Tag Archives: star blocks

A New Start

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When I printed all the shapes for the Storm at Sea blocks, I purposely printed many extra shapes. They’ve sat for ages while I thought about what I wanted to do with them. For starters, I’m going to make a few of these stars. They finish at 6.75″. Then I’ll start working with the extra diamond shapes. There’s a quilt design slowly taking shape in my mind for these extra blocks.

I love working with batiks. They press so beautifully. I’m grading the seams as I go so that I won’t be faced with having to do it all at the end.

When I said I printed a lot of extra shapes, I wasn’t kidding. This box is absolutely full of the various extra shapes.

This is the box that contains all the pieces for the Storm at Sea blocks along with the threads that match the various batiks. The Storm at Sea blocks have been neglected for too long. I plan on making at least one or two of them this week.

Baxter loves playing with his feather toy. On the weekend, he gave it the seemingly obligatory dunk in his water bowl. He does that with his favourite toys. I started to laugh when I found it in his water bowl, as he was lying beside the bowl just happily watching it float. Thankfully it dried quickly.

Black and White

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Stars, that is. They’re tiny star blocks, finishing at 2.25″ x 2.5″. The pieces are small, so the block is quick to stitch. I put these two blocks together in less than 45 minutes. Each seam is one needle load of stitches and it’s done. I think I may incorporate one red or gold star in the top at some point, just to have one splash of colour in the midst of the black and white.

They press like a dream. I finger press as I go, so it’s just a matter of one quick press and it’s done.

There are enough pieces in the envelopes in this box for quite a few of the black and white stars. On the weekend, I was talking to a friend about the number of boxes like this that I have with envelopes containing shapes ready to stitch. While there are a lot of them, each one contains the making of at least a small quilt and it’s great to have such choices, particularly when I’ve been working on a complex project and just want an easy stitch for an hour or so. I think of these as my quilt in a box projects. Over the next couple of posts I may be showing some of the other boxes.

A few years ago I really recognized the value of such quilt in a box projects when I had the flu. While I wasn’t too sick to stitch, cutting or printing my shapes would have been too much. Instead I was able to choose a project that was already kitted and just stitch.

Baxter has been spending more and more time on the windowsill. He is clearly enjoying Baxter TV. His tail is really starting to look like a classic Maine Coon plume of a tail and he has discovered that chasing it is fun.

Red and White Stars

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The first row of the stars is almost together. Two more full stars and a couple of partial stars and row 1 will be finished. This is turning into the project I want to work on when I’m tired, as it’s a fast and easy stitch. The camera wouldn’t, for some reason, read the red fabric well. I’m going to join rows as I stitch so that when the stitching is finished, the top will be finished as well. Once a couple of rows are together, I think we’ll take this out to the roof garden and see if we can get a better shot outdoors.

You may have noticed I’ve been changing the blog around a lot this week. Finally, I’ve got it to the point I’m happy with it. So no more changes for a while.

Baxter was 3 months old on Saturday and we got this shot of him. He’s definitely getting longer and I think we’ll soon see the wonderful Maine Coon tail.