Quilting and other Things

One of my favorite quilts is a one block wonder.  I look for the at quilt shows and love to see the original fabric and what it came become when chopped into matching 60 degree triangles. I bought the first book a few years ago and some flower headed pins the book recommends.  Last spring I bought a fabric to make myself a one block wonder quilt.  Its was a shinny fish fabric Its been sitting on the corner of my cutting table or in a box on the shelf ever since waiting for me to get a round to it.  Earlier this year, the guild announced a One Block Wonder workshop in May with Maggie Butterfield Dickinson  So I signed up.  Yesterday was the day.  In the morning we cut our six matching sections and got everything pinned and lined up nicely.  Then trimmed edges and cut strips.  I took a 60 degree triangle I bought for a workshop with Jackie Black many years ago.  I was thinking this was the first time I've used it since that worksho...

The Royal Ontario Museum is celebrating their 100th anniversary this year.  Today (and tomorrow), they are offering free admission and two behind the scenes tours -- a chance to go into where the collections are stored and cared for and see some of the work.  It felt like the behind section was bigger than the front section.  In some places they had 10,000's or 100,000's object in the collection.  It was interesting to see the way some of the things were stored -- surround by acid free paper, cushioned by foam, flat in drawers, carefully wrapped up or hung from shelves.  I didn't click the members link soon enough so all the advanced member tickets were gone and I had to line up in the non-ticket holders line.  The line started at the main doors and went along Bloor to University, turned the corner and went to the old main entrance -- or at least that's where I joined it at 9:30.  I think it ended up down by the Planetarium before the doors opened...

Its been a fun day.  I've been watching Disney animated movies -- Frozen, Beauty & the Beast, Robin Hood and Snow White.  Frozen helped me chop up the fruit salad and clean the kitchen.  Beauty and the Beast helped stitch most of this month's guild block. Robin Hood finished the guild block, helped to fix the twisted seams on the guild community outreach quilt and started the borders on a mystery quilt that's been lurking long enough to feel like it must have come of the ark.  All it needed was a border.  It was a mystery quilt called Calico Conundrum in Lady's Circle Patchwork Quilts in 1994/5.  Mom made one with a violet fabric.  I used purple elephants.  I had debated adding a very thin border between the top and the main border to separate the elephants from the centre but decided today it wasn't necessary. Snow White helped finish the borders and make the binding then start the final border for Celtic Solstice....

The last few evenings I've been laying out the pieces for this month "chunk" of the month for the guild block of the month program. I'm running short of half square triangles -- or atleast a nice variety of them so there are gaps in the layout.  I've cut a bunch more half square triangles -- should be more than enough for the last two sections as well. Hopefully I have enough variety. This is the collection of white and red squares and half square triangles for the last two parts. I need 286 more after this month so hopefully most of that is already here.    This year's monthly quilt is Northern Lights Sampler by Marti Michell. I like the 12" blocks better than the 16" blocks but I like the size of the quilt that you get with the larger blocks. I'm thinking I'll make more blocks of the smaller size to get the size I want. I haven't committed to that yet. So far we've had two classes. The first month we made the hal...

The day after American Thanksgiving last fall, Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville released her mystery quilt. This time, instead of collecting the patterns like I did for the previous year, I actually dug out fabric and started to stitch along. I took my fabric up to Dad's over Christmas and once I'd done the sewing he wanted, I spent some time stitching away on the mystery quilt. It was very nice. I initially was making the small size which was a 7x7 layout. Last month when I finally got the blocks all made and up on the design wall I decided I really liked how it was turning out. The 7x7 size was going to be too small for a double bed so I took my tape measure and measured the mattress -- yes there are charts to tell the size of a double bed but I wanted an overhang and its a deep mattress. I ended up making another 32 blocks to bring it up to 9x9. I'd hope to have it all done to take for show and tell at Sew Sisters Monthly quilt but Friday night, I had the centre done a...

I spent a great deal of the holiday time working on the shawl. The main body is finished and ready for the edgings The night before we came home, I finished knitting the border. There is one spot where I dropped two stitches and will try to tie them in. Hopefully it works. I've never had to purl 15 together before and somehow on one of the shells I lost 2 of the 15. This is the sewing machine that I learned to sew on. I did some stitching for Dad then tried to get some work done on steps 1 and 2 of Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery. At first the machine didn't seem to like the thinner thread but changing a needle seemed to solve the problem. The next day even the new needle wasn't helping so eventually I put a regular spool of thread on the machine. That did work better and I got the rest of step 2 stitched. This weekend I've had lots of fun stitching on my regular machine. All of steps 3 & 4 are finished. Now to start cutting lots ...

While the Bringing Home the Tree wall hanging did get some thread painting but not without a lot of effort.  I ran into a lot of problems the first night I tried -- the thread broke almost every time I took a stitch -- or at least it felt that way.  After an hour I went upstairs and read.  The next night I looked up which way round the spools of thread should go -- cross wound on the vertical pin and stacked on the horizontal.  That seemed to make things go much better.  Some thread conditioner also helped on the rayon spool.  On Saturday morning I continued to do some more thread painting but it started to feel more like a chore than something I was enjoying.  So I finished the tree I was working on and switched to something else The something else was Bonnie Hunters Celtic Solstice Mystery .  I'm still working on part 1 & 2.  The link will take you to see the progress others have been making with this mystery.  On Satu...