Leaders and Enders

Another Leaders and Enders project is finally in the organizing stages!

This stage is always exciting to me because I get to add up the blocks and see if I have enough blocks and get an idea of how it may look sewn up!

I got this idea a few years ago from several quilts that I saw on the internet - the Swoon quilts.  I immediately thought that this would make a really nice L&E quilt and drafted out the pattern quickly on paper to adapt it to my 2" squares.  I did this a few years ago and then went about my regular piecing while making these 16-patches and 10-block half blocks.

Fast forward a few years and I had a couple of stacks of blocks!  I decided to do some counting and some cutting to see where I was.

I discovered that I was 20 16-patch blocks short from enough!!  Sigh!  Oh well, I decided to continue with my cutting and organizing anyways so I can box it up and then put it aside for a bit longer.

I was very happy to to use the background cream fabric and brown fabric.  they were purchased YEARS ago for another project, that I decided not to do, and these shades will not find themselves into a different quilt any time soon; so, it was great to use them up!

All the cutting is done and the half-square triangles are all pieced!  Notice the one pieced brown triangle?  I was just a bit short of this fabric so I decided to piece a couple of them - it's a scrap quilt anyways!!   The red colour I have also had in my stash for a long time and I think that it will be perfect for the star points!  More fabrics used from my stash!  Yay!!   I am still short of 16-patches but that is for another day!!

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of Leaders and Enders you can check out the video I made on them years ago.  

So tell me - do you have a leaders and ender project on the go??

T-Shirt Quilts!

Hi all!

Brrrr it's cold outside here!!  I mean really cold and that is not my favourite weather at all!  It's very good quilting weather, however, so that is what I have been doing!  I love to make t-shirt quilts.  They are so unique and personal and fun to make!

While I was collecting t-shirts for my Guilty Pleasures quilt I was seeing a lot of Minions shirts out there; so, I started to grab a few with the intention of putting together a throw for a friend of mine who loves Minions and who has had a challenging past couple of years.  

So I grabbed the ones I came across and finally got to stabilizing them.  And guess what - not enough!!!

I asked some of my fitness participants if they had any that they didn't want anymore and one of the ladies had two!!!  It was just enough to  finish the quilt off with a few sashing strips of t-shirt fabric!!  I was able to get it quilted and bound and I gave it to her today for her birthday!!!  Yay!! 

What do you think?  I think that it turned out great and she was so surprised and happy with it :-D  That made me so happy and it made my day!

After I made progress with this quilt, I was on a roll, and pulled out the Lego Mini-Figure t-shirts that I have been collecting as well.  I cut into them, stabilized them and then squared them up into blocks.  Why lego mini-figures?  Well, my boys were (still are) really into them so I thought that it would make a nice quilt for another lego fanatic once it was done being a store sample for the t-shirt quilt class I teach.

 Sigh, guess what??  I need a couple more t-shirts to make this into a better size!

Oh well!  At least I got this far with it!!  Now to hunt for a couple more mini-figure t-shirts!!!  

Quilting Therapy

Happy Sunday all!

It's been a hard week.  A friend of mine passed away and the funeral was this week.  It was very sad but we are healing.  I was just given two quilts to quilt for Victoria's Quilts and the colours were so wonderful and bright that I wanted to get them onto the frame and quilt them.  It was great therapy to work on these quilts and add texture to them.

The first one I used a grooved board at the back of my machine to quilt these lovely wavy lines.  I love how it makes it look like they are lanterns blowing in the breeze.

This batik beauty just needed some texture added so I quilted a simple all-over wave pattern in a blue Glide thread.  I love the bright, cheerful colours.

Waves are really a go-to pattern for me, especially for batik quilts!

Next I pulled out this month's piecing for the Sedona QAL that Sew Kind of Wonderful just started.  It is just one group of blocks a month - not too much to do; but, really nice chain-piecing to do.  I do love some chain piecing!

Quilt Therapy really is wonderful and does work.  I am so glad that I have quilting in my life :-)

Happy 2019!

Happy New Year everyone!

Good bye to 2018 and hello to 2019!  I hope that this is a wonderful year for all of you!

Did anyone pick a word for 2019?  The word that has been rattling around in my head is UNION.  Why union?  Well, I feel like 2018 has been a year of reflection, study and introspection.  I have studied, meditated and been open for new things and experiences and I feel that this will be the year to bring it all together in union.

So what does this mean?  Well, I want to do a lot more of what interests me and try to find ways to bring my skills together in ways that make my heart sing.  Sounds pretty vague I know; but, hopefully I'll be able to articulate this better in the coming months.

In the meantime.  We spent Christmas at the cottage again this year; and, although it was very cold, it was perfect!  The lake froze over in our shallow little bay so there was lots of skating and hockey playing and it was probably the most classically Ontario Christmas I have had :-)

Here is River on our rink looking at a rainbow while the sun goes down.  And underneath our neighbours are flooding their rink for smoother skating.

I was also able to do quite a bit of sewing while there - did I mention how cold it was!!?  I completely finished my Guilty Pleasures T-Shirt quilt and turn the binding to the back by hand while spending time with the family.  I am so pleased with this quilt!  I'm actually surprised with how much I love it!  It makes me happy every time I look at it and it is so nice to sleep under.

I quilted it, top and bottom, in Glide Titanium thread in a free-hand wave pattern.  I backed it in a green flannel wide-back and used Hobbs 80/20 batting.  I can't even express to you how nice this is to sleep under and how cuddly it is!  My husband loves it too :-)

I actually liked making this quilt so much that I have more in the planning stages AND I wouldn't mind making some of these for others!  

I also managed to get some piecing done!

Since I only had an extremely limited selection of fabric there I picked a pattern from Sew Kind of Wonderful's book Mini Wonderful Curves that fit what I had and I spent some time piecing this beauty called Breezy Day.

I don't have a destination for this quilt so it's now in the "to be quilted" pile but I really do love the way that it came together!