What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I know I should have blogged last week but I have an excuse – I got my booster shot and it packed a bit of a punch! I’m glad it did as that means my immune system was busily making antibodies to help fight COVID but still – I wasn’t expecting to feel like I’d been hit by a bus!

However, two more Christmas Fireworks blocks are done, both the off kilter or not centred stars. First this one, which I think may be one of my favourites – so far, that is.

And then this one:

Today I’ll ...

I actually thought that by the middle of January I’d be finished making these blocks? Ha! Not a hope. It took me most of the week to make two blocks.

This one with the star straight up and down.

And this one, also with the straight star. Now I have 16 of the 35 blocks done. If I continue at this rate of two blocks a week, it will be at least another 10 weeks, if not more, before the blocks are done which puts this into mid-February at the earliest. I think. If I don’t get distracted ...

I decided to get all the red diamonds pieced into pairs for the remaining 21 blocks of the Christmas Fireworks top. There were stacks and stacks of the diamonds like this one.

Each group in the stacks contained 16 of the diamonds.

So I loaded up the needle case with needles threaded with red thread.

Then it took just a few minutes to get each stack pieced into pairs like this.

Each stack turned into stacks and stacks of pieced pairs of red diamonds. Now all the piecing left to do is either continuous piecing or curved piecing or both ...

Christmas Fireworks, that is – my take on Willyne Hammerstein’s Midnight Fireworks quilt in Millefiori Quilts. Which, of course, I’m making with the Inklingo Midnight Fireworks collection.

First up an off-centre fireworks.

Then a centred one.

And finally another off-centre one.

Now I’ve used all the red diamond pairs I had pieced so it’s time to chain piece more of them. I’ve decided to do these blocks in groups of 8 or 10 so this time I’m going to chain piece (by hand) eight pairs of red diamonds for each of 10 blocks.

I had ...

So far I’m still sticking with the Christmas Fireworks and two more blocks are done.

First one with the star pointing straight.

Then an off-centre one.

The back of the straight star after grading of the seams and pressing it. When I was taking the photos, I happened to scroll through my camera roll really quickly and it was fun to see how much movement the block that seems off-centre adds. Now I’m really glad I decided to do the blocks both ways!

I’m also very grateful that I caught on to the effect of the two ...

My Christmas Fireworks, that is, which is what I decided to call my version of Willyne Hammerstein’s Midnight Fireworks in Millefiori Quilts.

Notice anything? I realized after I had put together a few more of these blocks that I have been adding the black framing pieces two ways – one has the centre star’s central point pointing right up while the other doesn’t.

And while this picture isn’t very good at all – I laid the blocks out on top of the duvet so there were lots of hills and valleys – it shows an example of what the ...

I know, I know. I vanished again. This time I had sort of a good excuse – a computer that was just not cooperating and needed to be replaced, which has now happened.

What have I been doing? Other than making more masks, I’ve been playing with lots of little blocks. These little 4″ blocks have been my focus for a while as I was determined to finish making them. And finally – it has been a very long time since I began this – the piecing of the 276 little blocks is done. Next they need to be sewn into rows ...

There’s another project box that got opened. Upon opening it, I found this – everything for Christmas Fireworks (Midnight Fireworks from Millefiori Quilts 1) with all the centre stars done.

Beneath the stars? All the pieces to finish each of the 35 blocks.

The stars began with this fabric. I fell in love with it the minute I saw it as I knew it was perfect for some fussy cutting/printing. I’ve used it in this Christmas Fireworks project and plan to use it in another project that’s not yet started.

When I began this way back in ...