Mexican Stars

It's been awhile since I updated my blog.  I have been busy sewing various things, but haven't gotten around to posting them yet.  May has been a very busy month and I totally had the surprise of my life when my friend, Els, from the Netherlands shocked me with a week long visit for my birthday.  I had no idea she was coming and she showed up at my front door, delivered by our friend, Amy!! We had a fabulous week, visiting a great quilt show, shopping at Quilt shops and visiting and enjoying the nice spring weather and sewing in my sewing room!  

I recently had a guest instructor into my sewing studio to teach us the Mexican Star wallhanging.   Els happened to be here for that as well, so we raided my fabric stash and cut out the pieces needed on time for the class :-).  There were 10 ladies gathered in my sewing room plus our instructor, Pat. We had a great time learning together and seeing the results of the various colours used on an identical pattern. 

Busy ladies

We all squeezed around the cutting table

Els sewed on my vintage Bernina 830 and I used my Singer 15-88 treadle

Pat showing Els the next step

First blocks assembled

My first block.  I used Kaffe Fasset fabrics on a black background

Els got her top all sewn together late at night when we noticed one small mistake!  The curved seams are not sewn here yet

 

My finished top with all the curved pieces finished

Darlene's top before borders

Els finished her top back in Holland and added a lippy between the border

Gerrie added a narrow border with corner stones and a lippy between her last border

Pat K's top with borders added

My second top which will be a wedding gift

Alice's finished top before the curved seams

Mary Lynn's top with borders

Mary VD's top - she's quilting it already :-)
And here is Mary's finished quilt:

Alice machine quilted her Mexican star

closeup of the quilting on Alice's Mex. Star

closeup on Alice's centers

My second Mexican star which was a wedding gift for a young friend.  I quilted this one myself

close up of quilting

 

My Kaffe Fasset Mexican star was quilted by Amy Van Gurp of Tillsonburg, ON.  She did a fabulous job!!  I will add a photo of the completely finished quilt shortly.

It is amazing how different the quilts look with the different fabric choices and border options.  There were a few more ladies that are still working on their quilts.  When I get the photos I will update the post to include theirs as well. 

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". 

Circle crazy!

My quilt students bring me the most wonderful gifts!  Check out the Royale tissue box that Roxene's husband found in a package he bought at the grocery store.   

Aren't these circles just too cool?

 Roxene made a baby quilt using the Tossed circles pattern from Swirly Girls with lovely bright coloured batiks.  She was about to throw these leftovers in the garbage can when I stopped her.  I played around with them until this design 'popped out' and fused them in place and finished the satin stitching with various King Tut variegated threads.  I am just quilting straight lines across the whole piece with clear Mono.poly thread from Superior.  I'm liking the way it's turning out.  We're going circle crazy here LOL.  Someone needs to stop me!!

Quilting the leftovers from the circles Roxene used for her baby quilt

Leaders/Enders progress

I've been working on a new leaders/enders project for a little while after finding these cool templates at a local quilt shop.  I spent some time over Christmas break cutting down all my scraps from my Diamond Quilt using the mini tumbler shaped template called Fat Cats and sorted them into warm and cool colours.   This is a bit of a challenge with Kaffe fabrics since many of them are mixed with both warm and cool!  I then sewed rows of 25 tumblers alternating warm and cool.  Here is the progress so far.

Twenty-one rows of 25 or 26 sewn together.  I am adding three more tumblers to the rows and it should turn out squarish.

Closeup of some of the tumblers.

It's always amazing to me how you much you can sew together between other projects! 

Sewing Retreat

We had a great sewing retreat on Saturday at a local Church hall.  It was a great time socializing, seeing what everyone else is making, eating treats and actually getting some sewing done :-).  A few of our members couldn't make it since it was Family Day weekend here in Canada.  We had it scheduled a few weeks ago, but there was a snowstorm on that day.
 

I took my trusty Featherweight to the retreat (since I was the photographer, there's no picture of me sewing)

I'm working on a sampler using some Kaffe scraps and Kona solids from Tula Pink's 100 Modern Quilt blocks book.

Deb's very cute bag

Pat O is working on a lovely blue and white quilt

Barb is working with some shot cottons

Joanne's lovely feathers

We used bed risers to make cutting easier - Roxene busy cutting blocks

Heather and Yvonne - is that the Indian Orange Peel? LOL

Donna and Anne working on a rag quilt and Farmer's Wife blocks

Lots of laughter from Pat P's corner :-).  She's also working on Farmer's Wife blocks

Diane concentrating on her  braid tree skirt

This tree skirt will be gorgeous

A lovely block

Barb's pretty blocks

Joanne

Beth's beautiful bargello done with a layer cake

 

Coffee table runner

My friend, Helen, had a special birthday so it needed a special gift.  We have enjoyed so much hospitality and cups of coffee and tea at her place.  I found the perfect coffee/tea fabric in my stash and made her a table runner.  I cut 60 degree triangles from this border print and played with them until this arrangement popped out :-).

(click on the photos to enlarge them)

Finished runner

I quilted it with organic line quilting with a variegated King Tut thread

I found some coffee bean fabric for the binding and had just enough (inches to spare!)