More Senior's Quilts finished

 I have been working on a few quilts for the seniors in our Church for quite awhile and they are finally finished and delivered a little while ago already!  The first one was for Nancy.  I had been cutting my Kaffe Fassett scraps into squares for awhile and started putting them up on the wall to see what would happen.

(Click on the photos to enlarge them.)

Squares just placed on the wall.

I ended up putting the 6" squares in the middle with darker ones in the middle and the 3" squares around it to make a border (the original pattern was 8" squares and 4" border squares).  A narrow yellow strip between the large and small blocks helped the design so it didn't get 'muddy'.

I quilted it with a funky flower design 

It did make a dent in my yellow scraps.  I hope to make more of them using various colours. 

The next quilt was for Nancy's sister in law, Joanne.  I had seen this panel in a quilt shop and was impressed how it looked 3D hanging up in the shop.  I found this Kaffe Fassett fabric in my stash that matched it beautifully.  I was inspired by a pattern called "Panel Pizzaz" by Patti Carey and inserted some tiny solid strips into the border which stretched out the fabric so it was just enough.  I added a light purple solid border and added the pieced border and used the same solids to bind it. 

 

Doesn't the shelf look like a real shelf?

I quilted this one with funky flowers as well.  

 

Another Senior's quilt

 I finally got another quilt finished for one of the seniors in our Church.  She loves flowers and her granddaughter said bright would be good ☺.  It was fun cutting out my scraps of Kaffe Fasset fabrics into squares and arranging them.  It's definitely a happy quilt.  We had a lovely visit as well.

Squares were cut 6 1/2" and the smaller squares 3 1/2"

It was quilted by my long arm quilter, Chris Bogart who lives right across the street from me.

The quilting design was a swirly one which worked well for the florals.

 

Finished quilt

Pull up a Chair

I came across a pattern at The Balcony Quilt Sutdio called "Pull up a Chair".  What a fun pattern.  The pattern is available online as an instant download.  I dug through my fabrics and found some fun colours in my Kaffe Fassett stash with a Free Spirit solid.  However, after I cut it out and stood back, there was not enough contrast to see the chair.  (Click on the photo to enlarge.)

 So I found a lighter background, but since I had all the background cut in the dark purple, I picked a lighter purple for a chair and ended up with two blocks!  The pattern is well written. I think I will be making more of these cool chairs.  It's a big block - the finished block reasures 15" x 18". 

 A foretaste of summer nights sitting outside!

Stretching....

I took a workshop with my small guild yesterday to do a collage project!  That stretched me somewhat!  Lots of fiddly cutting and messy scraps using steam a seam.  But, I'm happy with the cup and saucer that resulted.  I am going to do some stitching around the rim of the cup and saucer yet and then quilt it. It will likely be the only collage project I complete ☺.

Scrappy Brightness

There were still a lot of Kaffe Fasset scraps in my bins everywhere so last summer I got them sorted into a couple of baskets and came across a photo of this quilt on the internet.  I had lots of 1 1/2" strips leftover from another project so I pieced them together and cut into 1 1/2" segments and sewed them as leaders/enders into rows.  At the end of the rows (left side), 2 1/2" squares are added and every second row more are added until 10 rows are complete and you start adding 4 1/2" squares.  It was a great way to use up lots of scraps, but I still have lots left!  I can easily start another quilt ☺! This turned out to be a riot of colour and really makes me happy!  It was beautifully quilted by my friend, Chris Bogart.

(Click on the photos for a larger view.)

The finished quilt

The 1" finished block corner

Label

An International Joint Project

 Ten years ago, I met my friend Els, from the Netherlands, in person after being internet friends via the Dear Jane quilt project for several years.  Our friendship has blossomed and we have been to visit one another quite a few times.  Els does beautiful applique and posted a picture of the quilt below on face book a couple years ago.  My daughter commented and tagged me on the post that she would like a quilt for her bed like that.  Not in a million years would that get finished!!  But, Els didn't have anyone in mind for this top and gifted it to Amanda!  Wow, what a great gift that was.  The next problem, however, was to make it big enough for their king sized bed.

The original quilt top was the size of a lap quilt or wallhanging.

Amanda and I went shopping and she found this lovely print at Hyggeligt in St. Mary's to use as border fabric and a focus for the colours to finish the quilt.

I removed the pink border and we started playing with ideas on how to enlarge the quilt.

Many ideas and diamonds later, this is the basic layout that emerged.  You will notice that there is no applique happening in those triangles between the pieced ones ☺!

Some closeups of the lovely quilting by Julie Cassidy

The backing shows the quilting quite nicely too

The finished quilt finally.

On the bed!  I used a wool batting for the quilt so it's nice and fluffy and warm in winter and cool in summer.

150 Solids in One Quilt

 In 2012 I participated in a stash builder program from Mad About Patchwork in Ottawa.  Over a year we received 150 Kona cotton solid fat quarters.  I kept them together all these years as I had a dream to use all those lovely colours in the same quilt.  I found Tula Pink's 100 Modern Blocks book a few years ago and thought perhaps I could use that for the challenge. But, how to combine all those colours successfully?  

Kaffe Fasset to the rescue.  He mixes warm and cool colours in his fabrics effortlessly and pulls it off.  So, I used all 150 of the solids with some Kaffe scraps in each block and hoped they would go.  It was actually amazing how easily the design came together.  I arranged the blocks by colour from darker to lighter from bottom to top and fell in love with this arrangement.  I was originally going to use grey for the background, but this quilt demanded yellow!  

Julie Cassidy quilted it with straight lines through the blocks and custom feathery quilting in the yellow.  Click on the photos to see the detail of the lovely quilting.  I was very happy with the way this quilt turned out.  It will be added to the pile of quilts for the grandkids to choose from when they graduate from High School.

The yellow is softer than it shows on this photo

I had a large piece of this happy Kaffe Fasset fabric in my stash which I scored in a sale bin years ago and this worked perfectly for the back

A close up of Julie's beautiful quilting

 

Kaffe Fasset Mystery Quilt finishes

In 2018, Hyggeligt hosted Kaffe Fasset's mystery quilt.  I had kept up quite nicely with the blocks until the 2nd last month and then life got in the way.  I got them out last summer and finished all the blocks.  But, I didn't want another queen sized quilt so decided to play with the arrangements until I could come up with two lap quilts.  The fabrics with the kit were generous so I was able to make up a few extra blocks in the right colours and dug into my stash to make the two quilts work.  I'm very happy with how they turned out.  My neighbour across the street, Chris Bogart quilted then both with a nice overall design and they are now in the grandkids' graduation quilt collection. (click on the photos to enlarge)

First clue and instructions plus a little gift of FQ's

The shipment came in a handy box to store all the instructions and first blocks

We received a lovely gift of some KF FQ's

                                      

This is the first quilt with the blues and cool greens

I had a lovely Kaffe print which I could use for the back

A rounded swirly pantograph for the quilting that Chris used

The second quilt made of the rest of the  warmer colours plus additions

close up of the quilting

This backing was one of those lovely internet purchases where I sent Chantal at Hyggeligt a photo of the top and asked what she would recommend for backing.  She just got this in and I ordered it right away and it was perfect!

 

These two quilts were finally finished and bound in early March.

 

Handpiecing Fun

 A few years ago, I attended a class at Hyggeligt in St. Mary's on hand piecing.  I had actually done quite a bit of hand piecing but a bunch of friends wanted to learn and I was interested in getting the templates and you always learn different techniques by taking a class.  The project we were doing requires only two templates.  I grabbed a few fabrics and we worked on the center part and Chantal suggested the black with purple polka dots for the next round.  I had the green in my stash, but it didn't look finished after that so I added the stars around it.  These were the greens I had in my stash.  They are a little subdued for my liking, but then it sat for quite awhile because it still didn't look finished and I didn't have anymore purple.  Awhile ago I found more purple in a basket and was able to get another round on with some more polka dots.  I then decided it would be a lovely small project to hand quilt and that took awhile as well.  I put the last stitches in it last weekend. 

The finished table topper

close up of the quilting

I quilted circles in the center and in each of the stars

I found this piece of fabric in a bag of Kaffe scraps at my quilt guild's rummage sale a few years ago.  Perfect for the backing

 

 

 

Round robin UFO finished

 Way back in 2014, I participated in a round robin with a few friends from the London Friendship Quilt Guild.  You can read about the reveal here.  This top was delayed in the finishing of it and then was put on the back burner for a bit and then I had a hard time thinking of how to quilt it.  Eventually I decided the easiest way to quilt it would be by hand.  I found some Kaffe backing in my stash and had fun quilting it by hand, adding more and more to the stitching.  It was finally finished in April of 2020, but I realized I'd forgotten to blog about this quilt as well. I really enjoyed this round robin and would do it again, but hopefully get it finished a little sooner. 

The finished quilt

After quilting in the ditch around all the piecing and applique, I quilted straight lines through the background fabric.

Closeup of the quilting and embroidery

Christine made this cute little label especially for my quilt!

The backing

The quote embroidered around the outside border of the quilt is from Eleanor Roosevelt:  "Women are like tea bags - they don't know how strong they are until they get into hot water".