There are plenty of projects, some large, many small, making their way through my sewing space at the moment, but somehow each week it feels like I have very little to share when WiP Wednesday rolls around. Some of the projects are as gifts and I don’t want to spoil the surprise, come get finished quickly and some others are in such an early stage of production that there really isn’t much to share. This week, however, I do have one project that I would like to share with you and that is the quilt I am currently making for my nephew. Like so many other little boys my nephew has lots of likes, but I think his favourites amongst those are trains and cats and so I decided I would use both in his quilt.

Cat and Train Quilt WiP | Mud, Pies and PinsI chose some train prints from Wilmington prints Riding the Rail series along with Timeless Treasures’s Tossed Crazy Cats Brite and Moda’s Prisma Cats. I then added some matching Stonehenge Crayon Box blenders to the mix for added colour. Although I am not usually a fan of quilt patterns, much preferring to design my own quilts, on this occasion I chose to make a larger version of the “Out of This World” quilt that I had recently made, as this is one of the few patterns I have come across that has really appealed to me and that I can see myself making time and time again. It didn’t take me long to start churning out the blocks and piecing them together and I even had  little excitement when I finally finished my first spool of Aurifil.

Cat and Train Quilt WiP | Mud, Pies and PinsI did make one alteration to the pattern in that I decided I would leave the central section of the central block plain as I wanted to appliqué my nephew’s initial in the centre. That proved to be a bit of a mammoth task. I started by forgetting to reverse the letter S when sketching it out on the fusible interfacing, so of course I ended up with a backwards S when I cut it out of the fabric. Now this isn’t all bad as I had more than enough fabric to make a second S and the first mistake will be trimmed into a 2 and will be applied to a summer t-shirt for my own little 2-year old.

Cat and Train Quilt WiP | Mud, Pies and PinsHowever I went on to fuse the correct S upside down to the central block (yes there was a slight difference between the top and bottom curves of the S I choose to use) and of course I didn’t notice this till I had pieced the block to it’s neighbours.

Cat and Train Quilt WiP | Mud, Pies and PinsThis time the seam ripper came out and the central block was unpicked and all pieced back together carefully and the right way up. Finally, after much ado, I got all my blocks finished and pieced together and the top is now ready to border.

Cat and Train Quilt WiP | Mud, Pies and PinsI’m just going to quickly add three solid borders and then I will baste the quilt. As I’m using a green minky/plush fabric for the backing I am going to forgo batting in favour of some flannel and have bought a flannel sheet for just that purpose. It’s been well washed, so will hopefully shrink no more, and with any luck I’ll get this little quilt finished up by the weekend. Cats and Trains might not have been my first choice of fabrics to combine in a quilt but I am really liking the result, and I’m hoping my nephew will enjoy this fun quilt too when I gift it to him.

Linking up with Lee over at Freshly Pieced for today’s Work In Progress Wednesday. Hope to see you there.

 

 

5 thoughts on “Trains and Cats – WiP Wednesday

  1. I like how you chose to use green for the S and the way it plays with the green fabrics in the corners. And that cat print? Too fun! I just love kids fabrics… This is a super fun quilt and I hope your nephew can feel the love and thought you put into making it for him.

  2. My link at WIP Wednesday has similar fabrics! it is for my grandson who loves trains and Mickey Mouse, so I have trains and mice. How nice to see other quilters working on the same theme.

  3. Very cute quilt! You pulled a move straight from my playbook. I can guarantee that if it would have been me, not only would I have fused it upside down, I probably would have done it backwards as well! Glad it was easy enough for you to fix.

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