Tag Archives: cats

Fabrics Selected

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It was unanimous — the brighter fabrics are the choices for the 7 necessary for the Harpsichord Patchwork. These are the 7 I’ve decided on.


I started organizing my fabric stash on the weekend. It’s something I’ve been putting off for ages. Friday I got some smaller plastic containers that I can actually handle and Sunday afternoon I got a good start. I’ll work at it throughout this week slowly, so as to not aggravate my hands, and hope to have everything organized and put away by the end of the week. I don’t know how much stitching will get done this week to post about, but it will be a great accomplishment to have my fabric in containers that I can actually manage rather than struggle to move around. I’d love to have my fabric on shelves but, with the dust that’s part of downtown living and the cat hair floating in the air, I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Smudge, wide-eyed and awake.


And Lester, in his normal spot on the windowsill, also wide-eyed.


Fabric Selection

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There are 10 fabrics in this grouping. I need to pick 7 of them for the little coloured squares on the outside of the black octagons in the Harpsichord Quilt blocks. The squares are only .75″ so I”m thinking the 7 fabrics on the left are the ones to choose as they’re a bit darker and/or brighter.

We had incredibly violent thunderstorms Thursday evening. There was non-stop, intense lightning and thunder that was so loud and so close that we could actually feel the vibration from it. The wind was wild and the rain was intense. I like storms, but I found this one a bit frightening. As it turns out, there were tornadoes in various areas around us, including one that did some fairly severe damage to homes to the north-west of the city. At one point, there was a tornado warning for Toronto. I do not remember us having tornado warnings before for the city.

Earlier in the day, Lester was hanging out on the windowsill and I got this picture of him. This has to be one of my favourite photos of him.


Smudge, stretched out on the couch. What I found interesting was that, during the storm, neither cat seemed to be the least bit upset by it. Smudge, in fact, slept through the whole thing. Lester too.


Two More Projects

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… are added to the rotation. I have so little left to do to put the basket blocks together that I don’t want to let them sit any longer. All that’s really left to do is wash some more of the white fabric I used in this, print some more shapes for and piece the sashing together.

This is the other project. Another fairly quick finish too. I have 2 of the 16 blocks I want to make done and this will be a teddy bear quilt. Again, just a few more shapes to print.


I have figured out, I think, what’s setting off my wrists and it’s related to work. Today will be a long day which will, I think, probably really set them off so Mr. Quilt Obsession will likely be pinch-hitting tomorrow.

Smudge held this pose for the longest time, waiting for the requisite pictures to be taken. It is so funny to see that his eyes are open just a bit while he watches to see if we’re finished taking photos of him. As soon as he sees that we are, he changes position. If you click on this photo to enlarge it, I think you may be able to see that his one front paw is seemingly suspended in space — he wasn’t resting it against the sofa cushion at all.

Lester spent most of the afternoon on the love seat, mostly snoozing but I was able to get one picture of him awake.


Quaker a 6 Mains

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This sampler will be one of the projects that will be in the rotation I’m trying to set up for the various things I have in progress.

So far, I have selected the sampler, the Harpsichord Quilt, the Patchwork of the Crosses and the Snow Crystal blocks for the line-up. I’ve even gone so far as to pick out what I think will work for the sashing of the Snow Crystal blocks. The question I’m trying to sort out is whether I should leave it at 4 projects. That may be the best idea for me as if I have too rigid a schedule I know I won’t follow it.

My hands have been aching a bit again, which I think has a lot to do with the weather. Mr. Quilt Obsession may step in for me a day this week. We’ll see.

Lester, stretched out on the couch. He is a very long cat. You can’t quite tell from this picture, but stretched out like this he entirely covers the width of the middle seat of the sofa and then some!

Smudge curled up in a chair.

Yesterday, I received 6 or 7 comments on various posts from the same person who seems to be someone who’s using comments on blogs to try to advertise some money-lending offer. I deleted the comments, and have left comments unmoderated for now. If there are more from this person, I will turn on comment moderation for a few days. Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that.

A Few Stars

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A 2-inch 60-degree diamond was one of the three new Inklingo KISS (Keep It Simple, Stitchers) collections that came out on the weekend, and I had to make a couple of stars using them. The 2-inch diamonds seem absolutely enormous to me, particularly after working with the .75″ squares in the Harpsichord Quilt block Sunday. This will be a long-term project, in that when I print some fabrics for either the Patchwork of the Crosses quilt or the Harpsichord Quilt I will print some other fabrics with enough for a couple of stars. Given their size, and the fact I plan to join them with a 2-inch hexagon, these will go together very quickly into a lap quilt.

This will likely end up quite a scrappy quilt. First I made a blue one:

Then a yellow one. Perhaps I’ll make a scrappy blue and yellow quilt — I have thought about making a blue and yellow quilt for a while.


The “few stars” in the title of this post are made up of these two stars and Kona Bay is the third. The fabric I posted the photo of yesterday is a Kona Bay print, but beyond that I had no information about it. I sent the photo to Kona Bay asking if they could give me any information regarding the name and/or number. I’m very impressed by how quickly they responded with the information. Thanks to their quick response, I was able to find a piece of it on eBay. And a very good friend found a couple of pieces of black and white music fabric for me as well. It seems like the Harpsichord Quilt is meant to be made.

The heat has been building, as has the humidity, as has the pollution. We had heat, humidex and air quality advisories Monday and I’m sure they’ll continue on today. At midnight Monday night we still had a humidex reading of 34C.

The kitties are pretty lethargic in this heat, even though the apartment is cool. Smudge, guarding the toy basket.

And yet another in the series of Lester photos on the windowsill.


Harpsichord Patchwork

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My version of the Lucy Boston Keyboard Patchwork has been started! As soon as I saw the Patchworks of Lucy Boston book last weekend, I fell in love with the Keyboard Patchwork. When a new Inklingo collection came out with the shapes for it, I had to make at least one block. Each side of the octagons is 3/4 of an inch and the little squares are 3/4″. Because the seams are so short, it’s very quick to stitch.

This is quite a change in how I approach a quilt. I knew I wanted to make it in a very controlled set of fabrics, rather than my normal scrappy quilts. My quilt is inspired by both the original Lucy Boston patchwork and the amazing harpsichords we saw last summer with the incredible decorative artwork that is on them. I will be doing half the blocks like the one above, with black and white music fabric octagons and the other half with coloured octagons.  All the blocks will be similar to the one above.

The back of my block. I wanted a brocade-type effect for the outer edge octagons, but didn’t want the darkness of the “right” side of the fabric, so decided on using the wrong side.

This fabric, which is a Kona Bay fabric, is the last of the pieces that I need to have fall into place to start in on this quilt in earnest. I’m feeling relatively confident I can find it somewhere and have e-mailed Kona Bay in an effort to find out the name of the line and/or number. If anyone has that information, please let me know as that will help me locate the extra yard of it that I need for this quilt.

I am taking a page out of Wanda‘s book and will start working on all these projects in a bit more controlled fashion. I haven’t quite decided which project gets worked on on which day of the week, but that’s something I want to figure out this week. I will be leaving two days a week open for play.

Mr. Quilt Obsession had fun last week guest blogging. I think he may pop in now and again. Thank you for all the fun comments — I will try to respond to them all over the course of this week. I really did have to give my hands as much of a break as I possibly could. And it helped.

We are finally getting real summer weather. The humidity is getting a bit oppressive, even for me. But I am not complaining. I’d far rather have this than wind chills of -20 in February!

The kitties were pretty laid back and lethargic this weekend. Even though our apartment is quite cool, I think they must feel the heat/humidity in some way or another.

For Quilt Hollow and all you other kitty lovers, here’s one of Smudge, awake on the windowsill.


And Lester, in his normal spot.



Exhausting Work!

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So what has Ms. Quilt Obsession been doing while I’ve been pinch-hitting, you might ask? Well, not only has she pressed me into service but Smudge got roped in too! Here he is trying to read the chart for the sampler she’s been working on!

And her progress on said sampler. I’m sure glad she can do this still with no pain — otherwise, who knows what other chores she’d find for us!

For example … she hostessed another one of the Inklingo swaps and, from that swap and from some of her own fabric she’d printed, has all these sheets of fabric that are printed with the bits for stars. There were rumblings about “perhaps you could cut those out?” but I wasn’t biting!

16 shapes on the back of each piece of fabric to be cut out?? A guy’s gotta draw the line somewhere, right? I mean, I’ll take a load of fabric and wash and dry it, cut some fabric and freezer paper for her, even try out ironing but …


The requisite kitty pictures, of course. Smudge is tuckered out from all the activity around here.

While Lester finds the windowsill enticing, even after the sun sets.

Ms. Quilt Obsession’s hands are feeling much better and, barring anything unexpected, will be back in full cry Monday.

Thanks for all the neat comments.

MR. Quilt Obsession for …

Beebs, the Quilting Bear

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Beebs, an affectionate term for the classic Basic Brown Bear, has offered to help the old man with some of the chores involved in preparing fabric for quilt blocks. He’s doing some of the ironing while I measure and cut fabric and freezer paper. This bear has an amazing amount of knowledge and skill in many areas.

Smudge has developed an interest … more tomorrow!

Lester, so far, is just waiting to see what develops.

Thanks for all the kind and funny comments. It’s fun to be part of this from a different perspective.

Mr. Quilt Obsession for …

Mr. Quilt Obsession Writes

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Pinch-hitting while Ms. Q.O. rests her wrists. I’ll have to rest a while myself having just wrested myself from under a half a ton of fabric where I was stuck for three and a half days without food, water or the company of kitties. My work seems to be cut out for me. (groan)

Rather I’ll be rotary cutting. Neat tools you quilters have.

Here’s Lester kitty-meditating in his favourite spot.

Smudge having his tummy tickled (for over half an hour ) by yours truly.


Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment.

MISTER Quilt Obsession for …

Snow Crystal Blocks Revisited

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The snow crystal blocks which will eventually be the pink and white quilt I’ve wanted to make are back in the line-up of things to work on. Or, rather, they will be back when my wrists get better.

I thought my wrists were better, but by Monday night knew I was wrong. I can’t even pick up a glass of water at this point without pain. I did a bit of ironing and rotary cutting on Friday. Guess I should have waited longer. Edited to add: I am going to take a few days off from blogging and give the wrist a real rest.

Smudge:

Lester in his normal summer spot — on the windowsill.