Category Archives: hand piecing

Pickled Ladies Again

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After having stitched a number of the arcs together, it felt like time to add a few to the clamshells.  Putting the arcs together is a bit more challenging than adding the completed arcs to the clamshells.  As the curve is so gentle, it’s really quite easy piecing to add an arc.  Some evenings are meant for the easier stitching — and it’s easier to do when watching baseball.

Another 35 of the clamshells have been fussy cut/printed.  I’m amazed at just how fast the process is using a window template.  I had the 35 fabrics cut in next to no time and the printing took only minutes.   I think if you click on this photo to enlarge it you can see the clamshell printed on the back of the fabric with the flower in the centre.

Lester likes to drape his paws over the arm of the chair.  This is a typical Lester pose during the day sometimes.  We’re off to the vet with him this afternoon as it appears he has a cold.  He had this last year and a course of antibiotics cleared it right up, so I’m hoping that’s all it will take this time.

Smudge curled up and had a snooze on the couch.

Beginning of a New Project

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Last week’s list of priority projects clearly went out the window this weekend with this new project! The above is the beginning of a block that I can’t resist. It’s fairly quick to stitch, so I have some hope that I may have this first block done sometime tonight. I was going to use a muslin as the neutral but then remembered I had some Kona Bay cream, which is my favourite solid to use.  I still haven’t decided on a name for this one.

The back:

These blocks will grow quickly as they’re made using the 6-inch LeMoyne Star Inklingo collection.  Once I got the idea, I had  six pink and the cream fabrics printed within minutes with the diamonds needed.  A little while later, they were all cut out:

What is it about making these stars I find so irresistible?  No matter what else I’ve got going on, it seems I always need a star project of some sort on which to work. I have the centres of three more of the stars ready and waiting as well.

When I wrote the post on Friday about the making of Chintz Circles, it made me realize that it’s rather fun to have a post like that about a quilt.  Which, of course, meant I had to figure out a way to store my photos a bit differently.  So I am, as of now, starting to store photos about each specific project in their own folder as I think I’d like to do recap posts like the one on Chintz Circles every time I finish a project.  Although at the rate I’ve been starting and not finishing, the next one may be far off!

We’re definitely into fall weather.  Lots of leaves have fallen and, as it was a bit breezy on the weekend, they’ve been drifting past the window.  This is Smudge’s favourite time for watching out the window.  We got this shot of him on the weekend.

Lester seemed to be trying to make sure we didn’t change the channel when we had the baseball games on — notice the paw firmly planted on the remote control!

The Making of Chintz Circles

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As Chintz Circles is entered in this week’s contest at Quilting Gallery (and you can go vote here), I thought it might be sort of fun to look back at the process of making it. The picture above was taken almost immediately after I finished stitching down the binding but before it was washed.

But this is where it began back in late March of this year.  I used the Inklingo Orange Peel Deluxe collection to print all the Alabama Beauty shapes on the back of my fabrics, which makes a quilt like this so achievable!  No tracing of templates or worrying about matching points on curved seams — they were all there for me. Once I had determined I wanted to get that circle effect, I did have to be careful about my fabric placement.  When I got the first four blocks hand pieced by early April and saw the partial circles beginning to appear, I was thrilled.

By April 7,  2 complete circles had appeared.

By April 12, a total of 6 circles had appeared.

By April 21, 2010, there were 9 complete circles.

By April 26, a total of 12 circles had shown up.

Adding rows took a bit longer the larger it got, but by May 18 there were a total of 16 circles:

By the time the middle of June rolled around, it was up to 24 circles:

By June 21 a total of 30 circles had appeared, the hand piecing was completed and the top was finished.

Then the backing was found, the quilt was basted and the machine quilting began. By July 19, I had started tacking down the binding and the next day the picture shown at the top of this post was taken.

Then came the best part.  On August 1, 2010 the quilt was presented to my aunt on her 90th birthday.

Making Chintz Circles was a true labour of love and I owe thanks to Karen Dianne whose post inspired me to make the circles the predominant feature and to Linda Franz, the inventor of Inklingo, which I think is the best thing to happen in quilting since the rotary cutter and without which I doubt very much that I would have ever made Chintz Circles.

If you’ve stayed with me to the end of this post, please go to Quilting Gallery and vote!  You can vote here.

Chintz Circles — Please Vote!

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I entered Chintz Circles at Quilt Gallery’s weekly contest as this week the theme is scrappy.  There are some beautiful quilts in this week’s contest which you can view here — the same post where you can vote for your favourite.

The photo we took on the roof garden the day I finished Chintz Circles is found here and the post about it being given to my aunt on her 90th birthday is found here.

Smudge isn’t too interested.  He’d rather have a snooze as the grey chilly days of fall seem to be upon us.

Lester also seems to have found himself a nice cozy spot for a nap.

Recap of Projects on List

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It has been so long since I’ve worked on a few of these projects that I thought it might be a good idea to have a look at them again.  First up are a few of the 30 Pink Ice blocks.

Than a few of the 30 Patchwork of the Crosses blocks.

Looking at these first two pictures makes me realize how nice it would be to have a design wall!  I could lay out all 30 blocks for each quilt and photograph them. Reorganizing the living room is on the horizon, so perhaps a design wall can get incorporated into that reorganization.

Next up are a few of the harpsichord blocks.  While I had started putting them into the first row, I have quite a few more done but not added to a row yet.  That will be something that I think I’ll start doing every 10 or 12 blocks or so.

While only one Storm at Sea block is done, as shown below, I have the fabrics for my Stormy Seas quilt ready to print and have worked out how many of each shape I’ll need.  Perhaps this weekend I can get some of the printing done.

The Pickled Ladies, which have clearly captured my interest almost exclusively for the past month and a half.

Then the sunshine star clams which are almost twice the size of the Pickled Ladies blocks:

The final item on the list is the baby quilt, which is ready to quilt as soon as I find the right backing.  Who knew finding a wider flannel would be such an adventure?  I may end up making a pieced backing with some ’30s FQs for it.  No picture of it yet but as soon as it’s quilted there will be.

Every one of these quilts has been/is being made with Inklingo templates printed on my fabric.  It has made even complex patterns like the clamshell pickles simple.

Smudge looking angelic in lace.

And Lester curled up beside Mr. Q.O.’s desk chair.

Arcs for the Pickled Ladies

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This is what I’ve been doing on and off for the past few days, stitching the arcs together to make more of the Pickled Ladies blocks.  Thanks to continuous stitching, it is actually quite quick to put one of these together as I’m only knotting off and starting a new length of thread twice when making each one — once at the beginning and once about halfway through.  I’ve seemingly settled into a routine of getting 10 or 15 of these arcs stitched and pressed.  Then in a few hours I can have them stitched on to some of the fussy cut clamshells.  It’s sort of fun to see 10 or 15 completed blocks at once before I start on the next batch of arcs.

Over the long weekend I came to the conclusion that I’ve got too many things on the go and out where I can see them.  My plan is to settle on 5 or 6 projects and keep them out but the others are going to be put away for now.  Orphan blocks may get turned into stitching books or perhaps pillows or perhaps they’ll just remain orphan blocks for a while longer.  While I’ve not completely decided, I think the ones that are going to the top of the to-do list are, in no particular order:

  1. setting the Pink Ice blocks into and putting the quilt top together
  2. finishing the Lucy Boston blocks and getting that top set together
  3. working on the Pickled Ladies and sunshine star clamshell pickles
  4. making more of the Harpsichord quilt blocks
  5. working on the Stormy Seas blocks
  6. quilt the baby quilt

I may add one more to that list but this weekend I plan to move things around, put things away and then reassess.  Knowing me, I’m sure some idea or another will come up and I’ll start something else but for now that’s at least my basic plan.

We got this shot late Monday night of the two cats clearly sleeping off their turkey treat.

A Butterfly Block or a Dragonfly or?

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When I saw Karen Dianne’s Alabama Beauty blocks, I saw butterflies.  I had to try playing with a bright print for the wings and a black for the body.  Mr. Q.O. thinks this looks more like a dragonfly while I’m thinking it’s a butterfly.  It was one of those blocks I had to make just to see how it would turn out.

The back:

I’m not sure how many more butterflies/dragonflies I’ll make, but I think probably at least enough to make a table topper.  It makes me laugh as I had decided earlier on the long weekend that I was going to limit myself to working on 4 or 5 projects for a few weeks and not start anything else.  Clearly I have limited no self-control when it comes to trying out ideas.

Our Thanksgiving weekend was wonderful with great weather, good food and lots of time to just relax.  We didn’t go for the standard Thanksgiving weekend drive to look at the foliage and, as very little has turned yet around here, have only a picture of one of the roses from the front garden to show.  Much as I do admire the fall colours, I rather like the idea that we still have roses blooming at this time of the year.

Smudge spent most of the time the turkey was cooking on Monday in the kitchen. The meowing wasn’t constant, thankfully.   But any time either of us walked into the kitchen he was right there, looking up ever so hopefully that there might be something forthcoming.  Once the turkey was finished, both he and Lester were in the kitchen waiting for their portions.  This was Smudge after his turkey treat.

Earlier in the weekend I was rummaging about in the stationery cupboard looking for something.  I left the door open for a moment, turned my back and the next thing I knew Lester was in there.  We captured this shot as he started to come out after causing a small avalanche of equipment and paper.

Pickled Ladies and the Cabin Quilt

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Two more Pickled Ladies blocks are done.  I have about 10 arcs ready now to add to clamshells, so should have a fair number of the blocks finished by week’s end. One of the things I want to do over the next week or so is figure out just how big I really do want to make this and then sort out the exact number of blocks I’ll need. Perhaps it will end up as a lap quilt, but I’m having so much fun making them that I don’t think I’ll want to stop there but may just end up turning this into a bed-sized quilt.

Over the past few days some stitches were taken on the Cabin Quilt as well and two more of the stitchery blocks are done.

Tuesday was a grey rainy fall day.  The kitties took full advantage of the snoozing opportunities.  Smudge got himself really tucked into the kitty bed into an almost headless cat pose.

While Lester curled up with a teddy bear for a nap.

September Clamshell Report

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Over the past month I have been working on these 6″ pickled clamshell blocks almost exclusively.  So far, there are 25 of  them done.  I first saw the block on Barbara Brackman’s blog back in June and fell in love with it.  When the Inklingo collections for the clamshell pickles came out, I got an idea almost immediately about the florals for the clamshells and black and white for the arcs surrounding each.  I’m calling this the Pickled Ladies quilt as I have visions of some very elegant, almost Audrey Hepburn-like, ladies in an upscale Art Deco bar.  Once I got the idea, I immediately started going through my stash for florals that I could fussy cut/print for the clamshells.  With the aid of a window template, which was easy to prepare by just printing one shape on a piece of paper that was 5.25″ x 6.5″, I was able to quickly cut my fabrics and print the clamshell templates on the back of each.

Stitching the blocks is much simpler than they may appear.  Putting each arc together is just lots of quick continuous stitching.  Adding an arc to each clamshell is a very quick stitch.  Stitching the pickled ladies together hasn’t begun yet as this will be at least a lap-sized quilt, if not larger, and I know I’ll want to play with the placement of them once the piecing is finished.

With the 11″ clamshell pickle collection, I have started this sunshiny quilt but I’m using an alternate setting and various colours for the end pieces of the arcs so that a little star-type shape appears at the intersection.  While I haven’t added to this in a week or so, it won’t take long to get this to a good size for a lap quilt.  Maybe in October I can tear myself away from the Pickled Ladies to add a few more blocks to this so there’s some progress.

That said, I have lots of clamshells printed and ready to stitch more Pickled Ladies.

As well as the pieces needed for a number of the arcs.

To see more clamshell quilts, go to Cybele’s Patch here and you’ll see the list of those participants in the clamshell club who have posted their progress this month.

Wednesday evening we were cooking some chicken for dinner.  Almost the entire time it was cooking, Smudge was sitting in the kitchen staring at the oven and meowing.  He seemed a bit impatient to get the bit of chicken we always give them when we cook it.

Lester was somewhat more restrained and just sat on the back of the pink loveseat staring into the kitchen.

Another Six Pickled Ladies

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Now that I’ve been stitching these for a couple of weeks, I’m getting into a routine of stitching a few of the arcs each evening until I have 8 or 10 of them and then add them to the clamshells.  I think that process is faster as, once the arcs are done, I can easily stitch 5 or 6 of them in an evening on to the clamshells.  I sort of timed it and I think putting each arc together takes about 40 minutes.  Adding an arc to its clamshell takes much less time, as I can stitch 3 or 4 of those in an hour.  Tomorrow I’ll be showing these as well as another five new ones together with all the others that I’ve finished to date for the month-end clamshell report.

Looking out at the roof garden on Tuesday afternoon, I was surprised at just how many leaves had fallen on to the grass.  There still are lots of green leaves on the trees, but it’s sure a sign that fall is definitely here no matter how much I may want to deny it.

Lester got in some windowsill time on Tuesday.

While Smudge was reclining on a chair.