Quilting sleepy bear

Today is getting late.  Didn't get a chance to do any quilting today.  It happens that way sometimes.  So today I will show you what I was working on yesturday.  I think it turned out nice.

What do you think of this?

    

I quilted this quilt for a friend.  She made the top for her grandson.  I think it turned out really well. I think her young grandson, the hockey fan, is going to be ecstatic for this one.  Nice bright kids fabric and his favourite theme, hockey.  Check out the whole quilt.

Her grandson's favourite colour is orange.  All that is left to do is the binding.  Hope they like it.

Spider web quilt

A spider web quilt.  I've not seen any that I did not like.  Some are scrappier than others and some are planned.  Some are dramatic and others are soft pastel baby quilts.  I like them all.  Spider web quilts allow you to use up small pieces and anything goes in it.  I made one with white for the base colour and the webs were all different blues.  Another one I made was a soft yellow for the base and all different pastel colours for the webs.  Above is a red base and below is a poison green base.  What ever your choice you can't go wrong.

Spider webs are easy to make.  They are easier to make by paper piecing.  The wedges above are equal to one half the block.  When the wedges are complete just rip off the paper and sew blocks together.  I am still in the process of making this poison green version.  On this quilt you may notice the constant colour of pink or purple in the first strip before and after the poison green wedge, though all different shades.  The red version above uses the colour blue for it's constant colour.  I feel this effect helps to contain the scrappiness. Gives it somewhat of an organized look.  Do you see the variety of scrapes. I just love scrappy quilts.  Most of the quilts I make are with a variety of fabrics.  They just seem to hold my interest longer.  Each time you look at them you notice something new.

I will post a picture of the finished quilt when it is done.  May take a while though as I have eight other quilts  waiting to be quilted.  Or I may just slip this one ahead of the others as this one is for my own bed.

Leaders and enders

Leaders/Enders are a great way to accomplish a lot of quilting without really seeming like you are actually working on it. Beside my sewing machine are some piles of pre-cut fabric to make specific units.  On the bottom are the pieces partially put together for a spool, my main leader/ender quilt.  On the upper left hand side are the spool pieces waiting for their turn to be made, and on the right hand side is the second leader/ender that I am starting for when I do not have any spool parts cut up.

How it works is I will be working on piecing blocks for a quilt, currently my spider web quilt seen in the picture below.  When I finish a block and need to take it out of the machine, instead of cutting the threads, I would put one part of the block pieces through to make a spool.  This saves on time, thread and gets an otherwise monotonous task, of the 544 spool blocks that I need, done.

See the leader/ender still in the machine?  That is the ender of the spider web block, so that I could cut off the block, and now it becomes the leader for when I am ready to start another spider web block.  The piece in the machine is part of the Bonnie's Celtic Solstice Mystery quilt that I have decided to do in Xmas fabrics.   I was able to get 12 done at the same time as I worked at the spider web quilt.  I am so glad that Bonnie had this technique posted on her site at https://quiltville.com/index.html.  I get so much more out of the time I spend quilting.  Visit her site.  She is amazing and has many free tutorials and patterns.

Below is a sneak peak of a set of four spider web blocks sewn together.  I will talk about this one and another spider web quilt I made tomorrow.  

Five minutes here and five minutes there...

Today after a full day of work I came home and thought, what will I do today.  I figured I only had about half an hour before I had to make dinner.  So I decided to get working on my wall hanging called Comfort by Coach House Designs.  I will post a picture of it later, when I have more done.  The reason I brought it up was for my musings for today.

As a quilter there are a lot of different things that we do to make a quilt.  We collect fabric, wash it, cut it, store it, sort it, iron it, trim it, sew it and wash it again once the project is do.  All these steps are done constantly for each and every quilt.  As quilters we usually have a large list of quilts we want to do in our life time, most often more than we will ever actually get done, but that does not stop us from trying.

One of the ways to do it would be to get organized, until the next creative world wind hits us and puts the place back into shambles.  Another way would be to find time to quilt around all the other things one has to do to maintain a household and happy family.  For me finding the time would mean taking five minute here and five minute there.  Today, I took out the appliqué, stitched the eight inches of the sewing machine down that was left.  I had to fix dinner.  Put that in the oven and came back to lay out the ribbon and pinned it down.  That's probably all I will be able to get done today, but it's more than I had done yesturday.

Tonight is mother daughter time, as my daughter wants to watch a movie.  We're going to start season four of Downton Abbey.  Did anybody besides me check out the new fabric line they have for Downton Abbey?

I will leave you with one of my leader/ender projects up above.  These blocks are not sewn together just placed on one corner of the design wall.  These blocks measure 3 1/2" (3" finished).  To make the size of quilt that I want with these blocks, I need to make approximately 554 blocks.  I have 75 blocks so far.  This quilt is not worked on constantly, it is only a leader/ender, but more about that in my next post.

Flower Garden quilt

Yesturday I showed you what I have been working on.  The Farmer's Wife blocks is considered my main project.  The picture above is my main hand work project.  The picture is just a part of the quilt I am making from a pattern from Blooming Stitches by Kim Hannay called Blooming Quilt.  I love the hand stitched flower blocks, but wanted a larger quilt that also included additional types of blocks (ie. flying geese units).

The picture to the left is the starting off point.  As you can see from the picture above on the right hand side, I took some graph paper and figured out the size I wanted to make the quilt and what size each square needed to represent to get the quilt the size I wanted it and started to play.  I like designing, trying this and that, until I get a picture that is pleasing to me.  For myself I wanted a more feminine feel to the quilt so I chose softer colours.  The picture at the top of the post is my section A and on my design wall I have section B & C (picture can be seen on the first post, at the top, first post).  All the main blocks are sewn, all but 3 hand stitch flower designs and a couple of additional appliqué blocks that I added to the design.  I call this quilt Flower Garden.  I will work on my hand work when going 

on long rides as a passenger, when going to the Quilting Bee, maybe while waiting at an appointment or just when I want to sit and relax for a change while listening to an audiobook.   This quilt may still take me some time to finish, but that is ok.  I am enjoying the process of it.

Is quilting my passion or an obsession...

Our hobbies, passions or obsessions.....no matter how you look at it, have a direct relation to who we are and what e do or become.  I think there is a fine line between passions and obsessions.  How do you define it?  The number of quilts you do?  The amount of hours you spend doing it?  The amount of money it cost? Or is it the amount of time spent thinking about it?  I have to confess.  If it is the latter that puts it over the edge into obsession......I guess I am obsessed.  I mean I think about it almost all the time.  I enjoy the inspiration that I get from all sorts of sources.  I find inspiration everywhere, including my old linoleum bathroom floor.  When you meet other quilters or artsy people, the conversation and ideas can start one way and end up in a completely different direction.  Since I have started quilting I have met many, many people.  Quilters in person, at stores, quilt shows, or even online all contribute their opinions and ideas that start a seed of another idea.  Even the places I have gone to over this period of time has given me yet another view point to bounce ideas off of.  I find inspiration everywhere.  My mind just cannot turn it off......definitely obsessed.

Oh well...here goes.  Hi, my name is Ida and I am a quilt-acholic!!!

These blocks are what I am working on at this time.  They are blocks from the book The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt by Laurie Aaron Hird.  There are 111 blocks to inspire you.  I have selected a total of 35 blocks to make a queen size quilt.  I have decided to set the blocks differently.  The blocks are only the start of an idea, the idea to put sashing on each block came from another source of inspiration and the white spots between the blocks on the wall came yet again from a different idea that has been sitting in my head for the right time to come out and play.  I will have to let you know later if my idea works.

Stay tuned.

The quilt that started my journey

In 2003 the quilting bug bit me.  It started out innocently.  I saw a book called Nickle Quilts and thought it would be nice to pass some time sewing while the baby slept.  Boy was I ever naive.  I picked up some fabric, little bits here and there.  Started cutting shapes, collecting more bits and pieces, sewing some and on and on I went.  I was hooked and didn't even know it.  With the little that I knew about quilting, how was I to know that one quilt comes after the next.  Little did I know as well that the first quilt I decided to do was pretty ambitious for a beginner.

Along the way I've met some nice people, visited some quilt stores and tried to learn everything that I could.  I was doing well just moving slowly along, getting the blocks done. One block at a time.

I managed to get to about one third of the way done when I thought, oh my, what have I gotten myself into!  By that time it was too late.  I took a break from this quilt to make some smaller quilts to learn different techniques. I needed to make a total of 144 blocks, each block has 24 pieces and each block finishes at 6 3/4 inch.  I finally finished the quilt, quilted and all in April/2008.  I thoroughly enjoyed the whole process from start to finish.  

This is my quilt.  It is a queen size quilt.  Later  in 2009, I entered the quilt in the guild show with another quilt I had made and this quilt had a note of honourable mention.  The second quilt won 2nd place for Best First Time Entry, but that one you will see another time.

The games I play...

I love quilting.   Quilting allows me the means to express my creativity.  It gives me a chance to open my mind to all the possibilities with shapes, colour choices and design options.  Quilting helps me feel calm and relaxed and gives me patience to deal with things in my life.  It takes me outside of myself, into another world where all the small stuff just doesn't matter.  My family understands this and respects my need to quilt.

There are times in life that things are off beat and one doesn't know how to move forward.  I get that way sometimes in my quilting too.  In life you take one step at a time.  In the end things will change, stay the same, fix themselves or just not matter anymore.  In quilting it can be the same.  Having difficulty with a design, just put it aside and let your brain sort it out.  Maybe that is one of the reasons I have 23 different projects, but another reason is because some are at different stages of completion. Some of my projects are handwork, some need quilting, while some are leader/enders and others may be stuck on a design feature.

Unlike life, when I just don't know where to start or what to do next, I reach for my jars.  When I have little inspiration or am stuck on a particular creative step in my work, I change gears.  I will pull a tab out of one of my jars above.  The first jar, the UFO jar has tabs of all my 23 projects I am working on.  The second jar is "The quilt want to be..." jar.  This one has tabs of quilts I want to do in my life time.  The third jar is for when I don't think I can handle a whole quilt and need something a bit easier.  This jar has tabs listing blocks from The Farmer's Wife book.

Yes, I know a silly game, but sometimes you just need a little guidance or direction to help get over a road block and to get the creative juices running again.  Wish it were that simple in life.

What am I up to...

I've decided to share my passion for quilting with anyone that may be interested.  I have currently 23 projects on the go.  I have been quilting for over eleven years now (since I was expecting with my son Dylan).  You could say I have an obsession.  As my design wall suggests, I have many different styles and likes.  For those who choose to follow in my day to day interest, welcome.

Today, I have been working on cutting up fabric for Bonnie's mystery quilt.  I've decided to do it in Christmas fabrics.  The mystery is out, but I am not telling you what it will look like.  I am sure that most of you are not aware of Bonnie, yet.  You will have to just play along.  Here are the fabrics that I have been cutting up.

Stay tuned for more....