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.

Hearts Fabric Postcards

Hi all!

It's been a while since I've blogged. I've been a a bit of a knitting kick right now so I actually haven't done all that much sewing. I've made a few pair of slippers for myself and my boys, and, to be honest, I've forgotten how long it takes to knit things :) I want to move onto socks, since I LOVE hand-knit socks, but, I hate how much they cost :) Isn't that always the way :)

I have, however, made up a bunch of these lips and hearts snow globe fabric postcards for a yahoo group postcard swap. I really enjoy making these cards to swap with other people from around the globe. They are fun to make, and, you can try out many different techniques without making the big commitment of a quilt. These ones use use clear vinyl to encase various confetti and beads and anything else that you might want. When you shake them the "stuff" moves around. If I get started early enough, I will make some Christmas ones for my Christmas cards this year. They take awhile so making 30 something might be a stretch.

Another Baby Quilt Finished

I finally finished that baby quilt that I bought the fabric for ages ago! I used my favorite one-patch, four-patch baby quilt pattern and I had the entire top made and quilted in a day. I also had the binding machine sewn on. Turning the binding to the back by hand, however, is another thing. It took four sittings for me to hand-turn the binding to the back. What is it about me and hand-turning the binding to the back?? I really like doing hand appliqué but something about hand-turning the binding really bores me :) I have friends that just LOVE doing it and can't wait to start the binding. Me? Not so much! It is the last step in making the quilt but I will put it off for as long as possible. Yes, I do know various ways to machine bind; but, I just don't like the look of them as much. How pathetic is that? :) I like the look but I don't like to bind by hand. LOL! Enough on my rant about binding.

What is your favorite way of binding?

Another UFO Finish - #20

Well, I finally finished it :) This was a small wall hanging that I started about 8 years ago and I think was my third quilt project. My friend gave me the fish panel, and, I don't know why, but, I decided to border it in Japanese fabric. Hmmm? I wonder what I was thinking at the time LOL.

Anyways this is another project that I sliced the border on and put away for a number of years. Can you see a trend here at all?? LOL! Well, I finally finished it up this week and I am glad to get it out of the pile. It is only 21" square so it just seems like such a silly little project to have as a UFO. Oh well, it is finished now.

Next I need to finish up the baby quilt that I picked the fabric for a while back; and, I need to make a baby quilt for some people that commissioned one from me. After that, it is on to a wedding quilt that I need for the end of June. I have a good idea for the pattern and I think that I will use some of my own hand-dyes for it. I hope that the couple will like it. So many quilts so little time!! Life is good.

My 30's Quilt is on the Frame!

Hi all;
I thought that I would share a picture of my 1930's Dresden Plate quilt on the hand quilting frame. We just started hand quilting it last week but I forgot my camera. You can see a few lines of quilting at the bottom of the picture. I just love this quilt. It is so fresh and bright looking and I really think that it will be perfect on the bed in the summer time. I think that I may make some pillow cases to go with it (at some point!). The more I think about putting prairie points around the outside the more I like that idea. I think that it will really tie in with the points on the Dresden Plates. It will also use up some more of my 30's prints! As usual, I bought WAY too much fabric. I am also thinking about doing a sweatshirt jacket out of the 30's prints. It would be a nice jacket for the spring.

Tonight is our quilt guild night. I didn't make it to the last meeting since my husband didn't get home from work in time. I told him not to worry about getting home fast because the roads were really icy and it was really foggy. Oh well!! I live in Canada :)

Christmas UFO Completed

Hi all;
Well I got UFO #19 completely finished! I liked the layout of the scrap half-square triangles so I went with it! Luckily I had enough of the background fabric and some more batik for the borders. I used up a Christmas brushed cotton that was left-over from the back of a Christmas quilt I made a while ago and there was just enough for the backing and for a sleeve. I love using up left-overs like that.

I tried a slightly different feather quilting for this quilt and used Yenmet metallic threads for the first time. It worked really well and I am pleased with the result. I'm not sure if you can really see it but it is there :)

I think that I am going to rewrite my UFO list so that I take some out and maybe add in a few as well. Now to quilt the other little wall hanging.

More UFO Completions

Hi all!
I got UFO #18 completely finished yesterday! Here it is! Four place mats and a center piece or separate table topper. I can't tell you how pleased I am to have finished this. I just have to package it up, and, send it off now, and, see if the couple likes it. I hope that they do. I have made a vow to myself to stop buying pre-printed place mat panels. I have one more to finish, that has tea cups on it, but after that NO MORE!! I find that they actually take quite a bit of time, and, are not that much fun for me anymore. Back when I bought this project, about 4 years ago, I thought that these were the best ever; but, I like other things now. When I was doing another set I actually figured it out that start to finish, including machine quilting, they took me about an hour each. Ah well!! They are finished now.

I was so inspired by this completion that I pulled out another UFO that has been bugging me. I really wanted to get this one done before Christmas but hey it will be done for next Christmas. This is a whole bunch of half square triangles that I made several years ago while demonstrating the Eleanor Burns Triangle Square Up Ruler. I made a small quilt out of four of the center blocks that you see there and these were the left-overs. These have been sitting there in a ziplock bag all these years just waiting for something to be done with them. I pulled them out and placed them in what I think is a pleasing arrangement. Luckily I had enough of the background fabric to fill in the blanks and I put the quilt top together yesterday after I finished with the place mats. It is now basted and waiting to be quilted! I'll post a picture of it when I finish it off (maybe tomorrow or so).

I got so inspired that I actually pulled out another UFO and finished the top and basted it as well. This one is one of my first projects and has been sitting there for almost 9 years! It is another instance where I cut into the border fabric. I looked at it again and said "Ah, the borders are too big anyways!" So, the borders on this quilt got cut down as well. After I finish quilting it I will post a picture of it as well.

So all told that means that I am finished or making progress on UFO's #18, #19 and #20! Not too bad!

Tackling Another UFO

Hi all!
Even though I finished 17 UFO's in 2007 I still have many more to go! Some of these are really silly UFO's and some I really don't want anymore. I think that I will have to take a very close look at some of them and decide if I want to give them away or add them to our guild's yard sale. I did manage to turn several of my UFO's into gifts and baby quilts which made me really happy. I'm actually at a stage right now where I feel bogged down by my UFO's and unmotivated to start any new projects. I have made the resolution to either finish these projects or get rid of them! They are causing me undue stress and anxiety over completing them! This is causing me to not really want to quilt as much as I used to. I think that I will have to be brutally honest with myself and chop the UFO heap to only the projects that I actually WANT to be finished and either want to KEEP or want to GIVE AWAY. What do you think? I figure that there is no point in draining myself over projects that I really have no interest in anyways. Who cares if I lose some money in giving these projects away; I really think that my motivation is worth more than a few dollars.

This UFO is, I believe, a Kathy Schmitz panel that I purchased about 4 years ago to make 4 place mats and a table topper. I cut everything out and put the borders on the place mats. Then, with a quick slip of the rotary cutter, I sliced into the stack of place mats and made about a half inch cut into them. I was so mad, and, I didn't have enough of the border print to take off the top border and replace it. So into a bag it went to sit for a few years. You can see the little sliced bits at the top of the place mats.

This UFO has been really bothering me; because, I could have it finished in no time at all. Well, I pulled it out this morning and got a brain-wave! Why not just trim the half inch off the top and bottom! So, I did, and, I think that they look just fine! I pulled the Kathy Schmitz pinkish star fabric out of my stash as a suitable backing fabric and I think that I will try to finish these up today! I have a friend whose house I think that these would go very nicely in and would enjoy a late Christmas gift of them. I feel pretty good about this UFO since this one was really bothering me; and, I was able to pull out of my stash.

On another note. I finished the Dresden Plate quilt top and completely marked it! After I had finished marking it I decided that the border would need more quilting so I went back around it again and added more. I'm not sure if you can see the marking very well or not in this picture. I did a one inch cross-hatch all over the body of the quilt, and, in the center of the dresden plates. I did a single hatch coming out from the saw tooth border; but, that didn't seem tight enough, so, I added in another line a quarter inch in from that line. I used the Clover blue was away pen. Quilt marking takes so much time and if you try to do it fast it looks horrible. Ah well! It goes on the frame on Tuesday night to be quilted by the bee that I belong to "The Silver Thimbles." I can't wait! I got the new 90% silk and 10% polyester batting put out by Hobbs to try this time :)

I Finished the Little Sheep Rug

Hi all!
I finished the little sheep rug and I wanted to post a photo of it for you all. A friend of mine gave me the great orange wool to whip the edges with and I have to say that I think that it is a perfect match for the orange in the rug. I added the little C's and G's into the body of the sheep because I thought that it would look too dull without it. I really didn't like this project, when I started, it to be honest, but, it has since grown on me. I was making it for a Christmas gift but that space has passed now LOL! I think that I may keep it for myself now!

I have also finished marking my 1930's Dresden Plate Quilt. The marking took me hours!!!! I cannot stress that enough :) I think that I probably spent about 9 hours marking this quilt! I completely hate marking a quilt so this was a real chore but I think that it will be worth the effort! I'll post a picture tomorrow maybe :)

World's Stupidest Quilting Mistake!!

Well I've done it!

I have made the world's stupidest quilting mistake today! I was putting on the last two borders for my 1930's Dresden plate quilt. Everything was going along well. I measured the center of the top to find out how long to cut the borders. I was using corner-stones so I measured to the borders. But, wait for it, I measured to the inside of the first (pieced) border not to the outside of the pieced border!!!!! I even reconfirmed this measurement three times!! So I cut my borders, on the lengthwise grain, 5 full inches too short! You can see this in the picture. What was I thinking! Thank goodness I have enough extra fabric that I can get another two borders out of it! I had been thinking to bind it in the background fabric but that idea is shot now! Well, I guess I could still use the mis-cut border fabric. Oh well. I was also thinking that prairie points and a mock binding, out of the purple, would be nice. I guess that's what I'll do now.

Other than that I think that the quilt is turning out very nicely :) So be honest have you ever heard of a stupider quilting mistake?? Maybe it's a full moon!

New computer and Rug Hooking

Hi all!
I hope that everyone has had a wonderful holiday season. I received an IMac for Christmas :) What a lucky girl I am! I have to say that it is really wonderful and sooo much better than my old PC. My poor old PC would chug along and crash on me. So I have been in the process of trying to remember my passwords for my e-mail accounts and this blogger account. What a lot of passwords for everything! Now to get my ITunes library transfered over :)

I have been working on a little rug hooked sheep over the holidays. I wasn't really sold on it when I first got it but I have to say that it is really growing on me :) I added the little swirls in the sheep's body as a detail; but, I'm still not really sold on it yet. I like the way that the nine-patch squares are working out in the background though. I was thinking of expanding it a bit by putting a picket fence or something around the outside of the sheep. There is quite a bit of burlap left around the outside of the sheep so I think that it might look nice.

Now I just need to get onto finishing the 30's Dresden Plate quilt top for next week!

A New Baby Quilt in the Making!

Hi all!

Here is one of my next project! I have a new baby quilt to make! Yey! Well, actually I have two now to make but this is the next one that needs to be finished LOL!

This quilt will be a simple one patch four patch design. The bottom fabric is the feature fabric and border fabric. The yellow poke-a-dot fabric is going to be in the four-patches and the small orange is the first border. The orange batik fabric is actually from the expectant parents' wedding quilt. You can see the quilt here. The top green fabric is the brushed cotton backing fabric. The pattern that I am going to use is from the Ursula Reikes book Quilts for Baby: Easy as ABC. I've done it before several times and I always really like it (you can see another one here). I like a simple baby quilt so that people will use it instead of putting it away to be an heirloom! Do you like my fabrics?

Christmas Pencil Toppers Finished

Hi all!
We are starting to get really close to Christmas and I am working frantically trying to finish up a few more Christmas projects!

Here is another one finally finished! I thought that I would make Christmas pencil toppers for my two son's classes. Well 44 toppers, and many hours, later I have them finished!! Wow! I don't know if I will do this again but it was fun to do it at least once! I think that this project would have been better started in the summer LOL!

The snow man is from Ann the Gran and the Christmas tree is a freebie from Embroidery Garden. They both stitch out very nicely and use felt as the backing so it's not all a fill! just add a pencil into the spot underneath and you are finished. I am going to go out tomorrow and see if I can get some Christmas pencils for the kids. I think that would really complete the gift.

How are your holiday projects going??

Snowmen Fabric Postcards

I finally finished making these snowmen fabric postcards today! I will get them out into the mail tomorrow and heave a sigh of relief. I don't know what I was thinking signing up for a swap that had to ship out right before Christmas; especially, with all the fabric postcards that I made for friends and family. I really liked the theme of the swap and I love that it is so international. Two of the cards are going to Australia, one to Turkey and one to France. I think that's pretty cool!

With all the snow that we have had over the past couple of weeks I could have built about a dozen or two snowmen in my front yard today!

Christmas Fabric Postcards

Hi all!

Well, this is this year's batch of Christmas fabric postcards! They are finally done! What a lot of work but I just love them :) All the white ones are addressed and ready to go I just have to do the coloured ones. I bought some of those clear peel and stick envelopes that a lot of people use and I think that I will put them in the envelopes this year since the postcards are white. What do you think? I bought a few hundred of them so I don't mind using them :)

These were fun cards to make. I saw the metallic net fabric at Fabric Land a few weeks back and thought that it would be a nice easy way to make cards if I layered the fabric over other fabric. I didn't buy any of it and so the idea took firm root in my mind. I went back a week later and guess what?? It was on 50% off!! Gotta' love that! So I grabbed a meter of each and then dug into my stash for some other fabrics.

The white trim is just a knitting yarn. I think that it really finishes them off and makes them look cozy.

Are you all done your Christmas preparations yet?

Christmas Yo Yo's

Hi all!

Here is a yo yo Christmas tree garland that I started a while ago! Now that I am thinking about putting up the tree I thought that I would pull it back out and start sewing the yo yo's together. I am using the Clover yo yo maker and it is wonderful!!! I saw this idea several years ago in a quilting magazine and loved it but I really didn't want to make yo yo's the traditional way. Way to tedious for me :) So when this tool came out I promptly got it and started these. I figure that this can be one of these projects that I add to every year and it just gets better and better. I have realized though that I need to make a whole lot more of these and in many different fabrics if I want the garland to be interesting :)

Now I just need to finish a couple more gifts and my Christmas fabric post cards and I will be all set!! How are you all doing with your Christmas projects??