PatchKats October Installment

I seriously didn’t think I’d get this posted today but my day ended up going a bit differently than planned – which is a good thing

So — I’m not late — it’s still the third Saturday of the month, and the final instructions for PatchKats is now available for download.

Susan (a/k/a PatchKat) would have loved this quilt and would have been sewing right along – actually she saw an early drawing of it and did love it – so thank you to those who stitched along on this quilt design honoring my dear friend Susan.

I’d love for you to add photos of your quilt tops or finished quilts to my Flickr group so I can share them with Susan’s DH – he’d love to see them.

The full instructions for this project will remain on the blog until December 1, 2015.  After that time, they will be removed as I get ready to send the project to  Electric Quilt for sale thru Boutique Blocks.

I hope you’ll love your finished project!

 

August PatchKats installment

I put the August installment up last night so those of you playing along on this project – don’t forget to collect it.

How are you doing on your PatchKats?  Are you caught up? Fallen behind? Not started yet?  I’m getting a small amount of devilish pleasure because friend Janet P left a comment that I’m ahead of her on this one.  🙂   On probably all of the patterns that I put on the blog or through The Quilting Post – Janet finishes them in record time and my own versions are in various states of “undone.”  Of course I could fall off the quilting wagon at any moment and she could speed right by me (not that it’s a race) but for the moment I’m feeling pretty darn good about my progress on this one.

Speaking of which – more of those holes have been filled in since I posted yesterday’s photo.

 

The top  and bottom rows are complete and I’m working on the hineys of the rest of the right facing Kats.  I lost one of the pieces last night and decided to call it quits.  This morning – still didn’t find it but found the very last scrap of that fabric and was able to just get the piece I needed out of it.

When I was layering and cutting tail sections for multiple Kats, I didn’t realize until I was starting to put them together that one of the fabrics was short so when I laid out the stack -one short piece in the middle of the stack and I’m not sure I have any leftovers of that fabric so I think  that Kat may just get a different colored tail.  There’s always got to be a “rebel” Kat in the litter.

 

Yesterday I was thinking about what new project I want to work on next after this one is done.

I keep coming back to this lovely  stack.  Aren’t they pretty.

They are Robert Kaufman, Vincent Van Gogh blenders — a birthday present to me with an Amazon gift card from one of my bosses.   I definitely want to cut into these beauties but haven’t decided how I want to use them.  Probably just something simple so it’s all about the lovely colors.

Now back to stitchin’ Kats.

A bit of sewing

Well I never did get too enthused about blocking sweater pieces today – I’ll save that for first thing tomorrow.  And in the meantime a bit more straightening up and then I decided to do some sewing on my PatchKats blocks.  Are you caught up through the July instructions?   I wasn’t – I needed to do July – so pulled all  my blocks back out of their box and put them back up on the design wall.

Here’s the project – in two photos since my table was in the way to try to get it all in one.

 Today I made the nine patch block and stitched them to the chest area that matched it.

 

PatchKats – 2nd revision to cutting instructions

I hate this when it happens – I was working ahead on my blocks and found a second error.  Sorry – wasn’t until my pieces weren’t fitting together correctly that I realized what I had done.    So I’m going to put both corrections in this blog post (in case you missed the previous one and so that they are all together in one place ) and I will update my general Errata Page.

So the first correction, which I posted earlier today is in cutting the “Kat” pieces – see the highlighted change below.

The second change is to the background pieces labeled [J].   See the highlighted correction below.  The link to the download for March April from the PatchKats page has been updated with these two corrections.

I’ve rechecked for the millionth time the remaining pieces and all looks good — this is why I always add extra to the yardage requirements — just in case.  Now to go rip apart the section I just sewed when I noticed the background error.

Patchkats BOM — Correction to April installment

Ack!  I hate it when it happens but sometimes it just does.  As I was finishing cutting out the rest of my pieces, I realized I had left one piece off the cutting instructions for the Kats.  I’ve edited the pdf page so any downloaded as of today will have the correction. But if you’ve already printed it, here’s what you need to change.

You need to cut TWO, rather that one, piece of the [M] sections for both types of Kats.

In addition to this correction being made to the revised PDF, it is also listed on the PatchKats BOM Page, as well as listed in my general Errata Page.  Please be sure to cut out that extra section [M] or your Kats will have some very funny looking tails.

PatchKats Progress

  I’ve been busy today.  Friend Gloria came over late morning and we spent several hours sewing.  I’ve got all except two of my PatchKats April blocks done – the Kat heads.  I think I may go looking for a gold color to use for the last two.  Then I need to go back and cut out all the other Kat block and background pieces.  I only cut what I needed for the head blocks so far.

There was a trip to JoAnn Fabrics involved since Gloria  needed more supplies and what did I come home with –

a pretty new shears – that is actually sharp unlike every other scissors here.  I’ve tried sharpening some of them but it has not worked and I  am tired of searching thru them to find one that is just as sharp nipping with the tip as it is cutting with the whole length of the blade.  I had a 50% off coupon and I had a gift card in my purse I hadn’t  used so free pretty blue scissors.

It’s been a lovely spring day here- I’ve had the windows and doors open since early this morning.  The warmer temps and sun the past couple days have the leaves starting to pop out on the trees and green grass everywhere.  Not quite time for the first grass cutting of the season but soon.  I need to wander down to the apartment garden plots because I can see rather large green clumps of something in the plot where I had my garden last year.  I want to see if it’s something that has voluntarily sprouted and is a good plant or if it is a weed since sometime before Memorial Day they’ll be coming to till up the garden plots and I’ll dig it out and stick in a pot if it’s something good that’s growing out there – tho most likely a robust weed.

PatchKats BOM

The March installment download is now available for download – click PatchKats quilt image in sidebar to get to project page.

Here’s what my finished Ribboned Heart blocks will look like.

 The colors aren’t quite true in the photo but pretty close.

 

And here’s all the rest of my border pieces.  There are lots of Stitch & Flip corners to add this month and my suggestion is to make sure to draw the diagonal lines on the back of those squares.  I sometimes get lazy and eyeball them instead of drawing the lines but they are never as accurate since when you stitch the diagonal lines, you really should be stitching a thread or so away from that diagonal line and not directly on it to account for the fabric taken up in the seam. It may seem like such a small amount  but it can really make a difference as to how your blocks turn out.

As you can see from my little piles of pieces, I have many seams to be pressing open before I go on to the next step so I’ll be heating up that iron soon.

My only challenge with these pieces – when I was working the other night I wasn’t paying close enough attention to my background fabric – it has a light dot print on it and I had to redo several pieces that I flipped the background wrong way around on.

Feel free to share photos of your fabric choices or blocks in progress for this project through the Justquiltin Flickr group.  The link to the Flickr group is also found in the sidebar of the blog.

Giving the Kats equal time

Well I just posted about the dogs and so as not to discriminate (but in real life I do love dogs best – don’t tell the Kats that they make me sneeze and itch!) I got my order of fabric for my PatchKats quilt.   Are you joining in? Have your fabrics chosen?  Click the PatchKats quilt image in the right sidebar of the blog to get to all the information for this project.

 The nice and neatly folded stacks are what came in the new order from The Loopy Ewe and the messy pile to the right are fabrics I pulled from the stash – some Henry Glass ones I love, left overs from the Moda Challenge quilt, and a few others that will all be mixed together in this quilt. The two prints on the left (same print, different background) I love, and they may be sashing or they may be used for some other project – sort of a positive/negative thing.  Will have to see how things proceed.

 

I have a few more fat quarters in the stash to pull as possible Kat fabrics.  And even with those new fabrics – my fabric stashbusting is still in the black. Whew! 🙂

I did get my Diamond Formation challenge quilt layered and have nearly all the flying geese on one half the quilt outline quilted so there was some progress on that on Sunday. Maybe tomorrow night I’ll get back to it.  But tonight I’m busy knitting on my Luau Vest.  I had the neck/front edge trim nearly done and realized I’d picked up too many stitches and it would be wavy so ripped it all out.  Looks good second time around and I ‘m about at the point where I need to decide how many buttons so I can get the button holes placed.

It’s finished! and more PatchKats

As for the finish – I finally finished my Wiggle Wrap last night.  I haven’t taken a final photo yet and it needs blocking, but that was a whole lot of knitting!  I haven’t looked it up yet but I think with the yarn I used, I knit close to 2400 yards of fingering weight yarn into it.  Now that’s going to help my stash busting tally!  I started the Wiggle Wrap nearly a year ago (during the winter of unrelenting cold — tho the last couple weeks  have been very reminiscent of that time) planning ahead to this winter. But it got set aside for Camp projects and a sweater or two. Yes, I was supposed to have this done so I could wear it to ward off the cold.  It’s nice and wide and long so I can wrap it over my head and around my shoulders over my coat on those coldest days.  There will still be time to wear it I think but if Mother Nature wants to make it too warm outside for me to be able to wear it this year — I’m okay with that too. 🙂  It’s also bright enough that if I should get stuck in a snowbank, someone should be able to see me and pull me out.  It was an enjoyable, easy knit, but I’m glad it’s finished.

Now on to more PatchKats — I was just adding in random fabric styles and colors and quickly swapping them out in EQ so here’s a few more ideas (there are some fabrics I would swap out for something that shows up a bit more, etc. but it’s just to give you an idea since I was doing a quick swap and replace) – 30’s fabrics, black/gray/red more modern prints, batiks on black, batiks on light background – just more possibilities.

  Remember the yardage requirements and general info are on the PatchKats project page.  It’s the big button on the right of the page that shows the quilt cover.  Click on that image to get to the information on the project page.  If you are reading thru email subscription, please go to the blog to access the project page.

My fabric order for my PatchKat quilt was placed this morning and my Box of Fun is headed out in the mail to be today so I should have my fabrics on Monday.  I’m mixing some fabrics I had previously purchased, and then added to them with some additional fabrics.  I had a background fabric here I wanted to use but needed more of it and it’s currently out of stock so I think the background around my Kats will be one fabric and the background in the border will be another fabric — both from the same fabric manufacturer so the colors should be very similar – just different tone on tone prints.  Will have to wait and see once I get all the fabrics if it will work out as I plan.