Ready for Valentine's Day - a UFO finish

Valentine's Day is not too far off and while quilting up a baby quilt, I noticed this heart block which has been sitting in my 'to quilt' basket for a couple of years!  Crazy....how long did that actually take to finish it?  So happy to have it hanging on my little stand before February!  Most of the fabric is Kaffe Fasset scraps except for the background.  

Finished pixelated heart.

My Maplea doll is all ready for Valentine's Day

My Maplea doll and her friend Kit, the American cousin :-)

 I'm linking up with Julie's blog, The Crafty Quilter, with my first finish for January.

Siblings Christmas

My sister from BC came to visit for a family wedding in November and we decided to get the house decorated for Christmas early and have a siblings Christmas on December 9th.  I have never had my Christmas tree up this early ever!  We have not celebrated Christmas together for many years, so this was the perfect opportunity.  

The day before the party, we picked up three of my granddaughters from school and they helped us decorate the tree and put up our village and playmobil Christmas sets. (Click on the photos to enlarge for better view.) 

Three granddaughters, Lauren, Leah and Kara, decorating with Aunt Thea

We enjoyed supper together and played a game and brought them home again.

On the morning of the day, my sister and I got the turkey dinner all prepped and wrapped up lots of gifts to place under the tree and set the table with our late Mom's china dishes.  We also had lots of candles and pretty Christmas napkins.

The china that my Mom and Dad received as an engagement gift in 1954 is still being used.  Here is my sister, Thea, getting the table all nicely set.

The Christmas village

My Mom embroidered this table cloth for me for Christmas probably 40 years ago.  The log cabin table topper was one of the first things I made when I started quilting in 1989. 

The stockings were hung to be filled later for the grandkids

Gifts arranged under the tree

Even the weather was picture perfect with a pretty layer of snow!

Last year I got together with a couple of quilt friends and we exchanged 2 1/2" strips to make a Christmas jelly roll race quilt.  You can read about that here.  When we decided to have Christmas together with my siblings, I started to think about a gift for them and the thought of a quilt crossed my brain!  A couple more friends wanted to make jelly roll races this year and I again joined in thinking I could make one as a gift for someone.  When we finished cutting strips, there were enough to make two quilts.  But, I needed three!  I remembered the top from last year which had not been quilted yet and ran over to my neighbour across the street, Chris Bogart to see if she could quilt three quilts in the next week!  She is a long arm quilter.   Yes, she was game and told me to bring the first one over.  She quilted all three of them in short order and I sat down to hand stitch binding in between all the other busyness of Christmas.  It was so much fun surprising them with their very own quilt this year!! 

This is the quilt for my brother Bas.  I chose the darker strips for his quilt.

This is the backing for my brother's quilt.  It was quilted with a beautiful snowflake pantograph

Close up of a few strips

This quilt was for my sister, Thea.  I added bright lime green squares between each square when sewing them together.

Close up of the strips

It was quilted with an awesome mittens and skates pantograph

The quilt for my sister Eva

Close up of the strips

This one was quilted with a holly design as she is an avid gardener.

All in all, it was a very memorable and relaxed Christmas.  I now need to make another Christmas jelly roll race for myself and maybe one for my other brother who also lives a long ways away and could not be with us.

Jolly Little Christmas Quilt along finished

In January of 2017, Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts hosted the "Have a Jolly little Christmas" quilt along and I made lots of blocks and completed a lot of projects last Christmas as documented in this blog post.  My own lap quilt top was finished last Christmas, but I didn't get to quilting it.  I decided to send it out for quilting in November to my neighbour across the street, Chris Bogart.  Time to get it done.  She did a fabulous job on it with a snowflake pattern in a light green thread.  I got the binding done before December and enjoyed it on my couch during the Christmas season together with the matching pillows I made last year.  I will leave it on the couch til the end of January to enjoy it a little longer. (Click on the photos to enlarge for a better view.)

Finished quilt

Lorna provided a "Sinterklaas" option for those of us with Dutch heritage.

Chris Bogart quilted it for me on her longarm machine with a snowflake pattern.

Muskoka Memories One Block Wonder

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

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

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

finished quilt top

a magical scene of the lake

droplet quilting

Finished quilt

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

a later view with less sunlight on it

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

Pillows

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reverse applique class

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

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

My first block

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

Samantha's Elephant baby quilt

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

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

love this cute little baby elephant

Momma elephant

Completed quilt