A Finish!

I put the binding on this little quilt the other night. I have been very busy lately--not much sewing time. I have 3 more quilts to bind before next Thursday night so I will have them ready for show and tell at the London Friendship Quilters' Guild meeting. I will be spending my evening tonight getting ready for Quilt 'til You Wilt tomorrow. It runs from 8am to 9 pm and I have big plans to finish a lot of UFO's!

A Parcel in the Mail

Back in September, I signed up for the Inchie Quilts Christmas Ornament Swap. I have not made my ornaments to send to my swapee yet, but I received mine in the mail this past week, all the way from Texas! They are very nice and I look forward to hanging them on my tree. Charis also sent me a little cross stitch kit and two fat quarters. Thanks Charis!!! I will put a special thank you gift in the mail tomorrow!

In case you did not know, an Inchie is a 1 inch by 1 inch quilt that is often embellished with beads or buttons or embroidery or special quilting. I have never made any Inchies before and thought this would be a good opportunity to give it a try. I am supposed to mail my Inchie Ornaments before the end of November. They are next on my list of sewing projects after I get the binding on the quilts I just got back from the machine quilters. I want to have something to show at show and tell at the next guild meeting...

Workshop: Disappearing 9 Patch

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

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

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

Back from the Longarmers...

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

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

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

Bye for now!

Preparing for a Disappearing 9 Patch workshop

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

Christmas Lights Layout Winner

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

Here are the results:

Option 1- 11 votes

Option 2- 18 votes

Option 3- 35 votes.

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

Thanks again for your help!

Maggots and Flying Squirrels!

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

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

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

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