Flimsy Finish!

I put the borders on my "Spinning Flying Squirrels and Maggots" quilt today. I had purchased extra fabric to use for borders. This flimsy is ready to go to the quilter's except that I don't have any fabric for the back yet. :-(

I also finished quilting my fall table runner and sewed the binding on. About half of the hand sewing is done on the binding--I will finish it tonight and post a picture of the finished runner tomorrow. I went out to the local sewing store (NOT a quilting shop) and bought some bright orange thread to quilt the children's charity quilt. I will work on this project later this week too.

Sewing with Christine

This is Daisy.
And, this is Piper. Piper and Daisy are Christine's dogs. Last Friday afternoon, I went to Christine's house and we worked on our Carolina Christmas quilts. Daisy and Piper supervised. Daisy licked my toes and my legs while I sewed. Mostly, they slept on the floor near us.

Christine and I were both working on Step 3 and both of us finished off the sewing for this step. Here is Christine's red and neutral chain behind her sewing machine.

And here is my orange and neutral pile.
I cut my chain apart and made a neat pile, ready to trim off the bonus HST's (I am just going to put them into a zip lock bag and bury them, out of sight!) and press.
We are getting together again later this week to sew step 4. Our homework this week--trimming and pressing step 3 and also cutting out the pieces for step 4.

I got my spinning squirrels and maggots blocks sewn together last week and found the material I had purchased for the borders. My UFO goals for this week--put borders on two quilts (Fractured Squares and Spinning Squirrels and Maggots) and finish off my fall table runner. If I have time, I can always quilt my children's charity quilt from a few posts back as well. Lots to do!

By the way, my selvage sewing stool cover is featured on the Selvage Blog today! Take a look!

Easily Distracted...

I have been working hard lately to finish off some old UFO's, AND, I have been making progress on this goal. My guild is having their biannual quilt show this fall, and I want to have some of these projects finished to put into the show. I have to confess that yesterday and today, I fell off the UFO wagon and started a new project.My zip lock bag of bonus triangles from completing the first half of step 3 of Bonnie Hunter's Dec 2009 Carolina Christmas quilt was sitting on the table in front of my sewing machine. (There is a pile of bonus triangles in the lower left of the picture above--aren't they pretty?) In my last post you can see how I played with a few of them at last week's QNIC (Quilting Night in Canada) at Jacqui's house. I put them away that evening, intending to leave them in the little zip lock bag, unpressed and untrimmed until I finished my Carolina Christmas quilt. BUT, they kept calling my name, until earlier this week, I took out a few and ironed them. I put them back in the bag. Then, decided to iron a few more and trim off the dog ears. Soon, all of them were ironed and trimmed. Yesterday, I thought I would just lay out one block and sew it together. I did not have a lot of time to sew yesterday so this was a welcome break from the paperwork project I was working on. Pretty soon, I had 4 blocks completed.
Today, I sat down to eat breakfast and those blocks were sitting on the table, staring at me again. I thought that today, I should just make 4 more to go with yesterday's 4. I made 5. Then, I started looking in my stash for sashing and corner blocks... I liked the navy blue with the orange corner blocks.
Before I knew it, I had the whole thing pieced and ready for quilting!
I have put the rest of the bonus HST's back into the zip lock bag and have put them away, out of sight. Now, I must get back to those UFO's....

QNIC at Jacqui's

Last night, Karen, Jacqui and I had a QNIC (Quilting Night in Canada) at Jacqui's house. I started this spinning 4 patch quilt last Summer and never finished putting borders on all of the 4 patches. Last night, I finished off the blocks and then put them up on Jacqui's design wall to see how they would look! This quilt will be called Spinning Flying Squirrels and Maggots" since the fabric I used for the 4 patches has these critters on it. It looks so benign from far away but when you get a close up view, it is a different story! I will work on sewing the blocks together over the next few days.
Jacqui worked on a black and white quilt that will be a wedding gift for a wedding later this summer.
Karen is making a table runner from a charm pack for her Mother.
After snack time (delicious blueberry bread with fresh raspberries and blueberries on top), I played with the bonus HST's from my Carolina Christmas quilt that I am making with Christine. I am thinking of making a mini sampler quilt with all of these 2" HST's. Here are a few potential blocks...

Wedding Gift

My husband and I are going to a wedding on Saturday. The daughter of some friends is getting married. I decided to make their wedding gift--a table runner. I am told their dishes are blue so I think this table runner will do the trick. I bought this fabric ages ago and found it while rooting around in my stash yesterday for something that would go with the blue dishes. I cut it out, pieced it using a Triple Star block pattern that I found on the internet, added some sashing and borders, machine quilted it, mostly in the ditch, and voila! Here is another picture of the runner, modeled by my lovely daughter.

I sure hope they like it! If they don't, they can give it back and I will use it here!

A Winter Finish! (In July!)

I spent much of today sewing, but before I could get started, I had to load some bobbins up so I would not have to stop to do this later.Last December, I made several table runners and placemats with mittens on them. The placemats were donated to Meals on Wheels and the table runners were gifts. At the time, I started a mitten table runner for myself, and never did finish it. I found it languishing in a pile of UFO's in my sewing room last week and decided to finish it now so that I can put it out on display this winter!
In the same pile of UFO's, I also found a Fall Runner which I pieced last Summer for myself but never finished. I made two other Fall runners as gifts for others and they were done on time, but not the one for me. Today, I quilted my runner and plan on putting the binding on it tomorrow. I will post a picture when I am done. There are more projects waiting to be completed as well...stay tuned.
Christine and I got together tonight for a 3 hour sewing session to work on our Carolina Christmas Bonnie Hunter Mystery quilts. We are about 1/2 done Step 3. We have decided to sew our bonus HST's as we go along so we will have to come up with a project for them later. For now, they are going into zip-loc bags, awaiting inspiration (and time!) Here are my units so far--I have just started to do the trimming. Here is a picture of Christine's progress.
Again, we gave ourselves some homework to do before we get together again next week--trim and press everything we have sewn for Step 3 so far. We hope to finish sewing our Step 3 units next week.

Happy Canada Day!

After going for a walk with my husband this morning after breakfast, I decided to do a little sewing. I purchased an antique sewing stool from Jacqui a while ago and wanted to recover it. I have a whole drawer full of selvages that I have been saving for over a year and this was a perfect project to dig into them.
I cut out a fabric foundation the right size to cover the stool and started to sew. I tried to pick brightly coloured selvages and even found some with a quilting/sewing theme--very appropriate for a stool for my sewing room.






Here is my "new" stool with my grandmother's sewing machine.
And here is what is blooming in my garden...




Jacqui just made a selvage project too...take a look! I think I need to make one of these too!