Cluck Cluck Sew's Kitty Cats / Beauties Pageant 268

Nothing brings me more satisfaction than getting a low-priority project off the WIP pile and over the finish line, and this week’s post does not disappoint. There’s no gift-giving opportunity on the horizon. I don’t have a recipient in mind. But when I find myself in need of a cat-adorned quilt, I now have this beauty at the ready ...

The design is Kitty Cats from Allison Harris of Cluck Cluck Sew, and it was a delight to piece! I had purchased several half-yards of different Riley Blake prints a year or two ago. Kitty Cats, which calls for fat quarters, put those selections to good use, leaving me with extra fabric to put toward my Pineberry quilt (yet another WIP).

I used more stashed fabric on the back because that’s how I roll ...

My only regret (Future Michelle, please take note!) is that I didn’t have more variety in color and design in my fabrics. The repeated prints and colorways made it difficult to spread the colors evenly throughout the quilt top.

Allison Harris is one of my favorite pattern designers. Her patterns are simple without being simplistic, and they’re a joy to follow. If you’re a Cluck Cluck Sew fan as I am, I’d love to hear which patterns you’ve sewn and to see your finishes (even if they’re old ones!) in the linky below!

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

How Not to Piece a Quilt Back / Beauties Pagent 249

A show of hands, please: Who among you loves a good pieced back?

Me, too! Sometimes you will find me using a wideback (remember these ladybugs?), but it’s a rare occurrence, because for me, a pieced back is an opportunity to use up some fabric—fat quarters or yardage—that might otherwise linger in my stash.

My tried-and-true approach to piecing a backing is this: I take a cut of fabric that is the length required by the project, I cut it lengthwise, and then I fill in that space with enough fabric to create the width required. Here’s an example, on the back of my Rain or Shine quilt (you can see additional pictures illustrating this technique here) ...

There are times, however, when I’ve mixed things up a bit with good results.

Take the back side of my Norway quilt as an example. I didn’t like this block enough to place it on the front, but set here on the back, it becomes something special ...

An unused panel became the focal point of my Square Deal quilt back, with equally great results ...

I wish I could say my pieced backs are always a success. This is not the case. In fact, I seem to create problems for myself when I try to do anything fancier or more fiddly. 

Take, for example, the back of my Lotus Blossom quilt. The quilt front featured fabrics that suited the recipients’ taste but not my own. I knew if I didn’t use them on the back, I wouldn’t use them at all. A few math mistakes created problems for me, and I ended up with a backing that is not my style ...

I found myself in a comparable situation recently, shown in the picture at the top of the post. (I have yet to reveal the top of this particular project.) My goal, as usual, was to use up as much fabric as I could. In this case, however, some of that fabric was 2.5-inch squares. The process was more fiddly than I had hoped, and the result is OK but not awesome. To me, the way the pieced swath cuts off at the edges of the quilt looks like a mistake. There is something to be said for big chunks of fabric on a back, I think.

The moral of my pieced-back story is this: The simpler the plan for a pieced backing, the better. I spend less time thinking and sewing a pieced back—and like the results more!—when I keep the approach straightforward.

Blog Break

Friends, I have some large quilty deadlines looming on the horizon. The smart (grown-up? sane?) thing to do is step back from this space for a bit. So I’m going to take off the rest of March and all of April. I expect to be back in early May, right in time to celebrate 10 years of blogging, with new posts and finishes for you. Until then, happy sewing!

Follow Me On ...

 

* * *

The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter