Tag Archives: cats

Leaping For Joy

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Yesterday afternoon, the winners of the Inklingo Love the Lines contest were announced in this post on the All About Inklingo blog. Imagine how excited I was to find out I was one of the three runners-up! There are some beautiful designs shown on the announcement post, so I’m quite honoured. I already felt that I had won something as the contest had been the push I needed to finally learn my way around in EQ, at least to some extent.

Given my love of curved piecing, my design had to include curves. While I was playing with designs for the contest, Mr. Q.O. suggested a design inspired by a Persian carpet. Thus my design is named Persian Carpet. I am so glad I finally took the plunge and started to learn EQ and I’m very, very grateful to Inklingo, Electric Quilt and Northcott for providing such fabulous prizes!

Baxter’s markings are starting to really show up, although he had just been having a drink and his fur was still rather wet.

Feathered Star Beginning

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The second-to-last Feathered Star is almost done. Once all the HSTs, diamonds and squares are joined it takes almost no time to add the kites, the centre and the outer setting pieces. There are tons of opportunities for continuous stitching. I’m getting excited about seeing the centre of the quilt together. Two of the rows are already joined. Once the centre is together I’ll add the first small border and then will be working on the pieced border.

Yes, I know, looking at a piece of muslin isn’t exciting. I needed more of the muslin for the sailboat quilt and I’ve found a great way to iron muslin. After it’s washed, I roll it up, put it in a bag and then put it in the fridge while it’s still slightly damp, and then leave it there overnight or even a couple of days before ironing it. Wrinkle-free muslin with very little effort.

Mr. Q.O. captioned this one “Baxter and Buddy.” He’s rarely far from Cappy, his favourite toy, and almost always knows where to find it. That is, of course, if he hasn’t shoved it under a piece of furniture and needs us to find it for him.

Kaleidoscope Stars

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There was a little play time with fabric this weekend, although I have to admit to not getting back to the sewing machine. I will this week. But after seeing and thinking about the kaleidoscope stars on the All About Inklingo blog here, which contains a fabulous tutorial on how to place the freezer paper on the fabric to get identical diamonds, I couldn’t resist trying a few. I used the 2″ 60-degree diamonds. I’m so used to working with tinier pieces that those 2″ diamonds seem enormous!

These are irresistible to stitch. It’s such fun to see the effect as each star is put together.

The fabric I chose had a relatively small repeat and so was great for this technique, and I plan to print some more sets.

This is one of my favourites.

They press beautifully. I’m pressing each one the same way so that when I start putting them together, however I decide to do that, I won’t run into any difficulties.

Baxter was waiting for his nightly yogourt treat. Mr. Q.O. captioned this one, “Well, are you going to let me have that spoon soon?”

Sailing Away to the Sewing Machine!

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After looking through a few quilt books and thinking about it, I finally decided on a quilt block. Within a few minutes of making that decision, the fabrics were pulled and I had everything cut for the first block. Some muslin rectangles, a print rectangle, two large squares — one of muslin and one of the print — for the HSTs and I was ready to go.

In just a few seconds, the muslin square was printed, using Inklingo, with the 3″ HSTs for the block. The muslin was layered with the print. Using the machine, I stitched along the stitching lines. The fabrics were then cut along the cutting lines, the pieces were pressed and …

A few seconds later I had perfect 3″ HSTs. No dog-ears, no having to cut down to size. Just easy perfect HSTs.

A few minutes later the HSTs and rectangles were joined and the first of the sailboat blocks was done. The block finishes at 12″. I’m going to use a three or four-inch muslin sashing between blocks. My plan is to make 12 blocks and set them 3 by 4 as this is destined to be a lap quilt.

I didn’t time it, but I doubt the block took even half an hour to make. Once the HSTs were done, it took only a few more minutes. So I may just get all the blocks finished today. I’m curious to see if I can get the whole top done by the time the weekend is over. I may get distracted by a hand-piecing project .. in fact, I can almost be sure of that happening.

Baxter was practicing his lounge lizard look, I think. The crossed paws make me laugh every time.

Success! A New Ironing Board Cover

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It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough. I used 2 layers of Warm and Natural batting underneath the muslin and now it feels and looks so much better! When I started thinking about doing this, I found a few tutorials and ended up following this one as it seemed by far the easiest.

It is so nice to have a clean new ironing board cover. I know the muslin will show discolouration faster than a print but now that I’ve done this once, I can do it again easily. It sounds more complicated than it is. I think it took me longer to read through the tutorial than it did to actually make the new cover.

The new quilt wasn’t started yesterday as I ended up doing a lot of computer clean-up stuff as well as making the ironing board cover. There were tons and tons of photos that didn’t need to be on my hard drive but could be burned on to DVDs. Today I will get a start on the quilt. To start, I’ll be printing 3″ HSTs using Inklingo. I’m using muslin with a variety of fabrics so will only need to print on the muslin and then stitch on the sewing lines.

Baxter has many favourite spots but lately he seems to really like reclining by the quilt hoop. Wonder if he’s trying to tell me to get some hand quilting done.

What is the Muslin For?

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Rather boring picture, I know. But I’m finally going to make a new ironing board cover. I’ve been threatening to do this for next to forever and have found a couple of tutorials online that seem pretty straightforward so today’s experiment shall be making myself a clean new ironing board cover. My old one is so far beyond the pale I wouldn’t even dream of taking a picture of it.

For a fleeting moment or two I thought about dressing up the ironing board and using a pretty print fabric but, given the wear and tear my ironing board takes being shoved in the closet and dragged out again, I’d rather be a bit more frugal about it. Watch for tomorrow’s report on just how easy (or not) making this ironing board cover proved to be!

Last night Mr. Q.O. suggested a quilt be made for a friend. So out came the quilt books looking for some quick inspiration. I think I’ve settled on a design and, if the ironing board cover experiment goes well, I might even get the first block made today. It will be a machine-pieced quilt and one that I hope to put together quickly.

Baxter was draped over the arm of the chair looking at the quilt books too. He’ll be happy with whatever design so long as he has a chance to bite the fabric.

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

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I played and played with EQ over the weekend. Hopefully I’ll get this out of my system soon and be back to playing more with fabric! But this design is one that I will make. How could I possibly resist all that curved piecing of Winding Ways and Drunkard’s Path blocks? This coloration of it I’m calling Tiptoe Through the Tulips. Some of you may remember Tiny Tim singing Tiptoe Through the Tulips. I was giggling the whole time I was working on this design thinking about that.

Playing with designs in EQ has quickly become addictive. Saturday night I had to have an MRI and, as I am claustrophobic, took a rather strong tranquilizer. So as the machine made its infernal racket, rather than feeling like the walls were closing in, I was dreaming up this design. As soon as we got home, I started playing with it in EQ.

I guess you could say I am now well and truly hooked on Electric Quilt. I love that I can try out my ideas and see how they’re going to look before I start printing shapes on my fabrics. It’s just another great tool to have available. What’s perfect about it for me is that I can design a quilt using Inklingo shapes and then play with colours.

Baxter was very intent on getting to the yogourt on the spoon. If we don’t hold the spoon close enough, he’ll reach out with a paw and hook it around the stem of the spoon to drag it closer.

A Little Bit of a Little Border

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Aside from playing around with EQ, this is what I’ve been working on. I need 4 long strips like this for one of the pieced borders for Scrappy Star. At this point, it seems like an endless bit of stitching for a border that finishes at only 2.25″ wide but I’m almost three-quarters done and I know I’m going to be pleased with it once it’s finished and attached to the top.

There are loads of opportunities for continuous stitching when attaching the QSTs to the diamonds and I’m taking full advantage of those opportunities. That is helping make the stitching of the border strips fly along but I’ll still be glad when this part of Scrappy Star is finished!

Playing with designs in EQ  has now taken on a life of its own. The laptop is now plugged in over by the couch, rather than at my desk. The last few nights I’ve been designing and listening to TV rather than stitching and listening to TV. I think I’m on a designing binge of sorts.

Baxter was, I think, posing for this photo.

Four Little Quilt Tops

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First up, the little tumbler star table runner that finishes at 12 x 48. I’m Not sure exactly how I’ll quilt this one, but it’s going to be pretty basic.

Second, the 24″ square tumbler star doll quilt. This one is going to be quilted, I think, to emphases the stars.

Third, China Plates. I think I’m going to do straight line quilting through the middle of the hexagons.

The fourth is the pink and red Winding Ways that finishes at 27″. I’m going to quilt to emphasize the circle effect. This one I should have done before now. It would be great  to have this one hanging around Valentine’s Day. Next year it will be!

All of them have the batting cut and ready and I’ll get the backings and bindings ready for them on Friday. I’m going to baste some temporary muslin borders on each of the four so that they’re large enough to put in the hoop and I can get right to the edges, although I may do the table runner without a hoop. I think that will work as long as I baste it well enough.

Why have I got all 4 of them out? Because I really want to get back to hand quilting the Ferris Wheel quilt, but would like to use these tops as my warm-up quilts.

Last night I designed yet another quilt in EQ but that’s it for a while. I need more stitching time! I’m almost three-quarters of the way through making one of the pieced borders for Scrappy Star. Once I get that done and added to the main body of the quilt, I’ll decide whether it needs the final pieced border I was thinking of adding.

Baxter is 10 months old today. He’s growing so fast now that we’re seeing changes in him almost daily and his silver markings are starting to show more and more.