15 Finishes for February

I spent the holiday weekend (Louis Riel Day in Manitoba)

making a dozen of these needle books

I used up scraps and sewing prints and little bits of patchwork

to make each one slightly different.

I use wool felt for the inside pages.

I love the saturation of colour in the wool.

I used to make them from selvage dots like the one at the left,

but now I make mini quilts. 

The one at the top used leftover blades from a Dresden project

on a Westminster Liberty Art fabric.

That one had flown off to QuiltCon as a gift for someone

before I got the picture of all 12 together.

I also said goodbye to this little guy,

who didn't mind sitting in the snow in his new track suit.

He is now fully clothed and has a new home.

I started this quilt at a retreat in January and finished it two weeks later.

It has a pink Eden print by Tula Pink on the back.

Here's the front, made from one and a half charm packs and hourglass blocks in two colours.

It is a really simple quilt with a great visual effect. 

The two grey colours make on point squares around the charm squares,

making the quilt look like it was set on point.

Here you can see the beginnings on my design wall.

I spent 45 minutes quilting this top which had sat in a drawer for two years.

I used a Warm and Natural batting and a micro fleece for the backing.

I'm donating it to an organization outfitting people affected by recent apartment building fires.

I figure there's some little kid out there that will have fun driving on these roads.

And my last finish:

A Valentine placemat for my mom, made from a set of charms with love and heart themes.

Here she is with it and her birthday roses.

She turned 82 on Valentine's Day.

Little Man's quilt

Recently I finished a mini quilt I had pieced earlier this year from solid scraps.

That centre block measures just three inches

and the whole quilt is 13 inches square.

My friend C. carries this 4 inch poseable figure in her purse

and photographs her adventures with "Little Man."

As soon as I gave her this quilt to hang in her new office

(she has a new academic appointment)

she saw it as a quilt for Little Man.

C. also has a bigger poseable figure dubbed "Big Man"

who is the perfect size to hold the quilt

by putting his hands in the hanging triangles in the back.

The reason I quilt

I had some fun with a pile of 1.5 inch squares 

which were originally intended for a much larger charm quilt. 

I love playing with little bits, but really don't enjoy the fuss of cutting little squares from scraps. 

So I used them in a quilt about why I quilt. 

It measures about 20 by 30 inches and is machine quilted. 

Since this photo, I've ripped out the loopy meandering in the white background 

and replaced it with a small all-over pebbles.

I bordered the word with a green Kona solid, and again with a Kaffe print.

I had a bit of fun with the machine quilting, putting in a needle pulling thread off a spool.

This is also the first time I've experimented with dense quilting around a letter

to make it pop.

What is the reason you quilt? To to touch fabric? 

See designs form under your fingers? To create? To buy more fabric?

This quilt is hanging in the MCC Quilt Show and Sale in Winnipeg, 

which opens today and runs through Sunday.

If you're near here, stop by.

Update: When I stopped in at the show, I overheard a young girl saying

"That quilt says touch but we're not supposed to touch the quilts."

Too funny.

I helped to hang the show yesterday and there's lots of great stuff to see,

as well as lots of goodies in the sale room, including my zippy bags made from upholstery samples.

I'm linking up with other Friday finishers at TGIFF

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Crazy Mom Quilts

Progress on star quilt

I've finally finished machine quilting this star quilt.

It's been a WIP for too long.

I deliberated a long time before I started quilting

and although some of you suggested it called out for hand quilting

I didn't go that way.

Instead I used a dark beige 50 weight Aurifil thread on top and bottom

and played around with lots of free motion designs.

This is a scrappy quilt celebrating the marriage of friends.

It also celebrates the many patterns and surprises 

in a long term relationship.

I think of this quilt as an "I Spy" quilt for adults.

I've quilted in their names, their wedding anniverary

and lots of loops, swirls and even a few bad stitches.

I'm putting the binding on soon and sending it to a local quilt show.

And wondering about the SSOB banner on the right?

Come back on Monday for my stop on the blog hop celebrating Julie Sefton's new book:
Build -A-Barn: No Pattern Construction.

I'm linking up with other Friday finishers over at
Confessions of a Fabric Addict
and Crazy Mom Quilts
and TGIFF

Getting started on quilting

After months, maybe almost a year of indecision,

yesterday I finally just went for it.

I'm using a light beige 50 wt Aurifil thread

and making loops in the background

and some designs in the stars.

I'm happy how this is going so far.

It's early days, but it feels good to be moving on it.

I'm linking up with 

The Needle and Thread Network

Peony season

I love peonies.

 Lucky for me, I have two bushes of double pink ones in my garden.

But I cut most of my blooms and enjoy them inside.

I needed a mat for this cut glass vase,

so inspired by Lori Kennedy at the Inbox Jaunt

and some Kaffe fabrics I won,

I made a little peony mat.

It features Lori's all over pretty posy design

on a Kona green (not sure of the name)

I backed it with this Kaffe print -- sorry, my half metre

didn't have all the selvage information--

and used the same fabric for binding.

It measures 12 inches square.

Now I can enjoy peony season in style!

I'm linking up to The Needle and Thread Network.

Big and small finishes

I've got two Friday finishes to celebrate this week.

This colour-blocked one was pieced by my mother

based on the Turning Twenty pattern by Tricia Cribbs.

I added various free motion designs

in coordinating colours in each of the blocks.

My goal was to add lots of texture and interest to this quilt

and I'm happy with how it turned out.

My mom put it in her local show last week

and she reports lots of good comments.

Turns out she made two 60 by 80 inch tops

with hand dyed fabrics and batiks

and I quilted both of them.

I'm just binding the other one

and I'm putting it in a local show at the end of the month.

This 42 inch square baby quilt has been on the finishing pile for months.

I pieced it from the leftover parts of this Grecian Cross quilt

made for my niece last year.

Since I cut up scraps for this one,

I had HSTs and strips left

so I put them together in this heart quilt.

Unlike the bigger quilt, this one has lots of fmq.

I put in feathers and fleur-de-lis in the borders and background

and pumpkin seed quilting in the heart.

I used up all of this Kaffe floating flower print

with an insert of purple Kona to get it big enough.

I'm linking up with other Friday finishers at

Crazy Mom Quilts

Confessions of a Fabric Addict

TGIFF

How should I quilt this?

For months, I've been waffling over how to machine quilt this.

Should I quilt the stars in a darker thread?

But how do I jump from one star to the next?

Should I just straight stitch through all the blocks?

Or meander around the stars

and quilt only in the light?

I'm also considering an all over design

where I would quilt in words and motifs

in a dark neutral thread.

I hate breaking thread repeatedly 

so I'm not keen on many starts and stops.

But I really want to get this done soon.

After all, Yvonne (below) started hers months after me

and she's nearly finished hand quilting hers.

if I was hand quilting,

I would stitch 1/4 around the stars

or in the ditch around them.

Ideas, please?

I'm linking up with the WIP Wednesdays at The Needle and Thread Network.

Nearly done!

Wednesday quilting in progress

Instead of a WIP,

I have a QUIP.

Quilting in Progress.

I'm machine quilting a quilt top my mother pieced from

hand dyes and batiks.

I'm using a rainbow of Aurifil 28 wt threads

and a sampling of quilt designs from various sources.

The quilt is in two parts so I can handle it easier on my machine.

Here's the back,

showcasing a variety of fabrics my mom pieced together.

She's in a use-it-up stage in her quilting life.

I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced.

Monday Design Floor

I spent some time on Saturday transforming these placemat tops

into these

using this book as inspiration.

Thank you Christina Cameli!

I'm linking up to Judy's Design Wall Mondays.

Bunch of Friday finishes

Last weekend a friend came over to play with my Juki.

We each made a "placemat with benefits" for our Singer Featherweights

from my Kaffe scraps.

Here's mine, with a few other bits thrown in.

I dug through the binding bag for leftover purples to finish this.

I quilted the back using the prints on top as inspiration.

When I was learning to fmq, I made several of these mats as practice.

Here it is underneath my FW 222K.

In preparation for T's visit, I cleaned up my sewing room

and found a bunch of nearly finished needle books underneath the clutter.

So I finished them, and made the four on the bottom

from bits and pieces.

See the Kaffe pencils on the bottom row?

This is the inside of one -- pockets for thimbles or thread

and several pages of wool for pins and needles.

I'm giving away two of these to celebrate seven years of blogging.

I'm linking up with TGIFF and Sarah and Crazy Mom Quilts.

Friday finishes for the season past

O Christmas Tree!

12 by 16.5 inches

machine quilted with Aurifil 50 wt thread

Inspired by Lori Kennedy at The Inbox Jaunt.

I finished this last month, but only got the binding attached

on Jan. 1, so it is my first finish of the year.

Lori has the greatest fmq tutorials out there

and I adapted her tree to fit my skills.

It is an addition to my hall of trees, 

which I get out every year.

The back shows the texture.

I found the fabric in my Christmas linens box.

I hemmed a square of this red and gold print

many years ago,

but since I wasn't using it,

I decided to repurpose it into backing and binding.

Here is my Christmas tree wall hanging collection.

The blue one at the left was made by Margaret in a swap three years ago.

This is an oldie -- probably 10 years old,

when I first started quilting.

I used a paper piecing pattern from a Reader's Digest book

and hand quilted it.

This is my other addition from 2014.

Little yoyos held on by shank buttons

to make a stylized tree.

and this is from 2013.

These trees hang above my fireplace beginning in December

and stay up until the snow melts.

This is my first free-pieced quilt with letters and trees,

made in an online class with Tonya Ricucci in 2008.

And these beauties hang on my Advent calendar tree.

The crazy pieced one was just given to me by Em,

the middle one was made by my mother

and Em folded the other one.

Em also makes bookmarks with a fancy ruler

and she gave me one of those too,

all as a thank you gift for the yo yo tree quilt I gave her

like the one above.

I'm linking up with other Friday finishers with Sarah and Amanda Jean.