Xmas/Solstice star quilt half way completed

A great big hurray!!!  A little while ago, I finished all of these blocks for the Xmas/Solstice star quilt.  These are the star potion and make up half the blocks needed to complete the quilt.

Now I need to work on the alternating blocks.  They are a bit more complicated.  I have various parts done, but still some more to go.  I will add the parts to the leader/ender tray, but again I first have to wait to finish up the stuff for the show.  Maybe this long weekend I can slip in some time to just sew.

Non quilt related.  I will leave you with a picture of a piece in my garden.  I've had this little girl for many years.  The basket is so small though, maybe 5", that nothing would stay alive for long.  Well, I finally found the answer.  Not only did this chick & hen plant live, but it also survived over the winter, as is being left outdoors. This year it even started making babies.  How cute is that?

I hope everyone enjoys their long weekend.  Happy Canada day!!!  Keep safe.

What's on the design wall now (June/2017)

As June is shortly coming to a close, I thought I would take a look at what progress I've made.

I've been working away at my purple stars blocks.  They are all assembled into a top.  I've even cut the strips for the first border.  It shouldn't take too long, once I get a chance to sew.

So now, I am working on the blocks for my Canada's 150th birthday.  This quilt is called Canadian Northern Wind.  The top row blocks are completed, plus a bunch more.  

Behind these blocks you still see bits and pieces of my hexagon quilt.  That one is still put aside for now.  At the top left hand corner you can just see the edges of my bear paw block.  I put that up there, because when it was front and centre, of my line of vision, while I sewed on my machine, I kept thinking about working on it, but it is not on my list yet, to work on.  So, I put it out of the way, until I can get back to it.

Lastly on the top right hand corner I have my monkey wrench blocks.  I have to cut some more pieces for these blocks, for my leader/ender tray.  This one is allowed to stay on the wall.

While I work away at the Canadian Northwind Blocks, I can get four lines of sewing on a leader/ender, so I will be making a lot of progress on them........however, that is when I get a chance to sew them.

For now, the rush is on to work on everything that will be in the show come October.  That means I have to finish the binding on two large double/queen size quilts, put the sleeves on five large quilts and one wall hanging, and make seven labels for the quilts. Plus finish borders and quilting yet another queen size quilt, including the sleeve and label.

So....for a bit I will be busy getting it together.  As it is a long list, l am stopping everything else until they are done or for as long as I can.

Wish me luck.

One more Dresden plate, now there are six left to do

Things are going slow around here lately.  I am in the process of prepping my quilts for the guild quilt show coming up in October.  It is a little ways off, but I have to make and attach hanging selves to all six quilts and one wall hanging, plus each one also needs to have a label.

So, today about the only thing I am going to have time for is getting this label done.  I am hoping to also have time to attach it to the quilt itself.  We shall see.  I have to leave the house by 5:00 pm to head toward Oshawa, so that is cutting my time short.

I am excited today in anticipation of my outing.  I am going to see Angela Walters live at Whirls and Swirls.  She has been here a few days giving classes on quilting.  Tonight she is having a trunk show. I feel like a little kid, giddy with excitement.  Angel is very inspirational and easy going.

I will close off this post with this recently completed Dresden plate block.  Now I am down to six more blocks left to do.  They are slow in the making, but slow and steady did win the race for the turtle.....  I am not worried about speed on this quilt.  I am just enjoying the process.  Though these are currently taking the back seat for all the labels and sleeves that I need to work on for the show, I will eventually get back to them.

Enjoy your day,.......I know I will. :)

Sewing machine wall hanging

I finished my vintage sewing machine wall hanging a while ago and forgot to post about it.  I like how it turned out.  I will be entering this piece into the guild quilt show in October.

This was a gifted kit from one of the quilting bee members' husband, who gifted it to me for being a part of finishing the quilt his wife was last working on before she passed away. I quilted the quilt for him and his family to enjoy.  One member finished up the borders, I quilted it and another member will attached the binding.  Our way of saying good bye, and honouring our friend.

This wall hanging is 18" X 42".  The pattern is called Comfort by Barbara Cherniwchan of Coach House Designs.

For the background I chose to quilt in a basket weave style, using each block for changing directions.  The cream block lines go up and down vertically and the floral block lines go side to side horizontally.  The lines are really close together which helps a lot in making the individual applique pieces pop up.  Looks kind of cool.  I just can't help myself and have to run my hands across the texture every time I look at this.

Here is a closer look, so you can see the quilting a bit better.  I only wanted to do a few designs on the applique pieces themselves, as I didn't want to flatten them out.

Lastly, here is a picture on the diagonal. It is very difficult to get the quilting to show up on black, especially when using blending black thread.  I found though that on a diagonal with the only light being that from the window, casting shadows across the quilt, was the best way to get the whole effect of the quilting.  This picture also shows the binding on.

In person in full light you can see all the 3D affect the two layers of batting have on the wall hanging, however you just can't get the same in a straight on picture.  Hopefully you can excuse the quality of the picture, as I am not a professional photographer, I wouldn't  even call myself a novice.  But I think it is good enough to see the texture in the piece.

Enjoy the beautiful sunshine!

Monkeying around

I have been monkeying around (pun intended).  With my monkey wrench blocks.  Lol.  

I did two of them while I was making up the purple star blocks.  Later, I made two more.

I was so excited by the variety of the blocks that the next day, I made all the blocks I had cut sitting beside my machine in the leader/ender box.

This is where I am at with it.  Look at all that variety.  I am loving making these as much as I enjoyed making the bow tie blocks and watching them grow over time.  I still have many more to make to get this to a queen size quilt, but there is no rush.  I am going to have to get my scraps out first, to cut up the various pieces I need.  I enjoy looking for and finding odd bits and pieces.  

This is definitely a fun quilt to make.  I hope you enjoy watching the quilt grow as much as I do.

Finished the Dresden plate quilt

I little while back, I finished the vintage Dresden plate quilt.  This was the last of four quilts my cousin Lise and her husband Jim asked me to help them finish.  They were tops or blocks that needed to be finished into quilts.  They belongs to Jim's grandmother and his mother.  This particular one, the Dresden plates were made by Jim's mother.  I put all the blocks together and quilted the quilt.

It took me this long to post about it, because I was so excited to have it done and share it with my cousin and her husband, that I forgot to take a picture of the top.  Thanks Lise for the picture.  It looks pretty on the bed.

Here are a few close up pictures.  I designed this quilting design from various different sources and altered it to meet the space and cornerstone that is the centre of the motif.  The second picture below shows the pattern a bit better as the chalk is still present.

This one is a close up of the two borders.  After I finished the quilting of the cables on the last border, I cut back the border to follow the feathered motif and created a scalloped finished edge.  If you go up to the first picture you can see the scalloped edge.

I was very happy with the quilting on this one.  I continue to learn different things as I go.  All the fancier stitching though was done on my domestic machine, as that is where I am most comfortable when doing more intricate designs.

I am so happy.  It's always scary when you're told to do what ever you think is best.  There is always the chance that you will love it, but the recipient not so much.  Not in this case though.  My cousin and her husband love it.

New addition to my fleet

Yesturday morning my husband and I set out for a trip to pick up my refurbished treadle machine that belonged initially to my Great-grandmother, before it was handed down to my grandmother, and on to my mother, and finally down to me.  I had them clean it up and refinish the cabinet, as it was showing more than the usual wear.  Now it is sitting proudly in my livingroom.

While we were there I also test drove a Singers 201K Blue eye. As you can see from the picture below.  It came home with me.  This babe runs so smoothly with a gentle quiet hum, and the stitches are so, so beautiful.  This machine was considered the Cadillac model of machines in that time period, and still very sought after now, by anyone who knows machines.

The machine came with all the original parts and the manual, which are all still in good condition.  What's great about is machine too, is that it takes regular needles that you can still get and the regular class 66 bobbins, again that you can still get.

I've set the machine in my cabinet and even made myself a matching insert to surround the machine on two sides for an extended flat surface.  It almost looks like I bought my cabinet this way.  Now I only have to seal the surface with a wax finish to match my cabinet.

I am so excited to get some real sewing done on this babe.  After the pictures were taken, I took some time to mark my quarter inch seam with a guide, and sewed a couple of test squares.  She is ready to go!

I thought I would end the post with a picture of a pretty peony from my garden.  This is the first for my garden since I moved here five years ago.  I love the pink colour.

The back side of the flower is deeper and lightens as you go into the centre where it is the pales pink with a ting of yellow.  This year I have one singular flower from a total of three plants.  The other two plants are magenta and white.  With this one flower we have hope that the others we eventually bloom too.

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Mom's scrappy donation quilt

This weekend, there was a baby shower for one of my nieces, so I was able to deliver my mom's scrappy donation quilt.  My mom is giving me all her donation quilts to quilt, so that I can continue to practice on my longarm quilting machine.  There is such a large learning curve.  I am comfortable with certain motifs and with every quilt I do, I try new things.

On this practice quilt, everything I quilted was new.  By the time I finished the quilt, I could see the difference between the first design to the last.  They were not horrible or anything, but I still do need practice.  This first picture was of the hourglass unit.  I did a double loop, where I practiced getting them consistent in size and stopping slightly short in the centre, with the point on the first loop, to avoid a large bulk of thread in the centre.  I moved right into a ribbon type swirl, before repeating.

This picture may be difficult to make out, but they were basically all about the same.  When you quilt scrappy quilts, the quilting generally disappears.  One thread colour but many fabric colours.  When you practice though, that is the best part, as no one notices how bad of a job you did.  If you really look you can make it out, but otherwise it goes unnoticed.

The second unit was five strips sewn together, so I did a different stitch design for each of the five strips.  The first strip was small written "e" loops, second was a zigzag, third was ribbon candy (looks similar to a figure 8), fourth was square mazes all in a row and lastly a squiggle across the strip.

On the first border I did a combination of arches and the written "e" loop together to make one design.  As this was a two pass design, I also learned how to work on the border across upright, across upside down, plus up and down the sides, while advancing the quilt instead of taking it off the frame to flip it.  The last border I did stippling. 

This next picture is of the full quilt.  The way the light shines on it, you can really see the quilting on the hourglass unit.  The rest just disappears.

On my domestic machine I could do all of these designs and many many more, but the longarm is quite different and I feel I am back in kindergarten learning how to write again.  I will still use my domestic machine for very intricate designs for a paying customer, for now, until my skills improve to my standards.  I am continually learning the tricks of the trade, with every quilt I do.  I am grateful that my mom allows me to use her donation quilts to practice.

Inspiration from Henhouse blog, using vintage embroidery (QW)

If you get a chance, go check out the blog by Henhouse (henhousehomemade.blogspot.com).  She has a lot of different things to look at, but myself I have been drawn to all of her crazy blocks using vintage embroidery pieces from table cloths, pillow cases, handkerchiefs or anything else that may have embroidery.

She is using a lot of vintage fabrics too.  You have to go check it out.  They are all gorgeous.

I only saved this one picture from Pinterest, where she is starting to do the hand quilting on the quilt.  I am saving this so I can find her site again later, if my favourites get lost.

I think I am now on the lookout for vintage embroidery.  Sometimes you can get them cheap, when the embroidery is on a piece of linen that has holes in it or stains.  I will have to keep my eyes open.

Finished the last purple star blocks

I have been working some more on the purple stars quilt.  Below are the last of the blocks I needed to assemble.  I think I mentioned it already in a previous post, but I will mention it here as well.  I have the first two rows of this quilt assembled too.

As you can see, I attached the right hand side sashing and the bottom with the green cornerstone.  All the blocks are at this stage and only need to be attached to each other.  This is sometimes where I stall.  Not because I'm not excited to have the top done, but because I am also sad that this project is coming to an end.  I know that sounds weird, but I feel both emotions at the same time.

Eventually the excitement will win out, I am finding all sorts of excuses not to work on this, or at least work on it only a little at a time.

One of my excuses was working on my Canadian Northwind quilt and another was the monkey wrench blocks sitting beside my machine, waiting to be leader/enders.  There is also the brown bear paws claws that are also sitting beside my machine, and the list goes one.

Aren't these little 5" monkey wrench blocks cute.  I put them on my design wall with the others and noted how different they all are.  I am liking them.

I will have to stop with my distractions soon though, if I want to have this quilt done in time for the upcoming quilt show.

Jump started my Canadian Northwind quilt for our 150th birthday celebration

I have the first two rows of my purple stars quilt assembled into rows, so I was able to take them off the design wall.  Yay!!  I have all the sashings on all the completed blocks and only have three more blocks to complete.  The purple stars quilt is heading toward the finish line.

In place of the purple stars I have decided to concentrate on my Canadian Northwind quilt, to celebrate our 150th birthday.  I really got a jump start on it this weekend.  I made 19 more small blocks.  I am liking it! 

  

I've made a great start on this and want to finish it this year.  The guild is having a birthday celebration at our June meeting and requested we bring in our red and white quilts.  I can pretty much say that there is no chance of having this done by that date, but there is a good chance of completing it this year.

I only have this many units left to make.....

LOL!  That is a whopping 143 units still to make, but who's counting..........hehehehe

Halton Hills Quilters' Guild upcoming quilt show

I belong to the Halton Hills Quilting Guild.  I thought I would do my part to promote this years upcoming quilt show.  The show is Friday, October 13, 10am-5pm and Saturday, October 14, 10am-4pm at the Croation Fraciscan Centre, 9118 Winston Churchill Blvd., Norval (Halton Hill), ON

The picture in the postcard above is the first prize raffle quilt and the picture below is the third prize.

There will be many quilts to see, as well as the usual Merchant Mall, Members' Boutique, Toonie Draw, Challenge Quilts and Tea Room.

As part of the Toonie Draw, the quilt members made/make an assortment of little wall hangings or table toppers with the sides not being any longer than 20" each.  The person in charge of this display and draw has requested 40 pieces of work, so that she can have a draw each day and a minimum of 20 items per day displayed.

This is my contribution.  It's not quilted yet, but I have up until next meeting, at the end of June.  This piece measures 16" each side.

I made this single house block a long time ago and placed it in a picture frame.  I didn't quite like the colours I used.  I felt the block to be a bit dark for the frame I had.  So, when they asked for pieces for the Toonie draw, I got to thinking.  What could I make?

It hit me, that I could design something small with this 4 1/2" house block.  You could even call it a log cabin in the woods.  Hence the 1" finished log cabin strips going around the block.  Lights on the bottom and right hand side, darks on the top and left hand side.  All this was bordered by a 2" strip with orange cornerstones.  Nothing fancy.

I finished the block in a little over an hour.  I pulled all the strips from my strip drawers.  I did not need to cut into any yardage for this.  I also plan to find the backing from my basket of miscellaneous chunks of fabric or my fat quarter stash.

So mark your calendar and come see the show!

Cross-stitch sampler

Last week, I had a bit of a distraction.  My daughter and I were sitting in my quilting room one night after dinner.  It was my night off of doggy duty and I was just sitting there, contemplating what I was going to do that evening.

My daughter didn't want to do her doggy duty alone, so she thought she would keep me company.  She brought her cross-stitch to work on.  She asked me how much I had to do on my oldest cross-stitch, but I rightfully could not answer her.  It had been a while since I looked at it.  I felt that I had about half way still left to go, so I told her to pull it out, as it was right there on the shelf in front of her.

Well, one thing lead to another, and in the end, I started up again working on my cross-stitch.  We cross-stitched together chatting away, until we both looked up and noticed it was past 11:00 pm.  Wow, time flew by.  Past our usual bedtime.

I did have approx. half the cross-stitch completed.  Here is the upper right hand corner.  I only have the French knot to put in for the birds eye.

I did have the numbers done, until I realized I used the wrong colour.  So out it came and I finished them again, this time using the right colours.  I have been getting distracted this past week with this cross-stitch and I blame it all on my daughter (jokingly of coarse).  It is on my main list of to do, so that is a good thing.  It's nice to see some progress happening on this one.

Now I am working on the vine that goes around the border.  I have a bit left to outline, and I will be able to move the frame down to the last third of the cross-stitch.  I did quite a bit in the last few days and I am still liking it.  I do enjoy doing hand work.  It's relaxing.

I may be putting this away soon, as I have other things I want to concentrate on, but it was nice seeing it advance some.

April's quilt guild meeting

Our Guild's meeting in May was with Kelly DuMaresq - Scrappy quilts.  What a great speaker.  She was enthusiastic and educational, with an abundant stack of quilts.  When I say abundant, I mean like wow, two conference tables stacked high.

She is also a Bonnie Hunter fan and had at least a hand full of Bonnie's patterns made up.  I like Bonnie Hunter and I like scrappy quilts, so I was in my glory watching the quilts as they were displayed.  There were so many.  Far too many to take a picture of them all and to many to put into a post.

If any guilds are looking for a guest speaker, I would highly recommended Kelly.

Here are a few scrappy quilts, for your enjoyment, but really, these do not do the show justice.  Kelly also teaches technique if anyone is interested.

This guest speaker was one of my favourite, though the others were good as well.  

I am so inspired to make some more quilts.  Still doing well right now with holding myself back from starting anything new.  My goal was set in January and I am trying really hard to meet that goal, but with a show like we had in April, it makes it difficult.