Twinkling Stars

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Quiltobsession

The top is done and is now in the queue waiting to be quilted. This one I’m going to quilt by hand with either a silk or wool batt. I’ve got some quilting ideas for the plain squares that will carry on the star theme of the quilt.

We took advantage of a sunny day on the weekend to take the photo out on the roof garden as it’s difficult to get a good shot indoors of a quilt that’s anything larger than a wall hanging. Twinkling Stars finishes at 57 x 72 inches and was made using shapes from the Inklingo Tumbler collection. This year’s baseball playoffs quilt top is done.

Last year’s baseball playoffs quilt is still waiting to be quilted.

Baxter had a very busy weekend chasing leaves as they flew by the windows and watching squirrels and birds.

Twinkling Stars Update

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Quiltobsession

The first weekend of the baseball playoffs meant a lot of stitching got done. This is the stack of blocks now ready to incorporate into large 9-patch blocks. I’m close to a third finished when it comes to making these.

I decided to try speeding it up a bit by partially stitching the blocks by machine. I put the half tumbler and 2″ squares together by machine.

Can you tell the difference? One of these blocks is partially done by machine while the other is totally hand pieced. I can’t tell the difference except, of course, by looking at the back of the blocks and am quite pleased with the result.

I realized on the weekend that my design idea was going to result in a square quilt of about 66″. For some reason, I always prefer my quilts to be rectangular rather than square so I’ve changed the design a wee bit to make it longer than it will be wide. I’m intrigued by the fact I’m so determined to not make it a square quilt. I can’t quite sort out why I have such a strong preference for the rectangular sizes. Do you have a preference when it comes to a lap quilt being a rectangular or square quilt?

Baxter has been very busy now that he has discovered the living room windowsill. On the weekend he started clambering up there with Cappy in his mouth. We’re convinced Cappy is his blankie and he doesn’t want to go anywhere without it. I’m hoping we can get a video of him getting up there with Cappy once it stops raining, which they say should be today.

Twinkling Stars Ready to Stitch

Posted on September 29, 2011 by Quiltobsession

Since the weekend printing marathon, I’ve been cutting and getting pieces ready to stitch for Twinkling Stars as well as other quilts. As of the end of yesterday, everything for Twinkling Stars is ready to stitch.

Now Twinkling Stars is a quilt in a box, complete with the threads I’ll be using as I stitch the blocks during the baseball playoffs. The box contains some of the 5″ squares needed for the large 9-patch blocks. There are some other design elements to the quilt that aren’t in the box as they don’t fit, but they’re ready. I had been playing with a couple of different ideas and yesterday the entire quilt design really came together. I’m hoping I can get this finished before the end of the World Series, but that’s going to depend on how many games end up being played in the playoffs and World Series.

Baxter napping with his favourite toy, Cappy. He now brings Cappy to bed at night and practically tucks it in. The other morning I woke up to find Cappy under a pillow.

Printing and More Printing for Quilts

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Quiltobsession

What’s that? It’s the stack of fabrics I printed over the weekend for the Scrappy Star, Twinkling Stars, Summer Picnic Dish, Harpsichord and Joseph’s Coat quilts. The last couple of weeks I’ve been identifying the size I want certain projects to finish at. WIth the size of each determined, it took only a few minutes to figure out what I needed to print to reach that goal. Sometimes I print only a few of each shape for a couple of blocks until I’m sure I want to make it into a quilt. Once that decision is made, I prefer to get everything printed at once and get the shapes cut and into a box ready to stitch such as I’ve done for the Stormy Seas quilt.

This gives you a glimpse of the some of the shapes I printed for the Harpsichord, Joseph’s Coat and Summer Picnic Dish quilts. Using the various Inklingo collections to prepare my templates makes it so easy to print on any number of fabrics, even black fabrics as most are markedly lighter on the back than the front and the templates will show up perfectly with one of the many choices of ink colours.

Almost all the shapes are now cut and ready to be put in a box, along with the matching threads, for the Twinkling Stars quilt, which I plan on trying to finish between now and the end of the World Series.

Because it was such a beautiful day on Monday, we took Scrappy Star out to the roof garden to photograph. It’s growing and is now 24″ across. It will be at least twice that width before I’ll stop adding rounds. I needed more of the squares, which was another reason for all the printing that was done on the weekend.

The back after pressing.

Baxter is starting to look like a grown-up kitty in some photos, although his antics are still pure kitten antics. I think he was trying out his hypnotic kitty look in this photo.

Twinkling Stars

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Quiltobsession

Starting a new quilt as the baseball playoffs are close to beginning seems to be something I do each year. Last year it was the pink and cream star quilt. This year it will be the twinkling stars. I think I choose stars as they’re easy to stitch while watching the games.

There are 10 colours I’m using for the spiky little stars. I have all the spiky long triangles and coloured squares printed and most of the half tumblers and large white squares. By the end of this week, all the shapes for this quilt will be printed, cut and ready to stitch. With any luck, the quilt top will be finished by the time the World Series is finished.