New things

First off, I have to show you what I found in my backyard last week.

Right in the middle of this photo is a little red dot. You can click on the photo to make it bigger.

Or you can click on this photo. It's a cardinal. I wasn't fast enough to get a photo of the Mrs. but she would not have shown up too well anyway.

This is the beginning of a challenge issued by one of the guilds I belong to. The challenge is called making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Those who wished to play along were given a little bag with about eight or so of the ugliest charm squares. We were to make something out of them whereby the perimeter was to be no larger than 80 inches and we could add some of our own fabrics. Part of each of the ugly fabrics had to show up on the front of the quilt. I'll show the finished quilt once the voting has finished, which will be in a couple of weeks.

Isn't this cute? Fabricland had a wonderful sale (40% off) and I went over and picked up some flannel to be used as quilt backing.

I couldn't pass this flannel piece up either - again for the back of a baby quilt.

I tried hard not to purchase any fabric and use what I have but the flannel in my stash just wasn't cute enough - or big enough.

I'm still knitting and Patric's little sweater is slowly getting finished. The back and sleeves are done so there's just the front to complete. Then, of course, it has to be sewn up. I'm going to try hard to stick with that part of the finishing.

What are you up to this week?

Canadian Quilters’ Association / Association canadienne de la courtepointe

Quilt Canada 2014 takes place at Brock University in St. Catharines from June 11 - 14. One of the events that quilters could take part in was the Trend-Tex Challenge. This year's theme was Modern Ways and it's the 26th year for the challenge. This year there were five fabrics that you had to use in the quilt or wearable piece. There was no minimum size but the maximum size could be no larger than 120 inches in perimeter. The winners are to be announced on June 14 and then the entries will all be auctioned off.


These are the fabrics that had to be used - the ones in the challenge kit. If you added fabrics (you were allowed up to 3 additional fabrics), you were not eligible for the award.
**Note: This photo was taken from Jackie White's blog. She co-ordinated the challenge and accepted all the entries.

Here's a link to most of the entries. I am amazed at the creativity and the amount of entries. Go have a look to see what exactly you can accomplish with just 5 fat quarters.

Christmas Quilt-a-long Reveal

Well, now's the time.

Way back in the summer I joined a group of ladies in the Christmas QAL and Challenge. The challenge was to make a quilt where the outer dimensions did not exceed 96 inches and we could not use either red or green.

Here it is, all complete. (click on any of the photos to enlarge them.)

The pattern was a freebie from Connecting Threads called Gifts Galore.

I altered the pattern to meet the requirements of the challenge. 

My table runner measures 31 inches across and...

15 inches in length. 

The total adds up to 92" - well within the rules and there is no red or green at all. It was machine pieced, machine appliqued, hand embroidered and machine quilted.

To see the other entries in this Christmas challenge, visit the hostess of the month, Sue at her blog.

Challenging Ourselves

I belong to a yahoo group called 'Challenging Ourselves' and today is the big reveal of the theme "Favourite Places." First of all, it did not indicate 'my' favourite places and so I chose instead to look around and find another way of interpreting the theme. I have many favourite places and it would have taken too long to interpret them. This is what I came up with.

This was an interpretation of a photo I took of two cats and their favourite place on a sunny day. It is not quilted nor are any of the seams turned under. I wanted to leave everything as raw as possible. It will be framed with a mat board and then put under glass so I didn't want the extra bulk or batting and backing. Most of the stitching is my hand.

Napkin Challenge Reveal

It was really hard to decide on which napkin to use for inspiration and then to translate it into something else.

 At first I was going to use the blue one since I am partial to blue but nothing inspiring came of it. So, I changed my mind. There were so many really nice ones to choose from but I did have an idea.

Can you figure out which napkin I used?

The colours in this napkin were all in my stash and I decided to update the Christmas red and green in the ornaments.

Here's a better picture without the napkin. I had those snowflakes and thought they would make a nice addition.

I enhanced three of the ornaments with embroidery.

Click on any of the photos to view them better if you wish. All in all, a fun little project.

NOTE: to view the other projects in this little challenge, click on Mrs. Moen's Napkin Challenge button in the sidebar. I have changed it so that it will take you directly to the list of participants.

Napkin Challenge

I have joined Mrs. Moen's napkin challenge. There aren't many of us and I guess it could be because people are trying to get Christmas gifts done. Anyway, here is a selection of napkins that I picked up. I really couldn't make up mind as to which one I wanted to use as my inspiration. The big reveal is December 1st so everyone just has to wait until then to find out.

If you want more info, click on the link in my sidebar that says (obviously) Mrs. Moen's Napkin Challenge.

Note: I did get the glasses fixed and am now proceeding to finish a few projects.

Bloggers Quilt Festival

I've now entered a quilt show, this virtual one. Thank you to Amy for organizing this! Click on the button to the right and see more quilts in this virtual show.
I have two favourite quilts but I will show this one since I already showed the other one. I made this for a quilt guild challenge in April 1990.


We were given three fabrics: the tone on tone that I used for the flesh; the blue print that I used as the necklace and for some of the flowers; and another print that I cut a motif out of to use as the snake and some of the pink flowers. The fabrics had to be visible on the quilt top. We could use our own fabrics but I can't remember how many. I used black, brown, white and the blue for the water. The finished dimension had to be less than 120 inches in circumference and I do believe the comment that went with the
instructions was something to the effect of being creative. What I did was to take two tape measures and lay them out on the floor in the rough outline of what I had in mind. This was after poring over loads of quilt magazines and my Southwest Art and Art of the West magazines. I knew I wanted to do something that had a native theme. I also wanted something unique. I came up with "Mother Earth and the Great Spirit." Mother Earth's hair flows into the the eagle's wing. It was loads of fun trying to capture what I wanted. It has applique, reverse applique, embroidery and I even used white-out with its brush for the loon's necklace and spots on the back. I think I have to re-apply the necklace. The horse is looking back at its owner who has died (the shroud - up on sticks, so that animals don't get to the body.) I populated it with animals that my friends and children liked. All free-hand drawn, cut and appliqued or embroidered. It is by no means perfect but I do love it. I have recently taken it off the wall since the sun from the skylight is fading it. I didn't and still don't really work in prints. That's why I cut the prints up and used the motifs in them.
There were other quilts that were not the usual square or rectangle. Other people were just as creative with the fabrics and the instructions - one was even a 3-D mobile piece of art.
The guild challenge quilt that won was an appliqued quilt that was square. So much for creativity. Personal comments from several of the guild members later was that the judges were quite staid and old-fashioned - as were a lot of the members.