Two more done. I can’t wait to see the first few rows of this done and put together.
The backs:
Monday was somewhat better than the weekend as far as how we felt goes. The worst of this bug is the headache and muscle aches. Even sitting at the computer feels like work!
There were lots of leaves drifting about for the boys to watch. First Smudge:
Then Lester:
This stack of fabrics are cut and ready to print either with octagons or squares for the Harpsichord Quilt. It takes no time at all to prepare to print as the Inklingo collection with these shapes gives suggested sizes of fabric pages, which I generally follow. Once I get all these pieces printed, I’ll have enough to keep me stitching for a few weeks.
It will take next to no time to get these all printed and then cut apart. All I need do is iron a few sheets to freezer paper, print, then re-use the freezer paper and print some more and so on until all the fabric sheets are printed. I plan to get these printed as well as more of the cream long hexagons for the Patchwork of the Crosses blocks this weekend.
Lester spent a fair bit of time on the windowsill on Wednesday so he was relaxing Wednesday night, stretched out on the sofa.
While Smudge had a real sleep.
Harpsichord block number 15 is now done. Only 139 to go. Only!? These are actually quite quick to stitch together, but I’m trying to work on some Christmas gifts at the same time which means, rather than getting 2 blocks done while we watched the baseball, only 1 was finished. 
This fabric was, I thought, perfect for the black octagons in the Harpsichord Quilt. I washed it and was stunned that the water was pitch black. Did a little research and read that soaking a fabric like this for 24/36 hours in plain cool water will draw out all the excess dye molecules. Did that. Water still pitch black. Rinsed it out and soaked it again, this time with a piece of plain cream cotton fabric. After a few hours, the water was again pitch black. The cream fabric didn’t pick up the dye, but it made me a bit apprehensive about using this in my quilt. To spend the hours it will take to hand piece this quilt and take the chance the black is going to spoil it when washed is just not a risk I’m willing to take!
And Lester on the windowsill — again. We’re supposed to have 3 or 4 days of quite mild temperatures so I think he’ll be enjoying the squirrel antics on the roof garden all week. Monday was rather mild as well and we were able to turn the heat off. 
Block 14 for the Harpsichord quilt is now done.
The back:
And, for fun, I decided to lay them out. No kitty helpers came to investigate, which rather surprised me. I’m a long way from finished. There are 154 blocks in the quilt, so I still have 140 to go!
Smudge on the windowsill on Monday:
And Lester in much the same spot, taken a couple of days ago:
Finally, I’ve got a POTC block that has purple in it surrounded with the cream hexagons and the purple squares. There are a lot of blocks with purple in them but I seem to have been saving them. I think I wanted to see that the purple worked with some of the others first.
The back:
And another Harpsichord block. I wasn’t sure about this green, thinking it might be too dull, but this looks like it will work.
And the back of this one:
Unfortunately, I’ve had to turn comment moderation on. Hopefully I can turn it off relatively quickly. Thursday there were a number of comments on various posts that were nothing but links to rather nasty sites disguised by the use of some sort of font. I’m going to report the author of those comments to Blogger as he/she has a Blogger identity. I’m not thrilled about using the comment moderation but, in this sort of situation, I’m grateful for the option. From what I’ve been hearing, it seems this “disa” person has been hitting a lot of the quilt-related blogs lately but may only hit once, albeit on a number of posts. So for now I have turned comment moderation back off. I’m hoping whoever it is does not come back.
Another Lester paw shot, this time with a penny to show the size.
And a close-up:
And yet another close-up of Smudge.
After deciding to use the light peach squares in some of these blocks and reading the comments, I added a couple more lighter fabrics to the group:
The back:
It was amazingly warm on Monday and looks like the whole week will be like this. The longer the cold weather takes to get here, the better!
Smudge is always cooperative when the camera is turned on — and looks right into it.
Lester:
And because I couldn’t resist, a Lester paw photo with a square of fabric that’s 1.25″ beside his paw, just to try to give you some idea of the size.
The block with the purple squares is definitely going in the quilt. But I’m wondering about the block with the pale peach ones. It may be too washed out — yet, as I recall the decorative elements of those harpsichords, while they had some vibrant colours, they also had some more faded, pale ones. I’d love to hear some opinions on this.
The backs of the two blocks:
A very close-up view of Lester’s eye/profile. I cannot get over the detail this little camera captures.
And, to make it a pair, a close-up of one of Smudge’s eyes.
Another block done — this time with a more vibrant colour for the 8 little squares. I’m looking forward to having enough of these blocks done to put together the first two rows. However, I have a fair bit of stitching to do before I’m at that stage. Maybe in another week or 10 days I’ll be there.
And the back:
Although this is a wee bit fuzzy, I couldn’t resist using it. Pictures of the two of them sitting together are rather rare.
The music fabric that arrived last week is in these two blocks. I’ve decided to use a few lighter colours as well as the bright ones for the little squares. They will be sprinkled throughout the quilt top when it’s done.
The backs:
We had the most glorious weather all weekend. Definitely more summer-like temperatures than we had all summer. At 10:00 at night it was still 72 degrees on Saturday.
Mr. Quilt Obsession has been having fun with the macro setting on the Canon camera. This one of Lester’s eyes:
And this one of his paw:
This is one of my favourite shots of Smudge.
… is done for a total, so far, of 5. By my calculations, that’s just slightly less than 1/30th of the number I need. They’re such fun to stitch that I have no worries that I’ll be sick of them.
And the back:
And this is the black music fabric that arrived on Wednesday from a very good friend. It’s washed and ready to be cut and printed.
The weather continues to be absolutely glorious. Lovely warm days. Mr. Quilt Obsession had to go north of the city on Wednesday and reported that some of the leaves on the trees up there are absolutely brilliant crimson. Around here nothing is turning much at all. I’ve seen a very few leaves turning yellow on the roof garden. I’m hoping we have leaves until late October as they make such a wonderful difference to our view. Although when the leaves fall and then it’s windy, the kitties have a great time trying to hit the leaves flying by the windows.
Lester is enjoying every minute on the windowsill:
And Smudge in one of his more regal poses.
Quilt Obsession 