How-To Tuesday

How to Make a 'Nip Sack

Start with a piece of fabric. It has to be a "long rectangle" or the size of two squares sitting next to each other. This one is 3-1/2" by 7"
Fold in half so it makes a square, right sides together. Sew the side opposite the fold, using at least a 1/4" seam.
Line up the seam with the fold, like in the picture. Now sew across one of the other ends.
Turn the sack inside out. A chopstick is good for getting the corners turned out correctly. Don't push too hard or you might poke a hole in the corner!
Fill with 'Nip. Mom uses "Cosmic Catnip." As you can see, I am supervising and testing the Nip. Somecat has to do it.
When the sack is good and full of nip, bring the raw edges together so the sack is shaped like a pyramid. This seam will be perpendicular to the one on the bottom.
Turn the raw edges in, and pin.
Sew the pinned edge shut. Trim threads, remove pins.
Ta-da! One nifty pyramid shaped 'Nip Sack. Ready for one Secret Paw, which will be on its way to a very special cat by the time you are reading this.
Clean the mess made by one nipped-out cat.HEY! I resemble that remark!

How to Make a Kitty Quilt - Step 11 - Finishing!

(This is the last step in the series of blogs about making a kitty quilt. At the bottom of this blog there is some news. As always, you can click the pictures to biggify.)

Adding the binding is the last step to making a kitty quilt. It covers the edges, and if done well, really adds a nice finish.

For a kitty quilt, Mom cuts 3 2-inch wide strips, selvage-to-selvage, and joins them at a 45-degree angle to make one long strip.

Mom has a nifty tool to fold the binding, so she runs it through this little tool and presses it as it comes out.

She opens up the binding strip she has made, and lines it up against the edge of the quilt and sews. She stops a bit before the corner, so she can miter the corner later.
Here she's turned the corner and folded up the binding so it will be a nice mitered corner on the front.
When she gets back to the side where she started, she joins the two edges in a 45-degree seam, so it won't be bulky when it gets turned over. Also, this way you can't tell where she started and where she finished.


This is where the start and finish joined together.
She turns the quilt over and folds the binding to the front, so it covers the sewing machine stitches, and pins it in place.

At the corner, she folds it up special so it looks really nice. A "mitered" corner. Oops, this picture is out of focus...

Then Mom sews the binding to the quilt, following the edge of the binding. When she gets all the way around, she cuts the threads and takes out all the pins.

Then she does her QA check - she makes sure she has removed all the pins and cut all the threads. She shakes the quilt to get any dust and kitty fur off (ha ha) and takes a picture of the quilt.

The End.

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Mom has finished all the kitty quilts she's going to make for a while. She has a big project she will be working on during June and some of July, and when she's finished that, she'll start making kitty quilts again. Mom says she's not gonna post any more about the Gizzy quilts until she's done this big project.

(psst... the project has to do with...)

Millie! The project is a -secret- you're not supposed to say anything about it.

All right, all right. Mom says she will post about two more quilts. She is gonna make one for Jasmine, and she says Danica Patrick was her inspiration. I so totally don't get this, but you might.

Mom is also gonna make a quilt to auction to benefit some kitty. This would be a very special quilt, and a bit different from all the rest. She has been wanting to do this for some time but has been so Bizzy for Gizzy she just couldn't.


(the project is Chri...)

Millie!

How to Make a Kitty Quilt - Step 10

Mom machine quilts the kitty quilts by sewing a line of stitches between each of the four rows of blocks. She sews very close the the edge of one row. It is called "stitching in the ditch." It's tricky, and sometimes the rows of stitches wobble a bit, but most of the time it is almost invisible.
Mom uses grey thread for sewing the blocks together, and even the quilting. She says it's such a neutral, it fades into the background of any color.


It took Mom many quilts to figure out how to do the quilting without the quilt backing fabric rippling. Originally she tried to sew all three rows one after the other. But finally she figured out doing the middle row first, then smoothing out the top and backing, pinning in place, and then sewing the next quilting row eliminated the rippling. Notice in the picture there are lots of pins on each side of the row of quilting.

Ok, the really observant cat will notice that on this pink quilt above, Mom is using pink thread. I don't know what got into her, except that it's my quilt (finally)

After the quilting is complete, you get to smooth it all out (again), take out the pins and trim the backing and any fleece sticking out beyond the top of the quilt.

The last step, adding the binding, will come real soon!

(you can click the pictures to biggify)

How to Make a Kitty Quilt - Step 9

Once you have your kitty quilt top made, you have to make a kitty quilt sandwich. (Don't worry, it's not made from real kitties.)

Iron the kitty quilt top so it is nice and flat and doesn't have any wrinkles, then lay it out on a worktable, wrong side up.
Mom uses nice, soft warm fleece for the middle of the kitty quilt sandwich. She gets light gray colored fleece because she doesn't want it showing through light colored fabrics. Cut the fleece just a little bigger than the kitty quilt. Mom uses a big square of cardboard as a template, as seen here. She draws around it in pencil, then cuts on the line.

Place the fleece middle on top of the kitty quilt, making sure the kitty quilt is completely covered by the fleece all around.

Now you have to iron the fabric that will be the back of the kitty quilt.

When the backing fabric is all nice and flat, place it on top the the kitty quilt top and filling, making sure the filling is covered on all sides. Holding all layers together in each corner, flip the kitty quilt sandwich over, so the top faces up.

Flatten out any wrinkles or bumpy areas, and pin the layers together, placing pins about 6" apart.

Trim the excess fabric around all 4 sides, cutting the backing about 1/2 " larger than the kitty quilt.
Next step -- quilting your kitty quilt!

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Could you make a doggie quilt?

Sure!
Just make a quilt big enough for your dog.

How to Make a Kitty Quilt - Step 8

You've got all your blocks made. You've played with them on the floor so you've got them the way you want them. Now you just have to sew them all together. That's easy.

First, you pin the pieces together to make a row, then you sew them, and press the seams to one side.
Then you pin the rows together, and sew them.
Next you have to iron the seam to one side.
Like this:
Then you pin the two big pieces together, then sew.
And then (of course) you iron the seam, pressing it to one side.
So you now have a finished kitty quilt top. Here is one Mom just made. Isn't it wild? This one will soon be flying across the entire USA and then across the North and South Pacific Oceans all they way to New Zealand, where it is going to be Diesel's quilt.

Oh, so you want to know how to sew the pieces together so they don't get mixed up from the way you wanted them to be? Gotta wait until the next kitty quilt How-To lesson!

How to Make a Kitty Quilt - Step 7

You've got your pieces, now you have some fun. Start putting them together. For a kitty quilt, you need 4 rows of 4. So you start laying them out and moving them around until you like the way it looks.
It could look like this:
or this:

Mom says you want to avoid making "blobs" or areas that are too dark, or too much one color. You'll know. After that, you make your own rules. Mom likes to move your eye around, and connect the colors or patterns somehow. She doesn't like to have too many light areas near the edges, she says it looks like the quilt has a hole in it. But there aren't any rules. You decide. The same 16 pieces could make several different quilts, all good looking. It's up to you.

Mom is gonna launch two boxes of kitty quilts tomorrow. One box of flying quilts is going to Whiskeronsin. Another is going to Connecticat, but that's so close to New Hampster, I bet those quilts are gonna ride in a big truck.


And to Karen Jo, who wondered....
YES! I am VERY GOOD at scrambling up the pieces Mom has set out on the floor. She takes pictures of them, though, so she can put them together the way she wants. But even then she sometimes goofs. Heh.

How to Make a Kitty Quilt - Step 6

You have your strips cut into "chunks." Now you will make 6" blocks by putting a little one and a medium one together. Or you can put three little ones together. How do you know which to put together? You guess, and you play and you experiment. Make a whole stack of these. They are like building blocks. Have some fun.

Sew them together, using a 1/4" seam.


And then, of course, you iron them, pressing the seam to one side. You don't need a picture of that, do you?

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Sewing Tip of the Day

Keep your sewing scissors sharp and only use them for cutting fabric. Using them to cut paper or cardboard or anything else will dull them. In fact, cutting fleece is very bad for them. (Did you know that fleece is made from recycled plastic bottles?) Avoid dropping them. This could cause a nick in the blade, which is bad. The only way to fix a nick in the blade is to have them professionally sharpened. Most fabric shops offer a sharpening service. Get a good pair of sewing scissors. Mom has had hers over twenty years. Cheap scissors don't work as well, are difficult or uncomfortable to use, and don't hold a sharp edge.

How to Make a Kitty Quilt - Step 5

Now that you have all those long pairs of strips, you cut them into smaller pieces. Since the kitty quilts are 24" square, Mom wants blocks 6" x 6" so she can use 16 of them in 4 rows of 4 to make the quilts. She cuts each strip into 3 of each of these sizes: 2-1/2"; 4-1/2" and 6-1/2".

She does this to all the strips she has sewn. She ends up with big stacks of chunks, like these.

Many strips have to be trimmed at one end so they are straight, so there are lots of leftover little pieces that aren't good for anything. She tosses these in a basket. For me.

How to Make a Kitty Quilt - Step 4

Now that the strips are all sewn together, you have to iron them. Mom presses the skinny side over like this.
There's a lot of ironing.

How to Make a Kitty Quilt - Step 3

Once the strips are cut, you sew them together. Mom sews a skinny one to a fat one to make pairs. But first she has to decide which to sew together. So she sets the two piles of strips next to each other and plays around with various combinations.
When she's got them paired off and she's happy with them, she starts sewing. She uses a 1/4" seam and some neutral colored thread (that way she doesn't have to change it for different colored fabrics.) She sews them all together, and ends up with a big chain of them like this, on the floor underneath the sewing machine.

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Sewing Tip of the Day

Take good care of your sewing machine. Keep the bobbin area inside free of dust, and oil it regularly. If the needle hits a pin, replace the needle. Everybody always asks what kind of sewing machine Mom has. She just has a regular one that came from Sears 30 years ago.