The red and white Feathered Star/Sunflower quilt top, that is. It had actually been finished for a week but it was too windy to be able to get a decent shot of it out on the roof garden until Friday … Continue reading
My Red and White Quilt Top
Tag Archives: Feathered Star
Little Bits
The centre of the last of the red and white Feathered Star/Sunflower blocks is ready. I’m getting very close to having the main body of the quilt done. The pieced border is going to take a bit of time, but I think once the centre is done and together it’s going to put this quilt right up at the top of the list to be worked on until it’s completed.
The seams are graded and it’s pressed, ready to be put in the centre of that last block.
Two sides of the Scrappy Star now have the pieced border attached. I think I want to try to add those final two sides before I get started on the pieced border for the Feathered Star quilt, as I’d love to see the Scrappy Star top done and ready to baste. It’s getting a bit large to get a decent photo of inside but the weather is getting better every day, so a roof garden photo may not be that far off.
A few more sets for the Kaleidoscope Stars are ready to stitch. They’re a fun, quick stitch. I think I’ll end up with 20 of them and will then put them into a small top.
Thanks for all the great comments on the orchids. I’m really hoping I can keep this plant alive and see it flower again.
Baxter appears to love draping himself over the arm of the chair. Makes me laugh every time as he seems to be almost having a conversation with us.
Feathered Star Again
Another one done and three more to go. If I can buckle down and concentrate on stitching the three remaining blocks, I think I could have the centre of the quilt done within 9 to 10 days. Whether I can do that remains to be seen, but I’m going to try. Once the centre sunflower is done, it seems like the block is almost halfway done so today I shall try to get at least two of those centres done.
I love how easy it is to press this block. I graded the seams for two reasons. There are a lot of pieces in each block, so it really helps cut down on the weight and will make the quilt drape nicely. Secondly, I definitely don’t want the red shadowing through.
Yesterday afternoon the fog rolled in and the view out our window was quite eerie. I love how quiet it seems when there’s a thick fog.
Mr. Q.O. captioned this one “That’s the biggest bag of catnip I has ever seen!” Made me laugh the second I saw the picture.
Red and White Feathered Stars
Two of the Feathered Star/Sunflower blocks are complete and a third is almost finished. After the third one is done, I’ll be only able to complete the stars without the setting squares and triangles as I’m waiting for more of the white fabric. I’ll get the remaining stars ready so that when the fabric arrives I can quickly add the setting pieces and then start working on the border.
Along with working on a Feathered Star block Wednesday night, I got some more of the blades for the Dresden Plates cut as well as a couple of the arcs for the Pickled Ladies.
Wednesday it rained — again. We seem to have had nothing but rain since Saturday and they say we’ll have rain until this Saturday. That will be almost a full week of rainy, rather cool weather. I can’t wait for a couple of sunny warm days. Wednesday night the fog was really pretty — the lights remain on all night in the offices in the tower across the roof garden, which seems incredibly wasteful, but they looked rather intriguing when seen through the fog.
Smudge was posing for the camera.
Getting Ready to Stitch and Hugo’s Roof Garden Adventure
Thursday I spent some time prepping all the pieces I need for the remaining Feathered Star blocks for my red and white Sunflower/Feathered Star quilt. This photo shows the pieces I need for one block. By the time I finished stitching Thursday night, I had half of the HSTs, diamonds and squares put together that border the kites in the block. That takes the longest stitching time of any of the elements of the block. Once that is put together, adding it to the kites and then surrounding the centre Sunflower goes very quickly and then all that’s left is to add the outer setting squares and triangles. By the time the weekend is over, I hope to have at least one more block completed and a third one started.
Finally, after days of rainy and/or windy and chilly days, Thursday was sunny and Hugo had an adventure on the roof garden. Here he is walking down the pathway to the garden.
Then he thought the shrubs surrounding the walkway needed investigating.
Inspecting the few lonely flowers that are blooming seemed like a good idea.
The daffodils looked rather interesting, so Hugo decided to get a bit closer.
The tour of the roof garden continued, but suddenly we couldn’t see Hugo. We looked up to see he had decided to climb a tree.
Why on earth would a hippopotamus climb a tree? To see the CN Tower, it seems. It’s hard to see in this photo, but Hugo could see it.
We have a couple of other little adventures planned for Hugo and then it will be time for him to travel on to his next destination.
I pretty much avoided the computer Thursday as my back was still a bit sore. It’s better as I write this late Thursday night so hopefully I can finally get caught up on replies to comments and blog visiting today.
A close-up of Smudge, which Mr. Q.O. took Thursday night.
A Red and White Beginning
The beginning, that is, of the largest of the red and white quilts I’m planning. At least, so far it’s the largest of the ones I’m planning. I couldn’t resist adding a sunflower to a feathered star and have the entire quilt planned out, including sashing and borders. Curved piecing and continuous piecing — what more could I want? It’s completely hand pieced and took about 3 evenings of stitching, on and off, while working on a few other things as well.
It presses like a dream and lays flat as can be.
Would I have attempted this block without Inklingo? Not a chance! With Inklingo, it’s not daunting at all as perfect stitching lines and matching points make a block like this easily achievable.
This quilt is demanding to be made quickly, I think, so there may be a lot of red and white seen on my blog over the next few weeks. I can’t wait to get the blocks done so I can start with the pieced sashing and border.
I had a migraine on Tuesday that pretty much kept me off the computer as I was finding it difficult to focus on anything. Hopefully I’ll get caught up on comments and replies to comments over the next couple of days. I’m working as a registrar today and tomorrow so my computer time will be limited.
It was a grey overcast day on Tuesday. Smudge found a cozy spot to have a cat nap.
Feathered Star
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
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.
Quilt Obsession 