Tuesday Archives

Sharon, from Vroomans Quilts, participate in the Tuesday Archives, organised by Val from Val's Quilting Studio.  It sounds like fun so I decided to participate. Since the link is open for three days, I am not too late for this week linky party.

Since Angela chose Orange and Yellow for the month of October, I want to present to you L'Orange Noir. (the Black Orange) This quilt was done in 2007. It is pre-blogging history.

Pictured in a magazine, a very old make-do quilt with lots of pink and everything else under the sun. It had a stripy design with HSTs on both sides. I loved to hate it because the pink was all wrong. Most of the time the pink HSTs were on the right side (with the pink strips) and sometimes they were facing the other fabric and it was annoying this OCD little girl to no end.

I decided to make myself one ... with the HSTs facing the right side.  As you can see with the wiggly rainbow waves, I didn't do much better. Didn't even bother to turn the fabric so ALL the lines were horizontal lol.

Hey look! It's the M&M gang with their cars! 

The black fabrics were hand quilted on diagonal towards the right with the M&M to the left.

The Orange section have big circles. Hope you can see them.

Compared to the new basket I have made with the same fabric, you can see the quilt has faded a little bit but it is holding pretty good. It is not big (44 X 33 ") so it was easy for the boys to carry it around. One would sit on it and the other one would pull. All was fun until the water work started because "the wall hit my head" kind of accident. 

The back is another oldie in flannel. We used to call them Smiley Face babies; now they are called the Emoji babies. 

Hope you have enjoyed my first try at Tuesday Archives. If you want to see more, hop over to Val's Quilting Studio and see who else is reminiscing either with an old post or a pre-blog quilt. Val has a giveaway this week. 

Until next time ... 

;^)

P.S. Please do not expect two posts in one day again because it has tired me out but had to try it at least once in my life.  (^:

An older one

Since I don't have a lot of sewing time lately and since I had to wash this quilt, I thought I should take a few pictures and share them with you. Would you like that?   OK!

This one was done in 2006.   It is called "Fun Pics". I bet you can tell why!?

(Snow melting, yeah!!)
It is a framed novelty print block, like an "I Spy" quilt which I haven't heard of yet back then.

I ran out of the red fabric so I had to improvised with alternative colours. Doesn't it look like it was intentionally done that way ? The border has more colours (especially orange/rust) than red.

Quilted in circles by hand. I find my stitches big compared to the size I can do now lol.

You can see the quilting better in this picture.  The colours are faded a little bit as it is a moderately loved quilt, not at all like the Finding Nemo quilt.  I had to wash that one too and I was surprised it survived another trip in the washing machine lol.

A pink elephant on a young boy's quilt?  In 2006, he was 10 years old and yes I deliberately put a pink elephant on my boy's quilt. Even though I am not a girl who likes pink, I always put a little bit of pink in all my boys quilts. The reason? So they never forget that:  "No matter where life takes you, no matter what you've done (good or bad) you have a mother waiting for you to come back home with open arms."

M & M Peanuts and Chocolate!! It was the Happy Millennium M&M Party fabric. I still have a bit left of that one.

Oh! There's my UFO! ...  Uhhh! no, not my UFO but some UFOs.
And there's dinosaurs and frogs and all sort of boys' things.

Vintage cars and sports ... of course ! So many of the seams are not connecting properly in my humble beginnings. (There are still NOT always connecting lol.)

It is all cotton with an old flannel blanket as batting. The back is an old (uh... hmm) fabric from the 70's. It measures 60 X 69. That's it. That was Fun Pics 2006 done for my boy, Sweet 16. I hope you have enjoyed it.


Until next time ....

(^;

Some interesting mending

At one point, I've said on my blog that my mending was done ... I lied!!    = 8^o

There is always something to mend!! A lot of it is caused by those pesky tags inside sweaters!  I hate them! They are not a piece of art, not inspiring, not even visible to other people. To top it off, they are made of the most scratchy fabric in town and most of the time, you can't remove it without making little holes in the sweater, especially the knitted kind (which I adore, btw.) Anyway! I will mend those sweaters too. (Sorry for the venting, but yes I do feel better now. ♪Thank you♫)

But I do have some mending that might interest you.

This little quilt is called "Almost Chief".  All HSTs done the hard way! I've found this pattern in a magazine back in 2007, that I've made in one day (remember the word "little" at the beginning? Okay.).  My back was stiff as a rod and driving me up the wall. I remember not being able to sit for any amount of time, (couldn't drive to work), standing up was okay for a bit but walking was better. Of course, the best position was lying down which I was completely fed up of. So I decided to cut up little pieces of fabric while I could stand, sew them while I could sit and ironed them up while walking in circle around the iron board and started the cycle all over again until I got myself a flimsy to reward my effort.

It's all cotton and measures 40 X 28.5.  As you can see it has a few, some, a lot of pointless points and uneven seams but it served its purpose: to keep my mind busy and off the pain. It is very cozy as I've used a piece of fleece for the backing. Recently I have noticed this,

Oooooh! :^{   HST needs some repair. More mending! Hopefully I'll find a little piece of this old fabric in one of the bins!

The next one belongs to my youngest son and I am NOT fixing it!

All the white fabric in this quilt is disappearing.

There's nothing left of this one. 

Even the flying geese have lost some feathers. This white fabric is the same my mother used for the quilt I showed you awhile back. You can find it here. Maybe there is something wrong with it? 

picture taken in 2005

It was made in the 2004-05 winter. It is only 10 years old and yet it is so used. 

The pattern is Bird's Nest but we call it " Finding Nemo". Can you see Nemo and his friends playing in the seaweeds? The white was representing the air bubbles but now it looks like it's all out of air! 

Even the boats on top and bottom are faded.  If I were to mend this, I'll be repairing this til death do us part. The reason for this abuse? He loves it too much. Even in the summer time, he sleeps with this quilt. Yes, yes, he sleeps on TOP of the quilt !! I wanted to remove it from his bed but he's having none of that!! On the other hand, isn't that why I made it in the first place?

So I'll keep making quilts in the hope that one day he falls in love with another one.

Now what to do with all of my mother's white fabric that I don't trust anymore?

String blocks!! 

Any other suggestions? 

Meanwhile, I will enjoy the beautiful sunshine we are having here today. Maybe tomorrow, it will rise and shine in your corner of the world. 

Enjoy! ;^) 

In the News Tonight

HEAR!  HEAR!  Read all about it!!

In the News tonight, Angie from A Quilting Reader's Garden blog has reached 1000 posts!!  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a 1000 posts!  To celebrate this milestone,  she is having a giveaway on her 1001 posts!!  You will NEVER guess what the prize is.  And I am not about to tell you want it is. For those of you who want to know what it is, please take a few seconds and hop over to her blog to have a look.  It is a VERY generous prize!! But hurry, it is a limited time offer! Now back to our regular broadcasting.


This is what I manage to do in the entire week :

One flower! Not even a diamond. Just a flower! Yes, I know : petty!  I was too busy at lunch break taking care of errands to sew. So because I have nothing interesting to show you and since you are already here at my blog, I thought maybe I could show you the very first quilt I have ever made?  Would you like that?

It was back in 2003, oh my! how does the time flies!! Wish I had a scanner to scan the original pictures because these quilts are so used.

I had to play with the brightness to get the colours this nice. It was made with my old kitchen curtains, the remnants from the boys shirts I had made and some old used men shirts. I was volunteering at the Needy Box back then and any shirts that was too used to be passed along came home with me. After this quilt, I was hooked and started to buy good cotton fabric.

All the pinwheels are paired with a stripped fabric in matching colour.

First time hand quilting and I picked a contrasting colour for the big pinwheel in the middle. How bold of me lol. The backing is a print depicting the three little pigs story. It used to be 44 X 37. Perfect size for small little boys.

It had many many spins in the washing machine. The boys just brought it everywhere. It surprises me how it still holds together unlike this one.

This one was made by my biological mother many years before I made my first quilt. She gave it to me before I got married. I guess she was hoping for grand daughters lol.  In her defense I will say that the backing is a blue flannel fabric showing little boys playing hockey.

Again, I've played with the colours in order to have it so nice because it is very pale nowadays. It used to be so red.

The white fabric is falling apart as you can see in this picture. She hand quilted too.
Now these two quilts are treasured. No more playing in the sand box with them or trucking them everywhere, at every picnics, camping grounds and whatnot. They are stored away and when I do bring them out the boys remember pleasant times.


Until next time ... ssssSMiILE ... it's priceless!!

;^)