Tag Archives: Quilt

Colourful Little 9-Patches

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The stack of 9-patch blocks on point has been growing. Not rapidly, but slow and steady growth. There are some evenings I work on something more complex and just want an easy stitch, and that’s when these get made. There will be 140 or so of them.

It will be a fun and colourful little quilt.

I’m grading the blocks as I make them. Even with these little blocks, it makes a big difference.

The blocks finish at 4.25″. When I was making Twinklingo Stars, I printed lots of the little squares thinking I might use them all in a border. As it turned out, I had many left over. That was when I decided to do the 9-patches on point and turn them into their own little quilt.

There’s a magical moment in the late afternoons at this time of year when the sun hits the buildings across the street from us and bathes them in a wonderful pink glow. We were lucky enough to get this shot on Tuesday.

Baxter waiting patiently for a treat.

Afterwards he looked quite satisfied and maybe ready for a nap.

A Quintet of Pickled Ladies

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The additions for the Pickled Ladies quilt are underway.

The second addition.

The third addition.

The fourth addition.

The fifth addition. Just about 20 more to go and I’ll be finished with the additions.

Baxter is fascinated by pens. If Mr. Q.O. leaves his puzzle and pen within paw’s reach, this is what happens. What isn’t shown is that shortly after this photo was taken, Baxter had the pen down on the floor. Pens and fabric, he just can’t resist them.

Sky Quilt Again

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Over the holidays, this project made its reappearance and is on the list of those I want to finish up sooner rather than later. There are  a couple more rows of diamonds to add to the rainbow centre and then I’ll set it together with the four sun blocks.

We didn’t get a picture of the back of the rainbow yet, but I spent a fair bit of time pressing it on the weekend. Once again, I had left the pressing too long. However, now that I’ve got this part pressed I will press after each of the remaining rows are added. Lesson learned once again!

Baxter loves my computer chair. Mr. Q.O. captioned this one “My Morris Imitation.”

Two More Red & White Blocks

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I love stitching these blocks. Eight of them are now done so only four left to stitch and then the first pieced border. I’m contemplating another pieced border, but will make that decision when the top is together.

All the pieces for the remaining four blocks and the first pieced border are ready to stitch and in this shoebox. I know, I know — a shoebox is hardly elegant enough for this, but it’s the best size and it works. The pieces won’t be in there long at all as this is one quilt top that I definitely want to finish sooner rather than later. The sheet I printed out from the Feathered Star Design Book, which is the perfect reference tool for stitching the blocks, is tucked in at the side of the box along with the spool of red thread I’m using for this project.

Each block takes about 3 evenings to stitch but, as there are lots of opportunities for continuous stitching in both the Sunflower and Feathered Star portions of the blocks, it seems to fly by.

One of the by-products of making these blocks are all these wonderful little pieces from cutting out the HSTs. I know most people would throw them out, but I’m saving them and have a plan for making Christmas cards with them as to me they look like little snowflakes. They’re just too cute to toss.

This is a sheet that I’ve printed, on which you can see, if you click on the photo to enlarge it, the HSTs and where the little snowflakes appear.

And what did the shoebox used to contain? These fun runners. I couldn’t resist them when I saw them in the store. Who says comfortable footwear can’t be fun? And they’re nice and bright which helps cheer up the grey days of winter.

Baxter is definitely looking like a grown-up cat now, particularly in this photo. He may look that way, but he’s still definitely acting like a kitten.

Squaring up the Scrappy Star

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Two corners of the scrappy star are now squared up. Two more to go and then I can start working on the borders. Some of the pieces for one of the borders are ready and there are boxes containing the other pieces. If I don’t get too distracted by the red and white quilt, this might be finished before the end of January.

As I don’t want this to end up as a square quilt, I’m going to add one border to the top and bottom and then add another border or borders to all 4 sides of it.

Baxter was particularly interested in the quilt rack last night.

A Long-Forgotten Project

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It has been a very long time since I last worked on this. I made the long strips of hexagons months and months ago and had joined about 5 of them and then it sat. And sat and sat some more. Over the past week or so I have spent some time on it and have joined a couple more of the strips to what was already joined. It’s nice easy stitching, which is just perfect for some evenings.

I press as I add each strip. When I made the king-sized 1″ hexagon and elongated hexagon quilt, I left all the pressing to the end. It took next to forever to press that top and my back was practically breaking from the hours I spent at the ironing board. Lesson well and truly learned!

Mr. Q.O. was playing around with photo editing software and turned a Baxter photo into a black and white photo.

Scrappy Star Round 7

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It’s now at 36 inches. I’ve decided to square it up now as I have a couple of borders planned that will take it to a good-sized lap quilt. The last round of diamonds took 2 evenings of stitching to add.

The back. I am so glad I pressed as I went on this. Pressing the last round took only a few minutes as I had finger-pressed as I stitched, but I can’t imagine how long it would have taken to press the whole thing at one time.

Last week I was put on a medication that initially has made me very groggy and I’m sleeping close to 12 hours at a time. That’s not the point of mentioning this, though. The silver lining has been the dreams! I’ve had many dreams of quilt designs and the dreams have stayed with me long enough that I’ve been able to write them down when I woke up. I’m thinking this is a definite bonus.

Mr. Q.O. captioned this photo, “Well, are you going to just sit there or finish it?”

Twinklingo Stars

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I’ve just released a new pattern for the Twinklingo Stars lap quilt that finishes at 57 x 72 inches. This one is perfect for machine piecing or hand piecing and is very quick to put together. It’s made using the Inklingo Tumbler collection .

While I made the original with a white background, making the stars from batiks with a dark background like this block gives a different effect and the stars really sparkle!

Baxter found the whole process rather exhausting!

Curved Piecing and a Bit of a Curveball

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As those who have read my blog for a while probably know, I love curved piecing more than just about anything (although hand quilting is quickly climbing back up the favourites list). There is something about it that I find absolutely irresistible. So once the flannel top was finished, I was thinking about my Summer Picnic Dish a.k.a. pickle dish quilt top and, as I had done a lot of printing of the various pieces for it a few weeks back, I started making the melon/arc combos so I can get this one to the lap quilt size sometime within the next few months. I’ve also been adding a bit to the Joseph’s Coat top.  A couple more of the Pickled Ladies have joined the others as well.

Even pressing the melon/arc combos is fun.

I couldn’t resist taking this picture. It’s not the best, but it made me laugh. It was raining here last night and a leaf blew up against our window and stuck there for the longest time. Baxter was on the windowsill countless times while it was there and completely ignored it. I was convinced he’d be trying to paw at it, but obviously it just wasn’t interesting as it wasn’t moving.

Almost all the leaves are off the trees on the roof garden now and Baxter is spending an enormous amount of time on the windowsill watching them. I love this photo of him as it shows off his white eyeliner so well!

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I’ve had a bit of a curveball thrown my way. Over the past few months, I’ve been dealing with a health condition and the resultant tests, specialist appointments, et cetera. I’ve now been given the diagnosis of remitting-relapsing MS. There are more tests to come, treatments to begin and more specialist’s visits, so there will undoubtedly be days when I may not have a new post on the blog and/or be visiting and commenting on other’s blogs.

It appears I have had this for at least 20 years and have clearly done quite well, up until this summer. According to my neurologist, there are many, many people who walk around with MS and don’t know it. I am in very good hands. I have had invaluable support from friends who have MS and have given me lots of good information as I’ve travelled down this path and, of course, have had enormous support from Mr. Q.O.

Baxter is providing his very own type of kitty support – laughter is the best thing and watching kitten antics like this, when he was trying to “help” Mr. Q.O. with his cryptic crossword, are guaranteed to bring about laughter and smiles.

Going forward, my intention is not to turn this into a blog about MS, although it may periodically be mentioned as it is part of my life and my blog is about things in my life as well as quilting.

Something to Stitch, Something to Unstitch

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Remember this, the Ferris Wheel quilt? That’s the project that involved unstitching. I had quilted about a third of it by machine and then decided I wanted to quilt this one by hand. So I’ve spent a number of hours over the past couple of weeks taking out the machine quilting. Now I’m trying to decide how I want to quilt it.

For a change of pace, I’ve started stitching a cross-stitch project. It’s almost a quarter done already. This one is going to be a small Christmas biscornu.

Baxter did very well and we picked him up at 3:30 yesterday afternoon. I had to laugh at the post-surgery instructions. They stated we should keep him as quiet as possible. A rambunctious kitten who’s only 6 months old and showed absolutely no signs of being groggy from the anaesthetic we’re supposed to keep quiet? Within minutes of getting home, after sniffing around to make sure things were where he thought they should be, he was bounding around, getting toys out of the toy basket, jumping up on the windowsill to watch the leaves and that went on all afternoon and evening. We’re thrilled he came through the surgery so well and showed no after-effects. Here you can almost see the spot that was shaved for the IV on one front leg.