Swoon Blocks Done!

I finished off my last Swoon block tonight.  9 blocks done and ready for sashing and borders!

I am linking this post to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times, except I have a design floor and not a design wall.

I had to purchase some more Kona white fabric to use for the sashing and borders. It is now washed are ready to be cut into strips. If you have been watching my blog, you will know that I also have blocks done for a Great Granny Square quilt which also needs sashing and borders. I hope to get these two quilt tops done soon.

Kathy at Kathy's quilts has a weekly link up for hand-stitchers. My hand stitching project this past weekend was sewing the binding on this Quilt of Valour made by members of the London Friendship Quilters' Guild. Several quilts will be presented to a representative of Quilts of Valour at our December meeting.

The fabric in the hexagons was donated by guild members.

Keep checking back for more progress on my projects...

I have not forgotten how to Swoon!

I had some time to sew yesterday aftenoon and put two more swoon blocks together.

 

 

 Only one more to go! I am going to do it now and may have another picture to share soon.

I worked on sewing binding onto a Quilt of Valour last night while I watched Julie and Julia. I had seen it in the theatre but enjoyed it the second time around too.

Quilt Show Photos

My friend, Karen, and I took our husbands out for dinner last night and then we all went to the London Friendship Quilters' Guild "Harvest of Quilts" show at Rowntree United Church in London.  It was a cold, wet night but the quilts were warm and cheerful!

Several members made the "Stars for my Friends" mystery and finished their quilts in time to hang them in the quilt show. Each one looked very different even though the same pattern was used for each one.

M added an extra row of frendship stars at the top to make it rectangular.

This one was made from batiks.

I like the extra star blocks in the corners!

 

I like the scrappy majestic mountains on this one.

 

This quilter likes to make smaller quilts and stopped at the snowball border before adding her own borders to frame it.

 

There was at least one more mystery quilt there made by my friend Jacqui but I did not get a picture of it.  :-(

 

Charlene made this charm quilt. It took a while to collect all of those fabrics.

 

This wool penny rug quilt was one of my favourites!

 

This quilt was displayed in the vendors' area. Do you recognize the blocks?  They are all the blocks that my husband and I saw on our Middlesex county barn quilt tour a couple of weeks ago.

 

The quilt show is still on today from 10-4 so you still have time to go over and see the quilts. The 9 vendors would be happy to have you visit them as well. I lightened my wallet a bit at the vendors' mall...

 

It is rainy and cold today. Clean up jobs to do this morning and then some sewing this afternoon...

 

Have a great weekend!



Getting Ready for the Quilt Show

I have been sewing binding on my flannel quilt and adding hanging sleeves to my quilts for the London Friendship Quilters' Guild Harvest of Quilts show this weekend. After several hours of hand-stitching, I am done.  I am going to add this post to Kathy's Handstitching Sundays post.

My flannel quilt was long armed by Cathy --she used a pattern called Northern Stars which I picked out from a website where Cathy purchases patterns.

I finally had a sunny day and two quilt holders available yesterday! My daughter is home for a few days from university and she held one end while her Dad held the other end.

I am looking forward to having this cozy flannel quilt on my bed this winter!

I made this quilt for the LFQG challenge a few years ago and recently donated it to a fundraising auction at Camp Kintail. Our family attended family camp at Camp Kintail for many years and my daughter worked there as a counsellor for a few years.

The challenge fabric was the Laurel Birch fish fabric.

I did the quilting with straight lines myself.

I hope the new owner enjoys my fish quilt and that the Camp was able to raise lots of money for the camp through their silent auction fundraiser.

At our last London Friendship Quilters' Guild meeting, we had a speaker that showed quilts she had made from feedsacks. This cross stitch block was part of one of the quilts. It reminded me of my daughter--she is not a morning person!

Happy Sewing!

Middlesex County Barn Quilts

My husband and I took a drive this afternoon to look at a few barn quilts in Middlesex county. This one is a "Broken Heart" block.

It was a bit overcast but bright enough to take lots of pictures. "Old Indian Trail"

I loved the look of the weathered barns with the bright quilt blocks on them.  "Tall Pine Tree"

"Butterfly"

This "Spools" block was one of my favourites.

Those soldiers were made from straw bales.

"Old Rail Fence"

"Fireside Visitor"

"Basket Weave"

 

"Geese in Flight" remind us that winter will soon be here.

 

My Grandmother made a "Grandmother's Flower Garden" quilt for my cousin when she got married.

 

"Elm's Strength"

 

We had a booklet with us entitled "Southwest Ontario Barn Quilt Trails: History Made Local". We read the story behind each quilt block as we stopped to take the pictures.

 

 

The fall colours were a bit spotty--we have had some wind and rain over the last few days and that tends to bring the leaves down.

"Peace and Plenty"

 

 

It was hard to get a good picture of this quilt block "Baby Blocks".

"Drunkard's Path"

 

"Broken Dishes"

 

"Dogwood" was another favourite of mine today.

 

The barn quilts were mostly installed this past Spring and we had hoped to get around to see most of them this summer, but alas, life got in the way and it didn't happen. 

Today's tour was a good excuse to get out of the house and go for a drive in the country.

I hope you enjoyed the tour as much as we did!

A Flannel Finish!

Last year, many members of the London Friendship Quilters' Guild signed up to make a mystery quilt designed by Glenda Spencer at Stone Cottage Quilts. We received a set of instructions each month for most of the guild year and I managed to keep up with each step. This past Thursday night, several quilters brought in their finished quilt tops and quilts for show and tell. It was fun to see how different they looked with each quilters' choice of colours and fabrics.

So, here is my quilt as it grew from the centre medallion to a finished quilt.

My fabric came from a fat quarter bundle I purchased while on a family vacation a few years ago. I had been waiting for just the perfect project to use this bundle.

There were a few steps in the centre block...

I only had one fat quarter that was purple and tried to use a little bit of it in each stage of this project.

My completed center block. I purchased several yards of the light coloured flannel to use as my background fabric.

The next border was friendship stars. I worked on these stars at an Elgin Piecemakers sewing day.

Friendship stars done.

Next up... a snowball border.

The next month, I made lots of these hour glass units.

They were used to make Ohio stars.

Some solid borders were sewn on next.

Then, I made some majestic mountain blocks for the next border...--sorry--I must have forgotten to take a picture of the quilt top with that border added. At this point, the mystery was complete. I put the quilt top on my queen sized bed and decided to add a flying geese border to all sides to make the quilt just a bit bigger. I like my quilts to hang down the sides of the bed quite a bit.

These sets of two were sewn into long chains of flying geese.

I was very happy to get the last borders onto this quilt. The flannel feels very cozy but it is heavy and it was hard to keep the quilt on the table while I sewed the borders on!

Here is the completed top on my guest room bed--it is a double bed.

You can see my majestic mountains border in this picture.

I used up all of my leftovers to piece the back.

The quilt has now been quilted and the binding and label are done.  I don't have anyone here today to hold it up so I can take a picture outside so you will have to wait for the finished quilt pictures. 

Today, I will be making PJ's and pillowcases for my nieces for their birthday next week. They are twins and will be 13 years old.

Time to sew!