I Ripped!

 I ripped!

You had to know that I would do this.  I ripped the quilt again and added the two t-shirts to the quilt.  Thank you for your encouragement to do what I wanted to do.

I couldn’t resist and I think it looks so much better now.  There is less blank space and the last two t-shirts have now been added.

I’m so glad I went with my gut instead of my head on this one.  My head was saying - it’s fine.  My gut and heart were saying - you know you want to add those two blocks and it won’t take a lot of time - just do it!

That cardinal block is hand painted and hand embellished so how could I not include someone’s art into the quilt?

Now - I’m just contemplating adding borders to make it more of a bed size.  I have a couple flannels I’m going to put on the back, so it will be nice an cozy, now, I just need to decide if I add borders - my gut is saying a huge yes to borders.

Christmas T-Shirt Quilt - Take 2

Christmas Quilt - Take 2!
 A while back I posted this Christmas T-Shirt quilt I was working on.  This one is just for me.  No deadline.  Not a commission quilt.  Just for us.  I put it together over Christmas and i was never really happy with how it turned out.  

Specifically - I wasn’t happy with the entire bottom right hand corner and the bottom row.  I really didn’t like the way that I had the spacer fabric in there and a lot of negative space; so, I put it away and slowly thrifted a few more t-shirts.

On the weekend I realized that I had enough shirts to fix some of it, so I took it apart and added in some shirts.

I am so much happier with it!  It makes so much more sense now and looks so much better. UNTIL - I found a couple of the shirts that I had pulled out under my chair - sigh!  Just like me LOL!

Now I’m thinking about taking apart this section here and adding in the two fallen blocks and getting rid of a little more negative space.  

What do you think?  Do I rip and re-sew again or leave it?  Help!

Silly Sloths - A Commission

Quite a while ago a friend asked me to make a quilt for her as a commission (a gift for her friend) and I agreed.  She chose the Silly Sloths pattern.  It was an appliqué quilt and a pretty simple pattern.  The pattern was raw edge appliqué, and, although this is quick it isn’t my favourite technique; so, I decided to make faced.

I enlarged the pattern and did the face and body faced but the features are all raw edge appliqué.  I have to say - it is really CUTE!

Seriously cute!  I decided on 12 enlarged blocks instead of the 20 that the original pattern called for - less appliqué ;-)  And, I really like the bigger sloths.

It looked like we might be getting a storm, the light was perfect outside for photos, so, I made my oldest hold the quilt up for a few pictures.  The grey light makes the colours pop just a bit more.

I used a yellow flannel for the back, cotton batting and a few different Glide threads to quilt this cutie.  Glide is a go to for me.

Now - let’s hope that she likes the quilt when she sees it!  What do you think?  Will she like it?

Soup and Stew Season

 Have you jumped on the bowl cozy train yet?  I did yesterday!  

Here’s a little back story - we are a crockpot family.  I make soups, chilli, stew, curries - etc - all in the crockpot.  In the winter, I pretty much have a crockpot going most days.  I bake bread -  my latest passion is gluten free sourdough bread, to go with all of the crockpot goodness.  We love leftovers and use the microwave quite a bit to reheat.

My boys’ birthdays are this week.  They are both early 20’s now and both currently live at home, well, one is in college, hello pandemic!  So, they don’t need much except cash as presents.  I figured a few bowl cozies would be a fun little gift I could make them.  Needless to say - I made a couple for us as well.

At first I started with the Sweet Red Poppy tutorial but I started modifying it to accommodate my 10.5” Studio Square die and I wanted the edges rounded, so I came up with my own variation on the pattern.  You can see the original with the squared edges top right on the below picture. 

The others are my variation.  They are slightly smaller and they fit our bowls better - plus I get to use a die instead of a rotary cutter so it’s a win for me!

Make sure that you only use 100% cotton everything in these - fabric, thread and batting.  I used Wrap and Zap as most 100% cotton battings aren’t really 100% cotton - they have a scrim that is polyester.  Yes, I know, not all of them do, but a lot more battings have a scrim than we would think!  So why take a chance, and cause a fire in your microwave?

We have already used them and we all LOVE them!  Even if you’re not using the microwave these are just nice to use when you get steaming hot food from the crockpot!

There is a Go! die for this, but I don’t own it - - - - yet!  

Do you have the die?  Do you like it?

What a YEAR!

 Happy New Year!

What a year 2021 has been!  It’s been a crazy busy year full of ups and downs, pivots and changes, learning and growing and just changes!

I have learned a lot and actually taught a lot.  I pivoted my fitness business almost entirely online and surprisingly I LOVE it!  I love offering classes online.  I’m actually really shocked about this; and, it has made me consider teaching quilting online and developing courses online - would this be something you would be interested in? 

I also have been sewing a LOT!  We took some time off over Christmas to head to the cottage and I took this simple T-Shirt quilting project with me to work on. 

Most of these shirts were thrift store finds and most were almost new!  I love giving new life to old items like this.  And, I am thrilled to have another Christmas t-shirt quilt.  I’ll take it home as is and auction fabrics for the borders next.  

I also managed to get a commissioned quilt done for before Christmas.

One lucky girl got this memory blanket user her tree for Christmas.  Sorry for the lighting!  This was being picked up and I wanted to finish it.  I love turning items taking up space in drawers into something beautiful and useful.

I will share more on a much more regular basis.

I wish you a safe and Happy New Year!

I Forgot I Die Cut!

 So, I brought some quilting to the cottage last weekend and I forgot a rotary cutter!  Can you believe it?  I got my sewing to a point and then I had to sub cut the strip sets.   It was also a long weekend, here in Ontario it was Family, and, the stores were closed so I couldn’t even buy a new rotary cutter!!  I was so disappointed.  

Well, imagine how silly I felt when I remembered that I brought my AccuQuilt Go! And a lot of the dies to the cottage!!  Wahoo!  

I arranged the strip-sets on my 1.5” strip die and wahoo - seconds later I had more sewing to do!

I cannot believe I forgot I had this LOL!  if I was at home I would have immediately die cut these; but, I am not used to having my Go! At the cottage.  Well, that will teach me!  Needless to say - I finished my blocks :-D

Star Wars T-Shirt Quilt!

 It is finally done!!  I finally completed this Queen size Star Wars T-Shirt quilt! 

Wahoo!  Seriously I cannot tell you how happy I am that this is finished.  Like everything else it was put on hold when the mask making frenzy hit our house but now it is quilted and done!  This quilt was a few years in the making.  A couple of the shirts I bought new for it.  Hello Mandalorian  shirt!  Some were ours - Abbey Road Droids, Darth Maul and Boba Fett.  But, the rest of these were all second hand - yard sales and thrift shops.

It took a few years to find all of these but so worth it!  49 shirts in all are in this quilt.  AND I have more that didn’t make it in because they were more kid-like.  But, these are going to go into a kids Star Wars T-shirt quilt - don’t worry!

Can you find that little shirt label in the last photo?  Bottom left.  I found a small hole in that spot, while quilting!!  I wanted to scream LOL!  But I usually keep the shirt labels if they look cool so I grabbed one and appliquéd and quilted it down after sealing the hole.  I figure it’s a feature of the quilt now right?

This is all quilted in 40 weight Glide Thread in Titanium, top and bobbin, using a wide back mottled black flannel and 80/20 batting.  I also used my new spoon foot to quilt this and wow what a difference getting over the seams!  So much easier - if you make T-shirt quilts you should grab one of these for sure.

One other person in this house loves this quilt too!  Don’t judge I could resist!!  So do you like my Star Wars quilt?

A Yoga Training Led to Machine Quilting

I finished it!

Another scrappy quilt for Christmas!  Not that I need another one at all!  I have so many already, I suppose, but, red and green is one of my favourite colour combinations, especially with a gold accent, and, these were all leftover units from other quilts!  Namely, the scrappy Christmas Quilt A Long I posted a few years ago and all of my awesome 2” squares!  

This quilt has had a bit of a journey!  I finished the top on January 4th of 2020 and put it away to quilt at a different time.

Snow was on the ground then and it is again!  

Two weeks ago I took a lovely yoga training called YogaFit for Caregivers.  It was a one day training on how to help those who are in a caregiving position, be it people who are; caring for the ill or aging, children, or, people who are PSWs and also yoga teachers, basically anyone who may experience burnout but specifically compassion fatigue and how to prevent it with self care.  One of the tasks we had to do was write down three things we do for self-care.  One of my items was actually ruler-work!  I surprised myself when I wrote that down without thinking!

Ever since I started making masks I haven’t had the time or energy to do any ruler-work!  A few weeks ago I uncovered my longarm - I had been using it for storage of fabric and finished masks.  So, after the course I took it as a sign to get quilting again!  I did a couple of other quick quilting jobs first - to see if I had the skills still - and then I tackled this one.

I brought it up to the cottage to finish hand sewing the binding and I set a goal to finish it for Christmas! 

Late on Christmas Day I finished hand sewing the binding down!  Since it was too late to take photos I waited until today to take them and I am so glad that I did!  Christmas Day here was a foggy, slushy kind of day and today was cloudy but crisp and the lake was frozen by our cottage!  This picture may look dangrous

I was so nice to get out on the lake to take photos of a Christmas quilt again this year!  I know it seems silly, but, I think we need to find joy where we can these days; and, getting out on the lake to take quilt photos is something that brings me joy every time I am able to do it!

Last Christmas I was able to take pictures of my Christmas T-Shirt quilt on the lake and this year it is a scrappy Christmas quilt!  I never did post photos of this quilt from last Christmas so here it is LOL!

There is just something so Canadian to these Christmases we have here!  When the lake freezes and my husband goes out and clears a rink for skating and we bring out the net and hockey sticks.  Me?  I love to stay inside by the fire and quilt!

I hope that you all had a safe, healthy and wonderful Christmas - even though it wasn’t what we are used to - I hope that it was nice!

Making Masks from Panels

Hey all!

I am back to making masks!  I am going to fit in more time for piecing but I thought that I would share a way that I made a couple of Christmas panels into masks!  Please excuse the lack of before pictures but I didn’t think of it until after I had cut up the panels!

I had this Christmas panel with angels on it that I was able to cut apart and piece together to make beautiful angel masks!  I cut the angel sections out of the panel and added fabric onto the sides, so that the pieces would be large enough to cut into mask halves.

I held up the masks to the window to match up the angels so that they would be spaced evenly.  Really high tech LOL!

This way I got two mirror images of the angels that I was able to sew together.

And, I was able to make a few masks, insides and out from the same panel!

Pretty nice I think!  If you want to see these angel masks you can check out Sunshower Masks on Facebook! 

And, I was able to do the same with this section of a Santa panel to make a possible custom order.  You can see the chunks of fabric I added onto the sides before I cut the fabric.

A little outside of the box thinking resulted in some pretty cool masks!  I am in love with how these turned out!  And, I used some panels I had in my stash to do it as well as using the surrounding fabric to make the filter pocket and mask insides!  Win win!

I Pieced!

 I am more excited about this than I can tell you!

Since the pandemic started I have been sewing nonstop.  But what I haven’t been doing is piecing anything for myself since I started to make masks.  Do not get me wrong.  I am grateful for the ability to sew and make masks and to help people in the community by making masks that are effective, well made and comfortable.  But, this has certainly been filling my days!!

This weekend, we went to the cottage, and, I didn’t take my big sewing machine with me!   I need the extras strength of my big machine to get through all of the layers of fabric - so not bringing it meant not working on masks!  And, believe me, I have brought masks with me to work on every single time we have gone to the cottage!  I am grateful for the work but it has been unrelenting!

So, instead, this weekend I brought part of a Sew Kind of Wonderful project that has been ready to be worked on for over 6 months!  I ONLY brought that.  This was pretty big for me.  And, as the weather wasn’t great - I sewed!  I put on a couple of movies and I pieced!!!

I know it doesn’t look like much but MAN it felt good!  It felt good to piece, to rotary cut, to trim, to press and it get this done!!

The old saying - if you do what you love you’ll never work a day in your life is true!  You will never work A day - you will work EVERY day, ALL day, non-stop LOL!!  Good thing I LOVE what I do!

2” Square Bethlehem Star is Done!!!

It’s done!  What a process this was!  So many years in the making from start to finish and I can say WAHOO!  Done and bound!  They last time I posted about this was the end of January in 2019 when I was trying to get the pieces organized and cut to see if I had enough and now - here it is!

These are all 2” cut squares, 6” finished squares and 6” finished half square triangles (HST).  Yes, the whole quilt. 

Three units.  Simple idea, but, a bit of a beast LOL!  I do like it though now that it is done!  I quilted the star points in a different thread to match the Kona solid (Paprika I think) in straight lines to give them a bit of definition. 

The rest of the quilt I used Glide 40wt Sand in sort of a Paisley, Floral Swirl.  I did pay attention to the tan coloured points and quilted in the ditch and echo inside for some emphasis.

Sand is a go to colour for me since it blends and shines against so many fabrics!

On the back I used a brown flannel wide-back for extra warmth and softness.  I do love the wide-backs!  plus, look at how the threads just pop!!

 The inspiration for this quilt was the Swoon quilts that were all over social media a few years ago.  I looked at them and thought - that’s the Bethlehem Star that’s been around forever!  So instead of using a jelly roll and cutting 2.5” squares I reworked the math and used my 2” squares and made 4 blocks!  I didn’t need a pattern - I just drew it out on some binder paper - old school! If you want to check out the original sketch you can see it here. And then I made it into a Leaders and Enders project. 

Needless to say - this project was about 5 years or so in the making and I couldn’t be more thrilled that it is done!!  I have more leaders and Enders projects on the go and I am ALWAYS cutting up more 2” squares!

I Joined the Dream Big Craze!

 I finally joined the Dream Big craze!

I finally got one of the panels quilted that I bought a few years ago.  I don’t know why I put it off so long!  These are nice to quilt and you really can’t go wrong!

I love taking photos right here, at the cottage, it is the perfect place to show all sizes of quilts; and, if they are small enough I can can even pop my head in! 

I also have no idea why I chose the tone on tone cream to quilt for my first one when I bought so many of the colour ways!  But hey!  It is done, bound, photographed and now blogged on so it is a win!

I do love the low tones though - so soothing to the eye and perfect for a bedroom against the wooden walls.

This one gives a bit more details if you want to see them.  I did a simple feather, echo and pebble to quilt.  I used 40 weight Glide thread in Sand with the matching pre-wound bobbin.  Sand is a favourite of mine!

Not a huge blog post but I am proud of this quilt!

And Another Finish!

Another 2” squares finish!

I was so excited to get this one done as it spent a fair amount of time in the UFO closet as well.  My poor quilts!  They must feel so neglected sometimes LOL!  If they had feelings that is!  

This one got put on the back burner because I really wanted to miter those borders and use the two fabrics in the Quarter Square Triangle Blocks (QST); but, well, I don’t enjoy mitering and I am picky about it!  But I LOVE how this turned out!!  And here it is!  Yey!

Here it is under the needle of my P3 getting the ruler work treatment.  Yep that is me :-D

  

I do love pushing my ruler-work skills and figuring things out.  I am not too incredibly thrilled with this border.  I think it looks like a DNA spiral but hey - done is better than perfect right?  And, I learned a lot.

I am a lot more thrilled with the inside of the quilt.  I really like the curves on all the straight lines. It took a LONG time to do all of this custom quilting but I think that the end product is pretty cool. And, another good thing, that is a wide-back batik batting that I HAD in my stash!  I had purchased it when it was 1/3 off and stashed it away and Voila!

The quilt is now on a bed, where it belongs, not in the closet and it is off my mind.  Another scrap project done.  Another UFO taken care of.  Now if I can only get another dozen quilts finished I might be getting caught up!

What about you?  Anything under your needle today?

It’s Me!

Hi all!

Frequent readers of my, now, sporadic blog will know that I don’t like sharing photos of myself very often so I thought that I would share this one from this summer.  I attended an outdoor, socially distanced, wedding of a dear friend this summer.  Of course I made the mask and bought the dress to match the shoes!  I thought that was just a given LOL!  These shoes are the awesome Fluevog shoes in the Achiever line!  Some quilting friends asked me where I got them, at the wedding, so I am providing the link ;-)

2020 has certainly been a unique year for all of us.  Quilting has given way to mask making for me but I am happy to use my talents, and, my stash, for something worthwhile and something that helps.  Thank goodness for my son’s help and the mask dies or I never would have been able to make the thousands of masks I have made!  Yes, you read that correctly!  I think I am over 4000 masks!  So, I think you get the reason I haven’t been posting on my blog as much.  I have been making masks and selling them on my page!  I didn’t want to turn my blog into an advertisement for my masks so it has fallen to the wayside for a bit.  So sorry!

I have been able to get some quilting done.  UFO’s mostly and man this feels so good!!  Now that mask making has slowed down a bit, and, my longarm is finally uncovered, I am going to get back to quilting!!  You honestly have no idea how happy this had made me.  I would look over at my longarm, and then look at the pile of masks, to sew, for orders, and, go sew masks.  I mean, this won’t last forever!  I hope!  

At the start of the pandemic I did get some serious quilting hours in though!  I finished this scrappy log cabin that I have been working on, on and off, for several years!

Look at this beauty!  Log Cabins are seriously one of my favourite scrap quilts.  They always look so good!  I love looking at scrap quilts and remembering where I used the fabrics and recalling the stories behind them.  I love how they always seem to work!!!  Some of those fabrics that you think won’t work always seem to work and become the ZING in the quilt that makes it sing!  The turquoise and chartreuse just make my heart happy!

To quilt this quilt I decided on a large meander and feather.  I am sure there are YouTube videos on this; but, honestly you just quilt (the section you are working on) in a large meander and then feather each side of it in your favourite way to feather.  It looks so much more difficult than it is, I promise!  Next time I am quilting this I might make a video on this.  I use 40 weight Glide Thread in the Sand colour and used the prewound bobbins in the matching colour.  I love using the prewounds!  They hold so much more thread on them and tension beautifully for me - remember to take out your backlash spring or use a separate bobbin case for it though!  

So, what is next for me?  I have taken a bunch of pictures of what i have been working on and I will get back into the groove of sharing with you all again!!  I miss the community of quilters!  What about you all?  

How have you been doing?

Face Masks!

How are you all!

Well aren’t we all living in a very different world!  My hair needs done and I coordinated my mask to the shimmering water behind me!  I hope that you are all staying safe and keeping well.

I have been busy making masks to help keep people safe and if you can believe it my oldest  is my partner in all of this!  He has been helping me put the Kam Snaps on the sides of my masks (so that you can choose between elastics for the ears or ties!). Kam Snaps is an AMAZING company to work with and they offer a high quality product with amazing customer service.  If you are interested in snaps - check them out - you will not be disappointed.  Tell Judy Katrina sent you!!

I feel so blessed to have both of my boys at home right now where this Mama Bear can take care of them!  When this all started all I wanted to do was keep my boys at home and protect them!  Totally irrational I know as they are 19 and 21 and both much taller and bigger than I am LOL!!!!

I am so thankful to have this project to do - to help - to do something in this time!!  I purchased the Olsen Mask die from Accuquilt to speed up the process and save my wrists in the process!!  Unfortunately, I received a defective die and I am in the process of having it replaced.  Let’s hope that it comes soon!

Because, man of man do I have sewing to do!! Check out those piles of masks! 

Look at how gorgeous the masks are with ties and snaps!!

I couldn’t resist making masks out of these cute Canadian critters to help people accessorize summer attire this cottage season!

Want to see how I add Kam Snaps to my Olsen masks?? Here is my YouTube video!  Please excuse the lack of makeup!!

And, if you would like to see how I use the awesome Kam Snaps to switch between elastics, for the ears, and ties check out this video!!  

Please let me know what you think and if you have any questions!  Check in!  Stay safe and keep taking care of each other!