The Cozy Quilter

Asterisk Charity Quilt

2012-02-12T14:54:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I challenged the members of the Elgin Piecemakers to make 4 asterisk blocks each for a charity quilt. The pattern/instructions for these blocks can be found on the Selvage Blog. There was a big pile of blocks made which I divided into two piles. This quilt top was made with the bright pile...

I put the blocks together and added the borders last night.

Now, on to the next project... We received the next clue for the "Stars for My Friends" mystery quilt at our guild meeting on Thursday. I am going to go and dig into the flannel pile and get cutting!

Charity Quilt Blocks and a Birthday Surprise!

2012-02-11T16:18:00.002-05:00

My husband and I went out in the snow this morning to do some errands and then came home for lunch. He belongs to a model train club and they are meeting this afternoon and evening so that means I have the house to myself...to do some sewing!

I decided to finish off the rest of the charity quilt blocks for the sampler quilts that the Elgin Piecemakers Guild makes for adult chemo patients at our local hospital. The colours are decided ahead of time and each month, we each make a block for that month's quilt. Here are the blocks I made for March, April and May:

March's colours are "sherbert and white".

Brown, rust and cream for April:

For May's block, I made "Anita's Arrowhead" with lime green and dark blue:

Here are the postcards I made earlier this week for the Fabric Postcard exchange at the London Friendship Quilters' Guild. I put one in the mailbox at the meeting and one is winging its way to a secret recipient.

My birthday was on Wednesday. I had a very busy day at work that day. Half way through the afternoon, a delivery truck arrived with these:

They were sent to me by my daughter who is away at university! She is in the middle of midterms and a pile of assignments right now. These flowers really brightened my day!

We have not had much snow this winter but today we woke up to this scene in our backyard...

It is a great day to stay inside and sew!

I have already knocked a couple of projects off my to do list today--those sampler blocks shown above and I pieced the back of the quilt I showed you in my last post and it is now at the quilter's, in line to be quilted. I have one more goal for today... check back later and see if I get it done.

I am all caught up!

2012-02-05T20:42:00.000-05:00

I finished the 3rd clue for the "Stars for My Friends" mystery quilt a few minutes ago. I am really liking how this quilt is coming along and can hardly wait for the next clue which I will be picking up at the London Friendship Quilters' Guild meeting later this week. As you know, I cannot show my quilt to you, but I have been taking pictures of it as I complete each step so I can post them at the big reveal! Here is another sneak peek...

This is going to be a very cozy flannel quilt. I have often put a flannel back on a quilt but this is the first time I have made a pieced flannel top. This quilt will definately have a flannel back too!

I also made a block for the next Elgin Piecemakers charity quilt for adult chemo patients at the local hospital. This month's colours are pink, green and white. Here is my block:

Next month's colours are "sherbert colours"...I will have to dig deep into my stash to find something for this block!

I have another UFO pulled out to finish off this week. I made this quilt top over a year ago and never had it quilted. I just have to sew one seam on the backing, cut the batting and take it to the long arm quilter's house. I am not sure why I have procrastinated for so long...

I just checked back and it was actually over 2 years since I pieced this top....

Here it is with the borders. This week, it is off to the quilter's to get this project off my UFO list!

Merry Christmas! and Welcome Spring!

2012-02-04T18:12:00.000-05:00

You read it right! This morning, I finally got around to making a thread and snippet catcher for my friend, Pat. This is her Christmas gift which I just did not get done until now. Pat is an avid knitter and has recently started to do a little quilting as well.

I will have to dig out a Christmas gift bag to put it in!

My garden is very confused! Today is February 4th and usually, we are in the midst of a cold snap and have snow on the ground at this time of year. This year, no snow and it has actually been above freezing most days. I was out wandering around the yard today and found these:

My primroses were starting to flower!

The daffodils are up too.

Yikes! Go back to bed! It is not time to grow yet!

I am almost caught up on the "Stars for my Friends" mystery. Here are my trimmings from the 3rd step which is just about done.

Happy Sewing!

What do you think?

2012-01-29T21:52:00.000-05:00

I rearranged my hexagons on the living room floor today. I took the bright pink block on the lower left out of the quilt. It just did not fit in. What do you think of this arrangement?

It snowed all afternoon here. I ran out and took a few pictures.

I finished the 2nd clue on the "Stars for My Friends" mystery quilt today. Only one more clue to do before I am caught up.

Hexagon Progress

2012-01-28T18:44:00.000-05:00

I just spent the last hour or so finishing my hexagons for this quilt. I have not finalized the layout of this quilt yet. Any ideas??? I love the colours--very Spring-like!

Last Saturday, the Elgin Piecemakers had a sewing day at a local church. I worked on my mystery quilt all day long. I finished off the first clue--the centre of this medalion quilt--this clue was given out in October 2011. I started the 2nd clue, handed out in November and finished 11/20 units for this border. I am not allowed to show pictures of my progress so a picture of my chain piecing will have to do.

10 days ago, Christine and I got together to sew and she has now finished her Roll Roll Cotton Boll flimsy. I have to get going and get mine done too! I am too easily distracted by other projects :-(

Looks great!

This past Thursday evening, the Elgin Piecemakers met at my house for our monthly meeting. I aksed everyone to bring a 7" by WOF strip of fabric in one of three colours (pink, orange or yellow). I used my GO machine to cut the strips into tumbler blocks and started sewing them into pairs today. Here is my progress so far and a picture of all the tumblers on my "design floor".

These will be made into a quilt top for an adult chemo patient at our local hospital.

I also asked everyone to bring in their oldest UFO and to tell the story of when/why they started it and never finished it. The oldest UFO owner won a prize! (A Patchwork Quilt candle--sorry--I forgot to take a picture of the prize!) Shirley won with her 61 year old UFO--an embroidered table cloth that she started before she got married and never finished!

She just has a few yellow flower centres and some stems to embroider!

It was a fun meeting with lots of wonderful show and tell as usual. We also had some charity quilts displayed in various stages of completion:

I will have to start working on next month's block--the colours are pink, green and white.

Happy Sewing!

I must be CRAZY!

2012-01-23T22:02:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make...I started another new project yesterday...

I was blog surfing the other day, quite innocently of course, when I found this hexagon quilt-along pattern at Jaybird Quilts. I had a couple of BaliPops in my stash and I had been keeping an eye out for a project for one of them. These hexagons are the perfect project for these batik strips! I have had this ruler forever and have never used it.

It took no time at all to pair up the strips and sew them together.

I cut out enough triangles to make two hexagons with each pair of strips.

Then I had to decide how to put them together...

How about this one?

Or this one?

I decided on the windmills and cut a few more triangles out tonight and sewed three triangles together to make the two halves of each hexagon.

There will be more colour variety as I cut into more of the strips but I am liking it so far. I will decide on the final layout once I have all the half hexagons sewn together.

The BaliPop set I am using is called "Sherbert".

I will have to see what I can find to make with my other BaliPop... Do you have any suggestions???

A New Year and a New Project!

2012-01-14T22:15:00.001-05:00

I signed up for the "Stars for My Friends" six part mystery at the London Friendship Quilters' guild. The first part was handed out in October. I did not get anything sewn as I had not picked out my fabrics by the time the November instructions came out. So, I was then two months behind! I found a flannel fat quarter bundle in my sewing room and decided to use it for this project in November. By then, I was in the thick of getting ready for Christmas, so I still did not get any sewing done!

After reading the instructions over, I realized I needed some light coloured fabric to go with my fat quarters. I finally found something appropriate in late November.

Today, I finally got my fabrics and now 3 months worth of instructions out and got started on this mystery! I am not allowed to show any pictures of my project so that others do not see the mystery but here is a sneak peek of part of the centre block.

This mystery quilt was designed by Glenda at Stone Cottage Crafts in Craighurst, Ontario. She spoke at our guild meeting in September and many of our members signed up for the mystery! I am looking forward to seeing everyone's versions of this quilt. The last clue will be distributed at our April meeting and then everyone is to have their tops done by a certain time for the big reveal.

I saw another online project today that I am considering as well...

As far as my sewing room goes, I ironed all of my recent fabric purchases today (they have all been washed already.) and hope to spend some time putting them all away and doing a major clean up of the sewing room tomorrow.

Red, Black and White Block

2012-01-11T21:18:00.000-05:00

I decided to do a little bit of sewing tonight so I made this block for the Elgin Piecemakers Guild Charity quilt for this month. Everyone is making red, black and white blocks for a sampler quilt.

In the middle of my block, you can see my new hugging salt and pepper shakers that were in my Christmas stocking from Santa!

I am hoping to have some time on Saturday to do some sewing and clean up my sewing room. I am not sure if I should sew or clean up first... I know which one I would rather do!

I've been away...

2012-01-08T22:52:00.000-05:00

I was away for a week after Christmas visiting this guy and some of his friends so I have not done a lot of sewing lately...

My SIL was very pleased with her Christmas gift this year...

It makes me happy when people like and use the quilts I make for them!

The London Friendship Quilters' Guild January meeting is this week so I finished off the binding tonight on my Blue Ridge Beauty quilt for show and tell. I will post a picture of the entire quilt later this week--I need two quilt holders and a sunny day to get a good picture.

Karen Cole quilted this quilt for me--she also quilted my Creamsicles by the Sea quilt in this post. I am hoping to have my Roll Roll Cotton Boll top completed sometime in the next couple of weeks and Karen will be quilting it too.

I almost forgot to show you the backing fabric on my SIL's Spinning 4 Patch quilt. The colours are perfect!

I have signed up for a mystery quilt with the LFQG and finally have all my fabrics purchased, washed and ready to go for it. I am using a flannel fat quarter bundle that I purchased in the US a few years ago and some co-ordinating lighter coloured flannel yardage for the background. I am already 2 months behind on the mystery and we are getting another clue this week. I am hoping to make a stab at getting caught up this week. I need to add the borders to RRCB too. Lots to do, not enough time to do it all--same old story!

Have a good week. I am back to work tomorrow.

My New Sister!

2011-12-27T21:43:00.003-05:00

I would like to introduce you to "Sister Maida Block". She is my new sewing sister!

My in-laws gave me my new sister for Christmas. She was made by a friend of my SIL. My daughter, who is an avid curler, also has a new sister...

This is "Sister Bonnie Spiel".

We both love our new sisters! You can find out more about the sisters here.

By the way, my MIL was thrilled with her new "Beekeeper" table topper and my SIL is looking forward to using her new quilt while watching TV or reading a book sometime soon.

Christmas Gifts Done!

2011-12-18T23:38:00.001-05:00

This weekend, I finished hand sewing the binding on the three gifts I made on Wednesday.

The recipients of these gifts do not read my blog so it is safe to show their gifts here.

This table topper is for my MIL. Her father was a bee-keeper so when I saw this fabric, I knew that I had to make something for her with it.

I hope she will like it.

Two of these gifts are wrapped and ready to be sent tomorrow morning.
How is your Christmas sewing coming along???

Sewing Day :-)

2011-12-14T21:12:00.000-05:00

I took a day of vacation today and spent the day with Christine sewing! I worked on 3 Christmas gifts--I can give you a sneak peek because the recipients do not look at my blog...

I used a quick and easy method, as shown in this Youtube video from the Missouri Star Quilt Company, to make these 2 table runners and table topper. As you can see, I just have to hand sew the binding and they will be done!

Christine also worked on some binding--she put the binding on her daughter's quilt so it is now ready for some hand sewing as well.

Both of us like to work on these hand sewing projects while watching TV or in the car (when we are the passengers!)

Christine also made some bias "vine" for a Christmas tree skirt which has been lurking in her closet as a UFO for a few years now...progress is being made--maybe it will be under her tree next year.

These pillowcases are for some family members in Christine's family. I love the sock monkey fabric!

You may have noticed that we did our ironing in my kitchen. My husband came home tonight and said that my quilting is taking over the entire house...

I will post pictures of the finished table topper and table runners when they are done.

Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll--Getting closer to being done!

2011-12-12T21:48:00.000-05:00

Christine and I continue to get together most weeks to spend an evening sewing. This past week, I had 3 goals for our evening together. The first goal was to complete the center of my quilt--I just had one more row of blocks to put together and add to the rest of the quilt top. As you can see, I finished this goal!

My second goal was to complete the 12 triangle sections for the corners of the quilt borders... Ta Da! I got that one done too!

My 3rd goal for the evening was to finish sewing the binding on my "Creamsicles By the Sea" (aka "Carolina Christmas"--another mystery quilt designed by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville) so that I could take it to the London Friendship Quilters' Guild Meeting the next evening for show and tell. I finished that goal off too!

You can see some of the beautiful quilting by Karen Cole in these pictures.

I put this quilt on my bed!

Christine made great progress on her RRCB quilt too. She got the top trimmed up and the green borders added.

The borders really frame the centre of this quilt nicely. I can hardly wait to get the borders on my quilt and get it to Karen to have it quilted!

I spent another evening at Jacqui's last week when 5 of us got together to make another 27 pillowcases for our local Christmas Hamper program. I hope the children who receive these pillowcases have sweet dreams!

The pillowcases were delivered by one of the sewers to the Inn Out of the Cold and Christmas Care last week.

I am making slow but steady progress getting ready for Christmas. The tree is up and decorated and I made this planter for my front porch.

Still lots to do including more gifts to make. Less than two weeks until the big day. I need to get a move on!

I couldn't sleep this morning...

2011-12-03T10:19:00.000-05:00

...so I got up and made some fabric postcards!

I dug into my Christmas fabrics and selvages to make these cards. I wonder who I will send them to???

These three have addresses and stamps on them and are ready to mail.

This quilt is a Christmas gift for someone who does not read my blog. It is in the mail and on its way to its destination already. My quilt holder is my Dad. Thanks, Dad!

This is the first spinning 4 patch quilt that I have ever made. It has flying squirrels and maggots on it. (The fabric is Australian and the flying squirrels are actually some sort of marsupial and the maggots are a delicacy that some people eat. I don't think I want any on my dinner plate any time soon!)

I worked on the borders for RRCB again this week and I am just about done...Pictures soon.

It was a Pillowcase Sweatshop!

2011-11-28T21:58:00.001-05:00

Last week, Jacqui, Chris and I got together for 3 hours to make pillowcases for our local homeless shelter and the local Christmas hamper program. We purchased some fabrics for this project but some of the fabric was donated by "Cherished Pieces"---Thanks, Cynthia!!!

We started by cutting lots of pieces for the pillowcases and then putting them in piles for Jacqui to pin. Chris sewed the tubes together and ironed them and then I serged them and did the final ironing. We did stop half way through for a cup of tea!

Here are our 21 pillowcases!

And another picture which shows more of the fabrics we used....

Three tired but happy pillowcase makers!

We hope to get together again soon to deliver the pillowcases and make some more for the Christmas hamper program. I bought some more material tonight to use for the next bunch of pillowcases...

A Postcard and Elgin Piecemakers Charity Quilts

2011-11-27T21:11:00.000-05:00

The London Friendship Quilters' Guild has a fabric postcard exchange every month which I try to participate in most months. I put a card in the guild mailbox this month and this is the card I received in my mailbox. Jill (aka The Quilt Rat) made this postcard by embossing a beer can using a cork board and a ball-point pen. I was thrilled to receive this card in the mail--Jill's creativity knows no bounds! For more of her work, you can check out her blog.

The Elgin Piecemakers guild met this past week. We had our usual show and tell of our charity quilts which we make for our local hospital's adult chemo unit as well as our own projects. I showed a couple of quilts that I received back from the long armers recently--you will get to see them when I get the binding sewn down as well as a quilt I made for my SIL for Christmas. I don't want to show a picture of it yet either--she knows she is getting a quilt but I don't want her to see it before December 25th.

A few months ago, we each made a Churn dash block in greens and browns. The long arm quilter just finished quilting this quilt. I love the variety in how the blocks look depending on the colours and amount of contrast used.

I showed this quilt top last month but here it is all quilted. I love the backing! This quilt will be sure to brighten someone's day!

Last month, we all made yellow and blue blocks and now all those blocks have been made into a flimsy.

This month's colours were purple and green. There are still a couple more blocks to be handed in before these blocks get put together into a quilt top.

Next month, the colours are green, white and black. Two of us had our blocks done and brought them to our meeting.

Jacqui, Chris and I spent an evening this past week making pillowcases for our local "Inn out of the Cold" shelter. We made 21 pillowcases, mostly from donated fabric but we all contributed fabric from our own stashes as well. I will post a picture of the pillowcases soon. I also did some sewing on the borders for RRCB. This week, Christine and I will be getting together to work on our RRCB quilts. I hope to get that binding on those two recently quilted quilts as well. There are also some fabric postcards to work on... The list never ends!
Have a good week!

We Have a Winner!

2011-11-26T09:25:00.000-05:00

This morning, I put all the names into a hat and my husband picked the winner!

Linda at lrdesignsquilting! I have already sent Linda an email to let her know that she has won "37 Sketches". We will all be watching your blog, Linda, to see if you decide to make a "sketch".

I did some sewing this week and hope to do a blogpost soon.

Give-away! "37 Sketches" by Gwen Marston

2011-11-21T08:13:00.001-05:00

As you know, Christine, Carol and I recently went to Gwen Marston's "Beaver Island Quilt Retreat" at White Birch Lodge in Elk Rapids, Michigan. You can see my previous posts about the retreat here. We had a wonderful time and I am still "basking in the afterglow" of my 5 days of sewing non-stop!

While at the retreat, I purchased a copy of Gwen's latest book, "37 Sketches". I have read it and re-read it several times and everytime, I am inspired by Gwen's colour combinations, use of shapes and small pieces that I never would have tried before attending the workshop.

Here is what Gwen has to say about her book:

"37 Sketches is both an artfully designed and beautifully made book. It shows my new work built on the idea of exploring the elements of design by constructing small studies, which I quickly began to think of as sketches. I began to see these sketches in much the same way as a painter does in using sketches to explore technique and to work out color and composition ideas. These pieces are abstract compositions, worked primarily in solids. Constructing these 37 sketches provided me with a valuable and expedient way to explore new technique, color, and composition. I explain my process for making these small studies using my liberated, improvisational methods, of which many of you are very familiar, and discuss how the experience of making this series of sketches was like taking a crash course in design."

Gwen showed off her book at the "Show and Tell" evening during the retreat. She explained the process of making the book, picking the paper, the binding, taking the pictures, etc. She is rightfully very proud of her book!

It contains pictures of each of her 37 sketches as well as detail shots and short descriptions of each sketch and the inspirations behind them.

Gwen's sketches will be on display at the Taupo Museum in Taupo, New Zealand in July of 2013. She will also be teaching at the National Quilt Symposium in Taupo.

Now, the give-away! If you would like to win an autographed copy of "37 Sketches", please leave a comment on this post by Friday, November 25th, at 7pm (Eastern Standard Time). I will draw a name out of a hat at that time and will contact the winner by e-mail so make sure I know how to get in touch with you!

If you would like to purchase a copy "37 Sketches", you can do that here. I am sure that Gwen would be happy to sign your book for you! This book would make a great Christmas gift!

Quilt 'til You Wilt Report

2011-11-19T23:06:00.003-05:00

I left home this morning at 7:45am--my husband thought I was nuts to get out of bed so early on a Saturday morning! There was a good reason for my early rising--Today was Quilt 'til You Wilt! It started at 8am and I arrived a bit early to find that there were already 5 people there ahead of me! This annual event is held at a local hotel. We moved the tables around to make sure everyone had access to electrical outlets, set up our machines and started to sew.

Around 9am, breakfast was served, so we all stopped for a bite to eat before getting back to our machines. I had a bagel and some fresh fruit.

My first project--borders for Roll Roll Cotton Boll. I had brought 4-5 projects with me but this one consumed most of my day. I sewed the strips I showed you in the last post together and then cut them into 172 of these units:

Then, I cut the brown triangles out and sewed them on to each of these threesies.

It took a long time to iron these and trim the dog ears!

After a delicious supper--a Greek buffet--I started sewing them together to make the borders. (Lunch was very good too--broccoli soup, salad and sandwiches)

First I sewed twosies, then foursies, ...you get the picture...

At the end of the day, I had one side sewn together--39 units. I have some other smaller sections made as well.

I walked around the room every so often to look at other people's projects and to take pictures for the London Friendship Quilters' Guild blog. Our blog editor will do a post soon using the pictures.

I also added a border to a block that I made yesterday for a table topper. This topper will be put into a gift exchange at a Christmas party which is coming up soon. I quilted it and added the binding at QTYW but did the hand sewing tonight when I got home. The block is called Puss in the Corner.

I wilted about 8pm tonight--it was a great day!

Come back again soon as I have an exciting give-away coming up this week! I will try to do the post about it tomorrow and will make the draw later this week. You will not want to miss out on a chance to win!

Weekly Sewing Report

2011-11-12T21:53:00.000-05:00

These blogposts are becoming a weekly report of my sewing activities. There are just not enough hours in the day to blog any more often than once a week! The fabric postcard above was made this past week for the London Friendship Quilters' Guild fabric postcard exchange. I made another one as well which is in the mail to a friend that I have not seen in a while. The fabric is leftover from the pillowcase I made myself recently. I quilted it on the diagonal, but you can't really see it in the picture.

I also made two placemats this week for Meals on Wheels--they will be put into giftbags for shut in seniors in London at Christmas. The two blocks are orphan blocks leftover from another project.

Christine and I got together on Wednesday night to work on our RRCB quilts. I put some of my blocks together and cut the strips for the pieced border. I hope to get some more blocks together this week and work on the pieced border at the annual Quilt 'til You Wilt day next Saturday.

Christine worked on her daughter's quilt. She has all her RRCB blocks together already!

Today, Pam from Mad About Patchwork did a workshop for our guild where we learned how to do not one but two quilts!

In the morning, we worked on "Through the Trees"--

And "Quartered Squares" in the afternoon.

(Those are both Pam's versions of these quilts!)

I used some flower fabric that I purchased years ago with some co-ordinating brights for my Through the Trees quilt.

We had to cut all of our fabrics the same size, stack them up in a certain order and then slice in a wonky way. We then reordered the strips so that each block would be different...

It did not take long to sew the 8 blocks together. We talked about various ways of putting the blocks together...I decided to make a wonky coins quilt with bright green (Kona Sour Apple) sashing and border. I even managed to finish this top before the end of the day, although it still needs a little trimming at the top and bottom...

I have picked out some pink fabric for the binding--I will have to search though my stash to see if I have any suitable fabric for the backing.

I decided to use solids for my Quartered Squares quilt and got one block done. There is a lot of cutting for this quilt and I did not get all of it done. I decided that I needed to have one block completed as an example of what to make at home! There are at least a dozen different solids in this quilt.

Another project to work on at Quilt 'til You Wilt....

This week, I hope to get some more RRCB blocks together and get my fabrics cut for the QS quilt. I have to get everything ready for QTYW too...

Until next time... Happy sewing!

Slow and Steady Progress

2011-11-06T20:31:00.000-05:00

I finally finished sewing the blocks for RRCB this week! Christine and I got together one evening and worked away on our blocks. I finished off 8 that night and started another few. The next night, I had 12 done.

When this mystery was first posted on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville website a year ago, I thought her colour choices were a bit odd--double pinks, brown, green and red with neutrals. Now, I love how these colours play together in these blocks! Most of the browns and all of the double pinks I used in these blocks were fabrics from a kit I bought at People, Places and Quilts in Charleston, SC several years ago when my family was there on vacation. I never got around to making the kit quilt so I decided to use the fabrics in this quilt.

Friday night and Saturday morning, I was bound and determined to finish off the last 8 blocks before taking my sewing machine in for its annual overhaul (actually a year overdue for the annual checkup!). I sewed all of the rest of the HST's together into strips of 5 units and then I had a small problem...

I was one HST short. I had made 599 HST's instead of 600! I dug out some red and neutral fabric and cut one more out with my easy angle ruler.

Soon, I was done the last 8 blocks and my machine was packed up and ready to go.

Today, I trimmed up my string blocks so that they are all the same size as these blocks and I started to sew some blocks together. I am using my mother's old Kenmore sewing machine. The last time I used it was two years ago when my Janome was in for its checkup. My mother was not really interested in sewing but when I was around 10 or 11, I talked her into taking sewing lessons so that she would get a new machine that I could use! The Kenmore was the machine she bought. It is a heavy brute--all mechanical--no computerized parts on this machine! It came to live at my house after my mother died a few years ago. After some liberal doses of oil on all the moving parts and some cleaning, it works as good as it ever did.
This afternoon, I made 3 pillowcases for our London Friendship Quilters' Guild charity project.

I also made myself a pillowcase from some quilting fabric...

I have to make a postcard and a couple of placemats before our meeting this week. I found some orphan blocks that I will use for the placemats. They will be donated to Meals on Wheels where they will be given to shut in seniors for Christmas. I will post pictures of these later this week. In the meantime, I will keep working on getting my blocks together for Roll Roll Cotton Boll.

Have a good week!

This and That

2011-10-31T22:41:00.000-04:00

While I was in Elk Rapids, MI for the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat, I purchased some flannel fabric to make PJ's for my daughter, and my twin nieces. Actually, I just made the pj pants and purchased the tops. I have been using this same pattern since my daughter was very young and she will soon be 20! I just get the measurements of each girl and alter the pattern to fit. I have used this pattern so often that I can make them with my eyes shut! Well...almost! My nieces just turned 12 and we celebrated their birthday this past weekend with dinner at their house. I also made them pillowcases for their birthday.

I think everyone in the family has a pillowcase now! They proved to be popular birthday gifts this year!

The Elgin Piecemakers Guild charity project--quilts for adult chemo patients at our local hospital--continues full steam ahead. This block is my contribution towards the black white and green quilt. This block is due at our early January meeting--I am trying to get ahead a bit as I have some Christmas gifts to work on over the next few weeks. This block is called "Get The Point" and is #291 in volume 3 of Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine.

We had our meeting last week and everyone brought in their blue and yellow blocks:

Two of our members will get together soon to add sashing and borders to make this quilt.

Last Spring, I challenged everyone to make a "Filmstrip" block for a charity quilt. I gave everyone the centre square fabric. The sashing looks great and this quilt top is now at the quilter's house in line to be quilted. The backing is in the lower left corner of the picture.

I made this raspberry apple kuchen for dessert one night last week. I picked the raspberries from our garden. It was delicious...there were no leftovers! The recipe is a variation of Pineapple Nut Kuchen from the Company's Coming Diabetic cookbook. The key to this recipe is to serve it warm.

A couple of weeks ago, I entered a give-away on the Selvage Blog for this book "The Town That Drowned" by Riel Nason. My name was picked out of the hat and today, the book and some orange fabric scraps arrived in the mail from Riel! Check out Riel's blog to see the wonderful quilts she makes for Halloween! I especially love her Selvage Mummy quilt! Thanks, Riel for the book and the fabrics! It was perfect that this parcel arrived on October 31st!

Last week, we had our first hard frost. I had a few minutes to spare before leaving for work so I raced out to the yard with my camera to get some pictures.

I spent much of tonight working on putting more HST units into strips of 5 for my Roll Roll Cotton Boll quilt. Christine and I are getting together tomorrow night to work on this quilt.

Good Night, everyone!

10 blocks done!

2011-10-22T19:33:00.000-04:00

Thursday night, I had 45 minutes to spare and put together 4 more blocks for my RRCB quilt. I dug out my completed string blocks and started to lay the blocks out on the design floor.

Today, my husband made some delicious butternut squash soup for lunch. I did not take any pictures of the soup, but while it was cooking, I sewed some more RRCB blocks together. I have 10 blocks made now and the design floor is filling up! I may be forced to move some furniture to lay out all of the blocks.

There are 30 of these blocks in this quilt.

This is a fun quilt to look at because there are so many different fabrics in it.

Christine has made me promise not to sew the blocks together until we both have them done. Keep sewing, Christine!!!

RRCB sewing

2011-10-19T22:44:00.000-04:00

After a bit of a break, Christine and I got together for a couple of hours tonight to work on our RRCB quilts. I put some "fivesies" together using some of the 600 red and neutral HST units I have been making.

Christine was trimming and ironing her HST's while I sewed.

I got quite a few of these done. I was all excited to see what a completed block would look like so after Christine left to go home, I put one block together...

We can't get together to sew next week so we are both going to keep putting the 5 HST units into strips and also cut out the pieces we need for our borders. We would both like to have the flimsies of these quilts done before our next London Friendship Quilter's Guild meeting in November (only 23 days from now!). We are having Pam from Mad About Patchwork at our next meeting and both of us have signed up for her workshop where we will learn how to make two different modern quilt blocks. That means two more UFO's to add to the pile!

Look what I got in the mail yesterday!

This post card was made by Beth at the LFQG for the monthly postcard exchange. Thanks Beth for the postcard!

I also a package with this inside...

It's my ribbon for coming in second in the 2011 International Plowing Match block challenge! You can look at my block here.

It is that time of year here--the leaves are turning beautiful shades of yellow, orange and red and they are falling to the ground. This picture was taken at BIQR at the Birch Lake Lodge beach a couple of weeks ago.

Sewing for Charity and some more Baskets

2011-10-16T16:14:00.001-04:00

Last Spring, Chris and I got together to put together these blocks into a quilt top. Each member of the Elgin Piecemakers made a block for this quilt. It was quilted over the summer by Al and Chris came over to my house a couple of weeks ago to work on the binding. If you click on the picture, you can see that the sashing is made from white fabric with black dots on it. Later that week, Chris and another guild member delivered several quilts to our local hospital where they will be given to adult chemo patients as a reminder that there are people in the community rooting for them as they undergo cancer treatments. The guild has received a few thank you notes from some of the recipients and it just "warms the cockles of my heart" to know that they are appreciated and being used.

This year, we have been given a list of colour themes for each month and we are to complete a block each month using the colours on the list. We have been divided into groups of two to put each top together. September's colours are blue and yellow (I missed the September meeting because I was away at the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat) so I leafed through Volume 3 of Quiltmakers 100 Blocks magazine to find a pattern to use for my block. I decided on "Vintage Spools" -Block #281.

I like the way the centre of this block looks like a windmill.

The colours for October are purple and green. I decided to get ahead of the game and make this block too. I picked Block #285 from the same magazine "Magic Squares".

The darker purple fabric in the squares in the center was from Erin at My Patchwork Life--I won it in a give-away on her block a year or so ago. I have more plans for this fabric but that will have to wait for a little while.
I also made 4 more little basket blocks yesterday. I have some more fabric picked out for more baskets and will keep working away on these as time allows.

Each block is 4.5" square. I have 20 little baskets so far.

Christine and I plan on getting together later this week to work on our Roll Roll Cotton Boll quilts. We had to take a bit of a break from this project because life got in the way. The blocks will start to come together this week so stay tuned.

My brother's birthday is this week and I made him a pillowcase with boats on it. He is into bathtub boat racing in a big way--I could not find any bathtub fabric so these boats will have to do.

Take care eveyone and happy sewing.

Show and Tell at BIQR

2011-10-11T21:53:00.002-04:00

Wednesday night, after feasting on pizza, each of the quilters at the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat showed off one or two of their recently completed quilts.

This quilt was hand pieced and hand quilted--it took several years to complete and each star was a different fabric.

This applique quilt was made as a gift.

Gwen quipped that the border on this quilt was a bit "muted" (!!???) It was a wild and fun quilt!

This quilter also knits and made this doll for a new baby. The skirt and hair are made from purchased black gloves.

This quilt looked like stained glass.

Amazing applique and a wonderful pieced sashing!

This quilt was inspired by a photograph of the quilter's son and grandson. WOW!

Christine showed her Carolina Christmas quilt. (mine is at the quilter's right now). Beautiful!

Carol showed her recently finished "Test Pattern"quilt. She hand quilted this a little bit each day over the summer.

I loved this Frank Lloyd Wright inspired table runner.

Gwen was very interested in everyone's quilts!

I showed my "Liberated Selvage Wedding Ring" Quilt that I made last summer from one of Gwen's patterns. I don't have a picture of me showing my quilt. Perhaps Carol or Christine could send me their picture and I could post it! (Hint! Hint!) I was very pleased that Gwen liked my quilt. She told us that Karen Griska of the Selvage Blog had attended one of the BIQR events.

This past weekend, my husband, my in-laws and I went to Ottawa to visit my daughter. On our way home, there were lots of Fall colours to admire and I shot this picture out of the car window. I was wishing I could get out of the car to take some close ups of the milkweed fluff in the foreground.

In my last BIQR post, I will show pictures of some of the sketches made by other quilters at the retreat.

Tonight, I made three liberated basket postcards --one for Pokey who correctly guessed that the picture in a previous post was of wagon wheel hubs, one for the London Friendship Quilter's Guild monthly postcard exchange and one for Gwen Marston.

BIQR: What I Made...

2011-10-03T23:44:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in the previous post, Gwen did several demos on how to make the various elements in her "37 Sketches". Above, she is showing us how to insert a curved line into a piece of fabric. Gwen does all her sewing on a Featherweight.

You can see my version of the curved line in this picture. It was not that hard! Most of the strips for the parts of this sketch were cut at 3/4" wide so that only a 1/4 inch showed when the peices were all sewn together. I have never used such skinny strips before! On most of Gwen's sketches, she added at least one print fabric--you can see my green and yellow print fabric above. I considered my first "sketch" to be my chance to make at least one of each of the elements she taught us. It is not exactly "artistic" but I learned a lot making this first little quilt.

At the lower right, you can see my (mostly successful) attempts to insert pointy bits into the stripey element.

Gwen did several demos on how to do this ...

This is Christine's first sketch--She used some neat owl fabric in one of the trees--click on the picture to see their little faces!

My second sketch used some new birch tree fabric that I purchased at one of the local quilt stores. Once the other quilters saw this fabric, there was a mad dash to the quilt store and it was soon sold out! There is a black binding on this sketch--the gallery wall for all of the completed projects was black so the binding did not show up in my picture.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you might remember these little liberated fruit and vegetable baskets and "FRESH" letters that I made at Quilt Til You Wilt in February. I had put them away after that day, not really knowing what to do with them. I brought them along to the BIQR and with some guidance and ideas from Gwen, I put them together, added some more words "U-Pick" and a liberated churn dash block and voila, a completed wall hanging flimsy!

Now, I will have to decide if I want to add a border or just quilt and bind it... What do you think?

This black and white sketch with some green and red touches was made for my husband. In this one, I made some liberated log cabin blocks and some liberated 9-patches.

For my last project, I made some 4" basket blocks from these fabrics purchased at one of the local quilt stores.

I made 16 baskets and hope to make lots more!

We sewed all day from about 9am to midnight most days, except for our field trips into town to go to the quilt stores and the orchard for apples.

Christine worked on a quilt for her daughter, made one more sketch with more owls in it, and finished sewing her 30's spin blocks together.

Here's an Elk Lake sunset to close off this post. In my next post, I will show some of the sketches made by the other quilters at the retreat.

Back from BIQR!

2011-10-02T23:37:00.000-04:00

WOW! What a wonderful week I just had at the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat at the White Birch Lodge in Elk Rapids, MI with Gwen Marston! I went with veteran BIQRers, Carol and Christine--it was their 4th retreat with Gwen and my first. I took 519 pictures in 6 days and it will take me a while to share everything I did at the retreat with you so this post will just be a brief introduction...

We arrived on a beautiful sunny day...

This is the main building where we sewed each day. It was just a short walk from the townhouse where we slept (for a short time) each night.

The lodge faced Elk Lake and, of course, there were lots of birch trees around! This table top design would make a great quilt...

When we arrived, we dropped off our machines and bins of fabrics and sewing tools in the sewing room where we were greeted by this inspirational gallery of Gwen's "37 Sketches". That evening, Gwen met briefly with us before supper so we could all introduce ourselves and tell everyone where we were from--there were 4 people from Canada, and the rest were from the USA including North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Washington State, Oregon, Minnesota... etc. The previous week, there had been some quilters there from Australia and next week, there will be two from the Netherlands!
Most of us sewed that evening but Gwen did not present her sketches to us officially until the next morning.

She showed us her new book "37 Sketches" (I bought a copy!) and explained her journey as she created these little works of art. She used her sweater as her "design wall" to show us the various elements she included in her quilts.

Gwen was a totally delightful teacher--she has a wonderful sense of humour and had all of us laughing often! After her introduction to the quilts, she did several demos on how to create these elements in our own quilts. The hardest part of making one of these little quilts is getting started--her advice was to just jump in, pick some fabrics to use in our piece and then just start making an element. This was much harder than it sounds!

Here is a picture of Gwen with her new book. I have already read it twice and studied the pictures several times. It is available now on her website for $29.95 and I would highly recommend this book to any quilter--liberated or "wanna be" liberated, or just interested in getting into the mind of the "Queen of Liberated Quilts!" Gwen even signed my copy.

Gwen and I in front of her display of her "37 Sketches".
Keep coming back for more posts about the retreat. We had a wonderful show and tell and we all did lots of sewing...

A little give-away contest for you...

The first person to correctly tell me what these are will be the recipient of a liberated basket fabric postcard made by me! Just leave a comment with your guess.

By the way, Gwen sews with her shoe off...

600 HST's Done!

2011-09-24T12:37:00.000-04:00

It took three weeks of getting together with Christine to get my 600 HST's done...But here they are--all sewn, just waiting to be pressed. The other 200 are already pressed and ready for the next step. I hope to get the pressing done later today. Christine finished putting the borders on her 30's spin blocks. I love the fabrics she is using--so bright and cheery. They remind me of my grandmother's quilts.

BIG NEWS! This week, I will be going away for a quilt retreat with Christine and Carol! We are heading up to White Birch Lodge near Elk Rapids, Michigan for the annual Beaver Island Quilt Retreat with Gwen Marston!

This is my first time going to this retreat--Carol and Christine have been a few times before so I am the "Newby". I am very excited! I have a couple of Gwen's books and am fascinated by her liberated quilts. I am bringing a bin of fabric, my sewing machine, my camera and sewing supplies for 4 days of quilty bliss and two days of travel. I have a project in mind, inspired by a workshop I took at the Russian quilt show in Ailsa Craig a few years ago. I never did finish that project but hope to make my own liberated version on the retreat.

Gwen will be teaching us how to make "Small Studies". I will take lots of pictures and do a blog post about my retreat when I get back.

In the meantime, I have to go and pack!

Happy Quilting!

QNIC with Christine

2011-09-15T22:39:00.000-04:00

Tonight, I used my Accuquilt Go to cut out another 180 sets of HST's for my RRCB quilt. I bought this die especially for this quilt. I sewed the HST's tonight too but still have to iron them--a job for another evening. They looked like little flags fluttering in the breeze at the used car lot before I cut them apart!

Christine continued to work on her 30's spin quilt from a workshop we both took last October. For a picture of mine, go here. She has just about finished putting borders on all her blocks.

Every Saturday morning, my husband and I go to our local farmers' market. In order to sell produce at our market, the vendors must grow it themselves. I always come home with lots of wonderful fruits and vegetables--some are quite unusual like purple beans, pink and white beets, yellow watermelon, etc. This past weekend, I bought an interesting gourd and a stand to display it.

I am always a bit sad when market season is over.

227

2011-09-10T22:45:00.000-04:00

That's how many 2" red and neutral HST units I have made this week. Christine and I got together again on Wednesday night and I used my Accuquilt GO cutter and my new 2" HST die to cut out the pieces.

Today, I sewed them all together. At one point I was so focused, I kept pushing the units through the machine with no bobbin thread!

Here are my 227 HST's, all pressed and ready to go.

Now, I just have to cut out 373 more and sew and press them. My Roll Roll Cotton Boll quilt has 600 red and neutral HST's in it!

We had our first London Friendship Quilters' guild meeting this past Thursday. Our speaker was Glenda Spencer from http://www.stonecottagecrafts.ca/. This past year, she did a mystery quilt for some quilters in her area. This year, she is offering a new mystery quilt for members of our guild and I signed up for it because we all know I need another UFO! The quilt will start with a 12" block in October and each month, we will receive a pattern for a border to add. This will go on for 6 months and the goal is to have the quilts done for our quilt show next October. I have to go and dig into my stash to see what fabrics I will use. I want to try to avoid purchasing any new fabric for this project. You can see a picture of last year's mystery quilt here. I also signed up for our annual November Quilt Til You Wilt day and plan on attending the workshop being offered in November as well. It looks like an exciting year ahead!

I wandered through my garden today and took some pictures of the flowers. I did not notice the spider in the middle of this picture until I looked at the picture on my computer. If you click on the picture, you will get a better view.

These flowers are called "Moonbeam Coreopsis". They are one of my favourites!

Slowly but surely...

2011-08-29T20:19:00.000-04:00

I finished off my 30 string blocks yesterday afternoon. Between working full time, gardening, housework, and spending time with my daughter who is home for 9 days before she heads back to Ottawa for her 3rd year of university, I am not getting much sewing time these days. Christine and I did manage to spend 3 hours working on our Roll Roll Cotton Boll quilts on Wednesday evening last week--it was storming outside, but safe and dry in my dining room as we sewed--at least until the lightening and thunder were coming so fast and furious that the power started to flicker. At that point, we unplugged the machines and headed down to the basement to wait out the storm. Christine almost had a sleepover at my house, but the storm was finally over around 11pm and she could safely drive home.

Here are some of my completed, but not pressed blocks.

Christine got quite a few done too--hers are pressed!

I laid my 30 string blocks out on the design floor to admire them. Christine and I will get together again next week to work on red and neutral HST's--I have to make 600 of them. Still lots of sewing to do to finish off this quilt. It is good to have a friend to sew with to keep me on task.

Back to Blogging...

2011-08-21T16:53:00.000-04:00

Some of you may have thought I had dropped off the face of the earth, but I didn't! Life has been busy with a trip to Ottawa to visit my daughter, a family member with health issues (resolved now, thankfully!), work in the garden, and, of course, some quilting!

Christine and I got together a couple of evenings since the last time I blogged to work on our Roll Roll Cotton Boll quilts. Both of us are now done our string blocks. I even have mine cut in half, ready for putting the blocks together later this week when we get together to sew again. There are a lot of strings in these blocks, but never fear, I had some strings leftover to make some more, should the mood hit!

Here is another view:

Here is everything we have sewn so far:

I made a pillow case for my brother for his birthday this week. He is into bathtub boat racing so I used some boat fabric for his pillowcase. I could not find bathtub boat fabric! ;-)

Today, I spent most of the day getting two quilts ready to take to the long arm quilters. I added labels to the backs before they are quilted. I even had to piece the batting because it was not wide enough for these huge quilt tops! They are all ready to go now...I will show pictures when they are done.

One is my "Blue Ridge Beauty" and the other is my "Creamsicles By the Sea", both designed by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville fame.

I went to Jacqui's this week for a QNIC with her and Chris. I made the pillowcase, trimmed and sliced my string blocks, and added borders to my SIL's quilt. I still need to purchase a back for this quilt.

I am just about out of batting now--I purchased a whole roll of batting a couple of years ago and I have used it all up. I have one 4' piece left--not even enough for my SIL's quilt. I will have to buy another roll!

Here I am piecing batting for my quilts today.

I have a big bag of batting scraps in my sewing room for just this purpose!

I promise to try to blog a little more often now! I have to get my sewing room tidied up next--my daughter is coming home to visit and her room is full of fabric and quilts. I will not be a popular Mom if it is not put away before she gets home...

14 more!

2011-08-06T21:59:00.000-04:00

I finished off the 14 string blocks I started earlier this week. 36/60 done now. I purchased more lightweight interfacing earlier this week so as soon as I get more foundations cut, I will be able to make the rest of my string blocks.

Here is a close up of some of the fabrics in these strings--bananas, birds, a Dr Suess print, more selvages, letters, ---endless possibilities!

My husband and I cleaned out the freezer today--a job that was well overdue. I am not sure why I had all those freezer burned buns in the bottom of the freezer--they are not there anymore! It is all neat and tidy once again...I wonder how long it will last?

Stringing along...

2011-08-03T22:06:00.000-04:00

Christine and I got together to sew last night. I finished off my last 4 blocks like this...

My 30 blocks are on the right and Christine's 20 are on the left. She is making a twin sized quilt and I am making a queen sized quilt.

We both worked on string blocks last night. Christine made her first 5 blocks...

She has lots of fun fabrics in these blocks!

I started 14 more string blocks and hope to finish them later this week.

When these are done, I will have 36/60 string blocks done. I have to purchase some more light-weight non-fusible interfacing for the foundations for the remaining 24 string blocks.

We have plans to get together for another evening next week to work on more string blocks. These are taking a while.

RRCB progress

2011-08-01T21:56:00.001-04:00

After I washed the fabric I purchased at "Mad About Patchwork", I noticed that one piece of fabric had my name on it! I will have to save this selvage for a special spot in a future quilt!

I made 6 more string blocks for RRCB this past week. I am up to 22/60 now. It still feels like I have a long way to go...

Today, I made 12 more of these blocks. I have 4 more to finish and then these will be done, to this stage anyway!

I like the scissor fabric in this block!

Christine and I are getting together tomorrow night to work on this quilt again. She has been on vacation for the last couple of weeks so I am looking forward to hearing about her time away!

Elgin Piecemakers' Bee Day and more String Blocks

2011-07-23T20:41:00.000-04:00

Today, 10 members of the Elgin Piecemakers got together at Heather's house to make 4 quilts for cancer patients at our local hospital--this is our ongoing charity project. We all made the same coins quilt pattern in 4 different colourways. Pat chose the fabrics and we worked in groups of 2 or 3 to put the quilts together.

I used my new Featherweight to sew the coins together for our group.

The finished top is shown below. One of our group members is going to do the quilting on her machine at home. We hope to have all of these quilts ready to donate to the hospital shortly.

One group had blue fabrics and used yellow for the sashings.

This quilt had black and white coins with black on black sashing.

Purple, green and yellow coins made this quilt quite cheery!

All of the groups (except my group) made their quilts using the quilt as you go method.

Smoothing everything out before adding the next row of coins...

I have been working on 10 more string blocks for my Roll Roll Cotton Boll quilt and finished them when I got home today. 16 done, 44 to go...

I went through all of my fabrics to find interesting neutrals/whites, creams and prints with light backgrounds...this strip has Hershey's kisses on it. (leftover from my husband's Valentine's Day gift--a pillow case.)

Jacqui gave me the pins fabric. I even pulled some strips out of my drawer of selvages...

The chicken fabric above came from the Quilts of the Netherlands show which was held recently in Ailsa Craig.

I hope to make another batch of string blocks this week as well as finish sewing the pink, green and brown blocks together. The next time Christine and I get together, we hope to get started on the red and neutral HST's--all 600 of them--Yikes!

QNIC and some string blocks for RRCB

2011-07-19T22:04:00.000-04:00

I have lots to share tonight! I have been doing some sewing but have not had much time for blogging! This is a pillowcase I made for my daughter--she picked out the fabric when we were in Ottawa on Canada Day weekend. I just love making these pillowcases! Almost everyone in the family has them now--I gave my SIL hers this past weekend for her birthday along with the spinning 4-patch quilt that I have been working on recently. Actually, she received the quilt top for her birthday and I will have it quilted and bound for her for Christmas. You can see her pillowcase (blue with flowers and yellow band) and her quilt top here. She was thrilled with both gifts and now my neices are complaining because they don't have special pillowcases from their favourite (only!) aunt. (Don't tell them, but their pillowcases are made already--their birthday is in October --they are twins!)

Speaking of my neices, they were here for the weekend. We had lots of fun--we went to the market, baked a birthday cake for their mom, played games, went mini-golfing and out for ice cream. We went out to see this famous train engine who was visiting our town this past weekend:

We even did some sewing...we used my Go to cut out squares which we used to make this pattern on my design floor...

The girls sewed 5 rows of squares together and we will work on it again the next time they come to visit. This quilt will be donated to the Kids Quilts program at my quilt guild for a child in foster care. They have had some kids in their classes at school that were in foster care so they understand where the quilt is going. They had fun laying out all of the colourful squares to make the Trip Around the World pattern.

Just an update on Skye--he's getting bigger!

Last night, 4 quilting friends got together at Jacqui's for a QNIC. I just bought this Singer Featherweight machine and spent the evening trying it out. Jacqui and her husband collect old machines, refurbish them and sell many of them. I have had my heart set on buying a Featherweight for a while! I made 6 string blocks for my RRCB quilt with my new machine last night--it sews like a dream.

Only 54 more string blocks to make...my new machine is going to get a workout!

Jacqui worked on some 3-D blocks.

Karen machine blanket stitched around the petals of the flowers on this wall-hanging.

And, Chris worked on some spinning 4-patch blocks with a cowboy theme. this quilt will be a Christmas gift for her neice.

We have not had very many QNIC's lately and vowed to get together to sew again soon.

Bye for now.

Part of Step 7 of RRCB

2011-07-14T21:35:00.000-04:00

Christine and I got together last night to work on RRCB...both of us had our homework done! Christine is making a single bed quilt and I am making a queen size quilt so I have a lot more blocks to do than she does. We worked on sewing some of our blocks together with the pieces from Steps 2 and 4 that we finished last week. We are bouncing around the steps for this quilt--we did part of Step 7 last night.

Here are all my parts, ready to sew!

Here is my first block, ready to chain piece...

And here is Christine's first block...

I worked on several blocks at one time. The light fabric in the bottom left block has spools on it.

I finished 13 blocks to this stage--only 17 more to go! The green squares in the upper left corner of each block are for the borders on the blocks.

Here are some of Christine's blocks.

Our homework for the next couple of weeks...string blocks made from neutrals. I have lots of fun fabrics cut for my strings...stay tuned!

RRCB progress...Steps 2 and 4 done.

2011-07-09T23:04:00.000-04:00

I worked on my homework today. It was too hot outside to be out there which means it was excellent sewing weather!

I squared up my HST's for step 2 of RRCB and pressed them. (I still have to cut off those dog ears!)

I also sewed the neutral and green strips together for step 4, as you can see above. Tonight, while watching So You Think You Can Dance, recorded on my PVR earlier this week, I cut the 2" twosies out of the green and neutrals:

I just have to cut 30 2" red squares and trim those dog ears before Wednesday night. I should be able to manage this!

I took this picture of a lounging squirrel in my backyard this week.

Doesn't he look comfortable?

Today, we discovered that carpenter bees have been making their presence known in our backyard. We found 6 holes in various wooden structures in the backyard! A friend suggested we spray WD40 oil into the holes--this did the trick and we killed them. They are huge--about an inch long, and bore a very clean hole into the wood. They can destroy a wooden structure over time. We will be on the lookout for little piles of sawdust now--that's how I found the first hole this morning. Here is a picture of one that I found on the internet. Nasty!!!

This and That...

2011-07-06T22:28:00.001-04:00

I have been really busy lately so have not had much time to sew or blog. I promised that I would blog about Roll Roll Cotton Boll (mystery quilt pattern by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville) in my last post. Christine and I have gotten together twice to work on this mystery quilt. We spent two evenings together so far and have got lots of cutting done and an little bit of sewing. Above, you can see our pink and brown HST's from step 2, cut out and ready to sew.

Our first homework was to get these sewn and both of us completed this part. However, we did not get them trimmed and pressed before our second get-together. This past Monday, Christine squared up her HST's and then both of us cut the strips and squares from green and neutral that we need for step 4. (Yes--we are doing the steps out of order so that we can complete the blocks first and then do the borders!) Christine brought her sewing machine to my house both times and neither one of us did any sewing!

Here are my green strips and squares--I got the neutrals cut as well but I don;t have a picture of them.

These are Christine's HST's being squared up.

We are getting together again next week to sew--no cutting this time. We have to get steps 2 and 4 completed before we meet again.

Happy Belated Canada Day to my Canadian readers and belated Happy 4th of July to the Americans! My family spent Canada Day in Ottawa this year where we saw a few people some of you might know...

We spent hours standing in the sun to see this handsome young man and his lovely wife.

We were packed in like sardines --no one dared leave to get food or go to the bathroom for fear of losing their spot! Kate did her walkabout on the other side so this is as close as we got to her. It was lots of fun to chat with the people around us as we waited--one lady had met both Prince Charles and Prince Philip and hoped to have a chance to shake Prince William's hand as well.

We also got up close and personal with the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper... and David Johnston, the Governor General.

Those of you who know me and how short I am (5'1'') will be wondering how I got these pictures...There was a lady in front of us who had a chair that she sat on while she was waiting and she let me stand on it to take pictures during the walkabout! I had a great view of everyone!

The Snowbirds also did 2 flypasts in formation--they really travel fast and I just about missed getting a picture!

While we were in Ottawa, I did a bit of stash enhancement at two local quilting stores. The first store, "Quilty Pleasures", had a sale on any fabric with red in it--25% off--to celebrate Canada Day. I bought a few red fat quarters and some fabric to make my daughter another pillow case.

I also bought myself a new 6X12" ruler as I have lost mine and have not been able to find it. Now that I have a new one, the old one should show up!

"Mad About Patchwork" is an online store. I met the owner, Pam, at the recent Quilt Ontario show in London, Ontario. She told me to contact her when I was in Ottawa and I could go to her home to do some shopping in her basement. Lucky for me, she was home and I spent 45 minutes power shopping. I bought some black and white fabrics...

some solids...

And some prints...

There are no specific projects in mind for these fabrics--I just loved them enough to want to bring them home!

I will be at my sewing machine sometime in the next few days working on my RRCB homework so I will do a post when I have it done.

In the meantime, Happy Quilting!

Pillowcases done! Now on to a New Project...

2011-06-25T16:46:00.000-04:00

I have been on somewhat of a pillowcase binge lately...I am sure you have all noticed! Today, I finished off all of the pillowcases that I had on my list of pillowcases to make. Most are gifts for others but today, I also made one for myself! It is the light coloured one on the far right in the picture above. The fabric has a subtle sewing theme which you will be able to see if you click on the picture below.

The music pillowcase, far left in the photo below, was given to my Dad for Father's Day. He has been playing the fiddle since he was very young--5 years old--and he is now 81!

The funnest part of making these pillowcases is picking out fabric that is appropriate for the recipient.

I made a knitting themed pillowcase for my friend who did some knitting for me this past winter.

Next week, Christine and I are going to get together to start working on Bonnie Hunter's Roll Roll Cotton Boll mystery quilt. Since we already have seen the completed quilts that others have made, it is no longer a mystery to us. We are going to start with Step 2--I did part of the cutting out this morning. We had decided to go this far before we get together next week to start sewing.

The Elgin Piecemakers had their annual June dinner at one of our members' homes. Her husband took the afternoon off and spent hours preparing a gourmet meal for us. He is an excellent cook. I forgot to take pictures of the food before we ate!--sorry! You can be assured that it looked, smelled and tasted wonderful! Thanks for your hospitality D and S! After supper, we had some show and tell.

Debbie made this purple quilt for her MIL and just has to finish the binding.

Joanne made this quilt for her sister. The red birds look like they are ready to fly!

This spinning 4 patch has an interesting layout--the large scale print the quilter used made some very interesting blocks.

Six of us brought our filmstrip blocks in for our next charity quilt. Here they are:

There are more of these blocks to be made. The one blue block will make a nice accent in this quilt.

I will try to do another post after Christine and I get together this week.

Pillowcases and a Twister Runner

2011-06-19T21:34:00.002-04:00

I am on a pillowcase binge at the moment--Many of them are gifts and cannot be revealed yet but I can show you two of them that were gifted today.

I made this baseball pillowcase for my BIL for his birthday which we celebrated today along with Father's Day with a BBQ at our house. He loves to play baseball and hopefully, he will dream of his "Field of Dreams" while this pillowcase is on his pillow.

The border fabric has baseball bats and balls on it.

My husband's hobby is N scale model trains so I made him this pillowcase for Father's day. It is already on his pillow.

I also made another Twister Table Runner for a friend this past week. Last winter, she knitted a scarf, mitts and a hat for me. I am also going to make her a pillow case but it is not finished yet.

Today, we met the newest member of the family. Let me introduce you to "Skye"--a border collie puppy that lives at my BIL and SIL's house. He is 8 weeks old and very lively. It was fun to have him here today.
He was all worn out and had a nap under a chair late in the afternoon.

Stay tuned for more sewing projects soon. My friend, Christine, and I have decided to tackle Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll by Bonnie Hunter and we will be getting started a week from Monday. I should also try to do some more paper piecing for my Indian Orange Peel...

Barn Quit Tour--Wardsville, Ontario

2011-06-14T22:29:00.001-04:00

On Sunday afternoon, my husband, my father and I went on a Barn Quilt tour in and around Wardsville, Ontario.

All of the quilt blocks depicted an aspect of the lives of Margaret and George Ward, the founders of the community of Wardsville, population around 400 people. George fought in the war of 1812 so this soldier block is near the site of the Battle at Longwoods.

Some of the quilt blocks were on barnsand others were on local buildings such as the one below. It is called "Carpenters Square"--George had carpentry skills which he used to build a home for his family and an inn.

Wardsville celebrated their 200th anniversary in 2010 and this Barn Quilt project was their special project to commemorate this occasion.

The Wards were not buried in this cemetery but several of their descendants are and there is a marker with many of the family names on it near this quilt block.

My father and my husband liked reading about the history of Wardsville as we did the tour. They were not as excited about the quilt blocks as I was :-).

One of the Quilt blocks was in Newbury, just north of Wardsville. Newbury's claim to fame is "Skunks Misery", a swampy area with Carolinian forest and many plant, animal and bird species.

Newbury has some very interesting park benches outside their town hall.

We will have to go back and do more exploring in the area again. We did not see any live skunks on our Barn Quilt tour on the weekend!

As part of their bicentennial project, some women in the Wardsville area made a quilt out of the same blocks as on the Barn Quilt trail. Here is a picture of the quilt, taken from their blog. I saw this quilt at the International Plowing Match in St. Thomas/Central Elgin in September of 2010.

If you would like to go on this barn quilt trail, you can get a map and more information at the blog.

Sewing on a Saturday

2011-06-12T13:32:00.000-04:00

I spent much of yesterday sewing at my dining room table. I worked on my spinning 4 patch quilt, adding sashing to each spinning 4 patch. The blocks are not sewn together yet--this is a project for later in the week.

The "red" borders are actually a coral colour. When the quilt is done, I will take a picture of it outside and the colours should be better. I have a piece of the fabric used for the 4 patches for the outer border.

Here is my "Spinning Squirrels and Maggots" quilt made from some very interesting Australian fabric. I still have to add a label, but this one is basically done--ready to give to someone for Christmas! Yes! It is only June, and I have one of my Christmas gifts made!

Thanks again to my handy quilt holder--my husband.

Yesterday, this chipmunk was scampering around our yard. He must have found something good to eat because his mouth was bulging!

I have a table runner just about done as well. I will post a picture after I get the binding on.

Memories of Quilt Ontario--the CQA show in London, Ontario

2011-06-09T23:51:00.000-04:00

Quilt Ontario was held at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario at the end of May. My friend, Karen, and I attended the show and closing banquet. We were not allowed to take pictures at the National Juried show, but I did take this picture of Chistine's Carolina Christmas quilt at the Invitational show--all members of the organizing committee were invited to submit a quilt to this show. Christine and I spent 6 months last year working on our Carolina Christmas quilts together. Mine is not quilted yet, but will be soon.

Christine's quilt is spectacular!

Karen and I volunteered at the banquet so we were able to hear and see "Dala" doing their sound check before dinner. "Dala" is a Canadian folk singing duo from Toronto who have been nominated for a Juno award and they were simply wonderful!

You can see the Leaf Bowls decorating the curtain at the back of the stage (The leaf bowls were designed by a member of the London Friendship Quilters Guild, Jill, aka the Quilt Rat)...There were also leaf bowls with candles in them on the tables...

And, in goodie bags at each place setting filled with thread, fabric, needles, pins, sewing gadgets, and little handmade items from quilters across the country.

Our napkins were even decorated with more gifts!

The meal was wonderful and then, after some presentations, Dala performed for over an hour. They received a well deserved standing ovation. I think I will try to go to one of their concerts sometime. I purchased one of their CD's at the end of the night to listen to in my car.

It was a wonderful day! Many thanks to the CQA and the Local Organizing committee for such a terrific show and entertaining evening.

Spinning 4 Patch Blocks done...finally!

2011-06-07T22:14:00.001-04:00

As you can probably tell, I have not had much time for sewing lately. The gardens and lawn have needed attention and family committments and work have taken up the rest of my time. But, this morning, I decided that tonight I was going to sew my spinning 4 patch blocks together before I went to bed.

I have been sewing off and on most of the evening and here are the fruits of my labour---33 spinning blocks.

I have purchased the sashing for these blocks and it is washed and ready to cut. That is the next job.

Here are a couple of close-ups of a couple of the blocks. I really like them!

I still have some pictures from the CQA Quilt Ontario show in London, Ontario a couple of weeks ago, but blogger is not co-operating to upload any more pictures tonight. I will be back again soon.

A Little QNIC

2011-05-31T22:56:00.001-04:00

Tonight, I went to Chris' house and we had a couple of hours of QNIC. I did not bring my sewing machine with me this time...

I worked on cutting out the squares for another spinning 4 patch quilt. I bought the fabric at Cherished Pieces in Tillsonburg a few weeks ago. I also bought two other fabrics, one blue and one coral, for sashing, but I don't have any pictures of them yet.

Here are my square sets, all ready to sew!

I have enough squares for 34 blocks, but I think I will use 30 of them for the quilt and 4 for a table topper.

Come back soon to see pictures of my blocks!

I also finished hand sewing the binding on my Spinning Squirrels and Maggots quilt. I will take a picture of it outside soon and post a picture.

I have some pictures from the CQA Quilt Ontario show too and will do a post with them soon. By the way, my in-laws loved their pillowcases!

What's New in My Neck of the Woods?

2011-05-26T23:05:00.000-04:00

My computer has been on the fritz for the last few days so I have not been able to download any pictures from my camera...hence, no blogging! My husband got everything back up and running again, so I am back in business.

Last week, the Elgin Piecemakers met and we had a great show and tell. Here are the churn dash blocks that we all made for this month's charity quilt. There are still a few blocks to be handed in so there should be at least 12 for this quilt.

Heather and her partner put the Tennessee blocks together into this quilt top for a chemo patient at our hospital. It still has to be quilted. This should brighten someone's day!

This red and white quilt is now completed and ready to donate. I made the middle block in the bottom row.

There are more quilts in progress and I will post pictures after our June meeting.

Here are some more show and tell quilts... Doesn't this one look like stained glass with the light shining through from the window behind it?

The baby quilt above is a gift for a new baby girl and has a nice soft flannel back.

Chris made this black and white bag with pockets inside.

Pat has been hard at work on her Indian Orange Peel quilt. She has the centre finished and is working on the paper pieced sections for the border. Spectacular!

This past weekend, we spent the weekend at the Tulip Festival in Ottawa. If you click on the link, you can read about why there are so many tulips in Ottawa. There was a tent set up with a quilting frame for people to add a few stitches to this tulip quilt.

The tulip festival area was decorated with lots of tulips that had been painted with various themes. This one is called the Friendship Quilt Tulip.

There were tulips made from Lego!

We even saw some real tulips in many different colours.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day to spend outside. We have not had very many sunny days lately. The weather person on the radio reported that we have had 20 days in May with rain so far this year.

On our way to Ottawa, we stopped in Belleville at "Fun with Stitches" (link in sidebar)--one of my favourite quilt shops, where I bought fabric to make my MIL and FIL pillowcases for their birthdays. My MIL likes sheep so here is here pillowcase which I made last night.

My FIL grew up on a farm and his pillowcase features barnboard fabric and farm animals.

Today, I went to the Quilts of the Netherlands show in Ailsa Craig with my friend Karen after work. I forgot to bring my camera so there are no pictures of the quilts to share. (Sorry!) I bought 5 Dutch fabric FQ's though so here they are...

I love the chicken fabric! There were many beautiful quilts at this show which is on until Saturday. If you are in the area, it is well worth the trip to Ailsa Craig. Karen and I also went to a lecture tonight about Dutch culture, quilts and how the scenery in Holland influences the quilt designs.

This Saturday, I will be going to the Canadian Quilter's Association show in London, Ontario for the day. Is there such a thing as too many quilt shows??? I don't think so!!!

The Next Charity Quilt Block

2011-05-18T22:27:00.003-04:00

This month, I have picked this block, "Filmstrip" out of my new Volume 3 of Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine for the members of the Elgin Piecemakers to make for our charity quilt project. (Quilts for adult chemo patients at our local hospital). I am giving each person in the group the fabric for the 4 1/2 inch square in the middle of the block and then each person can pick two fabrics from their stashes to co-ordinate with it for the little squares. I just used a white on white for the background. Our meeting is tomorrow night so I decided to make my block ahead of time to show everyone. I hope they like it!

It is still raining most days here but we did have a couple of warm sunny days last week. I took some pictures of the flowers that are in bloom in my garden.

My bleeding hearts are blooming like crazy!

These flowers are on our new Fothergilla bush that we planted last summer. It did not bloom last year but is covered in these fluffy white flowers this year.

I picked up my "Spinning Squirrels and Maggots" quilt from the quilter's house last night and made the binding tonight. I hope to finish it this weekend. Pictures to follow.

Spring is in the Air!

2011-05-11T20:50:00.000-04:00

At the April London Friendship Quilters' Guild meeting, one of the members put a pile of magazines she no longer wanted out on a table for members to take home with them. I picked out a couple of the magazines and this is one of them. In it, I found the instructions to make this block which I used to make a Spring table runner for myself.

I picked out 7 charm squares from my Moda "City Lights" charm pack and sewed them together with a 3.5" white border around them.

I then traced the pattern onto the fabric as directed and cut them out. Each square was then twisted as shown below.

I sewed the blocks together and added a narrow yellow border and a wider blue border. I machine quilted it myself--I just do straight line quilting--no fancy free motion quilting!

Here is my completed runner, ready to take to the next guild meeting for show and tell!

My friend, Jacqui, made some of these recently as well. Here is a link to pictures of her twisted runners. These runners are quick and easy to make--I already have another pile of charm squares picked out to make one for a friend!

Red and White Quilts

2011-05-10T20:01:00.000-04:00

Karen at the Selvage Blog recently did a series of blogposts on the Red and White Quilt exhibit in New York City. It was a spectacular show and I was thrilled to be able to visit the show vicariously through Karen's blog. I would have loved to have been able to see the quilts in person!

My MIL and FIL had these quilts at their house and gave them to me quite a while ago. I have been wanting to take pictures of them outside for a few weeks now but the weather did not co-operate until this past weekend. The sun finally came out and I even had two people here to hold the quilts for me while I took pictures!

The quilt below is made from two red print fabrics which I am sure were a brighter red when the quilt was made. These first two quilts are hand-quilted and are still in very good condition. We think all three were made by my husband's great-grandmother.

This spectacular applique quilt top was made in 4 blocks which were then sewn together. The applique stitches are very tiny. It is not quilted yet--I would like to have it quilted by hand some day. It needs some type of border, I think.

You can see my tulips and daffodils blooming in my garden in these pictures. We were supposed to spend this evening outside--cutting the grass, weeding, trimming back last year's perennials in the backyard, etc. but as soon as we were ready to go outside, it started to rain and thunder started to rumble in the distance. So, instead of gardening, I am inside blogging about my red and white quilts! Do you have any red and white quilts to share? I feel inspired to make my own red and white quilt...

A Fun Mother's Day

2011-05-08T22:11:00.000-04:00

Each year, the London Free Press publishes a "Shunpiker Mystery tour" for Mother's day. A Shunpiker is someone who likes to travel on the back-roads. We have been on many tours over the years--sometimes it has been cold and wet and other times, it has been warm and sunny. Today, we were blessed with a warm and sunny day. My father, my in-laws and my husband and I ventured out after lunch for this year's tour. Our first stop was the Canada Southern Railway Station in St. Thomas. This old building, built in 1873, has been lovingly restored over the last several years for office/retail space as well as a lovely room which can acommodate receptions. The renovations are still underway and we have been there several times to view the progress being made. The above picture was taken in the "Men's waiting room". The ladies waited in a separate room so they would not have to listen to the men cussing!

Next, we went to Steed and Company Lavender Farm where we sampled jams, jellies and salad dressings made with lavender. They also sell lavender chocolate as well as soaps and other toiletry items. I felt relaxed just walking through the shop--the lavender smelled heavenly!

We also saw the lavender growing --not in bloom yet. We will have to pay another visit later in the summer.

I loved this windchime which was hanging outside the shop.

The Gay Lee Dairy Heritage Museum was our next stop on the tour. The museum houses a large collection of milk bottles, butter churns, and other dairy farm artifacts.

(Click on the above picture to read about these cream top mild bottles)

The last stop on our tour was the Erie Shores wind farm where we saw 66 wind turbines in action and read about how they work and how the electricity is transported to the grid.

I took this picture of a pussy willow bush coming out into leaf at the side of the road.

The trilliums were out too. For those of you from other places outside Ontario, the trillium is our provincial flower and it grows wild in the woods in this area. Most trilliums are white, but there were some burgandy and pink ones as well.

After the tour, we went out for supper in Tillsonburg and then drove home. A great time was had by all.

Baby Quilt Done

2011-05-04T21:49:00.001-04:00

I finished off this baby quilt tonight. My MIL purchased the kit for this quilt which included the centre panel, the borders and the binding. I sewed it together for her and a friend quilted it for me. My MIL will use it as a baby gift for a friend who is having a baby soon. The binding is black and white gingham. A cute and simple quilt for some little girl!

Many thanks to my favourite quilt holder--my husband!

QNIC with Chris

2011-05-03T22:42:00.000-04:00

Chris came over tonight to do some sewing. Our Elgin Piecemakers Guild continues to make a charity quilt each month for chemo patients at our local hospital. We met last week and everyone handed in their asterisk blocks. This month, we are each going to make a churn dash block (12 1/2") in beige, brown and green. I made my block tonight as you can see above. I also machine sewed the binding onto a baby quilt that I am making for my MIL to give as a gift to someone she knows who had a baby girl recently. I will show a picture of the quilt once I have all the binding on. I got about 1/2 way around the quilt tonight, hand-sewing the binding down. Chris worked on a black, white and pink bag for a cancer fundraiser. She should be able to finish it off tomorrow. I started to organize and cut fabric for a new project using my new layer cake. I will show pictures of it later as well. I didn't get very far on that tonight!

This past weekend, my daughter was home from university for a few days. Exams are done and she had a few days off before she started her summer job. Since she did not make it home for Easter, we had an Easter egg hunt on Saturday morning. Some of the eggs were hidden outside!

On Sunday morning, she made me breakfast in bed for Mother's Day. She won't be home this weekend for Mother's day so it was nice to celebrate a week early. She made me a delicious cornmeal and cheese scone--one of my favourites! She even made it in the shape of a heart!

I feel well loved!

Just Fascinating!!!

2011-04-30T23:30:00.000-04:00

Like many people, my family got up very early on Friday morning to watch Kate Middleton and Prince William's wedding on TV. My sister in law and her daughters were doing the same at their house. Earlier in the week, they paid a visit to the dollar store to purchase some items to make themselves fascinators to wear to celebrate along with the happy couple. Today, they were at my house for supper and they brought their fascinators along to show us.

My SIL wore this one all day on Friday at work--she is a teacher. The children in her class were just fascinated!

The happy couple on her fascinator are having a delicious picnic!!!

Niece 1 wore this lovely creation...

She coloured those KD noodles with an orange marker...

Niece 2 promoted good oral hygiene with her headpiece. I am sure Kate and William brush their teeth often since they have such beautiful smiles!
.

No sewing this week ... I have been too busy with other committments but hope to get back to my machine this coming week.

My Arcs are DONE!

2011-04-22T21:03:00.001-04:00

I have been sewing a little bit most evenings this week as well as this afternoon and I am happy to say that my Indian Orange Peel Arcs are done!---All 120 of them!

I hope sewing up the last of these arcs gives me some momentum to keep working on the paper pieced border sections...still lots of sewing to do. I will have to lay out my blocks on my design floor to see where these arcs fit in.

I also did some mending today--my most un-favourite kind of sewing. At least it is done and not cluttering up my sewing area.

I found a pattern for a cute table runner this week...It is made with a charm pack and I happen to have a Moda charm pack in Spring colours that would work for this pattern. Maybe that will be my next project as I keep working on the paper piecing for the IOP.

Sewing all Weekend...

2011-04-17T19:54:00.000-04:00

I sewed Friday night with Christine and most of the day yesterday as well as this afternoon...and I am pleased to announce that my Blue Ridge Beauty flimsy is done!!! My husband was away for the weekend so I had lots of uninterrupted time to just sit and sew.

It was raining and snowing all afternoon, but after supper, the sun came out so I asked my Dad and my husband to hold my quilt so I could take a picture. My Dad is a little shorter than my husband so the left side of the quilt is a bit lower in the picture!

This picture shows the detail of the borders--all made from leftover 2 1/2" and 4 1/2" strips from making the quilt blocks.

There are lots of memories in this scrappy quilt--places I have visited, friends who have given me strips of fabric, previous projects, and gifts I have made for others. The turtle, rabbit and dragonfly fabrics were purchased from a speaker we had at the London Friendship Quilters' Guild a few years ago. The blue dotty fabric was leftover from my Liberated Wedding Ring quilt which I made from selvages.

The blue daisy fabric was once a window topper in my daughter's room when she was 7 years old. The white fabric with the flowers on it in the middle of the photo was purchased about 25 years ago for a hand-sewn sampler quilt that I never did finish.

My husband did a little shopping on his way home today--he stopped at the Quilt Foundry in Maumee, Ohio and bought me a Moda "Just Wing It" layer cake and a Bali Pops "Blue Hawaiian" jelly roll. He is such a good husband! He was the only man in the store.

Now, I will have to figure out a couple of new projects to use these up!

QNIC/FNSI with Christine

2011-04-15T23:18:00.000-04:00

Christine and I got together tonight for an evening of sewing. I have had a really busy week and have been craving some machine time all week. We sewed for over 3 hours tonight --Christine worked on finishing off a leaf bowl as well as another quilt that she is making as a gift. She top stitched about 30 circles with blanket stitch on her sewing machine. (The thread was green so you can't really see the stitches in this photo.)

I kept working on my Blue Ridge Beauty quilt.

The end is in sight... I have one more row to sew together and attach to the rest of the quilt.

I should be able to finish this off in the morning. I have an idea for a pieced border for this quilt so I can use up my leftover strips from piecing the 120 blocks. I don't want to purchase any fabrics for this flimsy--I will have to get something for the backing though :-).

Look what arrived in the mail this week--I ordered them online with a gift card that I received for Christmas. More inspiration....sigh.....I need more sewing time...

We have a winner!

2011-04-11T21:02:00.000-04:00

Congratulations to Andee in Arizona! She is the winner of one of my fabric postcards! I have already sent Andee an e-mail to let her know that she won and hope to hear from her soon so I can get it into the mail for her!

I am making slow but steady progress on my Blue Ridge Beauty quilt. I will post a picture of the flimsy as soon as it is done.

Blue Ridge Beauty progress and a Postcard Give-away!

2011-04-09T14:11:00.000-04:00

I had this morning to myself so I did some sewing! I put 5 rows together for my Blue Ridge Beauty--there are 12 rows in total so I am almost 1/2 way there...

I am still hoping to finish putting this together by the end of the weekend.

When I finished sewing on the 5th row, my bag of scraps from my Indian Orange Peel started calling out to me.

I had been thinking about making some postcards out of these scraps. I sorted the scraps into warm and cool colours and ironed them onto a piece of timtex. I put some netting over top of the scraps and did some free motion quilting over top to hold everything together.

Three of these postcards have destinations already, but if you would like to win the 4th one, please leave a comment on this post by Monday evening at 7pm EST and I will pick a winner.

To close, here are a few pictures of my garden. It is a beautiful sunny day here today so we are going out to do some yard work this afternoon.

The columbines are coming to life. I love how the leaves unfurl.

Crocuses in my front garden.

The bees were buzzing around these crocuses in the backyard.

Don't forget to leave a comment to win one of the postcards!

Blue Ridge Beauty Layout and some Quilty Mail

2011-04-06T22:20:00.000-04:00

TaDa! I decided to go with layout #3--the large diamonds--for my Blue Ridge Beauty quilt. I had 101 blocks made and after some math to figure out how many I would need to make this a generous queen size quilt, I decided I needed 120 blocks. I made 19 more blocks--I had to cut and sew some more HST units but I had just enough 4 patches made already. In fact, I had one 4 patch leftover when all is said and done. I will use it for my label on the back of the quilt!

None of the blocks are sewn together yet. I want to stare at it a few times to make sure I like the way everything looks. I shuffled a few blocks around tonight where two pieces of the same fabric were touching each other. I have some time to sew on Saturday so maybe I can get all the blocks together then.

I received Quilty mail two days in a row this week! On Monday, I received two books that I had ordered from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville. I have spent lots of time this week pouring over the patterns and ideas in these books and have several projects in mind to work on at some point.

On Tuesday, I received these green charm squares in the mail from Quilter Kathy. I won them in a guessing game on her blog. Thanks Kathy!

That's all for now. Time for bed!

Blue Ridge Beauty Options...

2011-04-02T11:40:00.000-04:00

I have been playing around with my Blue Ridge Beauty blocks on my design floor this morning. I took some pictures to show you the options I have come up with...

This first one is the same as Bonnie Hunter's version--a traditional "Barn Raising" pattern.

This one has dark and light diamonds (I am not using all my blocks in these samples as my design floor has limited space unless I start moving furniture around!)

Here are some larger diamonds:

How about these zig-zags?

A different view of the zig-zags--these look more like giant "W's":

And, last but not least, up arrows...

Obviously, there are many more possibilities, but these are the ones I am considering at the moment.

Please let me know which one (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6) is your favourite by commenting on this blog post. I am open to suggestions...

QNIC at Jacqui's (and a carrot...)

2011-04-01T22:52:00.000-04:00

Last night, Chris and I went to Jacqui's for a little QNIC (Quilting Night in Canada). I worked on some more blocks for my Blue Ridge Beauty Quilt. I put 31 more blocks together last night using most of those HST's I made earlier in the week.

I now have 101 blocks done. I have a few more 4 patches and HST's left to make some more blocks if I need them. Tomorrow, I hope to lay out the blocks on my design floor in a few different configurations to see which one I like the best. I will take some pictures and post them here so you can offer your opinions on the matter. I am open to suggestions...so come back later on tomorrow to see some of the possibilities...

QNIC with Christine

2011-03-29T21:02:00.000-04:00

Last night, Christine and I got together for a little QNIC. We have tried a few times this winter to get together to sew, but the weather has not been very co-operative! Of course, we had some tea and a treat--Cranberry Trail Mix frozen yogurt topped with bananas, strawberries and sugar free chocolate syrup...quite yummy!

I worked on cutting out some HST's for my Blue Ridge Beauty quilt. I am using the easy angle ruler, a la Bonnie Hunter. I started to sew them together last night and finished sewing tonight. I will cut them apart as I watch TV tonight and maybe iron them tomorrow night.

Christine worked on a little Maverick Star block and a pieced backing for a baby quilt.

It was fun to just sit and chat and catch up on all the news.

We hope to get together to sew again soon.

Spring... and a little sewing.

2011-03-27T16:29:00.001-04:00

The crocuses in my garden are starting to bloom and, even though it snowed (again!) this week, they are doing their best to look cheery in the cold...

These daffodils had a thin veil of ice over them after the snow/freezing rain we had this week.

This chipmunk lives in my backyard and he came out for a while before it snowed to take a look at the garden. I have not seen him since it snowed on Wednesday.

This witch-hazel bush was just planted last year and it is in bloom too, although it does not look as happy since it snowed.

The Elgin Piecemakers met at my house this past week. Our next charity quilt will be made from Asterisk blocks from the Selvage Blog. We are each to make 4 6" blocks--two with warm backgrounds and cool asterisks, and two with cool backgrounds and warm asterisks. Heather Stewart will be so proud of us when she finds out we are using the colour theory we learned in our Indian Orange Peel class in our next charity project! I made my blocks today. See this link to the Selvage Blog to see how we are going to set them in a charity quilt or two.

I also finished off two more fabric leaf bowls for the CQA Quilt Ontario Show in May 2011 in London, Ontario.

I may do some more sewing tonight... I will keep you posted.

Indian Orange Peel Class: Part 2

2011-03-19T19:18:00.004-04:00

Today was the big day--we had our second and final Indian Orange Peel class all day.(Here is the post on the first class back in November.) Heather Stewart, our teacher, used one student's 4 patches and arcs to show an example of how to lay the blocks out.

Then, we paired off to help each other with our layouts and distribution of our arcs.

Heather made the rounds and gave everyone advice after looking through her peek hole to make sure we had the colours arranged to encourage the eye to move around each quilt.

It took all morning for each pair to figure out where to put the pieces and then label them all and pin them down to a sheet so we would not forget where they were supposed to be.The first picture below is my quilt.

Each quilt was different from all the rest and really reflected each quilter's personality and preferences.

There was so much eye candy, it was hard to stay focused on my own quilt--I kept wandering around the room to see everyone's progress.

Barb is a real keener and decided to make her quilt 5X7 blocks--she even had her layout figured out before she arrived today!!!

After lunch, Heather taught us how to do curved piecing so we could attach the arcs to each 4 patch.

This proved to be quite challenging and I think everyone had a chance to use their stitch ripper at some point!

Here is my finished block.

We also started making the "kites" and "u's" for the outer border. I finished one kite.

There was lots of sewing going on all afternoon.

Come on back again to check on our progress!

Charity Quilt Top Together

2011-03-16T22:08:00.000-04:00

Chris and I got together tonight to put the red, black and white blocks together for our charity quilt. We had 15 blocks so we laid them out on my "design floor" in a 3X5 layout. Chris brought over some white fabric with small black dots on it which we used for sashing. I found some red in my stash for cornerstones. We decided on a plain black border (more fabric from my stash) and we will use some more of my red fabric for the binding.

Chris was recently in Florida for a month and purchased some dark gray flannel for the back of our quilt. Chris will take the quilt to the quilting man tomorrow so it should be ready for binding soon. Chris will take it over to the hospital chemo unit once I have the binding sewn on. We hope someone finds this quilt a comfort while they take their chemo treatments.

We are both happy to have the top together. We quite like it!

8 more done, 12 to go

2011-03-15T21:23:00.000-04:00

I finished off these 8 arcs tonight and have 12 more started. I will finish the last 12 before Saturday. There is a lot more paper piecing to do before this Indian Orange Peel quilt will be done. We will have to organize some more Arc Support Group Sewing Sessions in the near future!

Red, Black and White

2011-03-14T20:58:00.001-04:00

This block is for the red, black and white charity quilt that Chris and I are making for our local hospital's chemo unit to give to an adult cancer patient. We need 15 blocks for the quilt and 13 blocks were made by guild members. We are each making one extra so we can make our quilt 3X5 blocks. This block is from the Quilter's Cache and is called "Antique Tile". Chris and I are getting together later this week to assemble the top so it can be taken to the quilting man.

I also worked on my last 20 arcs tonight but they are not done yet. I have to finish them by this Saturday when we are having our 2nd Indian Orange Peel workshop. I will post pictures when I have the arcs done.

It Snowed Anyway!

2011-03-12T16:46:00.000-05:00

I thought putting the sign away would make the snow stop...but I was wrong. This is a tree in our neighbourhood yesterday morning.

The snow was very heavy on the branches of this tree. Today, it snowed a bit this morning before changing to rain so everything is melting once again.

Today, I made a cloth book for a friend who recently had a baby.

The family speaks more than one language so this book is perfect to read in both languages!

I am working on my last 20 arcs for my Indian Orange Peel...Stay tuned this week for pictures of these last 20 arcs.

I Won!!!

2011-03-10T21:55:00.001-05:00

I got home from the London Friendship Quilters' Guild meeting tonight to find an envelope hand addressed to me at the front door. I had never heard of the person on the return address label! I opened it up and found a cheque for $50.00 and a note inside. The note read: Please find enclosed the money you won as the 2nd prize in the quilt block challenge. Thank you for participating. It was quite a nice display. We are now making 4 quilts, of those, 2 are finished and 2 are being put together. They look terrific. Louise M., Chair of the Quilt Committee. Prescott and Russell 2011 International Plowing Match and Rural Expo.

I purchased the material to make this block at last September's plowing match in St. Thomas/Central Elgin and made this block to enter into the contest.

Now, I guess I will have to try to go to the plowing match to see the quilts that have been made from all of the blocks entered in the contest! Here is the link to pictures of the three winning blocks. Go to "Country Living" and then "Quilting" and then "Quilt Block Challenge Winners".

Leaf Bowls and a Fabric Postcard

2011-03-09T20:57:00.000-05:00

The London Friendship Quilters' Guild meets this week and I decided to make a postcard for the monthly postcard exchange. Do you need a quilting bee??? I love to get together with my quilting friends to chat and sew. We have not done this lately...we need to get together again soon!

The Canadian Quilters' Asscociation is holding their annual show "Quilt Ontario" in London in May this year. The call has gone out for volunteers to make these leaf bowls, designed by the Quilt Rat, for the banquet. Each person at the banquet will receive a leaf bowl with some quilting goodies in it. I made two bowls this week and hope to make a few more to donate to the cause.

By the way, since I put my "Let it Snow" sign away, we have had lots of rain and only a few flakes of snow! I think it is working!!!

I am so sorry...it is all my fault!

2011-03-08T19:24:00.001-05:00

Back in early December, I decorated my house with all my snowmen and Christmas stuff. I put this sign up on my mantle, quite innocently, but it worked. The day after I put it up, the snow started and we just keep getting more and more snow. Even though we have had a couple of thaws, it snowed again and again, and now the ground is still white.

I just want everyone to know that I have put my sign and all my snowmen away in a bin in the basement. I am sorry I left them out so long...

I need to get a "Welcome Spring" sign to put up on my mantle...

I hope to see some of these soon:

I saw some green shoots in the spot where these grow during the last thaw.

Quilt 'til You Wilt!

2011-02-26T21:03:00.002-05:00

Today was the London Friendship Quilters' Guild "Quilt 'til You Wilt". Karen and I were keeners and arrived just before 8am to set up our sewing machines. Karen worked on Indian Orange Peel arcs all day and managed to make a lot of progress finishing 30 arcs bringing her total to 80! She has started another 20 so soon will be at the 100 mark!

I worked on my Blue Ridge Beauty blocks and got quite a few done. I think I will make this quilt queen size so I still have more blocks to make. The pattern is by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville.com.

I have bits and pieces of every blue fabric I have ever owned in this quilt!

I decided to start a new project this afternoon. I have been intrigued by Tonya Ricucci's free pieced letters so I tried out a few from some food fabric that I have in my stash.

My husband gave me Gwen Marston's Liberated Quilts II book for Christmas so I made some liberated baskets to go with my FRESH letters. I think there needs to be some borders between the FRESH part and the baskets so I will have to see what I can come up with.

This project made me hungry! Luckily, we were well fed all day! (and we did not have to do the dishes!)

I also pieced my block for the next Elgin Piecemakers' guild Chemo Quilt.

Today was a great day!

You can see more pictures of our QTYW day on the London Friendship Quilters' Guild Blog soon.

Elgin Piecemakers Guild Report

2011-02-25T21:06:00.001-05:00

If you have been reading my blog, you know that I belong to a small guild called the Elgin Piecemakers. We make quilts for chemo patients at our local hospital as an outreach project. Each month, we make a block for a chemo quilt--the picture above shows the red and white blocks made into a quilt top. The picture below shows our blue and white blocks--Both of these tops have been delivered to the machine quilter and they will soon be ready to deliver to the chemo unit.

This month, we all made Tennessee blocks and 13 blocks were brought to our meeting.

Two of our members brought these home to make into a top. They will likely make 3 more blocks and then make it 4X4 so that the star pattern shows up. (See the bottom right 4 blocks)

Chris and I are going to put the black, red and white blocks together. We might have to make a couple more to have a 3X5 layout.

Pat gave us each a bag with the pieces already cut for our next blocks. She has really raised the bar for the next person to pick a pattern!

We had a show and tell of arcs last night. Here are Heather's 4 patches and arcs.

And here are Beth's:

Jacqui has all 120 done!

Yvonne has lots done too!

Check out the hot chili peppers in this one!

Keep an eye on Pat's blog for what she does with her sewing garbage.

I plan on doing some sewing tomorrow so stay tuned for another update...

Chemo Quilt Block

2011-02-21T17:48:00.001-05:00

This month, the Elgin Piecemakers are all making the same block in Spring colours for our charity quilt. I found the pattern on Quilter's Cache. This block is called "Tennessee". I used some leftover charm squares to make my block. The blocks will be given to two members of the guild to put together into a top which will then be quilted and donated to our local hospital for adult chemo patients. Pat is hosting the meeting this month and just sent out a reminder e-mail for everyone to make their blocks...it is a good thing she did this or it might have slipped my mind...

100

2011-02-19T21:00:00.000-05:00

I have been working away on 15 arcs most evenings this week and today, I finally finished them off! I now have 100 arcs done which means I have all of the homework done for the next class. There are still 20 more arcs in the border of the quilt. I may try to get them done too but now I feel like I can give myself permission to work on something else for a change of pace.

This is going to be a very colourful quilt!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-13T20:45:00.000-05:00

I made this pillow case for my husband for Valentine's Day. Way back (27 years ago...) when we started dating, I gave him some Hershey's kisses. I saw this fabric in January at The Quilt Rack in Ancaster and immediately decided that it would make a perfect Valentine's gift! I gave him the pillow case today so he could use it tonight. He is sure to have sweet dreams now!

More arcs...85 done now!

2011-02-12T16:41:00.001-05:00

I started these 15 arcs at Jacqui's last weekend. I started to work on them one evening this week, but my iron died (Yikes!) so I could not finish them off until today. I had a spare iron in the basement--it was in hiding so I had to find it before I could sew again. My husband found it, thankfully, so I was able to finish these arcs off today.

My piles of arcs are looking quite impressive. This represents a lot of sewing!!

You can see that there are two types of arcs in this quilt-half have "warm" coloured teeth and the other half have "cool" coloured teeth. Personally, I prefer white teeth...

I have started another 15 arcs--100 arcs must be done in time for the second Indian Orange Peel workshop in March. There are another 20 arcs like this in the border so I am going to try to get them done before the class as well. I would like to spend my time at my guild's "Quilt 'til You Wilt" day working on anything but arcs!--Perhaps my Blue Ridge Beauty quilt...

I Gotta GO!

2011-02-10T23:05:00.001-05:00

I celebrated yet another birthday earlier this week. My daughter is home for a week from university later this month so we will do the big family dinner/celebration when she is home but my husband did give me my birthday gift on the actual day of my birthday (and he took me out for supper too!). He bought me a GO!

I have been looking at the Accuquilt GO in stores and on the internet for quite a while and decided that I would like one. He has also seen the GO in the quilt stores when we were doing a shop hop together. Last night, my friend Karen and I tried it out and I made this little block.

I also made a post card for our guild postcard exchange this month. I have not made a postcard in quite a while!

The heart blocks that I made for the Quilted Table Yahoo group swap arrived safely to the swap queen's house and have been sorted out and mailed out to all the participants in the swap. I wonder where my new heart blocks will come from??? I will post a picture when they arrive.

This weekend, I plan on working on more arcs...

I may dream a bit about what dies I would like to have for my GO as well...

If you have a GO and you have some favourite dies, let me know!

Arc Support Retreat at Jacqui's

2011-02-05T22:34:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week, Christine and I got together one evening to work on arcs for our Indian Orange Peel Quilts. I started working on 10 more arcs and Christine got started on a few as well.

Last night, 7 of us got together to work on arcs at Jacqui's house. We sewed and sewed and then stopped for a delicious supper of pad thai, salad and dessert. After supper, I finished off the 10 arcs that I started earlier in the week and started 12 more before heading home for bed.

I got up early this morning to make some "Bananaberry Bombs"--Banana Blueberry muffins (The recipe is from Looneyspoons by Janet and Greta Podleski) so that I could take them to Jacqui's when they were still warm. We were well fed all day again--muffins, fruit, tea and coffee for morning snack; homemade turkey soup, fresh bread and buns, fruit and vegies and some sweet stuff for lunch and then cheese and crackers, more fruit, tea and coffee as well as leftover desserts in the afternoon.

Lots of sewing and chatting took place all day as the 8 of us sewed and ironed and trimmed our arcs. Everyone's arcs are a bit different depending on colour and fabric choices. It will be fun to see how all of the quilts turn out!

I finished off the 12 arcs that I started the night before for a total of 22 completed arcs.

I started another batch of 15 arcs which I will try to finish this week. I have 80 arcs completely done. I am well on my way to finishing off the 120 I need to have done before mid March for the second workshop. At this workshop, we will learn how to do the curved piecing to put our blocks together and how to lay out our blocks for the best visual effect. We will also get started on paper piecing the units for the border. This is a very labour intensive quilt but it is nice to know that we are there to support and encourage each other as we work on this project!

Here is a bag of my trimmings from doing my arcs. I have a project in mind for these.

I will try to finish off my other arcs later this week. I am hoping to have them done shortly so that I can do some other projects before the 2nd class for this quilt in mid-March.

An afternoon to myself...

2011-01-30T21:46:00.000-05:00

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

2011-01-25T21:32:00.000-05:00

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!

The Cozy Quilter

*Asterisk* Charity Quilt

Charity Quilt Blocks and a Birthday Surprise!

I am all caught up!

Merry Christmas! and Welcome Spring!

What do you think?

Hexagon Progress

I must be CRAZY!

A New Year and a New Project!

Red, Black and White Block

I've been away...

My New Sister!

Christmas Gifts Done!

Sewing Day :-)

Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll--Getting closer to being done!

I couldn't sleep this morning...

It was a Pillowcase Sweatshop!

A Postcard and Elgin Piecemakers Charity Quilts

We Have a Winner!

Give-away! "37 Sketches" by Gwen Marston

Quilt 'til You Wilt Report

Weekly Sewing Report

Slow and Steady Progress

This and That

10 blocks done!

RRCB sewing

Sewing for Charity and some more Baskets

Show and Tell at BIQR

BIQR: What I Made...

Back from BIQR!

600 HST's Done!

QNIC with Christine

227

Slowly but surely...

Back to Blogging...

14 more!

Stringing along...

RRCB progress

Elgin Piecemakers' Bee Day and more String Blocks

QNIC and some string blocks for RRCB

Part of Step 7 of RRCB

RRCB progress...Steps 2 and 4 done.

This and That...

Pillowcases done! Now on to a New Project...

Pillowcases and a Twister Runner

Barn Quit Tour--Wardsville, Ontario

Sewing on a Saturday

Memories of Quilt Ontario--the CQA show in London, Ontario

Spinning 4 Patch Blocks done...finally!

A Little QNIC

What's New in My Neck of the Woods?

The Next Charity Quilt Block

Spring is in the Air!

Red and White Quilts

A Fun Mother's Day

Baby Quilt Done

QNIC with Chris

Just Fascinating!!!

My Arcs are DONE!

Sewing all Weekend...

QNIC/FNSI with Christine

We have a winner!

Blue Ridge Beauty progress and a Postcard Give-away!

Blue Ridge Beauty Layout and some Quilty Mail

Blue Ridge Beauty Options...

QNIC at Jacqui's (and a carrot...)

QNIC with Christine

Spring... and a little sewing.

Indian Orange Peel Class: Part 2

Charity Quilt Top Together

8 more done, 12 to go

Red, Black and White

It Snowed Anyway!

I Won!!!

Leaf Bowls and a Fabric Postcard

I am so sorry...it is all my fault!

Quilt 'til You Wilt!

Elgin Piecemakers Guild Report

Chemo Quilt Block

100

Asterisk Charity Quilt