Tag Archives: Christmas quilt

Feathered Star

Posted on by

22

The block was finished Tuesday evening and I’m thrilled with it.  Now to decide if I try to rush and make it into a table topper for this year or make this the first of 9 blocks and a start on a Christmas quilt for us.  I’m leaning towards taking my time, making the remaining blocks and having a Christmas quilt.

Heirloom cotton thread is one of my favourites for hand piecing.  When putting the arcs together for the Pickled Ladies, I use black thread.  The black heirloom thread seems to break much more easily than any other colour, which leads me to wonder if the black dye somehow weakens the thread.  Have you ever run into a particular thread colour that tends to break more easily than others?

I’ve done no baking yet for Christmas.  Usually I make butter tarts and a lot of different cookies as they’re great gifts to give to neighbours and friends.  I don’t think anything will get made this year but the butter tarts.  They’re fast and easy and everyone loves them so a few dozen of those will be made over the next day or two.

We got an early Christmas present on Tuesday when we took Smudge to the vet.  The jaundice is barely evident now and he has put on more weight.  He’s now up to 16.8 pounds, so only a few more to go until he’s back at his normal weight.  They gave him another antibiotic shot and he’s still on the syringe feeding, but he’s definitely on the mend.  He was relaxing Tuesday night.

Lester was napping.

Feathered Star for Christmas

Posted on by

14

This is what I worked on over the weekend.  For me it’s an enormous block as it will finish at 20″.  Feathered Star is a pattern I’ve been fascinated by and, over the years, I’ve thought about making one but the idea of the acrylic or mylar templates, specialty rulers, tracing and on and on made it less appealing.

On Friday night, three Inklingo collections for a 15″, 20″ and 30″ Feathered Star were released along with an absolutely fantastic Design Book.  Because the centres of these feathered stars are 4.5″, 6″ and 9″ respectively, one could use any number of blocks in the centre rather than the octagon.  Saturday morning, I had this stack of shapes printed and cut out, ready to make my first block.

The instructions in the Design Book are for both hand and machine piecing.  I read through the machine piecing section and felt like I could make one of these by machine.  That said, all the continuous stitching that putting the feathers together offers was irresistible to me and hand piecing was my choice.  Putting the HSTs together by machine would be so easy the Inklingo way; just stitch on the line and cut.  No paper to remove, no bias to handle.   The Design Book is free to download for a limited time.  If you’ve ever thought about making a Feathered Star, this is definitely a book you want to add to your library.

This could be the beginning of a Christmas quilt for next year or perhaps I’ll finish off this one block, add a border, quilt it and use it as a table topper this Christmas.  That may be a bit too optimistic to think I’ll finish it by Saturday, but I’m tempted to try.   I’m amazed at just how quickly it goes together.  It won’t take long now to finish the star and then add the setting squares and triangles.

Smudge is on a tablet that helps the liver.  He has a habit of spitting the pill out when I turn my back.  Saturday morning, he did that very thing and I didn’t notice it until we took this picture.  If you look closely, you can see the little pink pill on the towel.  He seems to be doing better.  Tomorrow we take him in for another antibiotic shot and his weigh-in and colour check.

Lester has been enjoying the variety of foods that have been showing up as we try to get Smudge to eat more on his own.

Planning A Christmas Quilt

Posted on by

19

A Christmas quilt is on my list to make one for next year using these fabrics.  I know that an Inklingo Feathered Star collection will be coming out sometime in the near future and have decided that will be the design I’ll use for a Christmas quilt with these fabrics.  A Feathered Star has been on my want-to-make list for years, so I’m really excited about the thought of making one.  These fabrics have been tucked away for ages, waiting for the right idea for a Christmas quilt.  I’ll get them washed and pressed in the next few days so that I’m ready to start.

I have been working on blocks for two quilts but, as my wrists are too sore to handle pressing at the moment, nothing is pressed so no photos to show quite yet.

Once again, thank you to everyone — all the good wishes and thoughts for Smudge meant a lot!  We had Smudge to the vet again on Tuesday and he has put on a pound.  We’re thrilled.  Our vet’s  happy.  Smudge seems livelier and more engaged. That is the best Christmas present we could have asked for.  We’re still syringe feeding and will be for a few weeks yet to ensure his weight gets back up to his normal 18+ pounds.  Along with syringe feeding the food, we’re giving him a bit of yogourt every night now as he was given an injectable antibiotic yesterday.  While he has always loved having a bit of yogourt, since he got sick he hasn’t wanted any of it so we’re giving that by syringe as well.

This photo was taken on Tuesday night.  It’s hard to tell from the photo, but he’s more interested in what’s going on around him than he has been the past week or so.  He’s still a bit jaundiced, but not as much as he was.  A visit to the vet is scheduled for next Tuesday for another weigh-in and colour check.

Lester has continued to keep his eye on Smudge.  He’s intrigued by the syringe feeding to the point that last night when we were giving Smudge some food, Lester decided he had to sniff the syringe.

Hopefully I’ll start replying to comments, visiting and commenting on blogs a bit more now.