Piecing blocks

I haven't had a lot of quilting time this week between working, and running the kids around to their activities. I did make time to piece my two blocks for the UFO friendship club's group charity quilt. Joan organized the project, cut out the patches for the blocks from donated fabric, and gave us instructions to use a scant 1/4" seam. There are two block patterns in this quilt, and it is a pattern from Quilters Newsletter Magazine. I'll post a photo in a few months when all the blocks are together. You can see our group's quilt from last year by clicking here.
I also updated my 365 quilt. I have now finished 4 months and am realizing how huge this quilt is going to be (based on the size of 4 months of entries), especially if I add some sashing and borders.

Blog reader winner announcement

Today was the day to draw the winning name for my blogiversary prize.

I printed out all the blog comments from this week and put them in the watermelon bowl that my son made for me a few years ago for mother's day. When my daughter came home for lunch, I let her pick the winning quilter - and the winner is...

Kim West!

Congratulations Kim! (Kim has a blog on our Stashbusters webring here.) Email me your mailing address and I will send you (all the way to Hawaii!) a package including this collection of Moda fabrics called Northern Flight, which has lots of fall colours and Canadian motifs, and also a few little quilt labels. I hope you find a project in which to use these charm squares!
Thanks to everyone for visiting my blog and for leaving me such encouraging comments and inspiring feedback.

I look forward to the next year of quilt adventure blogging!

Georgian Quilters

I was invited to speak at the Georgian Quilters' Guild in Meaford, Ontario yesterday. It was a lovely fall day for an adventure - sunny and warm, and the leaves are starting to change colours. The drive took much longer than I and 'Google Maps' had anticipated, since as Beate said "there are 2 seasons in Ontario - Winter and Construction"!! Construction that went on for miles and miles along Highway #6 - blah.
Anyway, I arrived safely and although the construction caused us to shorten our lunch visit, it was still fun. Thanks to Marg, Wilma and Beate for a yummy lunch at McGuinty's. And while I was at the guild meeting, guess what I discovered? They are having a 'president's challenge', and I can get in on it! You know how I love a challenge - especially if it has anything to do with buying, I mean using up, fabric. Here are the two charm squares to start with...let's see...wallhanging with a theme of "A snippet from my life"...perfect! Uh oh - I can only use up to six pieces from my stash plus the two provided...now that will be a challenge to limit myself to 6! Surely I can finish up something by June!
I entertained myself on the long drive there and back by listening to Lisa Boyer's "Stash Envy - And Other Quilting Confessions and Adventures". It was very entertaining and had me laughing out loud at times. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on 'progressive lenses and quilting'!
And of course I had to visit a quilt shop on the way home.... it was just a little out of the way! I stopped by Chrissie's store in Markdale called Quilter's Line. I picked up a couple of fabrics for borders for season minis that I am finishing, and some beads, and I may have also purchased a few batik FQ's :)
It was a wonderful quilty day, topped off with dropping in to visit my long time quilting friend Louise in the Mount Forest area. I thought "I can't be this close to her house and not take a little detour to see her"! I enjoyed having a cup of tea and visiting with her on the porch, while her children buzzed around us, doing homework, playing with their kittens and wearing off all the energy that youngsters seem to have so much of!
Don't forget that this is my blogiversary - leave me a blog comment this week and I'll put your name in the draw for a fabric gift!

Happy Blogiversary!

It has been one year this week since I started blogging. Who knew that I would enjoy it this much?!? In the blogging tradition that I have come to learn in this past year, I will be giving away a little gift (of fabric, of course) to one of the quilters who leaves a comment on my blog this week. So post a comment some time this week and your name will go in the hat for the blog reader prize of the week! It has been fun to read over my blog entries from a year ago and remember what I was working on then. It is a little sad to admit that some of my projects from last year that I wrote about are still in the UFO state. For example, in this pile of UFO's that I posted here, I can tell you that I have only quilted and finished two of them! I am going to make the pile more visible in my quilting studio so I can remember how much I still like those quilts and would love to see them finished.

I have had a very busy quilty weekend. I invited the students from the monthly mini class over to my studio on Saturday. They kept me company and worked on their own projects, while I sewed the Quiltaholics mystery quilt. These are the blocks I had sewn by Saturday night. It was quite impressive that I managed to get that far, since in addition to visiting with my quilting friends that I hadn't seen since June, I attended a 50th anniversary party, and also my husband and I took my favorite cousin and her husband out for supper and a lovely visit. Then it was back to the quilting sweat shop until I was caught up with the steps posted on Saturday. I started sewing again early Sunday morning until I had to take a break and make my regular visit to my Grandma's, then right back to work. This is how it looks tonight. I am pleased with it and am debating about the border. The mystery quilt design has a really neat pieced border, but if I add that, it will be too big for the spot on my dining room wall. I want to add the sunflower fabric for the border. So I will sleep on it tonight and see what I think in the morning.

President's Challenge Award Winners

And a drum roll please....

These are the winning quilts of the President's Challenge as decided by guild members votes:

First place is Wendy Oskam

Second place is Judy Taylor (hiding behind that envelope full of cash!)

Third place is Diane Black

Congratulations to these talented quilters!

And thanks to President Barb for all the fun and energy that was generated from this challenge!

President's Challenge Quilts Revealed

Tonight was the first guild meeting of the season and also the night for quilters to show the finished tops/quilts made from the mystery pattern we had received in our newsletters last year. The quilt design was created by Susan Druding and can be seen here. Our guild president issued a challenge to sew the mystery quilt and bring it to the meeting tonight for viewer's choice awards. There were 10 quilts on display - 8 were queen size quilts and 2 were wallhangings. These photos are the 8 large quilts. It was great fun to look at all the quilts, see the fabric combinations used, and see how the variation in colour values change the look of the quilt design. (Sorry for the dark photos...our meeting is held in a very large room with a high ceiling - it's difficult to photograph large quilts)
There were two of us who redrafted the pattern and instead of sewing 12" blocks, we sewed 3" blocks and made wallhangings instead of the queen size quilts. And here are those two crazy quilters...our Vice President Nancy (who paper pieced her quilt!) is on the left and I am on the right.
We had a viewer's choice vote for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prizes, donated by our President. Check in tomorrow to see which quilts won a prize.

Challenge quilt is done!

I spent most of my quilting time this weekend finishing the President's Challenge quilt. You can read about the challenge here and can read all my blog entries about working on the challenge quilt here. This was a mystery quilt which used 12 fabrics, and I challenged myself to make the quilt from my stash. I am proud to say that I did not buy a single thing for this quilt, including batting, backing and binding! I have had the top sewn together and the backing pieced together from scraps since the middle of the summer. But of course I waited until the weekend before the deadline to quilt the thing! I used lots of pastel shades of thread and had a ball with the quilting. I decided I wasn't go to do the grid thing (stitching only in the ditches) and tried to think of different ways to quilt using a combination of the free motion foot and the walking foot. To some people this is torturous, but I really enjoy it! I also love to change thread colours frequently, since I get bored easily of quilting with the same thread. Changing colours keeps me interested! I am happy that it is finished by the deadline (including the label!!) and it will hang tomorrow night at the guild meeting with all the other challenge quilts. I will post photos on Tuesday night, so come visit my blog on Wednesday morning to see how many finished quilts there are at the meeting.

Today was changing of the quilt displays in my house. I have quilts hanging in every room (at least one or two) and change them monthly on a random basis (ie. whenever I have time). Today I decided to put out some of my fall quilts, since the weather is starting to turn cooler. I have posted this photo before, but I will show it again since it is one of my favorites. It is a round robin quilt that I hang on my dining room wall. It is 54" x 55" and is called "The Great Canadian Fall Quilt". The rows were made by Linda Grover, Cathy Carritt, Gail Wiebe, Shelley Belot, Carla Watt, and Carol Stevens as part of a round robin group project. The rows sat in a box for a few years, until I finally put them together in 2005 with the encouragement of my guild's UFO group, which is now called the Friendship Group. (Shhhh...don't tell them that I still have a few UFO's that they don't know about!!!) I quilted each row differently, mostly using my free motion foot and it was tricky getting it evenly quilted. The back is pieced from one of the extra rows and extra churn dash blocks that I had made a long time ago. You can see my little label on the bottom corner of the backing which lists all the quilters who contributed to my fall wallhanging.

Beginnings and Endings

There has been a lot of complaining in my family about endings this week. The kids are so sad that summer has ended and they are back to school. I have been reminding them of all the fun and exciting adventures they will have this year and that "when one door closes another door/window opens"....one good thing ends, another one takes begins to evolve in the empty space. They sure don't buy it! I believe it when I am saying it to the children, but it's so hard to practise what I preach!
I feel sad myself. Not about school starting though (we all know how I am doing the happy dance about that!!!) I found out this week that the Waterloo County International Quilt Festival, which I have enjoyed every May for the last 12 years, has "ceased operations". That's right. The last one was this past May, and when I was there enjoying the international quilt displays, Ontario Juried Show, and vendors, I had no idea that it would be the last one! (You can read about my fun at the May 2007 festival here.) The three reasons cited for this decision are decrease in attendance, lack of volunteers in leadership roles, and decrease in the financial sponsorships.
So now I have to hear my own advice, practise what I preach, and hope that new ventures in the quilting community will evolve to fill this empty space.
My own quilt beginnings - I am starting a new project next weekend! I know that I should be finishing one of my numerous UFO's instead, but I just want to start something new! Here are the fabrics I picked from my stash. I bought the green fabric to coordinate and am ready for the mystery to start. Well, not exactly "ready"...I still have to wash the fabric, precut the pieces and sew some HST's. I am making a fall-like wallhanging for the dining room. The fabric requirements can be seen here ... join in the fun if you can.
And for endings - I have to finish my President's Challenge this weekend since the quilts will be shown at Tuesday's guild meeting. I am close to finishing the quilting and just have to do the binding.

Doing the Happy Dance!

We are back from our last camping trip for 2007. Again, we had fantastic weather and a wonderful time.

And today..."it's the most wonderful time of the year"!

It's the first day of school and I am doing the happy dance!

What will I do with my new found freedom? Well, I will spend part of the day trying to fix my computer. I can access the internet, but not my email. This is a new variation on the endless problems I have had with my computer. And of course, I will continue to attack the mountain of dirty laundry.

This afternoon I will go to a meeting of some of my quilt guild friends and do some more work on my BOM. I finished one of the block components yesterday. I altered the direction of these flowers and am happy with the change. I find that I am making several changes to each block now as I find out what I like to stitch and what kind of a look I prefer.

Working like a dog!

This is my last week of more than full time work. Next week we will be back to a full staff compliment and I go back to my part time job. And not a moment too soon- I cannot wait! I have made arrangements for my children to do other things this week - my daughter to my sister's and my son to his friend's cottage, because I am working too much to have them home. They are happy to have an adventure, and I can sleep when I have the chance.

When viewing the Stashbuster blogs early this morning, I saw that Darlene has posted her beautiful new quilt using the Lucky Stars pattern by Atkinson Designs. It reminded me that I haven't posted a photo on my blog of the quilt I made for my nephew Matthew. (I have made a quilt for each of my 11 nieces and nephews, and this was for the youngest one.) It is made completely of flannel fabrics and started with a flannel panel of the dog blocks. I fussy cut the dogs, and they were the centers of the star blocks. The backing and the border were made from the red dogbone fabric that I was so happy to find. It was a delight to piece this quilt - I should make more of these quilts since I enjoyed it so much!

The quilting was another story though! The all flannel project was very heavy to quilt on my machine. I just quilted in all the seam lines, echo quilted the stars, and then got a crazy idea to free motion quilt a dog bone in each of the sashing bars, and inside each bone I quilted a dog word, such as sit, bark, Molly (my dog's name), roll over, ruff, doghouse, etc. It was fun at first, and then just labour intensive. Here is a close up of one of the blocks. Maybe you can see the bone in the striped bar? Anyway, Matthew loves his quilt, and it is already well worn!

Fabric mess

Does this happen to you!?!? I don't always wash my quilting fabric, especially if it's for a miniature quilt that will never be washed. But I do always wash fabric for bed quilts. I threw a few pieces in the washer/dryer yesterday to add to a project I am working on and look at the mess that I got! I know there is a way to eliminate or reduce this problem, but I forget what it is! Any suggestions???
I need to know because I plan to make lots of fabric purchases when the kids go back to school!

The end is near!

Only two more weeks until the children go back to school! I sometimes feel a little like a "bad mother" when I admit to other people that I can't wait for September 4th, and that I do a happy dance on the first day of school. Well, I must admit that over the years, I have also had some teary moments on that first day of school. But I know that it is because I try to be a good mother and am so involved with my kids, that I find the summer to be exhausting. In my own defense I should also mention that I was "older" when we were finally blessed with our children, so I am no spring chicken! And all the activities, having the friends of the children here, family visiting, travelling, and camping are getting harder every year! I'm thinking that a long vacation at a nice resort (by myself) is what I might enjoy these days!
I have primarily worked on 3 projects over the summer, which are all mostly hand work. The first is the 365 journal quilt and I will have completed 4 months of my quilt by the end of August. The second project is A Quilter's Journey by Leanne Beasley. In addition to the piecing and the stitchery of these blocks, I have kept a journal of my memories about my quilting journey accompanying each of these blocks. It has been a wonderful time of reflecting about my journey, the people and the quilting events of the past 16 years. But the progress on both of these is slow and I don't have any new photos to show you of recent work on these two projects.
However, my third project has been the Bead Journal Project which is a commitment to make a beaded journal piece each month for a year. I have enjoyed this so much that I started a separate blog to detail each month's work. If you are interested in beading, you can read all about my work/play on my Bead Journal Blog. It has really helped me to learn about my creative process and about what I enjoy doing the most. And all the recent photos of my work are on my beading blog.
So I have had lots of time for my creative projects over the summer. Almost all of my work has been done while watching my kids swim, practise/play soccer and baseball, and play with their friends. I could have a lot more done if I could figure out how to sew/bead while I drive!! I must have driven around the earth twice over the summer - but not to anywhere quilting related!!
But now, I am looking forward to working in peace and quiet, without the interruptions of applying bandages, making snacks and more snacks, and mediating fights! And being able to meet my friends for lunch and go to quilt stores and see my quilting friends again!

Getting organized for fall

This week I have been organizing my miniature quilts for teaching fall classes and for an invitational group exhibit in Nebraska. Here are the four piles:

The pile on the left is going to Triangle Sewing Centre and the pile on the right is going to Reichards . Neither of these stores have the fall newsletters on their website yet as the teachers are just getting organized. The second from the right pile was mailed to Orillia on Wednesday morning and arrived on Thursday morning - woohoo! These little babies are safe and sound. The second pile from the left are the four quilts for the Nebraska exhibit and they are now in the hands of the US postal system. I am having some anxiety about these little guys, but it has only been two days, so I won't really worry about their safe arrival until next week!

Vacation "Mind Mush"

We are back from yet another wonderful camping trip. We had a beautiful beach front site at Killbear Provincial Park. We didn't see any bears or snakes (for which the park is famous) and I was happy about that! Here is the view from our tent. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm, with some rain only one night. The kids enjoyed jumping off of cliffs into the water, kneeboarding and tubing on the lake, swimming and hiking. I enjoyed reading (reread "Gifts from the sea" as I like to do in the summer), relaxing, doing Sudoku (one of my favorite time wasters) and stitching. Here is my finished "Journey of a Quilter" block #2. It was pure delight to stitch the "Give Thanks" block while enjoying this amazing view!
Today I am back to my reality - piles of laundry, over 150 emails to read (sadly most of them are things I need to do and not fun, quilty-related emails), getting used to my new glasses again (I gave myself a vacation from my new glasses!) and back to work. I also have to get samples and supply lists to the stores and guilds where I am teaching in the fall. And my mind is mush from being on vacation. I can't seem to get going fast enough and am feeling very "turtle like" this morning!

Struggling to see

I must admit that I am getting old! I have been trying to get used to my new bifocals, or "progressive lenses" as they are called now, for two weeks. It has been a real struggle and I am ready to give up on them. I don't know what my options are in terms of returning glasses that I can't see through! However, there does seem to be a very small spot, that when/if I am lucky enough to find it, provides me with perfect vision!

I have been slowly working away on my Journey of a Quilter stitchery, but finding it difficult because I am trying to force myself to adjust to these glasses, and most of the time I can't see the stitches. How ironic that I am stitching the "Give Thanks" block while not feeling thankful at all!!

Good as new!

I had a wonderful and relaxing quilt retreat this weekend.  

I made a list of all the things I'd like to work on and spent some time with each one. First I updated my 365 quilt entries. Here are my 3 months of strips hanging in the storage room. I bought a couple of new Zig millenium pens since the two I started out with seemed to be getting a little worn out.

I also worked on my Journey of a Quilter BOM and finished the stitching on block one. This was very relaxing and I am really enjoying this project. The photo is a little bit yellowy, but it was late at night when I finished. I made a couple of changes, such as I took out all the stitched blocks of T pins - just a personal taste thing - I didn't like the look of them, so I'm replacing those pin blocks with regular fabric. And instead of using the DMC floss colours Leanne recommended, I am using up the floss I collected from my days of cross stitching in the late 80's. Then I finished tracing the stitch patterns for block 2 and pieced block 3 which is the photo on the right.

I also did some hand beading and worked on an abstract challenge piece that is not anywhere near ready to see the light of day (it's ugly!).

I fixed a big mistake on my President's Challenge mystery quilt - I had sewn the last two rows on upside down! You can see these rows here. I carefully ripped out that seam and resewed it the proper way around. Then I added some borders and pieced the backing. I am so proud of myself for using all stash fabrics from start the finish. This is the backing made from leftover pieces from the quilt top. So now I am thinking about how to quilt it - I still have a month left to finish that.

Mostly I enjoyed the peace/piece and quiet of my studio. I sometimes listened to music, and sometimes listened to the birds singing outside. I feel well mended and ready for the second half of summer vacation with the kids.

Super Woman

I have had a couple of tough weeks trying to do the "super woman" act - balancing too many activities with/for the children, trying to hold down a very stressful and too busy job, keep the house running (groceries, cleaning, dishes, cooking - you know the routine), trying to get the guild workshops organized for next year, and not finding any time left in the day for restoring my sanity. I have been in this place lots of time before and know the importance of my own self care. So today I am insisting on it and am going to do some quilting. I have had moments here and there, mostly late at night or at soccer and baseball practises/games, to work on my hand stitching. On the left is block two of the "Journey of a Quilter" BOM. I am enjoying having this quick and easy project to pick up in spare moments.
So please don't call/email me - I'm at the quilt studio with the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door!

Journey of a Quilter BOM

Like a few of the other quilters on the Stashbusters ring, I enjoy the creative ideas of Leanne Beasley - you can read her blog here. She is the originator of the 365 quilt project that I have been working on and I had been thinking for a long time about making her "Journey of a Quilter" Block of the Month quilt. I finally ordered the first three patterns and starting working on the blocks.
I must admit that I decided to use the fabric I had been collecting to make a quilt for my sister! I have been adding to this collection for quite some time, not really knowing what pattern I was going to sew. And since I have been looking at these fabric piles for months, I have decided I really like it! I will have to add more fabrics to it, probably more browns and deep burgundy pieces. I may eliminate some of the greens that are jumping out at me in this photo! Also I have to raid my 365 journal quilt stash of beige/cream for the stitchery blocks.
Here is the first block pieced. It took me about 2 1/2 hours to cut out the pieces, and sew them together - much longer than I would have anticipated. I am getting faster, since I have cut many of the fabrics into strips and am not taking as long to make decisions as I go along.
The stitching is taking me much longer than I had anticipated too! I will post a photo whenever I finish the first block!

Stitching and Camping

We are back from a 1 week camping trip to Algonquin Park. It was a perfect holiday...great weather, no unexpected problems, lots of family activities and wonderful relaxation. We saw lots of wildlife including this deer who was munching grass at the side of the road. My children claim to have seen a moose while hiking, but I missed out on that.
We had a perfect camping site on the edge of a small lake where we could enjoy canoeing and swimming. It was so quiet and peaceful- we felt like the only people on the planet! On the right is a photo of my children taking the canoe out for an evening paddle around the lake.
I spent a lot of time last week preparing a hand embroidery project to take along. I will write more about the project later this week, but I just have to show you a couple of photos that my husband took of me. I had pieced two blocks but didn't have time before leaving home to trace the embroidery pattern onto the fabric. So early in the morning, I pinned the pattern to the back of the block and held it up to the car window while the sunlight was still low enough to shine through, so that I could trace the stitching lines. I could only trace one or two parts each morning before my arms were exhausted! I worked on the stitching a little bit each day when I had a chance.
Here is a photo that my husband took of Miss Molly and me at sunset - I am stitching and keeping an eye on the children, who were out in the canoe.

Is this not the picture of complete relaxation?!?!

Blueberry Season

This has nothing to do with quilts, but is another one of my favorite things! At this time of the year a lot of my time is taken with enjoying the blueberry season. I have been to pick berries twice this week, the second time with my sister and her two daughters, who have never picked blueberries before. They really enjoyed it (although I am sure that the girls ate more than they picked!) and they hope to go again later in the season. The blueberry farms just opened this week for picking, so it is the beginning of blueberry season here. There will likely be two more good weeks to pick.
The strawberries around here were not good this year, so it was great news to discover that the blueberries are fantastic...plentiful, big, sweet and juicy. I freeze as many as I can each summer so that we can enjoy blueberry muffins, jam, and pancakes in the middle of the winter. I freeze them in bags of 4 cups each, unwashed, and then wash the berries just before I cook with them. Yum Yum!