Quilt planning...

One Thing One Week Challenge:
Amy over at Amy's Creative Side hosts a week long  Challenge .  Originally I'd planned to get my daughter's quilt finished, but I'm still a few inches (ok a few feet...) short of that goal as a few activities were cancelled this week which meant I didn't have time for a hand project.  So what did I complete this week... 3 embroidered tea towels are complete.  Also further progress on various other embroidery projects (or Christmas presents) and my older two kids birthday presents.

Quilt #1 Progress
I am not quite finished the binding on this quilt.  I had planned to work on it at my kids classes last weekend, but two of my sons martial arts classes were cancelled last week, and then my husband took him to band on Sunday -- so I was down 2.5 hours of stitching time.

Quilt #2 Progress
But right now I am also designing my older two kids quilts.  For my son's nautical quilt, I am combining a number of different blocks, some from patterns I've found online and others from inspiration from other designs I've seen.  So far I have one strip finished and a few others cut out, and some only in my brain!  The one block I'm struggling with is the mariner's compass that I wanted to put in it.  I don't think I have the correct fabrics for it... so might have to go buy another couple of colours....  still thinking on that block.



Quilt #3 Progress


My daughter's quilt is hearts and stars in an assortment of different patterns.  So far I have 4 sets of blocks completed - 4 blocks of each pattern, plus a bunch of HSTs, QSTs and squares in various pink and purple fabrics (in various sizes, since I have extra cut from some blocks, and mis-cut some).  I really wonder where I'm going with this one...

Process Pledge

Today I think I'll start respond to the following prompts...

• Is this quilt intended for a specific person?  How did that inform your choices?
• Yes the two quilts I'm working on are for my older two kids.  
• My sons quilt is being made to match his bedroom which is currently decorated in a nautical theme, the colours of fabric come from some of the nautical fabrics I have found to include.  
• My daughter's quilt colours are chosen because she loves purple and pink.  Some of the fabrics were given to me from a friend, so I have various pieces in size from Fat Eights to yardage!
• Are you following a pattern, emulating a block you saw somewhere, using a liberated process, or totally winging it?
• Am I following a pattern?  NO! At least not for the whole quilts, I am following patterns for some of the blocks.  But right now for the most part I feel like I'm winging it!

Block #2

q-nov20-01
Originally uploaded by l3designs.sewing

This is the second block in the layer cake quilt along.... http://moosequilts.blogspot.com/2010/11/layer-cake-block-two-with-vickie-eapen.html

An amazing win!

Mandy over at Simply Solids recently had a contest for an AccuQuilt Go!  And I`m so excited as she announced today that I`m the AccuQuilt Winner!   How exciting!  I can hardly wait until it arrives...

As for sewing today, have done some more of the quilt binding, and am now off to work on the Moose Quilts quilt block for the layer cake along.

A snowy Friday Night Sewing...

This is my first month participating in the Heidi`s Friday Night Sew in.  Unfortunately I did get a late start due to other commitments, but did get one project finished and some progress on three others.

First, for the show&tell over at amylouwho.com, I finished the following pillow case.  I purchased the stripe fabric today, and added the purple print from my stash and some embroidery for my daughter`s friend`s birthday.





And then I did some quilting too...
Quilt 1: First while taking to my husband about Christmas I worked on the binding... I now have over 1.5 sides done... if it continues to snow this weekend, I might be finished by Monday, if not I will continue to take it to kids activities throughout the week and work on it.

Quilt 2:I finished the flying geese and attached some borders, then sewed them together with the boats. I still need to work on the flags and masts on the boats, but have one 16.5" strip ready for the quilt... only 85 more inches to go (including the borders)!

Quilt 3:This block is called "Leah`s Star" that I found over at Quilt in a Day.  I now have 6 blocks done, although these are much smaller than the 4 I finished last week... I also have 2 more of these started... so need to finish the other two.





I think it was a great Friday Night Sew In!

I've been quilting...

So I haven't posted in a while... I didn't quite get done what I wanted and fell behind.  Lets just say life got in the way and a sore shoulder made it difficult to quilt my daughters quilt.  Then I didn't like the fabric I had for binding - so gave her the quilt unfinished for her birthday -- it was unbound -- but a great hit.  I'll post a photo when I find one...

Here is the current state of the quilt -- it now has binding, sewn on, but needing hand stitching.  I think its time for a great movie or TV watching night!  I have miles (ok, its only metres of binding to sew on!)

Ready for hand stitching

And I've been working on two other quilts.  The next one is for my son... I finished up 4 sail boat blocks a while ago, and have now added some flying geese.  I need to cut out another set of flying geese.  I used Ricky Timms One Seam Flying Geese seen here One seam Flying Geese



And I started a quilt for my 7yo daughter.  I am using an assortment of yardage, and fat quarters (as well as some scraps given to me from a friend)... Hoping I have enough fabric - I know I will need to buy fabric to back the quilt and bind it...

I wasn't sure what blocks/pattern I wanted to do for her quilt, so decided I'm going to do an assortment of stars or hearts and see where that gets me... The Moose on the Porch Quilt Along posted a pattern for "Alabama Spinner Block".  I omitted the circle in the centre of the block, and have made 4 of them, 2 with different colours of the dark fabric (slightly different purples) as I didn't have enough for 4 blocks from each.  You may also notice in the picture below that two of the stars go the "wrong" way... Oops... but I'm not picking them apart -- its a design feature (not a flaw!)

4 Blocks done

Coming home from Portugal....

My husband is currently travelling for work and visited a fabric store but couldn't find anything he thought I'd like (he did great choosing fabric on his trip to Finland...)  So instead these should be arriving home Saturday

One looks to be Burda Style Nov 2011 in two different languages (maybe? possibly French and Portuguese), and the top magazine is an Italian kids magazine (knitting, crochet, cross stitch and other projects).  So will the Burda's be the same?  Guess I need to wait and find out....

Blogger's Quilt Festival -- Fall 2010

This is my first time participating in Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I haven't done much quilting, most of my sewing through the years has been garments and home dec, but have made a few quick/small blankets, but here is my first large quilt.

My Grandmother's Quilt

I made this Quilt for my Gram's 90th Birthday.  The first difficulty was finding the "right" fabric.  My grandmother wanted butterflies and I searched and searched for butterflies that year.  It was hard to find... really hard.  There were few available prints that spring, and those I found were the wrong colours.  She loved pink so I really wanted a pink fabric.  So I stumbled along this fabric, but don't remember what line it was from.  I might have a few pieces somewhere in my scraps, but I've since used most of the scraps making my daughter a dress.

My Gram's 90th Birthday!

Some old photos of my Grandparents

The Photos.... Choosing the photos for this project were a whole project in and of themselves. Most of the photos were from a photo album my mom had. The images were scanned and printed on photo transfer paper. But one of the photos we had to "steal" from Gram's house, and bring home and scan and quietly return!

Laying out the blocks

Hunting through the photos was great fun! After scanning many photos, we had to narrow down the photos and figure out the layout... Sewing the quilt top together was quite fast and the quilting was fairly fast too. The iron on transfers were the slowest part - as we didn't want to mess them up!

Quilt Top Ready

Ready for Binding

The first row of photos are my grandmother as a young girl, my Gram and her dad in Stanley Park, my Gram and her parents and my Gram and Grampa around the time they got married.  The second row has a current photo of her, a photo of each of them from the 1950s-1970s and a photo of my Mom and Uncle as young kids.  The third row has my cousins, my aunt and uncle, my mom & her husband and my brother and his girlfriend.  The bottom row is a photo of my husband and I and then photos of my kids (her great grand kids).

ETA:  The quilt is much loved and hangs on the wall in her suite.  The first few weeks she brought all her friends and neighbours in to see her new quilt.  The only thing I wish I'd done was add a lower rod so the corners don't roll.

Here is a photo of the dress I made for my daughter with the extra fabric.

Under dress	A New Dress