Tag Archives: cats

Farmer’s Delight Block #5 Centre

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The centre of the block is done.  I can’t believe how little stitching I’m getting done during the Olympics!!  Tonight is the men’s figure skating long program, so I doubt I’ll get much done at all — again.  

We watched the medals ceremony Wednesday night for our second gold medal — it is so exciting to hear our anthem being played, see the flag being raised and hear the crowds.  It must be incredible to actually be there and experience that!

Smudge didn’t seem quite so impressed, although we have caught both of them maybe watching some things.  I think the movement of skiiers or snowboarders is rather intriguing to kitties.

 
Lester is completely back to normal and has been spending time on the windowsill.  However, we got this shot Wednesday night as he was relaxing after another day of watching little snowflakes drift by:
 
 

Farmer’s Delight Block #5 Beginning

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This is probably going to be the longest time I’ve ever taken to stitch a block.  But while the Olympics are on, and particularly the figure skating, my stitching time slows right down.  I liked Kathy’s comment yesterday about stitching during commercials.  That’s probably exactly what I’ll be doing.

So what did I get done Monday?  All the little pieces cut for the next Farmer’s Delight block.  I actually got a start on stitching the centre part together, but not enough to photograph.  However, these are all the pieces, ready to stitch:

 
If you click to embiggen the photo, you can see the stitching lines printed on the back of the cream triangles.  Making sure the matching points actually match up is a great way to make sure the triangles are positioned properly.
Smudge had to have a rest from another day of Olympics viewing:

 
While it was Lester’s turn to guard their favourite toy:
 

Tumbler Stars Reveal

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This is what I was working on a few weeks ago and is what I’ve called the Tumbler Stars Chained table runner.  Without borders it finishes at 12″ x 48″ and was very fast to put together. 

I initially made this little doll’s quilt, which is 24″ x 24″, and then started playing with colour placement which resulted in the table runner.

What has taken so long to reveal it?  Because I was writing a pattern for it, which is now available here at the Inklingo Web site.  It’s absolutely free to download from the Inklingo site and is a small pdf file.  You needn’t worry that any information you enter to get the download will result in tons of unsolicited e-mails or anything along those lines — Linda is one of the good guys who would not do that.  

This is a version done by my friend, Charlsey, who was kind enough to test the pattern for me.  I love the different looks one can get with different fabrics with 3 simple shapes — tumblers, skinny triangles and some squares.  

 
I’m finding that I’m coming up with more and more ideas for small quilts and table runners and other items.  I am very grateful to Linda Franz for her brilliant invention of Inklingo, her encouragement, support and amazing generosity in sharing her time, talent and knowledge as I start down this path.  The various Inklingo shapes invade my thoughts 24/7, it seems.  I often wake up with ideas for a design, get ideas when washing my hair in the morning, have trouble concentrating on work as the ideas fly through my mind — in other words, quilt ideas seem to have taken over!  I’ve got almost every shape currently available in Inklingo collections printed and cut out on paper.  Sometimes I play with the paper shapes to see if my ideas will work.

The cats are not the least bit interested.  Lester was relaxing on the windowsill after watching some snowflakes drifting by the window Tuesday afternoon:

 
While Smudge was catching up on some sleep after another hard day of lounging:
 
 
 

Farmer’s Delight Blocks #3 and #4

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The third block finished.

Mr. Q.O. really likes these Farmer’s Delight blocks and has requested a lap quilt of them.  So another eight blocks to go, rather than being finished at four.  The fabrics are picked out for the remaining eight blocks.  I’m just going to squeak through with the background fabric.  Thanks to the suggested printing sizes in the Inklingo collection (they’re in every collection for every shape), I was able to figure out exactly what I need and I’ll have a piece about 6″ x 8″ left over.   I have an idea now for a pieced border, but will have to find something else to use for the background fabric in it.

What surprises me is that I actually managed to stitch block four over the weekend.  Certainly none of it was stitched Friday night.  I was absolutely mesmerized by the Olympics Opening Ceremonies!

 
I thought the Opening Ceremonies were wonderful!  It’s rare that I can’t stitch while watching/listening to something, but there was no way Friday night.  I didn’t want to miss a thing.  And now that the figure skating has started, I have a feeling my goal of getting things finished during the Olympics was hugely over-optimistic.  There is no way I can stitch during the figure skating. 
Smudge was lounging with their favourite toy on the weekend.  He stayed like this for what seemed like ages. 
 

While Lester seemed to be quite content to hang out and watch:

 

Planning

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The little bands of triangles I showed in yesterday’s post got me thinking about some design ideas.  These ideas may completely change what was going to be my project to work on during the Olympics, but that still remains to be seen.  In the meantime, though, I am dreaming about some designs using these fabrics for some bands of triangles!

 
Monday is “Family Day” in Ontario, so it’s a long weekend.  I’m going to try to get all my work caught up today so that I can take Friday as well, as I would love to turn that into a 4-day weekend.  
Our ISP seems to have had some issues late last week and through the weekend and I have realized that some e-mails just aren’t getting through — received or sent.  It appears to have cleared up now so if you’ve sent me an e-mail to which I haven’t responded, please try again.
Thankfully, we didn’t get the snowstorm that seems to have been all around us but Wednesday was cold and, at times, quite windy. 
Lester loves to have a bit of milk every once in a while.  Wednesday we got this picture of him having his little treat. 
  
Smudge was guarding their absolute favourite toy — or was he hatching it?  Hmm …
 
 

Framing the Farmer’s Delight Centres

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About 12 more of the little triangles to go and I’ll have the two strips that go around the centre of the Farmer’s Delight block done.  This time I’m going to try joining the two strips together before adding them to the centre rather than adding them one by one to the central part of the block.  These triangles go together really quickly with lots of lovely continuous stitching.  Seeing them like this, though, is giving me ideas for another design idea. 

  
Tuesday afternoon we had a few errands to run.  One of those errands was to run by the hotel where a friend’s husband (aka the fabric mule) stays every few months when he’s here on business.  He’s dubbed the fabric mule as he always brings a package with him and then returns home with a package.  In the package left for me with the front desk, I found this: 
  
Mini honey buns of the Patisserie fabrics by Fig Tree Quilts and Objects of Desire fabrics by Sandy Gervais.  There’s something quite irresistible about these little honey buns!!  There’s a pattern that came with them for a small bag.  While I’ve not yet made a bag, I think I’m going to try as the pattern is quite easy to understand. This could be quite the adventure for me.
While we were out running errands we saw a large flat-bed truck hauling snow into the city.  This struck me as so funny.  Here we are in Toronto, with really no snow in February, and they’re hauling snow in for something — probably a movie shoot, as I can’t imagine any other reason they’d be doing that.  Even though there’s quite a storm that’s going to hit all around us, they say Toronto will only get a very light dusting of snow.  
The vet said he wasn’t concerned about what I reported regarding Lester.  So I guess he’s just getting over the tail end of whatever it was.  Here he is, looking rather pensive, I think:
  
And Smudge relaxing after he had tried out for kitty curling.  We were having meatballs for dinner Tuesday night.  As we were putting them in the baking dish one of them fell on to the floor (thankfully they were frozen), and Smudge immediately started batting it around.  I think he’d do quite well at kitty curling.  He wasn’t too happy when I took it away from him. 
 
 

Farmer’s Delight Blocks

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I got the third block started and have begun putting the rows of triangles together that will surround the centre.  I’m still trying to decide how many blocks to make, but am leaning towards making a lap quilt with each block in a different fabric.

The fabric I had used for the centre of the first block didn’t look quite right to me, so I decided to applique a new centre on top of it.  Now I’m much happier with the appearance of the block.
 

Smudge mid-yawn.  He has been diligently training for the luge lounge event, which is very tiring work!

Lester on Monday evening.  We have a call in to the vet as he still seems to have a bit of a cold.  I’m thinking that he may need a few more days on antibiotics.  These are such big cats that I wonder if the vets have a bit of a chore figuring out dosage amounts and length of time they need to be on meds.
 

Pink and Red Top Done

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My hope was to finish the top this weekend — and I did.  It finishes at 27″ and will be, I suppose, a Valentine’s Day wallhanging.  I had no plan to make a Valentine’s Day quilt but the timing and the colours  make it pretty obvious that that’s what I have done! 

Now I’m thinking about what project I’ll choose as my Olympics project — something to work on while watching the various events.  A few more of the Farmer’s Delight blocks are definitely on the possible list, as is a green and blue Winding Ways project, working on the POTC blocks, beginning a table runner for which I have a design idea — and the list goes on!  Whatever I choose as my Olympics project is one that I am going to try to finish during the Olympics.  

Lester seems much better.  This is a shot we got of him over the weekend.   He has been very alert and playing with kitty toys and seems like himself.  

Smudge, on the other hand, has been getting in some heavy-duty training for the lounging event. 

Pink and Green

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While I work on the red and pink Winding Ways blocks, I keep thinking of a soft pink and green idea that seems to be demanding to be made. So I got these fabrics out as a start to finding just the right pinks and greens.


There’s a tropical blue and green idea that keeps floating through my mind too, so I think I’ll look for those fabrics in my stash this weekend. So many ideas!! And, with any luck, I’ll have the small Winding Ways quilt top finished by the end of the weekend.

Lester didn’t seem quite as good on Thursday as he was Tuesday and Wednesday. He has only two more doses of the antibiotics, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they work their magic. Here he is recuperating in one of his favourite spots.


Smudge, on the other hand, is taking the challenge from Gandalf to heart — and was getting in some serious lounge practice!

More Winding Ways & A Surprise

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Putting these Winding Ways blocks together is such fun. They press beautifully, following the pressing directions in the Winding Ways Design Book, and thanks to those pressing directions lie lovely and flat.

The back after pressing and snipping off the dog ears:

And a real close-up of the centre of the back. If you look, you can see that the middle is pressed open. Before doing that, though, I used the tiniest stitches I could manage and actually stitched the seam twice with thread that matched the fabric. It’s pressing like this that makes the block lie really flat, without a bump in the middle. It takes seconds, and makes a huge difference.

I’ve been inundated with work this week, rather unexpectedly, and haven’t really been responding to comments. I have deadlines to meet today, but then am taking a 3-day weekend. I love reading your comments and will respond, if not today, sometime on Friday.

Lester continues to improve. Here he is Wednesday afternoon:

Smudge licking the yogourt off the spoon — but keep scrolling down as there’s a surprise.

We finally got a video of Smudge drinking. If you turn your speakers up, you can hear the water dripping off his fur back into the water bowl. He likes to get his paw into the dry food and throw a few of those around and then he heads to the water bowl and — well, you can see for yourself: