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.