My Final Quilt Finish of 2010

This is my No Rhyme Nor Reason quilt. I love how it turned out. I do not love these photos of it (I think the clouds raced in the second I got out of the car with my camera). But I really wanted to post about it before the end of the year. Anyway, take my word for it, the quilt is about 100 times more vibrant "in person."
I made this quilt for my husband for Christmas. Somehow even the kids kept it secret from him! I had made the squares earlier in the year, but they had been packed away until I decided to put it all together in mid-December. It is for our queen-sized bed. I think my Yeti-sized Selvage Snowman quilt top may be slightly larger than this one, but otherwise it's the biggest quilt I've made.
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It's the first time I've used sashing in a quilt because these squares were just so wild and busy they really needed to be separated. I won't be rushing to use sashing again any time soon. In my opinion, sashing is just another thing for me to accidentally get crooked.

This quilt has pretty much every fabric from my stash in it. There are lots of fun squares in it for the kids to find. It works a little as an I-Spy quilt.
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It is my own design. The tutorial I wrote to make the blocks for this quilt is here.

So I'll see you in 2011. Wow! Thanks so much to everyone who has stopped by and said 'Hi' in 2010. Happy New Year!

Secrets Revealed!

Pretty tantalising blog post title, eh? Definitely National Enquirer style. No, I haven't discovered a way to magically erase wrinkles, I'm just going to show the pillowcases I made as Christmas gifts. But if you're not too disappointed, since you're here, why not have a peek?
Some little musical mice and dancing elves. My son picked out this fabric.
This one was for my Dad. It is my favourite. My parents like birds.

A pair with guitars.

For a little guy in kindergarten.

My Mom's pillowcase. A couple of birds got beheaded in the cuff. Oh well.

I made three of this version, for my son and two nephews who like space. The main fabric is Supernova by RJR Fabrics and it is a 2010 fabric. The trim fabric is an out-of-print fabric called Rocket Scientist. I really like how these ones turned out.

For a little guy who plays soccer and likes green.

Just a little space fabric on this one.

For my husband. I also made him a quilt for Christmas which I will try to get photographed and show before the New Year. (Since it is my last official quilt of 2010) The quilt was my biggest sewing secret! And it really was a total surprise for him.

These old Santas jumped onto my daughter's Christmas quilt for a quick picture before it went on her bed on Christmas Eve.

And, just for fun, here's a pic of our Elf on the Shelf. He's a vintage elf from my collection of old Christmas decorations. We had a lot of fun watching him move around our house.

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Happy Sewing!

Meet My Selvage Snowman

So my cool dude (pun totally intended) is done to quilt top form. Yes, I did question my sanity near the end of this. It is huge. It is floor to ceiling. My six-foot tall husband is standing on a dining room chair and using two curtain rods to extend his arm span to take the photos.

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Anyway, I LOVE how turned out! I'll post more about my process when it's all quilted and bound in January. But in the meantime ...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS
TO YOU

AND YOURS!

Christmas in Quispamsis

Just a little non-quilty post today, but I'd like to share the Christmas light display put on by our town each year. It fills the park right alongside our town hall. It is turned on each night for the whole month of December. It is 100% child-oriented and my kids were thrilled to go last night and run along the pathways looking at the lights.
A pirate ship. There are large teddy bears dressed as pirates riding the ship.

A big present and in the far distance you can see the castle that marks the entry to the park.

A little gingerbread house. There is a plexiglass door and a little display inside the house. Elsewhere there was also a train with plexiglass in the caboose and a little display.

A long shot. That is a T-Rex in the foreground. The arched cover is for concerts and movies in the summertime. In front of it you can see the town's outdoor skating rink which is lovely.

A pair of giraffes. There was also a fully lit set of reindeer with Rudolph and his red nose in the lead. The kids were so excited running around, I only got to photograph a few parts of the display.

A large tree near the entrance to the display and the skating rink and side of town hall in the distance.

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I'll be back again in a few days with my selvage snowman quilt top. It's very close to being done. I am actually working on a few *secret* finishes that I can't show here until after Christmas so I have been slow finishing my snowman, but if I do say so myself he is super cute and I can't wait to get him done!

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Hope all your Christmas preparations are going well!

Giveaway Winner

Thanks so much to everyone who entered my giveaway! You quilty sorts are such a creative bunch. I was laughing so much over all the clever and hilarious answers to the question about Santa's middle name. So anyway, without further ado ...

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48

Timestamp: 2010-12-17 23:04:29 UTC

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The winner is Ammie! She suggested Santa "Bear" Claus.

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Happy Weekend!

Selvage Trimmed Pillowcase

Okay, admittedly I have selvages on the brain ... I was just minding my own business this morning planning to make more pillowcases for Christmas gifts, when the idea of trimming one with a selvage strip -- as the piping or accent fabric -- popped into my head. Of course I had to try it and I love the result!
The selvage says "Love!" ... I mean come on, and it has a soft shaggy edge?! Perfect. This little pillowcase is for my three-year-old daughter. I showed her the selvage strip this morning (she loves the soft edge) and I said I'd have her pillowcase done by the time she came home from preschool. So I've been true to my word. The pillowcase took maybe a half hour tops, french seams and all.

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The only problem I had was with the home decor weight selvage. I really wanted that word "Love" that's on the selvage, and it turned out wonderfully, but I did break a needle doing the last pass on the french seam over the place where the selvage and cuff met. It was too thick. Now back to our regularly scheduled program -- that is selvage-free pillowcases for Christmas gifts. I have a whole pile to make. Should be fun! Happy Sewing!

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Also, welcome to my new followers. Thanks for joining in! And the giveaway answers about Santa's middle name are totally cracking me up!!!!!

Giveaway: How About Some Flea Market Fancy and Heather Ross?

Hi! I'm so glad you're here. I am participating in Giveaway Day hosted by Sew Mama Sew ... so without further ado, want to win that fabric above? They are fat quarters, 4 from the Flea Market Fancy line by Denyse Schmidt and 4 by Heather Ross (3 Mendocino and 1 West Hill). So eight out-of-print fat quarters to one lucky winner!

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To enter just leave me a comment on this post with the answer to this question: If Santa Claus had a middle name, what do you think it would it be? I asked my five-year-old son and he said "Happy." My three-year-old daughter thought a while then said "Ho" (as in "Ho,ho,ho"). If you're stuck, ask your kids ;-) ... there is no right answer, it's just all fun ...

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This has been a wonderful first year of both quilting and blogging for me. I got my first rotary cutter, cutting board and ruler last year for Christmas and it has been full-speed-ahead-fun ever since. A lot of that fun comes from everyone stopping by the blog and commenting, emailing or following. So if this is your first time here, welcome! please feel free to have a browse ... and if you do decide to follow or subscribe I'll try my best to keep the content here creative and interesting!
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The giveaway is open to everyone worldwide -- that is all except my Mom, Dad, and my husband (my only family members who I know for sure read this blog). Please be sure that your email address is either attached to your blog profile or that you leave it in the comment. Just one entry per person please. The giveaway is open until Friday, December 17 at 7:00PM AST. The winner will be determined by random draw and will be posted on the blog by December 18.

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Good Luck! This should be fun to read the names you come up with!!

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Then, when you're ready, if you click here, you can go to the master list of all the other giveaways to enter.

COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED

Selvage Snowflake Tutorial

I've been making some selvage snowflakes to go in the background of my Selvage Snowman quilt in progress. I thought I'd post this tutorial in case anyone else wants to make some too. They'd also be cool in a little wall hanging, table runner, pillow cover ...

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This tutorial will show my basic approach, but of course the most fun comes in improvising!!! So here we go ...

Cut a square of background fabric. For this example I used a 7 inch square of Kona cotton.

Mark a line down the middle of the square. I used a permanent laundry pen as it was all I had. Whatever you use typically use to mark your fabric is great.
Using your ruler and your judgment, mark two diagonal lines. Make sure they intersect in the center. If you like you can measure down from each corner to keep it all even, but for small squares I would say guess, wing it, freestyle it, you know ...
So, since this six point shape is your basic shape, you could stop here and move on to the step of applying the selvages, but in this example, let's get a little fancier.
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Use your ruler to place a little mark out from the center of the snowflake onto each line. In my case, I measured 1.5 inches out onto each line.

Join the marked points as shown above. If you want to go even fancier, draw another set of lines evenly spaced above the first set.
Okay, so now to prepare the selvages. Trim your selvages so that just 1/4 inch of fabric is showing above the white selvage band.
Fold that little 1/4 inch bit of fabric to the back and press. (Try not to steam your fingers!) By the way, like my yucky ironing board? ;-)
Now the sewing part. All the little inside lines get sewn first. Cut each little selvage piece so it ends right along your intersecting line (Each end will be cut at a little angle. Just snip with your scissors.) When positioning it just before sewing, make sure your drawn line that the selvage is covering is centered underneath it.

Sew very close to the edge all around the whole piece.

Here's what the back will look like after several are sewn in place.

Keep covering all your little inside lines. Try not to overlap any selvages to keep the bulk down. Don't worry if your cut edges look a little rough, they will be neatly covered over soon and won't show!

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Once all your little inside lines are sewn down, I would give the whole block a quick ironing.

Okay, now to cover those ratty edges. Carefully lay a selvage down the whole length of your first diagonal line. It really doesn't matter which diagonal line you sew first, but after doing a few of these, I find it looks nicest if you save your straight vertical line for last. I would also save the nicest selvage for last as the most of it will show.

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And one more tip, if some of your selvages have a slightly wider white band than others, save them for these longer lines. The wider they are, the more of your messy edges will be covered making everything even more secure.

Sew. In this pic, I just have one side of the last selvage sewn down.

The back.

Press and trim! You may wish to trim a little extra bit off each of the vertical sides to make everything less boxy looking and make the snowflake spokes nice and even!
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I also typically stay stitch the edge of the block where the selvages meet the edge.

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Voila!

Now make lots more!!

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Thanks so much for stopping by! If you make any of these, I'd love to see them! Also, please feel free to link to this tutorial if you'd like. Happy Quilting and Happy Holidays!

Giveaway Day Coming Soon!

Yay! It's almost Giveaway Day! I will be participating in Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day starting on December 13. Be sure to stop by here then to enter my giveaway ... I'm thinking it will be for a nice bit of fabric. Since it's getting near Christmas I'll have to be generous ...
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On that day, there will be lots of other quilt bloggers worldwide participating, so I'll also have the link to the master list up so you can surf around and enter all the giveaways!
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See you then. Happy Weekend!

Just One Little Square

In September I joined the KVQG -- Kennebecasis Valley Quilt Guild. December 14th is our Christmas meeting complete with a catered Christmas dinner. Yum! Also, for the meeting we were asked to bring a 12.5 inch block using the theme "Old-Fashioned Christmas." I'm not sure what happens with the blocks (fingers crossed it's a block lotto) but I imagine there will be some amazing ones considering the talent of the guild ladies. My humble contribution is above. Though it's not very fancy, it is very much "me." I don't applique and only piece, I like to use as many different fabrics as possible in everything I make, and I just make it up as I go.

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Anyway, for the old-fashioned aspect to fit with the theme, I went with a traditional block, the log cabin. Plus real log cabins are about as old-fashioned as it gets right? *wink* The fabrics are some of my favorite Christmas fabrics with old-fashioned and nostalgic designs (mostly Sheri Berry 12 Joys of Christmas). I did some fussy cutting too. It was fast and fun!

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Happy Quilting!