Tag Archives: Inklingo

The Pickled Ladies are Getting Together

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Three rows of the Pickled Ladies are now together. After the first two rows were joined I thought perhaps this needed to be a larger quilt than originally planned. After the third row was added, I completely changed my mind. Because of the number of triangles in each arc and the fact I used some metallic Oriental prints to fussy cut, this is a heavy piece already. In fact, as it is now it’s heavier than the X’s and O’s quilt. Decision made. It’s going to be a large wall hanging.

Initially I was thinking about a rich blue floral print for the border, but now I’m wondering if I should try to find a real Art Deco type print in keeping with my initial idea about these ladies. I’m calling this the Pickled Ladies quilt as I have visions of some very elegant, almost Audrey Hepburn-like, ladies in an upscale Art Deco bar.

I have been fascinated by the Breakfast at Tiffany’s piece being put together at Plays with Needles. Seeing a favourite movie being depicted with such amazing detail in an embroidery piece is a pure delight, as is her entire blog and well worth a visit.

Baxter was looking somewhat startled, perched on the loveseat.

X’s and O’s

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While we were out taking pictures of Twinkling Stars on the roof garden, we also took a few of the top I’ve named X’s and O’s. The name has everything to do with how I plan to quilt this one, with circles and X’s.

It was made using shapes from the Inklingo Orange Peel Deluxe collection and was pieced by hand with the exception of the black inner border. The centre of the top took just over 3 weeks to put together from the time I got the idea through to its completion. Adding the borders took a while as I ended up auditioning a couple of different versions before settling on the final.

When it’s time to quilt this, I’m going to get a silk batt. The binding will be the same black ’30s print as the inner border.

Baxter getting his nightly yogourt treat.

Twinkling Stars

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The top is done and is now in the queue waiting to be quilted. This one I’m going to quilt by hand with either a silk or wool batt. I’ve got some quilting ideas for the plain squares that will carry on the star theme of the quilt.

We took advantage of a sunny day on the weekend to take the photo out on the roof garden as it’s difficult to get a good shot indoors of a quilt that’s anything larger than a wall hanging. Twinkling Stars finishes at 57 x 72 inches and was made using shapes from the Inklingo Tumbler collection. This year’s baseball playoffs quilt top is done.

Last year’s baseball playoffs quilt is still waiting to be quilted.

Baxter had a very busy weekend chasing leaves as they flew by the windows and watching squirrels and birds.

Pickled Ladies Joining Up

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Out came the box in which the clamshell pickles, aka Pickled Ladies, were stored and I began putting the top together.

The first two rows are almost all joined together now. They’re going together quickly and oh, so easily. I’m hoping to get the centre done within a couple of weeks. That, of course, remains to be seen as I’m so easily distracted by other projects!

The piecing of the Twinkling Stars top is complete. The two borders were added yesterday and it was finished even before the second game of the World Series began. We couldn’t figure out where to photograph it last night, but will be getting a good photo of it today.

Baxter had another very busy day on the windowsill, as we had a fairly windy day again and there were leaves flying by the window. Last evening he was posing in my computer chair – or was he perhaps plotting and waiting for his chance to get on the keyboard?

Twinkling Stars Progress

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The main part of the top is together. Now to make and add the borders and this year’s baseball playoffs quilt will be done. With any luck, it will be finished before the World Series is over.

This is a big milestone for me. While I hybrid pieced some of the blocks and totally hand pieced some others, the majority of the quilt was put together by machine. it’s given me a lot more confidence about machine piecing, which will come in handy for some quilts I want to make.

On Friday evening I got a call from the LQS and, after close to 6 months, the white on white fabric has finally come in. I’m thrilled as it means I can definitely finish off the Feathered Star/Sunflower quilt exactly as I wanted with the pieced border I had envisioned for it.

Baxter is still teething and, on the weekend, he lost (and we found) a baby tooth. Rather than put it in a little pillow for the kitty tooth fairy, Mr. Q.O. tossed it. I think Baxter deserves a new toy and plan to get him one from the kitty tooth fairy.

Little 9-Patch Blocks on Point

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The 9-patch blocks are just so much more fun set on point that I couldn’t resist. They’re very quick to stitch, and give me the look I wanted for these little blocks.

Earlier this week, two new Inklingo collections were released with the triangles needed to set 4.5 inch blocks and 6 inch blocks on point, and that helped give me the idea for the 9-patch blocks. I have a little stack of 4.5-inch blocks that were made years ago but which have sat all this time. Now that the math has been taken out of figuring out what size QSTs and HSTs I needed to set them on point, I’ll get them out once the Twinkling Stars top is finished.

I’m still on schedule with this year’s baseball playoffs quilt. Although I’ve had a couple of evenings when I really wanted to work on something else, I have managed to resist and now am really glad I did.  There’s not too much hand piecing left to be done, maybe another 25 or so of the 9-patch blocks and then their setting triangles.  The rest will be done by machine.

Baxter seems to have decided my computer chair is a favourite spot — after walking over the keyboard on his way to the chair, that is. A couple of times he has almost managed to send an e-mail while marching over the various keys and the trackpad, but none have been sent … yet.

Stars, Stars and More Stars

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All 80 of the Twinkling Stars are made and ready to be stitched into the larger 15″ 9-patch blocks. My goal was to finish them before our long Thanksgiving weekend was over and I got it done!

Hybrid piecing worked out really well for me once I worked out this method of pinning the skinny triangles to the half tumblers. My previous attempts at machine stitching have usually resulted in seams that seem slightly distorted by the pinning.  So rather than pinning through matching points or crosshairs, I used a fine pin as though I was using a needle and thread. Checked the front and back of the seam and as long as my pin was right on the stitching line, I was off to the races. That’s how I reached my goal of finishing the stars. I don’t know how well that pinning idea would work on long seams, but for these skinny tris it worked like a charm for me.

Our Thanksgiving weekend was perfect – warm and sunny. The weather felt more like Labour Day weekend than Thanksgiving. So much so that people were out on the roof garden sunbathing. I’m hoping this is a sign that we’ll have a mild winter.

A few leaves have been dancing by the window and Baxter has been busy watching. Here he was resting up after a long afternoon of leaf chasing and bird and squirrel watching.

Twinkling Stars Update

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The first weekend of the baseball playoffs meant a lot of stitching got done. This is the stack of blocks now ready to incorporate into large 9-patch blocks. I’m close to a third finished when it comes to making these.

I decided to try speeding it up a bit by partially stitching the blocks by machine. I put the half tumbler and 2″ squares together by machine.

Can you tell the difference? One of these blocks is partially done by machine while the other is totally hand pieced. I can’t tell the difference except, of course, by looking at the back of the blocks and am quite pleased with the result.

I realized on the weekend that my design idea was going to result in a square quilt of about 66″. For some reason, I always prefer my quilts to be rectangular rather than square so I’ve changed the design a wee bit to make it longer than it will be wide. I’m intrigued by the fact I’m so determined to not make it a square quilt. I can’t quite sort out why I have such a strong preference for the rectangular sizes. Do you have a preference when it comes to a lap quilt being a rectangular or square quilt?

Baxter has been very busy now that he has discovered the living room windowsill. On the weekend he started clambering up there with Cappy in his mouth. We’re convinced Cappy is his blankie and he doesn’t want to go anywhere without it. I’m hoping we can get a video of him getting up there with Cappy once it stops raining, which they say should be today.

Pickled Ladies Layout

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The stitching of the centre blocks is finished. There are 72 pickled ladies in total, although there will be a number of half pickled clams added around the perimeter to square it up.

Once the rows are together, I’ll audition fabrics individually for the half pickled clamshells that will go around the perimeter. I know there are lots of florals in my stash that will work perfectly as half clamshells and have enough of the black and white triangles already printed for the partial strips of triangles that will be needed.

It took ages to take them down off the temporary design wall as each one is labelled with its placement so that when I start stitching them together I won’t get them mixed up. I’m really excited about this one and can’t wait to get started stitching on it as soon as the baseball playoffs are over. There’s a rich blue floral in my stash that may be perfect as the border for the Pickled Ladies. There may need to be a small stop border as well, but I’ll sort that out once I get the centre of it completed.

There is no way I would have attempted this without Inklingo. With the 6-inch Pickled Clamshell collection, I knew it could be done. Having the perfect stitching lines and matching points is going to make putting the rows together a breeze. This is one quilt top I want to finish for sure before the end of the year. I’m already thinking of the quilting possibilities, perhaps quilting around each flower and possibly the white triangles.

Baxter discovered how to get up on the windowsill in the living room on Thursday. There was lots of activity out on the roof garden for him to watch as the birds and squirrels seemed quite busy. He went back and forth a few times and then settled down to sit and watch.

Twinkling Stars Ready to Stitch

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Since the weekend printing marathon, I’ve been cutting and getting pieces ready to stitch for Twinkling Stars as well as other quilts. As of the end of yesterday, everything for Twinkling Stars is ready to stitch.

Now Twinkling Stars is a quilt in a box, complete with the threads I’ll be using as I stitch the blocks during the baseball playoffs. The box contains some of the 5″ squares needed for the large 9-patch blocks. There are some other design elements to the quilt that aren’t in the box as they don’t fit, but they’re ready. I had been playing with a couple of different ideas and yesterday the entire quilt design really came together. I’m hoping I can get this finished before the end of the World Series, but that’s going to depend on how many games end up being played in the playoffs and World Series.

Baxter napping with his favourite toy, Cappy. He now brings Cappy to bed at night and practically tucks it in. The other morning I woke up to find Cappy under a pillow.