Happy Mother's Day!

What a wonderful mother's day! It was a sunny warm day here. I started the day with coffee, cinnamon buns, and chocolate covered strawberries, in bed! I know...I am very lucky! My children gave me incredible cards that they made and a new book I have wanted to read called "Eat, Pray, Love" . I also received a new Rose of Sharon bush and here it is snuggled in between my two dead looking bushes, which the rabbits apparently chewed on to get them through the winter. We didn't dig the old bushes out, since I am still hoping they will survive...eternal optimist that I am!

I also received the gift of time to quilt. My husband did all the work today and I was able to have some sewing time. Which is very generous considering he also did all the work yesterday while I was at a guild newbie day teaching machine quilting. Here I am finishing up a Block of the Month quilt, where guild members make and donate blocks of the same pattern made from their stash, and then someone else (Joan) sews them together. Yesterday our new members learned how to prepare a quilt for quilting, how to pin baste and then how to "stitch in the ditch" on this quilt. I just have to finish the unstitched ditches and put the binding on.

I must say that am a very happy mother today and I enjoyed everything about my quilty mother's day weekend!

Family memories - 365 Challenge

I am very interested in creating positive family memories and stories, and spend much energy documenting our extended family's development, our adventures and our challenges, in many different ways...photography, scrapbooking, quilting, etc. Here is a quilt I made in 2001 called "Ten of my mothers". I made this quilt for a guild challenge in which we were to make a quilt with "10 of something", celebrating the guild's 10th anniversary. I chose to honour several of the women who were guiding and nurturing forces when I was growing up, including my aunts, grandmothers, and one greatgrandmother. My mom worked full time and went to night/summer school to get her university degree, so we were often in the care of other women. Lucky for us, at that time, all of the other women in the family were homemakers and were available to help out. I wanted to make an antique looking quilt, and used only neutral fabrics for the quilt. On the right is a photo of my favorite aunt, who was a marvelous baker, knitter, and nurturer. My brother and I went to visit her grave today and give thanks for all the love and care we received from our Aunt Lottie. On the left is the quilt label. Today this quilt hangs right next to my Mom's bed and is one of her favorites! We look forward to visiting her tomorrow to wish her Happy Mother's Day!

I have started a new family memory quilt and you can read more from the woman who has started this great idea at her website called Leanne's House...click on the top right "365 challenge tutorial". I started the quilt on May 1st and have been documenting the life of our family...quilts I am working on, places we go, ordinary family details, and activities...anything I think I might like to remember from all the ordinary days we enjoy together! I have the fabric strips cut out, and similar to the memory quilt above, I am using only neutral fabrics to look like pages from my journal. I plan to do some embroidery stitching but am still deciding at which stage I will do that. If this sounds like fun to you, it's never to late to start your own family journal 365 challenge quilt!

Flora and Fauna

Today's blog entry has little to do with quilting! I will mention in passing that my friend Louise and I went on the shop hop called "Goose on the Loose". We now have a chance to win some prizes in a draw, but there were no fabric/pattern giveaways like the last shop hop I went on. Never mind...we had great conversation and lots of fun!

On the way to Louise's house, I spotted this turtle and screeched the car to a stop. Isn't it so interesting? Look at the spikes on it's tail. I gave him/her a little lecture about the dangers of walking on the highway and I think he/she listened because I was delighted to note that there was no dead turtle on the highway on the way home!
And I admired so many other things on my drive. These are the daffodils (on the left) in full bloom at Louise's farm. She has many beautiful flower gardens.

And just look at these wild trilliums! The trillium is the provincial flower for Ontario, Canada and they are only found in deciduous forests in early May. Apparently the white petals change to pink as they age, and I was so excited today to have found my first one!

And now you know what it is like to go on a road trip with me...I am easily distracted by beautiful and intesting sites!

Quilted Vase Class with Christine Ford

I enjoyed a great class today with Christine Ford learning how to make a quilted vessel/vase. Besides being lots of fun, it was the first class in a long time that I have taken that really stretched me. I tried some new (to me) techniques and products, and for the second time this year, my machine did not co-operate with my desire to free motion quilt! I tried several different needle and thread combinations until for some unknown reason, a universal needle worked! All the fancy, expensive needles that I tried either broke the thread or made the free motion foot make a loud banging sound. And...to add insult to injury, the change that made the machine work well is something that I would never tell someone to do. My free motion quilting worked best with the feed dogs UP! Unbelievable!
Anyway, my machine started to quilt, but again it was a reminder about how frustrating this skill can sometimes be, even when you have had hundreds of hours of practise! I think my machine didn't really enjoy the fast-2-fuse product, but I thought it worked great! Me and my machine don't always see eye-to-eye!!
Here is Christine (on the right) helping us with fabric selection. Not only did we learn about vessel construction, but she taught us about balancing colour theory with what you love!
After working all day, I only successfully finished one of the five panels. One panel got totally wrecked on the thread/needle production, so I have four more to make. Anyway, I really enjoyed the class and hope to finish my panels on the weekend. Here is our class with some of our finished panels. Some of us (the over achievers!) not only finished quilting their panels, but they started constructing their vase! Sheesh...what did I do with all my time?!?!

Something new

We are finally getting some sunny warmer weather here, so the tree buds are popping out and we even have some flowers in the garden! That was one long winter!

I went to quilt guild meeting tonight, and was told by 3 different "Judy"s that they check my blog every day and are disappointed when there isn't anything new posted! Imagine the pressure :)
Hi Judy T. and Judy E. and Judy R.!!! Here is something new to read while you drink your morning tea!

I have been trying to get situated in my new studio space and figuring out how to

make this work for me. My son is worried that he won't see me anymore, knowing how much I like to quilt! I have made an extra effort to be at home every day after school, so he knows that I haven't abandoned him!! My quilting friends have suggested the idea of making a little space for him at the studio, so I can bring him along. Isn't that a great idea?!?!
Lighting is my biggest problem as there are no overhead lights. Any suggestions?!?!?
I have been working on using up my scraps in a quilt-as-you-go project, but the bin isn't emptying very fast! You can see some of the beginning blocks here which I started at quilt retreat. And I am trying to get some quilt tops finished for a guild newbie class on Saturday. I will be teaching machine quilting, so it is forcing me to get the borders on some almost finished tops so I have something they can experiment with.
Tomorrow I am taking a quilted vessel class with Christine Ford. You can read about Christine here and see her with one of her quilts here. So I better get going and get some supplies together. Of course I can't figure out what fabric to take, so I am taking a big bag of batiks and hopefully Christine will help me sort myself out! I haven't ever sewn anything like this before, so I am excited about learning something new!
And yes Judy, Judy and Judy, I will post something new for you to read after the class!!

Miniature Quilt Classes

Yesterday I taught two quilting classes at Reichard's quilt shop in Elmira. Both classes are held once a month and in each class the students bring back the project from the month before, in whatever state of completion they have been able to accomplish. In the mini quilt class last month we made tulips, which is a fun block that sews up fast and easy, unless you make the really small size, which is harder! On the right are my sample quilts. On the left are some of the projects the students are working on. This is one of my favorite blocks to play with, and I like it so much that I taught it to two miniature quilt classes last month...so look for more tulip quilt photos in about 10 days!

In the afternoon class, the students are learning paper piecing skills, and last month they tackled sewing houses which have pieced joins on the roofs. Here are some of their neighbourhoods on the right.

In another area of creativity, I want to show you my daughter's latest birthday party card. She has many friends turning 16 years old this year and she makes each of them a different card. This one has "sweet" made from chocolate kisses and "16" is made from chocolate loonies. Although she is not the least bit interested in quilting, my daughter shows her creativity in so many other interesting ways!

New Studio Space

It was my turn to host the UFO (unfinished objects) group meeting this month. We have been together as a group, meeting monthly for 3 years now and we have a lot of fun together, talking about quilting, encouraging each other to finish UFO's, consulting about problem quilts, laughing, sharing books, and of course, eating! So they were the perfect people to invite to be my first visitors in my new studio space.
If you have read some of my older blogs, you will know that my quilting area in my basement at home is way less than ideal...you can read about it here. So I am jumping at a serendipidous opportunity to have a studio space away from home. The only things in the room this week are tables and borrowed chairs, so I haven't really started to move in yet. But we met there this week and everyone shared their ideas on how to improve the lighting and how to use the space. Here are some of the group members standing with our recently finished charity quilt. We all made blocks for this quilt, which Joan (on the left) organized and cut out for us, using a pattern from the Quilter's Newsletter Magazine. In spite of our lovable Cindy hiding her blocks on herself, which she later found in her liquor cabinet (don't ask!), Joan had enough blocks to sew the quilt together. Now the quilt is ready to be donated to the Pediatric Sexual Assault Unit at our hospital. After our meeting we headed off for some shopping at my favorite local bead store and here are some of the ladies admiring the beads. It was a fun afternoon, as it always is with this group of quilters!

Shop Hop Banner

On Friday I went on the Shop Hop, which included visiting 6 quilt stores. At each store I received a stamp for my passport and picked up 2 pieces of fabric. On the left are the fabrics I collected at the stores. At the 6th store I was given the green fabric for the border/binding, and the pattern to make a Spring banner using these fabrics. Over the weekend, I sewed it together and just finishing sewing on the binding tonight while watching the Amazing Race. The colours are a little off on the right, but you can see what the project is.
The letters were made with fusible applique, which I haven't done a lot of. And wouldn't you know it, the very first letter I made got gunk on my iron! That is why I don't use it very often - I don't like getting my iron gunked up! I'm sure if I used this technique more often, I wouldn't have this problem and would learn how to avoid this.
However...the banner is finished and measures 15" x 23". Now I have to clean my iron!
A big thank you to store owners - Cathy, Heather S., Leslie, Cheryl, Brenda, Linda, and Heather Z. for the fabric and fun!

Spring Shop Hop

It was a long week for my family, filled with concerns about my Dad's health, but after surgery today, he is doing much better and his prognosis is good. He has had 5 surgeries in 3 years, and so many serious health concerns. But we are so thankful today!

This meant that I was able to go on the "Spring Shop Hop" which included 6 quilt stores (in Southern Ontario, Canada) within about 2 hours driving distance. I know some of you quilters are lucky to have a dozen stores close by, but my closest LQS is about 1/2 hour away. Here is a photo of one of my favorite stores called "Creative Sisters". This is part of their batik fabric section and isn't it just beautiful to look at!?!?

I took my shopping list along, which included items that I will need for a class I am taking in May. I am proud of not leaving that preparation until the last minute, because I had to shop for products I haven't used before like "Fast2Fuse" and black "quick bias". Here are some of the things I bought and looking at this photo, I must say that this was a successful day in that I only bought things I "need"...no impulse purchases. All of these things are for specific projects or for my class.

And, of course, we had to stop in at the chocolate store! I took a photo of this beautiful display at the Rheo Thompson Candy store to show you. Their chocolate is delicious and their packaging is extra special. It's just as pretty as the fabric shelves above, only not as good for you as the fabric! What a great day...good news about my Dad, new fabric purchases, no impulse buying, yummy chocolate and lots of beautiful things to look at!

Check my blog later in the weekend to see the project we collected fabrics for...at each quilt store we received two pieces of fabric and at the last store we received a pattern for a little spring wallhanging!

Quilting Companion

The stashbuster webring topic of the week is: let us meet your quilting companion.
I am blessed with many quilting friends with whom I have fun quilting adventures (check in on the weekend for a shop hop report) but my furry four-legged quilting friend is my favorite! This is my Shih Tzu dog Molly, who has been my quilting companion for 7 years. Everywhere I go in the house, she follows. She always wants to sit on my lap, but that doesn't work when I'm quilting, so we have an agreement that she can sit behind me while I sew! Don't look at the mess in my quilting area in this photo...just look at my adorable little Molly!

Here I am sewing a Strawberry Shortcake bag for my niece for Christmas, and there is Molly sitting right behind me. She has her own little bed in the sewing area, but she prefers to sit with me when I am sewing. If I am cutting or pressing, she will lay on her bed, but when I sit down to sew, she jumps up on the chair too. It is really not comfortable and I really should break her of this habit for the sake of my back (and I should also get a good chair) but she is just too cute!

Goddess of the Last Minute - Quilt #3

As I wrote in previous posts, I had to pick 3 quilts to be in a quilt show in May. I already wrote about quilt#1 and quilt#2. And here is quilt #3, called "Infinity". It started with a piece of hand painted fabric (I use Setacolor paints) and a box of beads. My son and I like to watch the olympics together on TV but I get bored after about 10 minutes if I don't have handwork to do. So this is what I like to do to keep my creative mind busy while I watch TV.

This quilt is 10 1/2" x 6 1/2".

I have been taking a break from doing this kind of hand work until my thumb nail heals up. Thanks to those of you who emailed me with suggestions on promoting faster healing. I think we all agree that doing the dishes (and any other houshold chore requiring hands in water) is not a good thing, so I am taking a break from that!

I have been working on my samples for the Quilt University class I am taking on "Points and Curves". These are the practice pieces I have made so far. Although these techniques were not new to me, I have been challenging myself to draft the patterns on EQ (Electric Quilt program) and that has not been as much fun as I had hoped! For the next lesson I am going back to the regular old-fashioned method of "paper and pencil" pattern drafting.

My favorite quilt store

The Stashbuster Webring topic of the week is: "Tell us about your favorite quilt store and why it is your favorite". My favorite store is "Little Quilts" in Marietta, Georgia. For a store to be your "favorite", there must be an emotional attachment, right? In 1994 when I was pregnant and on complete bedrest for 3 months, my husband bought me a book called "Little Quilts". I loved looking through this book and dreaming about quilts. With my limited fabric stash, I hand pieced a little quilt for my parents and my siblings for Christmas gifts, while laying in my bed. This was a very stressful time for me, having already lost one pregnancy, so my quilting helped me to stay relaxed and sane. The five quilts I made in those three months are mostly all hand appliqued, pieced, and quilted. I did sneak down to the sewing machine to sew on the borders and bindings, but don't tell anyone! Here is one of the little quilts I made:
In 2000 I had the unexpected opportunity to visit the Little Quilts store in Georgia and loved seeing all the projects in person. They have a great selection of fabric that is perfect for miniature quilts, and very friendly staff that made my shopping experience pure heaven! The displays around the store are beautiful and I felt so happy just to be there. My bag of purchases is small because our funds were limited, but I can't tell you what a great day that was!
And then in 2001 after the September 11th tragedy, the Little Quilts staff asked quilters around the world to send in miniature quilts to honour the dead firefighters and police officers. Of course I made a quilt to send, and I wrote about that experience in this blog entry.
I can't wait to visit the Little Quilts store again some day, but until then, I enjoy reading the regular emails sent from staff member Kathy Niemann describing all the classes, new merchandise and happenings at Little Quilts.

Abstract quilt

It has been a busy week, and I was lucky enough to have some creativity time yesterday. I worked on my monthly abstract challenge (theme = orange) and forced myself to finish it today, even though it doesn't look anything like I had planned. My original sketch was a circle of triangle shapes, using the colours of the colour wheel, with the orange pulling out of the circle, all on a white background. When I went to my scraps, I couldn't find any fabrics to make this work. But I did find some black strips from Judy and some orange teardrop shapes from Julie (some guild members don't like to save scraps...can you believe it?!? so they share their scraps

...lucky me!). My philosophy is - if the scrap jumps out of the bag to be in the project, I find a way to fit it in! So I made up a new plan, cut the black strips with wavy cuts and ironed them to a fusible interfacing. It didn't stick very well, and I wondered if fusibles have a shelf life...a "best before" date? I free motion quilted little orange seed stitches over the wavy seam lines. Then I put the orange sections on and free motion quilted around the edges. I really wanted to quilt the orange sections but couldn't decide how to do that. Here are some quilting ideas I considered but couldn't decide which one, so I left it for now:I then finished it with a striped binding, and some orange beads in the centre. I try to do a little sewing, even if it is hand work or beading, every day. But I think I need to stop for a little while. I have split my thumb nail down the centre, on my needle holding hand, and I think it is from too much hand work...is there such a thing? When sewing on the orange beads it was really hurting. Anyone have advice on how to fix this problem? Maybe I should do some machine piecing this weekend and give my thumb a rest?

Miniature Ohio Stars

We've been having problems with our internet connection the last couple of days and it made me realize how dependent I am on this little machine! After 2 days of DH trying to fix it, I called the server tech this afternoon and within 1 minute it was working! I'll try not to say "I told you so" about asking for help...I know it's a male issue to only ask for help as a last resort and he can't help it! :)
I taught a mini quilt class yesterday (we were making little flower blocks) and here are the projects the students brought back from last month's class when we were making 3" Ohio Star blocks. You can see that two of the students didn't love making these blocks, so they made adorable little hotmats! Three of the quilters sewed their star blocks on-pointe, with setting squares in between, which gives a whole new look to the quilt. The top right quilt has the stars in black, with a varied background and a slightly modified block construction (eliminating one column between the stars) for another unique design. These women never cease to amaze me month after month...they take an idea and follow their creativity to wherever it takes them!

Goddess of the Last Minute - Quilt #2

On Thursday I wrote about having to pick three of my quilts to be in a quilt show in May, and I showed you the first choice. This is the beginning of the second chosen quilt...gathering the pattern and the supplies. Members of my guild will recognize the fabrics, as this quilt was made for a guild challenge in which we were given a fat quarter of the green and the blue fabrics on the top of these fabric piles. The theme was "celebration". The photo on the left shows some of the beads and threads I bought for this project, and the 2 1/2" EQ5 (Electric Quilt) paper pieced pattern I used. On the right is the finished piece called "Celebrating Beauty and the Beads". I had a different design layout in mind for this quilt, but it exceeded the measurements of the miniature quilt category so I had to come up with something else. It took me a while to decide to include this piece because I had to contact it's new owner and ask to borrow it back for the show! On the left is a close-up photo of one of the blocks which shows some of the beading. The size of this piece is 7 1/2" across by 11" from top to bottom.
Only one more quilt to choose!

Family Quilt History

Stashbuster Topic of the Week:
How did you come to start quilting? Was it passed down in the family?

I have written before about my introduction to quilting in this post. There is no one in my family who sews or quilts, and I have always been envious of quilters who have a long family history of quilting. (I did have an aunt who was a knitter, and she taught me how to knit mittens.) The only quilts we have are those made by me, with one exception. My mother-in-law was encouraged by her 90 something neighbour to make this queen size quilt for us for our wedding (this quilt is now 23 years old). I think it is called a Dresden Plate and was made from the scrap bag of the neighbour. My mother-in-law did not enjoy it, had never quilted before and has never quilted since then! But she did make one beautiful masterpiece! Here is a close up of the blocks...all bright and happy colours. We used this quilt on our bed all the time before we had a dog. Now it rests mostly on a quilt rack because I don't want it to be exposed to any more damage. It has some spots where it is worn and the binding has been mended. See the wonderful hand quilting... and the pencil marks are still visible in some places. On the right is the border quilting and on the left is the quilting between the plates.

Miniature Quilt classes

I had such a fun day today! Both of my children have recovered well enough to go to school, and I taught two miniature quilting classes. All week I was so worried about getting their illness and missing my classes,but I still feel fine...yippee! I'm sure the students were tired of hearing me say how happy I was to be away from the sickhouse! Here are the miniature quilts that the morning students worked on last month. We used a pattern from Wendy Vosters (with her permission) and just look at all the different ways to set these blocks...some quilters separated the blocks with sashing, and some added a couple of borders. Some snowmen are still waiting for their eyes and mouths! They did a great job and here they are proudly showing you their work! Thanks again Wendy for generously letting us use your design! Watch your mailbox for a treat from me!Here are the afternoon paper piecers with their Valentine heart quilts from last month...using either 3" or 1 1/2" blocks (or both) and different layouts. In today's class they were building houses for their own little neighbourhood, and mastering the skill of pieced joins.
Did I already tell you what a great day it was!?!?

Goddess of the Last Minute!

I know that Robbi Joy Eklow claims to be "Goddess of the Last Minute", but I could give her a run for her money! I was invited many months ago to submit three pieces for the Quilt Festival's "Glitz, Glitz, Glitz Embellished Exhibit" in May. Only three pieces...that's right...3! So I have been fussing around since then about which 3 to pick...older pieces? Newer pieces? Which ones? Quilts from my cupboard? Or should I recall quilts I have given away? Of course my most favorite quilt is usually my most recent one, but it's not finished yet and has decided to not be finished by the deadline, so that one is out.
So, now the coordinator has emailed me to remind me about the deadline for the paperwork. No problem, I say...when is it?? Tomorrow!! Yikes...how did that get here so fast?!?! It's a lot of paperwork...four pages per piece plus the artist's bio...that's 13 pages to write up before tomorrow. Why did I leave this to the last minute?!?!
I asked my sick daughter, who is a captive audience, for a consultation and she easily picked her favorites. We decided this one is in for sure since we both love it! It is called "New Growth: Branching Out" and was made as one of my assignments in Myrna Geisbrecht's Self Expression class at Quilt University. It started with a hand painted fabric that I liked, and I was inspired by the drying lines in the paint to quilt a tree...the funky little "Dr. Suess" flowers evolved, and the tree trunk and branches were darkened with Caran d'Ache water soluble crayons. The quilting is in the style inspired by my friend Judy Taylor, who is a pro at this kind of machine quilting. I tried to bead each flower in a different way. The beading inside the binding is from Mary Stori's Beading Basics book. (Wow...that is alot of links that I just wrote up, but I like to give credit where credit is due! Just click on the coloured words and your computer will take you to their websites.) The size of this piece is 8 1/2" square.
So, that leaves two more quilts to pick. And a pile of paperwork to fill in. Tune in tomorrow night to see the other two quilts that get to go to the Glitz show. If I was more organized, I'd make my decision like "American Idol" does and get my blog readers to vote! Maybe next time!

Beading my fingers to the bone!

To keep from losing my mind while the children are sick, I have been doing some beading. I am sewing beads onto my hand painted fabric (Setacolor paints) in whatever design the paint seems to indicate. Here is a small section on the right.
It is very soothing and relaxing. I have also sewn a bit of embroidery floss in some places and found that I really enjoy that too! I work on it in between emptying throw up bowls, disinfecting everything in the house, and bringing fluids to my patients! It is starting to get a little painful now because with all the hand washing and disinfecting, my skin is getting quite irritated. But because I want to bead, I don't put on hand lotion...my fingers get too slimy to grab the needle! The children better recover soon, or my skin will be worn right through!

Mystery solved!

Shortly after easter, both of my children started with a violent stomach flu...ugh! I have set up a little hospital here and have been busy night and day. It is like having a newborn again! All the things I had planned to finish this week won't get done. Oh well, at least the children are starting to feel better and so far my husband and I have avoided the bug. I hope to be able to venture out to the guild meeting tonight.
I did finish my paper pieced mystery block from Paper Panache. All fabrics were from my stash, so I am happy about that! I'll have to figure out what I want to do with it. I'm thinking about adding a border or two and making a little spring wallhanging. The little black thing on the bottom is supposed to be a bug...the little creature type of bug, not the stomach virus kind of bug!! I'm not sure if I will put something else there or enhance his appearance with some stitching. Maybe after all this vomiting I don't really want to be reminded of "bugs"...and will cover him over with a little flower!