Monkey wrench quilt

When I moved here and started unpacking the boxes, in August/2021, I told myself I needed to finish things.  I've had a crazy, mixed up 2 1/2 years of major renovating two homes, on the tail end of renovating my mom's home for the previous 2 1/2 yrs of weekends as well, with only bits and pieces of quilting when I could fit it in between working full time and my longarm quilting business.  I want to finally get things in order.   I didn't want to just put things away for an eventual day to work on it.  I am determined to get things done.  I wanted to be ruthless and was determined that, when I unpacked it, I was going to deal with it and finish it, instead of storing it away.  This is why you will be seeing many finishes from the past few months, that I will be posting in the next few days.  I am not saying that I followed this determination 100%, but I made a good dent with my UFOs and I will continue to do more.

This is a quilt that I had a lot of fun making.  These blocks are called monkey wrench, amongst other names, and I love making them, especially with the funky fabrics from scraps given to me by friends along the way.   I will, down the road, make another larger one for myself.  It was that much fun.  Stretching the limits with fabric pairings.  Different genres, colours, some new stuff and some older.

I started this quilt some time in mid 2017, as my leader/ender blocks.  I just kept making them between my other projects.  I had no plan for the layout or how many I was going to make.  My only goal was to not use duplicate fabrics, similar to what I did for my Spools quilt.

Somewhere along the way I had a crazy idea to make the block in miniature.  The main blocks that make up the quilt, finish at 5" and this block below finishes at 2 1/2".  Lol...yes, I know...crazy.

Well I made four of them before I stopped myself...lol.  I have to admit though that they are very cute.

Here are the two sizes together in a picture so that you can see the difference.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the funky fabrics, but let me tell you, some of them were wild.

I am glad that I made this quilt and it went to Project Linus, but I am also longing for the monkey wrench blocks.  Don't be surprised if I start another one, again as a leader/ender.  This one will have to be king size now, as when we moved here we had the room for the king.  Lol...at 5" finished blocks...that makes for A LOT of monkey wrenches...lol.  And I may be crazy enough to add in a few half sized blocks too...lol.

I have been procrastinating with the work I have planned for today...  Now that I have this post done, I have no more excuses.  Enjoy this beautiful day.  Get out and catch some sun.

Celebrating with Party Hats

Now that our last guild meeting of the year has past and the quilt has been revealed, I can share this with you.  Hope you like it.

The Halton Hills Quilter's Guild celebrated our 30th anniversary just as covid hit, so we weren't able to gather together to celebrate in person.  It is quite a milestone and we didn't want to just let it go by without doing something to mark the date.  

One of the executive members, Susan, suggested that we make these party hats as a group and make a quilt with them.  I thought it was a great idea and agreed, as did several others.  I did the mistake of saying, oh, that is great and I know just the right pattern to set the blocks...which was followed by Susan saying great so you can make the quilt and present it to the guild at the June meeting...lol...I guess I just walked right into that one...lol.  Anyways, I was good with it.  I enjoy do what I can to help.

Here is one of my blocks that I made using the paper piece pattern that went out with our newsletter in October.  We asked all the members if they could make a hat or two to help us celebrate out 30th anniversary.

From this, I added a 3" white strip at the peak of the hats, added a puff/pompom/tassel or whatever you call those things, to help the hat look a bit more festive.  As the members made them and sent them to one of four drop off locations, which were delivered to me, I worked on the finishing touches to the hats.

When I had enough, I started to assemble the quilt in vertical rows separated by a 2" sashing.  My mom also belongs to the guild, so for her hats, I asked her to add large pieces of white fabric to the sides of the hates (untrimmed).  This way I could cut the blocks on an angle.  Can you find the three misfits in the quilt?  Ok...lol...so I got a bit carried away with that part.....I was having so much fun and thought it was a cute touch.

There is not one hat alike, everyone used their own stash to create their party hat.  I think they turned out lovely.  Can you see one of the three tilted hats below?  I quilted this quilt using Becker's Whirligigs from Urban Elementz.  It reminded me of those festive twirly things or those sparklers that the kids enjoy during fireworks, that get lite and the kids twirl them around.  My mom tacked down the binding.

I hope you like it.  I had fun making this one.  It was with little effort considering all the blocks were made.  Thank you to everyone who participated.  The quilt will be given to our Outreach, to be giving to some charitable organization or cause.

My quilting rhythm

A few days ago, I told you a bit about myself.  Yesturday you learned that I love most things scrappy, and today I wanted to share just a bit more about me and my quilting rhythm.  This is more from the same post that I wrote about a few days ago.  

If you are reading this post, I would guess that you are into quilting and so you would know that the process of making a quilt can take a long time, depending on the pattern and size that you are making.  I am usually all over the place with my many quilts on the go.  I rarely work on one quilt from start to finish, all in one go.  There are times that I work on many things at once, because I need variety in my quilting, just as we do in life.  Other times I have the concentration to do the one project for a long time.  It changes all the time.  The reason I say this is so that you won't be surprised when I show you different parts of  various quilts at different stages of completion, from one day to the next.   I tend to go with the flow and whatever the mood dictates, unless I have deadlines that is.  It helps me get more done.  Nothing worst than doing something you don't like or don't want to do.  

So there you have it.  Me and all my quilting quarks...lol.  I know that I am not alone.  I think it comes with a creative brain, that never stops wondering what if...

Today I am back at the kitchen backsplash tiles.  Likely no quilting for me today, but soon.  I am really looking forward to the upcoming Shop Hop starting on Saturday.  I will be working hard all week and come Saturday, I will take time to play and fondle fabric...lol. 

Back in time to Sept 3rd/2019:

This is when I was practicing my free motion quilting on a Bonnie Hunter pattern called Carolina Chain.  This was done completely scrappy, and to be honest, a bit too scrappy even for my taste.  I quilted twirls in all the chain squares, ribbon candy in the sashing and lines using rulers for the rest.

I enjoyed making the blocks and using all the funky fabrics.  I think I may make this one again, but next time I'll tame it down with a consistent sashing.

Back to work for me.  Take care and enjoy your day.

Halton Hills Quilter's Guild Spiderweb quilt workshop

Today was very productive with my renos, installing the marble tile backsplash in the kitchen, in a herringbone pattern.  It was so labour intensive, because every single sheet had to be cut, either on the sides or top and bottom and often both.  In the kitchen there are lots of outlets, counters and cupboards to work around.  I got only about 2/3 done today.  I had to stop by 6:30 pm for the guild zoom meeting. Tomorrow I want to finish it.  There will still be some major cutting to do, with only one row of tile sheets from ceiling to floor that will not have to be cut, aside from the first and the last sheet, but it is looking good so far.

Not to bore you anymore with my renos, let's get right to the back in time to Nov 2nd/2019:

Back in Nov 2nd 2019, I co-hosted a paper piece spiderweb workshop for the Halton Hills Quilters Guild with the Outreach coordinator Vivian.  During one of our executive meetings, we were talking about combining a workshop with people volunteering to help make a quilt for the Outreach program.

I suggested the Spiderweb paper piece pattern because it lends itself very well to being scrappy and when many hands are involved in making blocks, paper piece usually gives you better success with the sizes of the blocks coming out the same.  

In August, I was given a bin from the guild, of men's fabrics to go through, to see what I could come up with.  Being a scrap enthusiast, I had no problems taking out many different fabrics, because really, the more the merrier, when it comes to a spiderweb quilt.

Here are some precut pieces with a mixture of fabrics ranging from blue, green, burgundy, browns and beiges.  You name it it was in there, and there were definitely some unlikely matches.  The only consistent was the light beige wedge.

I roughly cut out enough pieces and parts, to make a complete quilt top.  I packaged them with the paper piece pattern, as seen below.

All ready to take to the workshop scheduled for Nov 2nd/2019.

I had to laugh when the women opened up their package and gasped.  The look on their faces was priceless...and the comments...lol...I can't sew this together with this...or can I get another package, this one doesn't do it for me...lol.  The faces were hilarious and I laughed out loud, told them that they know I am a scrappy quilter and they saw the spiderweb quilts that I brought in to show for this workshop and that they just had to trust me on this.  

They did proceed to sew the blocks together as we went through the tips and tricks of doing paper piecing.  It is a good technique to know.  It started to become somewhat of a joke on who has the ugliest combination, and I reassured them that they were all pretty much completely a mish mash of fabrics.

But do you know what happened when they started to place the completed blocks down on the design floor...I heard many gasps from many of them, but this time they were different gasps.  They were surprised and shocked how it was coming together, they couldn't get over how the blocks, as a whole, were turning out to be something, not half bad...lol.  The remarks later were more along the lines of, I am definitely going to do this pattern again...lol.  

I took the blocks home and put them together, added the two borders, also fabric from the guild bin, and quilted it the following weekend.  I think it turned out pretty good for a bunch of misfit donation fabrics, that were just sitting around.  What do you think?  Was it a success?

Here are all the wonderful ladies that came out to the workshop, or most of them.  I believe a couple of them had to leave earlier.  We had 20 in attendance, which is good considering we are not a large guild.  I really enjoyed this workshop, and I am sure many of them did too.  They are all a bunch of great women.  The comradery that day still sticks in my head today.  Thank you so much ladies for all the laughs!!!  I am hoping that some day soon we can do another workshop together.

Enjoy what is left of your day, I am turning in to rest for yet another busy day tomorrow.

You know you're a quilter when...

You know you're a quilter when you are always drawn to patterns that resemble quilts...lol.  As mentioned yesturday, this week is my vacation from my full time job, and the goal this week is to finish my kitchen renos.  So I split up all the tasks I have to do, per day, to make that happen.  I took it easy yesturday figuring I would work up to the tedious stuff.  My only task was to find my backsplash tiles and pick up all the materials I will need to do the work.

At one point, I was thinking to do the large white subway tiles, however the larger the tile the more accurate your wall needs to be, and parts of my kitchen walls are older and imperfect.  I though I could go with the smaller white tiles, but I was holding out until now, because something was telling me subconsciously that I wanting something more.  I love the marble tiles that Sarah Richardson used in her kitchen on the island home, but thought maybe that was a bit too busy for my place.  

I took my daughter with me and we went tile shopping.  We automatically landed in the marble section...fate...I don't know, but it is exactly where we saw these tiles and I knew right away that this was it.  I didn't need to look any further.  It's a herringbone pattern.  Can you see the quilt...lol

My job today is to get the small stuff done in preparation for the tiling that will be happening tomorrow (Monday).  I have a window to trim and frame out, stove wiring to relocate and baseboards to do.

But enough about the work I have to do, enjoy the back in time to Aug 7/2019:

This is a small NICU quilt my mom made that I quilted for her.  Somewhere, possibly on the Guild's free table, my mom picked up the left over pieces of someone's finished quilt.  She took those pieces and made this cute little NICU quilt.  NICU quilts usually measure 26" square.  They go on top of the incubators to protect the newborns from the harsh hospital lighting.  My mom and I make a lot of these smaller quilts and give them to the Project Linus group in our area.  They distribute them to the hospitals.

Here is the profile of the quilting.  I quilted this in Painted Daisies from Urban Elementz.

You'll have to stay tuned for my post tomorrow, where I talk about a spiderweb quilt that we collectively made at the Guild workshop.  I bring that up here, because as I was going through the bin of fabric looking for suitable scraps for that quilt, I came across some 6 1/2" blocks of a toil fabric, seen below.  Someone was going to make something with them, or maybe they were the leftovers, but as they were just sitting there in the Guild bin, I couldn't just leave them there...so this is what I made with them.  Measurements approx. 58" x 70".

At the bottom of the bin, there was a piece of solid red fabric that I used to make the alternating nine patches with some cream fabric I had in my stash.  I also found in my stash the medium red fabric for the inner border, followed by the solid red fabric from the bin.  And there you have it, a quilt was born.  The pattern I used in making this quilt is called a single Irish chain.  I didn't quilt this quilt until later when I was given some batting and backing, but I guess I forgot to take pictures of the finished quilt.

Here are two close up pictures of the toil fabric.  They were all pretty, romantic scenes, of men and women with their grand dresses, hats and men's tailcoats from days gone by.

Hope you enjoyed the quilts.  I am off to get started on my renos.  Take some time to enjoy your Sunday.

About me and admiring some lovely batik fabrics

I had to laugh while reading one of my older posts from April/2014.  I was thinking of re-introducing myself and updating details to fit my current life situation.  The thing is, as I read the post, I was thinking it sounds like I could have written it now instead of back in time.  Not much has changed...  

Background about me:  Quilting is still right in the middle of everything I do...I admit to being obsessed with quilting, but there are many other things I do as well.  I am a wife and mother of three, a daughter, a son and an adult stepson, who has given us two grandchildren (a boy and a girl).  I have an aging parent (my father passed away about 6yrs ago) and siblings who have children of their own (now all adults and having children of their own).  I still work full time and now I do a lot more quilting for others on the side (now with a longarm).  I just recently, a year ago this past May, purchased a home in Acton.  I am in the process of renovating it, planting trees and other landscaping.  The renovations are probably about 90% done and I am really only getting started with the landscaping.  For my quilting I make many quilts that I donate and shortly after joining the Halton Hills Quilter's Guild I became an executive member.  First doing the workshop coordinator, and now this past year, the President.

So as you see and as my post of 2014 stated, it can get pretty hectic around here.  Through it all my family is still very supportive of my need to include quilting in my life.  When I need some down time to sew a few stitches, they understand. Otherwise, I consider us to be your typical Canadian family with a whole lot of ups and some downs.

I hope that helps you get to know me a bit and helps you understand, maybe, where I am coming from when I write my posts.  There may be times, like this week, where I am busy doing other things in my life that have to be done, but even if I don't have time to physically quilt, you can bet that I am thinking and dreaming of quilting...lol

So...to give you a bit of eye candy and add some quilt related content, here is a back in time to July 26/2019: 

This is a quilt made by a friend Mary.  I absolutely love her variety of batik fabrics.  Some of them are so unique.  Close up of the fabrics.  I like that light floral batik fabric at the bottom right hand side and that fern border.....nice.

This next picture is a close up of the quilting.  This quilt is quilted with Whisper from Urban Elementz.

Here is the completed quilt, only needing the binding.  Lovely, isn't it?  Nice lap size quilt.

Now to get going on starting my renos.  Enjoy your weekend everyone!  Keep safe and have fun.

More show and share at the Guild meeting

Today!  Yeah, it's Friday!  And for me it's a Friday of the start of my week long vacation!  Wooohooo!!  I just finished work, I'm going to write this post, go to see about dinner. take the dog for a walk and take it easy the rest of the night, as this weekend I start on the renos.  This week I am aiming to completely finish the kitchen, with tile backsplash, hood fan installation, baseboards, some plaster and finally painting the ceiling, walls, doors and baseboards.  

It will be a busy week and likely little time for quilting.  BUT, to reward myself, my mom and I are going to join in on the local Quilt store's Shop Hop that is going on all the month of July.  I've divided up the amount of stores and the Saturdays in the month and aim to hit them all.  If I don't make it, it is not due to the lack of trying...lol.  It has been so long since we've been driving around the back roads visiting quilt stores or antique malls...covid has put a damper on that sort of thing.

Since there has been no quilty things going on today, unless you count cleaning up my sewing room work areas, enjoy the back in time to June 24th/2019:

A continuation from yesturday's post...from the Halton Hills Quilter's Guild meeting.  

Another friend Susan P. made this lovely quilt.  It's in the form of a bar quilt with lots of 9-patches and half-square triangles.  My apologies for the quality of the picture.  The lighting in the basement of this church is not great.  The fabrics are beautiful and bright Kaffe Fassett.

Here is the third quilt from Maryann.  This one used up some scrappy 2 1/2" squares with a soft creamy background.

Back at this time I was fairly busy with trying to get my gardens in order, planting a couple trees and lots of customer quilting going on, that I didn't get much of my own work finished.  I did get a good amount of progress on some of my quilts (works in progress - WIPs), but no finishes. 

Quilt inspiration, two gorgeous quilts made by a friend

Today after work, I headed out to meet some old work friends, part of the original group of girls, for our dinner night out.  It is always nice getting out with the girls and catching up with what everyone is doing.  I haven't any quilting things that I worked on today, other than sorting out some pictures, so I will just get right to the.....

Back in time:

It was June 24/2019 at the Halton Hills Quilter's Guild meeting where my friend Maryann showed her quilts at show and share.  She made three of them this particular time.  This first one, I have to apologize for the quality of the pictures.  The colours are so earthy and the pictures do not do the quilts justice.

This first one is a simple block that takes the colour inspiration from the large border fabric separating the last row of blocks.  I like the idea of this large border.  I am thinking that the centre blocks would fit the size of the top of the mattress and the large border would do the profile of the mattress, followed by another row of blocks to finish it off.

This next picture is a closer look at the border fabric that the colours were chosen from.  Again I apologize for the quality of the picture.  Up close the border is a unique flower vine.

Here is a close up of the quilting.  It's a feather with a swirl, called Feather Grande from Urban Elementz.

This next quilt is also a simple block and really effective in different shades of black, grey and beiges.  It's the same block.  A star within a star.  They all look different depending on the colour placement.

Here is a close up of the quilting.  This one is called Cropped Circles from Urban Elementz.

Both of these quilts are versatile and can be made up in any colourway.  The first one you can pick your own feature fabric and pull coordinating fabrics for the blocks.  I'll show you the third quilt tomorrow...

Looking back and seeing the progress

For the past month or so, I started to have my morning tea and start the day with some handwork before I have to login for work.  I have been enjoying the quiet time and making a more consistent amount of progress on my hexie quilt.  As I was looking back in time through my photos, I came across this one from July 9/2019.  This was the last picture I took of this, before I had to take it off the design wall in preparations for our moving/packing.  This was at the time where I was with the top.

I have been making slow progress on this quilt as I didn't have much time to sit and do handwork, so it was an off and on again type thing.  But, as I look back, I realize that I have come quite a ways on this.  I guess this back in time business really helps to see it and you get to have a flash of progress without having to wait all that time in between.

About a couple of months ago I finished off adding the last few diamonds to the top half of the hexagon quilt.  That was when a really got excited and decided to try my best to work on this handwork more consistently.

It makes a difference, because just in the last couple of months working about 30-45 minutes most mornings, I have been able to get these florets with border and partial diamonds in this next picture done.  That's a lot in my eyes.

I have only two more floret pieces to do, to complete this left side border of the quilt!  I am so excited and that keeps me motivated to continue.  I am also trying really hard not to get distracted by pulling out any of my other handwork projects.  Since I unpacked my sewing room back in Feb/2022, I have stuck to it. One handwork at a time....it's not like I have any other hands to do more than the one at a time anyways...lol

Enjoy.

It worked!! Let's get started

Since my last post back in June/2019 there has been so much happening...I hardly know where to start.  So for now, I am going to start back in the past where I left off...

So...just so that you know the timeline, anything I write that is current, will just be written as usual and anything that I write about from where I left off, I will put a notation "Back in Time".  It may be weird at times talking about stuff that I am doing from both time periods, but that may also make it interesting.  Interesting in the sense that you won't be bored seeing the day to day small progress on a large quilt or project that I have finished or still in the process of doing.  We will see how it goes...I may decide to change this as I go along...

Hope you enjoy it.

Back in Time:

Some time in April/2019 I believe it was American Patchwork and quilting magazine came out with a quilt along pattern.  A quilt designer came up with a quilt to use up smaller pieces and you could do it a planed colour way or scrappy.  The block finished as 2 1/2" square, using two strips that measured 1 1/2" wide by 2 1/2" long, sewn together to make the 2 1/2" squares.  I wasn't looking to start another quilt, but you know how it goes...  I thought that this one would use up a bunch of scraps.  I am always looking for patterns to use up what I have and keep the scraps in check.  

In my case and my mom's case, we decided that we didn't want to cut up all those small pieces.  Instead, I changed up the pattern some, by enlarging the block to 3 1/2" square and using up my thin strings, so that I didn't need to cut up any fabric.  It worked out great!  

This was the side of my sewing table where I had my scraps out in piles of light and dark.  The left hand black baskets are holding the finished blocks. One basket for the light blocks and one for the dark ones.

It takes me a while to do quilts with pieces this small, so instead of making you wait, I am showing you my mom's quilt that she finished not long after the sew along happened.  Mine is the same, just using my own scraps, so there are some variances and our borders are completely different.  I'll show you mine when that timeline comes up...but don't hold your breath...it may be a while...lol.

Here is a closeup of the quilting.  I quilted it using a Baptists Fan pattern.  Spacing is about 1/2"-3/4".  Don't you just love that texture?

For my own enjoyment and recording timelines, I am adding this photo of my four legged baby girl.  Her name is Maddie.  She is a Vizsla.  She was at doggie daycare on this day in 2019 and they were doing pet photos.  The pets got to have ice cream too!  Lol...what we do for our animals.  Isn't she soooo cute!  I think so.

Enjoy today, this beautiful day, the first day of Summer here in Canada.

Hi my old friend

I am not sure I am ready for this, but I really miss blogging.  I am thinking of starting up again...

It's been a while...since 2019 in May when Blogger was implementing some changes and Apple was too...between them both it made it difficult for me to post.  Apple wouldn't allow access to blogger for my photos and later I wasn't even able to post from my Apple tablet...what a pain it was...it was no longer enjoyable and I can't write a post if I can't include photos...what is the point in that...

In any case, I figure I am going to be set for a long while with topics, going back in history and uploading my photos since May/2019 until now.  It will be a bit more work, as I take my photos from my tablet, and send them in an email to myself, in order to upload them on my computer (not Apple), so that I can post to my blog from my computer.  

But I am wanting to give it a go...

This will be my test run to see if it works.  I am uploading a picture of a quilt I quilted on my longarm for the Halton Hills Quilters Guild back in March/2019.  Some of the members got together and made the blocks.  It turn out quite lovely.  I love scrap quilts.  This block is one I want to make some day, called disappearing hour glass.  I quilted the top using Jessica's Swirl.