I’ve been meaning to do this for ages and have run into all sorts of roadblocks. The biggest one was the fact I had made very detailed notes and taken loads of photos – all of which are on a … Continue reading
Piecing Texas Stars
Tag Archives: Quilted Diamonds
A Slight Obsession, Maybe?
More forgotten treasures were rescued from the magic drawer. Treasures which revealed I may have had a slight obsession with piecing diamonds for quite some time. Seems I wasn’t content to have made my Quilted Diamonds top. As I fished … Continue reading
Lots Started, Nothing Finished
The title of the post is the perfect way to describe my weekend. I started getting my apple core charms ready for the Inklingo apple core swap, got all the printing done and most of the cutting but am I finished? No. Got the little diamonds picked out to make more stars for Butterfly Stars but did I get any stitched? No. Did get more of the butterfly hexagons for it printed and ready to be stitched. Had about 5 different design ideas for the FSQS5 swap but did I settle on one? No. Have the fabrics for that all ready to cut but even that isn’t finalized. This one is challenging; having to be monochromatic makes one really look at value.
Sunday I received these glorious fabrics from Charlsey. I’ve seen pictures of these Chez Moi fabrics on blogs and online shops but hadn’t actually seen them in person. I love the feel of these! Gorgeous. I think I’ll be dreaming about what to do with them.
Among the many things I did this weekend that were fabric related was dig out these fabrics. I have had the print for ages and keep looking for the perfect pattern to show it off. I think, but am not sure, I want to make a quilt with just it and a neutral. The off-white stripe is one of those really silky Northcott fabrics that I just love. I’m using a bit of it for a stitchery (see below) and love working with it. But I don’t think those two are the right pairing.
I started this stitchery on the weekend. I have a plan to make a little stitching book with this on the front cover. Another thing started but not finished. I had a great little stitching book DH made for me with a paper folder when I was making diamonds from Quilted Diamonds 2. I want to make a fabric one in which to keep blocks in progress and have a design idea that I think will work. We’ll see.
Lester sometimes sleeps like this, with his nose sort of buried in his fur. We always think he looks like a bird with its head under its wing.
We had a glorious weekend, even broke a record on Saturday when it hit almost 8 degrees. It was so wonderful to open the windows and leave them open for hours. We even had the heat off for a bit. Sunday was nice too, although a bit chillier. And it looks like this week will all be above freezing. At least 75 per cent of the snow on the roof garden is gone, and there are huge puddles everywhere as the mounds of snow start melting.
I hope the fires in Australia are brought under control quickly. Every time we have the news on and we hear more about them, I think of all the wonderful Australian quilters I’ve met through blogging.
A Group Quilt
I can now post a picture of the quilt for which the never-ending label was made, the back of which I showed yesterday:
It was presented Monday afternoon. The diamonds were done by a number of quilters and are designs from Quilted Diamonds and Quilted Diamonds 2, both books by Linda Franz. The setting and the quilting are fabulous. The quilt was a long time in the making, and we wondered at times if it would materialize. It did — and it’s gorgeous.
For a while on Monday we got some very wet snow. When we were out we saw a Jack Russell terrier with the cutest little coat — it had a fur-lined hood! It gets cold here, no question, but it was nowhere near that cold yesterday. But it was still cute.
I can’t even imagine getting Lester or Smudge in a coat. Then again, they don’t go outside. Here’s yet another picture of Lester standing over the heat — which is why his fur has that windblown look!
A Few More Diamonds
Most of these diamonds are from Linda Franz’ Quilted Diamonds 2 book, although a few are also from Quilted Diamonds. I amended a few of them in EQ5 to turn them into basket diamonds as I wanted every diamond in this set to have some sort of curved piecing.
I had a few inquiries regarding the size of the diamonds. They finish at 4″ by 7″. I took a few photos with a ruler, just to give you an idea.
This is the diamond design from Quilted Diamonds 2 that started my passion for hand piecing curves. There’s something SO satisfying about doing these!
Amended a bit to turn it into a “gift” diamond. 🙂
Smudge with his lion — we found these funny little lions in the grocery store around Christmas and decided the boys each needed their own!
An Unexpected Post
I had plans to post photos of a couple of small items I finished off last night … but the camera batteries were dead. Very very dead. They’re still recharging, 6 hours later! Guess the moral of this story is to have 2 sets of batteries so that one set is always charged!
So I thought I’d post some photos of a few of the diamonds that will be included in the shabby chic diamond top. This one is one of my favourites — I loved making this one.
For this one, I used a bit of Fairy Frost and a hand dyed fabric. Hand piecing with the Fairy Frost was an interesting experiment (you can read that as needle impaled on my finger tip — definite reminder to use the thimble).
This is another of my favourites . Oh, what am I saying!?! I love all of them. They were all so much fun to stitch!
This one was really satisfying to make — fussy cutting the piece of fabric that’s beneath the handle so that the flowers were pretty well centred was my goal.
Working with these fabrics was heavenly! They’re from the Paris Flea Market line by 3 Sisters.
Another little bit of fussy cutting.
And, of course, pictures of the boys. As we seem to take endless shots of them, I doubt I’ll run out anytime soon!
The Next UFO
Peg at Happy in Quilting has issued a challenge which I’ve joined in on — finish 5 flimsies into quilts by the end of July. I don’t know if I’ll get five done, but the blue and white stars is one and up next will be my shabby chic diamonds.
I’ve shown these before on my blog but they have now moved up to the next major project I want to work on and get off the UFO list. There are about 50 of these pieced diamonds from Quilted Diamonds 2. I have an idea for a setting which will utilize a border of either small 6-pointed stars or small GFG flowers, also done in shabby chic.
This won’t be a really large quilt, but I think it will be a good-sized lap quilt. And I get to work with my favourite types of fabrics! Right now I have two ideas for the centre of this quilt. Either a thin sashing with cornerstones between each diamond, setting them into a large rectangle with a thin border and then a border of either the small stars or small GFG flowers.
Or I may make large diamonds out of 4 diamonds each — and then sash those large diamonds, turn that into a rectangle and again add a small border then a border utilizing the stars or GFG flowers.
The gardeners have planted flowers under each of the trees out on the roof garden. This is what the base of one of the crab apple trees looks like now. 
Smudge really outdid himself this time. We’re always amazed at the positions in which he sleeps!
I love this picture of Lester — to me he looks like he’s thinking and communicating. He is the most affectionate cat I have ever known.
My Quilted Diamonds Quilt
We finally found the pictures taken of it when it was finished and before it was basted. (That’s me with the blonde hair on the right.) This will be the next quilt in the hoop. It has been basted by a long-arm quilter and I really can’t wait to get started on it! I’m still debating just exactly what I’ll quilt in the plain setting diamonds. All the diamond patterns from Quilted Diamonds 2 are in it along with a few from Quilted Diamonds 1. If you haven’t seen those two books, they’re absolutely fabulous books — amazingly well done and incredibly full of helpful tips and information. It was sheer joy making each and every one of those wonderful little diamonds. Here’s a close-up of a few of them.
I‘ll post a few more pictures of individual diamonds over the next few days. There are some that make me smile the second I look at them.
And A Few More Diamonds
Wow — looking through old pictures really is fun! Even though I have the top here and can look at these little diamonds whenever I wish, looking at the pictures has been a treat! Which I seem determined to share. LOL
This is yet another of my favourites. It’s actually rather hard to pick out the favourites as I had so much fun and enjoyed making every one of them.
Then there’s this one, which was a real treat to make:
And the little bear with wings was just too cute to resist. 🙂
Finally, a picture of our Smudge when he was a little kitten. Funny how as they get bigger, one forgets what they were like as kittens. This was when he was about 3 months old and about 15 pounds less than he is now — Maine Coons are BIG cats!
A Few More Diamonds
Getting closer to finding the shots of the completed diamond top. In the process of hunting for them, I found these photos of a few more of my favourite diamonds. Looking at these is making me want to do more! They truly are addictive!
The little duck makes me laugh every time I look at this diamond:
And this one makes me hope we might get some spring — sometime. Right now I’m about to give up hope!! They’re now forecasting yet another BIG storm — with 15 to 30 centimetres of snow, starting sometime tomorrow?? The forecaster on our weather channel just said this may be the biggest storm of the season. Yuck!
I remember making this diamond travelling on a commuter train to go to a Quilted Diamonds club meeting at Jillybeans (now Ginny’s Quilt Shoppe). Taking the commuter train out to those meetings was a great way to get a few diamonds done. 🙂
Quilt Obsession 