For me

When I was at the Rouge Valley quilt show, the only thing I purchased was a small quilt kit. It was sold by Picton Fabric World, a quilt store in Picton, Ontario. It is the same vendor I had purchased the Hallowe'en mini quilt kit at an earlier quilt show.

  Isn't it cute? I couldn't decide on whether I wanted this one or one that had Santa and a snowman but this one can be hung on the wall longer since it is winter-themed not just Christmas.

Here's one done up. I asked if I could take a photo so that I could figure out which fabrics go where. The vendor also told me that in the kit is extra fabric to make binding since the instructions call for a pillow case finishing and she thought binding was nicer. I agree.

These are books I ordered for myself as a birthday gift - the knitting books are courtesy of my daughter. Thank you. I had borrowed them from the library and they were so good that I decided I would like my own copies for my own library. The quilt book is 'just because.'

Have a great, creative week. I will be busy getting ready for a very special little guest and his mom who are coming for a visit.

Wednesday

Well, it's Wednesday again and here's what I am working on at the moment.

 I purchased a Patch Abilities kit a couple of years ago at a quilt show and I am finally putting it together. I may make all three. I'll see how it goes. The little quilts finish at 6" X 22" and it's fused applique so it should go quickly. 

Hop on over to http://needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com/ and see what everyone else is working on.

From idea to doodle and then creation

This is my screen saver. I change it every once in a while but I really liked the trees and since it is summer, I decided that this could stay for a couple of months. So, every time I turn on the computer, this is what I see.

This is the doodle that came from the idea of palm trees. Sometimes you just have to use the paper that's the closest.

This is the little journal quilt that came from the idea and the doodle. It was fun to do.

May mini quilt

Lest you all think that I have forgotten about my monthly journal mini quilts, I haven't. I just didn't have the time since I was making t-shirts for my mom and doing other things that took priority. So, here's my little quilt for May - a tad late.

 The idea came from Satu whose blog, Quilttales, I follow and who wrote: "I don't know how it looks there in Canada in May... But the first thing that came to me was the blossom of appletrees."

Go over for a visit and you can check out what she's working on right now. Her work is immaculate.

Now, whether or not this looks like an apple tree in bloom, I don't know but I did want to make a tree with blossoms on it. Here's the fabric from my stash that I cut out all those teeny tiny blossoms. 

It's nice to just look around the studio and pick and choose fabrics to cut up. This is a really old piece of fabric that I have had for years that was probably bought for a garment or for a quilt but it is not a tight enough weave to be put in a quilt. It's OK for the back of mini's though - although I didn't use it for this quilt.

Just listening to a little Marco Antonio Solis on Youtube while I waited for these photos to upload. The last pic didn't want to upload properly and after 6 tries, I finally got it to upload in the way it was meant to - landscape, as opposed to the portrait that the other 5 attempts came up as. What I finally did was copy and paste the photo the way I wanted it and uploaded the 'new' image. It worked. I don't know why it wouldn't do that the very first time.

April mini

Just playing.

New Growth. (click to view it bigger)

I had a totally different sketch for April but I really didn't like it. I decided just to wing it and I do like how this turned out. It was totally a matter of whether or not I could pull it off. The 'new growth' is made with my machine's lock stitch. This is a stitch that does five stitches in one spot.

March mini

I'm a few days late in posting this. It's the monthly (so far) 6" X 8" mini. Windy  and stark is how I thought to depict March trees.

Small quilt

I belong to a couple of online groups and one of them is Learning Fibre Arts or learningfa. Miriam, a quilter from Ireland who was here in Ontario last fall to give a workshop, kindly did an online workshop for those of us who were interested. The workshop was called Irish Landcape and here's my completed quilt.

The whole quilt is raw edged applique. You were encouraged to place the fabrics of your choice randomly. Different weights of fabrics could be used - silk, satin, corduroy, cotton, laces, threads, etc. It was all to be done very freely. I had some netting that I scrunched up and I also took a bunch of threads and encased them under some netting in the lower right. It was a lot of fun and I may just do another one in the future. Right now I am a bit pressed for time.


Note: Miriam is the same lady who designed the Emma's Trees as it is named for her daughter.

Just playing

Sometimes you just need a break from stuff you have to do and projects that are big. So, I decided to just play for a bit. I also thought that maybe I could make this into a journal project and do one a month. I'll see how far I get with that.

I had made some green fabric inchies earlier and incorporated them into this little 6" X 8" piece. It has a backing but no batting so it isn't technically a mini quilt.

I am nowhere near as ambitious as Joan at Rosegardenquilts who is sewing a face a day.