Cat quilt and a bag

My cat, like many others, likes to sit/lay/sleep on quilts. Which can be inconvenient, if you're in the middle of working on the quilt. So I decided to make my cat her very own quilt. It's not going to be very big - about 24" square - which will be about the right size for her to stretch out on if it's laid on the floor, or to fold/bend so she can hide under it.

So far, it's more or less just a prototype, so not made out of any fancy fabric. In fact, I've gone green and recycled, using old flannelette pajama fabric for most of it, in pinks and blues:

I've used 12 different prints/plains for the 3" squares. The border is 3" navy flannel.

The other side is going to be a bit more colourful. I'm still cutting patches out for that, so there's no pic yet.


Another project I'm working on is a quilting bag. It's supposed to be big enough to fit a quilt into, which is just what I need for an upcoming guild meeting this week. I'm going to take a quilt along for show-and-tell. Which will be fun to show it off, but at the same time not fun because I don't like public speaking. But I'll just have to get over myself and do it.

Anyway, the bag isn't finished yet, but the front and back stitching and quilting are done, so I took some progress pics:

Central panels, Chinese Coins-style, pieced from my scrap tubs. I designed this side myself.

Some of the blocks I designed myself; the others are from the original pattern, which is entitled "Patti's Quilting Bag" by Louise Audet, from Handmade magazine, vol. 26 no. 7.

One thing I've learned from this (and it's an important one) is:

Measure and mark quilting lines! Don't just trust yourself to eyeball it correctly. The bottom photo shows my wonky hand-quilting; the one above it has far more consistency in the spacing of the stitching lines. (Not necessarily the quilting stitches - I still have a long way to go, I know!)