Stars, Stars and a Christmas Frog

Posted on January 2, 2009 by Quiltobsession

These little stars are multiplying at a rapid pace! I love how quickly they go together thanks to the perfect stitching lines of Inklingo! The Christmas Frog, who will feature in a teddy bear story soon, just had to get in the picture.

While I’m stitching the little stars, plans for at least one large quilt this year are swimming through my mind. I’m definitely going to make the Jane Austen quilt and am debating now whether to do it in shabby chic with a faded mint green dot on white fabric for the sashing or in Orientals.

I have a piece of an absolutely gorgeous Oriental print that would be perfect for the centre medallion and oodles of this fabric that I would be tempted to use for the sashing with all sorts of other Oriental prints.

This fabric has the most glorious feel and is an absolute joy to hand piece. I would like to make the JA quilt by hand so that is an important consideration as many of the Oriental prints have a metallic element to them which can make them a bit more difficult to stitch.

This is a picture of the sashing fabric with a couple of pieces of Oriental prints that were on my sewing table. I really love the richness of this. It will be busy, no question, but there’s something about it that really appeals to me.

We had a lovely quiet New Year’s at home. What did the cats do? Snooze! Smudge snoozing:

Lester snoozing:

Happy New Year!

Posted on December 31, 2008 by Quiltobsession

2008 was a pretty good year. There have been adventures for Daphne.

Reading time for the bears on the roof garden.

Time to play with black and white and all sorts of other coloured fabrics.

Cameras with which to take countless pictures of kitties

And most of all time to visit so many blogs and be inspired by all the amazingly creative talented quilters out there!

I wish you all a Happy and Healthy and Safe New Year.

Little Stars

Posted on December 30, 2008 by Quiltobsession

We found out at Christmas that there will be a new addition to my cousin’s family in April. I’ve decided to make a baby quilt using little stars and small stitchery blocks. The little stars go together so quickly — I had these made in the space of a couple of evenings. The little stitchery blocks will be, I think, butterflies — but I’m going to look at a few other design ideas before making a final decision.

Pop back in on Thursday, New Year’s Day, for the Whirl into Winter giveaway. There are about 60 bloggers participating and it will be, I think, great fun.

I love this shot of Smudge — he is so intently watching something out there!

Lester having an afternoon snooze.

No Snow but a Snow Crystal

Posted on December 29, 2008 by Quiltobsession

After all that snow we had before Christmas, we had a few mild days with a lot of rain and there is no snow left. It was quite lovely to have a white Christmas, which is somewhat unusual for us now, but I’d rather not get any more snow this winter!

In honour of no snow, I made another Snow Crystal. There are now 13 of these blocks done. They finish at 9″. I’m debating just how many to make. There are all the bits and pieces printed and cut out to make another 12 blocks. How many more after that? Who knows! I may make two pink and white Snow Crystal quilts.

Lester appears lost in thought — or perhaps about to pounce on a toy.

Smudge very intently staring at something out on the roof garden. We have seen a squirrel the last couple of days, so I’m thinking he may have been squirrel watching.

Christmas Trees

Posted on December 27, 2008 by Quiltobsession

Remember these 3 little stacks of fabric pieces …

… that eventually turned into this little stack and a bit?

They turned into 3 of these little Christmas Tree wall hangings. I used a different white or cream background for each one and alternated the green and red peeper and border on one. I loved putting these together. This is the perfect Christmas tree for a household like ours, where there are big kitties with big paws who would destroy a tree in short order.

One of the three trees was for us and I’m going to decorate it with some tiny ornaments. I think each year I’ll add an ornament or decoration.

It was fun making the trees. Even more fun was making the pattern for them! That was my first attempt at writing a pattern. I learned a lot doing that and plan to write a few more patterns this year.

Smudge found the whole thing quite exhausting. Chasing Christmas wrapping paper is very demanding.

Lester looks like he was about to — hmm, yawn?

Stitchers’ Angel

Posted on December 27, 2008 by Quiltobsession

On Christmas Eve the package arrived from my Stitchers’ Angel, Kerri at Kerri’s Provincial Patch — and it was some package! A wonderful little needle book, a fabulous scissors holder, a great caddy, a super little bag, a pattern and a copy of a magazine that I’ve not seen here!

The scissors holder had these great little scissors in it!

The inside of the needle book.

The bag. I love the fabrics used in this bag.

And this magazine. This will be great fun to curl up and look through with a cup of hot chocolate. Thank you, Kerri. Everything is just wonderful.

SSCS!!

Posted on December 26, 2008 by Quiltobsession

Somehow I managed to NOT open the SSCS gifts I received from Trisha at TLC Stitches until Christmas. So these wonderfully colourful packages waited and waited!

Finally it was time to open them. First was this gloriously warm and soft scarf, which I love. With our winters it will be worn a lot. And it will certainly brighten up my winter coat. It’s fabulous!!

Secondly, I opened this — a microwave baked potato bag! I’ve meant to make one of these for ages but never quite got around to it. I am thrilled with this and I think we may well use it tonight.

And then there were these adorable kitty toys made for Smudge and Lester. Now that we’ve photographed them, the boys get to play with them.

Thank you, Trisha! The scarf is wonderful, the baked potato bag is truly something I’ve wanted for ages and the kitty toys are fantastic! Pictures of the boys playing with them soon.

And Smudge on Christmas night. He certainly knows how to relax!

And Still Madly Stitching

Posted on December 22, 2008 by Quiltobsession

Remember this picture of 3 stacks of pieces?

It’s now down to this — one little stack and maybe one-fifth of the second stack. I can finish the last piece tonight and the third? Well, I figure I will get up tomorrow morning, throw some Christmas movie on and sit and stitch and stitch and stitch. Then baste the 3 sometime tomorrow night. Get up on Wednesday and quilt and put the binding on them. It may be a tight squeeze but I think I can do it.

It snowed and snowed over the weekend. This was how it looked Saturday morning. The sun was out and it looked nice — but it was bitterly cold. Wind chill values of -23C aren’t fun.

Then yesterday — more snow. The picture may look a bit grainy but that’s because the snow was falling as I took this.

It is supposed to get much much milder tomorrow and Wednesday and we may even have some rain to help wash away some of this snow.

Lester is fine. That in itself is a huge Christmas gift. It’s been a bit cold for the windowsill so curling up in a comfy chair seems to be his choice right now.

Now to finish work and then I’ll be stitching!

Snow, Snow and More Snow

Posted on December 20, 2008 by Quiltobsession

It snowed yesterday. And snowed.

And snowed some more. It started at daybreak and went on till about 6:00 p.m. The roads were apparently a nightmare, the commuter trains were delayed and/or cancelled, flights were cancelled, offices closed early. The wind chill value was around -23.

The worst of it? There’s more coming starting tonight. We have yet another storm warning for another “significant” storm that will start sometime tonight and go on through tomorrow.

We took advantage of it last night and went downstairs to the retail mall to do some last-minute shopping. We tend to buy a lot of books as gifts. Normally, the last Friday night before Christmas the line-ups at the bookstore would be unbelievably long. Last night? Last night we had our choice of cashiers, no crowds in the store and line-ups at all. May do the final bits of shopping tomorrow. The storm may hit but, when we don’t have to go outside to finish up the shopping, we won’t mind!

The kitties don’t worry about the weather. Smudge:

Lester, curled up and very cozy in his kitty bed. He seems to be fine, no repeat of that coughing or whatever it was.

A Trip to the Vet’s

Posted on December 18, 2008 by Quiltobsession

Lester gave us a bit of a scare today. We had gone out to get kitty food for them and, when we came back, he was coughing/hacking/whatever in an odd way. Not a sound we’d heard from him before.

Because of his heart condition, we didn’t want to take a chance — and because we’re supposed to have a large snowstorm tomorrow, we figured we’d better get him to the vet today to be checked.

Our favourite vet, Dr. John Reeve-Newson, was on. John checked Lester over and pronounced there to be nothing to worry about. He will need another echocardiogram in the New Year, but we knew that anyway. We have to watch when we’re there as we’re always concerned John might disappear with Lester; he offers to take him home almost every time!

That was definitely a Christmas gift — knowing that Lester is okay. With a heart kitty, one always is a bit nervous.

And Smudge — looking like a little cat, but with an odd look. I was fooling around with Photoshop filters and quite like how this one turned out.

I have fallen behind in work now and will have to put in mega-hours tomorrow but tonight? Tonight I’m going to stitch and enjoy watching the boys and their antics.

All of the little stars are now made and last night I started surrounding them with the white squares. It takes less than an hour to get two stars surrounded.

Seams graded and pressed.

There are now 17 of the little stars left to surround with the white squares. From here on out, it’s just nothing but continuous stitching to add the squares, then the connecting red diamonds and octagons and turn this into a finished quilt top. If I can stay focused, and I am pretty intent on doing just that, I could have this finished by the end of next week and be ready to quilt it next weekend.

I may take some time out this weekend and get the binding ready for Candy Stars as well as start printing for the Inklingo Periwinkle reverse mystery quilt. I think I’ve finally decided on the colours I want to work with for the Periwinkle quilt. No big surprise here — it will be pinks, pinks and more pinks. Maybe a mauve thrown in for a little relief from the pink. Maybe. Lessons 1 to 4 are available, free, at the All About Inklingo blog.

If you’re here to see who won the giveaway from the April Showers post, the winner will be announced later this afternoon after Baxter picks a winner.

“Mum’s Making Stars” is the title of today’s ‘toon.

As we were setting up to take pictures of the two little blue stars, he was right there just waiting for his photo to be taken because, after all, there is nothing that we could possibly want to photograph other than him!

Two Blue Candy Stars