Rosebud Garland in Make Modern #55

I am thrilled to finally be able to share a design that was accepted in January of this year for Make Modern issue 55!

Our own Sweet Autumn Clematis was stunning again this year, and when one of my sweet neighbours, Mary Beth, exclaimed about it, she said hers was wonderful this year too, climbing all the way over a wooden trellis. When I was thinking of good places for a photo shoot for my project, I thought her trellis might frame the runner perfectly. And wow, did it ever!

Christmas Garland Runner

I seem to be on a roll of finishes this month, and here is another. Dayna made several requests last summer and I do believe I've now fulfilled them all, though in the other day's conversation mention was made of her needing a heart quilt... She had requested two table runners, one in pink and another in traditional Christmas colours. You've seen the flimsy in the pattern release post. Well, here it is complete.

Dayna loves it. Mission accomplished!

Rosebud Garland Pattern Release

Ta-da! May I present Rosebud Garland! I am very excited to release my first pattern of 2024, which technically is my last pattern of 2023, since it was in the previous issue of Make Modern, issue #55 to be specific. One of the many things I love about this magazine is that they only keep the rights to your patterns until the next issue comes out, in other words, just two months.

What you won't get in the Make Modern issue is the pattern for the accompanying placemats, as well as a tip in this post to make an extra-long runner if you've got a large dining table, as does my daughter, Dayna. Read on to find out and also to check out the low price at which it's being offered.

Q4FAL My List

 In many ways, it seems just a few months ago that we were on a plane, flying home from a trip to Florida to help our dear friend John celebrate his 80th birthday in the first quarter of the year, not eight months ago, and here we are in the final quarter of the year. A year of such upheaval, such anxiety, and such change, a lot that is positive.

So here is my list for the final quarter, which I will post on Instagram as per the new rules for this year.

1. The damn beanie - it's been on Q2 and Q3, but I actually did make some good progress on it in the past quarter, so it's an imminent finish finally.

2. Pumpkin quilt

3. Longarm cover

4. Medallion quilt

5. Nature-themed quilt

6. Christmas runner for Etsy

7. Another make-up mat

8. Arrows quilt

9. Ringle & Kerr RSC project 1

10. T-shirt quilt

11. Black scraps box

12. Secret sewing quilt for a magazine

13. Publish one more pattern

14. Quilt for Michele

Project Quilting 16.4 Diamond Girl

Well? Did that title do to you what it does to me every single time? Give you an earworm? Seals and Crofts’ song from 1973? I may be dating myself but I’m okay with that. That year was a special birthday for me: I became a teenager.  So this current year holds another special birthday, gulp. I'll let you do the math! 

Here is my finished table runner for the fourth challenge of project quilting, which I’ve named Diamond Girl.

The challenge this time was to make a project where the dominant colour is the colour of your birthstone. I am born in April, so my birthstone is a diamond, which is colourless! That caught me for a hot minute. Well, I’m sure many of you, like me, think of white when you think of diamonds, and silver, gold and sparkle, which is why I made a predominantly white runner with silver sparkle in the background fabric.

Rainbow Neighbourhood Pattern Release

It's been a long time coming, but I'm thrilled to finally have my houses pattern together and released! You'll be seeing more of it all week, as the pattern has four projects within it: a throw, a twin sized quilt, and two pillows, one of which is a cushion and the other a bench pillow. I made the throw using the original blocks I made back in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge of (would you believe) 2017.

It is so good to see these fun spectrum of houses finally 'grown up' into a quilt. The pattern, which I've named Rainbow Neighbourhood, is on sale all week for 25% off. You can get it in my Etsy shop, SandraJaneQuilts. 

Grandma's House

Quilt names don't usually come easily to me, but sometimes they do and this was one. I am excited to share my original design, a bench pillow, with you today!

It is one of four projects in my newly-released pattern, 'Rainbow Neighbourhood'. Did I mention the pattern is on sale all week? 25% off. It's a pretty darn good deal if I do say so myself: $10.50CA which is $8US for four projects, two of which are a throw quilt and a twin quilt, each with a completely different layout, a 22" cushion cover and this 20" x 36" bench pillow. 

Holiday House

This is my first project for the December challenge with Island Batik. We were to incorporate 3D elements into our project. As you know, I love depth perception, shadows and layers in quilting, so to say I was excited about this challenge is a bit of an understatement! Truth tea: I have exactly six project ideas for the challenge... Here is the first:

It's my House Block pattern (see sidebar link to it) with a 6" presents block on the side! All of the fabrics were supplied by Island Batik.  Hobbs Batting supplied the 100% wool batting (which I originally used in my suitcases quilt Oh! The Places You'll Go!) and Aurifil supplied most of the thread I used in the project. Some of the threads and the embellishments are my own.

Harper's Heart Quilt

Another long-standing request of Dayna's is a quilt for Harper. Yes, I made her a cat mat a few years ago, which she loves, but Dayna wanted an actual quilt for her. When I was making the pixellated heart quilt for Millie, Dayna's BFF's daughter, I made one using 2.5" squares that ended up being too small. I made the second one, using 3.5" squares to get it to a better size. The small pixellated heart has been sitting for almost exactly two years, waiting patiently for something to happen with it.

When Dayna and Tyler were in Detroit for last week's game against the Rams, which the Lions won, woot woot, we met them at Toast, a family-owned restaurant in Windsor (no relation to Toast in Ferndale, Michigan across the river). Meeting up with them was the impetus to check off this item on her list of quilt requests.

Christmas Table Runner

Well, I've torn myself away from my basement enclave to bring you a second finish for this week!  This is one of the projects on my Q2 FAL list at On the Windy Side.

I actually had the hand quilting finished last weekend, but this week's posts had to do with the New Bloggers Hop and Cheryl's Grande Scrappy Tiles pattern launch, and so the binding didn't get finished hand-sewing down until yesterday!

This past week in quilting blogland I've seen no less than two others, so 3 counting my own, decades-old projects finally finished.  First, I saw some cute baskets that Wendy (she's hilarious) started 26 years ago and finished this week over at The Crafter's Apprentice, and second, I saw a beautiful honeymoon quilt finish by Bernie, the fabric for which was purchased on said honeymoon 17 years ago!  So I am in good company showing this finally finished project which I started in 1998 or 99, so 16 or 17 years ago.

Here you can see the pointed end of the runner...as well as the banana plants and elephant ears. I'm curious to see the change in them in a couple of months

And, who knew, but it's an original design!  Here I thought I had something new going over the past year with the creative bursts of inspiration -- I'm doodling and sketching and sewing and publishing (eeek- see the Moda Bakeshop button on the sidebar, still excited about that).  Apparently this designing thing has been in me and into fabric for longer than I realize.

I love star blocks.  They are my favourite.  So I put three different ones all within one table runner and set them on point.

Evening or Sawtooth Star

Rising Star

Ohio Star

I bought all the fabric except for the backing at my LQS at the time, Lori's Country Cottage.  I love the Old World Santas fabric.  However, it does not show the hand-quilting off very well, and it was really difficult to find a marker that would show the lines I marked, so I just marked small sections at a time.  I did a simple cable there.  The straight lines in the dark green (which has pretty cool shading, no?) were done right around the start of the new millenium.  Can you believe that's over 15 years ago now?!

I won't win any awards for 20 stitches to the inch; I bet I maybe have 6-8, and that's not consistently!  Still, it is done, the first entirely hand-quilted piece I've done.  Here is the back:

Although I still have some of each of the fabrics used within the runner, I didn't have enough of any of them for the binding.  Happily I had almost a full fat quarter of this red with crowns on that I thought worked really well with the other gold-flecked fabrics.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: original design
Size:  60"X23.75"
Fabric: I don't know because I have none left with selvages on!
Backing: cotton purchased at Fabricland
Batting: 100% cotton purchased at my LQS specifically for hand quilting, but I don't know the brand
Quilted: by hand by me
Threads: Gutermann hand quilting cotton

Another project I completed this week is recovering the top for my cedar hope chest, a gift from my parents for my 18th birthday. (ya now that baby is decades old, but we won't go there!)

Here is the before:

Yep that grouse fabric just wore right out...darn, right?!

And here is what it looks like now!

Bella approves!

This fabric is from fabric.com, bought this past winter. I thought it was quilting weight cotton, but it is somewhere between that and canvas.  I thought maybe I'd still use it for fabric baskets, a bag, or cushion covers...and then a few days ago, it hit me!  Did I have enough? Yep, if I pieced two 2.5" strips on the long sides, it would be perfect.  With my husband on the super whack-master staple gun, and me on the stretching and positioning of fabric, we did it.  Awww, yeah!  I love it.

If you are observant, you'll have noticed Summer Scents Mosaic is on our bed. :-)

We slept under it last night and it was great! It washed up just wonderfully, no shrinkage other than the usual with cotton fabrics.  So the key to using flannelette or flannel as batting is to wash and dry it in the dryer before layering and quilting.  I might have found out the hard way what happens when one does not do this...
Linking up with Pet Project Saturday at Pink Doxies.

Thursday Thoughts

Do you ever sit at your computer with the blank post screen, and spend a good five minutes or more, mulling over a good post title?  That's me, and that's what happened yet again for the title of this post. Subject material has been gathering itself on the back burner of my mind all week.  A few people I follow, and even my own self, have done or are doing basically a being thankful, or simply being aware, post on a Thursday.  At this time of giving, I've been reflecting once again on all I have been given.

Throwback Thursday #8 Runners

Welcome to the August edition of Throwback Thursday! First, an important announcement: I am going to have a partner in sharing TBT. Andrée of Quilting and Learning - What a Combo! is going to be co-hosting with me beginning on the October edition. She'll host December as well.😍 I've got a couple of super-busy months in September and November, so this will ease the pressure, and it's always fun to share! Like me, or moi 😉, Andrée, is Canadian, a lover of learning, and a teacher.

Runners, like cushion covers, are fast and satisfying makes. Here are two I made for my mum.

The bottom one was made in 2000, and the top one in 2004.

Blue and White Antique Quilt

I showed you a photo of the antique quilt I picked up at Fence Row Antiques in New Bedford, Ohio a week ago (was it already a week ago? Seems like just yesterday in some ways, and seems like last month in others, sniff...).

At first I thought those were faded areas, but upon closer inspection, I'm not so sure.  The blue fabrics look like shirting, and the paler blues are not the same pattern as the darker ones.

Maybe this quilt was made from old shirts or dresses? Maybe the quiltmaker bought or was given some fabric but there wasn't enough to make her queen sized quilt?  It is big, measuring 75X90"!

The block is new to me; I've never seen this.

It isn't square, as I'd first thought; it's a hexagon with triangles and diamonds pieced in along the sides, and lots of Y-seams.

Look what appears when they are placed together!

MacGyver saw it with the blue ones; said it reminds him of a Maltese cross.  I saw a white 'star' where the blocks come together.  It has a 3D effect to me here!

I just love the scalloped edge.

Yep, you see that some edges are fraying.  I'm okay with a well-used quilt!  The texture is just incredible:

It is hand-quilted, 10 stitches to the inch.  Do you count the top and bottom stitches?  I presume you do not; I counted 10 stitches on the top per inch, 19-20 if you count the gaps where those on the bottom layer show.  Way better than this girl's handquilting! 

There are wreaths in the large white areas...

...and straight lines of echo-quilting in the other parts of the blocks.

Here is a better photo showing the overlapping wavy lines quilted in the borders.  I think this is called a cable design.  It's one of my favourite quilting motifs.  In fact, on my Stars Christmas runner, I did this very one along the edges. :-)  Well, not as many lines; there are 8 altogether here!

I am so pleased that with all this white there is barely a mark on it.  I did wash it after talking to Julie of Pink Doxies, on the delicate cycle in my tumbling washing machine.   I laid it flat to dry, easing the scallops into place.  It didn't come out as soft because of air-drying, so right near the end when it was barely damp, I put it in the dryer for 10 minutes.  It softened up a bit, but not like it was originally.  So I'm a bit sad I did wash it after all.

A cotton batting was used, but it has let go in most places except around the quilting lines.  I'm guessing it to be from the 1930s/1940s.  Any thoughts on that?  It came from New York State.

This brings my antique quilt collection to a total of three!

No sombrero needed on MacGyver's head this time; he used his head and both arms spread wide but still couldn't hold out straight the entire quilt!

I plan to recreate this in smaller form; I'm curious to figure out the block construction.  I will keep you posted on that development.  Always more projects right?!  Quick note: if you would like to create your own version of an antique quilt, I got an email this morning showing a new Craftsy fabric collection just out, a Civil War reproduction line by Boundless Fabrics, that happens to be on sale this weekend.  It's not just on kits (but all kits are on sale, even the newest as this antique-inspired one), but all supplies, and fabrics.  Debbie Caffrey, a well-known designer, has created an Ocean Waves quilt measuring 69X89", that is gorgeous, and mimics the original Civil War quilt that inspired the collection.  That kit is also on sale, for a great price, $99!  (Note: these are affiliate links, that I think/hope will work with the new website, which I really like btw!)

Linking up with some favourite parties on my sidebar and in the Linky Parties tab up top.

Q4FAL - My List

It never ceases to amaze me how fast a quarter goes by... (and don't tell me, although someone did but I've forgotten; menopause foggy brain can be good at times) how many or rather, how few, weeks there are until Christmas.

How did I do from Q3? Like a quilt retreat, I never get as much done as I plan to! Here's the collage of projects on the list that were completed; note that the Twinkle Sprinkles, the stars quilt, got finished a few days after the Q3 deadline, drat, but I'm including it in the collage because it's kind of in no-man's-land, between the two quarters.

Not bad. 70% if you count the stars one that was a few days past the deadline.
So a few of the Q3 projects are being moved to Q4 list and I'm adding in a couple more. I'm trying to leave room to play as well, to allow myself to chase a few squirrels, especially the green and red ones of the Christmas kind!

84!

Huh? You are probably thinking.  84... uh, pieces you've cut for the next quilt!  wait... the number of FMQ designs you have tried? no... if you think like my sister, Linda, you'll be dying to say, "years old?!" bahaha.  Wrong on all. (hmm, maybe not on the FMQ designs, ha)

Two things.

84 km I walked in the month of May.  That's 52.2 miles!  (I have a great app, Map My Walk, that I use for walking, and my husband uses it for biking.  Free.)  That is a few kilometres short, because I did not record a couple of walks, like when my mum was here visiting.  I'm pretty impressed that I regularly walk 20 km or more per week with Rocco.

I think, but I'm not sure, that this is a black walnut tree, massive in any case!

84 followers on Bloglovin'.  Um, wow.  There has been a big jump lately due to the New Quilt Bloggers group I'm in, (see the sidebar button) as we follow each other, critique each other, learn, and improve our blogs.  You might start to see some changes as a result of being in this group! (It's taken another little jump since I started writing this post on the weekend!)

What am I working on right now?

Two things. (Okay, three if you count the handquilting I am plugging away at a bit each day, on that Christmas runner which is on my list for the Q2 FAL at On the Windy Side)

One is the next quilt pattern of Cheryl's I'm testing.  I couldn't decide which one, so I said, meh, I can do both...probably.  Out the window with my Q2 FAL list for Adrianne at On the Windy Side...

Here is the progress so far on Sea Star.  Fabric:

A 16-pack of pink fat quarters from Art Gallery fabric bought from Fat Quarter Shop this winter

This, however, is more like, OMG I-So-Love-Pink Star!  And well, I do!  Which takes me back to 1984-ish, and the dusky pink I had in our living room for the ensuing several years and through two houses...but we won't go there. Where we will go is my niece.  This quilt is going to her.

Progress on sewing the multitude of HSTs:

not a lot; it's been a run of rather non-sewing days, more yoga than sewing, which I'm okay with; more computer than sewing, which I'm not okay with

The other current project on the design wall is this blue quilt. This is on my list for Q2 FAL.  I had a brainwave to try my Stars quilt I designed and made for H2H with the blues!  Brilliant, n'est-ce pas?  I had planned on doing a different star quilt in one of Pam and Nicky Lintott's books, but then I came up with this plan with a few small changes.  First change is the blocks are 16" finished!  Bigger than the charity quilt.

Another little difference is the strip set centres (try saying 5 times in a row) compared to the first version as well.  Third difference: I'm turning the strip set blocks 90° as was suggested by a couple of people, to see if I get a woven effect.

You know there is something to be said about accumulating a rather large stash; it gives me some freedom to try something like this, to see, "what if I did this...", you know? That and keeping the walls insulated is my reasoning!  It was great fun to pull a ton of blue pieces out, some left over from previous projects, others destined for future projects (ahhh, when I was working full-time, and had the freedom to buy fabric just because I loved it and could visualize it growing up into a quilt...)

Eileen at Eileen Stitches and I had a conversation just yesterday about the similarities in our two cats.  OMG check out her current kittens quilt! Just saw it when I went for the link to her blog.  She said how her girl now loves to be on the cutting table, and I'd already taken this photo of Bella doing just that!  We both agree that fabric is like an aphrodisiac to our cats, and I would add that it sure is to us, too!  ;-)

Bella got as excited as I did at unfolding some not-looked-at-for-a-long-time fabrics!

If something doesn't quite work out in the "what if" department, I can always set it aside and use it in a seniors-in-wheelchairs charity quilt (I seem to have started something there).  That, or let Bella get all ecstatic and loll about on it, pose on it, crunch it up for an elbow rest...

You really didn't have to fan this out just for moi, but gee, thanks, mmrrrooowww!

Look at this beauty I snagged a photo of on Friday:  I just learned, from Wikipedia, and this Ontario site, that it is the symbol of Kentucky, and is a member of the magnolia family.  It also grows in only three places in Ontario:  the southern shore of Lake Huron, the northern shore of Lake Erie, where I am, and in the Niagara Peninsula.  There are many here in Kingsville.  This one, a massive tree, is just down the street from me!

Tulip tree, aka Liriodendron tulipifera

Speaking of down the street, that's where I'm heading right now, put some more kilometres on that app!

I'm linking up the blue stars quilt project with Scraptastic Tuesday at Mrs. Sew and Sow. The background of the pink stars quilt fits the scraps category too come to think of it!

And also with Patchwork Times' Design Wall this week!

Project Quilting 17.4 Of Another Era

Well, I did not get the original quilt project finished, so on Saturday evening, I turned to Plan B, which was using some Debbie Mumm fabric from about 25 years ago. I'd recently used one of the three squares from the panel on the back of my Happy Christmas quilt. I had thought that the backup plan would be to make a table runner using these two with a star block in the centre. However, with limited time, I knew I'd have to do something even quicker, and suddenly I thought I could make a tea cosy! Heaven knows I'd made four mug cosies this week, so one more large one shouldn't be a problem.

A little less than two hours later, on Saturday evening, like 10 pm, I had it done. Incidentally, that teapot is circa 38 years old, and the table topper is made (in 2005) from the same fabric line that I was using in the Plan A quilt!

Midnight Mystery Finish

This is Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs 2016 mystery quilt.  It was the last quilt quilted on my Avanté before MacGyver disassembled her for storage. 😢 I named the quilt Nine Lives as a nod to the cat fabric and the miles this quilt has travelled, as well as to the reincarnation of every fabric in the quilt to form the one you see before you today!

near the Sarasota Harbor

It is one of my goals on my Q4FAL List.  Yay for a second finish off the list.  It began its life in Kingsville, leftover fabrics from five previous projects: a runner I made for a colleague who was retiring from teaching, fabric left over from my Indianapolis Quilt, cat fabric from a runner for my aunt in England, now passed away, fabric left over from Shamrock, John's quilt, and the green tree bark fabric used as part of the backing left over from a good friend's group effort quilt that I quilted.  I think I also used that green tree bark-type fabric on another quilt.  I finished the flimsy in January here in North Port.

You win some; you lose some

Last night I checked the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, and was both sad as well as happy.  Sad, because I did not win, but happy because Seaside Rose came in 19th out of 107 quilts in that category(!!), and Hidden in Plaid Sight came in tied for 24/25th place out of 95!  Thank you to all my friends and family who took the time to read the posts about my two quilts, as well as to go on the site and vote.  I got many wonderful emails of kind words that, as I said to my brother, mean as much, if not more than your votes did. 

Yesterday I plugged away on the handquilting of my runner that I have until oh, sometime this evening to link up for Melissa's Lovely Year of Finishes.  Somehow think that's going to be another "lose some" as I highly doubt I can finish it, but I will try.

Last night I opted for a beach evening instead of handquilting.  "There is nothing so wrong with the world that gazing at water won't fix." Think I need to work that into a quilt.  My own saying, just came out of my mouth in a conversation.

Looking south towards Pelee Island, 17 miles away on the horizon

We are doing this every Friday evening again this summer, the neighbours who live on our lane, that is: head down to our beach, which is at the end of the "keyhole" lane, lawn chairs and beverage in hand, to visit and to enjoy the sun setting, the birds, and the sound of the waves.  The waves were so gentle last night, just an occasional lapping sound. 

View towards the west

Unlike earlier this week, when the waves were quite strong from the east, stirring up a lot of sand.  Rocco had to be hosed down pretty thoroughly after his swim!

Is that a cigar in his mouth?!

Nope, it's a stick; we lost his brand new toy when it sunk after I threw it when he wasn't watching where. . . but I got it back last night, six days later, washed up on the beach!

On Thursday, we heard, before we saw, the carp swimming out of the lake up into Mill Creek to spawn.  Rocco was pretty intrigued, as was I.

Mill Creek where it empties into Lake Erie - lots of carp visible

This goes on over several days; they were there again this morning, along with what looked like several Koi and some Bass.  They appear to try to jump onto the banks, splashing, swimming over each other, milling and swarming around in masses.  Carp are BIG fish too!

Well, better get at that runner. . . and the Christmas scrap quilt, which is 1/4 quilted. . . and the charity bags (I'm making two) which I got cut out. . .