All caught up til tomorrow morning :-)

Just finished the Canada 150 blocks before the next three patterns are posted tomorrow morning.  Only a few more weeks to go! 

Blocks 127 - 129

Blocks 130 - 132

Blocks 133 - 135

Row by Row

September and October are supposed to be for sewing the row patterns accumulated during the summer.  I have been picking up patterns for several years, but have not made that many of them.  I am hoping to spend some time this winter working on my favourites.  The first pattern I picked up was in 2014 from Greenwood Quiltery in Guelph, which is no longer in business unfortunately.  This is the row that I finally made two years later.  I figured out a way to hang them up by putting four command strip hooks on the wall and sewing plastic curtain rings to the back of the row.  I can easily switch them out at different times of the year. 

(click on the photo to enlarge)

First row I made from 2014

I also picked up a hanger for vertical rows from the year of the Water theme.

This one was from Creative Sisters in Kitchener from 2015 which had the theme of water.  This hung in my husband's chemistry classroom and the students had fun figuring out why the letters H to O were on the quilt :-).

This row was from E & E's Cloth and Creations in Newton ON for 2015's theme, Water.  I made this one for my friend in the Netherlands, but do have another kit so I can make myself one someday.

This is 2016's theme, Home Sweet Home and is also from E & E's in Newton.  I've picked up this year's winter themed one and am working on it already :-).

This is the spot where my horizontal rows hang above my spool cabinet.  It sure provides many warm feelings of the shops that I've visited.

Jelly Roll Race experiment

I've made a couple of jelly roll race quilts in the past, but they just didn't make a large enough quilt top for my liking. They turn out very long and narrow. I have been saving 2 1/2" strips for years in a drawer and sorted them out last week and found 71 batik strips (some were half strips, cut from FQ's, but I matched them up to make a full sized strip).  I sewed them together and the finished size comes to 64" x 92" which would work for a twin sized bed.  Or I could cut it in half and have two quilts 46" x 64" which would make a good size for a lap quilt. It would be interesting to try it with two jelly rolls and see what size it turns out then :-).

Finished top (some hanging over the railing)

I chose prints with medium to darker values and like that result

Inside photo - colours are a bit more accurate here

Additional info:  I was rooting around on the internet last night and came across this blog which has math formulas for figuring out how many strips you need to make various sizes.  This should be a helpful resource

Emma's JK Quilt

I was going through some photos awhile back and realized I had never posted pictures of my granddaughter Emma's JK quilt which I finished a year ago!  Emma came over for dinner and chose 5" squares from my I spy stash and placed them carefully on the design wall.  She chose a backing fabric from my stash and we decided to use pink and purple solids to add corners to make snowball blocks.  I've made a lot of I spy quilts already, but thoroughly enjoy each one.

choosing squares for her quilt

Emma was very meticulous about keeping the piles neat and putting the squares in straight rows on the design wall :-)

Lots of fun squares and fabric chosen for the backing

the finished quilt

quilting in the blocks

border quilting

backing

Canada 150 blocks - the end is in sight!

I managed to get behind again on my blocks!  This has been a busy summer with lots of grandkids over and lots of sewing machine work in the garage.  But school is starting up next week and my husband has been occupied with school work and meetings at school, so I got to work on catching up again.  I'm all up to date!  And, we're at block 126...only 8 weeks to go and all the blocks will be finished.  Then it'll be time to put the blocks together.  I need to decide if I'll make one queen sized quilt or two smaller lap quilts.  This project has been keeping us busy for a year and it's become like an old friend :-).  I'll miss the weekly posts, but I will be happy when the blocks are finished so I can get to some other sewing again!  But, it's been a great project to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday.  Here are the blocks from the last four weeks.  There were some really fun designs in here and they were fun to put together.

Blocks 115 - 117

Blocks 118 - 120

Blocks 121 - 123

Blocks 124 - 126

And here is the stack of blocks #1 - 126