Productive January

 Staying home sure helps with knocking quilty projects off your list.  Add being retired to that and you can get stuff done!  My quilty goal for January was to get 5 small quilt tops, in various stages of completion, sewn up and basted.  Then I was planning on quilting and binding those 5 quilts in February.  Happy to say that I am way ahead of schedule.  Four of those tops are now completely finished (except for labels) and I am working on the last one today.    I can only show you three because two are surprise gifts.  

First up is my Christmas Strings....made from the leftover strips from my tree skirt and 12 blocks from my last post.  

44" x 54"  quilted in free motion.  

Also,  a small version of "Confetti Quilt" by Stitched in Color   

40" x 40"  paper pieced.  

.....and the back.....

back panel pieced and designed and given to me by Andrea @3rdStoryWorkshop.  I have lovely friends!  

And lastly......

41" x 49"  "Lupin Love" free motion quilted 

here's the back....

I will show you the remaining 2/5 after they are gifted.  

I don't know what is up for February yet.  My list is never ending as I am sure yours is too.  Take care 💖

My Christmas 2021 sewing

Around the end of October 2021, my niece asked me to make a Christmas table runner for her new dining table.  That just inspired me to make 5 quilted table runners.  2 everyday ones and 3 Christmas.  I also made a set of pillowcases, a cushion, 2 placemats and a potholder.  I was on a roll!  I also made myself a quilted Christmas tree skirt and a jelly roll rug for my daughter for a Christmas gift.  Oh, and also, I participated in the #Quiltmasspectaular block-along (12 blocks in 12 days) so now I have a head start on a Christmas quilt for 2022.  You can see the blocks here.  I used Alison Glass Christmas fabrics for those.  

made from leftover strips from a Christmas quilt I made a few years ago.  Flip and sew onto batting

I used a charm pack of Cotton and Steel Holiday Classics to make this runner.

For this runner, I used leftover blocks and strips from the tree skirt that I made for my niece a few years ago.  free motion quilted

I made my niece four placemats from this fabric a couple of years ago so I used up the leftovers to make this set.

I saw this design online and just loved it.

Made this from the leftovers of the table runner 

two burrito pillowcases.  

My Christmas tree skirt.  I used a 10 degree wedge ruler to cut the pieced strips of Alison Glass fabrics.  I quilted in free motion,  40" diameter.  

A jelly roll quilt using Ruby Star Speckled for my daughter

   

Hope you are getting lots accomplished lately.  It's a good feeling. Take care 💖

"Elements"

 And now for something different....I made a quilt with colours I don't care for.  I was attracted to the design mostly and decided to challenge myself to work with the Kona colours suggested by the pattern Elements by Ariga Mahmoudlou, a free pattern by Robert Kaufman.  I now kinda like it since adding the striped binding and so I will probably love it once it comes out of the dryer.  

I had a lot of tension issues while free motion quilting which resulted in some thread nests on the back (which I may or may not pick out)  because my machine needs servicing, but I kept plugging on to get it finished even though my stitching is not the best in areas.  My machine will be dropped off soon to get a check up.  

56" x 69"

I used fabrics from the front to make the improv backing

Hope you had a great day and got some quilting done.  On to the next project! 😊

A Wedding Quilt

So happy to say It's Finished!!   I can finally share photos of the wedding quilt I made for my nephew, Andrew and his beautiful bride, Ashley.

 The wedding date was set for July of 2020,  The fabric was purchased by Ashley, in Calgary, at Out of Hand quilt shop, on October 19, 2019.  It was brought to me in Halifax, by my sweet sister, Andrew's mother, and I got to sewing the top and had it all sewn up by late January of 2020.  The plan was for me to bring the completed top to Calgary for the wedding and have the wedding guests sign best wishes on fabric squares which I would bring back to Halifax with me and sew them into the quilt backing and finish it up...easy peasy ...then we all know what happened.  Uncertainty, cancellation (twice) and then finally on July 4, 2021 the wedding took place in Calgary (without me!) .  The signed blocks were mailed out to the wedding guests, returned, and then they were brought to me and the final result you can see below.  

THE PATTERN -  "Maypole" by Suzy Quilts (chosen by Ashley)

THE FABRICS -  Kona White, Indigo, Metal, Titanium and Pink

DIMENSION    -  100" x 106"

QUILTING        -  all in free motion by ME

BINDING          -  Kona Indigo 

THREADS         -  matching colour thread on top (Aurifil 50wt) and 

                               light grey (Aurifil 50wt) on bottom 

BATTING           -  Hobbs Heirloom 20/80 in white 

I marked my quilting lines with a hera marker and the quilting was easier than I thought it was going to be.  Because of the weight of this quilt, I took my time so as not to aggravate my shoulder issue.  It took me about a week to quilt it.  

                                                                     

For the backing, I made a 40" x 44" miniature of the front design.  I then surrounded that with the 6" squares signed by the wedding guests.  All that was surrounded by Kona Titanium to bring it to size.   

                                                                  

So, there it is. It was really hard to get a good photo of it.   It weighs a ton.  I don't think it will fit in my washer!  

I have made two other family wedding quilts that involved having the wedding guests write their best wishes to the bride and groom. An awesome wedding keepsake.   Thought you might like to see.  

Made for my niece and her husband married in 2014.  This quilt is the same pattern as my niece's childhood quilt that I made for her, which was in bad shape from overloving.  

For my nephew and his wife married in 2017. She chose the front design and he chose the back design for the guests to sign.  

Catching Up

I'm catching up because I have had to put all my attention the last several months on taking care of my dear Mother who has dementia and mobility issues.  Things have progressed and she is now in long term care.  It's been very rough but I am able to visit her often. Dementia is horrible. 😢 

I have two finishes to share with you today.  The first one I have named "Dino Garden Party" and it is from a pattern called "DinoRama - T-Rex on Roller Skates" by Art East Quilting Co.  . 

  I used the beautiful border print "Shine" by Ruby Star Society for my inspiration because the little girl who asked me to make her a quilt requested Girl Dinosaurs and I immediately thought of flowers.  After I cut the lengthwise floral strips I used the remaining centre part for binding.  Big thank you to Karen @sugarfreequilts  for helping me with attaching the binding on this quilt.  She is such a good friend! 💖

 

I quilted in free motion with side to side wavy lines very randomly.  I just keep stitching until I feel it is enough.  It turned out very soft and cuddly.  

For the backing I used a very soft flannel.  It was lovely to stitch.  

The second finish is made for another little girl, just a year and half old but knows what she likes!  

The cute giraffes are from a pattern called "Giraffes in a Row" by Sew Fresh Quilts.  Thanks to another sweet friend of mine, Ioleen, for a few pieces of the colourful fabrics.  It's been a while, Ioleen, but I finally got it done! A really fun pattern to sew up.  I used Kona White for the background and the binding is Kona Heliotrope.  

I quilted a 4 inch wavy double line grid in free motion.  All eyeballed, no marking!  I give myself the freedom not to be perfect with this type of quilting.  Love it! 

For the backing I used a lovely soft purple flannel with a few added strips to make it big enough.  

Hope you got to finish up a project or two lately .   

Feels so good! 💖

My 2020 Temperature quilt

A great distraction for me in 2020, in the midst of lockdowns and other public health restrictions etc etc,, was to make a temperature quilt.  What is a temperature quilt?...It is made by creating a range of temperatures and assigning one fabric to each set of numbers and then create a block for each day using the designated colour of fabric to denote the high and low temperature of the day.  I used a pattern by Canuck Quilter and you can find her free pattern HERE.  Thanks to Joanne for a fun, easy little block and the inspiration to carry on and finish this project. 

You will note that I did not choose blues for winter temps as you may think would be the thing to do.  I guess I would rather have a shot of sunny yellow in the winter. All the fabrics on the front are Kona cottons. Each repeat of the pattern is for six days. You can sew your block each day or like I did, every six days.  To finish the top off, I added paperpieced letters and numbers.   There are lots of different ideas for temperature quilts that you can find online. 

I pieced the backing together using a panel called Wonder by Carrie Bloomston.  I had some fabric from the same line in my stash so I added enough to make the backing fit.  

I quilted in free motion on my Pfaff PowerQuilter using Aurifil 50wt thread in a medium yellow shade in the coloured areas and white in the white areas. 

  

(as I posted this photo, I noticed I missed echo quilting an entire row)  I will fix that! 

It's not too late to start yourself a temperature quilt.  Lots of patterns and ideas on line to inspire you. Hope you had time to do some quilting today.😊 

Well, that was a fun quilt to make!

I just finished taking this sweet little quilt out of the dryer and I am in love!  It is so soft and crinkly.  It is from the pattern by Amy Ellis called "Dart" .  As soon as I saw this pattern online several months back, it called to me.  I could see all my low volume print scraps and my aqua/teal print scraps just having a ball. 

It was a lot of cutting and pressing scraps but I do love that part!  The blocks are 6" finished and my quilt ends up at 60" x 72".

There were hits of a corrally red in a few of the prints so I chose corrally red prints for the binding and I love how it picks up that colour in the quilt.  

I free motion quilted a horizonal loop-de-loop  

 

On the back,  Doiland Gloss Silver by Katarina Roccella for Art Gallery, and a narrow strip of Speckled in Metallic Turquoise by Rashida Coleman Hale and also Kona "Bahama Blue"  

Nice to finish up something! 

I can't believe that my UFO pile has only one quilt top left to finish. It's a wedding quilt and that will have to wait until next year (hopefully!) 

Have a quilty day! 💖

My ScrapSnap Quilt

Great big thank you to Kari at quiltsforthemaking.blogspot.com for the wonderful, scrap busting quilt along   If you go to the link you can check it out and join in at anytime.  The quilt along was to sew 10 blocks a month for 12 months but I ended up sewing 11 rows of 10 blocks each all at once.  I came up with a setting design that I love. I have enough scraps cut to sew another version but I think I will wait for a while.  

60" x 66"

 

For backing, I chose "Cafe Cup" from the Clover collection by Alexia Abegg (which I bought at Sparrow Quilt Co. in Edmonton a few years ago) and a strip of "Eclipse" by Sarah Watts
For thread on bottom - Aurifil 40# white

                                                   

For quilting -  These colours in the coloured strips and Aurifil 40#wt in the low volume areas.  

Lots of thread changes but worth it I think.  Gotta have good tension with coloured thread on top and white in the bottom. There was one small area that I just couldn't get the tension correct (ended up being a needle problem) but decided I didn't want to take it out. 

Here's some close up of the quilting I did in free motion on my Pfaff Powerquilter 16.0  

love that little pink raccoon peeking out!

  

This was a super fun quilt to make. Check out #scrapsnapquiltalong on Instagram for lots of inspiration.

Hope it's sunny and warm, not too hot, where you are. 😊