New Quiltville Mystery

Bonnie Hunter will be hosting a new mystery quilt adventure starting on Black Friday. 
I have been sewing Bonnie's mystery patterns since 2008 when I made two of her projects (Carolina Crossroads and Orange Crush). One of my favourite Bonnie mystery quilts is Easy Street, which is on my bed right now and gets the most use. A couple of the past mysteries have not yet become finished quilts, but they will! 
Who knew that more than 10 years later I would still be just as excited to start yet another Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt?!?


I am also excited that my sister is joining in for the first time this year and here are her fabric choices so far (without the neutrals). She is using yardage for the "Framboise"/pink and the "Parakeet"/green.



Here are my fabrics (without the neutrals) going just slightly "outside the box". 

I don't worry about my colour choices at all. As long as there is contrast between the fabric choices, it all works out. My blues are more to the "Prussian" blue end of the spectrum and my "Framboise" is more red than raspberry. The gold yardage will be my green, and the light pink will be my aqua. Who knows how it will all work out?!? 
My motto is... as long as you love your fabrics, you will love your finished quilt!
Are you joining in the fun?

Crazy Triangle Project

Back in the spring, these scrappy triangles were given to me at a guild meeting. Scraps just seem to follow me home sometimes! 
I wasn't sure what to do with them, but when playing on the design wall, I liked the diamond shape and sewed this little design together. 

Then I wanted to make it a larger scrappy quilt and add some triangle shapes to the sides. I pieced a few triangle blocks (top left of above photo) but I didn't enjoy them, and couldn't see myself making enough to go all around the quilt.

Then I remembered Amanda Jean Nyberg's tutorial for piecing scrappy triangles and I immediately wanted to get out the scrap bin and start sewing some of those. 
YES! These blocks are so much more fun, easier to make and I'm off to the races! The new blocks are at the top left of the quilt, and the bottom 3 are the old ones. I'll tuck those in some where, but for now, I'm putting this project into storage because I've figured out the plan, and it's a perfect (no brainer) scrap project to work on at quilt retreat in February.
I have put together the quilt top, the scrappy triangles blocks made so far, and a phone book. These are the base foundation triangles that I cut from the phone book. I can get 6 from one page. I look forward to finishing this quilt top at quilt retreat in the middle of winter.
Hop over to Small Quilts to see more design wall posts.

Slow Sunday Stitching Finish

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!
I'm proud to share a finished quilt today!

This finish is very exciting because it is a hand pieced, hand quilted project and it took a long time to complete. 
This is the hand pieced quilt along by Elm Street Quilts, started in January 2019 using the Moda fabric line called "hello luscious". The sampler blocks were hand pieced and stitched together by the end of April. It then became my take along project to quilt during the summer months. 

Friendship Album back

The backing was made from some left over charm squares, but I discovered that was not a good idea for a backing on a hand quilted project. There were so many seams in the quilt top, added to the extra seams in the pieced backing and it made the quilting a real challenge. I won't do that again!

I'm calling my quilt "Friendship Album" since I listened to an audio book by the same name while I was stitching this quilt.

What are you hand stitching today? Share your progress with us and link up your blog post below.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday

Progress is being made on my Economy Path quilt.
 The vote on last week's post was overwhelming positive for layout C, so that is how the blocks were sewn together. There were lots of other wonderful creative ideas shared, but I didn't go down that rabbit hole. I wanted to finish the quilt and I know myself well enough to recognize that layout indecisiveness makes my quilts head toward the UFO closet!
I quilted a very simple stitch in the ditch grid, and put on a grey binding.
Don't you hate it when this happens and your binding strip is just slightly too short? UGH!
I added another strip and finished sewing down the binding, so hand stitching the binding down will be tomorrow's Slow Sunday Stitching project!
Hop over to the RSC weekly linkup to see more projects moving toward completion.

Mosaic Mystery Update

It was fun sewing this month's step in Cheryl's mystery at Meadow Mist Designs. There was nothing fancy or difficult requiring use of the seam ripper, which made it fun to sew.
My bright colour choices are bringing some sunshiny cheerfulness into the sewing room.
Don't they make their own sweet  little spring time quilt!?
I enjoy the pace of a project with a bit of sewing each month. It's fun to pull out the fabrics, sew a few blocks and then put them back in the box until the next month. Eventually it will magically become a quilt with seemingly very little effort!

Hop over to the Meadow Mist link up and see the variety of colours and fabrics that quilters are using to make these same diagonal blocks.

New Block Swap

I'm so excited to participate in another of Barb's quilt block swaps! I thought it might be fun to take a look back at some of the previous swap projects.

Bow Tie Block Swap quilt

This is my Repro Bow Tie quilt, which is one of my favourite quilts. It was made from the blocks I received in Barb's 2015 swap. I added some half size blocks for the top and bottom borders and finished the quilt in 2016. I enjoyed every single moment of hand quilting this beauty!

Red Repro Broken Dishes block swap

Then in 2016 the block for the swap was Red Repro Broken Dishes! I finished this quilt in 2018 and used a pattern by Hyacinth Quilt Design. This one was machine quilted and is also one of my favourite quilts!

The swap in 2018 was the Churn Dash block and I received so many fantabulous blocks! 

Churn Dash block swap

I combined the churn dashes  with 9 patch blocks to make this wonderful quilt top. It's still at the flimsy stage because I can't decide about a border. Even looking at it today I am undecided! I love it as is, but also have so many border ideas. Maybe I should just go ahead and finish it, since one year later I still haven't decided?!

Which brings me to the 2019 swap. You have to be quick to get yourself on the swap list, and this year I was too slow signing up to get in the repro group, so I am in the "modern" group. The block this year is sawtooth stars and here are my fabric purchases - I bought yardage, not the bolts! If the Honeysuckle becomes too much for me, I bought some Ultra Marine to calm down!

I don't think I am a "modern" quilter at all, but I do love a challenge, and I love colour... so let's do this thing!
Here's my first test block. Do you think the Honeysuckle is bright enough?!? LOL
Okay... 30 more to sew!

Home Grown Quilt Top

It is Remembrance Day today in Canada. 

Every year at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month we spend a moment in silence to show respect to and appreciation for all those who have sacrificed for our freedom and safety. 

It seems like the perfect day to show this project honouring love, family,  and home.
I have been working hard on my "Home Grown" quilt (pattern by Nancy Halvorsen, fabric kit by Cherished Pieces). I know it doesn't look like much, but this house was really hard to make.
R e a l l y . h a r d!
One of the challenges was the intense and lengthy cutting instructions which you can read about here. You have no idea how complicated this pattern is, even though most of it is panels!

One of the problems was that the written instructions, and the book illustration, and the included photo at the bottom (which was a life saver) were not the same. You see the house illustration on the pattern in the middle of the photo where the "blue house" roof piecing layout is backwards? It took me way too long to correctly reverse this in my mind, and then translate my tenuous understanding of the required changes to the fabric. The number of mistakes and do-overs was embarrassing.

Anyway, in spite of my confusion and many mistakes requiring seam ripper intervention, I have finally finished the quilt top on my design wall!
💖 I adore this quilt and forgive it all the frustration in the making! 💖
Thank you to Cherished Pieces for a fabulous kit, with ample fabric provided to cover my many mistakes!

Hop over to Small Quilts to see more Design Wall postings.

And also... just as an aside... I was watching the Fons and Porter Love of Quilting TV show and noticed that they were sewing with fabrics from the same line as I was this weekend! 
What are the chances of that??!?