Category Archives: hand piecing

More Diamonds

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I have been cleaning out binders and opening up baggies. I found all these wonderful diamonds from Quilted Diamonds 1 and 2 I made using shabby chic fabrics and am now deciding just what to do with them. At the moment, I’m leaning towards using the 50+ diamonds in the centre of a quilt, a first border of little stars made with the same sort of fabrics and then a final border utilizing hexagons of the same fabrics. I have a feeling this will get done rather quickly as I absolutely love these fabrics!

There are in excess of 200 diamonds that I found in a variety of fabrics/colourways. I’ve sorted them out and, unless I can make them play together nicely, have the makings of a few quilts there!

More Black and White

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There are now a couple of these done and two more sets of four ready to put together. But I’m needing a colour fix so have gone back to working on the ’30s Inklingo pinwheels. I’m not sure why, but the white on white prints are photographing as very stark white. The WOW prints are not quite this stark!

These little star blocks go together really quickly. It’s really fun seeing a little rectangle finished but I definitely need colour to work with too. Good thing I’ve got a couple of projects on the go.

We had sun today. It was wonderful. Now they’re saying there’s another storm on the way that’s likely to hit us Tuesday. More snow!

A Black and White Beginning

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This is the beginning of my black and white quilt. I’m quite pleased with the negative/positive effect it’s creating.

This will consist of star rectangle blocks made with .75″, 1″ and 1.5″ diamonds and the appropriate setting bits and some solid black sashing. It will be a very long-term hand piecing project, which is just what I love! Thanks to Inklingo, it’s so easy to make these little blocks — just print, cut and stitch!

I think I may be quite mad — working on a black and white blocks in Toronto in March?!? The city is grey and dismal enough! Ah, well — there are always the ’30s tessellating pinwheels when I crave colour!

I had only printed enough to test out the effect and make sure I liked it. I do — and today I will be printing lots more of the pieces for the tiny stars. I cut the fabric to the right sizes for printing last night, so it’s just a matter of cutting the freezer paper, ironing it to the fabric and feeding it through the printer today.

We were lucky on the weekend and had tons of rain, which got rid of a lot of the snow. There’s still quite a bit out there but the towering snowbanks at the side of roads are definitely much reduced. As I type this, there are snowflakes drifting by the window. I hope this doesn’t amount to much — as of right now, we can see the grass on the roof garden again.

More Circles — and more snow

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There are at least 70 or 80 of these circles done. I’m not sure at all what I’ll do with these ones — I keep thinking that some sort of table runner and matching placemats might be fun. And it would be a Christmas gift that I could get put together now and tuck away! One thing’s for sure — whatever I’m making to give away this Christmas is going to be done early.

It is snowing yet again — I cannot believe the amount of snow we’re getting this year.

I’ve been working on the tessellating pinwheels and the 2″ Drunkard’s Path tops — but as I’m hand piecing, they are taking a while and really don’t have too much to show — yet! I’ll be taking a few days off form any piecing as I tack down the binding on the king-sized shabby chic quilt seen here. Finally. I really don’t know why I’ve left it so long because I actually enjoy that part.

Another Winter Storm and Tessellating Pinwheels

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This was our view out the living room window around mid-afternoon. It began snowing around 5:00 a.m. on Friday morning and didn’t stop all day or evening. The picture seems a little blurry because it was still snowing. Thankfully we didn’t get the freezing rain or ice pellets that the forecast suggested we might — just snow and more snow. I think we have in excess of 10″ of it!

To add some colour to the day, I worked on this:

I’m not sure how large this will end up — but I’m having a lot of fun making these ’30s pinwheels and putting them together. They are composed of 1″ half hexagons from Inklingo collection 1. I have a little box full of the half hexagons already printed so there is no rhyme or reason to fabric placement on this at all — I just add another as it’s pieced. I love designs like this — so easy to work with and so amazingly simple.

Why did I start quilting?

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Over on Krisp-Quilt , the question is being asked. It really made me think.

From childhood, I was a knitter. I loved to knit and rarely was without a project on the go. I made lace tablecloths, lace scarves, big fishermen’s knit sweaters and everything in between. Then about 12 years ago, aggressive arthritis struck and I had to give it up. I was lost without a craft.

My cousin is a quilter and I had always been intrigued but figured there wasn’t a chance I could do that. After all, when I needed to sew on a button it became a very big deal! I had never used a sewing machine. It all seemed too foreign. The funny thing is I remember being in a big bookstore here, looking at one of the Elly Sienkiewicz Baltimore Album applique books and being absolutely enthralled. That was years before I even began to contemplate quilting. Little did I know!

However, desperation took hold and I took the plunge. One rainy Saturday afternoon DH and I were out doing errands on the same street as the LQS and we stopped there. I bought some supplies; a book, a rotary cutter, a mat, needles and thread and, of course, fabric. That evening I went through the exercise of washing and ironing my fabric, making templates, tracing them on to my fabric, cutting it out and started to stitch. My first block? Oh, it was dreadful. But I was hooked.

The following week saw me haunting bookstores and another LQS. I read and read and read some more. Then I started on a star quilt. It is truly dreadful — but I still love the fabrics I used in it. It never got quilted. Even as a total novice I could see it was dreadfully constructed! If nothing else, I’m sure the kitties will love it. LOL

I can’t even imagine what I was thinking now. When I look at this and see the great gaping holes in the middle of those stars, I shudder. I actually tried to fix a couple of them last night — unsuccessfully.

Since then? Well, since then I’ve learned tons and tons. I tend to learn best from books and at my own pace. I have some wonderful books in my quilt library but must say that my most treasured book and the one from which I think I learned the most is Linda Franz’ Quilted Diamonds 2. The DVD lesson that comes with that book is worth its weight in gold, in my opinion.

I have never been comfortable with machine piecing although I am fortunate enough to have two great sewing machines; my mother’s Featherweight and an older Pfaff Creative that is wonderful. Perhaps because I sit at a computer all day for work I find sitting at any type of machine for anything else seems altogether too much like work. But I found my niche! Hand piecing and, when I can, hand applique and hand quilting. And this past year I even started to do some hybrid blocks — utilizing both machine and hand piecing. I don’t know if I’ll ever be completely comfortable with machine stitching, but this is a step I never thought I’d take.

While my wrists are certainly not better, I count my blessings — I can hand piece even at the worst of times. During good times, I can applique and hand quilt (using the Thimblelady technique and thimble). I am very fortunate and know it. Tracing templates and rotary cutting were both things that I knew were going to be problems for me a few years ago. So when Inklingo came on the market, I was thrilled. Thanks to it, I can keep on quilting and have been able to make a wonderful king-sized quilt for us — I had seen the pattern for the quilt in an older issue of Australian Patchwork & Quilting and had always wanted to do it but knew there was no way I could trace the templates on to fabric or paper for English paper piecing. The day I got my copy of Inklingo Collection 1 I started printing the hexagons and elongated hexagons for that quilt. And that is the reason I talk about Inklingo so much — it has meant I didn’t have to give up quilting as it was becoming apparent, the summer before it came out, that my quilting days were numbered.

I am amazed at and thrilled by the creativity of quilters and their beautiful creations. Wandering about quilting blogs is almost sensory overload some days. There are so many gorgeous quilts being made with so many techniques and so many wonderful fabrics that I’m constantly wanting to try something else.

Another Idea

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One of the other swaps on the Inklingo list last year was of diamonds to make little 6-point stars. I think I have about 200 of these little stars made and have been playing with different setting ideas. The more I look at this one, the more I like it. It’s made up of Inklingo 1″ diamonds for the stars and the setting diamonds and 2″ hexagons.

I have some other ideas, but think I like this the best — the open space in that 2″ hexagon would be great for some pretty quilting.

First project for 2008

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There were a few swaps on the Inklingo list in 2007. One of those swaps was of one-inch squares. Now that the Christmas rush is over, I want to do some hand piecing and wanted to do something with those one-inch squares.


A 25-patch centre seemed like a start. Then I decided to turn them into 10″ star blocks using the flying geese method in Inklingo.

The stars will be scrappy, although each will be made using striped fabric. Why stripes? It seemed like a fun idea.

For each star, I need 8 HST’s, one 6.25″ square of the neutral and 4 3″ squares of the same neutral.
Lining up four of the printed HST’s on the large square, two lines are sewn — one on each side of the centre line.

Once sewn, cut along the centre line and press.

Line up two more of the HST’s on the remaining corner and sew on both sides of the centre line.

Cut apart on the centre line and press and you have the perfect star point unit — actually four perfect flying geese from one large square of neutral and 8 HST’s.



No cutting fabric with specialty rulers, no fussing trying to deal with stretchy bias edges. Just perfect units each time.

For me, it’s great. I love hand piecing, so will hand piece the 25-patch centres and put the blocks together by hand once I’ve made the flying geese units on the machine. This is nice relaxing work after the Christmas table runner assembly line I seemed to have been on! 🙂

Seven Sisters Table Runner Progress and A LIght Bulb Moment

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It’s halfway done now and is going together so easily, thanks to Inklingo. I’m using 1.5″ diamonds and triangles from Collection 3. At this point, it’s almost 26 inches long. The next two blocks will be more shades of green/turquoise that all go together quite nicely. I actually have the third block almost finished and ready to attach to this so hopefully by the end of next week that will be the third of the four Christmas gifts finished as far as piecing goes.

The light bulb moment? Well, I’ve been studying my Christmas Star block and realized that I could — and I’m going to — use the sewing machine to piece the units such as the HST’s, QST’s and flying geese and then put the units together into rows and rows together into the block by hand. This will, I’m sure, make a block that I’m much happier with. I just can’t get over the bulky intersections one gets when using the machine!! But I’m thrilled with how fast I can make the units by machine.

I will definitely get the best of both worlds. Thanks to Inklingo, I have the seam lines already printed on my patches so don’t have to worry about that. I’m really quite excited about this as I can see having these blocks done relatively quickly. My plan is to do 30 blocks, 15 with green centres and 15 with the red centres. While the quilt may not be done for this Christmas, I will be working on it over the Christmas season — and that’s fun! This weekend I plan to get at least one block done with the green centre and one with the red centre. I can’t wait to see how they go together!

Tiny Stars

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I made this the other day with the 3/4-inch diamonds and other bits using collection 3 of Inklingo. It was a test piece for me — I wanted to see just how much fun it was to put these little stars together. It was fabulous. They go together so perfectly and quickly. Uh oh — now I’m thinking that I’ll use a bunch of hand dyes and batiks and make a lap quilt using them set in these little rectangles with plain rectangles for the alternate blocks! The finished little star rectangles will each measure 2.5″ by 2.25″. Guess it’s going to take a lot of blocks to make a lap quilt, but they go together so fast that I think I can have the top done by spring.

Tomorrow I’m off to our Creativ Festival. I can’t wait! My shopping list is ready — although I think it should be called more properly a wish list. However, there are a few items that I am determined to find!