Ice and Snow

Maybe the icicle fascination is getting out of hand!?! These are some recent photos I took around my neighbourhood. You know it's too cold when your dog refuses to go for a walk! But I still enjoy looking for new icicles...longer spikes, more points in a row, unusual shapes, etc. I like the shot on the right because of the shadow on the wall. And the icicle on the left is getting bigger every day. Okay...one more photo...from this morning...the ice crystals on the inside of my screen door. They were so beautiful and sparkly but difficult to photograph.

And on to my recent quilting endeavours...after all these years of quilting, I still really enjoy paper piecing and always have a few of those projects on the go. During the Super Bowl I finally sewed the faces on these snowpeople. I had great fun rummaging around in my bead box to find tiny beads that looked coal. This pattern is by Wendy Vosters and it was definately not a beginner project. The blocks were a little tricky to sew (4 separate pieces) but fun to work on.
However, the trickiest blocks to paper piece are those that have multiple pieces (more than 6) with lots of diagonal or partial joins...and when you don't even know what you're sewing! On the right is one of the mystery blocks from one of my favorite paper piecing sites Paper Panache. Every two months or so Linda posts a new (free!) mystery block. I love to select the fabrics, prepare the pieces and leave everything in a baggie beside my machine, so that when I have a little time to work on it, I can pick it up and continue from where I left off. I still have the Christmas block (which is a 6" square) sitting there waiting for me. Fun Fun Fun!

Quilt Rotation

It's time for quilt rotation...every month I change the quilts hanging in my home. I have taken down the January ones and put up the Valentine's theme quilts. This is still one of my old favorites that I called "Heart Patches"...a very simple miniature quilt with 1.5" 9 patch blocks on point, with hand quilted hearts. It is hanging in the dining room.
On the left is another old favorite from my days of block swaps. In the centre are 6" swap blocks

from a Valentine's Day exchange in 1997 and around the outside border are 3" blocks from a "Nine patch Niblets" block exchange in 1998. It took me a long time (years!) to put this wallhanging together and was my first experience with the large range of measurements in the quilting world. A 6" block to one quilter is a 5.5" or 6.5" block to another! I finally figured out to sash the 6" blocks to make them go together, and the 9 patch blocks I just trimmed liberally and made them fit. This quilt is hanging in the living room.

I really learned a lot from my block swapping days in the 90's and it was always lots of fun to get the "squishies" in the mail. I still have lots of blocks sitting around my quilting room...everything from the hourglass and 9 patch block exchanges, to beautiful star blocks. I had to stop participating in the swaps because I just couldn't keep up with using up all the blocks and getting the projects quilted...too many UFO's accumulated.

This week I am starting to plan which projects to take along to a quilting retreat coming up at the end of the month, and I'm sure at least one of those projects will involve using up some of my blocks from internet swaps. At last year's retreat I stressed myself out by setting goals that were too ambitious. I think I took 9 projects to work on, and tried to do some work on each of them. This year I am taking fewer projects and focusing more on the relaxation part of the reatreat. I hope February passes quickly!

Distracted by sparkles

It is very cold these days, with lots of snow to shovel. This was the view looking out my bedroom window. The sun coming out during the day melts the snow on the roof and makes wonderful icicles from the eavestroughs. As I walk the dog every day I admire the wonderful sparkling icicles on the homes around the neighbourhood. It sometimes interferes with my driving too, as I have been known to stop the car to admire icicles!

And inside I am trying to get those flannel quilts done. But it is boring, so I take frequent breaks to work on a teaching sampler for a beaded bindings class I am teaching this semester. These are some of the miniature quilt bindings for which I have either added beads to the binding or used beads for the binding. My favorite book and inspiration is "Beading Basics" by Mari Stori. I made my first beaded binding before I bought this book, and only came up with the idea because I made a quilt that was round, and not knowing how bind a round quilt, I came up with the idea to use beads to finish the edge. Then I found this book and realized my idea was not original at all! Well...I have a few minutes left in the day. I will tuck the kids into bed, walk the dog (and check out the icicles), make some tea, and get out the beading tray!

No inspiration this week...only boring quilting!

Didn't I say that I was done with flannel??? For some unknown reason last fall I bought a package of assorted 8" flannel squares, some having Strawberry Shortcake fabrics. At the time of purchase I was thinking...this would make a quick quilt for a baby. Then I started reminiscing about how much my nieces loved Strawberry Shortcake in the early 80's and thinking that they would really love a quilt with these fabrics. I waited for the idea to go away, but it took hold, and I knew I couldn't make a quilt for one niece and not the other, so I had to make two quilts. I remembered my lesson from my previous experiences with shrinking flannel and I prewashed all the squares. After washing, the squares measured 7 1/4". I started to figure out how much more fabric I would need to make two lap size quilts, instead of one crib quilt. Since I had nothing in my stash to match this stuff, I found myself shopping for fabrics to go with, for borders, backings and bindings. Oh brother...I have so many other things on the go, why did I pursue this? I hate when this happens...I get an idea and it won't leave me alone, and I get excited about it, not thinking of how much time it will actually take me! On the right is my sewing machine set up to do the quilting on my dining room table...sorry family, no cooking or eating until the quilt is done!

The older nieces' birthday was on friday. "Your gift is coming" I said to her, "it's not done yet". She is used to me saying things like this and she always says something like it makes the birthday fun last longer knowing she has a package to look forward to. I finished quilting the first one today. I quilted an "all over" pattern trying to make shapes that look like "S" ( for Strawberry Shortcake) which I am trying to show in the photo on the left. The quilt is very heavy with all that thread on all that flannel. I was happy with the striped pink binding fabric that I found. This is a photo of me happily sewing down the binding. You can see the backing fabric that I found and my little quilt-snuggling dog! I was coming around the last corner and found this mess!

The corner of the backing fabric had folded back on itself and I quilted over it. Now I have to decide if I will remove the binding, and rip out the quilting, then requilt and rebind the corner - or leave it. I'm pretty sure I will leave it as it is and sew a label over top! While I tried to calm down about that, I basted the other quilt, so I feel like I am in the home stretch now. The second nieces' birthday is Groundhog Day...do you think the quilts will arrive in New Jersey by then?!?!

Inspiring People

At my quilt guild this month we had Sybil Rampen as our guest speaker. I must say that she is one of the best speakers I have ever heard! She was inspiring, her work was unique, she was generous with sharing her ideas, and she was very entertaining. In addition to being an accomplished fibre artist, Sybil is also an author and has written a book called "The Grannies", which I am giving to my Mom for her birthday. She has also written and self published a book of fibre art techniques called "Milkweed Angel" and I have ordered that for myself...let's call it a Valentine's Day present for myself!
After the meeting I was thinking more about sources of inspiration. One of the guild lectures I provide is on my sources of inspiration... I talk about 14 of my most used sources of inspiration, and show the quilts I have made from these sources. Many of the original quilts I have made were inspired by people and special occasions. Such was the occasion at a "big" birthday party for my friend Louise Hopkins...I won't give away just how "big" of a birthday this was! Louise is the person who introduced me to quilting many years ago when we met at the hospital where we were both working....she was an occupational therapist and I was a family therapist on a treatment team. At the time I met her, she was hand quilting a huge log cabin quilt. I loved to hear her talk about her quilting and invited myself over to her house to see that quilt. Louise encouraged me to buy a sewing machine, believing that I could learn to quilt. And because she believed it, I thought it must be true! Having never sewn a thing, I bought a sewing machine! From that day on, I have become more and more addicted to quilting...rarely does a day goes by that I do not work on a quilting or beading project. And because I owe my introduction to quilting to my friend Louise, I wanted to make her something special for her birthday. I started with a photo of her children that she had sent in her Christmas card the year before. I made photo transfers of that photo plus a few other photos I had taken of sunflowers. I added in some of my hand painted fabrics and some textured commercial fabrics, and used one of my favorite designing techniques. I cut a variety of fabrics into squares and rectangles, generating approximately about twice the number that I will actually use. The size of the pieces are based on a 1" finished measurement, so the squares start at 1 1/2" and the rectangles start at 1 1/2" x 2 1/2". For larger wallhangings I cut some of these smaller pieces and then increase the sizes so I have a variety of colours and sizes. Then I organize the pieces in a way that pleases me and sew them together. On quilts as small as this one (7" x 8") I do a minimum of quilting, and this quilt I finished with a two colour binding. There are a lot of things that are symbolic of Louise and her values in this little quilt and although I can see things that I would change now, I still smile when I see this photo and think of all the inspiration and encouragement Louise has given me over the past 17 years. Thanks Louise!

Bumped up a generation

I just realized this week that I have been bumped up a generation. I am no longer invited to the weddings and baby showers of my cousins and friends. Now I am being invited to the celebrations of the children of my cousins and friends! How did this happen so quickly?!?! My children would say "You know you're old when...."! Today I feel old. I went to a baby shower to celebrate the birth of my cousin's new grandson. On the right is my cousin's daughter Darcy and her new beautiful son Benjamin. I remember very clearly holding Darcy when she was a newborn and now she is a mother! Of course I had to make a quilt for Benjamin and started by sewing together 6" squares. Then I cut out some shapes (heart, bear, moon, star, bib, block, sun, block and bottle) and buttonhole stitched around the shapes. I love the buttonhole stitch, and although it is faster to do by machine, I still enjoy stitching by hand. Then I quilted using my walking foot and straight stitched in all the seam lines. I hope Benjamin will enjoy napping under his new quilt! I'm going to have a nap now, because I am old and old people need naps too!

To complain or not to complain!

Thanks to the readers of my blog who have encouraged me by telling me they enjoy reading about my quilting adventures, and those who encourage me by buying me pins to wear about blogging...one of my quilting students gave me this button which says "I'll be blogging this later"!
I can hardly type tonight because of all the snow shovelling and ice scraping I've been doing lately. I shouldn't complain about it because we have waited so long for winter to arrive this year..but I will! I was on call for the Sunday night shift, and got paged to come in to work in the middle of the ice storm. That meant not only going out in the middle of the night, but scraping layers of ice off the car at 2 am to drive in to work, and then coming out at 5:30 am to scrape the ice off to drive home, and then getting up at 8 am to scrape the car AGAIN to take my daughter to school. I was exhausted and the muscles (or lack thereof) in my arms are protesting all this "non-quilting" type of activity!
But this morning made up for it, even with the sore arms and sleep deprivation! I taught a miniature quilting class and the students brought in their finished projects from December. This was the project they had picked to make a quick and easy Christmas gift. Once again they did a fantastic job of adding their own touches with borders, and embellishments such as ribbons and beads.
And they started their new project of the month using the connecting corners. I gave them two versions to chose from, one based on an this old quilt I taught years ago that I called "Candy Kisses", which uses the connecting corners techniques, with the background fabric on two corners and the "kiss" fabric on the opposite corners . "Candy Kisses" is a lap size quilt and I donated it a couple of years ago to a children's charity. In today's miniature class, the version they were making used an easier and much smaller version having a block size of 2 1/2". Their other layout option was the quilt I showed in Sunday's post (Jan. 14), having a finished block size of .75".
The students were so preoccupied with talking about the weather and winter illnesses that they forgot to complain about the tiny pieces they had to cut for this month! Or do I dare to hope that they actually love it as much as I do?!?!

Connecting Corners

One of my favorite techniques to play with, especially on a miniature scale is "connecting corners". I first tried this technique in the late 90's, when I made a mystery quilt written by Susan Druding called Four Star Square. (Susan attributes this technique to Mary Ellen Hopkins.) On the right is the mystery quilt I made from this pattern. It is a 40" square wallhanging.
Since then I have had lots of fun playing with the technique and have made many miniature quilts over the years using variations of this block...
starting with a square and sewing a triangle on one, two, three or all four corners, then playing with layout designs. Also, by changing the size of the connecting corner, you can get different effects. On the left is a quilt I finished last year called "Flower Children". The flower blocks are made of four petals. Each petal has three white connecting corners and one dark green connecting corner.
Below is a scan of my latest miniature quilt using connecting corners. The blocks are .75" finished and the finished quilt is 6.75" square. (See Dec. 10th blog for photo of some of the pieces sitting on my ruler ready for sewing.) I played with some design ideas on EQ5 until I found this border that I liked. The binding is made from a piece of ribbon.
I am teaching this miniature pattern this week to other miniature enthusiasts, who will hopefully enjoy making their version as much as I enjoyed making mine. However, one of the quilters has already emailed me to say that she has cut the tiny pieces for the class, but instead of calling them squares, she calls them "swears"! I think that means she's not enjoying it so far!!!

"Time of Your Life" - Challenge Quilt

Oh my goodness...I have had quite a frustrating day with Blogger today. I have heard about the problems other people have had, but this is my first experience with it.
I enjoyed the peace and quiet in my house today since the children are back to school. I spent time thinking about my New Years Resolutions/Goals, both personal and quilting related. Two of my quilting goals are: to set aside time once a month to have a "try something new day". I have lots of ideas, but don't give myself to time to just play and experiment. The second goal is to finish the challenges issued in my two online groups - on time!
This is my last quilt of 2006, which was a challenge piece that fit into two of my group themes
1) to make a quilt based on a song and 2) to make an abstract quilt based on the theme of "marriage". I chose a Green Day song that my son likes to play on the guitar called "Time of your life".
Some of my favorite lyrics are:
So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time ...
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.
In the centre of the quilt I put a photo transfer of our hands/rings on our wedding day, as a symbol of our commitment and enduring bond. Around it I made a "clock" of grey and maroon (colours from our wedding) shapes from light to dark, symbolizing the time that is passing, from our newlywed light and carefree days to our darker days in later life, facing the regular life challenges that everyone has. I machine quilted with Yanmet thread, which is a beautiful thread that I love for machine work. It is sparkly and rarely breaks, no matter how fast I quilt. I had purchased many beads and embellishments for this quilt, but much to my annoyance, the cheeky quilt refused to let me use most of them! It did allow the 12 bicone swarovski crystals around the photo and a simple beaded binding. On the right is a close-up photo of the beaded binding based on an idea from one of my favorite books "Beading Basics" by Mary Stori. The quilt measures 9.5" x 10.5" and will be hanging as part of a group exhibit in Nebraska September 2007.

New Years Resolutions

I am getting close to feeling desperate for some quilting time!
For the past week I have been helping my daughter renovate her bedroom. I have always tried to nurture my children's creativity but this week, I realize I may taken this a bit too far! Nothing is straightforward with her...she has a billion ideas for how to do every step of redecorating, most of which involve lots of shopping (ugh!), and piles of money. This is a photo of my daughter, who got up early one morning to paint the 9 drawers on her new storage unit...each drawer a slightly different shade. She looked just like me when I am painting fabric, and she was just as happy!
Tomorrow they go back to school and I get my life back!
In between shopping, painting, and moving furniture, I have been thinking about my New Years Resolutions, reviewing last year's accomplishments and activities, and planning for the coming year. Maybe tomorrow I will have more time to write about that. Right now, I must go and put the new handles on the dresser drawers

Happy New Year!

The celebrations are all over and all that is left now are the memories, the photos taken on my new digital camera (thanks to my husband for the perfect gift) and the big mess! We spent time today trying to make some space in our little house, take down the lights, and put away the decorations. I also have to put away the Christmas quilts, including this wallhanging in the dining room. I made this quilt exactly 10 years ago. My husband's family had rented a lodge in Red Bay and when we arrived we discovered that they had a big fluffy cat at the lodge. Because I am very allergic to cats (can't breathe!) I had to leave the family fun, and head back home. Feeling quite sorry for myself, I thought I would cheer myself up with a brief stop at The Hobby Horse. I found this pattern, bought all the fabrics, and spent the next couple of days piecing the top. Although I missed out on the lodge memories, I sure enjoyed my quiet days sewing by myself! I still enjoy this quilt, even though the quilting leaves much to be desired. The free motion quilting is a disaster...the tension is a mess in most places on the back, and the "motion" is not at all "free"...it is very spastic, uneven, and bizarre in places! To make things worse, some of the border is quilted, and some is not. It needs more quilting and every year I say I will finish it, but I haven't. Maybe this year!
I almost forgot to write that while I was in New York, I stopped in at the Calico Gals quilt store. It is in an old barn and looks kind of scarey from the front! But inside it is an amazing store created in the barn lofts, having an unparalled collection of Batik fabrics. I bought lots of fabric for my stash and enjoyed visiting with the friendly staff. I almost signed up for a mystery class because the price and fabric bundle was just too irrestible, but the class was already full!

Half of the celebrations are over

We had a wonderful Christmas day with my side of the family. Between trying to balance all the in-law families and the numerous moves of my little sister, we just haven't been able to gather together for Christmas for 11 years. At our last Christmas together there were only 2 grandchildren and this Christmas there were 10! So it was a much louder and very frenetic gathering, and it seemed that all we did was prepare food, do dishes, clean up and then start again with preparing more food! Mom and Dad, who are almost 70 years old, did a great job with cooking the turkey dinner and tolerating the chaos!
On the left is my brother with his new quilt, and on the right is my sister and I with her new quilt. It was very fun giving these quilts away and knowing they will be well used.
Also this year, I made a photo calendar for each of my nieces and nephews. I went through my collection of photographs and selected 12 photos for each of the calendars. I also made calendars for my 2 step-nephews, one for Mom and Dad, 4 for the nieces and nephews on my husband's side of the family and 3 for friends of mine. Altogether I made 20 calendars, using 240 photos...which gives you a sense of my collection of photographs!

This is the one photo that was in each of the calendars made for my relatives- it is of the grandchildren at our annual family camping trip. When the calendars were opened, the children spent a long time looking through their own, and then looking through the calendars of the other cousins. I was very happy that they enjoyed them so much...lots of happy memories!

Now we are preparing for the celebrations with my husband's side of the family. They have created a tradition where we all gather somewhere near the half way mark of where everyone is living, and this year it is Syracuse, New York. We travel to a carefully selected location, where we have booked four adjoining rooms and spend 3 days, 2 nights visiting together. There was only one year that the weather was terrible/snowy and impossible to drive in, and this year it will be mild and green. One of the many benefits is that no one has to do any cooking... and the grandchildren (many of whom are all grown up now) have a great time in the swimming pool, and enjoying other activities at the inn/hotel. It is our time for relaxing and catching up with each other's lives. The only thing left that I have to finish is to bake a big batch of shortbread cookies, using my grandmother's recipe. My nieces have already called twice to make sure that I am baking...last year I ran out of time and showed up without the cookies, and haven't heard the end of it!! I also have to check on the internet to find out what quilting stores I might be able to visit while I'm in the area!

Merry Christmas

Everything is ready for Christmas! This has never happened to me before that I am actually able to relax on Christmas Eve. These are the pillows I made for my daughter and I had a terrible time with that pink fabric. I bought enough to make two pillows with it, but after struggling so much in sewing the first one, the rest of that fabric is going in the garbage. There are tiny bits of pink fuzz all over my sewing room.

Here is my Christmas thought by Agnes M. Pharo:
"Christmas....is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, and hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to Peace."
Merry Christmas!

Right on schedule

I have finished all my Christmas quilting, which means no late night binding for me on Christmas Eve! The quilt on the left is for my sister and her family. It is a Deb Kaffunger design and made of flannel (top and backing). I quilted it myself and it was one heavy and uncooperative pile to push through my sewing machine! I did very simple, straight quilting in the ditch, diagonal lines across the dark chains, and a bit of free motion quilting in the gold blocks.
The quilt on the right is for my brother and is also all flannel. It is another one of Deb Kaffunger's design and a very heavy quilt. (I think I have had my fill of flannel quilts for a while!!!) It was quilted for me by Lynne Tompkins and was hanging in our guild quilt show this past April. It has two errors in the block placements, which I didn't realize until it was quilted, so that's the way it is staying....which is ironic, because my family teases me about being "directionally impaired" and the quilt design is called "Directions"!
The third quilt on the left is for my little sister and her family, and is not flannel! Most of the fabric is from the "Atlantis" line of fabric by Makower. This design, called "Becky's Wisdom" was taught at the 2005 guild retreat by Vivienne Dawney and I quilted it at a retreat in 2006. The hardest part of this quilt was sewing the curved borders, but once you caught on to the technique, it went together quickly. I did some fun free motion quilting on this one, and had a great time with it...here is a close up.
Each of these quilts is a twin size bed quilt, which some people might be surprised about, since I am more known for making miniature quilts. However, I just love the thought that the special people in my life are cuddling up in quilts that I have made especially for them. With each of these quilts, I knew who I was making them for, and each stitch was taken with loving thoughts of them and thankfulness for my relationship with them. I can't wait for Christmas to give these gifts to my brother and sisters!

Westfield Heritage Village

On the weekend we took the children to Westfield Heritage Christmas. Everything was decorated as if the pioneer town was preparing for Christmas. In each of the old buildings there were people dressed up and talking to the visitors. Many professions were represented...doctors, welders, tailors, farmers, spinners, weavers, and even train conductors, but there were NO quilters to be seen! There were a few antique quilts on some of the beds, like this one, but no one was talking about how the pioneer women actually made the bedding for the family. I think that next year I should volunteer to be the quilter at the Westfield Village! I don't know if I could quilt by candlelight, but I sure could talk about quilting!
And talking about quilting....I taught my last quilt class of 2006 this week! These are the mini quilts that the students brought back to show us from last month's class. The two quilts on the right are still deciding what borders they would like. What a creative group of women they are...each quilter has added her own unique touches to these quilts!
I was busy this weekend quilting my last Christmas quilt. The only job left is to put the binding on, so I am close to being ready! I will post photos of my sibling quilts later in the week before I wrap them up. Now I just have to finish shopping, wrapping, baking, and have decided that I don't have enough time left for writing Christmas cards, so that's off my list!

Pillowcase Pattern

At the guild meeting this week I did a short demo on making pillowcases for quick and easy gifts. Here is a photo of me in the year 2000 when I made these pillowcases for all my nieces and nephews, and my children. I selected fabrics according to their ages and interests (soccer for the older boys, trains for the younger boys, little animals for the toddler boys, etc). They were well used and appreciated gifts, although the Christmas ones that I made for my children are getting a little worn out!
I used a basic pattern that was posted on the Hoffman Fabrics website at that time (it's long gone now). Here are the pieces to cut if you want to sew up a pillowcase for a standard size pillow:
1) CUT 1 pillowcase fabric - 28” x 44”
Fold in half right sides together and sew two sides (1/4” seam).
2) CUT 1 accent fabric - 2 1/2" x 44”
Press in half lengthways with wrong sides together.
3) CUT 1 border fabric - 9 1/2” x 44”
Press in half lengthways with wrong sides together.
4) Sew the accent and border strips together, lining up the raw edges.
5) Sew the accent and border strips to the pillowcase fabric, lining up the raw edges.
6) Turn inside out and press.
If you have a serger, it is best to serge all edges, however I don't have one, so I just sewed the regular 1/4" seam and these pillowcases are still holding together!
Also, if you have a fancy embroidery machine, you can personalize the borders with the name of the child/person for whom you are making the pillowcase.

Getting "carried away"!!!

How many beads can I buy with $50?? A handful!
That's right...I like the expensive ones! I went to my local bead store today to get a few more beads for a challenge quilt I must finish before Saturday, and got a little carried away!!

And speaking of getting carried away...my creative children spent an evening with my parents and made this beautiful gingerbread house. They spent a long time making everything just right. My son added two special touches...he placed a family of paperdolls on the inside of the house for some reason, and decided the house needed a "welcome" sign. While he worked on those paper creations, my daughter worked on the actual house construction. Reportedly a great time was had by both the grandparents and the grandchildren!
Yesterday when I came home from work, guess what those lovely children were doing? This is what the house looks like now! They had eaten the candy off the house and ripped off half of the roof in the process! "What are you doing?" I ask (I may have screeched?), watching them as they continue to break off and eat the remaining candy. They didn't even act guilty!! "You didn't tell us we couldn't eat the candy"!
So now what am I supposed to do with this broken down gingerbread carcass??? Should I reconstruct with a glue gun and whip up more icing to add more candy?!?!

From the Ridiculous to the Sublime!

I am madly trying to finish quilts for Christmas, the same as most quilters I know! Every year I say I won't do this again (leave too much sewing until the last minute and stress myself out) but apparently I like it, because I am doing it again! I would love to be working on my newest mini quilt - some of the bits and pieces are sitting here on my 6" ruler. This is relaxing for me and each day before I go to bed I sew a few more pieces.
But mostly I am working on a bed size quilt for one of my siblings for Christmas. It's the first time in many years that we will be all be together on Christmas Day, so I wanted to make a quilt for each family. I have two of the three quilts finished...the last one is all flannel and hard work to quilt on my small sewing machine. I must force myself to work on that first, and then bribe myself with a little time sewing my mini quilt. I will post photos of my sibling quilts when they are all ready to be wrapped.
And then I just have to finish making something for my 12 nieces and nephews...asking myself again, "why do I insist on hand made gifts every year"? But on Christmas day when they have unwrapped PILES of toys and clothes, I am always happy with my decision to make them something handmade, unique and unforgettable.
And then I have to prepare something for a guild demo on Tuesday.
"Am I done my Christmas shopping" you ask? I haven't even started it yet!
Here are some of the other Christmas quilts around my house. These two quilts are from a round robin group that was together for many years. There were 2 quilters from Manitoba, and 5 of us from Ontario in the group and for each project we had a different theme. On the left is a row round robin that I finished in 2003. The rows are 20" long and for that project I asked for Christmas themed blocks. The quilt on the right was from our strippy round robin in 2000 when there were 6 of us in the group. For each project we had to make a vertical row 60" long, and I asked for star blocks. The second column from the left was my row and it was made up of blocks from a star making workshop I took from Andrea Curtis many years ago. This was in my UFO pile until this year when I finally sewed the rows together and quilted it. So this is our first Christmas enjoying this wonderful quilt. Thanks to my quilting friends (Gail, Carol, Shelley, Linda, Carla, and Cathy) for contributing to many of the great quilts I have in my house!

Christmas Preparations

On Sunday was our much anticipated, annual family outing to find our Christmas tree. Although this year was colder than usual, it was just as fun! We walked through the fields of trees in search of our perfect Christmas tree! Then we (I use the "royal" we here, actually my husband does all the work and I take pictures!) carry the tree to the farm office where they put it in a mesh bag and then we stuff it in our car trunk to bring it home. Every year we say it is the most beautiful tree and this year is no exception! Here is my husband relaxing in his Lazy Boy chair, by our decorated tree, covered in one of the first quilts I made from start to finish by myself. It is getting very worn and thin, but is still holding up. All of the 93 hearts are hand appliqued. I machine quilted in a simple grid horizontally and vertically, and then diagonally across the quarter square triangle blocks. I gave it to him many years ago as a quilt top, and after Christmas he helped me baste it on the dining room floor. That was my first and only time hand basting a quilt on a floor! And you can also see my wonderful dog Molly,who cuddles up with whoever has a quilt!
Our tree is always decorated in the tradition of my husband's family, with chocolate ornaments, straw stars, and crocheted stars made by hand by his Mom. When my children were younger we used to make popcorn strings for the tree, but now they think it is a waste of popcorn and would rather eat it than string it!

More Student Quilts

I had another busy teaching day yesterday. We had a slow start to the class because the students had to make their way through the crowds that came to see the Christmas parade, which started at the same time as the class...it was a very busy little town!
One of the students from my "Easy New York Beauty" class in October (see October 26th blog) brought in her finished miniature quilt to show me...isn't it wonderful? This was made by Sheila, from a bag of blue and white scraps she had purchased. I think she used the 2.5" block size, so the
little quilt is approx. 5" x 7.5". Besides doing a great job with the tiny piecing, she also was very creative with her embellishments, and this quilt just sparkles!
The morning students were finishing up their fall miniature projects with leaf blocks... they turned out great! Each person added their own unique touches, Annie's top was hand quilted, Sylvia's had a unique border treatment, Janet's had a tiny free floating folded border (some people call it flat piping) and Cindy was still thinking about her border, but had finished all the blocks. The tricky thing about this project was fabric selection, and mastering those small Half Square Triangle blocks, and they did great work! Sorry the photo didn't turn out well enough to post here.
The afternoon class worked on embellishing their painted pieces which they had quilted over the last month. Some were machine quilted and some were quilted by hand. There was a lot of creativity floating around in that room! Some quilters had no experience in painting, and some were beginner quilters, so they really did amazing work!