A Few Odds and Ends (and a quilt show!)

Just because I have not posted much lately does not mean I have not been sewing. Today was the Shedden Quilt show and I put 5 quilts into the show. I have spent much of my sewing time in the last couple of weeks putting sleeves onto the quilts that were in the show. Hanging sleeves do not make for very interesting pictures or blogposts! Here are the 5 quilts that I had in the show:

This one is my version of Bonnie Hunter's "Blue Ridge Beauty"--I called my quilt "Feeling Blue".

"This Makes Me Dizzy"--my hexagon quilt.

My recently finished "Fractured Squares".

I gave this quilt to my in-laws--"Country Spin".

Me and my "Creamsicles by the Sea" quilt.

This was one of my favourite quilts in the show--it was made from 30's prints and was hand quilted. The colours are fresh and bright on the white background!

This one was made by a fellow member of the Elgin Piecemakers as a memory quilt. The blue fabrics are recycled jeans.

Christine and I got together on Wednesday last week and while I worked on my sleeves and my mystery quilt, Christine made this table topper flimsy from leftovers from a quilt she made for her son--a very nice use of her extra bits!

I picked up a small quilt from the long arm quilters this week and hope to get the binding on it tonight. Pictures to follow.

Happy sewing!

I've been away...

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.

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... 

Sewing all Weekend...

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

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...

Blue Ridge Beauty progress and a Postcard Give-away!

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

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...

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...)

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

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.