UNIKITTY!!!

I’m a part of the Handmade Birthday Club going on on Instagram. My birthday is in December though, so I can’t share anything awesome that I’ve received… but I can share something awesome that I’ve made.

Kelly Bowser of Kelby Sews just randomly mentioned on a picture that she doesn’t like cats, but she wouldn’t mind a UniKitty mini quilt. (UniKitty is from the Lego Movie. I haven’t seen it.) Her birthday is in March and so I knew what my mission was.

I went over to the block design tool at Threadbias.com and made up a template. I knew I’d have to paper piece, since some of the pieces would have to be tiny. What I ended up doing was printing out my template four times and cutting out the pieces I needed.

 

Yeah, so picture! I only have the one I stole from Kelly’s Instagram, since I can’t find my camera…

 

UniKitty Mini made by Melissa of Tension Issues for Kelbysews

 

I used felt and embroidery thread for her face. She’s about 9x 12, but I can’t remember.

Anyway! Kelly and I both had a ton of people asking for the pattern. I was going to offer it on craftsy for free, but I cannot for the life of me figure out my illustrator program. So you’ll have to be low tech like me. Here’s the template…

 

You should be able to just grab that picture from here and make it whatever size you want.

And here’s where I cut.

One sheet for the ears, (cut a quarter inch away from the lines) one for the horn (in blue), one for the middle of the horn (in pink) and one more for the bottom of the horn (in yellow). For the face and outline I didn’t paper piece I just measured out what I needed. I wish I had templates for the face pieces, but I was late for Kelly’s birthday and I didn’t make copies. Sorry. But they’re mostly circles and if I can do it, so can you!

 

I hope this helps all those people who wanted to make a UniKitty! Tag me on instagram @tensionissues if you make one.

 

WIP Wednesday – Baby Quilt and a pillow

I have three baby girl quilts that need made. One is going to a friend who is having her second daughter in February, the other two will be for a friend who is pregnant with twins. (!) I want to say she’s due in April.

I got the top for the singleton done this weekend (as my instagram followers know) and I’ve been contemplating how to quilt it ever since. I don’t think I want to do an all-over design. Rather, I think I may do something in each diamond. I was doodling over a picture of it last night. Speaking of pictures, here’s the top!

Hopefully that shows up. I’m writing this on my cell phone.

I was doodling around, toying with an idea I had about chevrons when it occurred to me to do a string quilt. I used instructions from Elizabeth Hartman’s “Practical Guide to Patchwork” but made the blocks smaller.
If you don’t have that book, Film in the Fridge has a good tutorial. I’m going to have a really hard time letting this quilt go. I’m probably going to have to make a queen sized replica.

For the other two quilts I think I’m going to do something simple, like the strip quilt from Tula Pink’s latest market booth.

I also started a pillow yesterday, made with flying geese scraps.

I started quilting it, and got the lighter part done, but when I switched threads for the dark part my machine started skipping stitches, majorly. (my phone says majorly isn’t a word. Psh, whatever.) So, I’ve got to rip those out and either try again or go get another color of thread. I’ll probably give it another go first. Sometimes letting my machine rest over night helps. I understand its need.

Here’s the pillow before I started on the dark quilting.

I hope I can get it worked out today and up in the shop soon.

(Btw, I opened an Etsy shop. Check it out. Link over there —> )

 

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced