Marcelle Medallion!

It is a start.  Eep!  Not perfect I have to say but not to shabby considering there were dreaded "Y" seams!  Eep!  I am going for a vintage colour scheme.  Think Arborite tables, tin cannisters and aprons.  Definitely aprons.  I think this may be the first of several because I have another colour scheme percolating already.

Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Monday!

Sunday Stash

Daughter and her special someone brought these home for me from the Oregon coast.  They noted how crowded the quilt shops were with "old ladies."  I gave them a look.  But look what they found!  They have good taste.  They catered to my I Spy fabric obsession, my text fabric craze, my love of novelty fabrics and my love of wild and bright florals.  Daughter went straight for the scrappy bits and found the floral fabric as a bolt end remnant.  Yay!  So there.  Those animals are having a stare down with you.  Husband says they have great expectations.

Have a super Sunday.  Hope there is fabric involved!

Work in Progress... waiting for fabric

So this is where I am at now.  Two pillow fronts pieced, sandwiched, and quilted (a lot!) for the guild challenge with our custom bundle.  Then I had the whole debate about the backs. I was going to use fabric I already had but I was a bit... meh... ya, not so much.   I decided to order more of the linen/cotton blend that came in the bundle.  Can you see it?  It is the second fat quarter from the top.  I know that Esmari has already popped it in the mail and there just happened to be a birthday sale going on at Warp and Weft.  So along with my order will be a free fat quarter.  That's fun!

Progress will halt now until the fabric comes.  

And other than that, my sewing room is completely taken up with racks and racks of drying dahlia tubers. Thanks Husband for digging them up today!  

Linking up with Lee from Freshly Pieced for for Work in Progress Wednesday.

On the design wall... Warp and Weft Challenge

Our guild is involved in a challenge with the lovely fabric shop Warp and Weft.  We had an opportunity to select a custom bundle of fat quarters as a guild and have 2 months to make something fabulous with it.  I stared at the bundle.  I felt a little like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  You know.  "He puzzed and he puzzed and he puzzed some more."  That is what I did.  Then I showed the bundle to Husband.  He liked it.  I said what about new couch cushions.  He agreed which surprised me because there are 2 purple fat quarters in the bunch but I think it all works!  I threw in some Anna Maria Horner Hand Drawn Garden... Social Climber and a text print from Stof Basics.  They both totally work.  And the Japanese Plus/Cross block.  Seriously awesome!  The only fat quarter I did not use, was a the linen/cotton blend with the black line drawn flowers.  I really like it but I did not have enough to do anything for the pillow backs.  I will use it for another project.  The pillows are BIG.  22" square.  This is where I was at the end of Saturday, when daughter and her special someone pulled in the driveway, after a week on the Oregon coast.

Here is a sneak peak... I now have 2 pillow tops, sandwiched and quilted and a start on the backs.  More to follow.  That is what I have been up too...  other than blowing my nose endlessly.  Yep, my annual September cold.  Work hazard... all those lovely little children and all their lovely germs!

Linking with Judy's Design Wall Monday....

Flea Market Finds... on a Sunday

Eep!  I found some treasures!  I stopped at the thrift store on my way home from work on Friday.  Just a little Friday afternoon fun.  I didn't spend a lot of time there but I found this vintage pillow ticking.  Brand new, and the good part of a bolt, I am sure. 8.5 metres! That is over 9 yards, people! It is narrow at 72 cm or 28"  which I guess is the length of a pillow.  But it is just lovely.  A really good weight and it washed really well.  I don't usually pre-wash fabrics but I just wasn't sure about the shrinkage factor when dealing with vintage fabric.  So there you have it.  Just a whole pile of ticking.  It would make a great quilt back!

 On Saturday, Husband and I visited our favourite church garage sale which is held twice a year.   I found this little Carlton Ware dish.  Apparently it is either a butter dish or a pin tray.  It would not hold much butter.  It was a whole screaming 10 cents. I also found a tin of wood thread spools and a few other bits, including a Pilsbury Dough Boy apron.  I already passed that on to daughter. She thought it was great!

Simple and Sweet Swap... another needle book

This is the second needle book in the last week.  This is the one that will be sent off to my secret swap partner in the Simple and Sweet Swap.  I used some scraps of Heath and a bunch of Kate Spain bits and pieces.  The felt is a lovely wool felt in a soft grey.  The wool felt makes beautiful needle book pages because the felt has lots of structure.  Nice.  I won't show you all the pages but know that every page is embellished.  That's the fun part!  Once again this is from the Nana and Company tutorial but I bound the edges on this one too and added the inside pocket. I made my own covered button for the closure.  I love making covered buttons!

Now I just have to add all the other bits and pieces and get this ready to mail!

Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish it up Friday.

Random Thursday...

My quilt guild buddy Lysa draws fabric.  She likes to draw peoples stashes.  Then she has cards printed from her lovely artwork.  Then she gave some to me.  I feel quite spoiled.  Aren't they pretty?  Look at all the fabric loveliness in each of the cards.  I spy some Flea Market Fancy.

And about the eggs.  Our newest chickies have started to lay.  Usually the little ladies lay little eggs in the beginning but something went terribly wrong or terribly right!  It all depends on perspective because one of our new ladies, who are quite big for chickens, popped out the super giant egg!

And for more randomness, that happens to be my husband's pet radio on the counter.  He bought it at a garage sale about 18 years ago and it is his favourite radio ever.  It looks really well loved.  

Our newest ladies are Black Orpingtons just so you know.  We call them the Floofies.  They are really feathery, big and quite lovely.

Linking with Cindy for Random Thursday because talk of cards, eggs, radios and chickens is random.  

Works in Progress and a wee finish

I signed up for another swap.  Round 2 of the Simple and Sweet Scrappy swap.  We are swapping needle books and 4 fat eights.  I made this needle book on the weekend and totally second guessed myself.  I love it but I was not convinced the pink was going to be a good fit with my swap partner.  You know what is coming.  I decided to keep it myself and then I made another needle book for my partner.  Tee hee hee.  The other needle book for my partner is pretty nice too.  So here is the one I am keeping.  I used the Nana and Company tutorial with a few tweaks, like binding and an inside pocket.  I use wool felt for the pages.

And here is a giant pile of 4 " squares that I have been cutting and cutting for multiple I Spy quilts!  I have been doing a lot of fussy cutting!

Linking up with Lee for Work in Progress Wednesday and the Needle and Thread Network.

More birthday fun!

I have wanted this book for a long time!  It always pays to have an idea when daughter's ask for a birthday list!  Liberty love.  Perfect!

Sunday Stash...

This is fabric birthday fun.  My birthday is coming up so I got to drag Husband around to a whole bunch of quilt shops on the weekend.  Some Road 15.  And we could not find our address despite having submitted it to Sweetwater.  Pout!  I still love the fabric though!  I picked Road 15 up at the Needle and I in Burnaby.  Cute wee shop!  They also had some bolts on 50% off so I brought some home.  Including the stripe from Bonnie and Camille.  Awesome!

At Fabricana in Coquitlam... rulers, clocks etc... FUN!

And finally at My Little Quilt Shop in the Woods, only open on Fridays and Saturdays between Mission and Maple Ridge, up in the hills, it was all about dots.  And because I was a first time visitor, the lovely owner gave me these awesome thread tweezers!  Nice!  Her prices were seriously awesome!

There you go.  Happy Birthday to me!

Road to Fortune!

  Name:  Road to Fortune

Design: a traditional paper pieced block, inspiration That Stash Bee February

Size:  approx  70" by 70"

Fabric:  Scraps and stash fabrics for binding, borders and backing

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in white on the diagonal

It's finished!  I have been working on this one since last spring.  I first made several blocks for That Stash Bee and thought, "hey, these are fun!"  So I made more of them.  25 of them to be exact.  I made one a week for awhile until I decided I was tired of them.  Then I decided that I really need to just get this finished!  Totally made from scraps, the Road to Fortune block is a paper pieced traditional block.  I even used white scraps so the white in each block is also scrappy.   The quilt is bound in one of my favourite binding fabrics, a purple tone on tone from RJR fabrics from forever ago.
I quilted it on the diagonal in aurifil 50 wt in white.  Erg.  Quilting on the diagonal.  It is just awkward!  But I love the look!  The quilt is backed with some brightly coloured dragonfly print and a print from Ikea that I have had forever.  I know I made our daughter a sun dress with it when she was about 6 or 7 and she is now 24!  I added a bit of scrappy-ness in the borders too.
Isn't it fun to finish a quilt!  Linking up with Amanda Jean for finish it up Friday.

Off to quilt guild tonight...

It is our 3rd anniversary meeting and we have much fun planned...  I so look forward to our guild meeting each month!  What a bunch of great ladies!!!

We are swapping 5" charms sewn together with a basting stitch.  Fun for decoration and easy to remove the basting stitch!

And we are each bringing at least one of these... and they will all go into a big basket and one person will win them all!  So exciting!  and then there will be door prizes, show and tell and visiting!

linking up with Cindy for Random Thursday.

Work in Progress Wednesday...

Quilting...

Binding...

Cutting...

This is pretty much how I spent the weekend.  I quilted Road to Fortune.  I had an idea to quilt it on the diagonal.  why do I do that to myself.  Diagonal quilting is such a pain in the butt.  Anyway.  Got that done.  Had to unpick the first long line of diagonal quilting because the stitch quality was wonky.  Unpicked it.  Put in a new needle and we were back to flawless stitching.  How strange is that.  I actually thought the first needle was a new needle but it was obviously not a good one.

Then I made the binding out of that purple tone on tone which I just adore for binding brightly coloured quilts.  What am I going to do when I run out?  I have used it on so many quilts.  I bought it at the thrift store a few years ago.  Maybe 8 or 10 metres of it.

Then I started organizing and cutting I spy fabric into  4" squares.  Stacks of them so that I can just start stitching them together when I feel the need to make one or four of these.  I get such a kick out of cutting these for optimal I Spy fun.

Work in Progress Wednesday on a Tuesday.  What about you?  Linking up with The Needle and Thread Network and Lee at Freshly Pieced.

You just never know when...

you are going to find rare, out of print, original Flea Market Fancy.  Yep.  Almost 1/2 yard of the original Flea Market Posy print.  Are you ready for how much I paid for it?  $1.  Sigh.  It was a good moment.  Husband and I went to the Mennonite Relief Sale on the weekend.  It is just such a lot of fun.  Great food.  Lots of thrifty things to buy and of course, quilts.  And where there are quilts, there is fabric and I was looking through the tubs of fat quarters, and larger pieces and then I saw it.  I politely asked the price and the lady said, "Oh, how about a dollar."  And I said, "mmm, okay."  It was a total, Ikea start the car commercial moment.

Giggle.  This is now the third chunk of original Flea Market Fancy that I have bought at a thrift store or sale.

On the design wall... I mean barn wall

My bee blocks for September for That Stash Bee.  The pattern for the block is Fresh Lemons, Lemon Squares.  This is a very familiar pattern for me as I have made quite a few baby quilts with it. And it is a great pattern because you make a bunch of different blocks and the centre square can be fussy cut for interest or not. Michonne asked for a few blocks with a palette of mint, celery, brown, white and perhaps true green.  So that is what I did.  This is the first time that a car has been a colour inspiration for blocks that I make but what the heck.  Apparently the recipient of this quilt has a vintage car in a fabulous mint green.  Bee blocks in the mail.  Yum.  Linking up with Judy for Design Wall Monday.

Baby Modern Disappearing 9 Patch

 Name:  Baby Modern Disappearing 9 Patch

Design: based on a tutorial  by Kristy Daum

Size:  approx  40" by 54"

Fabric:  Nicey Jane Prints, Lizzy House Print, white and stash fabrics

Binding:  Kona Baby Pink

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in white

I just had to make this. Do I need a baby quilt?  Nope.  It will go into inventory (aka laundry basket filled with quilts awaiting a home).  So what makes this a modern disappearing 9 patch?  The whole idea is that you replace one of the prints you would typically use in a 9 patch with more of the solid.  In this case, white.  Then you get this interesting addition of more negative space and we all know that negative space is a big deal in modern quilting.  Looks pretty cool.  At least, I think so.  I was really tempted to bind this little quilt in white to really capitalize on the negative space but I totally chickened out and went with the palest of pinks.  I think it is Kona Baby Pink.  The quilt is backed with a pink and white Oxford striped flannelette.  So pretty.   And quilted in a simple grid with Aurifil 50 wt in white.  I am very pleased with the fresh simplicity of this quilt.  

I had to use my very pretty Kate Spain clothes pins for this one!

And a close up of the back.

 Linking up with Amanda Jean for finish it up Friday.

Work In Progress Wednesday

Eeek!  I finished all the road to fortune blocks and I actually have this put together and it is just waiting for quilting!  This has been  a work in progress since last March I think.  I had to make a few of these blocks in this sort of colour family for That Stash Bee.  It was so much fun that I had to make more.  This is a complete scrap buster.  Even the whites are scraps.  The thing is though, I seem to have more scraps than ever!  I don't know how that happens.  I keep making scrap quilts only to find my scrap bins are more overflowing.  They are possessed... obviously!

School started up again this week so my life has become VERY busy but good busy.  I am once again a weekend quilter. Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for Work in Progress Wednesday!

On the barn wall...

Before September had officially arrived, I cranked out the September Lucky Stars Block of the Month from Don't Call Me Betsy.  Elizabeth sent out the pattern early , knowing that a long weekend might mean extra sewing time.  Like all the other blocks, this one went together without a hitch but they are time consuming.  Having the fabric precut and lined up in a the order of use saves my paper piecing sanity.  I also write on the instructions the fabric I am using for each piece to help with that.  I am keeping the fabrics that I am using for this project in a plastic shoebox so I don't have to go looking for them each time and so I don't have to look at the fabric for a whole month until the next block comes around.

I popped them up on the barn wall yesterday to see how it looks.  I waffle between a standard and a on point layout.  Here they are.  Looking pretty!

Linking up with Judy for Design Wall Monday.