Layered quilt

The plaid bunny quilt is layered with a wool batting. And I am using my technique of layering just the top and batting to lay down a first pass of machine quilting. This makes the machine quilting so much easier. The downside, of course, is having to layer the quilt twice although pinning two layers each time is easier than three.

I did remember that I wanted to break up the four dark patches at the top of the quilt. Unfortunately, I only remembered after I started machine quilting. But it was bothering me, so I cut out one of the dark patches, machined sewed on one seam, and hand pieced/appliqued the other four seams.

Molly does not like how I layer quilts because she says I get too cranky. Of course, it's her fascination with pins that puts me on edge. And then when she wrestles with her brother in the batting and quilt top, I admittedly go over said edge. Molly is still not sure if she will forgive me for loud noises and bad words uttered in front of kittens.

Fabric

Today I didn't get any sewing done, but I did spend considerable time with the stash. In particular, I was considering options for the Plaid Bunny Quilt backing. My first plan was to use Asbury's Geofabulous plaid-like fabric but then wondered if I should make some kind of nine patch arrangement with kissing bunnies and other bunny fabric in the mix.

I also added another page to the blog featuring the fused applique small quilts I made in 2011 as part of Vicki W.'s journal challenge. As should be very clear, I recycle designs a lot.

I also want to show you some recent fabric purchases in case you have a blog and maybe didn't realize how easily you might influence one of your readers. You probably also know that I have a large enough stash and you should think long and hard about being a bad influence.

You know who you are.

In some cases it is the fault of several blog authors and maybe even the fabric designer. The bottom row are fabrics that have been out a while that I wasn't sure how to use. Of course, I now see that these fabrics feature owl eyes for the alternative universe Dear Jane quilt.

And last but not least I would like to mention that the dean of Kitten U has taken up the dark arts. I understand how a kitten might like to burrow into a quilt top while I'm sewing it or ironing it. And I don't know what trouble awaits me trying to layer it. But Molly has taken to stealing sheets of paper and then ripping them up. Oddly, at two different times she grabbed hummingbird designs and shredded them. But her biggest obsession is the magnetic pin cushion which I now carefully hide and she carefully searches for. 

Hare March Quilt Top AKA Plaid Bunny Quilt Top

The plaid bunny quilt top is finished. It measures 92 inches by 83 inches...too large to fit on my design wall. And that sound you hear in the background are the cats pounding on the door to be let back in the sewing room. I am noticing a grouping of dark rectangles at the top of the quilt that may need some surgery. I'll have to see if I notice it in real life.

Here's a closer view to show the border. The border repeat is 8 inches long so I needed to add four inches to the top and bottom and two inches to each side for it to fit. I'm definitely happy to have the bunny ears and tails repeating out in the border.

And if there is still time, I'm going to link with Oh Scrap so you can hop over and enjoy other scrappy happenings.

Orange seahorses

Orange is a fitting color for seahorses and is the color for April at the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge. I suggest you swim on over and sea what others are doing with orange this month. Meanwhile, I'm going to go back to putting the borders on the plaid bunny quilt.

Kitten fools

I guess I made progress today, although it doesn't feel like it. Here are the lengths of the border for the plaid bunny quilt. I will sew them into longer lengths once I figure out how many I need on each side. First I needed to add scrappy borders around the plaid bunnies so that the border would fit. Each repeat is eight inches and if I want the border to fit properly, each side of the quilt must be divisible by eight plus one inch.

Molly did the calculations for me, but then when I was sewing on the lengths and they weren't fitting correctly she blurted "April Fools." So now I have gone back to the drawing board and will be refitting lengths to make the quilt the right size before adding borders. Kitten giggles are one of the worst sounds in the universe.

Rounding up the bounding bunnies

And if my bunny accounting is correct, this is the last of the bounding bunnies I need for the bounding bunny rainbow quilt. The bounding bunny quilt has bunnies running toward a center aisle of carrots. I will lay it out tomorrow when I'm more energetic and the kittens less so.

Looking at this photo of the bounding bunnies, the yellow bunny on the far left, second row appears to have a Cheshire cat grin.

Hummingbird

It's almost hummingbird season. They start to arrive here mid-April. My brother suggested I make a hummingbird block and I got it into my head to make it as an Alternative Universe Dear Jane block. This means the block finishes at 4.5 inches square. So yes, I resorted to paper piecing and the kittens learned quite a few new words today.  I will probably remake a larger version that I can construct using my usual flip triangle technique.

Here are a few other Alternative Universe blocks. These are the blocks that Jane Stickle made but didn't put in her final quilt.  Like the Dear Jane quilt, I'm making them using the Kaffe Fasset fabrics with his chalk spot for the background.

Here's a hummingbird quilt (8.5 by 11 inches) that I made back in 2011 using fused raw edge applique.

And this is an all girl hummingbird party. I usually have about five feeders and some of the more aggressive males will stake out a feeder for themselves forcing others to share and take turns.