Happy Thanksgiving!

If you are celebrating Thanksgiving today...have a wonderful day of being thankful! It is just a regular working day for us here in Ontario, Canada, but tonight I am attending an annual Thanksgiving party being hosted by my American friend, and we love to celebrate with her... I get two Thanksgiving dinners every year, one in October and one in November!
I made a little hostess gift for her and stitched up this tea towel.
For the first time, I used the Sticky Fabri-Solvy. It seemed like such a waste of an entire sheet to print only one design, so I put the paper back through the printer and printed another design on the other end. I don't have a clue why it printed out in two different colours!
The pattern is from Bird Brain Designs. If you are on their email list, they send out free link ups to seasonal designs and this was one of their patterns (no affiliation, but I am a happy customer). 
I wish I would have purchased their tea towels also, because I think the one I bought at Canadian Tire was too thick, and the Solvy pattern wouldn't stick to it! I ended up pinning the pattern to the towel and it worked okay. It did not gum up the needle at all stitching through the Solvy sheet.

Once the design was stitched, I cut away the extra Solvy around the embroidery, and dunked it in the sink to dissolve the rest. Once the towel was dry, the stitches looked a little loose, so it will be interesting to see how the stitches look after the towel has a good work out tonight drying all those dishes from the festivities!
Happy Thanksgiving... let's gobble!

Votes For Women Wednesday

I finished another block for the Grandmother's Choice BOW (or "Votes For Women" as I like to call it).
This is block #11 Little Red Schoolhouse: Lucy Stone.

This was quite a challenge to sew and I ended up drafting a paper pieced pattern to sew the roof piece. It didn't quite meet up with the chimneys,
and it looks a little odd, but I am fine with that.
I really enjoyed learning about Lucy Stone and found her life story to be very inspiring. She worked so hard just for the privilege of getting an education. Much of her biography, that was written by her daughter, can be read on line (click here). I love that her last statement to her daughter was:
"Make the world better".
Some quilters who are sewing these blocks each week are putting the sashings on as they make the blocks. You can hop over to see Cathy's version here, and visit the Flickr group to see a lot of examples of blocks and layout ideas.  It sure is a great idea for putting together the quilt. However, I enjoy moving the blocks around too much at the end to get a balanced layout. Well, technically I do that...sometimes they just sit in a box for years first, so maybe I should consider this plan to have a finished quilt sooner?  When the year is over, those quilters will have a finished top, and I'll just have a pile of blocks and another UFO! 
Can't wait to get started on the next block!

Treadling on Tuesday

I am having a grand time with my Treadle this week. I watched a Youtube video on how to clean and oil a Treadle. 

I only watched about the first 5 minutes because that is as many steps as I could handle at a time. I plan to go back and watch/do the rest another day. I like this photo because it shows Miss Molly supervising in the background and it looks like she is saying "I wouldn't do that if I were you!"
How many tools does it take to open the side of a Treadle sewing machine? 
More than this apparently! 
I couldn't get the side panel off. 
Do I need different tools or a stronger person?!?

When oiling the parts under the machine, I found a lot of thread wrapped around the... um, around the "whatchamacallit" (that's the technical term!)
I removed all the snarled thread with some tweezers.
I put oil into all the little holes, and on all the moving parts.  Miraculously I got the machine put back together (with no pieces leftover!) and the belt back in place. 
Then I tried to sew/treadle. 

The machine developed terrible tension and I was starting to regret my decision to take the hand wheel off in the cleaning process, 

but then I saw this...

the thread had jumped out of the tension disk. 

Easy peasy problem to fix (phew!) and I was back in business with perfect tension again.  I enjoyed some relaxing crumb sewing from my scrap box. I put a towel underneath the machine to catch any oil drips. Then once I got going and the oil got worked in,  I didn't need the towel anymore.

My daughter took these cool photos of me treadling. It works best for me if my right foot is forward to the front of the treadle, and my left foot is at the back. So fun!
It is inexplicable and completely illogical why I love this so much!

Design Wall Monday #44

One of my projects for 2012 is the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Each month I tried to make a Knot block from the colour of the month. The Knot block pattern is from Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine issue #3...LOVE those magazines! 
Here are my 10 finished blocks so far. Well, the brown one isn't quite finished - read this post to find out why!

I have space for two more blocks - one will be dark browns/black, and I'm thinking the last block might be bright greens. And then comes the hard part...figuring out a layout, sashings, borders etc. Do you have any ideas for me?
Hop over to Patchwork Times to see more design wall postings.
It's a busy week coming up on the blog! Look for another "Treadling on Tuesday" post, maybe a "Votes for Women" update, the usual "Slow Stitching" hand work link up, and TWO, yes TWO finishes to share! That hasn't happened in a long time! 

Slow Sunday Stitching

One of my jobs is working in counselling services at the local college. And one of the many blessings of this job, is the privilege of working with students from all over the world.
 This week I enjoyed seeing many of the Indian women on campus dressed in gorgeous saris as they celebrated Diwali, a Hindu festival also known as "festival of lights" to celebrate "the awareness of the inner light". 
(NB - These two photos are imported from Wikipedia)
On Thursday, because of the tradition of sharing sweets, one of my students brought in some Rasmalai to share with me (for a description and recipe - click here).  I must admit the sight of the treat was a little alarming, a white spongy blob floating in white sauce, but I sometimes I am brave, and I took a big little bite... much to my surprise, it was delicious! 


So today as I do some relaxing hand stitching/binding, I will be thinking about the students  I have met who are far far away from home, and who inspire me every day. And I'll be planning the two new adventures I added to my "bucket list" this week... I want to get a Henna tattoo and I want to wear a Patchwork Sari. 
Happy Dewali and Happy Slow Sunday Stitching!
Link up your blogpost and share what hand stitching project you are working on this week (and if you know anything about how to add a code to a blog button, can you email me?!?!)

FNSI for Scrappy Saturday block

At FNSI last night, I finally got a brown Knot block sewn for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Most scrappers were finished with their brown scraps last month, but I just got fired up about brown at the end of October.

Now that I see the block on the computer screen, I think that top left block got rotated 90 degrees at a crucial step in the construction process! Here's my favorite seam ripper...I will get to work unstitching what I accomplished last night!

Here are my Scrappy Rainbow goals for the remaining days of 2012: 

*sew one more brown block. I still have enough brown scraps left (thanks to Janet and Deanna). This second Knot block will use up the darker browns, into blacks.

*to round out a nice even dozen blocks for my Knot sampler, I need one more colour... maybe a bright, lime green Knot block?  I will gather up all the blocks and put them on the Monday design wall post.

*get volume 6 of the 100 Blocks magazine and pick a new challenge block for 2013.

To see what other scrap quilters are making today, hop over to SoScrappy.

Santa blocks

Victoria from Bumble Beans Inc. (who has just published a new book!) offered to mail out the center Santa squares to any quilter who was interested in making a block - any size...any pattern. 
I couldn't resist the challenge!
I had fun searching through my favorite 100 block magazines and picked out block #289 from volume #3 by Scott Murkin called "Filmstrip".
To see the collection of other Santa blocks that these will be joining - click here, and to see the new blocks that arrived with mine, click here. It will be a real challenge to corral all these various sized blocks into a quilt top and I can't wait to see what Victoria makes with them!

*** To see the amazing finished quilt, click here

Tonight is Friday Night Sew-In. It snuck up on me this month. If it snuck up on you too, it's not too late to hop over to Heidi's blog and sign up - click here. I hope to be able to sew all night but am on call for work, so don't know if I'll be sewing or working. You can probably guess what I'm hoping for!

Climbing the Mountain Trail

I rearranged the two misplaced errant blocks on the first layout attempt of my Mountain Trail quilt, and reattached the borders.  Then I picked out some threads to use and wound up some bobbins to get going on the machine quilting.
While pin basting the quilt, I decided to feather quilt on the diagonal - the light fabrics will be quilted using a grey thread, and the bright side I'll use the red thread. The red is also for a straight line down the red mountain trail.
Off we go a feathering... so far, so good!

Votes For Women - Blocks #9 and #10

I have sewn a couple more blocks for my Votes for Women project.

This is block #9 "Brick Pavement". It was a unique block design which was fun to sew and turned out really well.




This is block #10 "New York".
A quick and easy block to make.


Here is the summary of my block adventure so far...
Blocks 1, 2, and 3 - Done
Block 4 - couldn't print templates
Blocks 5, 6 and 7 - Done
Block 8 - the same pattern as block 2 (don't need two of them!)
Blocks 9 and 10 - Done


Here are my blocks so far...

Total = 7 pieced blocks, 2 not done, and 1 applique block (not done well and destined for the backing!)

It has been inspiring to read about the US election this past week, and the influence of the women voters on the outcome, while at the same time reading the history lessons Barbara has posted on her Grandmother's Choice blog about women who risked imprisonment in order to vote. Maybe the women voters were reading Barbara's blog and recognized the importance of their right to vote?!? 
For more inspiration, hop over to Karen's Sew Primitive Quilter blog and see how she is incorporating text and photo transfer into her amazing blocks... so creative!

Treadling on Tuesday

Thanks to everyone who sent suggestions about how to deal with the smell of my new treadle belt. I hung it outside to "air out" for a week, and then put it in the downstairs cupboard for another week. This week it smells like regular leather instead of a skunk, so I can stand it now:)  Here is the old belt and the new one...quite a difference in the look of the leather.

To learn how to replace the belt, I read the suggestions posted in a "Treadle On" article, and I watched this video on Youtube. Then I got out the tools and got to work.

I made the belt a little bit tight because everything I read said the leather stretches out a bit at first. It was harder to treadle with this new belt for sure. So hopefully it will relax and be easier to use soon. And hopefully I have it installed correctly!?

While I was rummaging around in the treadle drawers, I found this enormous diaper pin, and a very old spool of thread with a sticker that said it cost 15 cents! 

The next step on my treadle journey will be to oil the machine, so I plan to do some research on that this week.  

Design Wall Monday #43

On my design wall today are my first 20 Alamo Star blocks, which is my leader/ender project. They are so cute and so fun to sew. I can't decide if I should make more blocks with the center square being the same as the star points. I tried two of them and they really jump out at me, so I either need to sew more like that, or stick with making the center squares the same fabric as the background.
Any opinions??

And just for the fun of it, here are the 2.25" Alamo star blocks beside my enormous 24"  Swoon block! This really makes me smile!
For more smiles and inspiration, hop over to Patchwork Times to see more design wall postings.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Sometimes you don't really feel like sewing anything. Winter's coming and it's dark and rainy outside. You're tired and just want to hibernate with the bears until spring. Some days you really just need some inspiration to fan the tiny embers of creative life that are barely burning.
That is where the internet comes in! We are so so lucky to have unlimited inspiration at our fingertips.
Before you start your slow sunday stitching today, grab a cup of tea/coffee and treat yourself to some of my favorites this week:
1) Drop in and see Teresa's truly amazing organizational system for managing tiny pieces of fabric - click here. 
(While you're there, make sure you look at the photo on the right sidebar of her cat snuggled up in her quilting hoop.)
Teresa is a quilter after my own heart I tell you!
Now... don't be thinking to yourself "I am such a slug". 
Say to yourself, "What great ideas to inspire and delight"!

2) Then go to see Sue's incredible post about 30 completely hand made quilts from the French Guild of France Patchwork - click here. 

Did I mention every single stitch taken by hand??!?
Of all the quilts shown on Sue's post, I am 100% drawn to Clarissa. I have loved that quilt since I first met it in Vermont last year - click here to read about it.

Here is a close up photo I took of one of the blocks. 
I am going to make my own Clarissa one of these days. Maybe when my kids move out and I have nothing but time on my hands?
The original Clarissa has over 6,000 pieces of fabric, so I am going to need Teresa to come over and help me get organized if I'm ever going to accomplish that!
I hope you were inspired by these two amazing blog posts today. Now, don't be thinking to yourself "why do I even get up in the morning?" Instead, go and get your sewing out, and enjoy some wonderful, quiet moments of peaceful stitching while you run those amazing quilt images through your creative brain and dream about the quilts you have yet to make.
And don't forget to spend 2 minutes in silence at 11 am to commemorate Remembrance Day while you stitch. 
I will be putting a few stitches in my Journey of a Quilter.
Then blog about what you're stitching and link up your post below so we can be inspired by your creativity.

Stuck on Brown

The November colour of the month for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge was brown.  My quilty friends sent in some reinforcements so I would have enough scraps to sew a Knot block, and now those scraps seem to have multiplied, and I have enough for two blocks! I have been playing with the light to dark gradation and hope to have time today to work on sewing the blocks together.

The Knot block pattern is from Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine volume #3. Did you know that volume #6 has just been released?!? So exciting and I can't wait to get my hands on this newest issue. Have you been following the blog hop this week? You can click here to visit the blogs, see some of the blocks, and enter the draws for a copy of the magazine.
Since I had so much fun this past year with sewing the Knot block each month, I plan to pick a block pattern from the new issue for my 2013 rainbow challenge project.  Maybe the kaleidoscope block or chain mail?
Hop over to SoScrappy to see what other scrappy quilters are up to this week.

Swooning

Have you seen the Swoon quilt design by Camille Roskelley around blog land?
There was a Swoon Along at the beginning of the year, which I would have enjoyed participating in, but at the time I was really on a roll with finishing some UFO's, and I was able to resist starting a new quilt. There is even a Flickr group for Swooners - you can see the amazing blocks and quilts here. 
Because I really like the effect of this block design where each version looks so different depending on the fabrics used and placement of the lights and darks, I eventually did purchase the pattern (at Quilter's 9 Patch) and started collecting fabrics for my own version of Swoon. 
Then I saw Gail's recently finished Swoon and Darlene's Aster Manor Swoon and I just had to get going and sew up a block of my own. 
I decided to make each block from three different fabrics: white with black design background, and two prints... one primarily black and one yellow. Then I discovered that either I made a cutting error, or you can't get all the background pieces from 1 fat quarter. So I stuck in some similar white starry fabrics to finish up the block and I think it looks okay.
These blocks are HUGE at 24"!! 
And the pieces are really large for me. I felt like Alice in Wonderland where my hands were too small and the pieces were too big. I prefer to spend most of my quilting time sewing tiny blocks - like my new favorite Alamo Star, which is 2.25" and has 17 pieces.

Just for fun and for a better sense of proportion, I put one of my little Alamo Star blocks in the center of my Swoon block.
That makes me smile!
It's back to sewing more Alamo Star blocks for me!

Treadling on Tuesday

I haven't been sewing on my treadle since I broke the belt. Did you see Bonnie treadling on Quiltcam last night? So fun! Made me sad that mine isn't working.
In the meantime, I have been getting to know my new/old treadle machine.  Just look at all these original attachments! I have no idea what they are all for and have been reading the online instruction manual to try to figure out this puzzle of pieces. 

I have been admiring my treadle every time I pass by it. Just look at the pretty details on the hand wheel cover!
I bought a new belt to replace the broken one but it smells so bad that I can't stand to bring it in the house. Does anyone know why that is, or how to fix it? As soon as I can tolerate the smell of the new belt, I can fix it, and get treadling again.

Design Wall Monday #42 - 3 Sisters Grace

Great news for Monday morning... I have finally finished my "Orca Bay" mystery top! This was Bonnie Hunter's mystery from last year, although it doesn't look like it! I didn't use any string blocks, and only made half the number of blocks.

Oh yah...I also put the borders on backwards in a creative way. But they took a really long time to attach and to get them to be the right size, so I'm not taking them off!  You can see how the borders are supposed to be if you look at Bonnie's mystery quilt - click here.

All the fabrics are from the "Grace" line by "3 Sisters", which I bought on a weekend getaway with my sisters last year, so I'm calling my quilt "3 Sisters Grace".

I was really hoping to finish this quilt top before Bonnie's new mystery starts at the end of this month, and that goal was accomplished...woohoo! (We won't even mention that I didn't finish the one before that!)

To see more design walls, hop over to Patchwork Times. 

Slow Sunday Stitching

It's Sunday again. 

Time to take a deep breath and do some slow stitching. 

I look forward to these moments all week. 

I have finished my Garden Steps Quilt Along blocks. There were 12 blocks posted and I stitched my favorite 9 blocks. (You can see my first 3 blocks here and my second set of blocks here.) The quilt along ended in September, so I am way late, but "better late than never", right?!?

I goofed a bit on the butterflies on the tree block, but that's okay. The flowers along the bottom are really cute, so they can provide distraction from the crazy butterflies.

These were fun blocks to stitch, but I feel quite out of sync with the season. I need to figure out which fabric to put around the blocks, so I'll set them aside for now. I have a Halloween block I wanted to stitch, so now I can get to work on that one and get with the current season!

But today, I plan to be working on my "Journey of a Quilter".  The backing is pieced and I am pin basting in preparation for taking my first hand quilting stitches on the Journey...can't wait! 

What are your hands stitching this week?

Link up your blogpost below and share your hand stitching project. We love to see what you're working on!

Brown Knot block pieces

I am the luckiest quilter ever! I wrote about not being able to make a brown Knot block for my Scrappy Rainbow Challenge because I didn't have enough variety in my brown scraps...click here to read about it.

And just look what came in the mail this week! Two wonderful blog readers sent me some brown scraps to sew! Thanks so much to Janet and Deanna! 
No excuses now...I have to get sewing my Knot block! And the next colour is "black to grey" range so that will be fun (or is it gray?)
To see what the other Rainbow Scrap Quilters are working on this week, hop over to SoScrappy.

End of the week

What a crazy busy week! I have over 1,000 emails in my inbox and over 200 of them haven't even been read yet.
I didn't finish much this month - my UFO was not even thought about, no Quilt Square Quilt Along block, no Votes for Women block, no free motion quilting sample - nada!
And my Mountain Trail quilt that I posted on Tuesday, shows just how topsy turvy the week has been. Thanks to the blog readers who let me know that I screwed up  made a creative version of the layout and have the bottom two blocks on the right side turned the wrong a different way. Check it out here. So today I plan to unstitch the border in the bottom corner, rip out those two blocks and try to put them back together in the way I had intended. We'll see how that goes!
And if ever it stops raining here, Miss Molly and I will be doing lots of leaf raking this weekend. Well, I do the raking and she does the supervising.