Celine's baby quilt bound and off to its new forever home!

After a lot of frustrating moments and a lot of picking I love how this turned out. 

2016 Goals

My goals for 2016 are:

1.   To make and finish 30 quilty things including:

      -  12 bed sized or large lap quilts (> 50x60")

      -  finishing the quilts left over from 2015

      -  one made with paper piecing

      -  make a combo of beautiful utility quilts and art quilts 

2.  To increase my blogs professional appearance with

      -  better quality photographs

      -  better design of photographs

      -  blog more than once a month 

      -  better narrative

3.   To be more involved with the quilting community

      -  to go to another quilt retreat or two

      -  to build healthy relationships in the quilting world

   

Comparison of 2015 goals to actual progress.

Comparison of 2015 goals to actual progress: 

Last year I committed to making 12 bed/lap quilts practicing different techniques.  Counting children's quilts I met the first part of that goal.  

While I met that goal I really wanted to explore more techniques than I did and finish more bed quilts.  At the end of the year I had four ready to quilt but took advantage of spending time with family instead of rushing to finish. I have 6 or 7 more in various stages of piecing.  That being said I wanted to produce 25 quilty pieces and finished 23... Not bad!  

Included in that number and shown above is a little (36") cat wall hanging. The background is a feeble attempt at a Ricky Tim conversion quilt using two pieces of my hand dyed fabric.  I also stole the cat shape idea from Hilary Florence's "nine lives".  Love the final piece..whimsical and fun. I used the same fabric to make the table runner below.  

Along with quilting for myself I continued to do some quilting for charities and others (not all shown) and hand dying. 

For some reason I seem to have given away finished quilts before taking pictures of them bound... So, I guess that's a great first goal for 2016. Remember to take better pictures (with a better camera) and set up to showcase the quilt  :-) .   

Stay tuned for 2016 goals

Baby quilt for Celine

All done but the binding (iPad photos).  I think I have a love hate relationship with this little quilt.  I had so much trouble with tension and had to pick out too much for my liking.  I also purposely forced myself to use a verregated thread (pale green) which showed my errors.  I did this on purpose to push my limits.  Still lots of learning but I like the design concept and will use it again...with matching thread. :-)

Cleaning up some scraps

Sometimes you just need to get your head out of the big projects and pick up some quick wins (seems I need this more often than not these days).  I had made some little receiving blankets and wondered if it would work on slightly larger projects with a quilted top. 

On Saturday I was down on the floor sorting my stash into colour lots when I thought I might be able to put something together for a friend's little boy.  I had lots of green and brown flannels and a great piece of plush backing.   Here is what I came up with.  I made it with a self binding backing (thanks Missouri Star Quilt Co!) .  Once again the picture is not great but the colours are fairly true.   It's not big but a great baby size. 

United Way

I thought I would do some little gifts for auctioning at the United Way telethon this year.  Nothing fancy -just some cuddlies.  Well finally got busy and got them done.  ( Sorry for the terrible pictures. One of these days I will have to start using my camera to get better quality photos. )

The comforter is for baby and measures approximately 40 x 55.  It has a fuzzy soft back and poly batting.  The top is a beautiful green silky material to which I added little black bows.   All washable.  

And I added a couple receiving blankets as well. 

Herringbone Quilts for twins

I finally finished the two little herringbone quilts that I did for newborn twins.  The quilts are kid size and not baby size, measuring approximately 56x62 each. The red,blue, and yellow one has 80:20 cotton batting. The other is poly.  I quilted one with nylon thread and the other with a variegated King Tut. 

I purposely quilted them differently to see what the difference was in feel and look. Although I am partial to heavy quilting, I like them both.  They are different.  Here you can see the difference! 

Here is one with binding I chose for both. 

And I forgot to take a picture of the two with binding.. Don't look too close or you will see I missed a piece that I had to go back and fix. 😒

The back is this great fuzzy fleece backing. 

Better pictures to come!

Just finished up a little project for a friend

A friend at work made two of the cutest quilts for her new twins. I quilted them up with some plain loop-d-loos and added two receiving blankets into her bundle which I am taking in to her Wednesday. 

Hope she likes them. 

40 years August 15

What else can I say...40 years together and still in love!  How lucky can you get!  

We had a quiet and romantic BBQ supper and talked most of the night.  The perfect anniversary.  

The start of a signature wedding quilt

August first came so fast but I had all the signature blocks ready for people to write their names or nice little notes to the happy couple. 

The wedding had a camouflage theme and although I was not sure how it would turn out, it came together beautifully.  And the bride looked gorgeous in her camp dress.

It took a couple weeks after the wedding for me to get the signed blocks back.  Here are a couple pieces laid out on the floor to give you an idea what it will look like. The quilt will have a similar look...camo, pink, and green. 

 I think it will look wonderful. 

A kick starter....self binding receiving blankets

Boy am I behind in my posts.  I cannot believe it.  I started this post July 20th more than a month ago.  

Seems like I have been swamped, preparing wedding quilt signature blocks, visiting, piecing several of my projects on the go, worrying about my hubby's hip, and worrying about oil prices.  At one point I felt so disjointed that I just had to do a little project to kick start me..a quick win so to speak! 

Because my girlfriend's daughter is having a baby and one of the ladies at work was also pregnant I thought I would learn how to do self binding receiving blankets for quick gifts and to increase my skills. Missouri Star Quilt company has a great little video showing how to do this with little stress.... Hey just what I needed!  

Turns out the process is easy and fun and literally takes about 1/2 hour. Here is my first try:  

Aren't they cute! I think I will do a couple more just to have on hand for small gifts. 

And the project did exactly what I wanted ... Kicked started me... Back in the grove.  

What a weekend! Dye or die! Or both...I am wiped!

 I was supposed to teach a little class on dying material.. We could not find enough participants so the class was cancelled but my daughter and I decided to have a long 4 day weekend devoted to fabric dying. She wanted to make baby wraps and I wanted to add to my knowledge of dying techniques.  So we got together...what a weekend!  She has the art background and eye and I have the fabric (sewing and quilting) knowledge.  

We used Procion and Dylon dyes on two types of fabric..cotton and Osnaburg. I have never used Dylon dye or sewn with Osnaburg material.  She wanted to try immersion dyng and I had never tried that (two methods...adding water to a dye bath or raising the material out of a dye solution an inch at a time).   I introduced her to shibori and other similar techniques.  Here are some of the beautiful pieces she produced. 

Immersion dying:  purples to orange - Dylon dyes on natural Osnaburg fabric.  

Huge chunk of Osnaburg immersed in blue dye and then shibori dyed with black/grey.   Approx 15 feet.  

A large piece twisted, tied, and dyed.. 102 inches.

By the end of the weekend she had also sewn three baby carriers.  

This little guy will be out of this before you know it..good thing she made some bigger versions. 

Over the weekend we had done immersion, shibori, tie-dye, shaving cream dying, scrunch dying and a little sun dye (Oh and a little painting and clay modelling). 

Mine seem petty compared with my daughter's as I was just doing more experiments with dying on cotton... Nothing super exciting....( I love Melody Johnsons techniques so was trying to replicate some of her vibrant colours.).  Another post maybe..

Rhydian's quilt

I had great fun making this little quilt for my girlfriend's grandson.  I am really quite pleased with how it turned out.  

It was, once again, an adventure designing this little boy's quilt as I changed it out several times before I was satisfied with the design. It started out as a jelly roll strip quilt.  I didn't think that was boyish enough so I added some trains and cars...but I hated it. The idea was ok but the colours a little too busy and the appliqué was terrible. Here it is.....

I set it aside for a while and then cut it up into circles.  Those then sat on my design wall for a week or so before thinking about the idea of having little cars run around strip quilt worlds.  Each one carries a letter of his name or day, month, year of his birth. 

My hope is that it grows old and scraggly with loving use. Welcome to the world Rhydian!  

Little charity quilt

One of the guild members pieced this little charity quilt and I had the honour of quilting it.  

Organising my works in progress.

Walmart had some great plastic bins on sale ...cheap so I decided to organise my on the go quilting projects.  These are the quilts that I have made some progress on whether they are just cut or partially pieced. These do not include the charity and guild quilts I have in the go ( one near to being finished on my long-arm). So there are ten of my own projects on the go that I want completed by the end of the year!  Crazy! And of course only the plus quilt and clamshell will be minimally quilted.  

 Got to go back and get some more bins for the others on my list. 

More Plus

Update:  Bound and on my bed.  We slept under it last night and both loved the soft and light feel. 

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The little scrap busting  Plus Quilt project is coming along nicely. I am adding a 4 inch black border all the way around or perhaps I will make the top and bottom wider than the sides as I think I still need some length.  As it sits it is 78" square. I would like it 86 square at minimum.   I have a minimalist plan for the quilting as I want it to be more of a long term cuddle quilt than a show piece. Although plain I am surprised at how nice it looks on our bed. 

And it's already got approval!  

Plus Quilt

I have always liked the look of these Plus quilts. So while procrastinating on a whole bunch of things...taxes, leadership article, and housework, as well as waiting to get some more fusible interfacing for my petal quilt I decided to give one a go and stash bust at the same time!

Here is what I have come up with so far.  

Think I will put a small black border on it so it should finish at 84" square. Good enough for a queen size bed. My idea will be to straight line quilt it.  And double bat it. Wish me luck. 

Rugs as quilts

As we were admiring our newest member of the family we were struck by how quilt like our little area rug was.  That started a conversation about how rugs became wall art as did quilts... Of course Cricket had to join the conversation. 

Petals, petals

324 petals to be backed with fusible interfacing, ironed, and appliquéd before I can even get to putting the quilt together.... 

Chevron on the bed...very pretty

 

Now just have to make some pillow shams, oh, and pick some threads! 

Looks kind of funny sitting in the middle of boxes of stuff from the living room and kitchen.  This month we are having the floors and cupboards replaced. Last month we had the bedroom and living room floors replaced and walls all painted. It's going to feel like a new home! In the mean time though we will have to put up with the clutter.  

I am getting to keep the kitchen pull-outs. They are a perfect cutting table height and will provide 14 feet of pull out storage!  So excited! 

By the way thanks to the quilters in the Torquay guild for making me feel so at home in their group. You are a great group of women!   

Happy Easter everyone!  Or is it Christmas!  

Sandi