Tag Archives: cats

Colour, Colour and More Colour

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More fabrics have been added to the mix for the Tiffany Lamp quilt. Rather than being a small wall hanging, I have a feeling this one is going to end up as a lap quilt. I can’t resist these wonderful colours and can’t wait to play with them. I’m going to try to resist printing more of the New York Beauty shapes on them until the weekend. Try being the operative word.

The lure of those fabrics is irresistible right now. I think it’s because I’m trying to stick with finishing the red and white Feathered Star/Sunflower quilt and have hit that spot where it just seems like I’m never going to quite get there. I’m over halfway finished with the pieced border elements so am determined to stick with it.

I love the elegance of two-colour quilts, but think for my next one I’ll choose a pattern that has not quite so many pieces to it. I am still hoping to make at least two more – a green and white one and a yellow and white one. And who knows, perhaps another red and white one. But not this year!  And not one that has a gazillion pieces to it.

Have you made a two-colour quilt? Did you find that you were really finding it difficult at times to contemplate working on it? I think what this red and white quilt has taught me is that I am more drawn to making scrappy and more colourful quilts.

I’m also starting to put ideas together for this year’s baseball playoffs/World Series quilt. While it’s very early in the season, I want to have lots of ideas in the ideas book when it comes time. Of course, if the Jays make it into the playoffs I won’t be stitching. I’ll be on the edge of the couch, watching every pitch.

The mourning doves are back. We haven’t seen them out on the roof garden for a few years. Yesterday I looked out the window and there was one perched on the tree. I love the sound of them. Baxter was rather intrigued, as they are somewhat larger than the birds he usually sees out there.

Baxter had a busy day yesterday, with lots to watch out on the roof garden including the gardeners. I think they’re starting to prepare the flower beds, but I bet they don’t plant anything before the Victoria Day weekend. After his busy day, Baxter was crashed last night on “his” quilt.

A Gift, Some Printing, Some Blocks and a Cake

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The gift, one of the Rowenta travel irons. I am thrilled to pieces (pun intended) as it is so light and makes pressing blocks so easy on my hands. It gets super hot very quickly and has a little travel case.

The printing of everything for the Drunkard’s Path quilt using 2″ blocks is complete … I think. I may be short a few of the ’30s pieces, but can print more once I have a better idea where I’m at with that. The cutting has begun. That will take me some time as I’m not comfortable using a rotary cutter for this. But if I cut a sheet of the ’30s prints and one of the muslin each evening, I’ll have this done fairly quickly.

The little book box is slowly getting filled up with the pieces. I counted the previously finished blocks and I had, before I realized I could use Inklingo to finish this quilt, made 307 blocks. So only 525 to go.

Well, oops — make that 501 blocks to go. I couldn’t resist making a few on the weekend, some of which are shown here. Twenty-four counts as a few, right? When they’re this small and take only a few stitches to complete?

And just because they’re so cute and press so beautifully, a picture of the back of one of them.

The reason for the gift? It was my birthday yesterday. Mr. Q.O. knew I wanted that Rowenta travel iron. So he picked it up at the Creativ Festival on Friday. His favourite line is that only someone who’s married to a quilter can get away with buying an iron as a gift.

This was the birthday cake. They have these little cakes that come in small mason jars in the grocery store store downstairs. Perfect size for two people.

Baxter loves to lie on Mr. Q.O.’s cryptic crosswords. Mr. Q.O. captioned this one, “Hmm …” I think he was just showing off his lynx tips.

A Little Stash Enhancement

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Friday we made it to the Creativ Festival. While it was smaller than in past years, there was lots and lots to see. I had a pretty good idea what I wanted to find. Some ’30s prints for the 2″ Drunkard’s Path project. Found.

Some white on whites. Found. A black that would read almost as a solid but still light enough on the back so I can print shapes with Inklingo. Found.

I decided to take a super macro shot of the black to show the pattern in it.

Some more fabrics for the Tiffany Lamp quilt. Found. While I’m not sure all these will make it into the quilt, they are welcome additions to my batik stash.

Except for this one. This is one of the Northcott Stonehenge fabrics and most definitely is going to be used in the Tiffany Lamp quilt. I love the play of colours in this.

It was a great weekend. We went to the Festival, I got the lion’s share of the printing done for the Drunkard’s Path quilt and Baxter was posing for photos every time we glanced his way.

Baxter has claimed that spot on the quilt as his own. We put a teddy bear up beside the quilt, looked over a while later and Baxter was sound asleep with his head on the teddy bear.

Weekend Plans

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There are about 75 of the little 2″ Drunkard’s Path blocks shown here.

And enough to make just a few more blocks in this fabulous box.

Deceptive, isn’t it? Looks like a book. A non-blogging friend, who knows of my love for pretty boxes, sent this to me. By the time the weekend is over, I hope to have printed and at least halfway fill this wonderful book box with the shapes for the remaining 500+ blocks I need to make for the quilt.

I’m also hopeful that we’ll make it to the Creativ Festival this weekend.

So those are my plans for the weekend – filled with quilt-related things, I hope. What have you got planned for this weekend?

And Baxter’s plans for the weekend? Cat naps and reminding us whatever way he can to go to the pet store to get his favourite food!

Setting Idea

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The little ’30s blocks have been sitting for a few days, although more drawings have been prepared by Mr. Q.O. for embroidery. But yesterday, thanks to a new 2″ and 4″ equilateral triangle Inklingo collection, I came up with a setting idea for them. Of course, I couldn’t resist quickly printing and adding some of the 2″ triangles to the three embroidered 2″ hexagons done so far and then started playing with the setting. I am going to try, I think, to use just two different ’30s fabrics for the triangles. I’m relatively sure that I didn’t use either of those fabrics for the various pieces I’ve printed for the half hexagons and diamonds that were previously printed so I think it will work.

I had been playing with setting ideas but nothing really stood out as a great idea. The triangles changed all that. This is going to be a fun and relatively fast quilt to put together.

Now the little frog is a froggy star!

And, of course, it presses beautifully.

There are some fabulous design ideas in the collection using the 2″ and 4″ triangles together, with diamonds and with hexagons. I was immediately inspired by some border ideas. And some small quilt ideas. And — well, you get the idea. I’m always amazed at just how quickly the ideas start to flow when I see new shape collections.

I didn’t get around to replying to any comments yesterday or visiting any blogs. I will get caught back up today. Yesterday I got caught up in work and then Mr. Q.O. was having computer problems, so the iPad was taken over by him. After a long read, I tend to want to flee the big computer and only use the iPad. Amazing how fast I’ve gotten used to using it. Now I can’t imagine not having one.

Baxter was curled up on the couch. Mr. Q.O. captioned it, “She hid the fabric bits and I got tired looking for them.”

A UFO Gets New Life!

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I’ve talked about this book before, Ontario’s Heritage Quilts, and how much I love looking through it. When I first got a copy of the book years ago, I immediately fell in love with a Drunkard’s Path quilt.

But not just any Drunkard’s Path quilt. Oh, no. It had to be one made with 2″ blocks and that would take 832 of those tiny blocks to make.

I made my freezer paper templates and traced them on to ’30s fabrics and muslin and pieced those little blocks for a couple of months. But slowly the tracing of the templates became less and less appealing and harder on my hands. And so into this box the completed little blocks went. And, until last night, the box wasn’t opened again for a number of years.

Last night the light bulb moment occurred and I realized I could use the Inklingo 2″ Drunkard’s Path collection to finish the quilt. I immediately went on a hunt for the box, found it, opened it and was thrilled to realize I already have around 300 of the blocks done.

I grabbed a piece of muslin and a scrap of a ’30s print and had enough printed to make 8 blocks in the time it would have taken me to trace the two shapes for one block. Now I know I can finish the quilt that I have had my heart set on ever since I first saw the quilt in the book. I am over the moon excited about this!

Eight blocks were made last night. Mr. Q.O. timed it and it takes me about 5 to 6 minutes to piece each block. Over the next few weeks I’ll pull out the ’30s fabrics I have and print on them and on the muslin. And eventually I’ll have that quilt made.

For fun I put two of the blocks I pieced last night with two of the blocks from the box for this photograph. They’re going to go together perfectly. The only way to tell the Inklingo printed blocks from the others is that they have the rounded corners and, of course, don’t have the pencil marks on the back from my tracing of the templates. Instead I have the perfect lines printed by Inklingo. So now new life has been given to a UFO that I think would likely have ended up as a doll’s quilt as I couldn’t face tracing those templates over and over again.

While I was flying from the iron to the printer to print the shapes, I glanced over at the couch and noticed Baxter sound asleep like this. I think this may be one of Baxter’s first almost headless cat poses. Mr. Q.O. captioned it, “The Amazing Clingo!” How he stayed up like that is beyond me. Guess the quilt has magical holding powers on kitties.

A Different New York Beauty

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This is the first of seven New York Beauty blocks that will be made using these fabrics. I have a plan for a small doll/teddy bear quilt. Oh, who am I kidding? I just really wanted to see how the block would look in a more muted colourway. Now I know. I don’t think there’s a set of fabrics that wouldn’t be fabulous for NYB. I still have plans to play with batiks and Fassett prints and shabby chic and who knows what else. I can’t get over how quick a block this is to hand piece. It’s easy to piece one an hour.

Seams graded and pressed. One thing is noticeable. This is an ordinary quilters’ cotton while the Tiffany lamp fabrics have a metallic element to them. The ordinary cotton presses flatter with less effort. This block got the Baxter seal of approval – he licked it!

A question was asked yesterday about how I use Inklingo, whether it is to print the shapes on fabric or to print templates to trace. So I thought I’d show on a couple of fabrics just how perfectly the shapes print right on the back of the fabric. First on a light fabric. Oops — thought we had taken the picture before I started cutting but quickly realized we hadn’t. The smaller arc is the only thing missing from this sheet. If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you can see the stitching and cutting lines and matching points and crosshairs.

And then on a dark one. There are lots of ink colours from which to choose for each fabric. That said, I’ve been using Inklingo long enough that I can pretty much group the fabrics I’m printing and use certain ink colours for each group. I do tend to use the reds more than anything else as the red ink always seems to rinse out in seconds, although I always do a test sheet when I change ink cartridges just in case the manufacturers have improved their inks.

For the NYB blocks, I’m using one of the combo sheets. In this case, it’s the combo sheet which has all the shapes for a block. Each of the blocks will be slightly different as a result. For identical blocks, I would print each shape separately on the fabrics. In the case of the New York Beauty blocks, I print every shape on my fabrics as I’m hand piecing.

For some other blocks, particularly those using HSTs or QSTs, I might only print on one of the fabrics, in this photo on a muslin, and then use those lines to stitch by machine as shown for the sailboat blocks here.

When we were setting up to take the missing picture of the light fabric, Baxter decided he had to lie down on the fabric first. There’s nothing he loves more than a piece of fabric to paw at and possibly lick. Mr. Q.O. captioned this one, “Well, I’m helping, aren’t I?”

And Then There Were Five

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Five New York Beauty blocks, that is. These are far, far, far, too addictive to stitch. Weekends are my “play” time away from the red and white quilt. Did I stitch anything but New York Beauty blocks this weekend? No, not a chance! Dreamt about them, as a matter of fact. I wonder if that’s a bad sign, that I’m now dreaming about these blocks. In different colours, different types of fabrics. I’m wondering what they might look like in batiks with Fassett prints. Or, of course, with my favourite shabby chic fabrics. The possibilities seem truly endless. For now I’m having fun making my Tiffany lamp quilt. But I have a feeling the box with the Fassett prints may come out to play … soon!

It presses perfectly and I am continuing with my (finally learned) good habit of grading the seams as soon as I finish a block.

Remember how thrilled I was with the wonderful warm weather in March? I think it was tempting the fates! The forecast for today is rain possibly mixed with … I don’t believe this … snow! I’m threatening to not open the drapes if there’s the possibility of seeing white flakes at the end of April. I hope the poor plants that have started to come up out on the roof garden survive this. Not to mention the butterflies that I’ve seen over the past few days. This is truly a topsy-turvy year as far as weather goes. No winter, summer in March and now … what, winter in April?

Baxter is fascinated by the little box in this photo. Why? Possibly because one night I forgot to put the lid on it. In that box are the ’30s hexagon blocks. While we slept, he merrily picked out piece after piece and left a trail of pieces for us to find in the morning. No harm was done. He just seems to love carting little pieces around and dropping them on the floor. I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t carry them to drop in his water bowl. And yes, I did do a count and know that none are missing. But ever since that night, he keeps his eye on the box hoping, I suppose, that I’m forgetful again.

Another Quilt in Waiting

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It has been … this is embarrassing … over four years since this was basted. And yet it still isn’t quilted. Thankfully, it’s thread basted rather than pinned! I love this quilt – it is another in which I mixed and matched just about everything I had – batiks and novelties, brights and shabby chic. If the fabrics played nicely together in an individual diamond, I was happy. There is absolutely no reason this has languished this long waiting to be finished. I know how I want to quilt the plain setting diamonds. I know how I want to quilt the sashing. What I’m not a hundred per cent sure about is how I want to quilt the pieced diamonds. But as soon as Ferris Wheel is finished, this will be next in the hoop. The photo was taken years ago when a neighbour helped me (that’s me on the right) hold it, out on the roof garden, just shortly after I finished piecing the top. It is entirely hand pieced and contains all the diamonds from Linda Franz’ Quilted Diamonds 2 book. The pieced diamonds measure 4″ by 7″.

This is a close-up of part of the top.

Here are a few of the individual diamonds, in no particular order.  This duck diamond always makes me laugh.

As does this kitty diamond. A lot of fussy cutting was done so I could get the mouse, the paw prints, the ball of yarn and the kitty centred in each of their respective pieces.

I love the brightness of this star.

The oval diamond has one of my favourite floral fabrics in it.

The butterfly diamond is another of my favourites. As I look at some of these photos I realize I fussy cut for just about every single one of the diamonds. It sounds like a lot, but it was actually a lot of fun. And it’s going to be a lot more fun to start quilting them and get this finished.

The only challenge is going to be finding the perfect binding fabric. It has been so many years that I doubt I’ll find the batik that was used for the sashing anywhere. There’s a funny story that goes with the sashing. I had my stack of diamonds and was going to a quilt shop where I would be meeting a number of quilters, including one who hand-dyed fabrics. She took the stack of diamonds, quickly looked through them, walked to the front of the store and, before I could turn around, had picked the batik off the shelf. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.

Baxter definitely knows how to relax. I wonder if he’s going to want to claim my Quilted Diamonds quilt as his.

My First Applique Quilt

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While I work on the red and white quilt, I thought I’d revisit some older quilts. Tuesday we took this one out to the roof garden for a photo. It was made about 12 years ago — I didn’t date the label and have no notes about it anywhere, so am just guessing. It was my first appliqué quilt and was based on a pattern in a McCall’s Vintage Quilts magazine, although I did amend it somewhat. The blocks are 15″ and the quilt finished at about 66″ by  81″. It was pieced, appliquéd and quilted by hand. The only time the sewing machine was used was to attach the binding.

When I look at it now I get a laugh out of the fabrics – I mixed up everything in it. Muslin was used for the background. There are batiks, ’30s prints, florals, checks, you name it in the plates. I wasn’t following any rules about what goes with what. It was just what appealed to me and I thought played nicely together. I remember using a dinner plate to cut the corners of the quilt so that they’d be curved. That was my first time working with a bias binding and I loved it! In fact, I’ve pretty much always gone for bias bindings ever since then.

As this more current (and still being quilted) quilt that I’ve called Ferris Wheel shows, Dresden Plate quilts are something to which I’m really drawn. I’m contemplating a third one now. But now they are so much easier. No more tracing templates over and over. I just print my shapes with the Inklingo Dresden Plate collections. I was playing with some design ideas last night for another one, using EQ, and I think that it’s not too far off. First of course, I have to finish the red and white and my Tiffany lamp New York Beauty (which won’t be very big).  And start the quilt I’ve designed using the fabrics I won in the Love the Lines contest. And finish Pickled Ladies. And finish … oh, okay. The list is endless.

Baxter doesn’t care what else I make. He has his quilt now. Just about every evening he curls up on it.