December projects

I've been wanting to make a CQ cat for a long time.  I got around to it this month.

She stands about 6 inches high. The front has a photo of my cat Maxie transferred onto a cotton fabric via my home printer.  She is surrounded by beads, couched thread, Suffolk puffs and a little cat charm is in the bottom left corner

 

Close up of the tail.  Little bluebird stitched on tip with a rambling vine of cast on stitch flowers.  The tail was very awkward when making this up. It was so small to start with and with extra bulk due to the stitching it was hard work to turn it right side out when sewing it.  If I do this again I'll make the tail separately from the body and stitch it on at the end.

 

Front of cat showing lace, and embroidered seams

 

 

This is the back of the cat.  I was going to leave it plain, but then I saw some "normal" quilts on pinterest with a fan shaped cat and thought that would be fun to add to the back.

 

 

Close up detail of the embroidered seams on the back of the cat.  The face and tail are velvet.

 

 I'm also going to be taking part in CJQP2015.  See link on right hand side.  The aim is to complete a block a month, minimum size 8 inches..  I want to make cushion covers.  They will have 4 blocks per cushion so at the end of the year I should have 3 CQ cushions.  The theme will be the 4 seasons.  The first 4 will have Hardanger centres taken from Victoria's samplers free patterns.

I've got my naked block for January and first Hardanger prepared.

The Hardanger will have beads added when I've completed the rest of the embroidery.