Happy Dance!!!!!!!

I am dancing a happy dance!  I found out today that my quilt, It Looks Like My Garden won in the Blogger's Quilt Festival Bed Quilt Category!!!!!!

Oh my goodnes!  Thank you so much to Amy for hosting and for everyone that voted for my quilt.   Yippee!

Quilting, quilting, quilting....

I spent a lot of time quilting my Marcelle Medallion on the weekend.  I was trying to do something a little more than just the basics.  So we have some stipples, some fans, some back and forths as well as some straight line quilting.  By then end of it, my hands were hurting and I had a stiff neck.  But it was done!  And since this was really the first time I did a combination of quilting styles, I learned a lot!

Binding comes next!

I also finished a project for a swap but that will remain a tight secret!

And I made Christmas Cakes.  You know, the English style fruit cakes loaded with candied fruit and soaked liberally with brandy.  This was the before picture and the after picture did not happen.  It made a vast quantity of batter and I abandoned the wooden spoon and just messed it all up with my hands.  Yum!  4 lovely Christmas cakes are now contemplating life wrapped up in booze soaked cheesecloth.  Linking up with Lee for Work in Progress Wednesday and the Needle and Thread Network!

On the design wall...

I like to get my Lucky Stars Block of the Month done as soon as I find it in my email.  Seriously.  I need help.  So there it is.  This one was a bit tricky in that it had different components that all went together.  It worked really well so that was a good thing.  Having all your fabric pre-cut makes a huge difference.  If I was to do this one again, I would not use such a dark grey but that is okay.  I have also signed up for the Lucky Stars BOM for next year as well.  I need an intervention.

Here they are altogether so far.  Not too shabby!  Linking up with Judy's Design Wall Monday.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  I spent the day amidst a sea of small superheroes, a great many witches, vampires, princesses and a few zombies.  It was a wonderful day!  We paraded through the whole school to the tune of the Monster Mash until we had gathered up all the students.  So fun!  I was pretty hot in my witch outfit by the end of it!  And let me tell you about witch hat hair.  Even worse than regular hat head hair!

I thought I would share some glimpses of fall at Mum's house.  Her back deck surrounds a huge and lovely maple tree.  It was a glorious celebration of all that is fall.  The picture just below is my new screensaver.  Think of the leaf piles?????!!!!!!

May you sample your favourite Halloween candy.  I love cheezies!  Linking with Random Thursday.

I do like wonky stars...

So I put this together the other day.  The squares started life at 2.5 inches.  Just scraps of mostly one of Basic Greys Christmas lines from a few years ago.  This might grow into a table runner but mostly it just kept me having some fun last weekend at Mum's.  I took my Featherweight along but I forgot also sorts of things like scissors and a stitch ripper.  Essentials.  I used Mum's scissors but her stitch ripper should be in museum!  I think I know what is going in her Christmas sock!

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

Fall Weekend

I spent the weekend in the Okanagan visiting my Mum.  I raked  some the leaves.  Visited lots with Mum.  Ate the last grapes.  Watched the salmon spawning.   Visited a nice little quilt shop and scored some Pat Bravo Art Gallery fabrics at 50% off.

And some Sweetwater black stripe for Clothworks... Was that before Moda?  Anyway, it was 70% off.  Along with a Lecien print and the yellow/grey something or other.  Total deals!

Then I raided Mum's zipper jar.  Total score.

And Mum had some fabric for me too.  Red stripe cotton and then the blue is ticking.  Nice heavy weight and there is a lot of it.  These were thrift store finds.  Thanks, Mum!!!!

Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2013

Name:  It Looks Like My Garden

Design: Playing with values, 6" HSTs, inspired by Katie Pedersen tutorial

Size:  approx 84" by 90"

Fabric:  assorted fabrics and scraps in light and dark values

Quilted: by me with Aurifil 50 wt in light grey (2615)

I made this quilt during the summer and yes, I have posted about it already.  It is just such a favourite that I thought I would enter it in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I was such a lot of fun to make and it was also wonderful to use up a bunch of fabric that was lingering in my stash that I may have wondered if I would ever use.  When you start focusing, not so much on the print but, more on the value, all kinds of fabric, all of sudden, becomes so much more acceptable!  I will admit that there is a fabric in this quilt that actually has turnips, asparagus and brussel sprouts.  I think it was a Martha Negley print.  It works!  If you look carefully at the picture below, you might just be able to spot a bit of turnip in a few places.

 The explosion of colours and the play of values just hit all the right notes for me.  My friend Sue saw the quilt when it was on the design wall and she said, "Hey, it looks like your garden."  And it does so that is what I am calling it.  I have wanted to make a values quilt for years.  I have drooled over the values quilts that Katie Pedersen has made and I finally just had to do it.  

The back is a collection of bits and pieces from my stash that I am trying to use and a classic text print from Stof.  Before I knew it, the back had become a quilt in itself!

The quilting was done by me on my Janome Horizon. I used a light grey Aurifil 50 wt in the rows of straight line quilting.  Two rows on either side of the seams lines in the vertical.  I love straight line quilting.

Linking up with the Blogger's quilt festival!  Bed quilts category!