Just Sayin' Sew

I have a confession to make.  I’ve forgotten how to blog.  I have a nice one sitting out there as a draft I’ve been working on.  But I have 86 pics with that one.  And I think you might say ho-hum <yawn> and fall asleep on me.  Perhaps I fell asleep on myself before I even got it written.

And you’ll see from this post that I apparently have forgotten how my camera works too.  Somewhere between 86 pics and many forgotten-to-take-them pics.

Oh, well.  Maybe one day I’ll remember how I used to be a blogger.

But I had a recent adventure that you need to hear about.  A Bus/Kaleidoscope/Quilt Obsession/Inklingo/Toronto Adventure!  So I’ll do my best to try to remember how to blog.

I took the mega-bus to Toronto last week………

**Picture a big blue, double-decker bus here.  I told you I forgot how to blog.

………to visit my friend, Cathi, fellow blogger, Inklingo guru and hand piecing genius.  Her hands fly so fast when she’s hand piecing that my camera can’t even catch the shot.  That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.  Cathi’s blog is Quilt Obsession and the name serves her well!  She is one obsessed quilter.

Cathi lives in a tiny hi-rise apartment in downtown Toronto.  She and Mr. Q.O. pack a lot into a small space.  And Cathi doesn’t let anything get in the way of her quilting.  She quilts — and blogs — nearly every single day.

This is Baxter.  He is the beautiful Maine Coon kitty who rules the roost at Cathi’s home.  He is very photogenic, don’t you think?

I love this profile pose.  And he was very cooperative about posing for the camera.  And about the only thing that I remembered to take pictures of.  Ha.

The first thing that Cathi and I did after I arrived and grabbed a quick bite of lunch was laundry.  Because you know that laundry is the most exciting part about visiting a friend in a foreign land.

And look!  I even got a pic of the laundry room.  I wanted to bring the laundry room back to the campground with me.  And we weren’t actually doing laundry.  We had new fabric to wash so we could start printing and cutting with Inklingo!  But if I’d known about this laundry room before I left the motorhome, I might have brought my laundry with me.  Seriously.  You remember the laundry room at the campground, right?

Cathi is a speed demon with printing Inklingo on fabric.  And we had a new project we wanted to work on together.  Our own personal mini-quilting retreat.  Linda had been showing these little gems on her blog lately and we wanted to play along.  All you need are diamond shapes.  And you can do them any size that you’d like.  We chose the 2″ diamond collection in Inklingo.

It would have been very, very simple to cut and print all the diamonds to make these kaleidoscope stars if I had followed directions.  But no.  I found some pretty fabric and had myself all talked into how great it would look with this technique before I realized it had a 24″ repeat.  Which also would have been fine if I’d bought 4 yards of fabric.  But have you seen the prices of fabric in Canada?  Oh, my.  I was going to have to take out a second mortgage on the motorhome to pay for it if I bought 8 meters of fabric (which is actually a bit more than 8 yards, but who’s counting.)  And I couldn’t pick just one.

Plus I figured that Cathi, being the Inklingo genius that she is, could figure it all out and we’d make it work.  Well, we did put our heads together and make it work.  But just FYI.  If you want to do kaleidoscope stars and you find a fabric with a 24″ repeat.  Do not buy it.  Unless you want to buy 4 yards and make a gazillion stars.  Keep looking until you find something you like with a 12″ repeat.  You will be much happier with yourself.

These are the two fabrics I bought.  And I’m getting some amazing stars out of them!

Here are a few stars – including some on the right that are Cathi’s.  And that’s her pretty blue/brown paisley fabric on the right too.  She got so excited about these cute little stars as we printed that I think she’s printing up all of the fabric in her stash as I write.  A gazillion yards of fabrics turned into mega-gazillion kaleidoscope stars.  And she’ll have all the quilts finished and quilted by next week.  She’s a whiz, I tell ya.  Be sure to check out her blog today to see the fabulous stars she’s getting from one fabric that we weren’t even sure would work.  What do we know.  And you can follow her blog too, so you can see her progress.  She remembers how to blog.

This is the view out the window at Cathi’s apartment.  Isn’t it lovely?  She lives on the 5th floor but looks out at this fabulous rooftop garden.  With a tree that comes way up past the window and makes it not feel like you’re in the middle of a big city at all.  Baxter sits in his cat tree and looks out the window all day.  And has the best view in the apartment.  I wanted to climb up on the cat tree with him and spend the day gazing out the window.

But Cathi was cracking her whip.  I’ve been needing a bit of energy and motivation lately.  And Cathi was just the person to help me find it.

Then she even cut all my blue/yellow fabric into strips after it was printed.  So I’d have it to continue cutting with scissors on my bus ride back to Montreal.  She didn’t want me to be bored on the bus.

See the pretty strips?  When you live in a small hi-rise apartment, the dish drain has to do double duty.

This is the seat next to me on the bus ride home.  I was on the top deck of the double decker (picture bus here) and there were glass ceilings.  Letting the sunlight stream across that seat.  And my strips.  And my snacks.  And the cute little bag that I keep my sewing stuff in – made by my dear friend, Susan.

This is my lap on the way home.  I took these pics with my cell phone and can’t quite figure out why everything has a sort of heavenly glow to it.  But I had fun with my earbuds in on the way home.  Listening to an audio book and cutting out little diamonds.  Nice.

Here’s my sewing box with all my little diamonds inside.  Cathi gave me the cute small box inside.  But we printed and cut out so many diamonds that they wouldn’t all fit in there.  One fabric fit.  And I had this cool leopard box (thanks, Susan!) so I just put everything inside it today.  Cathi (or rather dear Mr. Q. O.) finds the most fabulous boxes at Dollar Stores!  And she has taught me to love these cool boxes to store my projects.

What’s that?  Oh, you wanna see some stars?

This is from the first fabric we cut out.  Aren’t they just the coolest?

And these are from the blue/yellow fabric.  But I think you might need to see some up-close and personal.

Nice.

Cool.

Love the way the centers swirl around.

I know there are loads of people that have been doing these kinds of things for years.  Kaleidoscope, Stack ‘n Whack – whatever you want to call them.  I’m telling ya though, Inklingo makes it super duper simple to cut them out.  And then stitching is a breeze with the stitching lines printed right on your fabric.  If you don’t know about it, you really need to check it out!

Just remember to get fabric with a 12″ repeat.  You’ll thank me later.  Just ask Cathi.
Hugs,
Barb, 63° at 10:00 p.m.  Predicted high tomorrow? 68° <grin>