On Tuesday...

 One of these eggs is not like the other.  One of these eggs just doesn't belong!

Funny chickens!  Our hens are a little more than 2 years old.  A few of them have been taking a wee bit of a holiday from laying.  There are only 7 of them.  Enough eggs for Husband and I and then an extra dozen for friends or family.  One of the "girls" as Husband calls them, has not been feeling tip top these last few days but man, she is really trying.  Today she gave us the gift of this tiny egg.  And what energy she must have expended to produce this small gem.  Thank you, chicken, thank you!

On the quilting front today, not much today because it was back to work.  The big excitement at school was the report of a black bear in the neighbourhood.  That's always exciting for the students. One look at a playground filled with 415 students and I am sure any bear with half a brain would be running for the hills.  We will be careful but the bear is really more interested in finding garbage cans at people's homes, I fear.

Have a wonderful evening and let's hope that, for all the hockey fans,  the Canuck's do well tonight.

And there are so many birthdays in May, so a big happy birthday to all!  Happy Birthday, Clever Son.  Happy Birthday, Son's Wonderful Girlfriend.  Happy Birthday, Niece.  Happy Birthday, Dear Dad.  Happy Birthday, Grampa!  Happy Birthday, Bob Dylan.  Happy Birthday, Janer!

Sparkling cider and Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!

All I can say is oops.  Stuff happens.  Then you get the stitch ripper out.  I am having a lot of fun with these blocks.  The little template thingie is just so excellent.  I even demonstrated it to Husband.  Just so he would understand the sheer marvelous-ness of it.  I also showed him the Hera marker.  I love that too!

 This before you cut the flying geese patches in half.

Check it out.  Perfect!  Completed block with perfect points.  So exciting.

Webster agrees.  Sniffing the breeze and looking wise.

Don't forget that it is Sew Mama Sew's giveaway day and there are some absolutely amazing giveaways!

Vintage sheets!

I started working on the sparkling cider vintage sheet quilt.  Jen made one of these just before Christmas and I thought it was a really lovely pattern and what's more, it looks beautiful when made from vintage sheets.  I ordered the pattern.  I ordered the flying geese template ruler.  I cut sheets into fat quarters yesterday and today cut fat quarters into all sorts of pieces to start making the blocks.  Phew!

Here is the thing when using vintage sheets.  Because they are often in similar colour families and often contain a lot of white, you have to be mindful when selecting the sheets to use with this quilt.  I think that the contrast needs to be there as much as possible to make the stars pop.  You wouldn't want to lose the impact of the stars by having the different sheets too similar.  This all made my cutting up the fat quarters that much more interesting.

The other thing you need to know when using vintage sheets is they are soft and usually thinner than quilting cottons.  This makes a difference when pressing and also taking pictures.  The block above looks a little floopy.  It is not modelling it's perfect points well enough!

Two new favourite notions.  A hera marker!  Fabulous!  Where has this been all my quilting life?  Perfect for marking stitching lines on fabric.  And this handy dandy little flying geese template is just too cool for words.  Must be tried to be believed and all those other info-mercial lines!

And one last picture.  I decided to de-fuzz my sewing machine before I started this project.  I haven't done it for a little while because I just had my machine serviced about 2 months ago.  Oops.  I need to remind myself to clean it out after each quilt.  Will you look at all that fuzz-goop-yuck!?

*And the contrast sheet to the wild pink vintage sheet above is a sheet that dates to the early 80s.  I know this because it was a wedding present.  When does a sheet become vintage? I had actually passed that sheet on to Mum to transform it into a rag rug but she brought it back to me when I started this quilting with sheets thing.  It works well as a background contrast but is it really vintage?  Who cares.  Happy Sunday!

This week's finds...

I checked out a thrift store I don't go to very often at all yesterday.  Found a huge pile of vintage sheets and pillow cases.  The total bonus was the set of almost brand new pillow cases in the blue print.  Blue vintage sheets are really hard to find.  Most often you find rose florals and lots of yellows.

I have started cutting the sheets up into fat quarters so that they are more usable and I spent some time today grouping my ever growing vintage sheet collection into colour families.  Just so much fun.  I am the Kind Midas of vintage sheets.  The funny thing is that my mum is looking for sheets for me and so is my aunt.  Husband thinks that they should not encourage me.  (hee hee)

And the great thing is that I am actually starting a quilt from all of this loot.  Cannot be called a hoarder if you are using the stuff, right?

I also found a few sweet little items on the 25 cent table.

Jam pot, sugar bowl, mustard pot?  Take your pick!  I love it!  And a milk glass vase.

And I will be linking up with Sophie's flea market finds in just a bit.  Take a minute to see what other people have found over the last week!

FLEA MARKET FINDS

Quilting Road Trip...

Special ruler to assist me in making my Sparkling Cider quilt.

It sounds much more impressive if I say that I dragged Husband on a quilting road trip this morning.  I had a rare day off from school as we are very happy to have a 4 day weekend.  I had to go and pick up a special ruler that I had ordered from a fairly snazzy quilt shop 2 towns over.  It is quite a nice shop way out in the country and they do quite a mail order business.  This is unusual for a Canadian quilt shop.  We have not caught up to the crazy online fabric shopping like our American neighbours.  Of course, if I am picking up a ruler in a quilt shop, I have to look at the fabric, right?  Of course, I do!!!!  I managed to contain myself quite nicely but did pick up some bundles of fabric samples.

I am not sure if you recognize this line but this is Sandy Gervais's new fall line, Grand Finale for Moda, and I saw pictures of this from some Quilt Market posts in blogland and this line is not available until next Fall.  How totally cool is that?  I like the little gingham-y bits.

And a lovely floral from Lecien.  PRETTY!

And this is a mystery but I like it!  Very pink.  Husband was not a fan.

Here is the funny thing though.  Right next to the quilt shop was a farm and on that farm there was a cheese shop.  We had to check it out.  Smits and Co.W Farm Cheese.  Oh my goodness.  It is fabulous cheese.  If you like Gouda, this is the place to go.  All different kinds of really tasty spiced Gouda cheeses.   Really interesting ones like Stinging Nettle, Black Pepper, Cumin.  Totally yummy and very, very reasonable.  Now Husband has a reason to go to the quilt shop.  It is all about the cheese!

I also convinced him to stop for me at a thrift shop.  Why not, right? But I will save that for tomorrow!  Have a lovely weekend!!!!

Our world is celebrating!

After a cold and incredibly rainy spring, with a few days of sunny weather our world is waking up!  In the yard today...  were the blossoms on the pear tree we planted to remember my Gramma.

And Husband took this artsy photo of the deepest red tulip surrounded by not yet blooming Lily of the Valley.

And the blueberries are blooming in the blueberry patch!

Stash Buster Quilted Round Table Cover and a Tutorial!

Okay... get inspired.  Picnic time and BBQs on the deck are coming up and who doesn't have a whack of scraps to use up?  This tutorial is also layer cake or fat quarter friendly.  Heck, you can even use some charm squares if you have them.

I made this table cover for my Mum for her deck table.  It went together quickly and I thought a tutorial might be fun.  I have to say that this is my first official tutorial!  Oh my goodness!!!!!

For a 50" diameter round table cover...   (that is good for a 39' round table and allows for a nice drop over the table).  If you need a bigger cover, just add another strip of rectangles and squares.  If you have a rectangular table, this tutorial will work just fine.  In fact, this would make a really cute quilt too!  How completely versatile!!!!

1)  Top:  You need 60 - 5" squares and 60 - 5" x 10" rectangles.  A layer cake would work almost perfectly (you would need a few extra 5" squares) or about 12 fat quarters.

2)  Back and inner layer:  You will need fabric for the back and also, I used a layer of cotton in between the top and the back rather than batting.  I thought batting would make things to stiff.  I used a perfect thrift store sheet for the back and binding.  If you don't have anything wide enough, you will need to piece the back.  About 2 yards for the back and the same for the inner layer.

3)  Binding - about 1 yard.  Cut your binding on the bias, and you will need about 13 feet of binding - 2 1/2" wide.  This is one of those times when you can do really impressive math!  Figure out the circumference of your circle.  (Circumference = π × diameter  or Circumference = π × 2 x radius)
*Word to the wise:  Because this is a circular table cover, you must have your binding bias cut.

Cut, cut cut:

If you use a layer cake, pick 30 of the pieces and cut them in half so that you have 56 - 5"x 10" rectangles.  Take the 12 remaining layer cake pieces and cut them into 4 - 5" x 5" squares.  You should have 48 squares.  You need 12 more 5" squares so you can cut them from your scraps or use a coordinating solid.  Your choice.

If you are using scraps and stash stuff, then just cut and make it scrappy.

Piece, piece, piece:

Use 1/4" seams.

You will be alternating a square with a rectangle.  You can chain piece square and rectangle partners.  Then chain piece the partners with other partners.  Press your seams to one side.  Your strips needs to alternate starting with a rectangle and the next row with a square.  Use your design wall or floor so that you do not have the same fabrics touching.

Row 1:  square, rectangle, square, rectangle, square, rectangle,square, rectangle
Row 2:  rectangle, square, rectangle, square, rectangle, square, rectangle, square

Repeat until you have 12 rows.  Notice how I cheated a bit because I knew that the corners of the top would be cut away when I trimmed the top to the circle pattern. You can cheat too.  You do not need to have 12 full rows for example.  You can fudge it a bit because you are cutting away the corners.

Then you get to make your giant paper pattern circle:  


You have a choice here.  You can bother your husband and have him do it or you will have to do it yourself.  Start by taking a bunch of newspaper and tape it together so that you have a piece of newsprint about 60" by 60".  Tie a length of string to a pencil at each end.  The string length needs to be the length of the radius of your circle.  In my case, that's 25".  Draw your circle, using one pencil as the point at the centre of your circle and drawing with the other pencil. Look at that lovely newsprint pattern!  I just have to tell you that I almost messed up because I did not write down the measurement for my Mum's table.  When I checked with her, we had to add extra inches to the pattern.  Yoiks!

Cut your circle:


Carefully place your pattern on the pieced top.  Check your measurements carefully before you cut.

Don't cry about cutting off all the corners because you can reuse them in a future project.  You might even want to use them to piece the back of your table cover.

You will also need to cut your inner layer and your back from the same circle pattern.

Oh my goodness, what a pretty circle!

Sandwich and quilt, quilt, quilt:

I used my walking foot and quilted on either side of the seams along the length of the strips and then in the other direction.  But it is totally up to you!


Bind!

I am just getting ready to hand sew the binding on in this picture.

And here it is today in the sunshine...

I am linking up with Quilt Story Fabric Tuesday.  Go and check what other people have been up to!