Tonight, Karen came over and we did a little sewing. I trimmed and put together 4 blocks for my quilt which is still nameless. Any ideas anyone??? I am really liking how the blocks look when they are beside each other. This will be a very vibrant quilt when it is done. I also finished quilting the setting triangles in my friend's fall table runner.

An afternoon of sewing.

This afternoon, Nancy (see the link to Life is a Stitch) and I got together for four hours of serious sewing. She has been doing intense homework since school started and she needed a break. You can go to her blog for more information about her project--YES! It is made out of shirts.



I worked on two table runners--the first is for a friend who knitted a curling sweater for my daughter. I told her I would make her a table runner in exchange for knitting the sweater. She used an old Mary Maxim pattern for the sweater which another friend found in her basement amongst her grandmother's things.

I quilted the three blocks today by machine and I still have to decide what to go in the setting triangles.
The second table runner started out with the same three blocks but I used sashing and borders instead of setting them on point. This table runner will be for me. I still need to figure out how I am going to quilt it.

I also finished sewing all of the blocks together for a quilt I started a while ago. Now I just have to do some trimming and then sew them all together. This may take a while.

Elgin Piecemakers Meeting -part 2

Jacqui always has interesting projects to show us. She recently went on a quilt retreat at a cottage with some quilting friends and got lots accomplished.






































Heather made this quilt as a gift for someone who likes blue and white.

This quilt is hand-quilted.





The blocks in this quilt were made from leftovers from another quilt.

I would like to learn how to make one of these braid quilts.

Pat made this quilt for her son and his bride--the wedding is in a couple of weeks.

This quilter is a real artist--something I can only aspire to be...This wall hanging will look great at Hallowe'en!
M-L made this casserole cover as a wedding gift--It includes a table runner and another piece that wrap around the square casserole. The pattern is by Brenda Miller.

































My show and tell was my (incomplete) fall table runner. I hope to finish it this weekend and will blog about it at that time.

Guild Meeting at My House!

Tonight, the Elgin Piecemakers met at my house. Nancy of Life is a Stitch fame helped me to host the meeting. The EP's are a group of 18 women --we meet once a month in someone's home. This was my first time hosting a meeting at my house. We had not met since June so there was lots of news about what had been happening in everyone's lives over the summer.

Nancy was at a workshop a couple of weeks ago and got an idea for our guild meeting from someone she met there. We had a "Strip Club" --everyone was asked to bring at least one 2 1/2 inch strip of fabric (length was WOF) in Fall colours/prints. For each strip, you got a ticket. At the end of the meeting, we drew a ticket from the hat and Beth won all of the strips! I wonder what she will make with them?

We divided up into 5 teams to play "Sew You Want to Be a Quilter"-- a quilting trivia board game that I purchased at a quilt show in the Spring. The top two teams who visited the most quilt shops on the board won 3 pink fat quarters each, courtesy of Nancy. Some of the questions were easy, some were more challenging and some were downright obscure! Everyone enjoyed the game and we may play it again at a future meeting. The markers for the game are little spools of thread.
The best part of any guild meeting is show and tell and this month's show and tell was spectacular! Everyone had been busy over the summer finishing UFO's, creating beautiful gifts and charity quilts as well as quilts for ourselves.

Nancy's Sunbonnet Sue:
This was made from a Jelly Roll of Batiks:
Beth had three quilt tops to show:

This quilt will be raffled off as a fundraiser for the Eastern Star. Several members of the guild helped to piece the blocks of this quilt. It is wrapped in plastic so it can be shipped around to different Eastern Star groups to entice the members to buy raffle tickets.
I will post some more pictures tomorrow. We ended our meeting with dessert and tea. Nancy made pear and apple crisp and I supplied the tea, juice and frozen yoghurt-- A yummy end to a fun evening!

Something for Me!

Tonight, I decided to do a little sewing for myself. I bought this Debbie Mumm "Happy Harvest" fabric earlier in the Summer and found a perfect project for it at http://tutorials.missouriquiltco.com/list/?p=748 (go to intermediate tutorials at the bottom and look at the tutorial on tube quilting) tonight as I was surfing some quilting blogs. There is a video with instructions on how to make this block from these strips which is only a few minutes long, but makes this project quick to put together.

Here is my first block which will be set on point with two others to make a table runner for Fall. Stay tuned for more pictures later in the week. I hope to have the table runner pieced in time for show and tell at our first Elgin Piecemakers Guild meeting on Thursday night.

Kaitlyn Loves her Stars!

This morning, I got up at 6:30 am to finish sewing the binding on Kaitlyn's Stars, a gift for a new baby on my husband's side of the family. I finished the binding before we went to church and hand sewed the label onto the back of the quilt in the car in a store parking lot while my husband ran in to get something he needed. We then drove to Kaitlyn's grandparents house for the "Meet the Baby" party.

Why, you may wonder, did I wait until the last minute to finish this quilt? As I mentioned in an earlier post, this past week was a very busy one for me and my husband. My father turned 80 yesterday and we hosted a birthday party for him at our house for 55 friends and family members, including my brother, who flew in from the west coast on Friday afternoon. We have recently been doing some renovations on a room in our basement and the basement has been in a bit of a mess and all of that needed to be cleaned up before the party. As well, we had grass to cut, gardens to dead head, tidy and weed, etc. My brother helped out with last minute preparations and the party was a great success. We all saw people he had not seen in a long time and a good time was had by all.

Here are a couple of pictures of the quilt, front and back showing some close ups of the quilting, (loopy stars and hearts) which was done by a quilting friend's husband, who has taken up machine quilting as his retirement project.

And here is how much Kaitlyn loves her quilt--she even held onto it when we wrapped her up in it!

Off to the Quilter's!

I finished piecing Kaitlyn's stars and took it to the machine quiters yesterday afternoon. I spent a lot of time agonizing over the layout. It was impossible to get the blocks laid out so the same colours were not beside each other! I decided that I just needed to sew it together and get it off to the quilting people! There is a family baby shower Sunday afternoon so it must be done before then. It is next in line to be quilted so that I can have it back in time to get the binding on before Sunday. This is a busy week at my house, as usual, so I don't anticipate a lot of sewing happening this week.

I am still working on piecing the blocks for the Christmas lights mystery quilt...I will post a picture when they are done.

There is a quilt show in October locally. I would like to put a few quilts into it... I have some that will just need some binding after they get back from the machine quilters so I hope to get them done in time for the show.

My quilting friends and I are hoping to have a QNIC next week sometime. One quilting friend is off at a quilting retreat this week for 3 days...I am so jealous! Working full time really cuts into my sewing time!

My Daughter's 3rd Quilt

I have made my daughter 4 quilts over the years. You have seen the 4th one--the university quilt which is now on her bed at her dorm. The above quilt, "Friendship Star" was made by my daughter and I and is on her bed at home. We purchased the fabric in Grand Marais, Minnesota at Crystal's Log Cabin Quilts in June 2003. It was hand quilted by a church group at a church in London, Ontario. We painted her room to match the background fabric. We later made the pillows for her bed from some flannel purchased at a quilt store in St. Jacob's, which is, unfortunately, no longer in business. I will dig out quilts #1 (the one that was in her crib) and #2 (the quilt that was on her first "big girl" bed--a trip around the world quilt) shortly and will post some pictures. I have had a very busy week and have not had any sewing time, but with any luck, I will be doing some sewing tomorrow.

The Big Reveal!

We had a BBQ/family party for my daughter on Saturday. We gave her the quilt and she loves it! I'm told it was very comfortable to sleep under last night. I had the machine quilter put in a few special items into the quilting: There were big flowers on most of the blocks.

Purple cone flowers are her favourite flowers.

Curling is her favourite sport so I had them add a curling rock. There's also a heart, "OX", and a frog--when she was little, she collected frogs.

Here's a picture of her bed in residence with the quilt.

A Sneak Peak

I just finished sewing the binding on to my daughter's university quilt. The backing and binding are light blue flannel. It should be nice and cozy! She will be home from her summer job tomorrow and will be going to university this weekend. I hope she feels the love that I have put into every stitch of her quilt as she uses it each day! I will post a picture of the entire quilt after she has seen it. We will be giving it to her at a family BBQ on Saturday.