A couple of quilts that I would like to make / Inspiration / Quilt Wannabe (QW)

I am writing this post primarily for myself.  I would like to make these two quilts one day, but they seem to get lost in my pictures, so I have decided to save them here with the label Quilt Wannabe (QW).  This way at a future date, I just have to do a word search for all the quilts that I am interested in making...some day...

This first one will be a way to use up all my 1 1/2" strips that have been building up.  But first I am doing Bonnie Hunter's Bitcon quilt using the medium and light strips.

Next I have this one that I want to do, also from Bonnie Hunter, called Smith Mountain Morning.  I am holding myself off on this one, until I get a few more quilts off my list, but I already have all my dark blue and chocolate brown scraps together, just waiting...we'll see just how long I can hold myself off...lol

That's all for today's post.  I still have a few things I need to take care of before I retire for the night.  Take care and keep safe everyone.

Fairy quilt

What a day yesterday! Really beautiful weather and good driving.  My mom and I went to four stores for the shop hop and didn't get back to her place until just after 5:45 pm.  It was nice, but I was so busy today that I didn't get a chance to sort out all that I got.  So I will save the show and share of that for another day.  Mom made a whole chicken on the barbeque with mini potatoes and asparagus, while I dug in the dirt to level off a section and relocate her platform for her barbeque.  My daughter joined us for dinner, and we ended the day with a nice fire out back.  Couldn't have been any better!

Today I was up and running with quilting for customers.  I got three quilts quilted and decided that I had enough, considering it was 5:30 pm.  I figured I needed some me time to sort things out and play with fabric some.  I sorted out my list of quilts in progress and have decided that I really do need to put the breaks on starting any new quilts, until I can get some more done...that was just about the time that I decided to do up three others...lol.  To my defense, these three were technically blocks already from my rejected samples, that I decided to turn into a reversable quilts.  There will be more about those too in a future post.  I am already over half way done on one of them.

As I don't have any pictures from the past two days to share with you, I will leave you with this recent finish.  This is the fairy quilt.  This quilt came about as a challenge to myself to start using up all the odd stuff I found while unpacking.  This small 12" high fabric with fairies in a garden theme of flowers, watering cans, etc. was the starting off point.  I also had a bunch of 2.5" squares that I was given, that appears to have been a sample of a line of fabric, or a few of them, plus some smaller pieces of fabric I had to deal with that were in the colours I needed for this piece.  There are blues, pinks, purples, yellow and greens in many different shades. 

It is a bit of a scramble, but up close it all seems to work (I have to work on the quality of my pictures).  I was practicing some free motion quilting on this piece with the Terry Twist in all of the squares.  A loop meander in the fairy block and straight line, back and forth motion in the small yellow border.  I've really got to get into practicing my free motion.  I see progress, but it wouldn't win any prizes...lol.  Practice, practice and practice some more!!

Hope you all had a great day!  Enjoy what is left of your evening.

Four small NICU finishes

Happy Saturday everyone!  The sun is out and I am looking forward to visiting another few quilt shops for the July 2022 shop hop in my area.  Today we will be heading out over to Woodstock and Mount Bridges area.

This morning, I have four small recent finishes to share with you.  I am determined to get things off my quilt-to-do list, but somehow having that goal, seems to derail me.  The faster I get things done, the more I want to start....  At this rate, I will never finish everything I've started...lol...but that does not deter me from trying.  Part of the fun for me is trying to use up what I have in a creative way.  Being frugal and environmentally friendly, are a couple of my parameters, while trying to make it look pretty and having fun in the process.  

This little cutie meets all of them.  I really enjoy coming up with ways to use up my strings.  On a side note, once you are bitten by the string bug, there is no going back.  You see ways to use up those strings everywhere....lol.  For this one I decided to make crayons.  I pulled out my purple strings and just sewed them side by side in a 4 1/2" width strip for about 18" long, and followed this with a solid purple crayon tip 4 1/2" square.  I added some white pieces to the sides to taper the tip.  After that I repeated the same process for the pink, yellow and red.  This was fun!  I plan to eventually make another one with blue, green, deeper purple and orange for a boy version.

The friendship star NICU quilt came about from the leftover parts of a Texas braid top, that I made for my daughter one Christmas.  I didn't shown that one yet, as it took a while for my daughter to find what she wanted for the borders.  It is on my list of to do...  In the meantime, I have a bunch of light and dark rectangle pieces measuring 2" x 5" that I am trying to find creative ways to use up.  One way was in this friendship star quilt.  I added a little black border to make the colours pop.

This next NICU quilt is the orange hexagon star quilt.  This is another one in the series of hexagon stars that my daughter made and abandoned.  My goal for these stars (6 of them in total, different colours), is to come up with all different ways to finish them off.  They all start by being appliquéd to a white background fabric, but from there they are all going to be different.  In the bundle of stars my daughter had, there were other bits and pieces of other things and some fabrics that she used for other things.  When I saw the fabric that she used for my mother's day wall hanging, she made me, I thought this would be perfect.  The background is yellow with some purple, pink and orange type flowers for the design.  Sabryna also had some of the leftover squares in pink and orange that I used for a second border.  I added the first border in, just so that I wouldn't have to trim the squares in the second border and that turn out nice, as the second border looks like it is floating in a large yellow border.  Second hexagon star done and 4 more to go.  I think I have already come up with a plan for two of them...

The last little NICU quilt I will share with you is some leftover blocks from a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt.  This was the Rhododendron Trail mystery of Dec/2021.  As the mystery unfolded, I decided to change up the layout of my quilt and make it larger to fit my king size bed.  In the process I ended up with five extra blocks.  As the blocks finished at 10", I only needed the four to make this NUCU quilt, with pretty little aqua sashings and a small pink border.  Isn't this cute.  I have one more block left to figure out what to do with.  For those who may ask, no, I did not finish my Rhododendron Trail quilt yet...I got distracted by all these little fast finishes...lol   It really does not take much to distract me...lol

Hope you enjoyed the bit of eye candy above, I know I enjoyed making them.  I am motivated by puzzles and trying to create something that is pretty while still using up what I have on hand.

So now I have to get ready for the shop hop.  Enjoy the day everyone and take some time to get outside in the sun to get your vitamin D, it helps create those happy hormones.

Mom's give away quilts

I am still in the process of sorting out my photos from various devices to add into posts.  There are a lot.  I want to organize them in their own post, ready for me to write about them.  If I worked on one piece over the past year or two, I want to put them together and do one post of the different stages.

So instead, I will share with you some donation quilts my mom made recently.  I should have gotten some close up pictures....next time.  This first one is a NICU quilt measuring 26" square.  This was cute.  My mom made a fairies and princesses quilt for her great-granddaughter a while back.  She came across an extra block that was traced out and decided to finish it with embroidery.  She did a plain yellow border, surrounded by hour glass units in the various colours that were in the embroidered piece.   She added cornerstones to the hour glass units and finished it with a simple green border.  I am coming to realize that any photos that I took down in the basement did not turn out so great.  The colours are quite off.  You'll just have to trust me when I say that this is so cute in person.

For this next quilt, my mom cut out some 4" square from her scrap flannel.  We sorted it out in a checker board fashion with the darker squares and alternating lights.  The backing for this one is also flannel and a lofty batting.  The finished quilt is so cuddly cozy.

She dug deep into her boy coloured flannel strings bucket to make this next one.  She was inspired by a speaker we had presenting at our guild meeting a little while back.  This quilt is done in a quilt-as-you-go method.  

The process is, you have a flannel square for the bottom/backing, good side down, followed by a batting square on top of it, and you take your strings, the length measures half the square.  You sew this piece with another, on the one side, from middle to edges.  Sewing them side by side until that half of the block is covered.  Once those are done you take a larger string and lay it across the centre from corner to corner, with the edge covering the unfinished edge of the previous strings and work sideways until the batting is completely covered.

Once the squares are done, trim them down to size, keeping the diagonal string seam centred down the 45° angle line.  From there you can use your favorite method to put the blocks together.  My mother and I use the two sided binding method.

The great thing about the above quilt is that you can use up all your smaller pieces of batting and the quilt can be whatever size you want to make it, depending on how many blocks you make.  No worries about having a large enough backing or batting.  You can make block sandwiches to practice your free motion quilting and make a quilt out of them.

I plan on making a reversable quilt soon, with my quilting samples that didn't turn out.  I have been cutting the good parts out into smaller squares to make one.

Enjoy your evening.  Take care and keep safe.

2022 Shop Hop - Cherished Pieces

Cherished Pieces - 142 Broadway Street, Tillsonburg, ON N4G 3P7

This was the last stop on Saturday that my mother and I went to, as part of the shop hop.  This was also a lovely store and packed with fabric, notions, patterns and samples.  This one I may go to again shortly, just so that I can take my time and look around.  There was that much stuff.

This picture is just a small sample of what they had.  The store was in the shape of an L with the cash register and a storage room, taking up the missing corner to make up the square.  They definitely have a large selection of fabrics.  When I am in the need of borders, backings or what have you, I will be coming back.

This is what I got from this store.  I have been looking around for a colour tool for a while.  A few fat quarters and the store's shop hop block.

Today after work, I went down to finish quilting the three music fabric quilts that will be donated to Project Linus.  I also finished the border blocks for an animal panel quilt that I am working on, again for Project Linus.  I'll get pictures and share them once I get them trimmed and bound.

Later, I went for a nice walk with Maddie (our dog) to my mom's place for a little visit and to get my steps in.  I have to try to increase the steps...I don't get many steps in, when I am doing handwork or sewing on the machine.  Note to self, have to make a bigger effort to increase my steps.

Have a great night everyone and take care.

2022 Shop Hop - U~Quilt~it

This was the second shop my mother and I went to.  It says Quilt Shop & Longarm Services on the sign...  There was a corner of the shop for notions & patterns and a bit of a wall with bolts, lots of panels, but otherwise I would more so consider this shop a place that you can use the two longarm machines they had to quilt your own quilt.  I only saw the one, as the second one was in another room.

I did find the Missouri Star Block book that I was interested in and this was the shops block for the shop hop.

Enjoy your evening.

2022 Shop Hop - Kindred Spirits Quilt Co.

Kindred Spirits Quilt Co. located at 211 Martindale Road., St. Catharines, ON L2S 3V7

This was the first shop my mother and I visited.  This is one of eleven quilt shops that are part of the July/2022 Shop Hop.  I have been to this store before, as it is a nice place to visit when I am in the area.

This is the inside of the store, though there is more to it than what can be seen in the picture.  The store is clean and packed full of fabric, machines and accessories, patterns galore with much, much more and the back of the store is where they have the classrooms.

If you are in the area, it is worth the stop to check it out.

While I was there I picked up some fat quarters, batting scissors, a GO! plate for 3" HST and a Missouri Star Block book.  I am liking the quilt on the cover...  Guess what I may be starting...lol...but not just yet...as I feel I have more than enough quilts on my list, at the moment.  I'll just add this to my wish list.