Catching up: Part 3

My sewing catch-up marathon continues... I was up to date with my Bee duties before leaving Belgium, but since arriving in Vancouver the blocks have been piling up. It seems that as soon as I get one done, a new package arrives!

This is part 2 of Carmen's tree request, this time pine trees in lime, simple raw edge applique

Then was Erin's block using her floral print and adding our own complementary fabrics and choosing our own design. I went with the classic Geese pinwheel design. It was a bit of a stretch for my stash, but I think it works.

And finally, last week was the September meeting for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. Our challenge was to make a flying geese block in lime, aqua, teal, and navy with a plain white background, and make another block using the leftovers- it's crazy how many different designs you can make with little triangles. I went for a patched square look, I think it's be a great design for a full quilt.... maybe a rainbow of blocks?

Speaking of the VMQG meeting, I brought Jack along, he was very well behaved during "Show and Tell", good boy Jack!

Photo by the uber talented Sonja

Out of Season

So... my month with the MMSB bee was December.... plenty of time to have a picnic quilt ready for this summer..... um yeah, right!

For last few days I`ve been "playing" with white scraps, to create these wonky blocks.

They are fillers for between the wonky words outer border.

By the time I had made the scrappy filler blocks and two thin borders to give the words more breathing room, this is all I had left of my white fabric stash...

I think the biggest piece is only 1"x 3"... talk about luck! But, I think all the fiddling was worth it...

We are now into rainy September... so I guess our inaugural picnic will have to be next summer!

Catching up: Part 2

Now that I have my sewing stuff finally out of the container I am finally able to catch up on my sewing bee blocks that are overdue... I think I have 7 sitting in the wings waiting to be done... oops!

After a quick warm up with Christiane's 6 patch's, a bit more of a trouble than expected due to differences in my mom's sewing machine vs. mine (my first 2 blocks are 1.8" shy of the correct size)...


Then, I moved onto fellow canuck Carmen's tree request. This one was deffinately more of a challenge... but I knew quickly what I was going to do.

My colour was teal, and I wanted to make a tree with movement. So, I snipped out some leaf shapes, and used my handy dandy fabric adhesive glue stick (thanks Mom!), to stick the little pieces to the background fabric and avoided fighting with pins.

I stitched the center of each leaf with a leaf rib design. My theory is that once washed, the leaves will give a more three dimensional effect, and some "woodgrain" on the trunk.

Oh, and I couldn't help "carving" a little heart into the tree trunk. I had a lot of fun with this one, and am working on a new tree design for a second block for Carmen.

back in action again

Our container has finally arrived! It only took about 2.5 months to get it from Europe, through Canadian customs, and delivered.... but our first batch of stuff is finally in our hot little hands. Since we are still without our own place (thanks Mom and Dad!!)

Only a few VIP boxes are with us... and by VIP I mean my 3 boxes of fabric, a box of clothes, some inheritance items for my family, and a few of our in progress furniture projects like this one and this one... and one you haven't even seen yet as we bought it the day before our stuff was packed up in Belgium..... yeah it was too good of a deal to pass up! So lots of new goodies to work on and show you guys.

And since my crafting lifeline is now here, I have been busily catching up. Last night I had a sewing night with my Mom while she whipped up a wonky word for my Picnic quilt... I finished up a Hunter star block for my online bee Mish Mash Stash Bash .

Jeanette wanted it scrappy ranging from white to tan and red's of all shades... and with 18 different fabrics incorporated ... I think I managed that ;)

Ahhh... it's so nice to have all my toys to play with again, I can't wait to dive in!!

Black or white... or rainbows all over

I've been contemplating the borders for the picnic quilt. My original plan was to do a thin black border between the double hourglass blocks and the wonky words...


But I've been wondering if it is too harsh...

So then I was thinking of skipping the black and going straight from the double hourglass to the words... but I think that something is missing.

So now I'm thinking maybe doing a pieced border which continues the rainbow gradient of the words and the double hourglass blocks... hmmm

Serendipity is....

Serendipity is pulling out your wonky letter blocks and finding out that you have exactly enough to border your double hourglass blocks in exactly the colours needed ...

Summer is coming!

With the weather finally warming up, and the big move almost here (1 week tomorrow and I'm back home!), the drive to make some forward movement on my WIP list continues.

There's something about having to pack things up and not having access to them for a weeks while they are in transit that makes me desperate to spend time with them... even though I havn't touched them in months!

So, since the last of the hourglass blocks arrived, I spent an evening sewing them all up.



I was originally thinking of doing a random layout, but I was worried it would end up too busy once the wonky word border is addded, so I decided to adjust my plan a bit.

With the quick addition of a few blocks my rainbow was born.... I love how the individual blocks shine (thanks MMSB ladies!), but there is still a bit of order and structure.

Yummy! Now, can I get the words finished before I have to pack everything up?...

Trimming the fat

All 49 double hourglass blocks for my Picnic Quilt are finally finished, so tonight I squared them all up to 6.5"

It's a bit tedius- especially without a 6.5" square ruler!- but I actually find squaring up blocks quite therapudic. And the little pile of cast-aways....

a bit like fabric spaghetti (can you tell I live with a chef?!)

Yum, nice and bright and summery. Now it's time to sew them all together!

Quilt Bee Blocks: February

It feels like I've been living out of a suitcase recently due to a lot of business trips. But yesterday was a day just for me, well for me and my sewing machine :)

Kandra from MMSB asked if anyone was willing to make an extra block, which I hapily signed up for. It seems with this pattern practise makes perfect better as I was able to match up the black seams much better vs. my first block.

Next up was an Amish block for Gretchen in SC3. I decided to try the Swing in the Centre block from Block Central.

One big blearning point for me was that I should of worked with a darker thread... luckily it's not too obvious unless it's stretched.

With my "orders" complete I was able to tackle a small project for myself. Most of the blocks have come in for my picnic quilt, so I got started on the filler blocks. I personaly had never made the blocks I had challenged the MMSB'ers to make, so this was also my first wonky word.

I think that the "Y" needs a bit of a tweek as it looks a little apart from the rest, but in general I fould it to be a fun style (my bee members also seemed to really enjoy it)-- just as well as I have aboutseveral more words that will need to be made to finish the quilt.

Riding the Q-train

So I've been a bit distracted recently... and that meant my Quilt bee blocks were piling up pretty quickly.

H had to work on Sunday, so I got in a sewing frenzy and I caught myself up! A few were a bigger skill/style stretch for me, and one made me almost pull my hair out (I always knew that my weakness in math would come back to haunt me!). But all in all I got the chance to work on a variety of block styles which was really nice.

Scrappy X block for Kandra MMSB (from this Tute- which I found to be a bit lacking in detail) I think I see a baby quilt made from this one... Green, teal and yellow, whadda you think Sam?!

Scrappy gnome house (or as I call it "K-nome")- kinda Frank Lloyd Wright inspired no?!- and applique mushroom for Susi in my Eurovision Group.

And finally the one that did my head in... the Squares and rectuanges block for Mari in Eurovision (I told you I was behind!!).

It may appear the simplest... but calculating to get all the pieces to fit together (while working with a limited amount of fabric) caused me soem serious headaches! But, I guess it's like giving birth because now that it's all over I really like it!

Picnic Plans

The ladies in MMSB have been busy, here's a little flavour of what I have in mind for the blocks...

I think I need a coloured border between the double hourglass and words... and maybe something between each of the words, but I'll wait until all the blocks are in before deciding.

Getting Wordy

I'm so excited, the blocks are starting to trickle in for my month at MMSB. For my future picnic quilt I requested both double hourglass and word blocks - yeah, I stretched the rules a bit and asked for two different types of blocks! As you may remember, I sent out white fabrics, and they were to add in the colours.

Check out what those lovely ladies have been making....

Looking good, eh!

A sea of white

January is my month as "Queen bee" for MMSB and after agonizing for ages over what I would have my little workers make for me, H and I came up with our master plan for a waaaay cool picnic quilt. This brilliant plan combines some retro style quilt bocks with fun wonky word blocks... hopefully it looks as good in real life as it does in my head!

Because MMSB is a stash busting bee, we send out one fabric and they build the rest of the block(s) from their fabric stash.

So, to make 2010 start out with a bang... the lovely ladies in my bee will be receiving some of this...

No, do not adjust your screen... I really am sending them different scraps of whites.

So that all of the blocks are congruous (umm, that's a word right??!), I'm hoping for a scrappy white background (to better hide future picnic stains, as well as to help blend in any stash whites that need to be added). To this they will be adding the colour and any extra whites necessary.

The holiday countdown is on (1 day to go then I'm in Vancouver for 3 weeks, woohoo!!), so here they are all packaged up and ready to go (trees not included!).

Indecisive much?!

I'm not sure what is going on with me, but I've been super indecisive recently... too much wedding planning maybe?!

I am planning the "challenge" I'll be throwing out to the peeps in MMSB and Eurovision quilters.

My months for Eurovision isn't until April, but of course the idea for that block came to me the most easily-- Mondrian (see Mom and Dad, that minor in Art History is paying off!!).

So I had a plan, but which colours to use. I asked H for his 2 cents worth and he said the "real colours"- which I thought might be a bit too wild many colours for our living room. So, in Publisher (I seriously heart publisher!) I whipped some alternative colour combos to convince H that an ode to Mondrian, may be a better choice. The problem was I couldn't choose which I liked the best, so I decided to leave it up to the Eurovision ladies to pick the colours they would work with.

The plan for MMSB has been proving elusive... I've been lying awake at night trying to decide what to do. I know it'll be for a picnic quilt, but what design.... maverick stars or a string quilt

or maybe a bento box or double hourglass.... arg, it's been driving me mental!!

So, in an effort to put myself out of my misery, and because I have to order any necessary fabric ASAP if it will get here before I leave for the holidays, I sat H down tonight to help me make a decision (see... totally uncharacteristically indecisive- I seriously hope it's temporary!)... and I think we did...

No drawing yet (maybe this Sunday?!), but we're thinking food words (ie. apple, spicy, tasty, BBQ...) done in wonky piecing, and double hourglass blocks done in food/kitchen fabrics --- you can see how H's influenced this one, but I guess it's only fair considering he'll be making most of the food we will enjoy on said picnics ;)

So... aaaahhhhh, I hope I can sleep better tonight!

A Hexy Situation

I've been busy working away at Sara's block for MishMash Stash Bash. She's requested hexagons and sent us a piece of vintage fabric. I decided to keep with the vintage vibe by doing some paper piecing.

It's been a while since I did paper piecing, and I forgot how long it takes! But, it should keep me company while I'm sitting on the couch next week post knee surgery!

Inspiration fabric: Large floral by Waverly-- it also included a border of red and white used in some of the triangles

Sleep On it

I don't know if I've mentioned that I've joined another quilting bee-- this one hosted by some Canadian sisters (woohoo, go Canada!!). H thinks I'm nuts for joining another bee, but I just smiled and did it anyway- what do boys know anyways!

The big difference between this bee and my other one, is that in this one you send out 1 fabric and everyone else has to dig through their stash to find co-ordinating fabrics so you end up with a really scrappy quilt, and an excuse to buy more fabrics use up some of your own stash/scraps. It started this month, Kerry (another Freckle-y canuck ;) ) sent our her fabric early, and we received some Alex Henry Starling fabric.

She likes squares and rectangles, hinting at log cabins, so I came up with this.

But, the more I looked at it the less I liked it... So, I slept on it, and the next morning I still didn't like it, so after work I sat and ripped out about 90% of the seams, added some other fabrics into the mix and came up with this:

Luckily, this version I love, and maybe this time I'll learn that I should not force these bee blocks to be done in one sitting... hmm, probably not!