July Shop Hop

Is anyone participating in the July Shop Hop in southern Ontario this year? This is the 9th year for this hop and there are 15 stores this year. 
I really enjoyed it last year and finished the Shop Hop project over the winter, which you can see here. But I seem to be running out of steam and enthusiasm this year. The amount of driving is a bit prohibitive, but I do like to make a concerted effort to get out to the stores I can't usually get to in the winter. 

Last weekend I stopped in at the Hobby Horse and had such an enjoyable visit. I made a few purchases, and they gave me this free reusable box bottom tote bag which I love. And I overheard some interesting conversations while I browsed, including a very generous staff person teaching a new quilter how to hand quilt - that made me smile :)

This store is on such a beautiful property out in the country. I took along a salad (which you can see sitting on the picnic table) and I enjoyed a relaxing lunch listening to the birds, and the breeze, and heard an occasional chicken and a dog.

Do you see the old treadle sewing machine in the garden? I'm fairly certain that this baby is rusted beyond any possible further usage, even with my expert tender loving care! 
I felt restored after my visit, with the wonderful staff, the beautiful fabrics and free gifts, and such peaceful scenery.
It's likely that I won't get around to all the stores since July is drawing to a close, but I sure would love a chance to win 1st prize in the draw which is a $3,500 Eddycrest custom made sewing table, so I will see how my free time and energy holds up before the end of the month.

Design Wall Monday

My piecing project this week has been the modern alphabet paper piecing quilt by Tamara Kate. 
I started this project at Quilt Canada in June, and just got back to it recently. I have finished the letters up to and including 'R' and have joined the letters in columns.
I couldn't decide what colour to make the H and I letters and finally decided on lime green.


I really like how the green 'HI' turned out. There will be other bits of the green in the bottom row of the quilt, and I have already picked out 2 green fabrics to be the quilt binding.



This is a fun and fairly easy pattern to sew. Some of the letters are a little tricky with the odd angles, but I have really enjoyed making it. 
The letter 'F' is my favourite so far. 

If you would like to make your own version of this fun quilt you can download the free instructions here, and the paper piecing pattern here. Thanks to Tamara for offering this free pattern to quilters! Tamara has lovely fabrics, cards and journals for sale on her website here (no affiliation, just a customer who loves her products!)
Hop over to Small Quilts to see more design wall posts.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching link up! 
We are in the middle of summer here, and it has been a comfortably warm summer, with a few really hot days, but also enough rain to keep the grass completely green which is very unusual.

Projects from my takealong bag set out on the picnic table

We have had some great camping weather, and on our most recent trip I realized I had taken 5 hand stitching projects in my takealong bag! Yes 5! You just never know what you might feel like stitching, right?!? I had an embroidery block, 2 hand quilting projects, an EPP, and a hand appliqué project.


First I finished up the chicken embroidery. It is a Gail Pan design and had the word 'eggs' under the chicken. But I decided that since only a couple of the blocks have words, I would not stitch any  words since it drew too much attention to those blocks with words. Instead of the word 'eggs', I stitched three eggs!
So cute.

Then I worked on the scrappy triangle quilt that I pieced in the spring. 

This project just  needed the edge  of the triangles appliquéd to a muslin strip. I tried the Aurifil 80 weight thread and it makes a lovely job on the appliqué. However, you really need a needle threader to deal with this very fine thread as needles are impossible to thread otherwise. I love the Clover desk needle threader... it's quick and easy, and works every time! 

Eula block from Friendship Album

Then I did some hand quilting on my Friendship Album quilt. It's just getting some stitch in the ditch quilting and 2 of the 9 blocks are finished now.

What are you hand stitching today? Share your projects with us so we can encourage you on your slow journey!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday

July is pink month at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, and I have finished sewing my pink "Wishing Ring" blocks. These blocks are inspired by a Temecula Quilts project and use up 1.5" scraps. It makes me happy to look at these blocks and remember the quilts in which the fabrics were originally used.


I arranged the blocks from January to July in vertical colour lines to see if I would like that layout. I have been making approximately half the rings light and half dark each month, but not having an exact plan made this layout harder to organize and I couldn't put the colours in the order I would prefer. Oh well, I don't like this layout as much as the diagonal layout I tried last month anyway.

To see more pink scrap projects, hop over to the RSC link up.

Midmonth UFO Update

July's UFO project has a backing and a batting, and has been pin basted. I really don't mind the task of pin basting with the Kwik Klip tool. It goes quickly while I listen to the radio or podcasts.


Because it is a bit more challenging to see when you are stitching with a white thread on white fabric, I decided to make it a bit easier on my old eyes by using a slightly variegated blue thread. 
Why work so hard to see where you've already quilted when you can make it easier to see?!?! 

Machine quilting has begun.

Look at how small some of the scraps are in this quilt. They are smaller than the basting pin!
I'm starting with some wavy vertical lines in the white spaces and don't know what I'll be stitching after that...
I'm hoping some ideas will come to me!

Mid Month Finish

My version of Carole's Scrap Dance Minuet is now a finished quilt! I was inspired by Carole using up some of her floral fabrics and I was very happy to clear out some very old stash.
Here is the clothesline shot.

It is a hard quilt to photograph, although I'm not quite sure why. The floral fabrics don't look nearly as pretty in the photos as in real life, but when I try to brighten the colour balance, it makes some of the fabrics look very strange... especially the one with yellow flowers.

Here is the quilt from the back. Can you see some of the machine quilting? It doesn't look nearly as bad as I had feared when I couldn't remember my original quilting design and changed it up a couple of times by mistake. I really like the curved lines I did in the last 2 borders.
Finished size: 47.5" x 59.5"
Thanks to Carole for another fun mystery adventure! 

Design Wall Monday - Arrowhead

My blue Arrowhead quilt top is done! This project was started at a class with Deb Beirnes last summer. The original project was a 30 block quilt, but I really liked making these 9" blocks, so I kept making more blocks until I had enough for a larger quilt. There is a lot of sewing in this project, and it's all bias seams, so I am incredibly proud that the quilt top lays relatively flat.

I don't spend a lot of time on layout because it drives me crazy. I used to rearrange blocks endlessly. And I mean for hours, always thinking there must be a correct layout where everything is perfect. But in rearranging blocks, you fix one thing you didn't like and create something else you don't like.  And it's one of the hang ups that used to result in piles of blocks and unfinished projects being stored in the UFO closet, because I couldn't get it "right". 

I have been greatly inspired by Cathy over at the Sane, Crazy, Crumby Quilting blog as she creates incredible quilts with random block placement. 
It is my goal to be more like her, and 'go with the flow', and spend less time fussing over layouts, and more time actually enjoying finishing my quilts!
This quilt top measures 54" x 81" and that's a good size for this one, so I don't think I'm going to add a border, and just bind with a navy blue.
To see my miniature project using a 3.5" version of this Arrowhead block click here.
To see more design wall postings, hop over to Small Quilts.

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the weekly hand stitching party!

Today I will be enjoying hand stitching the binding on my Scrap Dance Minuet mystery. This is one of my favourite hand stitching activities.
And if I finish it today, which I probably will because it's a lap size quilt, I plan to do add some hand quilting stitches to my Friendship Album quilt.
What are you slowly working on today? Link up your blog or instagram post below and share your hand stitching project with us.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Scrappy Saturday

3.5" Arrowhead Blocks

I'm having fun with the pink scraps this month. I must admit that I love pink.  I don't wear pink clothing and don't want to see pink in my home or office, but I do love sewing it in quilts. It brings energy to a scrappy quilt and it's such a happy colour. The Rainbow Scrap Challenge is a great opportunity to play with all the colours!
These are the most recently made mini Arrowhead blocks. The pattern can be found here, and to learn how to make it in different sizes, click here.

Here is the 42 block collection on the design wall! 
Wow I love it! Although the blocks are small (finish at 3" in the quilt) I can totally see myself making a bed sized quilt of these because they are fun to sew, and because I love the look of it!

To see more scrappy endeavours, hop over to the RSC weekly link up and Oh Scrap!

Machine Quilting

Hasty free motion quilting started late at night!

I probably should be quilting my July UFO, but this Scrap Dance Minuet quilt was calling to me. As soon as the pin basting was finished, I immediately started the quilting. It was late at night and I probably shouldn't have done that, but I did. What can I say? I was excited!

Thoughtful walking foot quilting during the day!

And then when I came back the next day I forgot my design idea and started quilting something else! Let's just say that nothing is symmetrical about the quilting on this... it's kind of loosey goosey random. I did remember that I wanted to make some straight diagonal lines across the quilt. You can see the pretty blue backing fabric (which was a fabulous sale purchase) on the right side of the photo.

This is a smaller sized quilt so the quilting was finished quickly. This pretty blue Aurifil thread is one of my favourite colours. I used it in the bobbin and to attach the binding.
And now I will be enjoying some relaxing hand binding!

Summer Hand Quilting Project

In January I started the hand piecing quilt along over at Elm Street Quilts. Nine block patterns were taught and I finished my sampler at the end of April (you can see it here). 
Because the quilt top was completely made by hand, I decided it should also be hand quilted. It is the perfectly sized summer take along hand stitching project, so this week I got the quilt top pin basted and started quilting.

Kristin and Patty (project creators) named 5 of the complex patterns after the names of the characters in a book called Friendship Album 1933 written by Frances O'Roark Dowell.  The names are Eula, Bess, Dorothy, Florence, and Emmeline. While I have been quilting this project, I have been listening to the free podcasts of the author reading her historical novel about a quilting bee in the 1930s. The quilters are contemplating making quilts for the Chicago World's Fair and although there are a lot of characters to keep track of, I'm really enjoying the story so far.

Because it's a small project, I am not using a hoop for the quilting, which is a little bit different for me. 
I'm calling my quilt "Friendship Album" (named after the novel) and as you can see I'm just starting to quilt the "Eula" block, who is one of the main characters in the story.

Startitis Flareup!

I have been feeling quite under the weather the past week and I'm blaming my poor health for a flare up of another chronic condition ... the dreaded "startitis"! 
This is a chronic, progressive illness which attacks creative people and causes them to randomly start too many new projects. It's just like a terrible addiction and the sufferer has no control over their starting behaviour.
I think I am starting 4 new quilts! 

1) Kevin is hosting a scrappy summer mystery using up stash. So of course I have to start that one! I'm using up old batik stash, plus a couple of new fabrics added in for some sparkle.
One of the great things about this quilt is that you can use any size of square you want. I am using a 2" square.

2) Cheryl is sharing her Mosaic Mystery running from July to April next year. I'm thinking of a pink/teal/brown combination. 

3) Bonnie Hunter announced the new Leader/Ender Challenge and the 4" block size is perfect for sewing up small scraps. So I HAD to start that one.

4) And the Fat Quarter Shop is posting a Christmas in July mystery table topper quilt called Merry Mini Quilt. The first block pattern called Pointsettia is here.


Maybe I need some kind of immunization, or intervention or something else, like say...
a 15 quilt store July Shop Hop to get this Startitis out of my system?!? *wink*
Anyone else noticing recent symptoms of Startitis?!?

Scrap Dance Minuet Finished Top

Last week I posted a photo of my version of the mystery quilt top with a white border added. I still had many floral squares leftover, so I made a second border using up most of those squares, and a few flying geese to keep that design element.







The third and final border was a dark blue floral. This fabric was leftover from Grand Illusion and there was enough for a border and most of the binding. It's amazing how adding that last border made me like it even more, because it's a French General fabric that I really like from Le Bouquet Francais line.

So now it's time for pin basting and machine quilting!

June Aurifil BOM

This is the June Aurifil DOM block called Summer Fun by Annette Plog.
It was quick and easy summer sewing.
The only problem is that I did it wrong!
I did not even notice the mistake until I went to post the pattern link above and realized that I sewed the block incorrectly! Those HST blocks are supposed to point out out to the corners, not in to the centre. Well, we're going to call this a "creative take on the original design".
Then I visited the block link up page and discovered that several other quilters also made mistakes added their own creative adjustments, so now I'm happily linking up!

**Thanks to Deanna for pointing out that although my block is not like the pattern instructions, it is exactly like the block that is on the Aurifil webpage, and the same as the one that host Pat Sloan made. 
And anyway... potato, potato...it's all good! LOL


And here are all the Aurifil sampler blocks I've  made since last year. Such an interesting block collection!

To see more design wall postings, hop over to Small Quilts.
Also linking up to BOMs Away Monday!

Slow Sunday Stitching

Welcome to the Slow Sunday Stitching party where we celebrate all types of hand stitching including cross stitch, embroidery, hand piecing, knitting, crochet, rug making, english paper piecing, applique, hand quilting, etc. If you are creating something with your hands using needles and threads, we want to see what you're making!

I have not taken a single stitch by hand this week. I got distracted with some summer reading, a challenging 1,000 piece quilty puzzle, and an episode of gastro intestinal distress (sorry about the TMI!) While I continue to recover today, I will take some stitches in my next embroidery block. The photo taken on the finished puzzle doesn't really show the design but I will be stitching a chicken.

What are you hand stitching today? Please link up your project below and share your slow progress with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

July OMG

I almost forgot to post my One Monthly Goal for July! I'm still working on Dots and Dashes.  The quilt top was finished last month, and am hoping it will become a finished quilt by the end of this month.

The backing is pieced using some leftover 10" squares and solid white. So now it's ready for pin basting and I have decided on a vertical wavy line quilting design.

Scrappy Saturday

Maverick Star block collection

It's been such a busy week and there hasn't been much time for sewing. But today I am putting away the to-do list and giving myself a whole day to rest and sew!
It's pink month over at the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, so I got out the pink scrap box and made 2 more Maverick Star blocks.
I first started making Maverick Star blocks inspired by Bonnie Hunter's scrappy pattern in April 2014. Today I realized that I have 89 blocks which is enough to make into a quilt top. 

2 Maverick Stars and 2 Shoo Flys

These star blocks are great to use up little triangle scraps, but now that Bonnie Hunter announced her new "Shoo, Fly, Shoo" Leader/Ender challenge, I have another project that can use up these little triangle scraps. 
So this photo marks the end of Maverick Stars and the beginning of Shoo Fly! 




Here are all the star blocks on the design wall. I love how each one is totally unique. Some are plain using only 2 fabrics, and some are very scrappy using up bits of 4 or more fabrics.
Time to sew these blocks into a quilt top!

To see more RSC projects, hop over to the weekly link up. Also linking up to Cynthia's Scrappy party.

The 70273 Project Update

Have you been following the 70273 project? Remember this project started by Jeanne Hewell-Chambers?
I contributed by making some blocks for this project in 2017 (which you can see here) and was proud to be added to the list of Clarions.

70,273 Middling

And when the idea still had me by the throat so to speak, I made a Middling quilt to donate to this textile memorial. I finished the hand stitched XX's and put it in the mail in March 2019. My quilt commemorated 53 lives lost.
It was an emotional project to stitch, and many hours were spent thinking about this quilt, this project, this time (World War 2) in human history, and the intergenerational effects of trauma on families and societies.

Well, here is the project update...
this amazing and very ambitious goal of Jeanne's has been met! 
You can read all about it here.
Even through her personal struggle to keep her eyesight, her vision for the 70273 project materialized. 
Thank you to Jeanne for all her creativity, commitment, and hard work! This was an inspired and ambitious undertaking, it became an amazing story of effort worldwide, and I hope to be able to see these incredible quilts exhibited together some day. 

Happy July 4th to my American readers! 

And thank you to those around the world who are working to protect our freedoms and keep us safe!

Scrap Dance Minuet Quilt Top

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day! 
I'm late posting today because the Canada Day parade was at 10 am this morning. Parades must take precedence over blogs!

The Scrap Dance Minuet quilt along is over but I'm still putzing along here. We've been sewing one step each month, which is the perfect pace for a leisurely mystery waltz quilt! 

sewing mystery blocks on white Singer Featherweight 221K

Here is a very yellowy photo my quilt top after the addition of the first border. 

Border #1

I wanted to extend a few of  the flying geese into the border and I like how that turned out. But then I ran out of the white fabric, so now I'm wondering about whether to add more borders or call it finished? 

These old yucky floral fabrics have found new life in this quilt. It does look prettier in real life than in this photo, and will make a wonderful donation quilt. It's amazing that I was able to make a "silk purse from a sow's ear"! 

Thanks to Carole for the inspiration to use up these old fabrics, for the great pattern, and for hosting this fun sew along!

Linking up to Design Wall Monday over at Judy's.