Quilt Dog!

How could I resist!?

Our dog, River, is such a gentle dog who loves nothing better than  to be with us, leaning on us and cuddling.  She wants to be included in everything - including my quilts!

When I lay fabric out on the floor she lays on it.  And if a quilt is on the floor she goes to sleep on it LOL!

This Christmas I have been sick with Bronchitis and I have spent quite a bit of time in front of the small gas fireplace in my sewing room to rest.  River loves to snuggle right beside me.  Well, a few Christmases ago I made the rag quilt that is on the floor and I made a small companion one from various leftovers.  River has decide that she absolutely loves the little leftover blanket ever since I draped it over her on Christmas eve - she snuggled under that blanket for over two hours before she got up!!

 

And there I sit, in front of the little fireplace with my quilt and River with hers. Dogs this size supposedly don't like being under blankets right??  Anyways, the quilt is now hers - how could I resist!!??

First in a Series!

Hi all!

I hope that you are all enjoying the Holiday Season!  Me?  Somehow I ended up with Bronchitis and haven't been able to do much :-(  Oh well - what isn't done, isn't done I suppose!

I have been able to get a few things done around the house though and I have only left the house once in the last week!

One thing I have done is play with my new Accuquilt Studio Bear dies!!  So much fun!  This is a set of dies that I have never seen posted about before (I mightn't have seen the posts though!) so I was excited to get them and started to play.  There are three sizes of bear dies.  I got the Jumbo and the Small but I might just have to order the Large as well! I have ordered a few more dies that I will post about once they are in my hands ;-)

 

 

I had this idea to make a series of wildlife pillows for the cottage and home.  Well yesterday I cut out the first one; and, I am in LOVE with the way that it turned out!  It feels so wonderful - so warm, so outdoors.  It's also perfect for the winter season at home!

This one is made from 100% wool fabric and appliqued with a blanket stitch.  I have some ideas to improve the pillows:  make them less expensive to make and more tactile.  I am pleased with this first one though!!

What do you think?  Any thoughts??

Christmas Scraps

Hi all!  I hope that you are enjoying the days leading up to Christmas :-)

I needed to get to work on my Christmas fabric postcards so I pulled out my bin of Christmas scraps and this is what I found.

 

Left-over border pieces, a million 2" squares, tumblers, a left-over block and a lot of half square triangles.  WOW!  That's a lot of stuff! I looked through and found several 16-patch leaders and enders blocks and decided to make a simple postcard this year - just piecing.

 

I layered the piecing onto Timtex and loaded it onto my frame to machine quilt.  It didn't work too badly; but, it definitely isn't my favorite stuff to quilt on the frame!  I used a 40 weight Glide thread in Sand colour - a go to thread for me!

Now I need to cut them apart and put on the backing fabric and edge them - oh and then I will address them all.  I hope to get them done and mailed before Christmas - sigh.

Every year I make the same promise to myself - I will start these cards earlier next year!!!

A Finish for My Mom!

Hey all!!

I hope that you are staying warm in this extremely cold weather!!!  If you're having it LOL!

My Mom has been up visiting for the last week - yey!  Anyways,  I was going through my quilt closet getting out some UFO's to work on; and, she found this quilt top that I was given by my local quilt shop.  It was made using one of those fabrics that has a bunch of strips that you can cut apart to make your own Jelly Rolls.  Well, the Northcott rep had just done a trunk show and showed how to make a lone star quilt without piecing more than the rows using this fabric.  Well, this one wasn't very successful (it was extremely wavy and the points weren't sharp etc) and they were going to throw it out so I said that I would take it to cut up.  That was a few years ago. . .  I never did get around to cutting it up!

Needless to say - my Mom fell in love with it and asked me to quilt it!

 

I loaded it on the frame and ditched the star and put feathers in the black.  I had the quilting done in an evening and then started on the binding.  I got the waviness out of the quilt and it lays pretty straight now - yey.  The ditching in between the star pieces makes it look like it WAS actually pieced and it makes the quilt much flatter.

 

I have to say, now that the quilt is finished, I am surprised that I like it!  I really didn't like it to start with LOL!

Another quilt out of storage and on it's way to a new home tomorrow!  That makes; 2 charity lap quilts, 3 preemie quilts and a wall hanging finished and out of the house this week alone :-D  Now, if I can keep up this I should be able to get through my quilt closet!

Charity Quilts

 Hi all!

It is snowy and cold here today!  If you are experiencing snow where you are I hope that you are warm and safe :-)

I received a couple quilt tops from our local chapter of Victoria's Quilts to machine quilt.  I like to give back so this was a pleasure for me.  I loaded them together and machine quilted them using my Loricles grooved boards.  It's like doing a panto-graph only much easier.

 

 I used the Swirls board and a variegated YLI cotton thread called Egyptian Sands in 40wt.  I love this thread!  I have used almost an entire cone of this now since it seems to go across just about everything beautifully!

 

Here's a close-up of the design.  This pattern seems to work with just about everything as an edge to edge design.

I always like doing charity work; but, I have to confess - I am SO happy that these two quilts are done and out of the closet!!!  Now onto hand turning the binding on the quilt for my Mom and I get to load something for me onto the frame!!  Yey!  I was going to load a different quilt but - my thread hasn't come in the mail yet :'-(   Oh well - there are more quilts in the closet and I wanted to piece the backings for the next two quilts to go on the frame anyways!

Urban Abacus

Hi all!

I cannot believe that it is finally finished!!  

Urban Abacus (by Sew Kind of Wonderful) is finally finished!  The quilting is all pebbles and ribbon twists - you can see a closeup picture in the previous post.  The quilting took many many hours LOL!

I am in love with their rulers and with their patterns!  If you can believe it I have two more of their tops pieced and ready to quilt!  Which leads me to my next thing - my UFO closet!  I have GOT to get some quilts out of there!!

I have so many tops ready to quilt but I find myself getting overwhelmed; and, so I go and run away LOL!   So, starting now - I am going to slowly clear that closet.  I bought some thread (hopefully coming tomorrow) for two more of the quilts; and, then I need to get down to business.  2017 is going to be the year of finishes for me.  Finishes and using up as much as I can.  I have made some serious in-roads into the stash - which makes me happy - but now I need to finish things.

My Mom is visiting now and she found a quilt top (that was given to me to save it from the trash) and she asked if she could pay me to quilt it.  Of course not Mom!  I told her she could just have it.  So, I quilted it today and will get the binding onto it for her.  I will post a picture of that tomorrow ;-)