Design Wall Monday

I don't have my sewing room set up yet, but it is clean, windows, floors etc.  My DH had to get all his garden railway stuff set up first, as it is stored in my "sewing room" while we are away!

 

The railway wraps around the front of the house, and has two rail lines, so two trains can run at once.

My sweet DH even built me my own quilt shop! 

All of the buildings are made from "scratch".  He loves finding uses for all the assorted bits and pieces that accumulate in our garage up north.  He has even made use of some empty thread spools and cones, and that is one supply that never ends......

Off to meet with my quilt group

People are arriving every day, and this afternoon we're going to get together.  I know that one person wants help pin-basting a quilt, and for the rest of us, it will be a meet and greet.
I had to sent my notebook in for servicing, and DH forgot the cables so that I can upload pictures, so my blog will either have old pictures, or be pictureless until it returns! Our desktop is so slowwwwwww!

These were mystery quilts that were made in 2006.

Design Wall Monday

I've been on the road for the past 10 days, and haven't set up my southern sewing room yet.  I did stitch the redwork on the 4th Raggedy and Friends block while travelling.  

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 Thanks, Kaaren, at the Painted Quilt!
I packed 14 or 15 projects to work on over the winter, so the next few months should be interesting.  I'll also be leading the quilt group every Wednesday - 12 to 20 quilters get together to sew.  They are of all skill levels from beginner to experienced, so it is challenging to find projects to interest everyone.  This year, I plan to take everyone back to the basics - from checking their "scant 1/4 inch seam" to how to cut accurately, and making the basic building blocks of quilting - 4 patches, 9 patches, half and quarter square triangle, flying geese, etc.  I have to design a few projects using these basic building blocks.
Check out everyone's design wall at Judy's blog

Houston Show

DH and I were waiting at the door  Wednesday night for the preview from 7-10.  Almost everyone rushed to the vendors' side of the convention center, but we headed the other way, toward the quilts.  All the first prize winners were standing by their quilts, and we got to chat with all of them!
The three hours flew by, and we headed back to our hotel.  Back again this morning at 10 sharp.  Once again, went against the grain, and looked at the rest of the exhibits before heading to the vendors.  I had circled some "must see" booths, but we managed to at least check out all of them by 4.  I don't look at jewelry, embellishments, I've tried all the long-arm machines before, wasn't looking for a new sewing machine, and only had a few fabric "wants" to look for.  I did pick up some fat quarters, and one ruler, but most of my plastic damage was done at Superior Threads booth.  Picked up 5 spools of their new silk thread to try for applique, as well as some new colours of their Rainbow line of thread.  I also got a box of 72 pre-wound bobbins as well.
By 4, my feet were sore, my back hurt, and it was time to head out.  We did stop at a local fabric store, High Fashion Fabrics, where I found some Raggedy Ann and Andy fabric (on my want list).  Stopped for dinner on our way home, then back to the hotel.  I've looked through all the hand-outs etc. that we picked up, and I've fondled my new fabric.  Now I have to check up on a few days of emails and other computer info.   We head to Florida in the morning.  I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, and baking my first loaves of bread!

Final sewing day for a while

 I finally had to call it quits this afternoon.  I managed to get the friendship star border stitched on the quilt centre, having fun, pulling various shades of purples and bluey-greens from my shelf.  The star blocks were made in pairs, reversing the fabrics.

  I have some more of the neutral fabric, and another print for the final border and backing that has been in my stash for too long.
Now on to cleaning and oiling both machines, packing up all the cords etc., then vacuuming the rug in my sewing room.  Then I can begin some serious packing.

Design Wall Monday

I wasn't planning to participate this week,  but I wasn't ready to pack up my sewing room yet.  While rummaging around, I found a zip bag with a ton of purple and light half-square triangle blocks.  They were leftovers from a quilt I made about 7 or 8 years ago.  They were all squared up and ready to use!

 The blocks are only 5 inches finished, but I managed to use up all the parts, with only 3 blocks leftover to add to my "orphan block" basket.  Now I am working on a friendship star border to make this little gem bigger.  I told DH that I was going to start packing on Wednesday, so he can load up on Thursday, ready for a Friday departure.  I am going to miss my son's company, and I am sure that he will find the house empty-feeling for a while as well.
Head to Judy's blog to see what everyone else is working on.....

I am packing, really I am.....

These are projects in bags and zip bags.  They have most of the fabric, and the pattern, unless it is on my computer.

Then add to that, these projects on hangers.  There are blocks and background squares cut for an applique project, as well as some panels and yardage that I want to turn into interesting quilts to donate to my guild.

In all, I have 14 projects packed to take south.  I'm sure I'll add a couple more to the list while I'm there.  Inspiration is always striking at the oddest moments!

Two more applique blocks - Meadow Breezes

I managed to finish one corner block and two side blocks.  I have also marked the back of the remaining blocks, prepared for back basting.  I also cut pieces of fabric for each of the shapes that will be appliqued.  I still have to take fabric along to finish the remaining corner block and side blocks.  Right now it is all in a zip type bag, ready to be packed. 
So many projects to choose from - so little space to pack!

Design Wall Monday

I was looking for a hand-work project, and found this applique pattern here. There is still one more part to the pattern coming later this month, but I decided to get started.  I have all the background white pieces cut, and have completed the "Birds in the Air" blocks for the rest of the applique.  The project finishes around 36 inches square.
Visit Judy's blog to see what everyone else is doing. 

Quilting and Not!

I spent all day Tuesday at a Community Quilts workshop for my guild.  One of the coordinators hosts it at her home once a month.  She provides a pot of homemade soup, and everyone brings a little something to add to the table.
It wasn't a big group, but we managed to get quite a bit done.  I machine quilted a baby quilt, and pin basted 7 more lap quilts.  They were also making kits, using the "block of the month" blocks from the summer - over 600 were donated.  The block was designed to use up bits and pieces, so several members used up all the short ends in their stash!  Two more quilts were pieced together, and now await backing.  I keep forgetting to take my camera, especially to take a picture of lunch - always delicious.  Since we were a small group, there were just 2 salads and rolls to go with the soup, and only 3 desserts!
I decided to take Wednesday off, so DH and I headed out to do more Christmas shopping.  Then we took good friends out for dinner to help celebrate our anniversary.   Today, I finally got my machine back in its place, and I've been wrapping Christmas gifts, and doing a bit of tidying in my sewing room. 

Lovely Thanksgiving Sunday

 We travelled 2 hours north of Kingston to beautiful Wollaston Lake, south of Bancroft ON.  The leaves on the way were beautiful, and we enjoyed the bright sunny drive.

They had a lovely fire going, but I found the room too warm - I would have fallen asleep if I sat there,  The guys watched a football game and had afternoon snacks while waiting for dinner.

 My sister-in-law set a beautiful harvest table, where 10 family and friends enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast.  There was lots more food than we could eat - we are all so fortunate.  We arrived home late, but happy to have enjoyed such a lovely day.

Design Wall Monday

 

I sewed madly on Sunday morning, and managed to get the basic quilting done and the binding stitched on before we headed north for our Thanksgiving celebration.  I stitched the binding on by hand while chatting with friends and relatives...

 

I took a close-up picture with a quarter on the block to show the size of the pieces.  I was amazed at how much fabric this little project took, most of which was lost into seam allowances and trimming.  I used an "add an eighth" ruler when paper piecing, but once the sections were complete, they had a standard quarter inch seam allowance.  I still have to add more quilting, but that will come at a more leisurely pace.
Join the rest of the group at Judy's blog.....

Finished Ode to Hallowe'en

Just in time to hang for a while before the big night!  I was planning to stitch some small orange beads on the vine, but didn't have any, nor did I have black buttons small enough or beads large enough for the ends of the branches.  Since I am trying to use what I have, I decided to forgo the orange beads, and made 6 strand French knots on the ends of the branches.  My camera is still having trouble with colours, so the squares in the border are a burnt orange colour.  I think it is the fluorescent lights in my sewing room!
Off to pack the goodies for Thanksgiving dinner at my sister-in-law's home this afternoon.....  Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians.

Ode to Hallowe'en

I downloaded Kaaren's pattern last Friday, and I just had to stop what I was doing and start working on it!  The link to her blog post at The Painted Quilt is here. (Thanks Kaaren)
I have the pieced border stitched, but I have to trim the centre to size first.  Then there is a bit more stitching to finish, but I should have it ready to hang soon.  
I had been reading about "back basting" as a template free method of applique, so I challenged myself to try it on these tiny pieces.  (The flannel on my design wall is marked in a 2 inch grid.)  It worked quite well, and I plan to try this method again soon. 
There are some pictorial tutorials on back basting on the Tropical Applique blog, found in the sidebar here.
There won't be much sewing done over the weekend - tomorrow I am baking 2 kinds of rolls, 1 pies, pumpkin and apple, and mincemeat tarts to take to my sister-in-law's for Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday!

Design Wall Monday

The first pieced border is complete, and I'm about half-way along on the second.  I have to work is short segments, as I find my neck muscles start to tense up.....   I am enjoying the challenge, but I'm also looking forward to the next one!
See what everyone else is doing at Judy's blog.

Miniature quilt centre complete!

Don't you love it when a plan comes together!  I used a different brown and rust fabric in the 1/2 inch border.  The brown that I chose for the blocks was only a 10 inch square, and the rust fabric in the points and setting square/triangles was a fat quarter.  I need the rest of that fabric for the points in the border piecing....  It is astonishing how much fabric this tiny quilt has used, but there is lots of trimming, no matter how careful I am.

 I'm proud of my mitered corners.  The borders were sewn together first, then treated a one.  I have tried many methods to miter the corners, but finally decided to use Sharon Schamber's method.  You use "Elmer's School Glue" with a tiny applicator tip and a hot, dry iron to glue-pin the miter.  Then you open up the seam and stitch on the pressed line, pull the glue apart, trim the seam allowance and press the corner seam open.  I have had great success with this method.

Baltimore Bliss Block 5

Pattern is found here.  I seem to be getting lots of hand work done now that the new TV season is upon us.  Last night I prepared the pieces for Block 6.
I'm also plugging away at the paper pieced border for my miniature quilt as well.
We discovered that the DVD burner on my laptop is not working.  I can read DVDs and CD's but not burn new ones!  Fortunately, my laptop has a 3 year warranty, so I guess I'll have to part with it for a while.  I think we'll wait until we get to Florida for the repair, as we are quickly approaching our departure date, and I don't want to complicate things by sending it for repairs in Canada and then having it returned to the US.....  I spent last night backing everything up onto a memory stick, then today I'll transfer things to our desktop and burn some CD's and DVD's there.  That way I won't lose any files - tech support said that the first thing they do is restore the hard drive to original.  I don't look forward to reloading all the rest of the software......

Another applique block complete

Here is block four from the Baltimore Bliss pattern found here.
Before I began the blocks, I made a sample page of the fabrics, and assigned a letter to each.  Then I spent some time planning where to use each fabric, so that there would be a variation, but not too much of any one fabric. 

I decided to use the same green fabric for the large arcs found in each block.  I like the way they alternate position, being set square to the block or in a diagonal placement, like this block.  Block five is well underway.  Now that the new TV season is upon us, (and I like to check out most of the new shows), I need lots of hand work to do!

Design Wall Monday

I have two things on my design wall this morning - block three of the "Raggedies" redwork project, a BOM from Kaaren's blog and some more progress on my miniature paper piecing quilt.  (The flannel on my design wall is printed in 2 inch squares, for size reference.)

 I had forgotten how long it takes to make such tiny paper pieced sections!  I usually "assembly line" sew when I piece, and it is just not possible with this tiny pattern.  The original pattern, from a Miniature Quilts magazine from 1995, also calls for a pieced border.  DH thinks I should include it, as I've spent so much time on the project already.  I'll just see how it is going, as I still have all my Christmas shopping to do (we exchange with the family in October before heading south), as well as planning and packing fabric for my winter projects.  At least with DS2 living here, I don't have to clean the house and clean out the food before we go - he just carries on.  We're going to miss him when he moves on.
Let's see what everyone else is doing at Judy's blog.

Trying to Plan Ahead

This time of year, things always get busy.  We try to do all our last minute visiting, prepare the garden for winter, I'm packing projects to take south this winter, and the schedule gets really full.
Today, I decided to get ahead and make my BOM's for my quilt guild meeting in two weeks.

The pattern was provided at the September meeting, with colour suggestions.  We can make 1 or as many blocks as we want.  For each block handed in, your name goes into a draw, and one person wins all the blocks.  Occasionally the blocks are donated to our Community Quilts project, and sometimes, they are divided into groups and more than one person wins.  Some months there are lots of blocks, and others only a handful.  I won a couple of years ago, but as the pattern was a paper pieced one, only a few participated.  I brought my prize home, made a couple of extra blocks and had a 9 block wall hanging for "show and tell" at the next meeting!

Finished Pinwheel Flowers

Yesterday was sunny and little wind, so I recruited my two tall guys to hold my quilt for its final photograph.  This one does something for me, and DH loves it too.  I took a second picture in full sunlight, as it shows the quilting a bit better.....

Unfortunately, it also has some serious shadows as well !
Tomorrow, I'm off to my sister-in-laws to help her with some quilt problems, then on Wednesday we are providing a staff appreciation lunch for the nursing home where my Mother-in-law spent the last few years of her life.  They took excellent care of her, and gave us the peace of mind to do our normal travelling etc., with much less worry.  I'm in charge of desserts, so I used Marion's recipes for brownies, marzipan bars and snowballs (made with dates), along with some turtle bars and rolled oat shortbread.  My son hopes that there will be some left to bring home! 

Design Wall Monday

I finally got back to work on this miniature feathered star.  Last fall, I was looking through some old Miniature Quilts magazines, and rediscovered this project.  At some time I had drawn all the foundation pieces and tucked them into the magazine.  Of course, I didn't start it until we were doing the final packing to return north for the summer, so it got tucked away in a bag with fabric, magazine and paper piecing tools.  There are four of these blocks in the quilt, and according to the pattern, they finish 4 1/8"!  I think I am insane......
Check out what others are working on at Judy's blog.
Someone asked me if I quilt on a long-arm machine.  No room at the inn, plus spending life in two different locations would make this impossible.  For my piecing, thread painting, machine applique, I use my Pfaff 2048.

 For machine quilting I use my Juki.  Right now it is sitting on my old sewing table.  

DH made me a sewing table so that it can sit flush to the table surface.  When I got my new Pfaff, I found out that it was a bit taller, so we used the quilting extension table to provide a level working surface.  I sewed for many years with my machine on a table, and suffered many headaches and neck and back pain from the hours that I stitched.  My machine quilting has improved dramatically since DH made my new table.  When we are at our winter place, I use an old plywood banquet table, so DH cut a hole in it and made a box to attach underneath to hold my machine.  The table no longer folds, but it works beautifully.

More Quilting

More variegated thread - blue for the blue flowers and pink for the pink ones.  The blue blocks were stitched with hooked feathers,

and the pink ones with large looping feathers.  I decided to leave the background fabric unquilted in this project, but I did stitch a design in the setting and corner triangles.

Back to Quilting

Finally managed to pin-baste the pinwheel flower quilt that I began here.
I began by doing some stitch-in-the-ditch quilting with monofilament (invisible) thread, stitching the plain borders, and stitching around the outline of each pinwheel.
I continued to stitch the yellow small flower pinwheels with some variegated trilobal polyester thread (nice and shiny), stitching swirls in each "petal".

Then I stitched the green pinwheels in the border, using a green variegated thread.  I stitched large leaves in each part of the small green pinwheels.....

 Then continued with smaller leaves in the large pinwheel blocks in the border.......

 

Finished quilting the problem quilt

This was one time that I wished I had a frame or long-arm machine!  This quilt really needed an all-over quilt design.  I decided to quilt the Baptist Fan pattern.  I made arcs from double layers of freezer paper, with a line drawn before cutting, showing the vertical straight of grain line.  I had to stop and pin each set before doing the free-motion stitching along the edge of the freezer paper.  It was a bit time consuming, but I did get it finished.

I then stitched my favourite "hooked on feathers" hooks on both sides of a curvy line in the plain pink border.  I used Superior King Tut thread #937 for all the stitching.

I hope this quilt finds a good owner at my friend's church Christmas lunch and sale in late November........ 

Block Sizes

For those wondering, my design wall is covered in flannel that is printed with 2 inch squares.  I bought the yardage back when everyone was making watercolour quilts, and this was recommended as a designing tool.  I still have my 7 baggies of 2 inch watercolour squares, sorted from light to dark, but have never made one yet!  I did try a project using the fusible interfacing marked with 2 inch squares.  It worked well, but seemed very stiff when finished.
My latest applique blocks will finish around 16 inches, and are destined for a queen-size quilt.

Design Wall Monday

I

I finished hand stitching the last applique shape on the third block last night.  I use silk thread and a size 11 needle, stitching about 1/8th of an inch apart.  I also use extra stitches at the points and the inward points, to make sure that they will be secure when washed.  The pattern is from Fat Cat Patterns.
Check out the other design walls at Judy's blog.

New member of my extended family

My brother and his  partner, Maggie, adopted a couple of donkeys last spring.  He was there to help with the birth of the newest member.  They are kept in a shed attached to the building where he works on his hot rod.  We plan to visit in person the next time we are in the Toronto area. (His shop is in a rural area northeast of the city).

Finished Snowman Collector

I finished the simple, stitch-in-the-ditch quilting on Monday, then hand stitched the binding yesterday.  I then went back and did some outline quilting around the snowmen and trees, but I kept it simple as the fabrics and embroidery do most of the work on this quilt.  I plan to take it to Florida to freshen up my Christmas display this year!

Design Wall Monday

I'm having the worst time getting the colours to show correctly when I take a digital picture.  I think it is a combination of my old digital camera and the fluorescent lighting in my sewing room.  The dark squares in the checkerboard area are a warm brown, and there is a darker red and a great purple fabric in these as well.  I guess I'll have to start taking pictures in natural light!
These lovely Raggedy Ann and Andy blocks are from a BOM from The Painted Quilt Blog.  Kaaren adds new blocks on the 20th of the month.  Can't wait for the next one!  I have made a kit of the fabrics I'm using in the quilt, so that I can take it with me to Florida this winter, and continue making the blocks each month.
Head over to Judy's blog to see what is on everyone else's design wall today.

Adding yet another project!

My best friend called yesterday to ask a favour.  A member of her church had passed away, and her family had found an unfinished quilt - top made and matched to batting and backing piece included.  She asked if I could quilt it in time for their fall bazaar.
After it was delivered, I opened it to find this:

It is an oversized pinwheel quilt made of two blocks and a couple of odd borders.  I pressed it and starched it well.  When I unfolded the backing fabric, there wasn't enough to back the quilt, let alone make binding.  My friend had said to call if I needed anything, but I decided to use this project to help shrink my stash.
I cut the required pieces for the binding from the backing fabric, then measured what was left.  I didn't have enough of any one pink fabric to make a large enough backing, so I added one print to the sides, and another to the top and bottom.  More spray starch on the backing and I am now in the process of pin basting.
Choosing a quilting design to help this quilt will be a big decision.....