Tracy and Terry's Quilt

I needed a wedding gift last week for a wedding and put together the squares I was using as a sample for a rail fence quilt class. This was one of these quilts that just went together with fabric I had in my stash! Amazing how some of these prints fit right in :-). It was a little pale til I added the gold in the narrow border and the narrow piping between the binding and last border. It was pieced on my Singer 301 electric machine this time and quilted on the that same machine until my darning foot cracked! I finished it on my vintage Bernina 807 minimatic.

The quilt was quilted with meandering lines in the center, a swirly pattern in the floral border and leaves in the green border. I used King Tut variegated green thread which gives a nice effect on the light and dark.

Closeup of the borders before quilting:

I didn't have enough of any one fabric for the backing, so I pieced it. The floral is a matching fabric to the second border fabric.

Quilting on the back:

My Dear Jane Journey has Begun

I started a quilt in September which I said I'd never do in my lifetime :-). I did a round robin project with a group of 5 friends last year and they wanted to do another group activity this year. A couple of the ladies had been eyeing the Dear Jane quilt. To see what the quilt looks like, take a look at the webpage at www.dearjane.com and you can see why I didn't think I'd ever want to do this quilt! Enter my friend Susan, who has already done a quilt. Her enthusiastic offers of help and encouragement, together with a few other friends joining was infectious and, the rest is history, as they say. I must say, this has been a very enjoyable journey so far and I have learned so much! Susan generously gave a day of her time and a bunch of us got together and she taught us several different methods of applique. These blocks can be done using various techniques; reverse applique, back basting, needle turn, freezer paper, paper piecing, hand piecing, sewing machine, etc., etc. Certainly no chance to get bored. The blocks are 4 1/2" finished and there are 169 in the quilt. You can also do intricate triangles for the border, but I don't know if I will do them yet. I decided to do my blocks in blues and white i.e. Delft's Blue look to reflect my Dutch heritage. Here are the first 7 blocks which I have completed (not in order):

H 12 Hannah Lou's Hearts. I used the back basting appliqué method. The heart on the left is the last one I sewed. You can even see improvement on the stitching as I went along. I also discovered silk thread for the last heart which really helps make the stitches more invisible.

L 11 Caitlin's Rose. This block is technically not finished as I don't like the way the white triangles do not line up in the block! I have traced the block onto paper again to redo it. This time I will pay more attention to putting the pieces on straight! It will go into a collection of 'reject' blocks. If our group comes up with enough of them, we might do our own 'reject block quilt' :-).

D 13 Field of Dreams. This was a very simple block so I figured I could get another block finished really quickly. It was the third one I did and I paper pieced it.

D 6 Challenge. I was on a roll and paper pieced this simple block.

C 12 Family Reunion. This was the very first block that I completed. I sewed this one on my Singer 15-88 Centennial treadle, my favourite sewing machine! You can see the diagram of the block as it appears in the book. I cut my book apart and put the pages into see through page protectors. I store the completed blocks in the sleeve.

G 1 Hattie's Hen House. I did this block using Linda Franz's freezer paper hand piecing technique www.lindafranz.com. I learned this for the Psalm blocks (see Oct. 18's blog post) and decided to try a Dear Jane block this way as well. I love the accuracy with this method.
F 13 Tour de France. This is the block we did on Sept. 14, 2007 when we got together with Susan for our lessons. The 'leaf' shapes were appliquéd using reverse appliqué, one of the circles using a cardboard template and starch to tack down the seams, and the other with the back basting technique. I really enjoyed the back basting!

I'm not sure what I got myself into and I'm probably crazy, but I'm having so much fun doing these blocks and making my own Dear Jane quilt and learning so many new skills. I figured this is a long term project. I'm allowing myself 10 years to finish it :-).

Got sidetracked!

I've been sidetracked with two major , but long term projects which started in September . With a group of friends from the internet and 'real life' , we started a Dear Jane quilt (I'll post about that in my next blog post). While surfing the 'net on the Dear Jane site, my friend Amy came up with Quilting the Psalms, which is a program run by Carol Honderich (see www.patternsoffaith.com). Amy talked me into doing it and we were off on a new venture. It is a Bible study with online friends and Carol designed quilt blocks to fit with the various Psalms that you study. I almost abandoned the project when I started the very first block and realized it had 41 pieces and the triangles were so small you could hardly pick up the pieces!! With the help of some of the experienced ladies on the list, I persevered and am so glad I did! I now know how to hand piece blocks and absolutely love it. You can do very intricate blocks and it's so relaxing working away on the next block while thinking about the Psalm we are studying or listening to a tape or the radio. Here are the first five blocks that I did:

Psalm 1 Prosperity


Psalm 19 Rising Sun

Psalm 37 Patience (this one really was a lesson in patience as I sewed the block wrong the first time and had to take more than half of it out to redo it!

Psalm 73 Road to Heaven

Psalm 90 Fly Away:

Monica's I Spy Quilt

I finally finished Monica's I Spy quilt for her baby! This quilt is done with 4" squares arranged from the lightest to the darkest. Since Monica's husband is a volunteer firefighter, I put in as many firefighter themed fabrics as I could find in my stash. I found some awesome wide ric rac trim and cut it in half and sewed it between the binding to frame it. Here is the finished quilt:

Fabricland had some cool animal themed vinyl templates which I used to quilt motifs in the squares with small loops between the blocks to tie them together. The cat was one of the motifs:

Closeup of the border and ric rac trim:

Monkey square:

Quilting from the back:

Table Runner from my Friends

I found a set of four fat quarters of coffee themed fabrics at our fairly local quilt shop, The Marsh Store in Coldstream, ON and bought them on a whim and sent them to my two friends, Lynn and Amy. The instructions were to do something with them when they get together for their weekly sewing day. On my next birthday, I received this lovely table runner from them. They made three, so we all have a matching one. Here is the table runner:

I have the table runner on my Singer 27 treadle just like the one I learned to sew on at age 7 that is in my livingroom. The beige toy Singer 20 child's sewing machine looks very nice on it.

Check out the cool coffee cups that are quilted in some of the blocks:

More of the lovely quilting!

This pictures is a little washed out, but you can see the crossed coffee spoons on one of the squares. Thanks Amy and Lynn for such a lovely gift! I absolutely love it. Come for coffee anytime! The coffee's on!!

Old Thread Spools

This collection is a byproduct of sewing machine collecting :-). Whenever we buy machines in cabinets or cases, we often get spools of thread with them. I started dumping them into a small basket which turned into a larger and larger basket! Now the grandkids love to play with them as they roll over the hardwood floor really nicely! Sometimes we find just the exact right colour in here to topstitch a particular project!

This is a spool of silk thread:

The brand and size information are stamped right into the wooden spool.

I will post a separate blog entry on the table runner under the spool :-).

Announcing! Spinning Four Patch pattern now available!

I am very pleased to announce the release of my first pattern, Spinning Four Patch. Included are the complete instructions for a 45 1/2" square quilt.


Pictures of this quilt I made for Daniella as a baby shower gift can be seen here.
Included in this package:
- Actual photos in full colour
- Tutorial on how to choose fabric for this project
- 12 page booklet with 6 pages dedicated to detailed instructions
- Full supply list for this project

Bonus: each pattern booklet includes four identical fabric squares so you can "play" with them and rearrange them to try out the 'spinning' concept.

PRICE: $9.00 US or $9.00 CDN which includes postage.

We will be happy to ship worldwide for a small additional fee to cover postage.

Order your patterns here.

PayPal is available for your convenience.