CUBE MANIA!!

We had a fabulous day together at my friend Amy's house. We got together with five of us to sew cubes. What fun!! And addictive too.... Here is Amy getting us organized:

Amy, Yellie, Barb and Lynn are busy choosing fabrics and cutting at Amy's wonderful cutting table:

Lynn, Barb and Yellie cutting diligently. Note the garbage container on the cutting board!! Amy's sense of humour :-).

Lynn concentrating on cutting:

Lynn and Barb brainstorming ideas for the blocks:

Barb, Yellie and Amy pondering options:

Barb busily sewing blocks. These blocks are so addictive as you hurry along just so you can see what the colours are going to look like! I was sewing beside Barb...you can just see the Featherweight peeking out of the photo:

Me, Barb and Lynn sewing and laying out our blocks:

The ironing station:

Yellie working away at her blocks.

Barb and I sewing:

Barb, Amy and Yellie gathering to take a look at our blocks. Lynn had just stepped out of the picture :-).

Lynn putting her blocks on the flannel board:

Yellie's blocks:

Barb's blocks which she finished later:

My blocks:

All the blocks we finished this afternoon..sorry this picture is a little dark...if Amy sends me better ones, I'll replace it :-). These blocks are not sewn together down the middle yet. When you have all the blocks laid out for your project, you sew them together in rows to avoid set in seams.


Amy's blocks! She didn't do these all today!! She's been working on these for a few weeks:

Of course we had fabulous food to go along with our sewing day...yummy potato soup, pastries and scones, fruity tea and biscotti and dark chocolate pieces! Mmmmmmm....what a great day!! Thanks for your hospitality Amy. It was a great day.

My Singer 301 in Queen Anne cabinet

Spent most of the day on Thursday working on some quilt blocks. Since my trusty treadle has a half quilted quilt on it, I dug out my black Singer 301 and unpacked all the attachments and got it set up to sew again. I haven't used it yet since we moved, so it was high time! She still sews like a dream. It is a great machine for piecing. Here is the head of the machine:


....and here it is with the cabinet and matching stool. We actually didn't get the bench and cabinet together. The cabinet was purchased at an auction sale with a Singer 15 in it that was later converted to a treadle. The bench came a few years later at a totally different auction. I was thrilled to complete the set and the colours even match perfectly. The bits and pieces on the cabinet are green and beige four patches and triangle squares which I use for leader/enders as Bonnie Hunter calls them. I am working on getting enough patches together to make another quilt like the first one in the leaders/enders article. I've already made one blue and white quilt like this for my nephew's wedding and decided to make another one with greens and beiges. I have quite a few blocks ready, but have a ways to go for a complete quilt.

Joey gets a quilt for JK

My grandson, Joey, started JK this year and they need a nap quilt :-). An I Spy quilt would be just the thing! I laid out a bunch of squares on the design wall and had to babysit Joey and his sister, Kara, in August. I thought Joey might like to help me choose squares for his quilt...this would keep him busy and I could work on the quilt at the same time! Wow, he sure kept busy!! He absolutely loved checking out my novelty stash of fabrics and had very definite ideas on what was NOT to go into his quilt.

Joey: "GRANDMA!!! I can't have this pig in my quilt!! It's pink and pink is for girls!"

Grandma: "But, Joey...pigs are pink!"

Joey: "No, pink is for girls!!" And, he proceeded to pull the pigs off the board and discard them. Here he is checking out all the squares and pulling off the ones that were too girly.

He got to enjoy rearranging so much that soon there was not a square left on the board. He was fascinated by the way they stuck to the flannel design wall and did a total dramatic demonstration for his parents when he got home LOL!

Of course, Miss Kara had to help too, but got in her brother's way. So, the discarded 'girl' squares went onto the other side of the design wall and this was Kara's domain:

She's not even two and had it figured out quite quickly!!


The backing for the quilt:


The finished quilt. The inside border has the cutest kid's sayings on it and the outside border is a chalk board with letters and stick men.

The label on the back:

I meandered the center of the quilt and quilted straight lines in the border.


A few more of the squares:

Joel and Lynnette's quilt

Joel and Lynnette got married in August and I finally remembered to post the pictures of the quilt I made for their wedding. I was waiting to post the fabrics til they got back from their honeymoon and opened their gifts :-).

I used the Spinning Four Patch pattern where you layer four identical pieces of fabric, cut squares from it and put the four patches together forming a kaleidoscope design. They're so fun and addictive to make :-). It turned out to be a very bright and cheerful quilt.


I quilted leaves in the borders and put a pink 'lippy' (flat piping) between the blocks and borders:

Some shallow swirly lines along the green triangle edges:

This funky fun swirly flower worked very well for these blocks:

Another one of the blocks quilted with a flower: