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

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!

Back to Blogging...

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... 

The End of the Story (Almost!)

There once were two friends, Gail and Christine, who decided to each make Bonnie Hunter's Carolina Christmas quilts together.  This quilt looked quite daunting to both of them and neither one of them thought they would ever complete this quilt without a support group!  So, Gail and Christine gathered up the fabrics that they would use to make these scrappy quilts. Christine decided to use green, gold, red and neutrals for her quilt and Gail picked out orange, brown, blue and neutral scraps from her stash. They decided to try to get together once a week to work on their quilts. 

Their first sewing night was in April 2010 when they started to cut the pieces needed for step one of this seven step mystery. Every week, they gave each other homework to complete before they got together to sew again. Sometimes, life and work and stuff got in the way of their weekly get togethers but they persevered and continued to meet most weeks. Sometimes, they sewed at Gail's house and sometimes they stitched at Christine's. Slowly, but surely, progress was made and the small pieces became sub-units and the sub-units became blocks and the blocks became larger blocks and the larger blocks became the center of the quilt and then the borders were added...

Fast forward to today!  November 8, 2010! Today, Christine and Gail got together at  Gail's house and finished putting their final pieced borders onto their quilts!  Christine was finished hers first. She tried

and tried

and tried to hold it up for Gail to take a picture but she was just too small and the quilt was just too big!

Gail finished her borders as well and they tried laying the quilts out on the sofa and love seat in Gail's living room but only part of the quilts showed--they were too big for the furniture in Gail's living room too!

Then Gail had a great idea!  She got on the phone and called her neighbour, Mary. Mary was available to come over and help hold the quilts for the official photographs!  It was a beautiful sunny day so they did the pictures outside. Here is Christine's quilt:

And here is Gail's Quilt, which she is calling  "Creamsicles by the Sea":

Gail chose to do her pieced borders in a slightly different way than the pattern suggested so she could have an orange frame around her quilt.

This is not really the end of the story for these quilts--Now Gail and Christine have to get fabric for the backs and have them quilted by a long arm quilter... Stay tuned for the happy and final end to the story...

If you want to see pictures of the whole story of this quilt, click here!

Slow but steady Carolina Christmas Progress...

Christine and I got together yesterday morning to continue working on our Carolina Christmas quilts. Christine finished getting all of her blocks together. I love the colours and fabrics that she is using.

I finished sewing my 25 blocks together yesterday. Christine and I are going to get together in a couple of weeks to work on the borders together. She is going to get her quilt to this stage before we meet again.  The end is in sight for this project. We both hope to finish these tops before the end of November when we have both signed up for an Indian Orange Peel workshop. After the workshop, we will be getting together to work on the paper piecing for this very challenging and interesting project! 

I will do another post shortly about the workshop I participated in on Saturday.

Sewing with Jacqui

I spent Friday morning at Jacqui's house. I worked on putting some more blocks together for my niece's PJ quilt and I put together a second row of my Carolina Christmas quilt. This one takes a while because of all of the seams to match up. There are lots of star points that I don't want to cut off too. Here I am with my first two rows done. I am loving the way this quilt is coming together. So far, I am uninspired as to what to call this quilt. If you have any ideas, leave a comment. If I use your idea, I will send you a surprise in the mail...

Jacqui worked on quilting her Friendship Braid quilt. She and I each made a Friendship Braid lap quilt for our local hospital chemo ward. My quilt is off at the machine quilters being quilted. I hope to have it back soon so I can get the binding onto it.We are supposed to bring our finished quilts to our next Elgin Piecemakers Quilt Guild meeting later this month. I will take pictures of everyone's quilts at that time and do a blog post about them.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my Canadian readers! I have lots to be thankful for--my family and my friends are at the top of the list.

Sewing with Jacqui

This morning, Jacqui came over and we did a little sewing. Jacqui worked on machine quilting a table topper--she wants to get it done in time for our London Friendship Quilters' Guild show on October 1st and 2nd. She did not get it finished but it is well on its way to being done.

I worked on finishing up the units for the border of my Carolina Christmas quilt. (I really should come up with another name for this quilt--I am not using Christmas fabrics!)  I still have to finish putting my blocks together before I can add the border.

After Jacqui left, I decided to make a selvage thread catcher for myself. I have had the pattern for a while and I had even decided which fabrics to use.  I used some sewing themed fabrics for my project and fussy cut the pincushion fabric so the yellow and green pincushion would show when it was done.

I think I am going to work on some Christmas gifts now--I won't be able to show any pictures as some of the recipients read my blog. Happy sewing!

How I Spent my Morning...

I spent my morning at Christine's house where we were working on piecing the borders of our Carolina Christmas quilts. We each got about 1/2 of the units done and hope to get the rest done before we get together again in a few weeks. Both of us are still working on putting the blocks together for the middle of the quilt as well. I have one row of 5 blocks put together.

We have already decided that we are going to work on another quilt together after we finish this one. We have a couple of ideas about what the next project might be.

My mums are in full bloom in the backyard garden--they are a nice bright spot in the garden at the moment. I had company yesterday and scurried around in the morning to decorate the house for fall before everyone arrived. Here is my table centerpiece:

I also put out my new Fall table runner on the trunk that we use as a coffee table in our living room.

I received a fabric postcard in the mail today from another quilter in the London Friendship Quilters' Guild. I had put one of my postcards into the mailbox at the last meeting. Isn't it pretty?

Finally working on the borders!

Christine and I got together today and spent a few hours cutting out the pieces for the borders of our Carolina Christmas quilts. Neither one of us have our blocks sewn to each other yet so that will be our homework this week. I have started to sew some of my blocks together and will post a picture when I get it done.

Here are my pieces:
And here are Christine's:


I made another selvage sewing stool--this time in fall colours. I ran out of staples before finishing off the corners so they will look better when the corners are pulled tight and stapled.
Erin at My Patchwork Life asked for a sneak peak at my Gee's Bend Challenge quilt. I have finished hand piecing the flimsy--it is just a small wall hanging. Now, I am working on the hand quilting. I must tell you that it is very difficult to hand quilt corduroy and denim!
Bye for now!

A Mini Finish

Funny as it may seem, considering the size of this mini quilt, I had this quilted by a long arm quilter. Each block has a different quilted "medallion" on it and there are double loops in the outside border. The quilting was done with orange thread and I added the orange binding this afternoon. It is all ready for the quilt show now! I even have the label on! I love the bright colours and how they contrast against the navy sashing and border. (Thanks to my husband for being my quilt holder. He does a great job and is quite experienced!) This quilt was made from leftover HST units from my Carolina Christmas quilt which is still in the piecing stage...

I took this picture this afternoon of a hibiscus flower in my garden. My MIL gave me this bush a few years ago and it never fails to provide a lovely show of these dinner plate sized pink flowers late in the summer.

More Homework...

I hope everyone had a good long weekend! My husband and I got our daughter off to university on Friday and then spent the weekend doing odd jobs (gardening, grass cutting, caulking windows, etc) here and at his parents' house (trimming trees and bushes, installing a small decorative fence, installing a small patio for their garden bench, replacing electrical outlets and switches, fixing a leaky faucet, installing a new light fixture (partly, anyway!), etc.) Much was accomplished and my in-laws were pleased to have all those tasks off of their list of things to do.
It's warm and windy here today. I went outside with my camera to check on what's in bloom. I noticed lots of beans, broccoli and peppers ready in the garden. I will have to go back out in a few minutes to do some harvesting! Anyway, our Sedum is out in bloom and this bee is enjoying the pink flowers.

This orange Mum plant is just about in bloom.
Our Rose of Sharon is also looking good!

Today, I worked on some more of my Carolina Christmas homework. I have the Fox and Geese blocks done. Now, I should get back out to the garden to do some harvesting before it starts to rain.

By the way, I did a little work on my Gee's Bend Challenge quilt on the weekend. It is all hand sewn and cut with scissors rather than a rotary cutter. So far, so good! I can't reveal my project until the group gets together to show their projects in October.

Doing my Homework.

This morning, I did some of my Carolina Christmas homework. I put 12 of these 16 inch blocks together and pressed them. This quilt also has 13 of the Fox and Geese X4 blocks in it so they are next in line to be sewn into the 16 inch blocks. That may have to wait a few days as I am helping my daughter to get ready to leave for her 2nd year at university for the next couple of days.

I registered 9 quilts and quilted items for the London Friendship Quilters' Guild "Harvest of Quilts" show yesterday afternoon. This took a while as I had to measure everything to make sure it was in the correct category and then fill out the forms (online) , save them and e-mail them to the person in charge of making the labels for the quilts in the show. Some of the quilts did not have names yet so I had to get the creative part of my brain in gear to come up with those. I noted that I have to do sleeves and labels on some of the quilts. I put one sleeve on a large quilt today while waiting for my daughter at the dentist's office. I didn't take a picture of the sleeve! I am reusing sleeves from other quilts that are now on beds instead of making new sleeves for the big quilts.

I am off to make supper now. We are eating fresh veggies out of the garden everyday now--tonight it is broccoli. Last night, we had green beans. They taste soooo good when they are just picked!

Carolina Christmas is coming together...

Christine and I got together to sew this evening and we finished off step 5 of Bonnie Hunter's pattern! After sewing the last of our poinsettia star blocks together tonight, we pressed them and laid them out on my "design floor" to see how they look. Both of us are making the full sized quilts but there was only room to lay out 9 large blocks of each quilt. Here are Christine's blocks:
And here are mine:
We have decided to get together again in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, we will work on our own to get our blocks all sewn together. We will work on our pieced borders in a couple of weeks. The end is in sight! Tonight, we even discussed how we might get them quilted!