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 :)

Twister Table Toppers

Hi all!

Are you ready for Christmas yet?  Not me!  LOL

These are two Christmas table toppers that I made for incentive draws for my fitness classes.  Every time they cam to class in the month of December they got their name in a draw to win one of these.

They are from the Twister pattern by Designs to Share with You.  They work up from 4 fat quarters plus backing and binding so they work up from a fairly small amount of fabric which is nice.

They are two slightly different versions of the same pattern.  the only thing that I would change is the binding.  For my next one I might consider doing the inside out method so that a binding isn't necessary.  The binding certainly looks nice yes; but, all those inside and outside corners WOW!!  If you're not good at corners on binding you will be after you finish this project lol!

I hope that you can see the quilting.  I machine quilted them in a feather that radiates out from the center into each point using a gold rayon thread.  I love the way that it looks :)

Rug Hooking Frame Cover and 2" Squares Project

Hi all! I got this months issue of Rug Hooking Magazine and they had a pattern in it for a gripper frame cover that you could make to suit your particular gripper frame. I really liked the idea of it so I made it up yesterday using some blue tapestry fabric that i had lying around. I quite like the way that it turned out. At least those shar grippers are covered now :)

Now I just need to make an edge cover for my frame. I really like the ones that you can get made out of polar fleece but I'm sorry I refuse to pay $50.00 to buy one! LOL.

This is my latest 2" squares "leaders and enders" project. I saw this one the cover of a block somewhere and really liked it as an easy pattern to use up my 2" squares. I didn't actually buy the book b/c the pattern was pretty easy to figure out without even opening the cover. Here is a link to the method that I use for my 2" squares. I used the same approach for doing the white units as well. It's a nice way to use up fabric and make something while you're working on something else. I would never be able to sew this many 2" squares together all at once but to do one at a time is great!

What do you all think?

Another Finished UFO

I finished another UFO today! Label, hanging sleeve and binding all are finished! I think that this is about #24 but I have lost count now.

My original plan for this was to make a whole bunch of these blocks and make an under-water sweatshirt jacket. The blues in this quilt ended up looking more like ice and less like water though so these 12 blocks sat in a bag in my UFO area for a couple years. I pulled them out a while ago and realized that the reason that I had never finished the jacket is because the blues were just completely wrong for me and what I wanted.

So I decided that maybe I could make a baby quilt from these blocks. So I put the quilt together and spray basted a blue flannel on to the back. Then it sat there for another couple weeks. Then I realized that this really wasn't a baby quilt LOL! So I replaced the backing with a blue batik fabric that I had in my stash and quilted it free-form with a variegated blue thread top and bobbin.

Now that it is quilted I actually really like it! I was never all that in love with this quilt; but, now I think that it is pretty cool. I am extremely pleased with the effect that the quilting has on this quilt and I had a really fun time quilting it. Sometimes UFO's can surprise you and this time this one really did :)

Yet Another Baby Quilt! I Am on a Roll!

Yey! I finished turning the binding to the back on this baby quilt last night while we watched a movie!

I know, I know this is yet another 4-patch 1-patch baby quilt but I just love that pattern! This is the absolute last of the baby bali fabrics that I bought a few years ago. I bought about 1 meter of each of the two baby bali's that my LQS had in and I wish now that I had purchased about 3 meters of each as they are sooooo wonderful! The colours can suit a boy or a girl, although this quilt is going to a girl, and, because they are batiks they are wonderful to work with and press like a dream! I backed this quilt in a mottled yellow flannel fabric to be nice and cuddly. I would have made it longer like the baby quilt in my previous blog post; but, like I said, I honestly don't have anymore of the batiks left! LOL! It is still about 36" square however.

Now to peel off the baby fabric that I had put on another UFO and replace it with something less babyish so that it can be used as a table-topper. I was going to use a UFO as a baby quilt but it really isn't very babyish. It could be used as a baby quilt but I think that if I put something more genaric on the back it may be more appealing. I'll post a picture of it tomorrow maybe.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Another Baby Quilt

I finally finished this baby quilt! It is a gift for friend's of ours that just had a baby girl. The pink fabric has little stick figure surfers on it which is perfect for them since they met in California and love to surf! I could not believe it when I saw this fabric lol!

Once again I have used my favorite four-patch one-patch baby quilt pattern but i just love it so much! It shows off the fabric really nicely, it works up quickly and it always looks good. With baby quilts I think that a lot of the times simple is better.

Now to finish the other baby quilt!!!

Whole Cloth Jacket Finished!

I finally finished my whole cloth jacket!!  All that I had to do was put the binding and cuffs on but I just wasn't motivated to do it before now.  Completely ridiculous that it took me that long to do it!  This jacket has been sitting in my to do pile since the spring just waiting for those finishing touches.  Now it is at my LQS and on display to advertise my sweat shirt jacket class.  Nothing like a deadline to get you moving!

I actually think that I work much better with a deadline to be honest.  I get things done when they need to be done and don't make excuses for not working on it.  If I don't have a deadline I can start other things or play with something else.  Not good!  UFO's bother me!  I feel like I shouldn't start anything else until I finish the projects that I have already started and yet a lot of times I need a deadline to do it.  Now isn't that a conundrum!  

Fiberfest Weekend and Rug Update

Hi all! I am back from Fiberfest and exhausted! What a great time I had! Some women from the Olde Forge Rug Hooking Guild were with me in the morning and the ladies from the Women Matters group were there in the afternoon. What a great group of women it was an absolute pleasure to meet you all. Here is a picture of their wonderful rug! I can honestly say that this picture doesn't do the rug any justice at all! it truly is a wonderful rug! A lot of people were amazed by the colours and the beauty of this rug.



I made a bit of progress sitting and hooking this weekend but not as much as you'd think from spending a whole weekend there! Ah well! Slowly my circles are getting completed :) We did a lot of talking about rug hooking and showing people how to hook as well as guiding people through pulling their first loops. What fun it was to see people get "hooked!" Alot of people had never seen rug hooking before and they were amazed at the beauty of the rugs and the diversity and colours. Lots of people loved my circles and some didn't know what to think of them I think LOL!

Dulcy asked about some of the smaller rugs in my last post. The primitve house is actually a kit that I purchased at a second-hand store a few years ago for $5!! It is actually a kit from Hooked on Rugs and they still have the kit here. Most of the other small rugs are kits by Loretta Moore the woman that I learned to rug hook from. SHe makes wonderful little kits that are really fun and cheerful. Let me know if you need more information on her and I will look it up.

I hope that you've enjoyed seeing the display!

Rug Hooking demo at Fiberfest this Weekend

Hi all!! This weekend I will be demonstrating rug hooking at Fiberfest in Almonte. If you are in the area this is a great little show! It is the first Canadian destination for the 2008 Hoffman challenge show (which looks wonderful by the way!). And, there will be displays of many types of textile arts including; quilting, doll-making, spinning, weaving, knitting, wearable art, and rug hooking.
This is a picture of the display that I have put up so far anyways. I will be adding to it tomorrow when I go back, in the morning, but, this is most of it anyways. I set all this up myself so it took a lot longer than I thought that it would have taken. Thank goodness I went in the morning!!

I will be bringing my gripper frame with me and strip cutter and sitting and hooking with a friend. A few people should be coming over the weekend to help out. We will also have a Q-Snap with some burlap in it for people to try hooking if they want. It's always good to get people to pull those first few loops and get them "hooked!" I think that it will be great to show people how the fabric is cut and then hooked into patterns but also that you can use old clothing or hand-dyed wool if you like.

So what do you think of it so far? I will take some more pictures tomorrow :)

Fiberfest the weekend of September 6th and 7th in Almonte, ON

Hi all! If you are in the Ottawa area the weekend of September 6th and 7th I hope that you will check out Fiberfest in Almonte, ON. There will be lots of various displays including the Hoffman Challenge quilts, a quilt show, vendors and demonstrations. I will be helping out with the rug hooking demonstrations this weekend. It will just be an informal hook-in with some of our rugs on display to promote rug hooking to the public. Hopefully it will generate some intrest in the art and show people what traditional rug hooking is as opposed to latch-hooking.

I was contacted by a very nice woman from the Gananoque area. She and her fellow hookers are making a wonderful rug to raise money for the women of the Congo. A few of them will be bringing thier wonderful rug to display at our Fiberfest booth on Sunday afternoon and to join in our hook-in for a couple of hours. I think that the rug looks absolutely stunning and I can't wait to see it in person! If you would like to check out the rug and the blog these ladies started please check out Women Matters Rug Art web site. The colours in this rug are rick and wonderful.

Some links!

Hi all! Summer has finally started to be a bit nicer here for us! We had a few days finally without rain and it actually feels like a treat!

I thought that I would post a couple links for everyone if you are interested in a couple hooking techniques.

Laurie's Hooking Tips and Tricks

Gene Shepherd's Rug Hooking Web site has some wonderful information on it and even a free video for you to watch.

Just a short post but I thought that these link might just be useful to some of you :)

Rug Hooking

Dulcy asked for some progress on the rug hooked stool cover I have been working on so I thought that I would share. I have been working on this for a while now but to be honest I haven't touched it since June LOL! It just seems to be too hot to be working with wool right now. I used Gene Shepherds's technique for making the circles that he outlines in the Rug Hooker's Bible and in his DVD's. When I brought this to the rug hookers guild everyone was amazed that the circles were actually round. I had no idea when I started this that circles were actually apparently hard :)


We went to the Museum of Civilzation today in Hull and they had a wonderful exhibit on Quebec Folk Art. And, what do you think that they had but some hooked rugs! It was wonderful to see them! So, I thought that I would share a couple of pictures. If you can get to the museum to see the exhibit it is really wonderful! The odd thing was though that there weren't any quilts! I love the colours in these rugs! They are so colourful and vibrant and the whimsy in these rugs is just amazing.



These two rugs are more pictorial and really show a scene from life. I like how the words are incorporated right into the rugs. You can see how the rugs are displayed right in with the other peices of folk art. There was carving, painting, mosaics, hooked rugs, drawing etc. It was a very diverse display. They also had a nice picture of a woman pulling some loops which I liked.

I hope that you enjoyed the pictures and I think that the stool cover is coming along fine! Slow but fine :)

Wedding Quilt with Curved Piecing

Hi all! As promised here is a couple of pictures of the quilt that i just completed for a friends wedding in June. this was a completely last minute finish but I still think that it turned out nicely :) I was turning the binding to the back on the plane and in the hotel a few hours before the wedding. It is a free-form curved piecing pattern called Eureka by Maple Island Quilts by Debbie Bowles. I just loved using batiks in this quilt. The batiks made the piecing really easy and the IDT on my Pfaff sewing machine made the curves come together without using even one pin. Amazing :) Sorry you'll have to look at the picture sideways for now I will change it in a bit LOL!

Here is a close-up of the quilting. I used a gold rayon thread in the center with my free-form meander that I like to do in the center and two different colors of purple rayon thread in the boarder. I quilted the boarder using a double stitch flame feather to add to the funky effect of it. The backing was also a batik wide back that my LQS had and I loved the effect of having batik on the top and the backing.

I hope that they like the quilt.

A new Baby Quilt

I finished this baby quilt a while ago and i am sorry but I am just uploading it now :) Sorry everyone it has been a while since my last blog update! I actually have not been quilting all that much. It is summer time and sitting behind a sewing machine is just not all that appealing to me now *shock* lol! However I do have this wonderful little baby quilt that was delivered to it's owner a few weeks ago. The nursery has a jungel theme to it so when I found this great red jungle print I just had to use it! I love that juicy green first boarder print! I think that it makes the entire quilt. I know that I keep using the 4-patch one-patch pattern over and over but I really like it a lot! It show cases the fabric wonderfully and always looks nice. I have another quilt to put up tomorrow that I did for a wedding gift.

Rug Progress and Another Jacket

Well I have been working on the cover for my stool and I think that I have made pretty good progress on it. This took the better part of Sunday to complete LOL! There are all different cuts in this rug. There is everything from a 4 to an 8 cut. I should mention that this is linen burlap for the backing.

Doing this stool cover I have also figured out that I actually really like hooking these multi-coloured, anything goes circles! i love being able to use the colours that I want without imposing any rules about them. I think that I might just do my hearth rug (another rug that I am planning) in circles. Actually I was thinking of putting a game board in the middle and I think that circles on the edges would look really nice. What do you guys think?
I taught the sweatshirt jacket class again yesterday and this is my jacket so far! This is one fabric used on the whole jacket and I really like the effect. I still need to take the jacket in under the arms and over cast the edges but other than that it is finished. I have a nice light gold fabric that I am going to use to o the binding and the cuffs. It really sets off the cranes in the jacket. The ladies were all really pleased with the course and love their jackets so I am very pleased as well. So many jackets to make so little time LOL!

Starting to rug hook the stool cover today

Hi all! I finally decided to take the plunge and start to rug hook the stool cover today. I decided to do a simple cat's paw pattern using some of my scraps. I think that I will so a black background behind the circles. Eventually there will be more circles and it will look something like the cat's paw rug this on Gene Shepherd's site. Also if you are interested in rug hooking blogs Gene's is great. Here's a link. I also found a great video about rug hooking on YouTube that I wanted to share with you all. I have been waiting for someone to upload a video about rug hooking on YouTube for ever! Since I am not a rug hooking teacher I really didn't want to up load anything. This is the MS Rug Hooking Guild tutorial. And here is another great link that shows the rug hookers of Mexico. I'm happy that people are finally getting some videos out there for people to see.

Rug Hooking Sunflowers

I have finally started to rug hook the sun flowers from the rug that I started ages ago. I have never rug hooked flowers before so I have been a bit stalled to start this rug. I decided that since I went to the rug hooking guild yesterday that I would plunge in no matter what :) Well, I ended up pulling almost 90% of what I hooked and changing it but hey! I still don't know. What do you guys think? I've never done any type of shading before so I'm a little bit stumped! With quilting, I would know that if I didn't get the shade or the effect that I wanted, with the appliqué, that, I could thread paint it, or, just plain paint it. With rug hooking I don't have that experience yet so I am trying to get shading with a #5 cut because I don't want to do a fine cut on a rug that I want to put on the floor. I am a bit frustrated and feeling a bit over my head here; and, to be honest, I love it! I love feeling like the field is completely open and like the whole rug hooking world is my oyster :) i have a ton of mistakes to make and a ton to learn and it makes me really happy to be starting a whole new (well, new to me) thing.

Please tell me what you all think of my rug so far. Is the shading just whacked or is it ok?

Look what I bought and found!

Hi all!
I just had to share what i bought and found today. I bought this little stool today at a store for a few bucks because I have been wanting to recover a stool with a rug hooked cover like on this page. You may have to wait to see some of the photos but they are worth it :) this stool is in a bad enough condition that I don't feel bad about taking off the cover and replacing it with something that I make. If it doesn't work out then I won't feel bad about it. The legs are metal so some type of gold would be nice. I see some type of gold and green and maybe make it look funky but oriental and old at the same time. What do you guys think? I think this stool has some very great promise.

You can see my oldest dog Zen in the picture along with Chi's paw. Zen is now 14 and starting to show his age but he is still a happy active old dog and we love him.
This jar I found in this state, beside the grocery carts in the grocery store parking lot. I picked it up, originally, to get it out of the parking lot if it was broken; but, I soon saw that it was completely intact! Both the lid and the jar look great but they are dirty. I can't believe that someone would throw the jar away, with the shopping carts, when it wasn't broken or cracked or anything. I have no idea what I will do with it but it is a nice jar, with a lid, that could do something very useful in it's future :) What do you all think? Is this jar screaming out for some purpose?

Stitch and Flip Jacket Finished

I finally finished turning the binding on my jacket today! Yey!! Just in time for the quilt guild tonight. I am really pleased with the way that this jacket has turned out. I love all the bright colours, and, I love the decorative stitching in gold rayon thread on the jacket. You can see the one embroidery, that I decided to put on the jacket, on the left sleeve. It is my "sunshower" sun that I like to put on some of the work that I do.

This was a fun method that used up a lot of bits from my batik stash but I will say that my sewing room was a real mess while I was piecing this jacket. There was no sense clearing it away since I would just have to get everything back out again to do the next section. I thought that this would use up a lot of fabric but it didn't make a dent in my stash!

This is the back of my jacket. Doing a piece this large (the back) was challenging, but, I developed a system that allowed me to appliqué some of the pieces down so that they wouldn't get overly big. You can see the two appliqués along the right side of the jacket. I think that doing a jacket like this in 1930's prints might be really nice too. It would also look nice it the jacket was made up of individual blocks that were crazy patched then laid over the jacket instead of having one large crazy patch.

Rearranging Quilts

I decided to put some new quilts on the wall in my sewing studio. I am trying to decide if I want to try and sell a couple of quilts so I thought that I would put, the one on the left, up on the wall to see if it grows on me :) Well, putting these two quilts up in the corner above the gas fireplace has completely transformed this corner! I actually like the two quilts together. The quilt on the right is called "Sue's Favourite Blocks" I designed it as a Block of the Month (BOM) for my local quilt guild. I designed this quilt so that people would learn a new skill or unit each month. I wanted to make it so that if people made a block for the guild draw and a block for themselves they will have a nice wall quilt for themselves. The project went over really well and people liked doing a sort of group project.

As a side not I am completely determined to redo my quilting room this summer. I think that I will paint the walls a light tan or cream and put in berber carpet. I like carpet in this room because I like to sit on the floor in this room. It will be A LOT of work just to take all he "stuff" out of this room but I think that it will be worth it in the end.

Baby Quilt Finished

Well, I finished another baby quilt and it is delivered to the woman who ordered it from me! She is really happy with it so that is always really rewarding. Even though they picked out the fabrics and the pattern themselves I couldn't help but be a bit worried that they wouldn't like it. I always get like that :) every time I give a quilt as a gift I worry that they won't like it.

Do we all worry that our work will be appreciated and liked? Probably. It's silly though.


I have another baby quilt to make for two of our friends who are due in May and I had a bit of a brainwave today about it. I think that I will do another 4-patch 1-patch quilt using the yellow and white patches and the blue batik bears as the feature fabric. You can see the border fabric with corner-stones but I am not sure what to do for the first border. I have three different fabrics in there. I like the pink/purple fabric or the green the best I think. We are not sure about the sex of the baby so I am leaning towards the green fabric myself but a purple batik might be nice too. I'll have to go and hunt through my stash again :)

Which fabric do you guys think would look nice for the first border and probably binding?

Latest Projects

Hi all;
I haven't been blogging much lately because I have been working hard on this project here. It is my latest sweatshirt jacket. I finally finished covering the sweatshirt with batik pieces and finished with the decorative stitching using a gold rayon thread. I used the stitch and flip method to do the crazy patch using the sweatshirt pieces as the foundation. I like this technique because after you are done the stitching the quilting is done but I really think that the decorative stitching adds a lot to the garment and provides a bridge between the colours. I am thinking of adding some machine embroideries to some of the patches to really set the jacket off and make it a bit more like traditional crazy patch quilts. When I teach this class again, on Saturday, I will assemble the jacket and add the binding. I am thinking about curving the neckline for some added interest. If you'd like to see my tutorial for making a sweatshirt jacket please go to this page for part one and this page for part two.
I am going to start another baby quilt today as well. I am going to use the same pattern as the quilt that I made here. It is my favourite baby quilt pattern and I love the size that it makes up. I am making it for a woman to give to her grandson. They want it a bit longer than I usually make it but that isn't a problem. The top fabric is the feature fabric and the others are the supporting fabrics. The bottom fabric is a really nice flannel fabric for the back. I think that it is going to turn out very nicely :) The fabrics are washed now to press and start cutting.