Nyan Cat Quilt Top

In November 2013 I found a Nyan Cat quilt a long on a site by an amazing textile artist Choly Knight. I decided having just finished my first quilt I would take it upon myself to undertake a second (technically 3rd as The Art of Quilting Magazine I collect started a Homestead Quilt in issue 91) 

I made the first block on November 11th 2013 because I had some Dark Blue Fabric and left over white from my patchwork quilt and decreed the Nyan Cat Quilt would be my project for 2014. 

The Next day whilst doing blocks for my patchwork Homestead quilt I realized I still had a sizeable amount of Blue left so I though what the Hell I will attempt the Second section of the quilt and I did..

I did the Third and Final part (for 2013) of the Nyan cat quilt a few days later and it was left untill Monday the 13th of January. When I decided to kick start the project again! I had planned to do one section a month and leave it at that......this was not the case! between Monday and Friday I got the fabric I needed and whizzed through the quilt top in No time. making all 8 small sections to sew into 3 big sections that were then sewn together to create the entire body of the quilt top

So here is the quilt top for my Nyan Cat quilt. 

Choly's method and pattern for this top made the process extremely easy and simple rather than cutting out a shed load of 2" squares pixel by pixel (which is what I originally intended to do) this method bunched pixels together in varying squares and rectangles to make the whole thing a lot easier 

My nephew who loves Nyan Cat also as seen it and wants one. I may consider making another one for him not sure yet though LOL..

If you are interested in creating your own Nyan Cat quilt I seriously reccomend you check out Choly's quilt a long pattern here: http://cholyknight.com/category/free-projects/quilting-free-projects/nyan-cat-quilt-along/ 

Paper Piecing

As you all might know,I enjoy quilting and sewing Its a very far off branch of the design family but its still part of it. Recently I found out about a method of quilt blocking called Paper piecing.

Its basically a paper pattern that you sew over. it allows you to create much more detailed blocks. I mainly wanted to try out this type of sewing because of some brilliant patterns I had found on a great site for all things sewing and fandom related Fandom in Stitches. They have a small selection of Hunger Games blocks based of the 12 districts and the Mocking-Jay seals from the covers of the adult versions of the books.

Below is my first attempt at paper piecing, it is the Hunger Games Block

As you can see the block was a bit of a disaster very wonky but you can still tell what it is if your a Hunger Games fan and if not you can pretty much tell its a bird carrying an arrow.

I was not going to let this outcome deter me though, Fandom in stitches has a great selection of blocks mostly paper pieced and a fair selectionof Hand embroider patterns also on my searches I found something I knew I had to make...The Rocky Horror Picture Show Lips!! Being a huge Rocky Fan I got pretty excited about finding this design rushed to print it off and get sewing. below is the result 

The pattern was a 7" long Rectangle so I added strips to the top and sides to square it off, I still have no idea what I'm going to do with this but I am very impressed with myself this time round. Their is hardly any issue with lining up the pieces and I only made 1 mistake that I wont tell you about lol...

So onto todays sewing. I decided to continue with the Hunger Games series (having all 3 patterns ready) and make the Catching Fire block, I technically finished today after starting yesterday and getting very angry with my self for making mistakes. But I persevered on today and finally finished the Catching Fire block. 

Their was again a small problem matching up the pieces for a perfect alinement and I again misjudged the size of fabric hence the white spot on the top of the Mocking-Jay's head but over all I am again pretty satisfied with the results here so much so that I decided to carry on sewing and make this into a cushion! 

From the start my plan had been to create a set of 3 Mocking-Jay cushions for my self so I figured I had better get a start on things as you can see below the cushion looks rather awesome if I do say so myself. 

Only problem with making this cushion is that I used up  a fair chunk of my stash of Black fabric so I'm pretty short on it now and not sure If I can make the final block