A Spring time tulip quilt

No quilting for me today.  I was into the office today for work and we all had a dinner out to celebrate our bosses promotion/moving on.  It is sad to see her go, but she won't be far and we are all so happy for her.  I wish her well in her new position.

As there has been no quilting activities for the past few days, I am going to take you back in time to Nov 29/2022, when I quilted this quilt for one of my customers.  It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year ago now.  Boy how time flies.

This is a twin size quilt of tulip blocks.  This customer also decided to combine the pieced blocks with using her embroidery machine to add a bunch of butterflies.  I completely forgot to take a close up of the quilt and the cute butterflies.  The border and the colours of the tulips have a cheerfulness about them.  Perfect for a Spring cover.

Short and sweet today.  Tomorrow I am hoping to have more to post about, as I have a vacation day off and I'm wanting to spend some time down in the sewing space.

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

Preparing for an upcoming quilting retreat

I am getting ready to go on a quilting retreat in less than two weeks.  I finally committed to what I am bringing with me to work on.  Nothing like leaving it to last minute.....lol.  So, tonight I had to run down to Milton to photocopy 211 pages of the blocks I am using for this next quilt.....a NEW quilt!!!

I have been going thorough all of my nieces and nephews making quilts for them in date of birth order and I'm also looking to do each of my siblings and sisters-in-laws.

This is a quilt that was on my bucket list.  When I was at the Jenkins cottage reunion, I showed it to Deb, my sister-in-law, to get a feel of what she likes.  She loved it and said yes that she loved it enough that she would like one of her own.  That was all the excuse I needed to take it off my bucket list and on to my lets make it now list.  I like the movement of the blocks together.  This pattern is commonly known as Sea Swept.  It is a combination of a Snail's Trail block and an Storm at Sea sashings.

Below are the fabrics that I am thinking of for this quilt.  Instead of the white background that you see in the picture above, I am going with the light blue on the lower half of the picture below.  All the darker blues, medium blues, turquoise, all the way to sea foam blue/green fabrics will be mixed together, to make the rest of the blocks and sashings.  I haven't made a primarily blue quilt yet.  I am looking forward to working with these cheerful colours. I especially like the sea foam colour.

I now have to find some time before the retreat to rough cut some of the main pieces, to make it a bit faster when it comes to assembly.  I used my EQ to draft up the blocks and sashing blocks, as this quilt will all be done in paper piecing.  Below are all the copies and printout of my pattern.  The background is not going to be quite as dark as the printout.

I am really looking forward to starting this quilt and plan to get as much of it as I can in the three days of, sew your brains out, quilting retreat....lol.  Though I am also bringing a couple of other things with me that are not quite so intense, for a break if I need it.

As we use to say to the kids.....only 8 more sleeps.....OMG.  Just typing it here, has made me realize that there is only one week....not just under 2 weeks.....BIG DIFFERENCE!!!  I better get boogying and start cutting the fabric up into packages.  Wish me luck.

Take care everyone.

Two more Project Linus quilts

Tonight after work, I sat down to design a unique design wall.  I plan on making two overlapping design walls on rollers to conserve space, as I don't have a large wall to use.  My husband came home with a catalog for heavy duty track systems, able to support 250 lbs, so that should be good enough....lol....maybe even overkill, but I prefer to be safe than sorry.  I'll share more with you later, when I get things started.

For now, let me share with you another two examples of quilts for Project Linus, that went to them in the Oct 1st delivery.  This first quilt is toddler size.  It was made with a bunch of leftover blocks from another quilt.  All I had to do was figure out a pleasant layout and add borders.  Fabrics are 30's/40's reproduction  fabrics. 

This next one is a NICU quilt, which was also made from leftover parts of another quilt.  This one may look familiar to some of you.  There were parts from a Bonnie Hunter's Bitcoin quilt that I made.

I enjoy getting two quilts out of one and I like making these types of quilts for Project Linus, instead of having a bucket of orphan blocks.  It only takes a little more time to put these smaller quilts together, because the blocks are mostly already done.

If you have some orphan blocks laying around, consider making some small quilts for Project Linus.  The kids getting the quilts appreciate receiving them and it gives them comfort.

Take care everyone.

Guild meeting day today and I treated myself with a wool kit

Tonight was the Halton Hills Quilter's Guild meeting.  We had a nice turnout again tonight.  We had a great speaker by the name of Sharon Fisher of Gardening Mum Quilts. I have no words, that would be enough, to describe her show of quilts.  She had so many and they were all varied.  She is really into wool, but she also had pieced quilts, applique, embellishments, just to name a few.

I was taken away by all the beautiful quilts.  She is a longarmer and also had many quilts from others that she did the quilting on, so as I mentioned there was a variety of quilts.  She does do private workshops or group classes and classes through the Creekbank Sewing Centre, which I hear is a great destination to check out.  I have their card and will have to visit some time.

Tonight I handed in this quilt to the guild Outreach.  The top was donated to the guild and I quilted it for them.  This is a row quilt.  The picture does not do it justice.  It's a well thought out scrappy quilt assembled in rows.  Each row is somewhat of a sampler and all different.

Tonight's speaker also had a merchant table set up.  She sells stuff related to quilting obviously, and primarily hand work, kits, needles, books for embroidery stitches.  All kinds of little goodies.  This is the treat I got for myself.  It's a pillow with wool applique pumpkins with the saying, In All Things We Give Thanks.  The pattern is called Autumn Blessings from Pastime Pieces by Marlene Wymenga of Blenheim, ON.  I just love her designs.  It was hard to chose just the one!!

I really enjoyed the show tonight.  It may take me some time to fall asleep.....my mind will be going all over the place remembering this quilt and that one, oh and don't forget the other one.....lol.

Take care everyone.

What to do with dark neutrals...at least one option

There are many people who use charm packs.  Charm packs are 5" squares of a line of fabric, by a designer, with usually about 40 pieces in the pack.  They are very convenient and you get an instant variety of fabrics that coordinate together and would make a very nice quilt.  And there are numerous patterns to help you use them online.

The only problem is, for some, there are some fabrics that they tend not to like or they just can't use them in the pattern they want to make.  For instance, many patterns use the colourful prints and yardage of a light background fabric, or the pattern uses only lights and darks and the medium fabrics do not provide enough contrast and so end up getting rejected.

This last scenario is what happened for someone I know.  She mainly does light and dark combination quilts and so I benefited from her rejects.  I mainly do quilts using lights and darks too, so it took me a while to come up with this pattern.  Aside from the setting triangles all the charms and sashing pieces were used from the rejects.  Nothing got turned away and I just had enough to make this quilt.  It measures 60" x 75".

I call these the muddy colours. The colours are too dark to be considered neutral background and too light to be used as a main colour.  My daughter absolutely loves the muddy colours.  The trick to using them effectively is to select really dark colours to go with them. I mean really dark, like heading toward the navy blue, black, dark chocolate brown, burgundy and so forth.  As you can see, they give you enough contrast to pick out the design.

It didn't turn out too bad.  I'm not a muddy colours type of girl, but I can see the potential of the design.  Once it gets quilted and a dark, likely scrappy, binding is sewn on, I think it will be great.  This quilt is being donated to Quilt of Valour.

I finished this top today.  I am getting caught up on quilts that are almost done.  Today I also quilted another quilt for Quilts for Survivors, and yesturday I finished another top.  Getting things done makes me excited......I don't want to jinx it, but I do think my sewing mojo has arrived....lol.  I still have a bunch of other small things to do, but one thing at a time and I will get there.  I am just itching to start on some new quilts.....soon.....lol.

Take care everyone.

Getting bits and pieces done

Been busy all day today.  But a nice kind of busy.  After quilting a quilt for Quilts for Survivors, I decided to take a bit of time to finish up my Heartfelt BOM blocks for October.  They were almost done when I tackled them after lunch.  Now I can say that my homework for October is done. Done!! Yeah!  I think they are looking cute.

While I was having my mid afternoon tea, I started playing in my fabrics again.  Sorting the reds and the pinks, into fat quarters, yardage and chunks.  I want to use as much of the smaller stuff that I can,  move upward.  The little pile between the two, is the fabric I used already.  The clear container holds primarily my lights/background fabric.  Lol....I am sure I could make a few quilts with what I pulled for this BOM...lol.  I'll put it all back once I am done.

After dinner, I thought I would organize my letters, for the saying, that I will be making for the borders. I am going with these letters from Sugaridoo called Funky ABC.  I thought they were great a few years back, when I bought them and now I am finally going to get a chance to use them.

Now I have to start thinking about what fabrics I want to use for the blocks for November.  Our little group is going to meet, toward the end of the month, so I want to have a good chunk of the blocks done already.  If I do get them done, during our sew day, I can just start on my letters for the borders.

Hope you all had a pleasant day today.  Take care and don't forget to take some time for yourself.

New to my Blog

 Hi everyone,  

Due to requests, I have added a widget to my blog page.  The widget is a subscribe button.  You do not need to subscribe, but for those who prefer getting an email when I post, you can just add your email address and push the subscribe button.  

Once you do that, you should receive an email to confirm your email address.  Push confirm and you are done.  There is no cost.  You can set your emails to be delivered any time of day you wish, or you can just leave everything as it is (ie basic standard setting).

Hope that helps!  Drop me a message if you like it.

Thank you.

Ida

Three more NICU quilts for Project Linus

As I mentioned in yesturday's post, I took the last picture to show everyone that I am not the only one who thought of using my strings to make crayons for a quilt.  This is my crayon quilt.  This is a NICU quilt which measures 25" square.  I enjoyed making this quilt so much, that I plan on making another one in this size with green, blue, orange and purple.  I want to make a larger toddler size quilt.

I delivered these three quilts, to the person who drops them to Project Linus, on October 1st.  There were others, but that will be for another post.  This next quilt is another spiderweb quilt, just like I wrote about in a recent post called Red Spiderweb.  Except this one is also NICU size.

This one is in different shades of blue, purple and green.  The majority of this quilt fabric came from a friend, who finished her quilt and gave me her scraps.  The scraps were already somewhat in the size of strips I needed.  It worked out well and took me almost no time at all to piece together.

I have to say that there is a theme going on here.  Can you tell what it is?  Lol.  This quilt and the ones above, all come from peoples left over scraps.  I felt it my job to show people just how pretty a quilt can be, even if you are using your scraps.  I think these three are all pretty.

This quilt above uses crumbs to make crazy blocks in a rainbow of colours.  I make the crazy blocks using all kinds of small colourful pieces and sew them together to make blocks that measure about 6" square.  I cut them in four to make smaller blocks of 2.5".  I used the white sashing to help make the colours stand out individually.  My goal for this one was to see just how many pieces I could use in these small blocks.  There are many....lol.  One of them has nine visible pieces in a 2" finished square.

I hope you enjoyed these quilts and I hope that maybe some day, you will decide to make a quilt using your own scraps.  See how creative you can get to make something that is pretty special and a one of a kind.

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

Waterloo County Quilters' Guild 2023 Quilt Show (Take 2)

A continuation of yesturday's post regarding some very beautiful quilts from the Waterloo County Quilters' Guild 2023 Quilt Show.  

This first one was something else!  So many tiny pieces all hand appliqued to a background, not to mention the subject of the design.  So stunning and beautiful!!  I can't even imagine the hours and hours that went into making this quilt.  All those pieces and deciding what colours, how many and where to put them, to have a well balanced quilt in the end.  Wow!!

This next quilt done in neutrals and faded blues, looks pretty complicated to assemble.  The pieces were also small and this looks like it would have had to be made in sections of wedges.  It was very pretty.  The picture does not do it justice.

I took this following picture in order to get inspiration from the quilt on the chair, but in the process, I ended up getting a second quilt, which was unique.  Are you a cat lover?  There are many blocks of cats in various colours with some blocks of flowers.  Cute.

As I mentioned, the above picture was taken for the inspiration of the quilt on the chair.  I was so inspired that I came home that vary day and pulled out two identical charm packs.  This quilt is easier than it looks.  It is made with one charm and beside it is a nine patch.  That is it!  The nine patch is the trick to making this design work.  In each nine patch the corner blocks plus the centre are in background fabric and the remaining blocks are the colours of the charm square that they side beside. So for every charm square, you will need a matching pair.  Stay tuned for it one later.

Below on the left is one of Bonnie Hunter's designs and on the right is a pretty quilt I thought I would like to make, to use up some of my scraps.  Using a lot of background fabric sometimes helps with taming the scrappiness of the scraps.

All of these quilts in the next photo were pretty, but I took the picture, because I saw that I was not the only one to come up with the idea of using fabric strings/scraps to make crayons for a child's quilt.  This person made hers a bit bigger than mine and she added 8 crayons instead of my four.  But again, I was making a NICU quilt, so I was limited with what size I could do it.  I will likely make another for Project Linus and make it larger, just like this person did.  Aren't they playful and fun looking.  I am sure that any child would love this bright and cheerfully quilt.

Hope you enjoyed the small sampling of quilts from the show.  There were many, many more that were equally as beautiful.  I hope you had a chance to be there, to see them all.

Have a great night everyone.  Take care.

Waterloo County Quilters Guild 2023 Quilt Show (Take 1)

As previously mentioned, my mother and I went to a quilt show this past weekend in Waterloo county.  It's the first quilt show that we've gone to since covid hit.  Previously, we would visit at least a few, each year.  For a quilt show, I would travel as much as two hours.  Lucky for me, this one was only about a forty minute drive.  This quilt show did not disappoint.  There were so many gorgeous quilts.  

This first quilt was so pretty. I loved everything about it.  This person went all out, from all of her tiny pieces, all hand appliqued, to all her fancy border treatments.  Just gorgeous.  I really do like what she did with her borders.  Can you imagine this on the bed with the borders hanging down the sides. Such a lovely finish.

I also liked her sashings and thought it was a light affect that doesn't distract from the blocks and elaborate borders.  I may have to keep this in mind when I get ready to finish my own applique quilt.  Do you like the applique birds and butterfly on her blocks?  So pretty.

This second quilt was also gorgeous.  This was completely pieced.  It looks complicated.  The colours are great and draw your eyes from the centre all the way out to the corners, with that chain that starts out strong and seems to disappear between the blocks, to appearing again into the corners.  Really nice affect.  This person knew what she was doing with the various shades of neutrals too.  Very affective.

Today's third quilt is a sampler of applique blocks.  I can't tell if this was a pattern or just a very well put together mish mash of applique blocks, because it was very well done.  This was quite a feat.  It is very difficult to put numerous blocks of varying sizes, themes and colours together in a cohesive way.  This person did a supper job of it.  This would be great as a wall-hanging.  It would stop me, in my tracks, all the time, just to stare at it, to discover new things every time.

This last quilt, different than the others, for it's bright colours, which was yet another gorgeous quilt.  The picture does not do it justice.  In person the colours are so vibrant, it almost looks like a real stain glass.  The person who made this was very particular with her piecing and the small, slightly bigger than 1/8" black, leaded glass divides was so precise.

My hats off to these ladies with their attention to detail and workmanship.  They all did a spectacular job.  I am so glad that I was able to attend this show.  It did not disappoint.  Stay tuned for tomorrow when I share another five more quilts.

Take care everyone.

Getting started on my Heartfelt quilt

A hand full of ladies and I decided to have or own little group to encourage each other along with our Heartfelt quilt.  It was presented to the Guild as a BOM, however there was not enough participation to cover the cost, so instead, our small group of ladies decided to purchase the individual pattern, directly from the designer and do the quilt on our own.

I went through the pattern and worked out how to divide the blocks into months with leaving time to put the whole quilt together before the end of the guild year.  They may not be the same blocks per the BOM package, however we will make it work for us.

Last night, I started doing my blocks for October.  I got the blocks cut out and one of them assembled.

Aren't they cute!!  You may recall from my introduction post, that my quilt is going to be primarily red and pink, with some white for the background.  I am liking the blocks so far.  I am aiming for a variety with numerous different shades of red and pink.

Take care everyone.

Red spiderweb quilt

As of yesturday morning I had the top and bottom borders left to make for this quilt.  I was determined to finish it.  I have a bunch of quilts that are almost done with minimal stuff to do on them, but they still just sit and wait to be completed.  I tend to have a hang up with finally finishing quilt.  Often it is at the border stag that I get stuck.  It's almost like I want to hold on to the quilt a bit longer before I give it up.  Is that only me, or do you have certain point of construction that you stall out at?

After I finished my sister's placemats, the day before, I thought why not make it a double finish.  So, I set my self to finishing this.  The borders are made with strings.  This is not a hard quilt to make.  It goes together very well.

In this case I decided to do this spiderweb quilt all in reds with a white newsprint for the background.  I used every shade of red I had in my strings, from very dark bordeaux to light almost pink reds.  It's what makes it work.  You could do this in any colourway you like or even scrappy and it will all look good.  If you do a search of 'spiderweb' in the top search bar, you will see that I have made many and all of them at completely different.  I even taught a workshop for our local guild.

I finished the top and bottom borders and attached them to the quilt, and scrambled around looking for a backing fabric.  I figured I was on a roll that I would keep going and quilt up the quilt.  Can you guess what I quilted this quilt with.....  Well......of coarse, Along Came a Spider from Urban Elementz....lol.

What else would you quilt on a spiderweb quilt....lol.  I am happy with how this quilt turn out.  This quilt is going to Project Linus.

Take care everyone, have a great night!

A special request from my sister

A while back, my sister came to me and asked me (in a joking manner), "What kind of warranty do I have on my placemats that you made me?"  I had to laugh!  I made my sister's placemats back in Dec/2015.  She alternates them with another set she has.  She washes them gently.

I'd say that she has past to warranty date.....lol.....like holy smokes.....lol.  That is like almost 8 years.  WOW!!  Anyways, they are starting to show some wear along the edges and she like them a lot.  This has got to be one of the best compliments that a quilter can get.  She loved and used them to the fullest.

I just yesturday managed to finish another set for her.  Her colours are in the burgundy and grey.  Whereas before, it was burgundy and taupe.  These are the same placemat style, but now in her current colourway.  She needed this style as her table used to be a small round bar height table and this was what I came up with, instead of making circle placemats.  Even though she now has a regular size table, she still wanted the same style of placemats.  This is what she is getting.

Last time I quilted them differently, but now with my experience, over time, I have come up with an easier design to quilt these, that requires less starts and stops.  It still meets with her slightly modern style.  She is coming over for a movie night this Friday, so I got them done just in time!

Yesturday, my mom and I went to a quilting show in Waterloo.  It's been the first show since Covid happened back over 3yrs ago.  I really enjoyed it!  I will see if I can upload the pictures from my phone and give you a bit of quilting inspiration.  There were so many beautiful quilts.  I only got a small sampling, but even still, I will likely have to separate them into more than one post.  Soon.

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

Changing it up with my sewing space. *Forewarning this is a long rambling post

During the time that I lost my sewing mojo, I kept thinking about what I can do to bring it back.  Loosing your sewing mojo, could be due to many different reasons. It could be stress in other areas of your life, being stuck inspirationally, frustration with a certain stage that you are at in you quilting, just to name a few.  

I am not 100% why I lost my mojo, but two things that stuck out for me as possibilities are, first I had so many other things around here that had to be done, that I really didn't have much time to play with fabric, because if I did, I felt guilty that I wasn't doing what needed to be done (primarily our move and the renos).  

For this problem, I still have to work at getting over it. I continue to tell myself that having some time to myself is good for me and my mental health.  My body isn't getting any younger either, so it needs the rest from strenuous work that is required for doing the renos. I am still working on this, self talk.

The second thing was the location of my sewing room.  I know I shouldn't complain in this area, as I know that some people do not have the luxury of even having a sewing room, but for me, my creativity is stifled when my surroundings are not restful for my sole.

It happened before, when I had my sewing room in the second house, down in the basement, where no one went.  I am not a social butterfly, but I do need to be close to what is going on in my household.  At that place, when I moved my sewing space, upstairs to the dinning room, that we didn't use and I was closer to the action of the household, I was in my element.  It felt right!  I forgot about that, as much time has pasted since, and when we moved to this place.

When the thought came to me....I thought.....but I like the room I have.....I made it cozy.....  But after I really thought about it, I realized that I had isolated myself in a room, at the far end of the basement, away from everything.  Nobody came to this room unless they needed me for something.  If I wanted to take a bit of time to sew, it felt like a trek to get there....the trek part is a bit of an exaggeration, as my house, being a bungalow, is not all that big, but mentally, it felt like I was going far far away.  Your mental state is very important, as it's your "mojo".

I was thinking a lot about this, during my 10 hour ride, both ways, to and from a funeral.  That is when you really realize that life is short. Together with being upset about loosing my mojo, I seriously gave it some thought.  I had to make some changes.

To help me deal with the events of the funeral, I emersed myself into coming up with a solution to my lost mojo.  I really needed my sewing time to decompress and balance me out.  So, I started packing up stuff.  Putting things away.  I decided that I was going to move myself out of the back room of the basement, which felt like I was being punished and put in the corner.  I moved myself to the main part of the basement, which was at the time, the rec room/TV/media space.  It was large and under utilized and at least it got traffic with members of the household passing by on the way to other things.

Once I made that decision, it felt right!  

The space is still rough and some renos still need to be done to finish the space, but now that I am not cramped, I feel better.  Just seeing members of my household passing by and now, often just stopping to chat, makes a world of difference.  I need my people time....lol....a term used with dogs.  They are "pack" animals....I guess I am too!  Funny how I never thought of that before...until now.  What a strange thing to realize.  I need to be close to my pack.....lol.

This is my new space.  As mentioned above there is a bit of work that still needs to be done, but I like it so much better already.   Above is my sewing machine space.  This is the alcove that I previously had the TV on the wall and DVDs surrounding it.  I like it better now.  The floor on the right, will need to be finished, but I can't do that until I fix the issue with the free standing gas fireplace, not seen in the photo to the right.  My design will will have to be smaller, but that's ok, as I now have more floor space to lay thing down on the floor, if I really needed to.  My husband is working on getting me an industrial track, that I can hang a design board to and can move it out of the way, if I need to access the closed behind my design board.

This is to the right of the first picture, which shows that gas fireplace.  As you can see, my temporary design wall/sheet, is being held by the sliding doors of the closet.  This is where I sit to look around and be inspired, while having my cup of tea.  I now have a bit of room to breath without feeling cramped.

Behind my green chair is the divider/cupboard that I use as an ironing board for larger pieces of fabric.  It holds my fat quarters, bins of scraps and other miscellaneous quilting items.  Behind that is my longarm space.  I get a lot of light in that area, as I have two windows on either side of the room there.  My storage room is the door on the left, were I keep all my extra quilting stuff for both the business and for personal. In the forefront of the picture is the space to use the floor as a design wall.

 

Just over to the right in the last picture is this space.  This is my cutting table and drawers where I keep my strings, cut strips, crumbs and a couple of UFOs.  This is also where I hang my wall-hanging of the month.  This one is for November, though as I don't have one yet for October, I use this one now too.

I've now had my new sewing space, set up for just over a month.  I like it!  I am not sure if my sewing mojo has come back 100%, but I am sewing and I am more excited to go down in the basement to sew.....so I am going to say, that given a bit of time and more work on the first issue listed above, I can see my mojo heading for a full recovery.

As Angela Walters' saying goes.....Quilting is my therapy....  I whole heartly agree with her.  I even bought a t-shirt from her website with the saying on it...lol

Sorry for the very long post.  I just needed to get this all down.  Musings are important.  If you are still here, thank you for your patience and my usual closing of 'don't forget to take some time for yourself'.....well I mean it!!!  You need it!!!! 

IT IS IMPORTANT.....YOU ARE IMPORTANT!!!!

Take care everyone.

A row of sailboats and another green hexagon star quilt

Tonight was dinner at my mom's place, so no sewing went on for me..... Tomorrow though, I should have a full day of time in my sewing room.  I have some quilting to do for charity and customers, but I think I will hold those off until Sunday.  I am really itching to sew up some of the blocks for the Heartfelt block of the month quilt.

Today I am sharing with you a couple of quilts from Nov 29th/2022.  I was really busy around that time, as you can tell.  Three posts in a row with quilts from that week and there were others....lol.

This first one was inspired by a 1 meter piece of fabric, which had a nodical theme to it, like lighthouses, anchors, etc.  I decided to keep the fabric in one piece and make a row of blocks for the top.  Sail boats was a natural choice.  I pulled the colours for the boats from the items in the fabric.  I quilted this quilt with a pantograph called Seafoam.  The quilt was approx. 40" x 52", a perfect size for a toddler.  This quilt went to Project Linus.

Here is another hexagon star quilt.  I made several of these types of NICU quilts.  All the stars were made by my daughter in different colours.  I appliqued the stars to a white background fabric and did a different border for each of them.  This one has pinwheels in each corner and strings in green between them.  NICU quilts are usually 24"-26" square.  They are used in the hospitals for the incubators, to keep the bright hospital lights off the preemies.  The parents get to take them home with their child at checkout time.  This cute little quilt also went to Project Linus, to a hospital in Guelph, ON.

Have a great weekend everyone!  Don't forget to take some time for yourself.  I know I will be.  I don't want to fall behind on the block of the month quilt already, just when we are just getting started.

A blue bricks with white sashing quilt for Quilts for Survivors

This week has been pretty busy.  Today was an in the office day and tonight I went out to dinner with my coworkers to celebrate the anniversaries.  Four of us hit milestones at 35yrs for three of us and 45yrs for one.  We all enjoyed a night out at The Keg paid by our employer.  What a great time we had!

No sewing again today, so I am going to take you back again to Nov 29th/2022, when I quilted this quilt top for Quilts for Survivors.  This top was also made by someone else and donated to Quilts for Survivors and I offered to quilt it.  You can't go wrong with a blue and white quilt.  This is an easy quilt to make and it looks good.  It appears to be a weave pattern.

Here is a close up of the quilting.  This pattern is an edge to edge pantograph and is called Rebecca's Rose from Urban Elementz.

Take care everyone!

A black and white quilt with yellow accents for Quilts for Survivors (side note: how to unscramble blogger blogs)

Blogger is doing something weird again...all my pictures are scrambled so I don't know where to type or where I can insert text between the pictures.  In future if it does it again, go into a blog from the 'Post: Edit' mode and select the little pencil icon on the command bar above on the left hand side.  Push the dropdown and select the compose view.  That should fix it.  So moving on, here we go....

Tonight, I had an exciting meeting with some ladies from our guild who were interested in doing a separate side group for a BOM.  The guild BOM was going to be something that you had to pay for, to the designer of the pattern, so I think that may be one of the reasons why there was not as much interest in it, or it could have been that the quilt was not to everyone's taste. Either way this small group of ladies and I are going ahead with it on our own.  We each bought the pattern, though it doesn't come with the instructions on how to do the BOM format.  So, I have broken down the pattern and the time allotted to do the blocks required and everyone agreed with the set up.

This small group of ladies and I are so excited to be making this quilt together.  The Zoom meeting was so positive with everyone showing the fabric options they were planning on and some explaining how they planned to change up the pattern to make it their own.  It was fun, and so exciting.  I can't wait to get together in person, in November, to sew all day.  In the meantime we all have homework to do, with making a bunch of blocks.

Stay tuned for samples of my blocks.  Maybe if the ladies allow, I can take pictures of theirs too and show you just how different they will all be.

For some show and share, today I want to take you back to Nov 29/2022, and share with you a quilt I quilted for Quilts for Survivors.  This was completed by someone who donated it to Quilts for Survivors and I offered to quilt it.  My mom did the binding and this quilt was sent out to a recipient to give them some comfort in knowing that there are people out there thinking about them and wish them some peace from all that they have been through.  Our thoughts are with you.

This is a close up of the quilting.  I quilted the quilt using a star pantograph in a yellow thread called Mango.  It turned out lovely.

Take care everyone!

Blue hexagon NICU quilt and inspiration/Bento Box block (QW)

I just got back from my mom's place.  The quilting group she belongs to, had to do zoom this month, due to the construction going on around their meeting place.  My mom doesn't do computers, so I went over there tonight to set her up, so that she could be there to enjoy the ladies and the speaker.

While she was doing that, I was on my tablet checking out some inspiration on Pinterest.   I tell you, Pinterest is like one big deep black hole, that once you go in, you are there for a long time....lol.  It never fails.  I do get inspiration from seeing what others are up to, and to me Pinterest is the lesser of the evils, compared to Facebook.  That is another big black hole.  I try and stay away from them both and limit my time using them.

Other than browsing Pinterest for quilting eye candy, I didn't have a chance to do anything quilt related.  So, today I am going to take you back in time to Nov 5th/2022, when I made this adorable blue hexagon quilt, in NICU size.  

This was a hexagon star that my daughter made some time ago and decided that she didn't want to make a large size quilt with them.  I took her star and appliqued it to a white square/background, and surrounded it with three small borders of coordinating colours.  This is the last of six hexagon stars that she made and that I converted to a NICU quilt.

My block inspiration from today's venture into Pinterest is this Bento Box block.  This is yet another great use of scraps. Many different colours and multi fabrics for the background would make this interesting.  I'll have to add it to the leader/ender someday wish list......lol.....for someday... 

My someday wish list keeps getting bigger and bigger...but that's ok...so long as it stays on the wish list until I can finish up some of my UFOs.  I know I can't do them all, as there are not enough hours in the day!!

Take care everyone.

Susan's low volume baby shower quilt

I've just gotten home today from, a really nice time away, at our Jenkins annual long weekend reunion at the cottage, on an island in Stoney Lake.  It was so nice.  Everyone taking turns to make the meals and everyone else cleaning up the dishes, pots and pans.  I don't mind that kind of cooking...lol.  It is always a pleasure to see family that you only get to see once a year.  

Needless to say, I didn't get any sewing/quilting done while away, so instead I will sharing something from the past.  Taking you back to Nov 29/2022:

Here is a pretty low volume baby quilt.  The blocks were 10" square so this quilt went together fairly quickly.  Susan made this in a day.  This is a two colour quilt with a white background, but you can do this in a rainbow wash across the quilt.

Here is a close up.  Susan used a fabric with sheep.  It is cute!  She wanted the quilting pattern to be floating clouds. This quilt is a good example of a simple modern design.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend, however you spent it.  Take care.

Teresa's Blueberry Kisses quilt

Taking you back in time with this quilt from Teresa.  Going back in time to Nov 29th/2022.

I believe the pattern is by Thimbles & Needles called Blueberry Kisses.  This is a cute pattern and measures approx. 60" wide x 70" high.  It's a cute pattern that can be made in any colourway or even multi coloured scraps.  I do love the nine patches surrounding the X's.

I think I want to make one of these with all of my small scraps.  I can start off with my 2" squares and them move to my 2" strips.  I think the pattern uses 2 1/2", but I have 2" strips already cut.

I haven't decided yet whether I like the blocks straight, looking like a plus sign, with the chain on a diagonal, as shown above, or an X with the chain going horizontally and vertically.  I am loving the scrappy background!

This pattern can easily be a leader/ender.  I'll have to keep this in mind when I finish the new leader/ender that I just recently started.

Another leader ender block

In all the fun I was having on Thursday past,  I decided to try out this new to me block and figure out all the ironing directions, so that when the blocks go together, all the seams will appose and nest together nice and snug.  This block is called Celtic Knot.  I think it is going to be my next leader/ender.

This block is an old block and not copyright, so see above my page with the measurements, layout and ironing directions, if you want to make it yourself.  For my own blocks, I am doing them completely scrappy.  I'm still trying to use up my 2" strips.  I have my strips sorted into lights and darks.  You could make this in rainbow colours and coordinate it to link all the chains.  It can look beautiful that way! 

Here is another one.  In the end, mine will be more of the muddy colours, as that is what I have in abundance.  Seems that everyone is unloading these fabrics and going after the pretty bright ones...lol.  I don't mine them.  They still look pretty to me.

This is how the blocks will interlock.  The black and red lines will eventually form a square with the other colours (in this case the blue and beige) interlocking, over and under the other lines of the chain.

Here I drafted up a picture of the quilt top in black and white, to get an idea of how the quilt will look like with all the blocks together.

This new found excitement may get me into some trouble, if I continue to start new things....lol.

Take care everyone.  I am sending all my best wishes to all of you for a happy Thanksgiving.  Take the time to enjoy your family/friends and all the food.