New Domain

I keep telling myself "enough with the snow dyeing, what are you going to use it for".... but it's so much fun!!

I did this piece yesterday and used Burgandy and Cerulean Blue...hence the purple fabric.

 Actually the reason I wanted to post today is that I am excited to say that I got the domain name I wanted for my website.

  www.tamarackshack.ca

*happy dance*

It is now all switched over so if you had the old one bookmarks please change it to this one.

Oh I almost forgot...here is my attempt at making a snowflake!  The Royal Blue that I used did not snow dye well so the design was pretty wishy washy but you can kinda see it, right?

Ambroisa

As you can see no signs of spring here yet.   I tried to take my quilt to the clothsline to take some pictures but the snow was too deep and going over the top of my Sorel boots so switched to plan B.  I took the quilt down to the dock and noticed the wind has polished the boys ice rink and you could see right to the bottom of the lake. The cracks go right to the bottom and we still have about 3 to 4' of ice so it will be awhile before we have open water again.

I used the pantograph called Ambrosia and when I first got it I wasn't sure I liked it. It has a very linear design.  I couldn't recommend it to my clients until I saw it on a quilt so thought I would give it a try on my own.

Not only does it look nice but the repeat in the design is 6" and my blocks are 6" so it worked out perfect. And it was pure luck how it worked out in the center.

I used Stonehenge wide backing for the back.

I was going to call this post 'Quilts on Ice!'  :)

GO! Cutter Half Square Triangles

Here is the result from cutting up my scraps using the 6 1/2" Triangle die for my GO cutter. I have now completely used up all my beige scraps.  Don't know if that is a good thing yet or not!

 I really like the layout of the blocks and am quite surprised at how much I like this quilt.  I think I am starting to like Scrappy quilts!!!!    I just put it on my longarm yesterday so should have it finished later today.

  I have some dyeing planned for today too.   Lori is addicted to snow dyeing Mandalas right now and has had some beautiful results so I'm going to give it a try today.

I tried snow dyeing a 'Tie Dye' style piece of fabric and the result just makes me laugh.  Definately different and all i see is a 'Super Nova'....... KABOOM!

New M&M Wheels!!

I installed...okay Tim installed my new MandM wheels on my Mille this weekend and the difference in the movement of my machine is amazing.   It takes hardly any effort to follow a panto design or do free hand designs. I now have to retraining myself to loosen my deathgrip on the handles in anticipation of hitting those rough spots that I was experiencing before.  It now glides so smooth!!  Yah!

The above quilt belongs to Sandra and what a great opportunity to try some free hand swirls on this fun baby quilt now that I have the new wheels on. I can even show you a close up of my quilting, I'm so happy with the control I have now.

I used Superior Rainbow #801 thread on top and So Fine #419 on the bottom.

Here is a picture of the whole quilt.  Adorable!

Lil' Twister

I love discovering new quilting tools and you can never have too many...never.  My newest discovery is the Lil' Twister rulers.  I bought the set of rulers and book for the guild and thought I would be a good president and test them out to make sure they are as good as they look :)   I am happy to report they are fantastic and can be use to create either a tesselation quilt or a four patch pinwheel quilt.  I thought I would try making the four patch pinwheel table runner first.  The rulers come in two sizes, one is used with Charm Square and the other is used with Layer Cakes.

I dug into my dwindling stash (it's really getting pathetic, I'm a disgrace to quilters everywhere) and found four batiks that I could cut into four 5" squares. Then I sewed them into a four patch.

Next I added a 3" border/background fabric with a high contrast.

Now to the fun part.....cutting.  Do you see a theme with my quilting choices lately?

You lay the lines on the Lil' Twister ruler on the seam lines and cut out the nine squares.

Keep cutting until your four patch looks like this.

The ruler is designed very well and has raise grippy feet so it doesn't move at all.

Now sew the 9 squares together, making sure they are in the same order as in the four patch and you'll get this pinwheel block.

Before and after.

You may be thinking there is a lot of waste but actually there isn't. If you used any other method to create this block I think you would use more fabric.

Here is my finished table runner....well almost finished, I still need to quilt it and have no idea what I'm going to do ( ...hey I just made it today afterall).  Tomorrow I'm putting new wheels on my longarm as the original wheels have been giving me some grief, looks like I have worn them out.  Imagine that :)  So I'm looking forward to a smooth gliding machine again.

I hope this little demo peaks the interest of the local guild members as we will be having an afternoon workshop in April on how to make a twin size quilt using the Twister ruler. That will be a different method using the larger ruler and that is all I'm saying!

So do you still "TRUST US"?

Yesterday at our guild meeting Lori and I revealed the last month of the "Your Just Going To Have To Trust Us" Mystery Project which we were leading.  Lori actually did 70% of the work and I was more there for moral support! ( I did do the photocoping!)   The goal of this mystery project was to gently nudge our guild members out of their 'comfort zone' by trying something new and have them feel proud for not letting the evil thought of "I can't do that" stop then. Trying something new is definitely scary at time but that is what makes it so exciting ... changing the "I can't" attitude to " ...well I'm in it this far so let's give it a try".  ( I know that's what your thinking!)
Now if your not a guild member your probably wondering what's the big deal.  Well here is what we have asked our members to do.

Take the top that they have pieced together over the last 6 months, iron on some strips of interfacing here and here and then....

....CUT along the center of the interfacing!!  The quilt top is now in three pieces.

Rearrange the three pieces, sew back together and you have this layout. I have also added a 2 1/2 " border.

 I just need to add one more border and it is done.

So a row quilt is now turned into an 'on point' quilt.
I can now reveal what pattern we used for this project...it is called Stars for Audrey and we thought it makes a fantastic mystery project. You can purchase the pattern here.

Basically this isn't about trusting us but about trusting yourself and learning you can do it.

**HUGS**

*\o/*

(that's me with pompoms cheering you on)

Topo Quilting

This is Robin's Hand Dyed quilt and since it had a modern feel I decided to do a free hand design.   The little squares of hand dyed fabric in browns and greens reminded me of flying over the prairies in the summer seeing all the farmers fields.  So the Topographical quilting design came to mind and I like the texture it has given the quilt.

I also finished Gail's Mystery quilt and got an opportunity to take a few pictures outside this week when the sun was shining.

She chose the pantograph Plush and a forest green thread as this is a gift for her son.

Giveaway Winner

 And the fabric goes too...

Sara's comment was:

"The website is awesome (that merits an A+ grade, right.) Easy to navigate, and like the continued color theme. It all works well together. Looks like you had plenty of snow to use for dyeing! Would love to win that pretty piece. I want to thank you for including those of us without blogs in the drawing. It is very frustrating to not be able to participate just because we don't have one. I am Sara (ohsirius7@hotmail.com) Thank you and congratulations."

Congratulations Sara!!  Thanks for checking out my new website.

This post had put me in a snow dyeing mood but I can't right now as I have been banished from my snow dyeing area...by the cold weather. You see on the weekend my husband asked me why there was a purple puddle on the floor in the basement....like i would know!  :)  Well it seems that our drain has froze, -35'C nights can do that, and when he was pouring water down the utility sink in the basement it was coming back up the floor drain.....purple!  Oops!  Seems all my dyeing water wasn't going anywhere.

Think I'll get some piecing done today.

Hopscotch

Sheri made this purple quilt top using a pattern called Hopscotch and the backing is chocolate brown Minky...it feels so yummy!  This will make a super cozy cuddle quilt for Sheri's couch.  I used a dark mauve So Fine thread on top and brown Bottom Line on the bottom.  The dragonfly panto shows beautifully on the Minky backing.   I don't mind quilting on Minky as long as I don't have to cut it!!   I was instantly drawing to this pattern and see using it with the new fabrics I bought at Heather's shoppe.   But I am restraining myself from starting that project because I need a project for the guilds retreat next month.

Sheri also brought this cute Railfence top made from Moda Fruitcake fabrics.  LOVE this collection as it reminds me of Christmas decorations from the 70's. I used the panto called Fascination.

Thanks you for all the wonderful comments about my new website, they are all greatly appreciated!!

You still have time to enter my Giveaway and if you feel more comfortable just sending me an email to enter please feel free to do that too, I don't mind. 

You can go to my Contact page on my website and use my Tamarack email address to enter. 

 Good luck to everyone that entered!!

Secret Revealed and a Giveaway!!

I have a website!!!

Yup, my secret project for the last month was creating a website for Tamarack Shack.   It is now up and running as of tonight thanks to my sister Betty.  You see my sister is taking a web design course and I am her final project! Well my longarm business is.   Under normal circumstances my little home business would not be able to afford a website ... I was shocked when I got the bill ...ouch!   Good thing it was only a 'pretend' bill and it just made me appreciate all the work my sister put into this project.  It has been fun working with her on this as I had no problem telling her what I liked and didn't like, and she only yelled  at me once....in capital letters in an email   :)

Now before you run off to check it out I had mentioned in my last post that I would like to have a Giveaway to celebrate my secret project.  What am I giving away?  Remember the hint I gave in the last post, you guessed it....

This beautiful bench!!

*giggle*

Okay, just kidding, it is the Snow Dyed fabric.  This is the best piece I have done all winter and I am very happy to give it away to a reader of my blog.  Notice I said reader and not follower. I know many of my readers do not have blogs or Google accounts and like to comment anonymous so all you have to do is check out my new website and then come back and leave a comment. Let's share some blogland love and let my sister know what you think of her first website!  I'll be the first to say that I think she did an AWESOME job!!!

Now remember when you leave an anonymous comment I need a way to get a hold of you if you win so please leave your name and email address ( if i do not have it already).

 I'll make the draw on March 10.

Now go check out my new website HERE

Seasonal Banner

I started this project at the last guild retreat in November and finally got around to finishing it this week.  My husband bought this kit for me for my birthday last year and I just love it.  They are 12" wide and 40" long.

Since it has a very modern feel to it I didn't want to add binding so I faced it. If you have never done this here is the link I used to learn how face a quilt. Facing Tutorial. 

I also want to show you two tools I used to quilt the banners.  First is my SimFlex Expanding Sewing Gauge that you can find in any sewing notion store.  It is usually used for marking pleats and button holes but I like to use if for marking Cross Hatching or any evenly spaced quilting design.

The second tool is a set of longarm rulers for Cross Hatching.  I bought these at Topper Quilt Tools.

They are great of any diagonal line work you have to do and they attach to your leveler bar on your longarm.

Now I have been working on a secret project and am almost ready to reveal it but not just yet.  This is a very exciting project for me and think worthy of including a Giveaway along with its reveal.   Hummm...I wonder what I could giveaway? I think I'll just sit here and think about it, I'm sure something will come to me.   :)