There's a mystery on PEI !

It's been a few years since I participated in an on-line mystery quilt  sew-along.  Time has passed and I remember how much fun I had so I decided to follow along with the PEI Modern Quilt Guild who have just started a mystery on September 1, so if you are interested you can still check out the details, choose your fabrics, and jump right in. Here is my fabric selection for the mystery sew-along.  A fat quarter bundle of Amy Butler "True Colour",  for background I chose Kona "Robin Egg" and for accent I chose Kona "Pepper.  

There is a traditional option in a few different sizes as well as the modern . The first clue requires participants to make half square triangles.  I am working on the modern option (end result is a 72" x 72" quilt) which requires 112 x 3 1/2" hst blocks. 

I chose to make my hst blocks using the Easy Angle Ruler by Sharon Hultgren.   Here's a video that shows how to use the ruler. I sped up the process by layering two strips together carefully and cutting four at a time.  I always sew a sample or two and make adjustments if needed,  to make sure my seam allowance is perfect before chainpiecing.  Accurate sewing is a must with this method. With this method, there is no drawing of lines or trimming. Just clip the little bunny ear and you are done! 

There is a link-up each month, with prizes!  I am looking forward to the next clue on Oct. 1.  

Hope you get time to do something quilty today! 😊

The Travelling Wedding Quilt

I can finally, finally, show you the wedding quilt I have been working on since January.  My nephew, my Quilty Sister's oldest, got married this past weekend in Alberta and several members of my family made the trip from Nova Scotia to share in the joy. My nephew and I are very close as he spent 4 years in Halifax during his undergraduate studies at Dalhousie and we shared many good times.  I gave the toast to the groom at the wedding.  He is a wonderful man and his new bride is perfect for him.  I know they will have the best future.  So....on to the quilt....the wedding colours were purple and green and white and the new bride shared a few of her favourite quilt patterns with me and we ended up choosing this one....."Ups and Downs" by Sarah Fielke from her book, "Handquilted with Love"  This quilt pattern consists of  sewing together 900 - 3 1/2" squares with 100 of those squares being half square triangles.  First make the HSTs and combine them with  print squares and  background squares to make a 9 1/2" square nine patch block.

then combine 4 of those to make an 18 1/2" square block

Make 25 of these and set them 5 across by 5 down to result in a 
90 1/2" square quilt top. 

The fabrics chosen are from the "Lottie Da" collection by Heather Bailey.  The background fabric is my old faithful, Kona Snow.  For the first time, I have prewashed all the fabrics before sewing to see what kind of difference that makes.

 As for the quilting, this is screaming for me to quilt top to bottom free motion feathers in the background.  I will probably outline the coloured rows 1/4" away with medium purple thread and then not sure what I will do inside the coloured areas. It will come to me when I get this under the needle and I am anxious to get at it.  

Now for the backing....The groom really like this design (click on link   https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/moda-bake-shop-12941415/layers-love-quilt-4792441912) I sewed up the strips of hearts and took them to the wedding so that the wedding guests could sign them with their well wishes.

I am now sewing together the three heart strips with the signatures  and adding more Kona Snow to surround and make it big enough.  I hope to get the basting done in the next few days and start the quilting.  I will be mailing it to Alberta as soon as it is finished.   So, in the end, this quilt will have been from Halifax to White Point Beach Resort, to Halifax, to Edmonton, to Canmore, to Calgary, back to Halifax for assembly and quilting and then finally to its new home in Calgary. 
And since I had lots of leftover fabric I decided I would make a lap quilt for the Mother of the Bride.  We had not met in person but had made a great connection online and since she is a quilter, I knew she would appreciate receiving a quilt. She just loved it!  I quickly sewed up this little top with lots of area to showcase some quilting.  I still have fabric left.  A baby quilt someday maybe??

 I had an amazing time in Alberta and needless to say I visited a few quilt shops while there.  I will save that for another time.

Hope your Sunday is relaxing and filled with quilting! 😊 

"Sew Me"

Just had to show you how I quilted up my awesome Round Robin that my talented NSQBQ buddies made for me.  You can read about it here in case you missed my post.  I am so in love with this quilt.  It has such special meaning and is filled with so much thought and love. 💝 It's a quilter's quilt for sure.  I call it "SEW ME" because my friends certainly captured me in fabric. It just needs a binding, which will be similar to the two black print inner borders and then I will hang it over my sofa for all to see and admire.

For the backing, I raw edge appliqued the leftover blocks and fabrics onto a length of "Nummers". The quilting will keep them well attached.   The girls even saved me the selvedges so of course they had to get added.  I threw in an orphan snail block to fill up space.  

I can't wait to show off our Round Robins as well as a sampling of our quiltmaking at our first ever NSQBQ quilt show being held as part of Nova Scotia Fibre Arts Festival, in Amherst, October 13 and 14.  Hope you stop by and say hello. 😉

Oh Baby!

Although I have three adult kids, I am not a grandmother as yet.  That's ok with me, I can wait.  But in the meantime, my Knitty Sister doesn't mind sharing her beautiful grandson with me from time to time.  Little Weldon is 21 months old and a going concern.

 
He will meet his new baby sister in September and I have been sewing in anticipation.  I gifted a new quilt for the new addition at my niece's baby shower last Sunday.  
I had purchased a jelly roll of Darling Little Dickens by Lydia Nelson for Moda fabrics last fall to have on hand for the next baby.  I cut the jelly roll (except for the strips that had white backgrounds) into 2 1/2" squares and made 16 patch blocks.  I then used Kona Snow for the alternate squares. I purchased some yardage in the same collection to use for the outer border and used a solid light green for the 1 1/2" inner border and binding .   I also pieced the backing from leftovers. It measures 48" x 56"

Then, the fun part!!  The quilting.  I quilted in free motion on "Petunia", my Pfaff Powerquilter 16.0.  I used Aurifil 50wt  colour #2024.

It's always a pleasure for me to make things for people I love. 💖

Done and Done!

My two latest finishes are golden oldies.  I hauled out my stash of  UFOs and decided I needed to finish up a few of my languishing tops.  The first one, I call "Houses Galore", was a quilt along hosted by Terry of Terry's Treasures from 2012. Hi, Terry!  
 5 years, not bad.  But it's not my oldest UFO! 
 It took me only a few hours to baste and freemotion quilt this up and now it is on my finished pile. 

45'" x 57"

a quilty photo shoot in windy Pictou, NS

The second UFO was a scrap quilt too. I used the leftover square-in-a-square blocks from a quilt that I made for my husband's brother.  This quilt top was circa 2008. I had lots of fun slicing all the blocks and inserting 3/4" strips into each block.  It's hard to see the quilting in the photo.  I simply quilted a large crosshatch over the entire top. 

51" square

Hope you get time to work on some older, almost forgotten projects.  It sure feels good to get them finished up.  👍

NSQBQ Round Robin 2017

I need to share with you what a wonderful day I had yesterday.  Just in case you don't already know, I am a member of the Nova Scotia Quilting Bloggers Quartet (aka NSQBQ).  The other three members are Sheila of Sheila's Quilt World and Lesley the Cuddle Quilter and Karen of KaHolly.  We all originally met through our blogging and since we all live in Nova Scotia, from Halifax to Plymouth to Port Hawkesbury to Isle Madame, it was a must to meet up in real life, which we did about 4 years ago and since that time we have been getting together to visit a few quilt shows during the summer and also each year, over the winter we work on a challenge project.  Over this past winter we worked on a Round Robin Challenge.  Each of us made a 12" pieced square and also included a few fabrics and then a 6" border would be added by each of the other members.  Here is a pic that Karen took just before I saw my result returned.  Do I look excited?  Youbetcha I was.  

Here is the end result...Isn't it just fabulous!!  Lesley added the first round..a wonky star shape with lots of negative space..she knows how much I love that!   The arrow border was added by Sheila.  She mentioned that she added it just before I published my arrow pattern. How in sync are we??? The final border was added by Karen.  Just fabulous!  pik-up-stik.. a favourite of mine.  She said that she was low on text prints (another fave of mine) so she made up her own.  Such a sweet touch!

I am so impressed with all  the personal touches. My friends have certainly captured me in fabric.  I can't wait to get this quilted up.  

Here is Lesley's end result:...

Karen made the first round...all those sweet little pieced scrappy spools and a pieced section as well and I made the next border, an intertwined addition.  Sheila made the fabulous outer border of hand stitched quilty sayings with pertinent appliques. I love the four corners with friendship stars. Her work is so amazing.  Lesley was over the moon with her result. Suited her to a "T"

  
Next up....our wonderful hostess for the day - Sheila -  who provided us with the best lunch imaginable and who shared her lovely home for the unveiling of our quilt tops. 

I added the first star border in the hopes of Sheila doing some of her amazing hand quilting and the next border, the flying geese in graduating sizes with cornerstones was added by Karen.  And finally, a sawtooth star border in all its scrappy glory was added by Lesley.  So pretty! So Sheila!


And lastly but not leastly, we have Karen's end result in the Round Robin.  The first border of meticulously hand appliqued hexie flowers was added by Sheila and next up, a border of colourful nine patches with black and whites was Lesley's contribution and finally, I added a raspberry kiss border in black prints with a background of a fabric with crosses that Karen had gifted to me.  Karen is all about colour!

and a group shot

Now we need to get these quilt tops quilted up and ready to show. 

 And now is a good time to announce that the NSQBQ will be participating in the Nova Scotia Fibre Arts Festival this year.  The festival runs from October 10 - 14 in Amherst, NS.  The NSQBQ Quilt Show and Sale will be held at the Amherst Curling Club on Prince Arthur St. on Friday, Oct. 13 from 10 am til 5 pm and also on Saturday, Oct. 14 from 10 am til 3 pm.  We hope that you will come visit and check out all our quilts.  I hear there will be a free giveaway being held as well!  

Hope you have some awesome quilty friends in your life.  I am a very lucky person to have these three lovely ladies in mine.  😊

Two finishes for me

Two more projects are getting crossed off my list today.  The first one is a throw sized quilt called "Island Geese"  I made it in anticipation of selling it.  So, fingers crossed that I will sell it and then I can buy more fabric! 😊  

Background fabric - Kona Snow 

Geese fabric - various blue and purple/lavender Kona solids

thread - Aurifil 2024 (white) 50wt 

completely free motion quilted by me on my Pfaff PowerQuilter 16.0 

48"x 56"

The second project is a baby quilt made for  the newest addition to my extended family, a great-niece, due to be born early September. The colours are very soft pastels and hard to photograph.  I enjoyed quilting this one so much.  It only took me two days to do it!  That's a record for me! 

Background fabric -Kona Snow

Prints are Darling Little Dickens by Lydia Nelson for Moda

thread -Aurifil 2024 (white) 50wt 

completely free motion quilted by me on my Pfaff PowerQuilter 16.0

After finishing up these two I have started on a UFO from 2012!  

Hope you had time today to get some quilting done!😊

Two secret sewing reveals

I can now show you two of the secret projects that I worked on earlier in the year.  The first one is a wedding quilt that was gifted to my nephew and his bride-to-be.  It went from Halifax to Vancouver.  I would have loved to present it to the happy couple in person but it just wasn't in the cards for us to be present at the wedding in July.😞  We were already committed to another nephew's wedding the first of September and two trips out West in one year was just not doable financially for us.  I just made up the design of this quilt as I went.  I just started cutting strips and squares using my Accuquilt cutter. The quilt was made with batiks and hand-dyed fabrics in shades of pink and blue, the bride-to-be's favourite colours.   A tone-on-tone off white was used for alternating rows.  I free motion quilted loop-de-loops using white thread.  I forgot to take a pic of the back which I pieced using leftover squares and strips from the front. 
  

"Pink and Blue for You"

The second secret project that I worked on was designing the 2017
Row x Row quilt for my local modern fabric shop, Patch Halifax.  I was very honoured to be asked and I must say, I was a bit intimidated.  What a challenge for me!  I set to work with the official theme of "On the Go" in mind and decided on showing how our harbour ferries work so hard, going back and forth between Halifax and Dartmouth, bringing people to work, school and play on both sides of the harbour.   In case you don't recognize the landmarks, the striped smoke stacks on the left are located at Tuft's Cove generating station, Dartmouth and are seen from all around. In the centre is my rendition of one of our ferries and the buildings on the right are Purdy's Wharf , iconic Halifax waterfront office towers.  My first job, when I was 17, was located in the original wharf/pier where it was filled with barrels and boxes of salted fish.  I worked for a fish exporter and had an office there where I prepared shipping documents for the salted fish that was shipped to the West Indies. I spent 7 years doing that job.  Loved it!   

"Back and Forth"

I drew up a paper-pieced pattern for the smokestacks and made applique templates for the remainder of the shapes.  The applique is applied with a fusible and then stitched around the edges.  For the background I free motion quilted lots of swirls (the stitching design is called Jester's Hats) and some waves at the bottom and then my sweet, talented friend, Karen Chase of Sugar Free Quilted Designs, came to my rescue again and wrote up the official pattern that will be a free pattern at Patch Halifax from June 21 to September 5 as part of the Row x Row Experience. 
Check out this link for all the rules and participating shops. 

I have one more secret project but that is really a long-term secret.
Another wedding quilt but probably won't be ready to show you until later this year.  

I hope you had time to get something quilty done today.      

A Nova Scotia Crown of Thorns

I am sure that this quilt has a story. I love a quilt that has a story.   It has been at the back of a cupboard in my home. It was given to me several years ago with little detail.  It has a Nova Scotia Heritage Quilt Project label on it so I know that someone cared for in its present state when that happened, but before that , I have no idea.

 I do know, from inspection, that it was a much larger quilt than it is now.  It appears that a few rows of blocks were cut down and a new binding attached.  Other than that, the only other thing I can say about this quilt is that it is definitely a Nova Scotia quilt.  The colours, the design, the quilting, the batting all appear to sing Nova Scotia.  The turkey red has rotted away in every piece that it was used.  The muslin is thin and the batting, whatever was used, is wadded in many spots.  All this being said, it may be a bit of a wreck but it is very warm and soft and cuddly and still deserving of a place in my quilty home.  Hopefully, some day, I will be able to have a good idea of when it was made.  Any guesses?

Crown of Thorns

Are you a lover of antique quilts?  Will our new quilts last forever?  Where will they end up?