Denim Jacket

Here is another jacket which I love to wear. It’s plenty warm for spring and fall and I can easily wear it when the temperature drops to 0C with just a light sweater underneath. Recent purchase is the shawl and my purse that I got for Christmas.

The denim material was from my stash as well as the lining. Both had been hanging around forever and I finally decided to do something with them. Am glad that I did! :o) This jacket was machine quilted … nothing fancy but it works well with this material.



Why is it that I wear this colour in my clothing but it is out of my comfort zone for quilts? Why do I even buy it? This colour makes its way into my scrappy quilts but they are never the main colour. Perhaps I should make this a challenge to use most of these fabrics (it's a small basket, not a tote) for another jacket and thus help to reduce my stash. Any scraps will be tossed into my bins for scrappy quilts. Ummmm … yes, that will be a good idea!

Perhaps, also, this will be an opportunity for me to do a bit more fancy machine quilting. A few weeks back, I purchased a foot to do free form quilting. This will be a good time to try something different. Yes, that will be my challenge. It’s time to step out-of-the-box.

Have a nice day!

Northwoods Jacket

Jacket front.

Jacket back.

Now that the nice weather is here, it’s time to get out my cottage jacket. This jacket has received a lot of compliments from strangers. :o)

The appliqué pieces are fused (with buttonhole stitches around the edges) onto a sweat fleece material and lined with cotton. It’s not warm enough to wear when the temperature really dips, but is perfect for temperatures above 10C.

Have a nice day!

Blue & Green Flower Quilt

Oh, many thanks for your lovely comments on this quilt and it isn’t even finished yet! :o)

This is definitely not my design … I’m not that clever! LOL The blocks are from “Fantasies & Flowers” by Kumiko Sudo. Now, she is definitely clever and so creative.

Doing appliqué after the quilt is finished? It’s not the first time I’ve done that. Once you start to see the flowers, you will better understand why they are being applied after the quilt has been quilted.

This method is not the right way to do appliqué, but I always do what is best for me. I’ll listen to all opinions, but in the end my decisions will be based on the better way for me to work on a quilt.

So, you all have a great day!

Blue & green flower quilt

Vicki at http://catinthebatt.blogspot.com/ has requested to see more of my blue and green flower quilt. I didn’t want to show too much of it as I thought browsers would be tired of seeing it … but really, I don’t need much encouragement to show it off! :o) So here it is! Seven blocks have been quilted so far. By the end of this week, if all goes well, the quilt should be all quilted. Then, once the binding is on and it is blocked, I will show you the flowers and the embellishments that are being added. So stay tuned for this one!

Have a great day!

Guild Night

Above are the blocks (Honey Bees) that were drawn for a lucky lady! Each person that brings in a block, gets a ticket for the draw. I’ve won in the past, but not lately. Oh well!

Won’t these hearts make a lovely twin size quilt? I wonder what alternating block she will choose?

We had a marvelous speaker (Lucy Anne Duffy-www.lucyanne.org) for the meeting. It was a scrap lover’s paradise! Wow, what wonderful scrap quilts and tops she had for showing to us. Sorry, but I didn’t take any photos of her quilts to share. Lucy had one top that came from her grandmother and it was glorious. The fabric was very fragile and Lucy will send it out to the Mennonite ladies to quilt as they know how to work with fragile fabrics.

Isn’t this quilt wonderful? A member of the guild made this quilt. Can you see all the tops on the table in front? Those are Lucy’s quilts and tops that she showed.

Have a great day!

Quilting Stitches

Thought you might like to see a close-up of the hand quilting on the quilt that is currently hanging up in our dining room.

The quilting pattern came from http://www.quiltmaker.com/. Does anyone know what is going on with that magazine? This past week, I directed another blogger to that site to look up all their free quilting motifs and yesterday when I was in their site, the Motifs section has changed and all of their regular motifs have gone (there is only a couple of recent motifs) and no explanation as to why! :o( I'm not complaining as I have a binder full of their motifs that were printed off years ago. I'm complaining for new quilters who have never been to their site and can never take advantage of them!

I learned something new this week from another blogger. Apparently, my photos are too large, all of them well over 100kb. Hubby is looking into this for me, as I don't want any problems uploading my images. He is the techno wiz in our home! :o)

Have a great day!

Spring is Here!

Not only has spring arrived officially, but the weather here today is giving the green light for everything to spring to attention. I was just outside shaking out my tablecloth and the cardinals were singing away. What a beautiful sound! For those of you who have never heard a cardinal … well, you’re missing something (how I wish it could be shared with you)!

Spring means a change of quilts in my dining room. Here is a scrappy quilt for you to peek at. It was hand quilted.

Have a great day, eh!

Guild Night

This is tonight’s B.O.M. for our Guild. Members can chose to do just a plain nine patch or the one with the honey bees or they can do both! Ummm, I can see a new quilt in my crystal ball. Scrappy, for sure!



While I was away, this is the only block that was embroidered. I can’t believe how unproductive my week went. Oh well, time to catch up now that I'm at home. Good news, though, my sister likes the new project. Glad she does, since it will be hers (only 4 years late)! :o)

The stack of magazines is going to my Guild meeting tonight for donation. Feels good to get rid of stuff that I don’t need anymore and someone else can enjoy. :o)

Have a great day!

Home and Calico Cat

I’m back home and tired from my traveling. I never made it to my second destination after all and instead stayed at my Mom’s place for the entire time.

Isn’t she just charming? They say that calico cats are temperamental and this feline just oozes attitude. This is what greets me whenever I visit my Mom. She and I fight over a chair. It’s hers and mine. There is no way that I would even attempt to lift her off the chair. Would you? She always stares at me with her ears turned sideways. In all honesty, I think she is just the cat’s meow, attitude and all! :o)

Can you guess that these photos were taken by me and guess what chair I’m sitting in? Is it my imagination or is she giving me a warning that she really wants to sit in her chair? :o))

Excuse the dirty rug ... it was shampooed shortly after this photo was taken! This cat loves to throw-up ... on the rug, of course (and even better when it's just been cleaned, grrrr)!

Tomorrow, I'll have something about quilting.

Have a great day!

Time Out

I made it to my destination and my family have been keeping me busy. We've been shopping for wedding outfits and such. Shopping (unless we're talking quilt shopping) is not my most favourite outing to do; but it has to be done.

With the computer I've been using, I'm not able to upload any images. So no quilting topics to discuss until I'm home next week.

So, you all have a great week, eh!

Getting ready to travel

I’m off tomorrow to the great white north! So, today is packing time. In goes my blue & white flower quilt with enough waxed threads to last the week. Also, my embroidery blocks for my new project. Then, in goes my ski shoes and my ski socks. Yep, I’m going to venture onto X-country skis for the first time in many, many years. Won’t do anything silly, of course! :o)

Through the miracles of modern technology, I’ll probably be able to post while I’m away (am keeping my fingers crossed that my USB stick works). It’s good to keep up with the times!

Talking about my new project … your comments have made me look at it with new eyes. You are right; the embroidery does make the quilt! Thank you!

Most important of all, it’s my Mom’s 89th birthday today. Happy B.D. Mom! :o)

Have a great day!

Cardinals and New Project

It’s been cold here for the last couple of days. These cardinals have been coming and sitting here around supper time to soak up the last rays of the sun and feed on the cedar seeds. They sure are fluffed up against the cold! It’s not too often we can get a photo of the female and male together. Today, we were lucky!

I’ve revisited my new project and have decided to do a bit of embroidery instead of appliqué. Those white empty spaces were just calling me back to do something. Don’t you just hate it when the quilt talks back to you? :o) I think it’s OK, but am not sure yet! Maybe once the top is finished then I’ll like it. LOL

Guess my lighting is not the best. The colours are rust, navy blue with a light yellow.

A big “thank you” to all who have visited my new blog and left lovely comments. It was nice to hear from quilters who also used scissors and templates to make their quilts. We're not alone! :o)

Have a great day, eh!

Lone Star

This is the final quilt that was sitting in the basket in a previous post.

My first large quilt! Wow, what a feeling I had when this was finally finished. This was an approx. 10 year UFO when it was finally finished in 1988. Ssh, I’m really dating myself here! :o)

Back then, there was no rotary cutter. Gasp … we used scissors and templates! Am so glad we now have our modern notions to make quilting so much easier. Back then, fabric choices were so limited. We lived in a small town in northern Quebec and I bought fabric whenever it showed up in the store.

With this quilt, I did everything wrong that was possible. Used cotton and poly/cotton together (gasp), even for the backing. Do you have any idea how hard it is to quilt using poly/cotton? Quilting stitches have now broken all over. Batting is beading onto the backing. I quilted in the wrong places which led to a hard tedious time. Guess that is why it took so long to finish!

But it’s mine, it’s done and I love it! :o)

Have a great day!

P.S. I still have some of the cotton fabric used in this quilt and am slowly using it up. Talk about over-buy on fabric!

Red and green sampler

This is another quilt that was sitting in the basket on a previous post.

Back in 2002, our local quilting store was having a special class where each participant would pay $8.00 at the beginning of the year. We would go to the store for the class each month. The main criteria for the class was to pay the initial $8.00, pick up the store’s kit for the month, attend the class, go home and complete the block and bring it back to the class the following month and if the block was complete pick up another kit without paying anything else. If you did not complete the block, then you had to pay another $8.00. The class lasted for the entire year.

A lot was learned from the classes and we were introduced to some pretty nifty notions.

The drawback for this class was no choice of fabric colour. Also, there wasn’t enough fabric in the kits to pre-wash. This resulted in a discharge of dye at the end. I washed my blocks before assembling and was so glad that I did. Phew! Somehow, I just had a gut feeling about one of the colours.

I ended up redoing some of the blocks and substituting my own colours. Originally, I started with 12 blocks but only had enough block background material to do up 9 blocks. Wouldn’t you know it, after this quilt was completed; I found more of the background material at another store! Darn, what were the odds of that happening! LOL

Back then, everything had to be matchy-matchy for me. Now, I would just substitute different background fabrics and end up with a great scrappy quilt. I've changed in 5 years ... have you?

This quilt was hand-quilted.

Have a great day!

New project

This is a new project and luckily it didn’t get too far along before I caught my oops! Can you see it?

Am auditioning an appliqué block in the 9-patch, but it is just not working for me. So, I will remove the large appliqué but will leave the small circle which will be in all of those blocks throughout the quilt.

The large 9-patch block will showcase hand-quilting instead.

Have a great day!

Birds in the Air and Winter Storm

This is one of the quilts that was shown sitting in the basket on a previous post and which I promised to show you.

I love blue and yellow …. especially in a quilt! When I see this quilt, it reminds me of a warm autumn day, the sky so blue and the leaves around me all beautiful golden hues.

This was hand quilted. Looking at my stitches, I’m in awe! How in the world did I manage to quilt so many stitches per inch (16-18 stitches)? This was done in 2003 and four years later my stitches are NOT that many. How times have changed and fingers are not so nimble. LOL

This is a good quilt to snuggle under today … we had a snowstorm yesterday. So glad that hubby or I don’t have to venture anywhere today. We lost power overnight for 4 hours and are among the lucky ones today to have power back. What a wild night! Heavy snow and then freezing rain with thunder and lightening thrown in to add to the drama.

Here are photos of the day after.



While photos were taken, it was the sound that was awesome. It sounded like a huge water fountain with all the ice melting and running off the trees and then plops of ice dropping from above. This sound actually drowned out road traffic that we normally hear.

A good day to stay indoors …. and do quilting, of course!

Have a great day!

Pattern Source: American Patchwork & Quilting #42, Feb. 2000

Comments

Thanks to all for your kind comments and your welcome to blogland! I'm still learning the ropes and am checking out the different formats and choices, etc.! Some work and some don't for me and you. Guess, it's try and try again time, eh! :o)

Photos tomorrow of a quilt. Today, it's time to hunker down and watch the snowstorm outside! :o)