Charity hearts quilt

How did you all like that storm Yesturday?  Here in Acton it was blowing heavily all day.  It started early in the morning and didn't stopped until after 10pm.  Everything is white.  I would be very surprised if we didn't have a white Christmas this year.  That will be nice!

I am now as of 5pm yesturday, officially on my week long vacation.  Whoo hoo!!  I have been making a list and going to see how much I can get done.  This list is different though than the usual list.  This one has some stuff that I "want" to do, like learning to make bread in a cast iron pot (some people refer to it as a Dutch oven),  learning to make paleo bagels, making a stained glass look alike using fabric and some other small things too.  I am also planning to get some of my own quilting stuff further along and tackle my goals for 2023.

I plan to share with you, on my blog, closer to the end of the year, the progress that I have made throughout the year.  My UFO list from 2022 and I have already made plans on what I want to accomplish for 2023.  I am looking for a catchy phrase for 2023 that will translate to my goal or accomplishments.  Either a word or a phrase, maybe an inspirational quote/saying.  Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Taking you back to Sept/2021, with this picture of a quilt I quilted for a customer.  Cute little baby size quilt.  I like the simplicity of this one.  It would be a fast and easy quilt to put together for a last minute need or for charity.  This one was made for Project Linus.

Interesting facts:  In mid August/2021, my mother and I installed my design wall in preparation to settle into my sewing room. On the 21st the majority of the kitchen cupboards were installed and remaining cupboards came on 31st, when they also installed the counters. Whooo hooo! I have myself a kitchen again.  Now I can start unpacking things and getting back to normal a bit.  September we pack up our son and bring him to residence at Laurier.  Big day for him.  In renos, I am starting to work on getting the master bedroom together.  Plastering, priming, painting.  Installing shelves in the closets.  At this point now, work on the house starts to slow down as it takes twice as long to do things when people are living in the house.  I'm also continuing to install baseboards.  October is when I start to work on the basement.

Take care everyone!!  Sending you all good wishes for Christmas, however you celebrate it and a safe holiday, hopefully spent with family and friends.

Judy's almost Amish quilt

I am setting this post to publish tomorrow, as I will be trying to catch up on things in my quilting area.  Tomorrow (or by the time this post, today), is Friday.  Have to work until 5pm, and I am off work for a week.  I am getting excited.  I really need the down time.  My kids are home, we will be spending Christmas at my mom's place where the whole family still gets together to celebrate, open the gifts and enjoy family time with lots of food.

Today I am going to take you back in time to Aug 8/2021:

This would have been just after I quilted this quilt for Judy.  The picture does not do this quilt justice.  In person it looks so much better.  Judy calls this quilt Almost Amish.  I am assuming because of the bright colours with the background in black.  It was quilted using Time Warp from Urban Elementz.  Unfortunately, I forgot to get close up photos of the quilting.  This is a good jelly roll quilt.

Outside of quilting, interesting facts at the same time back on the long weekend of August 1st/2021, there was no holding them back any longer.....the kids moved their mattresses and beds into the new house to set up their rooms, all while I am setting up a washing station in the basement for a temporary kitchen and packing up our daily stuff from at my mom's place.  Did I tell you, that we still don't have a kitchen or a main bathroom.....lol.   Like I said, there was no holding them back....lol.

Another Daybreak quilt

Whoo hoo!!!  I finished my Christmas wrapping this evening.  Now I can relax a bit and maybe try and get this place in order.  A lot of hot spots to pick up and deal with....lol....always the way....you try to work on something and other things fall behind.  Well now that I have the presents wrapped and mostly cleaned up, I can get back to doing up some of my samples.  Still have quite a few of those to do.  I will try and quilt a few more quilts for Quilts for Survivors too.

Quilting related, I found another picture from a participant at the workshop for the Daybreak pattern.  Another colourway to share.  This was the workshop from March/2021 for the HHQG.  You can see the main post about it on the post dated Apr 24/2022.  This one is really close to the one I did, but the colours have been divided into your darker strips for the large main star and your medium strips for the secondary smaller star.  It looks great!!

I added this block of mine here so you can see how close it is, but still different.  I think I said it in my previous post as well, but I will say it here too, that I enjoyed seeing all the different variations from everyone who attended the workshop.

Outside of quilting....so yesturday and today's post are out of sequence.  I intended to do this one first based on the dates and the progress I was making with my getting ready to move business. So excuse my error.  

Interesting facts:  Taking you back in time to Feb/2020: 

February-I begin by patching up the holes from pictures we've taken down, dents and cracks, and painted the living room.  We also packed up my daughter's room so that I can get to it and moved her to my mom's place, where she is going to be staying until we move.  This month I also finished installing the wood floors in the living room, stained and varnished 2 levels of stairs to match the new wood floors, painted the risers, touched up paint in the kitchen, dismantle/pack/move the sewing room outside of one machine on a small table.  The coming soon sign goes up to let people know that we are selling. So the push is still on to get things done in time.  I still feel like I am on a rollercoaster ride and can't stop it...lol.  But I keep going... I managed to also paint the upstairs bathroom, the office, sewing room and basement stairs this month, during weekends and the extra vacation time I took to get things done.  

March-I start the deep cleaning of all the rooms, wash windows, steam clean all the area rugs, to get ready for pictures.  Once those are done, behind the scenes, I am touching up paint and more deep cleaning.  I have to also pack up my son and our family dog to my mom's place, as we are now ready to list the house for sale. Moving to my mom's for the week while it is showing. By the 23rd we reviewed the offers and sold the house. Whooo hooo!!!

Teresa's bar quilt (QW)

How are things going for you?  Are you ready for Christmas day?  Not yet for me.  I have a bunch of presents to wrap and stockings to stuff, after I stuff them I will know if I need to get some small fillers.  I have been taking the time these last few days to read a three book series by Nora Roberts.  I haven't had the time to just sit and enjoy a good book in a while.

There has been no quilty stuff going on here since last week, so I will just take you back in time to March 20/2021:

This is a quilt that Teresa made.  She told me she designing it as she went along and that she made it for her sister.  This is another great way to us up some of those large scale prints, so that you can see a good chunk of the design.  I like the small sashing effect and the consistency of the gold dividing rows.

Interesting facts:  Also from this same date back in March/2021 until August 1st/2021, all of the quilt pictures taken during that time, were divided up to other posts dated later to capture the start and finish all in the one post.  So I will summarize what has been happening in my life during this time.  From this date all the craziness starts to happen.  It is a complete rollercoaster ride.  March-Starts with a big push to finish up the renos and pack up all the big stuff and excess.  By mid-month we sold our home in Etobicoke, so now I start the process of really getting down to packing everything, calling around to arrange for moving day and changing addresses, setting up service dates, etc.  April-We bought a home in Acton, I am working crazy amounts of overtime due to the boom in the housing market, while still packing and travelling to my mom on weekends to quilt for customers and groceries for my daughter, who is still staying at my mom's. Now we are also moving stuff into storage, as we have pretty much maxed out at my mom's place.  We still need room for us.  May-On the 1st, I hosted a zoom workshop for the HHQG, I resigned from workshop convenor for HHQG after 3yrs of volunteering. On the 14th, we moved out of our home in Etobicoke and moved up here to Acton with my mom temporarily and take possession of our new home in Acton on the 19th.  But it wasn't crazy enough, so now you add in the mix of gutting and renovating the new house before we can move in.  Taking down walls, tearing out all the flooring, gut the kitchen cupboards, and the main bathroom.  June-Most of the demolition on the main floor is done, now we start to put it back together. Drywall the ceilings, walls, plumbing out the shower and tub in main bathroom.  Plus, I was elected president of the Halton Hills Quilter's Guild (HHQG).  July-I am plastering, priming and painting all the rooms, as the push is on!! It now becomes a mad dash to finish whatever I can because the other members of my family decided they wanted to move into the house come August 1st!!! YIKES!!  August 1st came around and we semi moved in.  Did I mention we still don't have a kitchen or a main bathroom...lol.  Mid-month, we start into installing all subfloors, ceramic floor tiles in kitchen and bathroom, wood floors throughout the rest of the main floor.  Finished it in time minus the baseboards.  I am also painting up the main bathroom, installing the vanity/sink, toilet, tub and tiling the shower.  End of August we head to my mom's to do 5 bushels of tomatoes for us and 2 bushels for her of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, salsa and marinara.

If I didn't have all this information in my calendar, I would never have believed that I did this much in this short a period of time...WOW!!  You'll see in the upcoming posts that I continued to do a lot of juggling, but nothing was so crazy as it was during these six months from March-August/2021.  It boggles my mind.

Now in the end of the year 2022, I am starting to take my own advice and taking some time for myself.  The last few days reading for pleasure and just in general looking after me.  I even went and had a manicure.  Whoo hoo!  Something I haven't done in a couple of years now.  No sense in getting one when you're playing with power tools, wood, plaster and paint....lol.

Have a great night everyone.

HHQG disappearing nine patch workshop quilt samples

As a continuation of my last post, I'll take you back again to March/2021:

When I was discussing the idea of a disappearing nine patch quilt pattern for the upcoming HHQG workshop, one of the members shared with me a second variation of one that she made.  The pattern variation from the last post can be found at Jordan Fabrics free patterns site and this version comes from Missouri Star free patterns.  Both are pretty and simple enough to do, even for a beginner.

This version starts out with smaller squares and once you are done making the block, as in the first version, you would take a background fabric square and do a sew and flip corner.  The first picture here is assembling four blocks together, separated by a blue sashing.  This one was made by a HHQG member.  Pretty spring colours.

For a second version of this quilt I raided my mom's fabric stash to make this one, using fall colours.  This one does not have the sashing.  I am also noting that these two versions here today use two different coloured fabric squares per block with the same background fabric throughout.  The version from the last post only used the one type of fabric per block and the background in that one is also the same throughout.

I made the lap quilt sample above and as I used my mom's fabric stash, I gave her the quilt when the workshop was done.  She uses it as a table topper, on her dinning room table, instead of as a lap quilt.

We had a good turnout at the workshop and we had as many different colour ways as we had people in attendance.  This particular workshop was done via zoom, as we were still very much in the time of covid.

A Christmas disappearing nine patch quilt

I finally finished all the customer Christmas quilt deadlines last weekend and they have all been picked up throughout the week.  Nothing like last minute quilting....glad I won't be doing the binding....lol.  These past few days, I was trying to catch up on the quilting samples, that I fell behind on and that was interrupted with a power outage on Wednesday that lasted most of the evening.  Still need to do another sixty samples, but yesturday I had to deal with all my Christmas gift shopping instead.

I got up bright and early, had breakfast, and sat to have my tea while I cruised online trying to get suggestions for age appropriate gifts for my son and daughter.  Just an FYI for those who also have more gift shopping to do....Amazon is still guaranteeing delivery before Christmas day, depending on where you live I guess.  I knocked a couple of gifts off the list, before I even left the house.  Yeah!!

I was out shopping all day with my sister, followed by a visit to her house, and a girls movie night, with the original Pride and Prejudice...the six hour version...  I enjoyed the day spent with my sister.

Today I have to sort out all the gifts, maybe even wrap them to determine if I have to go out again today to do some smaller items.  Likely won't have much time to do anything quilt related today and maybe even for the next couple of days.  Though I am running out of time, I don't feel as frantic anymore.  Yesturday dealt with most of it and I had a lovely relaxing evening.  Even though I didn't get home until the wee hours of the morning after that six hour movie, I am still up early this morning and ready to tackle the day. 

So, I will leave you with a Christmas quilt and take you back to April/2020:

This is when I made this quilt, that I later used as inspiration for the HHQG workshop in March/2021.  For this pattern I used the disappearing nine-patch block, this way I could use up all the large print novelty fabrics that I had saved for a while.  

So many of these blocks look like I fussy cut them, but other than ensuring I had scenes closer to the corners, as I cut my large starting squares, things just turned out how they did.  This one has the bird on the trimmed tree.

This second one was using a fabric with an overall pattern and it still looks good with the oranges and poinsettias. 

Though I took this next picture for a closer view of the quilted snowflakes, you can enlarge it to see the images of Santa with his sack of toys, another one of three nutcrackers, another scene of a nutcracker and a white rocking horse by a Christmas tree.  Some blocks had ornaments, some snowflakes, others had food stuff like a fruit punch bowl that you would have used for a fully trimmed traditional Christmas feast.  I really enjoyed making this quilt and seeing how pretty the blocks turned out, with all sorts of Christmas designs.  The blocks are just large enough to capture all of the festive scenes.

Here is the finished quilt taken at my mom's place.  The blocks were so pretty, I didn't think I needed to add any borders to this throw size quilt.

Hope you like it!  I know I do and as I still have this quilt, I can enjoy it during this Christmas season.  Hope everyone is doing well with all of their last minute preparations.  Take care and don't forget to take some time for yourself.  You'll need it, especially at this time of the the year!

Square-in-a-square blocks and three other pictures for inspiration (QW)

I bought a specialty ruler, that is supposed to make it easy to make a square-in-a-square block.  When it arrived back in March/2021, I had to try it.  I made two blocks using fabrics from my scrap pile.  Unfortunately, that is where it stands.  This is a quilt on my UFO list, because I started it.  I could just put it in my bin of extra blocks to be used at another time, but I do want to use up my scraps and I would like to make a whole quilt with this type of block.  It ought to be interesting, made completely from my scraps.  The ones that nobody wants to use anymore, as they are dated.  We will have to see how that turns out....  Don't hold your breath though, as it will be a while before I get to this one....lol. 

I saw this next picture (a free pattern) on Pinterest.   I'm not sure why I saved it.  I was drawn to it.  Maybe some day I will do something with it....

This is another picture from Pinterest.  It's a crumb quilt.  As the caption says....itty bitty crumbs...lol.

And lastly I saved this picture from Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts.  This is what she did as a challenge using her solid scraps, for a modern block.

All of the above pictures are for eye candy.  There is something in each of them that catches my eye!  Will they ever turn into anything...?  Who knows, but I like referring back to them from time to time to get some inspiration.  In a blog, I can easily search them with the (QW) in the title, which stands for quilt-want-to-be...lol

Take care everyone, have a great day and don't forget to take some time for yourself!

My mom's double wedding ring quilt (QW)

For this post, I am going to take you back in time to Sept 12/2020, when I started quilting this quilt.  This is the last of the pictures from 2020, that never got posted during the computer/blogger/apple glitch that I had, followed by all the renovations to get the house up on the market.....well you know the story if you've read my blog for any length of time.

This quilt is on my bucket list, however like many, I am intimidated by all the curves.  This is supposedly one of the more difficult quilts to make and from what I hear, the one that sits in the cupboards of many quilts unfinished, due to the difficulty.

This is my mom's double wedding ring quilt.  It turned out beautiful!  She used light and medium scraps to make the arches some solid yardage to do the cornerstones and only had to buy the white for the background.  In person, it looks a little more pastel coloured.

Here is a close up of the one complete double ring.  I quilted the rings free motion arches from corner to corner, and did a set of four chains for the cornerstone.  The center of the rings was a block motif purchased from Urban Elementz.  

I dropped something on the floor and had to almost crawl under the longarm to get it.  When I looked up, I thought, how cool.  The back of the quilt with the light above it, reminds me of a stained glass effect.  So I took a picture of it.  This is the picture from 2020.  The pictures above were taken recently when I realized I didn't take any after pictures, when the quilt was done.  

To keep this real as well, I started quilting this in September/2020, but after completing the first go through, of all the in-the-ditch work and the arches on the chains, I had to take it off the machine to work on some customer quilts and after that I got into the renos.  Come Dec/2020, I had to move my machine to my mom's place, to finish the renos at the old place, and after we went right into renos on this new place all of 2021 and part of 2022.  This is the longest it has ever taken me to quilt a quilt.

Good thing my mom was not in a rush for this quilt.  It wasn't until summer of 2022 that I was able to put it back on the machine to quilt, as that is usually a slow time of the year for me, as many take off for their cottages during the summer.

I hope you enjoyed this one.  As I said earlier, this is a quilt on my bucket list!  Anyone else have this on their bucket list?

Hexagon quilt progress

I realized earlier today that I haven't shared the progress on my hexagon quilt in a while.  Trying to keep it real, with just how long these things take to make.  Especially considering this whole top is being done by hand.  This has been an on and off, long term project, that I started back in Nov 18/2014 (click this link if you wish to read more Start of Hexagon quilt). 

This picture is as of Oct 29th/2022 of just the bottom section on the left hand side.  Since the update in September, I finished the diagonal row going into the centre.

Since Oct 29th, I got a couple more diamonds done.  The two sections on the left were already completed back in October.  I haven't had as much time to work on this lately, as I would like, but still bit by bit, I can see the progress.

I also have all the patties made for three more diamonds in my grab and go container and I started on the four diamond patties.

So the next time you are working on something and feel that you are getting nowhere with it.....try taking pictures of your progress with dates.  You may find that you are making more progress than you initially thought.

Again, just keeping it real.  We have lives to live, work to do, taking care of the household, taking care of loved ones, and spending time with family and friends.  In all of this, we still need to find some time for ourselves...our sanity depend on it....lol.  

Take care everyone!

Santa's sleigh wall hanging

I am in the process of putting up decorations for Christmas....ok....I get that I am a bit late, but I am doing my best.  This will be the second year in this house for Christmas since we took possession of the place.  Though this is the first year that I am able to actually take some time to open up the Christmas boxes and sort out what we have and what will work for this house. 

Part of preparing for the Christmas decorations includes a Santa wall hanging, that my mom made for me and gifted to me a couple of years ago.  It took me a bit of time to do the quilting on it.  Once I was done quilting, my mom had to do all the fancy stitches with the silver and gold threads, to highlight the reindeers, harnesses and Santa's sleigh.  This weekend I finished up Santa's eyes and added the hanging sleeve, all while watching Christmas movies.  This year it is finally going up on the wall!

Here is a close up of the reindeer and their fancy antlers flying across the sky.  The silver thread sparkles in person and so does the gold harness.

Here is the close up of Santa waving and wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a good night, while he passes across the moon with his sack still full of presents.  I love his plaid blanket over his knees, and look at all that fancy gold thread detail on his sleigh!  Even the fabric used for his beard has texture and looks cute.  I heavily quilted the moon and the sky background in order to help Santa and the reindeers pop up.  The whole thing looks great!

My mom/Lorna made one for herself a while back from a pattern and I really wanted to make one too, but for my wall hanging shelf, it was too big, so I took the pattern to Staples and reduced it to 80% to fit the space I wanted to put it.  I put it up on Sunday right after finishing the hanging sleeve.  

Thanks Mom!!

Interesting facts, outside of quilting, about this same time back in Dec/2020:   Aside from being gifted this wall hanging top for Christmas back in Dec/2020.  This is the time when I realized, I can't just cover up my longarm with sheets while I renovate the basement.  I have to get it out of here before I start on the next stage of drywalling and plastering at the old house in preparation for selling.  So, we dismantled the longarm and took it to my mom's place where we set it up again.  This is at the point where now, I have to travel to my mom's place every weekend to quilt for customers, so it starts getting even crazier.  During the Christmas holiday week, I started working on the basement, drywalling, priming and painting.

Fancy Forest Animals quilt by a customer

I had an enjoyable evening out tonight with some ladies from work.  It's really nice when we get together and catch up with what everyone has been up to, since our last get together.  Some have retired and a few I still see at work, but not in the same department or now working from home.  Meeting them is a real energy booster.  Lots of talking and laughing. Hmmmm...big sigh, until next time.

Today I want to share with you a quilt that will take you back in time to Nov 20/2020:

This quilt pattern I believe is called Fancy Forest Animals by Eileen Conti or at least that is what the search brought up.  This first picture is of the unquilted top only.

This next picture is of the quilted top.  I quilted this using a pattern called Overlapping Circles from Urban Elementz.  Unfortunately, I forgot to get a close up.

It turned out nice!  I like all of these animal quilts that are out nowadays.  There are many different types and now there are even themes, like dinosaurs, porcupines, and many more.  They seem to be popular with other quilters too.

  
Interesting facts, outside of quilting, about the same month back in Nov/2020:  At this time, with renos, I am gearing up to get a lot of things done from now until March.  I am feeling a bit panicky, as I feel there is not a lot of time to get what I need to get done, and with the housing market getting hot, I don't want to lose the window of time between the seller's market and the buyer's market.  So here is where it starts to get even more crazy around here.  I have started to gut the basement, removing all the paneling and some partial walls to open up the space.  Lots and lots to do still.....and I just keep thinking the clock is ticking....very fast.....lol.  I can laugh a bit now, but at the time, I was more stressed.

Enjoy!  Take care and don't forget to take some time for yourself!

Postcards given to me

Today, I had to run out to get a secret Santa gift for work tomorrow.  It is into the office for me and my team, for 1/2 the day, for a centre meeting and our team get together, where we plan to make some hygiene kits for those in need, as part of our community involvement.  

Needless to say, there was not much time for some personal time, to do any quilt related stuff, once I made dinner, cleaned up, and took the dog for a walk.  

So, for today, I will take you back in time to Aug 30th/2020:

Back at this time, we were pretty much completed with our postcard exchange, with the Halton Hills Quilter's Guild.  I was in a group of six participants, which meant I needed to make 5 postcards for each person in my group.  I received four cards from the group (one person did not complete the cards by the required deadline), but I still ended up with five postcards, as the organizer of the exchange, Sue Luque, the previous president and past president of the guild, decided to gift me with a postcard as well.

They are all very different.  Everyone has there own take on designs for the postcards.

I was debating joining the postcard exchange again this year, but I am afraid that I would not have been able to put in my 100% in making them.  I don't want to shortchange anyone....

Interesting facts:  At this same time, back in Aug/2020, I am now in the 3rd year of running the HHQG workshops.  This last weekend of August is traditionally the time to do the canning too, for diced tomatoes, marinara sauce, spaghetti sauce and salsa sauce.  At this time in September/2020, we are also moving more large furniture, out of the house to my mom's place, to open up the space.  In renos, I am tiling the bathroom shower and putting the finishing touches in the bathroom.  October/2020, I am starting in on the wood floors, on the office level, and all this month, continuing throughout the house.

This was a pretty busy time of year for me!!

Anyways, hope everyone had a great day!!  Take care and don't forget to take some time for yourself!

Mom's bird on a fence wall hanging

Yesturday, when I was at my mom's place, I helped her take down the bird wall hanging and replaced it with the Santa and his reindeers', riding his sleigh across the sky, with a full moon behind them.  I thought to take a few pictures of the bird wall handing while it was available.

The wall hanging is laying on the loveseat in the living room, so it looks a little lumpy with the pillows beneath it, but is actually hangs straight.  The birds were part of four, in a panel.  My mom/Lorna, used only the three, otherwise the wall hanging would have been too wide.

Mom kept the frame that was around the individual pictures.  She made some colourful pinwheels to add to the top and bottom of the centre piece, and surrounded that with a grey border, followed by a black border.  It turned out quite lovely.  Mom puts this wall hanging on the wall in the stairway and it goes up every spring. 

Here is a closer view of the first bird panel.  I quilted this in free motion quilting.  It may not be perfect, as I was still learning at the time.  I did this one on my domestic machine.  In person, the birds and flowers look almost 3-D.  They seem to pop off the surface.

This next one is the centre panel.  Again, just want to point out that the wall hanging is flat.  In the picture it isn't, because it was laying on the loveseat with pillows beneath it.

Lastly, we have the final panel on the right hand side.

Mom really loves her bird wall hanging.  I think it turned out great too!

I'll leave you with that for pictures.  On the home front, I washed and put on the Christmas sheets on the bed, put up the Christmas tree in the living room and brought home a live poinsettia for the kitchen island.  I am looking forward to taking out some more decorations than we did last year, now that I am not up to my neck in renos.  I am getting into the spirit with listening to Christmas music all weekend and when I can.  Today I even started my Christmas shopping.  Whoo hoo!!

Have a great night everyone!  Take care and don't forget to take some time for yourself!

Mom's wolf wall hanging

Today started with being served tea in bed when I woke up...how nice is that!  I enjoyed my tea while I took my computer out and caught up on reading some blog posts.  Later on I got out of bed, did the usual morning routine, and headed downstairs to take care of more deadline quilts for customers.

I also took care of a bunch of miscellaneous stuff in my quilting studio space, like ironing the fabrics I washed, trimming this and that, picking up the hot spot messes in various places and generally getting things in order.  By 2:00 pm, I declared that I was done and quit for the rest of the day.  I haven't even had any "me time", time to do whatever I want to do and relax some as well....by this time, I still hadn't even had time to have lunch either.  Time to fix that!!

So I went upstairs and made some lunch, called my mom to check up on her.  Everything was well.  I decided to take the rest of the day off from quilting business here at home and head over to her place.  I still had to complete the set up of her new tablet.  Mom has really been embracing the whole online stuff.  Since we stayed at her house back in March/2020 in preparation to sell our house, we started introducing the internet to her bit by bit.  She is now at this time and date officially addicted....lol.

While I was at my mom's today, I took the opportunity to take some pictures of her quilts and wall hangings.  Though I took these pictures today, this piece was actually made and quilted back in July/2020.

My mom/Lorna bought a panel of a winter scene with wolves.  I looked up some images of what to do with panels on Pinterest, and mom decided to make it simple with the squares around the two corners.  I quilted the wall hanging in free motion, outlining in the center and used a grid pattern to free motion the borders.

This same pattern, that I used on the squares, in the picture above, is the same pattern that I decided to use on the plain black fabric that was used for the remaining parts of the last border.  The process that I used for the black border was a little bit different, as I didn't have the guidance of the pieced blocks to create the grid that I needed to quilt out the pattern. 

I think it turned out very good!!  I love the overall affect of the border.  I did it in a faded jean colour to match or bring out the centre colours of the panel.

I had a lovely afternoon at my mom's place.  I got things done that she needed done and relaxed some. Plus....I got a beautiful dinner out of it.  Homemade meals...there is nothing better than that!

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  Take care. 

Angela Walters' quilt along

I've been quilting customer quilts that have deadlines, as they are for Christmas.  Two more off the list.  I have a few more to do, so will likely do two tomorrow and another one next week.  I'll be caught up on the deadlines, until after the new year, and can maybe rest for a bit and do my own stuff, plus add in a few quilts for Quits for Survivors.

No pictures from today just yet.  Still need to trim the quilts and hope for better day light, before the customers come to pick up their quilts.  What a miserable day today, weatherwise.  We had rain and some snow, plus some really strong winds.  The wind was so strong that one of my customer's fence fell down.  It was that bad!

For today I'll take you back in time to Aug 22/2020:   

I did this panel that Angela Walters designed and had produced for one of her quilt-along.  Angela has many now.  This one I believe was called What to Quilt Where, but not a 100% sure.  The panel is designed to represent various types of blocks from nine patches, flying geese, square in a square, pinwheels and more.  It was well thought out and really good variety with the quilting motifs.  I highly recommend any of her quilt-along, they are all so informative.  You learn a lot!

Here is a closer view of the top section with the four rows and white background.

 

Here is the remaining three rows including the previous row from above.

We did a lot of ruler work, which is generally how it starts for outlining all the block sections.  We did free motion in the blocks or sometimes more ruler work, followed by using a filler of choice to fill in the sections not quilted.

I had fun doing this.  Please don't look too closely as I am still learning my free motion quilting.  I don't get a lot of time to practice and when it comes to free motion quilting you need to practice, practice and continue to practice just to get mediocre.

This next little section is one of my favourite blocks.  I do like stars and the colour purple, plus I like the swirls that I quilted on this.

I am taking the rest of the day off to rest some, didn't have the greatest sleep last night.  I think I will go make something for dinner and curl up under the blankets, put on the candles and watch a Christmas movie....do some Hygge... in other words get all comfy and cozy (See below). 

Definition:  Hygge is all about being in the moment, feeling completely relaxed and centred, letting go of the hectic world around you, either alone or with loved ones.  Hygge time in Scandinavia is enjoyed after a busy day of activities.  No phones and computers allowed in those magical moments.

Hope everyone had a good day, even with the weather we just had.  Take care and don't forget to take some time for yourself.....do some hygge and get feeling all hyggelig....lol.

Judy's machine appliqué flower quilt

Yesturday and today, I've been surfing blogland, checking out what others are doing.  It's interesting.  Many things caught my eyes.  There is so much eye candy out there.  It doesn't matter what you are looking for, you are sure to find something you like.  While I was surfing, I came across a site that I haven't been on in a long time.  I almost forgot about it.  But now that I found it again, I am inspired to get back to the Take-a-stitch-Tuesday (TAST) at Pintangle.  See https://pintangle.com/tast-faq/ if you are interested. 

I did some a few years back and got too busy to continue, but I just read that she is going to be doing a challenge starting Jan/2023.  I signed up for the weekly emails with the challenge embroidery stitch of the week.  I haven't decided if I am going to do the whole thing, but I do enjoy the inspiration.  I have several books that I also want to get into for embroidery, beading, ribbon work and more.  I already have my template for my hexagon blocks that I plan to use for my wall hanging that will be made out of velvets and velour.  I have been collecting....I think I have enough to make several full size quilts....lol.

The wall hanging is going to be, in the way, a Victorian style crazy patchwork, with a whole lot of fancy stitch work.  Join in if you wish!  

For this post though, I will take you back in time to Aug 30/2020:

This is Judy's machine appliqué flower quilt, made in nice soft colours.  Makes me think of summer.  This picture was a close up to show that you can still do edge to edge on an appliqué quilt and you barely see the stitches running over the appliqué.  I wouldn't do it on a fully hand pieced item, as those generally deserve to be custom quilted or hand quilted.  But this quilt was going to get used regularly.  

Here is the full view.  It turned out very pretty.  I quilted it with a design that has large daisy like flowers and butterflies.  It is a soft and open design to match the flavour of the quilt.

Here is a little bit closer to see the individual block layout.  Each appliqué block is a half square triangle with light and medium fabrics with the flower laying across the seam.  The alternating blocks are nine patches.  All the blocks are separated by small white sashing. 

That's all for tonight.  I am heading to bed early, as I have a busy day of quilting tomorrow.  I have a bunch of Christmas quilt deadlines to meet.  I'll likely be quilting the whole weekend, as I don't like leaving that sort of stuff to the last minute, especially considering the quilt would still need to be binded, labeled and wrapped.

Have a great evening everyone!  Take care and don't forget to take some time for you!

Future inspiration (QW)

I have a few things I wanted to keep for inspiration and reference later.  These are in no particular order, just here to refer back to when I am ready to look into buying patterns or books.

This first picture comes from Pinterest, as you can clearly see from the label at the bottom of it.  I saved it in my Pinterest folder, but sometimes they drop off there.  I really like the simplicity of this winter quilt and would like to make one, some day.  When I am ready, I will search for the pattern.

These next two pictures were from a quilt store newsletter.  They are quilt story books.  I've not read any yet, but I hear that they are good.  So soon I will be looking for any of these to read and if I like it, I can get some more.  I'm not even sure if the books have anything to do with "quilts", but I will give it a try.

This last picture is also from Pinterest.  I've also seen this in a magazine somewhere, but which one, I am not sure.  This whole quilt is made up of stripped fabric.  All the blocks are mitered corners.  I thought the effect looked pretty cool.  The one I saw in a quilt show was using men's shirting fabric.

 

I hope some of these inspired you as well.  Sometimes we get so much inspiration, but when the time comes that you want to refer to it, you don't know where you saw it.  This way my "(QW)" can be searched to narrow down all my "Quilt-want-to-be"....lol (I still love that term and chuckle every time).

My cutting table on wheels

I know that many people have all sorts of different cutting table setups.  I have a few myself.  I also know that people like seeing how others have their setups to get ideas and options.  So, I thought I would share with you my cutting table on wheels.  This table doubles as a stand up sewing table as well, and I use that when I need to do an emergency, add on to the backing, when the quilt is still loaded on the longarm.

As you can see, I was trimming some half square triangles (HST).  This is the top surface.  The cutting table is about 1/2 the size of the large cutting mat.  It's big enough to hold my Janome 6500 professional with the extended table.  For reference, those HSTs are 4 1/2".  It is a good size for trimming work.  When cutting and trimming, I prefer to do it standing.

This is what I have my table on.  You can find this rolling tray at IKEA.  I used to use it beside my sewing chair to hold all sorts of stuff, but I got something else for that.  Now I use it for this.  The wood that makes up the table is longer than the rolling tray, to fit everything.  So I use the right hand side to do my work and hold the sewing machine.  The reason the table is not centred is because the sewing machine is very heavy whereas the extended table has almost no weight at all.  This way the table is much more stable.  I centre the machine over the tray section.  My sewing machine cords and accessories are in the tiers below the table.

To secure the wood to the rolling tray I am using L brackets that I flattened a bit to extend past the rounded lip of the tray.  I have two on each long side and one on each short side.  No holes in the rolling tray, so if I decide to change my setup, I can easily remove the wood and not have damaged the rolling tray. 

This works well for me.  I know that many people are investing a lot of money into stand up tables to do more standing up instead of always sitting, so this could be an option if that is what you are looking for.  It is less expenses, so you can try it out for a while to see if you like it, before investing a lot of money on the tables on the market at the moment.

You could even use something like this for an ironing board.  Keep an open mind and come up with other uses for it, or other variations of this that would work better for you.  Take the seed and let it grow.

Have a great night!!  Take care and don't forget to take some time for you!

My design wall this month (November/2022)

What a productive weekend.  I have been cleaning up a bunch of things quilting related.  Getting customer quilts done, with a Christmas deadline, cleaning up my sewing area and generally finishing up a lot of bits and pieces here at the house as well.  It is amazing how much can be done when you minimize all the distractions.  But really...what is life without the distractions....lol.

I took a few days off of writing post, but I have been catching up on pictures of things I've done that I couldn't post, as I didn't have pictures.  Well now I have them, so there are pending posts, ready for me to share, when I can.

There were so many that I got organized with, that I didn't know where to start.  So I am going to start with right now, right here, today with something I haven't done in a while.  I'll start off with my design wall this month.

What does my design wall look like today....well it doesn't look much different than it looked like last month or the month before....  I've been busy with all sorts of stuff, like customer quilts, renos, shop hopping with my mom, a quilting retreat, and some well needed down time with my family.  My own sewing took a back seat for a bit.

For the first time ever, I finally finished the hanging sleave for my November's wall hanging that goes in my sewing room (that is on the left hand side of the picture, just above my cutting table).  On my sewing table I have my panel for the quilted floor pillow I am making (more details about that one in a future post).

On my design wall, I have bits and pieces of inspiration all over, and I have five quilts in progress.  First, in the center is the 2021 Bonnie Hunter winter mystery quilt, at the bottom, underneath everything else.  Secondly, I have the Christmas fabric quilt using a disappearing nine-patch pattern on top of the Bonnie Hunter winter mystery quilt.  To the left on the design wall is the wool wall hanging I am working on borders for (this is hand appliqué).  On the right hand side, at the top, I have a scrappy square in a square quilt started, using my scrapes, and at the bottom of that is the Bonnie Hunter Bit Coin quilt, using my 1 1/2" scrap strips.

There are a few other bits and pieces on there, but I am hoping they go unnoticed...lol.  Face it, I have a lot of stuff on the go. I am trying to reduce the list, but no sooner do I finish one, I add two...lol.  I can't seem to stop myself.  I just want to try it all......

I am sure I am not the only one that does this, so don't judge me to harshly.  It is just how I roll.

Anyways, have a great night everyone!  Take care and don't forget to take some time for you. 

A brief break

I am going to be taking a brief break from posting this week.  I have a long list of things to do, with no time left to gather pictures for posts.  With Christmas coming, all of a sudden there are rush quilts to be done and other non quilty related things to do.  I figure I will take the week off.

Take care everyone. Don't forget to schedule some time for yourself.  Your going to need it to make it over the hustle and bustle of the holidays!

Joy's Germany fabric quilt (QW)

I am back from an enjoyable time away with friends at a private quilting retreat.  I feel so relaxed and energized.  I got the centre of a top done. Just need borders on that one and I also got 20 blocks of another quilt done for another quilt I am making.  Very much enjoyed the company, beautiful serene scenery, and food that we all chipped in to make.

Last Wednesday I had a day off from my full time job and worked on my son's bedroom.  I managed to finish sanding the fine coat of plaster, priming two coats, a trip to Home Depot for the paint he chose for his room, filled the nail holes, painting two coats of the main colour and one coat of the accent wall colour.  After that was done, I showered and headed to pickup my mom for a movie night out with my sister in Milton.  That was quite nice.  When I got home at around 9:30 pm, I figured I had just enough time to finish the second coat of the accent wall before walking the dog and finally heading to bed.  That felt great!!  I really feel good when I have such a productive day!

So today, when I got home from the retreat, at just after 2:00 pm, I took advantage of the remaining afternoon to try and finish my son's room.  I sanded all the wood filler, sweep up and started painting all the baseboards, casings and his wall cubby hole.  I am writing this post while I am waiting for my timer to go off telling me it is ready for the second coat of paint on the baseboards and trims, before I walk the dog and head to bed.  I am trying my best to get everything around here done, but realistically his room will likely be the last thing I do, until winter is over and we are able to open the windows and let some fresh air in, as the next thing I need to do, needs ventilation. 

So, until I can get some current pictures taken, I'll take you back in time to July 4/2020:

This is Joy's quilt.  This would be a great option for those large scale prints, so that you can show a good portion of it in larger blocks.  I am saving this quilt idea for a quilt I want to make, so you will see a tape measure in some of the pictures for my own reference, for when I am ready to make one.

Joy did a lovely job of piecing this quilt.  It's a lap size, but can be converted to any size by either adding or subtracting blocks.  I like the subtle colourway she chose for this quilt.

I took measurements of the block to replicate this quilt.  Other information you may need to know if you are looking to make one as well, is that the border surrounding the block, the background fabric, is 1" finished, and the second border surrounding that is also 1" finished.  This one would be an accent fabric, one that would highlight the colours in the block.  What I mentioned in this paragraph is the instructions for the block.  You would make as many blocks as you need and sash them in the same background fabric (in this case she used cream).

Just another picture showing a different angle.

I'd love to see your quilt if you intend to make one.  I think this one would be great in any colourway.

Interesting facts:  At this same time back in July/2020, in renos, we are clearing out the crawlspace at the old house.  Gutting out the bathroom on the office level and still bringing packed boxes to my mom's. 

Enjoy your evening everyone!  Got to go....my alarm just went off, telling me I need to do that last coat of paint.  Take care, and take some time for you!