Monday, 21 December 2015

Monday First Day of Winter

With the school closed for the Holidays, the boys are all home. Food will have to be prepared more often lol. Nevertheless, I will try to assemble my RSC2015 quilt.



I like to assemble quilts in quarters whenever it is possible. I find it easier that way.


Will also add the border to each quarter before assembling them together. I just might have a flimsy before the end of the year. Please do not hold your breath as my plans are usually just dreams lol.


The little Double 9 Patch blocks are once again my leader-ender. These five were made during the summer and never got to show them off.

More to come.



Linking up with Love Laugh Quilt for Monday Making.

Linking up with Patchwork Times for Design Wall Monday .



Grab a cuppa of something warm, put your feet up and enjoy all the links to beautiful projects. You deserve the break.


Until next time ...


;^)


Saturday, 19 December 2015

RSC2016 - Are you ready?

I am  ...   NOT!

I would like to use some older fabric from my stash in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge of 2016. So I pulled this one out. 



(Excuse the wrinkles. Should have ironed it before the photo sessions.) 
Oh! Yes!  It. Is. Sixteen. Years. Old. It is time to use this one.



We did love the M&M fabric and I did many pajamas for the boys with it. The last one never got sewn together. On one corner, I wrote size 16. That was a "few" years ago because the "boys" are now in size 32 men.  Time flies faster than Santa!!


(For those who don't sew garments, this is the cut for the leg of the pants.)


I believe I have enough for one quilt. It's a little less than a meter plus the two cuts in the picture above.




I would like to use these two fabric too ... maybe? Plus which ever colour Angela will suggest each month, of course. Too many fabrics? Well, I still have a few weeks to think about it right? Right? Yikes!





Joining Angela at Soscrappy.

Until next time ....








;^)





Wednesday, 16 December 2015

Ta-DAH and Cyber Monday

I finished Kitchen Party!!  Ta-dah!


This picture was taken on December 15th. No snow still! Even the Canada Geese are still around which I think is a first (in my life time anyway!) It is on its side in the above picture because it is too long for the clothline. (81 x 69 inches)


Anywho! I am done machine quilting this one.
the  back
 Stitched in the ditch around the "accordians" then half circles in between them. From the back, it looks more like Orange Peel pattern.


In the inner border, I practiced my free motion quilting with a leaf design.

The half circles, made with the walking foot, which are not all even but was a very good exercice.



And more grass lol.

And now for Cyber Monday. I did a little bit of shopping and the package arrived yesterday. Want to see what I got?

Ordered these two prints both in yellow and cherry; only got one of each as they were sold out. :^(     Oh well!

Very disappointed with this Farm Speak Vintage Red. The fabric is so creased; it's awful and it's even not washed yet!
Got more letters print fabric to go with it. Love them.

Got some batiks in very soft ash and yellow. Don't know with side is the right side lol.


Some neutrals, of course, in gray this time.

And some metallic gold on black. It is not a very photogenic fabric, sorry. This one will not find a job in one of my quilt but I do have a beautiful plan for it. :^D


I also found two quilting hoops (27 x 16) in a thrift store for 5 dollars.  Awesome!!


The machine quilting is half done on one project I wish to finish before Christmas. I will share with you when it is finished. This coming Friday is DH birthday then on Saturday, it's my MIL's birthday. That's all I need; to eat cake BEFORE the celebration starts lol.


Until next time ... Enjoy!

;^)








Sunday, 6 December 2015

What's in a name?

Long ago, a quilt on Sue Garman's blog caught my eye and I couldn't shake it off. I knew I would make such a quilt one day.  That day came in October of 2014. I did the math and started to assemble the blocks. They looked pretty good.

Then I did a whole lot more blocks.  This would be a good canditate block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. (Are you listening Gayle? lol)


 Don't they look like little accordions? I think they do. Tired of always referring it as the "Sue Garman's don't-know-the-block-name quilt" I started to think of it as the music quilt.


The layout was really fun to plan too. It took me a while to decide which one I prefer. 

Then came the border and the same question had to be answered; which one works? which one I prefer?


Eventually, it became a top.  I so love it.

The quilting was something else since I wanted to machine quilt this one. Having very little experience with this technique I didn't have a lot of choices but to do the boring but very effective "Stitch in the Ditch" done in the center and on the Hourglass Blocks of the outer border.

As I quilted, I kept thinking about those little accordions and music in general. Nobody in my family had an accordion but my uncle played the violin and my father could tap dance to any kind of music. It was funny.

 A few months later, when all that was done, I realize it wasn't quilted enough. So I got a plate out and started to mark half circles in each accordion. The quilting of those circles, sewn with the walking foot on, kept me busy for another few weeks, still reminiscing of days gone by.

 We used to have parties at my parents' home with uncles, aunts and neighbors. We would push the kitchen table to the side, the violin and the spoons would come out and we would dance in the kitchen and laugh most of the night ... for no other reason than to have fun! Good times.


Okay so some of these half circles were not so ... round? Lol. I had to redo some and some I kept just to show my humble beginning.

All the while I was working on other projects too. One of them was calling for leaves so I decided to practice the leaves on this quilt since there was a gap between the center and the edges that needed ... something. 

Really? !!  You can barely follow a half circle and you think you can do leaves ?  Still, I decided to FMQ the leaves and see what happen!!  What do I have to lose?

I draw the leaves on and started to quilt ...  again!



Not too shabby. Well, okay ... not good but good enough lol.
Then the machine had enough of me thinking of parties, I think, because it got sick !!!



This is on the back of the quilt. It was no fun undoing this. As all good things have an end, so this ended too lol.

Tonight I am joining Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitching as I stitch down the binding


 And the label, of course lol.

Kitchen Party - 2015
I will show more photos of the entire quilt when all is done and washed.

Thanks for visiting. Until next time ...


;^)

Linking with Cynthia for Oh Scrap!



Saturday, 5 December 2015

More Rainbow Blocks

To finish the last row of my quilt, a few more blocks were called in. After consulting the rainbow, it was evident that some colours were "under represented".  Here are the newest blocks to fill the gap.

The two at the bottom are made with fabric given to me by a friend. (Thank you, ♥.)

Playing with the rainbow has produced this quilt.


And for the border, I've been up to my neck in HSTs, colourful HSTs!!

Option 1

Option 2

Decision, decision, decision.  I'll think about this while I trim all those colourful HSTs.

What does your rainbow look like?

Joining Angela at Soscrappy. Come have a look.
On Sunday, I will join Cynthia (Quilting is more fun than housework) for Oh Scrap! and more scrappy inspiration. 



Until next time ...

;^)





Saturday, 28 November 2015

Limes in November?



NO  sun shining

NO  birds singing

NO  children playing and laughing

NO  vember


Don't remember the entire poem nor who penned this one but I liked it.



Anywho! Angela from Soscrappy proposed "LIME" as November's colour. 

Lime in November? Really? When everything is so brown, foggy and gray?!! AND WHY NOT? It sure perked up my spirit to work with something so cheery. Thanks Angela. It is a great one for November.



Remember this picture of my citrus bundle purchase? Probably not as it was over a year ago. 
 

Well I finally cut those lime fabrics to make my RSC blocks and also used the leftover from "Take 21".
 


Now comes the challenge, back-breaking sore knees exercices, headache, fun of deciding the layout lol.
 

 
 Some HSTs made for the border

 and so many more to make still!

Some fabric I ran out so no HSTs from them. Too bad. 




Now this being said, I don't think I will finish this quilt before December 31st. Meaning it's another UFO!! 

I had promised myself to work on my UFO list to bring it down to a "reasonable" size before starting something new. I guess I missed the point lol. Soooo, does this mean I won't participate in the RSC 2016?? Heck no! But as this year, I will pick only ONE block so only one quilt to add to my 2016 UFO list lol. 

BUT, I get ahead of myself because FIRST I want to hop over to So Scrappy and admire all the rainbow quilts made by some wonderful quilters. Hope to see you there too. 

Until next time .... 


;^)