One Klosjes …

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… block was all I got done last week.  I’m thinking now that I will finish making the ones I’ve got prepped, then assess and decide whether to make a wall hanging from those or if I’ll keep making them.

The back:

The weekend was productive as I got the next 4 Alabama Beauty blocks stitched into a row, and that row joined to the first 4 rows.  I’ll post a picture as soon as we can get one out on the roof garden on a dry, non-windy day.  Sunday  night I selected the fabrics for the next row of the blocks..

Exciting news to me is that there’s going to be an Inklingo Pickle Dish collection.  One of my quilting goals is to have a red and white quilt and I’m playing with the idea of making a red and white Pickle Dish.   More wonderful curved piecing.  I can’t wait!  Linda announced it here, on her blog, on Sunday.

We were playing with the macro setting on the camera and took this shot of the condensation bubbles on a coffee cup.  For some reason, this shot just fascinates me.

It was a rainy overcast weekend.  Sunday afternoon two robins were sitting on the tree branch right in front of the living room window.  I knew we had some robins out on the roof garden as I’ve heard them, but hadn’t seen them until Sunday.  I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo of them.

The cats got in some serious relaxation time.  Smudge in one of his endless upside down poses.

While Lester was a bit more alert, but only momentarily.

Farmer’s Delight Blocks

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These blocks have been languishing since I got started on Spring Circles, but are about to get worked on again.  I had planned to make 12 of these blocks and have the fabrics for the remaining 6 blocks cut and ready to print.  So this weekend, the shapes shall be printed and then I will start working on these again as well as focusing on the Spring Circles.  I’m playing with the idea of a pieced sashing for these, but will make that decision when I get the remaining 6 blocks completed.

While we were out on the roof garden taking pictures of quilt blocks, we got this shot of the two condominium towers going up across the street.  There are so many condominium high-rise towers in this area that sometimes it feels like we live in an absolute concrete jungle.  That’s one of the reasons I’m so grateful for the roof garden and that we face on to it with a tree in front of our living room window.  Once the leaves on the tree have come out we barely notice all the concrete that surrounds us.

It was a gloriously sunny day on Thursday, although somewhat cool in the morning.  Lester was in his usual spot by the window.

While Smudge was posing for the camera, as usual.

One Flower Wednesday … on Thursday

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These little flowers are so fast to put together that I couldn’t resist making 4 of them.  My idea for a quilt using these is changing quite a bit though.  I may be putting these in a quilt of their own rather than with the blossoms seen here.

The backs:

Do you want to see more hexagon flowers being done for One Flower Wednesday?  Karen, the hostess of One Flower Wednesday, is making them as seen here.  Danielle,  Ann,  Sandra and Valentina are all adding flowers to their gardens as well.

Tuesday night I spent some time looking through this book before I fell asleep and, of course, woke up Wednesday morning with all sorts of ideas.  Although the instructions are written in Japanese, it really doesn’t matter as there are tons of illustrations.

There are a number of super hexagon quilts in the book. This is one of my favourites:

Although this picture doesn’t quite show it, at one point Wednesday afternoon the sky got quite stormy looking.  I thought we might have had our first thunderstorm of the season, but we had only a brief downpour of rain.  I just realized we didn’t even have thunder snow last winter so it has been ages since we’ve had a storm.  As evident from the picture, the leaves on the tree are just starting to open.

Lester was at his normal post for this time of year — on the windowsill.

While Smudge seemingly decided it was a great day to laze about.  He always makes me laugh when he stretches out like this.

Spring Circles Update

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It was calm enough Tuesday to get a shot of the Spring Circles/Alabama Beauty blocks out on the roof garden.  There are now 16 blocks put together and 9 circles have appeared in their entirety.   At this point it’s 36″ square.  If I make it as large as I’m anticipating, it will be 108″ by 108″.  That’s going to require many, many more blocks — 128 more, to be exact.  Rather daunting if I look at it that way.  I think I’ll focus on getting each quadrant done and not look too far down the road with this one. There’s something about this block that fascinates me.

There were a number of good ideas for the floral print I showed yesterday.  This weekend I think I’ll try it against some other fabrics and see if I can find the perfect combination for it.  Later today I’ll be working on my One Flower Wednesday hexagon block.

Lester, showing why I think of him as our house lion.

Smudge is usually rather afraid of the window washers and will spend hours under the bed until he’s sure they’re gone.  This time?  This time he seemed to be quite laid-back about the whole thing.  No hiding under the bed.

Finding the Right Pattern

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This fabric has been in my stash for ages.  I love it and constantly look at it, thinking about what I want to make with it but just as constantly come up with no idea that seems quite right.  I’ve made a few blocks here and there that incorporate some of it, but nothing that has struck me as being the right idea for a quilt featuring this fabric.  The picture is of a piece that’s  about 8.5″ x 8.75″, to give you an idea of the scale.

Perhaps because it’s spring and everything is getting so beautifully green with flowers soon to follow that I’m once again drawn to this fabric and wanting to make something special with it.  I used a bit of it in a few 12″ blocks of a Drunkard’s Path variation.

While I like that, it’s not quite what I’m looking for.  Any ideas on what would be a good block to really showcase this fabric?  Maybe it needs to be paired with a white on white fabric.  Perhaps a Dresden Plate variation?  Perhaps an Improved 9-Patch block?

I got another row of Spring Circles added to the first quadrant, but it was too windy on the roof garden on Monday to dare try to take a picture out there.  One of the things we’re going to do in May is reorganize and try to find a spot for a proper design wall.  That would definitely help when needing to take pictures of something like Spring Circles.  Hopefully today we’ll be able to take a picture of it out there.

We got some great shots of Lester on Monday.  This is one.

Smudge relaxing with his paws stretched out.

Five Little Klosjes

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… were made last week.  So now there are 87.  Who knows how many more I’ll make.  All I know is that Sunday I grabbed a few more charms to print with the squares and half hexagons to make more.  I think I’ve got about another 35 or 40 of them prepped, ready to stitch now.

Charm packs seem to hold an endless fascination for me.  Perhaps it’s having a bit of every fabric in a line that I can mix and match with other fabrics.  I do tend to totally mix them up and am doing that with the klosjes.  There’s no rhyme or reason to my fabric choices for these.

We had a pretty quiet weekend.  I woke up Saturday feeling almost like I had a flu, but I think it’s just allergies.  The headache is horrible.  It just will not go away.  While it was a quiet weekend, I had lots of time to think through a few projects in my ideas book.

It was sunny but a bit chilly on the weekend.  The cats were cozy.  Lester in a kitty bed.

And Smudge on the couch.

More Alabama Beauty Blocks

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These two blocks were completed and a third one half-finished on Thursday night, so I think there’s a good chance I’ll get the next row added to the first quadrant before the weekend is out.

They need to be pressed before being stitched into the row and added to the previous rows.  As I keep working on this, I’m finding that these blocks are almost putting themselves together.

They say we may have a thunderstorm today — that will be our first of the season.  The gardeners were busy as could be Thursday adding soil to the flowerbeds again and the window washers are getting ever closer to our windows.

This has been a busy week and I’m really looking forward to the weekend.  There are so many blogs posts to catch up on and comments to which I need reply so that’s definitely on the agenda for this weekend.  And my idea book is overflowing at the moment which probably means that I’ll be printing fabric this weekend for a variety of projects.

I love it when Lester rests his head on his paw.

Smudge on the couch.

One Flower Wednesdays

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I made half a dozen of these little flowers using half-inch hexagons.  To give an idea of the size of them, there’s a nickel in the middle of one.  I think I may alternate between these tiny ones and some made with the 1″ hexagons as I do have an idea for a small quilt using those as well.

Just to show the difference in size, this are some 1″ hexagons with the same nickel:

I really like working with .75″ hexagons as well so think I’ll print some fabrics to make a few of those.  If I’m doing One Flower Wednesdays, I may as well have a variety of sizes.

This week has turned out to be different than I anticipated.  I wasn’t expecting to be as busy as I have been.  As a result, I’m not getting around to blogs as much as usual nor have I responded to comments for a day or two.  Once today is over, then I’ll get caught up!

We had another absolutely glorious day on Wednesday.  Lots of sunshine.  Now I know it’s truly getting warm out there.  Some of the sun worshippers in the building were out on the roof garden Wednesday afternoon in their bathing suits.  That is a first — I don’t ever remember anyone being able to do that here this early.

Lester was busy on the windowsill watching as the gardener was out there adding soil to the flower beds.

Smudge looks rather pensive in this shot, I think.

Planning the Alabama Beauty Blocks

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These three little stacks of pieces represent the next three blocks for the quilt.  I’m still searching for the right name for it, so until then it’s simply “the quilt”.

I can see that working with the quilt is going to become more difficult the larger it gets unless I start putting it together in quadrants.  I’ve pretty well decided on a setting of 12 by 12 blocks, so I think what I’ll do is make four segments of 6 by 6 blocks.  That should make it somewhat less cumbersome to deal with until the end when I will join the four segments.  It’s rather amazing to realize that I’m over halfway done the first of four segments.  This is going together faster than I had anticipated.

On Linda’s blog yesterday, she showed some great layouts using controlled colour placement in the Alabama Beauty blocks that give totally different effects.  One of them gave me an idea for a quilt with the Improved 9-Patch block, which is another block that I do want to play with, although not a king-sized quilt.

I’ve joined in on the One Flower Wednesdays with Karen and Valentina.  At some point today I will be making at least one or two hexagon flowers, which I will show tomorrow.  I have an idea for a small lap quilt that will incorporate a few hexagon flowers made of 1″ hexagons and I think I’m going to use a small border of flowers made with half-inch hexagons to surround this piece when I get it to whatever size I finally decide on as large enough.

We had another gloriously sunny day on Tuesday.  The leaf buds on the trees on the roof garden are really starting to swell and show a little green.  With any luck we’ll have leaves in front of the living room window hiding the other high-rise towers before the end of the month.

This shot of Lester makes me laugh.  This was taken only moments after he had been brushed.  I don’t know why he does it, but as soon as he has been combed or brushed, he immediately starts licking and chewing on his ruff and looks so unkempt!  In this shot, I’m not sure if he’s meowing at something out on the roof garden or if we caught him in the midst of yawning.

According to Mr. Q.O., Smudge was thinking about “where’s dinner?” in this shot.

Alabama Beauty Circle Blocks

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Another row added and now six circles have appeared.  The more of these blocks that I do, the quicker I’m finding it is to stitch them.  What takes more time now is choosing the fabrics for the next row.   I’m trying to not have circles of the same colour next to each other.

It is now 27″ by 36″.  Once the next row is added, it will be 36″ square.  I’m thinking that I may work on this in 5-row sets so that it doesn’t become too difficult to handle.  That will make it a bit more complicated choosing the fabrics for the first row of each set but a little careful planning should be all that’s required.  I hope.  I’m thinking that it will end up composed of 12 rows of 11 blocks but that decision is one I’ll make once I get closer to finished.  I don’t think this will have a border.

I’m still trying to decide on a name for the quilt.  One candidate that keeps coming to mind is Spring Circles.

We got pictures of the cats awake.  Smudge, once again taking over my desk chair.

While Lester was relaxing on the pink chair.