Four Seasons Quilt

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Thanks to all the comments I received on the last post, I was able to make a decision — and decided to go with the Oriental GFG blocks. The picture above shows the border fabric I’m going to use and the fabric I’m using to set the little flowers into a rectangle.

This gives you an idea of how the flowers will look against that background fabric — I’ve started putting it together and hope to have it ready so I can attach the border by the end of the week. With any luck, I’ll get the borders on and the quilting done this weekend. That’s the goal, at least.

And, just because, yet another picture of Lester — about 5 minutes after I had groomed him. He loves to chew on his ruff and his fur within seconds of being groomed.

Four Seasons Quilt

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I thought I had finally decided on a theme for my Four Seasons Spring Quilt — flowers. To me the Oriental prints seem to denote spring and lots of flowers and, as I love putting these little GFG flowers together I thought about using a bouquet of them in a quilt top. I have about a dozen of these put together now and am stalled — my first thought was to applique them on to a suitable background, sort of like scattered blossoms. Now I’m having second thoughts.

My second idea is to finish off the ’30s pinwheels, part of which can be seen here, and bind it. The ’30s fabrics are, to me, really cheerful — which is what I think spring is. Coming out of winter and going into spring has to be the most cheerful time of year! This picture was taken a while ago — and it is now almost 20″. I’m thinking a nice white-on-white fabric for the setting diamonds and triangles to get the straight edges and then a binding of ’30’s fabric would be very cheerful — but perhaps it’s too busy?


The swap partner I was assigned had no preferences, so there’s nothing there to help me decide. Thoughts?

A Stretch For Me — Red Fabrics!!

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Up until lately, I have shied away from red fabrics altogether. Funny — I love the look of red in quilts, but was always hesitant to buy or use any reds! I’m nervous they’ll bleed, I think, as the reds I’ve bought in the past have bled a lot.

Then I saw this on Wanda’s blog and fell in love with red!! So I’ve combed through my stash and found some reds. I’m really not sure where I’m heading with this other than the fact I’m playing with the idea of doing some postage stamp baskets and am thinking of making all the baskets red. The green is in there because I want to do something with it — maybe the handles for the baskets? And the cream — well, it’s just there ’cause I love it! There are, I know, a few more reds to be found in my stash and I’m going to dig them out in the next few days and see what I have.

This is all in preparation for the Creativ Festival later this month. I have a list of things I want to find this time: the Gypsy Gripper, which I’m told really helps hold a ruler steady; some red prints obviously; a few more Oriental prints and definitely some cream-coloured tone on tones. I was really disappointed in the fall when none of the usual U.S. vendors were at the Festival. I hope some of them make the trip up here for the spring festival!

Yesterday I thought spring was here. We had temperatures around 13 Celsius and it was heavenly. Short-lived, though. The wind picked up rather drastically and by the time night came we had a wind chill of about -7. We went for a walk yesterday afternoon and the air definitely had a feel of spring, although some of the wind gusts were incredibly strong.

Fabric Panel

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A friend and I exchanged some fabrics a while ago This panel is one of the fabrics she gave me. I love it — and am tempted to just use it as is. There’s about a yard of it, but I keep thinking I’ll just sandwich it and quilt it. Might do something fun in the little HST squares — perhaps a tiny feather or a small tear shape quilting. Not sure.

This is a close-up of some of the little dark blue squares. I just can’t seem to bring myself to cut this at all!

Any thoughts out there on the quiltling of this?

It’s suddenly become very busy, as far as work is concerned, and I think it may well cut into my quilting time over the next couple of weeks.

Today was wonderful — I saw birds out on the roof garden for the first time this year. A sure sign winter may well and truly be gone. Now to see that first robin and then I’ll know it’s spring for sure!

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Stars for Stars

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I showed you this last year — my very first quilt, which has been languishing in a closet forever. Obviously, I didn’t know how much I had to learn! There are some pretty obvious holes in the centres of those stars. I still love the colours I used in it though, and don’t want to just throw it out.


Rose Marie over at Applique ‘n Patch Quilting suggested I do a small star to applique on top of those centres. Brilliant! So we went on a hunt for the perfect yellow for the little stars. Found it. Printed a whole bunch of .75″ diamonds using Inklingo Collection 3 and started making the little 6-point stars. I think this is going to look fabulous when it’s done! It will be quite bright, which was the plan in the first place, and these little stars will cover the holes perfectly. Thanks, Rose Marie. Now to just finish making enough of them and applique them on — and then this will be ready to baste and quilt. 🙂

And, to finish off the week, yet another Smudge lounging pose. They are endless!

Nine and Four Patch Blocks

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I just love stitching 9 and 4-patch blocks sometimes. They are always so satisfying to finish and go together so quickly. We had a swap of 1″ squares on the Inklingo list last year and I got rather carried away with printing the little squares. Now I have all sorts of them that I am slowly putting together into 4 or 9-patch blocks here and there. Not sure if I’m heading towards a doll’s quilt with these or will just keep going till I have enough pieced to make a lap-sized quilt but, in the meantime, I’m having so much fun stitching them! There are evenings when I want to stitch, but want something mindless and that’s when these come out.

Hand stitching means I can fan the intersections, like this, and have no bulk. When pressed, the blocks lie wonderfully flat and look super.

Smudge, in yet another of his numerous poses. The pictures of him are endless! He loves having his picture taken — the minute he hears that little click when we turn the camera on, he poses. Thank goodness for digital cameras. We could never have taken as many pictures of these two and developed them all with a regular camera!

I thought (wishful thinking?) that winter was over. Wrong! Yesterday afternoon, just in time for rush hour, the wind picked up, snow and rain started and it was absolutely miserable. At least today we’ve got sun, although I think there’s another storm coming tomorrow. Beginning to think this will be one of the years we go from having heat on to having the air conditioning on and no moderate weather in between.

A Kitty Border for Stars

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I was thinking about possibly using a border when the 9-patch blocks of the stars are all done. This is almost unheard of for me as I next to never want a border. Then I remembered I had this:


I think it will work with these stars — and be a lot of fun. It will be bright and very colourful. That cat fabric has been waiting, I think, for just the right quilt top. This really is making me want to stitch those little star rectangles together as fast as I can!

Easter weekend was rather chilly here. It was even cold enough one night that the city issued a severe cold weather alert. I don’t think I can remember that ever happening this late in the year! This morning when I woke up and looked out, I was so shocked. Yesterday, we could see the grass on the roof garden. This morning? It was covered, yet again, in another blanket of snow. Thankfully, the sun is stronger and the snow had started to melt by mid-day. We may be in spring, but it sure doesn’t feel like it yet!

Lester enjoyed Easter — with his very own little chick. Notice the embroidered Easter egg on the chick. We couldn’t resist this when we saw it in the store. Perfect picture opportunity with a kitty! LOL

Stars to 9-Patch

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The box containing all the bits is turning into these and there are more colours yet to come — ones I haven’t stitched yet. Having all the setting pieces prepared using Inklingo makes for very fast stitching. We watched a movie last night and I had 4 star rectangles finished by the time it was over.

And they are turning into 9-patch blocks:

I’m not sure whether every 9-patch block will be composed of stars in one colour or not yet — I may just mix them up as it is, as per my usual, going to be a pretty scrappy quilt. :-))

The 9-patch blocks are huge to me! The unfinished measurement is 15 3/8″ by 13.5″. Those are, other than applique, the largest blocks I’ve dealt with! Guess this top will go together quickly.

And just because he’s so cute and we can’t resist taking photos of him when he sleeps like this, a picture of Smudge:

A Wallhanging for Spring

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This is a pattern I bought last weekend. The iris was my father’s favourite flower and we had loads of them in the flower beds in the backyard.

I plan to get the pattern for the applique traced on to the background this weekend and will have it back basted and ready to stitch down hopefully by the end of next weekend. Once that’s done, it will go together very quickly.

I’m thinking of amending the borders to include flying geese — as the Canada geese flying north in that V formation and the sight of an iris or two in a flowerbed are both signs of spring to me. At this point, with our weather, I’m hoping spring will arrive sometime! It’s still pretty chilly here and there are still enormous snowbanks!

The three spots for the Pay It Forward challenge have been taken. Joan at My Quilt Life, Lisa at Miniature Quilter and Christine at Liberty Star Farm have joined. Now to figure out just what I’ll make for each of them!

The first of the 9-patch units made with these stars is now done. Once it’s pressed, I’ll post a photo. This is going to go together quite quickly, I think. I love making the stars — they go together so quickly!

More Mail

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I love getting mail these days! Look what arrived today — a gorgeous sewing kit from a friend in the U.S. I was expecting the parcel and the fabrics you’ll see in a minute but this sewing kit was a fabulous surprise!


When opened, there are oodles of pockets in which to put scissors, a small cutting mat and ruler, a pen, rotary cutter — you name it! I know this will get a lot of use. But I oh, so love the fabrics she used to make this! It’s very rich and warm looking.

These are what I had expected to find when I opened the envelope — some more fabulous black prints for the black and white stars seen here.


On Saturday we had gone up to the LQS where I had picked up a few more black prints. The black and white quilt is going to be, I think, really quite striking when it’s done. This is a picture of the fabrics that arrived today along with those I found at the LQS this weekend.


I have decided though to add some larger star rectangles to the mix. Along with the small ones, I’m going to make some with the 1.5″ diamonds. This week I plan to get these black prints cut and printed with some of both the 1.5″ diamonds and .75″ diamonds and the related setting bits and make some of the larger ones.