Wednesday, May 11, 2011

7 Day Forecast Makes Color a Necessity!

I watched the weather report last night. The 7 day forecast is for some rain every single day from now to eternity. Ok maybe that eternity part is the voice in my head, but it sure seems that way. So to counteract the gray that will be omnipresent I broke out one of the most colorful quilts I have every made. A quilt that totally changed my quilting palette. Here it is.....



It is affectionately titled Carol's Crazy Kitty Cottages or as my oldest son refers to it - the Crack House Kittys. There are 36 different crazy cottages and each one features a different cat in the window. (I love novelty fabrics!) This one is my favorite.



A cat wearing a polka dot underwear. I know that just makes you shake your head and mutter to yourself that "this is just wrong on soooo many levels" but it makes me happy, which clearly shows the depths of my mental issues - LOL! And here is another one that makes me smile...



I love the expression on this cat and that he seems to be peeking through the foliage.

And I was so proud of myself for figuring out how to make that bright yellow picket fence turn the corner.



This quilt was created from the 1999 book Freddy's House by Freddy Moran. This book blew me away. First it has beautiful pictures of her color saturated house and studio. Red, electric purpley blue, turquoise accents, a sunny yellow studio with a black and white checkerboard floor. I covet that studio! And her quilts are just a riot of color and pattern. This book focused on the house quilts Freddie has made and she has made A LOT of them.

When I purchased the book it was love at first sight with the quilt on page 86 called "The Stars at Night". I couldn't wait to start this quilt and it wasn't until I got the book home that I realized that this quilt is in the "Gallery" section - you know the quilts for which no patterns are included. arggh! Okay, I will figure it out myself- and I did! I made the houses 8" square and every one is a different combination of doors, walls,roofs, chimneys and windows. And that little square in the bottom left hand corner next to the door - I considered that to be the garden spot for each home and they are all different patterns too. I worked on this quilt for a whole summer when my kids were out of school and I even quilted it myself. I'm hanging it in my basement family room where my sewing space is and I can see it from my behind my machine and it makes me very happy!

Happy stitching-
carol fun

9 comments:

  1. Love your "crack house kitties". What a hoot. It is darling and I love all those colors. What a fun quilt that must have been to make. We quilters don't cry when it rains, do we?

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  2. I enjoyed seeing your house cats quilt. It is so colorful and perky. Perfect for the gray days we've been having.

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  3. I thought the cat was wearing a bikini to be ready for all your rain.
    Love all the kitties.
    Teresa's Heartfelt Stitches

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  4. It is supposed to start raining here for several days too. I may have to come back and look at your quilt this weekend. :o)

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  5. This is the BEST! I love her books, too - the ones with Gwen Marston are very inspirational, too. I better go back and look at them again. I think with all this humidity/rain/heat that it must be a bikini on that kitty...

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  6. Oh I love this one. It made me laugh and smile! Congratulations on one beautiful, crazy quilt.

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  7. I love it! Freddy Moran's books are wonderful! I would like to make a quilt in her style myself. Great job figuring out how to make this one....it's awesome :-) so much fun! I hope your weather gets better!

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  8. Wow, it's beautiful. The colours are so vibrant. It is like a story quilt 'Guess Who lives next door?' Alot of work went into that.

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  9. What a beautiful quilt! And so much fun and pretty detail!

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