Nick and Christina's quilt

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

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

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

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 :-)

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

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

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 :-).