Quilt Bee

Our local Quilt Bee was a great success.  It was on a smaller scale then last year but we still had a great turn out and lots of quilts were put together.  The committee had made quilt kits so it was easy to pick one up and then sit and sew it together.

I tried to show the group without faces.

Two of the finished quilts.

Work in progress.

Just a few of the quilts that were put together that day.

We are going to have some beautiful quilts to donate when everything is finished.

Peggy.

THE WEARIN' OF THE GREEN

I have been busy, busy lately and as the song goes I sometimes think "busy doin' nothing working the whole day through".  Some days just seem to slip by without me knowing where they went.  St. Patrick's day is coming soon and I wanted to finish my Irish Quilt Block of the Month and a new table runner.  

McCall's Irish Quilt BOM.

I can't really call it by that name because I didn't do all of the blocks that were posted by that website.  Some I didn't like and they also took too long to publish the next block.  I always thought that a BOM was one block every month but it wasn't that way with this BOM, so I added some of my own blocks to it.

There are 3 blocks that are my own additions.  Flying over the Emerald Isle is the middle block on the top row, and the first block in the third row is an Irish Chain block.  Then I also added the first block on the bottom row.

I wanted a simple table runner so I used a 12" Irish Chain block but when they were put together they formed a different pattern.  Isn't that always the way.  Better luck next time if I every try it again.

This wall hanging is taken from the Irish BOM.  A friend thought it might look neat as a whole quilt and I just had to try it.  I thought it made a great wall hanging for March.  I used 9 blocks and it came out at 36 x 36.  

Peggy

Red and Blue Roosters

I started this quilt after Christmas but I never do one project at a time so I finally got it finished.  There were a few challenges with it.

Some of the blocks gave me a bit of trouble because there were 25 of them and I think that that is the most blocks that I have put into a quilt and I didn't pay enough attention to each one.  I fixed them and all are okay.

I ran out of red border fabric but got that figured out with the help of some guild members.  It was a fun quilt to make because Lynda always gives me carte blanche when I am making something for her.  I made the quilt top and will mail it to her so that she can get it quilted where she lives.  It will be cheaper to mail it then a quilted quilt.  It is 60 x 80 inches.  I also bought the backing fabric. I was able to get extra wide fabric to make it easier, instead of having to sew the backing together to fit the quilt.

Lynda likes roosters, that is why there are 10 roosters in the quilt.  She purchased the fabric in England when we were there in 2011.  The small flowers were also part of the rooster fabric and I fussy cut 200 of them  to fit into the pattern.

You can see the snow on the deck. 

Thanks to YKW for shovelling off the

foot of snow so that I could 

hang the quilt to take the picture.

I also made a label for the quilt.

I called this quilt Red and Blue Roosters.

I am going to use Heat and Bond to stick the label to

the quilt and then it will be quilted into 

the quilt by the Longarm Quilter.

Peggy

The Lost Has Been Found

I can't say how happy I am that my lost quilt top has been found.  Words just cannot describe the feeling I have now that I know that it is quilted and ready to go to someone. The guild member that took it home brought it back to guild on Monday night all quilted and even put the binding on it.  I didn't see it but other members did.  I called the chairman of the Donation Quilt Committee and she described it to me and it is my lost quilt.  It warms my heart to know that someone will be using it to keep warm on a cool night when they are in the hospital or one of the Homes for the Aged here in town.

Flying Geese Quilt.

Peggy

I Guess I Just Need a Little More Experience

I went to Quilt Guild tonight and told my problem of running out of fabric to a few of my friends and I couldn't believe what happened.  Linda G came up with the brilliant idea of trimming the side borders so that I will have enough length for the top and bottom borders.  

Why didn't I think of that. 

 I guess it is because she has been quilting for many more years than me and is even in the Hall of Fame.  I guess I just need a little more experience.

Tomorrow I am trimming the side borders down a half and inch. 

Peggy.

OH NO.........I ran out of fabric !!!

I have one more border to put on this quilt and I have run out of fabric.  The quilt is my own design and I did all the calculations using my app on my Ipad from Robert Kaufman fabrics called "The Quilter's Little Helper".    It told me that I needed 7 strips for the third border and I am an inch short.  I guess my sewing is a bit off somewhere.  So I am off to find more fabric tomorrow.  I also wanted to do the binding in red so I hope there is at least 1 metre in the store.

If I can't find the fabric I think I will put a new seam

on to the sides of the quilt to shorten 

the width and hopefully

that will make up for the 1 inch that I am 

short on the top and the bottom.

Peggy

Placemat Therapy

It turned out that last Tuesday, Joyce and I were both making placemats.  It was good to get out and get together for some quilting.  There have been a few things going on in my life lately but since this is not about my personal life, suffice to say the day was great therapy.

Joyce bought this beautiful fabric a while ago just because she liked it.  

I think we all do that at some point.

She had to find something to go with it, and there is 

hint of purple in the main fabric and it turned out

to be a good choice.

She is making 8 of these.

I don't think the picture does the fabric justice though.

I found the deer fabric tucked away in a drawer and thought it was time to do something

with it.  I think I bought this about 3 years ago.

 I was going to cut off the rocking horse but then the deer picture would

be too small, so I decided to leave it on and just add some green holly fabric that I also

had on hand.

I was able to make 4 of these.

This Santa fabric was left over from last year.  I didn't have any blue that would go with

it so I decided to use red since that is for Christmas anyway.

I had enough fabric to make 6 of these 

Santa placemats.

These may go to the Guild booth 

at the quilt show 

in April.  

I haven't quite decided yet.

Peggy.

It isn't a Quilt Unless........

I figure it isn't a quilt unless you have at least one wonky block that has to be fixed.  I don't know how this one slipped through but then I made 25 blocks all the same so I just assumed that all was fine.

Not only are some of the flower blocks scant and almost missing but when the two blocks are together I have 2 blue flowers and 2 red flowers side by side.  That hasn't happened anywhere else in the quilt.

Something went wrong somewhere.

I was hoping that I just had to take out the few flowers, fussy cut 4 more and then sew them back in.  I know now why my blog has it's title.

I thought this was going to be an easy thing to fix.  It took me close to an hour to get them back in so that the block looks good and the blue and red flowers are in the right places.  Some days things just don't go as planned.

All fixed and ready to be sewn into the quilt top.

Peggy.

Apple Avenue Quilts Block of the Month

I finished my Apple Avenue Quilts Block of the Month and it is ready to be posted.  I should have taken better care of how I made the blocks each month and what fabrics and colours I used because when it was finished I didn't like the way it looked when I arranged it by the months.  Each block represents a month of the year so I scattered the blocks and liked the layout better.

 On the upper left corner is January depicted by a snowflake and February is the heart block but I think they look better separated with the green shamrocks for March in the middle.

April starts the next row then June in the middle and then pink tulips for May. 

On the lower right is the July block and it should be an American flag, but since I am a Canadian I put a red maple leaf on a white background waving in a blue sky as the star points and background.

It measures 52 x 66.  One down and 8 to go.

Peggy

Wild in the Wilderness Part 2

Almost a year ago now I purchased 2 panels of 
Wild in the Wilderness. I made the first one into a wall hanging for my son's birthday and yesterday I finished the second one making it into a quilt for YKW. Both the border prints are animal footprints that are very appropriate for this quilt. When I quilted it I did some thread painting and also tried to make the mountain come to life a little.

Wild in the Wilderness

You can just make out YKW's slippers on the bottom of the photo.  There is a lot of snow on our deck right now so I am unable to go outside to hang the quilt for picture taking.  We had no snow until a few weeks ago and then we got slammed.

Maria finished her Max & Whiskers quilt for her grandson for Christmas.  She added a piano key border to the top and bottom to make it bigger and put cornerstones with the families initials.  Ryan has to try to make words from all the letters and is rewarded when he finds new words.  She used Max & Whiskers flannelette for the backing.

Max & Whiskers

Peggy.

Autumn Breezes

I have been following a blog called Apple Avenue Quilts for over a year now and she always post really nice patterns for the making.  I did the block of the month and am just now putting the final border on it so I will will post pictures when it is finished.  

In October last year the blog editor Jill, posted a wall hanging that was paper-pieced and I just fell in love with it.  I had learned a new way to paper-piece from Amy Butler on the Craftsy BOM website so I thought I would tackle this project.  I picked up the fabric at a small quilt shop in Beaver Bay Minnesota.

Autumn Breezes.

I am quite proud of it.  All the quilting is done

in the ditch because I thought something

else would take away from the  pattern.

I then did some serpentine stitches down the 4 sides.

Peggy

Quilt Therapy at -36C

It was another very bitterly cold day today with a temperature of -36C with a windchill of -44C.  What a day for quilt therapy and my car decided that it didn't want to start in this cold weather.  Luckily our vehicles were nose-to-nose in the driveway so YKW was able to use the booster cables and I was on my way.

The sun was shining into the plant room so we warmed up and were able to do lots of quilting.
First of all we organized the blocks in my Irish Quilt.  So now I have to start sewing them together.

This was taken with my Ipod touch so

I lost a bit of it.

Pierina finished block 4

of the Craftsy BOM.

Then she organized some of her

fabrics for blocks 5 and 6

Joyce is working on a quilt with

a beautiful panel of horses. 

Check out that cute kitten!

I was able to finish 6 of these blocks and

also put together some of the 4 patch 

corner blocks.

Lot of progress.

Peggy

Yea for the Blue and White

It is bitterly cold here today.  It is 3pm and the temperature is only -20C.  We woke up to a temp of -24C with a windchill of -36C, and I think we are in for a few days of these bitter temperatures.  I guess that is what I get for living in the north.

I finished my quilt from Joined at the Hip Blog and literally threw it out the back door onto the snow to get a picture of it.  

It landed with the corner tucked under like that and I couldn't

walk out to fix it so it had to stay.

Peggy.

Tuesday and Therapy go together

I just can't seem to get my posting done the day that it happens.  Tuesday is a busy day so the posting goes by the wayside.  We were all together this Tuesday, first day in a long time.  Even though there was lots to catch up on since Christmas we still were able to get some quilting and piecing done.

Maria was finishing up her placemats

that she started before Christmas.

This pattern is called Fine Dining from Pieced Tree Patterns.

Joyce was quilting some table mats

that she had started before Christmas.

Pierina was making half square triangles for her

quilt from the Craftsy BOM.

I spent my time getting my blocks ready to be

sewn together for Lynda's quilt.

I have some of the pieces ready to be sewn now into

a block.  Still many more to go as there will be 24 blocks like this in the quilt.

This block is from Quilters Cache

called Quatrefoils.

I wanted a block to highlight the fabric as well as the small flowers that were part of the rooster fabric.  I fussy cut 192 of these small squares for this quilt.  I tried to just cut a 2 inch strip but when I did I cut off some of the flowers so there was no other way but to fussy cut them.

I have also been trying to get a quilt ready for my Wednesday group so I spent the last few days quilting this quilt and I was even able to get the binding on it.  It will keep we cozy the next few nights while I hand sew the binding to the back.  I don't mind hand sewing it and I think it looks nicer that doing it by machine.

This quilt is from one of my last year's BOM called Joined at the Hip.

Peggy

The Green Stripper

Red, orange, yellow, green.  Green is the next colour of the rainbow so I worked on my green strip last week so it would be ready for Guild night.  These rainbow quilts will be something else to see when they are all completed.  I hope they are finished before the summer.  I had a lot of green so I used light and dark in order not to be too dull or too washed out.

Green strip

At one of the groups I go to it was time for a birthday so we had a little celebration.  I think 81 years is something to celebrate.  

A young 81 year old Leila

We even had Birthday Cake.

Peggy.

A New Year of Quilt Therapy

Tuesday was Quilt Therapy day. It was a small group if you consider two to be a group. It was Pierina and me today as both Joyce and Maria were busy. Pierina and I went shopping for fabric last week so she started her new quilt today. She is doing the Craftsy Block Of The Month from last year.  

Block Number 1

Block Number 2

I was working on framing my roosters for Lynda's quilt.  I was able to finish them all and now I have 10  framed and I am ready to start on making the blocks.

I am making some of them with red frames and some with blue frames to match the fabric in the blocks.

I was also able to make some of my piano key border for my

Cranton Village Quiltworks BOM.  I also called this

Blogger Block of the Month.

Peggy

UFO-To-Go

I saw this UFO-to-go a few months ago on Riley Blake Designs and have been waiting for the pattern. A short time ago it was posted on the website.  You can find the video HERE.  This is a great idea to transport blocks that you haven't sewn together yet but have then arranged the way they should be sewn together.

The outer fabric is laminate so the blocks don't stick to the fabric when it is rolled up but stay stuck to the batting and felt instead.

Blocks can be tricky sometimes getting them arranged in the proper order and then something comes up and you have to put things away, so this Portable Design Wall or UFO-to-Go will be very handy.

All tied up with the blocks inside.

The UFO-to-Go opened up

with blocks inside.

This one is large enough to hold a

14 1/2 inch square.

I usually make blocks between 6-12 inches so this will be useful for me for any size of block.

Peggy.

What I am Working On

I am working on putting a quilt together for Lynda.  She bought the rooster fabric in London England last year and I haven't done much with it, so we went shopping over Christmas time and she purchased some more fabric to go with the roosters.  I put together a few practice blocks today and I like them.  It is nice to work on something for Lynda because she gives me carte blanche.  I then have the opportunity to design a quilt  and put it together how ever I choose.  This will be a fun process.

The flowers in the beige fabric are part of

the rooster fabric.  I thought I would

incorporate them into the block 

and chose to put them in the 4 patch.

I took the next picture during the Christmas holidays when I could get the three of them together.

Three of my grandchildren.

Peggy

Ring out the Old, Bring in the New.

It has been a busy 2 weeks with company for Christmas and a grand-daughter from down east visiting her father and us.  I had to dismantle my sewing room so that Lynda would have a place to sleep, but I left a lot of the fabric in the room.  I figured she could live among the fabric but the rest had to go.  Things are starting to get back to normal around here.  I even put the soup pot on today.

I can now post the rest of the pictures of gifts I made for Christmas.  

For Christine & Gary

This is made from upholstery fabric cut into

5 inch squares and lined with cotton

fabric.

For Lynda

For the Grandchildren

For Maria

For Colleen

For Terry

There wasn't enough green fabric for the binding

on all 8 placemats so 

I used cat fabric for the second set.

Now I have to get caught up on my BOM and put together quilts from all the BOM that I made over this past year.

Happy New Year.

Peggy.