Friday 30 September 2016

Late to the Party Again.

    Hello Friends.  I have a confession to make.  I've been really busy lately and also kind of tired so I haven't been on the internet lately.  Today I was doing some catch up blog reading and I realized that I was included on the blog hop for the Meadow Mist Designs Vintage Star Pattern Release.  Silly me I thought you had to make the quilt to be part of the blog hop so I'm a bit late to the party.      

     When Cheryl  put out the call for pattern readers this summer I offered to help her out.   Cheryl offers support to so many quilters and she writes wonderful patterns. She has been particularly generous to me and It was a pleasure to offer support to her in this way.

     I own several of Cheryl's patterns and I can say with certainty that her instructions are always very clear and the resulting quilts are beautiful.  The pattern for Vintage Star is also well written and you can see from the cover that the quilt is very beautiful.


     Cheryl Released this pattern on Tuesday and it will be on sale for $7.50 until October 4th.  You can find the details on Cheryl's blog MeadowMist Designs.

     You can win a copy of this pattern and the pattern Check Plus  by leaving me a comment here.  Just tell me if you have made a pattern by Cheryl before and which one it was.  I'll be holding the draw on Canadian Thanksgiving which is Monday October 10th.  I'll be linking up to Let's Bee Social to give more people opportunities to win.

Friday 23 September 2016

The Rainbow Rose Is Finished.

     


     Well it's Friday and I've got a finish!  Here's my Rainbow Rose.  The photo below isn't the most inspiring photo but it's raining out so I took the photo on the back porch.  We only got slightly wet.



      If you followed the Rainbow Rose Quilt along  with Modern Quilters Ireland you will know that the instructions were for a square quilt with the Rose in the Centre.  I chose to float the Rose in some negative space.  The quilt finishes at 48" by 60" I'm donating it to my guilds comfort quilt program.  

     I had a lot of fun quilting this quilt.  When I first started quilting my own quilts I never thought I would say this.  At the beginning I found quilting to be such a chore, but the quilting sages are right...It does get easier the more you do it.  It also helps to give up on perfectionism and trust that each time you quilt a quilt it will get better.  Is this what folks mean when they say they took the process pledge?

     I used the quilt to practise both quilting with a walking foot in the star itself and free motion quilting.  I did an all over wonky triangle motif in the negative space which mirrored the triangles in my background fabric.  Here's a closeup on the back of the quilt.




     It's the first time I've done an all over design on a quilt.  Here's a closeup of the walking foot and dot to dot motifs.









     I purchased the fabric on the back years ago thinking I would use it to make a top.  It seems that many of my quilt backings were bought as potential clothing options which just goes to show that I quilt more than I make garments.

     I have to fly out the door soon as we are going to visit my sister this weekend but I'm linking up to TGIFF which is held this week at Crazy Dutch Bird Quilts.  Hi Iris!  This is my second finish for quarter three of the Finish Along and it's my One Monthly Goal for September.

Tuesday 20 September 2016

More Projects on the plate

       Sometimes I feel like I need another life.  Not that there is anything wrong with the current life but it would be nice to have an additional one to fit in all the things I want to do and need to do.  I'm now sharing the community outreach chair at my local guild with Cheryl and that's added a bit to the load...extra meetings and reports and some tasks, and I'm planning on joining the gym that my friends Cindy and Wendy go to.  I'm hoping that the time that takes will add to my energy level so there will be a net gain.  We'll see. 

     It probably doesn't help that I keep adding things to my quilting plate either.  I may be crazy but I've decided to join Lorna in the Modern Bear Paw Quilt Along.  I really love the bear in Lorna's quilt and seeing that I live in the land of bears (not really they are quite a bit to the north )I thought I should pay them homage.  To be honest I'm pretty scared of bears, but not the quilt....although  I'm sure I'll be trailing along behind the others in this quilt along.




      I don't normally choose brown as a colour in my quilts but I just have to make this bear in brown.  I've got all solids and to spread out my fabric love they are all from different companies. Having just finished the Blog Hop with the lovely Cirrus Solids, I went with a medium brown from the collection.  The dark brown is a Free Spirit fabric and the background is Kona Ivory.  Being me, I had to pop some colour in there for the sashing, so I went with this soft green I had in my stash.  It's the only green I had enough of.

     I'm planning to open up the quilt a bit, giving it more negative space and less bear paws.  I'm going to be winging it  figuring it out as I go along so we'll see how it turns out.  This quilt may go to someone in my sisters family, they are the northern camping types, or I may just keep it for my living room.  The colours would be perfect there.

     Speaking of my living room I'll also be making Lorna's Cat Treat Quilt.  She's coming to  lead a workshop at my local guild on October 29th. The Cat  Treat Quilt was the choice I made to work on.  I'll be picking up a green for the background fabric and I'm sure I have some white in the stash for the fish bones.  Here are my fabrics for the cats.



     They are all Kafe Facet prints.   I'm mostly going to go with darker cats but I have to have one light cat using the fabric at the front for Benni.

     And speaking of Benni, he's currently wearing the cone of shame.  He got into a scrap with a neighbouring cat and has a gouge in his beautiful face.  He was on antibiotics but he kept pawing at his wound so it's been taking a long time to  heal.




     He's looking miserable because we are making him stay inside while he heals...poor cat.  Anyhow I'm going to join the two linky parties that Lorna is holding this week, The Mod Bear Paw linkup and Lets Bee Social, although I'm not starting work on either of these two quilts until I get caught up with the Meadow Mystery. 

      Seeing as I'm just getting started on Lorna's quilt along, you can too, maybe make a pillow or a placemat or something more ambitious like a whole quilt.  The more the merrier, I say.

Monday 19 September 2016

The Rainbow Rose Moves Along

     September has arrived with it's normal busyness and I've been feeling a bit stretched.  It's been hard to find enough time for quilting and blogging but I did manage to carve out some time on the weekend to work on the quilting for my Rainbow Rose.     Here's a teaser photo.


     I always put off quilting quilts because I'm still fairly new to the actual quilting part of making quilts and I get cold feet.  I have to credit Lena of Quilt Art for giving me the push I needed to get going.  She made a comment in a previous post that very nicely encouraged me to get on with it.

     I've been using the quilt to practise both walking foot quilting and free motion.  I expect to have a finish by Friday and I'm pretty exited about that.  I'm linking up with Beth at Main Crush Monday because in terms of quilts this has really been my Main Crush this week.



     

Wednesday 14 September 2016

2016 Cloud9 New Block Blog Hop

     Good morning everyone and welcome to my stop on the 2016 Cloud9 New Block Blog Hop.  I am super excited to be a part of this hop organized by Yvonne of Quilting Jet Girl, Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs and today's host Stephanie of Late Night Quilter.  

     I've had a lot of fun trying out different block patterns over the last couple of weeks.   It seems I can dream them up and I can draw them, but I can't always make them or explain them, so in the end I settled on this simple but pretty block.

     I call this block Lucite Beads because the colours and shapes reminded me of  Lucite beads you see in vintage jewellery.





     Here's the block repeated in a quilt top. I played around on Quiltography to get an idea of what the block would look like in a quilt.  I like all the negative space incorporated in this design and I find the repeated blocks remind me of strands of beads in a necklace.




    

     Lucite Beads uses four of the fabrics included in the Cirrus Solids bundle Amazon (medium blue), Sky (light blue) Shadow (grey) and Lilac.

Cutting Instructions:

From the Shadow fabric cut:
                                             two 4" squares
                                             two 3" squares
                                             two 3 1/2 X 6 1/2" rectangles
                                             two 2 1/2 X 5 12" rectangles
                                             two 4 1/2 " squares
From the Amazon cut :
                                    one 4" square
                                    one 3"  square
From the Sky cut:
                            one 4 " square
From the Lilac cut:
                             one 3" square
                             one 2 1/2" square.


 Block Construction:

1. Pair one 4" square of Shadow  with the 4" square of Amazon and the other 4" square of Shadow with the 4" square of Sky.  With a non permanant fabric marker draw a diagonal line across the Shadow fabric going from one corner to its' opposite corner.  Sew 1/4" on either side of the line. 
Do this for both pairs.




2.  Cut on the diagonal line.  You will have 4 half square triangle blocks. Press the seams open and use a squaring up ruler to trim the blocks to 3 1/2".  Repeat for all four half square triangle  blocks.


     


3.  Pair one 3" square of Shadow with the 3" square of Amazon and the other 3" square of Shadow with the 3"square of Lilac. Repeat steps 1 and 2 above to make 4 half square triangle blocks, trimming the blocks to 2 1/2".  

4.  Line the half square triangle blocks up in rows like this:



5.  Sew the blocks together in rows, chain piecing as you go.  

6.  Sew rows one and two together and rows 3 and 4 together matching the centre seams.  This will make two blocks: a 6 1/2" square block with Amazon and Sky and a 
4 1/2"  square block with Amazon and Lilac.

7.   Arrange the blocks as in the photo below.  For row one place the two 3 1/2 by 6 1/2"  rectangles of Shadow on either side of the 6 1/2" block.  
For row two place the 2 1/2" by 5 1/2" rectangles of Shadow on either side of the 2 1/2" Lilac square. 
For row three place the 4 1/2" squares of Shadow on either side of the 4 1/2" block.


     

8.  Sew the block components into rows and then the rows together to make the Lucite Beads block.

     The Cirrus Solids are great fabrics to work with.  They have a nice subtleness to the colours and are soft to the touch.  They are a pleasure to work with and I'm sure I will use them again.

   Thank you for stopping by today I hope that you  check out the other bloggers who are participating in todays hop.  Here are the links to their blogs:

Kathy @Kathys Kwilts and More
Paige @Quilted Blooms
Mary @Strip Quilts Pass it On
Allison @Woodberry Way
Seven @The Concerned Craft
Olusola @Alice Samuel’s Quilt Co.
Ann @Brown Paws Quilting
Jodie @Persimmon + Pear
Vicki @Orchid Owl Quilts
Kitty @Night Quilter
Francine @Mochawildchild
Shelley @The Carpenter’s Daughter who Quilts
Jayne @Twiggy and Opal
Geraldine @Living Water Quilter
Shannon @Shannon Fraser Designs
Jessica @Quilty Habit
Cassandra @The (not so) Dramatic Life
Deanna @Stitches Quilting

Denise @Craft Traditions

   
     Here's to making dreams a reality.




Monday 12 September 2016

Snow Flake Shimmer Update

     Somewhere in a small city in Southern Ontario there is a woman doing the happy dance.  Can you see her waving her arms around with excitement.  That woman is me, happy because I've finished my Snowflake Shimmer quilt top. Yay!



     Here it is on the line right before a large wind came and pushed the pegs on the right hand side together squishing the quilt.  I missed the deadline for the last progress link up so I'll be linking up with Beth at Main Crush Monday instead.  I love the design that Yvonne came up with and the top came together in a unique way that made it fun to work on.  I'm not sure if I'll have time to quilt it before the final linkup so this may be the post I link up with. I've got quite a list of quilts that are in the quilting queue.  Most of them are destined for other places but this one should be staying right here!





Saturday 3 September 2016

September Goal

     The pencil, the sewing machine and especially the rotary cutter have been getting a real workout at my place these days. First off I made these blocks for the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild's, quilt for Pulse.  I already worked on several heart quilts earlier in the summer but when I saw Sheila's design for the TMQG I just had to make one, or would you call this three.  When I was working on these little blocks my brain started thinking of all sorts of word quilts that I could design/make so I'll have to tuck those away in the creations file. 




     I made these sample blocks for a block lotto we will be having at the Royal City Quilt Guild.  I think our members will have a lot of fun making these great little bird blocks.  If you'd like to make some you can find the tutorial here.



    Wendy and I got together to cut 4 quilt kits for the RCQG community outreach program bringing our total to 8.



     I think this is the first year to try handing out kits for complete quilt tops. We usually hand out block kits and we are continuing to do that.

     I've also been working like a beaver on my Cloud9, Cirrus Solids block which I have completed. All I have left is to proof read my blog post and tutorial and tighten it up a bit.  Yay!

     And I've been sewing along with Yvonne of Quilting JetGirl for the Snowflake Shimmer quilt along, and falling behind on the Meadow Mystery that Cheryl of Meadowmist Designs is running.  I have yet to cut my fabric for that one...and truth be told I'm now trailing a bit with Snowflake Shimmer.  I have lots of time to catch up with both of these though, so I'm not worried.  Do you think I should throw Lorna's MOD Bear paw quilt along into the mix?

         In that vein, I have to report once again that I did not meet my August Goal which was quilting my Rainbow Rose Quilt.  I did make some progress towards the goal.  I made the quilt back and pin basted the quilt and I bought a quilting guide that will go to the left of the walking foot, just in case I need it.



     Ever the optimist I am rolling the goal into September and joining all the other folks who are linking up with Heide of Red Letter Quilts for the OMG linkup.

Lisa