Category Archives: cats

It’s a Wrap: Wonderful World

by Dawn Posted on January 1, 2025

Happy New Year, friends! The year 2024 is a wrap and so is my final finish of the year, Wonderful World, so named because the text print in the quilt contains the lyrics to “What a Wonderful World,” first recorded and made famous by Louis Armstrong:

Truth be told, I didn’t finish hand-stitching the label to the back until today but I hope you will indulge me and let me count it as a finish for 2024.

The photo above and the following ones were taken late this afternoon as the weak winter light was waning but I think you can get a good idea of how my third version of the free Ribbon Box quilt pattern turned out.

Here’s a flat shot of the front . . .

. . . and of the back:

It measures 51″ x 64½” and contains six prints from the “Gingham Foundry” line of fabrics by Riley Blake that came out in 2021.

Even though I was in a hurry to finish this quilt, I took the extra step of adding a contrasting ring to my trademark round quilt label:

And where is Coco, my photobombing cat who can usually be found lounging on a newly finished quilt? She has spent a good part of the afternoon on the Dear Husband’s lap while he watched college football games on TV.

I’ve already decided that Wonderful World is going to be my new go-to lap quilt so you can expect to see a photo in the near future of Her Majesty — Coco’s full name is Princess Cordelia — in slumber and/or repose.

Thank you all for continuing to follow me at First Light Designs! It cheers me so much to see your kind comments and spurs me to keep creating with fabric and posting about it.

All the best to you in 2025!

 

 

 

Posted in cats, family, update | 7 Comments

“What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”

by Dawn Posted on December 31, 2024

Do you know that lovely song written in 1947 by Frank Loesser? If not, you owe it to yourself to listen to the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald’s lush rendition. You can do that right here. This New Year’s Eve I’ll be putting the finishing touches on my final quilt finish of the year, Wonderful World. It will be the subject of my first post of 2025.

In the meantime, here are a few images of our decorating at the Portland White House to keep the holiday vibe going. I love seeing the elaborate decorations some of my fellow quilters have posted on their blogs and Instagram pages, especially because my decorating seems to get more minimal every year. We do keep our decorations up until Twelfth Night (January 5 in 2025) so we have a few more days to enjoy them.

I bought this lovely wreath at Trader Joe’s in early December and added the clusters of red bells:

We had the exterior of our house painted this year. The door and mailbox were painted a lovely shade of green. The lights you see reflected in the door and windows are icicle lights on the curved arch on the front porch. From the sidewalk you can see our tiny tree and my little round quilt, Holliberry Circle:

Here’s a closer look:

From her perch a very relaxed Coco has a view out the front door:

My other Christmas quilt, ‘Tis the Season, is currently on rotation on the sofa:

The Dear Husband and I wish you all a safe and Happy New Year. I’ll be back in 2025!

 

 

 

 

Posted in cats, family, home dec, Quatrefoil, Ribbon Box quilt, update, wall hanging, wonky Dresden neighborhood | 5 Comments

Wonderful World, Quilted

by Dawn Posted on December 24, 2024

It’s always a pleasure to show you one of my quilts after it comes back from the longarm quilter. Once again Karlee at SewInspired2Day has worked her magic. Here’s a look at my latest quilt, Wonderful World, trimmed and ready to bind:

You probably already know that this quilt is based on the free pattern Ribbon Box by Cloud 9 Fabrics. It’s my third version of the pattern.

How about a close-up of the quilting? Happy to oblige:

I was searching for a quilt design that was lighthearted and loopy, capturing the feeling of clouds since the text print features images of nature — including “clouds of white” — in the lyrics to the song “What A Wonderful World.” I came across a quilt motif by Anne Bright Designs and knew it would be perfect for this quilt. Ironically the name of her design is “Storm Cloud” but in my view there’s nothing stormy about it.

I always ask Karlee to extend the quilting a bit beyond the edges of my quilt top:

Why? For one thing it makes it easier to apply the binding because the outer edges are anchored by the stitching. It also gives me the option of making a wider binding if I choose. For example, I could trim the quilt 1/4″ beyond the edge of the back to make a 1/2″ wide binding.

A couple more close-ups, first of the front . . .

. . . and then of the back:

You can’t see much of the quilting in this full photo of the back but trust me when I say that it looks terrific:

Likewise, you can’t see much of the quilting in the next photo but it does show you the resident feline staking her claim:

With my binding strips already cut and sewn together, my plan is to get the binding and label done in the next few days so I can claim a final finish for 2024.

 

 

 

Posted in cats, Ribbon Box quilt, update | 4 Comments

It’s a Wrap: Beribboned

by Dawn Posted on October 27, 2024

Beribboned is complete — and I am so happy with it!

I finished tacking down the binding yesterday and added a label to the simply pieced back:

A close-up of the label:

(I took a lot of photos while making the label so I can show you in a future post how I made my trademark round label and added a ring around it.)

When I make a label with an outer ring, I sometimes stitch in the ditch around the seam if the quilting motif suggests it might not be too obvious on the front. In the next photo you can see the circle on the front . . .

. . . but I know it will totally blend into the overall quilting when the quilt is laundered.

You can probably tell all of the above shots were taken indoors. It’s rainy in Portland today but there was a break in the clouds and even a spot of sun so my visiting twin sister Diane and I quickly headed to the back yard for a photo op in good light:

If you look in the lower left corner of the quilt you can probably see the circle where I stitched the label on the back — but I’m guessing you wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t pointed it out.

Beribboned is based on a free pattern called Ribbon Box from Cloud 9 Fabrics. I knew it was the perfect pattern to display three fabrics from Mo Bedell’s “Party Dress” line for Blue Hill, fabrics that have been in my stash for close to 15 years. The other five fabrics in the ribbons were also from my stash, as was the background and binding fabric.

Right now Beribboned measures 51″ x 65″ but it will shrink a bit after going through the washer and dryer, which is where it’s headed shortly.

Did I mention that Beribboned was inspected by Coco, who also likes it very much?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in cats, family, Ribbon Box quilt, update | 6 Comments

Cheddar and Indigo and . . . Calico?

by Dawn Posted on May 22, 2024

There you have it: 42 cornerstones attached to my Floating Squares quilt top:

I’m loving the look but what a pain it was getting those seams lined up. I daresay it will be a while before I opt for 1″ square cornerstones again.

One more thing to do: add borders! Here is my finished quilt top:

Right now the top measures 63½” x 73½” — a good size for a lap quilt. I can envision napping under it. Coco is apparently ready to nap on top of it:

 

 

 

Posted in cats, cheddar and indigo, economy block, floating squares, square-in-a-square, update | 7 Comments

No Contest

by Dawn Posted on April 21, 2024

My cherry blossom quilt is back from the longarm quilter and the quilting on it is oh so pretty! My thanks to Karlee of SewInspired2Day for another lovely job.

As soon as the quilt was trimmed, I spread it out to take some photos. Look who came along at just that very moment:

She was under the quilt just before this was taken:

How about a  close-up? No, not of Coco! Look at the loops and swirls dancing across the surface of the quilt. Doesn’t it make you think of cherry blossoms caught in a breeze? The very essence of spring, right?

The quilt design is called “Embellish” by Quilts Complete. Notice how it echoes the swirls in two of the four fabrics: the green tone-on-tone paisley and the bright pink fabric used in the first border:

I asked Karlee to quilt this with a very pale grey thread. My reasoning? White thread would show up too much on the green fabrics. I always want the quilting to provide subtle texture so I tend to choose thread colors that blend rather than stand out. For me the fabric is always the star.

Here’s a look at the back of the quilt, featuring two leftover blocks on point and one complacent cat:

What about the binding? I auditioned these three fabrics:

The top two are already in the quilt. The third is a stripe from the same line as the cherry blossom focus fabrics, namely “Orchard” by Jill Finley of Jillily Studio. She designs for Riley Blake Designs. Now I happen to like a striped binding. In fact, the only thing I like better than a striped binding is a bias striped binding. So I cut a bias strip and placed it along one edge to get a better sense of how it would look:

The verdict? No contest!

 

 

 

Posted in cats, cherry blossom quilt, update | 6 Comments

A Quilt for Coco

by Dawn Posted on February 25, 2024

Like most cats, my Princess Cordelia — known to most as Coco — is an expert napper. She has plenty of roosting spots around the house, including on our bed, on the couch, on the chair and ironing board in my sewing room, and wrapped around the Dear Husband’s head (I’m not kidding). Until very recently, the one place that was off limits to Coco was the guest room.

All that changed when my twin Diane came to visit in November and came down with Covid. I felt so sorry for Diane that I allowed Coco to keep her company. Coco quickly added the guest bed to her list of favorite spots to catnap. Although I love seeing cats on quilts (check out #catsonquilts on Instagram), I didn’t want Coco on the quilt in my guest room. She won’t let me trim her nails, and the last thing I want to see is claw marks marring the lovely canvases of my quilts.

I quickly put an old bath towel on the guest room bed, and Coco has been quite content to snooze on it:

Still, I thought it would be nice if she had her own quilt, so I whipped this up yesterday:

Of course it’s not a real quilt. It’s a flannel blanket made after consulting a few of the Self-Binding Baby Blanket tutorials abounding on the Internet. After completing the blanket, I stitched four straight lines in a starburst pattern in the interior to hold the two layers together because I wasn’t sure if the blanket would keep its shape after being laundered.

Here’s a shot of the blanket taken yesterday evening, in anticipation of a visit from Coco:

There was evidence this morning (an imprint of her plump body) that she had napped on the blanket sometime in the night.

Today Coco’s Quilt (which is how I keep thinking of it) went into the washer and dryer. I am happy to report that the little quilt kept its shape beautifully. As expected, it did shrink because I didn’t prewash the flannel fabrics beforehand. It finished at 30.5″ square before laundering and 29″ square after.

As I made the blanket, I made notes to myself on suggestions and instructions I would add if I were to make another one. I’ll write those up and offer them in a subsequent blog post. In the meantime, I’m waiting for Coco to curl up on her new quilt. It’s just a matter of time.

 

 

 

Posted in baby blanket, cats, family, self-binding baby blanket, update | 5 Comments

Accessorizing the Home

by Dawn Posted on January 17, 2024

I’ve been spending a wee bit of time in my sewing room over the last week. It could have been more but I had my nose in a book. A big book:  715 pages, to be exact. It’s Abraham Verghese’s bestselling novel The Covenant of Water. I actually bought it last summer but was reluctant to begin such a lengthy tome until after my cataract surgeries in June and August. Reading is once again a great pleasure, and this freezing cold snap in the Pacific Northwest over the last several days presented an ideal opportunity to curl up with a good book with either a cat or a quilt (sometimes both) on my lap.

I did venture into my sewing room from time to time, working around the schedules of the workmen repairing the walls and ceiling in the upstairs hallway following water damage from a rain storm. The hallway now looks brand new — a touch of irony in a house that’s 111 years old — but the texture on the walls beautfully mimics the original lath and plaster so you’ll hear no complaints from me. All the hallway needs now is a coat of primer and two coats of color.

I’ve been working on some small things:

This is a quilter’s tool caddy, using the pattern Travel Case by Pearl Pereira of P3 Designs. I’ve made several versions over the years, modifying the design in a few ways but most importantly by adding a fourth pocket so the caddy holds more:

The tool caddy is one of four accessories to go with my current Junior Billie Bag-in-progress. I’ll finish it soon along with three other accessories that go with it — a rotary cutter coat, a scissors case, and a fabric box that I use as a threadcatcher. I’m so enjoying the fabrics — most of them from the Gingham Foundry line by Riley Blake that came out in 2021.

You may remember I used the same fabric last October in a pair of pillowcases made for the Portland White House. I just finished a second pair for my twin Diane, who arrives on Saturday for a two-week visit. Ordinarily she would be surprised by seeing them wrapped up with a ribbon in the guest bedroom but she reads my blog so as soon as she sees this post she’ll know they await.

I couldn’t resist fussycutting the text print on the band so that the refrain “I think to myself what a wonderful world” appears on the top and bottom lines of the band:

A bit obessive-compulsive? Umm, yes.

I also made myself a new oven mitt (from my own tutorial) but got two in the bargain:

I had cut out the fabric and batting weeks ago for the mitt on the right; the materials were stacked in my sewing room closet just waiting for me. I can’t remember why I got out the tub that my oven mitt supplies are stored in but when I did I was surprised to find there was a mitt inside that was almost finished! All I needed to do was tack the red band down and turn the mitt right side out. I adore that tomato print and thought I had used the last of it. Now I well and truly have.

So much for accessories. What about quilts? Well, I have two quilts I started last year that I really need to finish but I’m already dreaming about starting a new one. . .

 

 

 

Posted in Billie Bag, cats, family, home dec, Junior Billie Bag, oven mitts, pillowcases, roll-it-up pillowcases, rotary cutter case, sewing tool caddy, tote bags, tutorial, update | 4 Comments

It’s Summer Somewhere . . .

by Dawn Posted on January 11, 2024

Happy New Year, friends! The weather forecast in Portland, Oregon calls for “frozen mix” on six of the next 10 days, with temperatures heading down to 15 degrees Fahrenheit. That is very unusual for Portland. The residents of the Portland White House, including Coco the cat, are hunkering down.

As we all know, “It’s five o’clock somewhere.” And it’s also summer somewhere — the Southern Hemisphere, to be precise. I’m trying to bring a bit of summer into our home during these dark winter days by hanging my quilt Hip Hop in the master bathroom:

Hip Hop is made of a delightful aboriginal focus fabric highlighting five playful kangaroos. I made this quilt in 2018 from my own pattern Full Moon Rising, which features inset circles. It measures 16″ x 59″ and works well as a wall hanging or table runner. Click here to see close-ups of a couple of blocks taken in better light.

It’s hard to believe that we’re almost two weeks into the New Year and I’ve not sewn a single stitch. Sad but true! What I have done is edit the contents of my sewing room following the December wind and rainstorm that resulted, at great inconvenience, in a beautiful new ceiling:

Most of the contents of the room had to be moved out temporarily, and it gave me pause to consider how much stuff I had crammed into it over the years. What a great opportunity to downsize! Case in point:  I had more than a dozen vintage spooners and celery vases filled with buttons on top of my sewing cabinet. I replaced them with three bandboxes filled with sewing notions:

The bandboxes, covered with vintage wallpaper, were purchased years ago at an antique mall in Atlanta while visiting my sister. They used to be on the floor next to the cabinet. I guess you could say they have risen in stature, ha ha! The buttons (which, to be honest, gathered layers of dust in those spooners) are now housed in two very large jars in my sewing room closet.

I have been going through the contents of the cabinet, pulling out fabrics I am no longer in love with and can happily donate. (Please don’t tell anyone this represents only a small portion of my stash.)

The other thing I did is cover the glass doors on the right side of the cabinet with blackout film to block the light coming in from the windows right next to them. This prevents the fabrics from developing fade lines from the light. Prior to that I had hung an old table runner over that side of the cabinet, anchoring it with those vintage spooners. It wasn’t a great look, and every time I took a photo for my blog that included the cabinet I would flip the table runner on top of the cabinet to get it out of the way. This is a much better solution.

I am really enjoying the cleaner look of my sewing room. Once everything is in its proper place, I may be inspired to give you a little tour of my precious sewing space. It won’t happen immediately, though. Now that the bathroom and sewing room ceilings have been repaired, the crew is tackling the damage to the walls and ceiling of the hallway. As Yogi Berra so eloquently put it, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

 

 

 

Posted in cats, home dec, table runner, update | 5 Comments

“She Sells Seashells by the Seashore”

by Dawn Posted on December 28, 2023

I’ll bet every grownup in the English-speaking world learned that tongue twister as a kid. It popped into my head today as I was finishing up the second of two valances for my stepmother Shirley’s master bathroom. Both valances were made using a small scale seashell print from the “Cotton Beach Collection” by Tilda Fabrics. This is the larger of the two valances, gathered on a spring tension rod the width of the larger window, 29¼”:

(Notice the sleeping cat on the couch behind me? That’s Coco, enjoying her afternoon nap.)

This is the smaller valance made to fit a window that’s only 13¼” wide:

They are the first two things I’ve sewn since moving back into my sewing room after having the ceiling replaced following the wind and rainstorm of Dec. 1 that damaged several rooms in our house. I wrote about that here.

Behold my pretty new ceiling:

I popped the valances in the mail today; with luck they should arrive at Shirley’s home in Bend by Saturday. Making the valances was a simple project but very satisfying. And I must say it feels good to be back in my happy place!

 

 

 

Posted in cats, family, update, valance | 4 Comments