Christmas quilt and gifts

On the frame.

No turns made yet but the quilt is being worked on.

 

I received a gift.

This is the bag. Inside was ...

this gorgeous piece of fabric.

The name is blueberry land.

My eldest son and his wife just happened to be in Helsinki a couple of weeks ago and picked this up for me. It's so pretty and about 60" wide. I have no idea what I'm going to make with it but it has to be something special.

Thank you Mark and Kate.

I have been remiss. A couple of months ago I won a giveaway over at Mixed Media Artist.

It was this cute book. I'm hoping my daughter will come over when she has time so we can make some of these guys.

Thank you Cyndi.

One off the frame and one on

Remember this little snippet I showed a couple of posts back?

Well, as you can see, it's on the frame here. Any guesses as to what it is? Red, white and blue?

Ah, the Union Jack. Here it is, all finished with the piecing. At this stage, I really, really wanted to keep it. I loved all the dark blues, the various whites and the RICH REDS. I'm not a red person but this combination packed a wallop (in other words, it was intense.)

Here it is, on the frame. It didn't take long to quilt. The centre cross is stitched in the ditch and the four corners are quilted following the diagonal lines. Since the edges get stretched and pinned onto the frame, I decided to put the binding on before quilting it. So clever. It's just single fold binding and it is cut on the straight of the grain. This is just a wall hanging and will not get any wear.

Just a pic of the backing. A little 'tongue in cheek.' You can see the direction that I quilted it.

Totally finished...

and given to the recipient, David, the birthday boy.

And since I have so many quilts that need to be finished or worked on, I just felt like quilting something. I do have some small quilts and kits that I will be sewing too (maybe for Christmas gifts.)

This one has been hanging around all finished but I didn't like all that emptiness in the middle. I couldn't come up with anything nice to put in it (I was thinking of applique) so it will be quilted with straight lines and stars. Lots and lots of stars. It was one of the Mystery Mailouts featured by The Quilt Patch in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. They had a Christmas or winter mystery that was only mailed out to whoever signed up. It would begin in October and every ten days, for six installments, you got another step. I did it for a number of years and it took me a while to realize that they are not my colours. The quilts all seemed to be in the same colour palette and it just wasn't me. I have other mystery quilts waiting to be put together and they will be completed one day. 

I may just add the binding on this one too before it gets put on the frame - or maybe not.

I'm linking up with The Needle and Thread Network and Esther's blog.

I'm heading over to see what's new in Canada and in the rest of the world. Care to join me?

Quilts and books

First, here are a few of the books I borrowed from the library.

Just a few border ideas.

I've borrowed the two on the left before while I was browsing the catalogue, I came across some other books that I wanted to check out.

 

 Remember I showed you this pile of green squares? Well, I did have another fabric chosen to go with them.

It's this gray crackled fabric. Don't ask me how old it is or what the name of it is because I don't know. I must really have liked it when it first came out because I found 2 pieces of yardage and one fat quarter of it in my stash. I was going to use it in another project but that was just a wall hanging and I never did get around to it and now I'm glad.

I just laid out some of the green blocks on my kitchen table on top of some of the gray fabric to see how it looked. I must say, I am impressed. I really like it. I thought that the gray fabric might have too much of a directional print to it but no, it really doesn't. On the table is actually two folded pieces put together and you can't tell.

So, that's it so far. I still have to cut all the gray fabric up and sew it onto each square but that will have to wait awhile. I have other things on the go at the moment.

This week

Well, it's Wednesday once again and time to link up to the Needle and Thread Network and also to Esther's blog. Go see what other creative people are up to this week.

What am I up to? Well, several things.

I am slowly continuing on with my green quilt, Garden Path.

I've chosen a few more fabrics to finish off the last row for my 16-patch quilt. The colours are not good in this photo but when I went with better lighting, the red wasn't true. In this photo the red is true but the light blue is actually a green and on the left is a green, not the beige that I can see.

And this is what's on the frame. I haven't started quilting it yet and it won't be totally revealed until it's finished. Not to fear, it's not that big and I am stocked up with books on tape so I'm all set.

What are you up to this week?

 

On a personal family note, my eldest son Mark and his wife Kate are in Europe doing a tour of Scandinavia. They have decided to visit Amsterdam (Netherlands,) Tallinn (Estonia,) Helsinki (Finland,) Stockholm (Sweden) and then to Copenhagen (Denmark) where Mark is presenting a poster at a conference. They were nice enough to take the time to visit with my long-time pen pal in Helsinki and I am very happy.

 

My middle daughter Maili and her boyfriend Casey are on their way to Seattle from Portland and then on to the outskirts of Vancouver to take part in the Fat Dog run.

 http://www.mountainmadness.ca/fatdog.php

It's apparently very scenic but I do hope they don't run into any cougars or bears. Maili and her friend are doing the 50 mile run while Casey is doing the 70 mile. Good luck to them. After the run they will be heading north to visit little Luc and his brother Patric - oh yes, mom Laila and papa Gilles too.

Outdoor Quilt Show

Warning: this post is very heavy in photos.
Well, now that it's over, I can show you some of the great quilts that were hung at Pioneer Village in Toronto this past weekend - Quilts at the Creek. The weather was great for both days. There was a trunk show each day by two different quilters and there was also a vendors area. Included in this year's viewing was a quilt set up on a frame with a few ladies demonstrating hand quilting. As I walked around, the comments were quite favourable. Hopefully, it generated enough interest in some people to begin quilting.

If you wish, please click on any of the photos once, or twice, and it will enlarge itself.

This was one of the quilts that was hung inside the main building.

A close-up of the big stitch quilting.

A first glance, this looks like it's just like any other lone star quilt.

But look again. It's cross stitched.

And now, we'll go outside to view the majority of the wonderful quilts.

Now, this was another one that was really distinctive.

The ladies are crocheted.

It is hand embroidered and hand quilted.

It was for sale too. Sorry for the blurry photo but the wind would blow every once in a while.

Oh look, sheep. There was one noisy one in the bunch but he/she took off behind this group.

This one deserved to be studied.

And look what I finally found after making a whole circle around the buildings. My Juniper Hollow. I love this location. It is exactly the same place that they hung a 16-patch quilt last year that inspired me to make mine. Serendipity.

I do hope you enjoyed the show.