First Finish of the 3rd Quarter

     This is me standing in my friend Wendy's backyard wearing my new cotton knit top.  It's Kwik Sew K3802.

          I made the top at Wendy's because she owns a serger and also because she is a great seamstress and can help me when I have issues.  I have limited experience with making clothes.  I'm pretty pleased with the result although I think the bottom is a bit stiff, which I think is because I used a cotton knit.   This hem style is around in a lot of ready made clothing at the moment and it seems to look best in softer fabrics, like rayon or bamboo. The hemline has softened a bit with washing and I'm hoping that will continue. I have enough of the cotton left over to make a tee shirt.  This is awesome as I paid about $36 Canadian for the fabric. For the most part, I find making clothing to cost more than buying clothing, so it's nice when you can score a deal like this. Wendy is really good at noticing the bargains in our local Len's shop.

     I'm including a photo of the pattern so you can see a better view of the hemline. It's the one on the left.

     The top is my first finish during Quarter Three of the 2019 Finish Along, the original list is here.  I'll be linking with TGIFF over at Faith and Fabric this week and with Bragg about your Beauties and with the Q3 Finish along linkup. Also as this is the only complete finish I managed all month I'm linking it up with the Favourite Finish linkup as well.

Lunch with Betty....summer quilt alongs

   There are a whole bunch of quilt alongs going on this summer and even though I have a lot of unfinished projects 
(don't we all?) I've decided to join in with a couple of them.
     These are the fabrics for my two new projects.  I don't have a lot of yardage in my stash and no jelly rolls so I decided to do some shopping for the two quilt alongs.

     The yardage in the photo is for the Mosaic Mystery Quilt Along hosted by Cheryl of Meadowmist Designs.  Cheryl's quilt alongs go at a nice slow pace which works well for me.
The white fabrics are from my stash and will be my background fabric.  They are  30" cuts of fabric from a kit I got several years ago which I am never going to make.  The other fabrics are four fabrics from  the Betty's Luncheonette Line ( Violet Kraft for Rogert Kaufman) with Kona Pickle thrown in for interest.  I bought more fabric than I need because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do when I was in the store, but I've settled on my plan now.
The lined fabric is fabric A.  The darker blue and the pickle are fabrics B and C. and the grey fabric will be the borders.  You can't see it well in this photo, but this fabric has some green in it just like the pickle.  Neat eh?  I'm thinking I'll use the lighter blue fabric for binding.

      The jelly roll is for the Jelly Roll waves quilt along hosted by Myra at Busy Hands Quilts.  This quilt along goes at a fairly speedy clip  but it looks like a fairly easy project.  All the cutting should be done by I think Tuesday.

      I had to do a bit of sleuthing to get the Jelly Roll.   At first I couldn't find very many Jelly Rolls in my usual Canadian on line shops.  I looked around and eventually found my jelly roll at Chicken Feed Quilts in Alberta. If you are looking for Jelly Rolls, Chicken Feed Quilts has a lot.  I chose (you guessed it) the Betty's Luncheonette Jelly Roll.  I was drawn to the bright clear colours.
     Although I told you about the yardage first, I actually ordered the jelly roll first.  The funny thing is, when Cyndy and I went looking for fabrics for the Mosaic Mystery  at Creative sisters in Kitchener, there was the very same jelly roll sitting on the shelf.  I wasn't intending to make both quilts from the same fabric line but this fabric was just calling my name.  I'm going over to Cheryl's blog to join the Mosaic Mystery Linkup and see who's quilting along.

2019 Finish Along Third Quarter List

I managed to get three finishes in during Quarter 2 of the Finish along so I'm happily compiling my list for Quarter 3.  What's left over from Q2?  Quite a bit but I won't keep it all on the list.  Here's what I'll keep.

1.  Sisterhood Swap.  Here are the blocks I pieced and sent out.  I need to piece together the blocks I received and get her quilted.

2.  I guess I'll keep the Modern Plus Sign quilt on the list although I'm having a hard time getting to it.  You never know though I might get suddenly inspired.

3.  Even though I didn't finish it, I made quite a bit of progress on the Clam Shell quilt, and it's now at the flimsy stage. If I can figure out how I want to quilt it, I might get this one done.

4.  The last thing from that list that I'm keeping is the bag.  Ridiculous that I haven't done the small amount of work to finish this....obviously avoiding a technique I'm nervous about.  

     Well now it's time for the new stuff.

5. The Penny Patch Quilt Along Quilt (Stitched in Colour) from many years ago.  I've got this quilt spray basted and ready to go on the mid arm, so when my life allows me the time to get to Wendy's I'll get started on it.  It's a pretty big quilt, twin sized so it will take a few sessions to quilt it.

6.  I'm thinking I might want to quilt my Circle of Friends quilt top.  It's also several years old so onto the list it goes.

7 & 8.  The Community Outreach Committee of my guild received a whole bunch of charm packs from a former member.  We challenged ourselves to make quilts out of the packs.  I'll be working on the tops for sure this summer and as I may choose to quilt one or both of them. I'll include them on the list.

My One Monthly Goal for July  is to turn the top fabric grouping into a quilt top.

9.  I managed to get a really good deal on some cotton knit fabrics earlier this year.  Here's one fabric.  I'm planning to  make the Ebony dress with this fabric.  I paid about $25 for the fabric so I'll be pretty happy to get a dress out of it.

10 & 11.  I also picked up this fabric at the same time and I'm thinking I can get two tops out of it. It cost about $35 another great deal.

12.  Is the Jelly Roll Waves quilt which is a quilt along with Myra of Busy Hands Quilts.  The fabric is on order from Chicken Feed Quilts and I've got the pattern in hand.

     Despite my optimism, I have never managed to complete more than three things in one quarter so we will see which projects I get to the finish line.  I'm linking this post to  to Elm Street Quilts OMG for July, and to the 2019 QAL third quarter list.

Good Luck completing your goals everybody!

June Goal Done!

     By the time most of you see this post it will be Canada Day and that means a long weekend! Yay. Happy Canada Day everyone. I will be spending the day sewing with my two quilting friends. I spent the rest of the weekend on an overnight trip to the countryside with Dwight.   We went for a couple of walks in the woods stayed at a a lovely B and B in Flesherton.  Today we visited our friends for lunch at their cottage on Lake Huron.  We returned home this evening feeling quite refreshed, so a perfect time away.

     I finished my June goal on Friday but I haven't had time to write about it until now.  Here's my improv pieced table runner I made for my co worker Brenda.  I was intending to give this to her in January so it's a tad late.

          I'm happy with how it turned out and I'm sure that she will love it.  I started with the Charlie Harper chickadee fabric.    All the supporting fabrics where chosen from colours in the chickadee fabric.  Because Brenda has a lot of light colours in her house I decided to use the lighter blue fabric as the background.

     I love working in an improvisational manner, starting with a few fabrics and placing them together, watching the piece grow and making decisions as I go along. It's a slow process but I really enjoy it. This picture gives you an idea of how the project started and the fabrics I started with.

     You can see that a few other fabrics managed to sneak their way in as things went along. 

     I quilted straight lines with my walking foot using a light blue, 50 weight Aurifil thread. The quilting went well, or so I thought until I flipped the quilt over to see this.

      I know I'm not the first quilter to sew something to the back of their quilt and truth be told it's not the first time I've done this.  It did slow the finish down, but you can see that I managed to remove it and patch things up pretty well.

     I'm linking up with the One Monthly Goal June linkup, with TGIFF and with Bragg About your Beauties. This is my third finish for the second quarter of the  2019 Finish Along.  The original post is here.

Curated Quilts Star Challenge

     Today is the last day to link up a quilt for the Curated Quilts Star Challenge.  I'm happy to say that I just managed to sew the last stitches on my binding at 7:30 this morning, before I got ready to go to a sew in at Guild.  This is the second time I've entered a mini into the Curated Quilts link up.  I came up with my idea weeks ago and then forgot all about it until I read about Patti of Elm Street Quilts entry.  

     I went with a minimalist Friendship Star.  I sewed each of the arms of the star in an improvised manner.  Figuring out things as I went along.  I joined the arms of the star together with straight line quilting with the walking foot and quilted the inside and outside of the star with shadow quilting.  I am quite pleased with the result.  The quilt finishes at 13 3/4" square.  I used a light grey and a denim which where two of the colours for this challenge. 

     Here's a picture of the quilt on point because I think it looks kind of neat like this. I enjoy working on these challenges as they stretch my imagination and my abilities as a quilter.   I am quite pleased with the result.  I'm linking up with the Curated Quilts linkup.  There are a lot of other star entries there. It's quite inspiring.  I'm also linking up with Beth at Main Crush Monday.

A Friday Finish in June

     I have a special finish to share with you. This quilt, as simple as it is, represents my online quilting journey in a couple of ways.

     I guess I can say it started with Rachel Houser of Stitched in Color, but I'll get back to her later.  For now I'll say it started with Cheryl Brickey of Meadowmist Designs.  You see back in 2015 I was a pretty new and tentative quilt blogger. Quite unsure of myself and where I fit in.  Cheryl put out a call for pattern testers. Filled with a new bravery to try things, I offered to pattern test Grande Scrappy Tiles and participated in my first blog hop.

     I wanted to do a great job on my pattern testing and I chose my fabrics using a technique I learned from Rachel Hauser when I participated in her Penny Patch Quilt along.  See, I told you I would get back to her.  I think I did a great job on my colour and fabric choices and I love so many of the fabrics in this quilt.  I have not met Rachel but I believe she is also down to earth.  I have taken two of her online courses and I still have the great resources that came with those classes.

     I also wanted the quilt to finish nicely so I paid extra attention to my 1/4" seams.  I started to become a more accurate piecer.

      Grande Scrappy Tiles was the second quilt I chose to quilt on our mid arm, and the first of my own.  My goal for the quilting was to try out a bunch of different designs and to get comfortable using the machine.  It took several sessions at Wendy's place to finish the quilting and I I can say that I am much more comfortable with the machine. It's a pretty big quilt 72" by 72" and there are several issues with tension and stitch length but I know that these things will improve with practise.  This quilt marks the beginning of my journey with mid arm quilting and I am pleased with the result, warts and all.

          I love this quilt and I will be keeping it at my place. I'm thinking it will be a great quilt for our grand boys when they are a bit older and stay over at our place. At the moment we always go to their place when we babysit.  It's Friday so I will be linking my post  with TGIFF which is hosted this week by Leanne at Devoted Quilter,  and with Bragg About Your Beauties with Michelle of From Bolt to Beauty.  I wonder who else will be there.
    This is also my second finish for quarter 2 of the 2019 FAL so I'll be linking up there as well, a bit later in the month.  I wonder if I can squeeze another finish in....maybe a small one.

Goal for June

     Well I didn't manage to finish my OMG for May.  I got distracted by a couple of other things so I'm rolling the goal over to June.  I goal is to finish the Charlie Harper table runner/ pieced and quilted.  Here's how far I've gotten as of today.

     I'm working with an improv or intuitive process.  I'm just making decisions as I go along.  It's fun.

     So that's the OMG.  I'm also hoping to get those crosses done for the Modern Plus Sign quilt along quilt, and I'm binding a quilt right now.  Lots to do but again a busy month with my niece getting married and lots of other family things.
I'll link my post with Patti at Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal linkup.