Binder Cover Finished

I was in need of a quilted cover for a binder. I thought I would use some of my bleach resist fabrics. The patch work has used two of the different blacks. The Sunshine cotton is the dark grey fabric. I think the brown was some black from Fabricland or is Kona cotton. I did some free cutting and put the fabric back together.

The Front Cover Done

Sorry about the side ways again. This is the inside with the binder in place. I have a pocket on the inside of the front cover to put a disk. I bust my brain every time I make one of these. I always have to think so hard about how the final sewing goes so that I get the inner flaps correct. This time it was important that the pocket was upright. Because the photo is sideways you do not know I got just right and on the first time.

Close up of the quilting. I even quilt these little projects on the long arm. I just pinned the backing fabric on and based down the outer edges and quilt. I have used a brown varriegated  from Wounderfil thread, one of my favourites.  It is Friday and it is done. I have added this to Crazy Mom Quilts Finish it up Friday.

Good News Day

Blue Days of Summer 2011

I just got some very good news from Kathy Wylie. I have a new quilt accepted into the Canadian Quilter Association's  National Juried Show. This photo is my entry from last years National Juried show.  I can not show you this years quilt yet, you will have to wait till May 29th. The National Juried Show opens May 29 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. You can go check out more about Quilt Canada. I have a good friend who moved to Halifax last year (her husband got transferred) but I do not think I will be going to see her or the National Show.

Now you know, I have been working on something and not showing you. Sorry. I also have started my Edmonton and District Quilter's Guild year end Challenge. I will not be able to show you that till mid June. It is so hard not to show you the bits a pieces as I make it. I have been taking photos as I go and can show you later how or why I did this or that.

So, if it looks like I am not getting much sewing done, maybe it is a competition quilt I am working on. Or I am busy with the dog and horses.

Design Wall Monday #8 and Hat

Last March we went to Hawaii for two weeks. It was a great holiday. I bought a small stack of Hawaiian prints and want to make a simple quilt with the fabrics. I got a few blocks started- six so far. I am thinking I will use White sashing. I like the four patch angle blocks, I will have to do more of those blocks. I am mixing in some Kona cottons solids with the Prints. A good little start. I have added this to Patchwork Time's Design Wall Monday, check out the other work going on this week.

My hat is dry. Last Friday me and friends worked on our wool felted hats. Check out Saturday's  Post to see how we did it. We were to get more snow today but it was a dusting. I may still need this hat this spring.

I got my kids to take my photo. Not great photos but you get the idea.

Outside you can see a bit more of the texture. I had some locks that were not carded and they all over the outside of the hat. Now I need a scarf to match as I lost my blue one after two weeks.

Hat Felting

This past Friday, I lead my Surface Design Group in felted hat making. I had done lots of felting but never tried a hat. We are a group of five but one member was away. Between us we have about a dozen books on felting and many had wet felted hats. This photo above shows one layer of purple and the start to the other direction.

Yvonne is making a Tam style hat from her book Uniquely Felt by Christine White. I loved this book and may have to get myself a copy. The book had four or five different hat patterns in it. Here is the plastic resist on her wool and she has just wet the one side and then flipped the wool. She will now add the wool that will be the top of her hat.

The top of her hat with the wool still dry. She is adding different wools for a design.

Placing more bits of wool and these great purple locks. When she is happy with the design she will place a screen over the dry wool and then wet down. After wetting we all rolled the wool on Pool noodles sandwiched between plastic (I forgot to get a photo of this rolling). We then test for some felting before moving on

 Yvonne has got her hat well felted by now (after a few other steps). She then measure for the hole she will cut in her hat for her head.

The wet hat on her head.  We had balloons or Styrofoam heads to dry our hats.

I made a white hat. This is the screen on my wool and I am wetting it down.

 I have my plastic resist on top of my bottom layer at this point. I need to add the wool for the other side. I will leave the plastic resist stick out the bottom for my head opening.

After rolling on a noodle and making sure that felting was starting to take place, I then placed my hat in some tulle and did some hand rolling.

I have got a very large hat here. Very wet too. I did some shirking in the sink with hand rolling and warm damp wool. I may have done just a bit of throwing at this point. It is still to big.

After more shirking it is getting to the correct size. One the right is my white hat. On the left is Dianne's purple and green hat. We were very worried that Dianne's hat was way too big and looked very thin is some places (maybe to wet when we started rolling). She kept going with each step. She got very harsh and did lots of ruff throwing with warm water and some soap. Well in no time it looked great. One of the best hats. I was amazed it worked out great.

The back side of the hats. You can see I added some locks to my hat, I was worried they were not gluing well to start with but they are attached enough. Looks good in person. I will get another photo when it is dry. After 24 hours it is still damp.

This is Dawna's hat. She has not finished the shrinking or throwing part yet. Her hat was getting a small hole in the side so she is going to let her hat dry and then do some needle felting to add more felt in. Then she will finish the wet felting.

I have added this post to The Magic Onions Friday's Nature Table  and Show and Tell and tatertots and jello and Thirty Handmade Days

Winner is

Thanks for entering my first give a way. I got my son to make the draw. I had 15 comments and I placed each number in the wooden bowl my dad made me.

The winner is 14 Jill. I will contact her and mail it away next week. So much fun sending away a fabric swish package. Thanks you all for entering. Hard to believe I have made so many blog posts now at 252.

Here is Socks with a large flake of hay. He would not move so I could put his hay in so he got it on his back.

Mr Lex sitting nice for me. I make him sit while I feed the horses. This way he does not eat horse cookies or chase the four cats all over the place. He is looking at the top of the hay stack for a cat to peek at him.

Lost it

I have very sad news. I have lost my new Turquoise felt scarf. I think I lost it in the Leduc Walmart parking lot on  March 9th. I have looked around the house and car. I went back to Walmart on Monday but no it is not there. It is gone. If you live near Leduc and see it let me know.

I just got home from my Friday Surface Design Group. We had four of us today and we did wool felted hats. I will post photos soon.

I have a give a way for 250 post from Monday. I will be closing that Tomorrow when I get up. Give a way here if you have not already entered.

DW Monday #8 and Give A Way

Here is another Design Wall Monday, number 8 this year for me. I am aiming to do 40 this year. I am having a great time with the Rainbow Scrappy Challenge. For March the colour is Pink and I got another block done, bottom right. I put them all up on the wall today, I have 9 so far.  I got started back in Nov and hope to keep adding blocks till the end of the year. I may have enough blocks for two quilts or one very large quilt. Other Design Wall Mondays can be seen on Judy's Blog Patchwork Times.

This is post number 250 for me. Wow I was thinking I should do a give-away. How about six green fat quarters of  my hand dyed fabric and two skeins of thread. The rules are Leave me a comment on today's post and make sure I can reach you with an email, if you have no reply on your comments ( I will need your email and address to mail). Can I ask that you live in Canada or the US as the postage will kill me other wise and take forever.  I will leave this open till Friday night March 16th. Then on Saturday I will draw a winner and make a post. Good Luck.

I am not going to ask you to follow because I think you should follow only if you like my blog and what I post. Thank you blog land. I love the encouragement I get and the new friends I have been making.

Pretty in Pink - Scrappy Saturday #2

It is the Second Saturday in March and I think spring maybe on the way. The snow we got earlier in the week is melting quickly and we saw Canadian Geese returning today. I got a second pink block done for the first rainbow quilt I started. Check out the other pink scrap projects in the works over at Soscrappy.

In case you were wondering I have been inspired to do this quilt because of This Quilt. I love the sashing and I am planning some thing like it. I just changed the inside of my blocks to use up the smaller scraps better.

Here are all the pinks together so far. I did the log cabin one on the left back in Dec when the colours were Red and green ( I did Pink and Lime first). The little 6 inch block on the bottom is a reject. I did not like the scale it was to large, so I made smaller pin wheels this week. The reject block will be boxed with the others, then if I need another block I will have a good start on one. Or piece into the backing.

I plan to make Brownies for desert and then I get to go sew some more.

Tin Box Exchange Round #4

Tonight is the Black Gold Quilt Patch Meeting (Leduc quilt guild) and my Tin box is due.  I have Box # 6 and it has an Asian theme and this blue print in the box. I have done this block from Bonnie Hunter called Jack in the Box. I made my block 8 1/2" square. I almost did not have a enough tone on tone white to do this. If I keep doing group block exchanges that require white (tone on tone) I will have to buy more fabric (I hear a shopping trip)

This is a short post as it is almost time to leave for the meeting. The four blocks in the tin are pictured above. If you want to see more about this Tin Box Exchange please check out the older posts Here.

Happy Scrappy Saturday Pink #1

It is March already and a new colour has been set out for us in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at SoScrappy, it is Pink. I still had to do some Green in the last few days of Feb. It may have been Monday night when I was looking to see if she had posted the new colour as I wanted to do some scrap sewing. Nope, so I did Green log cabins and it was OK as it was still Feb.

I have made these blocks mostly with a little triangle in the centre and a I start adding logs. I use some of my smaller strips first in the first two rounds. I have also added a bit of an angle to the blocks too. I am not sure I am going the same direction or if I start with light or end in light. The blocks are coming out a bit different size but I can always add or trim them down.

So Pink is our colour for March. I used so much pink in my Orca Bay last Dec and then in Jan I did the Heart Quilt and More Here about it. I do not have all that many pinks left in the scrap box. I think I can still get a few more log cabins and some for my other rainbow quilts. If we were counting I have three rainbow quilts on the go now. I was only planning two but I have gotten carried away.

I got one Red block done too (but I think it is my smallest block so far). I am really not sure how these will go together. I do know, I do not want sashing. I want these to blend together. Maybe rows or maybe these crazy circles I have started here today. I love playing on the design wall so we will just have to keep playing and see where it will take this quilt. Not having a solid plan is good fun. Just trust in myself it will work out.