Quick, Little, and HIGHLY useful!

We are a three cat household.  Generally they are all well-behaved and lovely fur-babies.  However, Fender (our youngest cat) has a naughty streak and one of her most naughty habits is to chew wires.  Her favorite are thin wires like those of earbuds.
This has led to a number of destroyed pairs of earbuds in our family which has left more than one person upset with said cat at any given time.
Enter this quick little project that is HIGHLY useful to deter naughty Fender.

I'd seen it here originally and decided to give it a go.  Erin's Tutorial for this project is easy to follow - well written and I found I can whip one up in under an hour.  I do use a walking foot to sew through the multi-layers and that prevents any puckering problems for me.
I've made two so far - one for Steve and one for Jess.

Happy Sewing!

A Pinwheel Project

In a spurt of post holiday shopping I purchased two sizes of a really slick little template tool.  It's called a "twister" and allows you to transform standard squares into pinwheels fairly easily.
You can read/purchase here: I bought mine from Canton Village Quilt Works, but they are relocating currently and are sold out at the moment.
This is the progression on a project I'm making for my Mom.  I will update with fully finished once I get the quilting and binding done.

5" squares cut from my stash

Squares just sewn together

3" border added to squares

Twister Tool lined up on seams

First row cut and re-sewn

Row 2 added - starting to see the pinwheels

Swiss cheese left after all blocks cut from original piece

Pinwheels!

New border added to finish it off

At the moment this piece is loaded onto the quilting frame as I fight with my stitch length regulator and audition quilting designs.  Update will come...

UPDATE:  Finished photos - quilting is done with my Janome 1600P, King Tut Variegated thread in blues and the pattern is called "Billowy".  Binding is hand finished and of course - my quilt label.

Happy Sewing!

A new year - one month old!

Another new year has begun and I've been doing some sewing... though never as much as I'd like for various real life reasons - like taking care of my family!
They are worth the sewing sacrifice though of course. *wink*

Anyway - here are some random projects I've been working on in the past weeks.

Knitting needle roll/case w/ pocket

Another Knitting needle roll/case 

Series of black, white & red placemats - all photos are before quilting & binding

framed mini-quilt "night sky" paper pieced block

Another Knitting needle roll/case w/ pocket

scrappy Bargello placemats for my kitchen

Dishmat for our eldest daughter's new home/kitchen

Nothing tremendously exciting, but all very useful and fun generally speaking.  I really like small projects at times as it gives a tremendous sense of accomplishment to start, sew & finish in relatively small space of time.