Sewing Day with Jacqui

Several months ago, the members of the Elgin Piecemakers each donated several 10" squares of fabric with words on them.  Jacqui had a pattern for a quilt using the squares and the donated squares would make two comfort quilts for adult chemo patients at our local hospital.  Today, Jacqui and I got together to cut the squares up and sew them back together again to make a quilt top.  We both sewed on Featherweight machines in Jacquie's sewing room. She has a great design wall which we used to lay out the pieces.

The two blocks missing on the bottom row were at my sewing machine, waiting to be put together.  I took this picture for reference in case a breeze blew in the window and rearranged our fabric pieces! 

Everything was going swimmingly until I ran out of bobbin thread...  Luckily, I had only tried to sew one block with the empty bobbin!  I was soon back on the rails and sewing again.

At this stage, we had all the blocks together and Jacqui trimmed them while I sewed rows together.

The pattern for this quilt is called "The No Waste Windmill Block" by Anita Grossman Solomon.  (The book is called "Rotary Cutting Revolution.")

There are several different fabrics in this quilt.  Here are a few close ups so you can see some of them.

I liked this one ...It says "a fat quarter is not a body part."  LOL!

 I don't think I would ever choose to put all of these fabrics together but they all hang together quite nicely in this quilt.

The border fabric came from Jacquie's stash and had pins on it.  It frames the quilt quite nicely!

We were both very happy with the finished top, done just in time for me to head off to an appointment!  We will get together again in a couple of weeks to put the second top together.  It is all cut out and just needs to be arranged on the design wall and put together. 

Back on the Horse!

While rooting around in the sewing room this week, I found a UFO!  I know, this is shocking, isn't it?!  I decided that I needed to get this project done and out of the UFO pile!

 I did the wool Applique by hand ages ago...

And then started quilting it before getting distracted by another project or event in my life...

But today, I will get at it again!  I am back on the hand quilting horse and I will stay on until this squirrelly project is done!  Pinky swear! (When my daughter was little, that's what she said when she made a promise, while connecting pinky fingers with her friend. So, I promise to get this done! )

Red, Black and Gray

I am trying to get ahead of the game with my comfort quilt blocks for the Elgin Piecemakers.  My September block has been made since June and yesterday, I made the October block.  Each month, we have a colour scheme or theme to follow. Everyone brings in their blocks and two people get together to put the blocks together.  I will try to get my November block, using 30's prints, done this coming week.

It is always fun to see everyone's blocks and how they come together into a quilt.  

Flannel Vortex DONE!

I had some time yesterday to do some sewing so I laid out the backing, batting and top of the flannel vortex on the kitchen floor and did some pin basting.  I would really rather do this on a table but no table was available at the time.  My back likes me to use a table!!  LOL.  

All pin basted and ready to quilt!

I used my walking foot to do a wavy cross hatch. There are a lot of seams in this quilt and I wanted to make sure I hit most of the pieces of fabric with a line of quilting.

Here is a close up of the quilting.

I trimmed it up and made binding with some of the golden brown flannel with the animals on it.

All done and ready to give to a friend who is having a rough time at the moment.


In an effort to use up more of my flannel stash, I pieced the backing from odd hunks and chunks of fabrics that I used on the front as well as a few leftover slabs from the front. Here is a picture of the back:  

It is a very cozy quilt, just how I like my quilts to be.  FYI--the label has been added to the bottom right corner in the picture but I covered it up by turning up the corner of the quilt.

More Rabbits!

I had a few challenges with last week's rabbit block...  Luckily, Christine noticed my mistake before I got too far along!

I soon was back in business!

'Ears to you!

Both of us did a bit of unstitching during the process of making our rabbits!

Here is my finished rabbit:

And here is Christine's:

Next up,  owls!

Modern Wedge DONE!

This quilt has been a long time coming, but it is finally done.  I started it at a workshop over two years ago with Kathy Doughty from Material Obsession. It has been a pondering quilt.  I have worked on it off and on, with lots of thinking time in between sewing to figure out what to do next.

The background is quilted with an asymmetric grid, as suggested by Jacqui Gering at the walking foot quilting class I took in the spring.

The curves are quilted with curvy organic quilting--the narrow one is quilted with turquoise thread.

I used red thread on the wider one.

I matched the binding to the background fabric and the adjacent wedges. 

While I was taking pictures in my yard this morning, I noticed this decorative grass seed head...

It goes with the curves of my quilt!

Modern Wedge Binding

Today is the Slow Sunday Stitching linkup over at Kathy's blog.  There, she encourages us each week to slow down and do some hand stitching.  I have not had a specific long term hand stitching project this summer but I am happy to be able to participate this week. I will be finishing off the hand stitching on the binding of my Modern Wedge quilt.



My husband and I went for a 15km bike ride last night and then sat in the gazebo for an hour until it got too dark to sew and read. The gazebo is a wonderful place to stitch--we have a bubbling rock nearby which makes a wonderful sound, the birds sing in the trees, and the chipmunks and squirrels scurry around the yard for our entertainment. 



I decided to match the binding to the background and the wedges...it took a little longer than usual to make and attach the binding by machine yesterday.  Today, I will finish off the hand stitching and take some pictures of the finished quilt for a future blog post. Have a great day!