Scrappy Saturday

It was such a busy week I haven't had time for blogging, and even if I did, my internet connection has not been cooperating with me.  But it's randomly back today, so I'll try to post this. 

I've been making some little nine patch blocks and using up some lime green scraps. This is the tin that my Omigosh scraps are stored in. The tin is 6.5" x 9" and contains hundreds of small bits of fabric, some squares, some strips, and some partial and completed 9 patch blocks. I love this tin in a very extreme (somewhat concerning) way! LOL! 

I've sewn up a pile of little blocks today, and here is the first finished double 9 patch block. Lime green blocks are noticeably absent in the block collection so far, so hopefully there will be more made to join this one today.

Here's a picture that gives a better perspective on the block size. It is smaller than the pattern! 
One more done, about 50 more (not all lime green) blocks to go!
Hop over to the Rainbow Scrap Challenge to see what the other quilters are sewing with their lime scraps.

Quilt Retreat

This past weekend I attended a quilt retreat with my sister. It took quite a few years for my sister to be convinced to try quilting, but she is a math oriented person so she likes that aspect of it. It's not a lifestyle for her like it is for me, but she does enjoy it as a hobby. And she convinced me that I needed a weekend getaway with fellow quilters.

This is our amazing ever patient host/co-ordinator/teacher Deb Beirnes helping my sister to figure out the next steps in making her tablerunner. 

One of the projects I worked on was making the blue July shop hop blocks.  I traced out the centre embroidery block with a frixion pen and pieced the churn dash pattern to surround it.

It really was the perfect piece to work on while at retreat - "The love of sewing is our common thread". Of course I had get some vitamin D along with my vitamin Q, so I went outside to enjoy some stitching in the sun!

The blog tour has started!

The newest issue of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks magazine is here! Volume 12 is now available and day 1 of the blog tour was yesterday. There are lots of fabric prizes and free copies of the magazine to be won. I have won many free copies over the years, and two years ago I even won a copy of the magazine AND a mug!
Get on over there and enter to win some of the great quilty treats!

Bowtie Block Swap

On my design wall today are the Civil War print bowtie blocks from Barb's block swap. There is such a wide variety of prints in these blocks that I received from the swap, and none of them are the fabrics I have in my stash. How can that be possible?!?
I like this circular layout because I haven't made one of these yet. You can see some of the other bowtie quilts I have made here.
I plan to make a few more of these blocks to be able to make a lap sized quilt and this will be a project to work on over the winter.
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Sunday Stitching

One of my goals in starting the Slow Sunday Stitching linky party three years ago was to develop an online community of like-minded people. It has been a wonderful experience getting to know amazing and creative stitchers around the world who share common interests. 

Thimbles and Thing

The stitchers in this photo are a little more aggressive than the folks I was hoping to connect with, but the captions make me laugh every time I look at it! 
Sunday is my favourite day.
I hop stumble out of bed every Sunday morning, make a pot of tea and enjoy visiting the blogs of my stitching friends to see what they're working on. 

I love being inspired by the variety of projects being made, seeing the tools being used, and learning more about the creative process that occurs when working with your hands. Thank you for participating whenever you can through linking your posts, and through your encouraging comments for the stitchers that share each week.

This weekend I'm making some slow progress with my winter hand quilting project. This is exactly where I was sitting yesterday while putting in some stitches. I love my Ikea lamp with the flexible neck and the concentrated pool of light that is perfect for hand stitching. Today I hope to finish quilting at least one more small star block.


I want to send out a huge thank you to Stephie (a quilting blogger from the United Kingdom) for the wonderful post about my blog. Stephie I am honoured by your words and by your enthusiastic participation in the Slow Sunday Stitching community!

So what's going on this week? What are you hand stitching? Link up your blog post below and share your project and progress...

Scrappy Saturday

Lots of power sewing is going on this weekend, and in between piecing the quilt blocks I am trying to finish, I am making little Alamo Stars as leader/enders. You can see one brown star being slowly made, and two green and blue star pieces clipped together ready to be the next leader/ender block.




These are the first 6 stars finished using greenish batik scraps, and some leftover brown pieces from last month.
To see more scrap projects in the works, hop over to SoScrappy.

Block Sampler Quilts

Are you a block maker? I am. I prefer the process of making unique individual blocks vs. making 100 of the same block. I love the look of a scrappy sampler quilt and have worked on many over the years.
My first sampler was a hand pieced, hand quilted project made in 1996. You can read more about it here. My teacher was the high school "lunch lady" and she took a great interest in me once she heard I wanted to learn to quilt. She taught me all the "old school" ways of quilt making. I had two preschoolers at home during that time and soooo looked forward to my evenings away to learn the skills of quiltmaking.

I have done many online block sampler projects over the years. One of my favourite finished sampler quilts is Barbara Brackman's Civil War sampler. Click here to read more about my quilt and see the cool backing. The patterns and history lessons are still available and still free! 

Those of you who have followed my blog for a while will remember my 7 year project called Journey of a Quilter. It is 9 hand embroidered blocks and is one of my all time favourite quilts. It holds many memories for me and I admit that I was sad when that journey was over, and the quilt was finished!



I have two sampler quilts waiting for attention and they will be on my 2016 UFO list. The first is called Chocolate Covered Strawberries Saturday Sampler. I made these blocks weekly in 2010. The patterns were chosen from many different sources, but mostly from my collection of 100 blocks magazines. I love these complex blocks and look forward to working with them next year so they can become a finished quilt. 

My other sampler project in waiting is Barbara Brackman's Grandmother's Choice: Votes for Women from 2013. Again the block patterns and history lessons are still available and free! I used reproduction fabrics for these blocks and made many of them by hand. The blocks are sashed and ready for layout and border decisions. This photo shows only a portion of the 49 blocks. I loved the weekly history lessons and learned so much about women's history from Barbara. Click here and here to read my favourite blog posts from making these sampler blocks.

My newest sampler project is from the July Shop Hop in my area. My friend Barbara (remember she doesn't like blue!) collected the patterns and donated them to me. I will be starting to work on them this weekend because I just don't have enough UFO's in progress!

And if you've read all the way to the bottom of this post, I want to tell you about two new sampler ideas. First, the Fat Quarter shop is hosting a Sampler Block Shuffle by Moda. The block patterns are written by famous designers and 2 patterns will be released every Friday. Many of the block patterns appear to be quite simple, so if you are a new block maker this project might appeal to you. 
Also the newest issue of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks magazine is out and I have a copy in my hot little hands! It should be on the newstands soon and Quilty Pleasures will be having lots of draws for free copies.

Remembering

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada. We take a pause from our regular lives to honour the people who have given their lives in protecting our country, and in peacekeeping efforts around the world. Freedom is not free.
In addition to remembering how lucky I am to belong to a loving family, a safe community, and a free country, I am also feeling so thankful today for my quilt guild. 
I was the speaker at the meeting last night and was so emotional I thought I might cry. Here they are, with their positive energy and smiling faces, waiting to see some of my quilts and hear my lecture.  I was overwhelmed with memories of my fellow quilters who have taught, supported, and encouraged me in so many ways over the past 20+ years. Truly my life would not be what it is today without them. I'm even getting choked up as I write this. They have shared with me creative inspiration, encouraged my confidence in who I am as a quilter and as a person, and have given me wonderful opportunities to travel and to teach.  So today I also honour these amazing people who have so loving influenced my life. 
Here's a short clip from Wicked which expresses so well how I feel today. BTW I am represented by Elphaba - the green one!

Fabric Shopping

I don't write blog posts about fabric purchases very often because I dislike shopping of any kind. Believe me, this is not an adaptive behaviour for someone who has to live in this century! Even shopping for quilting related products is a challenge for me. I get overwhelmed by the multitude of choice, and I am easily distracted by pretty things ("what did I come in here to buy?") Also I have difficulty thinking an entire quilting project through to the end and buying all the things I need at once. Perhaps if I didn't shop twice a year it would make things easier!

The only time I go to the quilt store is:
a) if I desperately need something and can't proceed without it. Likely I would still try to avoid going and would set that particular project aside - hence the huge UFO closets!
OR
b) there is a shop hop and a fun social time is involved. If there will be less shopping and more socializing, I can manage! Recently I went on two shop hops, so now I won't have to shop for another 6 months!


I bought this stack of wide backings, which means I will be able to finish 5 quilts without piecing a backing. 

I also purchased a variety of pieces for my Life is Beautiful quilt. I finally decided that the blocks will be red and paper bag brown, so it will look something like the sample quilt here. This photo shows some older fabrics that have been washed and used in other projects, and the brand new ones. I have finished almost 20 of the 32 embroidery blocks and am starting to think about putting some blocks together, which I can do now that I have enough fabric.
I can't think of anything else I "need" although the shops sure did have many wonderful new lines of fabric that tempted me. The next shopping experience to be endured is for Christmas, and my goal this year is to not have to go into a mall!

Design Wall Monday

On the design wall today is my version of Pam Buda's Pocket Patchwork called Tucker. Most of the fabrics in this little quilt are scraps from a block sampler quilt that I finished at the beginning of the year.

As you can see, I made a few little alterations to the original design. First, I removed the "too bright" blue square that was on the right of the star in my version of step #2. I just couldn't stop seeing that square in the overall layout, so it had to go!


Then I put the 'scrap love' fusible applique section at the top. The idea just came to my mind when I saw the final layout. When I quilt this little wallhanging, I will stitch around the edges of the shapes to fasten them more securely.

I used up leftover HST's to make most of the flying geese blocks. And I added an extra border of little squares all the way around the whole thing because I had so many bits leftover.
I will try to finish this in time for the quilt parade on Dec. 15th.
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Today I am starting to hand quilt my oldest UFO.  This old quilt was pieced in 1996 so it will soon be 20 years old! You can read more about this quilt here. 
It's time to start the quilting.

This quilt holds so many memories for me. I always had in mind to hand quilt this project, but somehow it never got to the top of the project pile. 

Favourite hand quilting batt

I finally bought a package of my favourite hand quilting batting and a new box of pins. It's a queen size quilt, so I needed to get more pins since they will be committed to this project for a long time.

Pin basting

The pin basting was finished this week and it was a tough workout for my hands, with only one episode of bleeding. The hand quilting will be a breeze compared to the pinning process. 




And so the hand quilting journey begins again, although I don't know yet what the quilting design is going to be. Stay tuned :)

What are you hand stitching today? Link up your blog post below so we can see your project and encourage you on your journey. 

Scrappy Saturday

The colour of the month is lime green over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I happen to have a lot of lime scraps left over from my October UFO, so it was quick and easy to make up a couple Maverick Star  blocks.






I fussy cut the centre squares from some of my favourite scraps, and cut the background pieces from 5" charm squares. These two lime blocks will join my slow growing collection of stars.
To see more lime scrap postings, hop over to SoScrappy.

New Quiltville Mystery

It's an exciting time when Bonnie announces the next Quiltville mystery! Did you see the post with the fabric requirements? Click here to read all about it. The project is called Allietare - if you go to Google translate here and click on the "listen" button, you can hear how it's pronounced. It's a fun word to say and I am practising my annunciation just in case anyone asks me!
I have been a Quiltville groupie for a long time, and eagerly anticipate the beginning of a new mystery. You can see the previous Quiltville mysteries I have made between 2008 and 2014 on this blog post. It feels like my annual jigsaw puzzle adventure and as we all know, some puzzles are much harder than others! And that's why some quilts are finished within the same year, and some remain in a UFO state years later. But they will all become finished quilts eventually.

Last year's mystery was called Grand Illusion. I used yardage and went way outside of the colour recommendation so I could use up some old fabric in the stash. Bad decision. Sewing yardage is not nearly as much fun for me as working with scraps. And I ended up disliking the green fabric I had chosen. Eventually I had to unsew and completely remove the green.
Then I felt that my version was a bit frenetic and I changed my layout.  Fast forward to today, and I don't even know where it is! I will excavate this month and try to find it. Maybe it will have become more beautiful in the meantime?

I did recently finish the 2012 mystery called Easy Street and this quilt is so bright it's like having a quilted night light! 
By the way...allietare means "to cheer up" or to make someone happy. Bonnie Hunter is the Allietare of the quilting world!
Are you up for the challenge of the new mystery?!?

Scrap Squad Strips

Lucy is getting a good workout this week. She's a 1953 long bed 301 Singer and she still sews like a dream.

I'm sewing a big pile of strips together in various combinations for my next scrap squad quilt. Almost all the sets are prepared for the first step. The next step will be cross cutting a bazillion slices. 

Crazy Mom Quilts

Crazy Mom Quilts, written by Amanda Jean Nyberg, has been one of my favourite blogs for years.  Her lifestyle, her writing style and her quilting style all resonate with me.  I love to read what she's up to in her sewing room, and her book Sunday Morning Quilts is one of my all time faves. She is having a link up to celebrate her blogiversary, so I thought it would be fun to note some of the ways she has influenced my quilting.



Here is one of my quilts made from a pattern called "Up, up and away" from Amanda's book. I call it "The Accidental Quilt" because I really had no intentions of making this quilt until the perfect fabric was gifted to me at the same time as I was reading the book. This quilt was hand quilted.




In 2011 I was totally inspired by a pile of scraps to make my own version of her Ticker Tape quilt. It turned out to be one of my most memorable quilts (for me). It is also the only machine stitched raw edge applique quilts I've made. My ticker tape quilt is called "Shattered" and was finished in 2013.



I have been inspired by so many things on Amanda's blog including her quilting designs. I especially enjoyed all her writing about the spiral design. Click here for the free tutorial that I'm sure you will want to try.

Last year I used this design to quilt one of my UFO's called Sunflower Mystery. Here is the quilt from the back that shows the design.



Another one of my favourite quilts was made during a fun quiltalong in 2011 that was hosted by Amanda. Click here to find the links.  It is called "36 Patch Quilt" and is a wonderful scrap quilt. I finished my version in November 2012, and it is another one of my favourite quilts that I hand quilted.

And my most recent Crazy Mom inspired project is of course the Vortex. That was one CRAZY project Amanda Jean! But of course, I loved it and just had to make one. Remember the "Mash or Sash" blog post? I decided to mash it, but haven't actually done the sewing yet. Soon.



Amanda, I can't thank you enough for all the fun and inspiration you have shared with me over the years. Cheers to you on your blogiversary and I hope there will be many more years of quilting and blogging to come! 

November's UFO

This month's project is from the Fat Quarter Shop quiltalong from 2013. It was called "Deckade the Halls" and celebrated their 10th year in business. The pattern is still available (and still free!) if you want to make your own Christmas celebration quilt.
My first step is to sew the quilt top together since it's still in sections. Then I need to figure out what I have that might work for borders, backing, and binding.
It would be wonderful to have this quilt finished in time for the family to snuggle up in while enjoying the special lights, music, and Christmas shows through out the holiday season. 
To see the UFO goals being set by other quilters for this month, hop over to A Lovely Year of Finishes.

Design Wall Monday

Step #2 of Tucker is on the design wall today. This is the new mystery quilt along over at Pam Buda's. That blue plaid sure jumps out on the computer screen, but I don't think it's such an attention seeker in real life. I did a stay stitch seam around the whole block to keep it a bit more stable and flat. Now I'm sewing step #3 which was posted last Friday.

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

Slow Sunday Stitching

It's Sunday again and a new month has begun. The fall season is my favourite, so I am always sad when it comes to an end. I spent as much time as possible outside this week, soaking up the warm sunshine and beautiful colours.

Life is Beautiful Block #19

I also finished another block for my Life Is Beautiful quilt. This block pattern is of 4 apples, so I just had to use apples in the photos. Believe me when I tell you these apples were crunchy and delicious, and a great celebration of all things that are wonderful in the fall!

Today I will slow down, breathe, and take a walk on the crunchy autumn leaves that are now covering the ground. And then I will get out my hand stitching, and start my next block.
What are you planning to do on the first day of November? I hope it includes some hand stitching.
If so, link up your blog post below and share your project with us.