Operation Fall Pet Blanket: Complete

So finally, after months of delays and deliberations, I finished the fall pet blanket for the sofa. Of course, Thanksgiving weekend it’ll be switched over to a Christmas one.

After the leaves were raked and the vegetable gardens emptied and then filled with some mulched leaves to decompose over the winter, I finally had some time to work on the pet blanket I’ve been wanting to complete for some time now. Of course, it probably would’ve gone by quicker had I done a little planning or made sure that the polar fleece I had decided upon was large enough or, I don’t know, maybe had a filler fabric I liked. What instead happened was while I was rummaging around my stashes which are all kept in environmentally unfriendly plastic bags under a couple card tables in my craft room, I came upon one of my 2006 finds I purchased while redoing the craft room and our bedroom. It never got used, and it was only $2 a yard, so I got five or six yards of the stuff. As it turned out, the colors played well, giving just enough contrast with the Gobble Gobble fabrics while not being overpowering. I’m actually well pleased with the results, and definitely more so than I would’ve been had I gone with my original idea of using tea stained muslin, which, by the way I love, just wasn’t thrilled about using it on this project.

Utilizing the same technique I had come up with on the first pet blankets, I measured the sofa to get an idea of how large this one should be to cover the entire seat area, which ended up being 72x32 inches. Basically it’s half a full-sized quilt. Not bad for a Charm pack and a yard of fabric. For the polar fleece I used on the back, it was leftover from a puppet project I had done earlier this year, and in order to make it large enough I had to do some piecing. Fortunately I had just enough of it with only a couple small few inch sections remaining. Yeah, sometimes I cut just a little too close! And that reminds me, I need to take that puppet to church for an announcement I’m making today!

The best part was that it felt great to sew again and I can’t wait to start the fall quilt after my partner’s dad and step-mom leave this afternoon. I figure even if all I do is get the four feature panels done that is one less thing to work on for it. Of course, with the way the cutting for the quilt blocks is, I could easily get it all out of the way so that when I have a few minutes here and there I could simply piece together a block at a time, or since I’m a chain-stitcher, a portion of the blocks at a time. Now, if only I could motivate myself to vacuum and do the dishes before they get here?