Tag Archives: Craft

Spring Is Here

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Well, okay. Maybe not as far as the weather goes, given the forecast for Friday, but in my stitching last night it was. Two little 4.5″ Winding Ways blocks. I’ve tried and tried to resist this idea for months, but yesterday these hand-dyed fabrics were absolutely calling to me and I succumbed. All that wonderful curved piecing? How could I possibly resist!

Ever since I made this pink and red top with the one of the larger sizes of the Inklingo Winding Ways collections, I’ve wanted to make something with one of the other sizes. All that wonderful curved piecing is irresistible to me.

When I went to look for the photo of the red and pink top and realized it was finished almost 2 years ago I couldn’t quite believe it. That one definitely needs to be quilted sooner rather than later. I know I’ve got the batting, backing and the fabric for binding it set aside, so it’s definitely time. I have a variegated pink/red quilting thread that will be perfect.

What will I call this new one? I’m not sure yet, but I’m thinking it looks like spring. There are more pieces ready and waiting to be stitched together and there will be more yet, as I print on other shades of the hand-dyed fabrics.

I love piecing and pressing this block. Pressed this way, the block lies lovely and flat.

I used an off-white thread for all the stitching, which is totally unlike me as I prefer to match my threads to the fabrics I’m stitching. I used a 70/2 heirloom thread that pretty much melts into the fabric but, that said, when I start stitching more of these I will get out the matching threads. For now, I’m going to get the other fabrics printed and the shapes cut out and will have them all kitted up so I can get my curved piecing fix whenever I want.

Baxter’s eyes in this photo really caught my attention. Mr. Q.O. captioned it “Is that catnip?”

Printing and More Printing for Quilts

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What’s that?  It’s the stack of fabrics I printed over the weekend for the Scrappy Star, Twinkling Stars, Summer Picnic Dish, Harpsichord and Joseph’s Coat quilts. The last couple of weeks I’ve been identifying the size I want certain projects to finish at. WIth the size of each determined, it took only a few minutes to figure out what I needed to print to reach that goal. Sometimes I print only a few of each shape for a couple of blocks until I’m sure I want to make it into a quilt. Once that decision is made, I prefer to get everything printed at once and get the shapes cut and into a box ready to stitch such as I’ve done for the Stormy Seas quilt.

This gives you a glimpse of the some of the shapes I printed for the Harpsichord, Joseph’s Coat and Summer Picnic Dish quilts.  Using the various Inklingo collections to prepare my templates makes it so easy to print on any number of fabrics, even black fabrics as most are markedly lighter on the back than the front and the templates will show up perfectly with one of the many choices of ink colours.

Almost all the shapes are now cut and ready to be put in a box, along with the matching threads, for the Twinkling Stars quilt, which I plan on trying to finish between now and the end of the World Series.

Because it was such a beautiful day on Monday, we took Scrappy Star out to the roof garden to photograph. It’s growing and is now 24″ across.  It will be at least twice that width before I’ll stop adding rounds. I needed more of the squares, which was another reason for all the printing that was done on the weekend.

The back after pressing.

Baxter is starting to look like a grown-up kitty in some photos, although his antics are still pure kitten antics. I think he was trying out his hypnotic kitty look in this photo.

Getting Ready to Finish Some Projects

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One of the things I did last weekend was go through projects and identify ones that I want to get finished sooner rather than later. Then I got fabric ready to print.

The gold tone on tone is for the Harpsichord Quilt. The green, floral and white fabrics are for the Summer Picnic Dish quilt. The off white is for the Shabby Coat. The oriental shirting is for the scrappy star. Over the next few days I will get all the shapes printed and cut for each of those quilts.

There are a few things going on that need to be taken care of that are going to limit my time for blogging over the next week or so, but I will be popping in and out and hopefully visiting some blogs.

While we’ve had some absolutely gorgeous late September days, the evenings are cool and Baxter seems to be enjoying his kitty bed.

Scrappy Star, Round 4

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The star is growing. I’ll keep adding rounds until it’s wide enough for a lap quilt. Then I’ll sort out how to add length to it, possibly with a couple of rows of small stars at the top and bottom. The round of squares isn’t added yet, but that’s not going to take long. It’s adding the diamonds in each round that takes the longest, particularly as it grows in size.

Over the years, I’ve tried numerous thimbles for hand quilting and, while some of them have seemed better than others, all of them have eventually resulted in hand issues for me. Then I heard about this, the hand-held quilting thimble from the House of Quilting. After about half an hour of practising with it, I was thrilled. It’s simple to get used to, makes it easy to get small even stitches and doesn’t seem to cause any hand fatigue. It’s even easy to quilt through intersections where many seams meet. Over the next few days, I’ll spend some more time getting used to it and then it’s going to be time to get started on that stack of 14 tops waiting for quilting.

Baxter’s markings are starting to show more and more. He has two rings, one on either side, just at his shoulders which I’ve dubbed the Baxter crop circles. This photo was taken as he was resting up, waiting for yogourt time.  Yes, we have another kitty who loves a yogourt treat. When he sees the yogourt container come out of the refrigerator, he practically climbs up our legs to get his treat.

Picnic Plate Quilt

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The top is finished. It’s a relatively small quilt, perfect for a teddy bear picnic or perhaps a crib quilt, finishing at 36 x 45 inches. This is the second quilt top I’ve made using the Inklingo Fancy Pieced Dresden Plate Collection and I’m not finished. There are at least two other designs that I’ve got planned. Ferris Wheel, which I’m machine quilting, is the other Dresden Plate quilt I made using that collection.

The quilt was inspired by the floral used as the setting frames for the plates. I had the layer cake of Fig Tree fabrics, which is what I used for the blades in the plates, and as soon as I saw that floral fabric I knew exactly what I’d make.

The picture isn’t great as putting up the temporary design wall with an inquisitive kitten helping means things get done quickly. We had hoped to take a picture of this outside but I finished it on Sunday, when it was rainy and windy. Monday wasn’t much better. In fact, it was almost chilly Monday night. We seem to have gone from hot, humid summer weather on Saturday to cool fall weather on Monday.

The binding is ready and I know what I’m going to use for the backing. All that’s left is to get a silk batt as I plan on hand quilting this one.

Baxter was lounging on the floor between our two desks when we got lucky and got this shot of him licking his nose. Makes me laugh.

A Top Finished, One Started & A Question

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The pink and cream star quilt top is finished. Has been, in fact, for a while but we had to wait for a day that wasn’t too windy to get a good shot on the roof garden. It’s approximately 60″ by 80″.

The start is the red and white stars quilt that will be the same as the quilt in my blog header. I learned last week that cutting out fabric with scissors is a huge kitten attraction. So Friday I got all the pieces for the top cut by rotary cutter. Otherwise, it would probably have taken me a month to try to cut out all the pieces. Having all the pieces cut and ready to stitch is very tempting.

That said, I’m working on the Summer Dresden Plates almost exclusively. It’s going to be a pretty, summery quilt and I want to finish it before the summer is over so that I can get a good shot of it out on the roof garden. The blocks for the centre are done. Today the blocks will be up on the design wall so I can arrange and rearrange them and get them sewn together. The first border is already planned out.

The question? In conversations with a friend lately, the question came up about what was the preferred size of quilts to make. I seem to prefer making lap quilts for the most part. That may be because we use a duvet rather than quilts on the bed. What size quilts do you prefer to make? When you look at patterns, are you more attracted to those that give you the instructions for various sizes?

It’s very hot and humid here. I don’t think we’ve got smog alerts yet, but with this kind of weather they’re sure to happen. It almost feels like you’re walking into a wall of heat when you go outside. I’m not complaining, as this is by far preferable to winter temperatures.

Last week was not a good one as far as replying to comments goes. If you left me a comment last week, thank you!  I promise I will try to do better this week

Baxter discovered the windowsill on the weekend.

Contented Kitty Quilt

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Eight of the blocks are now done and I’m thinking that this will be renamed and called “Memories of Smudge” when it’s finished. I can’t help but think of him when I work with these colours.

All the pieces for the quilt are printed, cut and ready to stitch. It’s not going to be a large quilt and, as I love piecing this block, the blocks may be finished before the fall.

Baxter was a very busy kitty Thursday. He was chasing his toys, our feet, and anything else that attracted his attention. When he stopped for a snooze, he crashed with a teddy bear and frog.

Stitching when Baxter is awake is … well, challenging. He seems to think fabric is a toy and/or edible. I’m hoping this phase passes quickly as it is making it difficult to get much done. My plan is to have the toy basket beside me so that when he decides to “help” I can distract him by throwing a toy on the floor. Maybe. I hope.

Bright Yin Yang Blocks

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I just couldn’t resist and had to see how the Yin Yang block would look in brights as well as the spice fabrics. These blocks may be the beginning ones for a stitching book cover or, who knows, maybe I’ll make a small Yin Yang quilt of primary colours.

I still can’t get over how wonderfully the blocks press, so have to show the backs:

Yesterday I had a link to the collection in my post, but it didn’t work.  Here’s the correct link for the Yin Yang collection.

Sleepy Cat Hollow left a comment on yesterday’s post with a suggestion for another name for the Spice or Chocolates and Caramel quilt that I loved — Contented Kitty, saying that it looked like Smudge curled up in his kitty bed.  So now I think that quilt will end up being called Contented Kitty.

Smudge likes to lounge by the water bowls before he sticks his head right in the water.  Mr. Q.O. got this shot of him just before he moved over and put his head in one of the bowls and was dripping wet.

Fans and Smarties

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The brown for the quarter circle on the fan blocks I showed yesterday wasn’t dark enough.  Wednesday I replaced it with a black fabric on the two I had already done and then went on and stitched two more blocks.  These are addictive to stitch, very quick to stitch and just plain fun.  I think it will be a small quilt and set with plain alternate squares.  I’ll probably make another dozen or so of the blocks and then start playing with the layout.

Karen at Journey of a Quilter has, over the past while, showed a little quilt she made which she calls Confetti.  I was so taken with it that I couldn’t resist making one, which I’m calling Smarties.  I’m using 1″ squares and 1″ 60-degree diamonds.  I only needed to print the 1″ diamonds as there’s a little box full of 1″ squares.  Sometimes when I’m printing fabric for some project or another, I will cut a small piece of that fabric on which to print a few 1″ squares.  Those squares then go into the little box and are there, ready to use, when I get an idea that incorporates 1″ squares.  Up until starting Smarties, I was slowly making 9-patch squares when the mood struck. Eventually I do hope to have a good-sized 9-patch quilt, but it’s my easy stitching project that I turn to when I want to stitch something super simple and so there’s no deadline.

The plan is to make Smarties large enough for a teddy bear quilt, although it’s such fun to stitch that I can imagine making a lap quilt for us.  Smarties presses like a dream.  The back:

It seems that Comcast is blocking e-mails I send.  I’ve contacted our ISP to try to resolve this and a friend who has Comcast as her ISP has contacted Comcast.  Both our ISP and Comcast are saying it’s the other’s problem.  How and when this will get resolved is anyone’s guess.  But in the meantime, replies to comments I’ve sent to those who are on Comcast are probably floating around somewhere never to be seen again.   I’ve figured out a work-around and, as the bounced replies come back, am using it to send out replies.  It’s frustrating trying to deal with something like this, particularly when the providers are doing nothing other than pointing fingers at one another.

Smudge has been playing with his favourite kitty toy, Cappy, a fair bit the past few days.  Wednesday night he was holding on to it while he had a snooze.

Shabby Chic Cabin

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On the weekend I not only did some machine piecing, I was actually doing chain piecing by machine.  That was a big step for me.  I was amazed that, in the space of a few hours, I had 10 log cabin blocks done.   There are 12 blocks finished so far and another 20 or so to make.  So two more afternoons at the sewing machine and I’ll have the blocks finished.  The little blocks finish at 5″ so it won’t be a large quilt but rather a fun small one with a couple of borders.

I’m not sure if this is how I’ll set the blocks or what I’ll do for the borders yet, but this will be a fun little quilt top to finish.  It  has become my learning path on machine piecing.  Not that I think I’ll be doing a ton of machine piecing, but for something like these blocks it’s perfect.  That said, hand piecing is still what I prefer.

Spring is definitely here.  We saw our first robin on the weekend and the temperatures were wonderful.  Saturday and Sunday were both mild and sunny days.

Smudge was relaxing Sunday evening after being syringe fed.  I think we’ve tried pretty well every food on the market and he just doesn’t seem to like any of them, yet  is quite content to be syringe fed.

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