Last Minute Block

Last night, I hosted the May meeting of the Elgin Piecemakers.  Our comfort quilt blocks this month were to be made with polka dot fabrics. At 10:30 pm on Wednesday night, I realized that I had not made my block yet...Yikes!  Luckily, all my polka dot fabrics are kept in one drawer in my fabric storage area so I picked out three fabrics and then went through a few magazines to look for some block inspiration.  I was looking for something easy so it would not take too long to cut out the pieces or sew the block.  I ended up with what you see above.  Whew!  I was done by 11pm.

Here are all the blocks that were brought to the meeting last night. 

There were a few people missing last night so we are short a few blocks so the members making this quilt will wait until they receive them to put it together.

We had a few comfort quilts finished or nearly finished on display last night as well.

These quilts will be donated to the adult chemo unit at our local hospital.  It is always fun to see how the blocks we make each month are transformed with some sashing and cornerstones into beautiful quilts!

My husband and I visited our daughter last weekend. She moved to a new apartment earlier this year and this was my first time seeing it.  I brought my sewing machine along as her drapes were all too long and pooling on the floor.  I had to move the furniture away from each window and then pin the drapes to the right length in place followed by ironing the hem, trimming and pinning before setting my sewing machine up on a small table or the ironing board and sewing the hem.

This is not my usual sewing set up, but I managed to get 8 drapes shortened, all to the same length, and they look much better!

The quilt in the foreground is the one I made for my daughter when she started university.

The quilt on her bed was her graduation gift when she finished university.  She picked the pattern and fabrics for both quilts.

I am hoping to have some time for some quilting this weekend...we shall see.  

My Daughter's Quilt--binding!

This is the binding for my daughter's graduation quilt.  Last weekend, I sewed it to her quilt by machine.

My friend, Cathy, did the longarm quilting --the pattern is called "Mayflower".  My daughter chose it when she was home in May.

One of the fabrics in the quilt has daisies on it so this quilting pantograph is perfect!

This week, I started to do the hand stitching on the binding.  This will take a while as it is a queen sized quilt.  So far, I have two sides stitched and I have turned two corners...I will keep sewing as I watch the Olympics on TV and ride in the car.    Happy Slow Sunday Stitching!

This week's sewing report

I have been working on a few projects this past week.  These friendship star blocks are for comfort quilts for the London Friendship Quilter's Guild.  They are not entirely sewn together here today but they are done now.  I just did not take a picture of the completed blocks!!!

This is 20x20" and is for the Elgin Piecemaker's Charity project--chemo quilts for adult chemo patients at our local hospital.  We are each making one block and will hand them in at our September meeting.  They will be cut in half both ways to make 10x10" squares which will be reassembled to make a quilt.  We were told to use red, white, yellow and blue strips of fabric.  I took mine out of my scrap bins.

Last night, I make the backing for my daughter's graduation quilt and this morning, I made the label using the selvages from the fabrics in her quilt.

This one says "The big bad wolf only has eyes for L'il Red".  It is called Grandmother's Wallpaper.

Hugs and Kisses for my daughter.  She graduated from university over a year ago from university but took a while picking a pattern and fabrics for her quilt.

Her fabric choices took me a bit outside my box...

Here is the label sewn by hand to the backing which is a brushed cotton...nice and soft.  I have to take this to the long arm quilter this week.   I just need to get the batting cut off my roll of batting.

I am linking to Kathy's slow Sunday stitching link up.

I hope to quilt another quilt this week. 

Progress and Some Slow Sunday Stitching

My crocuses are in bloom so it must be Spring!  The daffodils are in bud but no flowers yet...maybe by next week.

I have spent some time most days working on my daughter's graduation quilt.  I finished the first half last week.

This week, I have been working on the mirror image which will go to the right side of the half shown above.

2/3 of the second half is done.  Only 10 more rows to go.  With any luck, I will be able to finish this off this week.  I still need to get some fabric for the backing --my daughter wants a flannel backing.  I have ordered a new 40 yard roll of batting.  I have run out again...I find it easier to just buy a roll and then I don't have to keep going out to buy batting.  This will be my 4th roll...

I took my chicken quilt to Cathy at Eagle's Wings quilts a few weeks ago and picked it up yesterday.  Today, I did a poll with some friends to see what colour I should use for the binding.

After all the votes were counted  (6 people weighed in with their opinions...), red won!

This afternoon, I machine sewed the binding to the front of the quilt. Tomorrow, I will do the hand sewing for my Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy and the other hand stitchers.

I know this picture is upside-down, but it shows the custom quilting that Cathy and I decided on...

There are eggs quilted into the chicken wire border.

With any luck, I should have a finished quilt for show and tell at our Elgin Piecemaker's Guild meeting on Thursday night.

Sewing Day at Home

I have had a whole day to myself today and spent most of the day down in my sewing room. I worked on my daughter`s quilt most of the day. Some cutting, some sewing, some pressing and more sewing...all while listening to CBC podcasts.  Blissful!

 

I managed to make 10 rows today.  The top 10 rows were finished and sewn together earlier this week, so today, I doubled the size!

 I still have to sew the bottom 10 rows together and then join them to the top section. This represents a third of the quilt top.  As you can see, my design wall is full, floor to ceiling!   I need to do some more cutting before starting to sew the next set of rows for this quilt.

Tonight, I did some hand stitching while watching the Brier--the men`s national curling championship for Canada.  We are all big curling fans in our family.

I`m working on my pillow.  I need lots of pins for hand sewing this curved seam.

I am hand sewing the small quarter circles to the paper pieced arcs.

I will machine sew the outer gray section to each arc. Four done...only 12 to go.  Good thing the curling will be on for another couple of hours!!!

I will be linking up to Kathy`s Slow Sunday Stitching.  

Here is my stash report as well:

Fabric used since my last stash report: 20.65 yards
Total fabric used this year: 28.25 yards
Fabric added to the stash since my last report: 41.25 yards.
Total fabric added this year: 43.25 yards
Net fabric added this year:  15 yards

I have plans for much of the fabric that I have purchased recently so it will soon be in the ``used`` column!

My Daughter's Quilt

 

My daughter finished university over a year ago and I told her I wanted to make her a quilt as a graduation gift.  She moved into a new apartment last summer and decided that a new quilt would be nice for her new bed. She is pretty fussy about what she likes and does not like so it took a long time to look at different patterns, fabrics and colours. On Family Day weekend, we went to Mad About Patchwork and chose a pattern (Four Corners by Nancy Purvis) and fabric. 

You may remember seeing a picture of the fabrics a few posts back...

I bought enough fabric for her quilt and took it home. I washed it and ironed it. After cutting a couple of strips of each fabric and making some squares, I spent some time arranging the fabrics to figure out the order of the colours.

I emailed the pictures to my daughter so she could have input.

She hated the yellow fabric.

No matter where I put the yellow, she still hated it. So I dug into my stash for other options...

She did not like white (and neither did I!!)

Next up, a darker gray...the pattern was too big and the colour was too dark.

Next, I tried a mid gray with stripes in it.  She and I both liked this better.  I left this up on my design wall for a few days and consulted with my fellow quilters from the Elgin Piecemakers when we met at my house last week. They all thought the gray with the stripes fit in well.  I checked with my daughter again and she gave me the final approval. 

I only have a fat quarter of the striped fabric so I ordered a couple of yards from MAP and it should be here shortly.   Tonight, I cut some triangles and squares out of all of the fabrics and started to figure out the pattern.

Here is the first strip. 

Then I put together another strip, and another...

There are 5 strips in each section and 8 sections in the quilt.  This may take a while...

We are in the middle of a winter storm with freezing rain, ice pellets and snow tonight.  I predict shovelling in the morning!