Mom's scrappy donation quilt

This weekend, there was a baby shower for one of my nieces, so I was able to deliver my mom's scrappy donation quilt.  My mom is giving me all her donation quilts to quilt, so that I can continue to practice on my longarm quilting machine.  There is such a large learning curve.  I am comfortable with certain motifs and with every quilt I do, I try new things.

On this practice quilt, everything I quilted was new.  By the time I finished the quilt, I could see the difference between the first design to the last.  They were not horrible or anything, but I still do need practice.  This first picture was of the hourglass unit.  I did a double loop, where I practiced getting them consistent in size and stopping slightly short in the centre, with the point on the first loop, to avoid a large bulk of thread in the centre.  I moved right into a ribbon type swirl, before repeating.

This picture may be difficult to make out, but they were basically all about the same.  When you quilt scrappy quilts, the quilting generally disappears.  One thread colour but many fabric colours.  When you practice though, that is the best part, as no one notices how bad of a job you did.  If you really look you can make it out, but otherwise it goes unnoticed.

The second unit was five strips sewn together, so I did a different stitch design for each of the five strips.  The first strip was small written "e" loops, second was a zigzag, third was ribbon candy (looks similar to a figure 8), fourth was square mazes all in a row and lastly a squiggle across the strip.

On the first border I did a combination of arches and the written "e" loop together to make one design.  As this was a two pass design, I also learned how to work on the border across upright, across upside down, plus up and down the sides, while advancing the quilt instead of taking it off the frame to flip it.  The last border I did stippling. 

This next picture is of the full quilt.  The way the light shines on it, you can really see the quilting on the hourglass unit.  The rest just disappears.

On my domestic machine I could do all of these designs and many many more, but the longarm is quite different and I feel I am back in kindergarten learning how to write again.  I will still use my domestic machine for very intricate designs for a paying customer, for now, until my skills improve to my standards.  I am continually learning the tricks of the trade, with every quilt I do.  I am grateful that my mom allows me to use her donation quilts to practice.

Inspiration from Henhouse blog, using vintage embroidery (QW)

If you get a chance, go check out the blog by Henhouse (henhousehomemade.blogspot.com).  She has a lot of different things to look at, but myself I have been drawn to all of her crazy blocks using vintage embroidery pieces from table cloths, pillow cases, handkerchiefs or anything else that may have embroidery.

She is using a lot of vintage fabrics too.  You have to go check it out.  They are all gorgeous.

I only saved this one picture from Pinterest, where she is starting to do the hand quilting on the quilt.  I am saving this so I can find her site again later, if my favourites get lost.

I think I am now on the lookout for vintage embroidery.  Sometimes you can get them cheap, when the embroidery is on a piece of linen that has holes in it or stains.  I will have to keep my eyes open.

Finished the last purple star blocks

I have been working some more on the purple stars quilt.  Below are the last of the blocks I needed to assemble.  I think I mentioned it already in a previous post, but I will mention it here as well.  I have the first two rows of this quilt assembled too.

As you can see, I attached the right hand side sashing and the bottom with the green cornerstone.  All the blocks are at this stage and only need to be attached to each other.  This is sometimes where I stall.  Not because I'm not excited to have the top done, but because I am also sad that this project is coming to an end.  I know that sounds weird, but I feel both emotions at the same time.

Eventually the excitement will win out, I am finding all sorts of excuses not to work on this, or at least work on it only a little at a time.

One of my excuses was working on my Canadian Northwind quilt and another was the monkey wrench blocks sitting beside my machine, waiting to be leader/enders.  There is also the brown bear paws claws that are also sitting beside my machine, and the list goes one.

Aren't these little 5" monkey wrench blocks cute.  I put them on my design wall with the others and noted how different they all are.  I am liking them.

I will have to stop with my distractions soon though, if I want to have this quilt done in time for the upcoming quilt show.

Jump started my Canadian Northwind quilt for our 150th birthday celebration

I have the first two rows of my purple stars quilt assembled into rows, so I was able to take them off the design wall.  Yay!!  I have all the sashings on all the completed blocks and only have three more blocks to complete.  The purple stars quilt is heading toward the finish line.

In place of the purple stars I have decided to concentrate on my Canadian Northwind quilt, to celebrate our 150th birthday.  I really got a jump start on it this weekend.  I made 19 more small blocks.  I am liking it! 

  

I've made a great start on this and want to finish it this year.  The guild is having a birthday celebration at our June meeting and requested we bring in our red and white quilts.  I can pretty much say that there is no chance of having this done by that date, but there is a good chance of completing it this year.

I only have this many units left to make.....

LOL!  That is a whopping 143 units still to make, but who's counting..........hehehehe

Halton Hills Quilters' Guild upcoming quilt show

I belong to the Halton Hills Quilting Guild.  I thought I would do my part to promote this years upcoming quilt show.  The show is Friday, October 13, 10am-5pm and Saturday, October 14, 10am-4pm at the Croation Fraciscan Centre, 9118 Winston Churchill Blvd., Norval (Halton Hill), ON

The picture in the postcard above is the first prize raffle quilt and the picture below is the third prize.

There will be many quilts to see, as well as the usual Merchant Mall, Members' Boutique, Toonie Draw, Challenge Quilts and Tea Room.

As part of the Toonie Draw, the quilt members made/make an assortment of little wall hangings or table toppers with the sides not being any longer than 20" each.  The person in charge of this display and draw has requested 40 pieces of work, so that she can have a draw each day and a minimum of 20 items per day displayed.

This is my contribution.  It's not quilted yet, but I have up until next meeting, at the end of June.  This piece measures 16" each side.

I made this single house block a long time ago and placed it in a picture frame.  I didn't quite like the colours I used.  I felt the block to be a bit dark for the frame I had.  So, when they asked for pieces for the Toonie draw, I got to thinking.  What could I make?

It hit me, that I could design something small with this 4 1/2" house block.  You could even call it a log cabin in the woods.  Hence the 1" finished log cabin strips going around the block.  Lights on the bottom and right hand side, darks on the top and left hand side.  All this was bordered by a 2" strip with orange cornerstones.  Nothing fancy.

I finished the block in a little over an hour.  I pulled all the strips from my strip drawers.  I did not need to cut into any yardage for this.  I also plan to find the backing from my basket of miscellaneous chunks of fabric or my fat quarter stash.

So mark your calendar and come see the show!

Cross-stitch sampler

Last week, I had a bit of a distraction.  My daughter and I were sitting in my quilting room one night after dinner.  It was my night off of doggy duty and I was just sitting there, contemplating what I was going to do that evening.

My daughter didn't want to do her doggy duty alone, so she thought she would keep me company.  She brought her cross-stitch to work on.  She asked me how much I had to do on my oldest cross-stitch, but I rightfully could not answer her.  It had been a while since I looked at it.  I felt that I had about half way still left to go, so I told her to pull it out, as it was right there on the shelf in front of her.

Well, one thing lead to another, and in the end, I started up again working on my cross-stitch.  We cross-stitched together chatting away, until we both looked up and noticed it was past 11:00 pm.  Wow, time flew by.  Past our usual bedtime.

I did have approx. half the cross-stitch completed.  Here is the upper right hand corner.  I only have the French knot to put in for the birds eye.

I did have the numbers done, until I realized I used the wrong colour.  So out it came and I finished them again, this time using the right colours.  I have been getting distracted this past week with this cross-stitch and I blame it all on my daughter (jokingly of coarse).  It is on my main list of to do, so that is a good thing.  It's nice to see some progress happening on this one.

Now I am working on the vine that goes around the border.  I have a bit left to outline, and I will be able to move the frame down to the last third of the cross-stitch.  I did quite a bit in the last few days and I am still liking it.  I do enjoy doing hand work.  It's relaxing.

I may be putting this away soon, as I have other things I want to concentrate on, but it was nice seeing it advance some.

April's quilt guild meeting

Our Guild's meeting in May was with Kelly DuMaresq - Scrappy quilts.  What a great speaker.  She was enthusiastic and educational, with an abundant stack of quilts.  When I say abundant, I mean like wow, two conference tables stacked high.

She is also a Bonnie Hunter fan and had at least a hand full of Bonnie's patterns made up.  I like Bonnie Hunter and I like scrappy quilts, so I was in my glory watching the quilts as they were displayed.  There were so many.  Far too many to take a picture of them all and to many to put into a post.

If any guilds are looking for a guest speaker, I would highly recommended Kelly.

Here are a few scrappy quilts, for your enjoyment, but really, these do not do the show justice.  Kelly also teaches technique if anyone is interested.

This guest speaker was one of my favourite, though the others were good as well.  

I am so inspired to make some more quilts.  Still doing well right now with holding myself back from starting anything new.  My goal was set in January and I am trying really hard to meet that goal, but with a show like we had in April, it makes it difficult.