Friendship Star Quilt

This quilt was made by my local quilt guild and our members made the Friendship Star blocks last year.  We pieced this quilt top together in Nov/Dec and then got a request from a local school for a quilt to raffle for their playground fundraiser.  This quilt seem to fit the request as it is colourful, cheery and a lap size.   

At our guild we teach a block every second month and we ask members to make two blocks, one is donated to the guild the second goes into a draw. For every 2 quilt block you bring back you get your name in the draw. Well this time a member who made blocks wrote the guilds name instead of hers and the guilds name was drawn so we ended up with all the blocks.

Once we knew this would be a candidate for the school raffle quilt we put a fun ‘chalkboard’ print fabric on the back.   I quilted it with the Popcorn pantograph and white So Fine thread.

Good Vibrations #1

This is Lynn’s Good Vibrations quilt and this is one of our Highway 10 Design patterns.  Lynn made hers with the same fabric line we made our cover quilt out of,  the Nunavut GemFive from Cantik Batik.  She used 3 GemFive precuts and made a King size quilt that is 100”x100”.  Lynn liked how we quilted ours and since Lori quilted our cover quilt I was happy to finally get a chance to quilt this one.   I used the Ebb and Flow pantograph and turned the quilt on my longarm so the design would flow up and down the piecing, not across.

I used a medium beige So Fine thread and Quilters Dream Blend batting.

I don’t think I have shared the news that our Highway 10 Design patterns are now available through three different distributors, Checker Distributors in the States, and Quilt Source and Contemporary Sewing in Canada.  Lori and I also sell wholesale direct to quilt shops.  So if you like our patterns and would like to see then in your local quilt shop please tell them about us!

Stellar–Pattern Number 9

Lori and I are happy to present Stellar, our newest pattern from Highway 10 Designs.   This one is designed for the intermediate quilter in mind and even though it looks like it is sewn with curves they are all straight seams!  The magic is using the Tri Recs rulers that create the illusion of curves.    This quilt measures 92” x110” so is great for a quilt for yourself or a gift from someone special. 

I encourage you to go and read Lori’s blog post here  as this is her quilt and she did all the beautiful quilting.  She shares the whole story from what inspired her to make it to how she picked the quilting designs.  I was her trusty assistant on this one.  I first told her that she might want to rethink her original border fabric chose ( I didn’t like it) and fortunately we were at a retreat and could go shopping to find a new one.  We were both happy with the new choice.    I helped with the pattern writing, counting pieces and verifying all the charts.  Once Lori was ready to quilt it we tossed around quilting ideas and once finished she sent it home with me for a photography session for the cover shot and blog post,  my favorite part!

The pattern is now available as a PDF download in our Etsy shop.

I have to say it looked really good on my bed so Lori is very lucky I gave it back!   Now I’ll have to make one for myself! 

The Queen and Her Court Quilt

This is Melanie’s The Queen and Her Court quilt and it is a pattern by A Wing and a Prayer Designs.  This is a King size quilt so I custom quilted the borders and did a pantograph in the center.  The pantograph is called Come Dance with Me and I used a medium brown So Fine thread for all the quilting.  The outer border was quilted with piano keys, I SID on the flange and the did a fun ‘Onions and Garlic” design on the inner pink border.

The quilting shows up beautifully on the beige Stonehenge backing.

So last night we has some aurora activity so I was out taking pictures. I had a ‘Ah Ha” moment with my frustration with the only street light in our neighbourhood that really interferes with my photography. I think I finally made peace with it last night when I changed my white balance settings and voila, the red light on the snow was defused to a tolerable level!  

I really like these shots with my snow art under the aurora!

Snow Swoon

This weekend I thought I would try walking out a quilt block in the snow instead of my swirls.  But this involved a lot of planning and a few tools so I was glad my husband was up to the challenge of helping me.  I thought you might be interested in the process so we took pictures along the way.  First challenge, how do I walk out a perfect square!  Well it so happens Tim used a simple tool when he was an exploration geologist in the bush, it’s called a turning table so he made me one. Works great for walking an accurate 90 degree turn.

Once we walked out 24 metres on each side we added marker posts to each corner.

Next we marked every 3metre along each side and then using a 24m long rope to mark a 3m grid in the square. We had to saw it back and forth to dig into the snow as it had a crust on top from some freezing rain.

Now the plan!  I drew out a Swoon block and scaled it up to 24m from a 24inch block.

Time to walk it out and I you can see the scale of the block with me in it! I then stomped down a few of the areas and that was a really good workout!

Then I waited 3 days for the sun to shine so I could take a picture.  I had to re-walk it out this morning as it has snowed and filled in a lot of the outlines.

Now if only I could get an aerial view of it.

I have been quilting and have too large quilts to take pictures of today now that the sun is out so I’ll share those soon!

Retreat, Teaching and a Mini Tuffet!

Where did the week go?    Last Thursday I hopped in my car and drove 820 km to Gimli, Manitoba to teach Free Motion quilting.    My friend Wendy is now hosting this winter retreat, which is organized by the Lakeview Resort as her new quilt shop Fabriculous is located in this hotel.  Very convenient to sleep, eat, shop and sew under one roof!    I had a fantastic time meeting new quilters, long distant clients and a few of my blog readers.    My class had 17 students and I was relieved to be able to handle a class that size, the only down side was the classroom was a bit small so we will make sure that we have a bigger class space next time.   My friend Janie took some pictures so it was interesting to see what I looked like teaching, LOL!

The meals were just as good as the company, CHEERS!

Wendy taught a class on how to make these cute 4” Mini Tuffet Pin Cushion!   She spent a lot of time figuring out the pattern as it just didn’t scale down from the larger version.  Wendy has kits available in both of her shops.   Only $25 each and it comes with all the supplies needed and the pattern.  Only thing you need to add is the scraps of fabric and decorative button.

I also did a Longarm Demonstration as Wendy shop is an APQS dealership and they have a Millennium similar to mine in the shop.     I really enjoyed answering questions and demonstrating some free hand designs on the machine.  I was told there was limited longarm education in our province besides the shops rental program.   So maybe I should consider doing more longarm classes in the coming years. Its just my location is so remote and that it makes for a lot of travel but I’ll think about it!   Thanks for inviting me to teach in your shop Wendy, it was a fantastic weekend!

Batik Metro Hoops

This is Melanie’s Metro Hoops quilt and it is a pattern by Sew Kind of Wonderful.  I am a big fan of these patterns and have made this quilt myself, you can see mine here.   Melanie asked for custom quilting so I sketched out a few ideas that has a similar feel to what I did on mine and we went with this version.   Melanie made her quilt a queen size and used batiks fabrics.  I used two thread colours on top , white So Fine on the background and a medium brown So Fine on the batiks.  I kept the bobbin thread one colour, a white Bottom Line.    The batting is Quilters Dream Blend.

I stitched in the ditch around the rings and then added a 1/4” echo.  Then I added the double diamond curved design and filled in the spaces with free hand feathers.

I used quite a few longarm rulers on this one and they were the #15 QP Curved Template, the #8 QP Curved Template and the QP Edge 5” straight ruler.   I used my channel locks on my Millennium to do the vertical lines and I eyeballed the 1/2” distance.  Only had to pick out a few the were spaced too wide!

Well we did the get warm weather Environment Canada predicted, it was +2’c yesterday but that caused my nice clear ice to cloud over.

Melanie send a very pretty Tim Holtz Eclectic Elements wide backing.  It is extremely soft with a good weight to it and quilted up beautifully!

Didn’t think I could get this large of quilt to cooperate and layout nicely on the snow, but it did!  So here are more pictures!