Getting ready for the quilt show

All the hanging sleeves have been sewn

 on to my 3 quilts

 so they are ready to go to the show. 

 We also tested the dowels and they are strong enough. 

All stacked and ready to go.

The Guild is also looking for small items

 so I am going to take

a few table runners

and

Patchabilities door hangings

and see if they

would like to have some

for the small display cases.

My Cotton Theory Table runner

Snowman Table runner

Fall Table runner

Pieced and Appliqued Runner

January and February

March and May

October and November

December

I think I will also take

my Miniature Quilt also.

I hope other members also bring

in some small

quilted things to display.

Peggy.

Bed Scarf

Gary opened his birthday present over the week-end so

now I can publish a picture of his bed scarf. 

Christine says that his feet get cold so this is a perfect solution. 

I posted a picture of the 9 patch squares last week.

Now I can show a picture of the entire Bed Scarf.

Bed Scarves have started to become popular to

dress-up a plain bedspread.

Put them over the end of the bed

and you have an entirely new look.

They are also useful to keep your feet warm

when you don't need the rest of you

to be overly warm.

I hope he hangs it over his deck on July 4th.

Peggy.

Mail Delivery

The mailman left me a great book the other day. 

I have joined a survey group and every now

and then after I complete a survey

the mailman leaves me a nice parcel. 

I almost bought this book

when we were in Duluth

but instead chose another one.

I am so glad that I did not buy this book. 

A nice freebie.

Mixed Bouquet  - so pretty

Fly into Spring

There is also a tutorial on making flying geese and each unit makes

4 matching flying geese units. 

A real time saver when making so many.

You start off with a 9 1/2" square and an 11" square and

then use the Eleanor Burns

Large Flying Geese Ruler.

But you don't have to use it to make these units.

This one is called Linked Together

I have already started to make the smaller version.

Block A

Block B

This book is full of quilts of all sizes as well as table runners and table toppers. 

They are all designed for Fat Quarters, Strips and Squares.

I can't wait to finish this one and go onto the next.

Peggy.

Home from Duluth

We had a great shopping trip to Duluth, MN.  It is a four hour drive to the south west of us so the weather can sometimes be a little warmer than here and yesterday proved that with a balmy 19C.  I visited 3 quilt shops and even visited the same one twice so that may count as four.  I also went to Hancock Fabrics and purchased some new quilting notions and supplies.

Our first stop was "The Quilt Corner" in Beaver Bay MN where I purchased these beauties.  A charm pack, a yard of co-ordinating fabric, a zipper and this pattern.  These will be used to make this lovely purse for the fall.

I also picked up this stack of fat quarters.  There is an assortment vegetable prints,  Chocolate chipits, blues, yellows as well as some nice oranges that will make fall maple leaves on a wall hanging.

I think this will make good side panels and binding.

I found these beautiful batiks at 2 shops:  "Fabric Works" in Superior WI, and "Behind the Seams" which is at mile 58 on Hwy 61.  I am going to make a table topper which requires the green, burgundy, beige and blue.  I have a lot of blue, I just needed to add the other colours.

This fat quarter needed a home.

It almost looks good enough to eat.

These are going to be made into an eyeglass case or maybe even two.  I found a neat pattern in a new magazine I purchased also while we were away.

Some of the extras I picked up.  The gloves are from Menard's.  They have grips on the fingers and are a size small.  I have small hands and have a hard time finding gloves to fit me.

I like the ergonomic seam ripper and awl.  They are so much easier to use then small handled ones.  I tried to buy carpet cutter blades at Harbor Freight but they were all sold out so I had to settle for Olfa.  They were on sale so I only paid $14 for 5.  A great price!!!

A new Table runner pattern is always handy to have around too.

It was a great quilting trip and I even managed to purchase a few other things as well.

Peggy.

Off to Duluth

We are off to Duluth to see what goodies I can find. 

There are at least 5 quilt shops in the area and I try to visit at least 3 of them. 

Maybe even 5 this time.

Looking forward to all those shops......

Peggy

Easter Egg Tree

Years ago when my oldest granddaughter was about 4 years old she brought me an Easter present of an Easter Egg Tree.  It was a spindly thing that you hung Easter eggs on.  When I saw this applique on the Internet it brought back a flood of memories of her giving me this gift.  It is not finished but I just had to post it, I thought it was so cute.

Thanks Sindy.   Here is where you will find the pattern.

Some of the applique is finished but there is still more to do. 

I think it will look just great on my table at Easter.

Peggy.

It's Thursday and time for quilting

It was a gorgeous sunny day today in Joyce's plant room.  A nice day to get together with friends and do some quilting.

Pierina is back and she brought a kit to make beautiful placemats.  As it turns out I have the same kit but haven't make them yet.  I am anxious to see how hers turn out.

Joyce is still working on her granddaughters quilt and we were putting together strips of the fabric from the quilt to make the binding.

All sports flannelette and denim

Cutting strips for the binding

Maria is making a small purse to take when she travels to wear under her jacket.  She chose the same fabric that her quilted vest is made out of.

Getting ready to cut the fabric

Trying to decide which fabrics to use.

I am still working on the placemats that I started for the guild.  I have them all quilted and now all I have to do is put the binding on.



That will make 6, when I am finished.

A great day was had by all.

Peggy.



My 9 patch squares

I can't show the whole piece that I just finished making since it is a gift but I took a picture of the finished strip with the 9 patch squares.  It looks a little wonky but it isn't on the piece.  Pictures don't tell the whole story.

Such an easy way to make a 6" - 9 patch square.  No cutting small pieces out to sew together.

I have also been making hanging sleeves to sew onto my quilts that I am putting in the Guild Quilt Show the end of April.  I have decided to enter three of them. 

For the next several nights I will be sewing these onto my quilts while I am watching TV.  I can snuggle under the quilts while I am stitching.  We got about 10 cm of snow yesterday and overnight so I will need the quilts to keep warm.

These are the quilts for the show:
           Simply Spooky, Kakabeka, and Charming Hearts.

Peggy

My First Tutorial

Pierina is still away down south so just Maria, Joyce and I got together to do some quilting. 

I am making a 6 1/2" - 9 patch square the easy way.

You start off with 2- 7 1/2" squares of fabric.  This means that your initial square is 1 1/2 " larger than your finished 9 patch square.  Place them right sides together and sew down the side of each paired square.

After you have sewn down both sides you cut the square into 3 equal parts.  So I cut it into 2 1/2" strips

The 2 outer strips are sewn together but the one in the center has no stitching.  Open the two in the center up and sew one piece to each of the other pieces.

This is what you should end up with.

Now put them together so that they can be sewn.

All pressed and ready to be sewn together.

Now sew them together and run the seam over the end with the 3 pieces as above.

 Now cut these apart into 3 equal pieces again and when you separate them you will see that they will go together into a nine patch block.

Sew these together and you have perfect 6 1/2 inch 9 patch block without cutting out 2 1/2" squares.

I hope anyone can understand this tutorial, if not please email me and I will help out any way that I can.

This was a demo at the Guild this month and I think it is really great because you make two at once, mirror images of each other.

These can be made any size just as long as you make the initial square divisible by 3.

Maria is making a placemat so we had fun helping her put the squares together.  We laid them out on the batting so that she could just pick them up and start sewing and be able to keep them in order.

We did do a lot of sewing.  Joyce is making the border for her rag quilt.  I thought I had a picture of it but I was using a different camera and I guess I didn't take a picture. 

 

Joyce has the fabric turned inside out so you can't see the beautiful red colour that it is.  It is going on a sporty denim and flannel rag quilt.

Now I have to put my 9 patch squares together.  Hopefully I will get my project finished today and take a picture of it.

Peggy.



Charmed Hearts

This is the latest quilt that I have been working on.  It is called Charming Hearts from the Moda Bake Shop.  There are so many patterns on this site that it is hard to choose a quilt to make but because there are so many it is nice to have such a good selection. 

Charming Hearts

I used the same fabric that the pattern called for except for the borders.  You were suppose to use a charm pack and a layer cake and then a white background.  The fabric is called Bliss, and you were suppose to use the layer cake for the border and cut it up into strips so that the border exactly matched the hearts, but I couldn't find one in town so I chose Bliss fabric in the white and red and put an almost solid red to break it up.

I put more applique hearts on the quilt then it had in the pattern and I doubled some up and used small and large hearts.  To get the small hearts I used the inside cut out piece of the "heat & bond" from the large hearts so there was very little waste of the heat and bond.

I really like to personalize my quilts so I have to make some change to the pattern.

I had Wendy Currie quilt it on her long-arm machine.  She did a beautiful job.  It was much to big for me to do on my machine, as it is 69 x 85. 

Peggy.

Saturday Workshop Continued

I finished both placemats that we started at the workshop and you can see how they go together.

This is Number 1

This is Number 2

Here they are side by side so that you can see how the fabric is cut to give you 4 units.  (There are 2 missing as Maria is binding them.) These are made with 24 - 6 1/2 inch squares.

It is hard to convince people that quilting involves moving fabric around.  It looks a lot more complicated then it really is.  There are a lot of tricks involved to make the finished product.

Peggy.

Saturday Workshop

On Saturday I attended a work shop where we made placemats for "Empty Bowls Caring Hearts".  It is an organization to make people aware of hunger in the world.

There were between 10-15 women there over the course of the day.  We were served a beautiful lunch of homemade soup and breads.  Good fellowship was abundant as well. 

Maria and I made 4 placemats between us.  It is a simple pattern using 24 - 6 1/2 inch squares that you sew together and then cut off part of one side and sew it to the other and then cut off one end and sew it to the other end.  We laughed because you cut the fabric up into squares, sew it back together and then cut it up again.  We used the scraps for the binding.

Peggy.

New Placemats

I haven't done a lot of sewing since I got back from New York but I did manage to finish some placemats for the Guild Quilt Show.  These will be in the booth for sale.  If no one decides that they need a home I will give them to Meals on Wheels.  They are quite cheery and I'm sure someone will enjoy them around Christmas time.

I have finished 2 and I hope to have 6 finished on time for the Quilt Show.

The tree is appliqued onto the background and I didn't even have to decorate it as it came with all it's fancy decorations.

I made the backing out of the tree fabric so it is reversible also.

Peggy.

Some of my Shopping in New York

Before we left for New York I had looked up quilt shops on the internet.  There were only 2 in New York City itself so I had to find at least one of them so I could do some shopping.  We found The City Quilter and so I had make sure we visited the shop.  It is on West 25th Street and in order to get into the shop you had to ring the doorbell.  A really nice quilt shop in the heart of New York City.  I wandered around and told Colleen and Lynda to do the same.  Well that was a mistake.  They found New York fabric and want me to make them pillows.

Times Square, The statue of Liberty, The Subway,  Taxi Cabs

I found a really neat fat quarter bundle that I'm sure I can put to good use at some point.  The colours are so great that I couldn't leave it behind.

The computer really doesn't do them justice.

I also found a really neat kit that I pondered over for a long time then decided that it just had to come home with me.  The colours are very rich from Benartex.  It is called Shades of Autumn.

The Kit includes Fossil Fern fabrics and a pattern.

There is over 8 yards of fabric and the quilt is finished at 69 x 69.  It will be put in the to do box and hopefully I will get to it soon.



It is good to be back home and now to get back to doing some serious quilting.

Peggy.

Our Last day in New York City

It is almost 9 am and both Lynda and Colleen are still asleep.  We had a late night last night so we were sleeping in today.  Yesterday we went on a Movie tour of Central Park.  It was really interesting even though I had not seen most of the movies that were talked about.  The young lady who did the tour was very knowledgeable and friendly.  She had been in an episode of Law & Order SVU. 

 

After the tour we walked down 5th Avenue for a few blocks, then took the subway to Madison Square Gardens so we could get our bearings and know where we were going to see the hockey game.  We went into the Gardens and asked one of the gate keepers where to go to eat and found the nice restaurant he suggested.  Harrington's restaurant has booths that look out onto the street and we were lucky enough to get one.  We had lots of time before the hockey game so we went back into the gardens.

Me with Mark Staal.

Mark is from my home town of Thunder Bay.  There are 4 Staal brothers all playing hockey in the NHL.  The hockey game was great even though Montreal lost to New York Rangers.

Today we leave for home at 4:30 so we will have one last trip into the city and then board our plane to go home.

Peggy.

Day 5 in New York City

This morning Colleen and Lynda wanted to go to Hobokan to see Carlo's bakery from the TV show so we boarded the PATH train and went to New Jersey.  After walking a few blocks we came upon a line up and it was easy to figure out that it was to get into the bakery.

We waited in line for about 15 minutes and then were handed a ticket to be waited on.  When we got inside they were serving #15 and we were number 40.  It was 45 minutes later and we were waited on.  Colleen bought a t-shirt for her husband, I bought a huge danish that we will eat for 2 mornings and Lynda bought a dozen cookies.

From here we took the bus to watch the St Patrick's Day Parade.  This is a holiday here in New York.  Everyone watches the parade and celebrates the day

Flags were everywhere

After we left the parade we went back to Times Square and had dinner at Ruby Tuesday's.  Delicious baby back ribs and a salad to die for.  Wandered around Times Square and then came home.  Another great day in New York City.

Peggy.

Day 4 in New York

We slept in this morning since the weather wasn't so good and it was darker outside.  It was raining when we started out for the day so we went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum.  There were 4 floors of figures.  We started out in "opening night" and then went onto sports and Presidents.  There were statues of world leaders and popes and even one of 3 firefighters raising the flag at the 9-11 site.

We had lunch at a massive McDonald's restaurant next to the museum.  There were 3 floors of tables to eat at.

After lunch we took the bus back to Rockefeller Plaza to take a tour of NBC studios.  All tours were booked until Saturday so we went in the store and did some shopping of NBC memorabilia.  When we were all shopped out we took the bus to Macy's.  We didn't buy anything, just browsed.  The lineups were too long to stand in.

Lynda wanted to go to MOMA so we got back on the bus and then walked to the museum.  Lynda wanted to see "Starry Night" by Van Gogh.  I took a picture by Pablo Picasso of  "Three Women at the Spring".

 

Peggy

Day 3 in New York City

Today we took the subway again because the bus took so long to come.  We wanted to take the bus over the Queensboro bridge.  We got off the subway at Lexington so that we could go to Bloomingdales.  Colleen bought her daughter a lipstick.  Lynda and I just browsed and talked to a nice gentleman at Jimmy Choo's.  We saw a key chain for $230.  From here we walked across Lexinton toward 5th Ave and Central Park.  We passed Barney's store and I said that it was in my book so we went in.  There was a large sign saying that Katie Holmes was in the store today.

Because Katie Holmes and Jeanne Yang were in the store they were serving champagne and Petite fours. A real treat.

 From here we walked down 5th Avenue and went into Tiffany’s, Louis Vuiton, Prada and Saks. We had lunch at Trump towers and shopped at the Trump store.

St Patrick’s Cathedral was just down the street so we made a visit. Some of the alters are very well decorated with flowers and many people had lit candles. The alter of Our Lady of Guadalupe was just filled with flowers.


From here it was on to Rockefeller plaza and the top of the rock. That is the 70th floor of the Rockefeller building. You ascend in 43 seconds up to the 67th floor and take the escalator up 2 or 3 floors. The roof top is enclosed in very thick glass with holes in it so that you can take pictures of the skyscrapers.

I had to visit the City Quilter so we took the bus to 25th street and walked a few blocks over and found it. Both Colleen and Lynda also chose fabric from New york for me to make them a cushion. Then it was onto Times Square and more picture taking of the lights. Dinner was at the Red Lobster .


Back to the hotel at 8pm tired but had another great day.


I having trouble with the internet so no pictures right now.  I was able to take pictures of Katie Holmes before they told me not to.

Day 2 in New York City

What a great day today was.  We started off taking the subway down to Battery Park.  On the way we were serenaded on the subwayby a young man who was trying make people smile.  From here we boarded the ferry to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty.  Lady Liberty did not disappoint.  She was magnificant. 

From there we got back on the ferry and went to Ellis Island where immigrants were processed coming into the United States.  The first person processed was a girl from Ireland called Annie Moore.  When we were in Ireland last year we saw a statue of her there so I had to find the statue here.  It was up on the second floor of the museum and there she was.

It was a very powerful experience and the tears just started to flow.  I couldn't control them, I don't know what happened except that it really affected me to see how people years ago had to leave their homeland and some never returned to see family again.

From here we went to the World Trade Centre site.  There is a lot of construction going on here and it is hard to see the sight. 

We arrived back at the hotel tired but happy.

Peggy.

Our first day in New York

We had a great trip to New York.  We got to Toronto late but had lots of time to get our luggage and clear customs before we had to get our second flight.  We arrived to nice warm weather and took a cab to our hotel room.  We have a suite which is really nice since there are 3 of us.


To-day we turned our clocks to daylight saving time so instead of moving our clock forward I turned it back so we got up a little late.  After breakfast we took the subway into downtown and then Lynda walked us all over the city of New York. 


We had a nice luch at a small restaurant called "The Village Den".  Great food and great service.  Then we went to the Chelsea Market and then to the 911 Museum.

We had an appointment for 2pm and you have to be there on time.  It is a very small museum but a very powerful one with pictures and artifacts from the 9-11 site.



After the museum we walked from the Meat Packing district to Broadway and then to Union Square and Filene's Basement.  We didn't buy anything to-day but may go back later in the week and buy some of the things we saw.  Union Square was full of street vendors selling paintings and photos of New York City.  From there we walked along Broadway and took pictures of the Flat Iron Building and the Empire State Building.

Looking for a place to eat we found a great steak house but one look and the menu and we opted for "Naturally Healthy"  The menu at the steak house had Steak for 2 for $84.00. 

By this time we were ready to head for home so we took the subway and headed back to the hotel.

Peggy.