Here it is .... my "Pyramids". All done and ready for hanging come August/September when the autumn quilts come out for display. This was done using EPP method.
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
Pyramids
Friday, March 17, 2023
Dilly Flower surfacing again
Lots of green for St. Patrick's Day!
Sunday, March 12, 2023
Circles is a top!
Yeah me! I'm so pleased to have this top done. Do you like my ombre look border? I love it, but it was a bit of a pain to do. Those strips of fabrics were moved around again and again and sewn, ripped undone and resewn countless times. It was so worth it in the end .... but ..... and I will leave it at that! LOL
A line of stitching was done around the perimeter of the border to prevent seams popping open while at the LAer.Notice that all my seams (except for the outer border seam) have been pressed open? I'm starting to do this more and more. If I do, my stitch length is reduced (that is why it was more difficult to rip out) to prevent any threads popping many years from now. This top will need a real good pressing before going for machine quilting.
Thursday, March 9, 2023
Rounding up the circles!
I still am not done appliqueing the circles onto some of the neutral square fabrics ..... but couldn't wait and just had to start sewing some of the nine patch blocks together to test out my border idea. This project is coming together quite nicely!
Sunday, March 5, 2023
Circles coming around!
Cherish your day, cherish your life!
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
February and March Binding Challenge
The end of February cheated us of a few days when we are used to either 30 or 31 days in a month .... but I got my quilt finished just in the nick of time!
No-blog Mary was ahead of me this month. My quilt didn't have it's binding on yet and with only two days to go ..... whew got there in the end.
This is Mary's quilt for February:
Now, for March, Mary put her hand in the garbage bag and out came this quilt. She never knows what she will pull out .... always a surprise. I had to ask her about this quilt. She thinks it was a Super Bowl mystery but can't remember when she made it; but she had to concentrate a lot while doing it. The size is a queen. Yikes, that will keep her busy!
My March quilts to bind will, hopefully, be these two. I want to get them done and to the lady that is organizing a May drop-off to the women's shelter. At least one will get done and the second quilt will be a BONUS!
You know how some birthdays just come and go without much fuss? Well, I just had my 16th blog birthday on the 22nd of this month! Sixteen years of blogging!!! OMG. The thing is, I forgot all about it! What a time this has been. Oh my, I remember my first post and wondered if anyone would be interested to even read my blog and, yes, you are still reading me. Thank you for your support! Sixteen years ago, there were so many quilting blogs and I do miss quite a few of my favourite blogs that are no more. How many more years will this blog be still running? As long as there is something up on my design wall and my fingers can still work their magic, then there is something to write about. Time will tell.Cherish your day, cherish your life!
Friday, February 24, 2023
Going round in circles
My circles top has made much progress. It will be a wall hanging, so .... it shouldn't take too long to complete this ..... so says the woman who gets distracted by squirrels! LOL
What I'm doing is a nine-patch block of circles (no sashing). The dark red fabric with the lighter circle is the center of the nine-patch. My layout will be 4 blocks wide x 6 blocks long. On the wall right now, the far right column is almost complete.Monday, February 20, 2023
Quilts for Kids
Another Winding Trails top using the pattern by Karen Griska Quilts. I'm on a roll making kids quilts. This will be a donation quilt for a women's shelter in a neighbouring town. Personally, I think it is ugly .... but a child will love it. I'm anxious to see this quilted up because a quilt changes once quilted. My LAer has just finished quilting it and it just needs to be picked up.
While making this top, a second set of blocks were made and all that needs to be done is sew those blocks together to make another top ... and that is what will be done to get those blocks into a top and to the LAer and then to the shelter.
Both of these tops were squirrels ...... LOL. It's a good thing when those squirrels get completed.
Love it when I'm on a roll ....
Cherish your day, cherish your life!
Sunday, February 12, 2023
... and another squirrel!
Yes, I did it ..... started another project. You would think that squirrels hibernate during winter ..... but no, they do not and they stopped by and had a few chats with me! LOL
It all started with cleaning out some piles of fabrics and papers and that is when I saw this pattern and knew that it just had to be made.
What got me started on this squirrel was a need for a couple more small wall quilts to go with my February red/neutral quilts. My bins of red fabrics and my neutral/red fabrics were a tad overflowing and viola .... this project got started. This is my project so far. If one block a day gets done, then this project should be ready for sashings and borders by the end of this month. Only nine blocks to go. So, we shall see ....
In the meantime, this quilt .... which I really love .... has been bugging me. Why? I want to make another circle quilt and why not do the same quilt but in red and neutrals? So, that is what is being done.
Monday, February 6, 2023
Gingham Swirls
Oh my, how I enjoyed designing and making this quilt. After doodling around on EQ7, that wavy border just had to be made and something EPP would make this a perfect take-along project.
So, the project got started and slowly but surely, this quilt came to be.
This project was supposed to be for our day guild celebration of Canada's 150th birthday. The stipulation was that only red and white fabrics could be used. We could use tone-on-tone reds, red with white and white tone-on-tone and white with red fabrics. Well, try and find all fabrics with just red and white in them .... no cream, no off-white. I had lots of red fabrics but very little with red/white prints and I wanted a variety of those fabrics in the blades. So, the quest to get this quilt done in 2017 got shelved and this quilt was completed years later.
Here are a few of my blocks with my selection of fabrics:
Pattern Source: This information will only be helpful to those that have EQ and Blockbase software.
Friday, February 3, 2023
January & February Binding Challenge
Well, no-blog Mary and I got 2023 off to a good start ..... but I had to do a bit of prodding to get Mary working on finishing her binding. Our weather was dull and dreary last month and Mary was affected by the lack of sunshine ..... but she got there in the end and we can close out the month of January with a finished quilt. Yeah us!
This is Mary's January quilt:
This is my January quilt and there will be more about this quilt on another post:Sunday, January 22, 2023
Deer and Quilty Stuff
One morning last week, I looked outside the kitchen patio door and saw something dark at the top of our hill. Did someone throw out a Xmas tree or a garbage bag or was it a person? What was it?
Upstairs to my bedroom and looking out the window, I got a better look .... but I still couldn't make out what it was.Later, the two deer got up and moved off into the bushes. They came back a few days later and munched on our shrubs and leftover titbits of leaves that were not clipped off in the fall. We've had a bit more snow since taking the photo and the temps are a bit cooler (-7C). Still, this is not our normal winter as we should be around -30C now with lots more snow.
Now, onto quilty stuff. There were a number of quilts that needed to be stored away. A few sleeves were made for the foam pool noodles and quilts were rolled up and stored. A shelf in my studio was cleared off and taken out. It has now become the perfect place for quilt storage. This area will be shown later as there is some painting that needs to happen first.
I've been busy ordering more books of my blog. Depending on the number of posts per year, some books have just one year of posts, while other books have two years of posts. I use Blog2Print and take advantage of their sales. The best sale is one that offers 50% off which happens a couple times a year.
I'm happy to see the years in book form. So is my husband and my family. These are things that they won't have to worry about when I'm gone or unable to function. Instructions have been left so that if there are more books to be made, they can replicate the format of what was done in the past.
Cherish your day, cherish your life!
Thursday, January 19, 2023
School House
Well, this quilt has been long in coming! It has quite the story behind it too. So, let's begin.
There are a few posts about this quilt and it is best to start at the beginning and you can click onto them here to read about the start and the progress along the way:
Mar. 2, 2011 .... May 23, 2011 .... June 16, 2011 .... June 25, 2011 .... Jan. 19, 2013 .... Jan. 30, 2013 .... Mar. 30, 2013
There could be others, but I couldn't find them at the time of writing up this post.
After this top was finished, it sat for many years. Why? Hand quilt or machine quilt? That was my hang up. In the end, it was sent to my lovely LAer and she did her magic very quickly and then it sat waiting for binding. Enter no-blog Mary and our monthly binding challenge and ..... viola ..... this quilt is finally done and hanging in our dinning room. Oh, such joy to finally have this gorgeous quilt finished.
Now, after reading all those posts, there is a titbit that was never written about, but it is time to talk about it.
I've given credit to Andrea Blackhurst as the designer of this quilt pattern. She may be the designer as per the quilt in the quilt magazine, but I based my quilt on that raffle quilt at the Kingston, Ontario, Canada quilt show and they based their quilt on an antique quilt. So, IMHO, I do think the original designer is the person who made that antique quilt.
When Andrea contacted me and claimed she was the designer .... fine .... I'm happy for her and she designed a gorgeous quilt and I've since amended a few of my posts to give her credit. She also mentioned to me that if ever I wrote a pattern for sale, she would sue me. Oh my ....
If you have been a reader of my blog for many years now ..... never, ever have I offered any of my designs or drafts of quilts for sale. I think I was tested not too long ago if there was a pattern for this quilt. Was she a friend of Andrea's? I was suspicious at the time. Anyway, there is not a pattern for sale and there will never be from me. Instead, I did a tutorial and it is on the link for June 25, 2011.
If you are interested in a pattern, Sentimental Stitches has a pattern for the houses and you can purchase it here. Gay did this quilt as a free BOM and then retired it and then brought it back for purchase. I knew that Gay would have her pattern for sale at some point and gave her a head's up about potentially being sued by Andrea. Gay wrote back and said that she had a team of lawyers to work out any copyright issues. After she looked at my posts, Gay thought that my quilt was different from Andrea's and I could claim it as my design. Thank you and that was a surprise comment!
So, I will leave it up to you who is the designer .... but .... I think I will just enjoy my efforts and the struggles and simply enjoy my quilt .... as a quilt.
Quilt Details:
Started: Feb. 2011
Finished: Dec. 2022
Block size: 12" finished and 6" finished
Quilt size: 81-1/2" x 83-1/4" (top size before quilting, washing and drying: 85" x 86")
Batting: Hobbs cotton/poly 80/20
Machine quilted by: Kathy Wareham using Clam shell Feather by Christy Dillon of My Creative Stitches.
I enjoy designing quilts and also making quilts from a pattern (usually with some kind of twist) and credit is given to the designer of those patterns. That's it ..... I just love making quilts. Not selling them, not going into pattern writing, etc. That is way too much work. Writing a tutorial takes a lot of time and effort and I no longer write those anymore.
I have seen some of my designs or part of my designs published by others. Intentional? Who knows. I'm not going to send those folks threatening emails. A few bloggers have approached me and asked permission to make and publish a pattern from one of my designs. They were given permission and I have received a finished pattern as a 'thank you'. I was happy for them. As you probably have guessed, I'm a giving sort of person and not spiteful. Life is too short.
Cherish your day, cherish your life!
Thursday, January 12, 2023
First UFO off the list!
I'm so happy that this UFO is done! It nearly got finished at the begging of the new year ..... but I got sick again with another cold and then ..... gasp ..... I broke a front tooth! Not a good beginning to the new year at all. So, nothing was done to finish this UFO off until a few days ago as my comfy chair and TV called to me instead.
Not only do I have this top done, but there is a second one almost done too. Just need to add borders. That top is laying on the bench (at bottom of photo) and it is the same block but mostly different fabrics. No photos yet. These will be donation quilts.
So, a good and not so good beginning to the new year.
Cherish your day, cherish your life!