Quilting the nine patch quilt

I've been finding little bits of time here and there to continue to work on quilting the nine patch quilt. There are three different fabrics used for the alternate blocks, so I am quilting three different patterns on each.

This first one has a loop design to match the loops in the fabric.

This second fabric has swirls in the fabric, so I quilted the echo of the swirls.

The third fabric is still to be determined.  The design of the fabric is paisley.  I have not decided what I want to quilt on it yet.

So far I finished all the blocks with loops and all the blocks with swirls.  In my previous post, I mentioned that I finished all the in the ditch quilting and all the nine patches.  Now I have only the paisley blocks and the small border to do.

For the small border, I have decided to do a chain of hearts.  Yesturday I traced and cut out the template, and started to draw out the borders.  The one side fits perfectly with almost no adjustments needed.

As it is my late start at work today, I am going to see how far I can get on this border.  I will have to put the quilt away, until I can decide on the quilting design for the last blocks.

Enjoy your day!

Grandmother's flower garden hexagon quilts

While I was browsing online recently looking for stuff, I came across these two examples of a grandmother's flower garden quilt.  This first example is a vintage quilt that I believe may have been sold on eBay or something.  I like the effect of the blue that surrounds all the flowers.  A lot of the fabrics appear in the picture to be faded.  From the picture though, I cannot tell if it is the fabric's natural colour or if they have faded with age.

This second example is one of Bonnie Hunter's quotes, from Quiltville.com.  I like the fact that the maker of this quilt stuck more colour into the "gardens" by adding an extra row of colour, instead of only doing a floret surrounded by white.

I cannot believe it.  Since I started into this world of hexagons, I cannot believe how many there actually are.  I seem to see them everywhere.

**Progress on my top 12 list (which turned out to be 18 instead)**

Work in progress:  

3. Quilting - Lise's hexagon quilt (family)..........hand stitching the edges & doing the label

4. Quilting - Navy blue & cream quilt (my own)

7. Main work - Spools quilt (my own)..........first row done, taking a break to do some quilting

8. Main work - Mel's romance & roses quilt (family)
9. Leader/Ender - 16-patch pinwheel quilt (my own)..........working on between projects
10. Handwork - Reconstructed Dresden plate quilt (my own)...........9 full blocks left to do

11. Quilting - Lise's Dresden plate quilt (family)..........top is done, waiting to be quilted

12. Handwork - Machine wall hanging (my own)

13. Paper piece - Pineapple quilt (my own)..........these are put on hold again for a bit

Total number of quilts completed - 9
Total number of quilts left to be completed - 9

Completed quilts:
1. Quilted Flo's hexagon quilt (commissioned).  

14. Sabryna's 16-patch pinwheel quilt (family)

16. Reversable crazy quilt & matching doll quilt (charity)

15. Log cabin quilt (my own)
18. Small wonders quilt (charity)
17. Scrappy stripes quilt (charity)

2. Michelle's midnight flight quilt (family)

6. Jean material quilt (charity)

5. Midnight flight runway quilt (charity).  

Nine patches, also known as single Irish chain quilt

Yesturday, I needed a break from handwork.  I took out another quilt that needs to be quilted.  This one is for a friend's friend.  It's a nine patch with an alternating plain block, also known as a single Irish chain quilt.

This quilt is for a grandson.  The nine patches are mainly brown, green and yellow with a little blue. And the plain blocks are a white on dark cream.

This is the backing.  The centre strip is of the left over fabrics. 

Yesturday, I managed to quilt everything in the ditch, all the nine patches on a diagonal across the quilt and started on the individual plain blocks.

Things are going well with the quilting.  One more day of concentrated quilting should have it done.  After this quilt, I still have four quilts waiting to be done in the immediate future.  I have to get a move on it.

Today I have to do a few things here around the house, and try and finish this quilt.  All going well I will still have some time to do more handwork on the hexagon quilt.

Enjoy your Saturday.  Take advantage of every minute you get.

Progress on the diamond shape hexagon quilt

This past weekend, we went to our Jenkins reunion.  It was at my husband's brothers' cottage, my brother-in-law and his wife.  While there we did a lot of catching up.  The kids had a great time.  It's funny how we see each other only once a year for the reunion, as they live in BC, but when we do get together the kids are like peas in a pod.  All three families get along so well.  They're all easy going kids.

Cottage or not, I am still an early raiser.  During the time that I woke up, to the time the others woke up,  I sat in piece, in a very tranquil place, surrounded by beautiful views of the lake, stitching up the label for my cousins quilt.  I am now about half way done the label.

Today, I brought Maddie to doggy daycare, so she could run around and exhaust herself playing with all her doggy friends.  This gave me some uninterrupted time to sit and sew.  I worked all day, outside of a break to make lunch and have dinner.  I started at 10:00 am and quit at about 4:30 pm.  This part is not difficult, only time consuming.  After working on it all day, I still only got one side done and a second side trimmed.

It is coming together.  This following picture shows the edge hand stitched, now waiting for the final row of quilting.  I haven't decided whether I will quilt it now or after I finish all the edges.

I finished at about 4:30 pm, as that is when my daughter got back, from a four day work week, away from home.  I missed her for those four days.  So, to spend some mother, daughter time I suggested we go visit the new Indigo store, in our area and out to dinner.  She was game.  We both love browsing through books and good food.

The day ended with a bang.  As my daughter and I were on our way to pick up Maddie, we were treated to the beautiful sight of a double rainbow.  The second rainbow is faint.  You can see it just above the first one. Just precious.

I hope everyone finds the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  I know I have mine, with all my family and friends.  If it is hard to see it, just look for the silver lining.  The little things count.

I will end today with a saying from Each Day a New Beginning:

I will take today in my arms and love it.  I will love

all it offers; it is a friend bearing gifts galore.

Shop hopping with the girls

During my holidays at the end of June, the quilting bee ladies and I went on a bit of a shop hop.  I was the driver.  We had no real plans that day, so I took out my GPS and asked what direction the ladies wanted to go.

No one knew, which was of no help to me.  I decided to call out quilting store names that were in my GPS.  Eventually, someone mentioned that they had heard of the store and wanted to go see it.  That store was Evelyn's Sewing Centre, also known as The Quilting Store.com.  Off we went......

While we were there, the ladies were on the hunt for enough material for a baby sized quilt for my friend Flo's grandson.  Flo had the pattern and the ladies and I filled the fabric requirements.  It was kind of fun.  Everyone had their own interpretation.  Flo chose the main fabric/colour way and we all filled in the coordinating fabrics.  It's going to look great.

Me, I was also looking for strips.  Lot and lots of strips.  The top four fabrics in the picture above meet that requirement.  I love the candy cane stripped fabric.  I am going to use that one for my Christmas quilt.  The top strip fabric is part of the collection for this years Row by Row event all across Canada and the United States.  The last three fabrics were to add some light blenders to my existing fabric collection.  I seem to always be short on them too.

This next fabric I got just because.  I think it looks funky.  It may fit into my Retro quilt I will be making, but if not......no worries, it will get used somewhere.

After we finished here, we headed to lunch.  The store recommended a good place to eat.

By the time we finished lunch, the day was still young.  I suggested to the ladies, that we had some time to choose another quilt store. One that we could head to on our way home.  There were at least three of them that I knew of along the way.  So the process started again.  I looked them up on my GPS and named some of the stores.  Someone called out the name of the store that they thought sounded interesting and that they may like to see.  So, we were off......we started on our way and ended up at The Country Concession.

I thought I was done shopping for the day, but the first thing I saw when I entered the store was this pretty little bundle of Moda fat eights.  I must really have a thing for the retro colours.  I love the blue, green, coral, red and yellow.  They are just so delicious.  I think of strawberry shortcake, watermelon, green apples and picnics, when I look at these colours.

This yellow fabric is going to be the border.  The colour in the picture is a little off, but it is the same colours as the bundle above.  It is from the same line of fabric.

I can't wait to start working on this quilt.  I am still deciding on two possible quilts I want to make with these fabrics.

Closing off the edges of the hexagon quilt

I finished quilting the centre of the diamond hexagon quilt.  Now I have to trim the batting even with the edges of the hexagon pieces, and cut the backing fabric to a 1/4" from the edge in order to turn under the edges to sew them to the hexagons.

Here is a picture of the edge of the quilt.  After I trim the two different layers, I turn under the backing fabric, over the batting, and pin it to the hexagon,  I work like this in sections of about a foot in length to make it easier to manage.  Once that is done I slip stitch the opening shut.

I started on the right hand side of the quilt edge and will work my way across the edge all the way around the quilt.  Here is a picture showing the first three hexagons done and the forth half way finished.  After I finish all of them I will quilt the last row of hexagons to finish the quilt.

This process will take some time.  It takes a bit longer than actual binding, but for an older quilt I feel it is the only choice. When I am finishing an older quilt, I prefer to keep as close to period as possible.

In the meantime, when I am not able to sit and do handwork,  I will continue to work on the other quilting that needs to be done.

My next quilt is also a hexagon quilt.  It is a lap size quilt with larger hexagons in the shape of a grandmother's flower garden with white hexagons between.  I'll share pictures of that one in another post when I am done the quilting.

Hexagon lap quilt

Here is Flo's second hexagon quilt.  This quilt is next in line to be quilted.  Flo really liked what I did with the last one, that I am doing this one the same.  I have the backing fabric washed, the left over piece of batting from the last one and will soon look to pin baste the quilt layers.

I am almost done the current hexagon quilt I am working on.  I am about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way done.  After doing the quilting of the centre, I will need to trim and turn in all the edges of each hexagon to stitch them by hand, and quilt the last perimeter hexagons.

Now that I finished painting the last batch of doors on the backside, while I wait the required six hours to recoat, I am going to see if I can finish the quilting on my current quilt.  

Wish me luck.  Not for the quilting part, but for no distractions while I am doing it.

**Progress on my top 12 list (which turned out to be 18 instead)**

Work in progress:  

3. Quilting - Lise's hexagon quilt (family)..........2/3 quilted now and half way down the next row

4. Quilting - Navy blue & cream quilt (my own)

7. Main work - Spools quilt (my own)..........first row done, taking a break to do some quilting

8. Main work - Mel's romance & roses quilt (family)
9. Leader/Ender - 16-patch pinwheel quilt (my own)..........working on between projects
10. Handwork - Reconstructed Dresden plate quilt (my own)...........9 full blocks left to do

11. Quilting - Lise's Dresden plate quilt (family)..........top is done, waiting to be quilted

12. Handwork - Machine wall hanging (my own)

13. Paper piece - Pineapple quilt (my own)..........these are put on hold again for a bit

Total number of quilts completed - 9
Total number of quilts left to be completed - 9

Completed quilts:
1. Quilted Flo's hexagon quilt (commissioned).  

14. Sabryna's 16-patch pinwheel quilt (family)

16. Reversable crazy quilt & matching doll quilt (charity)

15. Log cabin quilt (my own)
18. Small wonders quilt (charity)
17. Scrappy stripes quilt (charity)

2. Michelle's midnight flight quilt (family)

6. Jean material quilt (charity)

5. Midnight flight runway quilt (charity)