The Christmas quilt is ready to start

I finally finish cutting out all the pieces for my Christmas quilt.  It's at my machine and ready to go. There are 288 red 3 1/2" squares, over 576 green 2" squares, 312 sashing 2" x 6 1/2" rectangles and 1152 white 2" squares!  Enough to make a king size quilt, minus the borders.

I couldn't have planned it any better.  All the white pieces are cut and all I have left are these two smaller leftover pieces.  Nothing like cutting it close....lol.

Tomorrow I have the day off, so I have to get the studio back in order.  I have the ladies coming this weekend to sew.  I feel like lately all I've been doing is making messes and cleaning up....lol.  After I get the place in order, I am hoping to start working on the Christmas quilt.  I have a bunch of stitch and flip corners to do on the red squares and then the green four patches.  I am looking forward to working on this one, beings as we are in December in the Christmas season.  

Do any of you do that?  Quilt with the seasons?  I've got my Welcome to the North Pole appliqué block out for this season, along with this Christmas quilt.  Even my daughter is embroidering with the season, with her pattern called Snow Days.

Here is a picture showing how far she has come along on her embroidery stitching.  The stitches are done using a dark charcoal colour.

Take care everyone.

Hexagon quilt is finally finished

I first posted about this quilt back on Sept 13/2014, or rather posted about the pieces that my cousin gave me, from a pile of tops and pieces, that belonged to her mother-in-law and her husband's grandmother.  You can visit that post for all the details, but basically many of the pieces were in the shape of a hexagon diamond with a centre white hexagon.

By Nov 18/2014, after working with my cousin's other hexagon quilt tops, with florets and diamonds, I came up with a plan for the quilt that I wanted to make, which would honour the original maker.  You can read more about it in that post.  From there, throughout various posts, I talked about the process I went through to prepare the hexagons.  By Nov 29/2014 post, I was preparing the grab and go tin that would be with me for a very long time and go with me everywhere.

This quilt was not meant to be finished quickly.  Afterall, I was assembling this quilt all by hand.  So throughout the time from Sept/2014 until now, I would work on this quilt, on and off.  It turned out to be a fairly large quilt.  Almost a queen size, but I consider it to be a large double size.

Now, fast forward to Aug 15/2025, when I finally put in the last stitch to finish the top of this hexagon quilt.  That is almost nine years in the making, as it traveled with me wherever I went, and was worked on whenever I had bits of time.  I can't even explain how I felt when it was done.  I guess the feeling was an astonishment.  Shock and happiness all rolled into one.

I held onto the top in that state for a while.  I knew I wanted to quilt it freehand on the longarm, but also knew that it would take a long time to complete.  By Nov 21/2025 I had the top on the longarm and was in the process of quilting it.  Taking my time, as I have to be careful not to exert my hands.  Each pass of the machine (16" depth) takes 2 hours to quilt, so that too, takes time.

Here's a picture of the back, which shows off the quilting a bit better, with the shadows from the light. 

So now, I can call it done!!!  Still have the binding to do, but when the top is quilted, I consider it to be done.  I am so surprised, happy and shocked at the same time that this quilt is done!  Nine years!!!  Wow!!  

Unfortunately, this is not the longest standing quilt that I have.......lol.  I'm embarrassed to say it, but I still have the one that I started back in 2011.  The Gathering Flowers quilt, however I am trying to remedy that, as I have recently been working on it.  There is a theme though going on......all my longest quilts are handwork.....slow sewing for me is REALLY slow......lol.  But I do enjoy the whole process of handwork.  I'm just not fast at it.

Take care everyone.  Don't forget to take some time for yourself.

Pulled out my Welcome to the North Pole appliqué blocks

I started this quilt some time around Aug 20th, this year.  I posted about it on Aug 25th, as I completed the first block.  I posted about finishing block two on Aug 31st and then started the third block.  That is exactly where I left off, and exactly where I am at, at the moment.  This got put aside when I started to install the baseboards in my studio and paint the ceiling, walls and baseboards, after repairing the holes from adding in some more pot lights.

I can hear what everyone is yelling at the screen as they read this.....lol.....  You don't think I've said the same thing to myself?  I know this shouldn't come out now, as I already have an appliqué quilt out.  But you know......I've been really good.  All day yesturday I was productive and I also quilted one whole section/pass of the hexagon quilt on the longarm, which took me two full hours.  I had to quit though, after I advanced the quilt and stabilized it, ready to quilt the last pass.  I sat there in front of the longarm machine, debating if I had the energy to do two more hours to finish it, but I had to face it....I didn't.

It was still early and I still wanted to do something, but I couldn't do another two hours of quilting.  While I was sitting there, I spied my blocks under the shelf, so I pulled them out to see what was what with it.....  When I saw that I only needed to appliqué the sign on the first two blocks, I thought, OH!, I can do that up real quick and call it done.....lol.  So, upstairs they came with me to work on.  

The Sprinkles Ice Cream Shoppe now has a sign.  Do you like the tree?  I used a fabric that makes it look like it is already decorated.  All so cute!

The North Pole Bakery now has a sign.  I just noticed that these two blocks have the same red fabric with dots.  Luckily for me this was intentional and the blocks are not near each other in the wall hanging.

So the two first blocks are done.  Yeah!  Now I can think about quilting them.  This quilt is being done as a quilt-as-you-go.  I am going to do this one on my domestic machine.

Today I have some cleaning and Christmas decorating to take care of.  I am hoping it will go smoothly.  Then maybe, just maybe, I can get the last pass of quilting the hexagon quilt.  That would be amazing!  Wish me luck.

Take care everyone.

More progress on the appliqué blocks

For the past few days, during my breaks and lunch, I would sit down and relax, while doing some of my hand appliqué blocks.  This first one is the one I chose to do for December.  The basket, leaves and rose buds were already completed previously.  What was left to do were the five berries and the three flowers.  So far, I did the berries and one flower.

I find the flowers a bit tedious, with all the ins and outs of the petals.  So I gave it a bit of a break and picked up this next block to work on.  I wanted to keep the momentum going and figured that working on any block will get me further ahead.  This block had the round ring of the wreath, already completed and the rose buds are already folded and pressed.  Yesturday, I basted all the leaves and started appliquéing them to the block.  Five done and seven more to go.  The cut out pieces are on the paper at the top of the picture and the actual block is at the bottom of the picture.  

We'll see how this one goes....if I finish it first, I'll count it for the December's block instead.  Either way I am making progress on this quilt, so that's great!!

Take care everyone.  Enjoy your weekend!

Working on the required blocks

Yesturday, I was a bit tired from being in class all day, that I didn't get too much done.  After work, I moseyed on down to the studio and decided to just do some easy sewing.  It was Thursday already and I hadn't even touched any of the required blocks.....well the pieced ones anyway.  Things have been a blur this past week with class, that I've already forgotten that I did get my November's appliqué block done in the early part of the week.  So there is that.

Now I can also say that I have my required Sea Swept blocks done.  These are the paper piece blocks.  Three a week.  Done and checked off my list.

As for the chevron blocks, well that is another story.  I do believe I mentioned in a previous post that I fell behind on these ones.  I am two weeks behind.  These blocks I have listed as needing to do two per week.  So including this week, I needed six blocks all together.  Now I have one done and require another five more......it's possible to get them done by Sunday evening.

But.....I'm not sure, considering I asked my son to help me with bringing out all the Christmas decoration boxes, which means I will be doing some decorating and putting up the tree.  I also wanted to finish the last two 16" passes of the quilting on my hexagon quilt.  Each pass takes a full two hours, as it is very densely quilted.  

Then I also want to finish the last two required blocks for the Smith Mountain Morning quilt.....lots to do and so little time, before we go back to work on Monday and start the routine all over again....lol.  Life as it is!

I'm not complaining, just stating the obvious.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a four day work week and a three day weekend, every week.  That'd be nice.  Really nice!!

Take care everyone.

November's appliqué block done

On Monday, the HHQG had a guild meeting.  It was a member's night, where we get together to sew for Outreach.  The person who looks after Outreach determines what we can do to assist for a cause.  This time we did some Christmas placemats, for Links2care and a rainbow of blocks for a string quilt to donate.  I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

Yesturday, I worked on my appliqué block for November.  I posted about it a couple of days ago and since then I finished it.  Whoohoo!!  I am so happy.  This block didn't take me too long to do.

Now I can move on to the block for December.  I am on schedule for the appliqué blocks, so that's great!  Now I need to spend some time getting the paper pieced blocks and the regular pieced blocks done.  I am also behind in finishing quilts, to finish off the year with the same as I started.....now I know realistically that I will not meet this last goal, as it was pretty aggressive to begin with, but I want to see just how much I can reduce my list by.  Anything less will be nice.

Today I am going to try working on quilting the hexagon quilt some more.  I believe I have approx. 3.5 more 16" x width of the quilt sections left to quilt, so that puts me at almost half way done.  That is great as far as I am concerned.  I thought it would take me longer to get to this point.  Wish me luck.....  If luck is on my side, and my hands are not acting up, I will be aiming for two sections!!  Again, wish me luck!

Take care everyone.  Have a great day!

Mom's appliqué quilt

It all started a long long time ago, as you will see from the fabric selection, when someone, who would teach classes in quilting, had started an appliqué block.  She would use the block to demonstrate the different techniques.  Then the block got put aside.  Another class came around and she would start another block, and so forth.  

By the time this person stopped doing classes and started cleaning up and decluttering her space, this bundle of blocks had twelve background squares, four blocks were complete, one was in progress and another few had the pieces cut out, but nothing done, not even any indication of what the pattern for that block was going to be.  

This person had a quilter's form of a garage sale at a meeting of friends.  At this meeting, my mom decided that she would purchase this bundle of fabric pieces and see what she could do with it.  This is where I came in.  My mom knew that I was working on an appliqué quilt and showed me all the pieces that she had.  From my experience, I was able to deduce the intended design of a couple of blocks, and figured the remaining odd pieces were likely extras, possible from ideas that did not materialize.

My mom set herself to finishing the four blocks that we had figured out, and during this time, each time we would go fabric shopping, we'd keep an eye out for coordinating fabric, so that she could finish the last four blocks that were not yet determined.  The remaining four blocks were designs my mom found through various sources.

I've only recently started quilting it.  I stabilized the quilt with quilting in the ditch from top to bottom.  This way if I have to unload the quilt and reload it, it is all in one piece.  It was a good idea that I did this as it has already been on and off the machine a couple of times.  Things happen and customer quilts take precedence.  All the cornerstones are done and I was just getting started with the sashing, the last time I had to unload the quilt.

There has been and still going to be a lot of ruler work on this quilt.  I'm going to have to find some time where I have a large block of time with no quilting commitments, to try and advance on this quilt.  When it comes to this amount of quilting, I really have to be in the right frame of mind.  

The last time this quilt was on the frame was Sept 9th/2025.  There is still a lot to do, but still wanted to share this with you now.  I'll show you the progress on it when I get going again on it.  I'll also show you some of the blocks in future posts.

Take cares everyone.