Circa 2106 is Finished in 2016!

Circa 2016 blocks

In January I started a mystery quiltalong hosted by Temecula quilts. Every Friday a new block pattern was posted on their blog and eventually this pile of blocks was created. It's magical the way a pile of fabric scraps can become a pile of carefully constructed blocks.

And even more magical, is when that pile of blocks becomes  a quilt top! 

But what is even almost miraculous, is when that quilt is finished within the same year in which it was started!

And here is the finished miracle quilt hanging on my friend's clothesline.
Finished size: 41.25" x 49.25" 

There wasn't an official link up to see other finished quilts, so here are some that I have found in blogland:
Deanna, Karen,  Randy (with an hourglass border instead of the HST) and Joanne (her Circa 2016 grew into a huge quilt). If you know of others, leave a link in the comments and I'll add them.
Thank you again to Temecula for all the fun this year in making this scrappy quilt ... I just love it! The pattern can be purchased here.

A Hand Quilted Finish!

I am so excited to show you that I finished my hand quilted bow tie quilt! It's completely done... including the label!

The edges look a little wobbly but they're not. The quilt is pinned to the design wall so the waves are an optical illusion.
And now the 'thank you' list:

*Thank you to Barb who started this quilt with a bow tie block swap last fall. 
*Thank you to the quilters who sewed most of these blocks, made with reproduction fabrics and muslin. I made a few more full size blocks to add to the blocks I received in the swap, and made all but two of the mini bow ties to make the top and bottom border. 
*Thank you to Sharon over at Vroomans Quilts who inspired the layout idea.

*Thank you to Stitch by Stitch in Kingston where I purchased the backing yardage in the sale room for $5... it just happened to be the perfect size for this project!



*Thank you to my amazing quilt holder - my niece Ellen. This is my favourite photo of the bow tie quilt, taken just as I was finishing the quilting. Here she is just getting ready to head off to Saturday morning fire fighter training classes. In the afternoon she was teaching lifeguarding classes, and during the week she studies chemical engineering. I just feel so inspired by her and I am so very proud to be her Aunt. 

*And the final thank you to the Slow Sunday Stitchers for all their encouraging words when seeing this quilt week after week after week! It's finally a finished quilt! 
LInking up to Amanda over at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Finished Quilt!

I am so happy that I finished my UFO this month! This quilt is called Triangle Stars and was started on a Shop Hop in 2014. It was such a great shop hop experience... you could buy a package of triangles at each quilt store and there were many unique samples of how to use the triangles in various projects. My quilt is based on some of those samples.  

This picture was taken on one of the binding sessions down by the river as it was being finished on the weekend.
I didn't know it when I started this quilt, but it is quite challenging to sew an entire quilt from triangles, since there were are lot of bias seams, a ton of seams to match, and all the seam intersections are very thick. But it is completed now and I am very proud of all of my hard work on this one.


Although the piecing was very challenging, the quilting part was great fun. Most of the quilting was done in white thread, but I really enjoyed choosing the thread for each of the coloured triangles.

I quilted approximately 1/4" on both sides of every seam in the quilt, which gave it lovely texture.

I have never made a quilt with this much white before. The background triangles are white, the backing is a piece of solid white yardage, and the binding is white. I wonder how long it will actually look clean?!




Here is the finished quilt! 
I tried to make a tumbling block using light, medium and darks in the centre of each star and I'm happy with how that turned out.
I'm so excited that it's actually a finished quilt AND that it's finished one day before the end of the month!
Finished size: 53" x 60.5"

To see more UFO completions, hop over to One Monthly Goal linkup.

A Finished Quilt!

My Swoon quilt is done! I have put a lot of time and energy into this quilt over the last 4 years. And finally it is not a UFO anymore - it is a useable quilt!

The pattern is by Camille Roskelley (you can get it here). The blocks are 24" and are really fun to sew, so if you have always wanted to make one, I really encourage you to go for it! 
I enjoyed machine quilting each block on my domestic sewing machine and connected them using the quilt-as-you-go method. I machine stitched the blocks together and hand stitched the final seams on the back between each block.
A useless piece of trivia - I hand stitched 294" on the back seam joins and 294" on the binding, for a total of 588" of hand stitching on this quilt. Wow!
I'm very happy with how the striped binding turned out, although you probably can't see it well in this picture.
The quilt backing looks a little boring, but it does have one small Swoon block on the top right corner. I haven't added a label yet. I hope I do one :)
There are so many decisions that go into making a quilt - deciding on the colours, shopping for the fabrics (this quilt has more than 27 different fabrics), placing the fabrics into the "right" places in the block patterns, organizing the blocks into a pleasing layout, designing the quilting pattern, selecting the type of batting, picking thread colours ... the choices seem endless at times. 
And somehow it all works out in the end... as if by magic!

To see more finished UFO's hop over to the One Monthly Goal link up. 

A Little Spring Finish

I haven't had many quilt finishes this year since I've been working on lots of complex projects. 
So it's about time to finally share a little finish.

The pattern is from volume 3 of Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine and is called "My Easter Dress" by Sonja Callaghan. If you missed the inspiration memory, you can read about that here.

I started paper piecing the block in April, so this one has been finished in a month. That's pretty awesome turnaround time for me! 
I machine quilted stippling in the grass, waves in the dress and a ribbon design on the ribbon. I also added a tiny pink rickrack around the bottom of the dress.

We went for a walk in the forest to get a photo with some trilliums... I know just where to find them. Did you know that when white trilliums age, they turn pink? And that makes the flowers match this little quilt just perfectly!





After the outing I decided that these shoes needed some flower buttons. Such a cute addition if I do say so myself!

Last Scrap Squad Quilt

Two blog posts in one day?!?
My last Scrap Squad quilt has been posted today on the Quiltmaker blog so I had to tell you all about it! It's quite a bit different than my usual style of quilt, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

Which way to go?

I made this quilt for two purposes: 
1) it's my last Scrap Squad project using a pattern that I chose ("Which way to go?" by Nancy Allen) 
AND 
2) it was my entry for my local quilt guild's challenge called "25 shades of grey". I don't like grey, especially in the middle of a cold Canadian winter! But I persevered with the grey fabrics and because of the dramatic red background, it was manageable!



This is the arrow block as it looks on the edge of the quilt. The arrows on the inside of the quilt couldn't be sewn until I knew the exact placement of all the fabrics in the quilt top.

I thought it might be interesting to show the progression as I worked with the pieces on the design wall. 

Rail blocks sewn and placed on the wall 

The darkest and lightest fabrics had to be balanced first, and then I filled in with the mid range grey fabrics

Sewing the quarter square triangle blocks

Once I was happy with the layout, the blocks were sewn together in rows

Once the quilt top was sewn together, it was time for the basting and quilting. These are the Aurifil threads I used for the machine quilting. I used the free motion foot on my sewing machine, quilted with grey in the arrows, and wavy lines with red thread over the seam lines.
The quilt finished at 47.5" x 59".

It has been such an honour and a pleasure to be on the Scrap Squad for Quiltmaker magazine. I made 6 challenging quilts while being on the squad and am delighted that they are all so different. 

If I was independently wealthy, I would fly all the scrap squad members and their quilts to meet somewhere in the world so we could see all these wonderful quilts and quilters in real life. Until then, we will have to enjoy our connection through the internet. A huge thank you to Diane Harris for organizing us, and to my fellow scrap squad members Pam, Emily, Donna, Julie and Keri for all the fun throughout our scrappy adventures together.

Finished Quilt on the Design Wall!

My January UFO is finally finished on the very last day of the month! 
Here is my version of Deckade the Halls pinned to the design wall. It measures 56" x 68" which is wider than my design wall, so the edges of the quilt look a little bit wonkier than they really are.
This was a free pattern from the Fat Quarter Shop to celebrate their 10 years in business in 2013. It was such a fun quilt to piece with the Christmas themed blocks of ornaments, stockings, presents, trees, gingerbread people, mugs, stars and wreaths.

Although I am pleased with how the quilted grid design turned out, I wouldn't recommend it to a quilter who might have any perfectionistic tendencies, as it is very tricky to keep the lines at the same angle across the entire quilt. 






I am linking up my first finish of 2016 over at One Monthly Goal and Design Wall Monday.