Postcard from Sweden Shines Again

My fourth Postcard from Sweden quilt is finished! 

This baby’s mine, all mine. 

My quilt and I went for a quilt in the wild shoot this morning at Seacliff Beach in Leamington which is a mere ten minute drive from my house. I am blessed to have this beautiful spot so near.

TGIFF! Postcard from Sweden Finish

Welcome to TGIFF! This is a celebration of finishes, and I'm happy to be back hosting the second one of 2024. I am also very pleased to show off my second finish of 2024, my third Postcard from Sweden quilt.

Like the first two, this one is not going to live with me, and that is just fine. Like the first two, it is on its way to a good home where I know it will be cherished. If you are interested in hosting TGIFF go here to pick a date to sign up. It's super-easy.

Postcard from Sweden Winners

I am so excited to announce the three winners of the grand prizes. There were 34 quilts linked up!

Two people in the QAL made two quilts each which blows me away. Quilters joined in from around the globe, something which is just so very meaningful to me, because the more we connect with actual real life people around the globe, the more we come to understand each other, and the more we put human faces to countries we just tend to hear about either on the news, or in sport events, films, etc. Quilters joined in across Canada, United States, Scotland, Norway and Australia. In both Canada and the US, the range was from east to west and north to south, just so cool.

Postcard from Sweden Quilt Along Final Parade!

In some ways it seems forever ago (January) that I announced that I was going to host another PfS QAL and in other ways, I can't believe it's mid-March, the Ides of March... and time to show off our finishes!

Instagram has been lit up with a rainbow of gorgeousness. I know I've really been enjoying seeing everyone's progress. Be sure to check out the hashtag #postcardfromswedenqal2022 if you feel like brightening your day! Today is the day we show off our finished quilts (finished flimsies are welcome too) and today is the day to enter the drawing for some fabulous grand prizes.

Postcard From Sweden Quilt Finish

I am so happy that the sun was shining and the wind wasn't too crazy to take this beauty off the design wall where she was being blocked,

and on a little trip to Windsor for a glamour photo shoot. The Canadian Coast Guard ship was docked at the riverfront, and boy, did it make for a great photo.

I am also pleased that I got it done with a couple of days to spare before the linkup opens for the final parade of finishes! That linkup is tomorrow, but I did have the quilt done on the weekend. However, it was horrible weather: gale force winds on Saturday and January weather on Sunday! Today Spring is back, 13C and sunny, so I am a happy camper.

Postcard from Sweden - Finish the Quilt!

The end. 
 

Seriously, that is all that is left, the final five rows, which, if you've been doing them in 4-patches style and spinning the seams, means that you basically have two rows of 4-patches plus one row of triangles. I found it very therapeutic, sewing just four sets of triangles together, and then sewing them into 4-patches. I'd get my triangles set up the night before, and then sew them first thing in the morning, cup of coffee in hand, well not exactly, but you get the picture. It was a wonderful way to start each day. And, truth tea, (or coffee, ha): I often sewed one more set of triangles together, because the colour combinations are just that good.

Thanks to Ann, who is another quilter like Debbie, with a discerning eye, my quilt looks like the cover quilt for Row N1. The layout has colour 36 Pear, with 14 Leprechaun, but the cover quilt has what looks to be 8 Citrus in place of 36. I had just sewn the first half of Row M/N when I got Ann’s email. I decided I like the pop of yellow there, so I cut another triangle, ripped out Pear, inserted Citrus, and ta-da: new N1!

Postcard from Sweden QAL Step 3

And here we are at Step 3. I've sure been enjoying seeing the beautiful quilts in various stages from HST squares to entire flimsies on Instagram! If you want a feast of bright colours for your eyes, check out #postcardfromswedenqal2022

For today you are to have the first five rows sewn together. And? I have a little surprise for you today!

Postcard from Sweden QAL Step 2

Welcome to Step 2 where we begin to sew all our lovely triangles together to make them into squares again. So, you have cut all those 360 gorgeous triangles, yes?

Bella loves them

This time around hosting this QAL, I've split sewing the quilt top into three steps: we will make a third of the quilt at a time. This way I can show you some super-cool tips for construction which will make your assembly life a lot easier.

Postcard from Sweden QAL Step 1

Well! Judging from the number of PDF patterns I emailed out, and the excitement on Instagram, this second QAL I'm hosting should be a resounding success with beautiful colourful Postcard quilts splashed across Instagram! Now, do not fret if your fabric hasn't arrived, or if you haven't had time to peruse your stash for 36 shades and tones of the rainbow; we have two whole weeks until we start sewing. 

Postcard From Sweden Quilt Along

This is the introductory post for the 2022 Postcard From Sweden QAL. I'm so glad you are here. January in the Northern Hemisphere can be a tough slog, so I think it's a perfect time to lift our spirits by sewing something bright and simple. It's all half-square triangles in beautiful vibrant fabrics. Once again, I used Kelly's photo of the quilt as the background for the graphic.

First things first. Tracie of Riceford Streams messaged me way back at the end of September asking if I was considering hosting another QAL, since she had come across a kit for a good price, and had always wanted to make this, as she said, cheery quilt. She thought sewing with others would be a good incentive. I thought this a great idea, maybe something to make in the new year. Besides, I have a healthy stack of Kona cottons I seem to have amassed since that first QAL. Might as well use them! So I contacted Kelly Liddell in early December to ask her permission to host another quilt along. Her pattern is no longer available anywhere. If you have seen it for sale as a stand alone pattern, then do not purchase it, because whoever is selling it is a thief. This is Kelly's design, inspired by a postcard set she saw in IKEA by Tom Frazier. Her pattern was always free. If you would like to join in with the QAL and make this quilt you have a few options.

PQ 13.1 Postcard Pouch

It 's that time of year again! Project Quilting time that is, the brainchild of Kim of Persimon Dreams, hosted by her good friend Trish  @quiltchicken . The first challenge Trish dreamed up is called 'All the Colours'. As in use 'em all. In my last post I mentioned that I was going to once again host a Postcard from Sweden Quilt Along. Put that with all the colours, add in wanting to make a small gift for my niece, and boom! Postcard Pouch idea was born.

I used the Charm Square pouch tutorial, formerly available on Moda Bakeshop, that I've made at least a dozen times, substituted HSTs for the squares, based it on Kelly's Postcard from Sweden quilt, formerly available on Craftsy, tried Anna's technique at Noodlehead Open Wide pouch and another boom! It all came together beautifully.

Pink Projects Popping up Partout!

"partout' is French for everywhere. It worked for my alliterative title, and since I'm deep in another L'Inspecteur Gamache book, it was à propos. 

So, after a few posts on Instagram on Saturday I took the rest of that day and Sunday and almost all of Monday off that social media platform. It was rather wonderful, and I mean to do that more this year. I don't know if it's the menopausal muddle in my melon or what, but I certainly seem prey to being easily sucked for an hour or more into that vortex. I plunged into my pink scraps and strips with abandon. Ahhh! I petted. I played. It was perfect.

What once was a neatly arranged pile of pink, slowly but steadily erupted into this disarray. What first evolved from the strips were these blocks for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge Project #1.

Postcard Cushion

Sneaking in another finish that was on my Q1FAL List. This cushion cover is made from leftover HSTs from my Postcard from Sweden quilt. Cool: that finish post is April 20, almost exactly a year ago! I've had this top pieced for a couple months...

Postcard from Sweden is a Finish!

And I couldn't be happier that it is finally done and I am sleeping under it tonight! (well last night when you read this lol). It is one of the items on my Q2FAL list.

Postcard From Sweden Parade of Quilts Link Up

It is HERE and it is as good as Christmas IMHO! Oh the eye candy on Instagram! The teaser posts, the artful shots, the sheer joyous colour out there! Much needed on these recent grey, gloomy, rainy, and in a lot of cases, snowy, days. We even had snow flurries from time to time here this morning and about 1/4" (yep, I know that measurement well) on the patio table and deck rails, like what??

The linkup is below, but first let's visit my most generous sponsors. (note that I am not affiliated with any of the sponsors, but I am an affiliate of Craftsy).  Sponsors! I never dreamed when Helen and I started talking about making this quilt together, and I said,
me: Maybe we could put it out there if any others want to join us?
Helen: Oh, that's a good idea!
me: We could host a QAL!
Helen: You're a good organizer; you can put out the word...

Almost Off Course Already

I posted my Q2FAL list in my last post, and two days later, I'm admitting I've already had a DrEAMi!

It's a necessary DrEAMi! (the next linkup is May 3) and here's why:

I quite literally dropped everything that was in the queue and made six of these fast and easy blocks for the Humboldt Broncos hockey team. I'll be sending them off to Saskatchewan tomorrow where they will be made into quilts for the many many people affected directly by this horrific tragedy. I'm so glad people now think of first responders when they think of how they can help and who needs it. Our good friend John, Brandy the pibble's dad, is a volunteer firefighter and he says some of the accidents he has had to go to have left him sleepless for many a night. You can see it in his face when he talks (rarely, like twice) about it.

I put the first four blocks on Instagram Friday night, and added two more this afternoon. All six have a Benartex 'Wheat' fabric I've had for some time, supposed to go into a deep teal and golds quilt. When they said gold as one of the colours, and I started going through my yellows/golds, I spied this, and knew in my heart it was perfect. Saskatchewan, for those who may not know, is one of the three prairie provinces of Canada, with Alberta (my home province where I used to live) and Manitoba, the other two. Alberta and Saskatchewan's vast flat southern parts, as well as more than half way across Manitoba's southern lands, is perfect for growing wheat. I tried for a more masculine flavour to the fabrics as well.

When I came across this gold in amongst my plastic baggie of small yellow and gold scraps, another poignant, but oh-so-perfect moment happened: I'd include this piece of Laurel Burch's Mythical Horses fabric line with its selvage attached.

No explanation necessary as to why that's significant

This weekend was slated to catch up on some serious stitching, but taking an hour or so out to do these, is fine by me. If you want to help, you can go to the Saskatoon Modern Quilt Guild, who is helping the Humboldt Quilters organize this on social media. There is also a GoFundMe campaign which, at the time of writing this Sunday evening, is closing on $12 million. Takes my breath away.

I did work more in my yellow/gold scraps for my RSC2018 blocks, and I'm happy to keep keeping up with this project this year. Bright yellows and rich golds are this month's colours.

And yes, there is a scrap of wheat in my blocks now. A reminder of what was happening around me when I made these blocks. I love my yellow taxi scraps that worked into these two blocks, mementos from my 2007 trip to NYC.

LOOK what happened with the making of these two blocks!

I used every last 2.5" square in my 2.5" squares tray! I was as surprised as anyone; I thought they multiplied at night because I have not emptied any of the colours yet.

Don't worry; I have a Rubbermaid plastic container of smallish (under a fat quarter size) white/off-white etc scraps from which I was able to cut more, as well as several 3" squares to make the HSTs. (Gotta point out that arrow😁 I made that on my iPhone in Markup. Cool!)

The other serious stitching that happened resulted in a FFF!--not the FFFtt! that a cat hisses, but a finally finished flimsy!

Sorry for an inside shot, but it is pouring down and blowing, well blowing a bit less than the past 48 hours, but the rain hasn't lessened one bit, and we are under all kinds of flood warnings...but OH! how I love this top! Oh, how glad am I that I have finally made the first-ever-I-downloaded pattern from Craftsy, before these Postcard from Sweden QALs were a thing. Now to quilt this puppy and get it done for the linky that happens on April 18 right here on the blog. I'm thinking wavy organic lines, but I may veer off the perceived plan of action a wee bit, you know me... Pressure is good though to make me follow the KISS rule.

I ended up with several extra HSTs, which is to be expected when you cut squares and then cut them in half and you use an odd number. However, I do have four triangles left from Lake...as well as some other colours whose names escape me. A cushion cover or pillow shams might be in order methinks. I made the smaller size, by accident, menopausal brain short-circuiting again on anything math or numbers-related. I hate that! nvm I will take it to yoga as well for my students to ogle...bringing quilts to sit upon has brought out the several quilters in our yogi midst! I've told them more than once, I'm going to make quilters out of 'em all eventually...ha!

When I pulled out my Bright Pink to cut another square, that I believe was my own fault... that, or the wee ghosties that muck around in my sewing loft have hidden it because the right number are cut from the 1/2 yard I had... Anyhow, this happened:

Kona cat!

She has to perch on any and all fabric piles. Put her stamp of approval on, so to speak!

Hope you will check back in tomorrow, Monday, for the start of the New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop! Eight new bloggers will be introducing themselves and their blogs to you, and I hope you'll pay them a visit. There are lots of great prizes to be won each week of the hop as well. Say a prayer to the Rafflecopter gods that I've set it up right...

My hive made some really fabulous buttons! It was a hard decision which one to pick, but they voted, and here it is:

All four of us co-hosts have made landing pages (here is mine) for the hop which will be updated throughout the hop as posts go live. See you tomorrow!

Linking up
with Angela at soscrappy

Postcard from Sweden Step 4

How did this come up so fast? That feeling has nothing to do with the rather full plate of things I have on the go right now, no. It's all good though. Two weeks ago, at the last link-up, I had 20 links! That is stupendous whenI think back to when Helen of Midget Gem Quilts and I first said let's do this together... and what if we invited others?

So Step 3 was to sew all those HSTs into a top.

Postcard from Sweden Step 3

Here we are at about the halfway point! By now you should have paired and sewn all your HSTs together and trimmed them to size.  Or not.  Perhaps you are assembling the quilt as you go, either in rows, or in blocks of four.  I have done both, and think I prefer in blocks of four because of being able to spin seams when pressing and avoid lumps where eight triangles come together.

We interrupt this blog post to say, "GO Corbin Watson!" He's the goalie for Team Canada's hockey team in the Paralympics and is from Kingsville! They've won all three of their games so far and play again tomorrow. I'm so happy that the Paralympics is getting more attention these days; IMHO these athletes have more heart and determination than 'regular' athletes. 💖😍

Ideally, if this is the halfway point, I should have 10 of the 20 rows sewn together. Well, I have not quite half that amount...what a good example am I? I have been rather busy of late! Here is my progress so far and I am loving it:

Here are a couple of tips that I have discovered helpful:

1. I label the HST pairs with a fine tipped marker within the seam allowance.

This way when I press them, I don't have to worry about pressing painter's tape, or a self-adhesive label, or having it fall off. Trust me, I've done this on many many quilts over the past 20 years, marking within the seam allowance, with never an issue.

2. I press to the side, 'the dark side' to quote Angela Walters and Jenny Doan, lol, and this ensures all these seams nest beautifully. Pinning has been minimal. If you spin the seams, as in unpick a stitch or two within the seam allowance where the seams join, something Carrie Nelson (think Moda's blog and Schnibbles) is well-known for, then you can press them all in the same direction, and the bulk is reduced by half.

Love those cute teeny pinwheels that form!

Okay there's my HSTs sewn together step NOT complete, but I'm going to keep plugging away between my other projects, 😉 and eventually I will have a quilt top. Let's see what your stitched HSTs look like by linking up your quilt progress below.

For the Postcard from Sweden schedule, click here. Remember there is its own page under the tab Quilt Alongs at the top of my blog page.

An InLinkz Link-up

Postcard from Sweden Step 2

Welcome to Step 2 of the Postcard from Sweden Quilt Along!

I am über-excited for this post because I am dying to see just how many of you out there are quilting along; from the Instagram attention and excitement this QAL has been getting, it is going to blow mine and Helen's (Midget Gem Quilts) minds. Be sure to hop over to her blog to check out her quilts. Plural. She's doing one in blues and greens and one in the traditional modern (ha) colours of the original quilt.

Postcard from Sweden QAL Step 1

It's here! It seems to have taken so long, and in other ways it seems to have got here so quickly!

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone, as we start this colourful quilt on a day of love and flowers, chocolate and wine, good food shared between loving people.

Announcements
1. I've made a page for the Postcard from Sweden Quilt Along. You can click here to see it or click the tab "Quilt Alongs". From there you will be taken to a page where you will find the two that I have hosted so far, Freefall, and now this one. If you click the name of the quilt, you will be taken to its separate page where all the posts are listed, and as they go live, I will update the links.