Thanksgiving reveal

Happy Thanksgiving to all my US readers. I'm grateful for the community of gracious, creative and generous quilters online. I've learned so much from all of you. Because of our mobile aquatic lifestyle, I'm rarely in one place long enough to take classes or join a face-to-face guild. So pretty much everything I know about quilting comes from the internet. Every photo, tip, comment or tutorial you post helps me so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I'm also grateful for my non-quilting friends, and thrilled to be able to share my latest two finishes. Both quilts have made their surprise appearances in California, so I can share them here.



This is Cats of Hope, made for my friend Jeri. The block is an old, traditional one called Star of Hope. It has a few other names, too, but "hope" is the message I wanted to send to Jeri. I dove into my stash of cat fabrics and picked out all the ones with more realistic colors: black, brown, grey. The accent colors for most of them are various shades of reds and oranges.



Each block has a different neutral background, and I made sure to include a couple of musical notation ones in a nod to Jeri's brother. I hope he doesn't look TOO closely at those, though, since they were clearly designed by a non-musician and are rather nonsensical.



I've never visited Jeri's home, so I had no idea if this color scheme would match her decor. However, I knew for certain that it would match her cats!



Sunshine was the first to discover the quilt, and settled right in. Cats instinctively know where to find the softest place to curl up. That grey and black plaid is fuzzy flannel on the back.



Soon Moonshadow claimed the other end.



Here's a glamour shot of Moonshadow on the front of the quilt with the block he matches the best. So handsome and stylish! Clearly Jeri's two cats have excellent taste. Jeri was delighted with her quilt, and that makes me happy happy happy!



The second gift quilt now in its new home is Tessellated Tannenbaum. Whoa, that's one bright quilt! It was inspired by a photo I saw on Pinterest. I eventually tracked it down to a Craftsy pattern called Wander Through the Woods, but by that time I had reverse engineered it so I didn't need the pattern. However, I would encourage you to purchase it if you want to make something similar. I won't share my version of the pattern so the designer (Hope's Quilt Designs) can continue to profit from her idea. It's listed as a beginner pattern and my method was quite fussy, so I'm sure Hope's way is simpler.



Most of the fabrics are from a jelly roll of a Laurel Burch holiday line. Even though the colors are non-traditional (hot pink! lime green! turquoise!) the motifs are all Christmas. Well, and cats. Stockings, cats, decorated trees, cats, mistletoe, cats, snowflakes, cats, presents, and cats.



This quilt is a gift for my friends Lisa and Steve. They have cats, T-Boy and Juice. And like the cats on Tessellated Tannebaum, their young, exuberant cats get into everything. They also have an elderly beagle named Stella, who is beseiged by the cats. So I had to add a bit of dog fabric to the quilt to help Stella hold her own. I had some leftover Laurel Burch from the "Dogs and Doggies" line that I used in C's quilt, so there are a few trees made up of only dogs.



I don't have any photos of the quilt in their house, because they are in the middle of a big kitchen renovation project. In fact, Lisa said this quilt may be their only Christmas tree this year because of the chaos. But next year it should look great on the bright green couch in their family room.

Quilts that are for friends and family get my personalized labels (charity quilts are given anonymously.) The back says, "Machine Wash, Tumble Dry, Use Often." I hope Jeri, Lisa and Steve (and Moonshadow, Sunshine, Stella, Juice, and T-Boy) enjoy these gifts for many years!