Thursday 29 December 2016

Hurry up Finish

As you read this the wedding quilt has been made and gifted. You can read about it here. The wedding was lovely and we had a great time. The nice thing about small weddings is everyone knows each other and the conversation just flows. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, for a few hours the worries melted away.

finished with time to spare

The designing and making of this quilt was a mad crazy rush. Why oh why did I do this to myself? As I told my friend the bride 'only for a special friend would I have made a quilt in such a short time.' She loved it.
I couldn't find the sun to take better pictures in, it's that overcast time of year. Oh well the pictures must be taken as everyone wants a little eye candy. The four patch blocks went together quickly. 

four patches in a four patch.

The star blocks I made and used a template to cut the points, and wonder of wonders from the first one to the last one everything fit perfectly. This quilt was cooperating, that doesn't happen very often. My seam ripper for once was quit, no rip, rip rip this time around. Not to worry it gets lots of workout on a regular basis.

star blocks fit perfectly

For the quilting I did simple loops and leaves using Aurifil 2605 on top and Superior bottom line in the bobbin. I may have gone a little crazy stitching them, I got in the flow and there was no stopping me. My hubby said I had the peddle to the medal.

flange binding
I made my first flanged binding! What a great way to finish up a quilt that little pop of colour that the flange gives, in my opinion added to the overall effect. I like how this quilt turned out, and may have given myself a little pat on the back for a job well done. I even finished with time to spare.

back

I knew I wouldn't have time to piece a backing so I used a gray mottled wide backing. 

Now it's back to the slower more relaxed type of sewing. I'm working on my 150 Canadian Women blocks in celebration of Canada's 150th birthday. Three blocks are released every week with a story of a Canadian women with every block, week 7 is the latest release. I have week one, 6 and 7 done. I may be playing catchup with these. 

week 7 top row, week 6 second row, week 1 bottom row

I am going to make them using my scrap reds and whites. The blocks are 6'' finished so some of the little pieces of white on whites are getting used up, hopefully I'll get all those little bits and pieces used up on this project. I may have to get a few red FQ's, we'll see how things progress first.

Linking up to 




 


Wednesday 21 December 2016

Moving forward

As Christmas draws near, only four sleeps left, wow where did the time go? Are all the preparations ready...NO. But as ready as they are going to be this year. We will have a nice Christmas watching our grandkids open their presents and making sweet memories. One of my granddaughters asked if we had presents for them and at the time the answer was no, extenuating circumstances happening over here. Our grandaughter informed us that grandparents just have to have presents for them. So what is a grandma supposed to do but make sure there are presents. There was some shopping done in the last couple days. Oh heck the tree is even decorated and that is thanks to a couple of grandkids helping out.

one good looking tree
I guess they really want Christmas at grandmas to happen. I usually love Christmas and look forward to all it brings. This year has been a difficult year with some serious health problems, which I will not go into here.
Christmas village
Christmas to me is more about family and the love of being together, and not the gifts. I love the spirit of it all the joy on peoples faces, the food and the smiles and doing the decorating just not so much this year.

I am not a list maker by any stretch of the imagination. But I do have one goal for 2017 and that is offering my Medallion Quilt, you can read more about it here that I designed for my guild in 2015 as a BOM on my blog. The plan is to start mid January with the first months instructions.

Medallion Quilt 2015
I have also been sewing like crazy. We have a wedding on December 28th of a dear friend and I thought I'd like to make a quilt for the couple. Oh and I had 14 days yes you read that correctly from the time of invite to the big day. What in the world was I thinking, or just maybe I wasn't thinking at all.
I quickly came up with a design and set to work gathering fabric, some emergency shopping was necessary. The top is almost together. I am going to need a quick quilting plan to get it done ontime as there may be a big holiday in the middle of my mad rush.
Want to see what I have come up with? Her walls she just painted gray with the end walls a turquoise and she has a charcoal gray chesterfield. Thankfully I decided to make it lap size.

in progress wedding quilt lap size.
Any suggestions for the quilting?

I doubt I'll have time to write another post before Christmas so I wish each of you and your families the joy and love that the holidays can and do bring. Merry Christmas!!

Linking up to Quilting Jet Girls Planning Party I love a good party and this one is great thanks Yvonne.

Sunday 4 December 2016

New Stash Additions

Want to see what made it's way to my house? I'm sure I heard a yes please. Okay here goes.
First up I won a designer scrap bag from Flaun Cline of I Plead Quilty! for my entry into Persimon Dreams Scrap Quilt Challenge. I entered 'Pinky', you can read more about it here.

'Pinky'

These are the winnings. Some strips, and some bigger chunks and those adorable fish that is an 18" piece.

strips

bigger pieces including a couple batiks

fishies 
No real plans for them at this time but one never knows what idea will pop up. I have been thinking about making a string quilt at some point and some of them will perhaps work their way into that.

 I may have done some Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping.

design wall
This design wall was on sale at Connecting Threads( not an affiliate), for hold onto your seats $1.00. An extra design wall may come in mighty handy, how could I go wrong especially at that price.

local shopping

We also need to support our local quilt shops and I did that with this lovely bunch of fabrics from 'The Quilting Corner' in Simcoe, Ontario. I love the green, of course I love green anyway. They are as follows: green-Maywood Studio, beige-Dowager Countess from Andover Fabrics, blue-Mary's Blenders by Mary Koval, gold-Northcott, beige print- Bees'n Blooms from Moda, red-Northcott, red leaves by Kona BayFabrics

Linking up to Molli Sparkles Sunday Stash