Snowflake Album Cover

It snow again today. Yesterday many of the blogs I followed had photos of snow from North California, Kansas City, to Scotland.  It is very normal to have snow here this time of year but it is very cold and staying cold and we have so much snow. We have run out of room to pile the snow.

I made this some time back but thought it was better to show a quilted snowflake then more snow photos. I stenciled the snowflakes on the hand dyed fabric.  I got some of my own quilting done again today.

Spider Web on the Wall

I got some of the pieces of my Spider Web quilt up on the design wall. Wow I am pleased with it. I am using my five hand dyed pink fabrics, they are Kona cotton and feel oh so nice. I dyed the pinks last spring.  In this photo I still need to reach the top bit. This is not even one quarter of the quilt. I have planned bigger now.

I got one block done. Oh no I have a lot of fussy piecing to do. I am taking one block at a time to the machine to sew and I am needing to use many leaders as most start with a point and my machine would eat it other wise. I may need a another project for leaders.
My block is to measure 12 1/2" at this point, close on the first one. My drawing on paper I did, started as a finished 12" square block. My strip pieced units are 6 1/2" (unfinished size) from point to the bottom row. I am fuzzy and do not want to lose my points. The blocks are going to take weeks to piece together. I thought I would make a large lap quilt but now I have decided to go for 96" square. That is 8 by 8 blocks, for a total of 64 blocks.

Lots of cutting has gotten done. I may need a little more to get my 64 blocks.

 

Here are some cutting demo photos. I first cut a strip 5 1/4" then cut using my star point template on my 22.5 degree ruler. The bottom of the template is lined up to the square corner of the fabric.

 

I then cut the next one, first cutting the strip at right angle 3 inches from the angle.  The side of this template was 3" for the angled side. I know I am not saying this just right but maybe you will get what I say if you did want to try this block and cut it like I did.

Here I cut the strips that are 6 1/2" wide. I had a couple that were a bit wider and I trimmed them down for easier cutting.The next piece will be cut with the teal on the bottom.

I must tell you I have found out the web quilt my mom did many years ago was not the same angle as this one. Her quilt used hexagons not the eight sides mine has. 

I love all your comments Thank You all. Please let me know if you have questions.

First Zentangle

I took a try at drawing my first Zentangle. I have been following a few blogs that explain the technique. One that I like is a Canadian lady http://iamthedivaczt.blogspot.com/ . She gives a weekly challenge on Monday and then posts a slide show on the Sunday. You can sign up and then post your finished tile. I can not keep up and get one done in time. But I love to look.
I have not been able to keep up to Every Day Journal. I thought I would try some doodle drawing. It is a lot like quilting free motion. I can see trying out some line with quilting in mind. I have spider webs on the brain these days.

Spider Web Quilt

I am cutting. I laid this out to see what it is going to look like. I have a long way to go. More sewing more cutting.

Tue Quilting Bee

New Quilt Started - The Spider Web Quilt

Fabric for my new project The Spider Wed Quilt. I have been playing with it for a week. I am using Batiks and some hand dyed fabric. Batiks and hand dyed quilts are my favorite. I love to work with the tight weaved fabric.


More


I think I may try the four pink hand dyed fabrics for my background colours.


I drew out the block. Now I have pattern pieces and can use my 30 degree ruler I bought so many years ago.


I started cutting strips. I will confess, I started to do the cutting before the fish pond quilt was done. I did not sew, just cutting.


I cut some more. I am now sure I have to much fabric and my quilt is going to be bigger. I was thinking of making a large lap quilt or twin but I think I could make a queen sized quilt. I just love all the fabric I picked out.


I lined up sets of six fabric in rows and piles. Then I sew sew.


I started to get something done this weekend. Look at all these pretty strip sets.

Fish Pond Quilt top done

I got the quilt top done. I can now add this quilt top to the growing pile of quilt tops I have to quilt. I hope I can get to quilting it this spring so I can put it in the quilt show. The Edmonton and District Quilt Guild is having a quilt show in June 11 and 12th. For more about the guild see the site Here.

I spend a fair bit of time playing with the boarders. The strip sets I had were not as bright as I wanted. I have to rip out parts and insert brighter bits of lime green and orange. The quilt is about 72" by 82". I think I did a good job. This quilt does not look like a workshop quilt. I did start it in Gloria Laughman's class a couple of years ago. I think that when it is quilted I should email her a good photo.


So the first photo did not get the bottom row so I took the quilt outside. I got this to show the last row off better. The quilt is outside on the snow. We have so much snow. I just needed to find a clean spot. Be careful of the yellow snow.



A Fish Pond Quilt landscape shot.

I now get to start the next quilt. More on that this weekend. I must be getting my quilt mojo back.

Happy Friday Cathy

Betty's African Quilt

This quilt was done by my Mom Betty. It is the quilt she started in the Gloria Laughman's class I took - my Fish Pond Quilt. My mom's quilt got done within two years of taking the class. Not the four years it has taken me (and my quilt is not done yet). She has given the quilt away.


Betty has used the special African Batiks she had and not done the machine applique that many other in the class did.


Here are the blocks on the floor at the class we took. The blocks on the left are the other students work (sorry I do not remember names). The orange and blue fish blocks on the right are mine. I took many other photos that day but I am not sure I should show them as I did not indent to upload them when I asked for photos. Please remember to ask to take photos and ask to post them. Please give credit for others work.

Tuesday Quilting Bee

Liebster Award Pass it on

I got a Liebster Award from Lisa at Scraps of Life. Thank You Lisa for thinking of me. I am to pass this award on to three blogs I like and they should not have more than 300 followers. This way we can promote some good blogs that are lesser known. I have passed this award on to these three blogs.

Quilt or Die I just found her blog last week. I love some of the dieing she is doing and the quilts.

My favourite things This is my Aunt. She does great things with scrap to make her quilts. I love keeping my eye on her.

Borderline Quilter I am loving this one. She is a quilter with horses. I have so much fun looking at her horse photos. She has been teaching her granddaughter to quilt. She does some very beautiful long arm quilting.

I hope you will take a look at the three blogs I have picked. Then also watch out for these three ladies picks in the coming days.

Happy Valentina's Day

I made this wall quilt a few years back. I thought I would share it with you on Valentina's Day. All the fabric is hand dyed. I have machine appliqued the hearts and then chopped them apart and sewed back with different halves. Enjoy your family and loved ones today.

Fish Pond Quilt Rows Together

This is a big deal to get these rows sew together. I must have spend hours measuring and adding or cutting little bits together to make the three rows the same size. My little paper tags are now gone from these rows. They will fit together now.


I need to work on the sashing. I do not have enough strip sets to go between the rows and on the boarders. I want more Blue sets, so I made another set. Here is I am cutting it at a 45 degree angle.


I had to work on the bottom row. I am thinking I will not add a top row now. The quilt is big enough and I would have to make more blocks again. I had to do more measuring so this row will fit on the bottom. This part is driving me crazy.


I have started to interview the sashing. I am not that happy with the dullness of the sashing in this photo. I am going to try to brighten this up by inserting more colour. Bright green, orange, and the turquoise blue.

Thinking on a new project

I bought some new fabric and I have been looking at a lot of blogs when my internet is working. It works today. I have thought of making a spider web quilt for at least two years. My mom made one about 11 years ago and give it to a cousin of mine for a new start in his life. Her quilt was plaid with a red background. I quilted one for a customer two years ago and thought yes I must make one. My new fabric is starting to make me think this is it. I also follow a blog Fibermania Here. I love her colours in this quilt. I also found this quilt on a blog Here at The Root Connection. I must get the fish pond quilt done, so I can move on to this quilt. I want to start cutting. I have stacks of fabric ready to go.

Fish Pond Quilt Rows

I got thinking about getting some of these blocks into rows, Or I will never get this pieced together. I knew I wanted the three machine applique blocks to be a a different row from each other. I knew that if one was up one would be down and one in the middle height. I needed to rely on the design board to find the place for the blocks. Problem the blocks were not sticking to my design board (batting hanging on the wall).
I took a day off and rebuild my design board. I now have two 4 x 8 sheets of insulation covered with batting and then covered with white flannel. I thought then I could pin right in to my insulation. Guess what it is so sticky the flannel and batting that I did not need pins at the block stage yet. wow!


To get to this stage of rows, I measure each block height and width. I labeled the blocks and stated to sort the blocks by width. I had one block that was 25" wide the next size was 20". What to do? I decided I would do three rows up and down then one or two across (one on top one on bottom). I could use this wide block on the top or bottom row along with some of the shorter blocks.


I had to stop the row building and finish more blocks like this one. I love this blue. It helped give more bright colour back into this quilt.

Can you see how great the four patches and the old strip sets are helping me. Great for fillers and adding more variety.


I thought I would talk about the colours more. I started this quilt with three fish fabrics. The fabrics are mostly blue some green and the orange fish. I have a real fish pond outside with gold fish and kio. They are Orange. I do not like orange and I do not use much orange in my quilts, ever. I wanted this quilt to be mostly blue green and the highlights of orange. I found when I started, the quilt was way to dark. Rather then change my basic colour, I would have to use the brighter bits of my Blue and Green and make sure I used more orange. Some more orange was added with a flower print that was almost a brown orange (used in the four patch in the photo below). You may see I have a little bit of pink, I thought the flowers in the prints have some pink so I added just a little. More Variety. More is better. I have still made this a blue green quilt with the complementary to blue, orange.



I had some holes in my rows and needed more blocks. Or at least more finished blocks.


This was how I got this done. I ended up making one more big block and a shorter wide block.

My rows are not yet the same width and I will have to play with the sides and add or take away some filler fabric. The bottom row is weak and needs more work. Are You enjoying my puzzle?

I love comments. Thank You all for your encouragement. I have had trouble quilting on my work. The blog is helping. Looking at blogs have helped me find some new projects I want to make next. Have any of you had trouble quilting? How did you get out of the funk?

Every Day Journal - quilt ideas

I have not been able to work on my journal everyday and I missed posting last week. I have been quilting too much and had internet trouble. This page has some ideas for some log cabin quilt blocks. It is not really about one quilt but just some ideas. I have been trying to write out some of the quilt ideas on my journal pages.

Valentina's Day Cards 3 more

I got more cards done this week. I hope my family will enjoy them. This cards is for my husband. I got the key with a bundle of keys at Christmas time, but I think they fit Valentina's day better. I added the chain and used a brad to keep the chain in place. The flower was glimmer misted blue and then inked in brown to tone down the colour and create the vintage tones.
These next two cards are for my boys. I liked the sailor theme for both of them. My grandpa was a sailor and was captain his own fishing boat before coming to Alberta.
I have used distress ink on the edges of the images and the cards stock. I used Stickles glitter glue on the two cards for my boys. This last one has a chain and a heart on it to go with the anchor theme.
My stack of cards all together. I made my own envelopes but did not take photos of them. I also stamped and wrote love notes to each of them, but did not take photos (private).

The vintages images I have used have come out of this book. The book comes with a CD and I printed them from the CD. I could have played around the size of the image but I just asked to print to fit the 4x6 paper I was print to. Worked great for cards. I got the book last year at a used book store in Victoria BC. It was new but older and marked down.

Diana's Mystery Quilt

Diana started this mystery quilt over the Christmas break at Earthly Goods. I love the yellow and blue, so bright and cheery.


Hanging off the quilt machine.



You can see the quilting on the back side better. I did the flower on the blue block.
Tuesday's Quilting Bee

Fish Pond Quilt - Up dated again

I am getting the blocks larger. I keep flipping from this block and that. Then off to make more four patches.

I have more bright colours added in. I just will have to make sure that they move around. I like the row of log cabin around some of the prints.

I started to place two smaller blocks together. This way I will be able to make some kind of a row. I am started to worry about this part. I must have faith.


Again I flip from this to that. I go make more four patches. I am sure they will come in handy for making a block longer or wider to fit with the next block.


I think these block posts are keeping me working on this quilt. I have two other ideas for quilts I want to start. But I must keep my fish quilt fans going. I must finish the quilt top. I am worried I will hit the wall and stop. How to make rows? How to lay this out? This started as a Gloria Loughman class and she did give us notes for this part. I am experienced enough to get it done but sometimes when it gets tough, I quit, or put it way for a while. My mom was in the class and her quilt has been done for more than a year maybe two years ago. I should go find a photo of that to show you.