Monday, October 26, 2009

Workshop: Disappearing 9 Patch

I was at a Disappearing 9 Patch workshop all day on Saturday. As I said in an earlier post, I used leftover flannel from PJ's that I have made for my daughter and my nieces for this quilt. It may look like a hodge-podge of colours, but it has lots of memories in it. I can remember how my daughter looked when she wore each pair!!! The bug fabric in the middle of each block was from the year I made all three girls matching PJ's. Flannel PJ's are so cozy! It takes 30 blocks to make a lap quilt and I managed to finish 18 blocks on Saturday.

I have lots of works in progress at the moment. It's a good thing that our guild has a "Quilt 'til You Wilt" day coming up in a couple of weeks. Maybe I will be able to get some of these UFO's done...

By the way, I finished this year's birthday pj's just in time--I finished sewing on the last button as we turned into their driveway!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Back from the Longarmers...

Earlier this week, I received the phone call I had been waiting for!!!! My quilts that had been at the long arm quilters were done and I could go and pick them up!!! Here are a few sneak peaks at the quilting on some of them. All are custom quilted with designs that the quilting lady and I came up with.

The first one has a beautiful big feather in the middle,

and lovely designs in the borders too. This yellow and blue quilt has an overall pattern in the center section and neat little swirls in the narrow blue border.
This little table topper was made from the leftover triangles from the star quilt above. It too has feathers on it.
The last one has large flowers and leaves, as well as baskets of smaller flowers.
Binding these quilts and getting labels on them is my next sewing goal, after the birthday pj's are made. Speaking of which, I need to go and sew so the pj's are ready for the birthday party this weekend.

Bye for now!

Preparing for a Disappearing 9 Patch workshop

On Saturday, I am going to a disappearing 9 patch workshop that the London Friendship quilters' guild has organized. I am supposed to bring 270 3 1/2" squares with me to make my quilt. At first, I thought this would be a daunting task, but it turned out to be easier than I thought. I have been cutting flannel squares all week. Most of these fabrics are leftovers from PJ's that I have made for my daughter and my twin nieces over the years. My flannel bin was overflowing and I thought this would be a good way to use up some of the bits and pieces. I have cut over 600 squares and my flannel bin is still overflowing!

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Christmas Lights Layout Winner

The votes are all tallied. I received some votes via my blog, some by e-mail and others on the quiltvillechat website. Thanks, everyone, for your input!!!

Here are the results:

Option 1- 11 votes

Option 2- 18 votes

Option 3- 35 votes.

I will sew the blocks together using option 3 shortly and will post a picture of my completed top shortly.

Thanks again for your help!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Maggots and Flying Squirrels!

Yes! The title is correct! I went to a quilt class last night at Jacqui's house. She designed a pattern she called the Spinning 4 patch and I went to the class. We were to purchase a large print fabric with 4 repeats. I purchased my fabric at Cherished Pieces in Tillsonburg--it is a wild Australian print with bugs, maggots and flying squirrels on it!! Jacqui wondered if this would be too wild for her pattern...

I cut out all of the squares, and started to sew them together...
WOW!! They look great! I think my "Spinning Squirrels and Maggots" quilt will be very interesting. Jacqui still thinks people should not look too closely at the fabric.

Here are a few close ups of some of the blocks.

And, here is a picture of all of my blocks--32 in all. Now I just have to figure out whether to put them on point or straight with sashing... Check back to see what I decide to do. This project may have to go on the back burner for a while so I can finish "Christmas Lights" and I also need to make some PJ's for my twin neices' birthday gifts.
I will post the final results of the voting on my Christmas Lights settings in my next post.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

I need help with Christmas Lights!!

If you are here for the Online Quilt Festival, please look at the next post...


I finally finished piecing the Bonnie Hunter Chrsitmas Lights mystery quilt. I have laid it out on the floor of my family room (I don't have a design wall, yet!) and would like you to help me pick how to lay it out in the quilt. Here are the options: we will call the first one "#1"
We will call this one, "#2".


And, here is "#3":

I hope to put these blocks together later this week so please let me know by Thursday at supper time which one you like and I will decide that night...

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Online Quilt Festival with Park City Girl

In the Spring, I entered a quilt in Amy's Online Quilt Festival. It was fun and inspiring to visit the other sites to see the quilts that everyone had made. I have been thinking about which quilt I would like to enter in the festival and decided on "In My Garden". I made this quilt from a pattern I found online. It had been done in Christmas fabrics. I had recently purchased some summer/garden themed fabrics at "Sitting Pretty" in Ridgetown, Ontario and decided to use them to make this quilt.



I took this picture, appropriately, in my garden! We had lots of rain this summer so the grass was green and lush all summer long.

This quilt top is currently at the long arm quilters and I have been told that it is next in line to be quilted. I can hardly wait to get it back and add the binding and label to finish it off! There are some quilt shows coming up locally and I hope to put it on display for others to enjoy.

Thanks for visiting!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Post card Winner

I forgot to announce that the comic book lady is the winner of the post card give-away. Your post card is in the mail and should be arriving in your mailbox soon!

QNIC at Jacqui's House and My Friend's Fall Table Runner--done!

Jacqui has a beautiful new house built on top of a wonderful new sewing room. Tonight, I spent the evening in her sewing room with Jacqui and two other quilters, working on finishing the "red" blocks of the Christmas Lights mystery designed by Bonnie Hunter. My reds are scrappy and the 2" squares are scrappy Christmas fabrics. The only fabric I had to purchase for this quilt was the black fabric and the borders. I still have a few gold blocks to finish and then I can play with them to figure out a layout.
Jacqui worked on a spinning 4 patch quilt which will be a wedding gift.
Chris worked on hand sewing the binding on a quilt which will be in a raffle.
Roxene did a little ironing for Jacqui and I. She was too tired to sew!

I finished the binding on my friend's Fall table runner on Sunday night and delivered it to her. It looks nice on her dining room table.

Here's a picture of the completed runner with binding.
Now, I just have to quilt and bind my Fall table runner before Sunday when everyone is coming here for Thanksgiving dinner...

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Fall Postcards





This afternoon, I made some fabric post cards with material leftover from the table runners that I made recently. One of them will be put into the mailbox at the London Friendship Quilters' guild meeting this week for our monthly post card exchange. I will receive a post card from another quilter a week or so after the meeting.

If you would like to receive one of these post cards in the mail, just leave a comment on this post. I will draw a name out of a hat on Monday night (October 5th, 2009) at 8 pm (EST). Good Luck!

Now, back to sewing...