In the spring I saw a double wedding ring template set demo'd on a TV show - it seemed to be the simplest I had seen, so I ordered one. It is from ez-Quilting and is found here or here.
I had some gradated solid fabric left over from a previous project, and so thought I'd give it a try. The templates worked wonderfully for cutting the pieces, and the whole project went together easily! Since I had chosen the red and green gradations, I decided to go with a Christmas theme. The ends of the arcs are made with a gold fabric with holly and berries, and the squares are dark red with Christmas light bulbs and green with more holly and sparkles. I used a narrow red stripe that has been in my stash more years than I want to remember to make the bias binding. I have all the basic quilting done, but still have to quilt in the centres and the melons! My friend saw it last night and hinted that it would make a great Christmas gift!
Today we left early and drove to Whitby to start our passport renewal process. They finally have 10 year passports as of 1 July. We only had to wait about 15 minutes, but by the time we were done, the waiting room was filling up!
After taking care of business we drove up to my brother's "shop". He has been a custom car/ custom motorcycle enthusiast his whole life. He found a shop building at an old mill in a small town north of Pickering ON. He has the use of the building in exchange for odd jobs for the owner. He was a welder by trade, so did all the iron work on a huge gazebo on the property. The owner lives in a small part of the mill, and there are currently a quilt shop, tea room and small restaurant on the ground floor (all closed on Monday!) There are still more changes occurring all the time. The owner has some small burros - two were from a rescue group, and one arrived expecting. My brother helped to deliver the baby, who is now larger than his mother! He and his better half feed them carrots and apples for treats! His friends are always dropping by, getting help with small projects. He built the motorcycle himself, with parts donated from all his riding buddies and it is beautiful. Of course, I forgot to take the camera!!!!!!
Check out all the creativity at Judy's blog, Patchwork Times.
I finished both quilt tops for my guild's BOM challenge. Instead of just making blocks each month, the two conveners decided to design 2 quilt tops. They are in the medallion style, with one having lots of paper piecing, and being a bit more difficult than the other.
Mine finished close to 70 inches square. I chose this colourway, as part my personal challenge was to make it totally from my stash, and I had enough of all the colours. I'm hoping to have it quilted to show at the June meeting.
This is version 2. Once again, it had to be made completely from my stash! The centre block is paper pieced, but I chose to use traditional piecing for the "square in a square" blocks. The final "woven" border was also to be paper pieced, but rather than use 40 sheets of paper, I printed one copy, then made paper templates to tape on the back of my ruler for those unusual cuts. All of the pieces were cut from strips, with the background shapes just using one template, one for the diagonal piece, and one for the small triangles. They were irregular angles, so the paper template method worked great.
Sunday, I managed to machine quilt 2 of the smaller quilts waiting in the wings, and added the binding to both. I also packed a small duffle bag full of leftover fabric from finished projects. Since DH doesn't need my sewing room to store all the train buildings, bridges and accessories this year, I'm still able to sew a bit then pack a bit each day.
Check out Judy's blog, Patchwork Times for creative inspiration from many wonderful quilters.
I've been working on my guild's BOM projects for the last few days. I finished the top of version 1 - picture to come later.
The final border for version 2 is supposed to be paper pieced. This required 40 sheets of paper to print all the parts. Instead, I made templates, after printing one copy. There were some funky angles in the design, but I taped the template to the back of a ruler to cut the angle and it worked perfectly.
This is the two different colours for part one of the border block. Part two will get sewn tomorrow.
Our final company of the season is arriving tomorrow, for a two day visit. Yesterday I baked 4 loaves of fruit bread, and a sour cream coffee cake and some whole wheat bread today. That will be the final bread baking before we re-locate.
Every year we have the difficulty of trying to use up all the perishable groceries. We've been working away at it, but dinner invitations have caused some set-backs. Most of our full-time neighbours do very little cooking (breakfast and the odd lunch). They seem to prefer eating out with friends, so they have little requirement for extras. Everyone is having "must go" parties, but I found that even when taking a dish to a pot luck, it doesn't seem to help.
Check out all the creative progress at Judy's blog, Patchwork Times.
Nineteen quilters had fun at lunch yesterday. It's great to get together without the work/fun of quilting getting in the way. I received a lovely card, signed by all the quilters, with a little "treat" inside.
After lunch we split up and headed for some retail therapy. The group that I was with wanted to check out a couple of "not so local" quilt shops.
There was much laughing, and matching of fabric etc. going on. The first shop had a 25% storewide sale, and I found these....
I had seen a quilt made using these templates, on my friend, Sandy's blog, here, and had to give it a try. I also wanted to have my group try some curved piecing next year, and thought that the larger size would be great for those new to curved piecing.
The smaller size can be cut from charm squares, so that is an added bonus. I had planned to order these from the designer's site, but when I found them on sale, I couldn't resist.
Off to get my work started!
I just smooth the Press n Seal over the pattern in a book or one that I have printed from my computer. It leaves a tiny bit of tackiness, but not enough to even make the pages stick together. When I mark a template for use on darker fabric, I use the golden tracing paper, as it tears away very easily. I used to use it exclusively before Press n Seal hit the market. The plastic wrap moves easily when you are manipulating your quilt through your machine.
I only pre-mark about 10% of my quilting designs before stitching. I usually decide what design I want to use, and if I want part of the design to be in a regular spot on the quilt, I mark the spots with a pin, to remind me to stitch a leaf, flower, butterfly, etc. in that spot. I have also quilted words and phrases in the border of a quilt, using a chalk marker as a guide line for the letters, and rarely in a straight line - curves are so much nicer!
