It's a Friendly Thing

What is Friendship? Friendship is like peeing in your pants. Everyone can see it but only you can feel the warmth of it. 

(BwaaaHahaHa! 🤣 Sorry, but sometimes I crack myself.)

Friends' Favourite was started in January 2023. I "stole" the pattern from Fiona's blog who got it from a friend, who was inspired by another friend's quilt, hence the name Friends' Favourite. 

I worked at it here and there. I wanted to use prints that I like, that talk to me because it will be my quilt. We all know that working on quilts in this fashion takes forever to get them finish.  It was brought to the retreat to get it moving forward. 

The retreat didn't go so well. I got sick. So sick that I called DH to pick me up. What was supposed to be a four day retreat ended after 30 hours. I'm happy to say that none of the ladies got sick . . . yet. 

Anywho! 

While I complained about feeling like a road kill, I managed to sew! And cut! 

There were 133 centres missing to make the 240 blocks needed. I cut those. I framed (25 centres at a time) most of them before it occurred to me that I should lay them out to see if there's a colour I need more of.  

It didn't take long to see that GREEN was in short supply. It's was an easy fix. 

Other colours were added too because they talk to me. 

Needless to say that there are waaayyy too many centres now. I'm sure I can use them in one of the baby quilts. 

This weekend, I shall continue to frame the centres and hopefully get this one together before the end of the year. 

The baby quilt drive is moving along very well. My previous post shows a few finishes if you care to see. I'll try to get better pictures once the snow stops and we get some GOOD lighting for photos. 

Dr. Seam Ripper was called for an emergency surgery this week. He did an excellent job as always. 

Happy ending. 

Hope you are well and sewing to your heart's content. I should be back at work on Monday if this flu skedaddles out of here. So far none of the boys (husband included) are sick. 

Take care! ;^) 

Check these ladies' linky-party for more inspirations

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Alycia for Finished or Not Friday

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Well, Look Who's Here !

Yes, I'm still alive ... and sewing.

I mostly worked on kits for the baby quilts the ladies at my group are sewing.

The yellow roses fabric was cut in long stripes when gifted to me a while back. I added a bunch of green fabric to the bag and told the girl to surprise me with a top. I so love what she did.

I'll publish a separate post with just the baby quilts once they are quilted and done. 😉


I did a lot of hand-quilting on Ohio Star Shadow.

Last block to quilt. Yay! 

Sewing down the binding.

And I can now call it a finish! It only took 29 years. All it needs is a label and I can't decide what I want. You'd think I had the time to think about that during those 29 years, lol.


In October, I went to our usual quilting retreat with my girls. So much fun!! So much food! 

Mini 4-Patch in blue got all the blocks made and assembled.

Then, it got more blocks with a darker blue and a border.

The border is so wavy that it looks like a ruffle, lol. I'll have fun quilting this one but I'll manage. It's my monster after all!


The container of triangles was overflowing so I brought it along to do something about that. Some blocks were assembled.

These two were in separate plastic bags so they were easy to put together. The HSTs finish at 1 inch. So many more triangles were sewn into HSTs and squared up but didn't make it into a block yet. I was just having fun sewing HSTs with no quilt, pattern, or layout in mind. And, I got the container into some kind of order with the bigger triangles at the bottom, etc. 

Got one in pink to assemble. 

 

I did walk too, a lot, because it was so beautiful but mostly because it's what I needed. 

The last time I was in Blogland, I was overworked with Real Estate Season, Canada Post were on strike which added to my work load, there were renovation going on to add 16 

View from my sewing machine. Can you see the lake? 

workstations that added to my work load and I had a major baby quilt project to work on. The cherry on top was that Saturday morning, August 30th, the phone call telling me my dear friend lost her battle against cancer. I had to step back. 

Wish I could sit on that chair for a while . . .
but it's a private entrance.

I am better now but not taking any sh*t from anyone, not even from myself. I've slow down the rhythm of the drums I walk to and it suits me just fine. 

Bejeweled golden leaf

Controlling ourselves is harder than it looks; I can't resist chocolate, coffee and fabric. Others things, I make myself believe that I can control them until everything is out of control. For now, I'm taking care of me and my son. I eat a better diet and soak up the sun most days and that's enough. 

I hope you are all doing well too. 

Keep smiling! It looks so good on you. ;^)

Catch up with these girls: 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Kathy at Kathy's Quilts for Slow Sunday Stitching

Cynthia for Oh Scrap!

Let Us Sew, Let Us Sew, Let Us Sew - Part 2

What did I do at the retreat? I slept! We, Lucie and I, got there on Friday around 5p.m. We said hello to everyone, had a quick bite, unpack our personal things in our respective bedrooms and set up our machines. Then came Saturday morning, it was sewing time. By 7p.m. on Saturday, I was a walking zombie. So, I went and laid down for a short nap. I woke up at 5a.m. Sunday morning. Still fully dressed. Slept for 10 hours straight. I needed this so much. But, sew, I did.


Blue RSC block named Flying Home. 

Do you like the white geese all going in the same direction? 

Or as in this picture where the blue blocks have the smallest geese touching? The girls had very different reasons for picking one or the other. Now I would like to know yours, please. 

Blue RSC blocks named April Fool.

One more blue block is required for this quilt. The orange one is the fabric I bought. I like how this layout forms a "wave" with the white "V". Like a zig zag or chevron. 

I brought Spinner along to sew it into a top. It didn't happen because one block still has the stains. I was sure these were all fixed. I took the time to layout the blocks and sew them two by two. Some un-sewing will happen this weekend. 

Remember this little block I did due to a SHIB? 

Well, it isn't alone anymore. Five more blocks needed for a little baby quilt. I didn't have enough of the medium blue polka-dot so the centre is a dark blue polka-dot. It happens. 

Blue crumb blocks were assembled 

some are not completed or trimmed. 

More crumb blocks were made with white fabric for the Stained Glass quilt. 

I have enough to finish 6 blocks with these not-trimmed triangles. 

Here's the new project I've been cutting, cutting and cutting for 2 weeks prior to the retreat. 

It's Plaid-ish. I need to pay attention to the values as some are not quite as "medium" as they need to be. It will be interesting to sew all these blocks together with the skinny strip matching up with the next one. Oh boy! 😳

I want to share this with you. I don't remember seeing this before. I got this strip of fabric from someone. It was sewn together to make it longer. I wanted to use it for the binding of the pink scrap basket. When I turned the strip over to cut it . . . 

I had a surprise. Haha! Same print, different company, I guess. Now, we know. If you go back up, you might notice that the white swirls on the right strip are thicker than the left one. You didn't notice it the first time did you? Me either. 

Scrap shelves. 😁

Now drum roll, please. How did I do with the blue scraps in February? 

The before pictures: 

The end of the month pictures: 

I am surprised by the result. I did refold the fabric in the basket on the right but I thought I had added much more to the darker basket. Of course, I used a lot too. The plastic bags were emptied into a bigger bag to bring to the retreat and I came back with some more but still . . . I'm happy! 

Raven is sticking to me like a flea to a dog. His back is much better. He can finally jump on the couch by himself. Depending on the day/weather, climbing the stairs can be tricky for him still. Too many steps I guess, as the couch, it's only one jump. Here, he's pretending to be asleep on my red chair in the sewing room. 

Angela called Yellow for March. I'll gather the bags up and show you what I have to work with next weekend. 

Have a great one. 

;^)

I will visit these talented ladies over the weekend. Hope to catch you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever 

♫ ♪ Let Us Sew, Let Us Sew, Let Us Sew ♪ ♫

I'm back from the retreat and what a fun one it was. As always!

Saturday morning photo. How can I get tired of looking at this? I can't. 

This cute little mat is made by Claire. She doesn't come to this retreat but she participates in a different group. She did one for all the girls in her group and two of them are in my group, so I got the chance to see this cutie. 

Josee brought Izzy along. He's also an artist of the paint and brush kind. 

His brush, palette and canvas are stored in his bag. So small. Check the ruler on my machine for scale. 

Then he walked away. My table is too much of a mess for this fancy feline artistic taste. (FYI, Josee doesn't knit. She did a quilt or repair a quilt for someone and this was a thank you gift. He has his name on a little tag on his back. Josee wants to change it but haven't settled on one yet. Yes, you can remove his shoes too! ) I love him. 

Lucie got a panel that says: What happens at a quilt retreat … stays at a quilt retreat. Well, not if I come along with my camera, lol. Sylvie cut the squares and added the sashing, and before the retreat was over it was all done. Quilted and all! So we started to sign in the white squares. We are 10 and there's only 8 squares. We wrote more than just our names. If you look on the right side, the green square (because I am not a flower girl, lol) you can see mine. It says: Let us sew, let us sew, let us sew. 🧵🧵🧵 The banner will go up every time we are here. 

Lucie finished the top of the snowman she worked on at our last retreat. I love this one with the chickadees. She went back to the store to get me one but they were all gone. What a sweetheart to think of me this way. 

She also worked on a bunch of rectangle she received in a bag. The lady added the pattern to do the Mason Jar Quilt. Lucie doesn't care about that one and did a Shadow Box instead. She was not in love with it but kept sewing. Then she placed the blocks on the design wall and … magic! 

She was warming up to it. She said she will give it to me to add to the box of donations for the Quilt for Survivors. I told her to keep it until I'm ready to send the box. I know she loves bugs so, maybe she will change her mind and keep this one for herself. 

Mary also brought back a quilt she was working on at our last retreat. She got it all pinned on the big tables. It's so much easier at the retreat. Many hands make light work. 

Helene brought this beauty for her bed. It is hand-pieced and hand-quilted. Isn't it gorgeous? (Helene is on the left in pink and Lucie is holding the other end.)

Bravo, Helene! I love it! 

Helene did a lot of cleaning in her home and sewing room since she has retired. She brought 3 big boxes of things to give. Patterns, fabric, yarn, abandoned projects, you name it, it was there. 

I took these home. 

Flannelette galore! 

The pink and green is a baby top. The red pile on the left side are all receiving blankets ready to be donate. They will be donate next Tuesday at the Artisanat's meeting. On top of the red pile are diamond shaped pieces. On the left, there are more flannelette with some cotton under the hockey print. The bag holds long strings. 

This pattern also came home with me. I've never done anything like this but I drooled over it when it was in Connecting Thread's catalog. Now, it is mine. Yay! 

The girls did many, many other things but I didn't take pictures. (kicking myself). 

We had a new player to replace one that moved away. Sonia is her name and she worked with NEON fabric and did this. 

(Yes, Joy, I thought of your February NEON challenge, lol.) She is very sweet and fit right in with the group. Someone told her that I accept scraps because the first day we met, she handed me a bag of scraps. 

Sonia, you are definitively in. Hahaha. 

Needless to say that I come back with more than when I had left. 

Now every frozen lake in Canada has a hockey rink. Here's the proof. Haha. 

This morning, March 1st, the plow came down my street. 

I guess they are running out of trucks. Let me know if the video doesn't work. Thanks. 

Okay, so this is my third cup of coffee, the laundry isn't done, well, nothing got done as I've been sitting here for the last 3 hours. I need to move and get some solid food. I'll show you in another post what I worked on. Catch you in a bit. ;^)

I will visit these talented ladies over the weekend. Hope to catch you there. 

Angela at So Scrappy

Frédérique at Patchwork and Quilts

Cynthia for Oh Scrap

Alycia for Finished or NOT Finished Friday

Nina Marie at Creations - Quilts, Art, Whatever