Quilting Night in Canada

Today, on my way home from work, I decided to invite a few quilting friends over and have "Quilting Night in Canada". Don Cherry could not come but two of my quilting friends did come! We all worked on UFO's. Nancy is hand quilting a large quilt that she made from a pattern in a Fons and Porter Love of Quilting Magazine. She had brought this project over to my house a few times to work on it. She will need a few more visits to finish it but progress is being made!!!
Karen is learning how to hand quilt. She worked on a table runner for herself.


I finished a baby quilt that I am making for my cousin's grand-daughter, Lily. I am going to a baby shower for Lily on Saturday. This is an "I Spy" quilt with 48 different fabrics in it. Most of the fabrics are from my stash. Nancy gave me a few from her stash as I was short a few after I had gone through all of my fabrics to cut out squares. I have another I Spy quilt underway for Lily's cousin who was born the same day!!! I hope to have it done in time for the shower. The top is pieced but no quilting done yet. I machine quilted Lily's quilt and tried out some free motion quilting in the borders with some success. I am not sure if I am cut out to be a machine quilter...

Online Quilt Show

I read about an online quilt show on the Quilt Rat's blog (see link in sidebar) and decided to enter one of my quilts in the show. Over 350 people have signed up to enter their quilts in the show at http://parkcitygirl.blogspot.com/2009/04/quilt-festival-spring-2009.html!!!

This quilt is called "Off My Beaten Path". It is made from 30 different batik fat quarters that I collected over the course of a year. I purchased the first fat quarter for this quilt at a local quilt store when it called out to me "Buy Me!!!" I do not usually use purple fabrics in my projects so this quilt was out of my usual colour comfort zone. The pattern is called "Yellow Brick Road". This quilt was quilted by a long arm quilter in Strathroy, Ontario and was on display at our last London Friendship Quilters Guild show in October 2008. This quilt finds its home on the bed in our guest bedroom. I like it so much that I may venture "Off My Beaten Path" again someday!

New UFO's

I purchased a jelly roll and a layer cake of this fabric in the fall, not sure exactly what I was going to do with it, but I loved the fabrics. While at the Greenwood Quiltery in Guelph (see sidebar for the link), I saw a pattern that would be perfect for my fabric. I cut out the pieces this week and sewed most of the day yesterday. Lo and behold, I only got two borders on the large squares before I ran out of fabric. I called Cynthia at Cherished Pieces in Tillsonburg where I had bought the JR and LC and she had another JR in stock so I can finish the quilt! The JR is being picked up by another quilter from my town tomorrow night so I will soon be ready to "roll" on this project!


The university quilt for my daughter is underway. She ironed all of the FQ's and I cut out lots of 7 1/2 inch and 4 1/2 inch squares. I still have 2" strips of this light blue fabric and some white fabric to cut out--the layout will be as shown above but some of the borders on the small squares will be white instead of blue. I showed my daughter a quilt made by my friend Jacqui at Treadle Quilts (see sidebar for link) and she liked the pattern that Jacqui used. My daughter will do all of the ironing and the layout for the quilt and I will be doing the sewing. We have made several quilts together in this way.

Springtime Postcards

Yesterday afternoon, I started a few quilted post cards. The first one is for a couple from my church who are celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary. She is a quilter too!

The second one is for a friend. I used scraps from my purple "Off My Beaten Path" quilt for this postcard. I tried out some freemotion quilting on these postcards with some success, I think. This postcard is my first selvage project ever. I have admired other people's selvage projects on the internet so I thought I would try a post card. I am continuing to save selvage edges and may try some other projects later.



This last postcard reminds me of the flowers that will soon bloom in my garden... I am so ready for warmer weather...

A Package in the Mail

Today, I received a package in the mail! Packages are few and far between here so I was excited to get this one! My Spring table runner had arrived from Columbus, GA. Linda must have checked my blog to see what colours I like because it goes perfectly with the colours in my kitchen. It arrived just in time for Easter. I look forward to participating in another swap sometime soon.

Spring Table Topper

My MIL's birthday is coming up so I decided to make a Spring Table topper for her dining room table for her. The pattern book for this topper has 12 different patterns in it for charm pack projects, one for each month of the year. This topper is part of the pattern for May--there were 3 more borders in the pattern, but that would make it too big for her table so I am stopping here. I still have to quilt it. If you know my MIL, please do not spill the beans as this is to be a surprise!

University Quilt

My 17 year old daughter decided at the last minute to apply for university in the fall instead of taking an extra year of courses at high school. Lo and behold, 4 days later she received an acceptance from the university that was her first choice, followed closely by an acceptance from the second choice. We are in the midst of finding out as much information as possible about both institutions so that she can decide where she is going to go. I had thought I had another year to work on a quilt for her residence room but now these plans have had to be accelerated. While on our recent vacation, she picked out some Amy Butler FQ's for her quilt. We were at the Greenwood Quiltery in Guelph, Ontario yesterday and she picked out a pattern and the rest of the FQ's we need for the quilt. I love the fabrics she chose! We also saw a quilt at the store yesterday that she liked so I am going to do my own variation on it for her. Keep checking my blog for posts on progress on the University quilt.

Quilted Table Swap

A couple of posts ago, I promised to show you a picture of the fabric basket that Linda gave me for the Quilted Table Spring Table Runner Swap. Here it is...

My quilting friend, Nancy, sent me the link that gives instructions to make the same basket. http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2008/05/tutorial-fabric-basket.html I think I will make a few of these for gifts. There's lots of fabric in my stash so I won't even need to purchase any supplies!