Time for another Clamshell Club report.  The months seem to be flying past!!  This month I made some progress on two clamshell projects — Clam Balloons and the Pickled Ladies.

In October I was actually able to tear myself away from the Pickled Ladies and add another clamshell diamond block, so now there are three.  Two of the three are quite similar in that there’s a lot of the same fabrics in them, but once there are more blocks done and they are separated from one another I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.   Mr. Q.O. says they remind him of hot air balloons which led me to a name for the quilt, Clam Balloons.

I have been so focussed on stitching the Pickled Ladies that I forgot just how much fun it is to put the clamshell diamonds together, and how quick.  Two evenings of stitching and the diamond was done.  Getting enough of the clamshell diamonds done to be able to sort out placement is a goal I have now for the end of the year. Then I can start adding the black sashing where necessary as well as the setting pieces and hopefully have this done rather quickly.  The Clam Balloons won’t be a large bed quilt, but rather a good-sized lap quilt.  I think it will be a great one to have in the winter as all those lovely bright colours that will make me think of summer.

There are now 43 Pickled Ladies, with another 35 or 40 waiting to be stitched. Some exotic Asian florals have been added to the mix.  There are lots of little pieces waiting for me to stitch to make the arcs, and I plan to work on those this evening. This will be a long-term project as I’m pretty sure that I will keep going on this until it’s a bed-sized quilt.

One thing I really do need to do is sit down and figure out how many I’ll need for a bed-sized quilt and make some window templates for the setting pieces that I’ll use to square it off.  Having the window templates will mean that I can print and cut those setting pieces as I’m printing and cutting the clamshells.  And I know myself — if I leave that all to the end, I’ll keep putting it off and putting it off but if I have all the pieces ready to stitch, then the quilt top will get finished as soon as there are enough of the Pickled Ladies.  I have a feeling I have less than a quarter of the blocks I’ll need for the quilt, so I’d best get back to work on them!

The cats have had a very relaxing weekend.  Smudge:

Lester: