My corn & beans block from The Farmer's Wife quilt is done

Do you remember the block I was working in from The Farmer's Wife quilt book?  The one that got me frustrated because I could not get the prices to fit.  Well, here it is all done.

My problem was a few different things going one at the same time.  For starters I will explain that this block and all of it's pieces only measures 6" finished.  With a little block like the with a lot of small pieces every little detail makes a difference.

First off I cut the pieces 1/16" too big.  Not much but when you compound that by many pieces it makes a huge difference.  Secondly, I was sewing on a machine with a 1/4" seam allowance that was not a true 1/4".  My seams were actually 1/16" smaller.  Compound that by the first problem and you now have almost 1/8" larger on each piece.  It wasn't working.  To top it all off the placement of the pieces when sewing them was slightly off, so when pressed open the half square triangles were not lining up at the edges.  Can you see now why I was so frustrated?

But, I was determined!  I was not going to be defeated.  I started from scratch.  I took out the template that I thought I didn't need to use and started recutting all the pieces.  The template did two things.  One is it helped with making the pieces the correct size and two the template had the dog ears cut out to help with placement of the pieces when sewing them together.  I moved over to my other machine where I used Bonnie Hunter's method of setting the seam allowance.

After all the changes complete, I tried again.  Wouldn't you know it, the block went together with less effort.  It's amazing what will happen with the right tools and proper preparations

I learnt a lesson with this block.  I doesn't always pay to take shortcuts.  In this case it actually more than doubled the time it would have taken had I taken the time in the first place.

I started another comfort quilt

Last night, I started another comfort quilt.  The one and only time that I do not feel guilty for starting another quilt, even when I have a stack of them that I am working on.

I started this one for two reasons.  The first was I really needed a break from the Tiny Town appliqué.  I just couldn't do any more. Two days straight of appliqué when I'd rather be doing something else was just too much.  So I gave myself permission to start this quilt.  The second reason is to use up some scraps.

I got my GO! Cutter out and my bin of odd chunks of fabric scraps.  These scraps are left over stuff that I had that was not trimmed down. The pieces were smaller than a fat quarter but too big to cut up in strips just yet.  Some of this stuff is fabric that I had for a long time and was constantly being used in my scrap quilts, to the point that I was tired of them.

So, I took out the 2" strip die cutter and started trimming the scraps. I laid out the strips in random order on the design floor (design wall is too full).  When I do this I kind of take note of the colours I have to work with and how much of each I have.  I will start out with the bright stand out colours and distribute them over the general area/size of the quilt.  Once I handle the bright colours I will check out the fabrics that I really want to get rid of and use them up.  Lastly, I take the rest of the strips and evenly distribute them.  The above picture is what I ended up with.

Now I will start sewing the ends together in each row and later attach each row.  Simple quilt to make. Depending on the fabric used will chance the look of the quilt.  In my case I wanted a boy quilt, so I did not include any pinks or purples and nothing with pretty stuff like flowers.

What do you think?  I will show you a picture when it is done.  When it is sewn up it sort of tidies everything up.  You'll see.  It will look nice.

One section of Tiny Town block seven for July is done

One section of Tiny Town block seven for July is done.  I did start with the fire house and I have mostly completed the block.  The parts that are left are all the detail work.  Yesterday morning I needed to feel like I accomplished something, so I did up this smaller block that only has a small amount of detail work for the birdhouse holes.

I finished up the appliqué parts, the detailed work and put the block together.  Now that I had this short break, I think I can get back to finishing all the firehouse detail work.  The work involves all the window grids, the ladder and the words.  I also still need to attach the owl's eyes and wings.  I will be done.  Doesn't seem like much, but it will still take some time.

Enjoy your day everyone!

Snowmen A to Zzzz.... E is for Elf and F is for Fir

Snowmen A to Zzzz.... E is for Elf and F is for Fir.  Now that my daughter is out of school for the summer she has some more time to herself.  Or rather she has one week to herself until summer school starts to get an extra credit, so that she can have a spare during the school year, when she has her hardest subjects.

During this time she is going over what blocks she needed to finish of her Snowmen A to Zzzz..... quilt.  She realized that on this block E is for Elf and F is for fir, the only thing she needed was the boots, belt and buttons.  Initially she was missing the colour to do them, but now they are done.

One more block she can cross of the list, in this case it was with little effort.  Always a nice boost of excitement, especially because this is one of the big blocks.

My daughter is doing well on this quilt, I would guess that she is 2/3 of the way done, if not a bit more.  She does this type of handwork while she is watching tv, mostly when it is a show she has already seen.

It is amazing how much one can get done while sitting around.  Either when you are watching tv, a movie, waiting for sports events with the kids or at doctor's offices.  Keep a grab bag at the ready.  Leave it in the car if it helps, so that you have it with you at all times.  A few stitches here and a few stitches there and it will get done.

For example I went on Thursday to the hair dressers with my son, prior to the zoo.  While I am waiting for him to get his hair cut I am working on my hexagons that are in my grab and go bag.  I had my hands busy and was still able to have a conversation with the hairdresser.  She likes to do stuff with her hands too.

Sabryna's Remember Me quilt

Last Sunday Sabryna, Dylan and I went for a ride up to Font Hill.  It's a nice ride, only about an hour and fifteen minutes.

What's in Font Hill you ask,,,,,.well you should know better by now.  It was a quilt store, silly.  Kidding aside, there is a beautiful quilt store called The Quilting Bee and a nice restaurant called Lazy Loon right next door.

I go there often, maybe five or six times a year, some with my quilt bee friends and some with the kids.  I wanted to take advantage of the 15% off sale they were having on their Go! die cutters.  My daughter wanted to go because she was dying to start a quilt and my son wanted to go for the food.  Well......my daughter and I also wanted to go for the food too.  There is nothing that I have eaten at the Lazy Loon that was not really good.

My daughter is hooked on the feel of civil war fabrics.  In her opinion the colours are warm and cozy.

While my daughter and I were looking at a calendar my mom got about quilts, we both stopped to admire the quilt that was for the month of September.  By coincidence September is the month that my daughter and I were born (hence the head butting from time to time, LOL).  There were some pretty quilts in the calendar, but of all of them we both thought September was the best.  It just has movement going on with a variety of fabrics, which we both like.

We looked up the info on the quilt and found out it came from the book called The Blue and the Grey by Mary Etherington and Connie Tesene.  The book came in the mail and since, Sabryna has been dreaming about making the quilt.  There are many nice quilts in this book and they are all made from civil war fabrics, though you could use any kind of fabric and have it turn out beautiful.

The quilt my daughter is making is called Remember Me.  The main block is called a signature block and the secondary block is a pinwheel. The construction of this quilt is a bit different as the second row of signature blocks is actually part of the sashing.

So far most of the fabric is cut and Sabryna has made a sample block to confirm the sizes.  This quilt is not big, so I had to resize the whole quilt.  I started by resizing the actual blocks from a 1" finished strip to a 1 1/2" strip, and added an extra row on the top and side to make the quilt a queen size.  Here is a sample of the main block.

Here is a sample of her pinwheel block.  Sabryna is making her quilt scrappy like the book pattern and also using the deep red/burgundy for her pinwheels.  I really like her background fabric.  It is so soft looking and has a romantic feel to it.

As Sabryna makes this quilt, she is fine tuning her 1/4" seam allowance and learning to follow a book pattern instead of only relying on me.  She is doing very well!  God, my little girl is growing up, or really she has gone and grown up already.  When did that happen?  I do love her and am proud of who she is.  Keep up the good work babe.

A typical day in my life with quilting and a pink Dresden plate block done

I had a very busy day yesterday.  I started the day at 6:00 am, with some appliqué of the Tiny Town block number seven.  Later when my son decided to go outside to play ball, I took a break and followed him.  I needed to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather.

Not being one to just side around, while my son practiced pitching against the house, I started to do some weeding.  The gardens that I had cleaned out and rearranged at the side of the house had some weeds and the old walkway had many growing between the cracks.

Once that was done I moved to the garden by the back door where the barbecue is.  During that big storm the barbecue was knocked over and some of my plants got flattened.  I did fix some of it, but now I was able to fix the rest of it.  Feeling good about what I accomplished I was able to get back to the appliqué work, with renewed energy.

I worked on it for another while and took a break to make lunch, and work on it some more.  During this time sitting in my den, my daughter and her friend, who slept over last night finally wake up from there very late night of watching movies.  My son joins us and they end up laying around on the daybed or carpet reading out loud about dogs. They want another puppy.

By about four in the after noon I needed another break.  It's hard to do long stretches of hand work, without taking breaks.  For this break I started ironing my daughters grey backing material for her sixteen-patch pinwheel quilt and her top.  I had the quilt layered on the floor and started to pin it for quilting.

Three quarters of the way through the pinning I had to think about dinner. The kids made a snack a while ago so we're not hungry, but by this time it was now already 7:00 pm, too late to get anything started, so I ordered some pizza and wings.  I didn't have time to make anything, because yesterday being Canada Day we were going to the fireworks.

After I ordered the pizza I went out front to join my son and talk to my neighbours and their kids who were playing hockey in my driveway.  My adult niece ends up coming outside shortly after and while she sits on the grass with her little four month old, her other two kids come help me take the weed branches off my tree.  By the time dinner arrives my tree is done, my niece and I had a nice chat and the two older kids got an education on caterpillars, moths and spiders that were on the tree that we were working on.

They went to have dinner at there house my son and I go in to have dinner at our house and the kids and I go walk down to Centennial Park to watch the fireworks. Loved the show, this was the first year we were around at this new house to get out in the community and enjoy the fireworks. They were great!

Now we are late at night, my son is practically crawling to bed, my daughter and her friend are waiting for her friends dad to come pick her up, while I head back down stairs to finish the pinning of my daughter's quilt.  My daughter eventually comes down to join me, to chat and keep me company.

Once I am done, I head upstairs for a shower and hit my pillow by 11:50 pm.  A busy and long day.

This is a typical day in the my life with quilting.  I do my quilting between living life with my family, gardening, cleaning the house, working and renos.  It all gets done.  Maybe not in the timeline that others do it, but it does get done.

I didn't get my block for the Tiny Town completely done, but I am still happy with how far I did get done on it.  Now I only have the fine details to take care of.  So, instead I will leave you with a picture of the pink Dresden plate block that I finished some time last week.  I forgot I completed this block. It still needs to be pressed, but I am sure you get the picture (no pun intended).

Today it's a hair cut for my son and picking up his friend and heading to the Toronto zoo.  I am sure it will be another busy day.  Enjoy it!!!

Finished Tiny Town block three for June

Late last night, with my eyes going all blurry I finally finished the last block section for block number three.  This block has Sun Bonnet Sue and her dog.

Once I finished this block I just had to take some time to trim it down to neaten it up some.  Well....once I got this far, I could not just stop there.  I attached all three sections of block number three together.  It looks good.  I really like the fancy bird cage section.

I was so tempted to attach the three blocks together.  That would complete the first of three rows to finish the quilt centre, but I really could not see straight.  I will try to finish it later today.

Yesterday, I got the first section of block number seven organized and ready to start sewing.  I've decided to start on the fire station.  With time at a crunch I have to see if I can get this whole section done today.

I will let you know how that goes for me.