Inspiration on Pinterest (QW)

I was browsing through Pinterest the other day and came across some inspiration.  I am always looking for some quilting designs or scrap quilt designs to use up my bits and pieces.

I wasn't disappointed with what I saw.  I can get lost in time while on Pinterest, but I do try to keep it to a minimum.  Especially recently, while I am trying to get as much as I can done.

This first picture I want to keep a record of.  The waves are very nice and can be easily set up on my tablet to be quilted out on the longarm. I like the optical illusion that you get when the waves curve in together really close and back out again.  It almost makes the waves look 3D.

This next picture, is to use up some of my 2" strips.  While I am cutting up the scraps I could be cutting sets for these blocks.  I like the chain effect.  You could even set these on a diagonal to have the chains going up and down the quilt, for a different look.

I also saved this picture, as I am really into zig zags.  I love the scrappiness of this one, and with the scraps being contained by the grey separating the rows of scraps.

There was a lot more stuff I saved on Pinterest to refer to later.  But these ones I want to keep in the forefront of my thoughts.  I may need them soon.

Hope you like the inspiration.

Finished quilting the NICU scrappy strips quilt

It's Friday, yay!  But really, where has the time gone......

I feel that the time keeps speeding up.  The older I get the faster it goes.  I try my hardest to take advantage of my time, but there are not enough hours in the day, unless I go without sleep.... I love my sleep too much to forgo it, but people keep teasing that I am getting closer to the time of sleepless nights with hormones and the change of life....lol.  I'll be fighting it off!

 Last week some time I decided to work on another NICU quilt.  I think I posted about the starting orphan block that makes up this centre.  The centre block is my daughter's leftover block from Bonnie Hunter's Fair and Square quilt that she made.  So I had to come up with a design to enlarge it to make a NICU quilt.

It's a bit bright, but my daughter likes it, so maybe it would be more appealing to a younger audience.  To start off,  to enlarge it, I decided to use a grey small border to separate the block from the rest of the quilt.  It was a toss up whether I was going to put the block on a diagonal or not, but in the end no matter how I tried, I could not think of what to do next.  The problem was once you put the block on a diagonal, you are left with little room to add much more as borders, because the length diagonally is larger and adding the corner pieces to square it off again takes a lot of room.

So, in the end I went with adding a small strip border, followed by another small grey border, topped off with a wider strip border, all with mitered corners to add a bit of interest.  It is a bit bright, but there are a lot of kid type fabrics, that they could play I Spy with it.  There are horses, skating dogs and cats, toys, and some other stuff that I don't recall right at the moment.

Above is a closeup of the quilting. And below is the finished quilt.  I like the movement of the circles. It's a nice pattern and will be suitable for modern quilts or for children and young adults.  I like it so much, I am wondering if I have a quilt that I am making for myself, that I can use this pattern on.

This weekend I may not have much time for quilting, it's getting close to the end of tax session here and I almost forgot to schedule it.  So, Saturday I have an appointment with the accountant and I come home to do my mom's for her.

The weather is supposed to be nice, but I doubt nice enough to get out in the garden.  If not, you know where to find me....lol.

I still have to try and get some things done before the end of the month (my own imposed deadline).

Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Simply Arranged wool appliqué wall hanging

I am flipping through all my pictures of stuff I was going to share on my blog and realized that I forgot to show you something that I recently started.

Started!!!  Who me?!  Of coarse I did, but with good justification, or so I keep telling myself....lol.

I bought a kit, back in the summer, last year at a quilt show.  It was a wool booth with wools, threads, beads and kits.  I have been wanting to try something in wool for a long time, so when I saw this cute little wall hanging for 50% I had to have it.

So.......when I signed up for the Summertime Sampler wool quilt wall hanging, I had forgotten that I had this kit.  It wasn't until I was on my way home from the first class that I remembered.

I started rationalizing, that this wall hanging is much smaller than Summertime Sample, and that maybe I should do it first, to practice, before I get into the real thing.  Well.....that's all it took!  Didn't need to come up with any other excuses.  What can I say, sometimes I'm easy....lol

I cut out and pieced all the flannel pieces to make the centre of the wall hanging, including sashings and the first border.  I moved on to sorting the wool pieces in the kit.

I used the fusible web called Barely There to trace the pieces.  The picture above is how far I got with the blocks. 

Throughout the week I traced the pieces and fused them to the selected wool colours.  The picture below shows all my pieces ready to go, when I get a chance to get back to it.

I know what you are probably thinking, why start another wool project.  Well.....here comes more rationalizing.  You see.......I have another class coming up the first weekend of May.  Though I was doing well with this wall hanging, I figured since I took the class, I should at least show them something that I completed or at least started.  The rest of the story is obvious.  Hence I started Summertime Sampler...... 

Do I feel guilty for starting something else when I have already many other things on the go....NO!!

I work at everything as time goes on.  A bit here and a bit there.  Lots of things get done and given away to charities, some to family and a few for myself.  I feel that it is the many things that iI do that keeps me from getting bored and because I have so many that is what keeps me motivated to get them done, before I acquire an even larger amount of UFOs.

Either way, I feel no guilt or shame, as this is my happy place and people benefit from what I do!

Finished quilting the second Mountain Majesty quilt

So, here is the second mountain majesties quilt.  I had the blocks done for a bit, but it took me a while to find time to assemble the quilt.  This one is pretty much the same as the last post's quilt, only the placement of the blocks are different and the small border.

I also quilted it differently.  I made a wave design on my tablet with deep waves.  It looks modern.  I think it may be versatile for younger kids, modern quilts and anywhere that you are just looking for some texture.

Here is a picture of the back of the quilt, where you see the quilting better against the cream.

Here is the finished quilt.  Like I said earlier, not much different than the first one.

Finished quilting the first Mountain Majesty quilt

This month I started this quilt.  Initially it was going to be a large double size quilt to use up all the odd large print fabric chunks that I was given over time.  It started out well, as the blocks are very easy to make.

I just kept making the blocks required.  I thought to myself that the quilt is getting pretty big and I didn't have a backing fabric the size needed.  But I did have a fabric that was 56" wide and I had many meters of it.  So, I broke down the quilt into two.  The two quilts are the same size and used every block I had.  It just felt like it was meant to be.  Now I have two lap size quilts for donation.

I like the zig zag layout.  It seems to be one of my favourites at this present time.  This pattern also looks great in specific colourways, like all blue and white for example.  Mine is scrappy, because I am trying to use up what I have.  Trying to clear out some older fabrics.

Here is a close up.  As you can tell, I used everything!  But as a whole, it still works.

Pattern is from Bonnie Hunter's free patterns on Quiltville blog.  At the top she has tabs.  You will find it under the free pattern tab called Mountain Majesties.

Have fun!

Progress on summertime sampler

On Sunday after a lovely dinner/family gathering at my mom's, I took another "me" day.  That's a day where I take on no responsibilities and do what my heart desires.  I spent the whole day in my happy place.....my quilting room.

I made some more blocks for the summer sampler quilt/wall hanging.  Here is the watermelon block. There are no hand stitches yet, as I am just taking the time to set the blocks up.

I have laid out the blocks on my sewing table and I am sorting colours, to distribute them across the quilt, and fuse them in place with Barely There fusible webbing.  Once I am done all the blocks, I can at my leisure, do the handwork.

This is the potted flower block.  So far, my mom says this is her favourite.

There is the tea pot and tea cups block.  On this block, hand stitched swirls will make a huge difference to the overall feel of this block.  Most of the blocks are the same.  The handwork will set them off, give them more definition and detail.

Followed by the fish block.  I am truly not in love with the fish.  Not liking how the very bright green fins stand out against the pink fish and distract your eyes from looking at the whole block, as one.  I also find the light blue fins of the red fish a bit blinding.  It almost looks like white in the picture.

I am going to have to give this block a bit more thought, once I am done setting the others.

Next we have the house block.  This block will also benefit from some handwork.  In the original block the house is a perky yellow, however I have found it difficult to find wool in yellow.  In the whole store there was only one yellow piece, and that yellow piece was a very bright yellow.  So, I've gone with a more traditional colour for the house.  My thought being that the house colour will balance out the watering can on the other side of the quilt.

Purple is another difficult colour to find.  Hence the green for the roof of the house, instead of purple.  If all else fails, I tend to go with traditional.  It doesn't make for an exciting block, but not every block needs to be eye catching.  Some of them, just need to be pretty.

So, there you have it!!!  I am halfway there, with six out of the twelve blocks, set and the next two are already drawn out.

I can already see a very big difference in my blocks from the ones in the original pattern.  Though there are many blocks very similar to the original blocks, mine look a bit more subdued.  The original pattern of Summertime Sampler is very bright and beautiful!  It uses all solids, whereas mine uses mostly patterned wool fabric with some solids and the ones I am using are not quite so bright.

I feel that it is just as pretty, but in a different way.  I was initially drawn to the brightness of the original pattern, however I am still very much liking my version of the pattern.  Hope you like it too!

Summertime sampler progress

Back on March 30th, I did a class for wool appliqué.  We didn't even open the pattern in the class.  Instead the instructor had us making a coaster.  The coaster was of a wool circle with a flower and a couple of leaves.  It was a good starter kit, to get a handle on how to make the buttonhole stitch and just in general working with wool.

Our next meeting is on May 4th, and I up until this point, haven't even opened my pattern.  I hope she is not expecting us to have it done....lol

Making the coaster, taught me that I like working with the soft texture of wool, and how easy it is to appliqué without having to turn under the seam allowance.

I cleaned the piles up a bit for the picture, but earlier, it looked like colour just threw up all over my cutting table....lol   Don't those piles of colour look yummy!

This next table is across from the cutting table pictured above.  It's my sewing table, where I set up all the black background blocks, with each of the paper patterns of the individual blocks.  I've basically lay out some of the major colours, dispersing them across the quilt.  Minus all the green leaves.

I am currently working on the tea pot and tea cups block.  That is where the hole is, on the table with no block.  The pattern book lays on my machine edge, at the top righthand corner of the picture, and my ironing pad is just to the right of that.

The way I work is, I take the background block to my wool ironing pad, which sits beside my machine.  I staple the plastic see through drawing, of the block design I made, to the top edge of the block.  From there I have the placement pattern and flip it up and down as I need it.  My wool ironing pad is large enough to hold my block, some space for my iron and a corner for ironing the pieces to the Barely There fusible web.  I cut the pieces out, place them on the block, according to the plastic placement sheet and iron them in place.

I will continue this for each piece until I complete the block, layering all the different elements, and moving on to the next block, until all the blocks are done.  The whole process is very soothing.  Playing with colours, drawing the shapes, ironing, cutting , ironing some more, repeat.  I could do this all day.  In fact, until I had to get ready for Easter dinner at my mom's, that is exactly what I did all day.  I felt so peaceful in my happy place.

After all the colour play, I got down to business and completed this block.  My first block of twelve.  This is the watering can full of sunflowers.  I am really loving the texture you get from the different layers of wool and the different shades of yellow with their different fabric patterns.  

I am loving it!!  Can you guess what I will be doing all day today! Lol