color me happy kittens quilt

i have had this fabric for YEARS and never came up with a plan for it.
it was ideally going to be a quilt for my bed when i bought it (which was 3ish years ago i think?) but clearly THAT never happened.
instead, 100 days 100 blocks happened for my bed which was perfectly fine in the end... and probably better than what i would have done at the point in time i bought this fabric.
when it came to spring break last year, lisa and i wanted to plan another sew together to do, so we picked these kitties to do as quilt for us!  (see twin dogs in sweaters quilt for our previous adventure) i decided to run with the "color me happy" line of fabric i had, but couldn't decide on a background color.  i had initially purchased kona leprechaun, but it was just too blah when it all came together.  don't worry, the leprechaun went to a good cause... like a certain 4 turtles.
lisa and i did some shop hopping while together in utah, and i found this FANTASTIC grunge to use (i believe it is deep jade) and it became the perfect blend of blues & greens to go with the main colors of the prints.
i also swapped in some grunge for the main parts of the kitten faces that were cohesive between all the kittens instead of a kona cotton.  when in doubt, get grunge.
the craziest part was that i cut all of the eyes the first night, and then when i came out the next morning, they were gone.  like, straight up vanished in to thin air.
my bet is going to be that when lisa moves out of that apartment, she's going to find a stack of grunge squares waiting for her to start another kittens quilt! yes, even the kitty eyes were grunge...
when it was time to quilt it, i felt like the perfect pantograph was the loop the loop one i have used many times before on music quilts, but this time it fit perfectly like it was yarn the kittens were playing with.  the grunge hits the spot backing was perfect, and i used bits of the same fabrics to create a scrappy binding to go around the outside.  this meant i had to jump back in to my hand binding skills after a good chunk of time practicing my machine binding.
it is safe to say i just love elizabeth hartman patterns for so many reasons.  they're adorable, east to follow and i also just love how she names each of the characters.  each of these 6 kitten blocks have a different name, which was really funny when lisa and i hit late night sew fest tiredness and were discussing these cats by name like they were real.  my mom is intrigued by this pattern, probably because it is much bigger than the cat blocks, so it will be interesting to see when she does it and how her cats turn out!
pattern: the kittens by elizabeth hartman
quilt count: 127

emily's rad 100 days 100 blocks - tula pink city sampler

so in 2018, you got a regular update of my 100 day 100 block every 10 blocks, and then it just sat.
don't get me wrong, i super enjoyed this project and really wanted to get it done, but it just fell to the back burner as all projects for me personally do.
well, last summer i knocked it out at maker monday, quilted it up and got it bound and it has lived on my bed ever since.  now, here it is for your viewing (and ispy-ing) enjoyment!
as a reminder, i focused on three main fabric lines for my colors: foundations by sassafrass lane designs, grunge by basicgray and dimples by andover fabrics.  it all pretty much started from the foundations line of fabric that i got a fat quarter bundle of and then trickled down to balance it all out. i fussy cut the wazoo out of some fabrics, and there are some pretty hilarious instagram swiss cheese photos to prove it!
i had a hard time narrowing down photos, so you're about to get blasted with some detail shots of some very random themed blocks!
i did tweak the borders of this quilt, since i couldn't just let all the bright rainbow-ness of the inside just end with solid gray.  i measured out a bit more of the gray (which i believe is silver grunge) to be the same width as the sashing, and then measured out some chunks of the same main color fabrics to make a scrappy border around the outside.  since the border was so scrappy, i wanted to keep the binding solid, and went with my favorite blue print from the foundations line of fabric.  the back, not that you can see it, is a fantastic gray on gray polka dot fabric that i found as a wide back at meissner's
while this project was a lot of work, it was really fun to do as a sew along with a ton of people, including lisa.  it was funny to see how we used the same fabric in a few of our blocks, and how different they turned out from each other.  we both ended up with a rainbow-ish collection of blocks, and i cannot wait to see hers put together.  once hers is done, she intends it to be for her future guest room... aka what i get to use when i stay over!
it has been so great to have such a fun and cheerful quilt on my bed to snuggle up under each night.  i am quite pleased with my success with this quilt and already have plans to use a few of the blocks from this book for another project :)
pattern: tula pink's city sampler: 100 modern quilt blocks
quilt count: 126

this week

please enjoy this random rosco
starting tomorrow, i'm off to austin, tx for my first ever quiltcon experience!
for years i've seen posts about quiltcon on instagram, and since i joined the sacramento modern quilt guild 3 years ago i've heard about the amazing experience of going.
as fate would have it, with erika moving to texas last year, this was the perfect series of events to create all the reasons to take time off work and make the trip.
i'll be at quiltcon tomorrow thru sunday, and then sunday to monday i'll be getting in some long overdue best friend time.
i'll be sure to recap my experiences both here and probably on instagram as they're happening, so be sure to check back in soon!  also follow me @wereradletshug if you don't already :)

this is LITERALLY a guess who game

a few years ago, my sister pinned a customized guess who game on her pinterest board, and i thought "i could easily make that"
well, the years went by, and i didn't... until this year.
i thought "sure, i could make it just parks & rec... but that would be too basic"
so i went a little overboard.
my sister, much like myself, not only appreciates parks & rec, but also the good place and brooklyn 99.  and if those weren't enough, i decided to get a little nostalgic and make one based off our childhood... childhood cats, that is!
how i did it was pretty simple.  i purchased a guess who game from a local goodwill, and took out all of the cards that came with it (half of which are still on my desk... whoops)
after measuring the cards, i made a photoshop document with a bunch of rectangles to become clipping masks... then the internet search began.
finding a solid 24 characters for each show was a little harder than anticipated!  brooklyn 99 definitely got some deep dives with a few guest actors who were there for MAYBE one episode (like lin manuel miranda as david santiago), 3 different janets made it on to the board (this was before the disco janet episode, or she would have been there too) and parks & rec had an oops where i started with barney the accountant, switched him for perd hapley, and then the different card sizes didn't match characters when printed because the updated file didn't save.  insert facepalm here.  haha.
i sent the prints out, after multiple personal printer fails all around, and once i trimmed them down, they were TOO SMALL.
i decided to grab 2 different colors of cardstock and make backings for all the mini cards, which would also help make sure that you had all the cards for one board and not 2 of the same character, i.e. 2 dereks... or MAXIUMUM DEREK.
i found these cute little envelopes at hobby lobby, which made have been a little too small once all the cards were done, but they serve their purpose!
i painted the box lid by first tracing the paper from underneath and then repeated the layers with acrylic paint about 3 times.  i had purchased a paint pen, but immediately misplaced it... only to find it later when i went to throw out the original guess who box.  oops.
here's to hoping my sister and her husband have many guess who game nights, where the clues include "is your sister the woooooorst?" and "are you not a girl and not a robot?"

a duo of sew together bags

another post that is a bit different than the quilt ones to come is this one!
last year i made two sew together bags (which i've made a few before these) because of their useability (is that a word even?) and also the ability to combine fabrics and make each one cute as can be in their own ways.
the first bag i made was on a whim for my aunt to gift to her secret pal.  i had fabric bits leftover from the ruffle pug aprons as well as a chunk from amy & luke's wedding quilt from way back when.  yeah, i hold on to fabric for awhile... don't judge!
as much of a dog person as i am (i am not, in case you weren't sure) i do find the peek a boo pugs so amusing!  everything so simple, tan & green, and then BAM pocket pug!
the second bag i made was for the annual sacramento modern quilt guild holiday gift exchange.  the only parameters is that the gift has to be handmade (or purchased handmade) so after awhile of being unsure of what to make, i decided to bust out another one of these bags!
this time it was all completely from my stash, but had some plans go awry in the middle.  i was certain it was going to be blues & greens, but once i scrounged and found fabric big enough, my gray zipper set just wasn't right.  after a new set of zippers were purchased, this was created.  and it was nearly too hard to give up!
the secret sewing machines on this one just add that extra flair that this was absolutely made for a fellow quilter/sewist, and seeing the excitement when the recipient opened it made giving it away that much more worth it.  this second bag was probably the best as far as the construction process went.  the difference between the two bags is that i did not use batting or quilt the second one like i did with the pugs.  it is a step listed as optional in the directions, but it does add some extra heft when sewing those side seams in.  going forward, if i make another one of these bags (which i planned to this month for a friend's birthday, but it just didn't happen in time) i won't add batting or quilting.
and maybe someday, i'll get around to making one for myself!

sew together bag pattern by SewDemented