Vinyl project pouches

We were shopping in a quilt shop in January when I spotted a sample of the Moda vinyl project pouch.  The free tutorial is here.  It was a lot of fun to make.  I have tons of those cute little mini charm packs and this was the perfect project to make one for myself and one for my sister for her birthday.  She received hers last week so now I can blog about it finally ☺.  I realized I didn't take a picture of them when the binding was stitched down!  The pattern tutorial is well written and it comes together very nicely.

The left one is mine with leftovers of my granddaughter Katie's quilt backing fabric.  The right one is my sister's with fabric from an older row by row year.

mini charm pack squares used in mine

mini charm pack squares used in my sister's

The pouch is very handy to take hand piecing projects along or cut out block pieces to a retreat.  I have already used mine several times.

Woven Selvages

Looking through my photos recently, I realized I'd never blogged about this selvage project which I finished in November 2017.   This had been my leaders/enders project for awhile testing sewing machines for Jake after he repairs them.  A great way of testing a machine on an actual project when precision isn't required.  I cut 5" squares of muslin or leftover light scrap fabric and covered them with the selvages aiming for lighter and darker for every other square.  This pattern is in the book "Quilts from the Selvage Edge" by Karen Griska.  

The wall hanging is the same size as the Glass Tumbling Cubes from the same book done in 2012.  This way I can interchange the hangings on the wall periodically.  I am running out of wall space ☺.

(click on the photo to enlarge for a better view)

close up of the selvages

The finished wall hanging

I added a navy border instead of the selvage border which I found a little too busy.  I echoed the woven design in the border with the quilting. 

The finished quilt is hanging above my coffee station in my sewing room

Elgin Piecemaker's Challenge

Every year the Elgin Piecemaker's quilt group does a challenge.  This year it was a "Fold it - Snip It - Rip it - Pass it - Make it" challenge organized by Deb and Joanne.  We had to bring a yard of batik fabric to the October meeting as well as a pair of fabric scissors.  We stood in a circle and clipped our yard in half and ripped it, keeping one half and passing the other half to our neighbour on the right.  We continued doing this til we had 7 different fabrics, each half the size of the previous one.  There was only one rule:  at least one piece of each of the 7 batiks must be used in our project.  We could add any fabrics and make whatever we wished.  

I had a pattern in my to do box called "Fierce Ladies" by Eye Candy Quilts and decided to add lots of my batik scraps to make a colourful rendition of this pattern which was inspired by those riotously colourful Victorian houses set in the hills of San Francisco.  This pattern was the mini version and finished at 18" x 24".   (Click on the photos for a larger view.)

The original 7 batiks I received plus a white tone on tone batik I had in my stash which I used for background

Back of my wallhanging.  I bought these fabrics on a trip to PEI a few years ago.  Since the pattern was California houses, a beach theme was appropriate.

While spraying the white parts with water to remove the markings for quilting, the blue of this roof ran!  I got a lot of it out but added rick rack on a few of the roofs to cover it up ☺

The quilting suggestion was on the pattern

Our grand reveal meeting was held at the end of March.  Here are the projects that the other ladies made.  They were all amazing and the judges had a very difficult time choosing two winners!  And, we all had a hard time with our viewer's choice vote!!

Yvonne T's wallhanging

Pat P's wallhanging

Julie's bag (the other colours were in the bottom but somehow I didn't get a picture of that)

Chris's table runner

We wondered if Chris had not used all seven fabrics, but one was hiding on the back ☺

Gail made a bag to carry her handwork in while traveling

Joanne made fabric with lots of batiks added to her colours and made this sunburst of diamonds

Jacqui's  houses

Heather's sewing themed wallhanging has her original fabrics under the machine

Pat O's butterfly pillow

Anne's table runner or wallhanging

Diane's mini paper pieced mariner's compass

Deb burned the midnight oil finishing her table runner!

Our judges, Lorna and Heather holding up Beth P's appliqued fish

Diane won viewer's choice

Julie won runner up for her bag

Deb won 1st place for her lovely modern table runner. 

 We already have two volunteers to challenge us for our next challenge in the fall!  Can't wait to see what they have planned for us.

Dr. Suess baby quilt - February UFO Finish

The second Dr. Suess one block wonder quilt from the panel below was finished this week and delivered to a new baby at his shower on Thursday :-).  This was definitely a very fun quilt to work on.  I quilted it with diagonal lines 1/4" away from the seams which worked very well.  The seams are all pressed open on these OBW quilts so you don't want to stitch in the ditch. I am linking up with The Crafty Quilter for her February UFO challenge.

(Click on the photos to enlarge for a better view.)

original panel produced enough hexagons for 3 baby quilts

close up of the quilting lines

Finished quilt

I had a Dr. Suess fabric in my stash which worked great for the backing.

Dr. Suess panel OBW baby quilts

I bought a Dr. Suess book panel probably five or six years ago in a clearance bin and wondered if that would work for a One Block Wonder.  Wow, did it ever!  Just pure fun to work on this one.  I got so many hexies out of the panel that I could make three baby quilts.  They've been sitting in a drawer for awhile waiting for the right baby to come along to gift them to.  The first one is finished and going to baby Nora.  

I thought I would end up discarding some of the hexagons as I figured they would not be very interesting, but amazingly even the ones with the white from the edges worked out very well!  I used every hexie.  I separated them into three piles by colour.  This one used the blue and yellow ones.  The second one is set with green and the third one will be orange/red.  I will post those when they are finished.

I had the yellow and blue top together and was adding the solid yellow sashings and borders and the quilt was hanging on my design wall. I happened to be sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room and contemplating why I put the hexies in that particular order and wondering what ever I was thinking when I designed it!  Just before I sewed the panels onto the main quilt, I realized that I had turned it upside down!  No wonder it looked so out of balance...all the dark colours were on the top and the light on the bottom.  Fortunately I was able to turn it around yet, but the panels ended up on the other side.  Pictures of the two versions below 😀.

The original panel (I had purchased 7 so I could use the original in the quilts somewhere).

 Here are some of the fun blocks that were produced from this panel:

This is the layout I was contemplating from across the room!  It just felt really unbalanced.

I didn't have enough yellow solid left to cut more sashings so the panels ended up on the right side of the quilt.  The baby won't care or even notice 😉

The finished quilt.

I had this piece of Dr. Suess fabric in my stash which was perfect for the backing.

I'm linking up to Julie's blog, The Crafty Quilter with my second finish for the month of January!

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.