Beach Quilt – Beginning

Posted on October 5, 2009 by Quiltobsession

In an effort to ward off my normal fall lament of, “We’re going into the dark tunnel,” I’ve decided to make a fast lap quilt which I’ll be calling the beach quilt made up of, amongst other things, beach balls on sand. The beach balls are made using 1/3 hexagons. The sand? The sand will be unbleached muslin. I have some ideas for some other little surprises on the beach too.

This wouldn’t have likely come about except on the weekend a new Inklingo collection was released with 3″ hexagons. They’re enormous, 6″ across! Thanks to the size of them, I can have a lap quilt done in next to no time. I couldn’t believe how quickly I stitched the first 3 beach balls.

It’s barely worth showing the back! Only 3 pieces to make each one!!

Here you can see one next to a ruler. Enormous!!

We had an odd storm Saturday afternoon. The sky suddenly got quite dark, the wind really picked up, there was some lightning that absolutely lit up the sky, the thunder rumbled away for what seemed like minutes, then hail and rain and then it was all over in the matter of a few minutes. Mr. Q.O., who was out when it started, said the wind was actually moving parked cars a little. I don’t think I can ever remember a storm like that before. Other than that, it was a typical fall weekend — rainy and gloomy and grey.

That’s the lament beginning. This is what I need to try to ward off with the beach quilt. I have never understood the February blues. To me, that’s a time of optimism. Then the days are getting longer (although it is usually freezing cold here then, no question) and it’s easy to believe spring is coming some day soon. But this time of year, when the days get shorter and shorter and the skies are grey and the leaves are falling, spring seems like it is very, very far away.

Smudge curled up on the chair.

And Lester:

Snow Crystal Block in Progress

Posted on October 2, 2009 by Quiltobsession

The pieces for the remaining Snow Crystal blocks are all cut and ready to piece so Thursday night I decided to work on one. Once the centre star is done, and the 4 partial stars, it’s just lots of lovely continuous stitching to join everything together into a block.

Although you can’t really tell it from this photo, some of the leaves on the trees are turning yellow and orange and falling. If there’s any breeze at all, leaves fly by the window. Then Smudge takes up residence on the windowsill to try to catch those leaves as they fly by.

Lester also has to keep an eye out for those leaves.

Patchwork of the Crosses – Preparation

Posted on October 1, 2009 by Quiltobsession

Printing of more purple squares and the cream long hexagons was done Wednesday.
Some of the cream hexagons have been cut and stitched together into sets of 3 while others are waiting to be stitched. I know I would never have decided to make this quilt if it weren’t so easy to print my pieces using Inklingo. Being able to stitch these with a simple running stitch is so much more enjoyable, for me, than English paper piecing would be and much faster.

I have started another sampler. This one is called Quaker Patchwork by Wiehenburg. Every one of the motifs makes me think about how I could duplicate them in a quilt. This one I’m stitching on 32-count Lugana and enjoying every minute of it!

Smudge in one of the cat beds. It started out as a circular kitty bed. Smudge has worked on it and worked on it and it is now an oval.

Lester in his normal cold weather spot — on the couch.

A Very Purple Patchwork of the Crosses Block

Posted on September 30, 2009 by Quiltobsession

Now that I know the purple squares are going to work with all these blocks, it’s time to start adding them to the blocks that have a lot of purple in them already. Adding the cream long hexagons around each block takes longer than the squares so over the next few evenings I’m going to be getting more of the cream hexagons ready to add.

The back:

No wonderful pictures from Mr. Quilt Obsession’s day on Tuesday. It rained and rained. The wind was unbelievable Tuesday afternoon. It’s only in the past couple of years that I’ve noticed wind storms equal migraines for me.

However, there is a nice picture of Lester. He was happily dozing on the couch, although he doesn’t like it when Mr. Quilt Obsession is gone. He meows a lot at the door until Mr. Q.O. gets home. I’m convinced Lester knows when he’s walking down the hall from the elevator as he sometimes paces around the door.

One of Smudge’s paws.

He was also relaxing on the couch. I think they’re starting to get well into cold weather hibernation mode.

More Fabric Repurposing

Posted on September 29, 2009 by Quiltobsession

It’s fun reorganizing stash and looking at kits and BOM’s. I’m finding some kits that have fabrics that will, I’m sure, end up as quilts quite different than those for which they were put originally intended. This grouping is one, which is now washed and ready for use. There’s a few yards of the large floral which I think will be perfect for a border or perhaps some large plain squares while the prints, which are smaller cuts, will be great for some pieced blocks.

Anne Marie asked some questions in a comment yesterday to which I couldn’t respond as she is a “no-reply” blogger. It is quite easy to set your Blogger profile to public so that questions you ask in comments can be answered.

The wind on Monday was incredible. While we had some rain, it wasn’t as bad as they said it was going to be but they were right about the wind and with wind comes a migraine. I knew it was coming, though, so started taking the meds Sunday night which kept it from becoming overwhelming.

Mr. Quilt Obsession is working on set up in an area to the north of the city today. Hopefully he comes home with some great pictures of the trees as I’m sure the colours must be gorgeous.

Lester was quite content curled up on the couch all day. No windowsill for him Monday.

While Smudge was happily lounging on the other end of the couch.

Charm Packs and More Charm Packs

Posted on September 28, 2009 by Quiltobsession

I don’t know what it is about charm packs, but I think they’re great. I love scrappy quilts, so I guess that’s part of it. I had accumulated a few packs and finally got around to getting them ready to use. Over the past week, this is what I’ve been doing every day — washing a charm pack and hanging the pieces to dry. I don’t like working with unwashed fabric so I’ve been soaking each charm pack I had in some warm sudsy water for a bit, then rinsing and hanging them to dry. I’m always amazed at the fact that there is some shrinkage, even with 5″ pieces.

These are all the ones that have been washed this past week. I don’t have any specific ideas yet but now they’re ready whenever inspiration strikes. Some are solids, some are batiks, some are hand-dyed fabrics and some are prints. I think the batiks are going to be used for star points like the ones in my blue and white quilt, but in a smaller size so it would be a rainbow of stars. That plan, of course, could change radically.

This group consists of two of the same charm pack. I have about 2 yards of one of the prints which I’ll use for a border. I’m not sure quite yet what I have planned for these, but am leaning towards some sort of setting using Drunkard’s Path blocks.

They say we are to get quite a storm today with high winds and lots of rain. And cooler temperatures. One of the weather reports said this was more like a storm we would normally get in November. Great! The summer that wasn’t and now November storms in September? I wonder, does this mean we get winter early and then spring really early, maybe in January?

Lester doesn’t care. He’s comfortable curled up on the couch.

While Smudge is very content having a nap on the chair. Look at those paws!

Two Blocks, One for Each Quilt

Posted on September 25, 2009 by Quiltobsession

Finally, I’ve got a POTC block that has purple in it surrounded with the cream hexagons and the purple squares. There are a lot of blocks with purple in them but I seem to have been saving them. I think I wanted to see that the purple worked with some of the others first.

The back:

And another Harpsichord block. I wasn’t sure about this green, thinking it might be too dull, but this looks like it will work.

And the back of this one:

~~Unfortunately, I’ve had to turn comment moderation on. Hopefully I can turn it off relatively quickly. Thursday there were a~~ ~~number of comments on various posts that were nothing but links to rather nasty sites~~ ~~disguised by the use of some sort of font. I’m going~~ to report the author of those comments to Blogger as he/she has a Blogger identity. I’m not thrilled about using the comment moderation but, in this sort of situation, I’m grateful for the option. From what I’ve been hearing, it seems this “disa” person has been hitting a lot of the quilt-related blogs lately but may only hit once, albeit on a number of posts. So for now I have turned comment moderation back off. I’m hoping whoever it is does not come back.

Another Lester paw shot, this time with a penny to show the size.

And a close-up:

And yet another close-up of Smudge.

Patchwork of the Crosses — Butterfly Wings Framed

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Quiltobsession

The purple seems to be darker and richer surrounding this block’s cream hexagons. I was wondering if the purple would work with this one. It seems that the the purple truly is working as a neutral with every single block done so far.

The back:

There was a little bit of rain Wednesday afternoon, after which the sun came right back out and it was wonderfully warm and humid. These flowers have a few raindrops still on them.

This tree is definitely showing that fall is on the way. We’re not seeing much in the way of leaf colour changing around here yet, so seeing this tree was a bit of a surprise.

Showing Lester’s full ruff all combed and looking great is an impossible task. As soon as he’s combed he starts licking and chewing on it again. So this is probably the best shot we’ll get:

And Smudge up close — again.

Patchwork of the Crosses – Blues Framed

Posted on September 23, 2009 by Quiltobsession

Putting the blues block together was fun. I was wondering how it would look with the purple but the purple batik seems to work with all the blocks.

There’s something about the backs of these blocks that fascinates me. I find myself staring at the photos of the backs, thinking about duplicating them in some fashion as the front of a block.

Tuesday afternoon we looked out and noticed a bird sitting on top of the stack (or whatever it is) on the theatre roof on the roof garden. It’s a peregrine falcon. There are many around here as they seem to like to nest in the high-rise buildings in this neighbourhood. One of our neighbours is involved with a group that watches out for these falcons and moves in to help if one of them is in need of assistance.

If you click on the photo and look in the middle you will see the falcon.

Smudge posing yet again for the camera.

And one of Lester in his favourite spot — on the windowsill:

Two More for the Harpsichord Quilt

Posted on September 22, 2009 by Quiltobsession

After deciding to use the light peach squares in some of these blocks and reading the comments, I added a couple more lighter fabrics to the group:

The back:

It was amazingly warm on Monday and looks like the whole week will be like this. The longer the cold weather takes to get here, the better!