Clams on the Half Shell

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After finishing Chintz Circles yesterday, rather than working on a project already in progress, what did I do?  Started a little doll’s quilt with the new Inklingo clamshell edges collection which has all the shapes to finish the edges on a clamshell quilt made with the 3″ clamshells.  This block finishes at 6″.  It’s made with the side halves, but I have ideas as well for some blocks made with the top and bottom halves as well as the quarter clamshells.

The back:

These are the fabrics I’ve picked out for this little doll’s quilt, which won’t take long to put together.

After we took the photos of Chintz Circles yesterday, we went out for dinner to celebrate.  On the way back home we came through the bookstore in the retail section of the complex and heard the most incredible piano playing.  The bookstore is a multi-level store, which we had entered through the lower level.  There’s a baby grand piano on the main floor of the store which is frequently played by a number of people.  But yesterday?  Yesterday was phenomenal.  I was sure it had to be a professional pianist playing.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  It was an 11 year-old boy who was playing so beautifully I actually had tears in my eyes listening.  We ended up staying in the store for quite a while just listening.  After striking up a conversation with his father, we learned he has been playing for only three years and has had no classical training at all.  Apparently he and some others have been playing there nightly for a while and sometimes are there until closing at 10:00 p.m.   I know where we’ll be going most evenings.

It was fun watching people’s reactions.  Any number of people stopped and just stood quietly drinking in the beautiful music.  A little girl was standing absolutely still,  mesmerized by the music.  After each composition he played, there was applause.  It was one of those magical moments when you come upon something totally unexpected.

Lester had some windowsill time on Tuesday.

Smudge at the toy basket.  He rather exhausted himself playing with the toy we call Cappy — the orange and black striped one, and seemingly had to have a nap right there.

Chintz Circles Completed

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The binding is finished and photos were taken out on the roof garden this afternoon. I am thrilled with how it turned out.  672 pieces in the top that all went together so easily thanks to the Inklingo Orange Peel Deluxe collection printing the stitching lines and matching points on the fabric.  I couldn’t wait till tomorrow to post these photos!

The back.

The final touch was a totally lump-free binding thanks to this tutorial I found on Bonnie Hunter’s website.  I’ve tried doing lump-free binding many times with instructions from books and various sites, with varying degrees of success.  The tutorial on Bonnie’s website made it absolutely foolproof for me.

Now I can’t wait for August 1st when the quilt will be given to my aunt on her 90th birthday.  All that’s left now is the label, which will be added this weekend.

To see more finishes, go to Lit and Laundry and the post here with links to Friday finishes.

The Almost Completed Never-Ending Quilt

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The quilting is finished, the binding made and stitched to the front and tacked down on three-quarters of the back, but I just got too tired to complete the binding last night.  I’ll finish it today and we’ll hopefully be able to get a really good photograph out on the roof garden.  These pictures don’t really show the true colours as they were taken quite late at night with the flash on.  The binding fabric was just the right choice.  I like the look of it both on the front and the back.

Monday was nowhere near as hot as it has been the past couple of weeks.  Both cats got in some windowsill time again.  First Lester.

And then Smudge.


The Never-Ending Quilt

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… is what this is feeling like although Chintz Circles is almost finished.  Almost.  I think I’ve said that every day for the past 3 days.  But now I can truly see that there’s no more than an hour of quilting left and then the binding which I will hopefully get done tonight.  We went to Sew Sisters on Saturday and after looking at a number of fabrics, I chose the Rouenneries print for the binding.  I think it will frame the quilt perfectly and it goes nicely with the backing.

I’m pleased with how the machine quilting looks and the interlocking circles that show up.  Hopefully I’ll have some pictures to show tomorrow.  The silk batt turned out to be the best possible choice — it is so much easier to manoeuvre and gives a little stitch definition.   The Pfaff IDT has made doing the circles much easier than I anticipated.  That said, how on earth anyone quilts a large quilt on a home machine is beyond me.  After an hour or so of fabric wrestling, my shoulders and arms ache — and this is just a lap quilt.

While we were at Sew Sisters I found a fabulous white on white that isn’t heavily painted on.  So some of that had to come home with me.  I’m always on the hunt for a good white on white as I love using white in my quilts but have learned that anything with a heavily painted-on design causes nothing but trouble as it’s so hard to needle.  Oh, how I wish the manufacturers would produce some white on white prints that had the design woven in rather than painted on.

It was a hot and humid weekend and promises to be a hot and humid week.  Sounds like we’ll be back into the really high humidex readings towards the end of the week.

The cats had some windowsill time on the weekend.  First Lester.

Then Smudge — although he looks a bit cranky in this shot.


Friday Quilt Planning

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I pulled out a few more fabrics that I think might be fun to play with for another sunflower quilt.  Perhaps the purple in the fabric group may not work, but I think something a little offbeat needs to be added.  I’m thinking of a table runner done using the Pickle Dish collection.  For the fabrics I showed yesterday, I’m really leaning towards a summer double wedding ring quilt with the sunflowers in the centre of the rings.

It was yet another hot and humid day on Thursday.  For some reason, although this week is nowhere near as hot as last week, this week feels more draining.   Maybe it’s because it’s not cooling down much at night at all.  Even at 1:00 a.m. we have humidex readings of 31C (87F).  The weekend promises more of the same but I shall be chained to the sewing machine, other than a quick trip to Sew Sisters to find just the right binding fabric, and hopefully will have all the quilting done and the mostly finished quilt to show on Monday. I’m really hoping to have the quilting done and only the tacking down of the binding left by Sunday night.

Smudge was intently watching something Thursday night.

While Lester had a relaxing time on the windowsill Thursday afternoon.

Quilt Planning

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I have this group of fabrics that I love and that are out of my  normal comfort zone with fabric colours, but I can’t come up with an idea for them.  I keep thinking that something that has a fairly large central piece for the large sunflower print but then get bogged down in what?  Perhaps a different version of Pickle Dish?  Or maybe a small DWR quilt?

Letting my mind ponder that has helped while I continue with the quilt wrestling.  Today I will have a fairly long day of work, but as soon as that’s done I will be back at the machine quilting the Chintz Circles quilt yet again with a view to maybe, just maybe, getting it finished on Friday at some point.   I think a trip to Sew Sisters may be in order on Saturday to find just the right fabric for the binding.

Wednesday was another warm and humid day.  Our forecast seems like it’s nothing but a series of warm and humid days in the extended forecast.  This is definitely making up for the summer that wasn’t last year!

The cats were quite alert Wednesday night.  Smudge on the pink chair.

And Lester on the couch.

Pink Ice Block 28

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… got finished after all on Tuesday night after some quilt wrestling of Chintz Circles was accomplished.  After doing more of the quilting, I think I’ve got a “route” mapped out so as to be able to avoid having quite so many threads to bury.   Today and Thursday will be busy with work, but Friday and Saturday I plan to stay at the machine and keep going until the quilting is finished.

Two more Pink Ice blocks to go and then I’ll try a few of the 9-patch blocks to see if they will work as the setting block for the quilt.

Although it’s hot and humid again, Lester saw a few things out the window that he had to keep his eye on.

While Smudge was staying with his in warm weather, do as little as possible mode.  He was awake — if you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see one eye open watching to make sure he didn’t miss anything interesting.


Chintz Circles Quilting

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A sneak peek of the quilting I’m doing on Chitnz Circles.  The fabric wrestling, aka quilting by machine, will result in interlocking circles following the shapes in the blocks.   I haven’t done a lot of machine quilting, or machine stitching for that matter, but I’m relatively pleased with how this is turning out.  Wrestling with a quilt that has a silk batt is a lot easier than wrestling with one with a cotton batt.  The difference is quite evident.  I’m not finding it anywhere near as hard on my hands as I have when I’ve machine quilted a quilt with a cotton batt.  What’s taking forever is the burying of the threads.  There is some continuous stitching I can do but not a huge amount, which results in a lot of threads to bury.

It’s not going anywhere near as quickly as I had hoped, but I feel like a fair amount was accomplished Monday night.  If I can devote 2 or 3 hours every evening this week, I should be able to finish it by the end of the week.  Then it will be a matter of figuring out what fabric to use for binding.  That has me completely perplexed at the moment.  There are so many different fabrics on the outer edges of the quilt that choosing a fabric for the binding may be a bit more challenging than I had anticipated.

As well as the clematis (thank you everyone for identifying that) shown yesterday, Mr. Q.O. got this shot of a part of our friend’s garden.

Neither cat was very active on Monday.  Lester slept on the pink loveseat.

While Smudge was having a snooze on the pink chair.


Pink Ice Blocks 26 & 27

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Two more done, block 28 about half done and two full ones left to go.  But nothing else is getting done this week other than the quilting on Chintz Circles.  I realized on the weekend that I didn’t have enough time to hand quilt it, so removed the hand quilting I’d done and sorted out how I’d machine quilt it remembering, of course, that my machine skills are not great, and started on it Sunday night.  The quilting will be intersecting circles to emphasize the circles created by the design.  I got enough done Sunday night to realize I like how it’s turning out, so now it’s simply a matter of sitting at the machine and getting it done.

The back of one of the two completed Pink ice blocks.

Mr. Q.O. took this photo of a flower in a friend’s garden.  I haven’t got a clue what it is, but I love the colour.

We had a couple of days of much less humidity, although it was still quite warm.  They say the heat and humidity builds up again starting today and by midweek it sounds like we’ll be back to the extremely high heat and humidity.

Lester took advantage of the nicer temperatures and spent some time looking out the window.

As did Smudge.


Pink Ice Block 26

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… is partially stitched.  Once the middle star and the 4 partial stars are put together, it’s nothing but lots of lovely continuous stitching which makes it a much quicker block to put together than it may appear.  I may get it finished over the weekend, but this is the weekend that I will be devoting pretty well entirely to quilting Chintz Circles.  I don’t know if I’ll get it finished this weekend, but I’m going to try.  I’d like to get the binding on and wash it before next weekend so that we can take it to be photographed.

I think I’ve decided on how I’ll set these Pink Ice blocks — on point with perhaps 9-patch blocks.   The back of block 26, so far:

Thursday was, as they had forecast, another incredibly hot, humid and smoggy day.  Today is supposed to be somewhat cooler, with a humidex of about 33C (91F) which will feel a lot better.  And we’re supposed to have thunderstorms and rain which I hope will clear out some of the smog.

There are a few lilies that are popping up here and there in the flower beds out on the roof garden.  There’s a very pale coloured one which I think will open today or on the weekend.

Our Internet connection has been rather iffy this week, which makes me wonder if the power outage earlier this week had some effect on our ISP.   However, by Thursday night it seemed to be better and, all of a sudden, missing blog comments showed up in my inbox Thursday night.  Strange to have e-mails that are 2 or 3 days old appear suddenly like that, but I’m glad they did finally make it.  Today and over the weekend I will catch up on replying to comments and visiting blogs.

Lester spent some time on the windowsill on Thursday.

While Smudge was lounging on the couch.