Alex and Jack's Bed Quilts

 Over the years, I've been making a bed quilt for each of my grandchildren.  Jack was my youngest grandchild (although I now have two more and most likely another one!).  Jack is 8 years old and shares a room with his brother so I wanted to match the quilts somewhat.  I have a lot of blue, red and black fabrics, so I decided to do a plus sign quilt in those colours.  

The finished Quilt.  I did not have to purchase a single fabric ☺.

Some close ups of the blocks.  Jack loved all the prints featured in his quilt.

These sheep were in honour of his other Grandma who dyes wool and does a lot of knitting and weaving.

Jack's giraffe which came with the quilt.

Chris Bogart did the quilt and put some dog paws on the quilt ☺

 

 Alex's Quilt

So, I realized as I was writing about Jack's quilt and putting a link in for reference to Alex's Quilt that I'd never blogged about his quilt!  Yikes.  I finished this one in April of 2021!  Better late than never I guess.  I did a One Block Wonder pattern for Alex using this fabric: 

 

It had words, diagrams, receipts, etc. on it which was quite fascinating.  I had purchased with the idea of doing a OBW - one of those "I wonder if this would work" types of fabrics.  It worked very well and produced some very interesting blocks for the background.  I made large cubes for this quilt and used Kona Pacific blue for sashings and borders using some of the original fabrics in panels at the top.

 

One of the large cubes

Backing

The Puppy that was included with the quilt.

The Finished Quilt

 

 

By Annie Bags

After making the Mixer Cover, I took a look at more patterns from ByAnnie!  There are some really interesting bags done by her.  And when you buy the pattern, you also get a $5.00 coupon which is good for access to a video which shows the steps to make the bag.  They are well done and help when you get a spot that doesn't quite make sense.  I went on the July Shop Hop which takes place for the month of July in 13 different Quilt Shops in Southern Ontario, Canada.  This gave me lots of temptation to look at other patterns!  And a few came home with me plus a few other supplies.  I got together with a friend and made the bag, "Open Wide 2.0".  This comes in three different sizes.  I made the large size.  I dug into some of my Tula Pink fabrics for the occasion.  Here is the finished bag.  I just love the rabbits on the fabric.  Inside the bag there are several pockets.  I hope to use the bag to take things along to our next quilt retreat.

I had a fun zipper in my stash and used it in the bag.

Group Challenge

Finished Challenge Quilt

A year ago, in early May, my small quilt guild held a retreat and each participant received a bundle of 10 fat eighths.  The challenge was to make something with the F8ths.  We could make whatever we wished and could add fabrics from our own stash to it.  I pondered the options for awhile and then came upon the brainstorm to try out some blocks from a book called, "Just Plain Nuts".  This is the second book by the same author, Liz Lois.  The first one is entitled, "Nearly Insane".   The books just have a diagram of the block with no instructions.  I had to measure each of the sections and add seams and cut out the pieces.  I made 9 six inch blocks and then added sashings, corner stones and borders.  The last border worked well with a piano key design using up all the scraps and bits and pieces of the fabric bundle.  It was a fun project and I finally got to using some of the patterns which have been on my shelf for many years.

I quilted the quilt myself doing each block differently....whatever came to mind.

Some of the pieces were crazy tiny!

Below are some photos of the blocks before putting into the quilt.  They are 6 1/2" unfinished. 

 At the retreat at the end of April this year, we had a parade to show everyone at the retreat what we made with our bundles.  Amazing how different everyone's projects were.

 

 

 

Baby quilt finish for Callum

Last week Saturday we held a shower for a young Mom in our Church who had her first baby.  I found an animal fabric in my stash and decided to try out my Marti Michell flying geese template that I bought a number of years ago at a shop hop.  It worked very well for this.  Here is the finished quilt: 

(click on the photo to enlarge it) 

I quilted it with straight lines on my straight stitch Juki machine and that worked out very well.

I was happy with the way this quilt turned out.  I didn't have a pattern.  If I make this design again, I will shorten the two center panels of animals by an inch or so and add to the top and bottom to balance it out a bit better.  But the baby won't notice a thing so I left it 😍.

 

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.  

 

Comfort Quilt for a dear friend

When a very good friend of ours became ill, I rooted around in my quilt stack and decided to give this quilt to him.  It was an exchange we did on face book a number of years ago and we had to send 10" squares with words on it; one for each of the participants.  I can't remember how many people were in the group, but I did add some more fabrics of my own and made this fun quilt called "No-Waste Windmill Block" from Anita Grossman Solomon's book called "Rotary Cutting Revolution".  

Praying that the quilt gives comfort and warmth to John.   

Finished Quilt

My neighbour across the street, Chris Bogart quilted it with this lovely geometric pattern.

The white windmill shows the fabric I chose for the exchange.

 

A totally different project!

 I stepped out of my comfort zone last week and tackled a cover for my new to me Kitchen Aid mixer that my husband found for me at a yard this spring when I was visiting a friend :-).  My old trusty mixer that I bought at an auction years and years ago died and could not be fixed anymore.  My friend Audrey and I did the July shop hop in Southern Ontario together over two days and I saw a By Annie pattern for this cover.  I finally tackled it with my friend Joan coming over to give me tips and encourage me to stick to it ☺.  It was quite a challenge, but came together very nicely.

Lots of pockets in the cover and soft and stable inside.

I added a vinyl mesh pocket instead of the stretchy mesh as I had this in the house.

I didn't put in the zippered pockets and handle on the top.  The beaters are stored in the pockets.