Muskoka Memories One Block Wonder

A number of quilts have been finished up in the last few weeks/months, but I've been negligent on blogging about them!  Here is a OBW that I worked on over the summer while testing sewing machines that Jake had serviced.  This was such a lovely project to work on! And, the panel made for some very interesting hexagons.

This was my first attempt at working out the hexagons around a panel.  I purchased 7 of these panels (center of the quilt) at a quilt shop as they reminded me so much of the campground where we camped with our children for 22 years.  Our oldest grandson was working there this summer and I thought perhaps this would be a quilt he would like when he graduates from grade 12 in a year and a half.  I have a pile of lap quilts ready for the grandkids to choose when when they graduate.  

The strips were cut 3 1/4".  It took a bit to arrange the hexagons around the panel and get them all in the right spot.  Then I started sewing the sections together that would be attached to the panel.  The hexagons shrink quite a bit and sometimes don't line up properly anymore.  But, I only had to pick out one of them and rearrange.  The top and bottom turned out to be 3/4" too long to sew onto the panel :-).  We tried putting that narrow brown strip all around, but that didn't look good, so we just did it on the sides.  Some of the hexagons are appliqued over the panel to keep the colours flowing better.  (Click on the photo to enlarge it to get a better view of that.)  Julie Cassidy quilted it with a pantograph called "droplet" on her long arm machine.

finished quilt top

a magical scene of the lake

droplet quilting

Finished quilt

Quilt hanging in the London Friendship Quilter's Guild show in October

a later view with less sunlight on it

June 2020  Here is Josh who indeed chose this quilt for his grade 12 graduation.

Pillows

A few gifts and donation items were needed in the past few weeks and these Canada panels worked great.  There are so many lovely Canadian themed fabrics available since Canada celebrated its 150th birthday and new ones keep coming!  Nice to keep the patriotism going :-). 

This pillow was for my nephew's fiance who is getting married in November.  Her living room is done in greys, beiges and a little touch of light blue so I added a blue zipper in the back.

Front of Ashley's pillow which was quilted with straight lines 1/2" apart.

This pillow is the same colour as the one above but taken during the day with lots of light.  It was also quilted with 1/2" straight lines across it and was for a silent auction at a fundraiser for a couple of friends who are heading to Kenya in March on a Missions trip.  Amazingly it raised $150.00 for the cause!

Back of the pillow with a little extra Canadian touch.  It had a red zipper in the back.

This black pillow was done with wavy lines and was for a gift for a couple that got married in BC recently and had a reception last night for Ontario friends.

The Canadian poppies fit with Remembrance day as well as a patriotic Canadian touch.

Reverse applique class

A couple of weeks ago, we had Celeste of Meerkat Shweshwe Fabrics speak at the London Friendship Guild.  It was a very interesting presentation all about the history of authentic Shweshwe African fabrics and how they are made.  I was lucky enough to win the draw for a fat quarter bundle of four fabrics that Celeste had donated.  I checked out her website and found she was having a class on reverse applique and also has a club for Dutch Treat blocks from the book by Judy Garden.  I signed up for the class and went this past Friday.  It was a lovely drive and a very good class.  I finished off my first block last night and prepared three more.  These are sample blocks that are Celeste's design.  But, I do have the Dutch Treat book (received as a gift 14 years ago!) so hope to make some of those blocks eventually.  

The Dear Jane quilt, which I'm also hoping to work on again soon, has some reverse applique blocks in it so it was good to learn this skill so I can finish those blocks and make progress on DJ.  It does not take much to prepare these blocks for hand stitching and they make great take along projects when waiting for appointments or while visiting with friends :-).

My first block

second block finished...a tad crooked on the top, but practise will make perfect :-)

Samantha's Elephant baby quilt

This elephant baby quilt was somehow forgotten in the lineup of "quilts to blog"!  It was made in 2016 for Samantha's first baby.  The pattern is called Elephant Love by Greenwood Quiltery.  Since the town I live in has a statue of Jumbo, the elephant who was hit by a train here, elephants are kind of an icon here :-). 

The blank white space gave plenty of opportunity to add lots of quilting

love this cute little baby elephant

Momma elephant

Completed quilt

A telephone for a friend

My friend Lynn had a birthday recently and since she is retired from the Bell Telephone Company, this 12" x 18" mini quilt from Lori Holt's alphabet book was the perfect gift for her.  The center is embroidered.  I had hoped to find small number buttons to add, but could not find those.  It is quilted with simple straight lines.  This project was a quick in between project and was not on the UFO list :-).

a kaffe telephone ☺

Table runner finishes!

I have been working on the table runners on my UFO list off and on since Christmas.  During the Christmas holidays I spent some time playing with rulers and trying out some free motion ideas on various table runners.  The decision of what to quilt on each one is the most difficult!  Then I just follow Lori Kennedy's advice and sit down, put the needle into the quilt and start sewing and see what happens ☺.  Table runners are great small pieces to have fun with and if you don't like the look of it, just add more quilting and it always turns out.  If I still don't like it, I just use it outside on my patio table.

This brings my UFO list down to 79 projects. Click here to see the original UFO post :-).   Some of these are very near being finished or just need to be blogged yet, so I'm making good project on that list.  I have another pile of table runners that I hope to start quilting next week.

This is a very old UFO. 

I did some machine quilting in it years ago and then I started adding hand quilting in the borders.  It finally got finished as well and gifted to a niece and nephew

This was a fun border stripe which lent itself to a very quick and easy table runner by cutting out 60 degree triangles.  It was a great one to practice free motion quilting on.

I just followed the trees and wavy lines which worked well. 

This was a fun way to use Christmas scraps and try out my 15 degree Creative Grids ruler.

I just quilted wavy lines down the length with a gold thread.

One of my students did the one on the left...it shrinks a "little" when you sew it together :-).

This was an experiment in small log cabins to see if I could figure out how to add the diamonds around the outside.  I was inspired by a class I took with Marci Baker on "Not your grandmother's log cabin".  The diamonds are made with two log cabin diamonds and stitched together.  Worked slick.

I used my new Westalee circles ruler to quilt the center and the stitch in the ditch ruler to do the lines in the outer border.

This was a fun quick and easy quilt using half hexagons. 

I quilted circles in the centers but it seems like it still needs something else in there.  Not sure what, but I'll add something if I get a brainstorm.

This quilt was made using the Quick Curved Ruler

I used the Westalee arc ruler to echo some lines in the curved stars.

This was the perfect backing for this runner.

This is an old UFO as well done with the Little Twister ruler with a few Kaffe Fasset charm squares.

This is quilted with simple diagonal lines.

Alex's JK quilt

This year it was my grandson Alex's turn to come to choose his squares for his JK I spy quilt :-).  He was very particular about which squares he wanted on his quilt and which ones he didn't want.

Here he is putting them all neatly in order on the design wall

All squares picked.

Grandpa was working in the garage on sewing machines, so we set up a table for him to play with the micro machines and after all that work, it was snack time :-)

Here he is with the finished quilt which I delivered to him on the first day of school.  He chose this setting with green sashing.

He chose Bob the builder backing and tools as it wasn't quite large enough for the backing for the quilt.

Getting organized

During the Christmas holidays, I sorted and organized all the table runners I need to finish and worked on finding backings and batting for all of them.  This stack makes me feel like quilting this morning ☺.  I did actually finish a number of them and will blog the progress on those after I take pictures.

getting organized

UFO report!

OK, it's finally time to report on my UFO list.  A UFO is an "unfinished object" in the quilting world.  There are many other acronyms such as PIG "Projects in grocery bag" and PNYS "projects not yet started".  When my sister was visiting from BC in January two and a half years ago, she came along with me to a trunk show that I had to do locally.  She was a great help in setting up and packing up. 

When we came home, we unpacked everything and she asked a lot of questions about what I was going to do with these quilts and tops.  I was turning 60 that year and that was kind of a 'year of reckoning' and I was getting to the point where my UFO's were starting to bother me LOL.  So, she grabbed a piece of paper and pencil and started a list....  We had a great time rooting through all my drawers and bringing everything into the light of day and recording it on a list.  I entered everything into a spreadsheet, and organized my drawers by number so that I could also record that and find a project quickly.  Now when I need a baby quilt, I just sort my spreadsheet by "baby quilts" and see what I have on the go.  Works slick.  

I worked really hard over the spring and summer and tackled a few projects....I am happy to report that I have 25 of them finished and could check them off!  I finally dared to actually total up the list and look at the final number!  There were 118 projects on the list and with the 25 done, I have 85 left!  So, I will persevere over the fall and winter and work away on these til they are down to a manageable number.  I'm not one to work on one project at a time...I need variety so will allow myself to work on multiple projects.  I am also sending off some tops to a long arm quilter to help in the process. 

So, I found this post in my draft box from 2016!!  Yikes.  Meanwhile, I found quite a few more projects that I had in nooks and crannies and also started a number of new projects (but finished most of them :-).  I have to sort my table runners on my list of 85 yet as I have finished a bunch of those and hope to blog them soon and remove them from the list as well.   So progress is being made!  

Here are two projects that I've had unfinished for a loooong time.

This was a small quilt that I had started for my youngest son after I made him a quilt for his bed.  It was supposed to be a cushion for his chair?  Or a little quilt for his teddy??  I finally finished it and gave it to his children (!) to play with.  The quilt is still being used so the kids were excited to have a matching quilt :-).

This was a sample for a Simple Splendid Stars Workshop I took in September of 1992 taught by Kay Phillips.  The fabrics are cheap and batting is polyester.  I hand quilted it many years ago and it just got uglier and uglier LOL.  I finally put the binding on and it's in the playroom to be used as a doll quilt.

The history was documented on the label :-).

 

Celebrating a new Grandson

In May, we officially welcomed a new grandson into the family.  He's been with our daughter's family as a foster child for three years and was formally adopted a few months ago.  He is 7 1/2 years old.  It was his turn for a quilt for his bed and he chose foxes :-).  We adapted Sew Fresh quilts fox baby quilt pattern and enlarged it to fit Benny's bed.  He was thrilled to get a new little stuffed fox to go with the quilt as well!

Here are the rows lined up on the design wall....it took a little math to get all the pieces to come out the same length 🙂

Orange binding worked well to frame the quilt. 

It was quilted with a lovely cabin in the pines motif by Chris Bogart

The colours were chosen from this wonderful fox print for the back