Freefall QAL Winners

Again, I can't thank everyone enough for participating and finishing your quilts, be they tops or done and dusted! Thank you to those who started the QAL, but life got in the way; when you finish your top or quilt please do send me a photo as I'd love to see it.

First prize was the fat quarter stack of Freefall fabrics, the very same ones I used for my Freefall quilt, from Paintbrush Studio. It goes to

Helen of Midget Gem Quilts!

Next we had a few gift certificates.

$25 to Sew Sisters Quilt Shop 

This goes to Kathleen, on Flickr:

$25 gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop

Vicki of Vicki's Crafts and Quilting

6 fat quarters of 3 half-yard cuts from Needle and Foot Fine Fabrics

Yvonne of Quilting Jet Girl

A copy of Crafted Appliqué by Lara Bucella of Buzzin Bumble

Julie of Pink Doxies

2 winners get 2 patterns from Meadow Mist Designs

Jean of All Points of the Compass

I was so touched that she'd done a quilt in a tree shot, and such a special tree, her husband's dad's memorial tree, a Weeping Pear.

Had to include the second photo so you can see the beautiful batiks she used

and

Rose at something rosemade

2 patterns from Quilting Jet Girl

Kathleen at Kathleen McMusing

A pattern from Sew Fresh Quilts and one from Tish's Adventures in Wonderland

Lisa of Sunlight in Winter Quilts

A pattern from Canuck Quilter Designs and one from Stitchin At Home

Tish of Tish's Adventures in Wonderland 

A pattern from Cooking Up Quilts and one from me, mmm! quilts

Natalie

Laura on Instagram also finished her quilt top, but confessed she didn't know how to link up, so here is her quilt.  I have sent her a copy of both mine and Tish's patterns.

I will be in touch with the winners.

Windblown Cushion Cover

This little gem of a cushion or pillow cover was on my Q1 FAL list.  Oh well, the point is it's done, right? And I just love it! So summery.

I had plans to drive to my beloved Lakeside Park to do the photo shoot, but then I thought hmm, maybe there's a spot in our yard, rounded the back of the deck and spied this!  Like you'd think I had totally planned it, down to putting the begonia there.  Nope.  But I'll take it!

You saw the flimsy in my previous post.  This cushion is based on my Freefall and Windfall quilt pattern, but uses only four blocks of the half and half kind. There were a few choices I had to arrange the four...

It was hard to decide!  In the end I thought floating them on a large pinwheel would add to the twirling effect. I got the top together, complete with mitred corners, and called it a night.  Went upstairs the next morning to layer it and figure out a quilting plan...

Someone had laid claim to it! The cheek! If you look closely at the upper left corner by the migrating geese strips, you will see her very own perch, one of several, I might add, by a window, complete with her very own handmade by yours truly, cushion. She likes the new stuff.  Without fail.

Some of the quilting plan came to me no problem:

Loving the sheen of the Sulky white rayon.

The lines in the white areas in opposite directions I thought would look kind of cool.  Then I did flowing lines on the diagonal in the leaves themselves.  Finally the turquoise sections...hmmm. I was stumped for a bit, so I pulled out my trusty plexiglass and dry erase markers, brilliant idea of my friend Tish, and drew out a couple of thoughts:

What? No feathers? Maybe dot to dot then...meh...the continuous curve appealed to me.

Found some matching rayon thread by Gütermann, and off I went, just eye-balling the curves.  I went with three straight lines centred in the borders, and called it a night.

Managed to capture a quick shot of the back as the sun was setting.

Just as I was dropping off to sleep, zing! Into my head popped the idea, (but of course, Sandra!) of doing a flanged binding. Yes! So I did.

Perfect choice!

Here is the back, an envelope style, but I don't double the fabric layers.  I wouldn't have had enough fabric anyhow, ha!

I remembered to sew on my mmm! quilts label from Ikaprint AS I was sewing on the binding:

When I stitched down the flange, I used the turquoise rayon on the top.  I am not a fan of the line of stitching you get on the back when doing binding this way, although I sure am a fan of the look and the speed. I thought the white cotton Gütermann would show more on the back...what are the chances I'd have a salmon/rose colour to put in the bobbin... Chances were great! I stocked up on quite a variety of colours of Essential thread at one of Connecting Threads' sales. That is an affiliate link, so it is also my duty to let you know that clicking it will take you to the thread sale currently on (25% off so that means US$2.09 for a 1200 yard spool of 100% cotton, terrific thread) and I might mention that all their batting is 30% off as well. That's when I usually pick up a few packages of Hobbs, the brand they carry. Anyhow, threads:

You actually do get a bit of an idea of the sheen the rayon threads give in that photo.

In retrospect, I think a circle quilting motif would have been better for the spinning effect.  That thought struck me this morning when I went to do the binding, and I saw the finished cover sitting on my sewing table.  Maybe there's another one of these in my future!

Quilt Stats:
Pattern:  Windblown, original design
Size:  after quilting 18.25"
Fabric: Recollection by Katarina Rocella (how I love her work) for Art Gallery Fabrics, Stof Fabrics in turquoise, Kona Snow
Batting: Warm n Natural
Quilted: on my Bernina
Threads:  pieced with Gütermann; quilted with Sulky rayon, Gütermann rayon

Once I release the pattern, which will hopefully be in July, I will include instructions for making this pillow as well as both sizes of quilts.  If you haven't seen all the beautiful renditions of Freefall, go back one post or click here, and follow the links to gorgeous takes on my design!  If you fell behind in the QAL, you have until Sunday afternoon, 4 pm EST to link up your flimsy or your finished quilt to be eligible for some pretty sweet prizes. And if this is the first time seeing my Freefall pattern, all the steps to make the quilt are in the Freefall tab up top, and all the steps are available as free PDFs in my Craftsy store. 😊

Speaking of Sunday, and Craftsy, all things sweet, Craftsy is having a Supplies Sale from now until Sunday.  This is when I have scored some pretty sweet deals on kits and on fabric and yarns.  As always, thank you so much if you click through on my links to either Craftsy or Connecting Threads.

Linking up
Crazy Mom Quilts
TGIFF at Cut & Alter
Busy Hands Quilts

The Birthday of a Famous Canadian

Today is the birthday of my father, Cliff, who would have been 91, were he still alive. I miss him so much still, things I know he'd love, things I know he'd find hilarious, things I wish I could share with him. The Freefall Quilt Along was an idea germinated last Fall when I participated in a blog hop for Paintbrush Studio, organized by Bernie of Needle and Foot.  I made Windfall using the gorgeous collection of that same name.  This quilt is, to paraphrase Yvonne of Quilting Jet Girl, a quintessential Canadian quilt, perfect and timely for Canada's sesquicentennial, 150th birthday on July 1, 2017, although I didn't plan it to be all this at the time.

Taken in my home town of Kingsville, Ontario, Fall 2016, 50.5" square

I knew I wanted to release this quilt as a pattern, but I also wanted to challenge myself in my blogging life by running a quilt along, so using this as the pattern, but in a smaller size, seemed appropriate.  I approached Paintbrush Studio about my idea, making the swirling leaves on a large shadow leaf a spring themed quilt.  Thus, they became the main sponsors, and thus, I created Freefall, using the collection by that same name!  Man I do love synchronicity, more so when it is orchestrated by powers beyond moi. 😍😁

Taken in North Port, Florida, Spring 2017, 37.5" square

When setting out the timeline for this QAL, I wanted it to be a bit slower (and do-able) of a pace.  I had to bump this further ahead in the calendar year when I had to make Coins of the Atocha for Benartex's Modern By the Yard magazine, or e-zine.  Then, I decided why not allow a little extra time, as in 4 weeks from the flimsy finish, which was May 15, to get the quilts quilted? And lo and behold, that meant that this parade would be June 15...my dad's birthday. As I mentioned way back in the beginning of this quilt along journey, Dad always used to write on our wall calendar, shortly after my mum would put up the new one in January, "Birthday of a Famous Canadian" on his day. We kids all loved it.  He'd wink; Mum would roll her eyes with a half-grin. So the final parade of quilts of this Maple Leaf pattern, symbolic of Canada, is happening on a most auspicious date for me. 😍

I think everyone knows how dead chuffed (to quote my English mum) I am about the participation in this, my first QAL. I have gotten goosebumps at seeing such a variety of lush fabrics used for my design, in Fall themes, Spring themes, bright and happy themes.  I myself created another smaller yet version of my pattern, a cushion cover, aka pillow cover. See below. I plan to release the pattern in short order, and it will contain instructions for both quilts and the cushion cover.

Note: if you are visiting here for the first time, or have not heard of the Freefall Quilt Along that ran from March to June, click on the Freefall tab at the top of my blog where you will find all the posts with instructions.  There is a colouring page in my Craftsy Store, as a free PDF download. 😁 That is an affiliate link; as an affiliate I feel it is my duty to tell you of their Supplies Event on now and through the weekend...you can score some sweet kits and yardage and yarns, and tools, and threads...

This measures 18.5".  You can set the falling leaves in a few different ways, because of the 'shadow' HSTs behind them. It was a bit difficult settling on the final layout!

So...drum roll....

Let's see!! I cannot wait to see how these have all come together, quilted or flimsy.  I will leave the linkup open until Sunday so you've got a couple of extra days to get 'er done and I will draw for prizes on Sunday evening.

Just what are those lovely prizes again?
1.  A fat quarter stack of Freefall fabrics from Paintbrush Studio
2.  A $25 gift certificate to Sew Sisters Quilt Shop
3.  A $25 gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop
4.  6 fat quarters or 3 half-yard cuts of fabric from Needle & Foot Fine Fabrics
5.  A copy of Crafted Appliqué by Lara Buccella of Buzzin' Bumble
6.  Two patterns to two winners from Cheryl at Meadow Mist Designs (Magnolia Mystery is beginning! Eeep! That link will take you there.)
7.  Two patterns from Yvonne at Quilting Jet Girl.
8.  A pattern from Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts.
9.  A pattern from Joanne at Canuck Quilter.
10.  A pattern from Beth at Cooking Up Quilts.
11.  A pattern from Tish at Tish's Adventures in Wonderland.
12  A pattern from Cindy at Stitchin' At Home.
13.  A pattern from moi.

Heartfelt thanks to each one of these sponsors who so generously offered prizes for my first quilt along.  Heartfelt thanks to each of those who participated, fitting this in amongst various other obligations and projects and life in general.  Heartfelt thanks to Tish and to Julie for offering to test the pattern. It would not have been as straightforward without their valued input.  Also heartfelt thanks to Jen for testing the instructions of the large leaf shadow point blocks.

Wow!  All right, let's get this show on the road!

Blue Skies Story

Remember Blue Skies? My first 'for sale' pattern?  Well she has another 'first' under her belt...

She's been sold! My first sale in my Etsy shop. I could say, "Wow! 50% of my stock has just been sold in my Etsy shop!" Which is entirely true.  See how one can manipulate stats? Yeah, I have only had two items in it for the past year, grin, and ahem...I need to amend that, I know.  Or should I say, I need to augment that?!  It'll happen.  Just like my sewing room, just like our kitchen (eep! It's so exciting, picked out the granite today! The only part that someone other than my MacGyver has to do.)

There is a most wonderful story with the sale of this little quilt, so sit back and let me tell it to you.  It began with an email.  The people were enquiring about the quilt, and wanted to know if I could embroider a design on it.  They were planning on giving it as a baby quilt, destined for a baby boy. I said yes, and sent them a sample of some of my FMQ embroidery work.  They sent me this graphic, and over the next several days we talked and I stitched:

The middle image is the test I sent them with various golds and blues, all Sulky rayons in 40 and 30 weight, so they could choose the colours. My Bernina loves Sulky rayons, as do I.

I am no artist, meaning I can't draw images out of my head.  However, I am a fairly decent copyist! For this, I also made a sort of stencil out of paper for getting some of the lines and proportions correct. You can see I used a blue line marker to sketch the lines. I quadruple FMQ-ed with a straight stitch the outlines, giving it the look of hand embroidery. Here is the finished graphic:

Why the angels embroidery? Well, the mother of the baby boy that this quilt is going to lost both her own parents when they were very young, so the purchasers wanted the guardian angels as a symbol of her parents watching over their grandson.  That tugged at my heart!  I wasn't sure about embroidering onto a quilt that was already quilted, but I did some test samples, and got their approval. Once I saw the finished embroidery, it struck me that the angels appear to be in clouds, formed by the poofiness of the feathers.

Amazingly, the lovely people who bought the quilt live in Ontario, my province! They were an absolute pleasure to work with.

I love that this graphic looks good on the front and on the back in its mirror image.

This quilt has an international connection, that is, between Canada and the United States: it will be travelling with the clients next month to California, home of the mother and baby boy to whom it will be given. I just love thinking of the wee baby who will be wrapped in his blue skies quilt, wrapped in love from his family, both here and in heaven.


In other blue news, "Cuh' Boss!" is on the frame!! It just so happened that with securing the 3 layers together and then stitching in the ditch, I ended up in the top right corner where the blue cow is! She was the very first cow I pieced; how fitting that she is the first to be quilted.  Did I mention how much I love the colour blue? 💙

And, in a little Canadian news (see what I've done here?! Love love when a post that seems like a schnozzle comes out a delicious, choreographed scrap quilt), I got almost 'only 3 blocks behind' in the 150 Canadian Women QAL (which is featured in Quilter's Connection magazine!) but that was yesterday, a Tuesday, the day of the week when Kat releases three more blocks, so I was 6 blocks behind, now 5 as I made one this morning!

Clockwise from top: Blocks 85-87

85 - Elizabeth Smellie: awarded the Royal Red Cross for her exceptional service in military nursing during WWI, in 1923 was appointed superintendent of the Canadian Victorian Order of Nurses (VON); she also worked for the World Health Organization (WHO); served in WWII as matron-in-chief of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, and was promoted to colonel.

86 - Ethel Stark: She has so many firsts: brilliant violinist, superb pianist, she was the first Canadian to win a fellowship at the Philadelphia Curtis Institute, only woman to sign up for conducting classes; first Canadian woman soloist on a programme broadcast across the US; founded the New York Women's Chamber Orchestra, founded the Montreal Women's Symphony Orchestra; in 1947 that orchestra was the first Canadian orchestra to play at the New Carnegie Hall; first Canadian woman to gain international recognition as a conductor. I have been saving this red/ivory music fat quarter for important female musicians--sure hope kd lang will be one of the future women.

87 - Kenojuak Ashevak: Inuit artist; her art (an icon) The Enchanted Owl, is on the commemorative $10 bill which was just released June 1! I love how many connections to Canada's birthday Kat has inadvertently (I think) done through her 150 incredible women project. There is a holographic image on that bill, the stained glass in our Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, so cool, and the prominent image of another Canadian in Kat's project, Agnes MacPhail. Anyhow, look closely at my block, the one on the bottom left.  I knew I had some Aboriginal Canadian art fabric, left over from a quilt I made for my niece several years ago.  I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw there was an owl image on it! It's brown, white and a bit of burgundy, but I had to include it, along with birch trees in winter, and snowflake white fabric.
(info paraphrased as always from Kat's PDF files)

Hope you will be back tomorrow for a most momentous occasion!  The final reveal and parade of Freefall quilts from my Freefall Quilt Along. There are some fabulous prizes to be had, and remember flimsies are fine! I've already seen some finishes...WOW!

Linking up
Sew Fresh Quilts for Let's Bee Social

Green Geese

I am behind in just about everything in my life these days, including an unplanned hiatus from Ashtanga yoga, but I keep plodding along. Here is the green row, May's colour, for my Migrating Geese, project #2, in the RSC 2017 at soscrappy.

Man! That would've been such a good lead-off photo for a May RSC post!

Little has been done on any of my RSC projects, of which there are three, but for a few green blocks on the "X Marks the Block" project, which is #3.  This particular project my friend Nancy in Florida spied on Pinterest, as a fun quilt to do together as a long-distance quilt-along.  I did put a yellow corner on one of the green blocks:

I remarked that I may have got myself into a bit of a Rubic's Cube dilemma with opposing corners in various colours. Might be time to sit down with the sketch book and do a little planning? Ya think?

I pulled out a bunch of my yellow larger scraps to begin cutting for the yellow migrating geese row.

Two RSC projects being cut for, the geese and a few yellow strings

I have realized, in this past 2 months of crazy, that having stuff prepped ahead of time means I will accomplish more by basically doing these projects as leader/ender projects.  This is something I knew and possibly verbalized silently (ha oxymoron there) to myself, but it is so true.  Now, finding the time to actually plan and cut ahead, is key.  However, now that things up here are actually starting to have some semblance of order and organization, that is becoming more of a reality.

Here is my temporary design wall! 😆 A tablecloth from the dollar store (which works wonderfully btw) suspended from the highest point of the ceiling (7') by two nails and a pin.  Can be weighted down with a dowel and rolled up and clipped to those nails! A MacGyver invention, of course.

Green row in progress

Ioleen from Instagram suggested I use velcro strips, one on the ceiling, the other on the tablecloth to attach it. Great idea! Here you get a peek at the longarm, the Singer 15-91 desk that is doubling as my computer desk, and one of the kitchen cabinets now being used as fabric storage. I moved the shoe rack under one of the eaves sections. You can just see it to the right of the tablecloth.

I did buy two sheets of 2X8' half inch styrofoam but they are too tall for the ceiling up here! For now one is on its side under the back of the longarm, and the other is in our bedroom. I plan to get another two so I have an 8x8' design wall as I used to have, covered with my beloved gridded flannel.  It's going to have to be folded/hinged somehow and I know there are tutorials to do this online, plus I have my beloved husband to mastermind something that I often tweak a bit to serve my needs. We're a pretty good team.😉 I'm okay with a design wall in our bedroom; I can contemplate stuff while ... okay never mind, where my thoughts went is not what I'd originally intended to write! LOL Yesterday while iMessaging a dear friend in Alberta and telling her a bit about the kitchen reno, in which convo I said, "I have a great contractor; I sleep with him too!" and she responded, "Sassy Sandra!" well, there you go, guess I am. Grin. (I can hear both my daughters going, "Disgusting.") Ha! I was originally envisioning having a design wall in my bedroom and waking up with the sun, being unable to resist playing around with fabric, much to MacGyver's annoyance since he is so not a morning person.

Back to the migrating geese! Here they are suspended from the crabapple tree, against what will reveal itself to be either wisteria or trumpet vine once that all flowers.  Apparently both are there, climbing on, and most effectively disguising, the chain link fence. Love the way this quilt is progressing, and can't wait to get that yellow row up next.

Linking up
soscrappy
Quilting is More Fun Than Housework

Singer Featherweight Love #1

This is the first in an installment of five, maybe more, posts on vintage Singer sewing machines.  You may recall from this post that in finally actively pursuing my long-held desire to own a Featherweight after seeing Paula Nadelstern's in her tiny NYC apartment, that I inadvertently am now the owner of 4 more vintage Singer machines. I already was the proud, albeit a bit ashamed owner (I still haven't taken the time to get her up and running) of my grandma's treadle machine.

Here you see the three of the four gals that now belong to me, in various stages of their spa treatments.

I Like/Love #5

1. I like rhododendrons, especially when they are mine!

This beauty came with the house, and she's pretty big:

Flanged Binding Tweaked - A Tutorial

By now you know that I quite like a flanged binding. Tish got me onto Susie's Magic Binding at Aunt Marti's 52 Quilts.  It makes a really great binding.  My problem was that at 2.5" it was too wide, especially for wallhangings, and I ended up cutting off points when I applied the binding, despite there being ample seam allowance.  Solution? Trim the quilt sandwich to larger than 1/4" seam allowance or adjust the binding widths.

I elected to adjust the binding widths, to end up with a 2.25" wide binding, my preferred width.  Here is what I've come up with.  Thank you to Jean of All Points of the Compass for the suggestion to have it out before the Freefall QAL final parade of quilts on June 15.  Which is just around the corner--like how?? There's a little update about that at the bottom of this tutorial.

All right. Let's do the binding.  I used pictures of Harbinger of Spring, my version of Tish and David's first oh-so-pretty pattern available on Craftsy, still at a reduced price, to do this tutorial. You can see the pop of yellow just inside the perimeter of the quilt.

1. You need two colours, your main, (mine is the striped) and the flange, (mine is the yellow).  The flange will be your pop of colour.  Something that struck me as a bit odd is that your flange is cut wider than your main colour, but so it is.  Cut the main 1.25" and the flange 1.5".  Cut enough strips to go around the perimeter of your quilt plus about 10" extra for joining the ends. Join them as you would any binding, on a 45° angle, pressing the seams open or closed.

A note on pressing: I've done both; because of the 45° angle, the seams are evenly distributed across the binding edge, so it really doesn't matter, and I do tend to think pressing to one side is stronger.  Some of my quilts are a little over 20 years old now, and the binding edge has started to fray; I've even had to repair some hand stitches on a couple of quilts, so they do wear... and that's a good thing! That means they're loved and used.  Here there is a little extra bulk because of the joined strips of two colours, so I will usually press the seams open.

2. Now sew the two lengths together on the long long edge.  Before starting to sew, read step 3!

3. Worth noting: try to avoid what you see below. Before starting to sew the binding strips together along the long edge, run them through your hands together to see if they will be a little more offset than you see mine here.  Again, it will help to reduce bulk.  Mine ended working fine; I was not ripping this out after sewing 180+ inches together!

4. Press the seams towards the main fabric.  Having a quilt inspector for this step, along with that Steamfast little iron which I just love, keeps everything in line. (Affiiliate link there, but I would never steer you wrong on a great purchase.)

5. Then, align and press the raw edges together.  This is what happens because of the different widths of each binding strip:

A very narrow stripe of the flange colour will appear at the bottom. That is perfect.  Look at the flange (all-yellow) side; all you see is yellow!

6. Sew the binding to the back of your quilt using your walking foot, with a 1/4" seam allowance, and having the main fabric against the backing of your quilt; the flange side is up.

I tend to align the binding a hair's width inside the edge of the quilt sandwich. This just allows that 'leetle' bit extra when folding it around to the front.  Below you see what it looks like after you've finished piecing it to the quilt back.

Join the ends as you would your regular binding.  Here is the final join.  I'm getting pretty decent at nailing the alignment of the binding and the flange!

My own tutorial is here for getting a lovely 45° angle join of the two binding ends.  One thing I've found with this technique is that it is pretty tricky getting the joined strips of binding to line up nicely but if you stab through the layers with a pin straight up and down, leaving the pin like a nail at that join, and then pin regularly through the layers on either side of the 'nail', you can get a pretty good alignment. This will make sense when you actually do the join.

7. Press the binding away from the quilt back, nice and flat, as you see below.

8.  Then bring it around to the front of the quilt and press it flat again.  You could glue it down; I've done both: glued and not glued.  I prefer the glue method (Elmer's School Glue - it's non-toxic and washable) as it makes the stitching mindless.  Stitch in the ditch between the flange (yellow) and the main (stripes) binding.  I match the thread to the flange, so here I used yellow, with a white or cream in the bobbin.

It looks relatively neat but for the stitching line, on the back.  However, once the quilt is washed, that pretty much melts into the quilt back.

Ta da!  Pretty slick, no?

Freefall Update!
You have one more week to finish up your quilts.  Originally I thought the parade would be for finished quilts only, but you know what? Life happens to us all, and it certainly has been a-happenin' to me as you well know, over the past couple of months.

So.

I have lots of prizes and I'd love for each one of you who has faithfully been quilting along, to be eligible for a prize.  I know that life stuff, some good, some not so good, has happened to some of you over the past little bit, so a flimsy in my books is good enough for entry into the parade and draws.

Deal?

Good.  I thought so.

Linking up:
Sew Fresh Quilts
Quilt Fabrication