Scrappy Saturday

The colour for February at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is orange. Generally I'm not a big fan of orange and most especially at this time of year. 

3.5" Arrowhead blocks

Nevertheless, I know that my rainbow quilts need some orange blocks, so I forced myself to pick some squares to make into Arrowhead blocks. I prepped some green fabrics that I missed using in January, and somehow I see a purple one got in the pile too! I really like making these blocks so I look forward to adding lots of these to my collection this year. 

Shoo Fly blocks

And of course the Shoo Fly project continues. A few more blocks were made with orange scraps this week, and I am always collecting little pieces to make more of these... adorable.

But mostly I just want to work on these little blocks. They will become a fabric Valentine.
Linking up to the weekly RSC party.

Frolicking along!

Happy Valentine's Day!
I hope you are having a love filled day and are celebrating all the wonderful people you love and who love you back! 

It has been a long week with not enough sewing time to maintain sanity, so it's getting a bit scary in my head! Only quilters really understand that!

There has been a little bit of slow progress on my Frolic blocks. This is the pile of finished blocks and some blocks in progress. It is relaxing sewing these blocks now that I know what I'm doing, having studied the instructions for a long time.


I decided to go with dark blue cornerstones. Here are my blocks with sashing on the design wall.
Well for goodness sake... evidently I was a bit too relaxed and today I will have some unsewing to do! 

Quilty Gifts

I participated in Barb's sawtooth star block swap and just got my blocks back. It's always an exciting day when you see the package in the mailbox and can't wait to open it!

Sawtooth Stars on the design wall

Aren't they beautiful and sparkly?!?!
I think I might make 10 more blocks to make it a larger quilt and feel totally stoked to work on this project at my upcoming quilt retreat.
Thanks again to Barb for this (and many previous) block swaps! I am sad she is retiring as swap mistress and hope someone else with the time and organizational skills will take over this wonderful tradition.

And also, I received a second surprise parcel in the mail this week as I was the lucky winner of the blogiversary draw at Sarah's blog Confessions of a Fabric Addict. Thank you Sarah for the gift bag! It had some fabric treats, notions, patterns and this lovely card, which I taped right in the front cover of my dayplanner (yes, I still use an actual book to keep track of my schedule).

I feel very spoiled being the recipient of all these treats! Thank you blog readers and writers for constantly building community and being so generous! I am grateful indeed!
Linking up to Small Quilts.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching link up! We celebrate all types of hand work and enjoy seeing what is being created by hands all around the world... slow and steady, one small stitch at a time!

Did you know that yesterday (February 8th) was Hari-Kuyo? This is a 400+ year old Japanese ritual called  "Festival of Broken Needles". What is that you ask?!?

Hari-Kuyo is the Buddhist and Shinto Festival of Broken Needles which is celebrated in parts of Japan on February 8th. For the past 400 years, kimono makers, seamstresses and homemakers have gathered at shrines to thank their bent pins and broken needles for the hard work and faithful service they have provided over the past year. They express their thanks by holding a small memorial service and putting the pins and needles to rest in a block of soft tofu or jelly. It is also an opportunity to pray for improved sewing skills in the year to come. (Modern Quilt Guild)

This ceremony resonates for me. I go through a lot of needles! I like my needles to be sharp and replace them as soon as they feel dull. 
Here is the final resting place for my dull, broken and bent needles. This little glass jar has a cork lid and keeps all these sharps safe. It holds all the secrets and sorrows that my needles have absorbed from my hands over the years. They have seen me through a lot of stitches and memories and I am so thankful for them!

Today I am putting more stitches into my Life Is Beautiful blocks. Here is the stack of finished blocks that have been hand embroidered, hand appliqued, and hand quilted. I am enjoying working on this project again, and have prepped a few more blocks to take to quilt retreat later in the month.

What are you hand stitching today? Link up your blog or instagram post below and share your slow progress with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

150 Canadian Women on the Design Wall

Since it's Valentine's Day this month, and there is a red blog hop coming mid February, I have decided to focus on my red and white 150 Canadian Women quilt.

I really wanted this to become a finished quilt, and I greatly enjoyed the stories of famous Canadian Women that inspired the blocks. 
And then I lost interest. There was not one particular reason why this happened, except perhaps project overwhelm and the brain power to continue. The process is lengthy because I want to read the historical information for each block, and then selecting fabrics for each block, cutting the pieces and sewing the block takes at least an hour. 
Eventually it ended up in the UFO closet.

I have seen some amazing finished quilts that prompted me to get to work on it, and then last week I saw Celeste's quilt top where she used the tiny cutoff corners, sewed them into HST blocks and created amazing borders.
Totally gorgeous! 

Some of my 150 blocks on the design wall

And I decided I must finish this quilt, and I must do ALL the blocks. I had been considering making a smaller version using the blocks already made, but NO... it needs to be the full version. And I need the white sashing like Celeste used to calm down the whole sampler feel.

hand full of 150 blocks

Here is the pile of my blocks sewn so far. 
60 out of 150... not even half way there!
My February goal is to get all 150 blocks made (gasp) and get them sewn into a quilt top (double gasp)!
Linking up to One Monthly Goal.

Shweshwe Inspiration

Celeste and her Nelson Mandela tribute quilt

Last week we had an inspiring guest speaker at our guild and I wanted to give a shout out to her on my blog. This is my friend Celeste of Meerkat Shweshwe. Celeste is originally from South Africa and imports Shweshwe fabrics to Canada. Her guild presentation is part history lesson, part fabric production lesson, and pure inspiration.

My last quilt made completely from her Shweshwe fabric was the Palmateer Point mystery quiltalong. It was lovely to work with and even before the quilt was finished, my sister claimed it as her own.

Celeste brought a wonderful selection of her patterns and fabrics for us to purchase at guild meeting (you can see them here ). This was the line up of customers even after most folks had gone home!

Celeste's 150 quilt

I was re-inspired to continue to work on my 150 Canadian Women quilt after seeing Celeste's quilt. From her cut off corners and leftover scraps, she made tiny HST blocks along the top and bottom borders... so pretty!

Celeste's 150 quilt

Be still my heart! 💖
I haven't worked on my project for 2 years and realized that I still really want to finish ALL these blocks and finish my 150 quilt. And I really like the white sashing, which tones down the look of a busy sampler quilt.
Thank you Celeste for all the inspiration and ideas!
Now... where are my 150 blocks?!?!

Group Quilt

A small group of my quilting friends (we call ourselves the Sew 'n Sews) like to work together on a group project to donate to the Mennonite Relief Sale. Our last quilt Whirlygig donated in 2017 raised $700 and we were thrilled to contribute our quilty efforts to this worthy cause.

2020 group quilt blocks

Since then we have been a little distracted or lazy or perhaps unorganized, but we decided to focus on finishing one of our projects for this year's auction. These were the blocks on my design wall. Two of them got voted off the project... one measured too small, and the yoyo tree block was deemed to be drawing too much attention to itself! "Look at me, look at me, I'm not like the others"!

After much discussion (which I find stressful but other people find enjoyable!) this was the final block layout with black sashing strips added.
Then there was (too) much lengthy discussion about borders, which was peppered with intense discussions about an upcoming family wedding, and health concerns of various family members, plus a very active puppy desperately trying to "help" us! It was exhausting to keep the focus on finishing the quilt!


This was the scrappy border that we finally decided on and I think it looks terrific! 

This is my favourite photo that shows some group members moving blocks around. Once the order of the border sections was decided on, the sections were passed to the sewers, and somehow the whole thing magically came together. 
Except the corner blocks. 
There was much debate about those, and eventually I brought the quilt home, made the blocks I like and now the quilt is at the hand quilters! 
Linking up to Small Quilts and Oh Scrap!

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching link up! We celebrate all types of hand work and enjoy seeing what is being created by hands around the world. 
Today is Groundhog Day here and we are hoping the rodent predicts an early spring for us (although the winter really hasn't been terrible this year). It's also Super Bowl Sunday, which is a perfect opportunity for hand stitching while you watch/listen to the game and/or the half show.

Today I am working on an old hand stitching project. I got out my Life Is Beautiful bag and put the blocks up on the design wall to figure out where I'm at with this project. The block that I thought I finished hand quilting this week (bottom row 3rd from the right) needs an echo circle quilted and I will start with that today.

I have 2 more embroidery blocks to applique, and 10 more embroidery blocks to quilt.  This project is coming along well (as it should be after 5 years!) and I'm excited to work on it more today. 
What are you hand stitching today? Are you stitching through the Super Bowl? Link up your blog post below and share your project with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

January Miniature Quilt

Wendy at The Constant Quilter encourages fellow bloggers to make miniature quilts to link to at the end of the month. 

starting blocks

I enjoy making mini quilts and am looking forward to sewing up lots of tiny scraps in 2020.
My January project comes from a scrap bag from a friend that was full of 1.25" squares. 
I posted last week about this muddy mess of a mini scrap quilt, and for some unknown reason that blog post has disappeared into the ether. Blogging (and life in general) is weird that way... now you see it, and now it's gone!

miniature quilt top with dark blue sashing

Anyway, in the comments on that missing post Annie suggested a dark blue sashing to give "drama and definition". Such an excellent idea... thanks Annie!
Here is the same blocks with sashing... so much better!

back of the quilt top

This is a photo of the quilt top from the back so you can see how I pressed all the little seams. It is very precise sewing and sometimes challenging with pieces that finish 3/4", but I enjoy it!

This photo shows the scale of the blocks as I was quilting the diagonal lines with the walking foot. The finished block size is 2.25" and there are 271 pieces in the quilt.

Here is my January miniature quilt measuring 16" square. 

Because most (all?) of the scrap pieces (except the sashing) are William Morris fabrics, I am calling this "William Chains".
 I like the strong diagonal neutral chains in this design. 


To see the links to the other January miniature quilts, hop over to The Constant Quilter.

Teaching and Giveaway

Triangle classroom

Last week I enjoyed teaching a machine quilting class at Triangle Sewing. They have such a wonderful classroom, large and spacious for spreading out quilts, and windows all around the room ... a wonderful place to spend a day. You can see my demo samples on the table and my  finished quilts behind.

quilt stack!

This is the stack of quilts I brought to show the students a range of quilting designs they could learn. One of my favourite quilts is hanging on the ironing board... Save The Bees was last year's BOM pattern by Jacquelynne Steeves. Each border was quilted with a different design... bricks, swirls, and ribbons.

machine quilting demo

And I brought another one of Jacquelynne's patterns to demo some quilting. This is my Happy Little Things quilt and I am demonstrating how to quilt a wishbone design in the floral border. Two more borders to go and this will be finished!

And while we are talking about Jacquelynne, hop over to her site to enter the Grand Prize draw for the Happy Little Things wrap up. It's a reminder to get your free patterns before they are deactivated. 

The Chocolate Dance is over!

My January UFO is done! 

Finished "Chocolate Dance"

So exciting to start off 2020 accomplishing the goal that I set for myself in the first month of the year! I hope this sets the trend for my whole year!
Here is the finished quilt being held up by my son. It doesn't drape well due to having no batting, but you get the effect of how it looks.

Here it is laying in the snow! It's a miracle that when it's horizontal, it lays flat! 
I'm shocked!
Why does it look so much better now that it's finished and the struggle is over!?!?

I still love those scrappy chocolate themed border prints!

This quilt top was finished in the summer of 2018 and I'm doing the happy dance about the first finished quilt of 2020! That was only a year and a half from start to finish... woohoo! The quilting on this was a really hard process, and many lessons were learned in the finishing. It's amazing to me that after 25+ years of quilting, I am still learning new things about quilting!  
So proud to link up my finish at One Monthly Goal!

Frolic Design Wall

It's all about Frolic blocks in the sewing room this week. The cutting is done and all the parts are sewn, so the only thing left to do is to sew the whole thing together. That should take only one or two hundred more hours! LOL 

I have finished 6 blocks and although I was uncertain about my colour changes (I substituted gold for green, and pink for aqua) I am very pleased how it is coming together on the design wall.
Today I am auditioning the cornerstone colour.

Do we prefer the light blue cornerstones?

Or do we prefer the darker blue cornerstones?

If you have a preference, let me know in the comment section below. I hope to get some rows sewn together this week.

Linking up to Small Quilts.

Slow Sunday Stitching

It's time for some Slow Sunday Stitching!

Take out your hand stitching project and enjoy some relaxation. Try not to think about your "to-do" list, or ruminate about your worries. Just take a stitching break, and focus on pulling thread through fabric, one stitch at a time. Breathe deeply and enjoy yourself!

hand binding

This is what I am hand stitching today. It's so exciting to be nearing the finish line with a complex, challenging quilt project. For the first time, I attached the binding to the backing of a quilt so that I could hand stitch the edge on the front of the quilt. It worked out so much better than trying to hand stitch into the minkee backing. Binding is my favourite hand stitching activity, even when dealing with a minkee backing, so I am in my happy place today, if only for a few moments!

Go to your Happy Place!

I hope you are in your hand stitching happy place today!
Link up your blog post below and share your hand stitching project with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday - Almost Squared Away

Progress has been made on getting the Squared Away blocks into a quilt! The alternate square fabric was chosen by the majority of votes of blog reader's comments last Saturday. Overwhelmingly the vote was for the swirly grey fabric. I cut all the alternate squares and the setting triangles. Bonnie Hunter has a great resource for figuring out the size of setting pieces to cut for on point layouts - click here.


Here is the layout I came up with. It's a late night photo so the colour is incorrect, but you get the idea.
If you want to make your own scrappy version, the block patterns and tutorials are still available on Angela's website - click here.

See the owl interloper on the bottom right of the quilt? (She is not a Squared Away block pattern, but is a Tiny Tuesday Pattern)

Does she stand out like a sore thumb or is she a sweet surprise? Much debate occurred between my quilt friends about whether the owl could stay with all her pieced friends in this quilt, or whether she should be evicted since she really is the "odd owl out".

In order to be included in this quilt, she had to be altered from a straight set owl to become an "on point" owl. She really wanted to stay in this quilt, and she makes me smile, so she was altered accordingly and gets to stay!

I have packed up all the blocks to sew together at my winter retreat. All the thinking has been done for this quilt (except for the borders) so it will be the perfect retreat sewing project.
Hop over to the RSC weekly link up and see more green projects.

Today is support your local quilt shop day and I happen to be teaching a machine quilting class at my local quilt shop to celebrate! I rarely buy quilting things on line because I do not want to lose the local shops where we can go to see quilts,  pet the fabrics, and get quilting supplies. We have lost so many in the last few years, and maybe I am fighting a losing battle. But still... I try! We don't want quilt stores to become extinct! Please support your local quilt shop if you have one, not just today, but in the majority of your purchases when you can. 

Practice the NO!

There has to be a line in the sand my quilty friends!

I have been practicing my "NO" when it comes to new projects. 
Shocking, but true!
NO more new projects until I finish a few of the ones I have in progress that I really like and that need to become finished quilts!

I said NO to Yankee Notions, even though I really love Barbara Brackman sampler projects. My favourite was Votes For Women ... you can still get the patterns here.

I said NO to Bloomtopia quiltalong, even though I love the colours, and adore the backing design.

I am saying NO to all the AQS quiltalongs, although there are great prizes to be won.

I said NO (maybe) to the 2 colour quilt Grandma's Attic quiltalong at Quilt Doodle Designs. It's so darn cute and could totally be made from scraps. 

I said NO to the Out West quiltalong at Pat Sloan's blog, even though the theme is western movies, which is one of my guilty pleasures.

What I hope I say NO to is Moda Blockheads #3 that started on January 15th. 

I first heard about round 3 starting from the Bear Creek Quilt Company. What is appealing if I were doing it (which I'm probably not) is that you choose your block size! 

What about you? Are you practicing your NO?

UFO Update

My January UFO called "Chocolate Dance" has been machine quilted.

Because I am teaching a class on friday about how to quilt swirls and ribbon candy designs, I decided to practice them on this quilt. Swirls are in the centre and the fun ribbon candy design is in the border. I wrote about the minke frustrations in a previous blog post, so I won't go on and on about it again today, but it turned my usually enjoyable quilting experience, into a very challenging process. 

And... can you even believe this?!?! 
I measured how much binding I needed, and ta da... I'm about 1" too short!
Are you kidding me?!?! This quilt experience was just one frustration after another!

I attached the binding on the minke side and folded it over to the quilt top side to hand stitch it down ... that turned out to be a good idea!
I'm so relieved that the quilting is done and the binding is on, so in spite of all the challenges, it looks like I'm on track to achieve my January goal!