Finished UFO

I'm so excited that I met my UFO goal this month! It was really busy and that I managed to complete a quilt feels terrific!

This quilt top was made in a mystery quilt class with Deb Beirnes 2 years ago. I sewed the top on my 1953 Singer 301 which still sews like a dream.

I machine quilted this project on my 1995 Brother 1500 which also still sews like a dream. You can read more about the "loose feathers" quilting design I tried in Friday's post.

Here is the finished quilt measuring 50" square. The original pattern is by Larisa Key.

I put a little panel of the Eiffel tower on the back just for fun, with a Riley Blake black and white print and a strip of tan Kim Diehl fabric.

I was disappointed that the feather/hearts quilting design is sideways to the Paris panel on the back. I didn't realize I did that until I took the photo of the backing just now. Oh well, that's the way things go sometimes.

Linking up to One Monthly Goal

Scrappy Quilt Top on the Design Wall

When I was gathering the supplies for my UFO of the month project, I found a few more hidden treasures in the closet. In one bin I found some very old orphan blocks and became captivated by the challenge of putting them into a quilt.

1) The pinwheel blocks were from a class I taught several years ago on unique block construction ideas. These were made using charm squares. You can see a tutorial from Missouri Star here. These blocks are the actual practice blocks of the students and some are a little wonky and incorrectly trimmed, and they are spinning every which way. But that's how we learn, so all the good, bad, and ugly are in this quilt!

2) The bowties were from a 2011 class I taught showing 3 different construction methods - connecting corners, set-in seam, and 3D.

This is how the quilt centre looked with the bowties set around the hourglass blocks.

3) In the 1990's when I was a new quilter and the internet was new (do you remember back that far?) I participated in a 9 patch block exchange by mail. Every month we made 9 patches in a certain colour and put them in the mailbox. About a week later we would receive 9 patch blocks from all over the US. I was usually the only Canadian in those swaps. I have a lot of 9 patches still waiting to jump into a quilt. For this project I used up the gold and green blocks.

The sashing and outside border was leftover from the backing of this month's UFO. This quilt top truly is an old school scrappy quilt! Now it's off to someone else in the guild to finish the quilt to donate to the comfort quilt collection.

Finished size: 52" x 70"

Linking up to Design Wall Monday

Slow Sunday Stitching

 Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!

Lots of hand stitching is going on here. I finished the machine quilting on my October UFO yesterday and enjoyed some late night hand stitching on the binding. This photo shows 2 of the backing fabrics. I'm so happy to be able to meet my quilting goal this month and will enjoy the binding each night until it's done.

And I'm still on that cloth knitting craze that Gail got me addicted to! I finished 3 cloths that I gave to my daughter for her birthday - the seahorse, the whale and the octopus. I felt like each one was a little miracle when it was done. And my daughter loved them, so that was doubly wonderful!

I got a new tool to measure needle size and discovered that when I knit the green octopus cloth I was using 2 different sized needles! It turned out okay anyway, but a little smaller than the others (which were knitted on circular needles). This brown cloth is for an American Thanksgiving gift ... bet you can't tell what the design is!?

For those of you who were interested in taking a Siddi quilt class which I mentioned last week, Sujata opened a class registration. You can find her at "therootconnection" on instagram or go on the eventbrite site, search for Sujata Shah and sign up there.

What are you hands creating today? We love to see your projects so link up your blog post below. 

Congratulations to all you blogspot bloggers who have weathered the system transition and didn't give up - way to learn new things and be resilient!! I'm proud of you!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Scrappy Saturday

 Throughout October the Rainbow Scrap Challengers were sewing our yellow scraps. It has been refreshing to play with these pretty pieces.

These are the yellow Easy Breezy blocks (Quiltville's leader-ender blocks) that are being added to the collection from this month.  I fussy cut some words for the block on the middle left which made me smile :) I am enjoying sewing these blocks and have a stack beside my machine at the ready at all times. 

I also sewed 2 more waffle blocks. There are parts for more, but they haven't been finished yet... maybe today.

Hop over to the RSC linkup

Machine Quilting

This month's UFO is a mystery quilt that I made in an in person class (remember the good old days?!?) almost 2 years ago. It really isn't my usual kind of quilt to make, with all the fabrics matching and looking so beautiful! LOL

It takes a lot of thought and preparation to work on a UFO. These are some of the tasks: look for where you carefully stored (hid) the quilt top, find lots of other projects you want to finish up, refocus on the UFO, measure the quilt top, cut a piece of batting to the needed size, gather some yardage to piece a backing, press top and backing, select threads, wind bobbins, pin baste the quilt, and then finally, you're ready to quilt.

I tried a new quilting design this month and I'm excited about how it is turning out. 

I was inspired by a design posted by Melissa who blogs at Happy Quilting when I first saw it more than 2 years ago. She calls the design "loose feathers".

Instead of making the feathers go both directions, I tried to have all the feathers going the same way. It was a good challenge for my brain to quilt one row of feathers from top to bottom, and the next row from bottom to top. But I don't think it was worth the effort and next time, I'll probably stitch the feathers in all directions like Melissa does, since it looks just as nice and is much easier to quilt.

One more week before the end of the month to finish the quilting, get the binding prepped, attached, and hand stitched.

How are your UFO efforts coming along this fall?

Design Wall Monday

On the design wall today is a finished quilt top! This is a mystery project that my local quilt guild hosted to encourage the members to keep sewing over the summer. One of the best things about this quilt is that it is completely made from stash scraps. I am so delighted with it! 

We had lots of practice with adding borders in constructing this medallion quilt. It's basically a star block with 9 borders! I always measure my quilt top through the middle and at the edges before attaching the next border. If you're lucky (and cutting and sewing accurately!) all measurements will be the same. I measure the strip and mark it with a pin, cut the edge straight with a rotary cutter and ruler, and then attach the border strip to the quilt top using a lot of pins. The more variance there is in the measurements between the border strip and the quilt top, the more pins I use!

I had fun taking photos of the quilt top outside on a lovely fall day. AND do you see the dandelion? One brave, lonely, yellow spring flower has somehow survived to the fall!

I love the border fabrics I used up on this project. There are 13 pieces in the green border and 15 pieces in the last black border. Some of the black strips were leftovers from the backing of Angel Solstice finished in 2014... these scraps have been waiting a long time to jump into a quilt!

Can you see that most of the pretty leaves have fallen from the backyard tree? Now it's time for raking leaves and machine quilting!

At the end of the mystery project we were told that this is a pattern by Robert Kaufmann and if you want to make one, the free pattern is called Gazebo Medallion (click on the link to get the pattern).

Linking to Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Oh Scrap!

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party! 

It has been a spectacular fall here in Southern Ontario with a display of colour like I can't ever remember. I have taken many photos to enjoy over the winter to remember these beautiful sunny days.

Last weekend I took a class with Sujata Shah of The Root Connection. 

My Kawandi quilt was inspired by the beautiful fall colours. It was my first online quilting class and I really enjoyed it. 

This kind of quilt making is all by hand and I loved that about it! I didn't have the right needle, but I made it work for the class. You can see that my first row of stitches (which goes through many layers of fabrics) was much bigger than my second row.

Here is the corner of the quilt with the "fula". The Siddi quilt is considered naked without them, so there's my version of a fula. You can see that my stitches are starting to look a little less like they were made by a drunken sailor!

It made me feel like my old (pre-2020) self again seeing beautiful quilts, learning something new, hearing about Siddi quilt makers, and doing some hand stitches together with other women around the world. 

Leave a comment and/or link up your blog post and share what you are hand stitching today. Then make yourself a cup of tea or coffee to enjoy while visiting the blog links and being inspired by what other people are creating with their own two hands.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter