Grateful Heart Sampler: Peace and Plenty

I made this block this afternoon. I didn't even cut off any of the points when I was sewing! I think I will make it my goal to have this quilt done in time for the International Plowing Match Quilt competition in May. Wish me luck!

Row Robin

This afternoon, I completed my row for the Row Robin group that I belong to at the London Friendship Quilter's Guild. My group has 4 quilters in it. We each made a row and then passed it on to someone else in the group at the January guild meeting. I received a row of blue stars and made a row of "Broken Dishes" as my contribution. I will pass along these two rows at our February meeting and will receive someone else's two rows. I will make a third row and then pass it along and so on until everyone in the group has made a row for each quilt. All of the rows will be given back to the original row's owner who will then make them into a quilt to show at the September meeting. The finished quilts will be on display at our guild quilt show in October. I am looking forward to seeing the finished quilts.

Sampler Quilt Progress

I was working on these blocks when my Dad called to tell me about my grandmother (see previous post). I spent the evening thinking about Grandma and her quilts as I sewed. This sampler quilt is called "Grateful Heart". I think I will make it in memory of my Grandma. Here are my 5 pinwheel blocks.

I am participating in a St Patrick's day Candle Mat exchange with the Quilted Table yahoo group. I completed it the other night as well. I can't post a picture until the recipient receives it. I will be mailing it early next week.

I hope to do some sewing this weekend.

My Grandmother

My Father called me tonight to let me know that my Grandmother passed away this evening. She would have been 99 on Friday. We were to have had a family birthday party for her on Saturday afternoon at the nursing home where she lived. I had been looking forward to seeing her and the rest of the family at the party. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you may remember the 5 generations of hands picture I took last June. I am so glad we all took the time to get together to take this picture and spend the afternoon with Grandma. Here is a picture I took of her that day at the nursing home with the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt that she made for my cousin when she got married in the background.
She was a beautiful, loving grandmother who shared her love with all of us in many ways--making quilts for each of us, doilies and afghans too. We each got a wonderful assortment of homemade cookies every Christmas for years before she went into the nursing home. My good dishes were given to me by Grandma, piece by piece, for each birthday and Christmas as I was growing up. Nothing made her more happy than to have her family around her.

I know Grandma is in a better place now...a place where her hands can keep busy sewing and knitting and crocheting, making quilts and blankets to share her love with everyone she meets.

Later this week, I will gather up the quilts that Grandma made for me and take some pictures, and do a blogland quilt show for all of you to see her handiwork.

I Spy...Done!

Above, you can see the quilting I did on the I spy quilt for my friend's baby. She already knows that it is a girl so the backing is bright pink flannel with hearts on it. I also used the pink flannel for the binding, which I finished tonight. I will give the quilt to the Mom to be tomorrow. I sure hope she likes it!You can see the binding in the above picture. The pink backing fabric is the same as the third square from the bottom in the pink column!

This is my third "I Spy" quilt and it was lots of fun to pick out the fabrics and figure out the layout. I will definately be making a few more of these...

I just started another new project.

I saw this magazine at a bookstore in Toronto at Christmas, looked at it briefly, and decided I did not need another magazine. Then, Nancy at Life is a Stitch posted that she had purchased it and was going to do the Grateful Hearts sampler. I took another look at the magazine and the pattern for this quilt and decided I would make it too. I have a Moda "Northern Solitudes" FQ bundle that I bought a while ago and I will be using it to make this quilt. Tonight, I picked an easy block to get started. Here is my completed "Rail Fence" block. I am going to try to make a block or two each week.

Back to blogging...

I'm back! I was away in cold southern climes (Florida) for the last few days for a meeting for work. I wore my winter coat most of the time I was away. No time for a visit to a quilt store. :( Oh, well!

Tonight, quilty friend, Nancy came over. She cut up some thrift store shirts while I worked on three projects with tight deadlines. I seem to do a lot of that lately--working to deadlines.

First, I made a row for the Row Robin that my quilt guild is starting tomorrow night. I am in a group of 4 or 5 quilters. Each of us makes a row to start our quilt and then passes it on to someone else in the group. Each person in the group makes one row for each quilter. We have one month to make the row before passing it on to the next person. The quilt that I get back is the one for which I made the first row. We are to write a note specifying what theme/type of fabrics that we want used for our quilt. I made my row from some neat batik circle fabric that I purchased a year or two ago. I will be passing the circle fabric along with my row so that all of the rows will have some circle fabric in them. I think there should be lots of creative ways to use the fabric. Here is my row:The second project I worked on tonight is a baby quilt for a friend who is having a baby in February. It is an I Spy Quilt. I finished piecing the rows together tonight and hope to quilt it this weekend.Thanks Nancy, for holding it up for me to take a picture!

My third project of the night was my fabric postcard for the monthly quilted postcard exchange at our guild meeting tomorrow night. Since most people I know over-indulge at Christmas, I decided to make a sugar-free, calorie free "chocolate" post card this month.

I hope the recipient likes it!

Yesterday, when I got home, there was a package waiting for me. I entered into a give-away on Quilter Kathy's blog for a package of charm squares to make a quilt for a child. I told Kathy I would make an I Spy quilt for the Children's Aid Society in London. Our quilt guild has been making quilts for kids in foster care through this agency for years now. Kathy sent me a message a couple of weeks ago to say that I had won the charms! Here they are:
They will make a cheery, fun quilt! I will work on this quilt in the spring.

That's all for now.

Happy quilting...

The last of the candle mats.

I finally finished the last of the candle mats that I pieced before Christmas. I kept one for myself (the red one) and gave one to a friend as a late Christmas gift. I gave the last one to one of the members of the Elgin Piecemakers Quilt Guild at our "Christmas Dinner" tonight at a local Italian restaurant. We do a gift exchange every year. Pat O was pleased with her candle mat and candle holder--she likes green!


Now that I am done making gifts, I can start to work on my other projects which have been on hold since December. I would like to finish my spinning squirrels and maggots quilt as well as my fractured squares quilt. I have the material all washed and ironed, ready to start the Carolina Christmas mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville as well. At the London Friendship Quilters' guild, we are doing a row robin and the first row must be done for the meeting next week. I have the design in my head, but I have not picked out fabric yet...Yikes! Lots to do! Oh well, I work well under the pressure of a deadline!

More Candle Mats

I finished sewing the binding down on these candle mats on New Year's Day. The one on the left was given to one of my friends as a Christmas/New Year's gift and the one on the left was given to my cousin who hosted the annual Christmas get together for 50 people at her house near Schomberg, north of Toronto. I know I was a bit late getting my friend's gift done but my daughter has been home from university for the last couple of weeks and I have not had any sewing machine time. We have had lots of family time with extended family, watched our daughter curl at a competition in Toronto, watched "chick flicks" and generally just enjoy our time together. Today will be a downtime day--do some laundry, clean up the house a bit and get her packed and ready to go back to school tomorrow. I anticipate some more sewing time soon.