Epic Tiny House Paper Pieced Quilt, Part 2

I last blogged in January, but I have been working on various projects to submit to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. I have some quilt tops that have been pieced for a while and need to be quilted plus I wanted to submit some post cards for the annual fundraiser at the show.

For the tiny house project, I had to decide how to piece the top because there is no pattern for the final layout.

I decided that my “Meowville” quilt needed the pieced name to be on the top, but the quilt was still missing something. Hmm, what could I add? How about a giant cat face peeking out at the viewers? I found a great pattern from Quilt Art Design called “Cat Helper” that would fit my idea with a few modifications.

The cat’s eye is always watching!
A partial cat head, perfect for mischievously peering down at the Meowville tiny houses

I now had the final blocks of my quilt assembled and ready to be set into a layout! I thought about a layout for a few weeks, and decided to place my tiny houses in rows without sashing strips. I set the blocks using a fun Ruby Star Society from their Starry line. I used Starry in the Smoke colorway, which is a beautiful deep blue with black stars. Finally, I added an outer border using a black print from my stash to give the quilt a nice frame and to meet the minimum width requirements for the quilt show.

Meowville quilt flimsy

Last weekend, I loaded Meowville onto my frame to start quilting. I’m using Glide thread in Celery in the giant cat head and letters, and using Glide thread in black for the remainder of the quilt. I’m going to keep the quilting very simple to keep the focus on all of those wonderful tiny houses!

Time for quilting!
A cute heart quilted into a paw

I’m about 2/3 of the way finished with the quilting, and I expect to finish this week. I’ll post a picture of the completed quilt soon! I have 2 more quilt tops ready to be quilted for the show so I need to get to it!

Happy quilting,

Jen

Visiting Center Diamond Quilt Store

This weekend, I went on a camping trip with my 2 favorite guys – my husband and our son. On the way down to the campground, I managed to convince them that I needed to stop at a quilt store. Lucky for me, they didn’t mind waiting for a few minutes while I browsed inside Center Diamond in Cannon Beach, Oregon.

Center Diamond is a great little quilt shop along the Oregon coast. I particularly love their collection of batik fabrics.  It’s definitely worth a stop if you are in the area.

I was searching for a turtle batik for a while and happened to find one while visiting. I picked up several coordinating fabrics that just feel summery to me. Wonder what I’ll make?

Turtle batik and other fabric

Aren’t these little turtles just wonderful?

Happy crafting!

~Jennifer~

August Mystery BOM

I’m a member of the Carol Doak Yahoo group. She recently started (in May) a new mystery block-of-the-month (BOM) program for her group members. Why is it a mystery? Because we get one block each month and won’t know how the blocks fit together until the last month!!

The August block got posted a little bit early due to Carol’s teaching schedule – yippee for us!

I was able to work a bit on this block over the past couple of days and finished it this evening. I absolutely love the fun pattern in this block, and I think it works so well with my star-themed fabrics!

Paper piecing is so much fun, and I encourage you to give it a try if you haven’t already. Carol has some great books and DVDs to get you going. Plus, the gals on the yahoo group are really fun and have great advice!

Don’t you just love how simple triangles can combine to make such great blocks?

August Mystery Block

Happy paper piecing!