Double Diamond

I have been busy quilting this week but was hoping to see the sun at some point to get outdoor photos but no luck.  This has been the snowiest, rainiest, cloudiest October I can remember. There is hope for sun by the end of the week so I’ll hang on to a few quilts to try to get some outdoor pictures of those.

This is Myrna’s Double Diamond bargello quilt and the pattern is by Eileen Wright.  Myrna used beautiful batiks from beige to dark brown to create a warm toned quilt.

I used Curlz for the pantograph, medium brown So Fine thread and Quilters Dream Blend batting.

Looks really nice on my brown leather chair!

Lizards and Lights

This is Donna’s baby quilt and she used a simple Rai Fence design to piece the top.   She had a fun dinosaur Cuddle for the backing and we thought Lounge Lizards would be a fun panto for this quilt. I used Lime green So Fine thread for the top and a medium green Bottom Line on the back.  Quilters Dream Blend for the batting.

I woke up just after 3am last night, yes I’m now getting to that age, and looked outside to see the Northern Lights were active.   They were not overly bright as the moon had risen so that had an impact but they were still lovely.  So I grabbed my camera and out I went…in my pajamas as usual!

This last one is pretty neat as I see an image of a lady with a head scarf or long hair in a dress with a full skirt looking to the right. 

Free PDF Pattern–Four Patch Charm Quilt

Since I first made and posted this quilt two and half years ago it has been the most popular post on my blog.  It has had over 111,000 page views and I have received many requests for a pattern, not just the block tutorial that I first posted. So I finally got around to writing up a pattern and it is now on my sidebar as a free download.  Or you can just click this link HERE.

I have quilted a few for clients and I loved seeing the different fabrics they all used. Here are a few samples of the ones that have come to Tamarack Shack!

This is Rae’s blue and purple Four Patch Charm quilt.

Sandra’s teal, brown and red Four Patch Charm quilt.

Eileen scrappy Four Patch Charm quilt.  I added more swirls in the quilting.

This is Wendy’s Fall Four Patch Charm quilt and I used a pantograph

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Third Annual Highway 10 Designs Retreat

On the weekend Lori and I hosted our third Highway 10 Designs Retreat at Fabriculous in Swan River, MB.  We always have a great time with this group of ladies from Dauphin and Flin Flon, it is a lot of fun to see the friendships forming between the two groups.  I am kicking myself for not getting a group picture of the 22 ladies in attendance but I did get a few shots of the ladies just before we started Show and Tell.  Sorry the second picture is blurry, you have no idea how much it pains me to post a blurry picture but I wanted you to see all the happy ladies at our gathering!

Here we are in the classroom working hard on our projects.

We thought this would be a fun addition to the activities after my keen observation from last year of the colourful language some ladies enjoy using!  In case you are wondering we raised $53.25 for the local Crisis Center.

It is fun to see others working on our Highway 10 patterns and Amy was busy making a gorgeous grey Pedal to the Metal.   You can also see my Four Patch Charm quilt hanging on the design wall in the background. I’m finally writing up a PDF for that quilt pattern to have free on my blog,  now I just need to figure out how to get it on my sidebar of my blog!


Wendy, the awesome shop owner, was very sweet to us and planned a surprise project and donated all the fabric and supplies.  The patterns was the Retreat Bag 2.0 by Emmeline Bags, you can find the free pattern here.     I helped her kits the projects and we put them in brown paper bags so it was a random draw and then we could pick our own fat quarter from the shop for the lining of the bag, that was really fun for the ladies as they could personalize their bag.  That was very generous of  you Wendy and the ladies really enjoyed the activity, thank you!  Here is the bag I made.  We also made up a Quilters Bingo game and Lori and I gave out prizes for that.

I did actually manage to complete a second project between all the visiting, eating and wine drinking!   This is my batik Tuffet and I picked fabrics from my stash to make it.  I purchased all the supplies from Fabriculous and  used Wendy’s pattern that she wrote for her class that she teaches at the shop.  No special ruler required!  Thanks to Wendy and George for helping me with this project!   It was great to hear that I have the firmest tuffet George ever felt!  LOL!  We had a lot of laughs over this project!

Fabriculous now displays the cover girl for our new pattern Good Vibrations.  She also has my new City Slicker hanging in the shop as well.

I thought I would share pictures from our Show and Tell and I picked a few quilts that had been pieced at past or our current retreat.

So it was a great weekend and I am already trying to think of ways to make the next one even better!  Thanks to Wendy and George for opening up their shop to us and to all the ladies that attended our event!  The surprise gift you gave Lori and I was very unexpected and unnecessary but greatly appreciated. We love putting this event on for everyone!

Forget Me Not Sampler Quilt

This is Marg’s Forget Me Not quilt and it was a 2015 BOM from 440 Quilt Shop in Saskatoon.   Marg chose the Dragonfly Pond pantograph and I used Beige So Fine thread and Quilters Dream Blend batting.  The sashing layout is quite different on this quilt as you only sash each block on two sides and alternate them up and down across the row.  

I had a great weekend at our Highway 10 Designs quilt retreat and will share pictures of the event in my next blog post.   Glad I was away this weekend as we had more snow and it is still falling today!  Good thing Marg’s quilt looked great in my living room as it is too miserable to take pictures outside.

Star Fling

This is Marg’s Star Fling quilt and she made hers with black and white print fabrics.  We chose the Flirtatious pantograph, white So Fine thread and Quilters Dream Blend batting.

It was –5’c this morning and some ice is starting to form along the shoreline.   There is one small lake in our area that is already frozen over and this is so early.   The snow is trying to melt and then we get more snow! 

Long Road Home Quilt

This is Rae’s Long Road Home quilt and it was a BOM Mystery project from Prairie Chicks quilt shop in Warman, SK.  Since this sampler had a modern feel to it we chose Cool Beans for the pantograph. I used light grey So Fine thread and Quilters Dream Blend batting.

Well we had another 5’' or 6” of snow fall yesterday and power outages all over our area.  We were only without power for a few hours last night.  The forecast is for more snow today and I have a feeling it is here to stay!

City Slicker #6

This is Sandra’s City Slicker and I love the shades of purple in the Urbana Bali Pop she used.  The background is a light grey cotton, not batik, and mixing the two works well in this pattern.  Sometimes cottons and batiks do not play nice together because the have a different amount of stretch to the grain.   But  I find as long as the pieces are cut short enough there is rarely an issue.

I chose Tickle for the pantograph, medium grey So Fine thread and Quilters Dream Blend batting.

It was too windy to get a nice picture down at the dock but this one did show the nice purple flannel backing!

The snow is melting but as I look out my window right now it is falling again.  Yesterday I stuck my ruler in the middle of the yard and it read 11” or 28cm.  We had much more fall than that but so much melted the first few days.