It's a Top!

Another week has gone by and look what I did. I'm SO happy!!

Friends' Favourite was missing a border (?), sashing part (?), whatever, it was missing a few little bits of scraps. As I sew the quadrants together, these little bits were added. And then . . . 

TA-DAH! 

I couldn't take a picture outside as it was raining here last week. This morning, before I thought of taking more photos of it, I started (and finished) setting it up on the quilting frame. It is way too big for my little domestic machine so it will get the hand quilting treatment. Lucky one! 

It's 100 X 100 inches and it was quite a workout to get it all straight (not even sure about that) and on the frame. 

Luckily I found some yardage in my stash. Yards and yards of this rainbow dot print was given to me a long time ago. At the time, I thought I could get 2 or 3 backings out of it but nope. It mostly all went in this one. 

Notice anything peculiar in this photo? Nothing is the right answer. There's nothing at all. No company name, no designer name, not even "100% cotton", etc. just the colours and they aren't even aligned properly. Ever seen this before? 

I'm happy to be using it because there's a big empty space on the shelf now. 😁

While putting away all the fabric needed to make a scrap quilt like Friends' Favourite, I found these bits. 

It's a dizzying print in person. They weren't cut in any size I could used, so I trimmed them all down to 2.5" squares. They were joined to dark green scraps and grew into this. 

I found the same print in brown and chopped it too and used dark brown this time. It's easier in the brown colourway to see how dizzying this print really is. 

I have to admit that the polka-dot one is not my favourite. It might go to OR this weekend to have a "face lift", lol. I have no idea yet where these blocks are heading. Time will tell. 

Reply to comments from previous post: 

Thank you all for your lovely comments. 

Nann suggested to continue sewing the pastel blues together then applique colourful flowers. I SO love this idea, Nann that I will get on it this weekend. I'm thinking a nice little placemat for lovely self. Thank you for the inspiration, Nann. 

Cathy wrote about my issues with comments not coming to my email: 

As far as comment notifications to email...I go into the blogger settings and under the EMAIL heading there is a "comment notification subscribers" section. In the box under there enter the email where you want to receive the notification. That's what works for me. - that way I am a subscriber to comment notifications! Also, I don't know if it makes a difference but I don't moderate comments.

Well, paint me yellow and call me shameful!  I have to be a subscriber to MY OWN blog now? Everything is by subscriptions or with cookies now a days. Sigh!  Anywho! I went straight to the settings and subscribed to my own blog. Fingers crossed (again) that it works.  

Cathy also said that some of those pastel blues look like TriRec Ruler cuttings. 

You are right and I'm thinking of just adding the missing triangle in the middle. They could be use as a border for something, right? They are now in the spare-parts box. 😊

That's all I have for this week, friends. Hope you stay cool (this week, we almost hit 40 Celsius because of the humidity and it's only June!!) hydrated, and able to sew. 

Take care. 

;^)

As always, I'll try to catch these talented ladies' link-party. See you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Alycia for Finished or Not Friday

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

What's in the Bag?

Angela announced June as Pastel month. I don't do pastel much. Whatever I have is stashed away with its own colour. (The blue with the blue.) Then, I found this bag given to me a while back (probably longer than I remember) with metal blue, icy blue, grey, etc.

So, I opened it. 

This is what came out. I'm not very good with Y seams and all these pieces are triangles and angular trapezoid shapes. I'm stuck. 

It would be easy to use this piece in a crazy quilt or in a pieced backing but 

what about this one? 😦

Maybe if I add more pieces to shape it into a rectangle it could be used in the same backing as the first one. 😶 ?? There are lots of pieces left. 

These are in pairs. They can be easily sewn into blocks. . . 

or together, into rectangles. 

Decluttering continues! The centres for Friends' Favourite last rows weren't framed in white. Last weekend I worked on that and then put all the white leftovers away. 

Oh look! a clean place. Wow! 

All the blocks are done and assembled into quadrants formation. This weekend, I shall get this space behind the sewing machine cleared so I can sew the long rows of Friends' Favourite without pushing everything off the desk. 

It will be nice to have this one turned into a complete top. 

Good news: next week, at work, I am going back to my regular hours of 8:30 to 4:30. It will be nice to have a regular schedule again. And some energy left for some sewing in the evenings. 😀

On the other hand, your comments are not good news. I still don't receive them in my email inbox even with Joy's help. Here's what I'm thinking: I'm in Canada and Joy is in the States. We all know that Google (producer of Blogger) is International but each country has it's own Google Motherboard (lol). Even more, I believe that Canada and the States have more than one each. I'm pretty sure Joy and I don't have updates at the same time nor for the same issues/reasons, nor are the updates coming from the same main office. I'm sure what she has suggested works for some of you. Lucky you. Just not for me. So, I shall continue to reply to you here. 

There were many comments about the new blocks. Thank you. 

- Frédérique asked if the newest block is made with a partial seam. Yes, it is. The long rectangles are sew to the little yellow square in the middle, starting with a partial seam. 

Do you know what I'm thinking now? Only 11 more blocks to do for a baby quilt for my quilt drive. Lol. 

There were also comments about my garden in containers. So far so good. It's still growing and green, not brown like dead weeds, lol. We have rain today that will continue for the next few days. I shall bring my garden indoor so it doesn't drown. Gardening is so much work! 😁

As always, I'll try to catch these talented ladies' link-party. See you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Alycia for Finished or Not Friday

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Where Has Orange Month Gone ?

Thank you all for your comments (that aren't coming to my email inbox). I enjoy reading them all (over and over again.) 😊


A special thanks to Joy from The Joyful Quilter who wrote:

Regarding Blogger comments... Simple solution. Once your post is released, CLICK on post a comment, CLICK on enter comment, CLICK the notify me box. BOOM, done! All future comments on that post will be on their way to your email inbox.

You are one smart cookie, Joy! Thank you. 💓 Now let me try it.




I didn't sew a stitch all week but for the last week of Orange month, I sew up another one early this morning because . . . 

one is a lonely number.

First and second block. 

Will the entire quilt be orange and blue? It just might but nothing is determined yet. 

Although, I didn't sew this past week, I did perused some magazines from the pile of gifted quilt magazines. I found a little block I like. You know the kind of block that just sit on your mind until you sew it up? Yea, one of those. So, early this morning, this one was born.  

Yep, another one that has a 9-Patch vibe about it. I guess I'm a 9-Patch junky, lol. 

I used 2.5" squares and strips but it would work with any size squares. 

What's a new block without a little blooper. The backside is not quite flat. I need to pay more attention to the flip side next time.  

AND some 15 quilt magazines are in the giveaway bag for the next and last meeting of Artisanat on June 2nd. Yeah me! 

Group photo. It was fun sewing big pieces compared to my usual 1.5" bits. Hollow Nine with 2" squares. Newest block with 2.5" and the orange and blue one uses 3" squares. 

This year, encouraged by Cathy at Sane, Crazy and Crumby Quilting, I tried gardening in containers. Something is growing and that's amazing to me who always call myself a serial plant killer. Lol.  

Radishes that almost froze one night that I forgot them outside. Onions on the right. 

Snow peas

Carrots . . . maybe? In the round container I put onions because I thought the potatoes weren't going to make it. Haha! Oh well. If the potatoes taste like onions, they'll be good in the stews. 😉 It's time for me to water these I think. 

Something is changing at work. They have hired a new girl. It's been a month since the other one was let go. I trained the new girl this past week (more work). Even though, she won't work with me but the department that she will eventually work for won't have as many tasks for me to do anymore. So, it's still a win, win situation. 

Hope you find time to stitch. It's always beneficial. . . for the mind. 

Enjoy!

;^)

As always, I'll try to catch these talented ladies' link-party. See you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Alycia for Finished or Not Friday

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

I've Had It! Enough! (photo heavy)

Yep! I got enough! I'm done! Throwing the towel in . . . the kitchen sink and all too. 

I'm not trying to "fix" Blogger once again just so it messes it all up again in a few months. 

Once again your comments on my previous posts are NOT coming to my email inbox like it is supposed to. Like it is programmed to do!

Every time there's an update, there's an issue. How many more emails do I need to send to Blogger to make them understand the problem. They're the techies! They should know the problem. I . . . we don't need this frustration. So I give up.

My solution : (might not be the best but here it is) From now on, I will answer your comments, questions, suggestions, etc. in the following post. Might not be very practical but it is the best I can think of for now. Is that agreeable with you? 

Let's move on to more enjoyable things, like baby quilts. I've received a few more so let's start the parade. 

This is my own County Clare quilt (sew along from Bonnie Hunter) which I quilted and Françoise bind for me. I don't understand why it's always showing with a blue tint. It's more white in person. And so is the backing too. 

The Potato Chip quilt that I was very slowly working on turned into a baby quilt. 

I added the green and grey checker to make it big enough. I might make another one. It's so scrappy. The backing is scrappy too. Love it. 

The following 2 quilts were surprises. I prepare kits (as you might know) baby quilts in a bag and the volunteers are to take the bag home and sew the top. Then the volunteer brings back the top so I can pair with a batting, backing and binding. This new lady to the group thought she had to do the entire quilt. So, I gave her two kit bags to take home and she brought me back a finished (well, two) finished quilts. Just wonderfully done. 

All quilted and bound, even though there was no binding in the kit bag. She used flannel for the backing like we do for all the baby quilts. Thank you again, sweet Francine. 

She did a little heart embroidery on the back. Too cute!! (I hope you can see it.)

Some of you might remember this one. I finished the hand-quilting that someone had started on this one and again Françoise bind it for me. I told her to use the border for the binding by folding it to the back. It was wide enough as I didn't quilt it to the edge but she found the perfectly matching pink in her stash. Thanks, Françoise. 

I didn't do much sewing but I was invited to a Tea Party of the real kind. So much fun: laughed until the tears came running down my inner tights, if you get my drift, lol. 

Some of the ladies who organized this wonderful afternoon for us. 

We brought our own tea cup and saucer. Most of us (if not all of us) had a story to tell about the cup. 

You didn't have a cup? It's okay, there were some spares.  All different. All beautiful and dainty. 

Every table had a different table runner and the "tea master" assigned to the table had an apron made with the same print. 

This was my table. Yes, the big mug with the Eiffel tower on it is my cup. I am so French even during an English Tea Party, lol. 

My dear friends, Françoise and Lucie. 

and with moi! 

I hope the Artisanat will do this again next year. It's so much fun to dress up and be a little snob for a few hours, lol. 

Reply to comments from previous posts: 

- Thank you all who have commented on the multi projects I have in production mode. I got many comments about the stripe binding. So many of you also use stripe fabric for binding. It always looks great. 

- Thank you for all the wonderful comments regarding the bake sale and craft show. 

- Lin asked how many baby quilts so far. Well, at that time, there were 25 quilts. With the 8 shown in this post, the total is 33 quilts. And more to come.😊

- A special hello to LuAnn. So good to hear from you. LuAnn likes the Framed 9-Patch that is my header at the moment. Thanks, LuAnn. And yes, copy it. I want to see yours. ;^)

- Thank you all for the encouraging words regarding the decluttering. Yes, around here it's like dirty dishes. I need to do it daily otherwise . . . 😱

- To Viola: your comment made me laugh. Thanks for the giggles. 

- Time4Stitchn asked where will the magazines be send. That's a good question: I don't know, lol. I will bring them to the craft group I belong to (The Artisanat). I'm sure some ladies will pick some up (at least I hope so). Then, the magazines will be dropped to another quilter's guild by a friend of mine in the hope that more magazines will be adopted. This cycle might happen once or twice more (through different ladies and guilds) before the last (few) magazines are brought to a thrift store. I always try to give items to people I know before bringing them to a thrift store. 

Well, if you made it this far, I thank you. 💓

If you are wondering about Friends' Favourite progress, well it's not going very fast lately but still some more blocks happened. 

Ten more blocks to go. Sigh! 

Hope you find time to sew because it's good for the soul. ;^) 

As always, I'll try to catch these talented ladies' link-party. See you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Alycia for Finished or Not Friday

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!