Diamond Baby Pattern Release and Bright Spark Quilt

I have the rights back to release my design that was featured in issue 70 of Make Modern. I am so pleased to release this pattern that can actually put quite a dent in your white, cream and beige strings. May I present Diamond Baby, now on sale in my Etsy shop!

I get a little fizz of a thrill every time I see that photo. So glad I was able to take some pretty great photos of the quilt at Fishermen’s Cove in the Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia.

Celestial Déjà Vu

Déjà vu indeed. If you are having that kind of moment when you see this quilt, your memory is correct! I  one very close to this earlier this year for a Project Quilting challenge. I called the first one Circadian Rhythm. I liked it so much, and I had enough of the Celestial fabric, that I planned to make another.

Besides, I had cut too many triangles for the first one!

Artemis

Artemis, a quilt I designed (inspired by an email convo with my friend Rose) in honour of the Artemis II expedition in April, is finished and ready to be hung on a wall in my home. You can read the story behind it in this post about the flimsy.

We went for a little drive on Sunday, trying to find an appropriate quilt for this full moon quilt. I had thought of the Windsor Astronomical Society observatory, but though MacGyver had mapped it, we were unable to find it. We also knew there wasn’t much chance of getting near it as it was closed and locked on a Sunday. I thought of the giant grey rocks at the Leamington Marina, so that is where the last photos were taken. We did stumble upon another pretty cool backdrop for a glamour shot.

Project Quilting 17.5 Circadian Rhythm

This week's PQ challenge was 'My Complements' where we were asked to make a project using two complementary colours. Here is my quilt, which I named Circadian Rhythm.

I just love it! Read on for the story of how it came to be.

Project Quilting 17.3 Bees

Here is my quilt for Project Quilting 17.3 Year of the Horse. This was a quilt that got finished and then linked up with 11 minutes to spare. I work well under pressure, but I don't like cutting it that fine! I'd like to say that I rushed home after teaching yoga Sunday morning and got straight to work making the binding and applying it, as that was all that was left when I had to stop at 10:30 Saturday evening. However, I had to make a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up some necessary items, and then take Rufus for a walk, and then finally, I got to work. Could I have waited for the groceries and Rufus's walk? Probably, but in this never-ending cold, I didn't want to go out more than once, and dogs do like their routines.

Thank goodness for sun at 12:39 EST which is the time stamp on the first of the three photos I uploaded to my Instagram post! It really shows the quilting. Don't mind the quilt waving happily; it's currently drying after being blocked on my design wall!

Cheerio!

I have a finish on a Friday! Here is Cheerio!, a collaborative effort between my friend Cathy and me. 

Hot off the ... sewing machine last night!

Isn’t it just so bright and cheery? Cheerio! was the original name of this design which I did for Island Batik quite a few years ago. When I released the pattern, I renamed it Sunset Strip, because the batiks I used evoked colours of the sunset. This quilt now, it’s definitely got a Cheerio! vibe: a common salutation in England, an ‘o’ shaped cereal, and of course, this cheery quilt. The pattern is available in my Etsy Shop. It has two sizes, this baby quilt size and a throw.

Cool Cascade

My second of two RSC projects is done!

It lives up to its name there, cascading down the front step in the evening sun! Note: new porch railings and columns. MacGyver has outdone himself, and yes, I'll show before and after once it's complete.

Kismet

After I'd finished my Winter Blues quilt for Project Quilting 16.2. I always wondered if it would work with a jellyroll…and it sure did! It's taken me no less than five quilts (yep, this is number 5!) made in this pattern to finally answer that question! Here is Kismet, and she has quite the story to tell.

Yes, just one jellyroll, well, actually, half of one jellyroll!

Glowing Hearts QAL Kickoff

Welcome to the ninth annual Quilt Along here at mmmquilts! Once again, this free Quilt Along kicks off today, on my birthday, and ends on June 15, what was the birthday of one 'famous Canadian', my dad. I am so glad you are here, reading this post, and I hope that you will join in. This year's quilt along features a smaller quilt, and, as usual, maybe even more so this year, the pace is nice and slow, so it's easily worked in with your regular quilting projects.

If you are new to the blog, welcome! I hope you'll peruse the tabs up top, maybe check out some of the activities and makes of mine. Be sure to follow me (see the buttons 'Get new posts by email' and Instagram on my sidebar) to be notified of new posts over the next 2.5 months of the quilt along.

Heart Centre Project Quilting 16.5

Quilt designs come to me sometimes by doodling on graph paper, at other times by playing in EQ8, or, as with this one, fully formed into my head.

The quilt is now for sale in my Etsy shop. 

It was Tuesday, our last night in Cuba. I was well into my third book of the week, a gripping biological warfare murder mystery, The Chosen Dead by M. R. Hall. Quite chillingly, may I say, exploring the world of pandemics and modifying DNA and creating smart vaccines...published in 2013! Anyhow, I’d stayed up a bit later than usual, voraciously gobbling up the story, and, although I still had a hundred pages or so left, finally, reluctantly, turned out the light. And… my mind would not wind down. I’m the type of person who, once the light goes out and my head hits the pillow, is off to sleep within less than a minute. Not so that night. It was sometime after midnight before I finally drifted off. One of the things I was doing in an attempt to slow my mind down was figuring out what I would make for the ‘Follow Your Arrow’ challenge. Well that worked out fine as you can see!

Fall Flair

Along with the instructions for the queen size quilt in my newest pattern, Lilac Love, which was released yesterday, there are instructions for two small quilts, 38" and 39" square. I made the 38.5" square quilt.

I love it! These are not my usual colours, so where did I come up with this combination, especially since I didn't have a focus print, which I often like to do. For example, the queen quilt in the pattern used a lilacs border to draw upon. Well, I did want a completely different vibe for the small quilt, and as luck would have it, when I was playing with the borders for the quilt, I happened to be travelling in our car, on Thanksgiving weekend, on the way home from the Catskills.

Lilac Love Pattern Release

And just like that, one month after I released my pattern Orinoco Flow, I am back with another! This one is called Lilac Love, and, like Orinoco Flow, was also published in a magazine, but (cough) back in 2019. So it's long overdue. It's a queen-size quilt, but I've added in two options, because that's what I like to do: give value for money!

The large quilt goes together amazingly fast since the dark and olive green diamonds are made with giant HSTs. Once again, it is another layered design: the lilac bud blocks float over the quilt top, but as is noted in the pattern cover blurb, if you look closely you will see that the centre purple block is actually repeated in giant form by those dark and olive green diamonds. 

Project Quilting 15.2 Sky Color

I got SO excited at this week's prompt for Project Quilting because I am a bit of a nut when it comes to watching the skies. I have a lot of it to see from my sewing room windows which face south, east and west. Yep tons and tons of light. Our house is pretty much like that, one of the main reasons I agreed to buy it is that it is filled with light thanks to lots of windows.

Here is where the challenge ended:

It had some definite growing pains along the way and missed the deadline by a couple of hours.

One of the things I love most about PQ challenges is getting to paw through my glorious stash. This challenge was no different. So we were to make a project that evokes sky colour (I use Canadian aka English spelling) with only 10% cerulean. Love that word, a beautiful name for the colour sky-blue. Blue is my favourite colour, so making a quilt about the sky without it at first seems strange, but not when I think of the sunset I saw Sunday night, hours after the challenge was posted. Look at those fiery pinks and oranges and the reflection in the clouds overhead. This is pure Mother Nature, no filters or enhancement.

or the sunrise on Monday, again no filters or special touchups:

Blossoms Every Which Way

I have finished my third version of FYOP, aka Follow Your Own Path, before my second! I am in love with it.

I got a lovely surprise seeing the new weigela bushes in bloom!

I'll be linking this post up on June 15 when the final parade of finishes opens. I decided to make the throw size blocks but less of them to end up with a baby quilt. It went super-fast!

Wednesday Works in Progress

Because I don't like posts that are, 'Here is my finished quilt, here's the back, here's a close-up, the end', kind of posts, I thought I should give you a peek into what I've been up to up here in my sewing space. I do tend to post progress photos on Instagram, so you might have already seen some of those that follow.

Note: I did not mean to offend anyone with that opening statement; I simply love people's processes, and seeing how a quilt evolves. I also like to keep a record of what's going through my brain as I create!

First and foremost we have had full-on winter for the past couple of weeks. I know because here is the current state of my temperature quilt:

You can see that the last time we had above 0℃ (freezing) was the highs of February 2 to 4, and the overnight low on Feb. 5. It dropped throughout that day and we haven't seen chartreuse temps since. In fact, last night was the coldest (-16℃) we've seen in more than a year, possibly two.  (Yes, I looked back on accuweather.com). But that low temperature meant I needed to use a new colour! Kona Turquoise. Thank goodness it is only one night and then we are back to -10 to -13 until the weekend when it finally smartens up to where we normally are.

Wake Up Make Up

This small quilt was finished in January. As it has finally arrived at its destination this past week, and since my daughter reads my blog, I haven't been able to write about it until now. You've seen some sneak peeks  of sections on the blog and on Instagram. Well, here is what I made:

This was another design-as-I-go project and it was so satisfying. I saw the phrase 'wake up, make up' somewhere. Pinterest or Etsy, maybe something on Instagram. It stuck with me as a perfect phrase for the makeup mat Brianne had requested last summer, and which I'd made...but that was a different mat. Let me back up a bit...

A Positive Spin

Finally, after a lost day due to a migraine, and a chopped up weekend due to adulting and gorgeous weather that I didn't want to totally miss out on, A Positive Spin is done!

Another name popped in my head when I set up this shot (yay for a timer on my phone camera, as I am behind the quilt and the camera!) 'Twisting by the Pool".

This is my August challenge quilt for  Island Batik. They supplied the fabric, Hobbs Batting supplied the batting, Aurifil the thread for the entire project, Studio 180 Designs supplied the ruler, and Schmetz Needles supplied the needle I used to piece the quilt!

This was a bit different of a challenge in that I didn't get to decide what fabric to use; I was given a 10" stack of William's Garden, yardage of a dark purple Basic, and a light purple, Bubbles, along with a Deb Tucker tool. I added in Island Batik's white solid.

#StayHome

This is the April challenge for Island Batik. We were to create a quilt 36" x 36" or larger, that made good use of borders and bindings.

As soon as Storm at Sea was done, I got to work. I kept having the sense to create a quilt that symbolized this time of strangeness, of new normal, of staying at home in isolation. I started with my House Block which still is my most popular pattern on Etsy, and knew I'd put a heart as the little block on the side of the house. Then I'd add borders from there.

Patio Chillin' Table Topper

This little DrEAMi! happened because I saved all the corner cut-offs from making individual flying geese from Lift Up, (how interesting, posted July 12, 2018, almost a year ago to the day), knowing they'd grow up into something useable, and then it was Wendy who gave me the 'something useable', idea a really cool table centrepiece for her patio table that you can see here at Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life. However, it did get stalled because of really big deadlines. So I put it onto my Q2FAL list because I wanted to use it this summer! I'm so glad I did two DrEAMi sessions to get it done!

Sherbet Stars

I just love this new little quilt, my second rendition of my Beothuk Star pattern and my quilt for my third annual QAL. It is one of the items on my Q2FAL List so I am so happy to have another finish to check off. I also have just loved seeing Beothuk (Bay-uh-tuck) Star quilts pop up all over Instagram. There is a hashtag: #beothukstarqal if you would like to check it out!

This little quilt that finishes at 42" square is a perfect baby quilt, a wallhanging, or even a good-sized table topper. I curated this kit for the QAL, and you can still snag one for yourself if you'd like, at my main sponsor, Needle & Foot Fine Fabrics. I hope you will pop back here tomorrow when the linky party opens, so you can check out all the other versions of my design.