The fact there are now 17 of these done rather surprised me, even though I did count them on Monday night. Guess I should go back and read my own blog. For some reason, even though I have the stack … Continue reading
Tiffany Lamp Quilt Block 17
Tag Archives: quilts
Shabby Chic Yin Yang
Weekend play time involved a block that’s nothing but wonderful curved stitching. I didn’t plan to work on this but when I saw the pieces all ready and waiting I couldn’t resist. It has been ages since I worked on … Continue reading
Hand Piecing a New York Beauty 2 Block
What’s in the box?
Loads and loads of printed sheets for the New York Beauty blocks, both those from Collection 1 and Collection 2. Impossible for me to resist these. As though she knew, a very special friend sent me another one of these marvellous box books but this one is huge! Some of the sheets in that box are 8.5 x 12.5 inches and they aren’t folded over or cramped in there at all. The book box is that enormous and it’s deep so I can print as many sheets of fabric as I want for these blocks. It’s pretty clear now that the Tiffany Lamp quilt is going to be larger than I originally thought. I’m adding some batiks and a few other metallic prints that play nicely.
So on to hand piecing a New York Beauty block from Collection 2. I stitch the two bands of triangles and the small arc to the corner piece. When stitching the two bands of triangles, I take advantage of the continuous stitching possibilities so they’re done in next to no time.
At this stage, I press it. As the triangle intersections don’t meet when the two bands are joined together I’m quite happy to press both bands in the same direction.
Now all that’s left is to join the four units and the block is done. And it’s really that easy. With the perfect matching points and stitching lines, piecing a New York Beauty is fast, simple and oh, so gratifying as each block is done! Getting perfect sharp points takes nothing more than stitching on the stitching lines. The finished block will be shown tomorrow.
For a great tutorial on how to machine piece one of these beauties, check out this post on the All About Inklingo blog.
Baxter was ignoring the camera so Mr. Q.O. was making some very weird noises to get his attention. I think the look on his face says it, “What the heck?!” He had just been drinking in his wonderfully funny style, so the fur on the right side of his face is still quite damp.
A Few More Drunkard’s Path Blocks
Another 10 blocks were stitched. I only have to make another 491 of these to complete the blocks I’ll need for the quilt. Perhaps I shouldn’t be keeping track as that number does seem somewhat daunting. I love the fact I can finish making them using the 2″ Inklingo Drunkard’s Path collection and have, I think, printed the vast majority of what I’ll need. This will be a very long-term project.
I may start putting them together in groups of four soon. It would be easier than leaving that step all to the end.
And just because I get such a kick out of how cute they are once pressed, the back of one of the little blocks.
Am I the only one who is finding it more and more difficult to leave comments on Blogger blogs? While I do try, a lot of times the security words are absolutely indecipherable and I just give up. Surely there’s a better way to add some security to catch spammers.
Baxter was posing beside the mouse doorstop.
Two Different New York Beauty Blocks and a Giveaway
As if I wasn’t having enough fun with the first New York Beauty collection, on Sunday a second New York Beauty collection was released. Of course I had to make a block. Truth be told, I’ve printed enough for 12 blocks of the new collection and another 12 of the first collection. The Tiffany Lamp quilt is going to be even more fun, if that’s possible, to make!
This is the new block I made with the first collection.
This one was made with the new second collection. I can’t get over how amazingly easy it was to put together. It took about an hour and a half to piece, although it took me much longer to decide which fabrics I wanted to use in which spot. I was going for a much more muted, almost watercolour, effect with this one and I think I accomplished that. For those who paper piece, the collection contains a page that can be printed for that purpose. They are both 6″ blocks.
It’s easy to press. I pieced the two triangle strips first and pressed them, joined the small arc to the quarter circle and pressed that and then joined all the pieces together.
I can’t possibly choose a favourite between the two types. Do you have a favourite?
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Now for the giveaway.
Have you ever been tempted to make a Double Wedding Ring but have shied away from it because of its supposed difficulty? You can win the Inklingo Double Wedding Ring collection which makes stitching a DWR unbelievably simple. It really is Double Wedding Ring with training wheels on. I’ve made a small table runner with the collection and couldn’t believe how easy it was to piece. There are loads of possibilities for designing, as you can see on the All About Inklingo blog. To be entered in the draw, leave a comment at the All About Inklingo blog by Saturday, May 12. The design shown above, Blossoms in Niagara on the Lake, is one of my favourites of the many gorgeous design possibilities shown on this post at the blog. Scroll through the posts and see all the amazing things one can do with the Inklingo DWR collection.
But don’t just stop there. Have a good look through the All About Inklingo blog. It is full of creative inspiration, design layouts, EQ7 downloads using Inklingo shapes, and the list goes on.
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Baxter was posing on the couch on Saturday. I love the crossed paws. He has a little “milk moustache”, as we’ve been calling it. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, I think you’ll see it.
Two New Beauties
New York Beauty blocks, that is. This is the one that was partially finished yesterday.
Because I couldn’t resist, another one was stitched. There are seven in total that are done now and it’s time to print some more. I’m going to keep printing the combo sheet with all the shapes so that I can mix and match to my heart’s content. I’ve not settled on a setting yet but that will come when I finish making the blocks, however many blocks that may turn out to be. I know I’ve said it before, but they are amazingly quick to stitch, particularly when taking advantage of the continuous stitching possibilities. This block truly has it all for me — curved piecing, sharp points, continuous stitching.
I’ve used the little Rowenta travel iron all week now and I’m really impressed with it. It gets very hot very quickly and presses blocks like the New York Beauty ones fabulously well. The pointed tip on the iron really helps when dealing with sharp points like those in these blocks.
Today I’m treating myself to a pedicure. It’s almost time for sandals so a pedicure seems in order. My plans for the weekend include printing more of the New York Beauty shapes and getting more of the 2″ Drunkard’s Path blocks ready to stitch. What are your plans?
Baxter was stretched out on the floor again. Mr. Q.O. thinks he looks rather elegant in this pose. I think he’s just waiting for one of us to toss a favourite toy for him to chase.
Weekend Plans
There are about 75 of the little 2″ Drunkard’s Path blocks shown here.
And enough to make just a few more blocks in this fabulous box.
Deceptive, isn’t it? Looks like a book. A non-blogging friend, who knows of my love for pretty boxes, sent this to me. By the time the weekend is over, I hope to have printed and at least halfway fill this wonderful book box with the shapes for the remaining 500+ blocks I need to make for the quilt.
I’m also hopeful that we’ll make it to the Creativ Festival this weekend.
So those are my plans for the weekend – filled with quilt-related things, I hope. What have you got planned for this weekend?
And Baxter’s plans for the weekend? Cat naps and reminding us whatever way he can to go to the pet store to get his favourite food!
A UFO Gets New Life!
I’ve talked about this book before, Ontario’s Heritage Quilts, and how much I love looking through it. When I first got a copy of the book years ago, I immediately fell in love with a Drunkard’s Path quilt.
But not just any Drunkard’s Path quilt. Oh, no. It had to be one made with 2″ blocks and that would take 832 of those tiny blocks to make.
I made my freezer paper templates and traced them on to ’30s fabrics and muslin and pieced those little blocks for a couple of months. But slowly the tracing of the templates became less and less appealing and harder on my hands. And so into this box the completed little blocks went. And, until last night, the box wasn’t opened again for a number of years.
Last night the light bulb moment occurred and I realized I could use the Inklingo 2″ Drunkard’s Path collection to finish the quilt. I immediately went on a hunt for the box, found it, opened it and was thrilled to realize I already have around 300 of the blocks done.
I grabbed a piece of muslin and a scrap of a ’30s print and had enough printed to make 8 blocks in the time it would have taken me to trace the two shapes for one block. Now I know I can finish the quilt that I have had my heart set on ever since I first saw the quilt in the book. I am over the moon excited about this!
Eight blocks were made last night. Mr. Q.O. timed it and it takes me about 5 to 6 minutes to piece each block. Over the next few weeks I’ll pull out the ’30s fabrics I have and print on them and on the muslin. And eventually I’ll have that quilt made.
For fun I put two of the blocks I pieced last night with two of the blocks from the box for this photograph. They’re going to go together perfectly. The only way to tell the Inklingo printed blocks from the others is that they have the rounded corners and, of course, don’t have the pencil marks on the back from my tracing of the templates. Instead I have the perfect lines printed by Inklingo. So now new life has been given to a UFO that I think would likely have ended up as a doll’s quilt as I couldn’t face tracing those templates over and over again.
While I was flying from the iron to the printer to print the shapes, I glanced over at the couch and noticed Baxter sound asleep like this. I think this may be one of Baxter’s first almost headless cat poses. Mr. Q.O. captioned it, “The Amazing Clingo!” How he stayed up like that is beyond me. Guess the quilt has magical holding powers on kitties.
A Different New York Beauty
This is the first of seven New York Beauty blocks that will be made using these fabrics. I have a plan for a small doll/teddy bear quilt. Oh, who am I kidding? I just really wanted to see how the block would look in a more muted colourway. Now I know. I don’t think there’s a set of fabrics that wouldn’t be fabulous for NYB. I still have plans to play with batiks and Fassett prints and shabby chic and who knows what else. I can’t get over how quick a block this is to hand piece. It’s easy to piece one an hour.
Seams graded and pressed. One thing is noticeable. This is an ordinary quilters’ cotton while the Tiffany lamp fabrics have a metallic element to them. The ordinary cotton presses flatter with less effort. This block got the Baxter seal of approval – he licked it!
A question was asked yesterday about how I use Inklingo, whether it is to print the shapes on fabric or to print templates to trace. So I thought I’d show on a couple of fabrics just how perfectly the shapes print right on the back of the fabric. First on a light fabric. Oops — thought we had taken the picture before I started cutting but quickly realized we hadn’t. The smaller arc is the only thing missing from this sheet. If you click on this photo to enlarge it, you can see the stitching and cutting lines and matching points and crosshairs.
And then on a dark one. There are lots of ink colours from which to choose for each fabric. That said, I’ve been using Inklingo long enough that I can pretty much group the fabrics I’m printing and use certain ink colours for each group. I do tend to use the reds more than anything else as the red ink always seems to rinse out in seconds, although I always do a test sheet when I change ink cartridges just in case the manufacturers have improved their inks.
For the NYB blocks, I’m using one of the combo sheets. In this case, it’s the combo sheet which has all the shapes for a block. Each of the blocks will be slightly different as a result. For identical blocks, I would print each shape separately on the fabrics. In the case of the New York Beauty blocks, I print every shape on my fabrics as I’m hand piecing.
For some other blocks, particularly those using HSTs or QSTs, I might only print on one of the fabrics, in this photo on a muslin, and then use those lines to stitch by machine as shown for the sailboat blocks here.
When we were setting up to take the missing picture of the light fabric, Baxter decided he had to lie down on the fabric first. There’s nothing he loves more than a piece of fabric to paw at and possibly lick. Mr. Q.O. captioned this one, “Well, I’m helping, aren’t I?”
Scrappy Star Top Finished — Maybe
Actually it was finished on the weekend but we couldn’t get a good photo of it until yesterday. On the weekend it was too rainy and the grass on the roof garden too wet. Monday it was too windy and the top would have flown off, never to be seen again. Yesterday it was still a bit breezy and rather chilly, but we managed to get a shot of it laid out on the grass of the roof garden. One of these days I’ve got to sort out a way to have a permanent design wall. This waiting for the weather to be just right is a pain! We were lucky to get this shot of it as the wind kept threatening to pick it up.
It’s a good thing it was finished on the weekend before the New York Beauty collection came out. Otherwise, it might have been a week or so longer before it was finished.
Why maybe in the title? Because as it is now it’s a small lap quilt, measuring about 50 x 58. Mr. Q.O. likes it just the way it is. I’m tempted to add one more plain border all around and make it about 60 x 68. But for all intents and purposes, the top is finished because even if I do decide to add that final plain border it won’t take longer than an afternoon.
Now to choose a binding. I’m thinking something very dark to frame it. I like to choose the binding at this stage and get it made and ready, along with the label.
It is hand pieced except the plain borders. They were stitched by machine. But when it came time to add the final pieced border, I stitched that on by hand.
I know how I want to quilt the large plain borders. But the rest of it? That I’m still working on. I’m tempted to just quilt in the ditch around the squares in each round of the star.
It was made with shapes from the free Inklingo collection, except for the cornerstones in the final border. For those, I needed a 2.25″ square in a square and used shapes from the 6.75″ Storm at Sea collection.
I worked on another of the pieced blocks for the red and white Feathered Star/Sunflower border last night, although I was terribly tempted to play with another New York Beauty block. That New York Beauty block is just way too much fun to make! My ideas list using it is growing practically by the hour.
The crab apple tree on the roof garden is starting to look very pink. I can’t wait for the blossoms to appear as it really is a beautiful sight and the scent is wonderful.
I had tossed my sweater over the loveseat. I know better. The minute a piece of clothing is tossed there, Baxter is immediately on it making sure it has its fair share of kitty fur.
Quilt Obsession 