My Aunt Anne Sent a Picture!

Well, I have waiting awhile for this picture, but my aunt Anne has finally sent me a picture of herself with the bags that I sent her.  She tells me she loves them both, so I am happy about that.  I have 3 students that have made the large quilter's tote, and I have made 3 now, making small changes along the way.  I am now ready to publish the pattern. 

Blog Hop Winner

We have a winner, and it is Bright Angel.  Please contact me, I have sent you an e-mail.  Thank everyone for the great response to this contest, and also a thank you to Michele at The Quiltting Gallery.  Some of the colours that were suggested for the mugs I had not thought of!  It seems red, pink, turquois, orange and lime green are popular colours.  I will let you know what I choose.

St. Patrick's Blog Hop Give-Away

I am happy to be participating  in my second blog hop hosted by The Quilting Gallery.  I look forward to hopping around all the blogs, great fun! This bog hop runs from March 17 until March 23.  My dad is Irish, so we always liked St. Patrick's day.  Our church always hosts a St. Patrick's Day Tea, it is fantastic!  Along with the tea, little sandwiches and lots and lots of sweets, there are hand-crafted items for sale.  One of my favorite things is a large tin of home-made fudge, my favorite!  You buy tickets on it, and no, I have never won it!  Probably just as well, I do not need to eat a tin of fudge, but it would be great!  Just in case you were wondering, it is on Sunday, so you can have these things even if you gave them up for lent.
My give-away is 2 of my patterns, The Jessica Bag and Easy Peasy Quilt, I just posted about one of my students' Easy Peasy.  It is a beautiful purple one, love it!  The other is a hand-made pottery mug that David Eastwood of Gagetown made.  The mug has my logo on it, last time Daivid made mugs for me I had them done in lime green and purple, I am getting ready to order more,what colours do you think I should order?  I have a post about David's studio on my blog as well.
To enter, just leave a comment, and if you join my blog or fanpage I will put your name in the draw twice.  Happy St. Patrick's Day! 

St. Patrick's Day Blog Hop

What fun!  Another blog hop hosted by The Quilting Gallery!  I had lots of fun last time and am looking forward to another.  The hop will start shortly make sure to check  it out.

Purple Batik Easy Peasy Quilt

Grace, one of my students just finished an Easy Peasy quilt on in purple batiks, the pictures do not do it justice at all!!  This is so beautiful, and would go nicely in my house, but she dosen't want to give it to me!  It is a queen sized quilt and she says it looks great in her bedroom too.

Disappearing 4-Patch Tutorial

Well, here goes, I hope you all understand this tutorial.  I really like these disappearing 4 and 9 patch quilts, but I do like them with a bit of consistancy, like a background fabric.  The tutorial is on a 4 patch using 5"squares, it would be quicker to use larger squares, and I think I would like sashing and corner blocks.

Start with 4 squares, placed as above.  Sew together to make one large square.  Now, place the 1" mark of the ruler on the seam of the square and cut.  Do the same on all sides of this middle seam.

Now, mix those long rectangles up, then sew back together.  Square, if needed, you are finished.  This block has many possibilities, so have fun!  And remember, press, press, press!!!

8 Year Old Sara Makes a Quilted Wallet

Well Sara is at it again!  She is making a quilted wallet now, it is a variation of my pattern Little Bits.  I should also mention that she is 8 not 9 as I said in a previous story.  She is quite excited about this little project, and she is whipping right along with it.  She will be finished the wallet next week, which means she only spent 3 weeks on it.  This time it is for herself and she only needed 3 card pockets because she dosen't have any credit cards yet!

On another note, I am waiting and I hope to get pictures of my aunt with her bag, I have asked her to send mesome, we will see.

A Quilty Gift

Here are some pictures of a quilter's tote and a matching bag that I made for my Aunt Anne.  Anne does not read my blog which is why I can write about it here, I will be sending them off later this week.  My aunt was still in high school when I was born and spoiled me very, very much!  She was, and still is, a beautifly seamstress and made many, many gorgeous things for me.  I posted my Quilter's Tote on my fanpage and she wrote, my that would make a nice gift for someone in white, black and red!  Well, I happen to know that white, black and red are her favorite colours, so I made one for her, and the Annabella bag as well.  This is fun for me, I finally get to sew something for her.

Quilter's Tote

I have been busy working on 2 new patterns.  Here is a couple of pictures of one of the patterns, a quilter's tote.  I made one for myself several years ago, it is well used since I teach several classes a week.  I liked the size of the old one, but it needed lots of tweeking.  I have a long handle that I can carry it over my head on the other shoulder which leaves my hands free for my other bags, plus smaller handles to carry that way as well.  the inside has one large pocket which will hold the 17" x 24" mat, and on the other side is a large divided pocket, one will carry a 12 1/2" square.  It is very sturdy and should hold up really well.  Pattern will be ready in a couple of weeks.  And it is Pippa approved!

9-Year Old Sara Finishes Her Quilt

Well, Sara has finished her quilt this week!  She was so excited, and anxious to start a new project.  She has given this quilt to her Mom, so now she thinks maybe she should make one for her Dad.  She pieced the binding on by the sewing machine, she didn't think she would like to hand stitch to the back, so she picked a decorative stitch to fancy it up.

Her next project will be a wallet, she is using my pattern Little Bits for that.  this pattern uses lots of little strips, and she has chosen lots of purples to do it.  I think that if she makes one for her Dad it won't be purple!

Mariners Quilt in the Making

One of the ladies, and a good friend of mine, in my classes is making a great quilt.  We are designing it together as it is being made!  It is Glenda's quilt, and I think it will be awsome!  It certainly is a challenge, what do we add next?  Glenda has chosen the fabrics and has lots of each because we are not sure what we will do.  We know there will be borders of blocks, but it is a work in progress.  Feel free to offer ideas, we could use some!  We are thinking of a plain red border, as shown, for the next row, then another border of some kind of blocks.

Mystery Quilt

Well, we had a great time yesterday at the mystery class.  The quilts will be gorgeous, and all very different!  We had some ladies partner, and some doing it on their own, that means they will have enough blocks for 2 quilts.  There were two ways to put the blocks together, and we had both!  I will post more pictures when we have some finished quilts.

Mystery Quilting Class

Well, tomorrow I am teaching another mystery class, the ladies sure like a surprise!  This time they know that it is a quilt, and they need a partner this time!  The instructions were to each choose the same background fabric, but they could choose different fabrics, they just had to go together well.  I can't wait to see all the fantastic quilts!  I will be posting pictures on Sunday, after the class I am going to a Chinese NewYear Dinner, can't wait!

Just thought you might like to see a picture of one of my cats, Daisy.  Why is it that cats love baskets so much????  And in case you were wondering, yes, I do love purple!

Winner of Contest

Congratulations to Quiltmom, she has won the bag.  I just loved to here all the memories from everyone!  There were alot of the same things, but some very different toys as well.  I hope everyone had the merriest of Christmases, and a wonderful New Year!
Thanks also for all the birthday wishes, how nice!  I had birthday cake for breakfast yesterday, so back  to eating a little healthier today! 
I had a contest on my fanpage at Cool Cat Cretions on facebook, the prize was 4 of my patterns, the winner there was JoAnne Harris, congratulations to her as well.  For anyone out there on facebook I have contest quite often there for patterns.

I have taken lots of time off over Christmas, so back to work, those patterns do not write themselves!  The picture is the pattern cover that I made the bag from.

New Year Give-Away !

Happy New Year to all!  I will be spending the evening at home with my husband watching the ball drop in New York.  It is my birthday tomorrow, so I will have a little birthday cake along with some other goodies!  You still have time to enter my contest, just tell me your favorite toy that you received as a child.  I am loving reading the responses, brings back lots of memories.

Do not forget that I need your e-mail address to contact you, if it is not on your profile when I press on your name, you could send it to me at coolcatsandquilts@hotmail.com  Good luck to everyone!

Merry Christmas Quilted Contest!!

Merry Christmas everyone!  I am sure you are all as busy as I am, cooking, wrapping, cleaning!!  Now that my children are older it is much easier, it seems so much busier when they are little. 
As promised here is a Christmas contest, you need to be a follower to participate.  Make sure that I can get in touch with you by e-mail in case you win.  My prize is a finished bag, I thought this might be nice for this time of year when everyone is so busy.  This bag is made from Bali Batiks and I used my pattern Bits and Bites.  There are long pockets on either side of the lining.  Good Luck!

Now what I would like you to do, is tell me your favorite gift - as a child!  This is a hard one for me, but I think it would have to be my Chatty Baby Doll.  Does anyone remember those?  She was the younger sister of Chatty Cathy.  You have until Jan 1 to add your comments, I will draw on Jan 2.  Good luck, and have a very Merry Christmas!

Blog Hop Winner!

The winner of the prize at my blog is Nanbon44, congratulations!  This was such fun, thank you everyone that participated, and a big thank you to Michelle for hosting this blog hop.  I have made many new friends, whom I am sure I will learn lots of new things from.
All you followers stay tuned for a contest next week for my followers.

More Quilters Christmas Trees!

Here are some pictures of my to real Christmas trees.  I love the lights, and anything sparkly!  The purple is my favorite.  The white, silver and gold is kind of neat because I need something to use instead of tinsel, with 4 cats tinsel is a very bad thing!  I took feather boas and cut them into pieces, I think it looks pretty good, and the cats don't bother too much with it.

Stay tuned in for another contest for my followers I will tell you about it when the blog hop is done.