Hello!

Sometimes you blink and a month has gone by.  Oh my!  Well... hello!

I want to tell you about great customer service.  This is especially timely because I have been busy with multiple emails, phone calls, frustration exercises with a retailer after an online order was messed up.  Not a fabric store but some Christmas shopping.  Long story short, after that retailer's customer service completely fell apart and they don't care, along came Sew Sisters and they have amazing customer service.  And they did not ask me to say this.  It just is.  I ordered some Kona, and one of the colours was back ordered and I neglected to give them instructions about what to do if.  Anyway when I thought the order was taking a little bit longer to get here, I sent an email.  Judy answered me right away and it had to have been about 10 or 11 pm in Ontario.  The next morning, I received another email, saying they were sorry, and they would send me all but the back ordered Kona.   Awesome.  First of all, they answered.  Secondly, they had a solution.  Thirdly, they sent me a note with an extra fat quarter.  Nice!  More than nice.  It was awesome.

And we have snow.  Lots of it.  Past my boot tops kind of snow.  Stuff we never see in this quantity.  Crazy snow.

All the Pretty Colours

    Name:  All the Pretty Colours

Design:  from Kaffe Fasset GLorious Patchwork: Pieced Stripes Quilt

Size:  76.5" by 82"

Fabric: Stash fabrics, backing Anna Maria Horner

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 40 and 50 wt straigh lines, 1/2" apart

So this was fun!  It is a glorious explosion of colours.  All the colours of fall wrapped up in one quilt.  This is a quilt from Kaffe Fassett's book Glorious Patchwork.  The design is called Pieced Stripes quilt.  But that is just a bit boring.  So, I am calling this All the Pretty Colours. The pattern just tells you how to make it but does not include templates so really it is all up to you once you select the fabric.  The design suggests a colour story and I loved it so much that I repeated it as much as possible in my fabric picks.  Lots of solids, near solids, and a dash of Alison Glass's End paper line really made this work.


I quilted it in straight lines, with 3 different shades of Aurifil but with Dove in the bobbin. I used 1243, a soft purple, 4020, a fuchsia,  and then a 40 wt fabulous golden yellow, 5015.  It was a slog to quilt as it is a big one but my Janome Horizon handled it, no problem.  It was just a bit heavy for me to wrangle.

So there it is a finish.  I am quite pleased with it.  Linking up with Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Where has October gone?

October has all but disappeared in a whirlwind of busy!  And then the cold gremlins got me and I have been keeping the tissue companies in business with all sorts of nose blowing.  Oh those little germy children that fill up my day job!  Anyway, with all of that happening I did start a new quilt.  This one has been a whole pile of fun.  First it was the fabric shopping in my stash for all the different colours and then the chopping it all up.  There are no templates or actual must dos so the quilt top came together in a very organic manner.  This is from Kaffe Fasset's Glorious Patchwork.  It is a big one and all the strips are put together now into one glorious mess of colour.  Stay tuned.  Quilting is planned for this weekend.

A hoodie for the grandbaby

We are off to see a little someone for Thanksgiving!  He is going to love this new hoodie.  Brindile and Twig pattern.  This is the 3-6 month size and it is super easy to whip on the serger.  And folks, this is a free pattern when you sign up for the Brindile and Twig newsletter.  Gotta love that!

Kona Sale at Sew Sisters!

20% off continuous yardage until October 2!  This is your chance to stock up on fabulous Kona!  Flate rate shipping $9.99 in Canada.  Check out the details and get shopping at Sew Sisters!

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Inspired Broken Diamonds Mini

 Name: Inpsired Broken Diamonds Mini

Design:  Inspired by Broken Diamonds by Kati from the Blue Chair

Size: 12" by 12"

Fabric:  Kona Scraps and Kona White scraps

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in white, 

Binding and Backing:  Kona Medium grey binding and backed with IKEA Britten numbers

I decided to enter this mini quilt in the Blogger's Quilt Festival mini quilt category.  I made it last spring as part of a swap between my quilt guild and the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild.  It is just little at 48" all around.  And it is a mini version of a big quilt that I made a few years ago.  It is right over here.    And both were inspired by a quilt made by Kati at the Blue Chair.  The link is up above.  

She did not have a pattern for the quilt at that time so I just went for it and came up with my own.  Kati has since published a pattern called Wonky Cabins and provides instructions on how to make the broken diamonds blocks in the pattern.    The little diamonds are make by foundation piecing string blocks.  You need 2 identical quarter string blocks for half of the diamond and another 2 identical but different quarter string blocks for the other half.  That way no two diamonds are the same.  Kind of cool.  The smallest diamond in this 12" by 12" mini is finished at 1.5" and the biggest finishes at 3.5".  Just a little fussy.  Let me just say that pulling the paper off such tiny blocks was not fun.  But it looks pretty awesome.  I used scraps of Kona solids, Kona white and used Kona Medium grey for the binding.  The quilting is dense straight line, 1/4" apart with Aurifil 50 wt in white.  Just snazzy.  

Because It Is Fall

   Name:  Because it is Fall

Design:  Log cabins around a 3" square, 8.5" blocks

Size:  83"" by 83""

Fabric: Stash fabrics 

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in white and dove in the bobbin in an irregular grid

Backing:  Anna Maria Horner, Lizzy House and Kaffe Fasset prints

The end of summer seems to inspire a certain colour palette.  If I look back in my finished quilts, I find this is not the first time I have made a quilt at this time of year with rich purples, intense pinks and rich yellows.  It was my dahlias in bloom and the concord grapes ripening with the grape leaves beginning to turn and there I was pulling fabrics for this quilt.  Log cabins around a 3" square of a Lizzy House print in deep yellow.  The blocks are half low volume logs and half of the colours.  And then, because I was obviously having a crazy attack, I decided to make it bigger with just low volume cabins.  It is a big one.  83" square.  A bit of a beast to quilt but it is done.  The quilting is pretty dense.  White Aurifil 50 wt on the top and Dove in the bobbin.  The quilting is a bit of an irregular grid.  It shows up on the back if you take a close look.  Bound with a rich purple print from the stash and backed with a chunk of Anna Maria Horner's Sketchbook from the Hand Drawn Garden line.  I have been hoarding it for a special quilt back.  I did not have enough so added in some of the Lizzy House print and a length of a Kaffe Fasset print called Clover.  Just yum.

A 12 clothespin quilt, I might add.  It took a bit to get this hung on the clothesline without it tumbling down to the yard below.  And I am quite in love with this one.  

If you are stopping by from the Blogger's Quilt Festival, welcome!  I have entered this one in the large quilt category!

Sale Sunday at Sew Sisters!

Quilting season is back and Sew Sisters are ready with 20% off continuous yardage of clearance fabrics.  Check out all the details on their blog.  Flat rate shipping in Canada and the US.  Sunday only!  Get shopping!!!!

Fabric Happy Mail

I ordered a bundle of Alison Glass's Endpaper fabric when she had a bundle sale a few weeks ago. It arrived on Friday and let me just say it is so gorgeous.  Deep, glowing and intense colours.  Just what I was hoping for.  Her current look book was included in the package and is drool worthy. Just saying.

Chugging along

 School has started again and I have been busy getting the school year under way with my amazing staff.  The good news is that all the children are happy in their classrooms and it was an incredibly smooth start.  I have found some time to work on my current big quilt project and got it all quilted and bound this past weekend. Full reveal coming soon but I think I am going to enter it into the Blogger's Quilt Festival coming up soon.  Let me just say, this one is a big one and it was a bit of a beast to quilt but I got 'er done!  Thank goodness for my amazing long table that butts up against my sewing machine table.  It works so perfectly when quilting.  The chairs around the table also help to keep the quilt in place on the table.  What a system, I tell ya!

And then the binding.  See that little scrap of purple.  That is how close I was with the binding.  It was a squeaker!  I love it when that happens.

My Scrap System

So my buddy Cynthia has challenged her followers and fellow quilting peeps to a make something only out of scraps challenge.  Cynthia was over at my house for a sew day and told me she would never let me look at her scraps because I have a system.  We were chatting about this on facebook the other day and Felicity asked me what my system is.  So I told her and now I thought I would share it with you.  Because it works.  I think.  Just saying.  Here goes.  And I did not used to do this.  I used to just through the scraps into a cardboard box but this does not work at all.  It is just a mess.

First of all, my wall of shelves is the best.  My husband built them for my quilting stuff.  See the shoe boxes on the shelves?  Those are my scraps.  I have multiple boxes for certain colours like green, pink, blue, and yellow. I have one box for my I spy precut squares as well.

1.  I keep a basket on my table for scraps but it is not a big basket.  It is a small one. This is on purpose.  If it is small, then you have to deal with it regularly.  As pictured below, this is my basket and it needs to be emptied.  I call it fabric filing.

See that is my hand.  The basket is not big.

2) I use plastic shoe boxes to store my scraps.  Folded and pressed, the scraps are put away with folded scraps on one side and strings on the other for ease of future use.  The boxes are sorted by colour including white and I also have one for linen scraps, leftover binding and also my box of precut squares which are mostly 4" squares that are cut from leftovers or leftovers from projects.  I use 4" squares a lot, especially for baby quilts.  It is really important to put the scraps away neatly and pressing is important because that encourages their usage.  Really.  Don't skip this step!

3)  The box directly above is my precut box.  I organize the 4" squares by colour.  This makes it super easy to pull our squares for a baby quilt quickly.  Just above the precuts is my box of leftover binding scraps.  I don't cut 5" squares because I just don't seem to use them.

4) and this is what it looks like when I am fabric filing.  First the sort by colour and then into boxes.

5) The next step is making sure you use the scraps!  And that is why you should pop over to Cynthia's blog and check out her #scrapsonlychallenge!  Have fun!!!!

Thread Sale at Sew Sisters!

I do like thread and I do like a sale.  Sew Sisters has both.  At once.  Bonus!  Stock up on thread and while you are there, take advantage of the awesome flat rate shipping and add some Kona solids or some of the other awesome fabric.  Or some Machingers.  They are on sale too as the deal for August.  Only $8.39.  

But do it quick because the thread sale is August 19-21!

Sometimes you need to make a zippy pouch or two

 My buddy Cynthia was over for a sewing day last Friday.  She was busy making pouches so I joined in.  Sometimes you just have to.  Zippy pouches are so satisfying!  I went diving into the scraps and came up with this combination.

And then this one.
Lots fun!

Scrappy Bow Tie Baby

   Name:  Scrappy Bow Tie Baby

Design:  Inspired by Blue Elephant Stitches

Size:  39" by 39", blocks are 6"

Fabric: Stash fabrics and scraps

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in white beside each square

So I saw this quilt on Jolene's blog, Blue Elephant Stitches.  I love so many of her quilts.  I had to make it.  I think the beauty of this one is in the variety of the background solids and not quite solids.  Lots of pale Kona solids in blue, pink and pale yellow with a dash of light grey dots and a few squares of an out of print Sweetwater fabric in a colour I remember they called pickle.  The bow ties are almost all scraps but I also used some leftover bits of  2 different Moda Candy packs.  This is a wonderful way to use those little 2.5" squares.  The binding is a floral print that does not read as baby at all but some how it works with this.  I truly believe the zing of orange and navy is important to this design.  So be brave if you try this quilt.   So much fun.  The quilting is simple.  Just Aurifil 50 wt in white around the seam lines.  The backing is a ditzy floral print that I have had for ages.  The flowers are pink, orange and turquoise with a bit of grey.  It totally works.  Light and soft.  There it is below when it fell out of grandmother hazelnut.

What I have been making

I have been getting to know my serger.  It is a ton of fun.  I have cranked out many pairs of baby super skinny harem pants, a Brindille and Twig pattern.

 And then I decided to try a hoodie.  Also a Brindille and Twig pattern that is free when you sign up for their newsletter.  Awesome!  But I did not want to cut into any "good" fabric before trying out the pattern so I went shopping in my husband's closet for t-shirts he rarely wears.  Bonus!  I found a red one that he has never worn and he assured me that he would not ever wear it so it met my scissors. This was a lot of fun to make.  I guarantee that the trickiest part was the little pocket on the front and even that was pretty straight forward.  This is tiny.  A 0-3 months hoodie just right for our little man.

And speaking of our little man.  He came to visit.  We had such a good time.  Lots of baby snuggles and now we are missing him, and his mummy and daddy too.

A Quiet Quilt

   Name:  Quiet

Design:  4" squares

Size:  36" by 44"

Fabric: Stash fabrics 

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in white in cross hatch

I stitched this up the other day.  My buddy Cynthia came to sew and while she made a bazillion pouches, I made a baby quilt.  This one is very quiet.  I intentionally picked fabrics that were calm, mellow and low key.  This quilt is for the crib in the spare room at home.  Just right for when our grandbaby comes to visit.  The low key fabrics made it tricky to photograph but here it is on the barn wall.  And down below in the grandmother hazelnut tree behind the barn.  

The funny thing was, this quilt seemed to just come together because I was so busy chatting away with Cynthia, I did not notice I was making a quilt top!  Not only did I make the top, but the back and sandwiched the whole shebang too!  All in a day's work!

I used my go to baby quilt method of late.  Simple 4' squares in a variety of prints.  I used a Heather Ross print as the bouncing off point.  It has a wee froggie at a pond on a white background.  Very cute.  Quilted in cross hatch in Aurifil 50wt in white.  One thing that I did differently with this one is that instead if zig zagging the edge before applying the binding, I serged the edge.  Woo Hoo!  That was fun!