Monday 20 April 2009

A basket

Today was a very rainy day so I treated myself to a little hand piecing of a little Easter basket. It's not totally smooth, but I'm going to leave it as is :-). I forgot to put registration marks on the freezer paper to match everything up easily. And, since this is my practise block, I'm not doing it over. Finished is better than perfect right??? I may try one with applique as well. A sub group of the Dear Jane list is doing a block of the month basket starting in September and this is a block to get us started.



Tuesday 14 April 2009

Gift from a friend

Wow, my fourth post today :-). About time I updated my blog. Isn't this just the cutest little gift I received from my friend, Christine? She made this little card holder from selvedge edges of various fabrics. This is the outside opened up:

Inside with spots to put your quilt shop bonus cards (found out from the pattern link that they are called 'loyalty' cards) and guild membership cards:

The wallet folded closed:


Christine told me she found the pattern in the internet, but I didn't know where...thanks to Peggi, here's the link for the pattern in case you are interested in making it :-).

Another UFO finished!

The blocks for this quilt were also exchanged on the Treadleon sewing machine collector's list in 2001. The blocks are made two at a time, making it a quick block exchange project. The colours for this quilt were scrappy and we had to use muslin for the small triangles to write our name, place of residence and which antique machine we used to sew the blocks. I made 64 blocks and received 64 different blocks in return. The setting on this quilt was named, "Trail to Treadleonia". This quilt needed navy blue to put it all together :-).

Some of the quilting on the quilt. I quilted diagonal lines along the centers of the large triangles into the border and straight rows in one direction and along the individual blocks in the other direction:

The center blocks (I put the block from a fellow Canadian in the center!):

Quilting in the border:

Wonder how many more UFO's I need to complete? :-)

A UFO finished

This quilt has been a work in progress for many years! The blocks were originally a block exchange on the Treadleon sewing machine collector's list in 1999! Treadleon is a list dedicated to using treadles and handcranks. I finally finished this quilt in March for a presentation on antique sewing machines at the London Friendship Quilter's Guild. The idea behind this exchange was to make rail fence blocks with the center strip using muslin (to write particulars on) and the other two strips using a fabric that depicts where we live. I put the center of the top together and then took it to a local quilt shop to try various fabrics to see which colour would work. Finally found this red with houses on it which worked great. We had to write our name, where we lived and which 'people powered' antique sewing machine we used to make the blocks.

This is the finished quilt:


Closeup of few of the blocks:


Few more close up blocks:

You can see my Canadian blocks here:

I quilted the border with straight lines echoing the rail fence shapes of the blocks:

Feels good to finally get this UFO out of the closet and use it for a lap quilt!

One more DJ block

Finally finished another DJ block! A 2 One two Buckle my Shoe. I rotary cut and pieced this one.