A New Look

Good morning everyone! Today is the first day of school after the summer holidays,and my granddaughters went out the door looking scrubbed, in their new clothes, and excited to see their friends again. One is in Grade 3, and her sister is in Grade 1. How did they get so big? It seems not long ago that their Dad was a little boy! I know, I know, everyone says this, but it's so true!

I've had a break from sewing while I've been here, so my son and I gave my blog a facelift. Doesn't it look nice? Much more what I was hoping for!

Here are pictures of my blocks for the 3x6 Sampler Bee ,it was a real learning experience!
The tutorial is here:
at Mad Quilters Disease




As I made each block I liked it the best. Now, I like them all. Mine is red and aqua.

Hope you are having a great summer.

Till next time,

Sue

A Celestial Finish

Today I finished a WIP that has been about 2 years in the works. It was nearly finished when I put it down to get involved in other more urgent projects.

I've stalled for a short time while making blocks for my 3 x 6 Bee. Needing something to do, I pulled out Celestial to see what was left to do. Not much! I had already quilted in the ditch around all the squares and stars. Each star centre had been FMQ'd too. All that was left was quilting the setting triangles with a meander, and putting on the binding.

The meander was soon done, it disappears into the swirls on the fabric. No worries about mistakes.

For the binding, I used the tutorial on the Red Pepper Quilts blog. Until now I've always sewn down the back of the binding by hand. Now I'm a convert to machine stitching the whole binding. It made a nice neat job, it's strong, and best of all, it's fast! In keeping with the bright colours in this quilt I used a lovely bright aqua with a gold stripe across the width of the binding.

Now I see Celestial finished I wonder why I put it down for so long? It has everything I like: bright colours, suns, moons, stars, solemn cats, fantasy flowers and so on. I'm so glad it got finished!

Hope you are enjoying summer weather!

Linking to

Till next time,

Sue

Paper Piecing is Possible!

This week I decided to try out a few blocks for my Bee, the  3 x 6 Mini Bee. It's not so Mini really, we make a block for 6 bee members over 3 months, 2 1/2 months with time for mailing. The blocks are our choice, and in each persons chosen colours.

I thought I'd try a paper pieced block, and since I'm new to paper piecing, the more practice the better!

Here's my first try:

Pretty simple to piece, not too many mistakes to rip out.

Next I tried this one:

This was more time consuming, but I like Circle of Geese to look at. The circular movement is fun. I made mistakes, you can see one in the middle at the bottom. More practice needed!

Today I'm going to try a third block, a different star, and see how it goes.

I finished the cushion cover, and tried it with a pillow form. The pillow form is too small, this is to get an idea of how it will look:

I did straight line quilting around the star and a meander on the border. The back is a green leafy fabric. I thought of Christmas fabric for the back, but decided it limited the cushion too much, and this way it could get more use. After I get the pillow form in 20" I'll get this sent off.

I also mailed the placemats and table runner, and finished binding on Shooting Star.

Linking to

Lots of great projects to see here!

Till next time,

Sue

What a great week!

The weather has been just lovely this week, sunny and hot. Well, except for the wild hailstorm that blew in last night, but this is Calgary and such things are to be expected.

I've been productive with my sewing, and I have something to show at last.

Shooting star is quilted and being bound. The label is on, it's nearly ready to go to its new home. I echo quilted all the large and medium stars, then I got out the FMQ foot and outlined all the small stars and quilted in the middles of all the stars. Lots of sewing, I like how it looks. The binding was in my stash, and the colour is just what I want. I wish the dots were smaller, but I decided to overlook that complaint.

It's a large queen size with plenty of overhang, so no need to fight over it on a cooler night!

I've been following Christmas in July on Elizabeth's blog at Don't Call Me Betsy. Sadly it's finished now, well, July  is over. There were lots of great projects, and I was inspired to try Elizabeth's Mariner's Star Pillow. It's paper pieced, and I got the scaling wrong on my printer, so the star is larger, but I can deal with that. Here it is, ready to be quilted. I'm a paper piecing newbie, and there was a lot of ripping and re-sewing but it worked out in the end.

While I was away in England I met a very nice lady who was very helpful to me with the family stuff. I want to send her a gift, so I made placemats and a table runner. They are quilted and ready for binding.

Hope she likes them!

And my Neapolitan quilt is ready to go to the longarmer for basting. The backing had to be 101" by 114" to allow for the machine. 81/2 yards of fabric!
I'm thinking of straight line quilting it, but not on the diagonal like the placemats.

Linking up to

and

 

Till next time,

Sue

Progress, at last!

I've been away from home for a couple of weeks, I had a sudden trip to England for family reasons.
All I had room for in my suitcase was a cross stitch picture I've been working on for years. On the plus side, it's almost finished!

You know you are pining when you start dreaming about buying fabric!

Now I'm home, and since I'm jet lagged, I've moved on with my WIPs.

Today I finished my Neapolitan top. I've ordered fabric for backing, so there will be a wait until it comes.

It's big, there are two people holding it! Wonder how I should quilt it? I'm kind of thinking of diagonal lines.

Shooting Star is back from being basted.

Quilting this is my next job. I thought I would start by outline quilting all the biggest stars, both inside and outside the seam and then go from there. What would you do?

Here's the back:

The lines are basting that the long armer put there for me. I hope it won't be too hard to pick out.
The fabric is colourful little trees, by Laurel Burch. I think I had 7 yards of that and it wasn't enough. The center panel is Kona with pieces of Kaffe clouds inserted.
Nature theme!

So far I really like the way it is looking.

Linking to Freshly Pieced WIP Wednesday.

Taryn is guest blogger today, and there are loads of great projects to drool over!

Till next time,

Sue

Neapolitan

While Shooting Star is being basted, I'm working on a quilt for our guest bedroom.
 My daughter chose the colours and fabrics to complement a picture on the wall.
I suggested the pattern, and then did lots of math to work out the sizes of the squares and how to put them together into manageable sections.

Here's how it looks so far:

The squares can fit together in lots of different combinations and orientations, and that gives me the really random look I wanted. DD doesn't like random and keeps trying to impose order!

I made lots of progress on the squares at a recent quilt retreat, and had some great advice about including the largest squares. Without that advice I wouldn't be so far on with the quilt. I estimate I have about 2/3 of the squares I need.

Linking to

Till next time,

Sue

Shooting Star

Shooting Star. That is what I'm going to call this quilt. If I ever make another 4 inch sawtooth star again... you get the picture!

Excitement! I finished the quilt top, pieced the back and it is ready to be basted. This quilt is big, seriously big. It is 90 by 94 inches. There is no floor space here big enough to lay it out, without moving furniture.

 Basting is harder for me than quilting. How to get 3 large, unwieldy pieces together without creases , folds or puckers. Yikes! I've tried pinning quilts, I've tried basting spray - both horizontal and vertical. Recently I bought a tagging gun, you know, the plastic thread that holds a price tag to a garment. All these things are problems: how to lay out the quilt sandwich, how to join it together,  how to deal with my aching back and knees.

This time I have taken it to the longarmer to be basted. Then I'll be able to have some fun quilting this monster ! Perhaps that is my basting answer. What do you do???

Linking to

  
and



   

Till next time,

Sue