Pillow in Progress and a Cat Applique?

It's late Tuesday night (technically early Wednesday), and I've spent the larger part of the day playing with fabric! I'm iced in the house, and with work canceled today, there was really nothing to do but sew and watch Cupcake Wars. Here's my work in progress:

I had the idea to make a pillow in a wonky stacked books design, and also wanted to play with a cat applique. I used Hello Betty and linen for the patchwork and adapted Anna Maria Horner's circle applique tutorial when making the cat. These are still rough because they are not stitched, just ironed.

My books are wonky because I did not measure anything. Just cut and stitch. I like the look in small bits, but wouldn't want to do a whole quilt with this method, because it can seem pretty haphazard.

These are some color combos I've been playing with. Not sure if the books and the cat design will make it on the same pillow, though. The green and brown fat quarters are from my local quilt shop, and I used a tiny bit of Flea Market Fancy I scored up in the Heather Ross Studio Sale last fall.

Possible pillow front and back?

Overall, I don't know what I'm going to do with this project, but it was fun to learn the foil technique for making appliques (this works great!) and also nice to dig into my fabric stash with no real agenda.

I've also been knitting a scarf, just to get back into the habit after about 3 years of no crafts but sewing! Yep, it was pretty much like riding a bike. But I'm still convinced that knitting or crochet will be a side hobby and not my main squeeze.

Tell me about your snowed-in day, if you were affected by the weather. I'm linking up to W.I.P. Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

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