Felines and Fibre Arts

Lone Star Quilt Along

2012-02-04T12:45:00.000-05:00

Well I have been enticed by yet another quilting project. I have always loved the look of Lone Star quilts but I certainly didn't want to do all that work of cutting and piecing all those little diamond shapes, that's just not me. Then my friend Elizabeth at Sand and Sunshine
(http://sandandsunshine.blogspot.com/) found instructions to do it the strip pieced method. She has been working on her Lone Star for a couple of months and hers has turned out amazing. Here is the site with the instructions on how to create the Lone Star using the strip pieced method: http://www.angelfire.com/va3/jclane/LoneStar/LoneStar.html

So the next thing was do I have the fabrics for this project since right now I'm on a restricted budget when it comes to fabric shopping due to the fact that I am still unemployed. Time to check out the stash and sure enough I came up with a combination that I really like and I think it will make a stunning Lone Star. Here is my fabric selection.

I won't be starting this project until I have my sea turtle quilt top done since that is my first priority at the moment. I was hoping to get more work done in it this weekend, but unfortunately I managed to sprain one of my fingers yesterday. It is quite painful and I now have it in a splint plus I have been applying ice to it every couple of hours. It makes it rather difficult to do things like use the rotary cutter, iron fabric, or put two pieces of fabric together accurately for sewing. I'm hoping that having it splinted and the icing will get it healed quicker and I will be able to get back to my sewing early next week.

I also want to say thank you to Quilt Sue (http://quilttimes.blogspot.com/) and Jayne (http://jaynesquiltingroom.blogspot.com/) who are running the Lone Star Quilt Along support group the first Saturday of every month. So if you are interested in making a Lone Star quilt, even if it is some time in the future, come out and see what everyone is doing. You will find all kinds of useful information and inspiration.

Sea Turtles - Part 1

2012-01-29T08:11:00.000-05:00

My next project is going to be another reverse applique wall hanging, this time with sea turtles as the theme. I'm still working on the actual reverse applique design and hope to have that finalized shortly. I have also been working on putting together the sea turtles layer. This is the one that lays underneath the top layer and gets exposed when the reverse applique design is cut out. Here is what this layer is going to look like, I still have to finish sewing together all the columns.

The top layer is going to be lighter in colour and these are the fabrics that will make up that layer. The plan for this layer is to do more free form curved piecing to try and give the look of waves on the ocean. The blue in the upper right hand corner appears to be rather dark in the photo but in relation to the fabrics in the turtle layer it is a fair bit lighter. The lighting in my sewing room is great for sewing since I have lots of windows and natural light, but I guess my camera things other wise.

UFOs - Finished the Gloria Loughman Wall Hangings

2012-01-19T15:55:00.000-05:00

I finally finished the 2 wall hangings from the Gloria Loughman workshop that I took back in the fall of 2008. It's great to see them finished and have a couple of items no longer be UFOs. Unlike some people in blog land who I see have long lists of UFOs, I find personally that if my list of UFOs gets too long it starts to give me anxiety. I think in part it has to do with my upbringing which was working class and there were many a time that things were tight because factories had layoffs during down times so you learned to live frugally and with purpose. So when I see too many UFOs on my list I start to question myself why did I decide to do tht project if it's just going to lay around collecting dust and never get finished.

There are many legitimate reasons why projects get put on hold but for me I like to keep those numbers down to a dull roar. Also every now and then I will take a hard look at what is there and decide if something will ever get finished or is there something about a particular project that in my books it will likely remain a UFO forever. If that is the case then it is time to donate it to someone who can put it to good use and finish it. Why should it collect dust in a box for decades. So I have decided that the Kaffe Fassett diamond quilt project will never get done. I have lost complete interest in it and have no desire to complete it. I will donate the cut diamonds to the guild that I belong to for their charity quilt group where someone will gladly make it up into a quilt for charity. I'll even make sure to provide some fabric for the back and binding and hopefully there will be someone interested in working on it.

So here are the finished wall hangings. This one is called Colour is Magic.

This one is called Layer by Layer.

Here is a close up of the quilting that I did in the borders of both of these wall hangings.

So now to decide what I will be working on next, stay tuned.

First Snow of Winter

2012-01-13T10:21:00.000-05:00

We finally got our first so called "snow storm" of winter and in reality it's not much of a storm here in Toronto. We have had an incredibly mild winter so far and most of the precipitation has been in the form of rain including a major soaking yesterday. The latest system was actually 2 systems that crossed paths over the great lakes and were suppose to bring our first real taste of winter. There was a Texas Low coming up from the south full of moisture followed by an Arctic Low bringing the cold temperatures needed to make snow. Yesterday with the bulk of the precipitation the Arctic Low hadn't quite made its way to our area and now that it is here most of the moisture is to the east of us where they are expecting significant snow falls. We will likely see an inch of snow when it's all done but this morning things got pretty messy when the wet roads from all the rain froze.

Here are a couple of pictures from my balcony of the first snow of the winter, it really doesn't look all that spcetacular because it's not the big fluffy kind that sticks to trees and creates those beautiful post card images. These are the very fine flakes that don't really stick to much.

Hope everyone is keeping warm and safe today. Have a great weekend and hope you find some time for your quilting projects.

2012 New Years Goals

2012-01-01T22:15:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone has had a pleasant New Years Day. I went out with friends last night to a lovely French restaurant to ring in the New Year. It was a great time catching up with good friends and a most enjoyable meal. Today has been a quiet laid back kind of day.

I've done my review of projects that I would like to get done this year, and here is the list. As always it will be interesting to see what gets completed, what doesn't and what new projects come along.

I also listed my UFOs that have no commitments at this time for completion and this list I only added one new project from 2011 so that's not too bad. I think as quilters it seems that everyone has the never ending supply of UFOs.

Jan: Finish quilting the 2 wall hangings from Gloria Loughman’s workshops
Jan: Develop my design for the reverse applique quilt "Sea Turtles"
Feb: Create the "Sea Turtles" quilt top
Mar: Finish the quilt top "In full Bloom - Poppy" from Elaine Quehl's workshop
Apr: Design and create the quilt top for the shoe wall hanging called "Stiletto Heels"
May: I'm signed up for Hollis Chatelain's workshop "Quilt Line as the Third Design Element" and need to bring in 3 quilt tops for discusion and quilt design creation. My plan is to take the "Sea Turtles", "In Full Bloom - Poppy" and "Stiletto Heels" quilt tops.
Jun: Finish quilting "In full Bloom - Poppy" so it is ready to give to my mom for her 90th birthday in August
Jul: Attend Ricky Tim's Super Quilt seminar being held in Rochester NY. I enjoyed this so much when I went to Cape Cod back in 2010, that when I saw it being held so close to home, I figured it would be worth while to attend a second time and hopefully several of the gals from my small quilt group will also come.
Jul - Aug: Finish quilting "Sea Turtles"
Sep: Finish quilting "Stiletto Heels"
Oct: Finish Falling Splendor quilt
Christmas charity quilt: Using blocks from the Friday Block Party 2009

Any time:
1: One block wonder quilt ( I already have the fabric and am curious as to how this will turn out)
2: Start my own unique design of a Rhapsody quilt based on Ricky Tims techniques – the plan here is to have a completed design ready to start a quilt the following year, this in my books is a major project
3: Create a landscape quilt based on the Picture Piecing techniques of Cynthia England

UFOs that are outstanding: I wonder if any of these will come off the plate this year
Hawaiian orchid pillow – hand quilting
Kaffe Fassett – colour in design diamond quilt
BOM: Drunkard’s Path Variations
Tranquil Moments quilt – quilting left to do
Small Wall Hanging (that was to go into a silent auction) – quilting done, need to finish beading and sew binding

So there's my list for 2012. It will be interesting to see what new things will come in to tempt me and change priorities along the way.

Happy New Year everyone.

2011 New Years Goals - Final Review

2011-12-31T14:13:00.000-05:00

Another year is coming to an end. So it's time to take a look at what I had set out as my goals for this year, what was I able to accomplish, what didn't happen and what else came along. First is a list of my original goals and what happened with each one.

Feb: Tammy's Secret Garden – this is a 50th birthday present for a dear friend of mine that I have known for many years – completed
Feb: Signed up for the "In Full Bloom" workshop with Elaine Quehl which is a flower wall hanging and I will be doing a poppy – poppy completed, still need to finish background and then the quilting
Feb: Also signed up for a second workshop called "Surface Design Techniques" with Elaine Quehl – completed (note: this was just a workshop exploring techniques with no actual project to complete)
Mar: Finish Falling Splendor quilt – never started
Spring: Create a Kaleidoscope quilt based on Ricky Tims techniques from his quilt seminar that I attended last fall – cancelled this project
Spring - Summer: Create a landscape quilt based on the Picture Piecing techniques of Cynthia England – never started
Jul: Another birthday quilt present for a friend – completed
Aug: Create a small quilt for the silent auction for the York Heritage Quilt Guild 2011 Show in Nov – started but never completed
Sep - Oct: Create a quilt to enter into the York Heritage Quilt Guild 2011 Show in Nov: this became the Wild Mustang quilt – completed
Christmas charity quilt: Using blocks from the Friday Block Party 2009 – never started

Any time:
One block wonder quilt ( I already have the fabric and am curious as to how this will turn out) – never started
Start my own unique design of a Rhapsody quilt based on Ricky Tims techniques – the plan here is to have a completed design ready to start a quilt the following year, this in my books is a major project – never started

UFOs that are outstanding: – all are still outstanding but I have the 2 wall hangings from Gloria's workshop sandwiched and ready for quilting
Hawaiian orchid pillow – hand quilting
2 wall hangings from Gloria Loughman’s workshop – colour is magic and layer by layer
Kaffe Fassett – colour in design diamond quilt
BOM: Drunkard’s Path Variations
Tranquil Moments quilt – quilting left to do
So from this list I completed 3 projects, 4 are partially finished, 1 I decided not to go forward with, and the rest will be moved to next year to be done or become UFOs but hopefully sometime in the future will get done.

In addition the following new projects happened in 2011:
Nov: Quilted 2 oriental wall hangings for a friend – completed
Dec: Quilted an additional 2 oriental wall hangings for a friend – completed

So in addition to the 3 completed projects from the original list I did another 4 partial projects (quilting only) in 2011. I have to admit that this hasn't been as successful a year for my quilting as previous years but I have had some medical issues that I have been dealing with. One of which has been severe iron deficiency anemia which left me very fatigued and at times I barely had enough energy to get through the basics of a given day. I have had this condition for almost 3 years, have been through the gamut of tests and basically no one was able to find a definitive cause for it. I was finally switched from iron supplements which actually stopped working this spring and spent 3 months going for weekly iron infusion treatments at the local hospital. I have to say that my system has responded well to the treatments and it looks like at this time I just need to go about every 3 months for a top up treatment to keep my levels in the normal range.

So next I'm going to review what my goals are going to be for 2012 and then will post them hopefully on New Year's Day.

I wish everyone a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year,
Vicki

UFOs

2011-12-19T16:57:00.000-05:00

Well there's not much time till the end of the year and I knew that if I started a new project that there was no chance of it getting done before 2012. So I looked through my list of UFOs from my post at the beginning of the year titled "2011 New Years Goals". There I also listed what UFOs I had at the beginning of the year. I noticed that I had 2 wall hangings from a class that I took from Gloria Loughman back in Dec 2008. I think it is about time I got these finished.

I got the one sewn together since it was still in pieces, and then the borders attached to both of the wall hangings.

I now have to cut fabric for the backings, cut batting and make the quilt sandwiches. That should get done in the next day or so. I likely won't get the quilting done until sometime between Christmas and New Years eve, but the plan is to get these two finished before New Year's Day.

Helping Out A Friend - Kimono Wall Hangings part 2

2011-12-12T10:18:00.000-05:00

Well it's been awhile since I have posted. It's been that time of year getting things ready for the holidays along with the usual colds that happen and slow things down at times. The only quilting that I have done was to finish the remaining 2 kimono wall hangings for my friend. Here are pictures of the last 2.

We had our Christmas dinner and get together with friends yesterday and had a lovely time. The friend who I was helping out on these kimono wall hangings was finally able to give her gifts to our friends and they loved them. I did get credit for the quilting and they loved the details that I included like the koi fish and the Japanese maples.

So what else have I been doing, Christmas baking. So what did I make I make this year? A cherry streusel bar.

Ginger spice cookies and chocolate orange macaroons.

Maple pecan squares.

Nanaimo bars.

So what is your favorite Christmas treat?

Wild Mustang - Part 12 Final Touches

2011-11-09T16:48:00.001-05:00

I ended up doing one more thing to the Wild Mustang quilt. Several weeks ago I came across a web site called Sedona Flame where they sell both jewellery and beads in the southwest style.
http://www.sedonaflame.com/fetish.htm The beads looked great and I thought they would add another dimension to the Wild Mustang quilt. The perfect place for them was in the small brown inner border and I wanted to stick with stones in the brown tones. I initially looked at the horses but there wasn't enough quantity in the various brown toned stones. I checked the Zuni bears and there I was able to get the quantity that I needed and the price was actually better than what it would have cost me for the horses. I ended up getting 10 each of the tiger eye, oyster opal agate, picture jasper and leopardskin jasper beads. I was hoping to get the silverleaf but it wasn't available.

The stones arrived last week and they were perfect in terms of colour, size and shape. I just finished sewing the last of the beads onto the quilt today and it is ready to be delivered tomorrow to the guild to get ready for the show which starts on Friday. Here's the overall picture of the quilt with the beads on it. Basically the beads just circle around the quilt going from left to right, following the same direction as the quilted horses heads in the border.

Here is a close up of the beads.

So for those of you who live in the Toronto area or are visiting this weekend don't forget to come out and see the show. For details you can check the show's web site at:
http://www.yhqg.org/Celebration/quiltshow2011/celebrationXI.html

Bloggers Quilt Festival - Fall 2011

2011-11-01T21:51:00.000-04:00

Amy's Creative Side is sponsoring the Fall 2011 Bloggers Quilt Festival. You can check out some wonderful quilts, enter your quilt in the show as well as sign up for some wonderful giveaways at: http://amyscreativeside.com/2011/10/28/bloggers-quilt-festival-fall-2011/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+amyscreativeside+%28Amy%27s+Creative+Side%29

A special quilt that I made was back in 2009 and it was called Dragon Odyssey.

I made it for a close friend of mine. She had asked for a quilt with dragons but most of the fabric with dragons on it was geared more to kids. I eventually saw a wall hanging that used a batik dragon panel and I thought that this was a much better idea. I was able to source a batik dragon and made this quilt for my friend's birthday. Her favourite colours are purple and turquoise so those were the main colours that I used for this quilt. She loved the quilt and to this day it hangs in her living room.

Helping Out A Friend - Kimono Wall Hangings

2011-10-31T21:43:00.001-04:00

A friend of mine was making these Kimono Wall Hangings a few years ago and only got them finished to a certain point. They were pieced, the sandwiches made and stitch in the ditching was done. She developed arthritis in her thumbs and now has a hard time hanging onto the quilts to be able to guide them to do free motion quilting or to follow any kind of quilting pattern. So I volunteered to help her get the quilting done.

There are 4 wall hangings in total, 2 of each style. Here is the first one that is completed.

In the border I went with a stylized chrysanthemum pattern. This pattern I'm using in all four wall hangings.

Then in the sleeves of this style of wall hanging I quilted koi fish.

I also did koi fish in the cream coloured areas of the wall hanging.

Here is the second one that is completed.

On the sleeves and at the bottom of the kimono there are small fabric origami kimonos that were hand appliqued to the wall hanging. My friend picked them up at one of the yearend sales that were held at our quilt guild.

Then in the cream coloured areas of this style of wall hanging I quilted Japanese maple leaves.

So I now have 2 left to do, one each of the above styles. This has been a fun project, it gave me some more practice on my quilting skills and fortunately they were a manageable size.

Wild Mustang - Part 11

2011-10-23T14:24:00.000-04:00

The Wild Mustang is finished. I got the binding on a few days ago and the label is on but the last couple of days we had a lot of dark and stormy weather which made it difficult to take any decent pictures. Today the sun finally came out and I got my picture of the finished wall hanging. Here it is.

Here is a picture of the back. The light Stongehenge fabric at the top is the hanging sleeve, I unfortunately didn't have enough of the darker fabrics left for a sleeve.

For anyone in the Toronto area or will be in the city on November 11 - 13 and would like to see the Wild Mustang along with lots of other great quilts, it is going to be at the York Heritage Quilters Guild Show. You can get details at the show's web site at: http://www.yhqg.org/Celebration/quiltshow2011/celebrationXI.html

So what's next you may wonder. I figure it's time to go back and work on the poppy wall hanging that I started in the spring time.

Wild Mustang - Part 10

2011-10-14T17:46:00.001-04:00

I finished the border quilting on the Wild Mustang quilt yesterday. I was quilting a horse head motif with a flowing mane. Here is what it looks like. If you click on the picture you should be able to see it a bit better.

The horse heads just circled around the whole quilt.

Today I got the binding attached and now I just need to get the hand sewing done and get the label attached. So it's almost done.

Tips & Tricks - Joining The Ends of The Binding

2011-10-14T17:40:00.000-04:00

I have been asked by a couple of my quilting friends how do I join the ends of my binding. I have to admit that it did take me awhile to learn and in the end I actually had to figure it out on my own. I looked it up on the web and most of what I saw didn't quilt make sense to me. A friend recommended a book Called Rotary Magic by Nancy Johnson-Srebro which really is a good overall reference book, and it helped me almost get there. But I still managed to mess it up by either getting the two ends twisted, or sewing it inside out, or I ended up with too much binding or not enough. I had a friend help me, I watched her a couple of times and still no luck. So one day I sat down with the Rotary Magic book and tried to figure out where I was getting stumped and tried to come up with a way that would work for me. After several attempts I was successful and ever since my bindings come out every time, never twisted and always the right size. So here is my step by step instructions for how I join the ends of the binding.

First make sure you leave a good 15 inches of binding before you start sewing it on and when you come to the end leave 15 inches of working space between where you start and end the inital sewing of your binding. I found that this really makes a big difference instead of the usually 8 - 12 inches.

Next take the right hand strip and unfold it so it lays flat against your cutting board.

Place you 6" square ruler on point and the middle line is lined up against the left hand side of the strip and the first inch of the ruler is above the bottom of the quilt.

Take your rotary cutter and cut along the diagonal at the bottom of the ruler.

Your right hand strip should look like this.

Take the left hand strip and place it along the edge of the quilt. Carefully flip open just the top layer and take a pin and pin down the bottom portion where the binding is attached to the quilt (left hand side) and again at the opposite end (right hand side). (click on picture for better details)

Now carefully fold over the left hand side and pin it about 2 inches from the first pin.

Bring the left hand strip of binding and lay it on top of the opened up binding.

Lay your 6 inch ruler over the edge of the left hand strip. Draw a line across the entire back of the right hand piece to mark where the left hand piece ends.

Draw two more lines 1/4" apart from the original line that you drew going towards the unattached end of the right hand binding piece. (click on picture for better details)

Cut off excess binding.

Lay the 2 binding strips back on top of the quilt in their normal positions.

Bring the right sides together of the right and left hand binding strips and flip so that you now have the wrong side facing you. If you scrunch your quilt here it will be easier.

Place a pin in the middle and at either end. At the ends you will notice that you will have points extending beyond the regular line of the binding. This is the way is should look. See areas in green circles. (click on picture for better details)

Add a couple of extra pins to ensure nothing shifts.

Now you sew down the middle line of the three that were drawn.

Take the pins out and finger press the seam open.

Fold the binding back into position and check to see that it is the appropriate length. At this point you can trim the points.

Now finish sewing the rest of the binding. As you can see from my binding it was the right size for this quilt.

I hope that is has been of help and if you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will try to help you out.

Wild Mustang - Part 9

2011-10-11T12:11:00.000-04:00

I finally finished the quilting on the background portion of the Wild Mustang quilt. Yes it has taken some time for a wall hanging but then it took some time to finally make a decision as to what I was going to quilt in this area. Initially I was planning on an all over pattern but as I was testing out various options on paper I started to think that they were all going to be too busy for what I was envisioning for this wall hanging and would likely compete with the main focus the horse.

So I left it for a few days when my friend and quilt buddy Sue from Long Island suggested why don't I just keep it simple and do stitch in the ditch. Well that would be easy and it wouldn't complete with the horse so I started my stitch in the ditch work. While I was working on the quilt I realized that these fabrics really reminded me of Arizona, the desert and red rock country.

With that it came to me what I needed to quilt on the background. In the top and bottom row of the background I did a desert scene with cacti and rock formations. If you click on the picture you will be able to see the details better.

Then scattered throughout the rest of the background I did an assortment of petroglyphs and native symbols such as the sun, bear, kokopelli, turtle, medicine man, pots, horse, thunderbird, feathers, etc. Here are a few samples that I was able to photograph where the images came out. I quilted these with a variegated thread called natural stone so it really does blend into the background fabric and doesn't complete with the horse.

So now I'm started to work on the border quilting which will be a series of horses heads with flowing manes going around the quilt.

The fall leaves are just starting to turn here and they are looking really beautiful. This is a really beautiful time of year and this past week we have had amazing weather. I wish it could stay like this for several more months. Here is a picture of the trees from my balcony.

Wild Mustang - Part 8

2011-09-23T15:42:00.001-04:00

I've been working on the quilting of the horse section and that is now complete. First I just quilted around the various sections of the reverse applique so on the front those quilting lines actually blend in with the applique stitches but when you actually look at the quilt those areas start to take on that puffy look of quilting. Then I did 3 rows of echo quilting around the image of the horse and that is now completed. Here is what it looks like at this stage.

One thing I have to say is that I have really enjoyed working with the hand basted quilt sandwich. Using Sharon Schamber's technique of the herringbone basting stitch has kept all the layers together and nothing has been shifting which is really a nice treat.

So now that this portion of the quilting is done I now know how much background space I have left and will be planning out the background quilting this weekend. Also I want to share this picture of Fergie who decided to take a nap on the quilt while I stepped away for a break.

Wild Mustang - Part 7

2011-09-11T22:50:00.000-04:00

I finished putting together the quilt sandwich. What do you normally do to hold your quilt sandwich in place? Since I quilt on my domestic sewing machine I typically use both the spray basting spray and then pin my top with medium size safety pins. The reason for this is with all the folding and unfolding that my quilts go through, I find that just pinning doesn't give them enough stability and the layers tend to shift. If I use just the spray baste spray often towards the end of the quilting process there are areas where the glue is starting to unstick because I don't like to use a heavy application of the stuff. So using both has typically worked for me in the past.

Well with the Wild Mustang quilt it has so many additional layers in it that pinning with medium safety pins was completely out of the question and the spray glue would only hold the layers that were against the batting. So I figured that this quilt needed to be hand basted which I have never done before.

I started to get my various tools together and then my friend Elizabeth ( http://sandandsunshine.blogspot.com/ ) informed me that she had seen on someone else's blog these long sewing needles that might be of interest. So I did some research and sure enough there are special needles for hand basting quilts. I went to my LQS and was fortunate to get their last package. This is the exact type that I got and they really did make a difference from just using the longest regular needles that I had ( http://www.amazon.com/Dritz-Quilting-Quilters-Basting-Needles/dp/B001UAH1GK ). These ones are almost 4" long and more sturdy than your regular needle yet still fine enough that it doesn't leave big holes in the fabric.

So I started to baste my quilt, got a few rows done and then thought perhaps there is a better stitch to use than the simple running stitch that I was using. I then did a search on the net and found these 2 videos ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhwNylePFAA and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_EjBGz5vGQ ) by Sharon Schamber and they were very informative and I decided to use her technique with the herringbone basting stitch (details in the second video). She also had some other interesting suggestions about how to prepare a quilt for hand basting which I will likely try the next time I need to do hand basting of the sandwich. I found that the basting went fairly quickly considering all the layers that I was working with. Here are a couple of pictures of what this stitch looks like.

This week I will be working on the actual quilting.

Wild Mustang - Part 6

2011-09-05T19:18:00.001-04:00

I finally got the back finished for the Wild Mustang wall hanging. I had to redo the whole thing because the first time I made it, it was major wonky due to some issues with using the left over brown squares from the horse portion of the reverse applique part. This is what it looked like initially and the problem was caused by several factors.

The edge of the brown square triangle pieces that are sewn to the borders are on the bias. The right angle triangles were not a perfect 45 degree angle, they were out by a degree or two but that was enough to add to the problem. Then when I added my borders I just cut my strips from the width of the fabric and started to sew them, this was the way I was taught in my beginner quilting class many years ago. Well it turns out that isn't really the way you should do them and my friend Sue from Long Island found out that the proper way is to measure the side of your quilt and then cut the border to size, find the midpoint of both the quilt and the border and pin it and pin the ends. Then you pin the mid section between the end and the middle on both sides and continue to do so until you have enough pins to keep everything together and stable. Sue found out able this technique when she took some long arm classes on how to fix problems with quilts which included things like wavy borders.

I took everything apart, I added iron on stabilizer to the brown square triangle sections and then made sure that they were proper right angle triangles and each one was the same dimension. All the sashing and border pieces were then measured to spec, pinned and sewn which took a lot longer to complete than just cutting strips of fabric and sewing it down. Sue also made a suggestion of adding a different colour of Stonehenge fabric into the center of the X sashing and as well as in the corners of all the borders.

So this is the end result and the wonky factor is gone and it looks great. So all the extra effort was worth it. Now it's time to make the quilt sandwich and then I can start the actual quilting.

Wild Mustang - Part 5

2011-08-25T17:50:00.000-04:00

The Wild Mustang top is now complete. I finished adding the borders and here is what it looks like.

I have a small inner border of orange, followed by a 1" brown border and then a pieced orange border will be 4" when everything is trimmed and the binding gets sewn on. When I attached the border I left the basting threads that I had on the background fabric and the horse fabric so that things wouldn't shift while I attached everything. I think that was a smart move since everything came together really nicely and there were no issues.

So next I need to figure out what I'm going to do for the back. I have 4 decent pieces from the trimmings off the horse fabric so I would like to try and incorporate that into the back since that would be a waste to just throw all that work out.

Also if anyone is interested in how I do the small inner border I posted a tutorial about a year ago and you can find that here: http://felinesandfibrearts.blogspot.com/2010/03/tips-and-tricks-narrow-inner-border.html

Pets on Quilts - 2011 Edition Jordie Helps

2011-08-19T22:35:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy week so this is my last minute entry to SewCalGal's Pets on Quilts show.

This time it's all about Jordie helping with the quilts.

Here Jordie was inspecting the stitches on the binding and making sure that they were all nice and even.

Jordie likes to test out the quilting and make sure that it's nice and comfy. I think that face is the seal of approval.

Jordie making sure that the seams are a proper 1/4".

Now are you sure that's going to work? He has this puzzled look on his face. I hope you have enjoyed these pictures of Jordie. If you are wondering where Fergie is, she like her beauty sleep more these days now that she is a senior lady.

Wild Mustang - Part 4

2011-08-17T22:52:00.000-04:00

I finally have finished all the buttonhole stitching on the reverse applique portion of the Wild Mustang. Now some people may also call this stitch the blanket stitch, it all depends on where you are from or who was your teacher. The one that I was actually doing is a double one and on the Janome machine it is actually called a Parisian stitch.

Even with doing the initial stitching of the pattern twice I was still plagued by fabric fraying so it took longer to complete. The next time I do this type of quilt and I do have another one planned with a sea turtle as my image, I will first use Misty Fuse on the back of my background fabric to stabilize it and that should prevent most of the fraying. I'm glad that this is only a wall hanging so it won't get a lot of wear or tear otherwise I really would have had to start all over again to make it more durable. So here is what it looks like at this point.

Next will come the borders. I'm looking at adding a small dark brown Stonehenge border about 1" in width. Then there will be about a 4" pieced border in about 3 or 4 different shades of medium to darker orange Stonehenge fabrics, and they will be pieced in a similar fashion to the background part.

Wild Mustang - Part 3

2011-08-05T11:22:00.001-04:00

First I want to say that I'm really glad that I made up the sample piece to practice since I discovered a few things along the way. First I was smart to tape all the lose threads out of the way since it prevented a lot of tangling once you start ripping out the paper. As I finished a section, I would then tie off those threads and trim them down to about 1" - 2" and move to the next section. Also having the sample gave me some practice in cutting the top layer of fabric without cutting into the bottom layer, you really have to be careful when you are doing this. I did fine on my sample piece but I did have one minor oops on the Wild Mustang but Misty Fuse came to the rescue and I even have a hard time finding the spot that got cut. Here is what the sample looks like with the top layer cut out.

I had mentioned earlier that I was doing 2 rows of stitching since I was concerned about the fabric fraying. The Stonehenge fabrics aren't as densely woven as say your batik fabrics. I discovered that even with the 2 rows of stitching there were places where the fabric still wanted to fray so I had to leave more fabric from the stitch line until I'm ready to actually do the buttonhole stitch. Here is the Wild Mustang all cut out but when I go to do the buttonhole stitch there will be some additional trimming at that time so that I keep fraying to a minimum. If you look at the top of the horse's mane this is how much will be cut out, while other areas do show more fabric at the moment and the image of the horse isn't as distinct that will change. The areas that did frey I went back and stitched over them a couple of times to keep them in tack.

I have also tested the buttonhole stitch on the sample piece and have determined the appropriate width and length. While running the tests I also realized that even with 2 layers of fabric I still needed to back it with a stabilizer since it was doing some pulling and tugging. So now I'm ready to start finishing the reverse applique with the buttonhole stitch, this will take a few days indeed since that stitch takes time to run and you can't rush it.

Wild Mustang - Part 2

2011-08-03T15:59:00.001-04:00

Here is the latest on the Wild Mustang Wall Hanging. My next step was to put the two tops together and baste them. The top that is for the Wild Mustang was laid down first on point right side up. Then the background top went on top of it right side up and I first pinned the two together then hand basted them together. Here is what it looks like after I was finished hand basting and I still had some pins to remove.

Once that was done, I trimmed off the exposed corners of the Wild Mustang top since those portions are not needed. Then the piece is flipped to the wrong side and the pattern is placed on top, centered and strategically pinned.

I started sewing the larger shapes first. This is done free motion with the feed dogs down and your quilting or darning foot (which ever one your sewing machine comes with). Since there is no batting here, just two layers of fabric and 1 layer of paper you will likely have to adjust your tension from your normal free motion quilting tension. Take 2 scrap pieces of fabric and a piece of paper and run a few test stitchings to see what will give you the best results before you start on your actual quilt. When you start to stitch a shape make sure that you have pulled out enough lead top and bobbin thread and hold onto it while you start stitching. After you have stitched part way through your shape make sure that you bring the bottom thread up to the top so that you don't sew over top of the bottom thread. Once you have finished your shape raise the needle and presser foot and cut your thread leaving about 4 " attached to the quilt. Bring the one thread from the right side (currently underneath) to the top and I just took a small piece of tape and taped the ends out of the way. Later once you remove the paper, these ends need to be tied and trimmed.

I stitched the shape twice around since my machine does not have a stitch regulator and even though my free motion stitching has improved there are times when I have longer stitches than I would like. Since the insides of the shapes will be cut out to reveal the bottom layer of fabric, I don't want the fabric fraying because of the longer stitches. This is what it looks like with two lines of stitching. After I'm done cutting out all the shapes I will be finishing all the edges with a buttonhole stitch so where my two lines don't quite meet, the buttonhole stitch should take care of that very nicely.

To remove the paper, I use this tool to first score all the lines so that the paper will rip easier from the stitching. I think it's called an embosser tool. I find it works best if the quilt is on a softer surface or if it is just folded into quarters. You don't have to worry about getting out any of the little bits that may be stuck in a seam since this side will be inside the finished quilt beween the batting and the back.

Finally I also have made a little test piece from the 1 1/2" square test I did earlier. I will use this first to test out cutting the first layer of fabric so I get the hang of that before I tackle the Wild Mustang. Also the test piece will be used to try out the buttonhole stitch to figure out the right size in terms of width and length before I start stitching on the Wild Mustang.

Well time to start ripping out paper.

Wild Mustang - Part 1

2011-07-31T09:23:00.003-04:00

About a month or so back SewCalGal http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/) had posted a link on her Face Book page http://www.facebook.com/#!/disabledwallforsewcalgal to a quilt artist by the name of Daniel Rouse http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Daniel-Rouse-Quilts/149647345088130 and I was quite intrgued by his stencil quilts. Here is a link to his blog http://pieceandpress.blogspot.com/ for those who aren't on Face Book. Looking at these quilts got my mind thinking and all of a sudden I had ideas for about 4 different quilts. These ideas kept coming back to me and I realised that I had to explore this further.

One of the ideas was using an image of a sea turtle but the fabrics that I wanted to use I currently don't have everything I need so that idea is on hold. The next idea was the horse. I had a bunch of Stonehenge fabrics from Northcott and I knew I was off to the races :-). So the stencil quilts are basically a reverse applique technique using 2 layers of fabric (can be a quilted top or a whole cloth), one for the focal image and one for the background. I'm doing a wall hanging size for this project.

For my wild mustang I wanted to use a mixture of browns to blacks form the Stonehenge series and create a top that was just small blocks (either 1 1/2" or 2" square) and then I would have the top go on point. Since I wasn't completely sure which size would look best I did a sample of each from some left over fabric. It turned out that the 1 1/2" was what I wanted but in the process I also learned something interesting. Here the picture of the two samples.

If you look at the rows going across they have a lot of diversity but when you look at the rows going up and down there are only 2 fabrics worth of diversity. The reason for this is that my test was only done on 1 set of fabrics sewn together then cut into their strips. Then I just alternated those strips and sewed them into the larger block. This was not the look I wanted. What I was after was a more random mix of blocks so I had to re-think this.

I had 10 different brown to black fabrics and I ended up devising a grid in Excel that would give me the diversity I needed. I also decided that I would create several smaller sections and then put them together to create the final top since I didn't want to sew full width of fabric strips that were only 2" wide due to the potential of stretch and distortion. So I cut 5 2" strips of each of my fabrics and then cut those strips in half so I had 10 strips of each of my 10 colours. Here is my 10 by 10 grid that I used.

The fabrics were all numbered from 1 - 10, and I worked on 1 column at a time to keep things organized. Once all the columns were sewn, I had to iron the seams in alternating directions. So if I started ironing column 1 seams towards the top, then column 2 (red box #9) seams were ironed towards the bottom. Now the fun part was to sew the pieced columns together. I first tried to sew one set without pinning but there are just too many junctions that can move around and not meet where they need to, so I ended up having to pin everything but it was worth it. Here is a picture of one of the finished blocks.

I actually only sewed 9 of the blocks because once those were put together in a 3 by 3 configuration I would have approx. 42" top which was more than enough for what I was planning. Here is what the completed top looks like.

The background for the horse is made up of 3" horizontal strips of light neutrals through lighter orange Stonehenge fabrics. Then plan on putting a small inner border in a darker brown and a final border in the darker oranges. Here is the initial background top.

This is the image that I'm using for my horse.

This is as far as I have gotten. Next I have to baste the two tops together, then attach the pattern (not sure if pinning will be the best or if I will also have to baste it). Then I will be ready to sew the outline of the horse. I will continue to document the process as I go through with this project in case anyone is interested in trying it.

A Celebration of Quilts XI: Silent Auction - Part 4

2011-07-29T11:30:00.000-04:00

Here is my progress on the beading on one of the mini quilts of the silent auction. It's starting to look really nice and now I can hardly wait to see what it will look like when it gets finished. It takes quite a while to sew all those little seed beads on, but I find it an enjoyable time passer while watching TV in the evenings. You will need to click on the picture to actually see the detail of the little beads.

Jade's B-Day Quilt - Part 6

2011-07-24T12:55:00.001-04:00

I got Jade's quilt finished last week, nothing like having to hand sew the binding in the heat that we have been having. I basically sat in front of the A/C unit in the evenings and stitched a bit each evening. It's still rather warm here today but nothing like the heat we had here on Thursday where we hit 38C (100F) and with the humidex it was 49C (120F). It was just down right nasty and our window A/C units just barely could keep the humidity out, forget about cooling down the place.

Jade is coming over this evening along with a few other friends for dinner and she will be getting her quilt which I know she will love. Here is the finished quilt.

Later this week I will have an update on the beading that I have done on the mini wall hanging and the start of a new project.

Footnote on Jade's quilt: Jade loved her quilt. I had a hard time coming up with a name for the quilt and it only came to me last week to call it "Celebration". For some reason it just seemed right. Well there really turned out to be a true celebration for Jade on her 55th birthday. Costa, her boyfriend gave her a diamond ring for her 55th birthday. They have been going out for 8 years and he finally decided to make a more serious commitment. Both he and Jade have been married before, he doesn't have any kids and Jade has 2, both grown up. Now I didn't ask when they were planning on actually getting married because I figure with Costa that may take a few more years before he will make that final commitment. So definitely a birthday worth celebrating.

Jade's B-Day Quilt - Part 5

2011-07-11T14:57:00.000-04:00

The quilting is finally done on this quilt. It has taken a bit longer than I had anticipated but that is because I had some extra help in the process. There is just something about the quilting process the Jordie just feels the need to help. I kept it simple in that all I did was wavy lines going across the quilt but even that proved to be a challenge. The struggle that I had with this was trying to keep my stitches the same size throughout the quilt which proved to be impossible. Still I like the way it turned out and hopefully no one will look that closely.

Here is the quilt all trimmed, sorry for the rather poor photo but it's very hot and muggy here today so the blinds are drawn to try and keep as much heat out as possible.

I've decided to go with this batik for the binding, it was used on some of the blocks and it's a good fit in that it has both the blues and greens that are in the quilt.

A Celebration of Quilts XI: Silent Auction - Part 3

2011-06-28T14:18:00.001-04:00

I finished the quilting on the 2nd small quilt I plan to submit to the silent auction that will be held at our guild's quilt show this fall. Again I kept it simple, just followed the outline of the leaves. The next step will be the beading.

I already had a nice pale celery green and a deep maroon but wanted to get a fuchsia pink for this quilt. I went to Michael's and all they had was light pink but the gal told me about a place called Bead FX which wasn't that far from where I live and all they sell are beads. I went today and oh boy you could go nuts in there. I found my fuchsia beads and some nice blue and green ones that I may also use in this piece. These beads were sold by what they call a hank and there are 12 strands in each bundle and the price ran between $4.50 - $4.65 per bunch.

In addition I also bought these 3 bundles, couldn't resist and I haven't got a clue as to what I will do with them, but had to have them. If you are interested here is their web site and they do ship to the states as well as Canada for only $5.95 ($20.00 for international). http://www.beadfx.com/catalogue/index.html

Jade's B-Day Quilt - part 4

2011-06-20T15:45:00.000-04:00

I got the back finished for this quilt. I used up the 6 blocks that ended up being the wrong size due to the not greatest of instructions in the book. The sashing on these is a batik that I had with similar colours and tones as the fusions fabric I used for the sashing and borders on the front which I only had enough to do the front. I also had the main batik that I'm using on the back in my stash from a few years ago.

Tonight is our small quilt group meeting and it is at my place so I'm going to get the gals to help me with the quilt sandwich on this quilt. I find that one of the hardest parts of quilting. So I figured with 7 pairs of hands helping it should go fairly quickly and without much problems.

Jade's B-Day Quilt - Part 3

2011-06-16T16:51:00.000-04:00

I've made great progress on Jade's quilt and the top is now finished. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and here is what it looks like. I was also very lucky in that I had just enough of the the fusions fabric for the sashing and border. I have a bunch of left over blocks that I will try to incorporate into the back of which the primary fabric is a nice batik that has many of the colours that are on the front. This one I plan on keeping the quilting simple and just doing simple wavy lines going across the quilt but I plan on using multiple colours including a lime green, a forest green, turquoise and blue to give it some interest.

So you may wonder how I got everything done so quickly given that I was missing in action and so busy at work. Well this past Tuesday I was let go from my job. Yes it's a little scary being unemployed but the job that I was at was so incredibly stressful that it was affecting my health and life balance. No one should have to work under those kinds of conditions but unfortunately may people do. I'm looking forward to a little time to unwind, get some rest and do some quilting. Then it's back to job hunting and given that the economy has picked up a bit I'm hoping that I won't be out of a job for too long.

MIA - Missing In Action

2011-06-11T17:05:00.001-04:00

Yes it must seem that I have been missing in action since it has been over a month since I have posted anything on my blog. Work was extremely busy this past month so there was no sewing or quilting after work since many an evening I was bring work home, not a favourite hobby of mine. Then unfortunately a few of the weekends I ended up being sick either with migraines or once it was a flu bug so those were write offs as well.

This past week I finally had some vacation time and the first few days were just some decompression, relax and get caught up on sleep. I went up north of Toronto to Horseshoe Valley for part of the week which was quite nice just to get away from the big city. I did manage to work on some of the beading for the small wall hanging that I plan to give to the silent auction at our quilt guild show this fall. Here is my progress, it doesn't look like a lot but it's amazing how long it takes to sew those little seed beads on.

So now that I'm back I actually have gotten back to doing some sewing on the blocks for Jade's quilt. Earlier I was having issues with the pattern, and I came across one more before I left for vacation. I found out that it is very important to make sure that all the pieces get sewn back together in their proper order. Even if some pieces look very similar, sewing them in the wring order results in a non-usable block. As you can see from the picture below it doesn't even look remotely square. When I tried to trim this to an 8" square there was no way to make it work without ahcking off some of the points.

So for a pattern that was supposed to be easy and stress free, this one certainly became anything but easy and stress free. I think I have figured out where all the quirks are of this pattern and so far I have made 20 blocks and I need to make another 15. This is what I have so far. Despite all the issues I think this will be a lovely quilt.

Jade's B-Day Quilt - Part 1

2011-05-08T21:34:00.000-04:00

I'm starting on another quilt project. This time my friend Jade will be turning 55 in July so this quilt I will be making for her. I got the design from a book called Color Shuffle by Karla Alexander.

Here is the one I will be making but again I will be modifying it since the original pattern makes a twin size quilt and that is too large for my to comfortably quilt in my machine. She used green and turquoise fabrics while I will be using green and blue fabrics.

Now again I have a beef with the author of this book and this particular pattern. The block is based on a 10 1/2" squares of fabrics, 6 layers of various colour combinations, you them chop them up, shuffle certain sections and then sew back the block. The cuts are based on the wonky principle so technically you aren't suppose to be worried about how exactly the blocks are cut as long as they look sort of similar to the diagram posted. This is what is posted and there are no measurements given as per the nature of wonky block making. Once you put your block back together you are suppose to trim it down to an 8" block which when sewn into the quilt will result in a 7 1/2" finished block.

So I'm thinking great, this should go quickly and I don't have to worry about measuring things. So I cut up my first set of 6 fabric squares, do the fabric shuffles and begin to sew up a block. I then go to trim it and OOPS!!!!! This is what I get, if I was to trim it down to the 8" I would be chopping off some of the points of the inner sections of the block. Also no matter how I place the ruler I would end up cutting off some points.

So in reality the proportions of how this block is cut are important even though it is not stated in the book. So I now have more scraps for the scrap bag and have to re-think this. I'm now hoping that the diagram in the book is true to proportion in terms of the cuts and decide to measure it, calculate the percentages of each section and then convert them to what those sections would be based on the 10 1/2" block. Here are my calculations.

I then try this out using just one piece of fabric, cut it up and then re-sew it to see if I can then trim it to the 8" block size without losing any points. SUCCESS!!! I then take my next pile of 6 fabrics and cut then according to my calculations and here are 2 finished blocks.

So I'm glad that I was able to figure out how to solve this problem but it annoys me to no end when you pay good money for a book only to get faulty instructions and end up wasting fabric. It's bad enough when I screw up and do the wasting, but I don't need to waste fabric based on someone else's screw ups or omissions. Fortunately I'm the type that always buys more fabric than the patterns call for, because of these just in case moments, otherwise what would one do? Still I would prefer to have the spare fabric for some other crafty projects :-) instead of using it all up because of screw ups :-(.

Blog Hacked and Hijacked

2011-05-08T13:46:00.001-04:00

My friend Hetty had her blog hacked and hijacked by someone in France. She no longer can access anything on her blog, make changes or create new posts. This world is just getting so warpped when people feel the need to steal your blog and for what purpose. I feel for you my friend and I'm glad that after a couple of days of wondering what the hell happened and why me you are back with a new blog. Hetty can be reached at: http://hettyscreations2.blogspot.com/

So if you have been a follower of Hetty's blog this is where you can find her, and if you haven't please go and check her new blog out. Best wishes to you Hetty and your new blog.

A Celebration of Quilts XI - York Heritage Quilters Guild

2011-04-24T15:32:00.001-04:00

The quilt guild that I belong to, the York Heritage Quilters Guild will be holding their 11th quilt show this coming November. It will be held at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in North York Ontario from Friday November 11th through to Sunday November 13th. You can click on the "Art for Body and Soul" button on the right hand side of my blog to take you to the quilt show web site for further details.

The show is sponsoring the charity called Sketch, a Toronto organization creating opportunities for street involved and homeless people ages 15-29, to engage in the arts in a cross-discipline studio environment or in the community. The are holding a mini quilt auction of quilts that are donated by members of our guild. I am currently working on one piece and will likely make a second one. Here is a picture of my first piece. I have finished the quilting. I have used a wonderful piece of fabric designed by Phillip Jacobs and next plan to embellish it with beads. The piece will be about 12" square when finished.

So for those of you in the Toronto area, or if you are going to be visiting in November I hope you can come out and see the show.

Elaine Quehl Workshop In Full Bloom - Part 6

2011-04-16T14:38:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about the border treatment for the poppy wall hanging and I did a bit of experimentation today using some techniques from Seminole Quilting. Some of you may ask what is Seminole Quilting.

"The Seminoles are American Indians that live in the Southeastern United States in the States of Florida and Southern Georgia. Seminole quilting originated from the Seminole patchwork used for clothing by these southeastern Native Americans. In the late 1800s it was a long trip from the Everglades to trade for cotton cloth so women began sewing strips made from the fabric left on the end of the bolts to make what was know as "strip clothing". It involves sewing solid pieces of fabric together to form designs in strips. These strips are joined together to form decorative bands of fabric which are often used in skirts, blouses and other articles of clothing. Often quite a variety of colorful fabrics are used in a single garment." From article found on: http://www.eldrbarry.net/im/meg/semstyle.pdf

So I decided to try and make a diamond border here are my steps. I first cut 3 strips of fabric 1 1/2" wide and sewed them together.

Next cut the strip into 1 1/2" pieces and when you go to sew them you have to step them as I have shown in this picture. The tricky part here is once the two pieces are stepped, when you start to sew, if you start at the end you are sewing on a single thickness of fabric which often wants to get sucked into the machine, even with a throat plate that is designed with just the small hole for the needle. So what I ended up doing is starting each piece part way in so unfortunately you can't chain piece these.

Once it is pieced together and ironed this is what it looks like.

This is what the diamond border looks like with the poppy.

So this project is now on hold since my fabics are on back order. Hopefully I will get them within the month.

Elaine Quehl Workshop In Full Bloom - Part 5

2011-04-12T20:30:00.001-04:00

I was going through my stash of fabric and it's interesting when you think you have a decent stash and should be able to find all kinds of great fabrics to use for backgrounds and borders, but it turned out that a lot of the fabrics just weren't quite right. Either too light, the wrong tone, didn't fit well with all the hand dyed and batiks fabrics but I think I have found a combination that will work. I have two options. Now when you look at these pictures you will have to use your imagination as to how this would look like as a whole wall hanging. I only have fat quarters of them but fortunately they are Hoffman Bali hand dyed watercolours (style # 1895) so I can get more of them. Here is the first:

Here is the second one, and the only difference is the outer border fabric. I'm leaning towards the second one since that outer border fabric just looks a bit richer than the first one. What do you think?

This may help everyone to see the difference between the first outer border fabric and the second one since my camera hasn't done the best job of distinguishing between the two. I went and got the fabric samples from the Hoffman web site. So in the first version the fabric was called 571-Barbecue.

The second fabric was called 241-Sonoma.

Elaine Quehl Workshop In Full Bloom - Part 4

2011-04-10T12:17:00.000-04:00

I finally made some progress on the poppy wall hanging this weekend. I got all the applique fabric pieces off the design wall, labelled on the back, then ironed onto the muslin and the poppy cut out. It was very important when I took off each piece that I labelled it on the back so it was easy to know where it went back on and also I sorted them by each petal from A to K so I knew what order they had to go in. I think the numbering and making sure everything was in the right pile took longer then when I actually sat down to iron everything in place. That bit of organization was well worth the effort. Here is a picture of the poppy with all the pieces ironed on.

Now this looks a bit different from the previous picture because I did make some changes to selected pieces where either the contrast in fabric was too much or too little between adjoining pieces. So once this was completed the next step is to cut out the poppy from the muslin and this is what that looks like on my design wall.

So I'm now ready to addition background and border fabrics for this wall hanging.

I also have to tell you another funny story. While the poppy was up on the design wall before the pieces were ironed on the centre of the flower (the little green pieces from the seed pod) kept dropping off the wall. I get tired of hunting for those little pieces so I thought I will fix you, and iron you onto the brown seed pod piece ahead of time. So I got things set up on my towel that I was using when I was originally pressing the steam a seem onto the fabric to get all my pieces, and as I put the iron to the seed pod I realized that was a really dumb move. Why you may ask, well the brown seed pod also has the steam a seam on the back of it, so I just ended up ironing on my seed pod to the towel I was using. Fortunately it was only a cheap dollar store towel, I had lots of fabric left to make another one and I had a good laugh. Here's my decorated towel.

March Madness - 200th Post Giveaway Winners

2011-03-23T22:02:00.000-04:00

Thanks everyone who entered my 200th post giveaway. Interesting that this time I only had 5 people who actually entered. I don't know if perhaps last week being spring break people were away or perhaps the books and fabrics just didn't appeal to folks. My 100th post giveaway had 27 responses. So this one makes it for great odds for those who replied.

The winner of the Dresden plate template, the book Dresden Plates of Distinction and the fabric is Gina (AKA CatWhiskers).

The winner of the Quilters Home Fall book and fabric is Mary (AKA Needled Mom).

I also have some bundles of fabric here that I was going to have for a my choice giveaway for a favourite comment (or two). Since there are only 3 people left, Angela, Hetty and Elizabeth (AKA Sand and Sunshine), and all of you are my loyal followers each of you will receive a package of fabrics as a thank you for reading my blog and providing such wonderful encouragement.

Thanks ladies for participating and please send me your snail mail addresses. I have to get mailing envelopes sometime over the weekend, and then I will ge the packages out to you next week.

Enjoy the rest of your week and happy quilting.

Vicki

Elaine Quehl Workshop In Full Bloom - Part 3

2011-03-19T16:47:00.000-04:00

Happy National Quilting Day. I hope everyone has had a chance to enjoy working on a nice quilting project today or will get a chance this evening. I have finished cutting out the rest of the fabric pieces for the poppy wall hanging and the first version is up on my design wall. As a first attempt I do like it. As I look at it I do see a few places where I do need to make some changes to the fabric that I selected because there isn't enough contract between the pieces or too much, but not many. I will wait for a few days before making any changes just so that I don't make any quick decisions. This is what it looks like at the moment.

Once I'm happy with the final choices then the fun part starts, I have to take everything down very carefully from the design wall, because each peice has to be ironed on in order from A1 through K10, so this will likely be the challenging part in making sure that I don't mix anything up.

March Madness - 200th Post Giveaway

2011-03-15T21:41:00.003-04:00

The giveaway is now closed and the winners will be announced in a new post.

It's March Madness time and I have just reached my 200th post. Now I'm not into basketball, but I can relate to the madness part. First, it's been a very long, cold and dreary winter so I'm feeling the effects of cabin fever and looking forward to spring. It's just beginning to warm up here in Toronto and I certainly hope it continues to do so with no more surprises from Mother Nature.

Since this is a blog about quilting, let's talk about things that drive you nuts when it comes to quilting, this should be good for a laugh of two. I'm a true believer in laughter helping to cure what ails you, so I'm hoping that this entry can make you laugh and put a smile on your face.

So perhaps I will start out with a couple of "What was I thinking" moments that just happened recently. I place an order for some fabric about a month ago and was beginning to wonder what had happened to it, since normally it should take about 2 weeks to get here. I then get an e-mail just over a week ago saying that they got my order returned to them because my address was incomplete and I would be credited the cost of the fabric but unfortunately not the shipping (that's normal). So I go on their web site and check out what I had entered on my account page and I completely forgot to put in the street number for where I live - DUH!. That certainly makes it rather difficult to deliver anything when they can't find which location on the street to drop off the package at.

Early this year I was looking to buy some templates to make Dresden plate blocks and found some nice ones made by Ardco from precision metal that are window style which would allow you to audition fabric if you wanted to fussy cut the plates. The templates came in 6", 12" and 14" block sizes. The price wasn't bad so I decided to order all 3 sizes. When they arrived I look at the templates and I have this puzzled look on my face, the 6" template looks very small to me. Boy this would be a lot of work cutting these tiny plates, there is no way that they are 6". Then it dawned on me, DUH, the individual plates are not 6" in size, the finished block is 6" in size. How many times has this happened to you, when you read something, but you completely misinterpret what you read. So the templates that actually make a finished 12" or 14" block aren't bad, but for me, the 6" one is just to much fussy work that I will never bother to use it.

My last recent madding event was when I was working on the Secret Garden quilt. I typically measure twice, cut once. Well with that quilt, I think my motto should have been measure twice, then measure once again before cutting. Several times I ended up cutting blocks the wrong size, sashing the wrong size, and finally when I was sewing together my binding, which I cut at 2 1/2", the last piece didn't quite match. So when I measured it, for some reason it was cut at 2 1/4". My bag of extra scraps grew faster this time around.

On a final note if you wish to read an older blog of mind you can go here to read about the time I ended up quilting a file folder to the back of a wall hanging that was going to be a present for our friends in Hawaii.
http://felinesandfibrearts.blogspot.com/2010/05/bird-of-paradise-convergence-quilt-part_09.html

So time to show you what I have this time around for the March Madness giveaway. The first giveaway will honour the 6" Dresden plate template. You will receive the template, a book titled "Dresden Plates of Distinction" by Sharon Stroud and 4 pieces of fabric.

The second giveaway is a book titled "The Quilter's Home: Fall" by Lois Krushina Fletcher and 4 pieces of fall related fabric.

Both of these giveaways will be based on a random selection from the comments that people leave. To win one of these giveaways you must answer any one of the following 3 questions to share a little laughter with everyone. If you just leave a comment saying to count me in and not answer one of the questions then you will not be entered in the draw. If you have a preference for only one of the prizes over the other let me know and I will make sure your name is in for the one you want.

In addition I will have at least 1, maybe 2 bundles of fabric to give as my choice to the person(s) who make me laugh the most &/or puts the biggest smile on my face. I'm still picking those fabrics, so no photos but they will be good quality quilting fabrics. So here are the questions. You just need to answer one.

Question 1: What makes you mad when it comes to quilting in general and why? Is it all the ironing, running out of thread, figuring out the patterns, putting the quilt sandwich together, etc.

Question 2: What was one of the more recent things that happened to you that is quilt related that drove you nuts and why? (running out of fabric, the dog stealing your blocks, etc.)

Question 3: Have you ever bought anything, be it quilting supplies, fabric, patterns, etc. and then either when you got them, or even a year or two later, say to your self - What was I thinking. If so, what was it and what is weird, ugly or useless about this item now that you look at it.

The giveaway is open until Wed March 23rd at 6 p.m. eastern daylight savings time. Good luck to everyone and I'm looking forward to reading everyone's maddening stories.

Elaine Quehl Workshop In Full Bloom - Part 2

2011-03-13T19:45:00.000-04:00

Here is my progress on the In Full Bloom Poppy Wall Hanging.

What I ended up doing first on the big paper pattern was writing down in general terms which colour each petal was as a reference. So whether it was a light red, medium red or dark red, and the same with the orange and yellow sections, these references were marked. Next I went and made drew up all the pattern pieces on the steam a seam light, petal by petal. On each pattern piece I also wrote down the colour reference. Then when I actually worked on selecting the fabrics, I worked on one petal section at a time, pulling fabrics based on the colour references, and building the poppy a section at a time.

I found working this way was better for the way my mind thinks, than to draw out a pattern piece on the steam a seam, then go and pick a fabric for it, then cut that fabric out and build the petal linearly. Once the whole flower is finished I will review all the colours and there may be a few changes depending on how they all play together.

For those who read my previous post in the first 2 days of my posting it, you would have missed the links to Elaine's web site and blog so I'm reposting them here if you wish to go and have a look at her work.
http://www.equarelle.ca/ & http://www.elainequehl.blogspot.com/

Tammy's Secret Garden - Part 4

2011-02-28T06:10:00.000-05:00

Last night was Tammy's 50th birthday party and her quilt was all ready for her party. It was a wonderful evening, got to see some folks I haven't seen in a long time as well as some current friends so a nice evening even though I stayed up past my bed time. Tammy loved, loved, loved her quilt so I am very pleased with both my selection of fabrics and colours as well as the design of the quilt. Another success story. Here are pictures of the finished quilt.

Elaine Quehl Workshop - In Full Bloom

2011-02-17T20:42:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I took the In Full Bloom workshop from Elaine Quehl. This was also a very interesting one, I learned a lot, but definitely more intensive and required more brain power than the Tue one. Elaine went through how she starts with a photo of a flower and turns it into a pattern and that is suitable for using the fusible web and creating a wall hanging. By the way here is a link to Elaine's website: http://www.equarelle.ca/ and to her blog: http://www.elainequehl.blogspot.com/

You basically start with a 8 by 10 size photo and place one of those acetate overhead sheets over the photo. Then with a marker draw out the various sections that will become a pattern based on the light, mid and dark sections of the various colours of the flower. The easiest way then to get that enlarged is to take it to a copy place where they can do enlargements. The ones we were working with are about 36 by 30. The other method is to take the acetate and project it on an overhead projector onto a wall. Have a large piece of paper taped to a wall and draw it out. With that method you need a lot of patience and it is hard on your back and shoulders.

If I was going to make more patterns I would go with the copy place for the enlargements.

Once enlarged, you then have to sort out the petals, and do some numbering when furthest petal is the first one, then the second furthest petal is the second one, etc. The furthest petal is labelled A, and then within A, you have to determine how to the various sections A will be put down and number them from 1 through whatever. I think this process would take practice before you were good at it.

So once you have the numbering figured out , (ours was already done for us) tape it down to a table, then cover it with light weight muslin, and tape that down. the muslin should be about an inch bigger than the pattern. Then you need a fine point Pigma Micron pen (it is permanent and doesn't bleed), to trace the pattern as well as all the letter and numbers for the sections onto the muslin.

Once you have all that done, you have to flip the pattern, and draw all the outlines and renumber everything, because you need the reverse image for the steam a seam light fusible web stuff because it is cut out from the reverse image pattern.

Once that is done, you get your fabrics together, arranged light to dark and start figuring things out. Again this part will take practice. I got my first petal done in terms of placing it on the muslin. you don't fuse anything in place until everything is cut out and up on the muslin. She then said to take a photo and look at it on your computer to see if all looks good or if anything looks a miss. There may be some fabrics that may need to be changed. Once good, then you can start fusing everything down.

So this is Elaine's poppy quilt. I'm doing the poppy, but only one flower, and it is the lower flower.

Here is my muslin piece with the first petal done.

Once you have the whole flower done and fused, you cut out the flower from the remaining muslin and then you need to audition background fabrics. Once you find a suitable one, then the flower gets attached to the background fabric, and then the quilt sandwich is made, and you can start quilting.

Elaine Quehl Workshop - Surface Design Techniques

2011-02-16T07:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was at the first of 2 workshops taken through my Guild (York Heritage Quilters Guild) given by Elaine Quehl on Surface Design Techniques. Elaine currently resides in Ottawa Ont., but was originally from a small farming community in Waterloo county. As she said at her trunk show last night at the guild meeting she was born with the quilting gene having great grandmothers, grandmothers and her mother who were all quilters.

This class was about having fun and experimenting with various products to see if you actually liked them enough to invest the money. So I'm going to go through the products from least favourite to the ones I really like and will likely invest some money to buy a supply of my own to use in future projects.

The first product just wasn't my style and I didn't even bother to make a sample and they were called Tsukineko Inks. Next came Prismacolor Artist Pencils and Caran D'ache Water Soluble Wax Pastels. I'm putting these two products together since they give you similar or related results and often you can use the products together which is what I did in my sample. They are good if you are looking for a water colour effect on fabric and then would be great enhanced with thread painting.

The next product I really liked the effects you were able to achieve using it in stencilling but it turned out I was allergic to it. They were the Shiva Paintstiks which are an oil based product, fortunately i had my allergy meds with me. I had asked Elaine if there was another product like the Shiva that wasn't based on oil but unfortunately there isn't one. I guess the good thing was that didn't end my quest. I kept thinking what else could I possibly use to give me a similar effect. As I was working with the various products if finally dawned on me and Elaine also had Setacolour acrylic fabric paints. Normally these are just paints that you use to paint on fabric. But if you use them sparingly on a stencil brush, making sure that you remove most of the paint but working it off the brush onto your palette, then you can use this product for stencilling and get the same effect. Here is my sample using the Setacolours. So this product I'm thinking I would use.

The last one is foiling, where you take a medium and apply it to the fabric to provide a bonding agent and then iron on coloured foil. Again a very striking effect which I can see using in art quilts and wall hangings.

Tammy's Secret Garden - Part 3

2011-02-10T17:06:00.000-05:00

I'm now working on the quilting of Tammy's Secret Garden. I've got one row of the floral fabric done as well a one row of the abstract fabric done.

This is the pattern for the floral fabrics and it is quilting up quilte nicely. Below is a picture of the quilting for the abstract rows, but it is taken from the back since the picture from the front didn't come out all that great. The quilting thread blended too well with the fabric and was too hard to see.

I'm hoping that by the end of the weekend I will have all the quilting done and then that will just leave the binding.

February 1st

2011-02-01T22:01:00.000-05:00

So here in Toronto we are awaiting our first major snowstorm of the winter and it promises to be a big one. This is the monster storm that has been tracking across the mid west states causing havock and is expected to hit some 30 US states and from Ontario through Quebec and the Atlantic provinces here in Canada. This is one mighty big storm. It's suppose to start here sometime tonight and into most of tomorrow morning. Fortunately I will be working from home tomorrow and won't have to brave the nasty elements.

On a brighter note Hetty from Crafts and Stuff ( http://hettyscreations.blogspot.com/ ) has given me the "Liebster Blog" Award. Thank you Hetty for the lovely acknowledgment.

I'm not sure of it's origins but "Liebe" means "Love" in German so I guess this is the Quilt Lovers or Blog Lovers Award. One really nice thing about this award is that it is simply an award with no strings attached and it is meant to honour your fellow quilters &/or bloggers. I can play it forward and nominate 3 - 5 more bloggers for this award, but they must have fewer than 300 followers.

So I'm going to nominate Elizabeth from Sand and Sunshine ( http://sandandsunshine.blogspot.com/ ) for her informative posts and sunny disposition. She also has two kitty cats named Tiny and Sunny.

My second nomination is Marj from Eclectic Quilter ( http://eclecticquilter.blogspot.com/ ). Marj is one very busy quilter and as her blog title states her style is very eclectic. I love seeing what her next project is going to be. Marj also has a cat and his name is Chipper.

My third nomination is Mary from Needled Mom ( http://needledmom.blogspot.com/ ). Mary is another busy quilter as well as a busy grandmother, with the arrival of a new grandson this past weekend. I enjoy seeing Mary's work and her wonderful use of colour.

I also think I will leave the other 2 nominations up to you the reader as Hetty did. So if you want the award please feel free to take it as long as you have less than 300 followers and then you can nominate 3 - 5 more bloggers.

Finally a quilt update on the Secret Garden quilt, I'm still working on the stitch in the ditch sewing. I should have that completed before the weekend arrives and then I can start the actual quilting.

Blind Quilter

2011-01-27T20:47:00.000-05:00

I just finished watching this video news clip from the Texas Country Reporter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lfaSmDxVZQ

It is about Diane Rose a blind quilter. This woman has the right attitude and she's not letting anything get in her way from being a happy and productive individual. It's quite the story.

EQ 7 - Crazy 'Bout the Mouse? SewCalGal's EQ Challenge

2011-01-23T13:56:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago SewCalGal http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/2011/01/crazy-bout-mouse-sewcalgals-eq.html issued an EQ7 challenge to design something in EQ7 that E-Q the Mouse would like and then post it on E-Q The Mouse's Face Book Page. Yesterday I finished making a block with custom fabrics that any mouse I'm sure would love and it has been posted. It is called Cheese and Crackers. I realize that not everyone is on Face Book so here is my quilt block for E-Q the Mouse. If anyone is interested in designing something for E-Q the Mouse you have until the end of January. Details are on the link posted above.

Goodies in the Mail

2011-01-12T21:15:00.001-05:00

Marj from Eclectic Quilter http://eclecticquilter.blogspot.com/ had a giveaway at the beginning of the year and her cat Chipper picked my name from all the entries. Today in the mail the fabrics arrived and I'm now to proud owner of some lovely grape and fall motif fabrics. Here is a picture of Jordie checking out the goods. He gave it 2 paws up.

I meant to post about these little goodies but was so busy with finishing the Cherish Nature quilt that I just never got around to it. Back towards the end of the year SewCalGal http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/ had a challenge to use the EQ 7 online Bennie Harper lessons and I got this lovely charm pack of fabrics. Jordie also liked these and at one point he decided to take one of the charms off my sewing machine for himself. I guess he thought it was the perfect size for a cat :-). I did rescue it and all the charms are now safe and sound.

Tammy's Secret Garden - Part 2

2011-01-08T14:49:00.000-05:00

I got the top completed this afternoon and I'm pleased with how it turned out. When I was taking the picture I noticed I didn't hang it very straight though. I now have to put together a back for the quilt. I will use the rest of the purple fusions fabric but because I don't have enough I will piece it with some of the lilac fabric. I hope to get that done later today and then hopefully tomorrow I can work on getting the quilt sandwich made.

Tammy's Secret Garden - Part 1

2011-01-03T07:54:00.000-05:00

I've started on my first quilt for 2011. It's for my friend Tammy (fortunately she doesn't read my blog so I can post the progress on this quilt) who will be turning 50 at the end of Feb. Her favourite colour is purple and one of her hobbies is gardening so what better quilt that one that incorporates floral prints and purple.

I wanted a pattern that would showcase some of the bold floral prints that I have collected over the years and found one on the All People Quilt site ( http://www.allpeoplequilt.com/ ) but it was almost a twin bed side so I needed to resize it. I used EQ 7 to redesign the quilt and I also took digital photos of my floral fabrics and imported them into EQ 7 so I could actually see what the quilt would like. This is the end result and I think Tammy will like it.

I have all the fabric cut out and now am ready to start sewing. The top should come together fairly quickly which should give me enough time to get the quilting done for a Feb 27th deadline. In terms of quilting, I'm thinking of a flower motif in the rows that have the floral fabrics and either leaves or vines in the abstract purple and turquoise rows.

2011 New Years Goals

2011-01-01T15:23:00.000-05:00

I've done my review of projects that I would like to get done this year, and here is the list. As always it will be interesting to see what gets completed, what doesn't and what new projects come along.

I also listed my UFOs that have no commitments at this time for completion and this list is growing - no surprise here. I think as quilters it seems that everyone has the never ending supply of UFOs.

Feb: Tammy's Secret Garden – this is a 50th birthday present for a dear friend of mine that I have known for many years
Feb: Signed up for the "In Full Bloom" workshop with Elaine Quehl which is a flower wall hanging and I will be doing a poppy
Feb: Also signed up for a second workshop called "Surface Design Techniques" with Elaine Quehl
Mar: Finish Falling Splendor quilt
Spring: Create a Kaleidoscope quilt based on Ricky Tims techniques from his quilt seminar that I attended last fall
Spring - Summer: Create a landscape quilt based on the Picture Piecing techniques of Cynthia England
Jul: Another birthday quilt present for a friend
Aug: Create a small quilt for the silent auction for the York Heritage Quilt Guild 2011 Show in Nov
Sep - Oct: Create a quilt to enter into the York Heritage Quilt Guild 2011 Show in Nov
Christmas charity quilt: Using blocks from the Friday Block Party 2009

Any time:
One block wonder quilt ( I already have the fabric and am curious as to how this will turn out)
Start my own unique design of a Rhapsody quilt based on Ricky Tims techniques – the plan here is to have a completed design ready to start a quilt the following year, this in my books is a major project

UFOs that are outstanding: I would like to get a few of these off the plate this year
Hawaiian orchid pillow – hand quilting
2 wall hangings from Gloria Loughman’s workshop – colour is magic and layer by layer
Kaffe Fassett – colour in design diamond quilt
BOM: Drunkard’s Path Variations
Tranquil Moments quilt – quilting left to do

So there's my list for 2011. It will be interesting to see what new things will come in to tempt me and change priorities along the way.

Happy New Year everyone.

2010 New Years Goals - Final Review

2010-12-31T12:19:00.000-05:00

Another year is coming to an end. So it's time to take a look at what I had set out as my goals for this year, what was I able to accomplish, what didn't happen and what else came along. First is a list of my original goals and what happened with each one.

Jan: Baby quilt – animal party – completed
Feb: Art & Cold Cash collaborate quilt project – finish quilting on the black red and turquoise version so it can then be given to Bernice for beading – completed
Mar: Finish my Cats & Dogs quilt for our small quilt group – completed
Early Spring: Learn how to create paper piecing patterns from Hetty of Crafts and Stuff – completed
Spring: Finish Falling Splendor quilt – moved to 2011
Spring: Spend some time exploring some of the techniques from my thread painting workshop – moved to 2011
Christmas present: Flower garden lap quilt in purples – cancelled this project
Christmas present: Flower garden lap quilt in blues – cancelled this project
Christmas present: stack coin quilt in stone fabrics – cancelled this project
Christmas presents: Origami Stars and quilted birds (assorted) – cancelled this project
Christmas charity quilt: using blocks from the Friday Block Party 2009 – moved to 2011
Any time: Bird of Paradise Harmonic Convergence wall hanging (for me to hang in my office) – completed
Any time: One block wonder quilt ( I already have the fabric and am curious as to how this will turn out) – never started
BOM: Drunkard’s Path Variations – only 4 months completed

UFOs that are outstanding – all are still outstanding
Hawaiian orchid pillow – hand quilting
2 wall hangings from Gloria Loughman’s workshop – colour is magic and layer by layer
Kaffe Fassett – colour in design diamond quilt

So from this list I completed 5 projects, 1 is partially finished, 4 I decided not to go forward with, 3 I have moved to next year to be done and 1 just never got off the ground, but hopefully sometime in the future may get done.
In addition the following new projects happened in 2010:

May: second Bird of Paradise Harmonic Convergence wall hanging for our friends Joe & Kent in Kauai Hawaii to give to then as a thank you when we went to visit them on vacation last spring – completed
Jun: Hawaiian Sunshine - 9 patch lap quilt using Hawaiian fabrics done while on vacation in Hawaii – completed
Jun: Tranquil Moments - quilt top and back done while on vacation in Hawaii, quilting left to do
Sep: Batik Gems quilt for Jean's 75th birthday – completed
Sep: Attended Ricky Tims Super Quilt Seminar in Cape Cod MA
Dec: Cherish Nature quilt for Lyn's 75th birthday – completed

So in addition to the 5 completed projects from the original list I did another 4 projects in 2010. So over I have to say another successful year. So next I'm going to review what my goals are going to be for 2011 and then will post them hopefully on New Year's Day.
I wish everyone a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year,
Vicki

Cherish Nature - Part 8

2010-12-30T16:51:00.000-05:00

It's finially finished and it's a good thing since I meet up with Lyn for coffee tomorrow afternoon and I really wanted to get her this quilt to her in 2010 the year of her 75th birthday. I'm only a few months off from the actual date (back in September) but life has a funny way about it and I'm just happy to get it done in the same year :-). I know that Lyn will be thrilled to get it and will cherish it.

So this completes my quilting for 2010. Tomorrow I will post a review of what I actually did in 2010, comparing it to my original goals that I set out at the beginning of the year. Then on New Years day it's time to post a new set of goals and the adventure begins again.

Merry Christmas & Cherish Nature - Part 7

2010-12-24T21:07:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas Everyone. I hope everyone had enough time to get ready for the holidays and now there will be time to enjoy it with friends and family.

Yes its been awhile since I have posted but in part that has been because the quilting on the Cherish Nature quilt has gone slowly. It is mostly finished as of today, but I may have to do a little bit more around the inner border of the panel and I still have the binding to sew on. A few weekends were taken up getting shopping and baking done for the holidays and then this past weekend I came down with the flu bug. Thankfully I did take a couple of days off of work, rested, have recovered and all is good.

So here are some pictures of the quilting that has been done on the Cherish Nature quilt. I'm not sure how well this shows here, but I quilted all around the eggs and in the pieced border there is a stylized symmetrical feather like pattern. I have another shot from the back that will show the detail a bit better.

Then this picture is part of the Cherish Nature panel and I quilted around the lettering and the eggs. Below that where you see the small green squares is the inner border of the panel and that is where I'm going to need to do a bit more quilting. I think though I will first go and get the binding attached and then come back and see if I have any ideas of what to do in that inner border area.

So for those who celebrate Christmas I wish you a very merry and safe Christmas. Happy holidays to all and please drive safely and keep well.

York Heritage Quilters Guild Meeting - Hilary Rice

2010-11-24T21:29:00.000-05:00

Last night at our guild meeting the guest speaker was Hilary Rice from Nova Scotia: http://www.mestudios.ca/ As her web site claims she really is more a textile and mixed media artist than a quilter. As a child she loved both music and art but in high school had to make a choice and went into music. She married had a family, then her husband decided to change careers, and went from the corporate world and became an Anglican minister.

Being a minister, you and your family end up travelling a lot across the country to different postings. Hillary transitioned out of music and into art and took up weaving and spinning. In BC she was involved in various weavers and spinners guilds, but then her husband got posted to a town where there wasn't a weavers and spinners guild. One of the ladies from that church invited her to their quilt guild and she got introduced to quilting. That was in 2000. So she hasn't been doing it long. Also she really didn't start out in the traditional piecing type quilting, she did more landscape and art quilts almost from the beginning. She quickly experimented with embellishments, different fabrics and techniques. She then moved into using metal, glass, wood, etc, and burning things, melting things, etc. So it really evolved beyond quilting. I got some pictures of her work that she brought which is the art and landscape quilts that she has done. On her web site you can see more of her more current abstract work.

Cherish Nature - Part 6

2010-11-14T19:00:00.003-05:00

This week was busy finishing up the trapunto work and then getting my quilt sandwich put together. Here is a picture of all the little egg shaped pieces of quilt batting attached to the back of my quilt top. I first fused Misty Fuse to one side of some scraps of quilt batting. Then I cut out my egg shapes using an egg template that I made from a firm plastic that is used to make templates. Yes I did count how many eggs I have on the quilt, and there are 260. Once they were all cut out, the side with the Misty Fuse was ironed on to the back of the quilt.

I also decided to make a couple of the birds and bees as well a the larger eggs from the appliqué work into traputo as well. here is a close up of one of the bird quilt bats attached to the back of the quilt. I will have to say all this extra batting has made this quilt more heavy than normal.

I also came across a new method of pinning quilt sandwiches this summer and I'm finally giving it a try. Here is what the Pinmoor system looks like. They are just these little foam tubes that you use with straight pins to pin the quilt sandwich together. It's suppose to be easier than safety pins and not leave as large of a hole as does a safety pin. I have noticed on several occasions that safety pins can leave rather large holes in a quilt top that you then have to try and smooth out.

Here is what they look like on the quilt sandwich. Now I don't know about them actually being easier to use than safety pins. I think because they are something new it will take a bit of getting use to.

These are the type of safety pin system that I use which makes it easier to install the pins in the the quilt. I discover years ago the little plastic covers for the safety pins that makes it easier to grab a hold of them to pin them to the quilts. I ended up using both systems on this quilt since I didn't have enough of the Pinmoors. So I will let you know what I think of the new system as I work with them on this quilt.

Cherish Nature - Part 5

2010-11-07T21:10:00.000-05:00

I got the back pieced for the Cherish Nature quilt. I wanted to use up the rest of the blocks from the panel so this is what I came up with. The mottled fabric is the same one that went around the main birds nest on the front of the quilt. The brown fabric is Kaufman's fusion in espresso. So my next step is to work on getting all the extra layers of batting on the eggs done for the trapunto that I will be doing on them. Hopefully I will be able to get that finished during the week so that I can then make up the quilt sandwich and start quilting next weekend.

Cherish Nature - Part 4

2010-11-01T20:18:00.000-04:00

I have finished piecing the Cherish Nature quilt top. I now have to prep the egg borders for the trapunto work, and I'm also thinking that I might enhance some of the blocks that were appliquéd with trapunto. For example the 3 small blocks below the large bird nest, I'm thinking of doing some trapunto work on the birds and the bumble bees. I also still have to figure out the back for this quilt. I have some left over pieces from the panel that I think I would like to use up so I will have to play around with that idea.

Cherish Nature - Part 3

2010-10-22T20:06:00.000-04:00

Here is the progress I have made so far on the Cherish Nature quilt. Blocking the panel section only made a partial improvement to the bird nest section so I decided to cut the inner border strips wider. Then after I sewed the inner border to the bird nest centre I squared up that section back to the 17 1/2 inch square it was suppose to be with the inner border. When you look at the middle section you can see that the width of the inner border varies all the way around but I'm going to have to live with that since there is no other way around this mess with panels that are being printed off grain.

Next I'm planning on working on the appliqué that goes on the quilt. I've just put up the various pieces. I still have to cut some leaves that will be going on the teal sections on the left and right hand sides. I figure it will be easier to do the appliqué at this point than when the whole quilt top is finished and then I have a lot more fabric to manipulate.

York Heritage Quilters Guild Meeting - Melinda Bula

2010-10-19T22:22:00.003-04:00

This evening was the monthly meeting for the York Heritage Quilters Guild and tonight's guest was Melinda Bula from El Dorado Hills, California. http://www.melindabula.com/tc.htm

She gave an interesting talk and presentation. She is an artist by training but also loved to sew from a young age and eventually took up quilting. She primarily does machine quilted raw edge appliqué. One thing that Melinda stressed yet again is, do not be afraid to make mistakes because from those mistakes we learn and it is also where we develop our creativity. Perfection is not creativity. Kind of similar philosophy to Ricky Tims.

She did bring 3 quilts to show her actual work and they were spectacular. We saw Splendor in the Grass and below are a couple of close ups of it. All her work is made strictly from various fabrics and she doesn't do any fabric painting, marking or shading with other media.

Next is Monterey at Dusk with some detailed shots below.

And the last one that she brought is called Romance. This one looked like a tapestry, it was amazing.

Cherish Nature - Part 2

2010-10-17T18:56:00.001-04:00

Well I finally started on the Cherish Nature quilt, but I have to tell you this quilt is going to be a challenge. First the panel wasn't printed on grain. I had this problem when I did the baby quilt back at the beginning of the year. I'm beginning to wonder if this is a problem with most panels. The large bird's nest picture is approx. 15 inches square but it is almost 1 inch out from top to bottom and even the small bird and bumblebee squares are out. So what I decided to try is blocked these pieces to see if that will fix the problem otherwise I'm going to have some serious issues. The small squares aren't as bad of a problem since they are only being appliquéd onto the quilt, but the large bird nest piece is the centre of the quilt and if it's out then the whole quilt is out.

Then I had to make half rectangle triangles instead of half square triangles. Well I found out that you simply cannot cut 2 rectangles and put them right sides together sew down the middle, cut and expect to have 2 half rectangle triangles like you can with half square triangles. In the picture below the top block is what you get from doing it that way. As you can see the final shape isn't a rectangle. It comes out this weird dimension and I'm not sure why it does this, but it does. So it definitely needs to be paper pieced, and the example below it is the paper pieced method. So I have to make 7 more paper pieced half rectangle triangles.

Finally the egg fabric also wasn't printed quite on grain but at least it was only slightly off and since my egg borders are only 2 1/4" wide I don't think that if they are slightly off grain that it will affect the outcome of the quilt that much.

Given all the issues that I came across today I think I now know why it has taken me several weeks to get into the mood to do this quilt. I must have suspected that there were going to be issues with it and I didn't want to deal with then. Hey at least I got these ones figured out and I hope the blocking of the centre piece will fix it and I will have a square centre.

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-10-09T12:22:00.000-04:00

It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada and the colours here in Toronto are really starting to pop. As you can see by the pictures this week from my balcony the reds and oranges are really vibrant and there is more trees that have turned as compared to last week. The weather here is gorgeous with blue skies and the temperature is suppose to reach a high of 18C which is 65F for my American friends.

I'm actually heading up north about an hours drive to the Horsehose Valley area just north of Barrie Ont. for the weekend for some nice R & R. I won't be doing much quilting because I had to get a cortisone shot for a trigger finger in my left hand yesterday so I have to rest it for the next several days, no lifting heavy things and no excessive pressure like using a rotary cutter.

Fergie and Jordie will have fun with their favorite live in cat sitter Lynie. Yes we spoil our kitties and don't leave them with just a quick visit from the pet sitter.

So I hope for those who are celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend, you all will have a happy and safe time with family and friends. For those who aren't please still have a happy and safe weekend as well.

Organizing & Fall Colours

2010-10-03T21:45:00.000-04:00

Well this weekend didn't see much sewing but the sewing room got a much needed sorting, tidying and organizing. It really was past due and I realized that when I went to get the fabric for the Cherish Nature quilt project and initially couldn't find it. It turned out that it was buried under a pile of scraps, other fabric and papers. So it was time to get the sewing room organized for the coming fall and winter months. It's done now.

I have a bag of what I would now call "ugly" fabric that I will be giving to my guild's community quilters group who make quilts for charities, seniors homes and shut ins. It actually is fabric that no longer is my taste. There are more muted colours and small florals that I really don't have an interest in working with at this time. I also now have 2 bags of scraps to go to a quilter friend who can use then in her scrapy projects and if she can't use them, her daughter can put them to good use at her school. Finally I have some additional fabric that were like duplicates of stuff or bought for projects that no longer are going to be projects that I'm going to pass on to another quilter friend for her to use. By clearing out all of that, I was able to get all the piles of stuff put away and the sewing room is nice and tidy once again. I also cleaned my machine, a new needle installed and threaded waiting to start the new project.

The trees are starting to show some nice colour in my neighbourhood but they are not quite at their peak. Below are a few shots from my balcony of the trees and as you can see there are some lovely shades of red, orange and yellow against the green. Enjoy.

Batik Gems - Part 8

2010-09-19T20:28:00.000-04:00

The orange quilt is now finished and I even had a proper name for it - Garden in the Sun. Here it is all finished.

Here is what I quilted in the border. It is a picture from the back, the picture from the front didn't show the quilting very well.

Below I've attached pictures of what the butterfly quilting looks like which was done down the middle column. If you remember these were outlines that I created from images of butterfly tatoos.

So now onto the next 75th birthday quilt, Cherish Nature.

Ricky Tims Quilt Seminar - Part 2

2010-09-08T18:18:00.000-04:00

A couple of folks have asked me if I could give a few more details on the Ricky Tims Quilt Seminar and what I learned from it. So here goes. First of all we got a history of how Ricky got into quilting and his story of the process of how he went from your basic pieced block sampler (which I think most of us is where we likely started our quilting experience) to where he is now.

One of the main themes along the way was Ricky was willing to take a chance, take a risk and try something new. So what if it didn't work out the way he hoped it would, he still learned from the experience. Too many of us are afraid of taking that risk because it might not work. As Ricky said, you still learn from the experience, you improve your skills and in taking that risk you may also figure out a way of doing what it was that you wanted to do. As Ricky would say "Whoo Hoo!!! Below is a picture of Ricky's first landscape quilt that was done not knowing the so called "rules" of needing to add a seam allowance to the pieces that he cut. He experimented with different shapes and methods and when two pieces were giving him extra trouble he just steam ironed them to death LOL. After a good steaming the fabric fell into place. (sorry about the photo it's a bit crooked, but it was hanging crooked)

One other key philosophy that Ricky has is that time is your most important resource and you only have a finite amount of time so use it wisely. From this philosophy emerged the concept of when you have to be precise then you be precise, but where you don't have to be precise why worry about that 1/4" seam. Ricky is a master of figuring out ways of doing things that give amazing results yet you don't have to fret over every little detail. His "Caveman" quilting emerged from this and the use of paper piecing to get precision without the headaches. Oh did I just say an evil word to some of you, paper piecing. Don't fret, Ricky shows an easy method for paper piecing as well. Below is one of Ricky's Caveman quilts.

In addition Ricky shows you how to make his Convergence quilts, Kaleidoscope quilts and Rhapsody quilts (see samples of these quilts below). He also goes over design elements, as well as shows tips and tricks including how to piece curves without pins, setting in corners to make great looking borders, machine appliqué, machine quilting, piped bindings that save you time and look great, and some bobbin work. In case you are wondering you get a wonderful workbook that has all the key information and instructions that are taught in the seminar so you are not taking a pile of notes.

Libby Lehman teaches two sessions. She is a master quilter and one of the sessions she shows how she developed her Sheer Ribbon Illusion quilts. It looks amazing even complex, but once you know the secrets you are going to want to try it for yourself.

Alex Anderson is a renowned hand quilter and teacher and she demonstrates hand quilting techniques and she talks about quilting design. Here is one of Alex's hand quilted quilts.

I hope this gives everyone a better sense of what the 2 1/2 days are all about. They are packed full of great information, learnings and wonderful stories. I really hope that you all can get a chance to attend one of Ricky's seminars in the future. It is time and money well worth spent.

Whoo Hoo!!! Ricky Tims Quilt Seminar Two Thumbs Up!!!

2010-09-06T20:32:00.002-04:00

I'm back from a fabulous time at the Ricky Tims Quilt Seminar in Hyannis MA. This has got to be one of the most memorable quilting seminars/retreats/events whatever you want to call it available. It was a jam packed 2 1/2 days of information, demonstrations, tips, tricks, stories, laughs, and all around good times. I highly recommend this to anyone who is thinking about taking it and for everyone who hasn't to really look into it, because it truly is an amazing time to get away and have a great quilting experience. Ricky, Libby Lehman and Alex Anderson have created an awsome seminar and their skills and talents complement each other.

Here are just a few pictures from the event. Here is Ricky at the sewing machine, yes he really does sew his own quilts.

They had an area of samples and some of Ricky's design ideas on display which gave you a sense of the process he goes through in designing a quilt.

In addition there were lots of quilts on display, done by Ricky as well as others. What is interesting is that not only does Ricky do contemporary quilts but he also does traditional designs.

You also get to see the quilts up close and see the actual quilting. Ricky has some lovely quilting designs on his quilts. Yes he also quilts his own quilts.

So now I wish I had another week off so I can start trying out some of the new things that I learned. But it's off to work tomorrow and I still need to finish the orange quilt for the 75th birthday. I've got a few ideas brewing so stay tuned and once the 2nd 75th birthday quilt is finished (Cherish Nature), I'm thinking I'm going to tackle a Kaleidoscope quilt.

Ricky Tims Quilt Seminar

2010-08-30T14:13:00.000-04:00

WOW, I can't believe that it is almost here. The last time I posted about the Ricky Tims Quilt Seminar http://www.rickytims.com/seminars/ was back in April when my friend Sue from Long Island and I decided to attend Ricky's seminar in Cape Cod. So I'm leaving tomorrow around lunch time from work so that I can take it easy travelling to the Cape. I will stop over night in Rochester NY. Then Wednesday it's onto Hyannis, MA. The seminar starts on Thursday and goes through to Saturday. I will then head home on Sunday, again a stop over in Rochester NY and home on Monday, Labour Day.

So obviously no quilting while I'm gone. I did make some more progress on the orange quilt and got another column of flowers done but I didn't get to the butterflies yet. So that will be waiting for me when I get home.

I hope everyone has a great week and enjoys the Labour Day weekend. I'll let everyone know what I think of the seminar when I get back since I don't have a laptop and likely won't have access to a computer until I get back.

Batik Gems - Part 7

2010-08-24T19:15:00.000-04:00

I've been working on the flower quilting on the Orange Batik Gems quilt. I have half of the flowers quilted. Each flower takes up the width of two batik columns. In the length of two of these columns there are 7 flowers alternating between cone flowers and day lilies. Since there are 9 columns in total, I will have 4 columns of flowers, 2 on either side of the quilt.

Here is a close up of what the two flowers look like.

And a shot from the back.

For the middle column I'm going to quilt some butterflies. When I first went looking for butterfly patterns I didn't find anything very interesting on any of the quilting sites, pretty basic designs. I then decided to do a Google search on butterflies and I discovered that the Tattoo world has some very interesting designs. I was just looking for some unique outlines so I took some of the interesting tattoo designs and modified them into butterfly outlines. Below are some examples of the original tattoo designs and then the modified outlines. I think they will make for some interesting quilting.

EQ7 & Cherish Nature

2010-08-15T21:44:00.000-04:00

This past week was very busy at work including working late so I didn't get much much quilting done. I did manage to figure out the modifications for the Cherish Nature quilt and here is what it will looks like.

The inner section of half square triangle squares have now become half square triangle rectangles. The top and bottom ones had to be reduced in height while the side ones had to be reduced in width to accommodate the increase in size of the inner border that you see represented by the egg fabric. In reality the egg fabric requires 2 1/4" to ensure that the eggs don't get cropped. The original border was only 1" wide so by increasing it by 1 1/4" I had to reduce the inner half square triangle blocks since there were only a few of them. Otherwise the outer set would be completely off and much harder to fix. Also on the inner set there are various appliqués that will be added on top so I felt it really doesn't matter if these blocks were square or rectangle in shape.

My sewing machine came back from being serviced and it sews like a dream. This weekend I got all the stitch in the ditching done on the orange quilt so I can now move on to the actual quilting. I'm looking forward to starting that and hopefully work won't be crazy busy this week.

Pets on Quilts

2010-08-07T11:43:00.000-04:00

Today is the start of SewCalGal's Pets on Quilts Show. It runs until August 21st so you still have lots of time to post your entry into the show.

My entry is in the dog category even though technically the quilt has both cats and dogs. This is the quilt that I made as part of an exchange that we had in our small quilt group called "Quilter's Pets" this past year. The reason why we call ourselves "Quilters Pets" is because everyone has either cats and/or dogs. We drew a name of one of the members of our group of 8 and the common theme of all the quilts that were made was the stylized paper pieced cats and dogs. This was the group's way of getting an introduction into paper piecing since only a couple of the gals had done paper piecing and the rest of us were interested in learning. I had picked Kathi's name and she had a Bichon name Gillian who unfortunately had passed away the previous year.

After completing the basic cats and dogs, I was trying to figure out how to make this quilt special for Kathi given that Gilligan had recently passed away. I was looking on the internet when I happened to come across a paper piecing site called Silver Linings Originals http://silverliningsoriginals.com/index.html. Linda Hibbert creates some of the most amazing paper pieced patterns you will find anywhere and I found one of a Bichon. I really wanted to make this but initially was a bit intimidated because I had just started paper piecing and this pattern looked rather complex. I did buy the pattern and eventually over came the intimidation and actually made 3 Bichons for the quilt.

Here are some closeup pictures of the Bichons.

And here is a picture of the back of the quilt with some more doggy fabrics.

EQ7 - Update

2010-08-06T22:23:00.000-04:00

I got a call today that my sewing machine is ready to be picked up. All it needed was a good servicing. So tomorrow morning the shop opens at 10 and I should be there shortly thereafter. In the mean time I have been working on the quilting design for the orange quilt as well as trying to learn EQ7. I haven't tackled the quilt sandwich yet since it has been extremely hot this week. Today it finally turned cooler and it's suppose to stay this way for the weekend so you know what I will be busy with.

In the mean time I want to share with you my first EQ7 project. The Cherish Nature quilt that I also have to get made in the near future for another 75th birthday is being modified from the original pattern. I'm taking out the final border but also I want to increase the size of one of the inner borders so that the egg fabric will show a complete row of eggs.

As it currently is set up, that inner border lops off some of the eggs and I want whole eggs so that I can do them in trapunto. But this modification changes the measurements of the inner section which then will throw off the rest of the block measurements. So I'm thinking that I will reduce the size of the inner half square triangles since there are fewer of them and with the inner egg border still end up with the same final size. Then the rest of the blocks will just follow through.

So here is the initial quilt layout minus the final border in EQ7. It has taken me several evenings to get it to this stage. So it will be interesting to see how long the modifications will take. The most inner square is actually part of the Cherish Nature panel, and it is suppose to be the bird's nest. I just haven't had the time to photographic that fabric and prep it for EQ7 so I went with one of the other fabrics.

Batik Gems - Part 6

2010-08-02T19:26:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I did get the back sewn up but I didn't get the quilt sandwich made up. Instead I have been testing out some quilting ideas that I have for this quilt. On my drives into work I have been seeing some lovely gardens with orange day lilies, orange and yellow coneflowers as well as some gorgeous gladiolus. So I thought it would be nice to quilt a garden theme on this quilt. So here are my experiments with quilting flowers. First here is the cone flower. I also tried one with a more filled in centre but it was too much so I'm thinking I need to create one with maybe half as many zigzag lines in the centre and see how that looks.

Here is what one of the coneflowers looks like from the back on a beige fabric.

Next is the day lily and I really like how it turned out. There is also a picture from the back showing it on the beige fabric.

My last idea was to either have the gladiolus along the sides of the centre portion of the quilt or perhaps just have these flowers run along the border section. This picture is just from the back since the one I took from the front didn't turn out all that great.

Well it looks like my machine has to go in for a service. It started to act up and every so often it decides it wants to sew all on its own. I have cleaned it, checked various things and it is still acting up so best to take it in before it really has a meltdown.

Batik Gems - Part 5

2010-08-01T11:00:00.000-04:00

The quilt top is now finished and I'm very pleased with how it looks. I'm hoping that once the quilt is all finished I can find a place outside somewhere to take a photo to get a better take on the colours but this will have to do for now. So now I have to measure out the backing fabric, iron it all, get that sewn and make up the quilt sandwich. My hopes is that I may ge all of that done today but time will tell.

SewCalGal's Pet's on Quilt Show

2010-07-31T13:46:00.002-04:00

SewCalGal ( http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/ ) is hosting a Pet's on Quilt Show from August 7th through August 21st with all kinds of wonderful prizes to be given away by random number generator so everyone has a chance to win. There are several categories that you can enter including:

- working on quilts with any animal theme
- take photos of your pets on your quilts
- make a pet bed(s) or quilt(s) for an animal living in any local Animal Shelter

So get your pet quilts ready, and photos of your pets on your quilts since August 7th is just a week away.

Batik Gems - Part 4

2010-07-27T21:41:00.001-04:00

I started piecing the columns together this evening and I was still having some troubles with the batik fabrics wanting to go down into the bobbin area. I'm using a brand new Schmetz Microtex needle which are the extra sharp ones they recommend for batik fabrics because of their denser weave.

Wanda of Exuberant Color http://exuberantcolor.blogspot.com/ made a comment on part 2 of this series that she thought I could make a single hole opening with tape and a piece of cardstock. Punch a hole with a 1/8" punch and tape it in place between the feed dogs.

Well I found some heavy plastic that is used to make templates and I cut a small square from that. I didn't have a hole punch, but I used the pointy end of my seam ripper and placed a hole in the middle of the square. I then trimmed it down to size to fit over the area of the opening and yet allow the feed dogs free movement. I used some UHU Tac - removable adhesive putty to keep the plastic square in place and then tried out the new invention.

Here is the results. Even the little squares sewed up very nicely and no pull what so ever. So for the time being I will go with the make shift solution but I think a single hole opening throat plate will be on the wish list for future upgrades. Thanks Wanda for your great suggestion.

Batik Gems - Part 3

2010-07-26T20:28:00.000-04:00

Here are my finished 16 patch blocks. I'm very pleased with how they turned out.

So I started to place all the blocks and strips on my design wall and here is my final layout ready to sew.

I have to say one thing, I'm not very impressed with the design layout and math in the Batik Gems book by Laurie Shifrin. After I finished placing all the columns of fabric up on the design wall I noticed that the lengths were different from column to column (see bottom of above picture). At first I thought I either placed a strip of fabric in the wrong column or cut a fabric the wrong length. When that wasn't the case I went back to the book and I started to run the math based on what the various lengths were suppose to be in each column. Even after taking into account the different number of seams that can occur from column to column because some columns have 5 pieces, some 7 and some 9 pieces to join together, the end results were 49.5". 50.0" and 50.5" in length. Fortunately there was only one column that was 49.5" long and 4 each for the other 2 lengths so I decided to lengthen one fabric in the short one and then when I finish sewing them all I will trim everything to the 50.0" length. I'm not sure but there may be some other math issues in the pattern so I will wait until I'm finished and then send a note of to C & T Publishing to let them know of the issues.

This kind of stuff is really annoying because I don't know about you, but I first think that I did something wrong. Then after checking all of that and you go back to find out it's the pattern that is screwed up, then it is even more annoying because you have paid good money for the book and these things should have been checked and tested. So there went more than an hour of my time that I could have used for sewing. I guess tomorrow I will start sewing the pieces together since I'm exhausted at this point in time and I don't want to make and sewing mistakes.

Batik Gems - Part 2

2010-07-23T21:39:00.000-04:00

I got the majority of the fabric cut for the orange quilt with the exception of the borders. Yesterday I started sewing the 16 patch blocks and came into some problems. The 16 patch blocks are made up of small 1 1/2" squares of fabric which proved to be a sewing challenge. My machine kept wanting to swallow up the fabric into the bobbin area. I even tried a starter piece of fabric then did the chain piecing with the little squares of fabric and still ended up with numerous messes to clean up (see picture below).

My problem is that the throat plate has a wide opening because of the zigzag stitch and I would need to buy a special plate that has a small diameter hole that would only allow the needle in. Well that's another expense of about $45.00 and after spending plenty on fabric for the 2 quilts I'm going to be making I figured there has to be another way.

Sure enough, paper piecing. Thanks to Hetty of Crafts and Stuff
http://hettyscreations.blogspot.com/ she showed me earlier this month how to convert regular piecing blocks into paper pieced patterns. So I drafted up my pattern and I ended up doing 2 test runs before getting things right. So now I have a perfect 16 patch block that is ready to sew into my quilt. I just have 8 more to make. So Hetty I have a bunch of 1 1/2" squares of fabric with no use. Would you care to add them to your "tiny scrap block" project? Let me know.

Also I want to say thank you to Marina and Daryl at Quilt Inspiration http://quiltinspiration.blogspot.com/. I entered a giveaway at the begining of the month and won 2 issues of McCall's Quilting and it's great since I don't have these issues. So when I take a break from quilting this weekend I'm going to be browsing through my magazines.

Batik Gems - Part 1

2010-07-19T07:46:00.000-04:00

Well I now have a second project to start that is also kind of scheduled for completion in September. This one is also for a 75th birthday. My mom is in a nursing home with dementia and initially was having a hard time because she would misplace her things and then would assume that people were stealing her things. Fortunately she made friends with one of the residents, Jean who doesn't have dementia and has been able to help mom find her misplaced belongings. They have become really good friends and it has helped mom adjust to life in the nursing home as well as get her involved with various activities so she isn't just sitting in her room staring at the TV all day.

I found out that Jean will be turning 75 in September and her favourite colour is orange. So I decided that I would also make her a quilt based on one of the patterns from the book Batik Gems by Laurie Shifrin. The pattern is called Vertical Vision and in her book she did it up in various tones of purple.

So here are my choices for this quilt. The orange fabric with the flowers will be the border fabric. The selection of blues to greens will be the small accent blocks along the border as well as the small accent strips throughout the main body of the quilt.

Then here are the various orange fabrics that I found to go with the border fabric. Many are batiks, but a few are not.

So I guess I'm going to be busy for the next couple of months making 2 quilts for 2 - 75th birthdays in September.

Cherish Nature - Part 1

2010-07-11T20:53:00.000-04:00

I'm starting the preliminary work on a new quilting project that is going to be based on Moda's Cherish Nature fabric and the pattern that they developed for this fabric. I found out a little while ago that our cat sitter Lyn is going to be 75 years young this September so I wanted to make a special quilt for her to commemorate this major milestone in her life. I've got 2 months which I hope will be doable.

I initially saw this fabric when several of the gals from our small quilt group went on a shop hop back in May and one of the gals bought a kit to make this quilt. The fabrics were gorgeous. Now I'm going to be modifying the pattern because first I wasn't able to get all the fabrics that they had recommended since I was trying to find them after they had been out for a while and second the size of the finished quilt would be too large for me to do the actual quilting on my machine. Here is a picture of the original pattern.

I'm not going to be adding the final floral border which will reduce the size of the quilt by 12" both in width in length. In addition I will be changing the small green border to the egg fabric that is on the brown background. The half square triangles will be slightly different in that I don't have the green bumble bee fabric, and in its place is the aqua bumble bee fabric. I have the dark aqua sponged fabric but not the light aqua one so in it's place I have the natural sponged fabric. I do have the brown swirl fabric.

Below is a picture of the full panel that portions will be used for the quilt. I'm thinking that the other parts I may use on the back with Kaufman's fusion fabric in espresso.

The one thing that I wanted to do on this quilt is a trapunto effect on the egg borders. This time I had a different idea from what I did with the cardinals on my Christmas quilts from last year. I decided to take Misty Fuse and fuse it to some batting. Then using an egg shaped template, cut out egg shaped pieces from the batting. Here is my test using the aqua egg fabric.

Next I placed the egg shaped pieces of batting with the Misty Fuse side down on the wrong side of the fabric over top of where the egg shapes are.

I folded over a piece of parchment paper and ironed on the egg shaped pieces of batting to the fabric. When I ironed, I made sure to iron both sides to ensure a good bond with the Misty Fuse.

This is what the pieces of batting look like after they have been ironed onto the back of the fabric.

Next I put together my regular quilting layers of back fabric, batting and top fabric.

This is a picture from the top of the layers.

Then I free motion quilted around the egg shapes. This is just a rough sample and there is some puckering because the fabric is not sewn down to anything else so it was moving a bit while I was quilting. The egg in the lower right hand corner turned out the best.

This is a view from the side and as you can see the eggs do indeed have a dimension to them.

EQ7 - Just Arrived

2010-07-05T21:11:00.000-04:00

I just received the new EQ7 software today and have been busy installing it and getting things set up. It's been quite some time since I have used EQ (Electric Quilt). The old version I have is 5 and I haven't touched it in several years. When I saw that they were releasing version 7, I read several of the reviews from people like SewCalGal: http://sewcalgal.blogspot.com/search/label/EQ7 . I realised that I needed to get the latest version. There are some very interesting things that it can do and I'm now on the learning curve starting from the bottom. It will be interesting to see how long it will take to progress from the basics to the more advanced features so I will keep you posted of my adventures with EQ7.

The next few days will be a good time to explore since we are in the midst of a heat wave and even though we have window air conditioners in the apartment, the sewing room faces west and it's just way too hot and muggy to be quilting in there. The heat wave is suppose to break by Thursday and hopefully I will be able to get back to my quilting then.

Bird of Paradise Convergence Quilt - Part 7

2010-06-29T21:41:00.001-04:00

I finally finished sewing the binding on my Bird of Paradise wall hanging quilt. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to sew any embellishments (like beads) on it or just leave it as is. I think I will likely just hang it up for the time being and enjoy it and if something strikes me I can always add it later.

An update on the Hawaiian fabric quilt, I have most of the quilting done in the main blocks of the quilt. That will be finished before the weekend. Then I just have the borders left to do but that will have to wait until after the weekend since I will be away this coming weekend.

Hawaiian Fabric Quilt - Part 1

2010-06-20T22:09:00.003-04:00

I finished all the stitch in the ditch on my Hawaiian fabric quilt and have just started on the quilting in the blocks. I've got a leaf wreath design that is going in the large floral Hawaiian fabric blocks. I've done this in a verigated thread in shades of yellow, orange, red and teal which goes well with the colours in the fabric. In the border which is the same print I plan on quilting palm trees but I won't be starting those until all the blocks are finished, hopefully next weekend.

In the small yellow / orange square I'm quilting a starfish.

In the green rectangles I'm quilting two turtles but I have to show you what they look like from the back since the green thread I selected matches that fabric very closely and in the picture you really can't see them. (You can click on the picture for more details)

Then in the teal rectangles I'm quilting a pair of dolphins. Again the thread I selected matches the fabric and you can't really see the quilting in the photo I took so I'm showing a picture from the back. There are also two teal borders across the top and bottom of the quilt and I plan on doing a row of dolphins in each of those borders.

Here is a picture of the quilt top that I posted earlier in case you were wondering what the whole top looks like. This was posted as part of my Hawaiian Vacation posts.

Global Quilt Project

2010-06-15T19:46:00.005-04:00

I received a very interesting e-mail today from Amy Allen of Global Change. Global Change, Inc. is a non profit organization that provides safe, clean water and basic sanitation to people living in extreme poverty throughout our world. They are currently raising funds for a village in the Central African Republic (CAR). A few ladies have been taught quilting and they are really enjoying it. These ladies have sent the organization 2 beautiful squares and they are hoping to put theses squares together with other squares from around the world to make a beautiful quilt that will be auctioned off and 100% of the proceeds will go to a new well for a village in Central African Republic and 2 latrines for a school in CAR.

This is one of the squares from the African ladies and it is exactly 12 x12 inches.

This is the second one and it is exactly 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches.

By your participation in this project these ladies will have a real sense of ownership in this project and for the positive impact it will have in the village where they live.

They are seeking quilters from around the world to donate a square or squares to this project. The colors or patterns need not follow the same design as the 2 squares the ladies sent from CAR but they should be either 12 x12 inches or 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches. The finished quilt(s) will be auctioned in conjunction with World Toilet Day...Yes, "World Toilet Day" which is held on November 19th. They would like to have the donated pieces by August 31st in order to have the quilt(s) pieced together and to allow time for showing and promoting this fund-raising project. For more information about the organization and the projects they fund check out http://www.globalchange.me/Global_Quilt.html. Your donation will help stop the spread of disease due to lack of clean water and basic sanitation. People live more productive lives when they do not have to fight disease.

Here are the blocks that I'm sending to Amy. They are from my Friday Block Party block stash and I'm glad to see that they will be part of a worthy cause. The first three are 9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches and the last 4 are 12 x12 inches.

Hawaiian Vacation 2010 - Part 5

2010-06-14T22:12:00.005-04:00

I've been back from Hawaii for a few days and still recovering from jet lag. Yesterday I did manage to get the stitch in the ditch quilting done on my Hawaiian quilt so now I have to decide what I'm going to do in the rest of the quilt. I have some ideas and will be sorting through them over the next few days. As you can see I decided today to do a face lift to my blog. I've now installed the new editor since it now has spell check and it now comes with new features including some new page designs that you can customize. I think I'm going to have to either find or capture a new header picture for my blog.

So below are some more interesting plants from Kauai.

This is a Heliconia Rostrata.

This one is a Heliconia Psittacorum.

Banana tree.

Papaya tree in bloom with young papaya fruit.

Soursop.

Lychees, they were just coming into season and boy did they taste great.

Cacao tree, where chocolate comes from.

Jade Vine Flower.

Another Jade Vine Flower.

Coffee bush (or small tree).

Passion Fruit Flower & Vine.

Hawaiian Vacation 2010 - Part 4

2010-06-08T19:01:00.000-04:00

Well I've only got a couple more days left of the Hawaiian vacation since we leave on Thursday afternoon so I'm trying to make the most of it. I've been taking a bunch of pictures of the wonderful plants and flowers. I still have a bunch more to take. Below is a picture of a breadfruit. It apparently is a starchy type vegetable that is used like potatoes or rice in the tropics. I haven't had the opportunity to try some since the ones on Joe's tree aren't quite ripe yet.

Joe and Kent also have an amazing collection of orchids. Unfortunately quite a few have finished blooming or have yet to start blooming. The one below is called Lady of the Evening and apparently it gives of a lovely perfume at night.

Here is my Hawaiian quilt project. It is a disappearing 9 patch pattern with a Hawaiian print as a focal fabric. From that focal fabric I selected a green, yellow and turquoise that matched the leaves and hibiscus flowers to round out what I needed to create this pattern. So I now have to piece together a back. I'm thinking I may use some of the Hawaiian print with the yellow and turquoise. I should be able to get the back put together today and then can at least start the quilting tomorrow.

Hawaiian Vacation 2010 - Part 3

2010-06-04T20:24:00.000-04:00

This is view from the second place we are staying at in Kauai in the town of Kapaa. The time share is right on the ocean and we can hear it from our lanai.

These are a couple of pictures of the actual beach area.

I also have finished sewing the back for the sarong fabric that I'm planning on doing the whole cloth quilting on.

The sarong fabric will be placed width wise for final display.

Tranquil Moments - Part 2

2010-06-02T18:50:00.001-04:00

I got the top finished on the tranquil moments quilt top. I did make some changes from the original pattern. As I was sewing I realized that the finished size was going to be a bit larger than what I could handle quilting on my sewing machine. So the last to sections, the outer brown row on the left hand side and on the top and the aqua row next to it I have left off the quilt top. I will use these on the back since it will have to be partially pieced any way since the brown espresso fabric won't be wide enough just to use as it comes off the bolt. I'm very pleased with how this turned out and the way the colour combination works. I'm going to have to wait until I get home before I can work on the back because I'm going to need to order some more of the brown fabric.

Here is a picture of the quilt top outside where I figured the lighting would be better but today it's been a bit windy with the trade winds so it's had to see the full top.

This is a picture of the top indoors. The colours are definitely more true to life in the outdoor version.

Needle Turn Applique Class with Nancy Chong

2010-06-01T14:11:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the needle turn applique class with Nancy Chong from Pacific Rim Quilts. http://www.prqc.com/index.htm

The class was an instructional one on the techniques for doing needle turn applique. This is the technique that is typically done on Hawaiian quilts as well as Baltimore applique quilts of which Nancy does both. She is a wonderful teacher, very patient and I learned a lot in her class. If anyone is interested in either Hawaiian quilting or hand applique I highly recommend that if Nancy Chong is in your area that you take a class from her. Below is my practice piece from class. It was a full day class but still we didn't get all of our shapes completed in terms of sewing them, but we did learn the 5 basic shapes, straight line, outer curve, inner curve, point (mountain) and reverse point (valley).

If Nancy isn't in your area any time soon, she also has 2 videos out, one on Hawaiian Quilting and the other on 2 Fabric Applique quilts and in both of these videos she covers her methods for doing needle turn applique. I did buy both videos so that I would have something to review when I got home form vacation. I will have a look at them later on and will do a post to let you know what I think of them.

Tranquil Moments - Part 1

2010-05-30T13:38:00.003-04:00

Here is the pattern for my next project. It comes from Hoffman Fabrics website and it's one of their free patterns called California Rain.

I'm changing the colour combination from the jewel tones against the brown to a series of aqua coloured fabrics and for the brown I'm using Kauffman's Fusion espresso fabric. I'm going to call this quilt tranquil moments. I'm still working on piecing together the various strips together and should be able to start piecing the quilt together in another day or two.

Hawaiian Vacation 2010 - part 2

2010-05-29T12:59:00.006-04:00

Yesterday was a trip to Kapaia Stitchery an amazing quilt shop in Kauai. I took a few pictures of some of the new quilts that are hanging in the shop. Some of the quilts that I showed on my blog 2 years ago are still hanging up in the shop because they are either traditional Hawaiian quilts or landscape quilts of the area so I didn't both to take them again but you can see them here: http://felinesandfibrearts.blogspot.com/2008/09/hawaiian-inspiration.html

I also found some fabrics for the back of the whole cloth quilt that I'm going to make from the hand painted sarong.

Here is a picture of a turtle batik fabric that is custom designed exclusively for Kapaia Stitchery. It is gorgeous.

And here are some pictures of lovely Hawaiian fabrics.

Well off to enjoy the weekend. I hope my friends in the US have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I'm taking a hand turned applique course on Monday which I'm looking forward to and will fill you in on how that went.

Aloha - Hawaiian Vacation 2010

2010-05-28T13:17:00.002-04:00

Aloha from Kauai Hawaii. We arrived Sunday evening after a very long plane flight, very tired but very glad to be here. This picture was taken Monday morning from our balcony where we are staying at The Cliffs on the north shore of the island.

We had our breakfast on the balcony and were joined by the Brazilian cardinal. They are not afraid of people and are very polite little birds unlike the brassy Magpies that tried to horn in on breakfast.

Below on the grown were a couple of Hawaiian Nene. It is the state bird, it is a goose and it is actually related to the Canada Goose.

On Tuesday we had a 10 minute downpour in the morning and then the sun came out and I got a picture of this beautiful rainbow off our balcony.

I've already done a little shopping at a local place that sells high end hand painted sarongs. They are done on much heavier rayon than the usual ones which are light wight and very lose weave. I'm planning on turning this into a whole cloth quilt.

So today it's off to Kapaia Stitchery, an amazing quilt shop to do some fabric shopping.

Bird of Paradise Convergence Quilt - Part 6

2010-05-21T19:26:00.003-04:00

I got the one wall hanging finished today that I need to take with me on vacation to Hawaii this coming Sunday. Yes I'm off to Hawaii for a much needed vacation. I get to see Joe & Kent, 2 great friends who were instrumental in getting me back into quilting 2 years ago after a botched carpal tunnel surgery and this wall hanging is a thank you gift for them. If you are interested, you can see what I actually made back then on my very first post at http://felinesandfibrearts.blogspot.com/2008/09/my-return-to-quilting.html. I'm very pleased with how this wall hanging turned out.

Here is a shot of part of the back so you can see some of the details of the Monstera leaf quilting.

I've not added any thread painting bird of paradise. I did have enough time to work out the kinks on that yet. The one that I showed when I removed it and got rid of the dissolvable stabilizer it turned very stiff. So I need to play around some more as to how I make them before I'm ready to use them in a quilt.

I'm going to be doing some quilting while on vacation but I'm not sure what just yet. I'm taking my camera with me and will be taking pictures. I will have limited access to the Internet but I'm not sure if I will get a chance to post while I'm on the island of Kauai. In the mean time I hope everyone has a great time quilting and I will be back in touch mid June.

Bird of Paradise Convergence Quilt - Part 5

2010-05-09T17:57:00.003-04:00

I've been quilting the first of the 2 wall hangings and I decided to try something that was a bit different from my usual ways of quilting. I wanted to use the shape of the Monstera leaf (see picture below) as my quilting pattern and I wanted the size of these leaves to be relatively life like. They typically grow from 12" to 36" in size and given that the size of my wall hanging is approx. 31" square this would mean that there wouldn't be that many of them. Also I wanted them to overlap one another like they grow in the wild and I wanted the design to go to the edge of the quilt as well so that in some cases the leaf image would only be a partial.

So here is the end result. If you click on the image you should be able to see the details as well I have a close up of the upper left hand corner .

I really like the way this quilting turned out.

I'm also working on some thread painting that will become some applique that will be added to this quilt. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do the same with the dark one. The thread painting is done on Pellon's 541 Wash-N-Gone stabilizer. This stabilizer has the look and feel of the tear away stabilizers and handles quite nicely. It's not as gummy as the Sulky wash away stabilizer which looks and feels like plastic. I'm still trying to figure out how many layers are best, 2, 3 or 4, or perhaps go with 2 and use an actual tearaway stabilizer on the back.

Here's a funny story. When I was quilting the veins of the leaves, I was working on my 5th leaf and all of a sudden my machine started to make funny noises and then it went back to normal. Then it made some more funny noises and then back to normal. This happened 4 times until I realized that somehow a file folder that was sitting at the end of the sewing machine cabinet had moved while I was manipulating the quilt top and eventually lodged underneath my sewing machine and was being stitched to the back of the quilt. At the time I didn't think it was too funny because I had to stop my sewing, get the stitch ripper out and extract the file folder from the back of my quilt. At that point I figured it was time to go do something else and come back to the quilting another time. Here is the remaining evidence on the file folder, which now I can look at and laugh but at the time it happened I was not amused.

Bird of Paradise Convergence Quilt - Part 4

2010-05-01T20:16:00.003-04:00

I got the borders on the 2 Bird of Paradise Convergence quilts today and they are now starting to take on their own looks. I've looked at both of them and so far I still can't pick a favorite. I like the first one which has the wonderful teal Moda botanical marble fabric which is no longer being made. I love this fabric for its wonderful depth.

The second one has a nice richness to it with the darker border and the deeper orange batik fabric.

So do you have a preference at this point in time?

Bird of Paradise Convergence Quilt - Part 3

2010-04-25T16:22:00.005-04:00

Here is version 2 of the Bird of Paradise Convergence quilt. I had better luck with this one in terms of getting the seams aligned and I do believe that a major part of that had to do with the way I cut my strips.

In the first version I did my cutting as per the instructions in Ricky Tims' book where you have your 2 sections of fabric with 2 pieces of fabric sewing together, the seam line is at the bottom and the right sides of the fabric are together - see picture below. You then cut narrowest strips to widest strips from the middle to the outside of the 2 sections of fabric that are laid out on your cutting table.

I had a hunch that with cutting such long strips that it is likely that there is some inaccuracy in cutting and I wanted to try a different method. So here are my fabrics laid out ready to cut as per the book. These are the wrong sides of the fabric, with the seam line at the bottom.

I then took the printed fabric on the right hand side and flipped it on top of the teal fabric and made a stack of 4 layers of fabric. The edge on the right hand side gets trimmed so that all edges are even.

Then from the right hand side I cut my strips narrowest to widest.

This is a key part in that you have to make sure that you flip the pieces in the correct order where the two inside strips are the narrowest one of each colour. Then next to the narrowest strip you place the second narrowest strip of the same colour.

You continue to work out until the fabric is back to the original layout before you started cutting. After interchanging the strips and sewing them together, I repeated the same process for the second set of cuts.

When I did this, I found that the seams aligned much closer and there was only slight variations. So next I have to decide on my borders and then figure out my applique design.

Cats and Dogs - Part 13

2010-04-21T15:57:00.004-04:00

Last night was the York Heritage Quilters Guild meeting and our small quilt group Quilter's Pet was quilter of the month. We presented our Cats and Dogs quilts as well as one additional quilt. The presentation went very well but the best part was I got to take my quilt home with me that Jennifer M. made for me. The name of the quilt is "Fergie and Jordie's Fabulous Friends". Here is a picture of the front of the quilt. Jennifer used some gorgeous batiks in purple, blue and turquoise hues. She included some cute paper pieced mice in the corners since Fergie (and sometimes Jordie) loves to play with her furry little mice.

Here is a close up of the apartment block and there is Fergie and Jordie looking out the window at the birds as they fly by.

Then on the back of the quilt Jennifer paper pieced a portrait of Fergie and Jordie. I love my quilt and Jennifer did an awesome job of making it special and personal. Thanks Jennifer!!!

Bird of Paradise Convergence Quilt - Part 2

2010-04-19T20:33:00.002-04:00

As I was prepping the fabric for this wall hanging I still couldn't make up my mind which orange fabric to use so I decided that I'm going to make 2 versions of the Bird of Paradise Convergence. In the end I will keep one and the other one will be a gift for my friends in Kauai Hi., of which I'm going to be visiting later in May.

So I have finished the convergence portion for version 1 and it looks pretty good as long as you don't get really close to it. I forgot when I made the purple and turquoise dragon wall hanging last year that matching up all the seams was quite the challenge because of all the different consistencies of fabric that often get picked for something like this. I'm not sure if it would be easier if all the fabric was from the same line and things would go together easier.

So once I have the second convergence top completed I will start working on the applique pieces that will go over top of certain sections of the wall hangings. There will also be a dark teal border that will go around the wall hangings.

Bird of Paradise Convergence Quilt - Part 1

2010-04-13T19:22:00.004-04:00

I've made my decision for my next quilting project. Two years ago this spring I was in Hawaii and I got some wonderful fabrics. Last year I used some of the fabrics in a wonky star quilt for the Bushfire project in Australia for the relief efforts for those affected by the bush fires.

I also had plans to make a wall hanging for myself and have yet to do ever do it. So I'm taking the advise of a dear quilting friend Donna (aka Quilt Pixie) who said that this year I really should make something for myself and not keep pushing this project to the back burner. So I have pulled out my fabrics for my Bird of Paradise Convergence Quilt. I'm leaning on going with the brighter orange fabric but I may end up cutting both orange fabrics and testing both in the design to see which one really is the best.

In addition I have this lovely Bird of Paradise fabric that I will likely use for the back. I'm also planning on doing some applique work on the front with the Bird of Paradise as the main theme so I may actually use some of this fabric for that purpose if my other applique design of a Bird of Paradise doesn't quite do it for the front.

I likely won't actually get started on cutting fabric until the weekend, but will do the prep work (ironing and starching) before.

Another long time friend and recent quilter Sue from Long Island and I have decided to attend the Ricky Tims Quilt Seminar being held in Hyannis, MA at the beginning of Sept. The seminar also includes Alex Anderson from HGTV's Simply Quilts and Libby Lehman a well known machine quilter and author of Threadplay. http://www.rickytims.com/seminars/

I did a blog search to see what other people had to say about these seminars especially after my disasters last fall and it sounds like these were a good hit. I didn't find any negative comments and I think it will be a nice change just to be able to go and listen to 3 experts and not have to buy a ton of fabric, then drag a sewing machine and a ton of supplies. It will be a refreshing change from the regular quilting seminars/conferences and fun to get together with a friend that I haven't seen in awhile.

BOM Drunkard Path Variations - March & April Blocks

2010-04-11T16:05:00.002-04:00

I got my March and April BOM blocks finished today. March's block is called "Way of the World" and I don't know if I really like the colour combination that I selected for this block. I think it needs more contrast but it may look better once it is around other blocks. I'll wait and see before making any decisions to redo this one.

April's block is called "Around the World" and I really like the contrast of this block.