Progress and a Finish

I have a finish and it's not a mini quilt either. WhooHoo!!

Jacob's Summer (aka Jacob's Ladder) is finished. Except for a few more threads to deal with and a label. Let's have a closer look. 

I did straight-line quilting with white thread in the neutral squares. 

I did straight-line quilting with bleu thread in the blue and green squares. It's not enough I thought. 

I went back with white and added two more straight lines on each side of the first one. Then, did the same with blue. 

The top was not stretched enough when I pinned it and I ended up with some puckers. Oh well. 

The borders have an FMQ of bubbles. I thought with all the straight lines, it needed a little movement somewhere. 

You can see the border quilting better from the back. 

The back is a mosaic of leftover fabrics and a summer sports print. 

Voilà! Jacob's Summer - started in February 2013 - finished in August 2023. Measure 98 X 74 

(The grass makes the quilt bumpy. It's hard to mow the lawn because it is wet most of the time.) 

I'm thinking of quilting either Jericho Wall

or my first HST quilt ... hmm!

Both are big quilts, so lots of work either way. 

Meanwhile, I am finishing the Irish Star Chain blocks. 

Most of the stars are done. Only four more to go, but which colours? 

I need to concentrate on the alternative blocks ... lots to do here, about 30 more. 

I've set a few down to give you an idea of what I'm aiming for.

I got Ohio Star Shadow in a hoop in the hope of getting this one finished too. 

The rusty one on the right-hand side is done and I'm now working on the red one.

Over the weekend, I'll check what I can do with Aqua, the colour for September. 

Enjoy the long weekend! 

;^)

Joining these talented ladies over the weekend. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

Kathy for Slow Sunday Stitches 

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Trying So Hard

Well, maybe not that hard, lol.

Sew a little bit of green ... 

and some alternative blocks in blue ... 

Oops! And a Christmas-y one! (In my defence, it is green.) These blocks are Friends' Favourites. I need to cut more neutral strips. I love to have things all prepped by the sewing machine as I have very little time to sew. 

Of course, a few 9-Patch blocks were made too. Am I done with the Christmas fabric? I keep finding some bits everywhere. And then, Halloween showed up. Oh! Bother! 

I'm trying to finish the quilting on Jacob's Summer. Since I'm quilting it diagonally, I have to deal with the bulk of the quilt constantly as it is a long quilt. Needless to say, I have to pause often to save my neck and shoulders. 

After a long break, I returned to my work and came face to face with an opportunist looking for a place to nap. Since the quilt wasn't all the way to the floor, he had jumped onto the table. 

But how can I get angry at this peaceful black ball of fur? 

Jacob will have to wait a little longer. 

Hope all is well at your place. Enjoy! 

;^)

Visiting these lovely ladies this weekend.

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts 

Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Pondering and Planning

It is time to think about the new year. Looking at my projects, I realized that many will cross over to the new year as only one got finished. Sigh! What was done and was is left? Let's see.


I tried to push a few quilts forward this year and will continue my focus next year. A few quilts saw progress but nothing major, well, except for Field of Poppies. 

Framed 9-Patch got assembled but then I decided to add a border made of light-coloured Framed 9-Patch blocks, so it is still a WIP (Work In Progress). 

This variant of Buckeye Beauty isn't assembled. Does it need more blocks? I hope the answer comes to me next year.  

Scrap Jar Star definitely needs more blocks and I have a plan for this one. I'm looking forward to it as I love making this block. 

The Crumb block quilt "Chaser" needs a few more blocks too. I have enough of the grey border fabric to do the missing blocks and only those. It will finish on the small size but that's okay. Look at all the little bits of fabric that didn't end up in the trash. Yay! 

Jericho Wall is being assembled this month. Will it be a top before the end of the year? 

Star Bloom will continue next year as it doesn't have enough blocks to be a quilt. I'm still debating if I should make the block with one colour or have a mix of colours in each block. What would you do? 

Since Field of Poppies (aka Good Fortune) is finished, I pinned another one to quilt on my DSM. This is Jacob's Summer (aka Jacob's Ladder). 

Unfortunately, I ran out of pins. Where are all my pins? Someone needs to go shopping, or else, clean up the sewing room. Talking about that ... 

The reorganization of the sewing room is also important. With all the scrap bags I receive from friends, I need to stay on top of the game, or drown! 

Remember this "contribution" to my stash? 

I'm still amazed by it and I also remember this mess. Sigh! 

The group Artisanat de Ste-Félicité did a sewing bee. We made 84 adult bibs for our local residences. What a great day that was. Thank you girls for welcoming me into your group. You are wonderful!💓

One friend got me a Go cutter and another friend gave me some dies. I'm blessed. What more can I say? 

I'm slowly learning curve sewing. Perfection is still far away, lol, but I'm willing to try again. 

The year 2022 saw me playing with my paintbrush again. This little bird was made for my MIL who is living in a residence. I wish you good health and lots of laughter in the new year, sweet MIL. 

Raven got a rough year. He had to visit the vet a few times before he got better. Now that he's neutered, he doesn't fight other cats anymore and he's so much better for it. He put on quite a bit of weight too. Those eyes! His gaze is always so intense! 

If you made it this far, I'm grateful for that. I wish you all good health and peace in the New Year. May you be safe and happy always. I appreciate each and every one of you. 💟 and quilt on! 

;^)

P.S. I'll talk about my projects for 2023 in the next post. 

Spending time with 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap! 

I've Got Your Back

It is so important to feel supported when we do something we are unfamiliar with. At work, my new team is wonderful. It's been a month already that I switched departments. They got my back and it feels good.

It is the same thing for quilts; a back is very important. 

(Can you tell I've been playing with backs these past weeks?)

I have this lovely fabric for Jacob's Summer backing. I thought it was very relevant since it is all about summer sports. 

Turns out the piece is just not big enough. I was sour about that as I really wanted to use this one. I didn't feel like adding long strips on each side. Angela came to my rescue. She inspired me to make one like this. 

I love it! Thanks, Angela. (Photograph sideways as it is sooo long and the grass was wet.) 

Eight Miles of Moon Beam has been sitting on the frame for the last 5 years. Well, almost 6 at this point. I can't seem to quilt this one. I didn't like the quilting pattern and now, I don't like the back I chose. 

I found this bedsheet ...

and I think it suits Eight Miles better. So, let's switch!  

The Eight Miles' old backing will be used for Field of Poppies. 

I think it is befitting to have stars on the back to represent all these fallen heroes, wouldn't you say? 

Now, if I could just quilt these three quilts and get the UFO list shorter it would be wonderful.  You will hear how well I did (or didn't do) in a few weeks. Am I on the Nice or on the Naughty list? 😁

I bought a "From me to Me" kind of gift. 

Of course, it's fabric. Just a few fat quarters. I got some grey fabric in case I have to start Bonnie's Mystery Quilt. I also got a few others, in case I need them for something ... you know ... 😏for something. 

That's it for now. I got a gazillion more HSTs done ...

and the leftovers from the backing are already included.  Always in need of more. 

There's also a tulip trying to sprout on my design wall but that's for another post. 

Take care everyone. 

;^)

Joining my friends 

Denise at For the Love of Geese  (Denise has a great Sugar Cookies Recipe on her post. Just saying!)

Sarah at Confession of a Fabric Addict

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

I Didn't Mean To

Look who is sporting triple borders! 

It's Stubborn Jacob! 

It was a lot of work to straighten this quilt out but I succeeded because I'm stubborn (as per my mother). (Cathy said that my middle name should be Persistence. I like that! ♥)

Anywho! 

Yes, I almost called it Stubborn Jacob and then ... second thoughts, it's too pretty for such an awful name so how about Jacob's Summer? Blue sky, green grass, blue lake. I like Jacob's Summer. 

I believe I do have enough of the dark fabric left to do the binding, whenever JS is ready to be bind. Yay! Thanks for all the encouragements. :^D 

June is Pink month so ... 

I got my bag (scrap basket not made yet) of pink and purple out. It's bursting! Okay, so some chop, chop later and ...

... I still had to separate them as there was still too much scraps for one bag. Oh well! 

I did manage to get two buttons and a spool out of the bag. 

For the crumb blocks, I had to pay a little visit to my stash as variety was absent. 

What's that? Are you asking about the split 9-patch block beside the crumb blocks? Yes, well, let me tell you something. 

Sometimes things just happen. It creeps up on you so slowly that you are barely aware of what is going on until it's too late. That's what happened! 

It went like this.  

Remember the big bags of scraps I received recently? Well, of course I had fun and lots of Ahs and Ohs were heard but I like to put away the scraps and I am running out of room. 

Since there were a lot of triangles in the gifted bags and the container of 2.5" squares scraps is full, I decided to do something with those two. Something simple like placemats which I do need by the way. 

Split 9-Patch is very easy to make and could be my leader-ender as I take care of another UFO, right?  Right! (insert chuckles here)

Sew triangles together, trimmed them down, dig some 2.5" squares out, got some 3" squares out to make more 2.5" HSTs.  Everything was going so well. 

Somehow, one container got empty. Whoop Whoop! So was my cup of coffee. Got more coffee, came back down to the basement and ... 

"Any other container with fabric that I could use in the placemats?" 

How about that small one beside the sewing machine? what's in there? 

All kind of pieces from different projects and they can all go back into the scraps bins. 

There were also lots of 2.5" squares (which I need) sewn together in a 4-Patch design. Hmmm! Maybe I can make one placemat with 4-Patch blocks? 

You can see on the right hand side, the previous empty container got a new job; it's now holding scraps sewn together to make crumb blocks. This will be kept close at hand and be a second leader-ender thingy. 

Oh! Did I got to the bottom of this container too? 

Look at the space beside my sewing machine! Am I really cleaning up my sewing room? 

GOSH! I better sit down and wait for this feeling to pass! Lol.

You know what? I can really work on a big UFO now. I got space and plenty of HSTs and squares to make 6, 8, 25 placemats! On the top right side corner of the last photo is a big pile of triangles still waiting to become HSTs!!

So...

It is time for these flannel crumb blocks to become a top. Yay! It's the third and last crumb block quilt I need to make for the boys. 

Now the real sewing fun can begin ... have a great weekend! 

;^)

Joining: 

Wendy at Wendy's Quilt 

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict

Denise at For the Love of Geese

Angela at So Scrappy

Cynthia at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts