Crazy Short-Cut Quilt!

Hi all!

Here is my Victorian-styled Crazy Short-Cut Quilt! I used a Robyn Pandolph fat-quarter pack from several years ago that was given to me and I didn't know what to do with! It seemed to suit the crazy quilt method so when I wanted to try it out I used it for this quilt - and - am I ever happy with the results! This is a truly amazing quilt-as-you-go method that has *no* handwork and *no* bulky seams! I love it! It also uses your decorative stitches to do the quilting so even those people who are not comfortable with their free-motion quilting skills will be able to achieve spectacular results with their deorative stitches :D

I am excited to be teaching this quilt in the New Year at Sew Inspired in Arnprior On Jan. 23, Feb 13, and March 6, and, The Quilting Quarters in Almonte on May 22, 29 and June 12. I am thrilled to be able to show this method to others since I really think that this is the best quilt-as-you-go method that I've ever seen! If you're interested in the classes please give the shop a call ;)

Halloween Stair Riser/Kick is Finished!

I finished my first Halloween Stair Kick a few days after Halloween - but - at least it will be ready for next Halloween. I figure if I do one of these a year, or two, then before I know it I will have about 6 to go up the stairs before the turn in my stair case. I whipped the edge of this with a variegated wool yarn and I love the way that it gives some action to the edge. Kind of like an alien tractor beam beaming the little guy back up to the ship LOL!

Next I am going to start on some Christmas ones I think. These are really nice little projects at just 5" x 25" and work up fast and easily! I was thinking maybe some holly leaves, or Christmas ornaments, or a row of lights, a candy cane etc. All nice simple ideas that would translate well into this size. I think for the stair risers the KISS principle should be in full force! The simpler the better for sure.

As for some everyday risers I was either thinking birds or fish. I am really leaning towards fish to be honest. I love fish!! And you could do something really neat where the bottom riser is the ocean floor and have it slowly work up with common plants in the sides etc. And feature a different type of fish in each one. Then at the very top I could do some birds flying around on top of the water. My husband is a bird-watcher and I love fish so this might be a nice little concession for him :D

Any thoughts?

Christmas Panel for an Auction

Sometimes I get asked for donations to various auctions or draws for churches or charities etc. I always like to have a few panels like this one or place-mat panels around so that I can whip up a really quick donation; so, I don't have to say no and I also don't have to spend hours and hours of time to make something!! I usually pick up the Christmas panels, like this one, after Christmas so that the cost is lower thus making the donation rather painless time-wise and money-wise LOL! I figure that it works out for everyone :)

I did the inside out, "pillow-case," method here so I didn't have to put on a binding. For a seasonal panel like this one, or for place-mats, I just don't see the need to spend a million hours on the binding. And, when the panel has a nice edge on it, like this one, the binding just doesn't seem necessary!!

Tomorrow will be a busy day!! I am teaching two season of machine quilted feathers at The Quilting Quarters in Almonte; 1-3 pm and 4-7 pm. It should be lots of fun!! I do love quilting feathers and I strive to help other people enjoy it as well!

New Rug Started!

Well after I finally finished my Halloween rug I thought that I should get going and start another one. Inspiration can strike in the oddest places I must say! I bought some Yoplait yogurt tubes for my kids and they had these ones with aliens on on them. I looked at the alien on one of them and thought that it would make an excellent Halloween stair riser rug! I would like to hook a set of stair risers for everyday; but, also a smaller set (for my first six or so stairs that come before the turn in my stair case) of Halloween stair risers and also Christmas stair risers. So I drew a 5" x 25" rectangle on some old dot-matrix printer paper and filled it with a drawing of the alien from the tube. Then I transferred it to burlap and started to hook it last night. I'm using the same green that I used on my halloween rug. So far so good! There is another type of alien on the other tubes but he's much less likely to be a child in a Halloween costume, unlike this one, so, I'm not going to hook that one.

It truly is amazing where we can find hooking, or applique, patterns if we keep our eyes open and look for them :D

I Finally Finished my Haunted House Rug!!

Yeehaw I finally finished my Shelly Atkinson Haunted House rug and I did it before Halloween :D I have finished everything on this rug completely, including; the edge whipping, the binding tape on the back and a label and hanging sleeve! I didn't want to post the finished rug until I really was finished as an incentive to really getting it all done.

I just love this design and the wools that I used; so, I can honestly say that I have enjoyed the process, that started in June, and, I love the finished product!

I just need to get some jewelry wire to do the bottom cat's whiskers. I tried hooking them and stitching them afterward and I didn't like the effect so I think maybe jewelry wire will work. What do you all think?

I don't know if you have seen this video on Youtube for Herringbone Whipped Edge but the binding looks so nice like this! I just wish that she was explaining it a bit in a voice-over. I would like to know if the slight gaps between the strands are intentional or not????

A Weekend of Hooking

Wow what a lot of hooking I did this weekend!! We had a great time this weekend hooking away and meeting new people/potential hookers ;) Fiberfest was great and well attended - it was such a nice weekend so I think that people are trying to take advantage of the great fall weather we've been having to do things outside.

I got a lot of hooking done on my Haunted House rug between the 5 Minute Hooking Challenge and Fiberfest since my last picture on the rug! I bought two shades of red wool to do the far right house that I love! I'm fairly pleased with how it is turning out but I think that I might rip out the unfinished ghost and use more of the blue/white wool on him as I think that he is too white, and, will stand out too much, but, it is hard to say right now. I like the other ghost, on the left, better than this one so far. What do you all think?

I am tired but happy after a whole weekend of talking and hooking :D Maybe I'll do some more hooking again tomorrow LOL!

Rug Hooking Demo at Fiberfest this Weekend

Wow am I ever tired tonight! Today was Fiberfest in Almonte and 3 fellow hookers and myself sat and hooked and talked about hooking and talked and talked and hooked some more!!! Whew! It was absolutely beautiful outside today so not as many people went through as last year but we had a great time and met lots of interested potential hookers and lots of hookers and quilters :D

Most of the rugs in the display are my friend Bev's - she's been hooking for many years so she has a lot of wonderful rugs which made making a display very easy this year! Unfortunately we really needed the display to be easy to make this year since we could only set up this morning (instead of yesterday) so we had a lot less time to get everything ready and looking great! Fortunately many of Bev's rugs are larger and took up more space LOL! What will we do next year now that we have displayed so many of hers??? LOL!

Fiberfest runs tomorrow as well so I'll be hooking again on my Haunted House rug. I am getting a lot of work done and am very happy with the way that it is turning out so far. I bought some wool to whip the edges today that I think will really look amazing on the edges. I'll take a picture and show my progress tomorrow.

Haunted House Rug Progress

Hooking for 5 minutes a day is really paying off!! I've finished the whole bottom of the rug - except for the cat whiskers because I haven't decided what I want to do with them yet. And I need to under-score the wheels somehow but I haven't decided on that either yet LOL.

I'm really happy with the higgledy piggldy hooking in the grass to make it look unkempt. And I am absolutely still in love with that green!!

I started on the upper part of the rug now with the door but that's about all I've done on the top LOL! Now to get started on the houses! I think I have some wools I am happy with so we'll see how it goes!

Rug Hooking Display

I put a small rug hooking display at our local library on Monday to advertise our little hook-in that we are attempting to get going. Our Group meets in the Arnprior, ON public library the first Wednesday of the month between 6:30 pm and 9:00 pm. Our first meeting is on Wednesday.

While I was setting up quite a few people stopped to comment on how nice they thought that it looked. It seemed like a good place to put up a display since we meet there and it was free! LOL! The only requirement is that you have books in the display (it is a library lol) and that it stays for two weeks. Sorry for the glare on the photo it was the best I could do with the door right behind my back and the sun coming through.

It was the perfect timing for me since we have the Fiberfest display and demos on September 12th and 13th so I'll need my stool back again. I was working on the stool at Fiberfest last year so it will be good to show the finished stool. It should be fun to do it again this year. You can see the display from last year here. It was lots of fun and I hope that I will be able to have a bigger display and "hook" even more people!! ;)

10 Minute Hooking Challenge

Hi all!
I have decided to participate int eh 10 minute Hooking Challenge over at Red Jack Rugs! It is a great challenge where we "Work on your rug at least 10-minutes a day, six days out of the week, except holidays, for at least six months." I think this will be a great thing to really keep me hooking! I mean who can sit down for only 10 minutes LOL??? I've been making such great progress on my rug by sitting down every evening so I figured that this will just keep me going even more. Sometimes we only have 10 minutes and by challenging ourselves to stick to 10 minutes a day you give yourself permission to prioritize your art - even if it's just for those few minutes a day. I had great success doing my UFO's in quilting a couple of years back by making the time to finish them so I am really hoping that this challenge will have the same effect on me - making the time by allowing myself to prioritize rug hooking a bit.

The other thing that has worked wonders for me is to leave myself a bit more set up in rug hooking. I've arranged my chair and wool basket with my frame and a little side table so that I can actually sit down and hook for those small pockets of time. When I did this for myself in quilting I was amazed at how much more I was able to accomplish!!! It's the set-up and take-down that drains the time away. I'd rather spend that time quilting or hooking!!!

Rug Progress and Clothespin Bags

Here's a picture of the two clothespin bags that I made in the last week :D They are from the Darlene Zimmerman pattern Wash Day Clothespin Bag. her patterns are wonderful and very vintage in feel. I can't seem to get enough of the 1930's reproduction prints lately so this really fit what I felt like making! I made the red and green one first then found that great print at my LQS with "Earth" and "Go Green" etc printed on it and thought that it would make a great background for a clothespin bag! I put a bit of ribbon on the waste band to make it a bit funkier. I love it!

I think that I might make a few of these for Christmas presents for some friends and family. They are sooo cute and the pattern is really nicely written! I must say they look wonderful hanging on the line :D

Here is the progress on the Haunted House rug that I've been working on. I am so happy with the progress that I have been able to make the past couple of weeks! I have been hooking for about an hour most nights, while watching movies, and I have been amazed at what i have been able to accomplish.

The path and road look like they are almost the colour of the burlap but they are actually and off-white wool that I onion skin dyed.

I think that I might hook a bit of a dark purple line on the bottom of the car wheels to give some more contrast between the wheels and the road. I'll probably use the same sort of technique that I used on the drivers face and hook with a really really thin piece of wool. So far I am very pleased though!

I'm trying to formulate in my head a plan for some stair risers to go up our staircase. I have so many different ideas for what I would like to do but they all seem to clash in my head. I need to come up with a unified theme in my head like these ones here. I don't want to do a farm theme but you get the idea. I am torn between realistic (probably backyard birds since my husband is a birder) or geometric (like circles again) or funky (like these ones here). I just can't decide!! We live in a 100 year old house so traditional might be more appropriate but I would take them with me if we move that's for sure!!! LOL. Decisions decisions :D

Progress on the Haunted House Rug!

Since we haven't been having a nice and/or hot summer I've actually got quite a bit of hooking done! I ordered more of that amazing green wool from Wanda Kerr of WandaWorks. I will now have enough to finish the grass *whew!*

I also hooked the care and driver (minus the wheels!). The smile and eyes are actually really really thinly cut black wool that I cut by hand and hooked! I think that must be about a #1 cut b/c it was the thickness of embroidery floss LOL. It was a new thing and a bit of a challenge but I like the effect.

The gate is a #4 cut and the rest of it is a #6 cut. I really like working in a #6 cut so far. Not too big and not to small :)

Now to get the wheels done!!

Have you all seen this video that Deanne Fitzpatrick "Teaching Grandma to Hook" put up on YouTube? It's a spoof video about teaching someone to hook. It is tooo funny!!!

Scrappy Table Topper from Left-Overs

Hey all!

I haven't been quilting too much lately with the kids home from school now but I did manage to recently finish this little table topper. The center block is a left-over from when I did Block of the Month at our local guild. The surrounding fabrics are all Kansas Troubles fabrics that I had in my stash and wanted to use up. Some are left-over from a table runner I made as a gift, some from the BOM and some are from a small wall hanging I made for my LQS years ago. I'm not really a Kansas Troubles type of girl anymore so I wanted to use them up in something. I just started with the center block and kept on going with boarders until I ended with a boarder of 2" squares. It fits perfectly on my round kitchen table so that makes me really happy :D

It is machine quilted in feathers waving out from the center of the quilt. I love to quilt like that and find it to be fast and nice looking.

Now to get going on my red and white quilt! The reds are washed and dried I just need to start on the embroideries for the block centers! I am going to use the same embroideries that I used for the redwork fabric postcard swap in the block centers and then piece around them. I'll show more as I progress on it :D

Vampire Baby Quilt

Hi all! I finished another baby quilt lol. It seems that's about all that I do sometimes. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining, I love making baby quilts, but, I need to start quilting something else again lol!

This baby quilt is for a friend that really likes Vampires a lot!! I ordered the vampire fabric online, via eBay, and, the rest of the fabrics are out of my stash. Vampire fabric that is child-like is actually pretty hard to find. Most of them were pretty vicious looking and that's not what I wanted for a baby quilt :) My husband suggested the attic windows setting to make great use of the bats at twilight fabric. I think that he made a great suggestion b/c it really looks like you are looking out of a window at twilight! I used the setting from the "More Quilts for Baby" book but I actually did a traditional attic windows block instead of the easy attic windows using a half-square triangle. I didn't have a lot of the great web fabric and the y-seam allowed me to actually use less fabric than the half-square triangles. Sometimes the harder route is the best route :)

I hope that they like the quilt!

Rugs found in a Quebec Cottage

Hi all!
We were at a cottage in the Eastern Townships in Quebec this weekend and I found these great rugs in the house!

This is a little display of 6 little rugs that were hanging in the kitchen. I am not sure how old they are or who hooked them even. They were purchased in the area many many years ago. The brownish stains on the rugs are from hanging in the kitchen for a lot of years! I was not exactly sure how to clean them so I decided to leave them hanging where they were in their original places :) They are hooked in the Cheticamp style.

This is a little chair pad - again from the same area. It is made of wool yarn and also panty-hose with the edge just turned under. There were a lot of pieces coming loose so I did a little repair work on it to make it a bit more sound. Hopefully it will last a bit longer now :)

The rug is also fairly sun faded. You can just see a piece of the sky colour hanging out (this was before I fixed it). Again after a lot of years it needs a cleaning but I was not really sure how to do it lol!


This is the back of the chair-pad. I thought that I would post it so that you could get a better idea of the original colours of the rug. The blue was panty-hose material and it really faded!

New Rug!

I started a new rug the other day after I got back from the OHCG Annual. I was so inspired by the lovely wool that I got from Wanda Kerr of Wanda Works that I had to start it. Isn't that green yummy!! This is the "Haunted House" pattern by Shelley Atkinson. The pattern on burlap is from Rittermere-Hurst-Field. I just love the picture of it so I knew that I just had to do this rug. The blue in the top corner is for the ghosts - so far anyways lol. We'll see when things start to come together a bit more. I had to order more of the green from Wanda because I really didn't buy enough lol. Of course! It's easy enough to do especially since I am so new to hooking myself. I think that I may use the green of the grass for the stars as well to put some of it into the sky since it is such a dominant colour.
What do you think?

Great Yardsale Finds!

Hi all!
I had a great time at the yard sales yesterday and found a couple wonderful things for rug hooking!
First I found a great old red-handled primitive hook for $0.25!! I've never seen one with a red handle before so I was pretty excited by it lol. The woman was puzzled as to why I didn't want to also buy the newer latch-hooking hooks as well and I tried to explain that I don't latch hook I rug hook but she was confused :) I think that she must have been selling a few items for someone else b/c she had no idea what this was at all. I'm acquiring quite the collection of hooks now and loving it! When my hand starts to get a bit tired from hooking I love that I have enough hooks now to switch to a different hook. Much like switching to a different sized needle when you are hand appliqueing it elevates some hand strain.

I also got this wonderful stool for $5 yesterday! Isn't it great??!! Someone had already removed all the old upholstery fabric - so that messy job is done. I think that I will get some new foam for it though. It really is screaming out for me to hook something for it - like my last hooked stool. This stool just isn't telling me what to hook on it yet though. Any ideas? The rounded section is quite large and could definately accomidate some type of a picture or geometric. I think that I will hook the top and back in one section and the two sides in individual sections. The top rounded part is where you get to put your feet :)

It's wonderful to breath new life into items like these isn't it :)

Yet Another Baby Quilt!

Ta da!
Another baby quilt lol!
This quilt will be going to France to cuddle the yet unborn baby girl of a friend of mine there. I hope that they will like it :) I put a soft cuddly flannel on the back (my favorite) and a little orange flap into the binding for an extra bit of bling! I had all of these fabric in my stash if you can believe it :) Sometimes there is nothing better than pulling an entire quilt from your stash lol. The 4-patches were actually, if the truth be told, left-overs from other quilts; but, since I have been using the same back-ground fabric for all of my baby quilts lately they all match perfectly and they look intentional :) Gotta love that! Every time I make this pattern I have left over 4-patches so I figured that if I did them all out of the same fabric then eventually i'd have enough left-over for a quilt or two lol!

I finally Finished my Rug Hooked Stool!!

I finally finished it!!!!! It has been just a bit over a year since I purchased the stool but I have finally finished it :) The original stool had great bones but the upholstery fabric left a lot to be desired lol. You can see the original stool here.

I drew inspiration from Kim Nixon's amazing stools. you can see her work on her site Under the Rug. It is well worth a visit.

The wool is all left over strips from other projects or some strips that I bought at the hooking guild sale that were left-overs from other people's projects. The black background is a jacket that I picked up second-hand :) Gotta love 100% wool garments that people get rid of ;)

I used the Gene Shepherd technique from The Rug Hookers Bible to do the circles and I am absolutely amazed at how round they end up :) you can see the start of the circle hooking here.

We finished the bottom with felt, to cover the raw edges, and I bought some fancy finishing nails that match the color of the metal of the legs. My oldest son helped me hammer in some of the nails :)

I showed the stool at the yearly hook-in at the Olde Forge Rug Hooking Guild on Saturday and it was very well received :) It made me really happy to see how much people liked my little stool. one woman asked if anyone was goign to be allowed to put their feet up on it. to whih I replied that I think we all had our feet up on it or sat on it the night before LOL

I hope that you like my new stool :) I have a few ideas for a new stool rolling around in my head. Now to find another stool to recover ;)

A Baby Quilt and Some Bags

Hi all!

I finished the baby quilt from the panel that I showed you a couple of posts ago and I have to say that I am really happy with it!  I have to say that I am not usually a panel fan at all but this one just struck me as really cute!  I used rick-rack as a flap in the binding just to give it an extra bit of cuteness.  Unfortunately you can hardly see it in this picture but it's there believe me lol.  I really hope that my friend likes it :)  I backed it in a wonderful, soft, green flannel with stars and swirls on it.  Has anyone else noticed that the flannel that is available now is so much better than what was out say 8 or 9 years ago??  It was so hard to find really nice flannel back then!  Flannelette yes but thick flannel with the bright colours that you just want to hug!!??  No way!  That type of flannel was next to impossible to find.  The colours that you can get now and the thickness of the flannel is just sooooo much better now :)  And it is sooo nice on the back of baby quilts!!
These are some bags that I've been having fun with :)  The bags on the right and left are a slightly modified version of the pattern in the magazine "Bags, Pillows and Pincushions" that I made for a friends two little daughters :)  She did us an amazing favour in a school project so I wanted to send a couple of thank you gifts over to her girls :)  I think that they will enjoy these little bags.  I am going to make her a baby quilt as well (since she is expecting) but this is what i have finished for right now.  The bottom bag is a pattern from their site All People Quilt.  there are lots of great free patterns there if you just register for them :)  You should check it out!

1930's Dresden Plate Quilt

I thought that I should post a photo of my finished 1930's Dresden Plate quilt. What an adventure this quilt was LOL. I couldn't find the Marti Michelle Dresden plate templates anywhere locally so I had to order them from the USA. Then I measured to the inside of the first border, instead of the outside, when putting on the final border, and, cut the last borders exactly 5 inches short. So I came up with the 1/4 Dresden Plates for the corners instead.

Finding the fabric was also an adventure! There is fabric in this quilt from most of my local quilt shops as well as from Calgary, Alberta and Canmore, Alberta. When I realised that I really wanted some orange 1930's fabric in there I ordered some from an online store in the USA, Bear Paw Quilts. Sooo I had to wait a bit longer to finish the quilt even after gathering fabric from two different provinces.

I used the Eleanor Burns Triangle Square Up Ruler to do the sawtooth border and that worked out wonderfully :) I absolutely adore her method for doing half-square triangles.

Quilter's Newsletter Magazine published a how-to on a different way to do Prairie Points so I used that method for the binding and learned a new method :)

I used the Hobbs 80% silk 20% polyester batting and it hand quilted like an absolute dream. this was the first time that I have used this batting and it won't be the last. It is extremely nice to sleep under as well. It is heavy enough for a spring and fall quilt; but, we had it on the bed in the summer as well.

The quilting group that I belong to "The Silver Thimbles" hand quilted it on a traditional frame and it looks wonderful!!! Lots of cross-hatch and single hatch on the border. I'm really completely thrilled with this quilt and how it turned out :) These are not my usual colours of fabric but I have to say every time I see this quilt I smile :)

I forgot to show my Christmas Cards from this year :( and Baby Fabric

I realized that I forgot to show the fabric postcards that I did for Christmas this year! Woooops! I found this wonderful European Robin fabric and bought about a meter of it and one of the supporting fabrics. So I pieced the borders on directly to the timtex so that they were pieced and quilted at the same time. It took a lot longer than I thought that it would LOL!
I made about 50 cards this year and I actually have some left over. I have no idea what I'm going to do with them yet :)
I used a decorative stitch to seal the edges.


I also purchased a really cute baby fabric with some supporting fabrics to make a baby quilt for a friend. She wanted a sage green theme. I stareted with the beautiful green flannel backing fabric (on the left) and the quilt developed from there. It's going to have a small border in the blue with about a 4 inch border of the yellow. The words on the panel say "Would you like to swing on a star, carry moonbeams home in a jar" and I just fell in love with it. I'm not usually a big panel buyer but sometimes one just speaks to me :) The baby panels that are coming out now are just getting nicer and nicer all the time. Another thing that is getting nicer is the flannel fabrics!!! Don't you think? Flannel is sooo much nicer now than it used to be. It is sooo soft and the colours are just so much nicer and more saturated now! I usually try to back my baby quilts in flannel becasue it makes them so snuggly. Living in Canada the flannel is extra nice.

I hope that you like these :)

Hi all!
I made another couple of carpet bags from the pattern that I mentioned in my last post. The first one is using some funky fabric and plastic handles and the second is using more 2" squares and simply sewing them together to get a good sized bag. I thought that the more traditional wooden handles suited this bag better :)






I decided that the scrap bag would look great with a scrappy pocket as well so instead of using a solid piece of fabric for the pockets I used more 2" squares and I have to say that I really love the effect. It makes the inside of the bag a real feature instead of just the inside.

My husband says that I should sell some of the bags that I make since how many purses does one person need?? LOL!!

New Purse

Hi all!  Happy New Years!!  I hope that you have all had a wonderful holiday season and a great new years.  I had a wicked cold over the entire holiday break so I pretty much spent the whole time on the couch.  Oh well!  Worse things can happen LOL!

I saw a purse pattern in a magazine that a friend was getting rid of and I really liked it!  It is from Australian Country Threads:  Patchwork, Vol 4, No 11.  Or the pattern can be found here at Magic Patch Quilting.  The bag pattern is under patterns then other and it is called the carpet bag.

I have a ton of these solid handles that I pull off of used purses and have stashed away.  It's so much nicer to buy a second-hand purse for $0.25 or a $1.00 and re-use the handles instead of paying $13-$20 for them!  Anyways, I really liked how this purse was puffy and neat looking and thought that it would look good in batiks.  I really like the way that it turned out; and, it gave me an  excuse to use one of the almost 20 pairs of different sized handles I have. You could easily make this pattern wider just by decreasing the size of the pleats.  

I think another purse might be in order for tomorrow perhaps :)