Quilting and other Things

The good news is I found the missing blocks and fabric.  The bad news is the book doesn't appear to be in the box and I'm not sure what book I was using.  That will be a bit of a problem when I go to put the thing together someday. I had put all the left over fabric from O Tannenbaum and the Patchwork Sampler back into their respective cubby holes but left the scraps in the O Tannenbaum box to be sorted into colour families and put into the appropriate plastic shoe box of scraps.  Lots and lots of scraps to be sorted.  There were also a number of leftover, rejected blocks from the Patchwork sampler and the rejected set of star blocks from O Tannenbaum.  They'll go into the rejected blocks box.  Someday, I'll sort through that box and do something with it them -- or maybe just take the whole thing into guild and see if someone wants to make something.  I'll take a peak when I add these ones to see what might be a good plan.

After taking off the border with a pleat in it, I hung the quilt up on the design wall and noticed it had wobbles so pulled all the borders off. It took a while to pull the borders off. I think one of my stitch rippers is past its prime. Then re-measured everything at put the borders back on. I hadn't measured well the first time so I had some weird things go on. No wonder there were pleats and woobles. Need to measure carefully. The top is done now and the binding is made. The top is now on the shelf with other quilts waiting to be sandwiched and quilted. The original pattern didn't have the third border on top and bottom (as shown in the top picture) but I didn't like that so add the top and bottom order border.  This is Patchwork Sampler by Lori Smith At Christmas club the other day we had a bit of a giggle when one of the ladies said she had misplaced a quilt in her house. I shouldn't have laughed. I think I've misplaced one too. One of my...

This years $10 quilt reveal at Cockadoodle Quilt Shop  was yesterday (Dec 15th) and this time my quilt was actually quilted and a lot of the embellishments added.  This means the count of finished $10 quilts is now three (OK it still needs a sleeve and label but those are ready to go). The pattern was O Tannenbaum by Hilary Gooding. The quilt as you go went reasonably well although I didn't read the instructions for the joining strip between the centre and borders and assumed I knew how to join them. Had to change the way I was going to join the borders and centre. It worked OK in the end. The corner stars were originally done as light stars since but when I put them up I didn't really like them in either position -- beige in or green in. They are too light in comparison to the rest of the quilt.  So printed out new paper templates and made darker stars which I like much better. A couple of trips to Micheal's for embellishments finally yielded ...

The assignment for this months $10 quilt was to make the beige log cabin squares, add or at least prepare the poinsettia applique and assemble the middle 25 blocks. I'm using a print for the applique and actually have 2 added to each corner. The third one will overlap a seam that isn't sewn yet so its still waiting Earlier this year, the guild had Martha Schellingherhoud as the speaker and workshop teacher. She ended up teach a quilt as you go workshop a couple of times -- I took the encore session in June. I liked the methods she taught and thought this would be a good quilt to practice on. So I'm busy quilting the centre of the quilt. The middle 15 blocks are all assembled and ready to have the 4 inch section over the join quilted. The top and bottom borders of 5 blocks each are ready to be quilted. The blue painters tape is to remind me where not to stitch at this point. The beige end squares aren't getting quilted yet as I want to add the third app...

Today I went out to Ajax to see the Twisted Sisters quilt show.  WOW!  What talented ladies.  Looks like this is their second show.  I'll watch for the next one.  The Green Men.  Spirits of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter by Rosemary Oliver Fishing Village by Rosemary Oliver Children of the World by Trisha Della Vella and Mary Eeg Autumn Splendor by Gaile Statkus Pattern by Kathleen Star  Goose Tracks by Ester Mihkleson design by HoopSisters Daisy May by Carlene Helmle quilted by Ruth Foley from a class at Ultimate Sewing Centre Circular Bargello by Joyce O'Connell quilted by Tracey Russell.  Pattern by Cheryl Phillips  In mid-October I went to the Halton Hills guild anniversary dinner where the ladies from The Quilt Patch in Saskatchewan were the guest speakers.  They showed lots of wonderful quilts which I had no intention of buying until Flakey Friends was shown and walked through the au...

Elaine posted a list of all the $10 quilts she's taught over the last 10 years.  I've done an inventory of the ones I've done.   It looks like only two are fully quilted, some are ready to be quilted and some still need final borders.    The 2003 quilt was a row quilt with a piano key  border.  I didn't like the border and replaced it with an applique border.  I don't have a photo of the finished top.  The quilt has turned out HUGE and its the one I'm thinking about taking apart and using the quilt as you go techniques I learned at a guild workshop in June.  I don't have a space big enough to get the full photo so took two pictures: During the year we made this quilt we visited St John's Newfoundland.  My houses are all brightly coloured in honour of the visit except for one which would be my house.  I loved the brightly colour houses. In 2004 we did two season quilts -- Fall and Spring....

One of the lists asked the question this week -- What was your first quilt and do you still have it?  My first quilt top, in 1993, was Eleanor Burn's Christmas Tradition Quilt. I had the book and had recorded her program from TV and between the two moved from sewing clothes to making quilts. Having made the top, I needed to learn to quilt it so took a hand quilting class and a sampler class. The sampler class had us using templates, hand piecing and I think quilt as you go -- need to go look at the back of the lap quilt.  Both quilts are still upstairs and get used. Afterwards I went back to hand quilt the Christmas quilt. The final stitches went into the binding on May 23, 1994 as the the credits rolled for the final episode of Star Trek Next Generation -- the episode was called All Good Things which seemed quite fitting for a Christmas Quilt.

This seems to have been an applique month.  I finished the geisha block from the previous post --- her hands were in the bag with the pattern. The water brush worked really well.  So now that brush will live with my applique.  Several years ago, I started a Christmas A to Z  quilt by Old Farmhouse Quilts.  A - D were done and E was waiting.  For some reason all the little pieces were bothering me.  So when I saw the geisha block, I decided to do a similar prepare method -- the Elf was prepared with glue and starch and just freezer paper on top depending on the piece.  It spent a bit of time in my purse and pocket and is now complete.  For some reason I hadn't taken photos of the other blocks.  Most of them need embellishments yet (faces, lettering, strings of lights).  Some will get done before quilting, some will wait until afterwards.  So here are all five blocks (on top of this years $10 quilt) Finally t...

I was looking for some applique I could take to the guild meeting the other day but the only thing I could find that was prepared was a Geisha block designed by Laurissa Werhun which has lots of glue in it. The applique is prepared by gluing under the edges then align all the pieces together and gluing the overlaps.  The prepared piece is then glued to the background When stitching this I usually have a little container of water beside the chair.  If I come across a spot that needs to be smoothed or the glue is too hard to get the needle through, I put a bit of water on a finger, hold it on the spot to soften the glue and make the necessary adjustments.  A little container of water wasn't going to work well going off to guild then I remember my waterbrush from my watercolours The handle gets filled with water and it flows out the brush as you need it.  I stopped on the way home to buy a new one as both the ones I have are stained from the watercolour pai...