My attempt at hand quilting

I had put out the word that I was looking to learn how to hand quilt, and last Friday, I was invited to join a group of ladies for a morning of hand quilting.  If you've been reading my posts for any length of time, you all know that I am a longarm quilter, but I love the look of hand quilting.  As my husband phrases it, the turtles pace method.

I really admire those who have the patience to hand quilt a full size quilt.  There is just something about hand quilting that is so special.   The little tiny stitches and the texture that you get is unbeatable. 

These ladies have a frame set up, currently at someone's home.  They gather together once a week to hand quilt, primarily charity quilts, or sometimes for a special gift.  When I was invited, I was so excited and brainstormed how I was going to do this.  In my brain, I thought I couldn't possibly practice on their actual quilt.  I didn't want to take a chance of ruining it.  So I made up a little sandwich about 20" square and put it in a hoop.

I brought all the tools and gadgets that I purchased over time in anticipation of learning to quilt.  Most of which were not required.  The ladies all keep it simple with hand quilting thread & needle, plus thimble, small scissors and some form of tweezers.  That's it!  Like any hobbies, there are a lot of other gadgets that one can get, but most are unnecessary.  I did bring a Baptist fan stencil and a water soluble marker to make my marks on the fabric.  In the group, each person would take the time to do the markings on the top prior to bringing the top to be quilted.

Above is the picture of my hoop after a mornings worth of hand quilting with a tea break in between.  The picture below is the back of the hoop.  My stitches in the back are smaller than the ones on the top, but other than a few missed stitches, they are pretty even.  I was taught that first consistency is the goal and later smaller stitches.  It turned out not too bad.....  I think I am hooked.....lol.  I'm going to practice some more, before I pull out my quilt that I have basted, ready to be hand quilted.

Have a great morning ladies with your hand quilting.  Know that I am thinking of all of you and wishing I was there!!

Karen's Among the Stars quilt

Back in Oct/2022 I got twin quilts from two customers.  The pattern is called Among the Stars, but they are not identical.  Both were done at a monthly workshop/class held by The Hobby Horse.  This one here is Karen's quilt.  In my next post I'll show you the second one.  Karen did hers in red and green, so she can use it as a Christmas quilt, and with all the white background, it doesn't look like a traditional Christmas quilt, so she can use this one any time of the year too.  

All the blocks are stars.  Sort of a sampler of stars. The quilting on this is Easy Orange Peel from Urban Elementz.

Karen made this quilt her own by changing up the border.  We have a chain of squares on a diagonal, but not the full border.  The first picture shows more of the border.

A scrappy houses quilt

Back in Nov/2022, I finally got back to building my houses.  My quilty houses, that make up this small lap size quilt.  I sort of got carried away and kept cutting houses and more houses.....lol.  By the time I got around to designing this quilt with the addition of the three different types of trees, and I noticed that I didn't need quite as many houses as I originally thought I would.  

I cut so many that I believe I have enough to make another quilt this size, and some....lol.  What can I say....I was enjoying the different colour combinations and some of the doorways are so cute with clowns, dancing circus dogs, people's faces and more.

This quilt is going to Project Linus.  I think some child is going to love it and have fun finding things in the doors, windows or even the walls of the houses.  The next one I make with all the leftover parts, I think I am going to use a soft blue for the sky area.

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

Mary's nine patch bar quilt

This lovely quilt was made by a customer.  Her colour choices come from the inspirational background fabric.  The background fabric's "background" is a multi coloured smudge of rose, pink, purple, yellow and light blue.  There are these large outlines/drawings of powder blue flowers scattered across the fabric.

If memory serves me, the quilt was made based on a Kaffe Fassett pattern.  A vertical bar layout with nine-patches on a diagonal.

I took this picture back at the end of August/2022, when the weather was nice and I was able to take pictures outside.  I had to wait until the sun was going down, as the colours seemed to need the shade to stand out.

I took two different views and couldn't decide which one I liked better so, I included them both.

This pattern would be very versatile.  I think it would look good in any colourway.  The only tricky part would be to line up all the nine-patch rows so that you don't cut off any points when you trim the quilt.

Getting some inspiration from a handmade weave blanket made on a loom (QW)

This is my inspiration for a simple quilt I want to make for myself.  In French, we call it a catalogue.  It's a hand weaved blanket made on a loom (the old fashion way) in Québec.  This post is specifically made to document the catalogue so that I can remember how to make it.  

This post is a lot of similar pictures of different sections, so if you are not interested, you can move on to another post.  There will be nothing else included in this post other than the pictures related to making this catalogue.

The constant in this catalogue is the pink strip that is bordered by an off white/cream strip.  I am thinking that the pink strip will be 1/2" finished and the off white/cream will be 3/4" finished, with the coloured strips at about 2" finished.  I'll test that out to ensure I like the overall look of it before cutting all my fabric.  

The fabric that I ordered from Connecting Threads is a fabric that looks like it is a weaved.  When I get a picture of the fabrics for this quilt, I will try and look up the name of the fabric, in case anyone is interested.

I plan on making this quilt for my king sized bed, so I will be looking at about 110" x 110".

Top section:

2nd section from the black strip:

3rd section from the green strip:

The actual catalogue is made for a double bed, so I will need to extend the length some.  It will be interesting to make....my only worry is all those seams....likely to get heavy.

Animal panel quilt and an Oriental designed fabric quilt

It's been a while, but I have been busy this last month.  There are times that everything that has to be done comes in all at once and I get bogged down.  Usually everything pans out pretty evenly, but not last month.  I don't know where the time has gone, but I am trying to put on the breaks....lol.  I know what you may be thinking.....good luck with that....lol.

Either way, I am trying to get back on track.  When things get really busy, I take care of emergencies, my full time job and next my longarm customers.  From there, I take it one step at a time....and through it all, yes, I still get my sleep....lol.

I am pretty much caught up now with completing customer quilts due this weekend, Tuesday completing the labels for the 24 Project Linus quilts that have to be delivered at the end of this month, Wednesday delivering the 6 quilts for Quilts for Survivors, and today writing up the invoices plus other banking stuff.  

So I am happy.  Just a few more things to do, mainly the labels for the 5 quilts going out to my nieces and nephews and get back to quilting the 15 or so quilts left for Quilts for Survivor.  I can get back to my own quilty stuff.

Here are a couple of quilts I finished back in Aug/2022.  This first one was a one meter cut of an oriental designed fabric with dragons and phoenixes.  I only thought of it after it was all cut up, that I should have taken a picture of the fabric while it was whole.  Unfortunately the pictures do not capture the pretty fabric.  Up close you can see the dragon heads in many of the blocks and the body of the dragons intertwined throughout the blocks, as the pictures are separated by the solid fabric portion of the blocks.

This is the backing for the quilt above.  I used one of the solids used in the blocks to add interest to the backing fabric.  This quilt is going to Project Linus at the end of the month.

We have this second quilt.  This was an animal panel that I found in a donation box for the Halton Hills Quilters Guild.  I scrounged around at home for some fabric to coordinate with the animal panel and made a bunch of simple blocks to make up this border. 

I quilted this using a pantograph called African Samba.  This quilt is also going to Project Linus at the end of the month.

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