute! The red, white and blue blocks are pretty too.

Junebug613 said...

Wow, I've missed a lot! RC & D is impossibly cute! You are the queen of details! I love all the little defining embellishments. Sorry, I'm reading your posts in reverse, because I'm not sure how many I've missed until I find the last one I read and it was easier this way.

Brown Family said...

That is a cute quilt.