Q4 FAL List

Phew, sneaking in under the wire (15 hours left), not because I have put it off, but I've written a post each day this week, something that hasn't occurred in a while.  I thought the list was going to be short, just two items, yep, carried over (massive sigh from me and from my daughter, Dayna, I can hear it now) that are horribly neglected and, as a result, long overdue gifts.

1. 

Dayna's grad quilt, my own design.  Needs borders, for which I am pretty sure I now have a plan.  And massive quilting in all the lovely white space, about which I'm very excited, now I'm feeling pretty confident on Avril!

2. 

My nephew's happy new house revamped quilt, with different fabrics bought than the original plan.  This has been in the percolating stages for over a year.  For shame.  Yet one good thing is that in the early spring I got a peek at his basement, which he  is finishing, so that is what led to the new colours.  A good friend and I bought the pattern together a year and a half ago at the Sarasota guild show.


I thought that'd be it.  Focus.  Ya, me right? Fat chance.  So here are some other projects that have to get done this quarter, so I may as well put them on the list.

3.

I finished this flimsy yesterday.  It was started by a guild member at our Wheelchair Quilts sewing day, and she couldn't wrap her head around the offsetting that is needed to get the rectangles on the angle, so she got very frustrated and gave up, giving me back the kit I'd cut.  I thought I'd put it together so she can see it for next week's guild meeting, as she did sew the little triangles onto each rectangle.  I've already made this pattern once, Fairy Steps, here for the guild's charity project for Christmas.  I have 3 more kits cut, hoping they'll go at the meeting...

As it's a small quilt, and went together quite quickly, I am putting it together with the half hexie quilt I made the flimsy of this week as well.  These are basically the same fabrics, with just a couple of differences.

So goal #3 is to get both of these done.  They're pinned onto the vapour barrier in the basement, I know! 

4.

Another one from Pam & Nicky Lintott's book that I started before Fairy Steps.  This wheelchair quilt is a little more involved than I'd thought...  Yep that red is in the previous two quilts as well!

5.

And another wheelchair quilt that is going to require a little work yet.  This one makes ten of them I've made altogether.  I've sewed on the chocolate brown frame since you last saw it, and pulled fabrics from my stash to make a wonky piano keys outer border to finish it up. These were four orphan blocks amongst the guild's charity fabric stash which I sewed together and found the second white points star in the centre.  Cool.

6.

My squirrel! distraction I posted this week that I really love.  I plan to make a pieced flannel backing, as I found my flannel scraps and this Fall quilt needs a cosy backing.  I'd love to get this finished, totally do-able as I plan to do an simple FMQ design.  This is a long shot, but hopeful.

7.  Make a stocking for Brady.  I've wanted to do one for a couple of years now, and I've decided that it needs to happen.  This year.  I plan to find a stocking pattern in an older issue of American Patchwork & Quilting or off their website, All People Quilt, and make it my own, personalizing it for him.  I just have a bunch of Christmas fabric here, as I don't have the actual pattern picked out, nor designed!

8. 

This is going to be a quilt for a dear aunt who turns 75 years young this December.  I actually have 3 cows done.  I didn't have yellow scraps with me while we were still in Florida in early Spring, pulled the yellows once we were home in April...and the cows went out to pasture, never to be seen again this year.  Each month I see Leanna's adorable creations, I think, damn! gotta get back at those.   It might not get to her on time.  Just sayin'. 

So from 2.... to 8.   It's totally do-able, if I sew like I have been this past week.  Oh yeah, I hemmed two more pants for Dayna (fun) and I even made another tiny pincushion with scraps from a wheelchair quilt and John's Shamrock quilt. It's the one on the left, 4" square.  These are so cute!

The one on the right is scraps from cutting my mystery quilt, which also has Shamrock (and Mystery) leftovers in it!  I haven't closed the opening as I still have to find a source that doesn't cost a fortune for crushed walnut shells (talk to the squirrels out back I know ha) or silica sand.  MacGyver sourced out both at Princess Auto, but in a 50-pound bag, cough.

Linking up with the lovely Adrianne in New Zealand at On The Windy Side.

Squirrel! Strikes Again

Yep.  Squirrel!  On Thanksgiving Monday afternoon and evening, this happened:

Eeep! I love it!  I've had this fabric for quite some time; folded up all together waiting for the right pattern.  I'd bought the focus leaf fabric and the orange and matching medium green leaf prints at the same time.  They're all the same line of Cranston VIP prints from Fabricland.  I added in the Classic Cottons yellow, a Moda Marbles deep purple, a Timeless Treasures black paisley, the Buggy Barn deep olive green, and the brown, a Purrfect Christmas by Benartex (had to research it as all I had on the selvage was "Purrfect Christmas").  All of those except for the olive green are scraps from other projects.

Sidenote:In Amanda Jean's Sunday Morning Quilts book, she and coauthor Cheryl suggest always trimming the selvages off first so you get nice long pieces for use in selvage projects, but I'm a geek in that I love to know the manufacturer, line and designer, so I always leave them on.  When I buy fat quarters, I always try to get the side with the selvage information on!  I've been that way since pretty much the beginning of my quilting life.  Anywho.

So when I saw Cynthia's quilt, "Quick Half Hexie Baby Quilt", even though I hadn't set eyes on this bundle of fabric for a while, I just knew her pattern was the one for this fabric!  I used her measurements, drafted up my half hexie as I don't have any of the Jaybird rulers and went to town.  I might have overcut by half a dozen the half hexies, but oh well.  I was so excited to sew this up!  It went together in a snap, and when I looked back at Cynthia's quilt Tuesday morning, I realized in my enthusiasm, I kind of missed the point of her quilt:  separating a whole hexie with the strips of focal fabric.  I emailed Cynthia, asking if she thought I should do some ripping and rearranging or go with it as it is, and you know?  Before I read her reply, I decided it's okay.  It's, um, improv, really.  I didn't pay attention to keeping the colours in the same order, nor did I pay attention to symmetry.  It sings to me of the colours I see around me at this lovely slowly changing time of year.

Me amongst the bananas this morning

I'd hoped to insert a glorious Fall photo here, but not too much is changing yet; the black walnuts behind us, of course, are the first, and lost all their leaves a couple of weeks ago.  I wish I knew all the trees by us, as one is almost all gold, another is pure deep green, another is fading green, Jude's Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus for your benefit, Mum!) is half deep green and half deep red.

Last year I gathered several leaves, pressed them, and then I pulled batiks that reflected their vibrant colours in preparation for making a quilt to reflect Fall's glory.

The leaves have faded over a year...I'll have to gather some fresh ones over the next few weeks!

...and then we went to Florida.  This is where the quilt sits nearly a year later.  Yet I knew I had the other Fall fabrics for the half hexie quilt stowed away.  So the squirrel scurried downstairs, and within minutes had located the stowed fabric, pulled it out and got to work!

I just knew another stash of fabrics would work into a smaller version of this quilt for a wheelchair quilt.  So yesterday I made this!  I paid full attention to symmetry and colour order in this one.

All these except for the pale pink feathers fabric are from the guild's charity fabrics I brought home for quilts.  I've already cut these into kits for more wheelchair quilts, to be picked up at next week's guild meeting.  It's neat to see the same fabrics in different patterns!  Should have another, maybe two to show you this week.

Linking up with Freshly Pieced and Sew Fresh Quilts.  Lots of squirrels, er, inspiration over there!  These two will be on my Q4 FAL list, which I will have for tomorrow, as that is the deadline!

Wheelchair Quilt #6

This one is ready to be donated.

I'm just so happy with how this mishmash of orphan blocks and additions from my own stash all came together in the end.  I absolutely love the quilting, feathers  in the chevron areas, and dot to dot in the diamonds.  On the sides I did a feather "flower" in each bottom corner and then arcs, using my trusty tool, a Bath & Bodyworks body butter container, to mark the arc.  Then I FMQ-ed the arc, echoed it, filled it in with back and forth lines, and did the feathers on the outside.  The dot to dot is ruler work and I only marked the inside point of one diamond, the turquoise one, on the first line.  Angela says just go for it, and so I decided to take that risk on this quilt, and I am really surprised and pleased with how evenly they all turned out. :-)  I had no problems with the tension with the Sulky rayon thread, but I did with the pale blue Fufus rayon, the same thread I used on wheelchair #5 quilt. I had few issues, if any on that one, so I am not sure what I am doing wrong, same bobbin thread.  I ended up changing my needle from a 20 to a 14, with a better result.

At first I worried that the back itself seemed to much of a mishmash, a dog's breakfast, but now that it is all quilted up and bound, I love it.  I machine bound this one again, as these quilts need to be durable for much wear and tear and washing.
Quilt Stats:
Pattern: original design
Size:  30X35.5"
Fabric: orphan blocks plus scraps from my stash
Batting: Pellon Legacy 100% polyester (love this batting!)
Quilted: on my Avanté -- 66 757 stitches :-)
Threads: Floriani's Fufu's rayon thread in pale blue and Sulky rayon in white

I also have my September and October steps sewn up for Cheryl's mystery quilt:

It's so intriguing to imagine and speculate what these will grow into!

Here is a tip that probably everyone knows for adding the HSTs onto the squares in the September step.

Sew with the square facing up so the bias edge is on the bottom. This will help to avoid stretching.

If you use the little triangle-like dog ears as a guide, you can get pretty good alignment.  I also finger-pressed the red square in half near the centre of the square so I could use that line as a reference for placement of the tip of the HST.

I hope it will end up okay, as I ran out of the taupe/ivory background, leftovers from my Indianapolis quilt (need to post on that one day, it's an older one), so I substituted the ivory cat fabric without knowing exactly where it would end up/how it will look.  So there is one rectangle in the courthouse steps blocks of the cat fabric.  It does jump a little, but it matches the cat fabric for the SiaS blocks, and I didn't think I should add in a third ivory-coloured fabric. Might have to ask Cheryl if she thinks this will be okay, or add in a third that is a bit closer to the taupe/ivory one.

These are humongous 19" squares! There are 9 fanned out here.

You can still get in on the mystery!  Head to Cheryl's blog, Meadow Mist Designs for the deets.

I'm linking this post up with Connie at Freemotion by the River.

Harvest Melody

Happy Thanksgiving!  Here in Canada it is a long weekend because today, Monday, is our Thanksgiving. Although not as big a holiday as is the American Thanksgiving in November--our favourite and biggest is Christmas-- we do still celebrate a time with family, good food, and giving thanks for so many many things.

I had another post all ready to go but then thought this quilt, a blast from the past, would be more appropriate for today.

This was a quilt on display in my former LQS, Lori's Country Cottage, in Sherwood Park, Alberta.  Lori's was one of the Top Ten shops in Quilt Sampler, Spring 2012.  The centre is a panel, and I believe they gave you a pattern sheet with instructions to complete the checkerboard and piano keys frame.  I remember collecting fat quarters and quarter metre cuts of various flannels in several local shops in and around the Edmonton area.  I made the quilt in 2005.

I FMQ-ed around the motifs and the frames in the panel, and then did ribbon-like swoops à la Kathy Sandbach, pumpkins and leaves in the piano keys.

I was known in my guild at the time for interesting backs, whether they were pieced with leftovers as was this one, and/or with interesting and as good a quality of fabric as on the top.  I still love to do both; I always check out the sales section in a quilt shop for potential backings.  I will buy 3-5 yards/metres depending on potential and price, no matter if I have a quilt in the works that needs a backing or not.  This was the first quilt that was 100% flannel front and back.  It is so cuddly!

I pieced the label as an integral part of the backing.

Closeup of quilting detail

I absolutely am in love to this day with the rich colours in this quilt.  You can see how well it has laundered, albeit pilled (flannel will do that).  It is on the couch each Fall for both Thanksgiving and for Fall.

One of my favourite blocks in the panel

Sadly, I did not record the designer information.  I do know that some of the flannels are Debbie Mumm, others are Nancy Halvorsen.  The quilt measures 43.75" X 61.5", a good cuddle size.

Speaking of Debbie Mumm, here is a little quilt made in 2003 from a pattern in one of her books.  It is hanging at my front door. I thought I'd include it today.

I was into the Sulky rayons and metallics back then (still love 'em).  The leaf blocks finish at 3"!
The quilt took longer than I anticipated for being so small, just 15.5 X 17.25".

Laid it in the morning sun so the quilting shows up better, all FMQ and embrodiered by hand

The back, a fun Halloween/Thanksgiving-esque print I believe from Fabricland:

And the label:

Hmm, had some tension issues with my FMQ then too!  Maybe it's not all Avril's fault! (I know it isn't)  I was taught that it's better to have your top thread pull slightly towards the back however, but areas of this are not so good...think my hands and foot speed were not in sync always by the looks of the sizes of the stitches.

I wish all my Canadian friends, family and followers a peaceful and happiness-full Thanksgiving, and for my international friends, the same wish for the first day of another week in October!  Now I'm off into yet another glorious Fall day here in southwestern Ontario to walk Rocco.  Above the sumac trees in the photo below, is, I believe, a huge Silver Maple.  I just love how these trees turn:  it looks like Mother Nature has dipped their tips into orange icing!

Wheelchair Charity Quilts

I started to work on step 2 of Cheryl's Mystery Quilt, but then got sidetracked (we all know that that never happens to me) and spent all day until I had to drive in for yoga class working on more wheelchair quilts.  Lots of photos ahead.

All that this one needed was the binding, ties and pocket.  This one is my favourite wheelchair quilt finish to date.  It is #5!

Every piece of this fabric was in the charity fabric our guild has.  Even the batting was a donated roll of polyester, a first for me, as I'm a Warm 'n Natural gal.  OMG I love this stuff!  Must find out what brand.  (update: Legacy) This is not washed yet and look at that texture definition!  I just freehanded an easy open flowers, leaves and loops meander.  The pattern is from Pam and Nicky Lintott's Two From One Jelly Roll Quilts.  I did a different border and my rows are shorter.

Here is the back, a piece that fit just perfectly, both size-wise and character-wise, from in the guild stash.  I sewed a pocket out of the 3 columns trimmings.  I am getting better at machine sewing the binding down.  I prefer to sew it to the front of the quilt, and then machine sew it down with the right side up, stitching in the ditch.  I don't have to go back into too many spots now!  My preference is for hand-stitching it down though, just like that look better.

MacGyver planted his banana plants in the ground this year, as they'd outgrown their giant pots. One is 2 years old, the other 3, though they are now the same Jack and the Beanstalk height.  All the neighbours comment on them, as well as my impatiens which started out as those 1" little plugs in a 6-pack from the local greenhouse, and are now these globes of 18" high, two feet in diameter glory.  I'll have to go stand in amongst the banana plants and get a photo so you can appreciate their majesty.  I've convinced MacGyver to dig them up and try to save them over yet another winter.  They've survived thanks to a neighbour, the first year, and Dayna last year, coming in and watering them from time to time while we were in Florida.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: from Pam and Nicky Lintott's Two From One Jelly Roll Quilts
Size:  30X34.5"
Fabric: charity fabric from my guild
Batting: a fairly flat polyester by Legacy
Quilted: on my Avanté
Threads: Floriani's Fufu's rayon thread in pale blue

Here is the other I was working on yesterday.  I had the flimsy done a couple of days ago.  These are the rest of the 23 giant HST flying geese orphan blocks I won at the August guild meeting. I had to add a purple, a red and a yellow half diamond to make full diamonds, and then two half diamonds, one pale green the other the floral, to fill in the design for this flimsy.

You might recall the first bunch of them I made into this wheelchair quilt:

All I added was one 5 1/2" square to make the flimsy

So I played around yesterday making a pieced backing for the second quilt.  All I do is pin the flimsy to the design wall, and then place fabric pieces over it, filling it in like a puzzle as I go.

Here is the final result, a little different from where I'd started, but I like it.

And here it is in progress on Avril.  I decided to do some more involved quilting as the zigzag low volume areas were begging for feathers. I've loaded it sideways since it is such a small quilt, and that way I can do the feathers in the zigzag areas without breaking thread.

Yes, for those of you more observant types, I'm floating the top.  I've done that on the past several quilts with no issues.  One less edge to pin, I like that!

And.  Sigh....Bella has a new obsession:

This is her latest favourite place to perch and help me sew... Uh Huh.  Try seeing where you're going, through that plume of a brown tail, never mind afraid I'm going to sew those strands of fur (which are rather plentiful) into the seam!  When I hold it aside and sew one-handed (listen to me!  I sound like a crazy cat lady) she will swish it quite strongly, trying to get it out of my hold.

Still sewing scraps for the scrap vortex in progress

I usually end up dumping her unceremoniously, okay, sometimes apologetically, on the floor beside me much to her exasperation.  I always feel bad, well, okay, often feel bad doing that, as this is a cat who is just SO into every step of the quilting process, from pulling fabrics to finished quilt.

Another wheelchair quilt in progress.  Aren't these the coolest blocks?!

These were in the guild's charity fabric, leftovers from the quilt show we think. I sewed the four of them together yesterday too.  I just need to figure out a funky border to frame these and I'll have another wheelchair quilt flimsy.  So they're simmering on the design wall at the moment.

Linking up with Freshly Pieced and Sew Fresh Quilts --OMG go there and hop around for Lorna's Dog Gone Cute blog hop.  Our dogs need new daybed covers and two of these puppies just might be a part of that project.

Wings...takes flight!

Prewashing, in the sun to show off that lovely texture, mmm!

The quilt sat for an entire week while I hemmed and hawed about binding.  Consulted my three J's.... Julie. ... Judy.  Thought some more.  Mentioned it to Jasmine.  Ha!  There are FOUR J's......
Even dragged J...., er MacGyver, downstairs to ask him his thoughts.  (I'm not allowed to use his name or his photo, except for the one shot where you see his hooves in his proverbial flipflops as he holds Blue Ribbon Stars).

Jasmine's random comment, "Have you considered...?" (which I had, but dismissed, thinking it would take too long and be too fiddly) ended up being the binding decision:  scrappy rainbow binding using fabrics in the quilt.  I'm so glad I did do the extra work for this!

I might have gone a little cut-happy on the 2.5" strips...yep they're more than half the height of the Isacord spool!

Oh well, the way I see it, I have the makings of yet another scrap quilt!  This is Cynthia's Scrap-a-Palooza quilt #16 from July.  I loved the effect I got when I rotated the top two blocks in the set of 4: the spots became wings.  You can see the spots layout in this post.  I really really like that layout too, so you never know...another may just happen in my future!

This gazebo is in the park that is on one side of our lane.  I've thought it would make a good spot for a quilt shoot for some time, so decided to try it out tonight in the setting sun.

I realize just how important it is to get sunlight on the quilt to show the quilting and the texture.  Here you don't see much at all, but the colours are true.

Can you see evidence of the squirrels' busyness, stashing walnuts (there are no less than 3 visible) in various safe places?!!  Ha, much like we quilters do with favourite fabrics...

I changed threads a lot.  Remember Avril was not a happy camper with the Sulky Blendables in 12 weight?  My Bernina loves it.  Avril was also not really a fan of the Sulky Blendables in 30 weight, but she grumpily did what I asked.  She loves Isacord, Aurifil, So Fine, YLI, Coats and Clark variegated.

I used The Bottom Line in the bobbin in ivory for all of these thread changes.  I was really really pleased with the tension (the Bernina was used for the majority of the Blendables)

I had taken the quilt off the Avanté with two echoes of the cloud-like swoop-dee-swoops in the wings, and then I thought, nope, too much unstable fabric, too much poof...

so I went back in with my Bernina, and did a third echo of the outside swoop-dee-swoops, and then a wavy line in the inside ones to flatten things down a bit.  It really wasn't that much more work, well it kind of was, but it was totally worth it.

I used one of the ratty chairs in the gazebo for draping the quilt.  I noticed there are nails in the top face boards(?) of the gazebo, so maybe I can get some rope, grab some clothespegs, and make myself a better hanging line for my quilts.  Never mind what the neighbours will think of me now...

Here is the back, that delicious paisley-sculptured Minky Cuddle I got at Miller's Dry Goods this summer.  I'm so glad I treated myself to some of this!

Cloud-like quilting, cloud-like backing, mmm!

Bella is in love with this quilt.  She cracks me up; as SOON as I lay a quilt down to either look at it, decide on batting (in this case) or a backing or whatever, she does this:

Mademoiselle Twinkle Toes

She has tried to burrow under it, lie on it, à la Tish's Oliver, while I was quilting it and binding it...sigh.  Cats just have to be a PART of every stage.

Oh, I did a loose loopy and simple flowers meander in the background.  The shot below also shows the third echo and wavy line I added a little better.  This extra quilting didn't detract from the plushness of the Minky one bit.

Quilt Stats:
Pattern: Scrap A Palooza #16
Size: 69 3/4"X 53 1/4"
Fabric: scraps for the top and the binding (note, there are about 550 fabrics in this top, as I repeated only a few of them, 576 total pieces) Minky Cuddle for the backing
Batting: Warm 'n Natural
Quilted: on my Avanté (approximately 80 000 stitches), and added some echoing on my Bernina
Threads: pieced with Gütermann, quilted with Isacord 4421, 5210 and 5450, Sulky Blendables 12 wt 4007 and 30 wt 4117, Coats and Clark 40 wt variegated blues, YLI 40wt variegated plum, So Fine 40 wt 403; The Bottom Line in the bobbin

Linking up with Oh Scrap! At Quilting is More Fun Than Housework. Lots of scrappy ideas over there!

Just Call Me a Bag Lady

Two finishes on a Friday, with hopefully a third this evening!  These makeup bags were on my Q3FAL list.  I have just found out that they WILL qualify, since Adrian at On the Windy Side, host of the linky wrote on Monday, and I quote, "...opening soon on September 30, in fact. You'll then have a week to get your very last minute finishes done and linked up before the linky closes on 6 October at 11 pm PST."  Woo hoo! Not that I have ever won one of the fabulous prizes, but still, it's a good feeling to have another goal done!

This is a pattern by Lazy Girl Designs, a bag I have made, oh, six times to date sewn with a perfect Art Gallery fabric I got this past spring from fabric.com for the outside of the bag.  I have two of these bags, in different fabrics, and I use and love them both.  These two are for my daughters, Brianne and Dayna.