Weekend Update

Most of my weekend was spent far away from my sewing machine, but I did make a little progress on the blue and green quilt for Eli's birthday. I basted it.
Then I began quilting it with variegated thread and nice wavy lines. (When I get to the quilting stage, I move my machine out of my home office/sewing room and up to the dining room table.)

La, la, la, oh sewing is so much fun ... until the above happened. Grrrr. And I will admit I've done that before too. I ran out of basting pins before I got out to the edge of the quilt, so when I was quilting away I didn't know that the backing fabric was folded underneath. Oh well, I have yet to make a quilt without using my seam ripper numerous times.

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I set it aside and will get back to quilting it again soon. Eli's birthday is this coming Saturday so that is my deadline.

The kids had fun doing a little spool bowling.

Other people have been showing some snow photos on their blog so I thought I'd join in. That is the stop sign at the school bus stop.

And here's our two-storey house. Hee, hee, so I may have angled the camera a bit, but you get the idea.

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Happy Quilting!

Matched Set Complete -- Blogland Houses

I showed the longer table runner using the blogland houses I received in a giveaway from Beth at Love Laugh Quilt and now I've finished the little coordinating one. The larger is for my table, the smaller is for a little chest that we use as a mini sideboard.
I used the same fabrics to finish off both, except for the binding, simply because I didn't have enough left.

I quilted it with wavy lines. I used the regular foot on my machine, I have yet to try the free motion foot I bought.
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Thanks so much to the ladies who made the house blocks. I love my cheerful table runners. I posted about who made each block here.

On the fabric front, anyone who has been stopping by the blog for a while knows I love Halloween. (I made 4 Halloween quilts last year). Well, I had to buy these Alexander Henry fabrics, Witches in Stitches.

And I finally bought some fabulous Ghastlies!

And Shelley of Red Quilts, who I shall refer to as my Fabric Fairy Godmother from now on, sent me the fabric above. The hilarious 'Muffinator' for the kids and that Sandi Henderson Henna Garden for me. Aren't blogland buddies the best?!

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Happy Weekend. I think there will be some quilting going on at my house as a ridiculous 20-30 cms of snow (30 cms is 12 inches) is forecast for our area tonight and into tomorrow.

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And I'm linking up with Sew and Tell Fridays!

Wordless Wednesday: A New Work in Progress

Blue and Green Quilt Top

The blue and green patchwork quilt for my son's birthday is now in quilt top form. I sewed the rows together yesterday. That process always takes longer than I expect with the pinning and ironing involved. I am not an experienced pinner as I only pin when ab-so-lute-ly necessary. It was necessary here as I needed to have all the corner seams match.
There were a few row mix-ups in the row sewing process. My two "helpers" sometimes make "design decisions" without me realising. (That is, my office/sewing room is just off our play room and since I like to lay the quilt out on the playroom floor, when I leave it unattended the kids sometimes have fun with it) Anyway, I doubt the rows above are in whatever order I had chosen at first, but at least there aren't any two squares exactly the same beside each other which is my goal.
These are two fabrics I really like and they both make nice novelty fussy cuts. They are Michael Miller fabrics. The left is called "Affirmations" and the right is "Tasty Escape." Tasty Escape has a nice big repeat. The Affirmations fabric actually has a typo! in it -- and not even in the selvage but in the fabric itself. The word Possibilities is spelled without one of the "i"s so I always have to cut around that part. But otherwise, I really like the motivational words on it.

I am going to quilt this myself. These were the two thread choices I let my son pick between. As I predicted, he picked the variegated thread.
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Happy Quilting. And I'm linking up to ...

Some Blue and Green

I've made some progress on my son's blue and green quilt that I'm making for his sixth birthday on March 5th. He helped me go through all my fabrics and scraps to make the squares. We ended up with a nice variety of novelty/I-Spy type fabrics and more basic mixers.
I love the owls shown above. That is an Alexander Henry fabric. I used the last of what I had in this quilt. I just have the smallest scraps left now.

Usually for a quilt like this that is all single squares, I like to choose the location of every square specifically. I line them all up and move them all around before sewing anything. This time though, I decided to be a little more adventurous and chain pieced a bit first without worrying too much about combos. I pieced in sets of two, and then four before I arranged them.

And I think it worked well. It was certainly faster and the designs and colours still look nicely distributed throughout the quilt.

It is all sewn into rows, waiting for ironing.

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Thanks to Shirley at The World According to ME and Linda at 13th Street Studio for posting about my blog lately. I also wanted to say thanks for all the nice comments I've been getting recently. I try to respond by email to comments, but a lot come through without an email attached, so if you haven't heard from me I just wanted to say here that I appreciate your kind words!

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Happy Weekend!

Purr-fect Pillowcases

For Valentine's Day I made pillowcases for my son and daughter. I found some fabulous cat fabric that I knew they would get a laugh out of. My kids love cats. We don't have a cat because my husband is allergic, but my parents have a nice black cat called Shakey that my kids like to claim partial ownership of.

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My daughter's pillowcase is above.

And my son's.
Here's a close-up of the fabric. It's pretty cute and funny. It's like a Cat Gossip magazine. It uses lots of very current references too. See "Kitty GaGa" and "Catty Perry" and of course "Dear Tabby." My daughter is too young to get the jokes, but she loves all the cat pictures and the fact that it is pink! It has a large repeat and there are lots of other funny things as well.
This fabric is a newspaper spoof. My son likes it and he can read well, so I told him if he can't fall asleep, just to read his pillowcase.
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They are both Timeless Treasures fabrics. In case you are interested, I bought mine on Etsy here and here, but it is a new fabric so it should certainly be available other places too.
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Thanks for stopping by!

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And for some linky fun ...

Chester's Quilt

This is Chester. He's a raccoon that lives in my son's kindergarten classroom. He was wearing a Valentine sweater for the Valentine's Day party today. He also gave Valentines to all the children. He really gets involved in what's happening with the class. On the weekends, Chester travels home with a child and has a little adventure, which the child then writes about in a special journal. When we had our turn with Chester back in October we took him across the border to Maine. We made him a little passport. Chester is a special raccoon because he is from a children's story. He is the main character in the book The Kissing Hand by author Audrey Penn. It is a wonderful story about a young raccoon who receives a kiss from his mother on his hand. Without spoiling anything for those who may want to read the story, I'll just say it's a special kiss that can help Chester out if he's feeling unsure. (It is the perfect story for children starting school) See the little red heart on Chester's hand in the above photo? That is his kissing hand. So you can see why he's a special raccoon. And since Chester is such an important part of my son's classroom and his kindergarten experience, I decided to make Chester a little quilt. That's what we quilters do right? The idea struck me before Christmas, but I thought it might be fun to wait until Valentine's Day since kisses and love fit in with the day so well. - So that is Chester's quilt above. It is small because he is small. It's only a little bigger than a placemat. There are raccoons on some squares of course, but then there are the little red hearts that say Kiss. That fabric was what gave me the idea for the quilt in the first place. I mean red hearts just like on Chester's hand and complete with the word Kiss? I had to make the quilt! Here's a close up of the binding and the quilting. I quilted it with wavy lines in a very bright pink thread. I love this fabric on the back representing the kids in the class. See them all smiling? It's because they love Chester. (In fact the very first bulletin board display of the school year was a collection of drawings of Chester by the children in the class under the heading "We Love Chester!") My sweet guy with the quilt. He was so excited to take it to school with him and he did such a great job keeping it secret up until today. There is joy in every age and stage your child passes through, but I must say that my joy right now is knowing that my son can be a real boy's boy who loves Star Wars and hockey, but at the same time he can be thrilled with a little red and pink quilt that his Mom made for a stuffed raccoon. - Chester is now wrapped up in the quilt nice and cosy in the classroom. - If you're looking for a sweet book for a kindergarten child, you may wish to consider The Kissing Hand. - Happy Valentine's Day!

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I am adding this link to a special Teacher Appreciation Version of Made by You Monday!

Weekend Roundup and Giveaway Winner

I thought I'd start with a quilting progress photo even though I didn't sew much at all this weekend. In the pic you can see what I did with those little 3 inch selvage blocks. They are now a part of the quilt I'm calling "Love Serendipity Family" (to fit with the theme of the KVQG show this year). It will still be quite a while until this quilt is done, but I'm happy with the progress so far.

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This is where I was instead of in front of the sewing machine ...

The beach!

See our bathing suits? My husband makes fun of my giant coat and calls me The Michelin Man, but I LOVE my coat -- it has down in it and I tell you I just don't get cold. Snow, ice, ocean breeze, bring it on! We were at the beach looking for sea glass which is a family hobby.

On another note, I've written before about the fun of having a quilt blog and all the nice people you "meet." One my of blogging buddies is Shelley of Red Quilts. She lives in New Brunswick too, but we have yet to cross paths in person. However, she left me a little goodie bag at the LQS when she was recently down in this area for a quilting retreat. In the bag was the fabric above -- I guarantee that pink and red Farmer's Market and those dinos won't escape my rotary cutter for long.

She also saved this pile of selvages for me. Is it wrong that I was as happy about the selvages as the fabric?

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Now, without further ado, the Giveaway Winner, selected by Random Draw using Random. Org is #82 halfstitched. Congrats! It was so great to read all the comments. You guys are hilarious. Honestly, I was cracking up.

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Happy Valentine's Day! And come back next time to find out what kindergarten, a quilt, a kiss and a raccoon all have in common.

Valentine's Day Fabric Giveaway: How About Some Heather Ross?

So I was trying to think of a good reason to have a giveaway, to find something blog-related to celebrate. But since this is my 136th post (not 100 or 200), I have 186 Followers (not 100 or 200 or 1000 - hee, hee, I can dream right), and my one-year blog anniversary doesn't happen until March, I was almost stumped until I thought, hey why not just good old Valentine's Day? That's the perfect reason to share some pretty fabric.

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So what am I giving away? How about 3 Heather Ross Mendocino FQs and a half yard of Heather Ross West Hill?

All it takes to win is a comment on this post. The winner will be chosen by random draw. BUT to make it a little more fun to read the comments, here's what I'd like you to come up with. You know how little kids' Valentine cards have cute little puns or plays-on-words on them, well how about thinking up a little line like that which could go on a Valentine for a quilter. For example "Valentine, you're sew sweet!" or "Valentine, can you quarter inch a little closer to me?" or one my husband suggested would be good for me, "Valentine, can we selvage our love?" It's all in fun, no judging here. I know I'll get a laugh out of this. I am never disappointed in the wonderful creativity of quilters!

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Now, for some fine print. Giveaway is open worldwide. International entries are welcome and encouraged. Entries close at 7:00 PM AST on Sunday, February 13, the winner will be announced here on the blog by Monday, February 14. Please be sure that your email is attached to your profile or that you leave it in the comment. I need to be able to email the winner. Just one entry per person please.

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Happy Quilting!

Comments are now Closed

Block Party! Sounds Fun, I'm In

I am participating in the Block Party being hosted by Quilt Story. They are taking entries in three categories of blocks: Traditional, Modern and Creative. I don't have a Traditional entry but I do have something for the other two categories. (And guess what? There's not a single selvage in either block, can you believe it?)

For the modern category, here's one of my Fussy Cut Scrappy Squares. The block is my own design and is a great way to use scraps! It's a 12.5 inch square. I wrote a tutorial for the block. The link is on my sidebar if you're interested in giving it a try.

Below is a quilt I made using all blocks like this.

Visitors who've been here before have already seen this, but I couldn't resist a chance to post it again. It's my No Rhyme Nor Reason Quilt and it was a Christmas gift for my husband.

For my Creative category entry, this is a house block I made for a swap. It is also 12.5 inches, free-pieced as I went along.
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Click the block party button above to see lots of other great blocks or maybe enter one yourself. It's a neat way to get inspired and find new blogs to read.
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Happy Quilting!