Floral Perfect Ten

 

This is Sheri’s Perfect Ten quilt and it is nice to see she is off her Hopscotch and Bali Love Song kick and is now whipping out Perfect Ten quilts like a mad woman!  :)    I find I am getting a bit bored with pantos so thought it was time to get back to the front of the machine and play with free hand designs.  I think that will be one of my goal for this year, to work on more free hand designs as I use to do a few nice ones when I was quilting on my domestic machine.  I might revisit a few old favourites and see how they look using the longarm.

I guess I’ll call this one Floral Curl as I start with a curl and then echo two or three rows of petals.

It’s pretty grey and dismal outside today but I wanted to share a few more pictures of the crazy amount of snow we have.  It just won’t stop snowing!!

Snazzy Snowflakes

 

This is Michele’s flannel quilt and I used the Snazzy Snowflake panto on it to keep with the winter theme.   Usually these quilts are ragged on one side but she had a different plan.  She pieced the top and then used long strips of the same fabric for the backing.

It’s hard to see the quilting in my pictures so here is the panto I used.

Swoon Quilt

 

This is Kerri’s Swoon quilt and she made hers using a 6 blocks layout.  I have seen many Swoon quilts other quilting blogs and was very happy to finally get one to quilt!   Kerri asked for simple quilting and gave me list of her favourites pantos to chose from.  I think Fascination was the best one as it is the largest scale design I have and it balances with the large 24” blocks.

Metro Hoops Quilt Top

 

Finished piecing my Metro Hoops quilt top this morning and really like how it looks but I think the quilting will really bring it to life.  Now I just have to come up with a quilting plan!  Might be a few month before I get time to quilt this one but it would be nice to have done before our guilds quilt show in April.  That’s my goal.

Tie the Knot Quilt

 

This is Melba’s Tie the Knot quilt and she used men’s neckties for the strip piecing.   This pattern can be found in Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting  magazine Nov/Dec 2012 issue.  She wanted very simple open quilting so I used Fascination for the panto design.  She brought a Poly batt to keep the quilt light as the top was already quite heavy as the ties have some weight to them and are sewn onto a muslin foundation.

You might have noticed that the snow banks are higher in these pictures than in my last post.   We had some interesting weather yesterday and this was my view this morning...

Wednesday started out with heavy snowfall and –20’c then the wind picked up and by noon it was +1’c.  The snow turned to rain for only a short time then the temperature dropped again, but the wind was crazy.  As you can see my ice rink filled in with about a foot of hard packed snow.  I spent the morning digging it out and I was sad to see that part of the old rink had already turned to slush near the dock.   So I’m now calling it the Incredible Shrinking Rink.

  This is how much snow we have on the ground now!

You know it’s going to be a long winter when you start measure snowfall in ‘broom handles’!

2009 Mystery #13

I haven’t quilted one of our guilds 2009 Mystery project in awhile and the last one I found on my blog from two years ago was labelled #12.   So here is #13.  This is Judy’s quilt and she used beautiful shades of blue for her quilt,  it is a gift for her son.  She wanted simple quilting so I decided on Plush for the panto design.

Yesterday was had a beautiful blue sky with –25’c temperature and today…..well we woke up to about 10 cm of snow and should be snowing all day today.  Seems every time I shovel and sweep off the rink it snows the next day!   If you notice in the picture below our little bay is a beautiful blank canvas of snow…it’s got me thinking again!  :)

Barrels of Fun

 

This is Val’s Barrels of Fun quilt and the fabric collection is called Monkey Around, it full of cute sock monkey images.   The pattern can be found in Spring/Summer 2013 issue of Simple Quilts & Sewing.    I used the panto Flirtatious as they look like little bananas!

Val brought a very nice chocolate Minkie Dots, the real stuff, and it worked beautifully on the back of this quilt.

We have been getting a lot of snow and yesterday morning there was a break in the clouds so I quickly shovelled and swept off the rink to get a few pictures.  It is now all covered up again and the forecast is for snow for the next two days. I’m been making progress on my Metro Hoops, I have 12 block made so far so over half way there!

I thought this post would be a good opportunity to share this cute picture of my nephew.    My friend Robin makes the cutest Sock Monkey hats and I bought one from her to give to my nephew for his first birthday.  So cute!

Metro Hoops

 

I think I shocked a few of my readers by admitting I didn’t have any UFOs in my last post.   I find that when I start a quilting project I just can’t stop and want to see it through to the end.  The quilting is my favourite part so why would I stop!   Well after going to our guilds UFO day yesterday you’ll be happy to know that I now have one UFO.    I starting cutting out and sewing Metro Hoops, a Sew Kind of Wonderful pattern that I have been wanted to make since Jenny released it.  My friend Desley is going to start this one soon too so this is the nudge to get her going on hers!  :)

I got all my fabric cut out, did all the strip piecing and cut out the curves.  It was a very enjoyable process and easy to do even when you are socializing.  I made one complete block to see how my fabric choices looked and I’m please with the result. I used a jelly roll called Sunnyside by Moda,  a solid white and yellow for the background and solid light blue for the diamonds.   I’m loving all the open space in this pattern and see it as a huge quilting opportunity.

Today it is snowing again so looks like a good day to get all the blocks sewn up!

I was pretty excited yesterday to see I reach 700 followers!   The funny thing is this is my 707th post so I almost have as many followers as I have done posts!

Island Sunrise #9

 
This is Yvonne’s Island Sunrise quilt done in batik fall colors. This is the ninth one I have quilted since our guild held a Judy Niemeyer workshop for this pattern back in September 2012.  I quilted free hand swirls in the outer border and in the background of the curved blocks.  I SID around all the circles and spikes and used medium brown So Fine thread.   We are enjoying a break in the cold weather with a high of –7’c today…  feels like we are having a heat wave!  

Tomorrow our guild is having a UFO day and since I do not have any UFO’s I’ll have to start a project so I have a UFO by the end of the day!  This is what I’ll be playing with, the fabric collection is called Sunnyside and I’ll share what pattern I’m making once I have a few blocks made.

Alternate Routes #4

 

This is Yvonne’s Alternate Routes quilt and she used one of the layouts in our pattern that has not been shown before on my blog.  She used batik fabrics in autumn colors and added borders to the pattern to make it larger.  The panto is Mimosa and the batting is Dream Blend.  It is so fun to see this pattern done in the different optional layouts and I have not seen a repeated layout made yet!

Lori and I created a Flickr page to share all the quilts made with our Alternate Routes pattern, you can see them all here.

Winter’s Lane

Looks like we are bringing the cold weather into the New Year!  I can’t escape it, I tried but it didn’t work.   We spent a week down in Winnipeg visiting family over the holiday and it was so cold it got down to –50’ with wind-chill one night!  The joke one day was we were colder than Mars as one day we only reached a high of –30’c and it got to –29’c on Mars that day.   So I’m now home, the boys are back to school today and I’m getting back into my quilting routine. 

This is Rae’s Perfect Ten quilt and she used a Moda fabric collection called Winter’s Lane.  She added the solid red for the frames and a small brown inner border.  The panto is called Chantilly Lace and it has Dream Blend Batting. 

The backing is an off white ‘Minkie’ type fabric from Joann’s called Ultra Cuddle and I had suggested Rae try this as I had bought some for our guild since it was on sale.  I have to say this is the first time I’ve had trouble quilting this type of fabric.  It was very stretchy and uneven and I would not recommend it to anyone now!!  So know I understand why others have trouble and I will now make sure I try a new fabric before recommending it to my friends.  It looks and feels really nice it’s just a pain to quilt!

Since it has been really cold this winter I thought I would treat myself to a goose down coat this Christmas and I am loving it.  Now I’ll be able to stay outside longer than a few minutes when I’m taking quilting pictures.  I was only outside a minute and you can see my hair was starting to frost over from my breath.

  Okay this is more of how I usually look out in the cold!

* warning – exposure to cold temperature from prolonged periods of time can make you feeling a bit goofy*