WIP Wednesday Oct 31

I have been working on my Scrappy Log Cabins for Ellison Lane Quilt a Long. I finally have all my blocks done. I rescued  the red from the vacuum canister (it is the top right one). In the next few days I hope to sew the blocks together to make my top. 

Some of my blocks have cute little critters in the center. Lots of scraps used up.

I also have my two Christmas table runners to finish up. They got machine quilted on Sunday but then I set them aside to quilt for customers on Monday morning. Maybe I can get them trimmed before I have to go Trick or Treating. I am taking my son out tonight for his last Halloween candy haul.

Lex found a stick to play with. It came out of the fire box. It is cool here and I hope we have a fire some time soon.

Got Another One Done

I felt like saying "another one bites the dust" but Dust is not good for quilts. I am in high gear for getting quilts done for my customers. I finished this one today around five o clock.

It is full of Christmas fabric. It was my customers way of using all her Christmas fabrics up. But if I know scrap quilts, I bet she still has some Christmas fabric, just less now. You can see the holly I did on the boarder.

I did red Poinsettia in some of the blocks, you can really see them on the back of the quilt. Then I filled in with more holly in green thread. 

Mr Lex was just considering taking one of my balls of hand spun yarn. He loves balls, loves to chase them. He was good and only considered taking one.

Design Wall Monday Oct 29

I have been playing with my log cabin blocks a little. I really like this idea of the half a block off set. It gives the colour a nice little curve of colour. These log cabins were started because of Ellison Lane quilt a long. We will see if I get it done in time or not. 

I have added today's post to Design Wall Monday. 

My other design wall has the last of the brown scraps still from Scrappy Saturday and the Rainbow scrap Challenge.

Sunday Stitching

I am machine quilting my two Christmas runners today. Monday will be back to customers quilting again. The Christmas rush is started.

Last Brown Scrappy Saturday

I had to work on my brown scraps today. I really wanted to finish up my blocks today because next week will be a new colour. I have this 12 block finished today. for my main rainbow quilt I started last Nov.

Go to Soscrappy to see the other great brown scraps.

Last month I made some Orange 16 patches ( yes started another one) so today I got the brown ones done. I made sure to put one other colour in each block, pink, red and blue were used in these.

I keep working on the Spools as a leaders and enders challenge by Bonnie Hunter. So the ones here are new ones done this week. I do not have any more brown spools left to do. I think I will have to work on another colour for a few days.

Here is a photo of Teddy. He is a shade of brown so I am showing him today. Teddy belongs to my friend Yvonne. I was at Yvonne's on Friday. Our surface design group meet at her house to lay out a plan for the next few months. I think we are planning to do some marbling on fabric at the end of Nov. Teddy was a little bad and ate some candy out of one ladies bag and then over night him and the cat ate three homemade buns left from our day. Most of the time he is a good dog. Just likes people food.

School Raffle Quilt

Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2012 is happening now. I thought I would show off the Grandmother square quilt that me and my mom, Betty and Aunt Myrna did together.  We started this quilt over a year ago and got it finished this summer. Betty and Myrna did the piecing and consulted with me on many occasions. We had a great time shopping for all the fabric. We had two major shopping trips. Then Betty and Myrna worked on the top. I quilted a runner for Myrna to try out the quilting and then did the bigger quilt this summer.

We made this quilt to donate for a raffle. The little one room school my dad and his brothers went to is now a community hall and is in need of a new roof. We have made this as a thank you for the years the boys went to school. They all three continued on to University.

We used mostly civil war reproduction fabrics and a Moda fabric in brown for  background and sashings. I used feathers on each of the blocks. and a feather on the outer pieced boarder. There is a little filler quilting on the brown.

Little Red Deer Quilt  

Measures 90" x 90"

Machine pieced and long arm machine quilted by a professorial 

Machine quilted by Cathy Tomm

Best categories: Group, Professorially machine quilted, Bed Quilt.

I have also added this post to Crazy Mom Quilts

Logs and Machine Repair

I have eight Yellow/Orange Log Cabin blocks done for Ellison Lane Quilt a long. I am thinking I might go back to do one more for each colour. I have Pink, Red, Blue, Purple and Green ones done already. I did eight of each colour (Nine red but lost one to the vacuum cleaner) I am thinking nine would make my quilt just a little longer and good for the living room. So this weekend I think I will dig out the coloured boxes of scrap and do one more of each colour. 

I had a little trouble this week with my Long arm. My up/down button went. It would not click anymore. I have been carrying  extra parts like this because I ordered parts from the US and it can take some time getting here.  I did not want to wait two weeks for parts let a lone overnight. I fixed it in about 3 minutes. Then just kept quilting.

So glad I know how to fix my machine. I have been asked "who" do I send my long arm to fix and have maintenance done. My answer is me. So far I have been able to fix everything. Resetting the timing takes a little longer than 3 minutes but I do it in less time then driving the machine in to any shop. Glad my old Gammill is still ticking along so well.

Now what

Feeling a little uninspired today. I forgot to take any photos but found two from the end of Sept to show today. First up is some hand dyed pink fabric I dyed. I plan to use it on the back of my Spider Web quilt I recently finished. It is 60 " wide Kona Cotton and about 3 m long, Yes a big quilt. This is the fabric right out of the dye pot. I have washed and dried it and it is much lighter now. 

My horse looking good.

First Quilt

I got permission from my customer to show off her first quilt. I love the soft blend of the colours in it. She is not so sure about the colours she used. I hope she will be thrilled to see it quilted. It is like magic once they are quilted. They go from just fabric pieces, to being a quilt. Her plan is to pick it up later this week.

Before I started, I showed her photos of my work and some real stitching and then I did some drawing to get the scale correct for her quilt. She choose a cabbage rose for the main block and leaves and loops for the chain and the borders.

I am still working on Blogocterfest. So far I have been able to keep up with a post everyday and mostly it is creative quilting posts. 8 more days left.

Design Wall Monday Oct 22

Wow the month is flying by fast. I got some Green and Purple log cabin blocks done this week. Some of the time I sewed these, I watched Bonnie Hunter on Quilt Cam Friday night. Sewing with her made me think of Quilt Retreat. I had company and sometime you sewed fast and sometimes you stopped to be sure you did not miss out what she was saying.

I have done these log cabins as part of Ellison Lane's Quilt Along.

I found some cute fabrics to place in the center of most of my blocks. I love this little car. 

The green block got a green sea turtle. Makes me think of Hawaii and seeing Green Sea Turtles while snorkeling. 

I have added this to Judy's Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday

Slow Sunday Stitching

Slow around here today. I have plans to work on a few more Hexagon flowers tonight in from of the TV. I have plenty of Blue and Orange ones done, so I thought I would work on Purple next.

After the big party last night we slept in. I did a little bit of quilting for a customer. We got the very last of the beets and carrots out of the garden. I am roasting some in the oven for supper. We have plenty of dessert left. Mom was looking for Lemon square.

I have added today's post to Kathy's Quilts Slow Stitching Sunday

Scrappy Saturday Browns

I have some Brown spools to show this week. I did some at retreat while sewing other things as this is a leaders and enders project. I am trying to do this like a charm project also and not have two fabric repeat, so doing each colour by the month helps.

A few of my favorite brown fabrics. I have added this post to Soscrappy.

I also got a chunk of brown Poverty Piecing done too.

I had to made some desserts today. My husband is hosting a party for 32 people tonight. I am in change of dessert. I am making Lemon squares. I wanted to watch Bonnie's Quilt Cam too so set it up next to the mixer.

Lex joins me by sitting next to the hand towel. It is the best place not far from the heat vent and the lest likely place to be stepped on.

Lemon squares out of the oven.

Chocolate cake and chocolate mousse dessert in layers. I also made a double pan of chocolate Brownies.  So lots of Browns happening around here. Wish us Luck with the big crowd of people. I hope everyone comes.

Here is a photo out the front door. We have snow. It is melting on the roads and sidewalks, so driving is not bad.

And out the back door.

Finish it up Friday

I got a second Table Runner top done. This one is very Christmas. There are red cardinals in the center of the star and the set in Triangles. The cardinals are from a Northcott line of fabric that was from last Christmas. I really liked it. 

The center Blue Runner was done by Barb and the other two are mine. Barb got her's machine quilted and bound but mine are only tops at this point. I still need two more runners I think for gifts this year.

I have added today's post to Crazy Mom's Finish it up Firday and Friday Fav at Naptime Crafters and Confessions of a Fabric Addict and Can I Get a Whoop Whoop

Betty's Twister Quilt

My mom, Betty worked on a pink and purple twister quilt most of retreat. Here is the top together before you start the cutting.

Then you cut it apart. Then put it together again. I forgot to get more photos when the top is almost together.
Maybe I will have to go to mom's house and get more photos. She worked hard on this quilt at retreat.

I think I will be doing just the machine quilting part. It was going to be a joint project.

WIP Wednesday Oct 17

I got a table runner top done last weekend at retreat, but need to quilt it now. I need a few runners this year as gifts. So I will not say who or what it is for yet. The black print with gold is an old Rose and Hubble Print from 15 or so years ago. I had been saving it. It was time to use it. I like that is is kind of Christmas but could be used any time of the year.

I did work on Adam's Plaid spider web quilt but not much more to show. I got most of the strip sets done and about half the cutting. It may make it up on the wall in few weeks.

On the way to retreat, mom and I stopped at a few quilt shops. I did some shopping. I love the Brown and Orange dots. The top left are mostly Christmas prints for more runners.

At retreat we also had goody's at our table each morning. First the pen, then the Best Press and on the last morning it was a batik fat Quarter.  Thanks Arley.

I have added today's post to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday, go see what other's are working on this week.

Retreat Report

I had a great time at quilt retreat this past weekend. This retreat was hosted by my Aunt Arley at the Sunny Side Camp on Sylvan Lake. It started on Thursday afternoon and ran till Sunday noon. I have only ever done retreats that started on Friday. I got lots done with the extra day.

I loved this little quilt. I have Mr Lex in the house so our quilts have dog hair. I cleaned my sewing room yesterday and do not let him in the room but yes I vacuumed up dog hair. Oh lets see who reads this. I went to vacuumed a fly on a quilt block, yesterday. But guess what happened? I vacuumed the block up. A red log cabin from yesterday's post. I hope to get it out of the vacuum tonight. Anyone else ever do that? Or What silly thing do you vacuum up?

As the ladies finished a quilt top they were hung on the rails above.

There was shopping available. Deb brought these metal blocks to sell. Arley had some flannels and notions to sell. Some fabric here and there.  One lady brought a mini quilt shop but No photo.

I took my hand dyed fabric and thread to sell. I did not set it up till after lunch on Saturday. It took up lots of room. There was also the garage sale table (no photo). We donated stuff to the table and if you wanted the stuff you donated cash to the tin jar. It raised money to send a kid or two to camp.

More finished projects on display. Barb made the green runner and the Cherry casa-roll cover. Not sure who made the purse and twisted wall quilt.

We had a gift exchange. This was optional. If you wanted to do it you brought a quilt gift bag worth $25. Then on Saturday after dinner we got a card. Then Arley read out the cards and you found the matching gift. I got a book on free motion machine quilting - one I did not have, and a spool of 17 wt thread to try out. The book has some ideas I have not seen so I will use it. Thanks Deb.

I also found out at least two of the ladies, I had not met, are followers of my blog. Hi ladies.

I have added today's post to Freemotion by the River.