Feathered Fleece and the Hulk!

I quilted two quilts for Sandra this past week.  The first one is this Feathered fleece that will be a baby gift for the newest member of her family.    I really enjoy quilting on fleece and they make great gifts!  I have a tutorial on how to feather fleece here if you would like to see how it is done.


The second quilt is a Hulk quilt that she made for her grandson who is crazy about the Hulk and other Superhero's.  She found fabrics that have great vibrant images of the Superheroes and the green sashing really shows off the fabrics nicely.

   I used the panto design Fascination as it is an open design that will make this quilt soft and cuddly!

Sandra asked me to dye a green backing for this one and I had some white flannel on hand so suggested using  flannel and she loved that idea.

Her grandson is going to love this quilt!

I also wanted to mention that Blogathon Canada has started today and if you would like to visit other Canadian blogs just clink on the button on my sidebar to get you started.

First Snow Dyeing of the Season

Yes it is that time of year again…..Snow Dyeing time!!   We don’t have a lot of snow yet but I did manage to scrap up enough to dye the backing for my Island Sunrise quilt.  Can you believe I used Brown and Navy and a tiny bit of purple for this piece!!  It’s always a surprise what you get…but usually the result has a purple tone when you mix a lot of colors.

When I dye backings I always piece the white fabric first then dye the whole piece so the textures blend across the seam line.  In this next picture you should be able to see the seam but it doesn’t stand out too much as the colors blend across it.   

If you are new to my blog and have never heard of snow dyeing I have explained the whole process in a post here. 

Even though it came out a very different color than I was hoping for….I was going for brown and blue, all the colors in the backing match all the lighter colors in the background fabric.  So I will still use this for my Island Sunrise quilt as this is a wall hanging so the back will never be seen.  It’s kinda a shame that this won’t be seen but will be a nice surprise if someone peeks at the back!

Twister Quilt

This is Marg’s Twister quilt and it was made with a batik layer cake and charm squares.  If you have never heard of the Twister Rulers I have a tutorial on how to use it here.    I demonstrated using the Lil’ Twister ruler which is the smaller one to make a table runner.

Marg brought Dream Puff batting, I used Lava thread and we decided on the Whirlygig panto.

Yes I was out on the ice this morning….I know I said I would stay off it but I just couldn’t resist shovelling a bit of the snow off to see how thick it was and by the dock it was safe to stand on.   I didn’t venture out any farther….honest!

Wish I had seen today’s blue sky yesterday as I had 10 hour drive to take my son to his 45 minute orthodontist appointment and the highway was terrible as it snowed the night before.  But….this means we now have enough snow to snow dye again!!!

Retreat Projects

I did manage to make some progress on a few UFO’s at our guilds retreat on the weekend.  The first project was a Ragtime quilt that I had cut out using my GO cutter last spring.   The flannels have a winter theme with snowflakes and mitts and will look great on my couch all winter.   This UFO was taking up a lot of space in my fabric bins so it was good cleaning those out.  I was able to quilt all the blocks at the retreat but then put it away to work on another project.  When I got home I knew I couldn’t just put the blocks back in the bins so on Sunday I got to work piecing the quilt together and it is now DONE!   I love that all the fringes are done with the GO cutter, that is such a time saver.

My other UFO project was my Scrappy Jewel Box blocks that were given to me by my guild members when my term as President was over.  You can read about this quilt here.    I was able to finished this quilt top…what do you think?

Well to be honest …I love how the center looks and the inner navy border but am disappointed in my other two border choices.    I’m picking them off tomorrow!  It needs a much darker outer border as the second and third borders just blend together too much and when I laid it on my bed the borders just didn’t look right.   So now I’m on a mission to find new fabrics for the borders and that’s not easy when the nearest quilt shop 150km away.  I’m thinking a dark navy with a pop of bright colors in it for the outer border.  I was hoping to quilt this one in December but it will now have to wait until my border issues are solved.  I don’t want to rush with this quilt as it is very special to me and I want to finish it right.

Now on another subject, the bay finally froze over yesterday at it was getting down to –15’c at night.  It has been slowly freezing in sections and you can see the layers in the photos how the older ice is whiter and the newer ice clearer.  I’m hoping the clear sections stay clear so I can start using the ice as a backdrop again for my pictures. But don’t worry it will be a few weeks before I venture out there :)

Bennington Quilt

This is Eileen quilt and the pattern is called Bennington. You can find this pattern on The Quilter Magazine website on there free projects page here.  You can also find it in The Quilter Magazine April/May 2012 issue.

I had the perfect Lava Thread color that was a variegation ecru to light brown that worked very well on the fabrics in this quilt.  I thought the fabric was Stonehenge at first but then asked Eileen what line it was and she said Marblehead by Ro Gregg. 

  We decided on Tickle for the panto design and used Quilters Dream Blend batting.

If you would like to see all the wonderful project that were being made at our guilds retreat this weekend you can visit the guild blog here.  I always leave our retreats with a new list of quilts I want to make, so much inspiration!!   I’ll share my retreat projects in my next post!

Intersections in Batik

 

This is Rae’s Intersections quilt and it is made with batik fabrics.    We decided on Splash for the panto design and used wool batting.  I love the combination of batik and wool, it creates fantastic texture on the quilt.

The backing is batik as well and it was so soft to the touch, not a stiff waxy feel like some batiks can have.   Don’t you just want to wrap yourself up in this quilt?  :)

Curve It Up – Sawtooth Block

Here is the second block in the Curve It Up Quilt Along, the Sawtooth block.  

Today and tomorrow our guild is hosting a retreat and I had a very productive day of sewing.  I’m working on a Ragtime quilt and have all the blocks quilted, just need to figure out a layout then sew them together.  Then I also started to piece my blocks together on my Jewel Box quilt.   Hope to finish at least one of these project tomorrow…but the socializing and eating is somehow slowing down my progress!  :)

This is my 500th post, I can’t believe I have had that much to say and show over the last 4 years! I am also amazed that I just reach over 300 followers.  Nice to know that I have readers stopping by to visit …and I don’t even have to clean my house!  ;)

Celestial Venetian Dreams

  

This is a guild comfort quilt and the pattern is Venetian Dreams.  I like to quilt a few comfort quilts for the guild each year for free as I like to do my share as a member and this year I did a grand total of 10 quilts for the guild so that feels good.

The fabrics have a celestial them so I thought I would try a new panto called Riptide by Patricia Ritter as the shapes look like crescent moons.

I was so excited to see the sunshine this morning even if it was for a brief time so could catch up on my quilt pictures.

This little Mink surprised me when I was sweeping the dock to great ready to take quilt pictures this morning.  He hung around and was running around on the ice and playing along the shoreline while I was taking pictures.

Mystery Quilt #16

 

This is Shelly’s Mystery Quilt that was our guilds 2011 Mystery project and the 16 means that’s how many I have quilted for guild members so far. I wonder how many are still out there waiting to be finished or quilted??   Only two more months until I present the next Mystery project at our guild and this time Lori and I designed the project ourselves so are very excited to share it at our respective guilds in January. It will be sad to not have Lori there to present it with me now that she has moved away but it will be fun to share a project with another guild.

Shelly said I could pick the quilting design so I chose the panto Plush as I like the spiky swirl on the stars and it is the right scale of a design for the size of the stars.   I like a quilting design to be in proportion with the piecing. 

I used a golden yellow So Fine thread on top and a yellow Bottom Line thread on the backing.

Sunday Sewing

On Sunday I had time to work on my Just Takes Two blocks and completed Oct 15 set so I’m only two weeks behind now.  I have been working on some beautiful quilts but can’t share pictures until the beginning of December as they are gifts.

It has been pretty dreary here and we have only had a few brief appearances of the sun in the last month!  I really prefer cold and sunny to cool and cloudy any day.  So yesterday I decided to venture outside for some fresh air and watched the birds at our feeder.   Got a few picture of the chickadee’s and a pair of Pine Grosbeaks.  The male is the red one and the female yellow.

Remember ‘Whooo’ Loves You

 

This is Helen’s Remember ‘Whooo’ Loves You quilt and the pattern is from Acorn Quilt Company.  

I did a free hand 3’s and E’s in the background, SID around the appliqué and then added a bit of detail to the owl.  Helen had added extra batting behind the owl and branch to make it stand out more
.

Here is a peek at the back, she used a pretty pink minkie!

The lake is starting to freeze over and this is about two weeks earlier than normal.  This might disappear as we are suppose to get a few days of above freezing temps but I think by next week I’ll be sharing pictures of the bay frozen over.

Bayside

This is Melba’s quilt and I have seen this quilt design many times but have no idea what it is called.  It is a simple be very effective design that makes a great scrap quilt.    I always see a wonky star when I look at this quilt design.

Melba brought some Hobbs Poly Down batting which I had never tried before and it has a thick loft which really worked well on her quilt.  She picked the Bayside panto and that gave such nice texture to the quilt.