Round Robin reveal party

Sometime in February, my friend Gail approached me to see if I would be interested in participating in a round robin with Cathy S and Christine R.  I figured that would be a fun challenge, so agreed to do it.  We had to make a center block of our own choosing in any size and add some fabrics to it.  The participants each had to add a border and could add some of their own fabrics if they wished.   We had approximately a month to complete each border before it had to go to the next person.

On Thursday evening, we gathered at Gail's place in her gazebo in the back yard and had the grand reveal!  Wow, what a great time we had.  The quilt tops were all amazing and it was great to hear the stories behind each of the decisions that had to be made and the other ideas that each person considered.  Sometimes and idea was just soundly defeated by the quilt itself LOL.  

We are each posting photos of the progress of our own quilt and I will link the other blogs to the bottom of this post when they have them up.  

This is the center block that I started with.  It was intended to be acoffee cup.

Gail was the first to put a border on.  She decided to put the cup straight again and made it a tea cup and added a border of tea bags!

a close up of a couple of the tea bags

aren't these just so fun?

Another border of the light blue was added and Cathy S surrounded it with these awesome T blocks.  How appropriate is that?

Here is Christine showing the final border.

Christine added a white border and appliqued a vine and leaves on it.   Then she embroidered a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt on the border:  "Women are like tea bags - they don't know how strong they are until they get into hot water". 

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 I was totally amazed at how the quilt turned out.  I am very happy with it.  Here is a photo of the finished quilt.  The light wasn't great anymore, so the photo is a little bit washed out.  It's actually quite a bit brighter.  I will post more photos when I get it quilted.  Christine wasn't quite finished with the embroidery yet, so I will get it here in a couple weeks :-).

Gail's blog post about her quilt is here.

Cathy S's blog about her quilt is here.

Christine R's blog post about her quilt is here.

Here are all four of us with our quilt tops

Baby quilts for Amy DK and Amy V.

I finished a couple of baby quilts this month...one was late and the other just on time :-).  Nice to have them both finished.  I was fortunate to be able to borrow a Sweet Sixteen Quilting machine from a friend to try out.  I had debated getting one of these and it was so nice to actually be able to quilt a few quilts on it to see if it was something I'd like to purchase.  Not going there yet at this time...more research on other options :-).

Sweet Sixteen sit down quilt machine

The finished baby quilt - an I spy quilt using the Disappearing 9 patch pattern.

The baby's Dad works at a dairy farm, so I chose cows and other farm animals to be included.

It was fun trying out some ruler work on the Sweet Sixteen using this curved ruler...that worked great

 Amy V's quilt was next.  I had done another quilt just like it for Denise using the Ring Toss pattern from Swirly Girls.  However, the pattern called for 5 fat quarters, but I wanted to add more variation and used 10 which resulted in enough circles and border squares to make two quilts.  Since Amy loved Denise's quilt and her nursery was in the same colours, she got the second one.  I quilted this one with straight lines, using a ruler on the Sweet Sixteen and did large swirls in the border blocks.

Finished quilt

I had the perfect backing fabric for this quilt - funky giraffes

I tried some free hand echo quilting inside the circles...not perfect, but good practise and the baby won't care :-)

Alexander Jacob's baby quilt

Just realized that I never posted my new grandson's quilt.  Alexander Jacob was born in April, but I did not have his quilt ready!!  I did finally get it finished in May and he is enjoying his quilt. 

I received  a package of FQ's from my friend in Holland for Christmas.  She ordered them from the States and had them sent to me here in Canada.  The bundle had FQ's featuring "Corduroy", the little bear that Don Freeman features in his children's books.  I have always loved those books and read them to my kids and now to my grandkids :-).  Since the prints were large and small and some were difficult to cut up, I played around with a layout using yellow and blue Kona solids and a piano key border with the leftovers and a scrappy binding with the leftovers of the leftovers.  I usually handquilt the first quilt for my grandkids, but wanted to get it finished and did some fun 'modernish' machine quilting on this one.

The finished quilt

the layout of the blocks and border

zig zag quilting in the blue square

border quilting

straight line quilting in the sashings

using leftover backing from my very first grandson's quilt 12 years ago :-)

Summer Sewing Space Tour!

I am excited to be participating in the Sew Canadian sewing studio tour hosted by Mad About Patchwork for the summer months.  There will be two or three studios featured in their blog posted each week.  You can click on the button in the sidebar to go to the schedule.  My studio will be featured on the 17th of August.  I had a rare moment of organization in the room as I was hosting an all day quilting class, so had to clean up!  I took advantage of that to take the photos needed for the tour.  

Once you get to the info post about the summer tour, click on "blog" at the top of the page and it'll take you to the current post on the blog.  Scroll down to find the posts about the studio's posted weekly.  Enjoy!

Schedule:

July 6th – Patti @Retired to Quilt and Krista @Poppyprint

July 13th – Dominique @The Running Thimble and Cinzia @Deux Petites Souris

July 20th – Anita @Daydreams of Quilts and Lorna @Sew Fresh Quilts

July 27th – Shena @Apple Pie Patchwork and Katherine @Sew Me Something Good

August 3rd – Felicity @Felicity Quilts and Josee @The Charming Needle

August 10th – Janet @What Comes Next and M-R @Quilt Matters

August 17th – Erica @Happy Fabric, Jacqui @Treadle Quilts and Adrienne @Chezzetcook Modern Quilts

August 24th – Leanne @She Can Quilt and Jaclyn @Jaclyn Quilts

August 31st – Pam @Mad About Patchwork and Laura @Waffle Kisses

- See more at: http://www.madaboutpatchwork.com/canadian-quilt-fabric-blog/sew-canadian/#sthash.AgPw4jnL.dpuf

Schedule:

July 6th – Patti @Retired to Quilt and Krista @Poppyprint

July 13th – Dominique @The Running Thimble and Cinzia @Deux Petites Souris

July 20th – Anita @Daydreams of Quilts and Lorna @Sew Fresh Quilts

July 27th – Shena @Apple Pie Patchwork and Katherine @Sew Me Something Good

August 3rd – Felicity @Felicity Quilts and Josee @The Charming Needle

August 10th – Janet @What Comes Next and M-R @Quilt Matters

August 17th – Erica @Happy Fabric, Jacqui @Treadle Quilts and Adrienne @Chezzetcook Modern Quilts

August 24th – Leanne @She Can Quilt and Jaclyn @Jaclyn Quilts

August 31st – Pam @Mad About Patchwork and Laura @Waffle Kisses

- See more at: http://www.madaboutpatchwork.com/canadian-quilt-fabric-blog/sew-canadian/#sthash.AgPw4jnL.dpuf