Hotpad finishes

 A few weeks ago, I finished off some hot pads that have been lurking in my 'to quilt' basket for many years!  They are leftover blocks from other projects and make great hostess gifts (for when we are allowed to go out again ☺).  The larger mat was an attempt to use up some stitch and flip squares that were left over from a workshop I took in 2014 with Jacqui Gering.  I have finished a top using these units which I have to blog yet (it's being hand quilted).  I made this into a candle mat or table centerpiece, but I have lots of the units left and may make more of them into round potholders eventually.  These little projects were great practice for free motion and straight line quilting.

 

This table runner was also finally finished.  It was a class sample for a technique of sewing hexagon shapes with strips and I have made a number of samples and had lots of leftovers for hot pads.  I used a magnifico gold thread to free motion quilt this one for some sparkle.
 

 

 

Some little houses fun....

I recently got sidetracked with trying out a pattern I bought a year and a half ago.  I had done Cluck Cluck Sew's Suburbs pattern as a lap quilt in 2016.  I spotted the mini pattern on a quilt trip and always wanted to make it.  Our small guild is doing a house challenge to make 100 houses, so I thought I'd try this pattern out to see if I liked the size.  I couldn't decide on the cool or warm colour version so since it was a small quilt, I made both 😀.  Love how they turned out.  They are the perfect size to fit into my little seasonal stand....bonus!

The cool colour version with snow on the ground

This house print has been in my stash for years waiting for the right project.

The warm version which reminded me of a sunset

I tried some straight line quilting that I learned in Jacquie Gering's class last fall.

SQUIRREL and Jacquie Gering walking foot class

In September, I was able to take a class with Jacquie Gering on quilting with the walking foot.  Her book, "Walk" has great ideas and tips, but actually doing the quilting under her watchful eye is really helpful.  We had an enjoyable day trying out different techniques and making samples of many designs.

I took my older vintage Bernina 830 along and it worked very well with only a little wrinkling.  I could not figure out how to reduce the pressure on the presser foot on this machine.  When I got home, I thought it would be fun to try a little quilting on a few small pieces.

My friend, Mary Lou and I love to get each other sidetracked with new projects all the time.  Everytime we come up with a new idea, we will email it to each other with Squirrel in the subject line.  The friendly competition has resulted in both of us getting into squirrel mode and starting a new project before all our other ones are finished! 

In our small quilt guild, we make quilts for our local hospital's chemo unit.  We received a donation from someone with 2332 squares that are 1"!  Our President challenged us to make a quilt with at least that many squares.  She was sort of joking, but 15 of us jumped right in to try that.  Mary Lou was NOT going to do that!  Too time consuming.  I kept bugging her and sending her fun pictures of beautiful quilts made with 1" squares.  And, then one day, she told me she had found some 1 1/2" strips in her stash and started sewing them together "just to see how long it would take" LOL.  Before long she had a top done and quilted!  She is now working on her second one!

I was shopping with a friend of mine and we were teasing each other about all the 'squirrels' we were tempted with when the shop owner asked why we kept saying "squirrel".  We explained that it's like taking your dog for a walk and how he darts off when he sees a squirrel.  "Oh" she said, "Have you seen the panel in the sale bin?"  The squirrels on this panel were so adorable and for $5.00, who could resist that?  I immediately thought of Mary Lou and when I got home, found a bunch of 1 1/2" strips in my stash that matched one of the squirrels in the panel and stitched a border around it.

I decided to try quilting it with the walking foot as Jacquie had instructed.  I drew a wavy line from corner to corner going both ways and got about halfway finished when I took a good look at it and realized it was very very crooked.  Here you can see how crooked it was! (click on the photos for a larger view)
 

the very crooked quilting!

 I could not live with this!  I picked all the stitching out again and basted it carefully.  Meanwhile, I mentioned to my husband that I couldn't understand why you couldn't loosen the pressure on these machines.  He told me that you could!  Wow, I've only owned this machine for 20 or so years and now finally find that out!  He helped me loosen the pressure a lot and I re-quilted it...much better!

All fixed up!

Quilted with the walking foot with 1/2" lines

Mary Lou with her Squirrel

The rest of the panel - aren't these squirrels adorable? 

A huge thank you to Jacquie Gering for her wonderful class!  I'm excited to try some more quilting with my walking foot!

Jacquie Gering Workshop

Last week, I attended a workshop through the London Friendship Quilt Guild, taught by Jacquie Gering.  We learned how to do her stitch and flip blocks and started arranging the blocks into a quilt top.  The workshop was fabulous.  Jacquie is a very good teacher and gets right involved with her students and goes around the room helping with ideas and encouraging everyone.  We did a lot of laughing as well and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day.  

Enjoying an inside joke...what was said at the workshop, stays at the workshop LOL

showing how to play with the units

Amazing how different they look with a bit of turning

I decided to possibly make a wall hanging for my husband's science room at school.  I found the atom symbol and showed Jacquie and she said, "go for it".  Here is the beginning of a layout, but the green needs to be wider and rounder.  I will work on this here at home and then add a red ring as well.

playing with getting the intersections right

chatting :-)

Jacqui and Jacquie 

It was a very inspirational day.  Check out Jacquie's website.  Her blog gave me the courage to try "organic line quilting".