Shabby Chic Circles and Yogurt Kitties

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What else did I find this weekend? More circles. Lots and lots more shabby chic circles appliqued on to shabby chic backgrounds. You know those wonderful 5″ charm square packs? Well, this is what I did with quite a few of them. I have a bunch of them left so I’m going to make a quilt of the blocks with the appliqued circles and alternate them with the plain shabby chic squares. These are definitely my colours!

I have six of them still left to applique that are already backbasted and waiting. Tried to do one last night, but right now my hands and wrists just do not want anything to do with applique. So those 6 blocks will just have to wait till the warmer weather.

Both our boys are mad about yogurt. Whenever either of us has yogurt, we have an incredibly attentive audience of two. We call it show time. 😉 Here’s a picture of the two of them sharing some of DH’s yogurt.

Oriental Circles

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This weekend has been a time for a sorting out of my sewing corner. Among the things I found were these Oriental circles. I think I have about 125 of them done. I was going to make more, but my hands and wrists are not at all happy with me doing any applique at the moment. So I think what I’ll do is start organizing these into rows and put the top together.

I’m inclined not to sash these, but they will definitely need a border. I’m not sure, but am playing with the idea of making a pieced border using bits of the Oriental prints or would it be better with no border or maybe just a border of one Oriental print.


A Star of Stars

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These stars are all from one of the Inklingo swaps last year. I got this far but now I’m stuck. Do I just finish it off with large pieces to square it up and then add borders or … It has been done for a while and I seem to be totally uninspired as to how to finish it. Any thoughts?

It has been a really busy week with work and I’m hostessing another Inklingo swap, this time of equilateral triangles, so have been fielding e-mails with questions. This weekend I will get my triangles printed and ready.

I’d really like to figure out how to finish off this star. I have one idea, but am not sure how it will work. May try my idea on the weekend and, if it works, will post a photo.

First Finish for 2008

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The signature quilt is done.


I really like this pattern. It’s a quick and easy to do pattern but next time? Next time I make this I hand quilt it! No more fabric wrestling for me.

Now I’m playing with ideas for my next project. Not sure quite what it will be, but I have a feeling it’s going to involve a lot of 1″ squares — other than those 1″ squares in the striped star series. 😉

Fabric Wrestling aka Machine Quilting

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I’ve been working on a signature quilt that will be presented Thursday for the past 4 or 5 days. Putting the top together was quick. Machine quilting it has been a nightmare! To be fair, I’m not really set up to do machine quilting on anything much larger than a table runner. A Featherweight table is perfect for piecing and cutting but for machine quilting? Not quite wide enough.

The signature quilt is about 60 by 70 and really was a challenge to work with. I was only quilting straight lines on it, but manipulating the quilt sandwich when I changed directions was unbelievable. Having to hold it so as to reduce the drag caused by the weight of it was frustrating. If I’m going to do more machine quilting (and at this point that’s a big if), I have got to figure out a better set-up!

Later today the binding goes on and then my favourite part — tacking down the binding. Pictures will be posted as soon as it’s finished.

Another Block Done

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These star blocks really are fun to put together and I think I’ll have a decent lap-sized quilt fairly quickly. Think it will need sashing though and am wondering about polka dot fabric for sashing. It’s totally scrappy and all the star points will be stripes, so I’m thinking some polka dots for fun. Hmmm …

A Journal Won!

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Back in late December, I won this journal on Sue Bleiweiss’ blog

It arrived today and it’s fabulous. Look at these pages and tags!! It’s almost too pretty to use!! Almost. But I’m definitely saving it for special things I want to keep a note of. What a treat to win something like this!

Another Idea

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One of the other swaps on the Inklingo list last year was of diamonds to make little 6-point stars. I think I have about 200 of these little stars made and have been playing with different setting ideas. The more I look at this one, the more I like it. It’s made up of Inklingo 1″ diamonds for the stars and the setting diamonds and 2″ hexagons.

I have some other ideas, but think I like this the best — the open space in that 2″ hexagon would be great for some pretty quilting.

First project for 2008

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There were a few swaps on the Inklingo list in 2007. One of those swaps was of one-inch squares. Now that the Christmas rush is over, I want to do some hand piecing and wanted to do something with those one-inch squares.


A 25-patch centre seemed like a start. Then I decided to turn them into 10″ star blocks using the flying geese method in Inklingo.

The stars will be scrappy, although each will be made using striped fabric. Why stripes? It seemed like a fun idea.

For each star, I need 8 HST’s, one 6.25″ square of the neutral and 4 3″ squares of the same neutral.
Lining up four of the printed HST’s on the large square, two lines are sewn — one on each side of the centre line.

Once sewn, cut along the centre line and press.

Line up two more of the HST’s on the remaining corner and sew on both sides of the centre line.

Cut apart on the centre line and press and you have the perfect star point unit — actually four perfect flying geese from one large square of neutral and 8 HST’s.



No cutting fabric with specialty rulers, no fussing trying to deal with stretchy bias edges. Just perfect units each time.

For me, it’s great. I love hand piecing, so will hand piece the 25-patch centres and put the blocks together by hand once I’ve made the flying geese units on the machine. This is nice relaxing work after the Christmas table runner assembly line I seemed to have been on! 🙂