Nicki's Spirit Quilt

In my last post, you saw three items that I am working on now. Today, I am writing about Nicki’s Spirit. This queen size quilt is a wedding gift for a niece and it is getting close to being finished. I have been plugging away at it since it was entered into my Guild’s UFO Challenge back in November. It is being hand quilted and has been a long process.

The pattern was designed using EQ5 and is a variation of a Trip Around The World. I do so love TATW and am playing with different ideas.

My niece asked me to use a cotton toile that she had bought and incorporate it into the quilt. It was dark blue print on white background. The fabric just didn’t blend in well with the rest of the colours, so I decided to tea dye it. That did the trick!

It is a wedding gift, but my niece has already seen it, so no surprises will be revealed. She just won’t see the completed quilt until the wedding brunch, and unfortunately, neither will you. But, don’t fret there are other things for you to see until then.

Have a great day!

Next round of UFO's

Do you remember seeing these UFO’s in my Feb. 22 post? Well, they are all done and it’s time to show you what I’m working on now.
These quilts (ah but … one of these pieces is not a quilt!) will be discussed in future posts. I’m not going to have a list of UFO’s on my sidebar and cross them off as they are finished. Instead, a photo will be posted and these quilts will stay out in the open in my studio and stay in my face until they are completed. Once all those quilts have been dealt with, then a new photo of my next batch of UFO’s will be shown. How’s that for planning and my incentive to finish quilts?

All of these items have been entered into my Guild’s UFO Challenge. The challenge ends mid-May and there is no way I will be able to finish them by then. But, finish them, I will. :o)

Do you notice how bare my design wall is? Perhaps I will allow myself to start a new project since I’ve been so good in completing some of my UFO’s.

Have a great day!

Christmas Trees

For quite a while, I’ve been admiring and drooling over Baptist fans on other quilts posted by other blogs. I’ve even left comments on those blogs that the Baptist fan was something I wanted to try out on a future project. Well, that time has come with this quilt and I am so pleased with the effect. This quilting motif is one that will be used again, for sure!

When you look at the close-up of the quilting, do you see swirling snow … instead of the fans?

When I first showed this quilt as a WIP, Comic Book Lady at http://quiltasdesired.blogspot.com/ thought the scrappy border looked like presents leaning up against each other. I like that thought! Can you imagine having that many presents to open?

I am finding that striped fabric for the binding is fast becoming a favourite choice. I just love it here and I will be going through my stash to find more stripes for future projects.

This quilt is part of our Guild’s UFO Challenge and I’m glad that it’s done.

So, bring on Christmas … my hanging is ready for you!

Have a great day!

Wheeping Cherry and My Fantasy Garden Quilt

This was by far the toughest block to do. I made a couple different sets of flowers with different colours and finally decided on these and I guess you could say that I "wept" over this one. It is important to remind myself to always look at the whole picture and not just zoom in on one block.

So here it is …. ALL the blocks together at last! Finally, I am pleased with my quilt. Hope you like it, too! This quilt was a lot of fun to do and the technique was so totally different for me. Mind you, by the time I finished this quilt yesterday, it did take me until this morning to love it again! Guess I had been putting way too much time on it trying to finish.

I started working on this quilt in Jan. 2005 and it was entered in my Guild’s UFO Challenge. So glad to be able to cross one more UFO off that list. :o)

I added emblishments to my Fuschia Block. Two ladies gave me tips and I thank them for helping me out. Had a bit of brain freeze when it came to finishing this block off. Atet at http://quiltincorn.blogspot.com/ and Paula, The Quilter at http://thequilter.blogspot.com/ came to my aid.

Have a great day!

Mutant Block

This is the point where I am stepping away from the original pattern. The flowers just didn’t work for me for this set-up. So … since this is my quilt, I can do what I want! :o)

One more block to go and it's going to get finished today so that I can post it tomorrow. It's about time, as I'm tired of handling it. Do you feel that way about some of your quilts once they are in the home stretch?

I noticed lately that there are some of my photos that you cannot click onto to enlarge. I don't know why or what I'm doing that doesn't allow you to.

The comments about my flower blocks have been lovely. If you haven't had an e-mail response back from me it's because your e-mail address is set-up as 'no reply'. I try very hard to acknowledge your comments in some way.

Have a great day!

Zinnia Block

Tiny yellow and gold beads have been added to hide the hole in the top yo-yo’s. These were fun to make.



I'm still dragging my feet on the last block. Time to get off the sofa and do something about it, otherwise you all will be left hanging about waiting. :o(

Have a great day!

Fabric Binge

Well, what a day my SIL and I had at the Creative Sewing Festival! If I was on the fabric diet challenge that is currently going around, there would have been major guilt chewing away at me today.

At my Guild meeting on Wednesday night, I snapped up this book “True Style” for quilted jackets for 25 cents. Yes, 25 cents (that would be 25 pennies)! What a bargain! This is leading to something.

Now, at the Festival, we sat in on a demo showing quilted jackets. Oh my, oh my, what a treat we had! Sandra Thomas (lives in Guelph, Ontario, Canada) is the lady that made these jackets and what a talented lady she is. Sorry, but no photos were allowed to be taken of these garments. We started talking to her before the demo started and she lived in my home town back when and went to the French school there which is just a hop, skip and a jump from our old home. So, talk about an omen here. I got the book, drooled over these jackets and it was in the cards that I just had to buy material to make one of them. As I was getting my fabric cut I mentioned to the booth owner that I had just seen a demo for jackets and Sandra just happened to walk into the booth. Omen!

So, on the left is the material for “the jacket” shown below the book. It is definitely on my list TO DO! By now a number of you have come to the conclusion that I love jackets. In case any of you have counted, I mentioned the word “jacket” eight times in this post. :o)

The other material on the right is for other projects and for backing. Now that I’ve pawed the fabric enough already, the time has come to start washing the fabric before working with it.

Have a great day!

Six blocks done

Thursday morning, we received a load of stones .... so guess what we'll be doing! :o)

Here are my six blocks so far! There is still one more block that I have to finish making the flowers, emblish them and sew them onto the block. So, please bear with me while I'm just posting one photo a day. I don't want to post the rest of the photos and then have nothing to share until the last block is done. I'm really dragging my feet on this last block. Not really happy with it, so far, and I've made two different sets of flowers but they just don't stand out. Grrr!

This afternoon, I'm meeting my SIL from Parry Sound at the Creative Sewing Festival here in Toronto. My brother is dropping her off at the Festival and then travelling to our home to meet up with my husband. They are going shopping for house stuff while SIL and I are shopping for fabric. :o)

I'm going to have a great day, and you too!

Fuchsia

I haven’t decided about embellishments for these flowers. Beads can always be added at any time later if I decide to. Have any of you ideas you can give me?

Have a great day!

Petunia

Blue and burgundy beads have been added to most of these flowers, but not all.

Have a great day!

4 Blocks Done

Here's a photo of 4 blocks done so far!

Have a great day!

Snapdragon

Blue beads peek out from the blue flowers and they are the only embellishments added to these flowers.
Many, many thanks for your lovely comments! :o) There have been questions about a photo of the whole quilt. It's not finished yet. I'm on the last 2 blocks and am making the flowers for those. So, here's hoping by the time I finish posting more blocks, those last 2 will be done. I apologize for stretching these photos out but there was a reason for doing so.

Have a great day!

Apple Tree

Tiny crystal beads were added to the tips of some of the blossoms. My initial thought was to add these beads to all of the tips, but in the end decided to do just a few. This way, it makes the viewer look twice at the flowers instead of just looking at one block and then skipping to the next one.

Have a great day!

Daffodil

Yellow beads have been added around the outside edge of the yellow that is peeking out from the centre of each flower.

By now, many of you may have noticed that there are two flowers that are floating without a stem? Kumiko Sudo does this quite often in her book (Fantasies & Flowers) and since I like the look of it, I decided to go along with her creative thoughts. You will see more floating flowers on some of my other blocks.

Have a great day!

Foxglove

OK … the time has come to start revealing the flowers and the blocks in my blue & green flower wall quilt. Have I teased you all enough? :o) Sorry if you have been kept hanging!



It’s taking me longer than I thought to sew these flowers onto the hanging. I’m dealing with layers of bulk and it’s hard to maneuver the material around to needle. Since this block is in the middle, I figured it will be the hardest one, so might as well get that out of the way first.

For this block, there are no embellishments. I can always add them in after the quilt is finished if needed.

Of all the flowers in this hanging, this is my favourite. There is just something about the way those petals hang and the way they are put together.

As you can see the flowers in this hanging are 3-D and that is the reason why I waited until all the quilting had been completed before sewing the flowers on. It would just have been too hard to put the quilt with the flowers attached into my quilting lap hoop.

Have a great day!

I’ve been tagged!

Anne at http://lappemor.blogspot.com/ has tagged me for ‘The Thinking Blogger Awards’. To borrow a British expression, I’m completely ‘gobsmacked’.

What a surprise and delight to receive an e-mail informing me that I’ve been named. Of all the large number of quilting blogs currently on the web for Anne to make her choice, I’m honoured!

I’ve only been blogging for a few months and it has been my goal from the first post to try and make my blog interesting to read. Thank you, Anne for your encouragement! :o)

It will take me a few days to post my five choices as there are so many to choose from.

So for now, have a great day!

First came the Ducks

Oh, the year round activity we have with our pool. Birds have a great time using our winter cover for baths. Any tiny bit of water and they are having a blast. Squirrels and raccoons visit as well.

Quack, quack, quack …. what the heck? The first time I heard the quacking, I really thought there was something wrong with my ears and that I was hearing things. I was sitting in the living room and our patio door was open. Finally, I looked into the pool from the kitchen window and knew they were real. I had heard from other people about ducks in their pools and we were thrilled to have them visit us! :o) On their last visit, the ducks climbed onto the pool coping and had a snooze and were with us for a few hours! What a treat! :o)

Sorry about the poor quality of photos, but these were taken from our video and they are not the best. The video is great, though, as I was able to get sound as well! This year, my husband and I are wondering if we will have ducks visit? So far, none have showed up. The ducks (not sure if they are the same ones) have visited for three years.




Then the cat .... my husband was up early and took these photos of the cat in the pool. The cat was not sure what to make of the pool cover and was nervous about walking on it. Once he was down at the edge, he kept pawing the ice. Finally, he snatched a drink of water at the edge and then was spooked away.

We are due for some nasty winter weather over the next few days. What happened to Spring?

Have a great day!

Christmas Trees

What am I doing working on Christmas stuff now? This is part of a UFO Challenge with our Guild and am on a tight deadline for finishing by May.

I won these blocks back in December 2005. See, I did win some B.O.M. blocks at a Guild meeting. The block I made was also in this group, but it was used in another quilt, which will be shown to you sometime in the future. So, these four were a perfect number for a hanging.

There were some embellishments on the trees that were removed and which will be added back on once the quilt is finished. I am not a fan of quilting around embellishments and that is why they were removed. Sashings were added and a crazy strip border along with paper-pieced tree blocks in the outside corners.



That border was fun to do and my scrap bins of red and green have greatly reduced after doing this border. These bins have been sorted by colour and are used when I need just a small piece for appliqué. There are other bins for different size squares and strips and those will also be shown in future when I will do a tour of my studio.

So, this quilt hanging is next on my list for hand quilting and which I’ve started working on while waiting for my blue & green flower quilt to dry.

Have a great day!

Blue & Green Flower quilt

No photos today, but here is an update on this quilt. It is finished as far as quilting goes and the binding has been applied and sewn down. It has been washed and is laying flat on the floor now just waiting to dry.

http://goingtopieces.blogspot.com Friday, Feb. 23, 2007 posting has great instructions on how to block a quilt. Visit her blog to find out.

Anne Inger, your English …. is perfect! Thank you for dropping by my blog and leaving your comment. I would have replied to you via e-mail, but there was a 'no-reply' address when you left your message.

Have a great day and to all of you who celebrate this weekend, HAPPY EASTER!

Tulips-Close up of Quilting

Thought you would like to see a close-up shot of the hand-quilting as it was hard to see in the other photo. Originally, there was only SID and then it decided it should have more. See, quilts do talk to you if you listen! :o) I like those circles in the nine-patches and will use this quilting pattern again. Usually, there would be diagonal lines running through the patches, but it was time for a change. Change is always good! My hubby thinks the circles look like rain drops on a puddle and that is what the weather is like outside today. You know what they say … April showers brings May flowers!

This quilt is currently hanging up in our entry … until my blue & green flower quilt is finished! Oh my, how fickle am I with my quilts. On display until a new one comes along. :ol

Have a great day!

Happy Tulips

This was first shown on my Feb. 22 posting. It’s now finished and I love it! My quilt label says “Tulip Patches” but it really should be “Happy Tulips”. This was hand quilted.

It reminds me of an oil painting series that played on PBS television quite a few years ago. There was this old German man that demonstrated how to paint and he would always say, “let’s paint a happy tree here and a happy mountain there and a happy so on”. When I was working on the layout, I kept pulling all my bright scraps so that I could make happy tulips. So, that’s why this quilt should have a new name! It’s just so bright and happy and perfect to put up even though my tulips are still snoozing outside in my garden.

BTW, all those squares were pulled from a 2-1/2” square/strips bin. It sure was easy to do. Many thanks to Bonnie at www.quiltville.blogspot.com/ for her tutorial on organizing scraps.

Best of all, this quilt was made entirely from stash! Yippee! :o)

Have a great day!