Not Your Mother’s Rail Fence – Pattern Number 3!

Lori and I are excited to share our third quilt pattern with you today!  Highway 10 Designs presents “Not Your Mother’s Rail Fence” quilt which is a twist on the traditional Rail Fence pattern.   It is now in our Etsy and Craftsy shops and we hope to have the paper version within the month to add to our Etsy shop.

We both made this quilt so have two color ways to show you.  Lori’s is the purple version that we decided to use for the pattern cover is it was bolder and more photogenic than mine!   It also stood out beautifully in the snowy backdrop!   She made it using batik fabrics ranging from light to dark purple with a splash of gold thrown in.  You can visit Lori’s blog here to see more pictures of her quilt and it’s story!

Now here is my quilt which I did in peach, green and off white, it has a very different feel from Lori’s quilt.   I made it this summer as a gift for my Grandmother who just moved into a new seniors residence after she turned 90.   It looks so good with her teak bedroom suite and she called me three times to thank me for it!   :)

I used batik fabrics that blended into each other except for the off white to show off the step design.  Used Quilter’s Dream Blend batting and quilted free hand feathers across the quilt.  I used a sold cream backing to show off the quilting, love the texture the feathers made on this quilt!

This pattern comes with instructions for Lap, Twin, Full and Queen sizes.  We included some tips on how to properly add borders to your quilt top as longarm quilters love it when a quilt top has it borders pieced on correctly!   :)

Lori stated it very well in the end of her post how thankful we are for everyone’s support in our new venture.   Not only am I enjoying the design aspect of this new business but the fact that it keeps Lori and I in touch so often.  It makes it feel like she never moved away and that is the part I am most thankful for, good friendships can survive any distance.

Blogathon Starts Today!

Today is the first day of the Blogathon Canada so I though I would repost the schedule so you can check out all the great Canadian blogs this week and get in on all the great giveaways!    Don’t forget to stop by Sew Sisters blog as they are having a  giveaway as well that you don’t want to miss. Thursday is when I share the list for the Manitoba bloggers and introduce my giveaway so don’t forget to stop by for that!

Here’s the Schedule

Monday, November 18 – BC – Holly of  Holly's Red Bike

Monday, November 18 – BC – Heather of Winding Bobbins

Tuesday, November 19 – Maritimes – Adrienne of Chezzetcook Modern Quilts

Tuesday, November 19 -  Maritimes – Marjorie of Marjorie's Busy Corner

Wednesday, November 20 – AB – Katherine of Sew Me Something Good

Wednesday, November 20 – AB – Andrea of Urban Quilt Works

Thursday, November 21 – SK – Flo of Butterfly Quilting

Thursday, November 21 – MB – Kathy of Tamarack Shack   

Friday, November 22 – QC – Izzy of Dizzy Quilts

Friday, November 22 – Territories – Danielle of A Geeky Crafty Life

Saturday, November 23 – ON – Jackie of Jackie's Art Quilts

Saturday, November 23 – ON – Krista of Krista Quilts

Kitchen Reno Finally Done!

I am so excited to say that our kitchen reno is now completely finished!  Remember my last post on the kitchen here, the ceiling still needed to be repaired from the skylight removal, new lights needed to be installed and I had not decided on the backsplash tiles yet.   Well here is the finally kitchen, we just finished grouting the backsplash tiles today!  Feels so good to be done this job!

I turned on the lighting we installed above and below the upper cabinets so show you the glow they create. I love turning those on a night for a soft light.  The ceiling never got textured to match the rest of the ceiling as the only guy in town that can do this job lost his drivers license so he couldn’t come out here to do the job!  So Tim just plastered it over flat and I can live with that, you can only notice it in certain light like in this picture below.

Love my new backsplash tiles. I decided to go with 2 x 4 mini subway tile and it really finished off the room.  Now I need to find a few bright coloured accessories to add a pop of color which I feel like it.

I also am happy to share that our second pattern Pedal to the Metal is now in a paper version and came be purchased at our Etsy Shop here.

Hockey Skate Quilt

  
This is Jackie’s Hockey Skate quilt that she made for one of her grandchildren.  She designed the quilt herself and created the skate appliqué pattern from a picture.  The skates are all hand appliquéd and she even tied the laces with a knot.  It was hard to get a picture of the fabric she used for the blade but it is a silver metallic fabric that works perfectly. 

   She wanted simple quilting so I suggested echo quilting around the skate and then SID in the setting blocks.

Sunrise Batik

 
This is Pat’s Sunrise Batik quilt and you can find the pattern for sale here.   She made it for a wedding gift for her nephew and they chose the pattern and she adapted it to fit a queen size bed.     The batik fabrics have a lot of leafy prints so the Whirlygig panto seemed to be the best choice and will keep it gender neutral since it was a wedding present.  Pat said the center was a challenge to piece and that she should call the quilt “Fudge Supreme”!  That made me laugh as we have all done a quilt like that.  I’ll have to remember that phrase for future use.  Pat did a great job on this quilt, I had no idea she found it challenging as it rolled into my machine with no problems.

Local Favourites

Thank you for all the comments on my last post, I enjoyed reading them all.  I sometimes worry that I spend too much time posting snow or landscape pictures and that I should stay more focused on the quilting with my blog.  But then I realized that where I live is part of what this blog is all about and is what attracts readers to it.    This blog is a combination of my passion for quilting and my love of nature and I’m so happy to be able to share that with you though my photos.    Your comments have reassured me that you are interest in more than just the quilting and I won’t hesitate to share this northern moments with you from now on.  :)

You may have seen this quilt on my blog a few times, it’s a local favourite.  This is Rae’s Bali Love Song quilt and she wanted a lofty batting as this will be a cuddle quilt on her couch.  We decided on Dream Puff and with her Cuddle fabric on the back that made a great combination.

I also quilted Rae’s Hopscotch quilt which is also another local favourite when it comes to quilt patterns. This one also has a Cuddle backing but this time I used Dream Blend for the batting.    This is a gift for a man so the Ground Cover panto worked nicely on this quilt.

Yes I took a few pictures of the quilts on the ice but I promise I was close to shore and didn’t venture far!

Hoar Frost

Woke up to the bay being frozen over as it got down to –20’c last night, but the main lake is still open water.   Had a nice surprise along with the ice and that was hoar frost!  The crystal above is 2 1/2” in size and the ice was covered in these crystals.

   You can see the fog above the open water as the cold air is quickly cooling the warmer water, relatively speaking!   You can’t see much of the main lake from our dock as those are islands on the left, right and even in the far background.   I like how we are sheltered in our little bay.

It looks like someone had a big pillow fight and there are feathers all over the ice!  :)

  I also took some video to try to capture the sounds of the ice and was lucky to capture one good crack!  Ice is not quiet at all and is constantly making noise.   At about 0:13 you will hear the loud sound that makes me jump, that’s the ice not a gun shot!

Alternate Routes #2

 

Here is Eileen’s Alternate Routes quilt and she made the twin size option.  Lori helped her adapted one of the queen sized layouts in the pattern to work in the twin size and it turned out great.   As we keep saying there are so many ways to layout these blocks and I haven’t seen two alike yet.  Eileen used dark purple and light purple/grey batik fabrics for her quilt which really allowed the piecing to shine.  Using two high contrast fabrics is the key to this pattern.

We decided on the Tickle panto, a purple So Fine thread and Dream Blend batting. She used a dark purple backing and it really shows off the quilting.

  You can visit our Flickr page to see some of the quilts made with our Highway 10 Designs pattern so far.  The pattern is now available in PDF and paper on our Esty shop and in PDF form in our Craftsy shop.

It’s that Time Again!

 

You didn’t think I would go too long without trying some snow dyeing did you?  :)   Those colors are pretty bright aren’t they!  This time I though  I would experiment with turquoise.  Turquoise dye likes hot water not cold so I knew it wouldn’t react strongly with the snow but I wanted to see just what would happen.  I used equal parts turquoise and red in one and turquoise and bright yellow on the second one. As you can see the turquoise was over powered by the red and the yellow.   I got a bubble gum pink and a neon green!

  I used this snow dyeing method for this experiment.  Look at the yummy texture!

If you have any suggestion for colors you would like to see dyed with this method I am game to try!

Braids on Parade Quilt

 

I’m back in the swing of quilting again and am happy to show you the first quilt in our snowy landscape this season.  We have had about 30 cm of snow fall and it’s still coming down but in big fluffy flakes!  This is Phyl’s  Braids on Parade quilt by Far-Flung Quilts and she used the  Trapezoid Strip Ruler by Creative Grids.  She adapted the pattern and added the strips of sashing between the rows.  The fabric used is a Rum Raisin Bali Pop.  I quilted it with the Bombay Blossom panto, used Quilters Dream Blend batting and dyed the backing for her.

Have to share this picture as it was snowing as I was taking pictures and I couldn’t keep the snow off the quilt.  So I used this as an opportunity to get a snowflake shot.  These ones are a bit icy and not as good as –30’ snowflakes!   That will be my goal this winter to get a great snowflake picture.   You can also see the Lava variegated thread I used too!

The ice started to form on the lake last night, this might not last if the wind picks up as it is so calm right now.

Snow Day

Look what we got last night!   Don’t know how thrilled I am yet as the roads are in terrible condition and the boys school bus got stuck in the ditch on our road.  They never sent a second bus so they got there very first snow day ever…I wasn’t going to drive them in to town in these icy conditions.  The lake is still open water but should be close to freezing over soon.  I haven’t starting back quilting yet but hope to this week. 

 

Here is a picture Andrew took with his phone when they decided to just come back home.  The back end is in the ditch and those trucks below tried to get up the hill but kept sliding back down so they gave up.  Our road finally got ploughed later this afternoon so there should be no problems tomorrow.