Hugs and Kisses Quilt Finished

 

I finished my Hugs and Kisses quilt which is a pattern by Jaybird.    The fabric collection is called Terrain and I used a 12 fabric fat quarter bundle along with Kona white for the background to make this twin size quilt.     I decided to try something different with this modern style quilt and use Dream Puff , a high loft batting, and lighter quilting as these quilts are usually finished with dense quilting and thinner batting.  But I needed this quilt to be soft and cuddly as it is a gift for a 14 year old girl who will use it as a couch quilt for watching movie in her newly decorated `teen hangout`room in their basement.  

I quilted free hand flower motifs in the white diamond shapes and then added straight lines in the busy prints to highlight the lattice design in this pattern.   When I took the quilt down to the dock this morning to get some picture I noticed a funny pattern on the ice.  It seems my footprints from the day I took pictures of my Mod Pop quilt had iced up and resisted yesterdays melt so they stand out like big mushrooms!!

The bright orange flannel for the backing worked out so well and will make this a very warm quilt. 

The ice has been a great backdrop this winter ( and spring) and keeps surprising me with great photo opportunities!

Spring Melt…Finally!

 
This is Marg’s Railfence quilt using fabric from Kansas Troubles Cattails and Clover collection.  This quilt will be for a man so I suggested a leaf themed panto and we decided on Bushberries.  The shape of the leaves in the panto match the leaves in the fabric print.  Marg had brought Dream Puff batting to make it a light, high loft quilt.  The backing is a soft brown that looks like a batik print but it is not!

As you can see things are finally melting here, we got up to +15’c, the hottest we’ve seen so far this year. I took a picture of what is left of our quinzee this morning and then again tonight.  Look at how much snow has melted today!!!  Can you tell I’m excited!!  :)

A few weeks ago I noticed a few otters playing on the ice and then a few days after I noticed a brown lump on the ice.  I first thought it was a dead animal so sent Tim out to investigate but he came back to say it wasn’t a dead animal and for me to go look.  I was curious so trudged through the deep snow and brought my camera.  This is what I found.

It was a half meter wide pile of mud, grass and weeds from the bottom of the lake, it appears a muskrat, or other similar critter, made a breathing hole in the ice and covered it up with the mud to protect itself from prey when it comes up for air.  This way it can just stick it’s nose into the space in the mud and not expose itself out of the ice. I had never seen these before and upon walking around the bay I found a second one, Tim said he had seen these before when he has been snowmobiling on other lakes.  Below is what it looks like today.   It will be a few more weeks before all the ice is gone as the water you see is just melted snow, there is still a few feet of ice below.  You can see why I thought it was a dead animal from the dock.

Adele’s Star Quilt

 
I had the honour of quilting this very special quilt this week.  It was pieced by Adele who was a local guild members that passed away in December.  Adele had an amazing ability to create quilts from her scraps that looked fabulous.  Her eye for color was admired by all her friends and I was always drawn to her quilts at every quilt show. I would study them and try to figure out how she could combine fabrics that I would never think to put together and make them look great!  She also was very skilled at hand appliqué and hand quilted most of her quilts.   She was a very modest lady who didn’t understand why we would fuss over her quilts, a true sweetheart to all that knew her.  Her presences is greatly missed at our meeting.

Adele had not completed the appliqué on this top so her good friend Marg finished the remaining work so Adele’s children could have another heirloom quilt from their mother.   
I quilted free hand 3’s and E’s in the center across the stars and the CC’d the HSTs.  I then SID around the appliqué and stippled the background.



We woke up to more snow today just after all Sundays snow melted. This would be a pretty picture if it wasn't April.

Reunion Quilt #2

  On the weekend, while it was snowing AGAIN, I finished another Triangle quilt using my second Reunion fat quarter bundle.  This grouping was in a different color-way than the first quilt I made and I substituted one fabric.  They had added a solid grey to the mix but I swapped that one out for a bright red that I had in my stash…the only red I had in my stash that wasn’t a batik.  I was happy with how well it blended in.
I quilted this one with free hand swirls to be different from the first quilt.   I had a Kona grey in my stash that I had bought for another quilt but it didn’t use but it matched this quilt very well.  Here is a look at the two quilts together.
We received about 10cm of snow on Sunday. This is not uncommon here but I am starting to wonder if spring will ever arrive?

Perfect Ten Quilt

 

This is Maxine Perfect Ten quilt that she made for her mother who just moved into a nursing home.  What a lovely gift and I’m sure her mom will love the fabrics!  Maxine asked for the Hearts in Bloom panto and I suggested the Dream Puff batting to keep it nice and light for her mom.

Island Sunrise #7

 

This is Eileen’s Island Sunrise quilt which is another finish from the Judy Niemeyer workshop our guild held in the fall.  Eileen really liked how I quilted Alex’s a few weeks ago so I took a lot of the quilting elements from that one and change a few details.   I did a feather design in the outer border but did three different shapes….a plume, a leaf and a swirl.  I did loops in the inner border and a windy swirl in the background of the arcs.  Repeated the same design in the spike shapes as in Alex’s quilt.

I used #439 Amethyst So Fine thread on top and it blended so well into all the bright colors.  For the backing I used #648 Dark Brown Bottom Line thread and Dream Blend is the batting.

I dyed the backing a soft brown, it almost as a suede look to it!

Go Cutter – Isosceles Triangle

It’s been awhile since I used my GO Cutter so I dug it out along with a fat quarter collection I bought last year called Reunion by Sweetwater.    I thought it would make a cute little boys quilt as it has a nautical theme and I used the Isosceles Triangle GO die shape as it reminded me of nautical flags.   I was able to cut out 17 triangles out of each fat quarter and also cut triangles out for the background using Kona Snow fabric.   I quilted free hand wavy lines across the quilt to look like wind or waves.  I thought about adding the odd swirl but decided against it to keep the design simple.   Quilters Dream Blend batting and White So Fine thread on top and bottom.

My neighbours have a nautical themed yards so made for a handy backdrop for my pictures!  The backing and binding are a yellow fabric I had left over from the backing of my 5 Minute Quilt and it matched the yellow in the quilt perfectly.

I have a second bundle of this fabric but in a different color way so might make another one but save that for our guilds next UFO day.  This was intended to be for that day but I got carried away and finished it in one day, from cutting out the triangle to the finishing binding,  it’s a quick project to do!  I machine stitched down the binding which I rarely do but I am happy with how it looks .  The finished size is 35”x51” so would fit nicely in a crib.

Zig Zag Quilt #2

 This is another one of Lynn’s Zig Zag quilts that will go to one of her grandchildren.   I was so excited to see that she has used some of my hand dyed fabrics that she purchased from me at our quilt show last year.  She also won some of  Lori’s and my hand dyed fabrics when our guild did the last Mystery project.  We bribed our members with a prize if they were up to date on their piecing and Lynn won that draw! Doesn’t it look like colourful Rickrack?

This time she chose Daisies Galore for the panto design.   Light green Minkee for a backing and Dream Puff for the batting making it another cuddly quilt.

Things are SLOWLY  melting here, finally getting above freezing during the day and I think the quinzee is going to collapse soon!

Zig Zag Quilt

This is Lynn’s batik Zig Zag quilt that she made for one of her grandchildren.    This is a quick and easy pattern to make as she did not use HST blocks but two strips of fabric cut into blocks then arranged on point.  I found a great blog tutorial on the method here.

Lynn asked for Dream Puff batting to keep the quilt light and soft as it will be used a lot.  The backing is a chocolate brown Minkee and you can see the Dragonfly Pond panto well on the backing.