Time to play with new fabric!

I was extremely lucky to win a FQ bundle of organic fabric from Jan DiCintio of Daisy Janie.

it is called New Leaf and the colours are absolutely glorious....

now, I have to decide what to make with these beauties!

Any suggestions?

WIP Wednesday 27-02-2013

First of all, congratulations to all the entries and winners at QuiltCon. It's been fun browsing the blogs of the lucky people who got to go.

What an amazing and talented group of quilters.

I've had a somewhat productive week working on my WIP's.

A happy finish and a final photo of Starry, Starry Night...

Ta da.........

 laying on a big snowbank!

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One more block done for

Curve It Up QAL

this block is the Dresden Plate....

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For the Simply Solids: a modern bee

M-R is doing a scrappy trip quilt with the blocks....

she sent the middle grey, and the dark purple strips

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my latest WIP......try not to be to jealous!!

I know I'll be happier starting over, but sheesh!
Thank goodness Sheriti is helping :-)
I do have incentive to get it done though....

 ...can hardly wait to see what Flavia is up to now!

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Linking up with Lee @ Freshly Pieced(congrats!)

and Monika @ The Needle and Thread Network.

Have a great sewing week!

A Lovely February Finish!

I'm so happy to have finished Starry, Starry Night, and I know that it will be one of my all time favourites!

 This photo was taken last last August when it was just a top!

fast forward to today............!!

Same location, but laying on top of 3 feet of snow!

I had to toss it out from the deck, and hope it landed upright!

As you can see, there are bits of snow around the edges.

Hmmm.....then I had to climb through the snow to retrieve it....didn't consider that when I tossed it!

Not completely sure why I needed an outside shot!

I loved doing this string quilt, and using some favourite fabrics as well as a lot of scraps!

For the quilting, I did 1/4 stitching along the coloured seams and intersecting lines through the navy stars using yellow, green and purple thread.

The navy border was done with a FMQ tetris pattern.

Binding is the same Kona navy as the border.

For some strange reason I wanted to offset the centre with navy borders, and this was truthfully the most difficult part!

I have to admit it is not perfectly square, but I don't mind.

For the backing, I used AMH Innocent Crush voile.

Oh, how I love voile backing!!

There are actually 4 layers to this quilt, as the strings were sewn onto a foundation piece. But, with the voile, it doesn't feel heavy at all.

It took me forever to find this tutorial again, but finally I found it to give the proper credit to Molly Flanders for designing this block!

I definitely need to organize my bookmarked tutorials!

Statistics

Started - 2012

Finished -2013

Fabrics- scraps and Kona navy, AMH voile

Measurements- a slightly wonky 61x67

 A much more civilized indoor shot!

First finished quilt of the year!

I'm happy!

 I'll be linking this to A Lovely Year of Finishes with Fiber of All Sorts

as well as 

FAL 2013 with Leanne at She Can Quilt.

Ready for Downton!

All ready to do the binding on Starry, Starry Night!!

Woo Hoo!

Getting busy .....

I put my No Name Triangle quilt away for a while! I will get back to it soon, and then I'll use the walking foot to finish the circles.

I'm sure I'll love like it when it's finished!

in the meantime....

Starry, Starry Night is getting some love!

I did some stitching 1/4" on each side of seam down the string sections- you can't really see it, but it holds the quilt together nicely.

In the navy sections, I am using, yellow, green and purple for the intersecting lines.

I'm really happy with it, and the voile backing is a dream!

My helper offers some sage advice on thread colour!

I was very happy to find Isacord thread locally, and tons of colours too!

in the borders I am doing some FMQ.

Yikes! lint and fur on navy fabric is not a good combination!

 It's a long week-end here, as Monday is a Family Day.

Not that it matters to me....I'm retired!!!!

Have a great week-end everyone!

WIP Wednesday 13-02-2013

Missing my deadlines really bugs me, as I am usually really prompt and often early!

So when Sana put in her request in December for our

 

 Star of Africa bee, I thought it would be pretty easy.

But, when it comes to original ideas and designs, I fall by the wayside!

Big time!

So, here it is, the middle of February, and I'm just getting it done.

Sana asked for something that reminds us of home......

so, here it is Sana!

The beaver is our national rodent animal!

Now, I have to get busy on Tina's and Fiona's blocks!

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WIP -No Name Triangle quilt

Well, this darn thing has been a thorn in my side ever since I started it!
I do love Chicopee, but the triangles...not so much!

I've discovered (not to my surprise) that random placement just makes me nuts!

I kinda just threw these darn triangles together to get them off my design wall......

I'm really not loving it, so when it came time to decide on quilting, I was kinda blah about it.

Finally, I decided on a circle using the red Aurifil 28wt I had waiting around to be used. Love the thread!!!

I wanted to try using the round FMQ foot that came with my machine, but I had never used.

Well, lets just say....it ain't pretty!

I can't follow a circle, and to call it "organic" is an insult to the word!

but...I've started...and, as much as I really want to pick it all out and start over........

I won't!!!

No one will see it way back in the closet!!

and I don't like enough to start over either!

this is the back.......only a few triangles and the rest is Kona coal.

oh goody...you can really see the wonkiness from the back!!

let's just move on, shall we....

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WIP Bella's Curves

Curve It Up QAL

one of the most fun things ever!

Using the quick curve ruler, and traditional blocks redesigned by Jenny and Helen.

this fan block is the latest.....

and here is what I have done so far....

My fabrics are Bella by Lotta Jansdotter.
Each block is 16" and we will be doing 12 blocks.

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 I still need to get busy and quilt Starry, Starry Night and that will finish up my WIP's from last year. Yay! 

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced 

Have a great sewing week!

eh?

This is what I did...

when I didn't do...

what I should have done!

:-)

 

WIP Wednesday 06-02-2013

Most of my sewing lately seems to be blocks for something or other!

Bee blocks are so much fun and for our Happiness circle @ do. Good Stitches, Marika wanted us to do the oh so popular and fun x & + blocks.

The colours she chose were blue and green with low volume triangles.

I am also doing the Lucky Stars BOM with Elizabeth @ Don't Call Me Betsy

The first block was out in January, and after I made it I changed my mind on the size I wanted to do!

That called for a re-do of the block into a 6"

These small blocks don't take very long to do, so February is also done!

Love this small size and the Kaffe Fassett fabrics, including the shot cottons!

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One of my favourite things is testing blocks for Kristy @ Quiet Play!

She does paper piecing patterns that are just so much fun, and in fact she has a BOM in progress right now called And Sew On.... all sewing themed blocks!

These blocks aren't part of the BOm but are patterns she has designed....

The cutest ever Octopus!

and the latest one is a retro oven!

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Are you doing the Triple Zip Along?

Debbie @ A Quilter's Table designed the triple zip pouch and is hosting the zip along on Flickr.

I did mine on Sunday while it was snowing!

had a lot of fun doing this, and blogged about it here.

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I am doing my first ever EPP project!!! Thanks to Benta who sent me a sample and tutorial!!

Also thanks to Patti E-R, who gave us a demonstration at our last meeting of the Saskatoon MQG.

We exchanged ugly FQ's to make anything, and I decided on a EPP rose star to make a tote bag...or something. It completely depends on how it all turns out!

I don't think FQ I pulled out of the bag is ugly at all!

My only problem with this technique, is that I need daylight to do the stitching! I just cannot do it in the evening without squinting and biting my tongue. Ouch!

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I actually do have WIP's!!!

1-I'm still planning the quilting for Starry, Starry Night

2- No name triangle top is completely pieced, and the backing is almost done too

3-Curve It Up QAL is in progress and over half way done!

Well, that sums up my last couple of weeks!

Linking up with guest host, Jenelle @ Freshly Pieced

and Monika @ The Needle and Thread Network.

Have a great sewing week!

No More Penny Pinching!

Yes, the day has come!

The Canadian penny has been taken out of circulation, as it costs more to make than it is worth!

So, everything will be rounded up or down.

I won't miss it!

Those suckers are heavy!

Does that mean I have to make another coin purse???

and take the penny off!

Or maybe it will become a collectors item. LOL!

 

 

Zippity Doo Dah...

Well, it's snowing! So a great morning to stay in and make my first triple zip pouch !

The Triple Zip Along can be found here on Flickr.

There are already a huge number of them finished in the Flickr pool.

It took me a while to pick fabrics, mostly because of my limited  zippers!

Well, that's not completely true....I have alot of zippers, but needed longer ones in order to change the colour of the pull tabs!

I used Thermolam Plus sew in fleece, because I didn't have any fusible. It worked just fine, and it clung to the fabric just as if it were fused.

 I actually changed the plaid green to running stitch green!

You can find a fun tutorial for changing zipper pulls here 

You can also find in the Tips and Tricks thread in the Flickr group.

They were pretty easy to do. I started with 12" zippers in order to have enough length when done. You can also switch up teeth if you want!!

On to the sewing...

I've put in zippers before, so I didn't have any problems with them.

I like to use 1/4" SteamASeam to secure the zipper to the fabric instead of pins. Fabric glue is also an option.

I used my 1/4" Evenfeed foot to sew everything, as suggested by Leanne. 

Worked like a charm too!

The whole thing took a couple of hours to do, which included opening up a seam because, like a total dunce, I forgot to open up my top zipper when sewing the side seams!!

Really....isn't that zippers 101!!!!!!!!!

A fun pouch to do.

Thanks Debbie for a great tutorial!

and for having the zip along

A great way to spend a morning!