Spools

Posted on March 6, 2010 by Quiltobsession

After reading about Klosjes day, I decided to devote stitching time on Saturdays to these little blocks! Each finishes at 2 3/8″. They’re tiny. But addictive. Seriously addictive. Perfect use for a charm pack or two.

While there are other methods of making them I’m hand piecing them, as I love to hand piece and love Y-seams for the continuous stitching that they make possible. I’m using 1″ squares and half hexagons from the 90-degree 1-inch hexagons in the Patchwork of the Crosses Inklingo collection. I was able to print three of the half hexagons on each charm and have a plan for the border for this quilt, however large it ends up, using that third half-hexagon from each charm.

I have no idea how many of these little beauties I’m going to make, but as Mr. Q.O. is quite taken by them, I have a feeling it may be as many as is needed to make a lap quilt for him.

An alternative plan is to make a doll’s quilt using these tiny blocks and then start another set using the shapes using the long half hexagon from the 1.5″ 90-degree hexagon collection and the 3″ squares from the Drunkard’s Path collection to make somewhat larger blocks.

The other night Lester decided to “help” when I was working on the Quaker Patchwork cross-stitch. Great huge kitty paws on the chart make it rather difficult to keep one’s place!

Smudge was, as usual, perfecting his lounging.

Hexagon Blossoms

Posted on March 5, 2010 by Quiltobsession

I haven’t worked on this little top for ages so decided to add another blossom to it with the surrounding green path last night. That’s a dime on top of one of the little hexagons to give an idea of size. Each side of the hexagons finishes at half an inch.

I initially printed a few thousand of these small hexagons, almost all on 5″ charms, thinking I’d make the Insanity quilt seen here. I quickly decided I didn’t want to make that quilt and now have all these tiny hexagons. While I’ve started the little top shown above, I know that is going to end up as a small doll’s quilt. I’ll use half and quarter hexagons around the outer edges so that I have straight outer edges to the little quilt.

As long as I finger press these as I go, it’s very simple to press the top. I do press after I add each blossom.

More of the blossoms are ready and I have enough of the green surrounding hexagons printed to surround these plus a few more. Once that’s done I’ll assess if I want to make the little top any larger.

Our forecast for the weekend is fabulous — sunny and highs of 7 Celsius both days. The whole week has been wonderful with sunny days that have been relatively mild, considering it’s early March.

Lester looks like he’s thinking about spring and watching the birds and squirrels from the window.

Smudge, on the other hand, is showing off his sprawling capabilities.

Getting Ready to Print on Fabric

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Quiltobsession

I want to make the Drunkard’s Path quilt a good-sized lap quilt, so I need to prep some more of the Rouenneries charms for printing. I already know that I can print both pieces of a Drunkard’s Path unit on a 5″ charm, so it’s a matter of ironing them on to the freezer paper that I have already cut to size and then feeding them through my printer. Here you can see that I’ve separated them by colour as I will use different ink colours for printing, depending on the fabric colour. Some of those pieces of freezer paper have been used 10 or 15 times already and are still fine for another few uses.

One thing I have learned is that even 5″ charms shrink when washed and not evenly. There’s almost a full quarter inch shrinkage in width or length, depending on how you look at it, when these little charms are washed and pressed.

I received the Clothworks e-mail yesterday with news of their upcoming collections and immediately fell in love with the Hungarian Blues collection that you can see here. Blue and white quilts are among my absolute favourites and these fabrics are stunning. I know I’m going to want yardage of every one of those when the fabric is available. I’m already dreaming of a blue and white Winding Ways quilt or perhaps a Dresden Plate in blue and white.

Smudge has the funniest look on his face in this photo.