Tag Archives: cats

The Almost Completed Never-Ending Quilt

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The quilting is finished, the binding made and stitched to the front and tacked down on three-quarters of the back, but I just got too tired to complete the binding last night.  I’ll finish it today and we’ll hopefully be able to get a really good photograph out on the roof garden.  These pictures don’t really show the true colours as they were taken quite late at night with the flash on.  The binding fabric was just the right choice.  I like the look of it both on the front and the back.

Monday was nowhere near as hot as it has been the past couple of weeks.  Both cats got in some windowsill time again.  First Lester.

And then Smudge.


The Never-Ending Quilt

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… is what this is feeling like although Chintz Circles is almost finished.  Almost.  I think I’ve said that every day for the past 3 days.  But now I can truly see that there’s no more than an hour of quilting left and then the binding which I will hopefully get done tonight.  We went to Sew Sisters on Saturday and after looking at a number of fabrics, I chose the Rouenneries print for the binding.  I think it will frame the quilt perfectly and it goes nicely with the backing.

I’m pleased with how the machine quilting looks and the interlocking circles that show up.  Hopefully I’ll have some pictures to show tomorrow.  The silk batt turned out to be the best possible choice — it is so much easier to manoeuvre and gives a little stitch definition.   The Pfaff IDT has made doing the circles much easier than I anticipated.  That said, how on earth anyone quilts a large quilt on a home machine is beyond me.  After an hour or so of fabric wrestling, my shoulders and arms ache — and this is just a lap quilt.

While we were at Sew Sisters I found a fabulous white on white that isn’t heavily painted on.  So some of that had to come home with me.  I’m always on the hunt for a good white on white as I love using white in my quilts but have learned that anything with a heavily painted-on design causes nothing but trouble as it’s so hard to needle.  Oh, how I wish the manufacturers would produce some white on white prints that had the design woven in rather than painted on.

It was a hot and humid weekend and promises to be a hot and humid week.  Sounds like we’ll be back into the really high humidex readings towards the end of the week.

The cats had some windowsill time on the weekend.  First Lester.

Then Smudge — although he looks a bit cranky in this shot.


Friday Quilt Planning

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I pulled out a few more fabrics that I think might be fun to play with for another sunflower quilt.  Perhaps the purple in the fabric group may not work, but I think something a little offbeat needs to be added.  I’m thinking of a table runner done using the Pickle Dish collection.  For the fabrics I showed yesterday, I’m really leaning towards a summer double wedding ring quilt with the sunflowers in the centre of the rings.

It was yet another hot and humid day on Thursday.  For some reason, although this week is nowhere near as hot as last week, this week feels more draining.   Maybe it’s because it’s not cooling down much at night at all.  Even at 1:00 a.m. we have humidex readings of 31C (87F).  The weekend promises more of the same but I shall be chained to the sewing machine, other than a quick trip to Sew Sisters to find just the right binding fabric, and hopefully will have all the quilting done and the mostly finished quilt to show on Monday. I’m really hoping to have the quilting done and only the tacking down of the binding left by Sunday night.

Smudge was intently watching something Thursday night.

While Lester had a relaxing time on the windowsill Thursday afternoon.

Quilt Planning

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I have this group of fabrics that I love and that are out of my  normal comfort zone with fabric colours, but I can’t come up with an idea for them.  I keep thinking that something that has a fairly large central piece for the large sunflower print but then get bogged down in what?  Perhaps a different version of Pickle Dish?  Or maybe a small DWR quilt?

Letting my mind ponder that has helped while I continue with the quilt wrestling.  Today I will have a fairly long day of work, but as soon as that’s done I will be back at the machine quilting the Chintz Circles quilt yet again with a view to maybe, just maybe, getting it finished on Friday at some point.   I think a trip to Sew Sisters may be in order on Saturday to find just the right fabric for the binding.

Wednesday was another warm and humid day.  Our forecast seems like it’s nothing but a series of warm and humid days in the extended forecast.  This is definitely making up for the summer that wasn’t last year!

The cats were quite alert Wednesday night.  Smudge on the pink chair.

And Lester on the couch.

Pink Ice Block 28

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… got finished after all on Tuesday night after some quilt wrestling of Chintz Circles was accomplished.  After doing more of the quilting, I think I’ve got a “route” mapped out so as to be able to avoid having quite so many threads to bury.   Today and Thursday will be busy with work, but Friday and Saturday I plan to stay at the machine and keep going until the quilting is finished.

Two more Pink Ice blocks to go and then I’ll try a few of the 9-patch blocks to see if they will work as the setting block for the quilt.

Although it’s hot and humid again, Lester saw a few things out the window that he had to keep his eye on.

While Smudge was staying with his in warm weather, do as little as possible mode.  He was awake — if you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see one eye open watching to make sure he didn’t miss anything interesting.


Chintz Circles Quilting

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A sneak peek of the quilting I’m doing on Chitnz Circles.  The fabric wrestling, aka quilting by machine, will result in interlocking circles following the shapes in the blocks.   I haven’t done a lot of machine quilting, or machine stitching for that matter, but I’m relatively pleased with how this is turning out.  Wrestling with a quilt that has a silk batt is a lot easier than wrestling with one with a cotton batt.  The difference is quite evident.  I’m not finding it anywhere near as hard on my hands as I have when I’ve machine quilted a quilt with a cotton batt.  What’s taking forever is the burying of the threads.  There is some continuous stitching I can do but not a huge amount, which results in a lot of threads to bury.

It’s not going anywhere near as quickly as I had hoped, but I feel like a fair amount was accomplished Monday night.  If I can devote 2 or 3 hours every evening this week, I should be able to finish it by the end of the week.  Then it will be a matter of figuring out what fabric to use for binding.  That has me completely perplexed at the moment.  There are so many different fabrics on the outer edges of the quilt that choosing a fabric for the binding may be a bit more challenging than I had anticipated.

As well as the clematis (thank you everyone for identifying that) shown yesterday, Mr. Q.O. got this shot of a part of our friend’s garden.

Neither cat was very active on Monday.  Lester slept on the pink loveseat.

While Smudge was having a snooze on the pink chair.


Pink Ice Block 26

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… is partially stitched.  Once the middle star and the 4 partial stars are put together, it’s nothing but lots of lovely continuous stitching which makes it a much quicker block to put together than it may appear.  I may get it finished over the weekend, but this is the weekend that I will be devoting pretty well entirely to quilting Chintz Circles.  I don’t know if I’ll get it finished this weekend, but I’m going to try.  I’d like to get the binding on and wash it before next weekend so that we can take it to be photographed.

I think I’ve decided on how I’ll set these Pink Ice blocks — on point with perhaps 9-patch blocks.   The back of block 26, so far:

Thursday was, as they had forecast, another incredibly hot, humid and smoggy day.  Today is supposed to be somewhat cooler, with a humidex of about 33C (91F) which will feel a lot better.  And we’re supposed to have thunderstorms and rain which I hope will clear out some of the smog.

There are a few lilies that are popping up here and there in the flower beds out on the roof garden.  There’s a very pale coloured one which I think will open today or on the weekend.

Our Internet connection has been rather iffy this week, which makes me wonder if the power outage earlier this week had some effect on our ISP.   However, by Thursday night it seemed to be better and, all of a sudden, missing blog comments showed up in my inbox Thursday night.  Strange to have e-mails that are 2 or 3 days old appear suddenly like that, but I’m glad they did finally make it.  Today and over the weekend I will catch up on replying to comments and visiting blogs.

Lester spent some time on the windowsill on Thursday.

While Smudge was lounging on the couch.


A Replacement Patchwork of the Crosses Block

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Earlier this week I made this block as there was one that just didn’t fit in and had to be replaced.  The more I look at the blocks I’ve made for my POTC quilt, the more I realize just how drawn I am to shades of purple.  Now all the blocks for the top are made, the cream surrounding hexagons are on more than half of them and the only thing I have left to sort out is what I’ll use as the connecting squares where 4 blocks meet.

The back:

E-mail on Wednesday was completely unreliable.  Among other things that didn’t get delivered, I realized Wednesday night that many comments that were left on my blog on Wednesday didn’t arrive in my inbox.  So if I owe you a response, please bear with me while I sort this out.  I wonder if the extreme heat and humidity we’re having is affecting our ISP?

Wednesday night I started on another Pink Ice block.  As I like to match my thread to the fabric I”m stitching, I ended up using a Mettler 50/3 thread.  I can’t believe how thick that is in comparison to the Mettler 60/2 thread or the YLI Heirloom thread I love using.  Aside from being a struggle to thread the needle with it, I felt as though it was harder to pull through the fabric.   I’m curious about the Superior Threads MasterPiece thread and will, when I see it here, buy a spool to try.  Have you tried it?  What do you think of it?

When Mr. Q.O. was downtown on Monday, he also got this shot of the flowers outside a restaurant.   Doesn’t this look like a great spot to spend some time on a summer day and just watch the world go by?

Wednesday was another extremely hot and humid day.  Today is … well, more of the same.  The humidex readings have been the highest I can ever recall.  While we rarely have to put the air conditioning on in the living room, this week it has been on daily.

Mr. Q.O. has been playing with some photo editing software and this picture of Lester taken on Wednesday is a result.

Smudge spent some time on the windowsill on Wednesday.  At one point there was a robin he could hear but not see.  The tail was swishing and he was very intently staring out the window.

Pink Ice Block 25

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There are enough of these blocks done to make a lap quilt, depending how I set them.  That said, I have the pieces ready to make five more of these which would make it a slightly better size — again, depending on how I set them.  The blocks finish at 9″.  They’ve been sitting for so long now that I think, although it’s a given that I’ll have trouble sticking to this, that I shall just focus on them for a week or ten days to get them all finished and ready to put together.  Of course, this may well be because I’ve named the quilt Pink Ice and ice of any sort sounds very appealing at the moment with the heat wave. I’ve used so many various shades of pink and rose for the stars/partial stars that I may need to use a different colour when it comes to setting them.  I’m leaning towards setting them on point.

The back:

I’m working on another POTC block now as, when I went through those left to be framed with the cream hexagons, I found a few that really don’t fit with the rest.  But once that block is done I think I’ll start on the next Pink Ice block and try to stay focused so that these blocks at least get put together into a top, ready for quilting.

It was incredibly hot here on Monday.  A temperature of 33C and a humidex of 44C (91F and 111F respectively)  made it a bit like walking into a wall of heat when venturing outside.  More of this all week until Friday when it should cool down a bit.  On top of that, we have smog advisories which is typical for us with a heat wave.  And just to top it off, huge parts of Toronto were affected by a blackout Monday afternoon as there was an explosion at a transformer station. Thankfully, we weren’t affected but I immediately thought of those with whom I used to work on a high floor in one of the skyscrapers.  I cannot imagine walking down 45+ flights of stairs in this kind of heat in a building that had no air conditioning. The blackout occurred right around the time when people would begin to leave the office for the day.

The planters outside buildings around here are very bright and cheerful.  This is one that’s in front of a building right across the street from us.

And this one is in front of an office building across the road.

Both boys were pretty quiet Monday.  Lester draped himself over the arm of the pink chair.

While Smudge, when it was his turn to have the pink chair, curled up in it.


A Few More Klosjes

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It seems like ages since I’ve stitched any of these little blocks, but on the weekend I got out the box that contains the pieces for them and made 10 more.  Now I’m up to 103 of these little blocks.  As they finish at 2 3/8″ and, if my calculations are correct, I’ll need about 570 of them to make even a lap quilt.  That seems rather daunting.  Perhaps these really are meant for a small teddy bear/doll’s quilt.

We’ve been out taking pictures of flowers in the neighbourhood.  This is one of the planters that’s at the entrance to our building.

This one is on the other side of the entrance and you can see one of the buildings across the street reflected in the black marble.

There are tons of these little roses at the front of the building.  They bloom endlessly throughout the summer and well into the fall.

It sounds like we’re going into an extremely hot week with temperatures in the 90s and humidex readings that will reach upwards of 110.  I like hot weather, but the humidity can be a bit hard to take — I think we’ll need gills to breathe by the time we reach mid-week. I wonder how long it will take before they’re asking people to limit their use of electricity during peak hours.  While we hardly ever have to put the air conditioning on in the living room, I have a feeling that this week we’ll probably be turning it on rather frequently.

It was hot during the weekend, but nowhere near as hot as it’s going to be.  Where was Smudge hanging out?  In his kitty bed!  I mistakenly assumed that those kitty beds would be too warm during the hot weather, but it seems I was wrong.

Lester, showing his version of a lounge lizard look.