I'm Back With Diamond Hashtag and a Giveaway

Hello everyone! I had a lovely month off with plenty of my favourite things: reading, sewing, relaxing in the back yard and in the pool, and generally enjoying the beautiful month of July. You've seen on Instagram some in-progress shots of my 150 Canadian Women quilt, but I also worked on one of Cheryl Brickey's designs in her newest book, Just Two Charm Pack Quilts. Her website is Meadow Mist Designs, and her blog is Meadow Mist Designs where you can follow the hop of fabulous quilts from her book.

Cheryl has a page right here dedicated to this hop with all of the participants listed and links to their quilts. If you ever have lost your quilt mojo, check out a few of the links there, and I guarantee you will find it in a hurry!

Perfectly Pieced Quilt Backs

First of all I want to acknowledge Canada's National Indigenous Peoples Day by stating that I acknowledge that I live on traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory. This territory belongs to the Anishinabewaki, Attiwonderonk and Myaamia Indigenous peoples.  I live on the north shore of erielhonan, the Iroquoian name for Lake Erie which means 'long tail'. I continue to learn and am always grateful for this beautiful piece of Turtle Island.

Well, Kelly Young of My Quilt Infatuation has done it once again. She has published her third book, and this is one I guarantee you will want to have on your shelf. How many of you have leftover chunks of fabric after the top is complete? Yeah, I thought so: 100% of you. Have you used them right away, or, are they languishing in your stash, or maybe even still together (guilty) because they looked so terrific in that quilt that they could probably make a pillow, or bag or some placemats even... How about it you make them into a pleasing quilt back? Well that is exactly what Kelly's book is all about, 30 yes THIRTY quilt back design ideas. I made two from her book.

Gratitude #64

Good heavens, I forgot the last Thursday of the month - where did May go? I started this post, as I usually do, part way through the month, but Thursday just sneaked up on me. Remember if you'd like to read more of these uplifting posts, several of us write them, some every week, and we link up at LeeAnna's blog Not Afraid of Color.

1. I like Kopegaron Forest, a little nature preserve we just discovered at the beginning of the month just 20 minutes from home.

Magical. Fragile. Perfect.

And we are about to re-elect a government in this province who wants to pave over thousands of square kilometres of wetlands to put in a highway that will benefit commuters by shaving off seconds, not lying, of their drive, but that will give billions to his rich buddies who clearly buy him off. I have to stop thinking too much about it other than signing petitions and writing to my MPP because I get a panic attack feeling in my chest.

Trilliums are a big deal to me, being from Alberta where they do not grow. But seeing these rich burgundy ones took my breath away. I looked them up: red trilliums. Who knew.

Spring in the Woods

I have another finish! Yeah, there's been rather a surfeit of them, hasn't there?! Several deadlines have had me sewing furiously over the past few weeks. This is the March challenge that we, as Island Batik ambassadors, were given, to try a new technique.

I took some time to think of just what I hadn't tried; quilting for the past 20 years has had me trying pretty much everything. In full disclosure, I bought the 10° wedge ruler probably 15 years ago for a class that a guild member was giving on wedges. I went to the class, sewed the strips, cut a few wedges, and the class ended. So did the making of that quilt. Not a stitch since. It lives in a blue plastic bag. I made a wedge of pieced fabric a few years ago by using the degree lines and a folded technique. What happened to that test block? It lives in the orphan block pile. So I decided it was time to bring out the ruler, for which I paid good money, and revisit how to use it. Besides, Christina Cameli's new book had caught my eye when it first came out. Great excuse (like I need one) to buy a new book!

A new book and a glass of wine go hand in hand. Literally!

The fabrics I used in my project were provided by Island Batik, the Thermore batting by Hobbs Batting, and the Aurifil thread by Aurifil. I still go 'pinch me!' when I write sentences like that.

So what did I make?

This stunning (yeah I said that about my own project) table centrepiece, going to a very dear-to-me person! Stunning due to the fabrics which are drool-worthy, stunning because of the threads used to quilt it, stunning because it looks pretty complicated.

But it isn't. Not really. Christina's book is well-written. With quilting books, unlike fiction and non-fiction books, I do not read them from front to back. I leaf through, gazing in rapture at some of the quilts, maybe scanning a pattern here and there. Then I go back to the intro and read it.  I usually start reading, probably more like scanning, some of the 'how-to' chapters, but I need to DO as I read, so I will then pick a project (that could take a few days, as it did in this case). Then, when I'm making the project, I go back and read very carefully, usually several times, as I am constructing, the 'how-to' chapters. Her book is terrific, because it is like she knows how I operate! Within the instructions to this pattern (which btw is for an entire quilt, which I plan to make and Rose knows why) she tells you what page to refer to of the how-to chapters. 😇 I highly recommend her book, and no, I was not given her book, or asked to write a review.

Here are the fabrics I chose to work with from my Island Batik box of goodies:

The forest green is from the Alpine Jingle line, the 6" pieces and the purple lined up are from the roll-up stash builders, and the rich pink/greens piece is part of the extra pieces we received for use in projects. I had to do a little different way of cutting the wedges because of using pre-cut strips, but I did have enough. I mainly wanted this to be greens because the person I'm giving it to loves green. I wouldn't have had enough greens but I thought to added in a couple of blues because a couple of them are a blues/greens blend, and that was when the spring idea came. I had already known I'd make the diamonds in the purple and pink.

Carefully following her method and tips, I cut my wedges and sewed with a precise 1/4" seam on Tillie, my 1951 Featherweight. When I laid the first wedge down to see if it did measure 60°, was I tickled pink to see how very little I had to trim!

I followed the instructions for further trimming to make the triangle blocks that get sewn in pairs to make diamonds. In pretty short order I had my top.

I just had to take a stained glass looking photo!

Here it is on the kitchen floor so you can see the fabrics better:

Don't you think it's kind of cool that the runner is diamond-shaped, and that the wedges form a diamond, thanks to the purple and pink diamonds at their bases? Well, I do!

Because it's destined to be on a table, I figured the Hobbs Thermore batting would be the ticket. This is the third project where I've used it and I am still so impressed with it! It sticks as well as cotton to cotton does. Bella sure likes it. Had designs that this could be another pouffé for her to repose upon.

For quilting inspiration I looked at how Christina had quilted her quilt and used some of her motifs, circles being the main one. To get fairly nicely rounded ones, I used the Sulky spool of thread and a bobbin to trace two or three of the arcs as a general guide, (high tech I know), ensuring I had seven in each wedge. I drew out the first few. Drawing is always a good precursor to FMQ. After the first few wedges, I just winged it, free-motioning the majority of each of the seven circles in each wedge. I did find that I liked to trace that first large one.

Here are the circles in alternating wedges of the purple diamond blocks:

and feathers à la Kathleen of Kathleen Quilts, in alternating wedges of the pink diamond blocks:

I did back and forth lines and elongated figure eights for consistency between the circles and feathers in both pink and purple blocks.

For the diamonds, I did an Angela Walters design using my walking foot:

Hot off the 'press':

YESSS!

Truth tea: I then had to lie down a ruler and square it up. Squaring up means ensuring I still had 60° angles. I was a little nervous but this is what happened:

YESSS! (again)

Very happy.

I used a pretty green Aurifil I received in my Island Batik box of goodies for the olive green wedges, and to sew on the binding, which I sewed to the back and flipped around and top-stitched to the front. I used the olive green for the binding since it was the only green I had yardage of, but the rich green provides a nice frame to the vibrant colours in the quilt. I also used two different Sulky rayon variegated threads in the wedges and a Sulky metallic in the purple diamonds.

A shot of the label, appropriately blanked out name (with a green pice of beach glass!) of the recipient who prefers to remain anonymous in QBL. I always do both a cloth, write-on label and a sew-in mmm! quilts label.

The backing is a stitches-themed fabric, perfect for this sewing wizard of a person. When this goes live, I will have: given this gift which I love so much myself, to her, and met her at a random intersection chosen by both of us as a meeting-up point. My Easter weekend travels take me to within a couple of hours of her home, and she will have come east to meet me, where I will stop for a morning coffee and chat and HUGS! Big hugs! AND I get to meet one of her darling fur kids, "a silvery blue Staffie in the hot pink harness" (ahh like my darling boy who is safe with Dayna but would have loved to meet her Staffie).

This blog has brought me worldwide friends.  And I am honoured by their friendship. Humbled by them taking the time to read my blog, to comment, and to offer pieces of themselves to me. My heart swells with love for this girl, who does not blog, but who has reached out to me, at first mainly through my posts on my beloved Rocco, but then also through our shared love of all things Laurel Burch, and of course, through our love of sewing. I cannot WAIT to give her this runner! I don't know what excites me more: meeting her in person, hugging her, meeting her Staffie, or giving her this. What a blessed day I have to look forward to!

One last outdoor shot on our deck:

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: a quilt from Christina Cameli's Wedge Quilt Workshop made into a table centrepiece
Size: approximately 40" long by 20" wide
Fabric: Island Batik various collections
Batting: Hobbs Thermore
Backing: from stash
Quilted: on my Bernina, walking foot and free-motion
Threads:  pieced with Gütermann cotton; quilted with Aurifil 100% cotton and Sulky rayon variegated and Sulky metallic


Linking up:
Crazy Mom Quilts
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
TGIFF at Cheeky Cognoscenti
Busy Hands Quilts

Thanks to Tish for linking up my post while I'm away for the long Easter weekend. 😘

SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSaveSaveSave