Working on some Christmas quilts

I spent part of my day working on some Christmas WIPs in the hopes that I might get them done in time for The Holidays.

In From The Cold

First I finished putting the borders on my In From The Cold quilt. I am so pleased with this quilt and I can't wait to quilt it! It will hang in my dining room.

Christmas Sampler

Then I pulled out these exchange blocks from my quilt group. I think we exchanged these in 2014.

I had 8 blocks and I want a square wall hanging so I had to make another block. I added the block in the upper right hand corner. Now I am working on the sashing and then I will add a border. This one will hang above the couch in the living room.

I'll share them again when they are done but I thought it might inspire some of you to pull out some WIPs or to work on some Holiday projects.

 

 

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Giving to Charity

My quilting friends and I have been working for the past 6 months or so on some Charity quilts and I wanted to share them with you.

I found out about a home in our city where young women who are going through a hard time can go when they are pregnant or just had a baby.  They have another group of women donating quilts for the babies and I thought it would be nice to be able to do something for the young moms.  So we are making quilts for them to put on their beds and use while they are staying at the home, but that they can then take with them when they are ready to leave.

There are 15 beds at the home so for our first donation we have dropped off 15 quilts.  We wanted to make sure all of the girls get a quilt. 

There are 9 of us participating in various ways in the making of these quilts.  Some donated fabric from our stash, some donated orphan blocks, some pieced the tops, some quilted, some did the bindings.  We all chipped in to buy the batting.  Some of us even had some quilt tops that we didn't want anymore and donated those.

It was fun to see how Alice put Betty's orphan blocks together with Rita's fabric! It's been a great group project and a lot of fun getting rid of some of our old fabrics and UFO's at the same time.

We will be making more and bring them as they are done so that when new girls come to stay at the home, they get a quilt too.

My mom and I dropped the quilts off earlier this week.  The ladies who work at the home were so happy with our donation.  They are going to let the girls pick their own quilt, so they can have something they like.

It feels so good to give! I highly recommend it if you can do it too.

A Princess Quilt

When my friend saw the Princess quilt I made last year, she put in an order for me to make one for her new grand daughter. So we talked earlier this year and she said she wanted it for the baby's first birthday.

Her birthday is today and she is having a tea party with her friends and I hope she will love her Princess Quilt!

When I laid out the blocks to assemble the top, my 8 year old was quick to point out that Tinkerbell is NOT a Princess! But I just had to include her in the quilt because my daughters were big Tink fans and this little girl is only 1, so we don't yet know who her favourite will be! Right?

This quilt is the size of a lap quilt. So she will be able to use it on her bed when she graduates to a toddler bed. That's what Grandma wanted.

I bought the patterns for the blocks from the Etsy shop called Chi Town Stitching.

The hardest part was picking the fabrics.

I am sure she will love her quilt for a long time.

 

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Retreat!

I went on a quilt retreat last weekend! Oh it felt good to get together with some Quilty friends to share patterns, tips and tricks, recipes, but it felt especially good to get some work done on some WIPS.

First I finished the Vintage Quilt I've been working on for the king size bed we got last Spring.

Vintage quilt

I used fat quarters from the Nordika fabric line by Jeni Baker for the blocks. The background is a solid white, and the border is a grey Modern Background Essentials by Zen Chic. I'm looking forward to quilting it!

I also started putting my In From The Cold quilt blocks together and got the first borders on too. But I didn't get a picture so I will keep you in suspense until the top is finished.

Here are a couple of the quilts my friends finished while we were there.

Betty's Tablecloth Quilt

Elaine's Ribbon Box Quilt

Charity Quilt

There were many more great projects but these were the only ones I got pictures of.

It's always good to have a little vacation from home and get to work on some sewing for me. It was just a great pick me up. And I got some great inspiration from my friends as well!

 

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Fall Table Runner

Fall has finally arrived so I thought I would share this table runner I finally got out of the WIP pile.

Fall table runner

I made this runner with scraps a few years ago and had brought to my moms for her to quilt. For some reason it never got quilted and she found it a few weeks ago when she cleaned out one of the closets in her studio.

I thought it would be a great opportunity to practice doing some custom work with the computer designs on the Statler.

Close-up of quilting

I picked a feather block design for the blocks, a leaf design for the sashing, my favourite orange peel for the corner stones and some beautiful maple leaves for the border.

It took me all day to quilt this little table runner. The longest part I think is picking the designs but then trying to get them to fit inside the spaces takes a lot of time and patience as well.

I am really happy with the end result. It was great practice and I have a nice new table runner for the fall.

I am linking up to TGIFF over at Crazydutchbirdquilts

 

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Back in the Swing of Things

I realized yesterday that I started this blog 5 years ago.  I just checked and it was 5 years ago, this week actually.  So I have decided that since it's the fall, a time to get back into routines and new schedules and such, it would also be a good time for me to get back into blogging.  

I hope I still have a few followers out there willing to read my posts and check out my quilting projects.  And since I have changed things in my little world of quilting as I have started quilting some quilts for others, I hope you won't mind me sharing some of my customers quilts on here too.  Some of the quilts I have quilted over the past few months have been fun and I would love to share them with you.

Alison's "Aviatrix Medallion"

Kaaren's "Stopped Me In My Tracks" Quilt

Of course you can always find me on my Facebook page and on Instagram where I post stuff regularly as well, but I will be making a real effort to post here more regularly and share with you some of the fun stuff I will be working on for me and my customers.  

So to start, how about a fabric pull... I am participating in a mystery quilt with my Guild.  Here is my fabric pull for the Mystery Quilt.

Fabric pull

Banner

Last summer my Uncle came for a visit and asked me if I would made a banner for him.

He does woodworking and woodturning.  He makes beautiful bowls, pens, cremation urns, and feather boxes.  You can check out is work on his website www.dansden.ca

He lives in Kingsville, Ontario and often goes to fairs and markets and sells his items there.  He wanted a banner to hang in front of his table where he displays his feather boxes.

Our ancestors are Métis and my Uncle wanted his banner to look like the Métis flag.  The flag is basically a royal blue background with a white infinity sign in the middle.

So I took some Kona Ocean fabric and quilted the pattern called "Kindling" on it, which looks like woodgrain.  And then I machine appliqued a big infinity sign in the middle and his name on the bottom, as well as the words "Métis Artist".  I bound it with Kona Ocean.

The longest part was doing the applique around all the letters, but I am really pleased with the result and so is he.  There is an extra 10 inches or so on the top that lays on the table and then the rest of the banner hangs over the edge of the table. I think it was a great idea! We make a good team my Uncle Danny and I.

WIP Wednesday February 10 2016 - Aviatrix Medallion

So in my last post I promised you more pictures of my aviatrix medallion. I thought WIP Wednesday would be a good day to post about this quilt since it is a work in progress and probably will be for a while.

The week after the retreat, I trimmed the centre block down to the 14.5" square and added the first border which is made up of grey HSTs.

Then I got the itch but I had 2 other commissioned quilts to work on so I had to put the aviatrix aside.

I finished one of the 2 commissioned quilts and decided I deserved a little selfish sewing time, so I added the second border to the quilt.

That is where I am at now. Once I finish the other commissioned quilt, I will continue to work on this beauty. It is so much fun, and I am really liking the outcome!

Linking up to The Needle and Thread Network.

 

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Happy 2016

Wow! How is it already February 2016?

I have so much stuff to share with you, I honestly had a hard time deciding where to start. I went to a retreat in January. I always love going to a retreat at this time of the year. It allows me to have some much needed "me time" and I think it's a good way to start off the New Year, a good way to recharge my batteries and figure out where I want to go with my quilting.

During the month of December, I got inspired to make a quilt using the pattern called In From the Cold by Kate Spain and some Christmas fat quarters by Riley Blake, all of which I had bought at my LQS the year before.

So I had made one block during the Christmas holidays as a little teaser.

First block

So I knew I wanted to make the other blocks while at the retreat. And here they all are:

Blocks - In From The Cold

I still need to embroider the steam on 2 of the cups but I am so excited about these blocks!!! This quilt is going to be so much fun!

I also started my next big project while at the retreat, the aviatrix medallion. I have been planning this quilt for months. It is my reward for having worked on the three quilts I made for my friend's kids last year.

Fabric pull for Aviatrix Medallion

Before the retreat I took the time to cut all of my colourful fat quarters and made a little fabric chart as well. This made things go faster and smoother. At the retreat I managed to piece the centre block.

Aviatrix - centre block

I have done more work on it since I am home but I will keep that for another post.

Instead, I will share with you some photos of some of the projects my friends worked on while at the retreat.

 

 

 

 

 

There were so many others that I didn't get photos of. As you can see, we were very productive!

I promise I will be back soon with progress on my aviatrix medallion. I also have a finished quilt to show you and some machine quilting to show you as well. I think this is going to be a great year full of new adventures in quilting, especially in machine quilting. I can't wait to share them all with you!

 

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