Quilt folding

After reading an article (Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine, December 2006 issue) on folding quilts on the bias, the information changed the way that my quilts are stored. To those who do not have access to this issue, here is how you can fold your quilts.

For this tutorial, I have taken a rectangle and a square quilt to show you how to fold each.

I think the arrows in each photo are self-explanatory. If anyone needs further instructions, please let me know and I will edit this post.

This new folding method is:
a) Better for my quilts overall.
b) Eliminates fold marks when my quilts are taken out of the closet and hung on the wall
c) More room in the closet for storing quilts. For some reason, the fullness is taken out of the bulk when folded and I actually can get more quilts on the shelf. Why? I don’t know but it is true.

Have a great day!

On the floor no more ....

Yes, I’ve learned my lesson and will not be putting my blocks, top, etc. on the floor anymore. I don’t need to have one of my girls cough up hair balls on my work. A few days ago, a hair ball was on the landing on the stairs going down to my studio. No, I don’t need to find surprises on my work.

So, what to do? Walls in my design studio are almost non-existent except for one area where there are sliding doors and I have a piece of batting type of material clipped in front of the doors and that is used all the time. Problem though, it is not tall enough and you all know by now that I make mostly large queen size quilts.

DH came to the rescue. He went out and purchased some rigid Styrofoam boards 24” wide x 86” high. My boards fold up like a screen (accordion style) to store out of the way when not needed.

Tape the seams as shown.


A piece of flannelette sheeting is pinned in place (with an exception).
Because the boards are to be folded, pin the sheet in place until you reach the seam that was taped on the backside. Smooth the sheet as shown by following the arrows, pinning as you go. Now try closing like a screen to see if it works. If not, make adjustments until it does fold properly.

Here is my Lover’s Knot on the board.

Here it is all folded up.

I use a LOT of pins for sticking my blocks in place and you will need pins if you plan to close it up with just single blocks on the board or if you move the design wall around from place to place.

The added bonus to these boards is turning it around and placing another flannelette sheet on the backside and another design wall is ready to use. Two in one ….. now how is that for space saving?

I hope that this helps anyone out there that has a problem with lack of design walls.

BTW …. my girls love to play hide and seek behind my board.

Have a great day!

Abandoned no more ....

These are two of my projects that I’m working on these days.

First off ….. I’m making a pie ….. Humble Pie is the name of the quilt and it is from Kim Diehl’s book

The rail fence blocks have all been done …. just need to put them together now and that should go fairly quickly. You will be seeing more of this one again soon.

….. and my Lover’s Knot is back again. I decided to add one more row to one side and bottom. The top was OK when this was last shown but it just wasn’t big enough to fit comfortably on my bed. The borders would have been too large to make up the rest of the sizing and it would have looked awkward. So, once the blocks are done I promise to get borders on asap and not shove it on a shelf again.

I took these photos last night and just cleaned up after Ashes was sick this morning ... just a fraction of an inch away from a block in the bottom row. I could hear her but was not quick enough to move her away from my top. Lesson learned, no more blocks on the floor. I will just have to be patient until one of my design boards become free.

Have a great day!

On my wall

Now that Spring is officially here, the time has come to change my wall hangings. Some are small, medium size and full bed size. Regardless, they are like a breath of fresh air.

Four of these quilts were made by me and three are swap quilts.

What is on your wall for Spring? Let us see them! :o)

Have a great day!

Quilting frame

Before Xmas, I was in Fabricland (a chain store here in Canada) and looked at their quilting frames. They told me that I could try it out at home and if unhappy, I could return the frame. I really wasn’t sure if I would like it and actually did make a negative comment on someone’s blog about these frames and now am eating my words.

So home it came with me and I have to say that I do like it for straight line quilting. My plan is to do those first to secure a quilt and then use my oval quilting lap hoop for any of the other fussy hand quilting.

That is ….. if I can get Hank out of the frame to quilt. The girls have decided that this is a very cozy spot on a cold winter day.

To try out the frame, I’ve been working on my Dresden Plates and most of the straight stitching has now been done. Oh my …. that means half of this quilt is quilted!!! If you look closely, machine stipple quilting is in this quilt as well as hand quilting.

I'll be away for a week, so no posts until my return.

Have a great day!

More siggies

From around the world came these beauties ….

#1 – Filonia from Curacao - the ABC Islands in the Caribbean
#2 – Leona from N.S.W., Australia
#3 – Helen from Michigan, U.S.A. Helen is 84 yrs. young and I am so thrilled to have her siggy.
#4 – Nadia from Italy
#5 – Sara from Washington, U.S.A.
#6 – Maike from Belgium
#7 – Micki from Ireland
#8 – Anna from Hungary
#9 – Edda from Iceland
#10 – Katrin from Germany
#11 – Femija from Germany

I now have 44 blocks and am starting to get an itch to have them up on my design board …. but will wait a little longer as there will be more coming.

Have a great day!

….. and wherever you are, Happy Birthday, Mom! XXOO

Not me .....

Which one of the girls is guilty? I could never figure out which girl was always responsible for leaving my blocks that were nicely laid out on the floor in a mess.
DH caught Ashes in the act and now we know. Why does she have to see if there is something underneath those blocks?

Now that I have design boards to use for laying out my blocks, this is no longer a problem. The girls don’t bother my boards, except to play hide and seek in them. …. but when my boards are full of other projects ….well …… there is always the floor and I do have to keep them amused and they do love it when I lay some fabric down on the floor. It’s play time!!!

Have a great day!

I’m waiting ….

Here is a WIP/UFO that has been sitting around for far too long now. I do have others in the same state just waiting and waiting and waiting. On Saturday, Debra sent me an email asking me if this quilt got finished and she would love to see a photo of it. I brought over a couple of quilts to her home (Debra and I live in the same suburb of Toronto) to show her what I had been up to ….. that was a few years ago.

Sad to say, it still is not finished. My problem is jumping onto new projects before my older ones get finished. A lot of you can identify with that problem …. right! I just get bored too easily and need to work on new projects. Joining a couple of challenges to finish UFO’s helped a lot and I did get a number of older projects finished. It just didn’t clear them all up.

This year, I didn’t sign up for the current challenge that is being held for the entire year. I should have signed up but didn’t.

That has made me visit my list of projects and to my surprise there are 25 projects started and all in different stages. Surely, amongst these projects there is enough interest there to keep me hopping from those projects instead of starting a new project.

So, one of these days, I will get back to working on this beauty and get it finished. Hang in there, Debra. :o)

Have a great day!