Working on the Midnight Flight quilt again

A few days ago I was working on my Tiny Town blocks number 5 & 9.  While assembling the blocks I realized that I did not have a leader ended out. I finished all the pre-cut units I had for my drunkard's path.  Here are the last units, all trimmed up nice and neat, until I cut up some more.  There are enough here to make another two full blocks.

I looked around to figure out what I could use as a leader/ender.  I didn't want to waste time, so when I spotted the blocks for the Midnight Flight quilt I immediately thought, why not!  Midnight Flight is currently my main project that I am working on, but I had taken a short break to do other things.

Now it can do double duty and be my leader/endear project too.  These are the last pieces I need to sew together before I move on to the next step.  They are all chained together in a four-patch unit.  It makes it easier to sew them without worry about them being mixed up or sewn in the wrong orientation.

Or so I thought!!!  Do you see what happened in the blocks below?  I was ironing some blocks that I made a while back and noticed the four-patch is twisted the wrong way.  So, as every quilter must do in there lift time, more often than desired, I had to frog them, rip-it rip-it!

It didn't take me that long though and before I knew it the squares were rotated and sewn back together.  This next picture is my container for the quilt pieces for Midnight Flight.  On the right hand side are all the pieces that are done already and on the left side are the pieces that I will need for the next step.  Beneath the chevrons on the left I have the last of the four-patches in green and in blue to finish the whole block.  It's coming along nicely.

It went a bit faster too doing them as leader/enders.  Once these blocks are done I can either put them together to get the centre of the quilt top done, or I can work on the other chevrons that are navy in the middle with green on one side and turquoise blue for the other side.  These new chevrons will make up the pieces for the border.

No quilting for me tonight, I am heading out to visit our newest addition to the family. One of my nieces and her husband had their first baby.  A boy they named Hayden.  Love that name!  This makes me a Great Auntie.  I always bug them by making an emphasis on the "GREAT" part. LOL!!!

Tomorrow is another day.  We will see what it will bring us.  Have a GREAT one everyone!

Reworked my sewing table

One of the things I did yesturday was reworked my sewing table.  I had my table custom made by a gentleman who started in the woodworking business.  I drew up a plan and sent him the measurements.  As he was making it I came up with a couple of things that I wanted to add to the units.  One of them was a lip or edge for the table surface.  The purpose was so when I was quilting large quilts, they wouldn't fall off the table and drag on my work.

So I called him up and asked if he could add an edge to the tables and left it at that.  When I got the table I was very happy.  He did a great job.  He did everything I asked him to do, and some.  He added a peg board in the lost space between the sewing machine table and the self for storage, and added wooden dividers in all the drawers to help keep it organized.  I liked it very much. Still do.

As time went by, I realized that the edging I asked him to install was quite tall.  It was almost 3" tall.  At the time I didn't really notice, but later when one of the pieces started to get loose due to people leaning against it to talk to me or some naturally go to sit on the edge of a table, I realized just how tall it was.

Yesturday I finally decided to deal with it.  I took out my table sew, sander, drill and bits.  I removed the pieces and cut off 1 3/4" off the height of the wood edge pieces.  Now they measure 1".  I think this will be the best size to do the job.

I also added more screws to hold the pieces on.  He initially had two screws per piece, but two of the pieces are almost 4' long.  I added an additional three screws for those two pieces and one for the small edge.  Now they are spaced out at approx. 11" apart.  As you can see in the picture above, I also added my meter stick to the side edge, facing my cutting board.

Here is a picture looking in the other direction.  It's easier to see the height with the sun casting a shadow.

Another small task done.  It only took me about a couple of hours, including cleaning up the mess I made doing it, vacuum and all.  It's only a little detail, but sometimes it's those little details that drive you bonkers, especially when I have to remind everyone not to lean on the edge or when the piece falls because the screws are no longer holding properly.

I'm back to work this morning.  Enjoyed the couple of days off attached to the weekend.  It almost seemed as though I had a week off.  Refreshed and ready to tackle the day.

Make the best of it!

Started working on the Tiny Town blocks 5 & 9

Yesturday I had a day off.  What did I do on my day off you ask?  I did a bit of this, a bit of that and a lot of stuff.  The first thing I did was work on the paper work for adopting our family Vizsla.  I have finally decided that we are ready for another dog.  It's been three years that we lost Buddy, we miss him.  The kids are soooo excited.  Me I am excited and nervous as well.  This breed is very active and we have been out of touch with caring for an animal for a while.  I know it is natural and like riding a bike, but we have to go though the training all over again.  If everything goes well we should have her by winter.

After that I worked on my journal and looked at some new recipes I want to try.  Once I did this I figured that I couldn't procrastinate any longer, so I finished cutting out all the pieces for my Tiny Town quilt block number five that I started on Sunday.  It's now ready to sew.  There is a lot of work to be done on the bottom portion.

After lunch, made by my daughter, I worked on cutting out block number nine between doing other things.  After sorting out and cleaning up my sitting area of all the stuff like the books and magazines that I had to deal with, I went back to cutting and finished block number nine.

Before I started block number nine though, I took a break to do something that I have been wanting to try for a while.  I took a 3/16" piece of plastic that we had here and cut out the beach ball paper template.  I cut it out using a regular jig saw and took a rough sand paper and sanded down the edges to make them smooth.  

I was so pleased with the results, I went ahead and cut out the templates for the reconstruction Dresden plate quilt that I had and the reconstruction six-point star.  It worked out great.  Now I have the templates for cutting the shapes out accurately.

I will show you more about the beach ball template later.  It is a new quilt I will be working on.  I haven't started the quilt yet, but I will soon.  I will be able to start this new one guilt free, because it will be a charity quilt.  You will have to wait and see for the rest later.

Today I have another day off and I plan to do a lot again today.  Hope everyone has been enjoying their summer thus far.  Have a great day.

Mom's snow flake wall hanging

Here is another quilt my Mom made.  This one though is the size of a wall hanging.  The blocks finish at only three inches each.  She hand appliqué the mittens and she also hand embroidered the snowflakes.  Red and white quits are always nice and this one, because of it's small size and tiny mittens, is so cute.  Great job again, Mom!

I thought I would share with you a picture of the other side of the seasons.  From winter to summer.  I do like the simplicity of the daisy.  They are so carefree.  A nice and traditional flower.  

I recently took a bunch of pictures of the flowers in my garden.  As I was looking at the pictures, I noted that all of the flower are either pink or purple, or something in between.  This loan picture needed to stand alone.  Hope you don't mind my including some of my other interests in with my quilting blog, but most quilters that I know have many interests and hobbies.

I am almost done doing the spring cleaning in my kitchen.  Just have a few more things to do, and I can get back to working on my Tiny Town stuff.

Mom's lattice quilt

I made a similar quilt for charity a while back.  Mom loved it so much she wanted to make one of her own.  So, I drafted up the pattern for the size she wanted to make and told her to just concentrate on doing the scrap sashings.

Once she was done that, we looked in her cupboard to see what she had available to make the plain squares, without having to buy anything.  At first she was thinking the light blue she had, but there was not enough. Instead she used the light blue for the corner stones.  We eventually found a light peachy-yellow broadcloth that she had a large enough piece to make the large blocks.

Mom worked on the quilt for a bit and when she was done she called me to help figure out the borders.  You have to understand that I don't mind this kind of help, at all......and you see.....we get fed really well when we go.  My family is big on eating.  Every one of us.  So, to dinner we went to help Mom.

We made a complete mess with auditioning one fabric after another.  In the end we found a darker fabric with a peachy-yellow background for the first border and a light blue for the second border.  The light blue is just a bit darker than the corner stones and it happens to have some flowers in the peachy-yellow colour similar to the first border.  It was fun and it was amazing that we were able to find something that matched so well. Keeping an eye on the goal, all the while.  Our goal is using up what we have on hand and being creative on how to use it up in an attractive way.  I think she did well.

It is a different colour scheme than what she may have made if she bought all new fabric, but it still looks pretty.  This quilt top was made completely with stash fabric.  There was a very little dent made in her stash.  I sometimes think this fabric breeds at night, like rabbits.  Hee hee! LOL!

Off topic, look at the bounty that I got at the farmer's market yesturday.  Doesn't it look yummy! I picked up some kale, spinach, broccoli, parsley, beets, red & yellow peppers, zucchini and mushrooms. Plus I picked up some raspberries, blueberries and strawberries.  All as fresh as you can get it, outside of picking it yourself.  Doing my part to support the local farmers and eat healthy.

Now I can try some of the new recipes that look delicious, as part of my eating better.  I am dumping all the garbage and going back to simple goodness.

Have fun everyone!

Mom's 99-bottles quilt

Last week my son and I were over to my Mom's for dinner.  This time I remembered to take the pictures of her quilts.  So, over the next few days I will be sharing them with you.  Right now I am completely distracted with reading all the nutrition books, primarily about Paleo.  I just can't stop ready.  So needless to say I have not gotten anything around here done.

Here is the first picture of Mom's 99-bottles quilt.  Mom wanted the quilt to fit her double bed and hang down the bed a lot, so we decided to make it all most queen size.  Mom saw this pattern in a magazine that she purchased and had to make it.  She didn't look at the pattern though and was very surprised to find out that the small nine patches used 1/2" finished blocks.  That kind of put a damper on things.

Mom doesn't mind challenging herself from time to time, but she mainly makes quilts to have some mindless sewing.  When she read the pattern she almost put it aside.  I say almost, because back up to another time I went over for dinner, when mom was telling me about this quilt.  I saw her face light up when she was talking about it and I saw the light go off when she basically said she wasn't going to do it.

At that point I asked mom for some paper and a pencil.  I explained to her that where there is a will there is a way.  So I took the pattern and redrafted it.  Instead of 1/2" squares I made them 1" still small, but now more manageable.  I had to reduce the amount of repeats, the amount of large squares and the sashings.  In the end we had a quilt that not only became more manageable but also fit her bed better. Her face lite up again and it pleased me to see it.

    

For the next few days Mom went through all of her fabric scraps cutting up 3 1/2" squares for the alternating squares and what was left into 1 1/2" squares for the nine patches.  When she had a fair amount done she went to the fabric store and bought a piece of yardage for the white that she wanted to be all the same.  As you can see, the white is what holds the design all together.  It's the constants that is sometimes needed when making a scrap quilt.

Here are a couple of close up pictures to show the detail of the quilt and the variety of fabrics that where used.  Mom did not buy any coloured fabric to make this quilt and do you know what?  It doesn't even look like she made a dent in her fabric.  Mom did a great job, the quilt turned out beautiful.  She just finished quilting and binding it last week.

Today is a new day and thing are going to change.  I have to come back to the land of the living.  Researching all of this reading material has me feeling like I am back to school, but my "paper" is handed in (I think I have a handle on it), and I am already using what I have learned.  I feel confident enough now to get back to "normal" and get some quilting done.

I now have four quilts pinned and ready to quilt.  I have to get to them.  I am surprised how far behind I feel by just taking the week off to research.  I have to get going on the appliqué blocks for Tiny Town. We have been assigned blocks 5 & 9 to have complete by our next class on Sept 19th.

I also have some work I am still working on for others and some of my own stuff. It will all get done. I enjoy the challenge of making sure that it does get done.

Hope you enjoyed my Mom's quilt. There will be more to follow, until I can get some of my stuff done.

Enjoy your day!

A bit of garden and a wild and goosey block

Yesturday was a day at the beach to celebrate one of my nieces daughter's birthday, followed by dinner at the Mandarin.  By the time we got home it was after 10:00 pm.  No quilting done yesturday.  In the morning I was taking some time to catch up on some reading.  

I started reading some books about healthy eating.  For the last couple of weeks I have been trying to eat better.  The more I read though the more confused I get.  There are so many books out there and all of them claim to be the better way to eat.  You have vegetarian with different levels, vegan and paleo just to name a few.  You have books that say you don't need to diet, you just have to eat the right foods, others that have you starving yourself and others that have you counting calories.  Wow!!!  All I want to do is eat healthier.

In any case part of the reason I haven't been getting as much quilty stuff done is that I have been trying to read to learn more about health.  Instead of my quilting I thought to share with you my garden by my front entrance.  I love the contrast between the lime green of the hosta and the deep green of the yew bush.  They stand out nicely.

Just in front of the rocks I have a pocket for planting.  I decided to plant ornamental grass.  The two in the front are now blooming with pretty little purple flowers and the one behind them is a Japanese blood ?somthing?  It is green with deep red tips. 

I wanted to also share with you a gorgeous quilt I saw on Bonnie Hunter's post of June 24/2015.  The quilt was made using Bonnie's Wild & Goosey block.  It's a raffle quilt for Bickford Cottage in Portage, Michigan.  The quilt was made by Edda Kraynak for their fund raiser to raise money for Alzheimer's research.  She did a beautiful job, absolutely stunning with all the tiny pieces.

A clips from Bonnie's sight, to spread the word, for anyone interested in helping out:

This is the second year I've made a raffle quilt for this event. Tickets are $5 each and can be obtained by stopping by in person (4707 W. Milham Ave.) or by contacting Janna Ritter or Cheryl Harris at 269-372-2100.

This next picture is the one and only wild & goosy block that I made so far.  This block measures 7" square.  Which means that the little flying geese block is only 3" finished.  Four flying geese all within a small 3" block makes for very tiny pieces.  If memory serves me It takes a little over an hour to make a complete block.  I haven't decided yet whether I want to make a quilt using this block, so it is just sitting on my design wall waiting for me to decide.  

If I do decide to make one, my colour scheme will be blue for all the flying geese, white to surround them, finishing off with a yellow at the end and finally a green to frame the whole thing.

The blue geese that meet in the middle form a churn dish pattern because I used the blue for the cornerstone. And I plan to do the same for the yellow.  This whole block is scrappy, but in a controlled colour scheme. It's a way to use up those very small pieces.  I may do it eventually, but unlike the recent monkey wrench block that I made, that I am just itching to make a quilt with, this block is more of an interest not an itch.  We shall see if that changes down the road.

Witch wall hanging

Last month sometime I came across a wall hanging that I started a long time ago, in Apr/04. This wall hanging was a case of chewing off more than I could handle.  The little bitty squares are only 1/2" finished.  To answer your unspoken question, yes I was crazy.  All I can say for myself is that I like a challenge.

I started with a needle point picture that I thought was sooooo cute. It comes from a magazine called Cross Stitch & Needlework October 1996 issue.  The pattern is called Harvest Witch by Lorri Birmingham.

I still really like the pattern, but I did not want to make another cross-stitch.  By this time I was fully into making quilts.  A while before I had seen a quilt made from the pattern of a cross-stitch, so I thought I would try it.  Little did I realize that the pattern I saw at the time was a small and easy piece. 

I started with graph paper to enlarge the squares and because I had to re-draft it to remove all the half squares and multi coloured thread blocks.  On the top right hand side I also included my coloured ledger with symbols.

From there I took that coloured ledger with symbols and started shopping for fabrics to use.  I made a couple of sheets showing the symbols that would match the fabrics I chose(shown taped to the lid of my blue container in the picture below).  I cut out a lot of 1" stripes, and cut them into 1" squares and organized them in this blue container with dividers.

I did assemble about ten rows before I realized what I had actually gotten myself into.  So this project ended up going away until I could figure out how to make it easier.  A few years later, I learned about a product that people use to do this sort of thing.  It is a fusible interfacing that has a grid on the one side(seen in the picture above).  The grid is 1" squares.  All of a sudden I had a renewed interest in doing this wall hanging again, so out it came.

I did the bottom 1/8th of the wall hanging before I stopped.  I found the interfacing made the piece vary stiff.  It was definitely precise with the sewing lines there for you to follow, but I could not deal with the way it felt.  So again, I put it away.  Waiting for another source of inspiration on how to tackle this project. 

Last month sometime it came to me.  I figured that I could tackle this bit by bit.  Making smaller sections which would be more manageable.  I will do it the regular way by sewing tiny block to tiny block, in sections of ten by ten.  Once they are done I will sew these "somewhat" larger blocks together.  The part that I am thinking will be easier is that instead of using the grid for the base, I will be using it to hold all the colour pieces in order.  I will call these my maps.

The above picture is two of the ten by ten blocks side by side.  This way I do all the sorting first, so now I just have to sew them.  Knowing this will still be a long term project, I figure this way I wound not have to try and figure out where I am, each and every time I take it out to work on.

As of today I have all of the wall hanging mapped out and ready to sew.  I am not willing to let this project go,  I really do still like it.

I will keep you all up to date on my progress, but a word of warning, it will be very sporadic.  It's not on the top of my list.  I do feel more positive now though, that this will get worked on and eventually finished.

A sample churn dish block

A while back, maybe a couple of weeks ago, I had an urge to make a sample block of a block called Monkey Wrench. Depending on the colour placement, it can completely change the look of the block.  The pattern that I have been drawn to lately has been the layout where the blocks are side to side and the light fabric, where I put the green in mine, connects to it's neighbour. The quilt pattern is usually call a dash lay out, because the lights make a dash effect across the quilt as they are surrounded by the dark fabrics.  

This is my one block.  I thought it would be enough to satisfy my itch to start this quilt, but it hasn't.  I still want to do a scrappy monkey wrench quilt set side by side.  I am holding myself back on this one.  Not only do I have many I need to do first, but this one will be completely consuming.  It will be so much fun to select different colours from all the scraps and push the limits with colour combinations.  This quilt when I do start it will be completely scrappy with no block alike.

For now I just admire the one block on my design wall while I work on other things. 

Working on the Scrappy Strips quilt and getting some Drunkard's Pathunits done

Yesturday I was working on the scrappy strips quilt and getting some drunkard's path units done. On the Scrappy Strip quilt I got all the horizontal rows done and on the Drunkards Path quilt I got 17 little units done.  It takes 16 little units to make a block, so that means I have enough to make another block.  Little by little it will get done, all between making other quilts.

Here are the Drunkard's Path units.  They just need to be trimmed and assembled.

Here is the Scrappy Strips centre all trimmed down.  All the scraps that were trimmed off the edges will now go back into the scrap bin and wait to be added into the next scrap quilt.

Now I will look to put the borders on.  I have a piece of solid navy blue fabric that I will use for the borders and the backing is a wide fabric with the Bears(football) logo and mascot.  Their colours are orange and navy blue.  That will work out nice.

This is a giveaway quilt.  It will be going to charity. This quilt is compliments of my friend Sandra for the backing, plus the red heart fabric and various other fabric pieces on the front, my friend Yvon for some of the fabric pieces on the front and a previous quilt bee member Florence for the borders.

Snowmen A to Zzzz.... T is for Twinkle, U is for Upon the house top andV is for Village

I didn't end up going to my parents for the weekend after all. Instead I caught up on some sleep.  I've not slept this late since.....well I really don't know when I've slept in the late.  I woke a 9:30 am feeling very refreshed, but know as I go through my day, my internal clock is all messed up.

Today I am working on getting the the scrappy strip quilt up off the floor and sewn up.  At this point I have all the parallel seams sewn and the first four horizontal rows sewn together.

I will wait to have the top sewn before posting a picture of it. So, in the meantime, let me share with you another block my daughter finished of her Snowmen A to Zzzz....  quilt.  This one is the T is for Twinkle, U is for Upon the house top and V is for Village.

She is certainly coming along in this quilt.  She is doing a great job. Keep it up Babe.

Another floret done

Been busy catching up at work from a week off and doing overtime. When I get home, I am exhausted.  Haven't done much quilty wise during the week and with dealing with family health issues, I may not get anything done this weekend either.  That is ok though.  We have to manage life as it comes and our other things have to get put aside for a bit.

I will be out of wifi range during the next couple of days, so I may not be able to post anything.  But, I will be taking things with me to do.  I just can't sit around with nothing to do for long.  During my breaks or lunched at work I was able to get another floret completed.

Sorry for the short post, but I really don't have much to share with you right now, especially with all that is going on around me.

Enjoy your weekend.

Great Granny squared using retro coloured fabrics

Here is another quilt on my bucket list of quilts using retro fabric.  This one is vary simple with mainly squares.  I intend to use up the left over scraps. I believe the squares measure 1 1/2" finished.

The quilt I intend to do is the white background quilt on the cover, against the wall, but I was thinking of making the actual blocks the size of the quilt laying on the seat of the bench on the cover page.  The one with the pink background. 

I really like the neatness of this quilt.  Even though it is a scrappy quilt, it is still organized with the colour placement.  The picture below shows you some samples of the fabric.  They're all bright and cheerful colours without being primary kids fabric.

Here below are some of the colour families that make up this retro list.  The only colour missing from these pages is an orange. When doing my quilt I would minimize the brown category.

Here is a closer look at the quilt and various other projects you can do from the book.

I enjoyed just looking through the book. The book is by Lori Holt of Bee in my Bonnet. She has other books as well. Another one I have by Lori is called Quilty Fun.  This one is cute and as the title implies, it's more playful.

A quilt I want to make using retro coloured fabrics

Not much quilty stuff going on here these last couple of days.  Still working on the Tiny Town appliqué blocks. It's looking like this time I may not meet the deadline with all the detail work left to do.  But I will keep working on it.  So today I thought I would share with you a quilt I like.

This is a quilt I have wanted to make using retro fabrics.  That would be the time period after the 30's-40's fabric.  Some of the patterns are similar, but most are a bit more geometric, or larger type designs.  It's hard for me to explain, but there is a definite feel to them of being more casual, friendly, every day type fabric.  Some would even pass as women's day dress type fabrics.

The cover page is the quilt I want to make.  It's from McCall, called Fast Favorites From McCall Quilting.  The shapes of this pattern are a bit bigger.  This will help show off the individual fabrics and it should also help to make the quilt sew up faster too.

The centre of the quilt is what I was drawn to.  I may decide to do some other border, but I am not thinking that far ahead yet.  I am not ready to start this one.

Thus far I have just been dreaming about all the cool funky fabrics I will use to make it.  This past week while out with the kids, I did get to pick up some fat quarters.  I will slowly collect some small pieces of fabrics for now, until I can get a chance to start.

There are a few different quilts that I want to make with this type of fabric.  First though I have to get some of the other quilts done. 

My corn & beans block from The Farmer's Wife quilt is done

Do you remember the block I was working in from The Farmer's Wife quilt book?  The one that got me frustrated because I could not get the prices to fit.  Well, here it is all done.

My problem was a few different things going one at the same time.  For starters I will explain that this block and all of it's pieces only measures 6" finished.  With a little block like the with a lot of small pieces every little detail makes a difference.

First off I cut the pieces 1/16" too big.  Not much but when you compound that by many pieces it makes a huge difference.  Secondly, I was sewing on a machine with a 1/4" seam allowance that was not a true 1/4".  My seams were actually 1/16" smaller.  Compound that by the first problem and you now have almost 1/8" larger on each piece.  It wasn't working.  To top it all off the placement of the pieces when sewing them was slightly off, so when pressed open the half square triangles were not lining up at the edges.  Can you see now why I was so frustrated?

But, I was determined!  I was not going to be defeated.  I started from scratch.  I took out the template that I thought I didn't need to use and started recutting all the pieces.  The template did two things.  One is it helped with making the pieces the correct size and two the template had the dog ears cut out to help with placement of the pieces when sewing them together.  I moved over to my other machine where I used Bonnie Hunter's method of setting the seam allowance.

After all the changes complete, I tried again.  Wouldn't you know it, the block went together with less effort.  It's amazing what will happen with the right tools and proper preparations

I learnt a lesson with this block.  I doesn't always pay to take shortcuts.  In this case it actually more than doubled the time it would have taken had I taken the time in the first place.

I started another comfort quilt

Last night, I started another comfort quilt.  The one and only time that I do not feel guilty for starting another quilt, even when I have a stack of them that I am working on.

I started this one for two reasons.  The first was I really needed a break from the Tiny Town appliqué.  I just couldn't do any more. Two days straight of appliqué when I'd rather be doing something else was just too much.  So I gave myself permission to start this quilt.  The second reason is to use up some scraps.

I got my GO! Cutter out and my bin of odd chunks of fabric scraps.  These scraps are left over stuff that I had that was not trimmed down. The pieces were smaller than a fat quarter but too big to cut up in strips just yet.  Some of this stuff is fabric that I had for a long time and was constantly being used in my scrap quilts, to the point that I was tired of them.

So, I took out the 2" strip die cutter and started trimming the scraps. I laid out the strips in random order on the design floor (design wall is too full).  When I do this I kind of take note of the colours I have to work with and how much of each I have.  I will start out with the bright stand out colours and distribute them over the general area/size of the quilt.  Once I handle the bright colours I will check out the fabrics that I really want to get rid of and use them up.  Lastly, I take the rest of the strips and evenly distribute them.  The above picture is what I ended up with.

Now I will start sewing the ends together in each row and later attach each row.  Simple quilt to make. Depending on the fabric used will chance the look of the quilt.  In my case I wanted a boy quilt, so I did not include any pinks or purples and nothing with pretty stuff like flowers.

What do you think?  I will show you a picture when it is done.  When it is sewn up it sort of tidies everything up.  You'll see.  It will look nice.

One section of Tiny Town block seven for July is done

One section of Tiny Town block seven for July is done.  I did start with the fire house and I have mostly completed the block.  The parts that are left are all the detail work.  Yesturday morning I needed to feel like I accomplished something, so I did up this smaller block that only has a small amount of detail work for the birdhouse holes.

I finished up the appliqué parts, the detailed work and put the block together.  Now that I had this short break, I think I can get back to finishing all the firehouse detail work.  The work involves all the window grids, the ladder and the words.  I also still need to attach the owl's eyes and wings.  I will be done.  Doesn't seem like much, but it will still take some time.

Enjoy your day everyone!

Snowmen A to Zzzz.... E is for Elf and F is for Fir

Snowmen A to Zzzz.... E is for Elf and F is for Fir.  Now that my daughter is out of school for the summer she has some more time to herself.  Or rather she has one week to herself until summer school starts to get an extra credit, so that she can have a spare during the school year, when she has her hardest subjects.

During this time she is going over what blocks she needed to finish of her Snowmen A to Zzzz..... quilt.  She realized that on this block E is for Elf and F is for fir, the only thing she needed was the boots, belt and buttons.  Initially she was missing the colour to do them, but now they are done.

One more block she can cross of the list, in this case it was with little effort.  Always a nice boost of excitement, especially because this is one of the big blocks.

My daughter is doing well on this quilt, I would guess that she is 2/3 of the way done, if not a bit more.  She does this type of handwork while she is watching tv, mostly when it is a show she has already seen.

It is amazing how much one can get done while sitting around.  Either when you are watching tv, a movie, waiting for sports events with the kids or at doctor's offices.  Keep a grab bag at the ready.  Leave it in the car if it helps, so that you have it with you at all times.  A few stitches here and a few stitches there and it will get done.

For example I went on Thursday to the hair dressers with my son, prior to the zoo.  While I am waiting for him to get his hair cut I am working on my hexagons that are in my grab and go bag.  I had my hands busy and was still able to have a conversation with the hairdresser.  She likes to do stuff with her hands too.

Sabryna's Remember Me quilt

Last Sunday Sabryna, Dylan and I went for a ride up to Font Hill.  It's a nice ride, only about an hour and fifteen minutes.

What's in Font Hill you ask,,,,,.well you should know better by now.  It was a quilt store, silly.  Kidding aside, there is a beautiful quilt store called The Quilting Bee and a nice restaurant called Lazy Loon right next door.

I go there often, maybe five or six times a year, some with my quilt bee friends and some with the kids.  I wanted to take advantage of the 15% off sale they were having on their Go! die cutters.  My daughter wanted to go because she was dying to start a quilt and my son wanted to go for the food.  Well......my daughter and I also wanted to go for the food too.  There is nothing that I have eaten at the Lazy Loon that was not really good.

My daughter is hooked on the feel of civil war fabrics.  In her opinion the colours are warm and cozy.

While my daughter and I were looking at a calendar my mom got about quilts, we both stopped to admire the quilt that was for the month of September.  By coincidence September is the month that my daughter and I were born (hence the head butting from time to time, LOL).  There were some pretty quilts in the calendar, but of all of them we both thought September was the best.  It just has movement going on with a variety of fabrics, which we both like.

We looked up the info on the quilt and found out it came from the book called The Blue and the Grey by Mary Etherington and Connie Tesene.  The book came in the mail and since, Sabryna has been dreaming about making the quilt.  There are many nice quilts in this book and they are all made from civil war fabrics, though you could use any kind of fabric and have it turn out beautiful.

The quilt my daughter is making is called Remember Me.  The main block is called a signature block and the secondary block is a pinwheel. The construction of this quilt is a bit different as the second row of signature blocks is actually part of the sashing.

So far most of the fabric is cut and Sabryna has made a sample block to confirm the sizes.  This quilt is not big, so I had to resize the whole quilt.  I started by resizing the actual blocks from a 1" finished strip to a 1 1/2" strip, and added an extra row on the top and side to make the quilt a queen size.  Here is a sample of the main block.

Here is a sample of her pinwheel block.  Sabryna is making her quilt scrappy like the book pattern and also using the deep red/burgundy for her pinwheels.  I really like her background fabric.  It is so soft looking and has a romantic feel to it.

As Sabryna makes this quilt, she is fine tuning her 1/4" seam allowance and learning to follow a book pattern instead of only relying on me.  She is doing very well!  God, my little girl is growing up, or really she has gone and grown up already.  When did that happen?  I do love her and am proud of who she is.  Keep up the good work babe.

A typical day in my life with quilting and a pink Dresden plate block done

I had a very busy day yesterday.  I started the day at 6:00 am, with some appliqué of the Tiny Town block number seven.  Later when my son decided to go outside to play ball, I took a break and followed him.  I needed to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather.

Not being one to just side around, while my son practiced pitching against the house, I started to do some weeding.  The gardens that I had cleaned out and rearranged at the side of the house had some weeds and the old walkway had many growing between the cracks.

Once that was done I moved to the garden by the back door where the barbecue is.  During that big storm the barbecue was knocked over and some of my plants got flattened.  I did fix some of it, but now I was able to fix the rest of it.  Feeling good about what I accomplished I was able to get back to the appliqué work, with renewed energy.

I worked on it for another while and took a break to make lunch, and work on it some more.  During this time sitting in my den, my daughter and her friend, who slept over last night finally wake up from there very late night of watching movies.  My son joins us and they end up laying around on the daybed or carpet reading out loud about dogs. They want another puppy.

By about four in the after noon I needed another break.  It's hard to do long stretches of hand work, without taking breaks.  For this break I started ironing my daughters grey backing material for her sixteen-patch pinwheel quilt and her top.  I had the quilt layered on the floor and started to pin it for quilting.

Three quarters of the way through the pinning I had to think about dinner. The kids made a snack a while ago so we're not hungry, but by this time it was now already 7:00 pm, too late to get anything started, so I ordered some pizza and wings.  I didn't have time to make anything, because yesturday being Canada Day we were going to the fireworks.

After I ordered the pizza I went out front to join my son and talk to my neighbours and their kids who were playing hockey in my driveway.  My adult niece ends up coming outside shortly after and while she sits on the grass with her little four month old, her other two kids come help me take the weed branches off my tree.  By the time dinner arrives my tree is done, my niece and I had a nice chat and the two older kids got an education on caterpillars, moths and spiders that were on the tree that we were working on.

They went to have dinner at there house my son and I go in to have dinner at our house and the kids and I go walk down to Centennial Park to watch the fireworks. Loved the show, this was the first year we were around at this new house to get out in the community and enjoy the fireworks. They were great!

Now we are late at night, my son is practically crawling to bed, my daughter and her friend are waiting for her friends dad to come pick her up, while I head back down stairs to finish the pinning of my daughter's quilt.  My daughter eventually comes down to join me, to chat and keep me company.

Once I am done, I head upstairs for a shower and hit my pillow by 11:50 pm.  A busy and long day.

This is a typical day in the my life with quilting.  I do my quilting between living life with my family, gardening, cleaning the house, working and renos.  It all gets done.  Maybe not in the timeline that others do it, but it does get done.

I didn't get my block for the Tiny Town completely done, but I am still happy with how far I did get done on it.  Now I only have the fine details to take care of.  So, instead I will leave you with a picture of the pink Dresden plate block that I finished some time last week.  I forgot I completed this block. It still needs to be pressed, but I am sure you get the picture (no pun intended).

Today it's a hair cut for my son and picking up his friend and heading to the Toronto zoo.  I am sure it will be another busy day.  Enjoy it!!!

Finished Tiny Town block three for June

Late last night, with my eyes going all blurry I finally finished the last block section for block number three.  This block has Sun Bonnet Sue and her dog.

Once I finished this block I just had to take some time to trim it down to neaten it up some.  Well....once I got this far, I could not just stop there.  I attached all three sections of block number three together.  It looks good.  I really like the fancy bird cage section.

I was so tempted to attach the three blocks together.  That would complete the first of three rows to finish the quilt centre, but I really could not see straight.  I will try to finish it later today.

Yesturday, I got the first section of block number seven organized and ready to start sewing.  I've decided to start on the fire station.  With time at a crunch I have to see if I can get this whole section done today.

I will let you know how that goes for me.