Christmas Caturday!

It was time to take another Christmas Photo and it went about as well as last year.

Didn't quite get the shot before Ivy decided to leave

Ivy was happy to have her photo taken as long as no one else was in it

Adrianne got bored

The winning shot. Merry Christmas! From Ivy, Ralph, Adrianne and Jennifer.

And after all that, when Ivy thought I wasn't paying attention, she tried to take out the angel

Guilty.

Wishing you and yours a happy and safe holiday season.

Caturday Wisdom #151

Falling asleep on the hand that feeds you is just as effective as biting it. Ralph

Ralph and Ivy have been enjoying the sun that we've had lately but there's still no better place for a nap than on a human.

Caturday Wisdom #150

Go in the shade, feel dismayed. Ralph

 

Ralph know's what he's about here, there's only one good place to walk down the stairs and that's in the sunny part only. Not sure this weekend is going to be a good one for sun but we can hope.

Caturday Wisdom #149

It's ok to look however you want. Even like a cow when you're a cat. Jackal

Continuing with the theme of "cats I'm going to visit", Jackal belongs to my friends in the Wairarapa who I'm going to see tomorrow. Here's hoping for some nice weather!

Squid Ink and Sorbet Quilt

I keep feeling like I haven't been that productive this year, until I remember that I have a backlog of quilts waiting to be blogged...

First up, this one which I'm calling my Squid Ink and Sorbet Quilt.  Back at the start of the year, we decided to do a group challenge to celebrate my local guild's 30th anniversary, using the bear paw (or hand of friendship) block.  All the lovely scrappy bear quilts on instagram might have factored into the decision as well...

 

This is my version - I wanted to work with a colour scheme I hadn't tackled before, and chose darkish grey prints for the background, to contrast against a bright selection of pink, aqua and mustard feature fabrics.  

The idea was to make one block a month for the first nine months of the year, but I have to say, it didn't work out that way for me.  I've discovered, through trial and error, that I really prefer to work quite intensely, almost in a production line way, on one quilt at a time (which is not to say that I don't have lots of quilts on the go at once, but rather than I'm usually actively working on only one of them at any given time).  It just feels more efficient to me!  In the end I made the last five blocks and assembled the top in a burst of activity at the end of September, and then sent the quilt out for long-arm quilting.

I spent a bit of time agonising over the quilting pattern for this quilt, and in the end went with Anita Shackelford's Modern Eccentric design.  As usual, Sue Burnett of Busy Bee Quilt Shop did the quilting for me, and I talked her into using a pink thread on the front of the quilt and an off-white on the back (it's generally not a great idea to use different colours in the top thread and the bobbin, but you can get away with it if they're close in colour).

I just had to use this lovely Tula Pink Freefall fabric on the back of the quilt.  It's sateen, and has a lovely hand.  It's hard to see in the photos, but the quilt is bound in a grey and white striped fabric - gotta love those striped bindings.

Lots of people in the guild made quilts using this design - you can see a nice selection of them here.

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