Starting Tiny Town block seven for July

Now I am starting Tiny Town block seven.  Block seven is for the month of July.  Our class this month has been moved up by a week, so we only have three weeks to finish this block instead of the usual four.  I have been trying to  pace myself with block three and this one, but that pretty much went out the window.  I have the finishing touches to put on June's block, and I need to have this block done in only one and a half weeks.  Can I do it?  Well, I will certainly try!!!

This block has two blocks with a lot of detail, but the last one is a small one.  I will hopefully have most of it done this week, as I am on holidays this week.  I also want to put blocks one, two and three together in a complete row.

Stay tuned to see if I make the deadline.  I work good under pressure, most of the time.....

Finished the 3D pinwheel quilt

Here are the final pictures for the 3D pinwheel quilt, quilted and binding attached.  You may find the colours a bit more true at the bottom of is post.

This is a close up of the quilting.  In the spaces between the pinwheels I quilted windmills, the small border has continuous loops around the quilt and the large border has a semi wavy motif, with echoing.

This next picture is the quilt all folded up ready to wrap.  You can see the the windmills better in this picture.  You can also see the 3D pinwheels better too.

Here is the mother and father to be, Melanie and Andrew.  This was a picture take at the shower that was give on Saturday.  The mother to be is my niece and god daughter.  Her little bump is so cute.  She is due on July 17th.  She thinks it should come out now. LOL.  I do think they both really liked the quilt.  I am so happy for them. 

Now that this quilt is out the door, time to get cracking on the others.  I have to finish the quilt for my first niece Michelle and start on Melanie's quilt, my second niece.

Using up the left overs

As I mentioned in my last post, I was going to show you what my quilting bee friend Carol did with her left over fabric, from making the lap size log cabin.  She made two table toppers or you could also consider them to be wheelchair quilts.

Here is the first one.  This is a very simple quilt that looks a bit complicated and a nice use of small leftover pieces.  If you look very closely you will notice that this quilt is basically made up of a set of two strips.  One in the coloured fabric and one in the white.  It is laid out like a rail fence pattern.  The only difference here is that she would have laid the quilt on the design wall/floor to put her colours in groups of four. Or you could make the large block using the four sets of strips in the same colour and lay them out as blocks, distributing the colours across the quilt.

This next one is very nice too!  I could really see this in a queen sized quilt made up in masculine colours for a modern looking quilt for the guy in your life.  This is also a very easy quilt to assemble. Carol would have used her leftover strips from making the log cabin quilt, but you can use up some of your fat quarters or those strips you are saving from the Bonnie's scrap users system.  The layout is again the same as a rail fence pattern.  Just make your blocks what ever size you want and twist every second block to the left.

If you do like Carol did and place your darkest colour (or that wow fabric) on the edge, you will create a zig zag step effect all across the quilt.  Again Carol used white between the colours, which is very pretty and soft looking, but you could use any colour.

And here I thought to add in the original log cabin quilt, so that you can compare colours and see just how different a quilt can look, even when using the same fabrics.  Three different quilts and all of them have a completely different feel to them.  Just beautiful.  Nice job Carol!

I am a fan of Bonnie Hunter as most of you have probably noticed by now.  I truly love her methods of using what you have, scrap quilts and her scrap user system.  Especially her scrap users system.  After I finish a project and trim it up, I will cut up the left overs to add them to my scrap users system, but......next time I do finish a quilt, I think I will see if I might want to make another quilt using the left overs instead.

Carol's Log Cabin quilt

Today is Friday, the last day of the week before my holidays.  I will be off with the kids next week doing various day trips here and there.  Looking forward to the time off. As usual I am also hoping to get lots done.

At the last quilt bee meeting I took pictures of some work that my friend Carol had done or is working on.  She has an ambitious goal of completing all her projects.  She has many tubs full of various things an different stages of completion, from when she owned a store front, quilt store.

This beautiful lap size quilt uses eight log cabin blocks.  There is quite a distinction between the darks and the lights that the design really pops out.  I like the main grey colour that she used with the subtle orange.  I've noticed lately that grey is coming back in, in a big way.  Since I've started quilting twelve years ago, I rarely noticed grey on the shelves in the quilt stores.  Now I am seeing whole shelves filled with grey.

Very nice Carol.  Your quilt is beautiful!

Pay attention to the fabric on this quilt, because tomorrow I will show you a couple of other quilts Carol has made with the left over fabric.  Same fabric, but completely different quilts.  

Slow but steady

I am back.  My Dad is back home and things are starting to settle back down around here.  Things are well again.  While my Dad was in the hospital, the family was taking shifts twenty-four hours a day.  The infection made him quite disoriented, sleepy and reverting back to his native tongue (French).

So, while he slept I did some hand work.  In this case mostly dismantling hexagons.  In general it would take an hour or so to do one diamond, depending on whether Dad was sleeping or awake.  Slow process, but I needed something to do to pass the hours at the hospital. I would work on this while there was light and during the nights when lights were out, I would take out my tablet to read.

I started with twenty-two diamonds and now have only eleven more to go.  This is also something you can do while watching tv.  It would take a bit longer, but it is not a rush.  I find the tasks for quilting to be more of a pastime.  I will work at reconstructing a quilt at my leisure.  It is kind it therapeutic, peaceful and helps to take your mind off of worries by giving your hands something to do and your mind something to concentrate on.

On the one day when I came home from a night spent at the hospital, I went out back, where my hubby sits and reads his paper in the mornings.  I am just recalling the night and thinking of going to sleep, when I look down and see this beautiful splash of colour.  The colours are so cheerful and uplifting.

Later that day after a much needed sleep I roamed the garden to check out what else has been going on.  That is when I came across these two rose bushes.  These roses were here when we move in, but because of moving them to a better sunnier location the one year, they didn't bloom the last year, so I am seeing them for the first time now.

I thought the orange one to be quite unique and the red one had numerous blooms on it.  I cut the bushes last year right down to give them a new start, but in time they will be beautiful.  They are climbers and will climb the fence eventually.

Now that I have had a couple of days to get back to normal, I will start sharing with you what I am up to.  Tomorrow though I will share with you what one of my Quilting Bee friends has been working on.  Until that time, stop and take some time to smell the roses (pun intended).

Just letting you know

Just letting you know that there will not be any posts for a bit.  My father is back in the hospital.  Once I deal with what is happening I can get back into posting.

A day for getting things done

Today so far has been a day for getting things done.  A great big hurray!!!  I finished quilting my big queen sized log cabin quilt!!!  Pictures will follow once I finish the binding.  I made the binding and sewed it on by machine.  Now I need to tack it down by hand.  I am really so excited about this finish. I haven't finished a quilt of my own for a very long time.  My daughter is excited too, because now I can start quilting her quilt.

As I had the walking foot on the machine from sewing the binding on, I decided to finally finish the remaining pot holders that I started a little while ago.  They turned out good.

Later after I make lunch, I am thinking of sitting down and tacking down the binding of the 3D pinwheels quilt.  The baby shower is coming up shortly.  Can't show up with an unfinished present.

Happy thoughts to everyone on this cloudy day.

Working on quilting my Log Cabin quilt

Today I am working on quilting my Log Cabin quilt.  It's going great so far.  I have all the dark halves done and I have just over half of the light halves done.  I'm liking it so far.

For the dark side, I've decided to go simple with straight lines following each log.  I also decided to do the light side simple, but this time with all curvy lines.  I am quilting daisies and a vine to connect them to each other.

The daisy design is called Tropical Vine Bdr. by Laura Estes in 3 1/2" size.  I like it.  As I did the dark with lines, it is making the light side stand out so much.  I used a light taupe coloured thread so that it would blend with both the dark and light side, as well as the backing which is beige.

I am taking a short tea break, and I'll be back to it.  I am trying very hard to get this one completely done today.  What are the chances?  Don't know but I will give it a good shot.

I have my daughter's grey backing fabric in the washer now for her 16 patch pinwheel quilt.  I need to pin it and start sewing in the ditch to secure it.  She is still trying to finalize her choice for the quilting designs.

Stars lap quilt

I found another quilt I made.  I had forgotten about this one.  It sits on the back of my chair in my guest room/sitting room.  I sit in this chair often while I do my handwork.  The reason I forgot about it is that I my Sewing Machine Appliqué wall hanging that I am working on, is draped over top of this quilt.  I haven't worked on the wall hanging since....well I don't know how long, but a very long time. I think it hasn't been since before last summer when I received a couple of boxes to sort out and make or quilt some quilts.

This quilt was started back in Jan/05 and was finished in Dec/10.  This quilt was something that got started from the sample squares mail out.

There used to be a store in St. Jacobs, Ontario that you could sign up to receive a 2 1/2" square from each of the fabrics they got in during the month. Some of them came to me by mail each month.  Maybe about a year into it, the store announced that they were closing.  They had a big going out of business sale.

That's when I picked up some more packages of these muddied greens, browns, blacks, reds and some blues.  I rounded out the squares with some fat quarters that I picked up at Quilter's Fancy and started making the quilt.  The start date is from the time I started collecting the fabric, until I finished quilting the quilt.

I like how the blocks go right into the border and the middle of the quilt seems to float on the border. I used a autumn themed flannel black fabric for the backing.  Below is a picture of a close up.  On the right is the black border fabric. 

This was an easy quilt to make.  I figure I may make it again, this time with brighter colours.  The lap size quilt is a great size for give away quilts.

I will have to do some more thinking.  Maybe I have a couple of other quilts hiding around that I forgot about, though I doubt it.

My version of The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt, block [22]

Last month is when I actually decided to get back into making these Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks.  This first attempt back did not go so well.  My block was [22] called Corn & Beans.  Now if your not a quilter, you may not know that some squares, especially the blocks with a lot of small pieces and even the ones with a lot of half square triangles, can be tricky.

With these blocks it is especially important to make sure your pieces are precise and your 1/4" seam is a 1/4".  If you are off even just a 1/16" it will make the difference between a successful block or a frustrating mess.  If you are off by only 1/16", compounded by the many pieces means that somewhere along the way the pieces will not fit.

I started making this block.  I had all my pieces cut out and laid out in order for piecing.  Well I started with the middle, which turned out good.  I started on the half square triangles.  That is where I ran into trouble.  I had the centre pieces together and tried to put them onto the middle piece, but it just wouldn't work.

Well I am back today to give it another try.  All of the half square triangles were off only 1/16" and that equated to being 1/2" off when I tried to put the large line onto the middle piece.  So, now I recut the pieces, or most of them anyways.  My eyes are starting to cross though, so I will have to finish this maybe tomorrow.

The pieces at the bottom of the above picture are the error pieces.  I will just use them in a scrappy quilt.  Until next time, enjoy yourself.

My version of The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt, block [51]

There are a bunch of books and clubs out there that provide multitude of blocks from the public domain to create a quilt.  The two I know off hand are the Dear Jane quilt and The Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt.  The theme is to challenge yourself by making all the blocks, of various skill levels.  Most are pieced, but some are appliqué.  The Dear Jane blocks are 4.5", which finish at 4".  At the time that I saw this club for the first time I thought, these people are insane!  Now it doesn't faze me. 

In the middle somewhere, I came across The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt book.  These blocks are 6.5", which finish at 6".  I thought ok, this is more reasonable.  There are still some pretty small pieces in some of the blocks, but still more reasonable than the 4" blocks.  So, I bought the book and started making some of the blocks.  I didn't want to make all the blocks and I didn't want to duplicate the quilt on the cover.  I just wanted to get my hands working with all these small blocks and see what all the hype was about.

It is quite nice when you can finish a small block with all the small pieces.  Some of them are very challenging.  The book gives you the picture of what you have to make and the pieces you will find on the CD.  But you have to be able to translate the picture into a block, because they don't give you any further directions on how to construct the block.

There are 111 blocks in the book.  For the design that I have come up with, I needed 52 blocks.  I went through the book and decided which blocks I wanted to do.  I wrote them on a paper and put them in a jar.  Each time I wanted to make a block, one of my kids would pull a tag out and I would make it.  A while ago it ended up being put aside for other deadlines.

I little while ago I decided I wanted to finish this quilt, so I set a reminder on my tablet, for once a month on the second weekend of the month, to complete a Farmer's Wife block.  I started this quilt in Nov/2012, and for a while I was regularly making these blocks.  At this point I had made 39 blocks, leaving only 13 more to make.  That is 75% of the block made already. Yay!!!

Yesturday, I got the reminder and pulled out a tag. Block 51 is what came out.  This is one of the more simple blocks.  In the book it is called Hovering Birds.  Keep in mind that older blocks can go by numerous names depending on the area that I came from.

This is my version of The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt, block [51].  I made this one low contrast in colour.  All of my blocks are being made in old civil war type fabrics.  I haven't made a quilt in this look yet.  For my design, each of my blocks is going to be surrounded by a dark brown border.

I will show you the design in another post down the road.  This month I finished my block.  One done, now 12 more to go.  Maybe later I can show you some of the 39 blocks I already made.

Enjoy your evening everyone.

Second part of Tiny Town block three done

The second part of Tiny Town block three is done.  I just finished all the hand embroidery on the bird cage.  It doesn't look like much but it took me all morning to complete it.  Later, I will put the mail box block and this bird cage block together. 

Next, I will tackle the last part of block three.  This one has Sun Bonnet Sue and her dog.  This section goes below the mail boxes.  Once I am done this section I can basically put together the top 1/3 of the quilt, as I will have blocks one, two and three done.

So far, I am on schedule in meeting the deadline for our next class.  After this block, I have three sections for the seventh block to do.  As you can tell we are not doing them in order.  As per the instructor, there is no particular reason why. Just because she wants to do them this way.  I think it is so people cannot get too far ahead, to keep everyone working at the same stage.

Tiny Town progress on block three

Tiny Town progress on block three.  I have been working on my block whenever time would allow.  Who knew it would take this long to do three simple mail boxes.  I certainly didn't, but again I didn't know it was going to get this crazy busy at work either.  I'm not complaining mind you, because this business keeps me in my job.

I'm reminded that this business may continue on until the fall, so I'll let you know now that my posts may come in drips and drabs.  When I am not at working, taking care of the family or doing my hand work, I am still working on quilting my Log Cabin quilt.  That will take some time still, but it is looking very nice so far.  The Log Cabin quilt is going to be for hubby's and my bed.  I am not letting anyone talk me out of keeping this quilt.  I really like it and I think it will make a nice autumn quilt.

Until next post, enjoy the beautiful weather and spending time with your family.