A little progress

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As I had the pieces ready, I decided to finish adding the melon/arc units to the centre of this Double Wedding Ring centre. The fabrics I chose for the pieced arc aren’t quite right but I’m looking at this as a practice piece for now. These two melon/arc units are hand pieced, the other two will be partially done by machine and then I’m going to use the completed ring as a practice piece for — once again — trying out some free motion quilting.

I still cannot get over how easy this is to put together. The hardest part is picking out the fabrics! I’m playing with the idea of doing something with a Laurel Burch print for the centres and probably some batiks for the arcs. The weekend will see me with a pile of fabrics on the ironing board as I try some combinations. I know I want to make something that’s not even close to a traditional DWR and have had a few ideas.

Smudge watching us, watching him.

Lester in his favourite spot.


First Side Done

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The first melon/arc combination is done and added to the centre piece of the Double Wedding Ring. I’m absolutely thrilled with how easily this goes together — Inklingo truly does make this into Double Wedding Ring with training wheels on. The matching points mean it’s virtually impossible to fail at putting together one’s pieces.

What I’m not sure about are the colours of the pieces in the arcs. I’m going to finish this ring and assess from there. I think perhaps the colours aren’t quite right for the floral but I’ll see what I think when the four arc/melon combinations are attached. Now I’m wondering about a grouping of cream/off white fabrics for the arc pieces. That would showcase the floral print more, I think.

I couldn’t resist this picture of Smudge. If there’s one thing this kitty knows how to do, it’s relax!

While Lester is back to half dozing on the windowsill.


Tuesday Tidbits

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This is the beginning of the centre of the quilt I’m going to make using some of the .50″ hexagons I have printed. I’m purposely not setting the 4-hexagon units in line or in specific spots. There may be areas where there will be a 3 or 4 green hexagons between the little florets. I know this project will get put away and taken out again over and over, but it will be my main hexagon project for the next while. It seems I always have to have a hexagon project of some sort or another on the go.

This is half of a melon/arc unit done for the DWR quilt. The hand dyes I’m using in the arcs are rather like a batik and, as my hands are still quite painful, I’m going to forego stitching these by hand this time. I’ll turn this into a hybrid project and will do the arc piecing by machine and then I can have the fun of stitching the arcs to the melons and centres by hand, thus enjoying all that wonderful curved piecing.


This is one of the reasons I love this new Inklingo DWR collection, although there are a whole host of reasons to be thrilled with it. This worksheet, along with others that come as part of the collection, are absolutely fantastic tools and make planning a DWR a breeze!

The weather on Monday was dreadful. Windy, cold, raining, snowing, you name it! We had less than a centimetre of snow all of March, so seeing snow falling on the 6th of April seemed rather cruel! I know it won’t last but still — snow?? This was the roof garden Monday evening. The snow wasn’t melting as soon as it hit.


Although the snow was falling outside, thankfully we have the dome and the roof was closed Monday night for the opening game of the baseball season, which was fabulous and our Jays won! Although, if some of the fans had continued on with their silly antics, the game could have been forfeited. It was really a shame to see fans throwing paper airplanes and baseballs and who knows what else out on to the field. Aside from being silly and childish and distracting from what was an absolutely fabulous inning for the Jays, they could have caused real harm to the players in the outfield. I can’t believe they would do that and put their home team in peril of forfeiting a game that they were winning. The looks on the faces of the umpires and managers told the whole story — I think they were utterly appalled. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The game was delayed for approximately 10 minutes while the groundskeepers removed the debris from the field and the crowd settled down after being told by the announcer that anyone caught doing that would be required to leave the dome and could face criminal charges. Why does the opening game of the season bring out the worst in fans?

The wind was quite fierce Monday night and Smudge seemed a bit unsettled by it. However, that didn’t stop him from posing for pictures. Nothing stops him from posing for pictures!

Lester wasn’t going to hang out on the windowsill Monday. It was much too cold. He found a nice spot to curl up and have a nap.


Beginnings

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What are all these fabrics that I’ve had squirreled away for? A Double Wedding Ring table runner!


I knew there was going to be an Inklingo Double Wedding Ring collection. It was released on Sunday night. It’s incredible. This is going to be like making a Double Wedding Ring with training wheels on! The planning sheets that come with the collection are some of the most useful tools one could have when planning a Double Wedding Ring. It makes it absolutely foolproof when it comes to calculating how many of each shape one needs and the yardage for that particular shape.

I have now printed enough to do the first full ring of my DWR table runner using the fabrics in this picture.

I’m going to use the floral for the centre and my arcs will have 4 pieces along with 2 end pieces. The fabrics for everything but the melons and the centres are hand dyes that were chosen to go with that print. This will be a fairly good-sized table runner.

I have other plans for other types of DWR small quilts. One of the variations that comes with this shape collection has the centre in quarters. I’m thinking of a black and white with accents of red or yellow for that. There are so many possibilities!

The grandmother’s flower garden quilt that I unearthed late last week will get finished! I tried stitching a .75″ hexagon printed with Inklingo to an edge and it works perfectly. All I had to do was undo the basting so that I had the seam allowance to work with. Much faster and much easier than basting and whip stitching more and this way the quilt will get finished. My initial choice of a green is a bit too vivid I think, so I’m going to look at something a bit more muted.

It has been a rather tough few days. My hands are worse than they’ve ever been before and, as I can’t take anti-inflammatories, it’s hard to get under control. It got so bad that I could barely lift a small glass of water without pain. I guess it’s this wild weather, with the incredible barometric swings as well as temperature swings. They’re saying we may even get some snow today. Mostly rain for us, but there is a chance of snow. I hope they’re wrong!

Lester at his post by the window. I think he’s only interested in a DWR quilt if it might be a quilt for him to lounge on!


Resurrecting an old Unfinished Top

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As I’ve been hunting through stash trying to find the perfect fluorescent lime green for the Tropical Punch blocks, I unearthed this partially completed top — a GFG I had started probably about 10 years ago. I remember painstakingly tracing the hexagon shape on to freezer paper, cutting it out, ironing the freezer paper to the back of fabric strips, cutting those out, basting the fabric and then the whip stitching. Makes me tired just writing it all down! No wonder this ended up unfinished and in the cupboard.

The GFG is of a size that it could be used as a table topper so I think I’m going to just finish it. However, since my hexagons are .75″ ones I may use the shapes from Inklingo collection 3 to finish it off — with half hexagons and quarter hexagons so as to have a straight edge. I’m not sure yet. One thing I am sure about is that for me, Inklingo is the only way to go. I had a good look at the whip stitching I did on this GFG and while it’s not bad, I don’t think the seams look anywhere near as nice as they do with a simple running stitch.

For a while Thursday afternoon, I was leafing through some old issues of Australian Patchwork & Quilting. I fell in love with a quilt I found in an issue that’s about 5 years old. I think I have to print the shapes for it this weekend! Pictures and more on that when I get at least the first block or two done. It’s a small quilt with some pretty large pieces, so I anticipate getting it done relatively quickly. I’m sure I breezed right past this quilt in the magazine when I first got it and didn’t even give the quilt a second glance. Now I can’t wait to get started on it.

It was a glorious day here on Thursday although we’re supposed to have a storm with some fairly heavy wind and perhaps even a thunderstorm today. The first thunderstorm of the season. The cats aren’t the least bit concerned about thunderstorms and will sometimes sit on the windowsill watching the rain.

Lester snoozing between stints on the windowsill watching the birds. Thursday a lot of birds appeared on the roof garden and Lester was very busy watching!

Smudge isn’t all that interested in the birds, but when and if the squirrels make an appearance he will join Lester and be watching out the window with swishing tail and chattering. In the meantime, he’s snoozing with a teddy bear.


A Hexagon Plan

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After getting out the .50″ hexagon Quilters’ Emergency Kit box the other day, I started mulling over a plan. I think I’m going to use the 4-hexagon units surrounded by this green fabric as the centre of a small quilt. It’s a very pale Northcott green. Although the little 4-hexagon units are made using the half-inch hexagon, I’ll use 1-inch hexagons of the green and scatter the hydrangea florets. The size of the centre of this little quilt is, at this point, unknown but will probably be when I’ve had enough of making the little hydrangea florets. Thanks to Wanda at Exuberant Color for suggesting that’s what they look like — as soon as she mentioned it, I could see it too.


Then a thin, maybe half-inch, border of a white or cream followed by a border incorporating flowers like these, again using the green as background.

Finally, one more thin border of white or cream and the outer border of the hexagon diamonds which will be, once again, against the same green background. I think it’s going to be a very soft spring/summer quilt and may end up as not much more than a good-sized wallhanging or it could be a lap quilt. I’m not making any decisions on that yet. I love having a long-term hexagon project to work on. Sometimes I just want to stitch hexagons and, having printed all those little hexagons, I’m really happy to have come up with a plan that I like.


Lester, sound asleep.

And in what seems to be a series of these, another of Smudge in a “find the kitty’s head” poses.


Apple Cores

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There was recently a charm swap of apple cores which I hostessed on the Inklingo list. This is the result which all the participants received — approximately 360 apple cores, all different except for possibly one or two. While that may not be enough for a bed-sized or even large lap quilt, it’s more than enough for an interesting wall hanging or two. I’m playing with the idea of making a couple of small monochromatic quilts using these. In the meantime, they’re part of another Quilter’s Emergency Kit box — so whenever I feel like stitching some curves and want to play with colour, there they are.


Lester, still waiting on the windowsill for some kitty entertainment.

And Smudge looking — well, I’m not sure quite what he’s telling me with that look.


Hexagons, Hexagons and More Hexagons

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One of my Quilter’s Emergency Kit boxes contains hexagons. Well, a lot of hexagons. I printed thousands of the Inklingo .50″ hexagons thinking I’d do the Insanity quilt. I decided against it and have been playing around with ideas since then. So far I’ve made a few of the hexagon diamonds and some flowers.


I’ve also started putting together these little 4-hexagon units. This will be a long-term project but an idea is slowly coming together in my mind that will utilize the hexagon diamonds, flowers and the 4-hexagon units.


These are some of the cut and uncut hexagons for the project. I love being able to just pick them up and stitch whenever I need a hexagon fix. No basting, no whip stitching, just lots of running stitches. As they are rather small hexagons, it takes no time to have a seam done.

Monday was a very grey day here. Lester snoozed.


Smudge awake. In the background, you can just see Lester sleeping on the couch.


Sky Quilt Corners

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The blocks for the 4 corners of the sky quilt are now done. I finished the final two over the weekend. Now to get the rainbow started. That may have to wait a few days. My hands are really acting up so trying to get out the box with the reds is not going to happen till they calm down a bit.

My plan is to have a rainbow made of approximately 20 different fabrics, all varying tones of classic rainbow colours, as the middle of the quilt with these 4 smaller blocks in the corners. However, I may do these four blocks each as a separate little quilt but to be hung together. That way I can use different fabrics for the background and could then change where the twilight, sunset, sunrise and blazing sun blocks are around the rainbow whenever I want. Perhaps I’ll even keep them basically circular although I suppose that may present challenges when it comes to hanging them.

The Tropical Punch blocks are still in need of the right background, but I think I know what I want — an almost fluorescent lime green.

As I haven’t got the diamonds printed yet for the rainbow and can’t really get at the fabric I want for part of it, I’m going to do another few Giddy at the Thought of Spring blocks. I’m very grateful that piecing doesn’t seem to aggravate my hands even at the worst of times.


This, to me, is one of the benefits of Inklingo. I tend to print and cut a lot of shapes at once and have them tucked away. When my hands are bad, I can pick a project on which to work without having to do any cutting or pressing or anything. I think of those little packets full of shapes as my Quilter’s Emergency Kits!

Lester’s still waiting to see kitty entertainment on the roof garden. So far we have seen no squirrels and very few birds. On Sunday afternoon a few pigeons swooped in and he watched them quite intently. The tail was swishing and his eyes were enormous! Afterwards, he needed to rest his eyes for a minute, it seems, before watching for more entertainment.


Four Seasons Quilt Swap

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The mail on Thursday contained a package from Julia at Scrap Happy Quilter. In that package was the Four Seasons Quilt Swap 5 quilt which Julia named “Cotton Candy”. Absolutely perfect name. Oh, my! The applique is just gorgeous! The quilting — the quilting is fabulous. I keep picking it up and looking at it. Please go to Julia’s blog and look at the picture of the quilt there — the colours are much truer in her photograph of it. It was a very overcast and grey day here which made getting a decent photograph next to impossible.

I had to take a picture of the back just so you could see the wonderful quilting Julia did. If you click the photo to enlarge it you’ll see that she also did some hand quilting. What a treasure this little quilt is!!

Also in the package was a piece of this lovely Northcott pink. I have plans already for this.

Thanks to Julia for a gorgeous quilt and thanks to Margaret for another really great swap. I almost didn’t join. Am I ever glad I did!! This little quilt is getting pride of place on the wall right now.

Smudge, as usual, was very nonchalant about everything — except when it comes to making sure we were getting pictures of him. If you click on this picture, you’ll see his eyes are open just a tiny bit as he watches to make sure the photograph is taken.

And Lester, at his post by the window. I can’t wait till we look out and see green again. I know it will be some weeks yet but leaves on the trees make it feel like spring truly is here. I’m still not convinced.