Halloween Cat Potholders

    I was going through my stash of fabric and I decided to make some Halloween potholders for me, daughter and a friend so I could get rid of some of this pretty fabric.  I put solid black on the back and bound them with black and cream homespun fabric.  These potholders have two layers of cotton batting with a piece of Insul-Brite in the middle. 

Halloween Black Cats

    So I made myself cut the sashing for my table runner and I actually put it together today.  I started early this morning before I had to leave for work and got the rows put together.  Then tonight I sewed all the rows together with sashing.  What a quick make.  I love all the different poses of the black cat.  He/she is wonderful.  I just have to sandwich it, quilt it, and bind it.

Playing With Hexagons, Again.

    I felt the need to hand sew some hexagons the other day.  I don't know why.  When I finished my Scrappy Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt, I never wanted to see another hexagon.  I don't know what I'm going to do with this block, it may be the start of another quilt top.  We'll see.

   Merlin says, "Hello".  He had just finished having a nice drink at the kitchen faucet and he jumped up on the ironing board.  He gave me a few of his sexy cat growls to let me know he was happy and I couldn't resist taking this picture for the blog.  

Progress On The Scrappy Grandmother's Flower Garden

    Row 5 has been attached to the quilt top and I have 2 more rows to make.

    I wanted to share a picture of my crazy boy cat, Merlin.  In order to get the maximum amount of sunshine in the dining room for my little dog, I take my dining room curtains and fold them up onto a microwave cart that I use to store cookbooks and extra silverware.  Merlin has decided that this is his place to take a bath and a nap.  He has been using this spot for the last few days.

Birthday Kitties!

   Happy birthday to my kitty cats.  They turn 11 years old today.  My kitties are bengal litter mates and devoted to each other.

    Merlin is the oldest of the two and is a tri-color male.  He has lovely brown and caramel swirls in his fur.  His fur pattern is known as marble.  He weighs a little over 12 pounds.  He can be very vocal when he wants to wake me up to feed him in the morning.   Merlin doesn't sleep as much as his sister does and when he does sleep he likes to be by himself unless my lap is available.

    Taffy Morgana is brown spotted.  The rosettes in her fur pattern are very smudged and not as pretty and defined as some of the bengal cats out there.  Taffy usually comes in around 9.5 pounds.  Taffy loves her naps during the day and will lay down with me at night on the bed.  She will even get under the covers when she is really cold.

   They both have gorgeous black paw pads and light brown bellies with spots on them.  They are both fixed.  They are seven generations (F7) from the foundation cats so they have a very sweet nature.  They both like to drink from the kitchen faucet when I turn on a light steady stream.  They put their face under the water and let the water drip down the side of the face to their mouth.  It's fun to watch.

     They still play like kittens and love to chase each other back and forth through the house.  Taffy  likes to jump up on the top of the kitchen cabinets close to the ceiling.  Merlin doesn't go up there much any more.

   I gave them a little party this morning with their favorite wet food (Fancy Feast, any variety, or as it is known by cat people, kitty crack) for breakfast.

   Here is Merlin.

   Here is Taffy Morgana.

Button And Cat Charm Earrings

    I finally made some earrings with the lever back ear wires I found at Fire Mountain when I bought my elastic cord for the elastic button bracelets.  For this project I also had to buy 24 gauge non tarnishing silver wire and I got that from an Etsy seller.  I found the cat charms on eBay a couple of years ago, they still sell them.  They come in a group of 50 and I have a bunch left even thought I've made other jewelry with them and given some away.  The cat charms are Tibetan silver and come from China.  They remind me of Laurel Burch cats without all the colors.  I found the blue and white buttons on Lots of Buttons.com.  I had the small beads and the jump rings in my small jewelry stash.

  To make the button earrings I had to have some on line help.  I used a tutorial from youtube by Potomac Bead Company to get me started.  The link is here.  The cat charms are just attached to the ear wires with gray thread.  So simple.

   These were fun to make, but they took me a couple of hours because I'm not very good at making jewelry and I had to take the button earrings apart several times before I was happy with the finish.

  I have a couple more pair of lever backs that I'm going to pair up with more buttons and I'm also in the process of making some button brooches with felt and pin backs.

Birthday Gifts

    I finally get to share the birthday gifts I gave my daughter.  She turned 39 years old yesterday and we got to spend some time together yesterday so she could open her gifts.  I bought her a shop vacuum in July that was part of her birthday gift, but I wanted to make her a few things for her new house.  So here are the homemade birthday gifts I gave her yesterday.

    I made her a rag quilt with a sale priced flannel that I found at Hancock Fabrics.  I posted about it  here.  This project took me about 4 days to finish.  She loves the cats on the fabric and the gray matches her new couch.  I bought 9 yards of this flannel fabric.  I cut it up into 108 - 10" squares.  I layered 3 squares together and sewed an X in each 3 layer block.    I sewed 6 blocks in a row and made 6 rows sewing them together so the seam is exposed on one side.   And this crazy fabric was directional so I had to be careful to get the cats all going in the same direction.  Fun.  After I sewed the entire quilt together, I snipped all the exposed seam allowances about 1/2" apart being careful not to snip the actual seams, then I threw the quilt in the washer and dryer to get the seams to ravel and become "raggy".

    The next project I made for her was an embroidery done on the embroidery machine she bought for my birthday last year.  I spent 3 hours getting this sewing machine embroidered because it had so many thread color changes.  It was very time consuming but it turned out pretty good.  I embroidered the picture on a piece of white muslin and framed it with a wooden frame that I painted.  It was really easy to do and the whole thing cost me about $12.00 including the cost of the embroidery design.  She loved this one as well.  Something she can hang on the wall of her craft room.

   

   And the last homemade gift I made were some linen napkins.  When I was shopping for fabric, I couldn't decided which color I liked more so I bought 1 yard of each and made four napkins from each yard.  I cut the fabric into fat quarters, hemmed them and then embroidered them with her last name initial on them.  The white is a linen blend and it was easier to work with than the blue or the brown fabric which were 100% linen.  If I were to make more linen napkins, I would definitely use a linen blend.  She loves her new napkins for her new house.  The fabric for these napkins was about $35.00.

      I didn't make the next gift.  I wanted her to have a wind chime for her yard so I found a reasonably priced wind chime on etsy and it's super cute made with recycled kitchen items.  We took the time to hang this in the tree in her front yard yesterday.

    I also gave her a home made sour cream pound cake and then we spent the afternoon at the North Florida Fair looking at the farm animals, eating junk food and enjoying the warm November weather.

My Day Out

   My daughter and I went out yesterday and took a drive to the coast.  We stopped on a little island to take some pictures, then we headed to a little town called Apalachicola that we love.  We shopped, had lunch, and bought some fresh seafood before heading home.  We always have a great time when we go out together.  Here are some pictures from our adventure.

  The other night while I was watching TV, my cats were hanging out with me.  Merlin was on the back of the couch and Taffy was curled up in my bag sleeping.  Silly cats.

Kitty On A Quilt

I took this picture last year.  Taffy likes to cuddle on the warm blanket after I get up.  Doesn't she look annoyed?  hehehe  She is my napping cat, she loves to find a nice warm, quiet spot to spend hours sleeping.

Making a Pillow Cover with Laurel Burch Kitty Fabrics

I love, love, love Laurel Burch Cats.  I have a few bags, earrings, and socks with her colorful cats on them.

I also collected a few different Laurel Burch fabrics over the last few months that I have been wanting to use to cover an 18" pillow form.

Here is one strip of the fabric I'm creating to cover my pillow.  I have to make one more strip like this, then I can sew the two together to have enough fabric to cover my pillow.