Many Things

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If you’re looking for the winner of the kit for this in the Whirl Into Winter giveaway, go to this post. Thanks, Debi, for organizing this. It was fun and I discovered a lot of blogs I had never been to!


A huge thank you to Uberstitch who contacted me yesterday and is sending me another piece of this glorious red for the Red Delicious apple core quilt! I am oh, so grateful! I am really thrilled that I’ll be able to complete that apple core quilt with the one red fabric as the red apples.


I have a series of apple core quilts planned now. Along with the Red Delicious (the beginnings of which are shown below), there will be a Golden Delicious, a Granny Smith, a Pink Lady, an apple cart (all apple colours), an apple pie which will have a scalloped edge done in a beige/brown sort of print that will look something like a pie crust crimped at the edges and who knows what else. I am spending altogether too much time checking out apple colours at the fruit stand. Most of them will be wall hangings, but Red Delicious is definitely going to be a good-sized lap quilt.


I love this picture of Lester. If you look closely, you can see a drop of water on his chin. He had just been having a drink of water before he jumped up on the windowsill.

Help Needed!

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This is the red fabric I’m using for the Red Delicious apple core quilt.

In my normal fashion, I bought only a FQ of it. There’s no selvage on the FQ and so I have no information about it — the manufacturer, the name of the design, nothing. As my plan is to keep the red the one constant in the apple core quilt, I’d really like to find out any information I can about this fabric so that I can try to find a bit more of it. If you click on the photo, you’ll see the close-up and lots of detail.

I’d really appreciate any information about it that would help!

In the ongoing saga of DH’s run-in with the dental hygienist, yesterday morning he felt that the infection was still there and possibly getting worse. He spoke with his cardiologist, who also confirmed that there is no way the Cavitron should ever be used when he’s having his teeth cleaned, and the cardiologist recommended he see his GP again. That he did yesterday afternoon and is on yet another antibiotic for a further 7 days. I am really quite concerned that this infection is being so persistent, especially taking into consideration that he takes antibiotics an hour before he goes to the dentist and a few hours after. I’m wondering about the sterilization techniques they utilize on their instruments.

The shots of the two boys together on the window included this shot:

And this one — I think Lester was wanting the windowsill view to himself.

Update: A piece of this wonderful fabric has been found and will be on its way to me tomorrow. I am so impressed and so very thankful for the blogging community. And, in particular, thank you Uberstitch!

Butterfly Stars Update

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The butterfly stars are progressing. I managed to force myself away from Red Delicious and am back to working on the baby quilt. I need to get more of the butterfly hexagons ready so will work on that for the next couple of evenings. I think if I manage to get at least a full row of this done every week I can then devote any stitching time on weekends to Red Delicious.

I’m surprised at how quick these little blocks are to put together. Perhaps it’s the incentive of time to stitch on Red Delicious that’s got me stitching quickly on these.

Mr. Quilt Obsession is a cryptic crosswords fan. He heard about some fabulous new book on solving those puzzles (which are so beyond me it isn’t even funny — the clues make me crazy) and ordered one for himself and a friend. How did he wrap it for the friend? In two cryptic crosswords taped together. Completely appropriate. The two of them are often on the phone comparing solutions to these puzzles.

Another in the series of the two boys together. They sat there for some time so we were able to get a few of these shots. I really wonder what they saw out there!

Red Delicious Apple Core

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These are turning out so nicely I can’t believe it!! I love the look of the black and white. Why Red Delicious? Because on every row — somewhere — there will be a red apple core. It may be in the place of a black piece or a white piece. There will be no rhyme or reason to it; totally haphazard.


Look how flat the seams lie after pressing!

With the stitching lines and matching points so accurately positioned, it’s dead easy to stitch. And a whole lot of fun!!! I had about 20 of them stitched together in no time. Of course, my idea that this would be a small quilt went out the window. This will be a good-sized lap quilt, I’m sure. I’m equally sure that I will be making a few apple core quilts. There’s something very soothing about stitching a perfect curve like this — and these ones are so simple to do!!

Here you can see the first of the red apples.

This shot totally cracks me up — I have no idea what they were looking at out there on the roof garden, but something clearly had caught their attention.



Apple Cores!!

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Last night I got about 30 pieces of fabric ready to print and this morning, as I had my coffee, I printed them all with the little apple core shapes from the new Inklingo collection. I’m making a small black and white with a few accents of red apple core quilt.

Curved piecing is something I absolutely love. So I was really excited when the apple core collection was released yesterday.

I printed one sheet with a darker ink colour than I would normally have chosen so that I could get this picture. With the matching points on the stitching line, putting these apple cores together is going to be pure joy; exactly the type of stitching I need this weekend — simple, mindless fun!! This will be my pick-up project when I just want to stitch something for the pure fun of it.



The snow has begun to fall, it’s quite chilly and I couldn’t be happier! Time to put a good movie on and settle in for some fabulous stitching.

There are worksheets in the new collection as well, so I’ve printed out the 25% size one and will use it to plan the placement of the red apple cores. Once I decide on the placement, I’ll know how many of long-half and short-half cores to print so that I can have a straight edge on the sides.

As usual, while I was printing, Lester was on the windowsill watching the printer. It is so funny to watch him watch it. Then he saw the little notifier icon from my e-mail program jumping up and down at the bottom of the screen and he almost had his nose on the screen. DH is thinking of getting a new Mac. If he does, I’m half tempted to put his older one on a level where Lester could get real close and see if he figures out moving the mouse actually does something.


Surprise in the Mail, Apple Cores and Good News

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We came home from the doctor’s appointment (good news — more further down), checked the mail and what a welcome surprise!!

Martha, a fellow Inklingo’er with whom I’ve been swapping pink diamonds for the Snow Crystals, sent me this wonderful string of teeny, tiny lights for the hexagon Christmas tree! I’m going to wash the tree this weekend and then string some lights on it. Christmas may be over — but this is something I cannot leave until next year!!

Not only did Martha send the lights, but also these amazing little decorations — there’s one big gold star that will become the star on top of our tree. There are all sorts of amazing little decorations in here! I can’t wait to start playing with decorating!! Finally, a tree I can decorate to my heart’s content and one that kitties can’t destroy. :-))


Then I find out all about the new Inklingo collection for the Apple Core pattern. I love curved piecing, absolutely love it!! I’ve wanted to do an apple core quilt and I can’t wait to print some shapes and do a small apple core doll’s quilt.

DH’s doctor says he’s 2/3rds of the way to being over the infection. Apparently this particular antibiotic has a very long half-life and will continue to do its work even after he has taken the last dose. He goes back to the doctor sometime late next week just to make sure. In the meantime, he’s going to speak to his cardiologist and see about a referral through him to a new dentist.

Lester, our technology kitty, waiting for the printer to start. 🙂 Maybe we’ll get a picture of him tonight watching the printer print. It’s really quite comical to see. He’s definitely our techno-cat. Loves the DVD opening and shutting, loves the printers printing.


Butterfly Stars

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The first two butterfly hexagons are connected by stars. This design is going to be a work in progress as I’m thinking about what to use to join the rows. Not sure yet, but when I get the first row put together I’ll play with the shapes a bit and see. My thought is that a little open white space between rows of stars and butterfly hexagons may be a nice resting spot for the eyes. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I’ll have a decision made on that.

Lester yesterday. I love it when he gets these funny looks on his face — he’s very very expressive!

And Smudge with all his paws tucked under. I find it fascinating to watch the different expressions these two exhibit over the course of a day.


We’re off to the doctor. DH has an infection which we think was caused by a dental hygienist. He is a heart patient with a pacemaker/defibrillator. The hygienist tried to insist she could use the Cavitron to clean his teeth, even though the heart clinic was adamant that a Cavitron not be used as it can turn off the pacemaker/defibrillator. He almost had to physically restrain her from using it. She grudgingly went to cleaning by hand, got rather rough and it seems to have set up an infection. He saw his doctor on Monday, was put on an incredibly strong antibiotic but it doesn’t seem to have worked.

Butterflies and Snow

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Last night I started on the little butterfly hexagons for the stars. These are 2″ hexagons from the very first Inklingo collection. I’ve used an inexpensive white muslin behind the white on white on which the hexagons are printed and love the fact that that will successfully stop any shadowing through of the threads.

Hopefully, tonight I’ll get at least one or two hexagons joined with the stars.

What did we wake up to? Snow. Lots and lots of snow. It’ still snowing. It started snowing around 10:00 last night and it is still coming down. It’s pretty but I think it’s more than we were expecting. Right now, the snowflakes that are falling are huge! True winter wonderland. The trees now have that dipped in icing sugar look.



Lester on the windowsill.

Smudge, in one of his endless poses.


First Hand Quilting Project for 2009

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This little piece will be my first hand quilting project for the year. It was made with the pieces from the free downloadable Inklingo collection. I’m using a silk batt so I know this will be an absolute joy to quilt. It’s a little piece but it’s a nice way to ease into some larger quilts that need to be quilted.

I’m planning to use a dark fabric for the binding to finish it off. I’m not really sure what we’ll do with it, but I like it the size that it is. Perhaps it’s destined to become a wall hanging.

Lester in his favourite spot in the winter:

And Smudge — if you look closely I think you can see that his fur is wet. He has the oddest drinking habits. Rather than lap up a bit of water, he puts his whole face into the water bowl and then, when he’s dripping wet, catch the water on his tongue as it rolls down off his fur. He has done this since he was a kitten and it never fails to amuse us. I often wonder if he’d actually go in if we had a small wading pool for him.


Quilt Label and Kitty Christmas Toys

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On one of the Christmas gifts I made to give, I put this little label. I’ve become a big fan of little stitchery labels, it seems, and have a bunch of them ready to do so that labels for next year’s Christmas gifts will be ready to put on when the gifts are done.

Trish, who sent the SSCS package, included gifts of hand-made toys for the kitties. They have been playing with them a lot.

Here is Smudge, intently watching to make sure it doesn’t get away while he bats at it.

And Lester, in true Lester fashion, curled up in his kitty bed with the toy. If you look closely, you’ll see his eyes aren’t quite closed. He is very determined sometimes to keep his toys all close to him. It’s not the least bit unusual to see 3 or 4 toys in that cat bed.