February's Lovely Finish - A Kitten's Work is Never Done

When my computer was first down and then in the shop and the prognosis was unsure, I linked a photo from Flickr to the Lovely Finishes February party but wasn't able to blog about it. When I was working on the quilt, I imagined a photo on this weathered coyote fence in my neighborhood. The reality, a photo taken on a snowy gray day, didn't quite match my vision.

Here's a better look at the quilt itself in a photo taken inside ... it goes without saying (I hope) that the quilt really isn't as wonky and wavy as it appears here.

The quilt is approximately 54-inches square.

The Kitty Homemaker redwork patterns are from Nancy Martin's book, Kitties to Stitch & Quilt: 15 Redwork Designs, that was gifted to me just after I moved to Michigan to be close to my dad when he was ill in 2001. The gift was much appreciated as it gave me something to do while I sat with him in the hospital, during transfusions.

Here are detail photos of each of the two types of blocks in this quilt:

Doing things in a new way (while my computer was in the shop) was interesting.  Using a combination of digital camera and iPad looked like it was going to work and, in fact, the WordPress app  DID work and I was able to share this quilt (with January's Lotto Block pattern used for the double 9-patch blocks) on Blocklotto.com but ... BlogPress or otherwise posting here?  Not so much.

UPDATE

I have mentioned in the in-progress posts about this quilt that it was a nice bit of serendipity that when I pulled out the fabrics put aside for this golden oldie UFO, that the happened to be Pantone's color of the year, marsala.   It was good food-for-thought to think about how color trends repeat, change and morph. 

I'm updating this blogpost to join the 2015 Pantone Quilt Challenge. 

A Cozy Finish

I made a pair of cozy flannel pillow covers this week.

The quilting was inspired by that I used on the flannel zig-zag quilt last month and QuiltShopGal's 2015 FMQ challenge for February.

For the challenge, I chose Option #1 which was to use Leah Day's quilting design Rail Road Tracks.

It's a little difficult to see on the plaid on the front, so here's a photo of one of the areas filled with the required quilting design from the back. It is probably not a design I would choose to use, but the challenge pushed me to do it anyway.  (It's always a good thing to try something new.)



Each of the pillows is 24 inches square. They were pieced from flannel scraps from my stash.

The backs are plain (unquilted) flannel.

The edges are finished with a quarter-inch binding made from more flannel.

Here are photos of the quilted piece, front and back, before it was sewn into a pillow.

In addition to the February FMQ Challenge, I am joining the list for Richard and Tanya 's Link-A-Friday Finish. 

February Goal - Redwork and Marsala

I shared this old UFO yesterday ... today, in spite of a major oopsy, I am designating it as my goal for a lovely finish in February.


Along with the 12 redwork squares and fabrics I shared yesterday, I now also have 115 small three-inch 9-patch blocks--33 of which were made with a reversed placement of lights and darks (the oopsy mentioned above) ... this may lead me to make a larger quilt or an interesting pieced back or a second project.

As I was cutting and sewing yesterday, I realized that the dull reds in this fabric line are Pantone's color of the year: Marsala ... I guess everything old does come back in style again.

There was some confusion in my post yesterday. I didn't mean that this project was a contender for the fundraiser wall quilt for the retreat, in competition with those bright log cabins.


These redwork stitches were made as I passed time with my father during transfusions and hospital stays during the last year of his life. Often, the fabrics were cut and patterns transferred in a rush and some are a bit off-center as a result.  They contain a lot of reminders of the emotional roller-coaster we rode during that period of time. They are bittersweet reminders. They have made me too sad for me for a long time, but now I feel ready to turn them into a beautiful reminder of that time spent with my dad.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone