Dresden plate top being assembled

My mom and I have been working like mad the last weekend of October and the first weekend of November on my living room and dinning room renos.  I had taken a few days vacations to extent my weekends into long weekends and we needed it.

We finished all the bulkheads around the perimeter of the rooms for the pot lights and added the two levels of crown molding to trim the bulkheads.  We did the facings around the windows and doors,  all the plastering throughout, primed two coats everywhere, painted the ceiling two coats and all the walls one coat.

We often worked from morning into the night.  Sometimes to 9 or 10 pm.  We were both exhausted.  I am grateful she was here to help me, as I am sure I would have given up, long before it was done, and I could not have done a lot of it without the second pair of hands to handle the long or awkward stuff.

The second weekend of November I had another four day long weekend, but this time I was on my own.  I managed to get the second coat of paint on all the walls the first day and started cleaning up the mess.  It took me the majority of the next day, with steel brush and scraper, to scrub down the fireplace, that I had refaced in natural stone, wash up all the plaster and paint from the floors.  After a third day of work, washing down all the furniture, light fixtures, nik naks, and steam cleaning the area rugs, I had it.  I decided to quit.  I felt like a work horse, put though the ringer.

I declared the last day of vacations to be a "me" day.  I really, really needed it.

This is what I worked on.  This is a picture of my Dresden plate quilt partially completed on the design wall, but I did manage to finish the whole top.  I set it aside for quilting at a later date.

After spending the day quilt making, I decided to iron all the curtains that will be hemmed later for the livingroom and dinning room.  I crashed on my comfy chair and zoned out with a movie.

What a weekend.....all three of them.  Well worth the effort.  I am so happy this is all done.  It has been a long time coming.  We have been living in a renovation zone since we moved here five years ago.  Other than little odds and ends we are almost done.  The only major things left to do are the downstairs bathroom, hall, basement and hardwood floors throughout the house.

Yay!!! Almost there!

More progress on the hexagon quilt

Here we are again, making more progress on my hexagon quilt.  This piece is the bottom row of hexagons.  I was so inspired by the progress that I made from the previous post, that this time I just took some time to sit and sew on this.  I needed the break from all the demands of my time.  

  

I got the corner unit done, plus the two units needed to finish the length of this red gingham floret. That is where I ended.  I folded and pinned the row to the design wall behind my chair, and that is where it will stay, until I can make more units.  

It may be a while, but one at a time they will get done.  In the meantime, I am still trying to take in all that I learned through the online Quilt Path coarse that I took.  I am saving this picture for future reference.  I want to make this pattern and try it on a quilt.  I believe it is called basket weave.

There was soooooo much to learn.  My head is still spinning.  The great part of the online coarse, is that we still have access to all the class material.  The instructor recorded all the classes and saved them, for use, for future needs.  She knew we would not be able to retain the extensive amount of information that is covered in class.  This way, when we have a need for a particular technique, we can just bring up that video and review it to jog our memories.

The coarse was well worth the money.  All the information we covered, will help us maximize the Quilt Path, helping us be productive and more proficient.  We also covered ideas on how to work through different quilting challenges.  Angela, the instructor, was knowledgeable, professional, patient, and willingly shared her own experiences, in her business adventures, in hopes to help us with our own journeys.

Thank you so much Angela, you would make a very good mentor.

The last two Dresden plate blocks

Some time along the way between everything else, I found a bit of time to slowly work on these last two Dresden plate blocks.  It's hard to believe they are done....    

I don't know whether I am happy to have them done or sorry that I will not be working with them anymore.  I enjoyed so much working with these old fabrics.  Most of the fabrics are cheerful.  The patterns are so unique and the texture of the fabric so different.  As I would appliqué them by hand, I'd admire the different fabrics and wonder about the people who may have worn garments made of some of them.

Now to iron all the blocks, trim them to size and assemble the quilt top.  But.....that will have to wait a while.  I have other priorities.

Soon though....   

Canadian Northwind quilt coming along

I have been working on some samples for my longarm quilting business.  Quilting up designs that I have available to use.  Just in case there are those who have a hard time visualizing the design in 3D. So far, I have about 25 of the 16" X 19" samples.  I've made up some binding and will work on that too in the next few days.  Not a lot to show you there.  Pretty mundane stuff.

So instead, I thought I would share with you the progress on my Canadian Northwind quilt.

When my daughter decided to clear off my design wall, this one was put front and centre.  I really do want to try and at least finish the top before the end of the year.  I have just over 60% of the blocks done and about half of them sewn in sets of four to make the larger unit.

I have a little bit more completed than what you see in the picture, since it was taken, but it has been slow going.  The picture was taken at night, so the colours appear faded.  In day light the wall radiates with brighter red pieces.

We are getting close to December, have you got your Christmas shopping started?  I haven't event thought about it, until my daughter mentioned she only has her Dad left to get for!  Can you believe it!  She is almost done and I haven't even started.

Happy thanksgiving to those in the States.

More progress on the hexagon quilt border

Since the last picture of my hexagon quilt, much more time has passed, and I have rearranged my design wall.  I took down everything, or rather, my daughter took down everything.  

We were sitting in my quilting room enjoying our tea and chat time, when I told her, that the next time I get some time for me, I want to declutter my design wall.  

The wall was getting congested, just like I was feeling, with too many pokers in the fire, and I am not only referring to quilting wise.  My daughter, who like her parents, likes to putter and organize things, so she decided she wanted to help take everything down and rearrange them.

She even took down my monkey wrench blocks......I am still not sure how I feel about that, but for now I have left them in the jar, where she put them, until I have time to start them back up.

Since the last picture, you may have noticed that I got two more final border pieces done, and have attached them to the mothership.  The purple border is two hexagons wide, but once all quilted and trimmed, it will be closer in size to the borders surrounding the floret row.

You might also notice that the top row of florets is no longer on the design wall.  That is so I can make the final border pieces.  As the top row is all in one piece, it will be easier to finish it, and put the whole thing back up.  I haven't started on that yet though.

While taking everything off, my daughter took all the miscellaneous bits and pieces of florets and placed them at the bottom of the design wall, in the corner, behind my chair.

Here I have four small florets started, one lefthand side floret unit for later down the side, and four righthand side floret units waiting their turn to be attached to the mothership.  These units were made while I was waiting around for people or appointments.  They are the pieces that were in my "grab and go" bag.

I always have stuff ready to take along, when I know I will be waiting around.  That is how stuff gets done.  It helps pass the time and keeps me sane at the same time. LOL!

More progress on my Dresden plates

At the last quilting bee meeting, I was complaining about how ridiculous it is that I only have four more Dresden plate blocks left to do, yet they continue to just sit there collecting dust.  No sooner were the words out of my mouth, that I made a pack to myself to get them done.

I love these blocks.  They are estimated to be from the '30-'40's.  Many of the petals are feed sacks.  The Dresden plates were previously appliqued to feed sacks that were disintegrating. The blocks were also assembled into a top, but never quilted.

In order to preserve the Dresden plate fabrics, I am reconstruction the quilt.  I washed the quilt top first, figuring that if the material could not make it through the wash, it should not be used.  I gently unstitched all the plates,  ironed them, trimmed them a consistent size and reassembled them.  There were only a few of the fabrics that were disintegrating.  I was able to replace them with other authentic period fabrics from my small reserve.  

To keep the quilt as close to the original quilt, I am using unbleached muslin, which closely resembled to feed sacks that were used.  I also found an identical blue for the sashing and borders (not shown here).

Since our meetings are on a Wednesday's and Thursday's are my late night, I had a couple of hours in the morning to work on these, and since it was going so well I decided to continue them into the evening after work.

So now, I have two more done and only two more left to go!

I am getting so excited about finally finishing this quilt!!

A couple of quilts from the Halton Hills Quilter's Guild 2017 quilt show (QW)

Last month was our Halton Hills Quilters' Guild quilt show.  The show was very good with many in attendance.  I was so proud of all the quilts in the show.  Many of the visitors thought so too.  The quilts were beautiful.

There is no way to include them all, but they can be seen on our web page.  For this post I wanted to show two quilts from the show.  I want to keep them for future reference.

This first quilt pattern is called Primitive Garden by Lisa Bongean.  The quilt was hand appliqued in wool by Marian Baidacoff with minor design changes and hand quilted by Ester Beringer.  Below is the artist statement.  Sorry for the bit cut off on the right.

I was blown away by all the intricate pieces.  It is truly amazing!  It took Marian 9 years to make this quilt.  I can believe it.....all those small bits and pieces.

This next one, unfortunately I cannot give credit to the maker, as I cannot find the information for it.  The blue curtains are not part of the quilt obviously, but at first glance it is hard to see what is the quilt.  This quilt does not have borders.  I think this quilt will make great use of all the half square triangles you may have.  There is only one small square and the rest are half square triangles.  Very nice!

I thought I would keep these pictures for inspiration.

Progress on my hexagon quilt

Slowly, one at a time, throughout everything else that has been going on, I have been working on my hexagons.  More off than on, but still puttering away on them.  One day not so long ago, I am sitting in my chair, beside the design wall, and look up to see, that even though it has been slow going, I managed to have a good chunk done. 

I have part of a corner done, minus the final borders.  A while back, I believe I showed you the container of pieces all sorted out in groups of diamond, corners, triangles etc.  Well, I wanted to do one of each.  I made a diamond, as seen above, and a side diamond, plus a top triangle diamond.  Add the white row between them and you have the inside corner done.

As this quilt centre is primarily diamonds, it will be easier to assemble on a diagonal.  It's best to make all the full diamonds and attach the bottom left side to the next diamond's top right side, all the way down the row, and add the floret that corresponds to that row.

However, as I have decided to add in another full outer border and a final purple small border, I am giving the centre a rest.  I am going back to the already completed top and bottom rows of florets, to add in the final two borders.

If you look closely at the picture, just above my armor, you will see two pieces of outer border already attached to the top two florets that are attached to the centre diamond piece.  I am calling the whole centre piece the mothership.

It is certainly coming along.  Slowly and one at a time, but nonetheless, it is progressing.

Enjoy your day everyone and make it a good one.

What a great meeting of the Southern-Ontario Longarm Guild

Wow!!!  What a meeting we had.  It was great!

This meeting was about brain storming ideas from the group regarding what to quilt.  Basically, many members brought in quilt tops, otherwise known as flimsies, that they would like help with, for ideas on how to quilt it.

There were so many, it was amazing, and all the quilts were varied in their design, technique and challenges.  Each person added their take on different ideas to work with.  I was blown away by all the options suggested by many.

This was the quilt I brought in.  I call this my monster quilt or "the beast".  I have had this quilt top completed for years and just did not know what to quilt on it.  I was so overwhelmed by the blue, that I could not see past it.  It is so bright and there is so much of it.  A lot of negative space.

Up until recently, I have been mainly a traditional quilter.  That is what my client base is.  However, there is nothing traditional about this quilt, other than they are traditional sampler blocks.  The colours, the setting, the layout and all the negative space is modern.

Different people saw different things.  A lot of them liked the negative space and got excited to share what they would do.  One person thought the inner black border square, on the diagonal, stood out too much, and made suggestions to help make it blend a bit better, to let the blocks themselves stand out more.

One of the experienced ladies took the protector sheet and started drawing the feather example that some had suggested.  She drew different feather types all on the same section, just so that you could see that any of them would work.  The plastic was only so big, but she suggested you could take the feathers all the way to the end to meet the black border, and fill in the whole corner.

The protector sheet is a piece of plastic that is edged with green painters tape.  You can use this to audition different ideas.  The green tape is to make sure you know where the plastic ends, so you don't write on the quilt.

Throughout this meeting, as each top was laid down on the batting on the floor, people took the plastic and dry erase maker to draw what they thought would look good in the different sections.  One by one breaking down the elements of the quilt top and making it more manageable.

Like I said earlier, it was amazing!  I sure hope we do this again.

Old maid's puzzle NICU quilt top done

I have been working at the Old Maid's Puzzle units for a while now, using them as leader/enders between making other quilts.  Well......one day, on a day that I was in desperate need of some do not disturb me time, I just didn't know what to do.  I was so unfocused that I just sat down at my machine and gabbed a unit to sew, and another, and another......  I just kept sewing, until eventually they were all done.

By this time, my internal systems were coming back into order and I was starting to feel more like myself.  There is nothing like some mindless sewing to get your mind off things and put things to right.  Things were going so well, that I gave myself permission to putter in my quilt room for the rest of the evening.

I started trimming all the blocks, sorting them into colour groups, and finally into sets of blocks.  This container holds all the sets of blocks to complete my quilt.  Here they will stay, until I find some time to put them together.

In the meantime, while I was sorting the units into groups for blocks, I noticed I was left with some additional units.  Not one to waste, I sorted them right away into a small NICU quilt for Project Linus.  

It only took four blocks to make the top and a small 2" border to make it the size required at 25" X 25".

Isn't this cute?  I will practice some new free motion edge to edge quilting design on it when I get a chance.

It's nice to see something happening with this quilt.  This quilt is my oldest UFO (UnFinished Object).  I started cutting the material back in September 2004.  This was my first curved piecing.  As the pieces were curved and small, I found it difficult and sometimes frustrating.  It was still outside of my skill level.  So....I put it aside, for a long time.  

As time went on, from time to time, I would take this project out and try it again.  Doing a few here and a few there, until one day it came to me.  I don't like doing curved piecing, but I really do like this quilt, so I decided to make it my leader/ender.  This way it would have a chance of getting done.  On and off it was my leader/ender, until recently.

Now all the curved piecing is done! Yay!!!  Now it waits it's turn to be assembled.  Soon...

Enjoy this brisk Saturday morning.

Argyle quilt top done

I realized it has been a very long time since I posted last.  I have been so busy with everything, from helping my mom get settled into her new place (still have some more renos to finish there), looking after my own home (currently in the process of finishing off the livingroom/dining room), getting my new long arm business up and running (still working on samples and advertising), taking online night classes & doing homework to learn more about my quilting system (just finished this last week, though still need to do some of the homework to increase my skills), participating in two guilds and a bee (which involves travel), working full time at my day job, and keeping the household in running order (at least trying really hard on this one).  The posts just got put to the bottom of the list.  When I did have free time, I needed down time with my quilt making.

Here is my Argyle quilt top finished.  In my head I am still flipping back and forth, with what to quilt on it.  When it comes to me, it will get done.

I like how it turned out.  In person the colours are a bit brighter than the picture and the border, that is reading as almost solid, has circles of all the colours in the centre.  I lucked out with finding that border to match the centre.......and it was in my stash.

I do have a bunch of pictures to share with you, so the lack of topics is not the issue.  It's having the time to write the posts that delays them.  As things start to settle down a bit, with the cooler weather, I should have a bit more time to post more regularly.

Enjoy life to the fullest and embrace all your experiences.