150 Canadian Women Quilt Finish

I actually am quite filled up with emotion to share this finally finished quilt. But first, I want to acknowledge this beautiful land where I live.

I live on the traditional and ancestral lands of the Three Fires Confederacy: the Ojibwe, the Potawotamie, (also known as Nishnabek), the Odawa, and also Caldwell First Nation. I also acknowledge the Myaamia, First Peoples of my beloved Point Pelee and Pelee Island and surrounding waters. This is unceded territory, meaning it was stolen, and I respect and honour the First Peoples who have been on Turtle Island since time immemorial.

The quilt has been seven years in the making. I first heard of the quilt along in early December 2016. It had started in November, and over the course of the ensuing 52 weeks, the designer, Kat Tucker of Quiltnasium, released three 6" blocks, each representing a Canadian woman who had contributed to Canada in some way. Well, I was instantly IN. I love anything that empowers women. Since I'd read a fair amount of pioneer- and suffragette-themed books, I was intrigued and eager to learn more. And did I. Not only did Kat give the directions to make each block, she also included a few paragraphs telling each woman's story.

What's Up

What have I been up to besides working on my 94 Quilt? Well, a few things, though none of them have given me any finishes for a while.

You know that I've decided to hop on Leanne's @devotedquilter Instagram bandwagon of finishing WIPs during the final 100 days of 2021.

I started with the biggest most time-consuming goal of the three, but tbh, all three are pretty big, time-consuming goals. In for a penny...

Happenings

Things have been rather quiet here for me, and I do apologize to my regular readers. I've not had a lot to write about, and not felt like writing either even when I do...very odd for me! I have been picking away at a few projects, spent a lovely week in Florida with a dear friend where I soaked up some sunshine and visited several other dear friends, even got to go on the water, cruising around the Sarasota Intracoastal waters, soaking up more rays and more information about nature around there.

Yes, that's a real palm tree, on our boat! They let them get to a certain height and then plant them on solid ground and start some more on the boat.

Here's a bit of what I've been doing in the quilting department...

UFO Busting #33.5

Welcome to Tish's UFO Busting party! While she is busting up UFOs and stompin' all over them, eating pie, and doing some shopping with blogger friends in Ohio, I am hosting the party for her this week.

Welcome!  Tish and I go a ways back... to a certain New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop 2015, during which we further bonded over books and pibbles. We've gotten up to all kinds of quilty fun over the past 3.5 years, some of it finished, some not. One of our sew-together projects that we both have not finished is the Sewcial Bee Sampler Quilt Along, though she is further along now than I am. Anja joined us, and since she has been in India, I haven't bothered to even try to catch up with Tish...Anja's my excuse ha! Let's take a look at what has been occupying 99% of my quilting time this week...

Update on Projects and OMG

As you know by now, I really enjoy sharing with you 'the process', and reading about that very thing on others' blogs. Here are some of my ongoing projects, as well as my OMG for September, which is this quilt in progress:

Please note: these are all reds: shades, tints, hues, so they go from bright red, to burgundies to pinks, corals

...which I hope to have the centre section complete (that's 156 6" blocks with sashing and cornerstones) by the end of the month. I'm putting them together in the order in which they were released, with my six blocks interspersed. I'll highlight those once the quilt centre is complete. Yes, there are borders! It may very well end up being my biggest quilt to date. I may have to do a final piece count...

This is my 150 Canadian Women quilt, a quilt along I did with Kat of Next Step Quilt Designs from December 2016 through October 2017. My first post is here, December 6, 2016, and my last is here, January 3, 2018. Canada celebrated her sesquicentennial July 1, 2017, and this was the project, three blocks per week for a total of 150. For this layout you needed to make six more, which I did, for a total of 156 (12 X 13 blocks layout). I have the first six rows sewn together, and row 7 is done as well, and pinned on the design wall. I found sewing the rows into groups of three worked well, and then I sewed the group of three rows to make the group of six. This is what I plan to do for the bottom half. Whether row 7 will get sewn to rows 1-6 or start the bottom section of rows 7-13, I haven't decided! The bulk of the quilt has been sewn on my Featherweights, 1951 Tillie, and 1947 Billie. I am in LOVE, mad crazy effervescing love with this quilt. It's huge. Can you see the tiny cornerstones that finish at 1"?! It's a plaid-type print from the 'With Glowing Hearts' line by Moda. Perfection!

Un Mélange

That's French for a mixture. Kind of what I've been doing for the past week and a bit. Things have been a bit quiet on the blog; I actually had thought to take a break after the Plus Playtime QAL finished, but I am still here. Might take that break in August but I'll let you know. Allow me to show you the mélange of sewing I've been doing.

One and 150 Canadian Women

I joined the 150 Canadian Women QAL at Next Step Quilting Designs shortly after she'd started, I think the third week in, so October, 2016. I stuck with this, at times being nine blocks behind (maybe more), and I am just so very very glad I did. I learned so much about these a-MAZING women, felt so in awe of their fortitude, intelligence, bravery, and both fearsome and fearless attitudes. I do not have the flimsy done quite yet, but here are the final six blocks.

Wait what? Yeah, I had the same thought when I read that. I made my 150, and I'll admit, I was wondering what we'd do, a 10X15 block layout? That would be 60X90 before borders, a bit of a long and narrow quilt size...put a few on the back? I certainly did not want to do that. Then when I downloaded and read the final quilt assembly instructions, I saw we were to make six extra blocks of our own choosing, or simply cut six 6.5" squares to fill in the spots because the layout was 12X13 which equals 156. Ahhh.

Singer Featherweight Love #2

She nearly became a tractor.

Wow, back in June when I wrote the Featherweight Love #1 post, I did not envision it being this long before I wrote about my second machine purchase. You may recall that in finally actively pursuing a long-held dream of owning a Featherweight, I became the owner of two within one weekend! This girl was the first one I spied on kijiji, a buy/sell site, when I decided to 'just see' if there were any available in my area. There was just this one, in Belle River, which is where I got my first teaching job when we moved here in the 80s.

Here she is on her first sewing job, on May 4. Yup, the thread is not being fed through the cone thread guide in this photo, but I always always do, as these machines were not made for the cross-wound style of threads we have nowadays.

Just look at her tension and be amazed when you find out her background:

Right side is top thread, left side is bobbin thread. Pretty darn fantastic, no?

What's with the tractor?

Like I said, this was the first one I emailed about. The person selling her did not respond for two days. She had no case, and no cord, and hadn't sold, so the price was reduced to $90. I checked with my good friend Danielle, who owns two Featherweights, and had rekindled my flame to own one. She said they normally sell for around $300 here. So this one must've had something seriously wrong with her. When the guy still hadn't responded after a few days, I looked a little further afield which is when I found Mathilda, aka Tillie up in Tillsonburg.

Then he responded, on a Friday. Someone else was supposed to take a look the next day, and he'd let me know if it was still available. However, the next day, Saturday, we'd arranged to take the trip to Tillsonburg. As you know, we bought Tillie. I wasn't sure what kind of state the Belle River machine was in, nor whether she'd still be available. Well. That very evening, Belle River emailed back and said I could come Sunday and see her. Did I really need another Featherweight? No. But she was the first. She's American; Tillie is Scottish. She was an incredible price, and well, I'd bought a spare case from Tillie's seller just in case I acquired her... She could share Tillie's foot control.  It's only 25 minutes' drive away.... I had a déjà vu sort of feeling about her...

Well, we arrived, and when the garage door opened, I saw not one little dusty Featherweight but many, many Singer sewing machines, various models, in various states of disrepair and pieces. Yep. Pieces. And then.  I saw a little tractor, the tractor motor housing and steering wheel being a Singer machine, modified (noooo) to look like a tractor. Painted. Apparently the guy's dad who was deceased, used to collect old Singers and turn them into display tractors (that link will show you). The machine I had come to see actually did work though. He showed us. She was a little rougher than Tillie, but still purred along. No case. No foot. No attachments, had sat for who knows how long....would he consider $75? He certainly would. Sold.

And then, he said, "I might have a foot cord you can take that will work with the machine. You might have to replace the wiring. As you see, my dad collected all kinds of old machines, and repurposed them into tractors."

Had to wipe off some layers of grime!

Now, what to name this new girl? I was super-duper-excited to have scored her for this price! I cleaned and oiled and greased her up at the same time I was doing Mathilda. Hmm, Belle? She certainly was a little beauty as I shined her up, working over the course of many a spa session on the tape residue on her bed. She came from Belle River...no, Belle is too close to Bella. It took some time, but she is just Billie. Close to Belle, rhymes with Tillie. She's feisty. She escaped becoming a John Deere.  She waited for me to bring her back to life. She's built the same year as our house, 1947. She actually sews quieter and smoother than 1951 Tillie! And, well, the other Billie I know is Billie Halliday, a pretty fine, smooth-voiced singer....😍 My grandmother's treadle machine, which I inherited, is Millie, my grandmother's name. A good trio. (ya ya, I do have two other vintage Singers, not Featherweights, but their names do not rhyme. I will write about them as well, don't worry.)

So I take turns on the Featherweight girls. I sewed most of the summer on Tillie, but this Fall, pulled out Billie and have been using her a lot. The more I use her, the smoother she sews. My one and only concern is the elusive 1/4" seam. At first, I would switch out Tillie's throat plate that her seller had had engraved with the seam allowances. That was okay but the 1/4" marking was a tad healthy.

Long story short, I decided to buy the acrylic seam guide from Nova (not an affiliate link). I sewed for the months of September and October using this seam guide.

I like the unobtrusive screws you use to hold the acrylic in place.  You can get it to exactly a scant 1/4" (note my little ruler to the right for this purpose).  However, there were a few issues. The first was despite being flat on the bed, threads did occasionally find their way between the acrylic and the bed of the machine, and the fabric would sometimes slide under it slightly. She suggests removing the front screw of the throat plate to get it as flat as possible on the bed, but that is the original screw, though not the original throat plate (it's Mathilda's) and so it did lie very flat. I was not a fan of removing that screw anyhow (gotta find a safe place for it); what about when I don't need the acrylic, then I need to put that screw back in, and remove the guide to clean under the throat plate when I oil her. I also found it a bit of a pain ensuring the guide was exactly perpendicular as well, holding it in place while I finger-tightened the screws, adjusting again as it invariably wiggled (think smooth acrylic on smooth machine bed).

Second, pinning, which I don't do a lot of, but at intersections I almost always do, was a learning curve. Because of the thickness of the acrylic, about 3/16", if you pin with the pin sticking out on the right side of the fabric, the pin hits the guide, and you have to remove it. So I made sure to pin so that the pin is sticking out to the left, and the tip didn't stick out past the 1/4" seam. A bit of a pain, especially if I'm dropping in pins as I go. I'm right-handed, so I'd be either awkwardly trying to pin on top of the fabric with my left hand, or lifting up the fabric and pinning with my right hand but underneath the fabric layers. Ugh.

Finally, the worst and not fixable issue is sewing on either side of a marked line. With a seam guide resting on the bed of your machine, the fabric will not lie flat. See below where you see me trying to do the corner connector method to make Lorna's Dog Gone Cute dog blocks for Karen at kaholly.

So ix-nay Corner Connector method, No-Waste Flying Geese, HSTs, as well as joining binding ends, unless you cut the 1/4" seams before stitching. I'd go back to my Bernina for any of these techniques. Not the end of the world when I have both machines as you see in the first photo, on either side of my sewing table. However, were I to be sewing at a friend's house, or at a retreat, I'd not be packing along two machines!

I wrote to Nova before I posted this, to see if there was a solution or suggestion to my concerns. I let her know I'd be writing about this on my blog, and that a few readers had asked my thoughts on the seam guide. I told her that had I realized the third issue, I'd have probably put my money towards a 1/4" foot instead. Well, she was not the best at customer service, let's just say that. Wow. I was pretty surprised at the tone of her response. I will say that she has added a sentence in the product description about the geese and HST issue. She was most definitely not very understanding, devoting an entire paragraph to the much better benefits of her guide, by being able to adjust seam guides from 1/4" to 1" and beyond...  Not too many quilters I know of who require anything other than 1/4" for the vast majority of their quilting.

So.  What did I do? Well I had a generic 1/4" foot I bought 20 years ago or more for my Elna. It fit on the Featherweight and I sewed with it for a bit.  Then I decided you know what? After 20 years of use, I do think I could buy a new 1/4" foot that is known to be terrific, and works fabulously with Featherweights. So I ordered the Little Foot from Sewing Machines Plus. I have been sewing with it for the past week and I love love love it.  Yup. Three loves.  It has a little beef, or muscle, meaning more than my generic 1/4" foot for my Elna.  It actually sews better than my Bernina 1/4" foot made for Berninas! Sadly, my Bernina has always annoyed me going over any bulky seams; it chokes a bit and the stitches go very tiny, and often I have to help her by tugging gently on the fabric as it is trying to get out from under the foot.  Not so with the Little Foot and little Billie.  She chugs along merrily and smoothly as can be. See for yourself:

One thing to note, that the iPhone is propped between my boobs in my bra, lol, (good thing they're tiny but perky), resting against the inside of my t-shirt, therefore quite close to the machine. Thus it sounds a bit more "clunkety" than it truly is.

Here is a photo to compare the original Singer foot with the new Little Foot.

Ha! Nesting seams means sometimes you find you've pressed them the wrong way when you line up intersections. A little re-pressing once this is sewn and Bob's yer uncle!

One of Nova's arguments for her seam guide was being able to adjust it to exactly a scant 1/4", whereas with the 1/4" foot one is relegated to the manufacturer's idea of a 1/4". Well, I measured.  Pressed my seams to one side as you see.  Lined up just-sewn pieces with the next piece and all is very very well.

So in my honest opinion, if you are wanting a tool that helps you get that perfect scant 1/4", I would recommend the Little Foot. The acrylic guide that Nova sells is also a great tool, and sure does adjust sideways to whatever width seam you may require, but it is limited where certain quilting methods are concerned.

One other thing to note about my sweet Billie is her bed. See how shiny it is?!  Look back at the first photo, taken May 4, and see the gummy and hard residue from previous sewists using tape to mark the seam guides. With lots of spa sessions, gentle massage (lol) rubbing with machine oil, gentle scraping with fingernails, I've been able to get it pretty much completely all off.  I am also getting totally comfortable with oiling her and even gave her a little grease on her gears the other day.  I did order Nova's motor lubricant, which I haven't used yet, but plan to shortly. It doesn't need doing like the regular oiling does.

Something else I ordered from Nova is a set of four rubber bed cushions. Billie's were either not there at all, or so compacted and eroded that even MacGyver had a bit of a time digging them out. But we persevered, and she now has four new feet! You can soften them up with a bit of kerosene, apparently, but we got them out okay.

Fancy-footed girlie! Look on the brown towel and you see the bits of shrapnel from the previous eroded, rotted feet. Also note to the right of the machine is a red felt spool cushion, also purchased from Nova for only 35c.

Just a note on my 150 Canadian Women quilt. My OMG for November is getting it to flimsy form.

Here are half the blocks, 75 of them, with side sashing sewn on. I am finally using this gorgeous leaves low volume fabric from Benartex, 'Nature Studies', that I've had for eons, and that I love. It was the lining and featured in several blocks of a lightweight jacket I made about a decade ago!   Anyhow, for the Canadian Women quilt, I was unsure what I was doing, two quilts, or one, sashing or not, so I didn't sew these on as I went. I've been doing it as a leader/ender project. I am not quite half way on the next 75.  And I have now realized I need to do 6 more blocks since I'm doing just one big quilt, so that it will be 12X13 blocks, = 156.  I'd figured all along it would be 10X15 blocks, a rather long narrow quilt...  Anyhow, stay tuned for further developments on it, progress on my Splash of Colour, which you see one of the blocks of in the second last photo, and more on my other Singers.

A note that next weekend is the last one in November, and therefore a DrEAMi! party opens on Saturday.  In case you may have been sidetracked by a squirrel... Oh and I'm sure some sales will be sidetracking your wallet too, no doubt! Remember to check your email from Connecting Threads for whatever fabulous deal they are going to offer on Monday. I don't even know!

Linking up
Cooking Up Quilts

150 Canadian Women Update, So Close!

I would have had all 150 blocks finished to show you, but a certain quilt for a certain mother took priority. You'll see that finish on Friday. My November OMG, which I'm linking up with Elm Street Quilts, is going to be finishing the top, as in getting this to a flimsy. That's a fairly tall order, but do-able with the chain piecing, leader/ender style of sewing I prefer to do. I haven't shown you any blocks here on the blog (but they've all been on Instagram) since September!

127 - Julia Grace Wales: pacifist, her work to end war led to the establishment of the United Nations; 128 - Yvonne Madelaine Brill: aerospace engineer who invented and patented the jet propulsion system used in positioning satellites, also worked on the rocket engine for the space shuttle; 129 - Nell Shipman: first Canadian woman to make a feature film, one of the few Canadians to make silent movies; turned down Samuel Goldwyn of Hollywood because she wanted to be an independent filmmaker, which hurt her career (she went bankrupt); made films about 'God's Country', Canada; a pioneer in filming on location as opposed to in studio. **See Karen's comment below for a PBS documentary about her airing this Friday. Thank you so much Karen!

130 - Aloha Wanderwell (born Idris Hall): first woman to drive (yep drive) around the world and an entire paragraph of firsts, including filmed the first flight around the world; 131 - Alice Freeman, aka Faith Fenton: investigative journalist, and Canada's first female columnist; 132 - Major General Tammy Harris: in April this year, she became the first woman to hold the post of deputy commander of the RCAF

133 - Eva Vertes: only 32, a researcher in Alzheimer's and cancer, and resident physician who, at age 17, won Best in Medicine at the International Science Fair for her work with brain cells; 134 - Karen Beauchemin: known for her leading work in reducing greenhouse gas emissions; I love that she used her prize earnings to establish a scholarship fund for women at a university  in Ghana; 135: Pearl 'Bandit Queen' Taylor Hart: colourful woman bandit whose final years no one knows for sure, but probably led a final quiet life!

I inadvertently discovered a twist on Eva's block which I quite like:

Her fabric reminds me of the DNA models and the woven grey matter of our brains. Making such a wide variety of blocks over the course of this past year has sure lit the embers of quilt possibilities!

136 - Jean M Rumney: suffered from polio but became the first woman to graduate from the Ontario Veterinary College in 1939, worked up to her death in 1975; 137 - Margaret Marshall Saunders: author of Beautiful Joe, written in 1983, the story of an abused dog, who she rescued. This was the first Canadian book to sell more than one million copies worldwide, and raised awareness of animal cruelty; her block has the paw prints and text fabrics; 138 - Clara Cynthia Benson: professor and department head of Food Chemistry at the University of Toronto, recognized for her work in Food Chemistry.

139 - Sergeant Karen Margaret Hermeston: only woman photographer during WWII; 140 - Ella Cora Hind: Canada's first female journalist and known as the 'oracle of wheat' because of her ability to accurately predict the wheat crops; her block has the wheat background fabric and text fabric; 141 - Abigail Becker, aka 'The Angel of Long Point' for her ability to wade into the waters of Lake Erie (she couldn't swim!) after ships wrecked and help guide trapped or marooned sailors to shore in the mid-1800s; amazing how many people she single-handedly saved. Note the water-themed fabric in her block, lowest, centre.

142 - Minerva Ellen Reid: in 1915 she became the first female chief of surgery in North America; 143 - Phyllis Jean McAlpine: was mapping genes well before the Human Genome Project, her legacy is the standardization in naming segments of DNA as well as regionally assigning a human gene to a specific chromosome region; 144 - Margaret Paton Hyndman: first woman lawyer in Canada, second woman in British Empire, established the beginning of Legal Aid.

I sewed Phyllis's block wrong but found it made an interesting block nevertheless:

I actually kind of prefer the 'wrong' way one!

145 - Cairine Reay Mackay Wilson: in 1930 she was appointed Canada's first female senator, in 1938 she persuaded a reluctant prime minister to accept 100 Jewish orphans from Germany, in 1949 she was Canada's first female delegate to the United Nations, first female Deputy Speaker of the Senate; 146 - Riel Erickson: fighter jet pilot, first female to win the Top Gun award, currently Chief Flying Instructor at 2 Canadian Forces Flying Training School; 147 - Winnifred Frances Roach Lueszler: an incredible swimmer (her block has the pink starfish fabric) at age 25, she was the first to complete the first attempt, the first Canadian, first mother of 3 to swim the English Channel, then in 1957 became the first female baseball umpire, established the Learn-to-Swim programme as well as the first Handicap Swim Programme.

Are your eyes wider at reading these amazing accomplishments of such determined women? Are you just a little tired, LOL, but a whole lot impressed? I know I am, and I've already read about them each week as I've made the blocks.  Three more to do when I get home and then start putting this quilt together. I have waffled from making one 150-block quilt, to two 75-block quilts, to now one quilt. I want all 150 blocks in one quilt, to celebrate these glorious women, of this glorious country of mine.

I keep forgetting to announce that my pattern, Ribbon Stars, that I did for the 'Meadow Dance' blog hop on Sew in Love With Fabric, is up for free download in my Craftsy store (affiliate link).

I guess a lot of you have already checked because as of this morning, it has been already been downloaded 168 times! And just so you know, I did donate this quilt to the Mosque and School of Ehlul Bayt a couple of weeks ago for them to sell. They are raising funds to send to help the Rohingya people, nearly a million of them now, being ethnically cleansed by Buddhists out of Myanmar.

Linking up with
Sew Fresh Quilts
Quilt Fabrication

Orange A Peel

LOL
I think all of us in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge with Angela at soscrappy could've said, "Called it!" for this month's colour, perfect for impending Fall. However, we haven't had brown yet, or black, or pink...ha!  Here is my first project, my houses:

Since the first owl appeared in the January purple block, I always put a little surprise in each house. This one has two orange dogs, awww, yeah! ORANGE dogs?! Love! More scraps from my sweet friend Jake, and yup, more Laurel Burch. She knows me so well.  I badly wanted to use some of my precious Kaffe fabric from my Three Quarter Patch tote I made and reviewed for Craftsy a while back, and from whose scraps I made a round mini for another sweet friend, Preeti.  However, it didn't want to 'go' anywhere...until inspiration struck, and it is is the stained glass window in the door! Lacy curtains in the windows are from pillowcases made from Tidal Lace ombré fabric.

Amazing Canadian Women Update

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know that last week I finally caught up with the 150 Canadian Women QAL with Next Step Quilt Designs. I'm still on track, having made this week's blocks two days after they were released. We only have 30 left! Which means...I can't believe I'm letting myself think this, let alone write it: there are 10 weeks until the final week of October. Perish that thought! Let's take a look:

Eeep! Just seeing them all together like this makes me just get a big ol' grin on my face!  Okay, explanation required. There are 150 blocks total. I have the first 75 in a ziploc bag. Those you see in this photo are from 76 to 117 inclusive. I did this a couple of times during the first half of the QAL just to see the effect of them all side by side. I love that I used several values of the neutral background, not just white, but off-white, ivory, cream, light tan, light beige, and even a bit of light grey. I also love the effect of the various shades and values of red, and don't forget the tints of red: pink! Too much fun.

I have decided (well 90% sure) I am going to make two quilts, and I'm leaning heavily to the sashing and cornerstones layout. Much as I love the crazy of the above layout, I would like a bit of separation and the 1" finished sashing/cornerstones plan of Kat's is a good one. Also, I specifically bought a fair amount of 150 Canada fabric from Sew Sisters Quilt Shop. I see aqua sashing and black cornerstones for one perhaps, and grey sashing and black cornerstones for the other. Thoughts?

I haven't shown any blocks for some time, from my 150 CA Women photo file, it looks like the last you saw was the whirling tulips block, second row from the bottom, second column. To expedite things (my writing and your reading) here are closeups of just the last nine with a note about each woman they represent.

112 - Kim Campbell: I knew she was Canada's first female Prime Minister, but wow, she has so many other firsts! Just one that should make your eyes open wider is first woman Minister of National Defence of Canada and of any NATO country (YEAH!!!); 113 - Grace Annie Lockhart: first woman in the British Empire to receive a Bachelor's Degree; 114 - Elizabeth Catherine Bagshaw: from 1932-66 she served as the unpaid director of Canada's first planned birth control clinic (did you know birth control was illegal here until 1969??!). In 1954 she retired at 95 (not a typo!) as Canada's oldest practising physician.

115 - Audrey McLaughlin: another name I knew, she was the first woman to lead a political party; 116 - Jenny Dill: She was the first woman to walk across Canada in 1921; 117 - Emily Howard Jennings Stowe: first woman to apply at and be denied entrance to Toronto's School of Medicine in 1865; finally in 1880 after practising without a license (she went to New York Medical College for Women to obtain her degree) she was admitted entry.  (15 years later!! - her perseverance awes me.)

118 - Kaila Mussell: bronc riding woman who competes against men, I gave her the red and black gingham for a cowboy shirt look; 119 - Shaa Tláa, aka Kate (Klondyke Kate) first woman to be part of the Gold Rush and likely the one who discovered gold but has been largely erased from history and that accolade given to the men she was with; 120 - Taqulittuq: she and her Inuit husband spent nearly 2 years in England learning English and then became well-respected guides in the Arctic, helping Europeans reach the highest latitude ever reached in 1871; the group later shipwrecked  but thanks to her and her husband's skill and knowledge, they survived for 6 months on an ice floe and pack! 

Well after re-reading her story and paraphrasing it here, I certainly don't feel the need for AC! Thank goodness for a hot August day.😎 Rather hilarious that last group that I posed on the hood of the car, isn't it? But look in the top left corner and see the tree shadow and a bit of a super-cool ring of clouds formation.

I have enjoyed this QAL on so many levels.  So many of these blocks are challenging to make, or totally new to me (that last one, 120, isn't it the coolest star? And what about the intertwined ribbon effect of 119? That flying geese block? That very first star of these last 9? Love. I love using up fabric that has such a variety of meanings for me, love mixing the old fabrics with the new ones, love using fabrics that have a meaning for the woman the block represents...and so on.

The following two paragraphs contain affiliate links. Thank you for supporting my blog (wow! two readers have already made a purchase today from Craftsy through moi - thank you!🙏😃) and for allowing me to use the money to try different fabrics/patterns/products so I can tell you about them!

I'm sure you've had the email, but there is quite the sale going on over at Craftsy, "Makers' Black Friday." I've found many quilt kits for small lap (48X60") quilts for less than $30CA, just sayin' so that's probably under $25US. Rather than show you a bunch, all you need to do is go to this Quilt Project Kits page, and on the "Sort by" drop-down menu, click 'price low to high' and you can see for yourself! Even a Kaffe Fassett one! I've told you that Craftsy's Boundless fabrics are superb, and I should have a quilt that uses the Botanicals to show you shortly, Suburbia, that I bought at a previous sale. The hand and richness of the colours of the botanical blenders for that quilt are divine. That little Steamfast iron I continue to sing the praises of? Cheapest yet.

If that isn't enough temptation for a Friday, remember Connecting Threads still has their tools up to 50% off sale going on as well as their wide backing on sale for 25% off. And Amanda Jean's newest fabric line for $6.96/yd. You can click that link or the link in my sidebar, which I still haven't figured out how to make it more prominent, sorry, but I have tried. Need to talk to my good friend Tish...

Happy Shopping!
I'm off to teach my yoga class, but I'll be perusing the wares afterwards. Caution: don't wait too long or you might have an item removed from your cart if it gets sold out...ask me how I know, waaah. I'll be back tomorrow to show you my progress on my three (yes! three!) RSC2017 projects.

Linking up
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
Busy Hands Quilts

A Quilting Motif and A Longarm Technique

As you know, I'm working on quilting the Cows quilt. I have four heifers left, a few churn dashes and the barn. Well, I also have to finish the other half, or two-thirds more like it, of the border.  As is usually the case when I quilt a quilt, I have a very, I mean very, vague quilting plan in my head.  Once the quilt is loaded, it starts to talk to, sometimes whisper to, sometimes cajole, me.  Such was the case with this one.  I had no idea how I was going to quilt the churn dash blocks, also known by several other names, including Hole in the Barn Door. Most à propos for this bovine bedcover. Once loaded on the frame, I had an idea...

"What the heck?"  you're probably thinking, or maybe, "Ooh, love that fabric," or even, as Tish said when I sent her the yellow cow all quilted, "Those swirls are awesome!"

Here is how you quilt this block in one pass, ditch stitching and all! AND this can be done on either a longarm or a domestic machine! Use a ruler or your walking foot.

1. Start here. ('well duh')
2. Stitch to point 2 (probably still, 'well, duh,' but just in case...) the centre of the inner 'box'
3. Stitch a square in the centre of the purple rectangles, which in my case, for this 12" block, is 1" in from the seam line. Go all the way around until you wind up back at point 2.
4.  Stitch out to point 4.
5. From point 4 stitch another elongated 'v' shape (we're doing dot to dot à la Angela Walters in case you haven't noticed) ending at point 5.  Which is really point 1. 😉
6. Stitch in the ditch (aka SID) over to point 6. Note my attempt at dotted lines to indicate SID!
7. Stitch in to point 7, which is the top right corner of the box you stitched in step 3.  Repeat from step 4 for all four corners of the block, ending back at point 1!

Then I SID along a floral seam line to an inside corner, stitched in the ditch all the way around the inner square, and did the swirl filler in there, then went back out again and continued the swirl filler for the background around the outside. I'm using Superior Threads So Fine colour 403 which blends nicely with both background and all the churn dash blocks.

A LongarmTechnique for Continuous Quilting

About a year, maybe more, ago, a reader asked if I could explain how I advance, then back up, then advance a quilt on the longarm. This was when I was doing Dayna's quilt, Shoot for the Moon, and trying to get as long a pass as I could at some of the intricate designs on her quilt.  I found myself doing this for the outer border design for this quilt.  I am self-taught, other than watching online videos and Craftsy classes by Leah Day, Angela Walters, and Natalia Bonner, oh and Jamie Wallen Youtube too, and none of them talk about this, so it's just me. If you think that "GASP! This is just not done!" well, I do it, and it works fine. 😁

For the top section of border, it was easy to start on the left side of the quilt, about 15" down from the top left corner, quilt up to the corner, across the top border, and down to the same starting point on the right side of the quilt. I did the border after I'd quilted the first row of cows and churn dash blocks, so I advanced the quilt and continued down the border for another 15" or so (I have an 18" Avanté). This meant I could quilt longer without breaking thread.

1. So now I am at the point where I have quilted two more rows of cows and churn dashes and I want to do more of the border. First stitch in the ditch between the border and the background of the quilt. Also stitch 1/4" in from the outside.

2. Next, advance the quilt, and SID as you just did. You can see I was able to stitch all along the red churn dash and about half way into the barn block. Do this SID on the border on the opposite side of the quilt as well.

3.  Then, back up to where you started the ditch stitching (first pic).  At first when I wound the quilt backwards, I freaked because the quilt sandwich, in its entirety: top, batting and now backing, got wound up on the belly bar!

Yikes! I thought something bad would happen...but it didn't!  So starting at the point where I was in photo 1, I switch now to my mauve thread, and continue the border motif over the course of that length of the border, advance the quilt to photo 2 spot, and continue doing the border up to being level with the barn.  I'll stop there.

4. Then I go over to the opposite side, in this case the left, back up the quilt again to the photo 1 spot, but on the left side of the quilt, and pick up where I'd left off on that border, quilting down until I'm level with the barn block.

The barn block is in the bottom right corner, so once I've finished quilting the last two rows of the quilt, I'll be able to pick up the border motif about the level of the bottom of the barn roof, quilt down to the bottom right corner and across the bottom, and back up to meet where I left off on the left side of the quilt!

It's not as wonderful as doing the border in one continuous pass like you can with a DSM or sit-down quilt machine, but you can get fairly lengthy passes.  And it is wonderful not to have the weight of the quilt to manipulate through the machine.

Having a dedicated quilting machine means I can still piece if I feel the urge...

Blocks 103-105. Clockwise from top left: 103: Helen Smith Grant - Captain of her husband's ship when he took ill, she navigated rom China to Montreal in the mid-1880s, as well as taking care of her children. The family settled in Victoria, BC, where, in 1895, Helen became the first and only school board trustee in Canada. 104 - Lois Irene Smith - Canada's first and foremost ballerina, idolized by Karen Kain, she established the Lois Smith Dance School in Toronto. 105: Helen Irene Battle - first woman in Canada to earn a PhD in marine biology. I used a fish print for one of the centre background triangles and a shell motif embossed on an ivory fabric for another.

I made block 106 this morning, so as of writing this post, I am only two blocks behind in the 150 Canadian Women QAL!  I aimed for one block a day this past week, and I've done it, so if I can keep that up this coming week, I should be all caught up by next weekend. Yay! I also worked on a couple of my RSC 2017 projects, which I'll show you in another post.

Linking Up
Cooking Up Quilts
Free Motion by the River

A Tragedy...with a Silver Lining

Little did I know that when I finally sat down, a year after the fact, to write about this tragic event, the Fort McMurray forest fire of 2016, nicknamed "The Beast", inside of which is a feel-good quilt story, that I'd have experienced a tragic loss in my own life.  My dear friend, Linda, who faithfully reads my blog even though she does not sew a stitch, sent me this story several months ago.  She read it in a publication she gets called "Our Canada".  I kept meaning to write about it, but never did.  Now it's time. Interspersed with the words are the few blocks I've picked away at, more inspiration and awe from strong Canadian women, and Cows.

As I write this, forest fires are again raging, 155 right now in British Columbia, Canada's westernmost province.  It shares a border with the state of Washington, in the USA.  Fires are also now crossing into Alberta, province of my birth, where the bulk of our family lives.  This year the fires are mid-province, right now in Kootenay National Park, west of Calgary.  Last year they were in northern Alberta, forcing one of the largest evacuations in Canadian history, the entire city of Fort McMurray, approximately 88 000 people.  Many people returned to find nothing left; many people have not returned and do not plan to.  This link takes you to a timeline of the events.

Another way to heal: enjoying the peace, serenity and greenery of our very private back yard. Thank you to so many for your kind and caring words on my previous post; if I haven't responded it's because you are a no-reply blogger, and I have no email address for you; please know I thank you from my heart.

Back

This is the hardest post I've had to write. I've put it off all week.  Thought of a few sentences. Had a few random thoughts. Did the photos. Left it.  Unsure what to say.  For the first time in, oh, forever, I think, I don't feel much like writing.  Both my daughters have commented about missing reading my posts. A very close blogger friend had good advice: don't wait too long or you may never go back. So here we go.

Some things are constant in life:

'my' lake this week

Some things are not.

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.)

I Like/Love #5

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

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

I Like/Love #4 - Gifts of Many Kinds

I love thoughtful gifts.

This came from Brianne for my birthday, which was in April.  I just LOVE it!!!  I want to wear it in public, but it's a pj top.  The bottoms are cute and comfy as all get-out too.  Maybe I could get away with it as yoga clothes? 🤔  I'll let you know if I do, and what happens.  I just might...you know, live dangerously once in awhile.  Speaking of thoughtful gifts, I need to get better at this within my own family.

A darling reader, who is also a pitbull advocate extraordinaire, got rid of a ton of her sewing stuff.  That she has lost her sew-jo and has no more interest in quilting, makes me so very sad for her, but I know she's channelling wonderful energy into her new position, working with animals. They are so fortunate to have her.  One day, next year, I hope, we can meet on our way north from or south to, Florida.

Literally STUFFED with goodies, accompanying sweet notes--blown away doesn't begin to describe the emotions that arose when going through this magical gift.

You may recall the mini, aka mug rug I sent Jasmine of Quilt Kisses for her new sewing room in her new house. A couple of weeks ago I got this in the mail:

She knows me well! As you see it has already been put to good use and sits on my cutting/pressing counter holding important tools.

I love wildflowers.

Once again, I have no clue what these are...help?

No one tends them; few admire them; I marvel at them.

I love wild flowers of the permanent kind... THIS stunning, sweet surprise of a gift arrived the other day from my dear friend Cindy, of Stitchin at Home.  The detail! The precision! The artistry! The depth! The pleasure it gives me!

I immediately added it to my 'wall' of minis.

I love the educational and inspiring gift I receive each week from the 150 Canadian Women quilt along going on at Next Step Quilt Designs.
Here are the latest group of blocks:

73-Violet Paul King: first black person to graduate from Law at the U of Alberta, first black female lawyer in 1954, eventually moved to the US where she became the first woman in a senior management position with the American national YMCA! 74-Emily Ferguson Murphy: another Albertan who every Canadian knows, one of the Famous Five, fought for women's rights, and when she was pleading the case for a woman magistrate, she was offered the job. Thus, a self-taught legal expert, she became the first woman magistrate; fought to change the meaning of the word 'person' in the BNA act to include women (THAT SHOCKS ME-and it took them 10 YEARS to do so) so that women could serve in the Senate. 75-Eileen Vollick: diminutive, she had to sit on cushions in the cockpit of her airplane; first Canadian women to parachute into water; and, after a mere 16 hours of training in an open-cockpit biplane, in 1928, she was the first Canadian woman to receive a pilot's license.

As I wrote on Instagram, I was all set to celebrate getting to block 75, the half way point.  Then when I filed the PDFs of these blocks into my CA Women folder (I file them upon completion, so I keep track) in my laptop, I saw I was missing blocks 70-72.  Huh?  Looked in the documents folder and saw them there. "Oh!" I thought, "Guess I forgot to file these."  Opened 70 and did not recognize the name or the block.  Whaaat??  Open 71 and 72, same thing.  😣😫 Somehow I'd gone out of order!  Don't worry; I've already finished 70 and will persevere with 71-72!

I love seeing everyone's yards and photos of beautiful spring blooms. I revel in the joyful bursting forth that Spring brings. Here are a few shots of my own of Mother Nature's gifts to us.

April 23-Rhododenron, survived the winter at our friends' house while we were in limbo

This crabapple (I believe) tree in our yard!

I love that I am so close to Lake Erie.  A short minute walk to the end of the lane, and another couple of minutes standing, listening, gazing, and I've restored my chi.  I put a photo on the blog April 18 from basically the same spot I was standing this morning:

Like my mum, I love views through windows.  What a surprising and wonderful gift I have been given in my sewing loft here!

Those lilacs--! I bet they are the same, or near to the same, age as the house, 70 years old.  They are as tall as the peak of the roof.  And yes, their scent wafts in.  The feline buddha is a gift from Dayna.  Bella has a perch just beneath and to the side of the window. 😻

I love Nature; that's a well-known fact how much I do.  MacGyver spotted this anomaly the day we went to check out the 1947 Featherweight:

Your eye might go to the angels, etc in the yard beneath the tree...travel up the tree.  There! Do you see the white squirrel??!!  Never have I ever...  Must be an albino.  We have black squirrels, brown squirrels, some black squirrels with reddish tails, but never an all-white one!  I am so pleased I caught it on camera.

I wish you a day filled with gifts of the meaningful kind!

Okay, this post was ready to publish at this point this morning, and then outside called...

LOLOL so I did NOT plan to segue into it this way, but serendipity strikes yet again...maybe you give yourself a gift!  I freely admit that I rarely pay full price for anything from household goods to sewing supplies, and if you get email notifications from Craftsy (affiliate link there) you will know there is a screaming good sale starting today for the Canadian May long weekend: up to 60% off Quilting supplies (fist pump! These kind of sales is when I have got the majority of my purchases.) Up to 70% off Clearance and Sewing! Up to 60% off Knitting supplies!

Yeah yeah you think, like what?  Well, kits are often a great deal. Take a look:

That gorgeous quilt is 50% off, meaning you are paying less than $7CA/yard for the fabric.

How about fabric by the yard for $6.86CA/yard? Boundless Blenders Aura is one; Boundless Botanical is another I've bought several of and love. It isn't as good a deal at $8.92CA/yard but still pretty decent when you compare to quilt shop prices. These I will vouch for have a beautiful hand. Note, I was not given any of them; I bought them.

Yarns are at least 50% off.  I love Cloudborn Merino Alpaca that I've bought on sale before. Still have a pattern to sit down and try for the 3rd or 4th go...  There are hat kits for as low as $4 to make!

If you need backing, now would be the time to snag some.  Cotton & Steel's Rashida Coleman Hale has both midnight and orchid for $6/CA yard!

Or maybe Amy Butler?  At $8.68CA/yard and all prints available, it is a decent price.

Full disclosure: a jelly roll of this Jennifer SampouStudio Stash jumped into my cart just now!

You may recall I recently became an affiliate of Connecting Threads (affiliate link).  They carry more than their own brand; right now they have some adorable Shannon Fabrics Minky baby quilt kits on sale. At $34.99US, here's a cute one called Ziggy Quack! That price includes everything: pattern, fabric for top, appliqué, backing and binding!

Tools are on sale 30-50% off and books are on 40-50% off.  Waaah! This book (that I LOVE) I got this past winter is now on sale for $16.19!  That's less than I paid!

Well, have fun! Just call me The Great Enabler.  Oh! Remember, Connecting Threads loves their Canadian shoppers too: at $75 they ship free to your doorstep.  I might know that personally.  And it's fast shipping too.  And the tax and duty was no more than I would pay in Ontario anyhow, so big win.  I know.  Enabling.  Okay I'm done now.  Gotta go check out on Craftsy before that jelly roll sells out.  I may know that personally as well, sniff, on a certain quilt kit I had in my cart on the last sale...

Linking with LeeAnna at Not Afraid of Color, and with Lorna at Sew Fresh Quilts.