The first melon/arc combination is done and added to the centre piece of the Double Wedding Ring. I’m absolutely thrilled with how easily this goes together — Inklingo truly does make this into Double Wedding Ring with training wheels on. The matching points mean it’s virtually impossible to fail at putting together one’s pieces.

What I’m not sure about are the colours of the pieces in the arcs. I’m going to finish this ring and assess from there. I think perhaps the colours aren’t quite right for the floral but I’ll see what I think when the four arc/melon combinations are attached. Now I’m wondering about a grouping of cream/off white fabrics for the arc pieces. That would showcase the floral print more, I think.

I couldn’t resist this picture of Smudge. If there’s one thing this kitty knows how to do, it’s relax!

While Lester is back to half dozing on the windowsill.

What are all these fabrics that I’ve had squirreled away for? A Double Wedding Ring table runner!

I knew there was going to be an Inklingo Double Wedding Ring collection. It was released on Sunday night. It’s incredible. This is going to be like making a Double Wedding Ring with training wheels on! The planning sheets that come with the collection are some of the most useful tools one could have when planning a Double Wedding Ring. It makes it absolutely foolproof when it comes to calculating how many of each shape one needs and the yardage for that particular shape.

I have now printed enough to do the first full ring of my DWR table runner using the fabrics in this picture.

I’m going to use the floral for the centre and my arcs will have 4 pieces along with 2 end pieces. The fabrics for everything but the melons and the centres are hand dyes that were chosen to go with that print. This will be a fairly good-sized table runner.

I have other plans for other types of DWR small quilts. One of the variations that comes with this shape collection has the centre in quarters. I’m thinking of a black and white with accents of red or yellow for that. There are so many possibilities!

The grandmother’s flower garden quilt that I unearthed late last week will get finished! I tried stitching a .75″ hexagon printed with Inklingo to an edge and it works perfectly. All I had to do was undo the basting so that I had the seam allowance to work with. Much faster and much easier than basting and whip stitching more and this way the quilt will get finished. My initial choice of a green is a bit too vivid I think, so I’m going to look at something a bit more muted.

It has been a rather tough few days. My hands are worse than they’ve ever been before and, as I can’t take anti-inflammatories, it’s hard to get under control. It got so bad that I could barely lift a small glass of water without pain. I guess it’s this wild weather, with the incredible barometric swings as well as temperature swings. They’re saying we may even get some snow today. Mostly rain for us, but there is a chance of snow. I hope they’re wrong!

Lester at his post by the window. I think he’s only interested in a DWR quilt if it might be a quilt for him to lounge on!

As I’ve been hunting through stash trying to find the perfect fluorescent lime green for the Tropical Punch blocks, I unearthed this partially completed top — a GFG I had started probably about 10 years ago. I remember painstakingly tracing the hexagon shape on to freezer paper, cutting it out, ironing the freezer paper to the back of fabric strips, cutting those out, basting the fabric and then the whip stitching. Makes me tired just writing it all down! No wonder this ended up unfinished and in the cupboard.

The GFG is of a size that it could be used as a table topper so I think I’m going to just finish it. However, since my hexagons are .75″ ones I may use the shapes from Inklingo collection 3 to finish it off — with half hexagons and quarter hexagons so as to have a straight edge. I’m not sure yet. One thing I am sure about is that for me, Inklingo is the only way to go. I had a good look at the whip stitching I did on this GFG and while it’s not bad, I don’t think the seams look anywhere near as nice as they do with a simple running stitch.

For a while Thursday afternoon, I was leafing through some old issues of Australian Patchwork & Quilting. I fell in love with a quilt I found in an issue that’s about 5 years old. I think I have to print the shapes for it this weekend! Pictures and more on that when I get at least the first block or two done. It’s a small quilt with some pretty large pieces, so I anticipate getting it done relatively quickly. I’m sure I breezed right past this quilt in the magazine when I first got it and didn’t even give the quilt a second glance. Now I can’t wait to get started on it.

It was a glorious day here on Thursday although we’re supposed to have a storm with some fairly heavy wind and perhaps even a thunderstorm today. The first thunderstorm of the season. The cats aren’t the least bit concerned about thunderstorms and will sometimes sit on the windowsill watching the rain.

Lester snoozing between stints on the windowsill watching the birds. Thursday a lot of birds appeared on the roof garden and Lester was very busy watching!

Smudge isn’t all that interested in the birds, but when and if the squirrels make an appearance he will join Lester and be watching out the window with swishing tail and chattering. In the meantime, he’s snoozing with a teddy bear.

There was recently a charm swap of apple cores which I hostessed on the Inklingo list. This is the result which all the participants received — approximately 360 apple cores, all different except for possibly one or two. While that may not be enough for a bed-sized or even large lap quilt, it’s more than enough for an interesting wall hanging or two. I’m playing with the idea of making a couple of small monochromatic quilts using these. In the meantime, they’re part of another Quilter’s Emergency Kit box — so whenever I feel like stitching some curves and want to play with colour, there they are.

Lester, still waiting on the windowsill for some kitty entertainment.

And Smudge looking — well, I’m not sure quite what he’s telling me with that look.

It was a cold and snowy night but the teddy bears had come out of their cave, hoping that they might find that spring had arrived. Such silly bears to come out at night when it was clearly snowing, as they could see had they only looked out the window of their cave (they have a very special cave with a window to the outside). The snow was piling up on the window panes but still they came out.

The bears were, thankfully, dressed for the elements. They sat down in the snow outside their cave, in front of their window, and wondered, “When, oh when, will spring arrive so we can come out and play?” After a few minutes, and upon getting rather chilled from sitting in the snow, they turned about and trooped back inside for some honey and other bear goodies to tide them over until spring arrived.

This is Snowy Windows at Night, my Four Seasons Quilt Swap 5 quilt.

It was a lot of fun being challenged to make a monochromatic quilt and, of course, I loved piecing the curves. Off it goes now to its intended recipient. I hope she likes it as much as the bears did!

Smudge certainly knows how to relax.

Now that the piecing is complete, I am really thrilled with how the little baby quilt has turned out. All that’s left now is to press, baste and quilt it. Although it’s hand pieced, I’ll be quilting it by machine.

Thank you to everyone for the ideas yesterday on the sky quilt block. I think I’m going to make a twilight block for the fourth corner of this quilt but have so many ideas that I believe I’ll do another, night version of it with sparkling stars, a harvest moon and who knows what else! I also picked out a set of fabrics for yet another Tropical Punch block tonight.

Smudge, sleeping with a paw out of the kitty bed.

And Lester dozing after another busy day watching the gardeners on the roof garden and a few birds that showed up. Looks like his entertainment is starting up again.