Half a Dozen Melons

Posted on by

6

I’m hooked.  No question about it.  Stitching these little blocks is nothing but fun. They’re a quick stitch and those perfect curves make me smile every time.  I need around 40 of them for the border I’m planning but, at the rate they’re going together, it’s not going to take long.  But ideas for a quilt made with just these blocks keep floating through my mind.  It’s one of those blocks that I find irresistible.

Thursday was a great day.  The pink and cream quilt top is finished.  When I got up Thursday morning, I decided it was time.  Sashings were cut, sewn to cornerstones and added to the blocks and then the final border was added.  What I learned yesterday?  That machine piecing isn’t that difficult.  All the joining was done by machine, while the blocks themselves were hand pieced and I got it all put together without having to rip out any seams.  The top finishes at around 60 x 70, and I am thrilled with it.  Pictures when it’s quilted.  I’ve already got the quilting planned for it.

Charlsey posted some pictures on her blog post here from our two days of stitching, talking and planning as well as some interesting people watching.  There’s one shot of Charlsey’s Seven Sisters quilt and my X’s and O’s quilt that I love.  The hotel lobby is rather beige and I think our quilts added some needed colour!

For some reason we got no new photos of the cats on Thursday.  Things are definitely looking up — the two of them had one of their mock battles on Thursday evening, which they haven’t really done for a couple of months.  This is one of my favourite photos and a rather rare shot of the two of them together that was taken a few months ago.

Melons

Posted on by

11

I’ve started putting together one of the elements for the borders of the X’s and O’s quilt.  These little 4″ blocks go together so quickly that I don’t think it will take long at all to get this part of the border ready to put together.

The back of one of the little blocks.

We’re definitely going to have a couple of days of milder temperatures.  If the forecast is correct, we may hit 50 on Friday!  It looks like it will go back to the cold winter weather shortly after that, but what a treat to get a day that warm in February.

Lester continues to improve.  Mr. Q.O. was taking pictures of the boys, focusing on their paws.

Smudge was showing off his paws while he slept.

6 More Pickled Ladies and a Plan

Posted on by

15

Lots of stitching and talking on Tuesday resulted, for me, in six more finished Pickled Ladies.  I think this will end up as a large wall hanging with a narrow stop border in black and a larger border in a shabby floral.  When I have all the ones that are currently prepped done, then I’ll assess its size.

Tuesday was chilly again with temps in the mid 20s.  But it looks like we’re heading into a nice warm-up, so I’m hoping that maybe we’ve had the worst of winter and now it’s just a matter of waiting for the warmer weather to arrive.

Smudge was reaching for the kitty toy basket from the kitty bed.  Always makes me laugh when he does something like this.

Lester was having a snooze.

More Arcs for Pickled Ladies

Posted on by

10

I realized that it’s the middle of the month and no new Pickled Ladies have been stitched, so last night I put together some arcs for another dozen or so of them. They go together quickly and it’s even faster to add them to the clamshells, so I’m hoping to get these all stitched today.

Monday I met up with another Inklingo’er, who is here with her husband.  We had a prime spot in front of the fireplace in the lobby of the hotel at which they’re staying and stitched and talked our way through a good part of the day.  Today will be more of the same.  Monday I worked on the triangle bands for another Farmer’s Delight block, but today it will be the Pickled Ladies.  I’m behind again on replying to comments and visiting blogs, but will catch up on Wednesday.

When I’m upset about something, I have a tendency to throw out things that I don’t mean to toss.   Last week, when Lester had the stroke, I apparently threw out my finger pincushion.  It’s hard to believe just how lost I was without it.  Thanks to my friend, I now have a new one.  This one is going to be very carefully taken care of and tucked away each evening after I finish stitching so that there’s no chance of it getting tossed out!

Lester is definitely on the mend.  Monday night he was spilling out of the kitty bed as he stretched and then slept in this position.

An hour or so later and Smudge had taken over the kitty bed.


Carpenter’s Wheel — Lots of Photos

Posted on by

15

A friend asked me how I’d make one of the Carpenter’s Wheel blocks so I decided to do a mini tutorial on it.  Smudge is watching intently.

The first thing I did was figure out what I needed to print, which was 8 diamonds for the centre star, 8 squares in the background fabric to surround the centre star, a total of 24 other diamonds for the frame around the star/square centre,  8 QSTs and 8 more squares in the background fabric, and 4 squares in another colour for the corners.  Once that was done, it took only minutes to print and then cut out my pieces.

The first step was to make the centre star.

The next step is to add the 8 squares around the centre star.  As I hand piece, I look for these continuous stitching possibilities.  Two lengths of thread later and all the squares were added.

Pressing after each round isn’t normally something I do, but this time I did.

The next step is to make the frame of diamonds that will surround the centre star/squares.  As I was using two colours, I first stitched the purple diamond pairs and then added the orange diamonds in between and continued joining them until I had the frame ready.

Another opportunity for lots of continuous stitching and a few threads later, the frame is added.  In fact, it went so fast that I had started to add the final squares and QSTs around the block before I remembered to take this picture.

The final step is to add the background squares and QSTs around the perimeter. Again, lots of continuous stitching.  When adding the squares and QSTs, I left the corner squares until the end so that I could take advantage of the continuous stitching opportunities and then went back and added the 4 final squares.

It presses beautifully and lies flat as can be.  Because of the perfect stitching lines and matching points printed with Inklingo, making this block is not difficult at all.  I used the 6 inch LeMoyne Star collection to make my block, which finishes at 12″.

The fabrics I used for this block really had me out of my normal comfort zone as far as colour goes.  It was interesting stitching and now that it’s done, it’s on its way to a friend.

Lester found this whole thing so relaxing that he fell asleep!  He’s continuing to improve and has been playing with toys, is eating on his own and seems more like himself every day.

Farmer’s Delight in Stages

Posted on by

23

Another Farmer’s Delight block completely finished.

One that just needs the frame around it to square it up.

And a third which is awaiting its two bands of triangles.  I’ve decided to make the remaining blocks all at once.  It’s faster, I think, if I make the blocks up to the point of completing the addition of the two rounds of triangles and then, once the remaining 3 or 4 blocks are at that stage, I’ll add the frames to square them up all at once.  That’s what I’ve been working on this week.

We ran down to the hospital for a bit on Wednesday afternoon to meet Cameron, who was born late Monday afternoon, and to deliver his little quilt.  His father, who is the son of a quilter, wasted no time in making sure Cameron was cozy and warm with the quilt wrapped around him.

Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and messages about Lester — they were greatly appreciated and helped enormously.  Lester has been slowly recovering.  This is his third stroke and the recovery time has been longer this time.  As of Thursday night he’s eating on his own, drinking and even playing a bit with kitty toys.  It has been a roller coaster of emotions watching him, wondering how well he’ll recover.   We took no pictures of him this week until last night, when he was acting more like Lester, our house lion — lounging in the kitty bed near the kitty toy basket. We were, once again, extremely lucky.

There has been good news with Smudge as well.  He finally seems to be eating enough on his own.  So much so that Thursday was the first day in close to three months that there was no syringe feeding at all. Tuesday and Wednesday were rather tough days with syringe feeding necessary for both of them and then Thursday was like magic — they were both eating on their own.  Smudge was having a snooze after eating on Thursday night.

Cameron’s Windmills

Posted on by

25

Yes, I know — a picture that’s almost identical to the one I showed yesterday.  A healthy baby boy who has been named Cameron was born late yesterday afternoon, so this little quilt is now named Cameron’s Windmills, the label was completed and appliqued on and it’s ready to go.

I’m not sure how much I’ll be posting this week.  As well, visiting blogs and replying to comments will probably not be something I’ll be doing much of over the next few days as Lester has had another small stroke.  He’s had two strokes before now, both of which he recovered from quite remarkably well.  This time?  This time I’m not so sure what the outcome will be.  When we left here to go to the vet’s on Monday, I wasn’t feeling very optimistic.  However, the vets gave him a painkiller as well as an appetite stimulant.  By the time I sat down to write this late Monday night, there was a very small improvement so we’re hoping that he can bounce back this time as well.  For now, we’re syringe feeding him and Smudge.

This picture of Lester was taken last week.  He was much more restrained than Smudge — didn’t feel he had to get on the board when we were trying to take a picture of the Rainbow Flower.

Smudge was checking on Lester throughout the evening on Monday.  Then he stretched out for a snooze.

Baby Windmills Quilt

Posted on by

16

Friday evening the last stitch was taken to tack down the binding and the baby windmills quilt was finished. Nothing like a last-minute finish — the baby is going to be delivered sometime today.   I had decided how I was going to quilt it and, with a little advance planning, was able to get the machine quilting done within a couple of hours and had only 4 thread ends to work in.  All straight line quilting, of course, as that’s my skill level when quilting by machine.

When I found this flannel a couple of years ago, I bought enough yardage of it for the backing for 3 baby quilts.

The label is ready to be written and stitched on to the back.  As soon as we know the baby’s name, I’ll write out and attach the label, give the quilt a quick wash and dry and we’ll be off to deliver it to the hospital.   I’ve found that a 2″ hexagon is perfect for a label as it gives me lots of room to write.  I’ve got the turn-under allowance basted down as that will make the appliqueing on to the back go very quickly.  Right now it’s ironed to a piece of freezer paper to stabilize it when I’m writing on it and the fabric pen is ready and waiting.  I can’t wait to hear if it’s a boy or girl!

The quilt was made with “other” half 1″ hexagons which I printed using Inklingo. This was a UFO that had been sitting for a couple of years.  I love tessellating designs and had started this quite a while ago but then it sat.  However, when I learned my cousin’s son and his wife were going to have another baby I knew what this particular UFO was meant to be.  Once I made that decision, it only took a couple of weeks to finish piecing it.  With a tessellating design like this, there are tons of opportunities for continuous stitching which makes the piecing go very quickly.

Lester looking rather majestic — one of his house lion looks.

Smudge has definitely turned a corner, we think.  He’s more playful and is eating more every day.  Sunday night he was playing with the favourite toy, Cappy, and then decided to rest while lying on top of Cappy.  I think he wanted to make sure it didn’t get away from him.

Farmer’s Delight … Again

Posted on by

11

Along with finishing the quilting of the baby quilt, I started piecing another Farmer’s Delight block on Thursday.  The photo above was taken back in April, and there are a couple more blocks that have been done since but this is another of the UFOs that has made its way up the list.  It will only take 3 or 4 more blocks to finish it.

Tonight I’ll add the binding to the baby quilt and make the label.  Pictures of the finished baby quilt and the newest Farmer’s Delight block will be taken for Monday’s post.

A surprise package arrived from a non-blogging friend that included the book EQ6 Simplified.  I was thrilled and can tell already, from just looking through it, that it’s going to make a huge difference.  I’ve already picked up a couple of things.

We were absolutely delighted when Smudge decided he wanted his yogourt treat again.  He hasn’t evidenced any interest in it for what seems like forever, so watching him go for the yogourt Thursday night made us both feel fabulous!  He has been eating a bit more each day on his own, and we’re still struggling to find a food that he likes and that is good for both him and Lester.

Lester seemingly will eat almost every  food we offer.  There have been a few he’s not liked, but he’s nowhere near as finicky as Smudge.

X’s and O’s

Posted on by

16

My Improved 9-Patch quilt top which I’ve named X’s and O’s, and which was hand pieced in a few weeks.  I started piecing it on August 9 and took the last stitch completing the main body of the top on September 1, 2010.  The picture was taken on September 2, when the lawn on the roof garden was still green and there was no snow.  Without borders it measures approximately 41 x 48″.  One of the two borders I have planned for X’s and O’s will be pieced.

I used the Inklingo Orange Peel Deluxe collection to print all the shapes for this. Perfect stitching lines and matching points printed on the back of my fabrics made putting this together a breeze.  Even though I knew it would go together easily as I had just finished the Chintz Circles quilt made with shapes from the same Inklingo collection, I was amazed at how quickly I finished stitching it.  Once I got the idea for this quilt, I worked out a plan for my quilt using the design sheets and Monkey’s Cheat Sheet which are part of the Inklingo collection and filled out a cheat sheet, chose the fabrics and printed my shapes.  All done in one evening.  By the time two days had passed, I had all the 9-patches pieced and then it was just a matter of lots and lots of continuous stitching as I joined the melons to the 9-patches.

The biggest challenge for me with this quilt was keeping things in order.  Once I had the 9-patch blocks pieced, I laid them out with the melons and rearranged until I was satisfied with the placement.  Not having a design wall, I laid it out on the bed and we took photos.  Although I kept the pieces for each row of the quilt in separate zip-lock bags, I printed one of the photos and that was my virtual design wall to which I referred constantly to ensure I hadn’t mixed anything up.

My plan is to print the shapes I need for the pieced border sometime within the next couple of weeks and hopefully have the pieced border ready within a week or so after that.  I’ve already decided on the quilting design for the quilt, so I’m hoping to have this one done within a relatively short period of time.

We were lucky and didn’t get anywhere near the kind of storm they were predicting. It snowed for hours, no question, but we didn’t get the amount they had forecast. The migraine finally lifted Wednesday evening so now I’m just left with the bruised head feeling that always comes after and will get caught up on blogs and responding to comments today.

The cats found spots to snooze on Wednesday.  Lester on the pink chair.

Smudge got his turn on the pink chair a bit later in the evening.