Treadle Quilts

Progress.......and ripping :-(

2012-01-03T11:58:00.003-05:00

In 2007, I finished my first Leaders/Enders quilt from Bonnie Hunter's website. I had so much fun doing these units that I started another one using beiges/creams and browns/greens. I also did other four patches in between. I've had more than 50 of them completed for quite awhile.

I use my trusty Singer 15-88 for most of my piecing and usually have a stack of 2" squares ready to use as leaders/enders:

I sorted out all the blocks and organized them this week and have 90 blocks finished. I think I have enough HST's and four patches ready to assemble the last 10 blocks. I may use this setting again, but will experiment with a few other ideas before putting the top together.

Progress is being impeded, however, with the discovery of 7 wrong blocks :-(. I will have to get my 'best friend', the stitch ripper out!

Meanwhile, I've been sewing a LOT of four patch blocks together and have quite a pile accumulated. I'd like to do a quilt with them, but can't come up with a brilliant idea? Set them on point with black squares and setting triangles? Putting them together as just four patches makes a checkerboard which isn't too exciting.

Dr. Suess Quilt

2011-12-27T11:22:00.005-05:00

When the Dr. Suess prints came out, I just had to have a bundle of them. Shirley from the Marsh Store was at our guild quilt show and I bought a bundle of FQ's. It had my oldest son's name written all over it! He has a lot of the Dr. Suess books and has many of them memorized and reads them to his kids all the time. The dilemna was whether a 32 year old guy would like a Dr. Suess quilt LOL. I made him a lap quilt this Christmas to read stories to his kids. Here is the finished quilt:

corner:

border quilting:

backing:

loop quilting in the 'thimbles'

I told Lauren and Leah, Tim's two daughters, that they could help their Dad open this gift. They loved the Dr. Suess quilt :-)

Trying out the new quilt with Lauren, Joey (cousin) and Leah:

Daughter in law, Heather (pictured in background), made all the kids a cool fleece hat for Christmas. They willingly posed for a 'funny face' photo LOL

The kids then put Josh's hat on Tim for a picture with the Dr. Suess quilt. He's nice and warm and cozy now!

I also made a little stocking for each of the 7 grandkids, plus one for the baby due in a few days. The stockings will stay at Grandma's house to be filled every year:

Grayson's baby quilt

2011-12-11T22:30:00.005-05:00

Another first baby was born to Lynnette and Joel in July. I finally got the quilt finished a few weeks ago and delivered it this past week. This quilt is a One Block Wonder quilt and the fabric was a print with funky bugs all over it. It was so much fun to work on. Arranging the hexagons on the design wall is always enjoyable. I made a bunch of solid cubes to match the colours in the quilt and tried a few layouts:

I settled on these stepping stones so it looks like stones in a garden:

The finished quilt:

I quilted a meander in the bugs and loops in the blue border:

I found the perfect bug print for the binding and the backing of the quilt:

Some of the hexagons in the quilt:

Even if you'd be having a bad hair day, one look at these bugs would brighten your day :-). Hope baby Grayson enjoys many a giggle, checking out his bug quilt.

Stacie's Baby quilt

2011-12-10T21:19:00.004-05:00

I finished a Spinning Four patch baby quilt for baby Stacie, a first baby for Trevor and Sarah, who are members of my Church. First babies are a great reason to make a quilt :-). I had been saving this quilt for that special baby and since Trevor is a farmer, the animals were the perfect choice! Here is the finished quilt:

The original fabric can be seen in the border:

The four patch blocks turned out really fun. This was the second quilt I had made from this set of blocks. You can see the first one here. I cut the first block too small so I only got 15 blocks out of the fabric. So, I fussy cut one sheep out of a leftover piece so I could make another quilt. I just love these animals...they are so cute :-).

The label on the back:

I found a perfect colour purple for the back and it had sunflowers on it to continue the country theme. I realized that I spelled Stacie's name wrong. It's too late to change the label, but Sarah figured that Stacie won't notice it :-).

Pillowcase Sweat shop

2011-12-07T09:54:00.006-05:00

Our small city of approximately 40,000 has a shelter for the homeless, operated in a local Church, that runs from October to March and provides a bed and warm meal, etc. A few of us had the brainstorm last year already to make some fun pillowcases for the Inn. Since they get mostly men coming, we concentrated on more 'manly' fabrics, but we also made some others to give to Christmas Care as well. We worked over two evenings and got 21 done the first evening and by the time we finished on Monday night, we had a total of 47 pillowcases done. We think we have the pattern memorized LOL.

Cynthia, from Cherished Pieces, had a great clearance sale on and I picked out these four fabrics from the half price room. When Cynthia found out we were making pillowcases for the Inn with them, she gave me a further discount! Aren't independent quilt shop owners great?!!

Then, when I went to check out, she gave me these five BOLTS! of cotton fabric to use. We definitely put these bolts to good use! Thanks so much Cynthia and Bill for your generosity.

Gail went shopping for some floral prints for the purple bolts and we raided our stashes for appropriate trims and cuffs for the pillowcases. Gail brought her serger along and the handy snippet catcher was overflowing after our evening's work.

These were the pillowcases we finished after our first sewing evening:

The second evening we added some florals so we could use the purples for girl pillowcases for Christmas Care:

47 pillowcases finished in two nights!! We were definitely sweating :-)

A friend donated these kitty fabrics as well as the cats in the above photo (they matched perfectly with the tan bolt):

Chris ironing, ironing, ironing.....

Alice, ironing, ironing, ironing......

Jacqui, Chris and Gail after our first evening of sewing. Karen had to leave early, but she also helped with ironing:

Sleep Well!

Braeden's Baby quilt

2011-11-30T18:16:00.007-05:00

We finally had a baby shower for my nephew Josh and Janneke's first baby, Braeden. I chose another Square Dance quilt. This is such a great pattern and whips up quickly. The zoo animal print was the focus fabric.

I had originally put some lime green prints with this, but my two sisters were over one day and they had fun raiding my stash and replacing some of the greens with oranges and blacks. The baby room walls were green, so they figured it would be safer to avoid too much green. Here they are arranging the chosen fabrics in the right order:

They did a great job of picking the colours:

It was quilted with a simple meander in orange:

The finished quilt with binding done in the original zoo animal print:

Ian's Baby quilt

2011-11-29T08:29:00.004-05:00

Little Ian finally got his baby quilt! He was born in May and we've been trying to get together all summer to deliver the quilt. That's what happens when I miss the deadline of the shower!!! LOL I did a square dance pattern in these lovely oranges mostly from the Wee Play fabrics by American Jane. The Square Dance (and the Crazy Eights) are quick and easy. They use 8 FQ's and they are cut all at the same time. It can also be doubled for a lap size quilt.

As you can see on this photo, it was summer when I had the top done!!
The finished quilt. It actually was quilted at the end of July, but vacation and life got in the way in the fall and I really wanted to have a little visit with the new Mom. My friend Joan and I had a delightful visit with Ian and his Mom, Caroline, and he now has his quilt :-).

I tried out another new quilting pattern...baby quilts are great to try new quilting designs....if it's not perfect, the baby won't care :-).

I just LOVE this cool dog houses and cars print and it happened to be on my sewing table when I was working on the quilt and I noticed that the colours matched perfectly! I didn't have quite enough so I added a strip of the striped binding fabric down the middle.

Playing with Kaffe Fasset fabrics!

2011-11-08T16:14:00.004-05:00

My students wanted to do a sampler quilt with 6" blocks, so I dug out the class notes for the blocks I taught in 2002. Here is the quilt I made from the my sample blocks for the original class:

I thought it would be fun to update the blocks this time for my samples and dug into a stack of Kaffe Fasset fat quarters that my friend Els from Holland brought for me when she visited in September. I had a collection of solids as well. It was fun digging through the fabrics to come up with combinations. Here are the first two trees:

This afternoon I made some houses, one with a chimney and one without; one with curtains and one without:

Here are the four blocks together so far. I am liking these wild, bright trees and houses. I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet, but I'll grow some more trees and build some more houses when the mood hits :-)

Spinning Four Patch Quilt

2011-10-28T16:04:00.005-04:00

This summer Jake and I enjoyed a wonderful two week vacation in BC. We were invited to stay in a lovely little home on the property of friends of ours. It was so nice to have a little home away from home to have as our home base. This quilt was made as a thank you gift for them. Our daughter in law boarded with them a few years ago, so I picked her brain to come up with colours that would work in their home. I decided to try a Spinning Four Patch quilt with this classy navy and gold fabric. It wasn't the perfect spinning four patch fabric as the repeats were too small and too symmetric, but it did turn out nice. I added the narrow border of a Japanese fabric around the blocks as it would have been too dark with the navy blue batik. I totally forgot to take pictures of this quilt before I gave it to them! Thanks to their daughter, Corina, who was over visiting my daughter in law for taking the pictures for me. This is the back of the quilt:

The front of the quilt:

One of the blocks:

The quilting in the blocks (this was close to the true colour of the quilt):

Colours are somewhat off in this picture - there were gold flecks in the fabric making it very difficult to get a good photo:

The finished quilt:

Thanks Wout and Addy for letting us stay in your wonderful little home!

Mouse Pad production!!

2011-10-07T07:43:00.002-04:00

The son that just got married is a computer guy so they decided that for wedding favours they would make mouse pads. Becky bought five or six different Japanese fabrics to stay with her theme for the wedding and we got some felt type batting. We cut these 8" x 9" and the backing 10" x 11". After layering them, we stitched two lines 3" in from the size to 'quilt' them and hold them together and then folded the backing to the front to form the binding. They turned out nice and work great. They rolled them up with a rubbery square to keep the pad from sliding on the computer table and wrapped a nice thank you label around them. I went over to Becky's house for a couple days last week and we set up a sweat shop and sewed 89 of them altogether! They really looked nice on the tables. The first picture is a bit washed out - the colour is probably between the two photos. On the second photo you can see the quilted lines a little better. (These would make great mug rugs too.)

One Block Wonder done!

2011-10-04T08:29:00.009-04:00

Our son, Eric, got married this past Saturday. We had a lovely day with him and his bride Becky and our families and friends. I made a One Block Wonder queen sized quilt for them. Becky and I went shopping together to choose the fabric. She loves Japanese designs so I took her to the Marsh Store in Coldstream, ON since Shirley has lots of choice! It took us awhile to come up with something that would work in the colours Becky liked. We weren't sure if this black and white fabric would work for a OBW. I can't find a picture of the original fabric and can't find any larger leftovers at the moment, but this picture should give you a bit of an idea of the original fabric:

Becky chose and assortment of red, gold and purple FQ's for the cubes. My daughter in law, Jannyne, helped me with arranging the hexagons once I had them all sewn together and some cubes made. We decided to add strips of black batik to make the quilt large enough and to add some interest. It ended up looking like a Japanese screen (that was not intentional!). After the first black batik borders, it needed something. I tried adding scrappy triangles, but that didn't really work. Adding the original fabric into the border and another simple black border finished it off nicely. Here is the finished quilt with Eric and Becky. I gave it to them at the rehearsal dinner (the light is not great).

The happy couple :-)

Opening up the quilt so Becky could finally see it finished :-)

I finally found the perfect backing at Creative Sisters in Kitchener. Bonus that it was a wide backing and I didn't have to piece it:

Close ups of some of the hexagons:

It was amazing how much shading there was in this black and white quilt:

The top center finished; trying it on my queen sized bed for size :-)

Here you can see the lovely leaves that Tim from the Marsh Store quilted into the border. I am very glad that I didn't have to sew black leaves on black batik :-)!! Thanks so much Tim!!! I also added a red 'lippy' (flat piping) in between the binding.

Tim quilted a lovely design in the black and white areas with variegated black and white thread:

Becky and Eric on their wedding day!

A Dear Jane block - Finally!

2011-09-22T16:20:00.002-04:00

Last week my Dear Jane internet friend Els, who is from the Netherlands, spent a week with me hanging out in my sewing room, going on quilt shop hops and visiting one of my quilt guilds. We had a wonderful time. Els has already completed her first DJ quilt and is working on her second one! She definitely inspired me to get back at my quilt. So, Monday afternoon, I decided to do another block. This one is Cabin Fever A 9. I used my stitch ripper a few times to get the colours right! I should have checked the original block out closer! But, I got it finished and am happy with it. Hopefully, I can keep up with my 1 block a week goal again. This is my 59th block of 169 center blocks. Then I have to decide if I'll do the triangles or not :-).

Kara Abigail's I spy Quilt

2011-09-20T22:53:00.003-04:00

The fourth of my grandchildren started Junior Kindergarten this September. Can't believe how quickly these kids grow!! They seem to grow up faster than my own kids did :-). In June, Kara came over for a day and we planned out the quilt. Of course, we had to start off with 'coffee break'! We stopped at the store on the way home and Kara chose chocolate cake for snack. That is right up her chocoholic Grandma's alley!

The next job was putting all the chosen I spy squares on the design wall until we had enough that she liked. We then chose sashing colours and backing.

Inspecting the possible options for backings:

I chose a disappearing 9 patch setting. In order for all the directional I spy fabrics to appear straight up in the final setting, you need to orient the blocks properly. Check out the tutorial here for the directions. You then cut the 9 patch block exactly in the center both ways.

This is a great way to sew up a setting with sashings and corner stones very quickly. After you lay out all the squares, you need to sew one side row and a bottom row of white rectangles and pink squares to finish it as seen in the second photo below.

The final quilt, bound with striped fabric. I did not add a border since the quilt was plenty large for a little JK student :-).

The back of the quilt matches the doll bed that I made for Kara a few years ago for Christmas:

I tried out a new quilt design for this quilt from my new book: "Machine Quilting Solutions" by Christine Maraccini. It was a lot of fun and looked nice on the quilt. Of course I used my favourite "King Tut" variegated thread :-)

The quilting:

Elna days in the garage....

2011-08-29T14:26:00.006-04:00

We spent some time at the end of July working on some Elna sewing machines in the garage and getting them up and running. It took a little bit to get used to sewing on these since they have a knee bar control instead of a food pedal. Then when I went back to sewing on my Singers, I kept trying to push the non-existent knee bar :-). First they go to Jake's side of the garage to get a complete cleaning, oiling and testing:

Then I get the fun job of testing them on an actual project. I take a small piecing project into the garage since it's not very clean in there :-). I worked on a One Block Wonder quilt I'm making for my son and future daughter in law for their bed:

The case of this machine opens up flat and there is a cut out (where the latch closes) which slides right over the free arm of the machine forming a large sewing surface. It is very smooth, so the fabric slides nicely over it:

Check out the perfect stitch:

A great machine dating back to the late 1940's. When we first started collecting sewing machines, we missed a few of these as they look like ammunition boxes when the case is closed.

These machines are nicknamed the "Grasshopper" with the green colour and the position of the knee bar when it's ready to put into the case :-).

This is a later Supermatic that takes decorative cams making some lovely embroidery stitches. The earlier Supermatics were green or beige. These blue versions were a little later:

Mitered corner practise

2011-07-23T12:12:00.006-04:00

A quick and easy table topper can be made with a FQ and a metre of border fabric. It's a great way to practise making perfect mitered corners :-). I recently finished a table topper and a bonus mini topper and 2 coasters out of a lovely striped border fabric. The added bonus is that you can cut the FQ down to size to make it fit whatever border fabric you have :-)

Once the corners were mitered, and the excess triangles cut off, I happened to see my 60 degree ruler on the table and got the brainstorm to cut triangles to make a little hexagon shaped piece. As an added bonus, the little mat fits perfectly into the center of the square table topper for a different look. There was a narrow strip of border fabric left, which produced two little coasters also cut with the 60 degree ruler:

This is also a great project to practise some different free motion quilt patterns. I quilted the center with flower motifs:

I tried out some spirals on the center of the mini topper inspired by a new quilt book I picked up recently: "Machine Quilting Solutions" by Christine Maraccini.

Here is the back which showed the spirals better on a photo:

The spirals are easy to echo in a narrow border:

Quilting on the coaster:

I gave this set as a wedding gift with an ice cream scoop and waffle cone holders. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of those as they were purchased between the ceremony and reception :-). The colours matched really nicely!

Check out this beauty!

2011-07-14T22:33:00.004-04:00

We spent another enjoyable afternoon and evening working in the garage restoring and testing antique sewing machines. Check out this beautiful Singer 115 full rotary sewing machine. I think this is the nicest machine we've ever come across...the decals are near perfect and it's very shiny:

Check out the shine on this awesome machine:

These are called 'wing' decals - it's even made in Canada!

The end plate is in mint condition:

I did some test sewing on it, working on a queen sized One Block Wonder quilt! With machines like this, we don't consider this work at all - it is all play getting these pretty old machines back in working order.

Sewing in the garage!

2011-07-06T23:00:00.003-04:00

I spent the afternoon today sewing in the garage :-). I've been working on painting some patio furniture that our neighbour made a few weeks ago. Jake was fixing sewing machines in the garage and we spent a pleasant morning working and chatting together :-). While the paint dried, I tested the sewing machines that were ready and brought my sewing to the garage so we could continue working together. Here is my sewing table set up to test a Centennial 15-90 sewing machine that belongs to a quilting friend:

Chair parts are drying while I'm sewing :-)

Threading the machine....

Jake is working on restoring a Featherweight we picked up recently:

He even made me a coffee and brought two Oreo cookies to go with it. We are enjoying our summer vacation working together on our shared hobby!

Antique Quilt find

2011-07-06T22:49:00.004-04:00

On Canada Day, we went to visit our son in Leamington. I went yard saleing with his girlfriend and parents. It is always fun to go to yard sales in a different area! At a neighbourhood yard sale, I walked up to a table and spotted a quilt all neatly folded up. It looked like it was in good shape. There was a price tag on it for $1.00!! Yes, you read that right...one loonie!!!! I didn't even open it up, but gave her the dollar and wisked it out of there in a hurry LOL. It is in good shape, with a little fading of the colours here and there. It looks like it's been on a bed with the sun shining on one side of it. It is pieced by machine, but entirely handquilted. It has a really interesting design. Here is a closeup of the block:

The whole quilt:

Isn't it pretty?

Foolish? Just Plain Crazy? ...or Amazing?

2011-06-27T11:06:00.009-04:00

This past November, Cathy B joined our quilt classes and jumped right in with a table runner. She caught on quickly and completed several smaller projects. She fell in love with the log cabin class that some of my students were taking. She went shopping and picked up some lovely black and white fabrics. She decided that she would jump right in and make a king sized quilt for her own bed!!! Not only that, she decided to design it herself and incorporate two different blocks into the design. First she did the traditional log cabin layout:

Next she did some blocks with light squares in the center and some with dark:

She went home and drew out a layout with exactly what she had in mind and once the blocks were all completed (learning many lessons along the way and using her best friend...the stitch ripper) we laid the blocks out on the design wall and added triangles on the top and bottom:

Rather than taking the easy way and adding some plain borders, she persevered and made piano key borders from the leftover strips and added corner stones in the four corners:

Next came the huge job of pinning the quilt!

Cathy is tying this quilt with white and black narrow ribbon so that she can do it all herself.

Here she is busy putting in the ties into her quilt (btw, she's not angry here....just has a clip in her mouth lol):

The amazing thing is that Cathy has just had her 4th round of chemo for cancer! She has been going through treatments for 5 years. She is an amazing inspiration with her determination and upbeat attitude to life and we are all proud of her for this awesome accomplishment. She often wondered if she was foolish or just plain crazy to take on such a huge task, but we all agree that she is one amazing lady. Way to go Cathy....it took me 12 years to finish my bed quilt :-).

Robyn and Mike's Spinning Four patch

2011-06-26T12:48:00.004-04:00

It's been awhile since I did a blog post! I haven't finished much in the last month, but did work on a lot of projects. I did finally finish a quilt for a wedding we attended on May 28th :-). That's what happens when I miss my deadline...no more pressure to get it done on time LOL. Actually, that was the same week we had two huge quilt shows in the area and I had several ladies sleeping over to attend the shows. So, I do have a good excuse.

I bought a lovely piece of fabric at Hyggeligt's sale bin awhile ago thinking it might be good for a Spinning Four Patch block. It did work, but it's not as dramatic as some of the other fabrics I've used. Here are a few of the blocks:

I tried to set the blocks with two different colours, but nothing seemed to work until I found this solid brown. I used wider sashings than usual and this helped to make the blocks float.

I had the perfect green in my stash for the border (it has little beige flecks in it) and had enough brown left for the binding:

I quilted leaves and funky flowers in the sashing and feathers in the border with a King Tut variegated thread:

The finished quilt:

Sewing room progress

2011-05-31T09:26:00.006-04:00

My daughter and daughters in law gave me some great additions for my sewing room. Jannyne gave me this wonderful clock. I hung it up in the sewing room, above the yard sale cabinet I picked up last year. This clock keeps us all on time for classes :-).

Heather made this cool wooden button from a cheese board bottom. It was featured on a decorating blog and I fell in love with it. Fortunately, I hadn't found a cheese board at a yard sale yet so Heather painted it black and put a black check X in the middle. It found a perfect spot on the coat rack that Jake made out of an old piano years ago. The Chocolate sign says: "Warning, may cause clothing to shrink" and was a gift from my daughter Amanda last year.

Closeup of the button:

President's Challenge at the LFQG

2011-05-17T12:21:00.003-04:00

The London Friendship Quilt Guild had a President's Challenge due for the month of May to celebrate 30 years as a guild. The rules were simple. We received two Fat Quarters in the guild colours; one gold with little stripes and one solid blue which had to be visible on the front of the quilt. One of the dimensions had to be 30". The focus fabric is shown in the photo below and was used in the top and right side of the cubes.

I had a Japanese fabric that I picked up at The Marsh Store in the sale bin and thought it would be great for a Spinning Four Patch. I bought 4 repeats and added half a yard or so to possibly use as borders. I happened to throw the two FQ's for the challenge on my sewing table and it landed on that Japanese fabric and the colours blended beautifully! I've been having so much fun with the One Block Wonder quilts and then the light bulb went on! Could I do a One Block Wonder with this Japanese Fabric? But, I only bought four repeats and needed six. I remembered buying extra and wondered if possibly there was a sixth repeat. I managed to squeeze one 2" strip for a sixth repeat and I figured it would be fun to see how small you could go on these hexagons. Here is the original fabric:

I sewed the hexagons together and began experimenting with them. My first idea was to use 30 hexagons. Here are a few layouts and ideas that I tossed around:

Using 30 hexagons would be difficult, so I decided to make one dimension 30" instead and added some cubes in the focus fabrics:

I found some wonderful navy blue that matched beautifully and added that for borders:

I used the rest of the yellow focus FQ to add a small 'lippy' between the quilt and the binding.

If you click on the photo above of the focus fabrics, you can see the quilting in the blocks and the photo below shows the feather quilting in the borders.

At the guild meeting last week, each entry was assigned a number and we all voted for our favourite. I was very excited that my little quilt won 1st prize!! Here is our President, Rose B. holding up the quilt while I had to tell everyone why I chose this design and where the 30" dimension was. I'm saving my prize money to spend at the big quilt shows in our area next week :-).

Thread Catcher

2011-05-09T21:39:00.002-04:00

I made another thread catcher this weekend and finished stuffing the pin cushion today. I found enough Kaffe Fasset selvedges in my collection and had solid lime green to go with this fun print.

This snippet catcher will be donated to the Canadian Quilter's Association Committee for the Quilt show being held here in a few weeks.

Jasmine and Richard's Log Cabin Quilt

2011-05-07T19:54:00.004-04:00

My niece, Jasmine got married today in a lovely outdoor wedding in the park. The weather was perfect. I made a log cabin quilt completely from my stash of beiges and greens. I used up the leftover strips to make a piano key border. The only thing I had to buy was the batting. I even had the backing, a Debbie Mumm garden print I've had in the house for years. It was the perfect colour for this quilt. I forgot to take a picture of the backing. Here is the finished quilt:

A closeup of the quilting. I used a Bernina 817 that is a little stiff from sitting around for years...I gave it a good workout meandering across the whole quilt. It made a perfect stitch and passed the free motion quilting test with flying colours :-).

Mug Rugs

2011-04-25T22:17:00.003-04:00

I needed a shower gift to go with a couple of cookbooks for my niece and her fiance and made these mug rugs for them out of coffee themed scraps from some table toppers. These mug rugs are fun and quick to make:

I found the perfect mugs to go with the rugs:

I even snuck some selvages into the mug rugs :-)

Table Runner Mania

2011-04-18T22:26:00.003-04:00

It's about time I update my blog again. I've been working on too many projects at once and not getting anything completely finished! Here are some twisted pinwheels that I've been experimenting with. A table topper with 7 pinwheels:

Another spring table topper with 5 larger pinwheels. I got the main fabrics in a bundle from my daughter in law for Christmas:

This will be a little doll quilt once it's quilted. I have cool striped fabric for the binding in perfect colours :-). This is done with a charm pack:

Here is the beginning of a hexagon shaped table topper in Christmas fabrics. I'm doing the math on cutting it in the right shape and Math is definitely not my strong point :-):

I also did a spring table topper using a FQ and a metre of striped border fabric. This turned out really cool and I tried out a new quilting design in the center:

The finished topper...the colours are like the above photo, not the bottom one!

From the cut offs of the mitered corners a hexagon mini table topper can be made using a 60 degree Clearview ruler. And, from the little leftovers, I managed to get two coasters...how fun is this?

The mini table topper fits beautifully in the center of the large one. I need to quilt it yet. I hope to use it on my round glass table on our deck outside when spring arrives.

Colton's baby quilt

2011-04-02T19:13:00.007-04:00

In February, we had a baby shower for my nephew and niece, Jon and Megan. My sister said they liked zoo animals, and I had the perfect fabric in that theme and decided to do a spinning four patch. This is the original fabric:

Four identical layers are cut and pinned and squares cut. The four squares are laid out forming a kaleidoscope (there are four options for each set of squares making it fun to play with the possibilities). This was part of the tiger:

Oops..forgot to crop that photo :-)...you get the idea:
Here is the finished quilt:

And here is sweet little Colton enjoying his quilt and resting on a matching pillowcase that Megan made herself to go with the quilt :-):

I found a little bit of giraffe fabric in the perfect colour to do corner squares:

Closeups of the rest of the blocks on the quilt:

Progress on a few projects....

2011-03-23T20:12:00.002-04:00

I made some progress in the sewing room in the last two days. I had the blocks on the design wall for the selvage cubes and the One Block Wonder. I had bought an audio book last week and plugged that into the computer and listened to it as I sewed the rows and background together. That made a somewhat boring job a lot more enjoyable. Here is the selvage cube top so far. I decided to go a little bright with the background since it's going to hang in my sewing room. The next step is to make a selvage piano key style border around it and then a 2 1/2" orange border and then I can get it quilted and hung up!

My daughter in law came over Tuesday afternoon and we did the final arrangement on the One Block Wonder. As soon as she left, I started sewing the hexagons and cubes together in rows then started sewing the rows together. This morning I finished sewing the last few rows and trimmed the bottom edges. I'm really liking this project. I hope to pick up some of the navy blue on Friday for a border around the whole quilt. I'm thinking of a gold lippy between the navy border and navy binding. I think that would frame it nicely.

Indian Orange Peel class - part 2

2011-03-21T08:46:00.009-04:00

On Saturday, we got together for our second class on the Indian Orange Peel taught by Heather Stewart. You can read other posts on this class by clicking on the tab on the right to see progress to date. We had a great time and crammed a lot of information into our brains in short order. You can see how focused we are as we listen to Heather (second from left) giving us instructions on how to sew the arcs to the four patch blocks:

Aren't we a serious bunch eh?

The first thing we had to do was pair off with another quilter and lay out our four patch blocks on the table alternating warm and cool colours. Then the arcs had to be arranged in a pleasing colour order, paying attention to lights and darks and creating a movement for the eye to follow and watching warm and cool colours! Deb and I worked together and there were times that we were wondering if we were going crazy, but we did manage to get it all laid out in good order.

After laying out my quilt, we carefully transferred it to the floor with the four of us:

Now there is room on the table for Deb's quilt :-). Joanne, Marylou and Roxene can be seen in the background working on their quilts. Here we are getting ready to arrange Deb's warm and cool 4 patches:

All the arcs were labeled on the back with numbers corresponding to a diagram just in case we get mixed up:

That does really explain my major muscle pain this weekend lol:

Pat and Marylou are busily sewing:

Chris and I were nice and cozy as we forgot to bring an extension cord and borrowed a short one that someone else had as an extra. Thanks Anne for letting us use your cord. I took my new to me Centennial Featherweight along and she sewed like a charm once again. We had a lovely bright room in a local Church.

Here are my blocks and arcs ready to sew together:

Here is Kathy's layout...she also chose bright colours in batiks. It was interesting how many shared prints we all had in our stashes! We did trade strips, but there were a lot of fabrics that several of us had in our quilts.

Yvonne was sitting on the other side of me and did a really scrappy one with some really fun novelty prints.

Chris, Pat and Anne's quilts:

Another angle of the same quilts. The colours really look awesome when you take a picture:
We also had to sew one block together to make sure we were doing it correctly. These were a challenge to get just right and most of us were making liberal use of our Best Friends (aka a stitch ripper :-). Heather assured us that these would get easier and easier, the more we did them.

One block finished, 24 to go:

Gail has more photos on her blog. We need to reconvene our support group to keep sewing these blocks together and paper piece the border. The arcs were a piece of cake compared to the shapes of the border pieces lol.

Shattered Angles class that wasn't :-(

2011-03-15T21:33:00.004-04:00

I was supposed to go to our guild's workshop on Friday, called Shattered Angles, taught by Susan Purney Mark. She spoke at our guild meeting on Thursday evening and I was really looking forward to taking that workshop. I was all packed up and ready to go. However, when I woke up on Friday morning, there was a major snowstorm and I could not get to London for the class :-(. Fortunately, I had purchased the book on Thursday evening and Susan had this sample at the trunk show (it is called Shattered Garden):

Since I had everything packed up to take the class, I set up in my sewing room and figured I'd see if I could figure it out. I studied the photograph of the sample on the webpage and had the basic cutting instructions. I used the new to me FW that my hubby fixed up just for me!

I chose colourful strips 1 1/2", 2 1/2" and 3 1/2" as per instructions from my drawers under my sewing table. I cut and sort my leftover fabrics as Bonnie Hunter of www.quiltville.com has on her website and just had to pick out colours that would fit my plan. I didn't have to buy any fabrics so it was a great stash buster.

I sewed the strips together with varying widths totally 6 1/2". They are then cut on a 45 degree angle in various widths and black strips sewn between.

Here are the 42 blocks that I have finished so far. I'm still debating if I want to make it bigger, or add a black border and then a piano key border with the leftover strips. It was a really fun project and I love the stained glass effect. I still have to rearrange the blocks to balance them properly.

More hexagons

2011-03-07T19:25:00.007-05:00

Just realized that I haven't posted anything on my blog for awhile!

I've been playing around with some more hexagons this evening and thought I'd try cutting some from this bug print...the repeat is only about 9" so can't get too many blocks out of it. But, there should be enough to make a baby quilt, perhaps with a few cubes added into the mix. I bought some colours to go with this print last week. Here is the original fabric:

The cubes that I have put together so far...the center seam is not yet sewn together as that is done when assembling the half hexagons in rows to avoid inset seams :-)

Some close ups of some of the blocks:

I could get addicted to these fun blocks :-). I have some hot air balloon fabric to try too someday.

Hexagon madness

2011-02-18T08:57:00.004-05:00

We've lived in our new house almost two years and I still hadn't found a picture to hang above our bed. My daughter in law, Jannyne, gave me one of the One Block Wonder books for Christmas and loved the designs. She said if I wanted to make one, she'd help :-). The light bulb finally went on and the brainstorm hit to make one of these into a wall hanging for my bedroom. I took Jannyne to one of my favourite quilt shops, The Marsh Store, taking along a piece of the border fabric of my bed quilt and we came across this Laurel Burch fabric with exactly the right colours! So, some of that came home with me :-).

On Tuesday, Jannyne came over for the day and we cut out the triangles and started playing with the options. Here is Jannyne having fun laying out the blocks on the design wall:

We thought we'd add a few cubes into the mix possibly, so we bought some FQ's that blended nicely with the dancing horses. There was a lot of sun in the sewing room when I took this picture so the left is a little dark...there's a black, a burgundy and a navy blue FQ in there. At the top is the border of the bed quit and I also spotted some perfect King Tut variegated thread spools.

I got two cubes made while Jannyne laid out blocks. I will make more of these cubes in various colours and we'll have some options to play with:

Here are all the blocks so far on the wall. The instructions in the book were to sew the half hexagons together with the straight grain of the triangles to the outside. Since the fabric design is so linear, I took the triangles of the last strip and started sewing them differently to provide more variation. The three separated hexagons on the right side are done in the different orientation. One third of the blocks will be different. This is a really fun project to work on.

Jannyne is the one with the artistic eye, so she'll help me decide on the final layout. I tend to lay everything out symmetrical, so we're on a learning curve here LOL.

I'm up to 97!

2011-02-08T22:19:00.002-05:00

I hosted a mini retreat at my place on Friday and Saturday and we accomplished a lot! Here are 12 of the arcs I started on Saturday and completed tonight.

I am now up to 97...only 23 to go!

Block of the Month

2011-01-27T16:39:00.001-05:00

Our local small quilt guild is doing a block of the month for charity quilts. We choose a colour each month and everyone makes a block and brings it to the next meeting. One of the members takes the blocks home and puts them into a top and it is quilted and presented to the chemo unit at our local hospital. This was my November block for the red and white theme:

The December colour was blue and white. I didn't get mine finished in December so just finished it this week :-)

January's colours are red, black and white. I decided to add a black background to these red and white batiks since the white seemed to really wash them out.

....and we're up to 56

2011-01-14T15:07:00.004-05:00

Worked on arcs on Tuesday with a bunch of friends for a whole day and in the evening with another friend. Yesterday afternoon I started 6 more and finished them off this afternoon. I am now up to 56 arcs finished. Half of them have the warm colour in the background and half the cool colour. They look very pretty in the buckets. 84 to go....it really isn't too bad once you get going :-).

I'm up to 32!

2011-01-08T21:34:00.005-05:00

I think I have these arcs down to a science (or an art?). I've experimented with different ways of doing them and have it working pretty slick :-). Here are arcs #21 - 26

....and #27 - 32. That makes eighty-eight to go.

All of these arcs have at least one Kaffe Fasset fabric in them. Good thing each arc is different or it would get quite boring.

A doll party

2011-01-07T19:19:00.007-05:00

My two friends and I met for our Christmas get together on Wednesday. We had plans to meet before Christmas and were snowed out both times! So, we finally managed to pick the one sunny day this week with no flurries in the forecast and had a great time. We have all been busy with dolls lately and brought them along so they could all meet each other :-). Don't they look like they're having fun? Click on the photo to enlarge it. The two tiny dolls at either end are Reliable dolls made in Canada. The left one on the chair is made in Italy. Many of the baby dolls are made by Zapf Creations.

Lynn made this cute little clothespin holder for me! Isn't it just the cutest?

I had made giant pin cushions for Lynn and Amy from the Moda bakeshop site. They are really cool and definitely giant!

Amy's pin cushion:

Lynn's pincushion:

My American Girl doll, Kit and Lynn's handmade doll:

Lynn's doll from her childhood! Her Mom made this dress for her with the same fabrics as a dress that she made for Lynn. What a treasure to still have this!

We went shopping at Value Village in the afternoon and found these cute clothes in the baby section (3 months size) which fit Lynn's Betsey Wetsey doll.

What fun!! We hope to get together one of these days and make clothes for our dolls. We have a huge collection of patterns between the three of us as well :-)

Indian Orange Peel Night in Canada......

2011-01-06T11:24:00.007-05:00

We got together with six of us to work on our Indian Orange Peel homework on Tuesday evening. Now I don't know what to call our evening anymore....QNIC (Quilting Night in Canada) or PNIC (Peeling Night in Canada) or IOPNIC LOL. In any case, we did peel and got a few things done :-).

My treadle got a workout while I was sewing 8 arcs simultaneously:

Pat picked up this wonderful storage bin at the Bibles for Missions thrift shop on Tuesday. They are meant for storing Christmas decorations. There are two sets of two, but they snap onto each other....perfect for this project for taking along!

Pat and Gail busy sewing and cutting:

Deb's first arc that she did at the class:

Deb ironing fabrics for her four patches:

This project requires thinking!! Christine and Deb are contemplating something :-)

Christine's accomplishments of the evening:

You need to be well organized with this project and remain organized as well!

Christine:
Chris and Pat choosing fabrics for four patches:

Is this a warm colour or a cool colour?

We had four ironing stations set up and didn't blow any breakers!!

The arcs I worked on on Tuesday evening and completed this morning. Yikes, is that a warm background AND warm points arc I see on right side?

Did four more this evening, so I'm up to 20 altogether now. Next batch and I'll have less than 100 to go :-)

Corn and Potato Steamers

2010-12-30T13:06:00.005-05:00

For my daughter and daughters in law, I made these microwave corn and potato bags for Christmas. They were fun to make and are great to use. It is essential that you use 100% cotton fabric, cotton batting without scrim and cotton thread to avoid fires in your microwave! Here are the corn bags:

These were simple to make, just a long rectangle with an overlap at the top:

The potato bags were more work. They are lined halfway inside with potato fabric as well. I had a fat quarter of chili pepper fabric and with some creative cutting and piecing, managed to get a round one for myself to heat tortilla shells in the microwave. It's supposed to keep the shells warm at the table too:

Here is one of the potato bags with the flap opened up:

The pattern is by Legacy Patterns and called "Baked Potato & Tortilla Steamer". They also have a pattern for the corn steamer, but I did not like the way it was put together. This is the corn steamer made with the pattern. It is made in one big finished rectangle and then the sides are folded up and top stitched. However, the lining shows through at the sides which I didn't like. So, a couple of my friends and I put together the other version...much less fiddle fussing and looks finished.

Doll clothes for Kara, Lauren and Leah

2010-12-30T12:53:00.003-05:00

This year it was Kara's turn to get a doll bed, quilt and diaper bag from Grandma. She turned 3 in October and I gave her the doll last year. I was running out of time (I got finished at 1:30 Christmas Eve and the party was starting at 3:00 :-). I dug through my drawer of 2" strips and chose pinks and greens and yellows and sewed them to the batting and backing "quilt as you go" style. Pink binding around the quilt and it's finished!

This is the back of the quilt:

A sleep sack for Kara's baby. Lauren and Leah got one of these 2 years ago, so now all their dollies are matching:

The doll bed and quilt:

Diaper bag with fitted cloth diapers, plastic toy lotions, powders, spoon, fork, etc.

The rest of the diaper bag goodies:

Granddaughter Lauren is 6 and got her baby three years ago already. But which Mommy doesn't like a new party dress for her baby eh? The fabric was leftover from my niece's bridesmaids' dresses:

Leah (4) got a dark green velvet dress for her baby:

...a few more arcs

2010-12-30T12:51:00.002-05:00

Finally made a couple more arcs for my Indian Orange Peel class homework...lots to go!! But, at least we're making progress. Now that Christmas sewing is finished, I can concentrate on keeping these moving. We are getting together with a bunch of us to work on them together; we need a support group :-).

Pillowcases

2010-12-14T12:49:00.005-05:00

Last week, Chris, Gail and I got together and made pillowcases for the million pillowcase challenge. Gail brought her serger and we had a regular sweat shop going! In one morning, we made 16 pillowcases. Gail brought them to Christmas care on the way home and they were happy to receive them.

Here's Gail keeping the serger moving right along:

Keep pushing 'em through there, Gail :-)

Chris and I kept the iron and rotary cutters humming and also sewed the band onto the pillowcases before Gail got them to finish the side seams. We used the 'rolled' band method so all seams were enclosed at the top. I call that method the 'sausage' method since the top looks like a sausage when it's all rolled inside. You could hear regular comments about sausages being ready to sew around the sewing room LOL

Here is a partial pile of the ones we had ready at that point:

My husband was home due to a snow day so he took a picture of us with all the finished pillowcases. Gail had made one at home already so we had a total of 17 pillowcases. Gail registered them on the million pillowcase site and has the number on her blog post. There are now 214,739 in total...long ways to go for the million, but everyone bring us closer!

Indian Orange Peel (part 3)

2010-12-03T09:27:00.004-05:00

Working away at the sorting of colours and cutting strips and 4 patches in between other activities. I cut out 5" squares for the 4 patches out of my new fabrics.

Here I've added the 8 four patches that I sewed earlier in the week. I need 25 in total, so we're getting there :-). Hope to sew a few arcs yet this week just to keep some progress going in there.

Indian Orange Peel (Part 2)

2010-12-01T14:16:00.005-05:00

Most of the class (see previous post) was spent learning about colour and practising sorting fabrics. We each sorted our own fabrics and then, as a group, we went around to each person's stash and Heather analyzed the choices and showed what would happen if we added different colours. We also made up a shopping list of what we needed to buy to supplement our fabrics. Most of us had lots of medium value fabrics, but lacked in the light department and needed more dark darks! But, we did get a little bit of sewing in. Here is my first arc....only 100 more to make before March 19th when we have our next class!!

We also made one four patch block. I finished a few more this week out of the Kaffe Fasset fabrics I had on hand:

I spent some time this week sorting out all my fabrics into the 12 categories of the colour wheel and adding possibilities from my own stash to the mix. In order to keep my sanity, I put them into a large ziplock bag and labelled them. Imagine my delight when I opened my drawer for a marker to find 10 different coloured markers all colours of the rainbow LOL. I could match up 10 of the 12 to the colours in the bag! How fun is that eh?

This morning, Gail and I went on a little shopping trip to find some more Kaffe Fasset fabrics. There is the cutest little quilt shop on Richmond Street in London called Hyggeligt. From the website: "Hyggeligt (rhymes with google it) Danish in origin, a sense of feeling welcomed, loved and content with friends, family and your own world. No literal translation but it does sound like a nice place to be." It definitely was a VERY nice place to be this morning :-). I got to spread out all my baggies of fabric and play with colour to my heart's content with the help of Gail and the shop owner, Chantal. Now doesn't this just make you want to sit down and sew?

I'll keep you posted on progress.

Oh oh! I started a new project!!

2010-12-01T13:56:00.004-05:00

On Saturday, the Elgin Piecemakers, plus friends, got together for a class with Heather Stewart to make the Indian Orange Peel quilt by Karen Stone. You can see a picture of the quilt we are making on Kathy's blog. Heather uses this quilt to teach a lot of colour theory. We learned all about the colour wheel and had a lot of fun arranging our fabrics into cool and warm colours, lights and darks and mediums and learning from fellow quilters' colour choices. I definitely dreamed in colour on Saturday night :-).

I chose Kaffe Fasset fabrics to make my quilt. I was thinking of using solids and prints, but Heather advised me not to do that as there is too much contrast for this particular pattern. I had not purchased too many fabrics yet wanting to see if I could get away with the solids first. This was a good decision :-).

Our first task was to sort our fabrics into colours according to the 12 categories in the colour wheel. Then we had to sort those piles from lights to darks. Here are my fabrics in the process of being sorted:

Here are some of the other girls sorting through their fabrics. You can see the intense concentration on all their faces :-).

Unfortunately, I did not get pictures of everyone that was in the class. We were just too busy to remember to take pictures :-). You can see more pictures on Gail's blog as well.

{Stubborn} Determined Dutchman's Puzzle!

2010-11-19T21:40:00.003-05:00

Jake serviced a little Featherweight for a fellow Quilt guild member tonight and I had to give it a little test run. I decided to make my block for the Elgin Piecemaker's guild meeting for next week. We all agreed to make a red and white block. They will be assembled into a quilt to donate to the chemo unit at the local hospital. I browsed through a magazine of quilt blocks and came upon Dutchman's puzzle which I thought appropriate because of my Dutch heritage!! As I was assembling the four double flying geese units together, I realized that this was a 10" block, not a 12" one!! Too stubborn to start over, I added a strip around the block and now it's a Stubborn Dutchman's block. See Gail's block on her blog.

Gail posted a comment that said 'stubborn' has negative connotations and I should use 'determined' instead. I like that!! I will change it to Determined Dutchman's Puzzle!! LOL

Playing with Mini's.......

2010-11-18T15:36:00.003-05:00

About 15 years ago, I made a diamond log cabin Christmas tree skirt and taught a class eventually to a few friends. The original instructions were on my old computer that was stolen. I didn't really want to make a whole new sample at this point so my brilliant husband suggested making a mini version since I love making miniatures. What a brainstorm!

Here is a photo of the original tree skirt:

Go ahead and ask why on earth I would put the dark side to the inside and the lighter side on the outside? There is a reason for that!! The carpet in our old house was very nice and thick and great for all the teenagers that would descend on our house at that time! However, it was that lovely 80's rust colour! I wanted to minimize the clash with the red so I put that side further under the tree :-). It does still bug me!! However, I do still put it under my tree each year!

Here is a photo of the diamonds for the mini tree skirt to be sewn together. The logs are 1/2" finished. I have a small tree so I'm hoping this will be a perfect little tree skirt for it :-)

I also made half diamond triangles, using Marci Baker's method and ruler and I'm hoping that they'll fit properly to made this one a hexagon shape. I'll keep you posted when I sew them together :-).

Leah's I spy quilt

2010-11-14T16:17:00.008-05:00

Finally doing a blog post on the I spy quilt I made for my granddaughter, Leah, who started JK this year! First she came over to my house and chose the 4 1/2" blocks from my stash that she wanted to include in her quilt.

She had to stand on a sewing machine bench to reach for the top :-)

Hmmm....what else should we include?

I think this wall is getting a little full!

After all that hard work designing, a snack is in order:

The finished quilt (the colours are a little bit washed out because of the light coming into the studio):

The colours are little better in this closeup. I quilted funky flowers on the squares and leaves in the border.

Here is Leah trying out the quilt for size:

...and posing with her finished quilt:

Lauren got her quilt out too and we took a picture of her in front of her quilt as well:

Josh wanted to get in on the action too :-). This is the quilt I made for him when he was born and he took that one to school for his JK quilt:

This is the I spy quilt I made for Josh when he turned 1 year old. He was too young really as these squares are more generic for a young child, not necessarily things he really likes. It was fun to make them when they were older as they could help pick out the ones they liked best:

Nick and Christina's quilt

2010-11-14T15:50:00.005-05:00

Friends, Nick and Christina, were married in August of this year and I made them a black and white quilt with a little red tossed in for their bed. I forgot to take a picture of the quilt as I was just finishing up the label minutes before we headed for the wedding! I will add one later. I had this quilt quilted by a friend on her long arm machine to speed up the process :-). Here are the blocks on my design wall before sewing them together. They are made with 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" rectangles. The pattern is called "Split Decision".

I used a lot of novelty prints with items of interest to either the bride or groom - motorcycle parts, dinosaurs, cats, music notes, treble clefs, bicycles, etc. I added a red batik border and then a larger border of treble clefs and a striped outer border, mitering the corners. This is actually a quick way to add borders.

A few more of the prints in the blocks (click on the photo to enlarge)

The quilting turned out really cool; loops on the blocks and large treble clefs in the borders:

Here you can see one of the treble clefs quilted in the border:

Plowing Match block finished

2010-11-10T20:04:00.003-05:00

At the Elgin County Plowing Match, I bought a kit for the 2011 Plowing match quilt block competition. Last night three of us got together and made our blocks because they have to be there next week! Here is my block:

Gail posted pictures on her blog too of her block as well as our blocks in progress. I really like the colours in the kit this year. My block isn't absolutely square....I picked one with 8 set in triangles!! But, I wasn't going to take it out...I like the Dear Jane motto: "Finished is better than perfect!"

Not Your Grandmother's Log Cabin

2010-10-23T22:23:00.003-04:00

In May 2010, I took a quilt class with a couple of friends at Country Concessions in Cookstown, ON. The class was taught by Marci Baker. I finished the table topper on time to enter it into my Quilt Guild's show, Harvest of Quilts in October. My quilt won the Viewer's Choice award for 'other quilted item'! I received a certificate, ribbon and a cheque as well. Today I went to the Creativ Needlework Festival in Toronto for the day and used my prize money to purchase Marci's brand new book, "ABC 3-D, Tumbling Blocks...and more!". I hope to try some tumbling blocks and more cubes using Marci's patterns!! Here is the table topper on my coffee table:

The completed top before quilting:

Detail of the quilting on the table topper:

The lovely handmade 'ribbon' that I received at the guild meeting! This is not your Grandmother's award ribbon either :-)!

Sock monkey finished

2010-10-18T12:15:00.000-04:00

I finally finished my first sock monkey! I kept putting off embroidering the eyes and nose. I decided to just do it this morning :-). I am happy with the way his face turned out. Now I need a name for him. Any suggestions?

Here is a close up of his face to help in the naming of the monkey :-). He looks a little timid. Now on to the next one:

Jay and Katie's Quilt - Finally :-)

2010-10-08T12:03:00.004-04:00

I was looking for photos on my blog of my row quilt and realized that it never did make it to the blog last year! It was a wedding gift, and I didn't post it right away so the bride and groom wouldn't see it, but I can't find it on the blog! So, better late than never, this was another UFO that has been in the works for a long time. I think I started it in 2000 or 2001? as a block of the month teaching project and I just kept adding blocks when I had another class and needed a sample to demonstrate :-). The blocks are 6" finished. I used the same background for each block then decided to set it in rows with sashing in between. Katie and Jay visited one day for coffee and the top happened to be on a table and she absolutely loved it. So, that decided where this quilt was going to go! Here is the finished quilt:

Leaves quilted in the border:

Maple leaves and sailboats:

Houses with 'curtains' in the window:

Hole in the barn door with a funky flower quilted in the centers:

Scotty dogs and spools:

More Scotty dogs:

The finished quilt from the other side:

Our "Spirit of Gees Bend" Challenge results

2010-10-02T13:23:00.008-04:00

On Friday, six of the seven ladies that accepted Susan's Challenge to make a small quilt in the spirit of the Gees Bend Quilts, met for lunch after attending the London Friendship Quilt Guild show together. Unfortunately, Susan wasn't able to join us, so we hope to meet again soon to see what Susan came up with. We also invited Christine to join us for lunch. We ordered our meals first and while we waited for them to arrive, we took over the restaurant and had a blast seeing everyone's little quilts. Isn't it funny how you'd never dare to take out a quilt, stand up and show it off in a public spot, but when there are seven ladies, we don't even notice the people around us and yak up a storm and have a great time, totally oblivious to the reactions of people around us :-)! I clued in when I was madly taking pictures, trying not to get the glare of the windows to throw off my photo, and I see the puzzled looks of several ladies sitting at a nearby table. I'm not sure if they were quilters or not, but I really wondered what they were thinking of these totally non traditional quilts :-)! Maybe they thought we were showing off our first projects since we didn't get them quite straight LOL.

Susan drafted the guidelines for our challenge. We could only use a pair of scissors, strong thread, thimble and, if we wanted to use a sewing machine, it had to be a straight stitch machine only. We were also not allowed to buy anything for this project, so it was 'make do'.

Here is Amy with her little quilt made from scraps of clothing she sewed long ago for her four girls. She pieced and quilted it on a straight stitch machine and stitched the binding by hand.

Christine in the background admiring Amy's quilt

This is me (Jacqui) with my Housetop design. My favourite quilts at the Gees Bend show were these housetop patterns. My daughter went to Jamaica on a Mission trip when she was 15 and she brought this bright fabric home for me. Since it was a rayonny type fabric, I figured it would be perfect. Wow, cutting this with scissors was like nailing jello to a tree LOL! The black is a sports cotton. I pieced and quilted it on my Singer 15-88 treadle and did the quilting in the floral sections by hand.

I had enough of the floral for backing so I used it all up!

Here is Jackie's project. I'm not sure if she did it by machine or by hand, but I will update that info later:

Nice job Jackie!!

Lynn did a bars and blocks variation using a 1940's tablecloth with other fabrics she had in her stash.

She even pieced the back adding to the charm:

Yellie is holding up her project while Gail tries to get that perfect shot :-)

Very cute Yellie. Not sure if this is done by machine or by hand either. More info to follow.

Gail made hers out of denims and corduroys. She and her daughter are both short and always need to hem up pants. These are the cut offs. She did it all by hand! Quilting that must have been a real challenge :-).

A closer view of the little wallhanging. You can check out more photos of this get together on Gail's blog.

SEWING WITH KIDS

2010-09-20T15:35:00.006-04:00

We were babysitting our three grandkids a couple of weeks ago and they got a chance to try out some sewing. We had two handcrank machines out and they took turns making their very own four patch block. They loved making their block and want to come back to "make it look like your blankets, Grandma" :-). We will find some scrap batting and backing and make them into little quilts for their Webkinz next time they come. Here is 4 year old Leah checking out how this machine operates:

Leah with her finished 4 patch block. She chose the colours herself:

Lauren is 6 and took to sewing like a pro. She is all concentration here:

Lauren's four patch block all finished:

Grandpa showing her the ins and outs of the machine:

Eight year old Josh, even abandoned his computer game to come and make his block!! He did a great job and caught on right away:

Thumbs up for a job well done! He chose spider fabrics for his block:

When I went to get the Singer 28 handcrank machine from the library table upstairs in our livingroom, we opened up the attachment compartment to check the threading diagram in the manual and we found some lego pirates LOL! Our other grandson, Joey, hid them in the machine so no one else would play with them til he came back again.

This past Friday evening, we had our friends, Aileen and Jarrett over for dinner with their three boys, Dustin, Jayden and Keegan. The boys had done a little sewing over the summer vacation at home and loved it. We now had a third handcrank machine, so we set all of them up on the table and the boys raided my scrap basket and started sewing strips together. They also caught on famously and did a great job!! Here's Jayden working on his creation on a Singer 201 handcrank:

Keegan got to try the Singer 28 handcrank. He's 4 years old and also handled the machine very well:

Jake teaching him the fine art of sewing on a handcrank:

Dustin sewed on the Singer 15-96. He is in grade 5 and did so well, he could sew without supervision! Mom Aileen and Jayden in the background.

Keegan checking out Dustin's machine:

This takes concentration:

Dustin's work:

Jayden and Keegan posing with their masterpieces:

Their pieces remind me of Gees Bend quilts :-).

I just love the combo of kids and handcranks!! Next time they come, we'll have to get their Dad on one of the treadle machines...he was itching to try it :-).

Skinny Mini - sewing with Friends!

2010-09-19T14:10:00.009-04:00

My two friends, Lynn and Amy, came over last week for a sleepover! Lynn had visited the States awhile ago and bought a little kit for each of us, called "Skinny Mini". It had all the fabrics needed for a lovely little mini table runner in a cute little bag complete with a zipper! Lynn had just purchased a new to her vintage Bernina 830 so Amy brought hers along and I set mine up. Here is the 830 sweat shop!!

We had gone shopping together on Tuesday and Lynn bought some cool telephone fabrics and made a pillow case for her DH, who collects telephones:

Gail came for the morning and did some handstitching while we chatted and worked:

I quilted the table runner on my Singer 15-88 treadle since Lynn was borrowing my 830 for a little while.

Gail took a photo of what we all accomplished in an afternoon and the next morning. Amy is standing beside her Skinny Mini, the center one is Lynn's (right) and the right one is mine. Amy completed two more Dear Jane blocks and I did one. Lynn worked on a hand stitched DJ block and made the pillowcase:

I put my Skinny Mini on my cabinet in the kitchen. The colours look great up there!

This is the cabinet that we had made for our kitchen last year by a dear friend in the Church who is in his 80's! We stained and varnished it ourselves and added matching handles to our kitchen cabinets.

Closeup of the quilting done on my Singer 15-88 treadle (you can drop the feed dogs on this treadle and do free motion quilting on it):

Seriously cute Pincushion

2010-09-17T16:50:00.001-04:00

I picked up the Quilt Quick Quilts magazine #117 (Nov. 8, 2010) on a mini shop hop with two friends this week and it had this seriously cute pin cushion pattern in it. Since I'm all caught up on all my other projects (LOL), I thought I'd squeeze this little project in. I need a pincushion for my cutting table as I'm always walking back to my thread and snippet catchers at my sewing stations. I put some real sheep wool against the front of it and filled the back up with plastic pellets to give it some weight. It's almost like a bean bag! Here is the finished pincushion with blue and yellow pins in it :-).

Pin cushion without the pins:

The front cover of the Quick Quilts magazine:

Two colour ways featured in the pattern:

OK, back to my UFO's :-).

A Dear Jane block!!

2010-09-16T21:00:00.001-04:00

I finally got around to sewing another Dear Jane block today!! I had two friends over who are also working on a Dear Jane quilt and we challenged one another to get one more completed. Great to have friends to spur us on and keep us motivated!!

It's been a long time since I worked on this project. This is M 5 Mother's Point. I have now completed 58 blocks of the 169 for the center blocks. I have not decided yet if I will do the triangles. It's a good thing that I have a 10 year deadline for this quilt :-). I hope to be a little more faithful in completing the blocks this winter.

Marty Goes to a Retreat!

2010-09-03T09:52:00.018-04:00

Meet Marty the sock Monkey!

Nine members of the Hearts and Hands Quilt Guild went on a four day retreat to a lovely cottage in Parry Sound which is owned by a brother and sister in law of one of our members. This is the second year that we have gone. We had a wonderful time sharing lots of laughs, eating yummy food and getting some serious sewing done! We all took turns taking care of a meal and cleanup and dessert.

Joyce brought along her sock monkey that she knitted. She named him Marty. Isn't he just the cutest monkey? He's keeping an eye on the Scrabble tiles so we don't peek at the other team's letters :-).

"Hi, I'm Marty! Pleased to meet you. Let me tell you about my fun week!"

"Moan!! I'm trying to get up!! These ladies keep crazy hours and make too much noise and I can't sleep! Now they want me up at 6:00 a.m. to sew!!"

"No one is paying any attention to me!! Hrmpphh!!!" (Monkey with an attitude :-)

"Adriana, can I borrow your camera so I can take pictures too? Pretty please?"

"Maria, why are we taking all the stitches out again?"

We went to Parry Sound Tuesday afternoon to the fabric shop and Marty got to come along (checking out FQ's with Cathy and Joyce):

"I really prefer the orange, but Jacqui didn't listen to me and she bought pink for the backing of her quilt. She says the Mommy of the baby who's getting this quilt would like pink better. Nobody listens to me anyway...I don't know why I came along on this retreat!!"

"This squash soup is yummy, Marylynn."

"I like those little squares with letters on them!!"

"Donna!!! Watch my tail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"This thing is scary!!!"

(Bea teaching monkey the fine arts of using a rotary cutter)

"Ooooooh....that scary thing is hot Cathy! I'm made of wool, you know!!"

"Yummy orange Ina!"

"These ladies really tire me out! I wish there was a pillow in this pillowcase though!!"

"I'm on the top of world, looking down on.........! I love hanging out here!!"

"Jacqui hasn't got a clue how to fix Adriana's sewing machine....I'll give her a hand."

"Yup, I think we got it now!!"

"What's in this bowl thingie up here? Whew!! Bright!"

"I like this Bernina sewing machine."

"Hmmm....those flowers are pretty funky on that quilt and some of your leaves are crooked!! Can't you do a better job, Jacqui?"

"I'm a Canadian monkey!!"

Me and my Mommy havin' a little nap:

"I got to print my own name in the guest book!!"

"Gasp!!! I can't breathe!!" (abandoned in the van when we got home!!)

I had fun on this retreat (but I AM tired!!) and I hope they'll take me along again ...I hear there might be some friends for me to hang out with too!! Can't wait. Til next time. Maybe I'll try some of this stuff. It smells kinda funny though!!

Love, Marty

...garbage goes high class!

2010-08-25T20:34:00.002-04:00

I'm collecting Kaffe Fasset fabric to make an Indian Orange Peel quilt by Karen Stone in November. A group of us from our local quilt guild are going to take a class. I washed and pressed all the lovely colors and trimmed the selvages off. I decided to make a special Handy Snippet catcher out of these lovely selvages :-). How's that for a high class way of collecting garage eh? Here are the selvages sewn onto a foundation:

The thread catcher inside and pin cushion:

The outside:
The finished project!

Iron carrying bag

2010-08-24T16:42:00.007-04:00

What do you do with a hot iron at the end of a workshop or retreat? I've been intending to make a bag to carry my warm iron home at the end of the day for years! I finally sat down today to do it. The iron that I take to retreats is a small one that I bought at Walmart for $7.77. I think the brand is Durabrand? It even has steam! For that price, I figured I could get a few of them LOL. I bought some of that ironing board cover fabric to re-cover a small ironing board and had half of it leftover. I cut out a rectangle 13" x 28" and made a 'box' out it by forming the box bottoms to make a 6" bottom after sewing the side seams.

I then made a little pouch for the plastic water container out of the heat resistant fabric so it can be added to the bag as well :-).

The outer bag with the lime green floral fabric is cut 5" longer than the lining. Press under 1" on the top edges. Sew side seams, leaving top 2" open and hem the openings. Sew the side seams and form the box bottoms as the lining.

Turn the lining wrong side out and tuck it into the bag which is turned right sides out. Fold the the top over the lining and sew, forming a casing. I used wide seam binding for the drawstring. Voila, no more worrying about taking a warm iron home in the car!

Here is the iron in the bag with the water container tucked beside it. I had a strip of the heat resistant fabric left so I wrapped it around the cord to protect it from the heat as well.

....and why I continue to sew on old machines :-)

2010-08-21T11:33:00.008-04:00

One of my quilter friends wanted her 'little old sewing machine' serviced this week. We were thrilled to discover an almost pristine little Singer Featherweight 222K, which is the later version of the 221 that has the removable tray. Once Jake got it serviced, cleaned and oiled, I got to test it :-). I'm working on assembling an "I spy" quilt for my granddaughter who is going to JK in September. At first the thread kept breaking and after getting a replacement bobbin case base (there was a burr on the original), she sewed like a dream! Isn't she pretty?

Sewing the I spy quilt on the machine:

It even has a throatplate marked with 1/4" seams!

Here it is with the bed removed. These machines are great for sewing tiny doll clothes!

A bright red plastic tray at the side of the case for holding bobbins and other sewing supplies.

It is loaded with the original attachments including a beautiful manual, darning foot, hoop and attachments in an original bright red vinyl case. The very first vintage machine we ever bought was a Singer 222k with this identical red vinyl case. I bought it for the ruffler not realizing that it was such a collectible little machine. I paid a whopping $15.00 for it 12 or 13 years ago. It is the machine that got us into collecting antique and vintage sewing machines.

I just looked up the serial number of this machine ER901772 and it is one of a batch of 2500 commissioned by Singer on September 7, 1960. It looks like it's the fourth last batch of the 222's made.

...why I sew on old machines

2010-08-18T11:04:00.005-04:00

Gail and I got together yesterday morning to work on our braids for the local hospital's chemo unit. We are paired up with another member of the Elgin Piecemaker's Quilt Guild and we decide what we're going to do and then work on the project together. It's a great way to get to know another member of the group better and we accomplish something useful :-). Here are the braid pieces, all cut out and ready to sew:

I sewed the braids on my trusty Singer 15-88 treadle sewing machine. Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE this machine? :-)

First braid coming together:

Gail's first three braids at our second get together:

Yesterday, we trimmed the braids and sewed the pairs together and got started on the sashings and borders. Trimming was a great job to do together! I had to test a Featherweight that my husband had cleaned and serviced, so I "killed two birds with one stone" and did something productive while test sewing. This little Featherweight was made in 1934!! It purrs along so nicely and was a joy to stitch on!! While looking up some of the history of this older Featherweight in Nancy Johnson-Srebro's excellent book "Featherweight 221 - The Perfect Portable", I came across this paragraph:

"It's hard to believe some of the Featherweights purring away in sewing rooms and class are now old enough to qualify for social security, but there they are - proud of their Depression era birthdates and not only alive, but thriving. And they look as modern today as when Singer shipped them from its Edison, New Jersey, factory to a cautious public ready for the 1933 World's Fair.

"The Featherweight will probably never be reproduced as we know it. Even with today's advanced technology - investment casting of parts, and CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machining operations - the design and hand fitting involved in assembling this intricate, finely-crafted portable sewing machine would likely boost its unit cost too highly. This reality just reinforces its status as a classic; an example of craftsmanship that's fast disappearing in this modern world of plastics and throw-aways. This alone makes the Model 221 well worth owning whether you are a quilter, seamstress, or a collector of fine things that will probably be no more."

p. 131

....and that's why I sew on these wonderful old machines :-).

Check out the stack of 2" squares that I was using as leaders/enders while sewing the sashings and borders onto my quilt :-):

And, here is the finished quilt top (the colours are a little off in this photo...the border is a blue with brownish/plum motifs):

The quilt top is actually square :-)...I was not exactly in the center when taking the photo..hey, I'm a quilter, not a photographer LOL.

Quilts of Gees Bend

2010-08-15T16:24:00.001-04:00

On Thursday, 7 of us met at the London Convention Center for a quilt show put on by Cotton by Post about the Quilts of Gees Bend. This was a very different show from the usual Quilt show that we attend. We all attended the lecture in the afternoon which explained the history and context. We thoroughly enjoyed the show and lecture and have decided to do a small challenge project "in the spirit of Gees Bend". We hope to meet at the end of October to unveil our finished projects. Check back to the blog around that time to see what we all come up with :-). Here is the whole group that attended the show:

Lynn, Yellie, Jackie, Amy, Jacqui (me), Susan and Gail:

Some of the quilts on display at the show:

Gail and Amy:

I really liked this one's use of colour:

...home again! New sewing machine :-)

2010-08-02T15:39:00.003-04:00

We are home again after a two week vacation in Ottawa. We antiqued and visited every quilt shop we came across :-). I will post a picture of some of the lovely fabrics I got when I get them ironed. We also found a few sewing machines to add to the archives, but they still have to be cleaned up. We were in an antique shop in a small town somewhere between Peterborough and Ottawa where I found this cute little treasure. It's a Limoges miniature sewing machine. We found this in a delightful shop with all kinds of nooks and crannies run by a little old lady. We had a delightful chat with her and this one came home to live with me :-).

It has found a little spot in our corner mirrored shelf (a yard sale find from last year). It looks quite at home there.

...do I dare use this for garbage? :-)

2010-07-02T20:55:00.006-04:00

Finally dug into my basket of selvages to make something constructive out of themmy collection. I have been saving them for awhile, inspired by Karen's blog! Make sure you make a coffee before you start browsing...you can get lost in this blog LOL. Here is my overflowing selvage basket:

I cut out a foundation fabric and chose selvages that were interesting and that matched the pink and brown fabric:

Here is the finished thread catcher with a pin cushion filled with plastic pellets to anchor it to my sewing machine cabinet:

The lining has pink polka dots and hearts :-)

At least my garbage will now look pretty LOL!

This is the second one I made last week...finally took some pictures today:

Close up of the wording on the selvages:

I used selvages for the back of this one as well, but used the ones with no words on it since you don't see much of it.

My friend, Gail, was busy with her selvages yesterday and covered this sewing bench with hers! Wow, that turned out cool too. Check it out here. I have at least 8 of those benches here and some could use a new cover. I started arranging selvage strips to make a bench cover this afternoon :-).

Wardsville 200th Anniversary

2010-06-22T10:55:00.005-04:00

On Saturday (June 19th) Jake and I drove to Wardsville, ON, a small town in SW Ontario to check out the Barn quilt project that was undertaken by the town's residents, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the town. It was a lovely day for a drive! The quilt blocks were amazing. The ladies of the town made a quilt with each block depicting one aspect of George Ward's life. Many volunteers painted the blocks onto wood panels. These blocks will be attached to barns and other buildings around the area to create a history tour. The London Free Press had a story in Monday's paper. More information is on the town's website. Here you can see some of the wooden quilt blocks lined up against the fence of the ball diamond (click on the pictures to enlarge them):

The second half of the blocks:

In the background, you can see a tent, part of a little historic village set up by reenactors depicting life 200 years ago. There was a general store, display of games and handmade chairs, some sheep and rope making demonstrations.

Close up of Crossed Canoes block:

The last block on the quilt depicting the Centennial of Wardsville:

Rising Sun block with me standing beside it to give you an idea how big these panels are. (I am 5' 4.5" tall :-).

What a massive undertaking that was for the town's people!! The guide told us that there should be information on the above website when the blocks are on the buildings.

Playing with Colour!

2010-06-18T08:31:00.002-04:00

I had some fun playing with a few Kaffe Fasset fabrics I purchased at the Marsh Store a few weeks ago. I have been fascinated with Kaffe's fabrics for a number of years and decided to buy a few small pieces and make some miniature log cabin blocks with 1" strips and just have fun playing. I think it needs some purple too! No idea what I'm going to make with it? A fun summery table topper?

Another Quilting Night in Canada

2010-06-17T22:02:00.003-04:00

Gail, Nancy, Karen and I got together tonight for QNIC and got quite a bit accomplished. Gail and I worked on our quilts for the chemo unit at our local hospital. This is my first set of braids...second set is almost finished. The background colour on this picture looks black, but it's actually an eggplant sort of brown/purple colour.

Gail has three sets finished of the green background set. We will do four sets altogether; then add sashings and borders to make a nice sized lap quilt.

Charity's Baby quilt

2010-06-12T18:30:00.000-04:00

My granddaughter, Charity, was born on January 22nd, 2010. I did get her quilt finished, except for appliqueing the pink flowers onto the quilt to make it more suitable for a girl. When we got the call that it was a girl, I quickly cut out a couple of flowers and took them along to the hospital for the baby visit and we decided that they would look great. I finally got the quilt back yesterday and sewed some pink flowers onto the quilt. Now it can go back to baby! It is already being well used. Here is the finished quilt:

It is stitched in the ditch around the circles and then quilted with loops in the background with a variegated King Tut thread.

The applique was done with another variegated King Tut thread on my Bernina 830 which does a lovely satin stitch.

The pattern was in a Fons & Porter magazine. When I locate it, I will add the information.

Braid quilt

2010-05-31T22:35:00.001-04:00

Gail and I got together tonight for QNIC (Quilting Night in Canada) to work on our quilts which will be donated to the chemo unit at our local hospital. The Elgin Piecemakers guild pairs up two members to work together on a quilt so we get to know one another while olanning and sewing a fun and worthwhile project. Gail had a jelly roll that she donated to the cause and I contributed the backgrounds. We split the jelly roll into two colourways and Gail is working with this pale green background:

My half of the jelly roll is paired with a burgundy background and has the blue and beige strips:

I am sewing my braids on my trusty Singer 15-88 treadle:

The beginnings of the braids:

We will choose sashings/borders after the braids are finished. The pattern is from the book, "Open a Can of Worms" by Debbie Caffrey

Ode to Aging (or Menopause!) Quilt finished!!

2010-05-14T20:51:00.000-04:00

I got my Menopause quilt finished just in time to get it into the local Plowing Match quilt show which will be held at the end of May in Shedden, ON. The quilts will be displayed at the actual International Plowing Match in St. Thomas, ON in September. The details of the Shedden quilt show are also on the IPM website under the Lifestyles tab.

Here is the finished quilt. Sorry I couldn't get a really good picture of it as my cutting table is in the way :-). You can read the original story behind this quilt, and why it's called "Menopause" on this blog post.

This is the backing I used..it's a navy blue toile depicting a winter scene with sleigh rides and skating. I thought this would be appropriate to 'cool' off the colours on the other side!

The blocks in the quilt:

Susan in Texas suggested that I add a border of pinwheels to provide 'cooling breezes' for the quilt :-). Thanks so much for that suggestion Susan...it was perfect way to use up a lot of scraps from the blocks. Pinwheel production:

I added an orange button in the middle of each pinwheel block. Besides looking cute, it also covers up any unmatched centers :-).

Not sure if you can see the funky flowers quilted in the borders. Click on the photo to enlarge it for a better view:

I quilted leaves in the top and bottom striped borders:

The quilting on one of the blocks is shown here. The center blocks had straight line quilting on it and I added some buttons in the center of some of the blocks to match the pinwheel squares.

Here are the individual blocks and the names of each one....#1 Bad Hair Day:

Block #2 Wacky Mood Swings:

Block #3 Crow's Feet

Block #4 Squeaky Joints:

Block #5 Arm Flags

Block #6 Chocolate Cravings

Block #7 PMS

Block #8 Empty Nest Syndrome:

Block #9 Senior Moments:

Block #10 The Pull of Gravity:

Block #11 Can't Remember Nothin':

Block #12 Hot flashes:

Now to decide which of my many UFO's gets a turn next. But, my new Kaffe Fasset fabrics are calling out to me to play! Maybe I'll squeeze in a little new project :-)

Yumm!!!

2010-05-12T16:09:00.001-04:00

Aren't these yummy colours?

Picked them up at one of my favourite quilts shops today. I listened to Pat Sloan's radio program yesterday and she interviewed Kaffe Fasset and Liza Prior Lucy. I've always been drawn to his wonderful colours, and haven't actually bought any of his fabrics yet because I didn't know what to do with them. But, listening to the interview, he just has fun playing with colour! So, I picked these up today at the Marsh Store and added the lime and turquoise solids. I got a fun quilt book from my daughter in law on Sunday for Mother's Day. Methinks I'm going to play with these fabrics and the book and see what I come up with :-).

Check out these colours!

2010-05-05T22:55:00.001-04:00

Here are the blocks all finished by my friend Yellie who also took the Not Your Grandmother's Log Cabin class last Saturday:

My other friend, Amy's top...Amy added another border around the whole thing:

My blocks all sewn together:

I will add my friend Lynn's blocks to the blog post when she has it together :-). Awesome the way the colours look so different!!

Not Your Grandmother's Log Cabin

2010-05-04T20:04:00.000-04:00

I took a class with Marci Baker at Country Concession in Cookstown on Saturday with several friends. We had a great time. Marci is a very down to earth teacher and we learned a lot. I finished putting the triangles and diamonds together today and put them up on my design wall. I need to sew them together yet and will post some more pictures later when it is totally finished. I'm thinking of making this into a table topper for my round coffee table in my livingroom. There are no inset seams in this project. The outer diamonds are actually two triangles.

The diamonds:

All the blocks on the design wall:

Bethany and Mark's quilt - Pat Sloan workshop

2010-04-27T08:23:00.001-04:00

Earlier this year I participated in an online workshop with Pat Sloan on the internet. We had to choose fabrics from our stash that we wanted to use up; basically 2 1/2" strips and 10" squares. We posted pictures on a flicker site and everyone helped with suggestions on what would work for the project. Pat gave suggestions for colours as we did not know which block we were going to do. A few days before the start, she posted the pattern and we got organized to start sewing on the weekend. I started on Friday morning around 11:00 a.m. and by Saturday afternoon had the whole top together. I decided to use red because we were invited to a wedding in April and red was the bride's favourite colour. Since the groom has a great sense of humour, I thought I could add some fun novelty fabrics. I thought I had taken photos of the completely finished quilt, but I can't find them anywhere on my computer. I will add them later if I find them!

Here are a few photos of the various fabrics that are in the quilt (those 'octopus' looking shapes are actually funky chickens :-):

Spider webs, music notes, blackbirds, names of flowers....

I found a great Jinny Beyer black with a small gold dot for the border and binding. Other than that, everything else was out of my stash:

All the blocks ready to sew together into a star:

I quilted it on my Bernina 830 using an all over meandering pattern. The backing fabric is a really cool tree stump fabric that I found in a clearance bin:

Here you can see the awesome variegated YLI thread that had all the colours in it, including a purple, which is in the basket and hearts fabric:

Hopefully, I'll find the pictures of the completed quilt and post them later.