Fabric Choices for More Pickled Lady Blocks

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Although I already have close to 30 of the clamshells printed for more of the Pickled Ladies, I decided to go through and pick out some other fabrics that are candidates for fussy cutting/printing.  Some of the ones I’ve picked out are shown above.  With any luck, I may be able to get 2 different clamshells from most of these fabrics which should take me up to 80 or so blocks.  My goal is to make approximately 120 of them and then either decide to continue and make it a bed quilt or stop there.

Work has suddenly become extremely busy, which meant that on Thursday I didn’t get a chance to visit many, if any, blogs and very few of the other clamshell club participants.  Hopefully I’ll get caught up on the weekend.

The cats are beginning to settle in for the fall.  Smudge was curled up on the sofa.

Lester was having a snooze in one of the cat beds, with one of his favourite toys nearby.

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.

Cabin Quilt Block 1

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This is the first of 12 stitchery blocks for a lap quilt that is from the other kit that I had mentioned last week.  Once the stitchery blocks are done, then it’s a matter of some quick machine stitching.  I said quick machine stitching??  It involves cutting some flannel squares into triangles to surround the stitchery and pieced blocks and I’m a bit concerned about the flannel stretching.  Mr. Q.O. really likes this quilt, though, so I’m going to give it a try.

I managed to do the first stitchery block last night.  When we were at Sew Sisters on the weekend, I asked what they used behind fabric when doing stitcheries and they suggested either a fusible batt or fusible fleece.  I got a small fusible batting and I’m sold!  It makes it quite easy to travel thread for a bit when stitching without it shadowing through on the front.  As the back shows, I took advantage of that capability a few times.

I have always loved doing a little hand embroidery but the hoop has been my biggest issue for the past few years as tightening and loosening it was almost impossible.  So I found this hoop and tried using it.  What an amazing difference!  It’s easy and quick to use, holds the fabric perfectly for stitching and there’s no hardware on which to catch the thread.

This is what the quilt will look like when finished, although I’m not sure I’m going to do the tree appliques on the border.  I’ll decide that when I get that far.  The pattern calls for tea-dying the stitchery blocks when finished.  As I like the look of the stitchery blocks in the photo of the quilt, I think I may try that as well.

Monday, like Friday, was a migraine day.  While not quite as bad as Friday when I could barely move, yesterday was bad enough.  Today is the bruised head feeling that always seems to follow.  So once again I’m behind in replying to comments but hope to get caught up through the week.

Smudge curled up sound asleep.

I have to use an antique DOS program for work so, rather than cluttering up my Mac with any Windows software, I have an older laptop just for that purpose. Lester is constantly trying to “help” and I’m usually on guard for a paw on the laptop keys.  I think he watches the cursor moving on the screen.

Fabrics for Pickled Ladies

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On Saturday we went up to Sew Sisters as I wanted to look for more florals for the Pickled Ladies blocks.  I found these and then, on Sunday, went through the final container of shabby chic fabrics here and found another great grouping.  So now I think I’m getting close to the halfway mark with florals for the clamshells.  I’m thinking of adding some Oriental florals into the mix as there are some that play quite nicely with the shabby chic.

As well as the florals, I found some great blacks that will work perfectly for the spiky triangles in the arcs.  There are some super black fabrics around now and they’re light enough on the back that printing the shapes with Inklingo is no problem.  I find that now I look at the back of fabrics when choosing them and am surprised at just how many dark fabrics are quite light on the back.  This photo doesn’t really show the black fabrics that well — they’re much darker than they appear in this.  I think I had the flash on when I took the photo.

Sunday afternoon I got out my window template and fussy cut and printed enough of the clamshells to keep me stitching for a couple of weeks.  Using a window template makes it so easy and quick that I had close to 30 blocks ready in next to no time.

Friday we had temperatures in the 90s.  Saturday?  Saturday it was maybe in the low 60s but very breezy and it felt unbelievably chilly after that heat the day before. The sky on Saturday looked so stormy, although we had nothing but a few sprinkles of rain.  We got this shot just down the street from Sew Sisters.

This one of some of the trees in the area looks very much like fall to me.  I kept saying to Mr. Q.O. that the clouds looked like snow clouds.  Hopefully we don’t see any of that white stuff until January or February.

Last week I went to visit one of the blogs I read, Ann Champion‘s, and got a warning about malicious content.  On Sunday, Ann posted about what had happened — all as a result of links left in comments to pages that no longer exist.  It seems Google has a bot that crawls through links on blogs and if a link doesn’t work, the warning goes up about that blog.  Rather than repeat what Ann wrote, I’d suggest you go to Ann’s blog and read about her experience.  What it has made me realize is that links in comments are something I’m going to go through and delete.  It’s going to take a couple of weeks to do so but, after reading about Ann’s experience, I’m thinking I’d rather be pro-active on this issue.  I think I’ll also test any links I had in older posts and, if they no longer work, then I’ll delete them as well.  Ann wrote, “As you have time..go through your blog and check your links.  Active links of any kind are considered dangerous by the Google ‘bot’ when they reside in your comments,” so I think it’s worth the effort.

We had the heat on, on and off, during the weekend.  At one point, Lester was sitting on the windowsill and the warm air blowing up from the heating unit was making his ruff look rather  — well, interesting.

Smudge we caught in mid-yawn.

Pickled Ladies 13 & 14 and Progress to Date

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Two more pickled ladies were completed this week.

And here’s the group of pickled ladies so far.

They were laid out on the floor and, while I was picking them up after the photograph was taken, Lester was very interested!  I was racing to pick them up before he came to inspect as he has a tendency to want to lick and/or bite things like quilt blocks.

Smudge was curled up in a kitty bed with his favourite toy, Cappy, well and truly anchored beneath him and a couple of other toys within paw’s reach.  You can just see the tip of Cappy peeking up.

Repurposing Fabric

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been looking at a couple of BOMs I had put away.   One I will make as Mr. Q.O. really likes it, it will be quick to piece and, as it has flannel fabric, will be a perfect lap quilt for the winter.  The second one?  The more I looked at the patterns, the more I realized they just weren’t appealing to me.  So I had a long hard look at the fabrics contained in the kits for it and was pleasantly surprised when I realized there are some very pretty and quite useable fabrics, most in half yard or long quarter cuts.

There are some pretty pink and brown fabrics:

Some brown, gold, green and red fabrics:

Some lovely blue fabrics:

Some smaller rectangular pieces in a variety of colours:

All this fabric from kits to make 9 small doll quilts.  Lots and lots of ideas are swimming about in my mind regarding what I might make with these.  I’m really looking forward to playing with these now that they’re all washed, as they’re quite different from those which I normally use.

Wednesday was a rather overcast day but Lester was on the windowsill.  Here he was resting his eyes after watching to see just what the gardener was doing on the roof garden:

Smudge  was busy with the toy basket.

Pickled Ladies 10, 11 and 12

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Three more of the pickled ladies are ready.  As they are 6″ blocks I’m thinking that for a small lap quilt I’ll need somewhere in the range of 130 of them.  I do plan on adding a border to these, so that number may decrease.  The deciding factor will probably be just how many shabby chic florals I have that are appropriate for fussing cutting/printing.

These two are among my current favourites.

It’s getting to the point now that I need to print more of the black spiky triangles for the arcs, and go through more of the shabby chic prints looking for appropriate florals to fussy cut/print.  It takes no time to prepare a few dozen, so I hope to get that done sometime between now and Monday.

We had a gloriously warm sunny day on Tuesday.  It felt like a summer day rather than the first day of autumn.  The longer it stays this way, the better.

A close-up of Smudge:

Lester was relaxing on the pink chair:

Tools for Piecing

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A couple of weeks ago, Crispy wrote about her favourite scissors.  I thought I’d do the same.

Those numbered 1 are a pair of Gingher stork scissors that I love for cutting embroidery threads.  I remember my mother had a pair of stork scissors, although I have no idea what happened to them.

The ones numbered 2 are a pair of Omnigrid scissors that are my favourites.  I use them constantly.  They have super fine blades, super sharp tips and cut through fabric beautifully.  Because they are so sharp right to the tips, it’s wonderfully easy to make perfectly accurate cuts.

Number 3 — a tiny pair of scissors given to me by a wonderful friend and always kept in my kit for stitching on the go, whether on the roof garden or elsewhere. They are the perfect addition to a stitching kit.

Numbers 4 and 5 are a set of Dovo scissors.  They’re pretty and they feel good in the hand, but they do not cut anywhere near as well as the Omnigrid pair.  I find they actually don’t cut through fabric cleanly at all.  They’ve hardly been used because of that.  I keep thinking they must be a lemon set as so many people seem to love Dovo scissors.  I’ve frequently thought I should take them somewhere to be sharpened and see if that makes a difference.  Has anyone had any experience with having scissors sharpened?  Is it worth pursuing that idea?

Number 6 are fine for clipping threads and are bright so I generally can find them easily.  I picked them up at the Creativ Festival for next to nothing along with the thread snips referred to below.

The three items above the six pairs of scissors are my absolute must-haves when hand piecing.  I’m totally lost without the finger pincushion.  At first, I didn’t think I would get used to it but within an hour after first starting to use it, I was sold.  Now I don’t start stitching until it’s on my finger.  The grey blob is the thimble I use for hand piecing. The thread snips are another tool I always reach for.  While I will use scissors if necessary to cut thread when hand piecing, the snips are the better solution for me.

Monday was a wonderful summery day and today promises to be more of the same, with a humidex reading in the low 30s Celsius.  It appears most of the week will be warm, although rather rainy.  Lester was enjoying the warmth on the windowsill Monday.

Smudge, on the other hand, was snoozing on the couch.

Pickled Ladies 8 and 9

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Stitching these blocks is well underway for this week.  First, this rich red one.  And its back:

This one isn’t quite the right colour, as it’s more a green than the brown it appears in this photo.

And its back:

On Saturday we were out doing some shopping.  As we were coming home, we ended up behind a Model T truck much like the one below that was in absolutely fabulous shape.  The truck had some wooden alcohol barrels rolling around the back. Although we didn’t realize this when we were behind it, but did when we pulled up beside it, inside the cab were a man and woman dressed in prohibition era clothing. That was when we saw “Boardwalk Empire” written on its side.

Ford Model T Truck

Image via Wikipedia

We had great weather on the weekend — a lovely late summer weekend and, from the sounds of our forecast, we will have a few more days of summer-like temperatures this week. The cats, however, are in their fall/winter snooze mode. Lester with a teddy bear and frog:

And Smudge in a kitty bed with a couple of toys nearby.