Modern Quilt Guild Mini Swap

Last year, I attended QuiltCon in Nashville, TN with my friend, Christine.  I participated in the Make a Mini, Make a Friend Swap and my swap partner and I met at QuiltCon when we exchanged our mini quilts.  Evie made me the star quilt and I made the drunkard's path variation for her--I called it Maple Keys from Canada.

This year, I did not attend QuiltCon in Austin, TX, so I decided to sign up to swap a mini quilt with another quilter by mail.  I received my quilt from my partner, Ann, in Texas a few weeks ago.  I had told her that I liked Frank Lloyd Wright and orange when I filled out my swap form.  I think she nailed it!

Ann motioned she liked quilt designer/teacher Sarah Bond.  I had never heard of Sarah Bond before and set about doing some research to find out more information so that I could make a suitable mini quilt for Ann.  Sarah had done a webinar for the Modern Quilt Guild so I watched that and also googled images of her quilts.  I noticed three common themes in many of Sarah's quilts that I saw online...1.  Flying geese  2.  Curves and  3. Creative use of Striped fabric. I dug around in my stash and found some Kaffe Fasset fabric and a dark gray Essex Linen to use as a background. 

I don't usually design quilts on paper first, but I did this time.  I took a 24" by 24" square of paper and folded it in half diagonally and then folded it some more.  I used a piece of string and a pencil to create the arcs and then filled in the lines for the flying geese.  I used each of the flying geese arcs as a template to paper piece the flying geese. 

Here is the first arc. 

I used the quarter circle in the corner and the plain arcs as patterns for cutting out the background pieces. 

A little curved piecing and I was on my way!

The second and third arcs were completed and added to the quilt top. 

I used some turquoise and gray 28 wt thread for the quilting. 

The quilted arcs are blue and the quilting in the flying geese was done with gray thread. 

Some striped binding finished my mini off nicely. 

I used the leftover Kaffe fabric on the back. 

Here is the finished mini quilt. Ann has received it in the mail and loved it!

I would definitely participate in the Modern Swap again!  Maybe, next year, I will get to meet my swap partner in person at QuiltCon...

Sewing Night

For the last three sewing nights with Christine, I have been working on a Canada 150 block.  It is a paper pieced pattern that I found online. Here is the link.  I found this block a bit challenging...there was some unsewing involved!  I decided to use prints instead of solids for my block.  In the end, it all worked out and the block lies flat.  I will probably not be making another one!

I decided to make a pillow with my block so I added borders to make it the right size for my pillow form.  I will quilt it and put the pillow together on Saturday at our guild sew-in day. I still have to figure out what to use for the back of the pillow.  I don't have enough of the grey.

After finishing the Canada 150 block, I made another block for my liberated sampler quilt.  This one is called Hashtag.  I am using a little bit of my focus fabrics in each block. I have seven blocks done now.  There are 64- 6" blocks in this quilt.

I will try to post a picture of all my blocks next time. 

Stormy Afternoon

It is pouring rain outside this afternoon so I am inside working on a sewing project.  I don't mind the rain at all...my garden and grass were thirsty and I needed some "me" time! I am going to link up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching--something I have not done in a while.  I hope hand basting a wall hanging before machine quilting it counts for slow stitching!

 I worked on this project at the Modern Quilt Guild retreat back in April and now that I have figured out how to use the walking foot on my new sewing machine, I am ready to quilt it!  I am using the pin fabric for the backing.

The new machine is working well!  I have a plan for quilting this wall hanging with circles and curves, echoing the edges of the paper pieced arcs.

I am using the edge of the walking foot as my guide.  I took a class on quilting with my walking foot with Jacquie Gering in April too so I am putting my new skills to work on this quilt.

I did 5 rows of stitching around the centre circle and now I am working on the outside 3/4 circles. I will show a picture of the completed project later this week.  It should not take too long to finish quilting it.  I will have to decide on binding too--Do I use a bright colour or just more of the background fabric??? Time will tell.

I have not done a stash report in ages...

Fabric used since my last stash report: 22.6yards
Total fabric used this year: 61.1 yards
Fabric added to the stash since my last report: 21.5 yards.
Total fabric added this year: 67.75 yards
Net fabric added this year:  6.65 yards
Slow improvement in the numbers...

I have more quilt backs to make so this should continue to get closer to being in the black soon.

This peony is blooming in my garden.  This plant once belonged to my husband's grandmother. 

Have a good week.

A Change in Plans

Christine and I spent last weekend at the South Western Ontario Modern Quilt Guild retreat in Ingersol, Ontario. There were over 20 quilters at the retreat and it was great fun to meet everyone and drool over their projects!!!  As is usually the case, I brought way more fabric than I could use and more projects than I could ever do in one weekend.  I like to keep my options open...LOL!

Those of you who read my blog on a regular basis will know that I have been working on a paper pieced pillow for  a few weeks now.  The pattern is from this book by Jen Kingwell.

 This is a picture of the pillow from the book.  She used scraps to piece her arcs and then added scrappy sashings. 

Before the retreat, I had all of the arcs completed and the other pieces cut out.  One block was completed and three others had the quarter squares added--they are hand sewn as the curve was too tight to sew consistently on my sewing machine. I spent several hours completing the blocks and then I had to decide how to arrange them for my pillow.

My first attempt was just a random placement of the coloured arcs.  I liked the idea of a circle in the middle.  Did I want sashing?  cornerstones?

I rearranged the arcs into colour groupings...I liked this arrangement.  I consulted with other quilters...we thought a coloured square in the middle of each grouping would look good. Would you believe that in my whole suitcase of fabric, I did not have a red scrap that would work for the upper right block???  Luckily, a few other people had some fabric with them....Karen donated a 1.5" square to my quilt and I set to getting the blocks put together.

After putting the blocks together, I quickly realized that this pillow was going to be too big for where I intended to put it, BUT it was the perfect size for a wall hanging!  I added some borders and voila!--it is ready for quilting.  I will be quilting this on my DSM with my walking foot.  I need to let the quilting ideas percolate for a few days first...

I will be blogging about the retreat again...stay tuned.

I will be linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday stitching and Finish it up Friday.

My Pincushion is DONE and a Couple of WIP's

I finished off my paper pieced pin cushion in time for show and tell at the London Friendship Quilter's guild meeting tonight. I had to make a mad dash to Len's Mills store today between appointments to buy more plastic beads to fill it up. I had 5 minutes after supper tonight to hand stitch the last seam before I put it into my bag to take to the meeting.  It has 72 pieces in the top...and took hours to make but the results are so worth the effort!

I had to hand stitch each of the corners but the rest was sewn by machine. I will add this pincushion to my growing collection!

I am in the process of quilting a quilt for a refugee child from Syria and made some progress this week.  I am a little over half way done.

I also added the final chicken wire fabric border to my chicken coop quilt. I need to purchase some backing for this quilt and then it will be off to the long armer's house for quilting.

I hope to get the child's quilt done this weekend.  The family will be arriving from Syria soon.

Charity Quilt Top

Today, my quilting friend and I put together a quilt top for the Children's Aid Society-- a project of my quilt guild. She laid out the blocks, ironed and cut dog ears. I sewed and sewed... We were both very pleased with how the quilt top turned out. I just have to add the border and it will be ready for someone else in the quilt guild to quilt it. I will be bringing it to Thursday's guild meeting.

I have quite a few items for show and tell for this meeting. I have been unemployed for the last couple of months and have been taking advantage of the extra time to do lots of quilting projects. Here are a few of my recent projects.


This quilt will be getting borders shortly and will be going in our guest room once it is quilted and bound. The pattern is called "Yellow Brick Road" and it has 30 different fabrics in it. I spent over a year collecting the fabrics from several different quilting stores. I carried a zip lock bag in my purse for ages with one fabric in it that I wanted to co-ordinate with all the others. I am thrilled with this quilt. It is really out on a limb for me as I do not usually sew anything that is purple.

I also had a chance to take a paper piecing class--something that I had always wanted to do. Here is the sampler that I made at the class and a birdhouse banner that I made as well.



I purchased a kit to make a flannel lap quilt in the summer of 2006 and finally finished it as well. It has been used many times when my daughter and I are watching TV together.



I have made a couple of table runners from charm packs. I purchased patterns for charm pack table runners last fall at a shop hop in the Niagara Falls area. I keep some for myself and some I give away as gifts. I quilt these on my sewing machine. I usually hire a quilter with a large quilting machine to do my bed sized quilts. Here is one table runner and I will post the picture of the other one I made recently after I put the binding on it.