In My Neighborhood

I've been sewing along with the row by row monthly quilt along at Quilter Chic.  I did complete rows one and four, which you can see here.  Row 5 is a fence with quilts hung on it...lots of little pieces! It's been very slow progress but I have just two half blocks to go on it.  Row 6 is another fence which I haven't even started yet.  Finishing those two rows is my to do list for this week!

 Row 7 came out this past Saturday...houses at the seaside...fun to do and a very nice break from little bitty fence pieces!

Each row is 48" long and won't fit into a single camera shot...this is the best I could get.

Rows 2 and 3 haven't been started yet and I've decided not to do them.  Very nice rows but they just didn't fit into what I wanted.  I finally decided  that it's called In MY Neighborhood so I'm replacing them with my own rows.  This is my cat, Licorice, chasing birds.  She doesn't catch them...just likes to scatter them!

I got out my graph paper and started in.  The birds were fairly easy.  I based them on a free foundation pieced design...seen here, that I bookmarked several years ago.  I drew the cat, carefully counted all the squares to make sure that the size was right, added seam allowances to all pieces and double checked to make sure that the design was sewable without Y seams and made a list of all the pieces needed.  Halfway through the sewing, I realized that the cat was coming out way to large!  I made some adjustments such as changing the bow to a collar and taking a curve out of the tail and hind leg and the final version does fit the size I needed.  I've gone over my pattern several times since and I still can't find where I went wrong.  I now have a whole new respect for pattern designers!

Linking with Moving Forward Monday and Monday Making