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.

November update

I had quite a successful month, completing another page of Spirit of Winter a Josephine Wall design by Heaven and Earth, I completed all the tissue holders for Christmas gifts, completed the CQ block I started last month and made it into a bag and have almost completed a CQ block for my mother.  The CQ block will be made into a Christmas cracker with a gift inside.  I hope to finish this today so will post more pictures when that is done.

This is the CQ block made into a bag.  I put a Sunbonnet Sue with a little dog and cat and bluebird looking on.  Cute little basket of flowers at the left.  The lace on the bottom right I painted to match the orange tints of the fabrics.  The fabric of the bag is actually curtain material, which was leftovers that were in the bargain bin at Spotlight.  It looks purple here but is actually a maroonish colour (hard to describe) but is a good match for the colours of the block.

   Below are the completed tissue holders.

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E.  I redid this as I didn't think it looked enough like an E, so took out some of the daisies at the bottom and extended the orange bottom bar and extended the orange middle bar.



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Front of the tissue holders

This is the CQ block I've made for my mother.  It is a small block at just 6 inches square.
Full block

The Crinoline lady is appliqued. She is made out of scraps of sari fabric that I picked up cheap at a quilt show.  The flowers at top right an in the red velvet patch are made from cast on stitch.

A little hedgehog in the bottom right corner.  A bit hard to see on this fabric but I ran out of room to put him anywhere else.

Suffolk puff flowers at top left

 

Spirit of Winter another page completed.