Cathy Tomm Quilts

Happy Scrappy Saturday Green #3

2012-02-18T09:08:00.000-07:00

Here I am again working on my green scrappy blocks (dark ones this week). I am loving these round ones more and more. If you have been following me on the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012, you will know I have been playing with a few Block layouts for the units I have made. I am not sure how big to go or if I will use all colours but I am getting a nice start to a bright quilt. Check out today's post over at Soscrappy to see the other green scrap projects.

Here is the Greek Cross layout with both the dark green and lime green units. Not to bad when you get more than one colour in the layout. Imagine this layout with 8 or more colours.

Here is the Churn Dash layout. I am not liking this one.

The round layout called Greek Square.

I signed up for the Friday Night Sew In early this past week. Check out what everyone worked on. I knew I would be sewing on Friday night. I wanted to get my darker green blocks done for the scrappy Saturday. Now what to do for next week, I have so much green. I even have some poverty piecing in green left over from a few years ago.

Thanks for stopping by. I always enjoy your comments so please say something.

Friday Night Sew In #2

2012-02-17T08:36:00.000-07:00

I am planning to sew on Friday Night. I have joined the Friday Night Sew In Over at Heidi's. You sign in before and then on Saturday you post about what you worked on and hop around and see what all the other sewers worked on too. I sew almost every Friday night. My boys want to play Xbox and that takes over the main room upstairs with noise. So I retreat to my sewing room to work on my quilts. It is a very large sewing retreat all over the world.

For today I am heading over to a friend's house to do some felting. I am not sure what kind of felting project I will work on yet. Someday I would love to do a hat, but the 3D shape is a little scary still. Maybe a scarf or a journal cover today.

So check back tomorrow and see what I did. Thanks for stopping by.

Free Motion Quilting Sample

2012-02-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

I had some new thread I wanted to stitch out and see how it worked in my long arm machine. I did some free form feather work in the pink thread and some very dense background quilting in white. The fabric is white Kona cotton and the batting is Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 Cotton/ poly.

It is just a sample but I might finish it off into a pillow or something as it has turned out very nice.

New Fabric Found a Home

2012-02-12T09:25:00.003-07:00

I have been very good at not buying more fabric this past two months but oops. I got some this past week. I just love a sale and drove out of my way just to go see if I needed some more fabric. The Black and white diagonal strip maybe good for my orca bay binding. I may even dye it pink to go better. We will see. All the others just had my name on it.

I had the two red polka dots already but I bought more of the same line. I am not sure yet what I will make. Yes I have fallen to the Red and Turquoise trend. If there were some baby girls in the family I would make a baby quilt but there is not any babies expected. My sister in laws both say they are done having kids too.

Many of you do stash reports. I have not wanted to count what I bought or what I used. I know I am using more than I am buying now so it is OK. Two years ago I bought fabric and hardly quilted. I am sewing lots now so I deserve to buy some more.

Happy Scrappy Saturday Green #2

2012-02-11T10:05:00.001-07:00

I have done 6 lime green blocks for Happy Scrappy Saturday. Check out what the quilt bloggers are doing by following in the link over to So Scrappy.

I like the round blocks the best but I have to play with the units to see what else I can make. Here is the Greek Cross that started the units last month.

Next is the Churn Dash blocks. Not so good if I keep the colour all in one block.

I have done the crumb blocks (or Poverty Piecing ) for the dark green. I have tried the Flying geese crumbs. I have been thinking were did I see these. Now I got it, over here at Jo's Country Junction. She did a crumb along last year and has done some great posts on ideas for crumbs and how to do them. Check then out if you are working on your scraps.

Here is the round blocks with both the Red and the Lime green colours together. I currently have enough units to make 6 Red and 6 Lime blocks. I still have not sew the units into blocks because I can still play on the design wall. I need more colours so I can decide what I should do for a layout.

Heart Quilt Finished

2012-02-10T15:15:00.001-07:00

I got a second quilt done this year. I started this quilt in January with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge over at SoScrappy. The colour of scrap we were working on were Red for January. I added in pink and of course needed some neutral scraps. This photo is taken outside in the full sunshine with my son Adam trying to hold it but he is not quite tall enough yet. Someday he will be.

I have also added this post to Crazy Mom's Quilts Finish up Friday. Check out the other finished quilt projects. I have added this post to The Magic Onion were you can find more than just quilts but many crafts some are good for kids too.

Hanging over the rail of the long arm machine.

I took this photo on my design wall and the blocks for Orca Bay are in behind.

I machine bound the quilt with a red strip fabric. This Red strip was part of the bundle I got from a lady who needed to sell her mother's stash. I got an apple box worth of fabric for $50.00 and many of the reds and neutrals used came from her.

A close up of the front to show the quilting. I may give this quilt away and wanted to finish it quickly. I kept the quilting simple and did an all over hearts and loops free hand.

The back side shows the quilting again.

Gel Medium Photo Transfer Class

2012-02-07T21:31:00.000-07:00

I am teaching a Fabric Book Class for the Edmonton and District Quilter Guild on Feb 25/12. There is still room if you live near Edmonton and want to join us. For the class the students need to come with at least some photos (4 or more) already transferred onto the fabric and the paper rubbed off. They should be dry and ready to sew into place. Please use what ever way you would like if you prefer another method. I will try to show you here today the gel medium transfer that I like to use. I will be bring the supplies and demo in class too but the photos will not be dry and ready to use for two or three days. If you want to get them placed on fabric professionally or with bubble jet or TAP(Transfer Art Paper) please do that. This method has a plastic feel and is not easy to sew though. I would not hand sew or plan to quilt thought this photo. I still like it.

First gather all your supplies. Colour ink jet photo printed onto plain (the cheaper the better not the glossy or heavy paper) copy paper. You may need to flip your image on the computer if you want it to transfer correct direction. Flipping your photo will be very important if your image has any text or has a direction to it. Wax paper, rolling pin, Soft gel medium ( I have Golden brand), paint brush and fabric white and cut about 2 inches larger around the outside. I like to trim my photo down to have a white edge of 1/2" or so. I like my fabric to be larger than this photo paper size by about 2" around. My book has very old photos and I used cream muslin with cotton flecks in the fabric. I feel it added to the old look. I also wanted Black and White photos and did print some with my toner black and white printer and not the jet ink. You can try both printers. Both worked well for me.

Use a large piece of wax paper under your fabric. Do not stir or shake the gel medium you do not want to add bubbles into it. Using the paint brush ( I really dislike foam brushes here, they do not let me put enough medium on) brush a good layer on to your fabric. Go left and right and up and down. Make sure the gel is on an area larger than your image. If you do not use enough some areas will not transfer. If you use to much you can get a wrinkle - I used some of mine like this it added to the old folded look.

When you have enough gel down on your fabric place your image face down. I like to lay down from one corner to another. See photo. Sorry it is out of focus a little.

Do not lift or shift the image around. It may start to move the colour around. Place another wax paper on top and roll very gentle up and down then left and right with the rolling pin. Not much pressure here. Just once or twice and just enough to help remove any bubbles. Some gel is going to swish out on to the wax paper, that is OK. Set the sandwich of wax paper (2 pieces) and fabric and image with gel aside to dry. Leave them in a place were they can remain flat for the next few hours. Do not stack many sandwiches or it will take longer to dry. I sometimes remove the top layer of wax paper after several hours. It may help speed drying time. If you see wrinkles developing you may not be able to save this image but next one use a little less gel medium.

When your sandwich is dry (not cool to the touch) it may take 24 hours or longer, it will be time to remove the paper. When you are sure the gel is dry you can start to remove the paper. How, you ask, do we do that? Remove all wax paper by pulling it off the best you can. Then I use warm water, soak in sink for just a few minutes. You will see the paper get watery. Then take it out of sink and rub off paper with your finger tips. Soak and rub. Soak and rub. It may take 15 min or more to rub off paper. You may find the paper come off when the image is more damp and not real wet. I have a towel close by. Keep rubbing. When you think you have all the paper removed dry with towel and check it a a few minutes of air drying. If it is looking white and cloudy you may need to rub more with a little dampness again. Some ink from the printer comes off more than other brands or printers. You will have to be the judge as to when to much ink is coming off and when to stop.

Students Please email me or call me if you have any questions. Your supply list sheet should have my home phone number and email address. Non students I would be happy to help you too please send me a message or comment. I hope you have enjoyed this.

Design Wall Monday #6 Orca Bays

2012-02-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

This Design wall is my Mother's, Betty's wall. She was away when Orca Bay mystery got started in Nov but when she got home in Dec she was speedy. She used Green instead of Red and Coral instead of Blue. She has just a few crabby eye pieces to do and then she is ready to sew her rows together. I thought some of you would like to see a different colour way.

I have added my post today to the Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times and Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville is doing a final linky thing for our Orca Bay Mystery. Check them both out as there will be many to see.

Here is my Design wall today. The same it was three weeks ago. I have not been feeling 100% and have not had the energy to sew the rows together. I have been working on customer quilting on the week days and in the evenings I might get a little sewing for myself but I have been working on my scrap challenge. I posted Saturday on my new blocks in Green.

Happy Scrappy Saturday Green #1

2012-02-04T14:46:00.001-07:00

Today is Happy Scrappy Saturday over at Soscrappy. Follow the link and see what the other ladies have started in Green ( not many when I posted). I have so many Green scraps it will be a very busy month of sewing scraps. I found out last weekend what colour was next by checking out This Post that was made at the beginning of the year. Looks like she is updating the colour each month.

I have sorted out my lime green scraps separate form the darker green scraps because I like lime. In my eyes it is another whole colour. I got two more blocks done for a scrappy quilt. I started this in Nov when I found Soscrappy. It was This Quilt, I want to make one kind of like it. As I started in Nov and Dec's colour was green (and Red) I had two done before. Now I have four green blocks done. This quilt now has eight blocks done.

Note the horse in the above block. I like horses and fussy pieced that in.

They are a little different from each other.

I have changed how I sort my scraps and thought I would share this with you. The old way I had boxes like this. Left over from a project or two or three all dumped together. Some big, some small and any colour and some parts sewn but left over. With the Rainbow Scrap Challenge I wanted to change it.

I have two types of scraps. My small yardage or fat quarters that are more then half gone go in a laundry basket. They are some what sorted by colour and I will leave then in the basket of now. My small scraps, smaller then 6" wide but can be a long strip, needed help sorting out.

Old way I had a 2" strip box, 1 1/2" strip box, A bag in here with 1 3/4", a box for 1". I never got around to digging much out. There was never any colour sorting. Some pieces of fabric never fit in to one of the boxes.

Here is a box with triangles sorted the old way. All the small ones are from the joining of Binding and tend to be the same size. Some larger ones. I did many years ago make a whole quilt out of Triangles. It was even Rainbow like.

Back in Dec, I thought I want to sort by colour more. So slowly I have made boxes like this one. Green in one big pile. It is still a mess but I have found I like to go to it for the Rainbow Challenge. I have a blue, pink, red, and purple box.

Here is Orange, Yellow and Brown (with some pink that should be moved out) that is mostly sorted. They are in one box together and it is more or less sorted. Larger chucks on bottom (+3" wide) then wide strips to 2" strips, 1 1/2" then little squares and triangles on top. So far not to bad. But I had to sort that bigger Green box to start off the month of green.

Here it is all sorted out in the ironing board. I have piles of the different strip widths. I tend to think some are > then 2", 2", 1 1/2", then smaller then 1 1/2". In the back row there is small triangles and larger triangles. Then chucks that are +3" on one or both sides. I have a ton of 3" squares left from some past project. I may have to use them this month. There is also smaller blocks and rectangles. I did finish up my blocks today and get this all back in the one box. I will have to lay out the piles to use it again but it should work.

Not pictured is also some sewn strip set ends in all green. Not sure how to handle the half sewn stuff. Even worse is the end of strip sets with many colours. What to do with them all. While I did once make This Journal Cover. I had done some Poverty Piecing Here. But I never know how to store these bits until it is time to use them. Maybe just another box of sorted chaos.

String Thing Along

2012-02-03T07:24:00.002-07:00

Today I have made a post on the new Blog String Thing Along. You may want to check it out.

Tin Box Exchange Round #3

2012-02-01T17:14:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the Black Gold Quilt Patch meeting in Leduc tonight. I almost forgot to do my block exchange for round 3. I got started after 2 pm today, but it is done now. I have the tin box #1 and it is a theme of Spring. The fabric we are to use is the pale light green, I have used it as a background for my tree.

I had my green scraps out and thought a tree would be great for spring. I love it when the leaves come out on the trees. That is spring for me.

These two were in the box already.

Here are the three all together and the fabric in the top right.

Design Wall Monday #5

2012-01-30T12:53:00.001-07:00

My son Adam (10Years old) needs a new quilt. I have been asking him what he wanted. He has had real ideas of what he likes and dis not likes. He loves the quilt I made for his dad last year for Christmas Here. He likes the plaid fabrics. So for a couple weeks we have been talking about it. On Sunday we pick a quilt pattern out and got started. Adam helped pick out which plaids he liked and wanted to use in the quilt.

Orca Bay is still untouched in three weeks now. Hope to work on it this week. You can see it behind Adam below.

He got so involved with it all. I showed him how to cut with the rotary cutter and he got a few strips cut. Then I showed him how to sew. He has never done this stuff before. He has not shown much interest. I am happy to work on this quilt with him. He got one strip set made.

Now you are asking what quilt pattern did we pick? We are going to do a 60 degree Spider web quilt. It will have 6 units in each spider web and it will be equilateral triangles. There will be a Red equilateral triangle between the spider webs. It is a Fon's and Potter pattern from back in 2000.

I cut more strips. Adam plans to come and sew a strip set or two over the next few week ends. I am sure I will do most of the cutting and sewing blocks together. He does not want to do it all. He also wants me to do all the machine quilting on the long arm as he know I am good.

I spent sometime playing with my Red scraps form the Rainbow Challenge. I posted on Saturday that I was not sure which block but now I am liking this Greek Cross with the coloured diamonds in between is the best. I will start working on the next colour. Yes I know what colour is February.

I have made this part of Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday for Jan 30/12. Go check out all the design wall ideas. I try to get though them all but it is a lot to get though.

Happy Scrappy Saturday Red #4 Go Greek

2012-01-28T09:32:00.004-07:00

I came across the Greek Cross Block. I am not sure I really like this block enough to make a whole quilt. The red cross is almost to large a block of one colour for me. I started with my 4 1/2" crumb blocks and made all units 4 1/2" square, so in a nine patch it will finish to 12". What I did like was I was using the scraps to make up the colour part of the units. The white is Kona cotton, not very scrappy but it is stash.

Today's post is apart of Happy Scrappy Saturdays over at SoScrappy. Go check out what the others are doing with their Red scraps. Next month we get a new colour. I am ready to work with a new colour. hint hint.

After getting the units done, I played with them, and got this round shape. I am not sure if this is a named block or not. There is a churn dash like feel to this block. If I make these blocks and sew the blocks together with no sashing it will give me the round colours all around. No other shapes. The colours will butt up to each other. It might be nice. I did think I could change the centre colour, maybe Green in the Red. Another idea is to use white sashing but have a star in the cornerstone to the sashing. Again more colour hear and there.

I am not sure which one I should do. I did think I could just make the 4" units and think over it for sometime. I have not sewn these block together yet just laying them out. I plan to make many blocks with a rainbow of colour. I like to work on the design wall and make up my mind there. I will need more units in different colours before I decide for sure.

Back to the Greek Cross and I did like the idea that the corners could be all different colours. This way when the blocks are butted up together there is a diamond made with four colours. It will make the colour move around the quilt more.

So I have four Red crumb blocks and enough other Red units together to complete four 12" blocks. I also did a few other colour units so I could lay out the last photo. It was fun to work on another colour after a month of Red (and Pink on the heart quilt).

What block do you like the best?

Dog Quilt Done

2012-01-27T06:30:00.001-07:00

My dog Lex is so good he needed his own quilt. While I just wanted him off my quilt as he is very good at taking more and more for himself. He sleeps at my feet in the evening and was taking my quilt at every chance he got. Now his quilt is done and he loves it. I worried he may still want my quilt and not take his new on but he loves his quilt.

I love the food fabric. Lex likes all this food. Beer, hot-dogs, cupcakes, ice-cream, doughnuts, and hamburgers. I should have used pizza too. He was a very bad dog one day and eat the family supper - our home made pizza.

Over the Christmas break I did some of my own quilting. You know, the long arm business person never has time to do her own quilts. I wanted to practice some different stitches and I hate to waste time or good stitching so the dog quilt was a practice quilt. One rule was I was not to rip out any stitches, it all stays in good bad and the ugly. Well I did not have many ugly or bad, mostly good.

When I showed it at guild (and still had the binding to hand stitch) Many guild members liked the quilt and wanted to be my dog. They thought it was far to good for the dog.

Here is the back. it shows the quilting the best.

I used disappearing nine patch. Can you see I have some blocks in the wrong place. I put it together at retreat and got some blocks mixed up. Oh well it is just the dog quilt.

Quilting For a Customer

2012-01-24T08:10:00.002-07:00

I have sent this great bright quilt back to the customer. The quilt is made of a great arrangement of batik fabrics and will be going to a girl. We decided to quilt many large flowers all over the quilt. The petals of the flowers are square with corners. I like this one I came up with years ago. I can think of only a few I have done this quilt pattern on over the years. I may need to do this quilt pattern on one for myself some day.

My Wise Women Bee group was always meeting on Tuesday. I am still thinking about you all on Tuesday. We will meet again when you snow-birds fly home again.

Design Wall Monday 4

2012-01-23T08:37:00.003-07:00

It is Design wall Monday over at Patchwork Times. I have my 4th Design Wall Monday posting of the year. I want to do 40 this year. I did not get much done since I posted on Saturday morning about Red Heart Quilt Top. I made four Red crumb blocks that measure 4 1/2" and I had two lime green ones that I just trimmed to add to them.

The Red Heart Quilt top is done and still on one design wall. I have to find the backing. I know which fabric I want to use but I just have to find it now. Up date at lunch - I found it and it is 3" short. I have to add a piece to the end. It was in the box for this quilt, why would I put it there. To simple.

The other larger design wall has Orca Bay Mystery but is untouched for two weeks now. Maybe I can get it done for Bonnie's Linky Monday in February (two weeks away).

I have not decided what I will make with my crumb blocks. I made them 4 1/2" so that I could do a 12 " block with some kind of nine patch arrangement. I am not sure what it will be yet.

Sunday was the Dog Agility Trial. We did not pass any of our classes. We had Fun together, the Dog and I. I keep forgetting to get out my camera and get a photo or two. We had a very good first round but it was a little past the level we have trained for so far - A gamblers class. Then the other two rounds he visited the jump crew people on the side of the ring and ate up our time. Everything else went very well, with no handler errors or jump faults. We could have passed the classes if he did not take the time to visit people.

Happy Scrappy Saturday Red #3

2012-01-21T12:13:00.001-07:00

Happy Scrappy Saturday to you all. I have been working hard to reduce the size of my Red Scrap Box ( and Pink and Neutrals too). I have completed a whole quilt top in just a few weeks. I got the last of it done last night ( part of the Friday Night Sew-in). I sew most Friday nights because the boys are gaming on Fridays nights and I am kicked downstairs to the studio ( the noise drives me down). It measure around 54' wide by 72' tall. I do not think I will add a boarder but just quilt and bind. Not to sure when I can do that.

There is a Linky post over at SoScrappy if you want to see what others have been doing with their Reds scraps this week.

I have a close up because I want to bring to your attention some very special scraps. First the red with oranges in it. I have very little of it left and love it. I think it is in every scrappy project I have done that had any red in it. Not sure were I got it. Next the super bright pink dot on the left heart and bottom square. I got a fat quarter from a friend June. She bought a couple meters of it from a neighbour for a few dollars and she now tells me the neighbour recently has passed away. The centre top heart has the stripe and mini strawberry fabrics I got them from a lady selling her mothers stash after she passed away. Her mother had been a quilting teacher and made her own appliqué patterns on brown paper grocery bags. I just can not help but think of these past quilters (Fabric stash managers), even though I never met them. I hope they are happy to see that some of their fabric has gone to good use.

I did not count and keep track of how big I would make the heart quilt. I just made hearts and put them on the wall till it was big enough. I sometimes had to go back to the scraps and cut more squares. I knew I would end with a few left overs but I was very close I ended up with eight extras. Not bad. Not sure what I will do with them. Maybe just put them in the box of orphan blocks. Someday I may make something with my orphan blocks.

Last week I had a few of you say you liked this heart quilt idea and may make your own. Great please do and if you have and questions please ask. I will say I did sashing because my scraps of neutrals had many 2" strips I could use. I think the other quilt I made years ago, I used the 4" hearts with 4" neutral blocks and not a sashing. This blocks of hearts and blocks of neutral maybe easer to do. You will still need to use some large triangles on the outer edges. For this quilt I had about half the outer triangles in the scrap box (left over from something) but when I needed more I cut a 10" square then cut it on both diagonals. By the way I have looked very hard for the photos of the old heart quilt. I may have not taken one. Opps. I gave it away to a guild charity and my only hope to find a photo now is to look in the old guild history books. They took photos of everything and have many many albums from show and tell. It was about 1998 or 1999 when I made it.

Wish Lex and I Luck. We have a Dog Agility Trial on Sunday. At least the temperature is starting to warm up ( high of -6C). The trial is indoors but just driving in the real cold (-30C) and going out to water our dogs can be so cold. The horse arena we use can be pretty cool too. I always forget to get photos. Maybe tomorrow I will get a couple.

Friday Night Sew In

2012-01-20T17:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight is a Friday Night Sew- In over at Crafty Vegas Mom

I plan to work in my Red Scraps some more. When will it end. I am going to try and finish the Red and Pink Heart quilt top.

I have been thinking of other ideas I could use my scraps for. If you happen to stumble by and have a good idea you did let me know. I am on the look out.

I have even been lurking on Pinterest but have not joined or made any pins yet. I like to know who made what and that pinning photos and not know were they come from bugs me. I may have to get more of my best photos watermarked just so if they end up there, other will know it was me.

Newfy Floor Mat

2012-01-20T08:02:00.025-07:00

This September my surface design group made floor mats. We gathered over two days to paint our canvas. I got the painting done but then there it sat of months. I needed to do many coats of sealer and then hem and glue down the edges to finish it. I got it done. It measures something like 24" by 32". I wanted to make a Newfoundland sea scape because of my Newfoundland background and the trips I have made to Newfoundland.

I love the art work of the Newfoundland artists over at The Grumpy Goat. They have a great Blog to follow along. I first was their work at the Newfoundland Craft council back in June of 2008 while in St John's. My maiden name is Manuel and my Grandfather was from Exploits Newfoundland. Newfoundland and Exploits has a special place in my heart. I wanted to make a floor mat that was in the style of the Grumpy Goat Artist's. I love the bright colours and the whimsy style. I do not have all the detail and professionally look they put into their work.

My whale with a spout. I am not sure what kind of whales you could see off the shores of Newfoundland. We did not see any. I have seen many Humpback Whales in Hawaii and Ocra Whales off shore of Victoria BC.

Other memories I have of my trip to Exploits were picking mussels on low tide to have for dinner. Harvesting some ice burg ice for our scotch just before dinner. Walking the grassy path on the east Island of Exploits. Uncovering the head stones of family members. One little girl died at age five and we share the same name, she was my Great Great Grandfather's daughter. They had 11 children and only four lived to be adults. We found Great Great Grandfather and Grandmothers head stone too.

In June of 2008 we saw many Icebergs. There was a great sized one at the opening of the Exploits Bay so my sea scape was getting a iceberg.

Here is Catherine's Head stone with some of her siblings. Some were also on the side panels.

Here is one photo of the iceberg outside the Exploits harbour in June of 2008. Can you see the Viking face in the ice. Helmet and nose and the long beard.

Long Arm Quilting

2012-01-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

I have been long arm quilting for other people for 13 years now. I have been very lucky to quilt with so many beautiful and well put together quilts. It is like magic to get a quilt top and see it become a real quilt with the added quilting. It so changes it.

This quilt was made by one of my customers who would like to stay anonymous. She bought a pattern and all new fabric to make this quilt. Sorry I do not know the pattern designer or the name of the pattern. She had so much fabric left over she made the second one on the bottom too.

The first one was a gift for a grandson. We decided to do the swirls.

For the second quilt made from the left over fabric. I was telling her about the disappearing nine patch pattern and after some family help she found the pattern on the internet and made it. She wanted the sunflowers all over the quilt.

Happy Quilt Bee Tuesday.

Goffy Dog and Kid photo. My youngest Son fell asleep like this on the foot stool.

Thanks for all the comments, I know some of you personally and other I am getting to know from your blog or comments. So nice to chat with you all.

Design Wall Monday 3

2012-01-16T07:50:00.036-07:00

It is the Third Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times this year Here. I have numbered my design wall Mondays to see if I can make about 40 this year. Even if I only have one little block to show you a hope to make my posts.

I got to work on my red hearts on Sunday. I made a post on Saturday about my Red scraps I have been working on part of the Rainbow Challenge 2012. Well I did OK in getting something more done. I got more red hearts and pink hearts completed and up on the design wall. I even sewed two rows together.

My four patch hearts started with 2 1/2" cut units (hearts finish to 4"). I have decided to use 2" cut sashing. I am working very hard to keep to using my smaller scraps first. I had to go looking for more red. I then found so much pink I just had to add it in. For the neutrals I had some 2 1/2" units and then had to cut a few more. I then had to go looking for small fat quarters or small yardage of older neutral fabric. There is no way I want to buy anything for this quilt. Just part of the challenge for myself.

My larger design wall still has Orca Bay Mystery on it and unchanged from last week. I guess I have slowed down on Orca Bay for the time being.

If you make a comment I know I am not just talking to myself. So Thanks

Happy Scrappy Saturday Red

2012-01-14T20:45:00.001-07:00

It is another Happy Scrappy Saturday over at Soscrappy Here is the linky page. I got more done on my four patch hearts. I had over thirty done when I started to put them on the wall. I quickly realized I did not have enough. I did not have much red left in my box but I dug around for more scraps and found more Reds. I also had so much pink I thought I should add Pink. My hearts are now pink and red. In digging for more scrap, guess what I found? more green. It is like it multiplies like bunnies.

I have found another site to add new or finished sew projects to. Here is a linky to Sew Darn Ways. Check out the site many sewing projects not just quilting.

Chain piecing more Red hearts. I did not tell you but my Pfaff was dieing before Christmas. So I asked for a new sewing machine. This is it. My sweet dear husband spoiled me and got me the new machine to replace my old Pfaff. I am really enjoying it. It has more options and more light then the old one. The old machine was 15 years old and had done a tonne or two of quilts.

More piles made but not up on the wall yet. Maybe by next weekend.

I am posting late on Saturday because Lex and I were at an aglilty dog trial today. We had one very good round with a pass and a first place in Snooker. The other two rounds were not to bad but not a pass. Each run today had some very good parts or improvements. It was a very good doggy day and lots of fun.

New Year of Quilt Challenges

2012-01-11T09:08:00.006-07:00

I have been hopping around Blog land looking at all the different challenges we could all do. There are so many and this is just a short list that I have considered.

I have decided to join Soscrappy`s Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012. I really like this one for a couple of reasons. One, it has so few rules. She has picked the colour Red to work on for January and on Saturdays we have a linky thing to post what we have worked on for the week. We do not have to use just scraps but it is a good time to start in the colour scrap bins. This challenge has me sorting the boxes of scraps in the colours of the rainbow. I want to know what colour is next. I have a couple of projects in mind for this challenge. Watch for my posts on Saturdays for this one.

Another one I will be keeping my eye on is over at Pleasant Home. The idea is to sew along on some of their projects. I will keep my eye open to see if there is something I really want to do. So far I have not started anything. But I think it is while worth a look.

Another Mystery quilt I think I may want to do is Just Takes 2. Twice a month they give us patterns for some of the blocks that will be used in the quilt. It runs all year long. I have not started because I have not decided what two fabrics I will use. I have the first set of patterns printed off. Now what colours. Being a Canadian I do like the idea of Red and White. But I am not a big fan of Red. And White in my house with brown hairy dog is not a good mix. It would be a quilt I make and then hide away because it would show so much dirt. What ever I do, I will need to buy fabric (or Dye white I have). I have signed up to get my email notice of each pattern, this way I hope not to miss out on any patterns.

Another challenge that I do not think I will do but wow many are doing it is Building Houses from Scrap. This is a Dutch site and has extended the registration till Jan 16, 2012 to take part, so just a few more days. The plan is to make a house block for each day of the year. That is 366 houses this year because it is a leap year. There are over 1300 following by mail and over 370 blog followers. That is going to be a lot of house blocks. She has started to post some photos of houses sent in by mail. She also has some hints on storing the block pieces. You should check it out. Maybe you want to make a small house quilt.

Over at Patchwork Times Judy is doing the Design Wall Monday`s. If you want to show a link to you blog and post what you have up on your wall ( or on the bed design wall). It is not really a challenge but I am planning to do many of these. I may miss a few but maybe if I could do 40 out of 52 weeks I will keep up with my blogging posts. Judy also does Stash reports and a UFO challenge. I do not think I want to know what fabric I use or buy. I also do not like the guilt of a UFO challenge ( I made a post about my lists earlier this month). I know it can keep many of you accountable to yourselves but I have to stay away from the guilt it may create for me.

Let me know what you have thought of trying this year. What else is out there. I would love to hear from you.

Quilting for Betty

2012-01-10T08:57:00.003-07:00

My Mom, Betty has been working on some charity quilts. She sends them to me for quilting. This is another one and I thought I would do the spirals on it. You can see it is a log cabin type quilt. I am not sure but I think it is the Pineapple Blossom pattern from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.

We belong to two quilt guilds. The Leduc Black Gold Quilt Patch and the Edmonton and District Quilter`s Guild. They both have great Charity projects underway. I am not sure were this quilt will be going. Mom has four or five quilts for charity on the go. I did another one before Christmas, an eye spy baby quilt but I forgot to get a photo, maybe next week before she gives it away.

Thank You all for the comments. I love them. It keeps me sharing if I know you are out there looking at my quilts. I love to share my work. I joined the quilt guilds because the show and share or show and tell is the best part.

Happy Bee Group Tuesday.

Design Wall Monday 2

2012-01-09T08:21:00.000-07:00

I have two design walls in my sewing room. I have the Orca Bay Mystery up on my larger wall today and nothing on the smaller wall. I have been sewing my rows together and just have a little left to do and then I will be on to the boarders. I am being very careful on the row sewing and trying to not lose any points. I find that I want to be fresh and not do this type of sewing at the end of the day. So I feel a little slow this week.

I have also gotten back to work quilting and did some cleaning in my room on Sunday. I did not want to do clean for the new year but it is just time to clean part of my room. I am sure no one will ever guess I did do some cleaning, as it is so packed it will still be a mess. Lots more cleaning to be done. I should have done a before and after photo. I already have most of a three foot high stack on the orange table sorted and put away, but still need to find the orange surface. I may need to buy a few bins and start a pile for give away. Mostly magazines need hauling out.

The box with the boarder pieces still in it. This box was used to hold all my pieces as each step can out.

Check out the other work on Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times Today.

Happy Scrappy Saturday

2012-01-07T08:15:00.044-07:00

I have another block to add to my Rainbow Scrap Quilt, part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012. I love making these blocks. I now have two red ones so I think I will be making two of each colour in my quilt or maybe I will be making two quilts. I can always give one quilt away.

If you want to make some with me here is what I am doing. I sorted my scraps into colour families. I start by make a 6 inch (6 and half inches unfinished) centre using my scraps. I make what every I think I have scraps for. Maybe triangles or the log cabin, or a pin wheel, if it is not big enough add a strip on a side or two. I try to look for some contrast within my 6 inch unit. Then I cut 1 and half inch Kona white strips and frame it with the white. Then back to the scrap box for my strips. I make a strip set with some of the strips. I try to get it 13wide by 11 inches long. The strips that are too short go at one end. Again I look at having some contrast here. I cut 2 and a half inch wide strips off the strip set. If some are short of 12 inches they go on the block first as it only needs to be 8 half long on two sides. Then add the 12 inch long pieces to the outside last. If you are short just add a little more of a scrap. The blocks finish to 12 inches (12 and a half unfinished size).

I got a few red hearts done this week too.

Today is Happy Scrappy Saturday over at Soscrappy and is part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012. Soscrappy has done the linky thing Here for the first week of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I also have the logo over on the right margin if you want to check it out and join in the fun. This month we are working on the colour Red. As I now have two red blocks for the rainbow quilt I needed to do something else. Years and years ago, I made a pink heart quilt by making the little four patch units and placing them on point. The quilt was given to charity. I am sure I took a photo but it would be a film camera, over 10 yrs ago. I will post if I can find it later. I dug in my box of red and used some of my bigger scraps to cut 2 and a half inch units. I had a stack of neutral squares ready to go. Some of the reds were 5 inch squares I got at CQA Quilt Canada St John`s Newfoundland in June 2008. They were in my goody bag. Memories of scraps are great.

I found another box of scraps to sort out yesterday. Most of the scraps were of good sized hand dyes and most were green, again. My box of green scrap is really over flowing. I am not sure I want to make green hearts and will have to come up with more scrap ideas to make a dent in the green.

I am heading out with the Dog to a Agility Fun Trial Day. Everyone else is home enjoying the last of the holidays, school work again Monday.

Tin Box Exchange Box 2

2012-01-03T12:59:00.001-07:00

I have finished my block for the Leduc Guild Tin Box Exchange for this month. Our meeting is on Wed night were I will exchange my box for the next one. This is only round 2 out of 6. Our Tin boxes are 9 inches and our blocks are to be no larger than 8 and a half inches. This is Box 2 and it has a theme of Spring and we were given the green fabric to use in the block. I found this block first on Amy`s Blog. But it is a pattern from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville and was pictured Here. Thanks Amy and Bonnie for block idea. The block name is Jack in the Box. Ha Ha I did a block for the box named Jack in the Box. The half square triangles are finished to 2 inches, so my block will finish up at 8 inches. I was very good and went to my green scraps to get the other green fabrics, in the spirit of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for 2012.

The block on the left, the Fan, was completed by someone else last month. You can see the green fabric at the top left, it is required that we use a piece of the green in our block. Also in the box is a small book to write any notes about our blocks. The fan block has the template in the book.
At the end of six month we will draw names and win one of the boxes that we worked on. Then there is a challenge to complete a wall quilt using our new blocks.

Happy Quilt Bee Day, or Tuesday.

Design Wall Monday and Orca Bay Mystery steps 7 and 8

2012-01-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

I got Star Struck top done late on New Years Eve. I asked you last week what boarder I should use. I also took the quilt over to my mom's and asked her for help. She is a very good quilter and level 3 judge with the Canadian Quilter's Association. I knew the answer before she told me. The pin wheels were too small in scale. They were smaller than the other units in the body and the scale was not going to work. So rather than fuss with more bigger units I decided to simply put the Dark Blue boarder on my quilt. I had never planned to make this a extra hard or fancy. I just wanted to do some simple patchwork and make a quilt for the living room. I started this on Nov 1st when Bonnie Hunter said she was going to do the mystery starting Nov 19. I could not wait I had to start something, so her Star Struck pattern it was. Now to add it to the pile of flimsies that need quilting ( build a backing too). Not sure when I will get it quilted. I have others in the line up. I am posting this to Patchwork Times Design Wall Monday.

Orca Bay Mystery is on the way. I have been able to keep up. It has driven me to sew more these past few weeks. The top photo is in the sunlight and has better colour, the photo below is at night and only the room lights but it shows more and the one row set done. The row sewing is slow but I am happy with how it is going together. I was very worried about the black geese parts giving me trouble. There is stretch and give every were in the blocks. So many pieces and so heavy. It will be lovely when done. My Mom has been working hard on her quilt. She was away at the start and is trying to get caught up. She is on step 5 - this was the hardest part to keep going for me. I am not sure how my other local quilt friends are doing on the mystery. I have not seen too many photos on face book the past week or two. My Auntie posted photos of her's last night on her blog. Check out the different colours she is using Here. To see more still, check out Bonnie Hunter's Linky thing .

2012 Goals and UFO lists

2012-01-01T23:19:00.001-07:00

Great fabric from Hawaii. I need to make a quilt with this fabric. One goal for 2012. Start Hawaii quilt. Maybe finish it in 2012.

I have been thinking on the subject of UFO lists for days now. I now dislike making a list of UFO's and forcing myself to finish the list. Or feeling guilty because I did not do enough from my UFO list. I already make "to do list" for long arm quilting for my customers and when it is time to work on my projects, I need to do what I feel like working on. I have spent years working on class samples and then years getting art quilts ready for art galleries and shows. I have finished quilts for show deadlines only to not use it because it is travelling for the next two years. I was getting burned out. I have rediscovered the fun in sewing for myself this past year and some of that fun is working on what I want to work on, not a deadline. I will make some deadlines for myself but no guilt if I do not get it done. No hard deadlines and no guilt for my lists. Fun Fun Fun and a handful of colour is the plan.

I will make a UFO list and a list of New Projects. I may or may not finish some. I have no goals to finish them all but to just work on my list of old and new quilts. I know I will be happy to sew and get some done. I will plan to revisit my list and update it a few times a year.

New Projects

- Plaid quilt for Son #2 (we just talked last week about what he would like)

- Hawaii Quilt (because the fabric is fun)

- Bonnie Hunter's Mystery from 2010 RRCB - I love this quilt, might need one

- Pamela Allen Class Project - Class is in April signed up and paid

- 2nd Scrap quilt (start with scraps from Bad to the Bone)

- maybe 3rd scrap quilt

- 2 Fabric Christmas Trees

- Tin box exchange with the Leduc Quilt Guild

- Brightly coloured Fabric book

- Maybe another Mystery From Guild or Bonnie Hunter if she does another one next Nov.

- A felted project or two - Santa gave me an embellisher

- Gift for Edmonton Guild Endowment Fund Raiser - not sure what yet

I am sure to add to this list.

UFO's to work on- I plan to work on some but not finish all. This is not a list of all my UFO's, Just some I plan to work on.

- Orca Bay Mystery from Bonnie Hunter - finish piecing top, quilt, backing, bind

- Dog's Food Quilt - Binding only left ( got the quilting done yesterday)

- Bad to the Bone - Quilt, bind

- Log Cabin Plaid Quilt - backing fix the hole, quilt, bind

- Star Struck in Lime - Backing, quilt, bind ( got top done on New Years Eve last night)

- Spider Web Quilt - Piece blocks together, backing, quilt, bind

- Rainbow Scrap Quilt - more Blocks, and much more, not sure how big to go.

- House wall quilt - finish top, quilt, bind

- Flower prints 16 and 4 patch blocks - make a plan and build a top

- Old UFO class project thing - dig it out, work on quilt top - rename this

- Green Chevron - more piecing

- Whole Cloth quilt from Karen McTavish class - Thick batt with wash away, cutting away batt, quilt, bind

- Susan Shie class wall quilt - quilt, bind ( there are two of these)

- Felted fabric under water scene - what to do next ?

- Felted scarf - more design work, and Where is it?

- Gift for Laural - appliqué block, Need to find it first.

- Leaves hand appliquéd on Snow Dyed fabric (Should get a photo and show you)

- Baltimore Hand Appliqué - more blocks, start another block

I have blocks for two samplers sitting in boxes, a sampler that needs quilting, another large top that needs boarders and quilting, many unfinished class projects, an advent calendar, the list is too long. I am afraid to list every single UFO, as I know I will not finish them all. This sounding like guilt talking, stop it.

Goal for 2012 - I plan to work on some of the projects on my lists. I know I will finish many but not all of the quilts and sewing projects. Have fun sewing, no guilt.

Orca Bay Mystery step 6

2011-12-31T16:21:00.000-07:00

I am late in posting these photos but here is step 6. They are Ohio Star blocks. I got them done this week and yesterday I got started on step 7. I thought I would still show you and show you how I was playing around with the different blocks. Step 7 already shows me I have it wrong but it was still fun to play with the arrangement. I plan to spend New Years Eve doing some sewing on step 7. Step 8 and I think the final step is to be release New Years Day. I hope to get some more sewing on Orca Bay on Sunday too. Maybe I can finish next week.

I got the quilting done on the Dog's Food quilt today. Binding next. I have to pick out what - maybe black. I will get photos when it is all done. The back shows the cool quilting I did.

Rainbow Scrap Saturday

2011-12-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

I spotted This Quilt in November and wanted to make one kind of like it. I wanted to use the scrap of scraps to make my blocks. I started the brown one in the last week of Nov and did the pink and lime early in Dec. This past week I got the true red and green blocks done. Over at Soscrappy it is Scrap Saturday were we can post a link for our scrap projects we are working on. Today is the last one for 2011 but she will be working on the challenge again in 2012. I am ahead of the game for 2012 (not behind for 2011). Check it out and join in the fun.

My boxes with what I have left for Red and Green. These two piles are some of the larger piles of scraps I have. I will need to do more scrap busting to get these piles down. I know I have bags and boxes and piles of scraps that could be sorted, only making these boxes fuller. I need more sorting and more sewing the scraps.

I have this shoe box with a pile of scraps left from the 'Bad to the Bone" quilt. I want to make a small quilt using some of these prints, as many of the fabrics do not fit in a colour family as well as others do. I was considering lots of white added in. Some are the trimmings and have great little strips cut and ready to use.

I got my scrap tree really done in time to give at Christmas. It is on the base and glued in place. Sorry for the sun light in the photo but my wall area gets sun in the morning just before I wrapped it. My sister in law looked happy to get it. I think my Mom may have been a little jealous. I may have to make her one for next year. It can be made with mostly scraps too. I think I want one too.

I guess I have just commented to a few new scrap projects for the new year.
- Rainbow blocks (need a better name)
- Print scrap quilt
- Two fabric trees

I have been working on a UFO list and now I will have a list of new projects too.

2011 Recap Missed Quilts

2011-12-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

I sit under this finished quilt as I write this blog post. I had sometime this summer and fall when I did not have a camera and fell behind on blogging. Tonight I thought I would show you what I did complete this past year.

I started this quilt in the fall of 2010 and put it aside till Sept 2011 when I quilted it. I had it ready for the Leduc guild quilt show in October. I quilted a little different this time, making sure to quilt the units in the rows.

Fish Pond Quilt got quilted in Aug or Sept 2011 and also in time for the Oct quilt show. I was really happy to finish this one. I feel this quilt helped me get my sewing MoJo back on track. Sometime in 2009 and all throughout 2010 I had trouble finding the joy in quilting. I was in a funk. Have any of you had trouble sewing for the joy of it? I still did the long arm quilting for my customers but did not hang out in my sewing room to work on my quilts. Why was I quilting? Why did it matter? This one was fun to finish yet it was still a challenge. I do not always do patterns. I like to make my own way.

The detail of Fish Pond Quilt. I spent a few(5) days quilting this one. I know one day was spend digging out and looking for patterns I could quilt with. I also used some 12 wt thread for some of the quilt patterns. Much of the work was free hand. It turned out great. After the guild quilt show, I left it in the living room to use. My son #2 now snuggles under it tonight.

Custom saddle pad for horse back riding. I used a few recycled wool blankets and some wool batting and a black cotton on top. It was thick to quilt and I had some thread troubles but I was pleased. It has the straps to hook on to my saddle and girth and stay in place when I ride. The other side has my horses name on it. It was finished in Aug of 2011 and is well used already this year.

This is the dog quilt. I got the top done at retreat in Oct. It now is on the quilt machine and should be done very soon. It is the disappearing nine patch. I am still laughing at a junk food quilt for the dog. All his favourite foods.

One last small sewing project. A bag for our high line ropes when we tie the horses in the mountains. It is made with the leg of a old pair of jeans. It close and holds the rope from running every were. And it can be hung up.

I am considering on making a list of my UFO. I have many, and many are very old. I know I will not finish them all this year nor will I every finish them all. Some UFO may never get done. I think we out grow some projects. Maybe an old class project or a pattern that you did not like once you started it. I also have some smaller quilts that I was playing 'What if' and has no plans to finish as the What if was not working but I have learned from some of them still. I will work on my list and maybe just limit it to quilts I want to finish sooner.

Happy New Year

Blocks for Star Struck

2011-12-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

I got all the blocks done for my Star struck lime green quilt. It was a pattern I found on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville web site. It is boxing day and Design wall Monday over at Patchwork Times. I think I am going to use the Blue fabric for a 4 inch boarder. I was thinking of using the extra little triangle in pin wheels and do all the extra piecing for the boarder and make it in lime green but now I like the calming of the blue. What do you think?

I hope to make a post about my orca bay mystery quilt soon. I have my white star blocks done but I still have not got one black block done. Maybe on on Tuesday.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T12:32:00.001-07:00

Merry Christmas to everyone. This is Lex our sweet Dog. He is wearing his Christmas collar and sitting nice and pretty for my photo. Funny thing from early in the week. Every one but me and the dog were in bed and the dog got sniffing the presents under the tree. One small box for son #2 from son #1 got badly attacked. The dog went nuts for it. Ripping paper and removing the tag and ribbon. I had to take it away. Then in the morning I found he had also chewed a few box corners. What a beast.

Here he is with his holee roller. He just loves to chase these down.

Snow Garden Quilt

2011-12-21T08:54:00.014-07:00

This is another customers quilt I quilted this past November. It is a Christmas gift for her mother in France. I thought it looked a little like a snowflake or a winter flower. I gave it the name Snow Garden Quilt, not my customer. I am not sure if this is a pattern or not. The flower points are curved with a cathedral window curve that is stitched back.

Today is the shortest day of the year, and so very dark every morning and afternoon. Our weather has been not to bad for winter so far but it is still winter. We are expecting just above freezing on the 24th and 25th. Thinking of flowers and gardens are a must. I moved my orchids around yesterday. Making sure I have all the blooming ones upstairs to enjoy. The photos below is from Maui this past March. Looking at it fills me with the feeling of warm sunshine and happy memories.

Maureen's Snowmen

2011-12-20T08:53:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy long arm quilting for my customers this past while. This is one of the more Christmas like quilts I have done. Maureen made this flannel snowmen quilt and asked me to quilt it for her. It is a Christmas present. We used many spirals all over the quilt except were the faces were. I love to do spirals all over by free hand.

This is most of the quilt. I have been taking the overall photos with the quilt draped over the frame of the machine. It is not always the best photo but it gives you an idea for the whole quilt. If I really need a good all over photo I have to go to my mom's house. She has a large design wall in the basement were we take our photos for quilt shows and have better lights too.

I hope you all enjoy Tuesday Quilt Bee. Thank You also for all the great comments this past while. The comments keep me going. I love to share my work with you but if I do not get comments I start to wonder why am I doing this. So the comments keep me going. Thank You. Also welcome new followers. I have had a few new followers added this past month.

Design Wall Monday

2011-12-19T13:14:00.001-07:00

I made this on the week end. It is not done yet but almost. I have to paint the dowel and the base that my dad has helped me with. I have the parts on a dowel to show you what it looks like. It is a gift for a another sister in law. She already has a pot cover like I showed last week. I am going to add my post to Judy's Design Wall Monday. Check it out Here.

I was inspired by a tin decoration I saw at Canadian Tire but knew I could make one in fabric. First I drew out a pattern and made plastic templates. I drew the first shape on to phone book pages like Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville would do. I did flip and sew on to the paper. I did two pieces that are mirror images of each others.

I used fusible stiff stuff. I forget the name of it. The tag on the roll I have is long gone. I layered each piece of patchwork with a new backing and quilted each piece. Six tree pieces and two star pieces. Once quilted I cut out the correct size and shape. All of the patch work that I did was from my scraps of red and green. I had them out because I was going to do a red block and green block for the Rainbow scrap quilt. That quilt has been inspired by Soscrappy and the ScrapHappy Saturday Here. She also has a give way to celebrate 1000 posts.

I then stitched a zig zag around the outside edges in gold thread. Then I stitched the two halves together leaving a hole at the top on the two bottom units. The star also had a hole at the bottom and was stitched to the top of the tree. The dowel will then hold each piece in place. I am going to go paint my dowel and base today and when dry I can do the final step. I am hoping I can use a glue gun to get each unit to sit on the dowel were I want them too.

Orca Bay Mystery #5 and Cookies

2011-12-19T12:43:00.001-07:00

It is Monday and Bonnie Hunter has the Linky thing up for our progress on her Orca Bay Mystery. I did not get all of step 5 done yet but maybe just short of half of 350. I like this photo of the colour units added in than just black and white. I love working on Black and white but we have done 3 out of 5 steps in black and white.

Here we are making cut out Christmas cookies. These are a family favorite, I have been making them since I was 13 or so. They are a recipe that my great grandmother used, I remember visiting her and getting a animal cookie with coloured sprinkles on it.

I make up the batter the night before and refrigerate. Then we dig out the large bucket of cookie cutters and roll out the dough. The boys are getting big enough that they cut many cookies and are a big help to decorate. We add sprinkles and sugar all before the cookies are baked.

Both boys at work on cookies. I got a photo of the oldest. He hinds and stays far way from the camera.

A tray of cookies finished and cooling. They always brighten up the cookie plate.

Disappearing Nine Patch

2011-12-16T08:12:00.001-07:00

This is food fabric for a Dog quilt. Yes My sweet dog needs his own quilt. He had surgery this week and is doing well but hates the cone. I wanted a quick quilt so I have gone with Disappearing Nine Patch. It is also the same fabric I used for my casserole covers from yesterday. If you want a quick quilt this is it. Follow along if you have not made this block before.

First I sewed the nine patch blocks together. I think I used 6" squares. I know some have used 5 inch square. Just keep them all the same size. Note my black fabric in the middle.

Once sewn. Press seams and cut right down the middle. Both up and down and left and right. See the black fabric from the middle is cut into four smaller square units.

Now the fun part. Give the new units a twist. Turn them. There are a couple of different ways to lay them out now. Play around and see what you like the best. See were you like the little square ( Black Bones in my quilt). Then sew them back together again. You now have a new block.

We are spoiling the dog big time. He hates the cone he has to wear and does not do well in his kennel for the night. Wines the whole time, so the first night my husband slept with him on the floor. And I plan to tonight. This way he wears the cone and can not lick but will sleep without the noise.

Christmas Gifts 2011

2011-12-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

I can celebrate. I got all my customers quilts done for Christmas, just this past hour. Now I can work on my gifts.

This is a dutch oven and quilted cover to take to a pot luck party. I made this one for a dog trial prize draw early this month. I have one more to finish for a family gift. I am laughing, I got my sister in law's name this year and wanted to give her this, bought the pot early, on sale. Well then she sent her list out and guess what was top of her list. A dutch oven, so I did well.

I used some disappearing nine patch blocks using some food fabric. Did you notice the bones? My way of getting dog related fabric in. I will show you how I did the disappearing nine patch on Friday. I am still working on what I need to say so I get it correct.

Tuesday Quilting Christmas Quilt

2011-12-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

This is one of my customer's quilts that I did earlier this year. It is her Christmas applique quilt. It has turned out so nice. I did not have a camera this summer and did not get the photos at my house, like I would normally do. She entered the quilt in the Black Gold Quilt Patch Show (October Leduc Quilt Show) were I as able to get the photos. I got a new camera for my birthday. The old camera was lost at the Edmonton and Distinct Guild Quilt Show in June. It just never came home with me. Not sure what happened to the camera.

Tuesday as when my Quilting Bee would meet. This fall I am in a Dog Agility class on Tuesdays and many of our members are traveling for the winter. We are not meeting much these days but I still feel Tue is quilt day. So I try to make a post instead. Maybe Shawna will stop by and check up on us.

Orca Bay Step 4 and Design Wall Monday

2011-12-12T09:10:00.003-07:00

Step 4 of the Orca Bay Mystery came out on Friday. I have worked hard on this step for a few days over the weekend. I am not using the suggested Red but Pink instead. I have a red pop up once in a while as Pink is really just a shade of red. The pile on the left has all the paper removed and the smaller pile to the right still needs the paper removed. I did do all the blocks with Bonnie's paper foundation method. To check out more of what other bloggers are doing check out Bonnie's Linky thing. There are a few people using different colours. Some of my local quilt friends are working hard on this mystery too (Kathy, Kathryn, Elizabeth, Betty, Arley). It will be fun to see how many finish and can keep up. My mom plans to do this but has only started step one and then went traveling. She has step two printed and sealed in an envelope. She will have to do the same for step 3 and 4 when she gets home. My ante Arley is working on her's. I think it is because she did the last two mysteries and they turned out so well that it has encouraged me to do this one.

It is also Design Wall Monday over at Patchwork Times . I am working on doing some scrap blocks for a rainbow quilt. It was over at Soscrappy that I saw This Quilt. I have to make one like it. On Saturdays she hosts 2011 Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I only started in Nov 2011 (not Jan) but I love the quilt she has made. The month of Dec is Red and Green. These are mine Pink and Lime Green, not very Christmas like. I have some Reds set aside to do a good red block yet this month. And I can sort out the darker green ones for later this month too. If you have noticed I am not doing the inside on my blocks the same, each is different. The middle part of my blocks are 6" and anything goes. Then I put a 1" white around then a 2" strip pieced, to finish my block at 12".

Happy sewing this week. I planning to get more long arm quilt done, then some baking tonight.

Christmas Baking Started

2011-12-10T12:37:00.000-07:00

I just finished mixing up my Blond Fruit cake for Christmas. It is in the oven for the next four hours. I got the receipt from my aunt Myrna a few years back and have been making it since. I wish I could get better Pecans fresh from Texas. My dad traveled for work to Huston almost monthly when he was working and in Nov he would bring back Pecans for Christmas baking. These three little cakes have over $14.00 in pecans and I can bet they are last years crop. Not as good as what Dad would bring home. I would make Pralines if I could get fresher pecans.

I can now head to my sewing room and work on a customers quilt. Last night I started step 4 of Orca Bay Mystery. It will take sometime to get step 4 done.

Karen McTavish Whole Cloth Class

2011-12-10T12:32:00.000-07:00

This is Karen McTavish and Me, Cathy, yesterday in class. Karen got me giggling in the photo. I did have a good time. Karen was an excellent teacher. One of Karen's quilts is behind us.

Me working a way at my whole cloth design. Matt Sparrow took the photo for me. He wanted to see more cleavage. Can you guess we had a lot fun in the class. Matt and Bradie had a great breakfast and lunch out for us.

I started my whole cloth with a piece of Kona cotton that was 44" by 62". I knew that, not starting square was going to create some troubles for me but I wanted to work though it. I love a diamond in a square layout but it looked like that was going to be hard to do. I did a princess feather boarder and a diamond in the middle with a stencil pattern. Then I have an area above and below the diamond to fill in. I found another feather to use. It worked out well.

Karen teaching us about background fillers. Some need to be marked and others can be left to do free hand. Below here we are holding up our works of art. Overall a very good class. I did take a class from Pepper Cory years ago and maybe I could have done one on my own. I will do one on my own now.

Orca Bay Mystery Step 3

2011-12-08T11:57:00.002-07:00

So last Friday Bonnie Hunter released the step 3 of the Orca Bay mystery. I was very busy on the Friday and the rest of the weekend with a Christmas Party and a Dog Agility Trial. I finally have had sometime to sew in the evenings for myself. I have all 350 little (2"unfinished size) triangle sewn and a few more (maybe 100) to trim up. I should be good to go and sew on step 4 on Friday night.

I will see if I can still do the linky thing on Bonnie's Blog. It is Here if you want to see more about step three. If you think you may want to do this quilt you should be printing the pages as she releases them. I think it is May she will be taking the quilt steps off her blog as it will be printed in her new book. Or you can wait for the new book sometime later in the year.

Friday in the day I am in a class with Karen McTavish the machine quilting goddess. She is in Edmonton this week. Tonight is the trunk show at the Sherwood Park Quilt Guild. This week she is teaching a large arrangement of quilting classes. Friday is Whole Cloth Design which I am taking. I have my fabric washed and dried but not ironed and squared up yet. I also have to go to the quilt store and get a handful of those pen wash out pens. I do wish I had more money to take more of her classes but with Christmas coming I am only in one. I will let you know how it goes.

Tin Box Exchange - Leduc Guild

2011-12-07T16:55:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the Black Gold Quilt Patch Meeting and Christmas Party. Last month we started a tin box exchange and I joined in. This is the block I did for the box this month. My box #3 had a orange fall themed fabric and I was to use a piece of the fabric in my block. The block can not be bigger than 8 1/2" in size so that it still fits in the 9" box. I did a star and also got these little bonus pinwheels too. I am going to include them in the box. I hope the other ladies got their boxes done and bring them to exchange tonight. Each box has a theme and a piece of fabric. Also is a little book to write down any note or were you got the pattern from. At the end of six months when each box should be done with six blocks, we draw names. If you added a block to the box you get a chance to win the box of blocks. Everyone will go home with one box. We are then challenged to make a small wall quilt with our blocks.

The internet repair man was to our house today so let us hope this is the end of all the troubles. So far OK. I was busy at a Dogs At Large agility trail all weekend. We got one passing in the Started Standard class and two other classes we were less then a sec from a pass. We had time faults. My dog visited the jump crew a few times. He is too friendly. Over all he was very good at the trial and we both enjoyed ourselves. I did not take any photos but I did have someone take video of all our rounds. Maybe I will get them loaded on to my you tube challenge someday and show you the link in case there are other dog friendlies out there. I think I want to do some editing and I need to learn that first.

Best get to that Christmas Party now.

Orca Bay Step Two Done

2011-11-28T08:21:00.001-07:00

I got my Orca Bay Mystery Step Two Done. It took me three days (evenings really) to do it all. Wow what a step. I did most of the squares with Bonnie's paper method. I had to try the strip piece method and then cut them out too. I did about 30 that way. The blocks are not as cute. The individually done paper blocks used the very small pieces and have more personality. Bonnie is doing the linky thing again Here. I will not get step three done by the following Monday as next weekend is a Dog Agility trial. I will be dogging it all next weekend.

I started by sorting my scraps out. I got out brown as it was Brown this month for Soscrappy Saturday. I need the blue for step two. I am guessing I will need the pink (for my Red) in the OB Mystery.

My phone book pages were from a 2003/2004 book. I laughed at cutting up Alder Flats, Bashaw and Beaumont. Many more pages for the next step.

Scraps every were. Note the keep me going food, a coke and chocolate.

I did this block on the weekend as I said it was brown month for Soscarppy Saturday. I just love This Quilt . I need to make it. I am 10 months behind on starting the Saturday scrap thing but oh well. I got November done. Most of the triangles in the middle are from the end of joining up binding, so really scrappy. I do not toss the cute little triangles out. I will also plan to link this with Design Wall Monday at Judy's

Here are the blue scraps when I got done. I found many more 2" strips after I got started and I cut some more one night when I have getting to the end and I think I went over board. The next morning I looked at what I had cut and thought Oh No, I cut way too many. I hope I can use more in another step.

Internet trouble

2011-11-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

I am having bad internet troubles this week. I started up my blog again and then have trouble with the internet. I love all your comments and love to hear from you all but if you get no reply from me this next week or so, Sorry I will catch up. Sewing my Orac Bay like crazy. I will get photos and another post soon even if I have to go to mom's computer.

First Quilt

2011-11-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville is having a link to share our first quilt. This trip around the world is my very first quilt made in 1995. I took a class with my mom, Betty. Jan Gravey was our teacher. I remember having to be shown how to sew a 1/4 inch seam and thought that was hard. The other ladies were so fast. The class was just one day so I did not get much done that first day. My mom had quilted when I was a child in the 70's and in her last few years of work the 90's, she had singed up for many new quilt classes. How the rotary cutter had changed things. Mom helped me finish the quilt by showing me all the steps she had learned. Miter corners, basting and machine quilting, sewing on binding like she had learned. I have not used this quilt much. It was too special to start with and now the others are nicer.

This was not my second quilt but it an early one and has a special place in our house. This is the first quilt I made for my husband Brad. Our first Baby Wyatt was born midway though making it. I gave it to my husband for Christmas that year 1997. I remember him coming into the sewing room and saying "hay I like that. What is it for?" Crap he knows I am making it now. It is the most worn out and used quilt. The kids are always trying to take it first as it is so soft. I did not quilt it but I tied it with red floss. It has a red fabric that is rotting and falling apart. Rather than fix those patches I made Brad a New Quilt two years ago. He is not sharing the new quilt. My boys have many of their own quilts but like to steal dad's quilts.

Pizza Box Exchange Quilt

2011-11-24T08:04:00.006-07:00

This past October the Black Gold Quilt Patch (based in Leduc) had their biannual fall quilt show. I was very busy getting many quilts done for customers, my mom Betty and myself. This is a quilt I finished in time to put in the show. I got the quilt top done last year but it sat unquilted like so many of my quilt tops do. My mom had helped get the quilt top done for me last year.

The block of the month or pizza box exchange was started over two years ago with 9 ladies. We each got a box and put some fabric we wanted used into the box. All of the blocks were to be 12 1/2". I also put a little note book so the ladies could write about the block they used. I put black, and other brights in my box and asked for garden theme blocks. I also added the English pieced blooms as they were leftover form another quilt that is done. Each month we would exchange the boxes and work on one block. I got behind at one time and had three boxes at my house. So bad. All the boxes did get done. Many of the other quilt tops have not been done yet. One was sewn up and given to charity quick quick. My mom's quilt is done and one other got done.

I used a black wool fabric for batting. It is a heavy little quilt. I have quilted the black with a curly vein pattern that I do free hand. I hope you have enjoyed seeing it finished finally. If you want to see more about the project check out Block of the month for the older posts.

Happy USA Thanksgiving. Here in Canada we have to work today. We do have some sale this week.

Braided Row Quilt

2011-11-22T08:39:00.001-07:00

Today is Tue and I have returned to blogging after a rest. I normally had my Quilt Bee group on Tue but we are not meeting much these days. I thought on Tue I would make a quilt related post. Well here is a beauty of a quilt by one of my customers. She left the ideas for quilting up to me. I took a while to decide what I should do on it. I am very very pleased with what I chose to do. I hope you enjoy seeing it. I must get back to quilting this morning not much time today.

Top for Bad to the Bone

2011-11-21T09:35:00.000-07:00

I got the top done at retreat last month. When I got home I just had to put it up on the wall for a while. I did not have a back for it but my mom found some on sale in her travels. Now I have to wait for her to return home next week. We will see if I like it or not? I will have to quilt it over the Christmas holidays as I still have many customers quilting for Christmas to do.

This pattern is from one of Kaffe Fassett's books. Simple shapes or something. I can not find the book at the moment. I saw one complete at Earthly Goods and I knew I just had to do the quilt. I called it my "Bad to the Bone" quilt because I had so many on the go, I was very bad to start another one. I guess at Earthly Goods they have a kit for sale to do this quilt but I am not a kit person. The best part is finding the fabric and pick out what I want to use.

Today is Monday, So here is the link to Judy's Design Wall Monday. Thanks for stopping by. I love comments It is what keeps me going so please comment. I will check out your blog too if you have one and comment. Thanks.

Orca Bay Step One Done

2011-11-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

I got them done last night. I completed the 224 hour glass triangles required. I did a few extras as I had trouble counting anything. I think the little piles have 10 in each but then they got mixed up at one time. Bonnie Hunter is doing a Link Page so check it out if you have not come here from that link already.

I used the "start with a square" technique and sew down the 1/4" from the middle line then cut and iron. Then butt the seams together and sew a 1/4" down the middle again a cut and iron. I hate fabric dog ears so I cut them off. Love real dog ears, soft and brown and floppy. he he.

I have used mostly black and white fabric but I let little bits of colour in the black or in the white. I have some great mini dots that I just love. Should be a great quilt. I can not wait till Friday again.

Orca Bay Mystery starts today

2011-11-18T13:58:00.002-07:00

I have added the Orca image to my side bar today. I started the hourglass squares today. I got 9 done and then went to work. I will get sometime tonight to work on more. I am doing the triangles by starting with a 3 1/4" square of the two fabrics. I do not have many strips in black (three) to use. I think is is easier to cut the squares from yardage.

I have a few friends joining me in the mystery. Kathy, Margaret, June, Arley, Elizabeth, Kathryn, Laural, and maybe my mom Betty. I hope they will send me photos or post on there blog (Arley and Margaret have blogs) and then I can share them with you.

I thought I would show you the quilt I got done yesterday. This is a very large quilt made by Sarah one of my customers. It is her first really big quilt. I just love the colours, soft greens and blue with brown. We got a lots of snow in the past day and half so maybe after my husband plows the driveway Sarah and I can meet up and get her quilt back to her. Oh look there are hour glass triangles in the quilt.

Saturday is an agility fun match for me and my dog. It is being hosted by Sherwood Park Barks. I always look forward to these "Best Doggy Day Every".

Fabric Picked Out for Mystery Quilt

2011-11-17T09:00:00.017-07:00

I am planning to do Bonnie Hunter's Orca Bay Mystery, it starts tomorrow with step one. Here is a laundry basket of fabric I have picked out to use in the quilt. I am going to use mostly hot pinks and some red were she has Red. Then for the Blues I plan to use a lot of turquoise and medium blues. For my neutrals I am going to use many whites that have some kind of print of colour. I have mostly whites with bits of black. I also have some great coloured dots in the mix. For the blacks I did not have much until I went to my black with bits of white stack.

Are you going to join me? I would love to see your links to your Orca Bay Mystery too. Please share your links in the comments.

I raided my bin of real scraps and boxes of pre cut strips. I got a small bin filled with the colours I need. I am sure I have more than the 17 yards of fabric all together. Ha maybe more like 70 yards and could do many more quilts. I may have to make a pieced backing to show a dent in all this fabric.

These four fabrics are in the laundry pile and need washing. But I was thinking I may use some of these too. I love the red dots, makes me think of Minnie Mouse's dress. What do you think of the crazy lime green dot on black. We will see if I use it or not.

Yes I wash all my fabric. My last load of dark fabric had a runner in it and needs to be washed again. I would like to know if I am going to have a runner before I use it in a quilt. I wash so much dyed fabric it feels like little trouble to wash all the others too. I also like to know how wimpy a fabric is going to get when the sizing is washed out. Sometimes fabric smells when I bring it home and washing takes care of that too.

Were Have I Been

2011-11-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

So sorry, life has been so busy and I have let blog land down. I am back and feeling I have so much to tell you. Where to start. - how about the newest quilt I have started.

This is Star Struck a pattern by Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville star struck pattern. You can check out the link to the free pattern. At the beginning of November she said she was going to start her new scrap mystery quilt on Nov 18th and I want to do this year's mystery but then could not wait to get started. So I started this quilt. It uses fabric that is cut 2 1/2 " wide so it works well for jelly rolls. Mine is scraps and cut yardage. To check out the Introduction to the new mystery quilt check out Orca Bay Mystery. Some quilt friends on Face book are joining me. Are You going to do it?

This little block was done from scraps years ago (>5 yrs) and hung on the side of my design wall. I thought someday I will have to do a lime green and purple quilt. Well Star Struck is it. I have about one third of the blocks done.

You can see I can not use the little block but maybe I will put it on the back.

Edmonton and District Quilter's Guild is tonight. Looking forward to see them all. We have a raffle for quilters's Fabric bundles, some are jelly rolls and other charm squares. Maybe I will come home with more fabric. I'll take my money to buy tickets.

We are also to get a big snow storm overnight. I guess I will be staying home and quilting tomorrow. Better go load up the next quilt on the machine.

Yvonne's Photo Quilt

2011-08-04T10:18:00.001-06:00

I just got this quilt done for Yvonne. She is rushing off to a 60th Wedding Anniversary later this month and had me quilt this for her. I thought this was a great photo quilt so I asked to show it off.

The blocks are 16 inches and makes a good sized quilt. She had the photo transfer done at a printing shop. The photos are then soft and can be quilted though. I quilted it with hearts and loops. She wanted me to do some quilting onto the photos but we stayed off the faces.

She has used the left over fabric to build her backing. It turned out great. I am sure the family will love your work Yvonne.

Blackfoot Trail Riding

2011-08-03T23:16:00.001-06:00

Honey checking out Adam putting his lunch away.

This past week the family and our horses got to go for a day long trail ride. We loaded the horses and drove to the Blackfoot Grazing reserve. We try to make it out there at least once a year.

My horse Jester is wanting his share of the root beer. He has to check it all out.

Wyatt was riding Scotty this trip and Scotty thought he would like more than grass for lunch, but it is gone. Scotty likes to steal the apples, bag and all.

Faces looking out. Jester, Socks, Scotty and Honey at the end.

Here is Brad and his horse Socks. We got him last fall and he is working out great.

No photos of me yet. I have to get Brad's camera and down load the photos. Also take note all our photos were not when we were riding. I just find there is to much riding to have my camera out.

Daisy Print Customer's Quilt

2011-07-29T18:44:00.000-06:00

I have been getting some quilting done this summer. I love what I did on this quilt. She gave me free rein to do as I please. She was saying she liked swirls of some kind and I can up with the rest. She used the Hobbs wool batting so the quilt looks more quilted and puff then the cotton batting most customers pick.

Here is the center area of the quilt. I placed a large daisy in the center. All of the quilting is done by free motion with out any marking or patterns.

This gives you a idea of what the over all quilt looks like. It is still on the frame here. I have two quilts on my design walls and there is no other place to get a photo quickly except the frame. I best get back to quilting I have to get another one done quick quick.

Dog Agility Classes

2011-07-26T13:50:00.001-06:00

Here I am at another hobby. I have been taking the dog to Agility classes since last Oct. Look at him go. He just loves the work. He needed a job. This is at the instructor's yard.

We are not going to competitions yet but I am planning on going to a smaller meet that costs less and is meant for training. I have been asked to come to a demo and show a dog that is not fully trained. I am the one not fully trained.

Weave poles - these are tough to do. This was a good night and he got it correct most times.

Bad to the Bone Part 2

2011-07-25T10:55:00.001-06:00

Here is my Bad to the Bone quilt. Bad because I have so many more I needed to finish before I started another one. I got all the Dark strip set together and all the cutting done since I last posted about it. I have to use my smaller design wall and I just barely get the whole quilt up on the wall.The other design wall has my spider web quilt on it. Now to start sewing the large triangles together. I am marking the seam allowance at the points with a pencil so that I get my points as I sew this together. It is going to take some time. Maybe we could get some of this really hot weather and I would retreat to the basement sewing studio. We just get rain and bugs.

I am going to add my post to Judy s Design Wall Monday. Check out Judy blog Here. This Gives you July 25 post of the other Design walls.

Flower Garden

2011-07-23T13:23:00.004-06:00

This is my other hobby. Yes I have many hobbies. I garden. I have a water pond and a few kio fish. I have to show off my blue Delphinia flowers. They are taller than me this year. Maybe over 6 feet high. I get many hummingbird coming to feed.

Do not look at the weeds. It has been very wet and rainy. When the rain does stop the mosquitoes are so bad. I have not done a good job weeding for a few week now. I plan to quilt most of this weekend.

Batik Weekend Results

2011-07-22T15:03:00.001-06:00

I used a potato masher to make these top three fabrics. I used the soy wax that I was telling you about early this week. It made washing out the soy wax easy. After batch dying I washed fabric in the sink first a cold rinse, then hot water, then hot water and soap. I could see the wax was started to lift and dissolve. So I put all the soy wax batik fabric in the washing machine and washed with soap. I like to machine wash all dyed fabric twice by machine.These three pieces are half meter and started out as White.

This blue fabric is a sampler of marks. I used a cheep paint brush for the thick lines but the wax would cool and not melt on well at first. We turned up the temperature. The circles are a large thread spool and then then great potato masher basket weave.This fabric was dyed light turquoise before I started with the soy wax.

The two more new old potato masher I got midweek. I want to do more batik but I am not sure when I will get to it. Having the other girlfriends to work with was so much fun and inspiring

Surf Design - Batik Weekend

2011-07-19T00:24:00.001-06:00

Me ironing the bees/ paraffin wax out of my yardage

What a great weekend I had. The Surface Design group that got started this spring is in full swing. We got together this past weekend. All five of us on Friday and then some on Saturday and Sunday. I hosted at my dad's wood shop while Diane did the research and lead us in wax Batik. Judy also helped with the research and had a demo for us.

Diane holding up some bags with waxed fabric in the dye.

We started on Friday with a talk and then on to wax. We had Bees wax and paraffin mix in one pot. We had two smaller pots one with hard soy wax and one with soft soy wax.

Judy holding a stamp we tried. Soy wax was not to hot for foam stamps.

I spent most of the weekend working on fabric I had started many years ago. Back then I only knew of bees wax and paraffin. They are so much trouble to getting the wax out. It left me thinking I would not like to do more batik. The best thing I learned this weekend was more information about soy wax. The soy wax can be washed out with hot soapy water. This is like a miracle to find out about Soy wax.

Here is some fabrics I had started a few years back. Still with the wax in it.

I am not looking forward to removing the wax. All of this fabric in front of me has Bees or Paraffin wax on it. My iris fabric was started years ago and had paraffin used.

I am sold on Soy wax. Diane did a wax sampler. She showed us how easy it was to remove the soy wax. We just washed it in hot soapy water. I did three half meters all with hard soy wax on Sunday. I have just washed it and I have all the wax out. I will post photos in a few days. I need to dry and iron it.


Dawna with some wax on her silk fabric.

My Iris fabric.

The iris fabric had to get the green leaves and iris part covered with wax and over dyed to get a background colour down. I got all the waxing done Friday. Then I over dyed the dark blue over night. Saturday I washed it, dried and then spent the day removing wax.I still have to get more wax out. There is a wax outline around all the wax parts. I may try boiling. Or I may have to try a solvent to remove the final wax. The fabric is still stiff with wax. I have ironed and ironed and I was not getting it all out that way. Does anyone out there know the answer? let me know.

New potato masher for next waxing adventurer.

I found the new/old potato masher Monday at the second hand store. I love the shape. I will have to try some fabric with my new stamp and the soy wax. I am really sold on the soy wax.

Sorry, Yvonne I did not get a photo of you, next time. Kim was planning to join us but had to work.

Keep your eye out for our results.

Black and White Chunky Yarn

2011-07-13T09:13:00.002-06:00

Last month I showed you the kid mohair fleece I had washed (some on the right). Well I started to use some of it in a yarn. I used my drop spindle to make singles. One with black coredale and the other single in white merino with locks of kid mohair added in.

I washed my new yarn to "finish it". It now hangs nice without any extra twist. I have made two balls of yarn each about 60 grams. Not sure what I will make. I was thinking a pair mittens but I may need more yarn. I will need more black fleece - oh dear a trip to the store.

Later note I got more fibre now to spin again.

Here is the two singles just starting to come together. I used clay pots to hold the balls of singles in place while I twisted them together.

New Thread

2011-07-12T09:08:00.000-06:00

I have to show you all my new thread. The mail strike is over in Canada and my new thread order has come home. I have 30 new cones of Wonderfil cotton thread and a new thread stand.

Bad to the Bone

2011-07-11T10:53:00.001-06:00

I am Bad to the Bone. I kind of promised myself I would not start a new quilt till I quilted some of my quilt tops. Guess What? I started a new project this weekend. Bad Bad to the Bone. Last week before camping, I bought new fabric and thought I will just set it aside. Nope. I made my piles of light and dark. I went shopping again on Saturday and got some more. Well I just could not stop.

Please let me know if you have done this. Started more new quilts when you planned to finish all those others first. Are You just as Bad to the Bone?

Well I got all the light strip pieced together and ironed. I still need to trim the others.

Then I got the dark fabric all cut too. Here are the strip for the dark strip sets.

I have the boarders all planned. I got 2 meters of this great blue fabric. I had the Red and the stripe in my stash. I plan to use the stripe for my binding. Wow

How many quilt tops do you have? I have three I want to quilt ASAP (backing together too) then I can think of two large quilts that should have been quilted years ago. And two more that just need a boarder added and backing. 7 quilt tops is my count. What is yours?

Horse Creek Ranch

2011-07-10T20:45:00.000-06:00

Brad and Socks

Horse camp this year was at Horse Creek Ranch. We loaded up four of our seven horses and went camping at the ranch. The ranch is next to the Fort Assiniboine Sand Hill Wild Land Park and has great trails. There are five riders in the family. Me, Brad, two kids and my Dad. We took turns riding and one rider stayed at camp with my mom.

Wyatt on Scotty then Adam on Honey and me on Tonto (dad's horse)

This was a look out point not to far into the park. We could see the Athabasca River from here. I hear tonight many parts of the river are now at rick of flooding because of all the rain this weekend and it was high to start. We did come home one day early from our trip because it was raining so hard on Friday.

Honey the horse. She is so sweet.

Adam was getting along real well with Honey. He has not ridden her much until this trip.

Wyatt and Scotty were paired up for part of the week. Honey is Wyatt's horse but we moved him up to Scotty when his younger brother came on the trail.

Horse Camp

2011-07-08T21:03:00.000-06:00

We have just returned from another great horse holiday. We have taken the horses out camping. Our family Horse Camp. Here is a photo of Wyatt and his Quarter horse mare Honey. She does a great job of taking care of young riders.

This is Adam on Honey and my husband Brad on his Scotty.

Now I can not lie. This photos are from last years trip. I have not unpacked enough to find the camera. I have miss placed my camera for a full month now and I have used Wyatt's for a few weeks. Now his camera is in my saddle bag still in the horse trailer. We can home one day early as it is pouring rain. Maybe it will be dry enough to unload the tack on Saturday.

This year trip was to Horse Creek Ranch and the sand hills. What great trails. Last year we were in the mountains at the Hummingbird creek.

I hope to find Wyatt's camera and down load my photos soon. then I will have the correct photos.
I wish I could find my camera.

Flower Box Quilt

2011-07-07T10:40:00.001-06:00

I missed showing off this quilt. I made this quilt this past summer and fall and I was not keeping up with blogging at the time. I forgot to show you this quilt. I called it Flower Box.

I bought many of the fabrics at Quilt Canada in Calgary in May of 2010. There was a bundle of fat quarters. I was not sure what I was going to do with the fabric - while make a quilt, but what? I decided to frame the floral with some strips I had already, in the attic windows block.

Quilting close up.

Here I am around Christmas all rapped up in my quilt. The dog at my feet.

Another Betty Quilt

2011-06-21T08:30:00.003-06:00

This is a customers quilt and not my mom Betty. This is Betty R's Quilt. She had it in the quilt show this past week. So if you were at the show you may have seen it. It is so soft and warm looking.

We used two thread colours to make some quilting show more than others. The boarders and the flowers and bugs I did were quilting in pink thread. Then the background leaves and loops done in the center area was done in cream thread and does not show up as much. I think it adds to the softness of the quilt.

Quilt Bee Tuesday and we are meeting today. I must go make my lunch, pack my quilting and get on the road.

Living Colour Auction for APWQ

2011-06-19T09:00:00.005-06:00

Photo by Mark Frey

Evaluation of Colour

Artist Statement
I had leftover triangles, which led to an idea for making lightning out of them. I thought about lightning bringing life to color, color to life. The triangles didn’t work the way I had in mind, so I decided to go with free-form cut shapes instead and threw out the triangles. I was influenced in part by a class taken with Jane Sassaman.

Techniques & Materials
A curve pieced background and fused lighting and amoebas. The fabrics used are all my own hand dyes.

This quilt was made for the APWQ Auction a few years back. So long ago I kind of forgot about it. I was so pleased to be asked if I would make them something for this show and auction. I have had many quilts in their show over the years and even got a prize one time. The quilt has been travelling around the past few years.

To see more of the auction check this out. There are a number of Canadian ladies here. If you have ever thought you would like to own a quilt from a great quilter this may be a great chance. The auction is Saturday Aug 27th 2011 at the Gala Dinner. The Quilt show is also great with many many wonderful quilts to see. If your are able to go, Just Do It.

Photo by Cathy Tomm

Happy Father's Day I am going to a horse show in Calgary with my Dad. Cavalia not your normal horse show.

Fleeces

2011-06-18T09:51:00.002-06:00

I have hand washed some kid mohair fleece. I am not sure what I will do with the locks. I may try spinning it into some fancy yarn. I may dye it first or just add in the white. I bought and shared half a kid fleece with a friend. We also have two beautiful sheep fleeces at the mill to be washed and combed into a roving. Those fleeces are snowy white also. I plan to dye and wet felt some of those fleeces. You will have to wait and see what I do with my other fibre hobby. I want to make a new pair of mittens this summer too, so it may make it into my mittens too. What fun.

Guild Challenge Quilt Revealed

2011-06-17T10:50:00.001-06:00

This is Button Trees my entry to the Edmonton and District Quilter's Guild Challenge also called the Wild Rose Quilt Show. The little quilt was to be 12 inches square. Way back in March I had been working on the little quilt but made the quilt the wrong size. I almost gave up. Here is the link to the post. Now that the challenge is done and the quilt is home I can finally show you my quilt. A friend said "Who does not like buttons".

This is Brad's plaid quilt - side ways again. (And now I have Bold and can not get rite of it. ) I had this in the quilt show. I had pinned a sleeve on the quilt to hang and the quilt is well used already so it is not hanging very well. I hate it when the quilts look all wavy. When my quilts are new I do not have this trouble but now that it is well used it hangs funny. Maybe it is the sleeve - pinned not sewn by hand.

Year End Quilter's Dinner

2011-06-16T22:05:00.001-06:00

The Edmonton and District Quilter's Guild had the year end Dinner last night. They asked us to dress with our Hats or Fascinators in honour of the royal wedding this spring. Here is me in the family's pink hat. The hat was make by Mom's great aunt for my Grandmother to wear at mom's wedding. Then my Mom wore the hat to my wedding. So the hat has been mother of the bride hat twice.

Another great hat at the dinner last night. She had made this hat for the Canadian Derby a few years back, so there are horseshoes on the hat. I think she won a prize that year for her hat.

At the year end dinner we also have some kind of fund raiser for the University of Alberta grant that the guild sponsors. This year we were making Mo Jo dolls that are then raffled off. We sell tickets and you place a ticket in the bag of the dolls you want to win. I think tickets were 15 for $10.00 and other amounts.

More great dolls. I did not make one this year. I planned to but I guess time ran out.

I bought lots of tickets but I did not win one this year.

Fern was her name.

There were so many and I only got a few photos. This one was beaded and behind glass.

Mom and the little kids.

Quilt Show - Great !

2011-06-13T08:38:00.000-06:00

What a great Quilt Show. I had fun. The Quilts were great. I forgot to take my camera and get a few photos. Sorry. However this quilt is one I did for a customer, Carolynn, she had it in the quilt show. She was on the committee so I thought I would show hers off today.

Here is a close up. I did a free motion curly thing in the card trick block. The sashing had a wave with a crescent moon at each dip. The boarder is not pictured but it had vein like quilting that matched with the block well. We also chose stippling for the background of the block. I was really pleased with this quilt. Carolyns workmanship was so good it made my job very easy. I am lucky to get so many well done quilt tops.

I think this week I will work on posting more of the quilts I did in the show. I have a small group you have not seen yet, unless you were at the show. The Edmonton Guild has their year end dinner on Wed night. I promise to take my camera. I think some of the winning quilts are to be at the dinner and the challenge quilts.

PS my Blue Days of Summer Quilt made it home on Friday afternoon. I was able to hang the quilt at my booth this weekend.

Rainbow Baby Steps Kit

2011-06-10T07:30:00.001-06:00

The Set up for the Edmonton and District Quilt Show is later today More Information on the poster. It is all day Saturday and Sunday this weekend. I have dyed cloth and made this baby quilt into kits to sell. Every thing you need is in the kit but backing and batting and thread. I have the 12 colours of dyed cloth and a large piece for binding and then the White and the pattern to follow. It is all Kona Cotton used in the kits. My friends in my bee group loved the idea and encourager me to do the kit. My Mom has been a great help. She ironed all the fabric and helped edit my pattern.

A close up view of the quilting I did on my sample.

Below is the stacks of cloth cut and read to go into the kits. Now to just get them all priced and folded in the bags.

Hope to see you all at the quilt show (at least you local ladies). I will get some photos at the quilt show to you all next week.

Quilt Show this weekend

2011-06-09T13:53:00.002-06:00

The Edmonton and District Quilt Guild is having a Quilt show this weekend. To view the poster with all the information Please check This Out I have a booth to promote my long arm machine quilting and to sell some hand dyed fabrics. I have been very busy making up kits and dyeing and washing and cutting and sorting and pricing and packing. You get the idea.

Here are two of the mixed fibre kits I have made for sale. They have a Fat Quarter of quilting cotton, some cheese cloth, some shear cotton, a vintage dolly, a vintage napkin or hankie, a roving of wool, 5 silk cocoons and then the fall kit has a silk hankie and the bright kit has a extra dolly as I ran out of silk hankies to dye. Some of the kits do have a little variation. I know some have a strip of lace or other wool or extra dollies. That is part of what makes them fun. I am pleased with all the colours I got done. Some in Blue that are kind of winter like, Fall (like below), Spring, Neutrals, Jewel bright (like above), pink and green, and all green and a few others. At the last booth I did, I sold out of these in the first day. I am taking more this time.

Frog Quilt

2011-06-09T08:52:00.000-06:00

I have been quilting like mad again. This cute as a frog quilt is going home to a customer on the other end of the country. A good friend moved out east and her new quilting friend loved the quilt I had done for her. So she mailed me a quilt. Our friend is flying back this week and will take it home to her. Postal strike still on, so glad this one is not going in the mail.

I kind of knew what I want to quilt on this quilt by just a little note about it being frogs and other bugs appliquéd on the it. I knew I wanted to do more quilted bugs. The frogs are fused appliqué and then hand blanket stitched with variegation thread. This detail does not show up in the photos. I did just a hint of quilting on the frog. I then outlined the frog and stitched in the frame.

Here is one of the bugs I did. It is a bee. I also did butterflies, dragonflies, and ladybugs. This was a very fun quilt to work on and turned out so cute.

Update on my quilt from the National Juried Quilt Show. I have heard from them at CQA. They did not put the quilts in the mail till they knew what was going on with the postal strike. Now they have asked me how I want my quilt sent home. Because the postal strike is rotating and the mail is still moving, just slower, I asked it be sent home by mail. So maybe Monday it started the trek home. We did not have any mail yesterday. Maybe by Friday - I am hoping. I want to take it to the Quilt Show, so I can display it at my booth. Keeping my fingers crossed.

My Crazy Horse

2011-06-06T22:04:00.000-06:00

These photos are from about two weeks ago. The mosquitoes are very bad already and the horses were standing in the flood water (so much snow and a beaver dam on the creek). I think the bugs were not as bad in the water as the grass. My horse, brown and white paint on the far right, Went for a roll to get the bugs off. Silly Boy.

He kept trying to go all the way over but did not because his head would have been under water.

While he was rolling his friends all took off for the barn yard and left him behind. He galloped off the catch up.

We now have a outdoor riding ring. We have got a fence up (no gate yet) and the ground turned up for a ring. With the bugs being bad it is nice to ride there now as the bugs are not as bad in the dirt compared to the grass. The boys have been riding and getting better too. Soon I hope to play some riding games. I will have to think back to my pony club days.

Dyed Fiber Kit of Goodies

2011-06-05T09:02:00.002-06:00

I have been buying lace dollies and napkins at the local thrift store for a fiber kit. This is one days finds. I also bought some buttons for myself. The little dresses are so cute. I am going to keep them for something special, not sure yet.

Update later in the day. June tells me the little dresses are Ornamental Pot Holder. I thought of them as kitchen ornaments.

Here is a start to the dyed goods. I have many dollies and napkins done. Also in the photo is some silk cocoons and many cotton sheer pieces dyed. I will be adding more dyed goods and make up kits. I did some dyed fiber kits at a booth last year and sold out in the first day. I will have to get a photo done with a few of the kits done up together. I plan to have some colour themes, fall, spring, green, jewel, and neutral. Great for a mixed media fiber art project. Sounds like fun doesn't it.

Dyeing More

2011-06-04T08:19:00.002-06:00

What have I been doing? I have been doing more fabric dying again. I have a sales booth at the Edmonton and District Quilt show next week end. I needed to get more fabric ready for my booth. These first two photos are Fat Quarters rapped on poles and dyed.

Sorry it went side ways. The Yellow things in the dye pot are silk cocoons. I am dying a fiber kit. More on them another day.

I like to dye them all twice to get a cross over of colour. I find it easiest to rap the fabric dry, so between dying, I rise them and hang to dry. Them only when I like what I have I do a finally wash in the machine with hot water and soap. The fabric is now being ironed by my mom so it looks good. I will have to update you on the great stack of pole rapped and dyed fabric soon.

Snow Dyed Results from April

2011-06-03T08:00:00.002-06:00

Back in April, before my little visit to the hospital, I got some fabric dyed in the snow. Here are my results. I have many pale blue and purple ones because I used all I had in my sales box. I wanted to replace it all. I also have one larger piece (60x80) to use as a backing on a lap quilt. It turned out great. I am pleased such a large piece turned out so well.

I was kind of hoping for snow in May (got lots last year). Then I could snow dye again. I have my bedding plants bought and plan to get them in the ground Saturday, so now I really do not want snow till December.

Mail and Quilts

2011-06-02T20:55:00.000-06:00

My Blue Days of Summer quilt should be on the way home in the mail. BUT we are at the beginning of a mail strike. They plan to do rotating strikes but I am worried. Wishing my quilt was home already. My quilt was at Quilt Canada this past week and is normally mailed home on Monday. In past years it has made it home by Wed or Thru by express post. Thur is here and going and no quilt yet.

Help wish it home.

Blue Days update from yesterday

2011-05-26T14:22:00.000-06:00

I have an update on my Blue Days of Summer quilt. My friend Dawna is in London ON at the National Juried Show and tells me, my quilt got a ribbon. I got third place in the class it was in. Wow, I like this quilt but I really did not think it would get a ribbon. I will have another ribbon to add to my wall.

OK now to work on next year's quilt. Not sure I have time this month to start something new but maybe this summer.

Blue Days Of Summer

2011-05-25T04:22:00.003-06:00

This quilt is currently on display at the Canadian National Juried Show in London ON this week. The National Juried Show opening was last night. Today it is open to the public to view. I can now show my quilt to you.

I named the quilt Blue Days of Summer, it is about 60 by 80 inches. I did most of the indigo dying in the summer of 2001, when my youngest was a new born. He is now 10 this year. This winter I got digging in a box of fabric and found all my Indigo fabrics. I had hand stitched many of the fabrics when I was pregnant. A few fabrics were folded and clapped to get the patterns. Others were hand stitched to get the pattern into the cloth. The hours of hand stitching I did was enormous, and all the hand stitching comes out after dying it.

This piece was rapped with large broccoli elastic bans, then dyed. I did the small pebble quilting around the hole. I think of these as Pot Holes in the Garden Path. I have a name for almost all of the pieces of fabric.

This piece of fabric was folded once and hand stitched. I think it looks like Garden Trellis, you know the diamonds. I quilted it with a curly vein that I like to do on my long arm.

Thank You for viewing my quilt. I want you to know this quilt is one of the quilts that got my back on track this winter. When I found the fabrics in the box I just got them out to play. In a matter of a day I had desired to sew them together and make a lap quilt. So over the Christmas holidays this is what I worked on. I got it quilted in early January in time to still enter NJS.

PS I do not know who won yet at the National Juried Show. If you find out let me know. Other else I have to wait til my quilt is home to find out or till the CQA posts the winners on their web site.

Customer`s Quilts

2011-05-23T14:30:00.000-06:00

Here are some great quilts from one of my customers. She would like to stay anonymous. The first one is a New York Beauty table runner. I love the colours, lime green and blue.

The bottom quilt was a lap quilt to be given away as a gift. Lots of fun fabric in this quilt.

Later this week is the Canadian National Juried Show and I can show you my enter on Wednesday. I got a call from the committee people today so I think the judging is happening today. They were asking if the machine quilting was on a long arm or domestic machine, Long arm for me of course. If you are any where near London Ont. You had better look into going this week. You do not want to miss the quilts.

Spider Web Quilt update

2011-04-26T08:23:00.000-06:00

I have not done much quilting in the past few weeks. Being away and then my surgery. I am healing and plan to get back to work now (customer quilts today). I have sewn the blocks for one quarter of my spider Web Quilt. They are going together slowly but I am being picky about my points and do not want to lose them. I sewed two together, so far so good. It is great to see what it will look like now.

Also this past week I had to finish my guild challenge and hand it in. I will show you in June after the quilt show. I forgot to take a photo before I handed it in and it is a judged quilt so I do not show them early.

Off to work, Hope you enjoyed Quilt Bee Tuesday.

New Surface Design Group - Snow Dying

2011-04-17T10:23:00.001-06:00

I have a new Surface Design group started out of the Edmonton Quilter's Guild. We are going to meet the second Friday of the month in each others homes or yards. There are five of us. Our first gathering was earlier this month and we only have three of us this first day. I hope we will have all five next month and talk more about what we are going to do. I really want to meet over the summer months and do some dyeing and painting outside.

Here is a couple of the girls dying fabric and taking photos of what we have done. I led the small group in Snow dying fabric in melting snow outside. We do not get much time we can snow dye outside. I did a lot of meters last year this way. It leaves the mess outside. Our outside temp was about 6 C this day. We left our fabric outside for about four hours ( 11 till 3).

Here is Dawna adding dye to a snow cover piece of fabric. We had large hills of snow, so we made shelves in the snow to place our fabric. We had presoaked the fabric in soda ash. Then we placed a meter of fabric in the snow. We crimped or pleated the fabric. We covered it with snow and then covered it with dyes.

Yes I am behind in making blog posts, sorry. I have had the most busy two weeks. I hope to get caught up in what I have been doing. I have much time to rest now. On Friday I had gall bladder surgery so I am not doing much. Time to get some paper work done, play on the computer, and taxes soon.

Maui Trip

2011-04-16T20:23:00.000-06:00

Brad and I at our Hawaii Dinner.

Wyatt on the Beach

Flowers in our resort yard.

What more can I say. We had a great time in Maui. We will look forward to the next trip.

Maui Journal Cover

2011-04-02T20:48:00.004-06:00

I have made this journal cover to use as a travel journal. I am returning from a trip to Maui. I wanted to make something fun and useful to take with me. I used some of my poverty piecing I made last month. I quilted the patch work with six flowers - hibiscus like. There were six of us on the trip. I also did little waves curls. I used YLI thread called Sea Mist and Maui Sunset. I bought these two threads five years ago in Maui.

I bought a blank sketch book to start off. This time I have made zipper pockets on the inside of both front and back. The pockets can then be used to put my pens and pencils. I packed a glue stick and a tape runner so I can glue in tickets and other bits from the trip.

Sarah's Posy Quilt

2011-03-30T09:42:00.001-06:00

I have another cute little quilt of Sarah's. She has hand stitched around each of the flowers.

Sarah's four patch quilt

2011-03-29T09:15:00.006-06:00

This is one of Sarah's Quilts. She has been doing some quilting with one of my old quilt friends. She is learning that most quilter's like to do the patch work but then have trouble with the quilting. For now she has asked me to help with the quilting. Thank You

A closer view of the quilting. Sarah and her daughter have been keeping their eye on my blog. Her daughter now has a quilt started, so much fun, mother and daughter sewing together. When I returned this quilt to her she said she was now making socks after my post about sock knitting. I am not to blame if you start more projects. No please do not blame me.

A view of the backside were it shows up more.

A quilt bee Tuesday

My Lady Slipper

2011-03-26T17:45:00.000-06:00

I grow Orchids. This is one of my special orchids I got a few years back at the Edmonton Orchids Show. I missed the show this year but do have three flowering now and three more coming.

Cat Quilt

2011-03-22T09:04:00.004-06:00

I have done a cat quilt that has been donated to the Edmonton Humane Society. The Edmonton District Quilter's Guild is doing a couple of committee service quilts this year and the humane society is just one group. They have asked for some different sizes that can be used in the cat and dog rooms. One size for cats was 20" by 51" like this quilt. I think it was for a window sill.

A detail of the fabrics I used. I tried to use many Cat prints and had to add a few others that just went well. I had these two cat panels to start me off. I think most of this fabric is 10 years old or older. I have many Debbie Mum prints as she used cats in many of her prints.

Quilting Bee Tuesday

Linda Bright's Quilt

2011-03-19T09:01:00.001-06:00

I love this quilt. My customer Linda Bright did this quilt top and asked me to quilt it. She let me pick out what I thought was best for the quilt without over quilting it and making it stiff. I was so happy to be giving free rein to do what I thought was best. She had planned to give it away but now loves it so much she may keep it for herself or make another one in her colours.

All of the machine quilting is free motion with no marking and very little stopping.

I did a feather heart in the heart block with green thread. I love that I got to use a thread that was going to show up. It really show off the work I can do. I used cream thread on the mostly cream block, so as not to take away from the heart.

Here is the back. I used thread that matched the top thread, so green bobbin with green top thread and cream with cream. This makes the back look like a second quilt.

Betty's Jane Sassmen Quilt

2011-03-15T08:15:00.005-06:00

I just got this small quilt done for my mom Betty. Is my mom great or what? She used some of the first of Jane Sassaman's fabric line. We plan to give it to a charity. I really like this little quilt and it will be sad to see it go. I hope it makes some one happy.

Quilt Bee Tuesday - I hope some of my bee group miss me and check this out on Tuesdays.

Quilt Accepted

2011-03-14T22:20:00.000-06:00

I got a letter today to say my quilt was accepted in the National Juried Show this year. I can not show you the quilt but here is a pretty purple hand dyed fabric. Quilt Canada is really called Quilt Ontario this year and is in London Ontario May 24 and 28th. To find out more check out their web page Here.

I have had a quilt in the National Juried Show 9 years out of the last 10 years, counting this year. I did not enter last year as I was not inspired to quilt my own work last year. I am glad it made it in the show this year. I have been excited about my quilting again and it helps to get a quilt accepted too. I am already starting to think about what I could make for next year. Maybe I will have two or three to enter next year.

For the 2001 Quilt Canada in Edmonton my mom, Betty and I were the National Juried Show Coordinators. So I could not enter that year. It was a ton of work, Thanks Ladies who have hosted the show.

Sue Patten Class

2011-03-12T10:59:00.002-07:00

I took a class with long arm quilter Sue Patten yesterday here in Edmonton. I am on the left and Sue is on the right. She has been teaching many classes this week at Matt and Bradie Sparrow's (The Man Quilter and his Pretty Wife) long arm studio. I had a great time drawing and stitching the free motion patterns. Sue's books are great. After taking a class and I have a better understanding of the books and how the system works. I would recommend classes from her if you want to learn to free motion quilting or add to your knowledge. I have done mostly free motion quilting on my long arm for 12 years and I still learned some things that I will use many times over. Everything she taught can be done for any type of free motion quilting (home or long arm).

Here is some drawing we did in class. Sue did most of the blocks and I did the bottom left corner. I did many more in my sketch book and we had great handouts.

Here is my sample of quilting. I am sure at home on my machine I will be better off. I will be doing more of this at home on my machine. We (I shared a machine with two others) had some trouble with the thread but it was a sample and we just keep on going. When it was not our turn to stitch we did the patterns on paper.

One of the best things about Sue is she is very sharing and encourages us to share. She's happy to let me post about the class I took.

Off to do more quilting. I want to do more sampling. Fully recharged for more quilting.

Off to Class today

2011-03-11T08:32:00.004-07:00

I have signed up for a class with Sue Patten today. It is a long arm quilting class. Hope to give you a update later today.
Last night I was at the Sherwood Park Cabin Quilt Guild. Sue was the speaker and showed off her great quilts. Lots of thread art work on many of them. It was a great show. I did not take my camera but I will take it today to class.