Quilt Retreat Project

Quilt retreat has already come and gone. It always goes too fast, like all wonderful things in life. 
One of my projects was this Kim Diehl pattern called Twinkle Trees from her lovely Simple Christmas Tidings book. I purchased the book and fabric kit as my Christmas present to myself in 2017 because I fell in love with the gorgeous sample quilt at Quilter's Nine Patch. And then it sat in the closet and waited patiently for a turn at the sewing machine.

tree top blocks

It was a lot of cutting to do all at once. I very rarely pre-cut an entire quilt top before I start sewing. But I did this time and it was a treat to go to quilt retreat and just sit and sew these fun blocks. First up was the 4 patch blocks, followed by many flying geese blocks.
  
Here are the 20 blocks that I finished at quilt retreat. I really like how scrappy they turned out.

And here on the design wall today is the first tree block almost ready to assemble.  

There are many more blocks still to sew, but it's too discouraging to look ahead and try to figure out how much more sewing needs to happen before the quilt top starts to take shape. So I'm just taking it one relaxing block at a time! 
Hop over to Small Quilts to see what other quilters have on their design walls today.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly Slow Sunday Stitching party! Pull out your hand work and join us as we work on our stitching project.

blue flower moon

Do you know the saying "once in a blue moon" which refers to a rare happening? Well, a blue moon happened last night and it was called a blue flower moon. It doesn't have anything to do with my stitching today, but it was a fun thing to see last night.  It's also a difficult thing to photograph but I tried and this is the best I could do!

Today I'll be working on a scrappy quilt top made of triangles that were donated to the quilt guild scrap bin. I had enough to make a layout that I liked but wasn't sure how to finish the edges. After looking at it for a while on the design wall I just couldn't chop off the diamond sides. 
So I decided to fold the edges of the triangles, and hand appliqued the sides onto a strip of muslin. 

My friend Debby had a Clover product called a fabric folding pen and I tried it out to fold the edges of the triangles.  It was a little tricky to get the right amount of fluid to come out, and a couple of my triangles were too wet. Eventually I think I was using the right amount but it really did not seem to make enough of a difference in folding the edges to justify the $22. Have you tried this product? If you have any tips or comments, I'd love to hear your experience with this product. I hope to get these the two sides of this quilt appliquéd and ready to add another border.

What are you stitching by hand today?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Scrappy Saturday

This week I worked on finishing up with the teal scraps from last month and also working with orange scraps for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects. This is what my cutting table looked like with orange and teal scrap everywhere! I finished the orange log cabin loonie block (cutting instructions from Julie are here) but still needed to finish the teal one. These scraps were really fun to sew up. 



I was delighted to find the tiny horse to feature in the centre of one of the log cabin blocks.
Each log cabin block is 4.5", so when the four are joined together it makes an 8.5" block made of 52 scraps.

And here are the 8 mini log cabin blocks I have made so far. 
I really like the effect of the left column (green and gold blocks) offset by half a block. I think that could be a cool layout when/if I ever have enough blocks to make a quilt!

To see what the other RSC quilters are up, hop over to the weekly link up at Angela's.

Another Quick Finish

I enjoyed picking out the thread colours for quilting

This project was started at quilt retreat last fall and is a pattern from Krista Moser called "Aztec Diamond".  
I had fun using the 60 degree ruler and pieced the runner as soon as I got the pattern and fabric at last year's retreat. 
But then it waited patiently until this year to be quilted.

I machine quilted straight lines using the walking foot following the diamond design. I used the Hera marker to mark the stitching lines. Can you see the line it made right at the tip of the marker? It's quick and easy and one of my favourite methods of marking quilting lines.

Perfect place for hand stitching!

This is where I sat with my morning coffee and hand stitched the binding on the last morning of quilt retreat. It is still a little cool to sit outside, so you can see that I was joined by no one!






It was so peaceful and beautiful there. You can see that finally the green is returning in my part of the world.

Here is the glamour shot of the finished table runner on the bench by the fountain.

So happy to have another UFO finished!

Finished Memory Quilt

pin basting and picking the coral thread colour

This quilt project started in January when I adopted a bag of 128 HST blocks that were abandoned in the scrap bin at guild meeting. The little HSTs were perfectly made and I had a lot of fun making the blocks and creating the quilt layout. Once the quilt top was together I couldn't wait to get quilting!


Using the walking foot I quilted straight lines in the middle of the quilt. Then I switched to the free motion foot and made some squiggly lines in those long white spaces.

I quilted free motion swirls in the borders. This photo shows the quilting design which is much easier to see on  the back of the quilt.
I hand stitched the binding which is my most favourite part of quiltmaking. I love these Black Gold Clover applique needles that are so sharp and thin that I can easily push the needle through many layers of fabric to attach binding without using a thimble. Although these needles are pricey compared to others (here in Canada I paid $9 plus tax for 6 needles) they are totally worth it! 

This quilt finishes at 24" square and will be donated to the memory quilt collection at my quilt guild. These small quilts are given to our local hospital for distribution to families experiencing the loss of a baby.

Scrap Dance Minuet Step #4

My regular blog readers know that I am a quiltaholic, always have many (hundreds?) of projects in various stages in production, and I adore mystery quilts. They are just pure fun! 
Step #4 of Carole's Scrap Dance Minuet was posted last week and these are my blocks.

step #4 blocks

I challenged myself in making this mystery quilt to use up old fabric, most of which I don't like, in an attempt to see if I could "make a silk purse out of a sow's ear". And do you know what?
The more I have cut and sewn these old fabrics, the more I have come to like them! 
Some people worry about making mystery quilts and think it might be a "waste of fabric" if they don't like the quilt when it's done. 
But it's the process that I enjoy so much. It's like a surprise adventure! And if I don't like how the quilt turns out, I am happy to donate the project to a worthy cause. There is always someone out there in the world who will like it and be thankful to have it. 
Next month is the grand reveal of the quilt layout and I can't wait to see what my "silk purse" quilt is going to look like!
PS...even easy sewing sometimes requires a seam ripper!! (bottom right block!)

Retreat Preparations

It's time to pack up for spring quilting retreat. 
It's always challenging for me to decide which projects to take. 

new project cut and organized for sewing

My friends take great delight in making fun of me over my project selection agony, but truly... it's a very hard decision!
I started a new project and precut ALL the pieces so that I can sit at sew at retreat... no thinking required!
There are so many options since I have piles of UFOs, and I want to take everything, but that is not realistic. Even at quilt retreat, there are still only 24 hours in the day.
I like to have a variety of projects because a quilter can never predict what she might feel like working on, right?!?! 

baby quilt ready to sew

I am taking 3 quilt tops to piece (LOL probably only 2 of them will see the light of day!), some candlemats and a tablerunner to machine quilt, my hand embroidery project, my Blockheads II to make more blocks (I have finished 26 of the 52 blocks), and of course a small quilt to finish the binding.
How do you decide what projects to take to a quilting retreat?!?