Kaffe Fasset Class

This past week, I had a wonderful opportunity to take a class on Bordered Diamonds with Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably..  The workshop was organized by Chantal Lynch of Hyggeligt Quilt shop in London (Ontario).  When I first discovered Kaffe's use of colour, I have been in love!  I have collected many fabrics over the years and am working on the Indian Orange Peel using a lot of his fabrics and also have done lots of small projects.  When Chantal mentioned that she was hoping to get them to London, I started dreaming of taking that workshop.  I was very excited to get into the Bordered Diamonds class.

What a great time we had.  We worked very hard and I have muscle pain in my legs to prove it LOL!  There was no sewing involved at all...just get it up on the wall and play around til your diamonds glowed!  Here I am working on the bottom of the design wall:

 This is as far as I got in the class.  There is still work to be done on many of the diamonds and I need to add more at the sides and bottom.  The borders will be sewn onto the diamonds and then arranged to balance the colours out.  What fun moving the diamonds all around til you found just the right one.  Kaffe would come around and make suggestions, move a diamond or two and Brandon would follow in awhile and move it again :-)!  It is amazing how different those diamonds look depending on the colour and print around it.  We truly had a fabulous time playing with colour.

At the end of the class, Kaffe came around to each person's wall and showed what worked and what didn't.  These comments were very helpful and I learned a lot with that exercise.

That evening I sewed the borders around one diamond that I knew was going to stay just to see how it would look.  Last night, my two sisters were over for a visit and while they were making ipad covers and mug rugs, I transferred all my diamonds and borders from the flannel wall to my own design wall.  It looks totally different in my sewing room with the different light.   I also sewed two more diamonds together. 

My neighbour had a great layout with lots of polka dots!!   So inspiring working beside her...have I mentioned lately that I love polka dots? :-)

My friend Deb's lovely blues and purples:

This photo shows several of the design walls along the back row:

Cute little sewing table...

A friend of mine wanted to get rid of this cute little sewing table so I decided to give it a loving home for now and see if it can be useful with my herd of antique and vintage sewing machines.  Isn't it the cutest little table?

 I tried a Pfaff machine that I have here, but the free arm is too wide.  This Bernina 707 mini matic fits very nicely, except I have to find something thin to raise it just slightly.  It has a nice large surface to piece quilt blocks on and a handy lower edge for your pin cushion, thread catcher, scissors, etc.  I think I'll like this table...now to get the machine fixed so it'll sew.  It has a few issues, but my trusty resident sewing machine repair guy could get it working again, I'm sure :-).  It also folds flat so it will store conveniently in a corner.

Remember the Indian Orange Peel?

What is this that stirs up long forgotten, distant memories? :-)

Ah yes, it is the Indian Orange Peel!! 

Reading my friend Kathy's blog this morning, I was inspired to share progress on my Indian Orange Peel quilt.  Kathy breaks up a lot of her projects into little tidbits of progress, which is inspiring me to work on my UFO's and get organized (again!).  I started to piece my center blocks together in June and aimed to do at least three or four per week.  We went on holidays in between and haven't gotten back to it, but this morning I decided to put a block together before venturing into more organizing.

Here is the whole layout on my guest bed pinned to a tablecloth:

I have one complete row sewn together and the second one ready to piece.  Then I can get the first two rows sewn together as well.

My goal is to finish putting together the whole center of the quilt by the end of the summer and then cut strips for the border sections.  I have to choose colours carefully to flow into the borders.  Once I have the strips cut and pinned to each paper piecing unit, I can grab a couple and paper piece in between other projects.  Meanwhile, I'm audtioning fabrics in anticipation of taking the Diamond Borders Class with Kaffe Fassett himself (!) in October.  I will have plenty of leftovers to do the diamond quilt.

Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE Kaffe Fasset fabrics? :-)

It's that time of the year......

I've been sewing in the garage again testing sewing machines that Jake has been fixing up.  I love that as I 'have' to help my husband and this is a great excuse to sew LOL!!  We put the cars out in the driveway for the summer and the garage has turned into a sewing machine workshop!  Here is my worktable and Jake's in the back.  I also had an ironing station set up.  It was nice and cool in the garage and we had the door open enjoying the outdoors and the neighbours who waved or stopped to chat.  Ah summer!

The first machine I tested was a Singer 127 handcrank machine that is going to Haiti.  This machine has some heritage marks and wear on it, but still sews a beautiful stitch.  I worked on a delectable mountain border for my Oh Canada table topper (that didn't get finished on time for Canada Day, but it will be for next year :-).

 Just check out the stitch quality of this machine....

Left is the top stitching and on
     the right is the bobbin stitch. This is why I love the dedicated straight stitch machines...no dog leg stitches, but nice and straight :-).




In between, I polished up all these sewing machine benches that had accumulated in my sewing room.  They fit under tables so nicely that I didn't realize I had 15 of them.  Most of these have gone on to other homes now.

The next machine I got to try was a Singer 28 handcrank.  It is 3/4 the size of the above machine. This one is also destined for Haiti.  It sews very nicely too and I sewed a lot of mountains with that machine. 

 Doesn't she have lovely decals?

 The cool thing is that it is made in Great Britain, but marked in French...wonder if it was originally sold in Quebec?

 

This lovely machine is a Singer model 115 with the Gold wing decals.  It is a unique machine and has a full rotary hook which makes it a very smooth machine.  

 It also sews a very nice stitch:

 Aren't the decals stunning on this machine?

 This is the endplate!   They really knew how to make things beautiful in the early 1900's :-).  Wasn't it William Morris that said, "Never have anything in your house that isn't useful or beautiful?"  No plain old white sewing machine for me LOL.

 Next up was a Singer 201 which is destined for a treadle cabinet.  I used a hand crank attachment to try it out. This is also a rotary machine with a drop in bobbin and sews very smoothly and quietly.

 Another lovely stitch! (Click on the photo for a closer view)

 Last, but not least, was a lovely two tone Singer 301.  These are the big sisters (or brothers :-) of the Featherweights and have the same bobbin system.  They are aluminum machines making them quite light weight and have a carry handle on top so they are very portable. 

Have I mentioned lately that I love the old machines? :-)

Denise and Dan's quilt

High time to update my blog!  I've been sewing up a storm and haven't had time to post anything on the blog :-).  Denise and Dan's wedding quilt was at the Shedden Quilt show, which was the same weekend they got married.  It took a few weeks before we could connect and bring over the quilt.  Then life got busy (May and June are write offs when you're married to a teacher LOL).  I just realized that I hadn't even posted a note about this quilt yet.

This quilt was called, Modern Maze and was featured in a fairly recent quilt magazine.  When I find the magazine, I'll add the details to this post :-).  Here is the finished quilt:

I quilted it with an allover meandering with a variegated King Tut thread:

The original quilt in the magazine was done in black and whites with lime green as the accent, but this colour fit right in with Denise's livingroom.

Kit goes for a Sleepover

My American Girl doll, Kit Kittredge, went to my granddaughters' home for a sleepover!  Lauren has a 'just like me' doll that she named Sarah and Leah just got Ruthie (Kit's best friend from the historical doll series) for her birthday.  So, Kit got to go to Leah and Lauren's for a few days and even got to go to a birthday party with Lauren :-).

Here she is waiting to be picked up for her sleepover.  Her dog, Grace, got to go along.

 Kit with her best friend Ruthie (Leah's new doll):

 Ruthie and Kit having fun with Sarah (Lauren's doll):

 Tucked into bed together (bed made by Leah and Lauren's Dad):

Aren't they cute when they are sleeping? 

 

Kit wearing her birthday dress that she got for my birthday :-)

 

Kit is back home again waiting patiently for the some friends to come over and play:

 

Insanity revisited....

After finishing my mini tulip quilt a few weeks ago, I had a couple of friends over to sew together.  They wanted to try one too!  I was going to stick to my resolution to work on UFO's and besides, I had vowed that I would never do another mini tulip quilt!  When I had posted that sentiment on face book, my sister commented "Oh dear, I was hoping for one in red, yellow and blue!"  Amy and Lynn really wanted to try these little tulips, and Amy reminded me that I could do a little quilt for my sister and join them.  Since my sister had her birthday on May 13th, I succumbed to peer pressure (yes, at my age!!) and decided to join them.

All our mini tulip blocks

blue border.?

or red border???

Blue border won out and since I couldn't decide which colour lippy to go with, I added one of each :-)

The little quilt measures about 5" x 7"

My sister was 'over the moon' with her little quilt.  It was worth it :-)!!