Nordic Forest

This happy little quilt went together in no time from start to finish. 

Rufus is the perfect colour of a model for this quilt!

I bought these six fat quarters and a yard of the red in the same line a year or two before Covid. Funny how we measure time now that way, and like how is it six years ago that we were hearing the terrifying stories coming out of China, and then Italy in lockdowns...

But on to brighter cheerier topics! The quilt store had a kit which I think was a cushion, made out of these fabrics, but they had sold out of the kits, so I picked up fat quarters and figured no worries, I could figure it out myself. Sadly, I did not write anything down, probably because I intended to make it right away. Which, clearly did not happen. 

Leftovers Get New Lives

Although I find the 'stitch and flip' method for adding squares to rectangles to make corner triangles quick, it produces leftover triangles. If the squares are less than 2 ½", I toss them. When the squares are 5", as were those in Suburbia, it means leftover HSTs that, when sewn back together, are 4", finishing at  3½", much too big to waste, and, get this: there were 65 of them!! What to do? Make a matching cushion, for starters!

When Brady was here in August, I had just finished making Suburbia. It is going to Jordan, Brianne's boyfriend, for Christmas. Brady always like to sew something when he's here, so I asked him what he thought of sewing the HSTs, which I'd sewn back together and squared up as I made the quilt, into a coordinating cushion cover. He thought that was a great idea, and started playing around with them to make his own design. I'd shown him several ideas that one can do with versatile light/dark HSTs, but he said, "No, Nana, I want to do my own thing."

Happy Christmas!

I debated for some time, well the entire time I was making this and starting this post, what to call this quilt. In the end, because the centre block is English Wedding Ring, I felt that I needed a nod to English Christmas, and there they say, 'Happy Christmas', not 'Merry Christmas' so that is the quilt's name. But, as is often the case with my quilts, there's a bit more to that name than just the English Christmastime greeting.

I was at first dismayed, but then pleased (almost always a silver lining) to see that we had a skiff of snow this morning. Perfect background for a new quilt!

St. Nicholas Mug Cosy and a Winner

A few days ago when I was perusing my Christmas fabric stash, I came across the remnants of this beautiful piece of Benartex fabric. I'd made two pillowcases with it, and still had quite a good length of the wonderful border print. Having recently made a few mug cosies to order and one to replace another that had sold, it struck me that the motif might be perfect for one.

Perfect! Both sides are identical.

I love the unusual Christmas palette here, which doesn't scream Christmas, but more of the legend of St. Nicholas.

Arabesque Pattern Release

It's been a minute or three since I've had a new pattern out, but here I am with one more for 2025. Many of you will remember my SAHRR this year, and several said it would be a great pattern. So here she is!

Something I realized as I wrote up the pattern is that because the rounds (all seven of them) are 3" blocks or widths, you can really go wild with this pattern, and switch them around to create a totally unique personalized quilt! I told my pattern testers to feel free to do just that!

Oh, and of course, Arabesque is on sale all weekend for just CA$10.🤩

Kindred Spirits

Kindred spirits, the name of my Sewcial Bee Sampler is done! This is a Quilt Along designed and hosted by Sharon Holland and Maureen Cracknell that started in the summer of 2017. I started the blocks about six months later when my friend Tish @tishnwonderland asked if I'd like to make them with her and her husband We made the first blocks on January 1, 2018.

I never realized until after I was cropping this photo, how perfect the bed of orange leaves are under the quilt!

 

We made a few over the next few months, sewing 'together' sometimes texting as we sewed, sometimes FaceTiming. Tish lives in West Virginia, and I am in Ontario. We first met in a New Quilt Bloggers group back in 2015, but we have met up in real life a few times. She's most definitely a kindred spirit: love of quilting, love of free-motion quilting especially, love of pibbles (at the time she had two pitties, brothers, and I had one, Rocco), a love of nature, and reading, and more.

I took these two photos in a favourite place near my house, Kennedy Woods. This first area by the parking lot is called The Sugar Bush because of these massive sugar maples throughout it.

Gratitude and Glimmers #101

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of November. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

—Gilbert Keith Chesterton

English author, philosopher

Creator of the character Father Brown

1. The sky a couple of days ago at sunset caught my eye and never mind gave me a glimmer; it set my heart on fire! This is without any kind of filter, and it still does not do it justice how jaw-dropping vibrant the colours were. If only I had taken my phone out with me when I first stepped onto the back deck to look up--a big flock of Canada geese were flying over at that very moment , silhouetted against this fiery backdrop. By the time I ran back into the kitchen to grab my phone, they were over the next street away.

I posted it to Instagram the next day, and an even better shot was sent to me by my friend Mieke who lives right on Lake Erie's shore. We live about ten houses up. Look at this:

Looking southwest over the lake; used with permission.

I asked her if these magical sunsets are because the sun is lower at this time of year, and she said she thinks that's part of it but also because of the evaporation from the lake, there are a lot more clouds. This reminded me of a comment from the caption of the catamaran we were on in Key West years ago, a sunset cruise. When clouds were building up and everyone was starting to get disappointed, he said that sunsets are actually better when there is cloud because the light bounces off them. I think a quilt shot might have to happen here, and Mieke has said to walk on over anytime!