This was the scene out our living room window this morning. Very pretty, in a winter wonderland sort of way, but I’d prefer warmer temperatures! 😉
Category Archives: quilts
Merry Christmas!
The last of the table runners are finished. I was up until close to 3:00 a.m. finishing the binding on the very last one. The labels went on this morning.
Gifts are all wrapped and delivered. The sewing area is tidied up — and I have all sorts of ideas for projects I want to start.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Blue & White Table Runner and the Cat and Canary
This is, by far, my favourite of the table runners I’ve made so far for Christmas. The stars were made with .75″ diamonds and related bits from Inklingo collection 3. I was really surprised when I realized that there are 748 pieces in this small runner! It went together really quickly and the fabric was heaven to work with. There’s something about blue and white that is so soothing!
A friend sent us a new cat toy for the boys. It has been hysterical watching the antics of the two of them with the “Canary Toy”. First they played:
Then they played some more:
Lester seems to be taking possession of it for now and the other night was even sleeping with it under his paw!
Pinwheel Runner and The Storm
Another finish! This one was a challenge. I used — silly me — a black print fabric for the backing. Black fabric seems to attract cat hair much more than any other fabric colour! For that reason, I decided to put the binding on totally by machine, which I don’t like doing. However, it was better than having this on my lap while I tacked down the binding — as I very rarely am allowed to do that without a kitty helper! LOL And it’s one more finished item for Christmas. These are not my normal colours to work with and, while I know it’s perfect for the recipient, I really had to push myself to keep stitching the little pinwheels together.
We had a huge, huge snowstorm today. We even had thunder snow, which is the oddest thing. When we got up this morning it was snowing. About an hour or so later, we saw lightning and heard a couple of huge claps of thunder. Then it snowed and snowed and snowed till about 9:00 tonight. This is a view of the roof garden from our window. At one point this afternoon, I looked out and saw rather large paw prints in the snow. Wonder what could possibly be out there — a raccoon maybe? No pets are allowed on the roof garden and, for that matter, it’s closed for the winter so no one could have got out there.
We ventured out in mid-afternoon. It was truly a winter wonderland, very pretty. It was really quite astounding to see no cars anywhere and so few shoppers this close to Christmas! Very cold, though — and the wind was fierce!
Seven Sisters Almost Done
It’s pressed and ready to baste and quilt, which will be done in the next few days. I was going to add two more blocks to it but it would have ended up way too long. So now I have two Seven Sisters blocks made and ready for something else. 🙂 I used 1.5″ diamonds and equilateral triangles for this one from Inklingo Collection 3 and it really was fast to put together. Each block took about two nights to piece, so this whole thing was only about 6 nights of hand stitching. Printing the shapes took next to no time, maybe half an hour.
One of these days, I’ve got to figure out how to master free motion quilting on my sewing machine. Doing straight lines is getting a bit … well, old!
There’s a significant storm coming tomorrow, they say, and we may get a lot of snow. Today will be the day to run around and do errands so we can stay off the roads tomorrow. In Toronto, just about any amount of snow seems to paralyze the city so a “significant” amount could be catastrophic. LOL
A Nervous Day
Nothing quilty today. We’ve just heard that Lester’s echo-cardiogram will be tomorrow. I am so apprehensive about what the results may show as far as the progression of the HCM goes, given that he has thrown a clot since being on the three meds including Plavix. I’m very grateful that our vet’s office has arrangements with a cardiologist who actually comes to their clinic. Rather than having to take Lester to the cardiologist, which is about a 90-minute drive, the trip to our vet’s clinic is only about 10 minutes. The actual test only takes about 20 minutes, so we should be home within an hour or so.
Tomorrow is Lester’s birthday too — he will be 9. I think it’s definitely going to be time for a new kitty toy when we get home from the echo.
I’m almost frozen with apprehension. Best I work this afternoon and try to not think about I this. I want a magical event to take place and his heart to be good as new, but …
Christmas Gifts
Two friends who are dedicated machine piecers are getting a block like this plus Inklingo 2 for Christmas. I’m using the blocks I made as wrapping. 😉 I am so impressed with how easy it is to make HST, QST and flying geese using the Inklingo method that I want to share the excitement. This was another block I made totally by machine and I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I can’t believe how fast it was to put together, but I’m still uncomfortable with those bulky seam intersections in the corners. Possibly I need a better iron to really “tame” them.
One table runner leaves here today. No pictures till the recipient has received and opened it. I’m thrilled with how it turned out. One more is now quilted, just needs the binding put on. The third is ready to baste and the fourth is still being stitched!! I still need to make 13 little 6-point stars for the fourth one and then finish putting the rows together. It’s getting awfully close. I have a feeling there will be a few really late nights this week and weekend in order to get this done. There is a fifth runner I would really like to get done before Christmas as an extra gift, but time is becoming a real issue.
Hybrid Blocks
The points on these two blocks match much better than the one I did totally by machine — and no more bulky intersections! I printed more of the HST’s and QST’s and it was a snap to put together the flying geese, QST and HST units by machine and then put the blocks together by hand. Thanks to Inklingo we really do have the best of both worlds. One can do things like flying geese, HST’s and QST’s with the machine and get those units put together really quickly and accurately. Then, to get intersections that one can fan out and get rid of those incredibly bulky areas, one can piece the rest by hand using the stitching lines that Inklingo prints on your fabric. Of course, for those who are much more comfortable with their machines than I am, I’m sure this would go together in a snap all by machine.
For me, the idea of a hybrid block — done partially by hand and partially by machine — is the perfect solution. I’m really quite excited by this and am even looking at other blocks that I can do in this hybrid fashion.
Who knows, maybe I’ll actually get comfortable using the sewing machine. 🙂
Christmas Star — part 2 of adventure
The block was together in next to no time. The flying geese, HST and QST units were incredibly easy and fast to do with Inklingo and I had absolutely no precision rotary cutting to do, no curious math to cope with, no stretchy bias edges to deal with and no bits of paper to pick off. For a novice at machine piecing, I’m pretty pleased with how the block turned out.
I have been using Inklingo for about a year and a half now and have made countless hand-pieced items, including the shabby chic king-sized quilt, but decided to find out what machine piecers love about Collection 2 — and I’m sold! This may actually encourage me to become a machine piecer for some blocks.
The only real problem I had was with the bulky seam intersections when sewing the rows together to complete the block. My machine seemed to really labour at the intersections and then the seams tended to get a bit crooked. I’m sure this is me not having experience using the sewing machine for piecing and I intend to try another block of the Christmas Star on the weekend when I have more time and see if I can put together a perfect one.
All in all, although this block will go into the orphan block box, I’m very pleased with how it turned out. I’m enough of a perfectionist that I want to do better. One thing’s for sure — I will be able to make this quilt top really fast! I had the pieces printed and was at the sewing machine within minutes.
Christmas Star Adventure
No pictures to post — yet. Picked up Vol. 16, No. 2 of Australian Patchwork & Quilting yesterday and fell in love with a few quilts — particularly the Christmas Star one. So I have decided to try making the Christmas Star quilt before Christmas. Using my sewing machine. This is unheard of for me as I do 99.99% of my piecing and appliqueing by hand.
However, I really want to try out Inklingo 2 using the machine. I’ve used it for blocks I’ve made by hand and love how easy it makes HST’s, QST’s and flying geese. But for this Christmas Star quilt, I want to try to make it by Christmas and, no matter how fast I might be at hand piecing, that is definitely not going to happen unless I haul out the machine.
Now to sort out which fabrics I want to use and get them printed with the shapes I need. I’d like to have at least one block of this done by mid-week and will be taking pictures of my progress as I go.
Quilt Obsession 