I am quilting, quilting and more quilting

For the past few days I have been quilting away.  I am working on my friends hexagon lap quilt.  As I haven't  had much time these days, I have been using my 15 minute breaks to dwindle away at this quilt. It is amazing what one can actually do in 15 minutes.

I won't show any pictures yet of the quilt.  Once the quilt is done I will though.

When I am not working on the quilting of this hexagon quilt, I am working on the handwork of my cousin's hexagon quilt.  In handwork I have another side completed and half of the third side done.  

It is getting there.  Slowly, but surely.  These things take time.  Especially when there is little time available. I just have to somehow make the time, because quilting is something that I really enjoy doing.

I don't have any quilt pictures to show you right now, so I thought I would insert a picture of a sunflower in my garden.

The funny thing about this sunflower is that I didn't plant it.  At first I thought it was a weed and was going to pull it.  For some reason, I just didn't.  I guess mother nature had her own plans for my garden.  I find things like these, moments to reflect upon.  You know,,,,,,like a higher power.

It was a pleasant surprise. A simple wonder.  It makes me smile, every time I look at this picture with the pretty yellow petals.  A bit of sunshine.  After I took this picture, about three days later, three other flowers bloomed.  It was quite pretty and I got to watch the show.  These flowers were like my "stop and smell the roses".

Take time to smell your roses.......the moments are out there, but you're the only one that can find them.

Finished the nine patch quilt

Yay!!!  I did it!  I finished the nine patch quilt.  The evening lighting may not be the greatest for taking whole quilt pictures, so I took some more close ups too.  I have to deliver this quilt today, so will not have the time to take better pictures.

After lunch yesterday, I helped my mother with more moving stuff, and got back to quilting.  I didn't have to do puppy duty until 4:00 pm, so I wanted to take advantage of the available time.  By 4:00 pm I had only three blocks left to do and the small border.  It was still going well.

At 4:00 pm I took a break from quilting to look after puppy.  We went outside to play and I got some time out there to finish planting a small garden.  Above is a picture of the centre, showing all three different block designs.  Each design goes up on a diagonal across the quilt.

Come 6:00 pm my doggy duty shift is done.  I have the rest of the night off and I am revving to go!  I finished the last three blocks with only a little set back, when I forgot to take out a pin, but quickly remedied the situation, fix the quilting, and off and running I went again.

I proceeded to mark the small border and wasted no time trying to quilt this before the night is through.  Above is a close up of the heart border I did.  Lastly, I trim all the threads in the back and square off the quilt ready to receive the binding.  The quilt looks great!

I hope the maker will be as pleased as I am.  This is the first quilt I quilted for this person.  I am always a tad nervous when doing it for the first time for someone new.

Working on the nine patch quilt

I am working at finishing the quilting of the nine patch quilt.  I finished all the swirly design blocks and all the loop design blocks shown on my last post.

Now I am working on the last block design.  The maker of the quilt requested this particular design.  It is four overlapping hearts that result with loops where the hearts overlap.  From there loops are added to the first loops forming a chain.

It's all coming together well, when I get a chance to work on it.  Today I actually got to sleep in. I don't remember the last time I slept in.  Getting up at 7:30 am did me some good.  I feel really good.  I had breakfast, sat down with my tea, caught up on some email, and jumped right in to the quilting.  I did quite a bit before time to make lunch.  

As I was quilting away, I came up with the last design I needed for a little space.  All the blocks are the same size along the border except where the corners meet.  A spacer was needed to make it all work.  

At first, in this space I quilted a few hearts with a sewn link between them almost like stippling, but I didn't like it, so I tried another version of a few hearts connected by a sewn line.  I didn't like that one either, so I tried a chain of hearts connected to each other, as seen below.  I like this one better of all the designs I tried.  I took the first two sections out and quilted all the little sections in these chained hearts.  It turned out nice.  They are all completed too.

As I said earlier in the post, now I have to finish the overlapping hearts blocks, and all I will have left to do is the small border.  I already know what I want to do there, so that will make it go easier.  I also have one of the sides marked and ready to be quilted.

I am hoping to have this quilt completely done today.  I will let you know how that goes.

Quilting the nine patch quilt

I've been finding little bits of time here and there to continue to work on quilting the nine patch quilt. There are three different fabrics used for the alternate blocks, so I am quilting three different patterns on each.

This first one has a loop design to match the loops in the fabric.

This second fabric has swirls in the fabric, so I quilted the echo of the swirls.

The third fabric is still to be determined.  The design of the fabric is paisley.  I have not decided what I want to quilt on it yet.

So far I finished all the blocks with loops and all the blocks with swirls.  In my previous post, I mentioned that I finished all the in the ditch quilting and all the nine patches.  Now I have only the paisley blocks and the small border to do.

For the small border, I have decided to do a chain of hearts.  Yesterday I traced and cut out the template, and started to draw out the borders.  The one side fits perfectly with almost no adjustments needed.

As it is my late start at work today, I am going to see how far I can get on this border.  I will have to put the quilt away, until I can decide on the quilting design for the last blocks.

Enjoy your day!

Grandmother's flower garden hexagon quilts

While I was browsing online recently looking for stuff, I came across these two examples of a grandmother's flower garden quilt.  This first example is a vintage quilt that I believe may have been sold on eBay or something.  I like the effect of the blue that surrounds all the flowers.  A lot of the fabrics appear in the picture to be faded.  From the picture though, I cannot tell if it is the fabric's natural colour or if they have faded with age.

This second example is one of Bonnie Hunter's quotes, from Quiltville.com.  I like the fact that the maker of this quilt stuck more colour into the "gardens" by adding an extra row of colour, instead of only doing a floret surrounded by white.

I cannot believe it.  Since I started into this world of hexagons, I cannot believe how many there actually are.  I seem to see them everywhere.

**Progress on my top 12 list (which turned out to be 18 instead)**

Work in progress:  

3. Quilting - Lise's hexagon quilt (family)..........hand stitching the edges & doing the label

4. Quilting - Navy blue & cream quilt (my own)

7. Main work - Spools quilt (my own)..........first row done, taking a break to do some quilting

8. Main work - Mel's romance & roses quilt (family)
9. Leader/Ender - 16-patch pinwheel quilt (my own)..........working on between projects
10. Handwork - Reconstructed Dresden plate quilt (my own)...........9 full blocks left to do

11. Quilting - Lise's Dresden plate quilt (family)..........top is done, waiting to be quilted

12. Handwork - Machine wall hanging (my own)

13. Paper piece - Pineapple quilt (my own)..........these are put on hold again for a bit

Total number of quilts completed - 9
Total number of quilts left to be completed - 9

Completed quilts:
1. Quilted Flo's hexagon quilt (commissioned).  

14. Sabryna's 16-patch pinwheel quilt (family)

16. Reversable crazy quilt & matching doll quilt (charity)

15. Log cabin quilt (my own)
18. Small wonders quilt (charity)
17. Scrappy stripes quilt (charity)

2. Michelle's midnight flight quilt (family)

6. Jean material quilt (charity)

5. Midnight flight runway quilt (charity).  

Nine patches, also known as single Irish chain quilt

Yesterday, I needed a break from handwork.  I took out another quilt that needs to be quilted.  This one is for a friend's friend.  It's a nine patch with an alternating plain block, also known as a single Irish chain quilt.

This quilt is for a grandson.  The nine patches are mainly brown, green and yellow with a little blue. And the plain blocks are a white on dark cream.

This is the backing.  The centre strip is of the left over fabrics. 

Yesterday, I managed to quilt everything in the ditch, all the nine patches on a diagonal across the quilt and started on the individual plain blocks.

Things are going well with the quilting.  One more day of concentrated quilting should have it done.  After this quilt, I still have four quilts waiting to be done in the immediate future.  I have to get a move on it.

Today I have to do a few things here around the house, and try and finish this quilt.  All going well I will still have some time to do more handwork on the hexagon quilt.

Enjoy your Saturday.  Take advantage of every minute you get.

Progress on the diamond shape hexagon quilt

This past weekend, we went to our Jenkins reunion.  It was at my husband's brothers' cottage, my brother-in-law and his wife.  While there we did a lot of catching up.  The kids had a great time.  It's funny how we see each other only once a year for the reunion, as they live in BC, but when we do get together the kids are like peas in a pod.  All three families get along so well.  They're all easy going kids.

Cottage or not, I am still an early raiser.  During the time that I woke up, to the time the others woke up,  I sat in piece, in a very tranquil place, surrounded by beautiful views of the lake, stitching up the label for my cousins quilt.  I am now about half way done the label.

Today, I brought Maddie to doggy daycare, so she could run around and exhaust herself playing with all her doggy friends.  This gave me some uninterrupted time to sit and sew.  I worked all day, outside of a break to make lunch and have dinner.  I started at 10:00 am and quit at about 4:30 pm.  This part is not difficult, only time consuming.  After working on it all day, I still only got one side done and a second side trimmed.

It is coming together.  This following picture shows the edge hand stitched, now waiting for the final row of quilting.  I haven't decided whether I will quilt it now or after I finish all the edges.

I finished at about 4:30 pm, as that is when my daughter got back, from a four day work week, away from home.  I missed her for those four days.  So, to spend some mother, daughter time I suggested we go visit the new Indigo store, in our area and out to dinner.  She was game.  We both love browsing through books and good food.

The day ended with a bang.  As my daughter and I were on our way to pick up Maddie, we were treated to the beautiful sight of a double rainbow.  The second rainbow is faint.  You can see it just above the first one. Just precious.

I hope everyone finds the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  I know I have mine, with all my family and friends.  If it is hard to see it, just look for the silver lining.  The little things count.

I will end today with a saying from Each Day a New Beginning:

I will take today in my arms and love it.  I will love

all it offers; it is a friend bearing gifts galore.