12 Trees in Oakshotts: A Finish

  Name:  12 Trees In Oakshots

Design:  12 Trees by Helen Howes

Size:  36" by 64"

Fabric: Oakshotts, colour shot bundle

Quilted: by me with Aurifil  40 and 50 wt in many colours

I finished 12 Trees on the weekend.  On Monday after school, I rushed outside in between rain and before darkness hit.  I just made it.  The light was fading but the colours of the Oakshotts are so vibrant that the lower light levels didn't seem to matter.  So... what can I tell you?  I used so many colours of Aurifil in the quilting.  A mix of 40 and 50 wt.  I tried to match the thread colour to the background of each tree which meant switching threads a lot and I also had to bury a lot of ends.  I kept the bobbin thread an Aurifil light grey 50 wt and also used the light grey to stitch in the ditch around each block and around the sashing to give each tree some dimension.  The quilting is random free motion squiggles which in my mind are supposed to evoke wind.  Just saying.  I also had to stop and start in all those little bits between the branches.  That was a pain but I am so happy with it.

I chose this layout of long and narrow because I made 12 Trees to hang in the stairwell, on the way downstairs to my sewing room.  Before I finished the quilt it was just a big white wall.  The quilt is now visible from the kitchen and adds a wonderful bit of eye candy on the way downstairs.  What can I say about Oakshots.  Oh my goodness, what fabulous glowing fabric.  It was a dream to work with it.

The binding is scrappy leftover strips.  A finish.  Quite satisfying.  Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish it Up Friday.

Work In Progress Wednesday: Little bits of something

I spent the weekend quilting my 12 Trees quilt.  It is now quilted, bound, photographed and hung so I will have that to show you later in the week.  I am sooooo happy with how it turned out.  I also added a little bit to Autumn Gemstones.  It is a wonderful HST variation and the dissimilar fabrics all seem to work out in the end as long as I play be my self-imposed colour rules!

12 Trees is free motion quilted in random squiggles which in mind are supposed to represent wind.  Just go with it people.  I changed thread colours with each tree and buried a lot of knots.  Yes, I did.

And my sewing room reno is completed.  Thank you, Husband!!!!!  I am spoiled with space and lovely cupboards.  I do have a little kitchen for canning and stuff and then my husband finished the cabinets on the sink wall and counter tops throughout.  We also replaced the sink and I love my new sink.  It is fabulous!  So have a little tour.  The floor is still 70s chic but that is just fine!  And I do have such a lovely view out the windows!

Linking up with Lee for Work in Progress Wednesday!  What are you working on?

Blogger's Quilt Festival: This Way and That

  Name:  This Way and That

Block:  Paper Pieced block from Amy's Creative side

Design:  Layout and setting triangles, mine

Size:  approx  26" by 26"

Fabric:  Kona Slate, Print from Comma and Sugar Pop, Kona Pomegranate, Anna Maria Horner and Art Gallery scraps

Binding: Kona Slate and Print from Sugar Pop line for Moda

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 40 wt in 5015, Aurifil 40 wt in 2605 and 2309

Here is my second entry in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  This time I am entering a small quilt that I made last spring.  This little one was made to hang at the Creative Stitches show last spring in Abbotsford, BC.  We had a display of quilts including Modern Mini Quilts.  I had a lot of fun with this and used a paper piecing block from Amy's blog.   And if you follow that link, you can make it too.  

Have you noticed how bright it is?  I used some very vivid prints and the background is from the Comma line for Moda.  Some people actually thought I had done some awesome free motion quilting in black but that is actually a print.  I thought it was a lot of fun to use the different coloured setting triangle and then I matched the binding to the triangles.  I felt extremely clever when that worked out almost perfectly! And I did a combination of straight line quilting and free motion quilting in several colours of lovely Aurifil all in 40 wt for texture.  This Way and That.  It now lives on a wall in our house and it makes me quite delighted when I see it hanging.  

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Scrappy Crossroads

 Name: Scrappy Crossroads

Design: Trellis Crossroads from the book Modern Bee by Lindsay Conner

Size: 69" by 77"

Fabric:  Print scraps and Kona White scraps

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in grey for three rows either side of the block seams

Binding and Backing:  Dark purple RJR fabric from the stash and backed with vintage sheet.

I finished this quilt a few weeks ago but decided to hang on and wait for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I thought it might be fun to have a post with a quilt that has not made an appearance on my blog.  So here it is!  This is another scrap quilt and is yet another attempt to bring my overflowing scrap boxes under control.  It is also a big quilt and I was just able to get it hung on the barn wall without it dragging on the ground.  Just!  And thanks for stopping by!

I used the block Trellis Crossroads from the book Modern Bee:  13 Quilts to Make With Friends by Lindsay Conner.  It is a great block to use with scraps and I was also able to use up a giant pile of Kona white scraps.  In fact, I ran out of big enough pieces of white about 70% of the way through and had to actually cut into some Kona white yardage.  Oh well.  I would say this quilt is controlled scrappy because I really did have a plan.  I used one particular scrap as a bouncing off point.  It had a sky blue background with orange, purple, green, dark pink and yellow bits and that became the scrap formula.  Controlling the scrappy-ness in this way added a cohesiveness to the quilt.  Don't get me wrong, I love scrappy scrappy but for this project, I played by some rules.  Don't you just love how that skinny white strip makes everything pop?

I quilted it with my favourite straight line quilting in Aurifil 50 wt in grey.  I did 6 rows with a break and then another 6 rows across the quilt.  The break in the quilting adds some interest.  

The quilt is backed with a vintage sheet with scattered bright pink flowers on a white background and bound in a favourite binding dark purple print from RJR fabrics. I think I have less than a metre of this purple left.  I started with about 9 metres which I purchased at a thrift store.  It was a total find and I am going to be very sad when it is all used up.  It has bound a lot of bright and colourful quilts.

I am entering this quilt in the scrap quilt category.  Thanks so much to Amy for hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival and if you stop by tomorrow, I am going to enter a small quilt too.  And I am off to look and be inspired!  

Work In Progress Wednesday

My design wall has been looking a little busy.  I have the whole Lucky Stars BOM going on.  Two more months and we will call that one done.  Phew!

Then I have been working on 12 Trees.  And it is actually all together and waiting for a quilting decision.  I am making this for a specific wall and that is why I decided to make 3 blocks wide and then 4 blocks long.  I am really pleased with how it looks and I have to say that these trees were so much fun to piece.  And what can I say about Oakshotts?  To die for.  Seriously lovely fabric.

And I started something else too.  This is the Gemstones block and I making it in scrappy Autumn colours with low volume fabrics as the neutral.  Lots of HSTs but it just looks so nice!  I made a tone of HSTs at my guild sew in last Saturday.  Along with lots of socializing.  Lots of socializing!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for Work In Progress Wednesday!

Baby Blue Two

 Name:  Baby Blue Two

Design:  4" squares

Size:  36" by 42"

Fabric: Stash/scrap fabrics including some prints from backed in  flannelette and cotton

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in grey

This quilt was like dealing with sourdough starter because I used a bunch of leftover 4" squares from a baby quilt made last year.  I just had to add a few more squares.  I guess I got a little square crazy when I made the last one.  As it turns out, I even used the leftover backing from the first quilt for the back of this one.  I just had to add a bit of extra fabric to make it big enough.  I quilted this one with diagonal lines which I marked with a hera marker with a lovely light grey Aurifil.  I love this kind of quilting.  And you know, you don't really even need to mark the lines because once you get in the groove, you can aim corner to corner and its just fine.  

This one is bound in a favourite white dot on grey that I bought a ton of... it is a perfect shade of grey. Soft and clear.  The little owls are from some fat quarters I bought when a quilt shop was going out of business.  It adds just a little bit of fun with this simple patchwork.

And that reminds me of the pictures my husband took of a little visitor to our yard the other day.  This wee Northern Pygmy Owl visits from time to time.  What are you looking at?  Aren't those eyes amazing?

Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish it Up Friday.

Okay, so much fun!

I broke open my bundle of Oakshotts and started playing the other day.  I thought I would need more time to think about it.  In fact, I even told Mum that I needed to think about it for a bit and that I was not thinking of starting to use them yet.  But I did.  And it was so much fun.  Before I took the ribbon off the bundle, I threw it at my husband like a football.  That was fun.  It is a very substantial stack of fabric and it surprised him.  Then I took the bundle apart and paired up the colours.  I tried not to take too much time doing this because, let's face it, all the colours are fabulous.  

Then I got cutting.  Eek!  And piecing.  Eek!  Trees!  Look at all of them.  It is almost a forest!

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

It was like sourdough starter

I made a baby quilt like this last year and my future daughter in law will gift it to a friend's new baby boy soon.  I knew that I had cut to many squares the last time and I cleverly stored all the squares together in a spot where I could actually find them.  I thought it might be a good idea to get another baby boy quilt into inventory.  Let me just say that having the fabric already cut makes a quilt go together pretty darn quickly.  I am calling this a scrap project because it was made out of leftovers.  I had to add a few squares but not too many.  It was sort of like sourdough starter but with scraps.  Sometimes you have to add a little "je ne sais quoi" to the sourdough starter to get the thing going.  That is what I did here.  Just added a few squares and I was good to go.  I also managed to use a leftover chunk of batting and some leftover flannelette for the backing.

Officially this is now finished but I have not yet taken pictures of the completed quilt.  Officially I am calling this a scrap project and I am linking up with Leanne for Scraptastic Tuesday.

on the design wall...

Well, this is not on the design wall but on my new sewing room counters.  Most exciting.  Anyway, this is the September Lucky Stars Block.  It is Canadian Thanksgiving so that meant 3 days of sewing.  I was able to get a lot done.  I also made the October block but I forgot to take a picture of it.  I am seriously looking forward to this all being done as it is my longest work in progress.  Two years in January.  Good grief.

I usually fuss a lot about the direction of the text print but I threw all caution to the winds with this one.  Wow!  It was freeing!  I just let it all happen.

Happy Thanksgiving!  Linking up with Judy for Design Wall Monday.

Sorting Buttons and other works in progress

My sewing room is going through a bit of a renovation as we speak.  We are closed to the end but my husband has been working VERY hard on replacing the sink and painting and all sorts of other stuff.  It is very exciting.  I have really been missing the sink which seems strange in a sewing room but I am used to being able to fill up my iron and empty it right there and I haven't been able to do that!  I know.  This is really a first world problem.  Anyway, the renovation is one of the works in progress.  As part of it all, my husband listened to my crazy request for a button jar spice rack.  I thought it would be fun to have a place for all my button jars.  So... he made me one.  I love it!  The little drawers are awesome!  So there it is and as a result I have been sorting a lot of buttons!

You can see that the counters are not quite finished in this picture and the paint buckets remain but we are almost there.  And doesn't everyone have squash in front of their design wall?  I do.

If you have been following along with me, you might remember that my sewing room has a kitchen area.  It is a great place to do the canning and all that jazz.  Plus it gives us an extra stove when we really want to cook up a storm.

And finally,.. I have been quilting this.  While my husband was working on all sorts of construction stuff, I was constructing this quilt which is almost ready for a reveal.  Scrap quilt number 2 for this quilting year.

Linking up with work in progress Wednesday!  What are you working on?

Bee Blocks...

This month we made these funky maple leaf blocks for That Stash Bee.  I don't have much in the way of Halloween fabric but I did find this pumpkin fabric and then used some Sketch in black, Pearl Bracelets and some chicken wire from Moda to round out the block.  The blocks came together quickly and I think they look pretty cool pinned to the old wire fence leaning against one of our out buildings.


Boo!

Oakshott... seriously drool worthy

Last weekend, Sunday to be precise, I ordered a fat eights bundle of Oakshott Colourshots from the UK.  On Tuesday, a Fedex truck pulled up to the house and delivered my fabric.  Seriously.  Now, in case, you didn't know, I live on the west coast of Canada.  That is service.  Seriously.  I had emailed back and forth with Michaeal, the owner, to inquire about the Twelve Trees pattern.  Michael sent the pattern along as a freebie and included a gift voucher and 2 sample packs showing all the colours of the colourshots range.  Seriously.  That is service.

And the fabric is gorgeous.  Drool worthy.  Intense colours and  the cross weave gives such a sheen to the fabric.  Yummy.

We have been having incredibly lovely weather.  Little bits of rain and then warm sunny days.  My roses are still going for it.  I took these pictures yesterday and today.  The red roses are HUGE.

Another one...

This is one of my test covered journals.  I made it with some fabulous fabric from my friend Cynthia's new line for Robert Kaufman called Sewing Studio.  I made this with some scraps Cynthia gave me before my order of yardage arrived.  I love this line.  The colours are lovely, the prints are just so fun!  The rulers made a great binding and I did ask Cynthia what would happen if I cut out all those pattern pieces and sewed them together.  This little covered notebook has a metal zipper.  I just happened to have one from the thrift store that was a fine gauge and was just the right length for this journal.  

I paired the Sewing Studio with some Robert Kaufman Essex linen.  Snazzy!  Did I mention how many of these little journal covers I have made now?  Lots!

Linking up with Amanda Jean for finish it up Friday!