Question - Negative Feedback

Hey all!!

I hope that you are enjoying this hot summer!  It's not as hot as last summer but it's still pretty hot!

I have been reflecting a bit, ok dwelling a bit, on negative feedback.  Specifically I have been thinking about the thumbs down on YouTube.

I have put up a few videos on YouTube to share with other quilters and help answer questions I get a lot.  I haven't put up any recently, for various reasons; but, today I was looking at my videos and I noticed negative reviews or thumbs down on some of the videos.

Now, don't get me wrong, people can absolutely, 100%, leave negative feedback if they wish; but, as a video-maker I am left thinking - why?  What didn't you like?  What could I have done better?  Do you just hate me?  Hate the video?  Not find it useful?  What!!?

In other words - it's not constructive LOL!  The comment feedback I received is all good so what compelled these 8 people to click the thumbs down button?  It just makes me wonder.

I've used the thumbs down button.  I am a Zumba instructor and I have used the thumbs down button when people post our exclusive choreography, that we pay for, for others to take.  When people are hateful, or just plain mean.  So, I do use it.

I am just a bit of a dweller - ok a lot of a dweller - so I find myself wondering if my other ideas are good enough to make a video or if they will get more thumbs down.  Silly I am sure; but, that's the way that my brain works!

So, here's my question, to those of you who use the thumbs down button on YouTube, why do you click the thumbs down icon?

Want to check out my YouTube videos?  Here ya go!  

A Little Charity Quilting

Happy Sunday!!

What's a girl to do on a cloudy, cool Sunday in June (the day after a day long yoga festival)?  Well, my answer is a little quick charity quilting!

Our local guild is making some quilts for local homeless youths and I volunteered to quilt a couple of them.  These were the perfect project for me today :-)

I used 40 wt Glide Thread in Cornflower - top and bobbin in an all over meander.

It was requested that the quilting be fairly loose and the thread be bright and cheerful - and I think that I met the requirements :-D 

The thread definitely matches the backings in intensity!! Nice bright flannel backing would bring a smile to anyone's face.

These are now folded up and ready to be returned, bound and given to their new owners.  I hope that they bring some joy.

What are you up to this weekend?

Leaders and Enders Woes!

 Good Morning all!

Lately i have been sorting through my scraps :-(  This started because I pulled out a drawer looking for a fabric that I knew was there.  Sigh, I never should have pulled that drawer out because it started a complete avalanche of scrap sorting that I have been putting off - ignoring really in the hope that they will go away LOL!

Anyways, I pieced three more preemie quilt tops and a scrappy rail-fence (I will show that later); and, in the process I completely filled up my 2" square bin and started a rather large 2" square bin of children't prints!

I store mine in plastic shoe boxes as they are easy to store and stack; and, hold more than you think!  I mean, check this out - this 2" square box is full!

And heavy!  I had this bin down to about 1/3 and now it's overflowing again -sigh!

I packaged up my Scrappy Swoon blocks from a couple blog posts again and still need 10 16-patches to get going on the assembly of this quilt.  I was able to piece 10 while I was making the preemie quilts and rail fence - so just 10 more needed!!

While I was doing my scrap cutting I decided to pull out a couple of my other leaders and enders (L&E) projects that I have on the go.  The scrappy bow-ties that Bonnie Hunter inspired a few years ago.  And the Split Nine-Patch I started a few years ago.

I have a lot of blocks done but not nearly enough to make a quilt!!

This means I have two more L&E projects on the go after I finish the Scrappy Swoon quilt!!  Oh man!

As I was pulling down bins of projects my Christmas bin almost fell on my head! (The bins are stored on a shelf up over my head!).  So, of course, I opened it up!

Tumblers, half-square triangles (HST) and 2" squares - oh my!  Doing a quick look at this bin I see that a Jacob's Ladder quilt would be beautiful in these Christmas prints!  So, that makes 3 L&E projects I have to finish!

Long time readers may remember these blocks from my Scrappy Christmas Quilt A Long I ran sever years ago.  Well, now, it appears that I have enough for another whole quilt already cut out!!

With three L&E projects in the wings and one large one almost ready to assemble (not to mention one ready to go on the frame!) I seem to have A LOT of scrap projects ready to go! 

So, the question is - do I continue with these L&E style or just start piecing them?  Hmmm . . . . . . of course I have other projects I am working on; but, right now I feel a little overwhelmed to be honest.  Although, I don't need any of these quilts except for a trunk show that I am doing at The Quilting Quarters next month.

I need to pick one to work on next and I need to choose how to proceed.  So, do I dive in and start chain piecing or continue on??  What would you do?

Ride For Dad T-Shirt Quilt

Happy Saturday All!

We have actual sun here today!  Wahoo!  Sun just instantly lifts my spirits!

I thought that I would post another t-shirt quilt I've been working on.  I found this grouping of Ride For Dad t-shirts at a thrift store and I thought that they would make a nice grouping for a quilt; and, afterwards it could make a nice donation as Ride For Dad raises money for prostate cancer.  Or, maybe someone will fall in love with it and want to purchase it!!

I'm not sure if I want to add borders onto this or not; so, I think I'll put this on a hanger and put it into the closet for a while; or, maybe one of my awesome readers has a suggestions???

So, why am I making all these t-shirt quilts?  I want to start taking in some t-shirts to make these for other people so I wanted to get process, costs, supplies and time down so I can give accurate quotes to people.  Accurate and also fair to both of us and paying myself a wage that that will make taking this on worth it!  

So frequently I see quilters selling items or offering their services in a manner that is completely undervaluing their time and skill.  To me, this is a disservice to the quilting industry as a whole.  What we do takes skill, ability and a LOT of time.  We should value ourselves enough to be paid a living wage when we offer our services to others.  Long story short, I need it to be worth my while to work for others.

Some people will say - people won't pay me that amount!!!  That's ok - there are plenty of t-shirt quilt companies out there that will work for MUCH cheaper than I will; and, they do a much cheaper job in every sense of the word.   I figure - if this is the amount people are willing to invest in their quilt, then I am not the quilter for them.  

I could meet the much lower price.  IE use much cheaper fabric, thread batting, not use stabilizer etc, do much quicker and lesser quilting, do an inside out method to avoid doing a binding AND pay myself $1.00 per hour; but, why would I??  I wouldn't want to put my name on this, I wouldn't enjoy the process and I wouldn't want to pay for or own the finished product!!

What a long rant!!  LOL!!  Do you have any thoughts about this??  I would love to hear them :-)  Am I alone in feeling this way?

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!

Preemie Quilts!

Oh how I love to make preemie quilts!  They make me so happy!  If you have been reading my blog for a while you know that I like to make some of these every year for our local NICU.

Maybe that's odd but I really do love making them :-)  We have been cleaning out the basements lately (yuck) and in one of the boxes we came across this hand pieced Grandmother's Flower garden blob that I had started about 16 years ago!  I have no intention of finishing it and I couldn't handle throwing it away; so, I cleaned it up and cut out the most useable part of it and added some borders.  

I think that it is looking pretty cute!  I never would have finished the hand sewing to make this bigger so I feel it is a good use of the blocks ;-)

Next up, I came across these hand embroidered 4-block sets at a thrift store that just screamed preemie quilt!  I completely forgot that I had these until I found the Grandmother's Flower Garden UFO.  SO, I dug it out and cut it up into blocks, added some 30's print borders and Voila!  2 little preemie quilts!  Can you believe that those are hand embroidered!  It seemed like a waste not to do something with those - someone put a lot of hours into them!

Hopefully these little quilts will be well loved by some little ones :-)  And, as a bonus for me, I get to use up some UFO's and get them out of my stash!

Do you make any preemie quilts?

Cool Blue Metro Hoops

Oh how I love to take quilt pictures at the cottage!  Even though the shadows can be hit or miss it's always fun to take pictures out doors - or at least try to :-D

I finally took my Cool Blue Metro Hoops quilt (pattern by Sew Kind of Wonderful) off the frame and finished hand turning the binding while at the cottage on a rainy day.  There is no better time to do handwork, than a rainy day at the cottage, with nothing to do, but, watch a movie, or two, and bind.

So the next sunny day we went outside and snapped some shots.

Woodpiles always make interesting props :-D

As do benches made from excess wood.

I quilted this quilt in 40 weight Glide thread in White and used pre-wound bobbins.  I have to say I loved quilting this to death!!  I took inspiration from a few different quilters' work and some of my own ideas and just went to town with rulers.  Sometimes it's fun to push yourself a bit.

After I got some shots I used the quilt for one of favourite uses for quilts.  A little R&R by the water!!  

I love to use my quilts - that's what they are for!  You can see that even though this is heavily quilted it drapes beautifully and is soft and cuddly.  I think that the Glide thread and the Hobbs cotton batting have a lot to do with this.

And apparently a little shut-eye time ;-)

So, what do you think of my cottage quilts and my Cool Blue Metro Hoops?

Signature Quilt - A Commision

Hi All!

Happy first day of August!  For the past few months I have been working, on and off, on this commission quilt.  It is a family signature quilt made from blocks that were cut out and signed at a family reunion.  The owner chose the fabrics and colours and it was my job to put them together ;-)

Some of the blocks were signed horizontally and most were signed vertically using a sharpie marker.  Since there wasn't an even number of coloured blocks I had to improvise with the setting so that no two like colours were together.  This took some manipulating!  I finally decided that there was no way to make even vertical rows so I settled for horizontal rows that were all the same length.  Given the task of placing 90 blocks this was pretty big!!

Each block was originally cut with scissors so each block had to be squared up first and then sashed in Kona black to give some negative space.  I added a pieced border around the outside so that more signatures could be added at this summer's reunion - there is no way that another 90 blocks could be added to this quilt - it is already a LARGE queen size!

I have to say that I love all the signatures and sayings and I think that this will make a wonderful keep-sake for the family to cherish through out the years.  And, to me, this is the ultimate memory quilt :-D  

What do you think?

Finally Some Quilting!!

Hi all!

As some of you know I am currently working to complete my yoga teacher training 200 hours - and - man is it taking a LOT of my energy and time!  It's not just the 200 hours of in class time, it's the hours of pre-reading, supplemental reading and follow up work and study.  Don't mistake me - I am LOVING it!  It is so rewarding and interesting - it just doesn't leave a lot of time for quilting.  It's all good!

I have managed to complete a few projects though.  I will post some more pictures later; but, I completed a commission quilt as well as a highly quilted custom quilt that I am hand sewing the binding on.  So, after I got these two quilts off the frame I thought that I would put on a charity quilt and do some free-motion quilting.

Ta da!  Nice and easy free-motion quilting in an all-over pattern!  On and off the frame all in one day - LOVE!

This quilt is destined for our local chapter of Victoria's Quilts.  I like to have a quilt or two in my quilt closet from this group so that I can do a quick project and give back.  Plus, I really like the ladies in this group and the work they do so it's a win win!

Anyways, my next yoga courses aren't until October so hopefully I will have some more time to get more quilting work done before I have to ramp up again for the fall.  I have an idea to combine my love of yoga and quilting in an easy project but we will see if I get it done!

How about you all?  Are you working on any non-quilting projects as well?

Dessert Nine-Patch

Hey there!

I am happy to be sharing even more photos today!  I had a bit better luck taking these photos but not much!

On the same day that we went out to photograph the Metro Rings quilt we went out to try and grab a few shots of my batik 9-Patch quilt.  I am happy to say that this was the best photo of the bunch!

Not too shabby, but, it could have been a lot better had we not been absolutely FREEZING trying to take this!

I actually like this photo of the quilting that I took while I was quilting this quilt.  I love the way that the dense quilting makes the 9-patches really stand out and pop.

We tried for a couple of photos while we were at the cottage.

But, while we were out on the frozen lake it started to drizzle and the wind came up.

And then my dog decided to jump into the pictures LOL!  Luckily she's very cute and lovable.  Needless to say we didn't get any magazine ready pictures but we had a lot of fun trying!

My Pictures are Working Again!

Hi all!

I know it's been forever since I blogged!  But, for some unknown, at the time, reason I couldn't upload photos to my computer for a long time!  Anyways, we finally figured it out and now photos are uploading again so I can blog - yey!

I will start to share some of the things I have been working on - I have been slowly getting those quilt tops out of the closet and onto my frame for finishing!

I finally figured out how I wanted to quilt my Sew Kind of Wonderful 1930's Metro Rings quilt.  I wanted to make it look heirloom with hatching to fit with the style.

Talk about ruler-work with this one!  But the texture is great!  I used 40 weight Glide Thread and pre-wound white bobbins.

 On one of the coldest, and windiest, days in the winter my oldest son and I went down to the park to try to take some photos.  The sky was so clear and the sun was so bright I figured it would be great.  Wrong!  We froze standing there is the wind!!

I finally gave up and put the quilt flat on the snow to take this picture of the texture :-)  It worked!  Well, it worked a lot better than standing near the water in the cold wind!

I love the texture that quilting gives to a quilt - it really makes a quilt for me.  I really love the juxtaposition of the curves in the piecing and all the straight lines in the quilting.  And looking back at these photos I can clearly remember this day with a smile on my face :-)