HHQG 2021/2022 BOM

Today after work was a run around day getting errands done.  By the time I got back home, I was exhausted.  I only had a bit of time before I had to take the dog for an evening walk, so decided to sort out some of my photos.  It's amazing how fast they accumulate. 

I didn't get any stitches in today, but I did take out all of the quilts that I will be delivering to Project Linus.  All together I have 24 quilts to make labels this time around.  Better get cracking.  Before you know it, it will be time to deliver them.

So, I will take you back in time to Apr 24th/2022:

I started this block as a BOM for the HHQG on Nov 19/2021.  As I didn't need to start another full size quilt, I decided that I would make four of these BOM block and make a NICU quilt instead.  This block was for November/2021. 

By the time I made all four blocks and quilted it, I finished the NICU quilt in Apr 24/2022.

I think it looks cute and it will cheer up the top of an incubator.  I didn't think to get a close up of the quilting that was done on this small quilt.

Interesting facts, not related to quilting: At the time that I started this quilt in November/2021, my daughter finished her education at Ryerson University and as of June/2022 she graduate with her Engineering degree.  Yeah!!!  I am so proud of her.

Elaine's wolf panel quilt

Today I thought I would share with you another quilt from Elaine.  Elaine started with a panel of two wolves roaming in the night.  I'm not sure if this was a kit or not, but the border treatments are fabulous.  

I love the layering of the borders and how they are not all the same.  It still has the appearance of being symmetrical with the center of the design on a diagonal through the panel.  This makes each opposite corner the same.  The use of dark blue to highlight some of the elements really sets them off.   The second last border of mountain majesty blocks, which is only added to the top and bottom, both add length to the quilt, and help frame the centre.

This quilt was made for some special to her family, who is needing the comfort of a hug and knowing someone is thinking about him.  Elaine did a great job of putting this quilt together.  The quilting on this quilt is Navajo slider.

Interesting facts, not quilting related, at this time back in Jan/2021:   The rush is still on to get the house ready to be put on the market.  I am still packing and decluttering things.  I finished painting the basement and installed the flooring in the basement. Other than finishing touches the basement is almost done.  I also moved to my son's room to finish the baseboards and painting the doors, baseboards and trims. 

Today's progress on the Kaleidoscope quilt

Today turned out to be a nice day.  Relaxing and productive at the same time.  I had some customer quilt drop offs and pickups in the morning, into the afternoon.  By the time the last one left, I didn't feel much like getting into quilting on the longarm.  Instead I decided to take it easy and do some piecing on one of my UFOs.

Since I already finished the January's quilt, that is part of the American Patchwork and quilting 2023 UFO challenge, I just picked another UFO from the list.  These are my kaleidoscope blocks.  To keep this real, I've been working on them now for a few days, after dinner for an hour or so, and that was only to put the sashing on less than 1/2 of the blocks.  At this point in the day, when the picture was taken, I had all the blocks on the left hand side complete and ready to layout.  The blocks on the right hand side needed to be trimmed and the last chocolate brown sashing on the top to be attached.

Later in the day, I trimmed the previous sashing and here is a picture of the last sashing going on.  Since this picture, I managed to get all the sashings attached and trimmed.  I even laid out the blocks on the design floor with their matching halves.  By this time it is now 5:00 pm and time to quit for a bit, as I have to take my daughter places.

Now, I am back, the day is done and I am happy with the progress I was able to make on these.  I didn't get a picture of the blocks laid out, so that will come later in another post, when I again have some time to work on this quilt.

In between customer visits, I was going through my pictures on my tablet and came across this one. Sharing a photo of my four legged baby girl.  Isn't she cute!  Meet Maddie.  She is a very high energy Vizsla and she is sooooo cute.  This picture was taking at lest a few years ago.  I can tell because those are the new wood floors I installed just before we were getting ready to put the house up for sale.  Already I can see how much she has matured in looks and she gained a few pounds too (which the vet wants her to loose).

Hope everyone had a great day too!!  Take care and don't forget to take some time for yourself.

2 Charm packs Christmas quilt done and more inspiration (QW)

So, let's try this again....  After a bit of investigation, fussing and fiddling with my computer, I think between my daughter and I, we have this issue fixed.  Only time will tell, so please be patient.  I enjoy my time posting and share my content with the world.  Cross your fingers that the changes will stick.

This top below will be a Christmas quilt.  I made this with two charm packs that were donated to the HHQG.  It's a lap size quilt.  I initially started this to be a raffle quilt for a Christmas bazaar in one of the communities around here.  Though things didn't turn out for the bazaar, it will be made instead to be donated by the guild.

I am saving this next picture of an example of what I can do with my scraps.  The block are assembled in a half log cabin style.  I've been seeing a lot of these lately.  This one shows that you can use all kinds of scraps of all different width sizes.  I've added this one to my Quilt Want-to-be (QW) list.

Here is another picture for my Quilt Want-to-be (QW) list. Though this one would require a little more planning with specific sizes, half square triangles and the extended half square triangle. I see this block made up as a colour wash across the top of the quilt.  One block would be in various colours of blue, and another in darker shades of blue and the same for all the other colours, so one the block were together, it would make a rainbow across the top.  Very affective.

I may be posting again later today.  This post is mainly to see if the situation is fixed.  My post were all scrambled and I couldn't make heads or tails with the structure of the content and photos.  I'll post this and see what happens.

In the meantime, enjoy your day and don't forget to take some time for yourself.

Uncertain

Hi all, Not certain if you will be able to read this blog. Apple and their Windows program is making it hard for me to do blogging. I don't know if I can continue. My messages are all scrambled. This may be the last post unless I can figure out another way to do this. Sorry, but it is so fustrating from my end, when all I want to do is make a post.

Low volume chevrons, plus....

Honestly, sometimes I think I have gremlins in my head causing havoc and constantly derailing my best efforts.  I mean really....  My plan when I showed my UFO list earlier last week, was to try and get at least five quilts done before starting a new one.  Well.....I did get one done.....

Today was a bit of this and that.  I finally got to ironing all my recently washed scraps and sorting them into categories.  I usually take note of what I am working on and what I need first.  I sort into lights and darks with sub categories of chunks, strips (to be trimmed per my user system) and strings.  That's all done.

By lunch time I had everything cleaned up and had time to play with my own stuff.  That hasn't happened regularly for a while.  Since tomorrow I have quilting for customers on my calendar, I figured I would take the rest of the day to do whatever the mood strikes.  Not a good think...  

You know what happens when you go on a diet?  All of a sudden you are constantly thinking about food and wanting to eat, all the time.  Well equate that to my quilting restrictions of finishing at least 5 quilts before I start anything new.  As I mentioned above, I did finish one quilt earlier this week, but later I went and started five more.....gremlins I tell you!

The first quilt I started was that 7-patch Irish chain quilt.  I have already 1/4 of my jar full of 4-patches.  I started this as a leader/ender, while I was working on that Christmas quilt I spoke about in another post.

This beautiful quilt below is from Pinterest.  Per the caption below the picture, it says Article from Ann's Woods dated Apr 29/2013.  I read the article and Ann makes reference to the free pattern she got from here:  http://www.bijoulovelydesigns.com/2011/03/herringbone-block-tutorial.html  The link takes you to a blog called Bijou Lovely Designs.  The instructions are clear and detailed.

I read through the instructions, and altered it a bit for myself.  I've been keeping my eyes open for a quilt that I can use up all my low volume stings.  So for my version, I am not precutting the strips like the pattern.  Instead I am using whatever I pull out, however it comes.  Here is my first block.  Do you like it?  My parameter for the strings are a white or cream base that reads as light or soft pastel colour to add some visual texture.  I haven't decided yet whether I am going to also add in those lights that have very loud designs on them.  I think it may jar the look I am trying to achieve of a low volume quilt.

This is the second quilt I started this week. 

Not seen here is the third quilt I started using the small scraps from the above string leftovers.  When the string is no longer long enough to use here in this block, I will sew it together with another leftover scrap.  The method is from Crazy Mom Quilts and the pattern I believe is called Vortex.

The fourth quilt I started was this next block.  I drafted up the quilt and printed it.  I haven't found the name of this block yet.  This one is also from Pinterest.  The reason I started this one, is because I have been looking for a pattern to use up some leftover pieces of Bonnie Hunter's Texas Braid quilt.  I didn't realize that Bonnie's quilt was king size. So, as I didn't need it that big, I hade lots and lots of light and dark pieces that measured 2" x 5".  When I came across this pattern, I thought great!  Now I can use up all those pieces.

This is my test block.  I may try and stick to the really light for the background as the centre piece is a bit lost when the lights are too dark.  To make this work, I took my 2" x 5" piece and cut it down to 

3 1/2" and I took the remaining 1 1/2" piece and squared it down.  Very little waste and I will be accumulating 1 1/2" light and dark squares.

Needing help....from myself! lol

Needing help....from myself!  

Was it not just last week when I posted my list of 2023 UFOs and indicated that I was going to try and not start any new quilts, until I had at least 5 done......  Well that didn't happen.  Do you see that container of 2" squares there in the turquoise tray?  That is the beginning of my new quilt!  It is going to be a leader/ender, so it will be a long while before it is done.

The post that I posted on Sunday is my new quilt.  It's the 7-patch Irish chain, or a variation of it.  I haven't decides if I am going to make this one with the black, green and pink or just scraps.  I may leave the black, green and pink for a different quilt.  But...either way, there are a bazillion 4-patches that I need to make before I need to decide.

So, while I was working on my January UFO quilt, I was using these 2" squares to make twosomes (I know, not a real word) and attaching them together to make 4-patches.  All I had left to do on the UFO was to assemble the last four rows and attach all 8 rows together.  This is all the 4-patches I made in the process.

Not bad for just starting, however it is going to take a long while before I have the amount I need to start making blocks.

While I sew, I often lessen to U-tube.  This time I watched a new free episode of The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson (Ricky was not in this one).  The episode was about a BOM for 2023.  The guest on the show was Sarah Fielke from Australia.  I believe the BOM is being hosted by The Quilt Show and it will be a beautiful appliqué medallion quilt made by Sarah.

I thought that Sarah's work was very pretty and unique, that I clipped this picture for future reference, as I want to check out these two books to start with.

 

Like I need to start yet another quilt.......

See!!  I need help from myself, I am just soooooo inspired to do them all!  lol

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

Starting of my kaleidoscope quilt

Back in March/2021, we (my family and I) were staying at my mom's place while the house was up for sale.  The house was all ready for showing, renos done, all the excess was packed including my sewing room and we had all moved to my mom's for the week during viewings.  While there I still worked my day job from home, but in this case from my mom's home.  In the evenings my husband and son would watch sports, my daughter may have joined them, or read a book, but me....I'd prefer to be sewing.  

I knew this in advance, so one day my mom and I went to Len's Mills where I picked up some funky fabric.  There was a technique that I wanted to try.  It's not a new technique, but I didn't do one yet.  It's a kaleidoscope quilt.  This method requires that the fabric have at least a 12" repeat (I think...).  What you do is cut out six repeats. You pin them together so that they stack on top of each other identically.  You cut 3 1/2" strips through all 6 layers, careful to keep them in place and together for the next step.

After that you take a 60 degree ruler and cut a wedge (through all six layers).  When you pull them apart, what you get are six identical wedges that you can put together three different ways.  You want to keep the same point for all six fabrics facing the centre, and you have a chose of three different points to use as your centre.  This was kind of fun.  Laying them out in three different ways and trying to decide which one I liked better.

In the above picture, on the top left hand side is the folded fabric that I started with.  As I said earlier, it was a funky piece of fabric.  On the top right hand side by the iron is a pile of more sets of wedges, ready for me to play with.  After dinner on this night in March/2021, I made these four hexagons.  They are assembled as two separate halves.  The method of assembly is to piece these in rows with no inset seams, so the two halves won't be sewn together until all of the halves are sewn and laid out in rows.

Pretty funky kaleidoscopes, don't you thing?  lol  Maybe just a bit too funky for me, but I am sure some child with love the brightness.  

This is one of my UFO quilts that I want to get done soon.  I have it on my 2023 AP&Q UFO challenge list.  Now I just need to wait until the number that corresponds to this quilt comes up.  January's number is 3, and that corresponds to my HHQG Xmas quilt.  I should be able to finish this one in January, as I only have to put the last four rows together.  The blocks are all made and there are no borders on this quilt, so should be easy.......if I can find the time....lol.  I'm not worried.....I still have 3 weeks lefts of January.....  Wish me luck!

Have a great day everyone and take some time for yourself! 

Third 3-ways to quilt it BOM

I am sure that I am not the only one, that ends up going through a bout of decluttering and cleaning after the 1st of January.  Something about starting off the new year and taking down the Christmas tree that seems to get the ball rolling.  First my sewing room and longarm area got a clean sweep with moving things around and reorganizing.  I've got some empty drawers....whoo hoo!  

Other parts of my home also benefitted from my energy.  I really can't understand how I still have stuff to declutter, when I just basically moved here and unpacked in Aug/22.  I got rid of stuff and felt I was left with only the stuff we needed and maybe a bit more, but minimal excess.  But you wouldn't think so, since I already made a trip to the Thrift store with three boxes and 2 bags worth of stuff.  Where does it all come from....

Needless to say with work, reading, decluttering, household things, etc. other than mending a couple of things for my son, I have not had time for sewing.  I did have an hour to sort out fabric squares a couple of days ago, for my new leader/ender quilt.  Correction with the name.  It is a 7 patch Irish chain quilt.  It is inspired by an antique quilt I saw.  You can read more about that on Jan 8th's post.

So, lets take you back to April/2022:

This is the third 3-ways to quilt it BOM, that was run by Tracey from Whirls 'n Swirls in Oshawa, ON.  I really didn't have time to custom quilt this and I really needed to clear out some stuff around here, so I quilted it in an edge to edge pantograph design.  

The main fabric has butterflies on it, so I chose to quilt this one with Flutter from Urban Elementz.  If you enlarge the above picture you will see one of the butterflies that spans 7 1/2" from wing to wing.

The BOM was a sampler quilt.  Different types of blocks to learn different techniques, if you were to do it custom quilted.  This one has already been shipped out to Project Linus.

Hope everyone is well.  Take care and don't forget to take some time for yourself.

A whole lot of scrappy deliciousness

Yesturday, I decided to take it easy.  I was going to wake up whenever my body wanted to and do whatever my mood decided.  I am starting to take back my time.  This is just the beginning of what I discussed in my previous post, and it was a very good beginning.

To start the day, my husband brought me tea in bed, which I very much enjoyed.  Just the thought of a leisurely morning softens my mood.  I sat up and drank my tea, thinking about what I should do next. In my head, I crossed off the word "should" and replaced it with "what do I WANT to do next".  Big difference!  I have to start training my thoughts in a more positive way that will get me closer to where I want to be....a more simplified life, where I can carve out some time for the things I want to do.

Naturally for me, what I wanted to do related to quilting.  Yesturday, my husband was heading to St. Catherine to a job site, to drop off stuff and he asked me if there was a quilt store up that way that I wanted to go to.  Isn't he the best!  In fact, there was a quilt store in St. Catherine that I hadn't been to yet called Up Your Quilt.  So this was perfect timing, as I am all caught up with customer quilting.

While I was there, I saw a lot of eye candy.  I picked up some fabric and decided to grab a novel related to quilts called The Basement Quilt by Ann Hazelwood.  I've been meaning to check one of these novels out.  There is another author they carried that I want to also try call To Scotland With Love by Patience Griffin, which I ordered on Amazon, as they did not have the first book of the Scotland series.

While browsing the shop, I was reminded of a quilt that I have been wanting to make for a long time, when I saw a pattern they carried.  The pattern was not quite the same as the one I want to make, but it was close enough to jog my memory.  So, while I drank my tea in bed, I pulled out my computer and started drafting the pattern on excel.  

This is what it looks like in my mind.  It is not a new pattern.  I am not reinventing the wheel, only resizing an existing pattern to work better with the size of scraps that I have on hand. Please excuse the shadow of my hand on the picture.  The only light really bright enough for pictures late at night is the kitchen, however as they are pot lights, there is nowhere I can get a picture without a shadow. 

What do you think?  I talked to my mom, who I think is also interesting in possibly making this quilt and making a dent in her scraps.  The picture above shows the double size quilt for her.  For me and my bed, I will have to add an extra two columns of blocks on the right hand side.  I will add an unpieced border.

I am at the moment calling this 11 patch Irish chain quilt.  Not very creative, I know, but oh well.  I was so absorbed by drafting out this pattern, that I didn't finish it and get out of bed until almost 11:30 am.  Wow!!  I don't remember the last time I had the luxury of staying in bed this long.  It was definitely a treat. 

Later in the day, when I got a few things that needed to be done, I slipped downstairs to my sewing room to organize my box of 2" square into piles of dark squares, through to medium squares, for the centre sections of the chain.  I am going to use them to make 4-patches as my leader/ender project, while working on other quilts.  It is going to take a while for this quilt, as there are many, many pieces.

The right hand side of the picture shows the instructions, though they may not be too clear, even if you enlarge it.  If anyone is interested, let me know.  I can send a PDF.

I am really looking forward to starting this quilt!!  Even though I already have many others I can be working on...that's how it goes....the new stuff is always more interesting.

Elaine's bear quilt

I've been busy with lots of different things.  Mainly, I have been reading some self help books, one of them in particular was Atomic Habits by James Clear.  It is interesting to read about making and breaking habits and how they are formed in the first place.  The science behind them and some good tips on how to establish new ones.  It would be a good read for anyone who made any new year's resolutions...lol....may help you keep them...lol.  

Me, I don't usually make any....I don't want to be disappointed when I don't keep up with them.  Instead, I prefer to try things out, see how they go, maybe alter them or try something else entirely.  Everyone is different and we have our own things going on.

I also picked up a magazine Real Simple (special addition), back in November.  The topic is Simplify Your Life.  I am finally finding the time to read it.  Also a good read.  I am taking bits and pieces from here and there.  I have for the longest time wanted to simplify my life, my surroundings, pretty much everything.  I've been working on it for a long time now, but got side tracked when we went through all the renos, the move, and renos again.  Now though things are starting to settle around here, so before I get too settled, I want to establish some good habits that will help me in this next phase of my life.

Overall I am feeling content and feel that now is a good time to get back to my health.  First, is loss the weight I slowly put on in the last few years, as I wasn't able to pay full attentions to my eating habits. It is too easy, to eat all the wrong stuff, when you have too much on the go.  Secondly, is getting into better shape.  I've been taking the dog for walks more often, but that is just not enough for my body and the amount of food I eat, so will have to pick up with more exercising. Thirdly, and just as important as the first two, is to slow down.  That would be the part about simplifying my life and would also include learning to meditate.  Lots to incorporate into my daily routine.

These last couple of weeks in particular, I took the time to catch up on things while I was on holidays.  Also, prepping myself physically and mentally to move forward with my plans.  I am just letting you know all this stuff, so that you will understand why I may not be posting daily.

I am still doing quilty things, but mainly I am forgetting to take pictures.  Today, I prepared four quilts for Quilts for Survivors and packaged them ready to be shipped to the recipients.  I also started designing another quilt to make....lol.  Like I need another quilt to make at the moment....lol.  I need someone to save me from myself....lol.  I'll talk more about that in my next post.

In the meantime, let me take you back to Nov 6/2021:  

This is Elaine's bear quilt.  It would have been a panel.  The type that is usually either 1/2 a meter or 1 meter and you get different pictures.  I really like what she did with her pictures.  She gathered the four large bears together in a four patch style with sashing between them and surrounding them.  She made some bear paw blocks to add to the top and bottom, as a border in a row.  

Elaine took a bear scene picture, bordered it with sashing and filled in the length with flying geese, to match the width of the centre piece.  After that, she made some smaller fussy cut blocks for the side borders as squares or as square-in-a-square blocks and also filled in the length with flying geese.  Lastly,  she added a final border the same colour as the background.  I quilted it with an edge-to-edge design, called Navajo Slider from Urban Elementz.  It turned out really nice.

Interesting facts: At this same time back in Nov/2021, in the renos, I am still working on doing up the basement at the old house and I am finishing off the drywall throughout.  December I started plastering and continued right into the Christmas holidays, while trying to keep caught up on quilting for customers, which I had to go to my mom's place 35 minutes away to do...lol.  Life was busy at that time.

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

Happy new year!! The end of the year tally

Happy new year!!  Wow, we are already at 2023!  Another year has just flown by.  Hard to believe all the things that I have accomplished and all that has gone on this past year.  As with every year end and the start of a new year, it is a time to reflect, evaluate, and reevaluate.  As I reflect on this past year, I just can't get over everything....just everything!  If I didn't keep a calendar listing all that has happened, I don't think I would believe it myself.

Rather than bore you with everything, and being that this is a quilting blog, I will just do a tally of my personal quilting progress.

Here is a picture of my 2022 UFO list:

I started the year with 24 quilts on my UFO list (what you see in pink is the progress that was made in 2021 or earlier.  I ended up starting 36 more in 2022 (what you see below the darker line) and I completed 34 items throughout the year (what you see in blue is the progress that was made in 2022).

So.........drum roll please.......lol...... this leaves me with 25 quilts on my list to carry forward and start out the year of 2023.  Not exactly where I wanted to be, but not bad, ending with only one additional quilt.

The section at the bottom of the second page (see clip below) are my goals:

They may be ambitious goals, but one cannot achieve goals, if one does not commit to them, and make every effort possible to obtain them.  I also have a note to myself on my new list of 2023, to try not to start anything new until I have at least 5 items completed from my list.  We'll see how that goes...lol.

Here is what my list looks like now to start off the year.  The colours are my suggested order to complete them, based on what I would like to see done.  

As you can see, my oldest UFO is from Oct/2004.  LOL  I am not embarrassed about it.  I have started and remade what I have done so far at least three time....and the pieces are tiny, finishing at 1/2" each.  I tried one method after the next, hoping to find an easier way to do this, but I digress and figure there is only one way to complete it, and that is to spend the "time" to sit down with it and just sew it!!  I am determined not to abandon this one.  Wish me luck!

What is your oldest UFO?  Do share.