Design Wall Monday - Sunny Side Up

It's Monday again, which means it's time to show what's in progress on the design wall today.  These are the blocks for my version of Judy's "Sunny Side Up" quilt along.
I have moments where I wish I would have left out the two really light background fabrics, but I'm not changing it now and hope that I like it more once I put the alternating star blocks in.


These are all the pieces cut for the stars in step #6. I hope to piece these tonight...it will be a lot of trimming to do for the needed 68 QST blocks!
I actually have two design walls, and on the other design wall is the dreaded IOP (aka Chompers). When my Mom lasted visited the quilting room, she actually offered me cash to take "that thing" off the wall! LOL!  I told her I'm not taking it down until it's done! Wonder when that will be!?!

And while I'm talking about chompers, here is the latest instrument of torture from my orthodontist....
elastics - which hook around the top front eye teeth brackets and stretch to the bottom back molars to yank the top teeth into place.
Doc even gave me some brightly coloured elastics to try to entice me to wear them.  
I hate them.
They make my teeth and jaw hurt. 
He calls it "uncomfortable". I call it agony :(
I also got "power chains" put on the top and bottom teeth.
I still cannot believe I willingly agreed to this torture!
But as if to compensate for the torture, a wonderful treat arrived on my doorstep.

Look what I won from the Quiltmaker 100 blocks blog hop!
Not only did I win an issue of my favorite magazine, I won a collector's MUG!
I cannot tell you how happy this makes me! You would think I'd just won the lottery (although it didn't make me forget that my mouth hurts!)
To see more Monday Design Wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Sunday Stitching

It's Sunday! 

Time for some relaxing Slow Sunday Stitching!

 I am excited to share that I have finished 1/3 of the hand quilting (not including the border) on my Journey of a Quilter. I have quilted parts of some of the other blocks too, but blocks 3, 5 and 6 are completely quilted as of today! 

I finished the hand embroidery on block #3 in the fall of 2007 and here it is only 5.5 years later all quilted!

Wow...that journey went by fast!

Today I am going to spend some minutes hand quilting and hope you will make some time to do some relaxing stitching too! Link up your hand stitching post below and share your progress to inspire all of us slow stitchers.

Friday Night Sew-In and Scrappy Saturday

A couple of quilting friends came over for a hastily organized FNSI. It's the long weekend here, so I was happy that anyone was in town to come and sew with me. I have decided that sewing with friends is good for "whatever ails ya"! 
A full evening of sewing last night got me to the end of step #5 of the Sunny Side Quilt Along. It seems like 18 blocks is an odd number to need, but I double checked the pattern last night, and that is the correct number. I am using my collection of Kansas Troubles fabric, and think it will be perfect for this pattern.Today I am cutting for the alternate star blocks in blues and green.
And in between sewing these chain blocks, I was able to

finish 9 leader/ender Alamo Star blocks for the rainbow scrap challenge. Looks like I've had a hard time giving up the green month since all the bright blues seem to be getting paired up with green scraps :) I will try to throw in some other contrasting colours for the last week of the blue month.
Hop over to Soscrappy to see the other blue projects being made this week. And feel free to join in at any time - start organizing your scraps and getting them into quilts!

The Accidental Quilt

Way back in February at Quilt Retreat, I accidentally started a quilt.

(*** See previous post on my serious case of Startitis)
Marjorie brought this great library book (Sunday Morning Quilts) to show us, and I fell in love with a quilt in that book called "Up, Up and Away" (which is shown in this book review)! And then my secret sister gave me this adorable little package of Marmalade squares which happened to be the perfect size to start that quilt. I thought it was meant to be! LOL
I added some white yardage (note to quilt retreaters...
always take along extra plain yardage just in case you need to start a new quilt!) and Marjorie tossed a few Kaffe Fassett strips my way, and before you know it, I was starting another quilt!
Then I came home from retreat and immediately forgot about that impulsive transgression...Oopsy!

When shopping at a quilt store recently, I found a 5" charm pack of the Marmalade line of fabric and remembered how much I liked that fabric, and the memories of my impulsive quilt project from February came flooding back! Of course I bought the charm pack, and then went in search of the rest of the project in my sewing room.

Luckily I found the project easily, and discovered that I had already sewn and trimmed more than 50 blocks! Woohoo!





I now have everything re-organized, and have all the fabric cut out and ready to make some major progress tonight at Friday Night Sew-In.

Thread

I used to sew with any kind of thread I could find on sale.

But then I found that when sewing tiny pieces for miniature quilts, the piecing was more accurate with a thinner thread. By trial and error, I found that Aurifil thread makes the best seam.
Plus my Brother sewing machine LOVES machine quilting at high speeds (oh wait...maybe it's me that loves it!) and it does a great stitch with Aurifil. Believe me, I tried many other threads that my machine chewed up and spit out.


I recently ordered a box of neutral Aurifil for piecing from Tristan threads and I immediately wound up 6 bobbins. Wonder how many seams I can sew with these bobbins? And I wonder how long this box of thread will last?!?

Treadling or Gardening

Did you catch QuiltCam with Bonnie Hunter last night? If you missed it, you can watch it anytime on her YouTube channel - click here.
I really enjoyed watching her treadle the borders on a plaid quilt. I got some great tips on how to handle the quilt top while attaching borders by treadling. 

The problem is, my beloved treadle machine is covered with a "mini garden" at this moment. I know that is a bad bad bad thing to do to my treasured treadle, but I covered the entire cabinet in plastic before placing anything on it :) This is an older photo, but it shows the wonderful light coming through this window...just perfect to grow little vegetable seeds.
Gardening season is quickly approaching, although you'd never know it, since it hailed here yesterday, and it is 3 degrees outside as I write this blog post.  We have such a short growing season here (only 3 months of warmer temperatures) that I wanted to give my veggies a little head start and started growing some seeds indoors.



This year I am trying some organic seeds made by a local company. Here is the traditional method of starting seeds in egg cartons. 

And I'm also trying a new seed starter method that I bought at the Canadian Tire store. It is called a "Jiffy Professional 72 Cell Windowsill Greenhouse Kit".
Sounds fancy, eh?!?  
I'll let you know if any of these things actually grow!All of this paraphernalia is sitting by the window on my treadle machine just until the seeds get going. 

Just in case...

I thought I should post some fun online quilt events, just in case you have the same serious illness that I have... "startitis".  
It is an incurable disease and very debilitating for creative people.  But the good news is that you can manage the symptoms by signing up for a quiltalong and starting new projects whenever the illness flares up.


The two new projects I recommend starting today are:

1) Sunny Side Up      

This is a quiltalong by Judy Laquidara. You just need to collect some fabrics and get sewing. 
I am making this quilt for one of the wedding gifts I will need this summer. 



I am making a scrappy version using my collection of  Kansas Troubles fabrics. These are my 9 light fabrics. I have finished sewing step #4 and step #5 was just posted. If you like sewing stars and 4 patches, you will be in heaven with these blocks! You can easily get caught up if you want to join in the fun.

Photo from Fat Quarter Shop's Jolly Jabber

2) Fat Quarter Club's "Deck-ade the Halls"
It is the 10th anniversary of the Fat Quarter Shop and they are celebrating by giving us a gift! It's a fun Christmas quilt pattern with the steps/blocks being released every 2 weeks.
You will have a great quilt finished in time for Christmas gift exchange if you start now!  The fabric requirements can be found here. I am buying some white yardage for the background and am using up stash for the blocks. The gingerbread are the first blocks to be sewn, so I have found 3 browns and a red to start my quilt.

Design Wall Monday - Votes For Women

On my design wall today are the first 25 blocks for my version of Barbara Brackman's "Votes for Women" sampler quilt. There will be 49 block patterns posted, so this project is at the half way point for me (NB...there have been 39 block patterns posted already, so I'm a wee bit behind!)

I have been using up my reproduction fabric scraps and wanted to see all my blocks on the wall to figure out what fabrics/colours need to be increased or decreased in the blocks yet to be made. I think I need more cheddar, and maybe more green? What do you think?
Also, when I looked at the photo on the computer, my first thought was how much I dislike that umbrella handle. Do you think it stands out too much, or is it just my eyes? It seems too skinny or too dark....or something. Opinions, comments and feedback are welcome!
To see more design walls, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Stitching Sunday

When in the "Musee Des Beaux-Arts" I found this wonderful painting made in 1886 by Charles Huot.

I love everything about this painting, especially the use of light, and looked at it for a very long time. The details and the quality of this 127 year old treasure were just amazing.  It is so sweet how hard the students are concentrating on their projects. 
My favorite sewer is the one by the window who is trying to thread her needle...I can relate!
I hope you are sitting by a window today, or better yet, sitting outside, threading some needles to enjoy some hand stitching. I hope you will link up your blog post about the project you are hand stitching so we can be inspired. Happy Stitching!

Scrappy Saturday

Part of the fun of participating in the rainbow scrap challenge is sorting through the bits and pieces of fabric I've been saving and figuring out a way to put the bits into quilt blocks.
This week I cut up the pieces for 12 more Alamo Star blocks.





Today I'll be "wasting" some time with family functions. LOL! And you know me, I'll try to squeeze in some quilting time too if possible! 

Votes For Women

For some unknown reason, I skipped over block #23 when sewing my Votes For Women blocks. 
I remedied that this week and stitched up the block called "Girl's Joy: An Ounce of Persuasion". It went together well and came out to be the correct size.

So then I sewed up the next one, which for me was block #26 "Ladies' Wreath Mourning for Mother". Barbara wrote such an interesting post on the history of contraception. It is so hard to believe that it was illegal for unmarried women in the USA to use contraception until 1972!

Photo from Quiet Play

Next block for me to sew is #27 and I'm working on a plan for how to sew it without the dreaded set-in seams!
Are you making some time to sew today?

The effect of small changes

I embroidered a little piece for the Stitch Me Up blog hop back in March. The problem was that I didn't like it when it was almost finished, and it was headed to the (very full) UFO closet.  So many creative ideas were shared in the 
comments on that post that were helpful to me. I enjoyed reading all the suggestions of how I could improve this project and decided to start with these 3 small changes:
1) I will call it "vintage" which means "old" or "of a previous era", and insist that I meant to create a vintage effect!
2) add green thread into the swirly flowers designs - great idea and I love it!
3) quilt some swirly designs in the empty spaces.

I basted the little quilt and did some hand quilting with beige thread, and with a single strand of green floss, and I was amazed at how the texture brought it to life and made me like it so much more. Just wait until you see when I'm done. This really reminded me how small changes can really make a big difference!

Blog Land Fun and Draw Winner

Are you following along with the fun in quilt blog land this month?
*May 6th was give-away day over at Sew Mama Sew with lots of fabric up for grabs....maybe today is your lucky day?
*Over at the quilting gallery is the "Between Heaven and Texas" blog hop celebrating Marie Bostwick's newest book. They are posting great star block patterns to collect.
*Quiltmaker's blog hop celebrating the new 100 Blocks magazine is almost over...what fun that was!
*Also there is a year long Virtual Quilting Bee going on with many beautiful block patterns and tutorials.
*AND I would like to announce the winner of the "Montreal sampler" - just a few basic fabrics that I picked up at the Taylor Sewing Centre (which was a welcomed break along the very boring Hwy 401 drive). 

The winner was drawn from the 11 link ups on the Slow Sunday Stitching link up, and  the winning number (as picked by my son) is...#5 which is Sophie!

May UFO

I forgot to post about my UFO project for May. It is one of my favorite projects from the past couple of years - my version of the red letter quilt along that was hosted by Lynne in 2011 over at The Patchery Menagerie. I loved that quilt along - I learned a lot, had so much fun, and ended up with a quilt I love!

I hope to finish this quilt in the month of May. I have been asking the quilt for quilting suggestions, but so far, I am not hearing anything!!! 
Hop over to the May Linky party to see what other quilters are going to finish up this month.

Montreal

I am just back from a quick trip to Montreal. I tagged along with a friend who was attending a conference, and I greatly enjoyed visiting a fascinating city where I had never been before!

It was fun to practice speaking french, which I learned in high school and was amazed at how much came back to me really fast! 
And what can I say about the amazing food? Especially "les boulangeries"...YUM!
I must admit that I was surprised by the total lack of quilts or textiles of any kind in the museums or stores. Perhaps I did not go to the right areas? 

I found some wonderful sculptures  sprinkled throughout the city and enjoyed finding them randomly sitting on benches.




My favorite place to visit was La Basilique Notre-Dame  which was the most beautiful church I have ever seen. My photo does not in any way reflect the beauty. The sound of the organ with 7,000 pipes  was incredible (the largest pipe is 32 feet and the smallest is 1/4"!). And hearing the bells ringing on Sunday morning was something I will never forget (the largest bell weighs 11 tons!).
I spent a lot of time right where this photo was taken, lit some candles and said a few lot of prayers for my brother, who is quite sick again. I have returned in time to take him to more Dr. appointments this week. He could really use some good news (and more prayers, if you're so inclined).
It is good to be home again...can't wait to spend some time in the sewing room!

Mystery Monday

Nothing much has changed on my design wall this week. This is still how my design wall looks today. 
I really want to finish sewing these RRBC blocks together, so I'll keep at it until I'm done.

I've been busy traveling this week, so haven't had much sewing time.

I love fountains!

Does this fountain give you a hint of where I am?

How about this photo?
This is soap that looked and smelled good enough to eat!

Does this clue give it away!

Can I park here or not?!?

Have a great week!

Breathing on Slow Sunday Stitching

http://get-it-together.ca/going-with-the-flow

This Slow Stitching Sunday is brought to you by the word - breathe. 
With each stitch you take today, try to remember to breathe in love and hope. 
AND...enjoy every stitch you take!

Today I am hand quilting my Journey of a Quilter. I am still enjoying the journey of this project, which has been travelling with me for a long time.  
Can you tell from this photo that I am quilting on a rooftop today?  Can you guess where we are hanging out?  *Hint* - I am in a city I have never been to before! Do you recognize it? The trees are budding and the green signs of life are finally returning here. I will give a few more clues in tomorrow's blog post...stay tuned!

What are you hand stitching today? Link up your blog post below and I'll have a draw to share some of the fabric I bought on this trip.

Scrappy Saturday

Over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge we are transitioning from green to blue scraps.

Here are the Alamo Stars that I am working on this week.

And I'll be looking for some "sapphire" bright blue scraps to work with. Hop over to SoScrappy to see what other quilters are sewing up this week.

May for Me!

It's May and Marcia is hosting "May for Me" again this year. I had a lot of fun participating last year (you can read about it here) and I decided to sign up again. There will be linky parties and prizes, but most of all, you make a commitment to make some time to play. I think I can manage that, even with working two jobs, feeding 2 kids, taking care of a sick dog, helping to care for a sick brother, and running a household. 
I am going to start the day with some of this.
And then I'm going to treat myself to some relaxing quilt blog surfing. There is so much going on in blog land...
here are some options to enjoy:

*Quiltmaker has released another issue of their wonderful 100 blocks magazine and they are having a blog hop. There are many fun blogs to visit every day and they are giving away loads of magazines, fabric and other treats!  



*Maria Bostwick has released another book called "Between Heaven and Texas". The Quilting Gallery is hosting a fun blog hop to celebrate.I already won a copy of the book...woohoo! I have read all her other books, so can't wait to read this one!