Of course, I can’t resist the idea of some shabby chic and some fussy printing/cutting with the pickled clams. An idea is slowly forming and will definitely include some black and/or deep grey.
Another 4 or 5 hours of piecing and the baby quilt will be done. With any luck, I’ll have it finished by the time Thursday evening is over, will be able to do the final pressing on Friday and then hopefully get it basted over the long weekend. I’ve got the quilting for it planned and hope to finish the quilting and have it bound before month end.
I’m going to take a brief blog break and have an extra-long weekend and will be back on Tuesday. I hope everyone has a great weekend .
I didn’t get a lot done to show for the August Clamshell Club report but early in the month, I did add sashing to the first of the clamshell diamond blocks I’ve made. Although I’ve now printed enough sashing for a number of blocks I won’t know until I get them all done where they will be situated, so will delay adding sashing to the other blocks until I’ve figured out the placement.
August was pretty well taken up working on a baby quilt, so not a lot of attention got paid to my clamshell projects. However, when the new Inklingo clamshell pickle collections came out on the weekend, I couldn’t resist and have, so far, made one of each of the three sizes — 6″, 9″ and 11″ ones. The design possibilities with this variation of a clamshell are seemingly endless. I have a design in mind that will use all the sizes. This photo shows the 3 sizes on top of one another.
The next photo shows them laid out separately and gives, I think, a good idea of the difference in sizes. They all seem huge in comparison to the size of the ones I’m using in the first picture.
As the baby quilt which has taken so much of my attention will be done within a couple of days, I expect to have a fair bit of progress to show in September’s Clamshell Club post. Now I can’t wait to check out the progress of other Clamshell Club participants.
The weather for us is wonderful for this late in the summer — lovely and hot and humid. I don’t think it will last too long, so am enjoying it as long as it lasts.
Lester was enjoying it too.
While Smudge was more interested in sitting in the desk chair.
Back in June on Barbara Brackman’s blog post here, I saw pictures of clamshells done with a triangle arc and fell in love with them. On Sunday, three new Inklingo collections were released with the shapes for 6″, 9″ and 11″ clamshells on a pickle dish, including all the edge pieces so that one can have a straight edge. Of course, I couldn’t resist. And I even made the largest, which is completely unusual for me. The yardstick shows centimetre measurements rather than inches, but it seems huge — at its widest, it’s 11″. I have a design idea in mind that will use all 3 sizes in one quilt. The bonus to the large size is that I can have a quilt done in next to no time. The design possibilities with these shapes seem endless. It took hardly any time at all to put the arc of triangles together as it’s all continuous stitching. Then adding the arc to the clamshell was easy as could be.
The back:
The baby quilt is still at the almost finished stage. There aren’t that many pieces left to join to finish the top, so hopefully I’ll get it finished by Wednesday. I just couldn’t resist the pickled clams and, as the baby isn’t due until February, my self-imposed deadline of August 31 can be extended.
We’re going into a few days of high heat and humidity with humidex values in the 40C range through to Wednesday. The longer it stays lovely and hot the better.
Lester was getting in some windowsill time over the weekend.
After reading the comments on yesterday’s post, I pulled out 4 fabrics to pair with the fabric I showed yesterday. While I like all of them with it, I think the purple/pink batik is the one I’m going to work with. I may do a block using the purple/pink and then another using the white.
The baby quilt piecing is tantalizingly close to being finished. Tomorrow I’m going to see if I have a large enough piece of flannel for the backing and, if I do, I’ll hopefully get it basted this weekend and ready to quilt.
It was a rather cool day on Thursday and by the time the sun went down, it was a rather chilly 55F. Once the temperature gets below 60, I start thinking about the day we’ll have to turn the heat on. Hopefully, that won’t be for a few weeks yet.
Both cats were showing signs of getting ready for the cooler weather. Lester curled up in a kitty bed.
This fabric has been in my stash for ages. I love the look of it, but never seem to come up with the right fabric with which to pair it. I’d like to use it to make a two-colour quilt but am thinking it needs something other than a white or cream as the neutral. Any thoughts? I have one idea which I’ll try this weekend.
I am very close to finishing the piecing of the baby quilt. Two more evenings of stitching and it should be done. This is, without a doubt, the quickest I’ve ever put a quilt together. It will be less than a month from starting it to finishing the piecing.
Wednesday our weather really changed — from quite warm and humid to heavy, heavy rain and then cooler temperatures. I think our high today will be only in the low 70s, although they say we’ll have humidex readings back up in the 90s by Sunday. I’m definitely not ready to see summer go.
While working on the baby quilt, I am thinking about doing something totally scrappy with batiks and hand-dyed fabrics. So I dug out those squares and rectangles and started thinking about just what I might make with these. Batiks seem very attractive after working with the ’30s prints for a while. This also has me thinking that I will haul out the bin with batiks and hand dyed fabrics and perhaps cut charm squares from some, if not most, of them as well.
Then I figured that, while I was at it, I may as well take a look at the other charm squares I have washed and ready to use. There are more that aren’t yet washed, but I’ll start washing those this week so that when the baby quilt is finished I have lots of choices in front of me. 🙂 There’s just something about charm squares that I find irresistible.
Picking up a light box last night has sent my wrist into fits again. I don’t seem to be learning that I just cannot do what I used to be able to do easily. So once again, I’m probably going to be rather slow in replying to and leaving comments.
Mr. Q.O. does cryptic crosswords — and had put his puzzle down in front of Raggedy Ann. We couldn’t resist taking the picture. It almost looks as though she’s working on the puzzle.
A friend (no blog) has adopted an adorable 4-month old black kitten named Jasper. In this picture he’s lying on the quilt with one of her other cats, Kleenex. Jasper is slowly winning over the elder cats in her household. Jasper is a three-legged cat, who started out life as a feral and unfortunately lost a leg but, from all reports, it sounds like he has already learned to compensate and is lively and playful as can be.
Periodically, I love to look through the America’s Glorious Quilts book (although the weight of it is an issue for me) and had it out last night. I put it on the footstool in front of Smudge who, at one point, appeared to be interested and almost had a paw on the book. We didn’t get that photo but we did get this one.
I really like the light-coloured cutting mats and, as my older green one was starting to get rather worn and we were near the art store, I got this new 12 x 18 mat on the weekend. I’ve learned to shop for cutting mats at the art shop for a few reasons. They’re a lot less expensive (this one cost $7), they’re actually somewhat thicker and they don’t have the unpleasant chemical odour that the green ones I’ve bought in the quilt shops always seem to have. The last time we were at a quilt shop, we both noticed a really overwhelming smell at one section of the store and once we looked around realized that it was coming from the cutting mats that were right behind that section of the shop.
The baby quilt top is almost at the halfway point now. I’m amazed at just how quickly it’s coming together and am now hoping to have it finished before the month ends. I have an idea for another baby quilt but want to make it in something other than ’30s prints. I’m playing with the idea of doing something with shirting and reproduction prints but am a bit concerned it may be too somber for a baby quilt.
On Saturday we drove up a roadway that is lined by trees on both sides and it really looks like some of the trees are starting to show signs of fall colours. Not a lot, but some. It seems there are signs we may have an early fall. I talked to a friend who had been up to cottage country and she said that there are definite signs of an early fall up there.
We were cat sitting Winnie on the weekend. We got this photo of her.
At one point on the weekend, Smudge was curled up in a cat bed with a group of kitty toys.
Now that I’ve got those two pieces of gold fabric out on my sewing table, I couldn’t resist choosing some other fabrics to see how well they went together. I’m not sure just what yet, but I think this grouping or at least part of it will find its way into a design.
Then I had to try those same fabrics with the other gold fabric. Now that I have some combinations to play with, I can let my mind wander a bit and see if I come up with the perfect design to use these in.
The second row of the baby quilt is now joined to the first. It’s going together easily, so I feel pretty confident I can have the little quilt that will be 40 x 48 inches finished by no later than mid-September. I’d love to use the silk batting in the baby quilt but, as that will undoubtedly be a quilt that gets a lot of washing, I guess I’d better stick with a cotton batt. I got spoiled with the silk batt as it makes fabric wrestling aka machine quilting so much easier. We have nothing in particular planned for this weekend, so I’m hoping to get a lot accomplished on the baby quilt. I’d love to get it to the point of being half put together by the end of the weekend, but that may be too optimistic.
Lester makes it easy to take good pictures — he will stay still and look right at the camera.
There are two fabrics that have been in my stash for ages. The first one I have an idea for that will work with 2 or 3 red/coral tone fabrics to match those colours in the flowers.
This second one I bring out and look at periodically and try to decide what pattern and what other fabrics will showcase it.
Row one of the baby quilt is stitched together. There are 11 rows in total. My guesstimate is that it will take 3 evenings to add each set of two rows. So if the estimate is right and I really dedicate my stitching time to just the baby quilt, I should have the top finished within two and a half or three weeks. It took ages on Wednesday to lay the blocks and the sashing elements out and move them around a bit to get a nice balance. No design wall meant using the mattress cover, which actually works rather well and there’s an added benefit — I can shut the door and work on the layout without four-footed helpers.
On Monday when we were right downtown, Mr. Q.O. took a photo of the skyline. And this one of the CN Tower.
And while we were at it, this shot of the gargoyles on the Rogers Centre, also known as the Dome, where the Toronto Jays play baseball.
And the Air Canada Centre where both hockey and basketball are played. The orange cones in the photo? In Toronto, we have two seasons — winter and road construction season. As it’s not winter, there’s all sorts of construction and road repairs going on and wherever that’s happening the cones appear.
This is the first time we’ve been able to get a photo of the two kitties sitting together like this. I love the look on their faces.
The missing container of hexagons was finally found. The photo only shows about half the hexagons that are actually contained in there, all .50″ hexagons. So after what seems like weeks, I was able to make one little flower to add to my garden for One Flower Wednesday.
The back:
This time I tried a different stitching sequence than my normal and found that it’s much faster. Linda Franz posted this video on stitching hexagons on her blog last week and after watching it, I figured I’d try that stitching sequence. It definitely makes a difference.
The pieced blocks for the baby quilt are finished. As soon as I finish some work today, I’m going to lay them all out with the sashing elements and get started putting the top together. It’s pretty clear now I won’t finish it by the end of August, but I’m still going to try for by the middle of September.
Was something going on with Blogger blogs on Tuesday? I was able to leave comments on a few blogs early in the day but then had difficulties later in the day leaving comments.
The following two photos are of Queen’s Park — a park near our provincial legislature which is also called Queen’s Park. It’s a beautiful park with lots and lots of lovely trees and just a short walk from here.
A view north towards Queen’s Park, the legislature building, from University Avenue:
Another view, as one goes further north on University Avenue:
I noticed that some of the leaves on the trees on the roof garden are turning yellow and falling already. It’s still quite warm, but the light is definitely changing.
Smudge is getting into cooler weather mode, I think, wanting lots of lap time.
Quilt Obsession 