What a great sewing weekend!

I had dropins at two of the guilds I belong to, so on Saturday, at the Blue Mountain Quilter's Guild, I sandwiched my Rainbow UFO that has been sitting languishing around for 3 years, waiting to be quilted!  I started this quilt at my very first BMQG retreat - got the top pieced that weekend - along with a couple of other tops - one of which has long been finished, the other one is also still waiting for me to finish the border and get quilting - so it has been long over due. 
It is bright!  I love the vibrabcy in it!  It will be so nice to finally get it done.

On Sunday, at the first ever Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild dropin, I got some more done on it.  All told I'm probably about 3/4 finished the colourful middle, quilting it with, what else??? feathers!  and just have to decide how I'm going to quilt the borders - any suggestions? 

There are no good pictures of the border, but its a dark purply blue, 3 inch border.
I've used a varigated rainbow coloured thread on top, and a varigated purple, blue, pink thread in the bobbin.

Hopefully, I'll get a chance to get the quilting finished in the next week or so, and then I can go work on my DQS10 quilt!

Happy quilting!

Distracted!

this happens quite easily for me!  I should have been working on postcards and quilting my workshop sampler, but instead I started playing in my scraps and created this

It is based on Elizabeth Hartman's Mod Mosaic technique and was a result of working our next challenge for the Vancouver Modern Quilt guild.  It's just the top, as I did manage to pull myself away and work on what I was supposed to be doing for  little while!
How about you?  Are you easily distracted too?

One good thing, if I'm sewing and quilting, I'm not fabric shopping, so I've got another week under my belt with no fabric bought!
Happy quilting!

Colour!

I love colour - my kitchen is bright red, I love wearing bright jewel tones - my closet contains a lot of red and apple greens, with more turquoise blue sneaking in. I'm very drawn to bright and colourful quilts.  But my stash, overall, it's not quite so bright.  For some reason, over the years as I've bought fabric, I've not bought a lot of pure colour - it strikes me as very strange, as I don't really like the greyed out colours, (and I'm not a pastels person, so there aren't a lot of them in my stash).  I do have a pretty broad selection of batiks, mostly FQ but bright, pure or solid colours?  Not so much!  I'm gonna have to do something about that when my Fabric diet is over! But I do have a few colourful pieces.  And I dug them out to work on this sample for a guild workshop I'm doing.  The workshop is on applique, eight of us are showing different applique methods, and I'm demonstrating how I do raw edge applique.

fused on

This is the basic sample that all 8 of us will be making, using our own technique.  A vase with flowers - we each designed a flower and shared it with each other, and then its up to us how we combine them, embellish them etc. with the idea being to show how the same basic pattern can look very different, depending on technique, layout, colour selection and finishing, if we get that far!  It also will let the participants see several different methods, get to try them all out, and see which one they like best.
I like raw edge as I can combine it with trapunto

trapunto layer added

and can also use the stitching down as being some of the quilting, although for this demo I'll be doing them separately.  You can be subtle or bold with your applique thread - this time I picked black as I wanted that kind of look, but I could easily have picked colours that blended with each item.
So tonight I've finished stitching on and trimming away the excess batting for a trapunto layer.  Next step will be t sandwich it and quilt - I'm thinking of doing some pretty dense quilting on it, incorporating a few colours around the flowers, but we'll see how I feel when I get there!

It will have to wait until the weekend now, as I have a different guild meeting tomorrow night - the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild - where our January challenge was to make ourselves nametags.  This is what I came up with

I used paperpiecing to do the curved flying geese this time - here's the nametag beside a bobbin so you can get an idea of the size of the geese

This was a lot of fun!

As far as my DQS10 quilt - I've got a of couple ideas perculating - hope to get some sketches done soon and some pictures posted.  If my secret partner is here doing any stalking, please please have fun! - do not stress or worry - I have very eclectic tastes, and love to try out all kinds of new things - but I keep very little of what I make for myself!  So please just enjoy the process and make something that you love making!
Happy quilting!

Back again!

Silly me!
I forgot completely to post about how I was doing in my Cut to Pieces challenge - i.e. my fabric diet!  (see my sidebar for the logo and link, or click here.) My plan for this year was to work from my stash, and avoid making fabric purchases.  Angela over at Cut to Pieces is hosting a little challenge to not buy fabric for 2 months, and it just felt right to join in, as it was just the motiviator I would need.
So far, I'm holding good!  Yesterday's win definitely takes the urge off to have to go buy something, and then at guild last night I was able to pick up a few bits from the Recycled Treasures (ie freebies from others) table, so I've still got fabric coming in wahoo!  Now I just have to start using some of that stash up...
Happy quilting!

Cruising!

It's been a good week! 
I got picked in the DQS10 lottery, so I've got some doll quilt fun happening soon!  Partner info will be coming out soon, and then the real stalking will begin!  It's a secret swap, and oh there are some lovelies that appear!  I end up drooling over all of them, trying to figure out which one might be coming my way. 

See this button in my sidebar?  (Isn't is cute? Amy designed this one!  Look at the size of that little block and the detail in it!?  Wow!) Just click on it over there and you'll see what I'm talking about - great little quilts, and man!  What a fun bunch of sewers!  You can also check out the Doll Quilt Swap blog here!
And then if that wasn't fun enough this week, Kaelin over at The Plaid Scottie hosted a 10,000 visits (can you imagine??!!!  It'll be years before I get that many hits!) blog giveaway and I won!  Wahoo!

picture from The Plaid Scottie

Can't wait to get hold of it!  Thanks Kaelin!
Last night I had a guild meeting where I turned in this quick little donation quilt I completed this week.  We have a quilt show coming up at the end of April, and our challenge is to have 100 of lap quilts done.

I'm planning on keeping this little puppy busy the next little while!

I've got a pile of UFOs I want to get done this year, and oh so many new ideas!
What are you working on?
Happy quilting!

Singing the Blues

no not really, but that's what I've decided to call my second finish of 2011!  Boy am I on a roll or what???

I'm really happy with how this one turned out!

It used up a tiny bit of my blue stash, but that's better than nothing!

How are you doing with your 2011 projects?

Happy quilting!

Time to start fresh?

A new year always seems to be a good time to try new things.  With that in  mind, bear with me as I experiment with a new look for my blog!
I did manage to get my scrappy stars quilt done exactly when I said I would, so in honour of that, it has become my new header!

I'll have to see if I can get used to it, there maybe more changes to come!
Happy quilting!

making some progress!

having the house to myself yesterday I got started on some quilting on my blue and white quilt.  Unfortunately, I didn't like my first choice in thread colour so 20 minutes of quilting resulted in close to three hours of ripping!  Blech!  But I persevered, and am quite happy with how it's going so far

and from the back

this design is from a Patsy Thompson quilting stencil and I thoroughly enjoyed using it.  Definitely go check out her site.  I love her DVDs and now I can add her stencils to my list as well!
I have finished the quilting on my scrappy stars, just need to trim and bind and dare I say it will be my first finish of 2011???!!!

Happy quilting!

Welcome to the bright new year!

I love when the new year starts so clear and sunny - gives a wonderful expectation of things to come!
In putting together a Flickr mosaic of some of the things I accomplished - i.e. actually finished! in 2010, it was a good year! 


most of what I did, but misses a few of the postcards

 But, I have to admit, it was also somewhat stressful at times - I did over extend myself with the number of swaps I committed to last year - nothing got missed or sent off late, but at times it was a struggle to stay on top of it all.  Add to that I joined a third quilt guild, and a small quilting group, and then all the committments that go along with that, and I went back to work.  Geeez! My darling hubby was just asking if I remember him!  Yup, sure do!  He's in my calendar and contact list!  We keep each other notified of what we're doing and where we're at by sending meeting requests to each other - coz he's just as busy as I am with photography groups and outings, hiking and snowshoeing.

Will anything change in this bright new year? Well, maybe a  bit - I'm going to be more judicious re what swaps I sign up for.  Hmmm - it's not quite noon yet on January 1, 2011, and I've already put my name in for the DQS10 (Doll Quilt Swap #10).  Sign-ups go until January 10, so if you are interested, this is a great swap - 200 or so enthusiastic quilters with some amazing designs.   It is so popular that a lottery is held for the spots available.  This is a great group!  But, this maybe one of the only swaps I jump into right off the bat in 2011.  I've got the 4x6ers postcard group as well, and that one is always fun - an amazing group of women in that one as well!
Since I'm not going to be doing so many swaps, what am I going to be doing?  Well, I'm going on a fabric diet - I am going to try and work entirely from my stash this year - with the exception of some thread and batting - my goal is to use up what I've got.  I've joined a Flickr group for inspiration on this one.  The Scrapbusters Challenge 2011.  I see a lot of donation quilts in my future - I've already got a few started as you saw in my last post, but instead of actually finishing off either of these two in 2010, I kept digging into the scrap bag and made another top!

A few more strips to add, stitch it all together, and then the top will be finished

 I have started quilting the scrappy stars quilt, and the blue checkerboard is all pieced and ready to have the quilting plan laid out on it - I've got some great new stencils I want to try, and I do have plans on finishing these ones before next Friday - three two and a half more days off - can I do it??!!
And then of course, there are still all those UFOs on my sidebar - I really didnot make a lot of progress on those last year.  But, it's a bright new year, full of hope and promise!
What comes next for you?
Happy quilting!