An afternoon to myself...

After a tumultuous week, I needed some alone time. This afternoon, I had the house to myself so I did some sewing. I made another 14 arcs for my Indian Orange Peel Quilt. I am up to 48 arcs completed now out of 120. Not quite half way there but making good progress! 

I was in Georgetown yesterday for a family event and afterwards, decided to go to the local quilt store "The Hobby Horse" for a little shopping before heading for home. I had not been to this store before but enjoyed wandering through the store drooling all over admiring the vast array of fabrics. I purchased some more batiks for my IOP as well as some red fabrics to enhance my stash. My red fabric drawer was looking sparse so my new purchases will liven it up a bit. I did not take a picture of the fabrics but if you keep following my blog, you will see them eventually as they make their way into my projects!

I am looking forward to an arc support retreat at Jacqui's later this week when a bunch of IOP quilters will be getting together to sew arcs together.

Four Hearts

I finished my last two heart blocks for the Quilted Table Yahoo group swap tonight--another pink one and another red one...

I will tear the paper off the paper pieced hearts tonight while I watch TV with my husband--we are going to watch the RMR--Rick Mercer Report--one of our favourite shows. Tomorrow, I will mail these blocks off to the swap queen and she will do her magic, and then I will get 4 new heart blocks in the mail from 4 different people. I will be sure to show you the blocks I receive in the mail. I hope to make a little wall hanging or table topper from my blocks. I may even get it done for Valentine's Day!

Tomorrow, I am back at working on Indian Orange Peel Arcs!

Comfort Quilt and Swap Blocks

I promised you that I would show you the blocks I made on the weekend for the Elgin Piecemakers Guild comfort quilts for chemo patients at our local hospital. In December, we were each to make a blue and white 12 1/2 inch block and I did not get mine done.  (I wasn't the only one!) For our January meeting, the colours were red, black and white. I sat down at my sewing machine on Friday night and made my two blocks:

(They are both 12 1/2 inch square blocks--they just look a bit distorted in the pictures!)

I signed up for a Heart block swap with the quilted table yahoo group a while back. I made two of the blocks tonight. I have to make two more and put them into the mail this week for the swap.  Here are my first two blocks. The hearts are paper-pieced.

I will make the other two heart blocks tomorrow night. I did a little shopping at a quilt store on the weekend and purchased a couple more warm fat quarters for my Indian Orange Peel quilt. I am finding it a bit more challenging to find the warm colours in batiks--especially reds! I will keep looking.

I have a date with the treadmill now...

A Little Arc Support

Last night, two friends came over to work on arcs. Karen was having some trouble remembering how to do the paper piecing so after a quick demo, she was on her way!  (The third one down will need a little unsewing to fix a small mistake...)  Karen will be going to Quilt Til You Wilt as well so we will do lots of arcs that day!

Chris worked on 7 more arcs but did not quite finish them.  She plans on hanging her completed quilt on the wall in her living room.

You can see our snack of tea and digestive cookies in the background!

I worked on 12 more arcs last night...

and I finished them off tonight.

I have 34 arcs completed. 86 more to go! 

I am going to take a short break from doing arcs to do some heart blocks for a swap that I signed up for at the Quilted Table yahoo group--more paper piecing! I also have to piece a couple of blocks for some chemo patient quilts that the Elgin Piecemakers are making. I will try to do another blogpost with pics of these projects before the end of the weekend.

Inch by Inch...

SIX more arcs done--I am up to 22 completed arcs now. I also did a couple more warm 4 patches this weekend.

I have some more cool/warm pairs picked out to do some more arcs this week.  Last week at our London Friendship Quilters' Guild meeting, I signed up for the next Quilt Til You Wilt day--I plan on spending most of the day doing arcs. The day starts at 8am and goes until 9 or 10 pm and includes a morning snack, lunch and supper as well as many hours of uninterrupted quilting time. My friend, Karen, also signed up and she is also going to work on her arcs that day. In the meantime, I will keep plodding along...

Seven more arcs done

I haven't had as much time for sewing lately. These 7 arcs took 3 evenings to complete! On the first night, I cut 2" strips of all my fabrics and put them into a warm pile and a cool pile. The second evening, I started piecing the arcs and got them about 2/3 finished. Tonight, I finished them off and trimmed them. We have been very busy lately but this weekend we are home and don't have too many commitments (besides hosting dinner for 15 friends tomorrow night--it's not as bad as it sounds--I just have to provide the main course and everyone else is bringing the rest of the food. I am making jambalaya.) I hope to get some more arcs done this weekend. I must, actually, or I will never get 120 done by the time our second Indian Orange Peel class in mid March!

I am loving how the colours of the batiks play with each other in these arcs. I am off to relax now. My husband just made me a cup of herbal tea.

Another Giant Pincushion Gift

Last Monday evening, the Elgin Piecemakers guild got together at a local restaurant for our after Christmas dinner and gift exchange. Dinner was delicious and it was fun to catch up with everyone. My gift for Heather was a giant pincushion, pins, needles and a few fat quarters in her favourite colour--Pink!

I got this pattern from the Moda Bake shop. I think I would like to try making one of these with selvages, as suggested by the Quilt Rat!
Jacqui gave me a Quilter's 3 way sandboard for laying out quilt blocks and making labels. It was all wrapped up in some quilt shop themed fabric!  Thanks, Jacqui for a very handy gift!  Our guild is making quilt blocks for charity quilts so I will be using it very shortly!

There is another QNIC planned for this week to work on more Indian Orange Peel arcs so stay tuned for another blog post soon.

QNIC: Indian Orange Peel

Tonight, 6 of us got together to work on our IOP quilts at Jacqui's house. Some worked on arcs and others on 4 patches. I spent some time sorting out my new fabrics into the correct colour categories, with some consultation with my quilting friends, of course.  Here are all of my fabrics:







Next, I made several 4 patches which will be used for the centre of the orange peel blocks. I need 13 cool 4 patches and 12 warm four patches. I still have to do a few more warm 4 patches.

Then, I sewed a couple of arcs.  I have 9 arcs done now. 111 to go...

Deb worked on cutting fabric.



Christine worked on some arcs:

Jacqui made good headway on 8 arcs:

Chris and Pat also worked on 4 patches.

Of course, we had a snack--tea, coffee, cookies, squares, cheese and crackers. We were all pleased with the progress we made tonight. We all have lots more cutting and sewing to do before our next workshop in March. We hope to get together once a week to work on this quilt--anyone working on this quilt definately needs a support group!