Saturday 29 August 2009

A fun shopping trip

On Wednesday evening, 7 of us went to Tillsonburg (ON, Canada) to visit Cynthia at Cherished Pieces. She has her quilt shop in the basement of her home and it's always a delight to go over there and browse (and buy :-)! I bought some awesome bright fabrics and a large bundle of 40 FQ's from Terry Thompson's Moda line of fabrics called "Louisa". I had picked out two bundles of four FQ's and then spotted the whole bundle...broke down and bought them all :-). Sometimes you just love a fabric enough to get them all. They will be great for table runners or even lap quilts! The three yard pieces at bottom left were from the sale bin and the centre three pieces were remnants. We also got a tin of Mary Engelbreidt safety pins and a package of quilting needles as a gift from Cynthia. Fun place and I got my fabric fix for a few weeks :-).


Here is a close up of the two bright fabrics...I also got a lime green to go with the animal print and a turquoise polka dot for the funky flowers. Now to dream about a project to make with these fabrics.

Monday 24 August 2009

Curved Log Cabin Quilt UFO finished!

Kay Hannah came to speak at our London Friendship Quilter's Guild awhile ago and did a workshop the next day on the curved log cabin. I cut up beige and green strips from my stash and used a dark brown center. I used almost all the leftover strips and bits and pieces to make a piano key border. The dark strips on this quilt were cut wider than the light strips to get the curved look. I finally finished this quilt for a wedding gift for Jason and Willeke who got married August 1st.


I meander quilted with a really neat variegated thread from King Tut and quilted leaves in the border.

It was fun playing with the layout of the blocks. I eventually settled on the traditional field and furrows:


I did really like this funky layout:
Here is a butterflies option, but because there was not a great deal of contrast in the lights and darks, this didn't show up as well as it does on the photo:
This quilt was a bit of a challenge because I sewed it on four different machines in four different places as we were moving several times. I also forgot to square up the blocks before sewing them together. I sewed all the blocks together in rows and then started putting the rows together and realized that there was a major problem! After pondering if for awhile and calling Christine to check the pattern size since I can't find my pattern yet :-), she encouraged me to just bite the bullet and start picking. I'm very glad I persevered in that, but it was quite the job pulling all those blocks apart again. But, once the blocks were squared up, it came together beautifully! Here you can see just how far some of the rows were out!
I made liberal use of 'my best friend', the stitch ripper!
The finished quilt again taken outside (amazing how different the colours look inside and outside):

Picture Perfect Peach

Every Saturday morning, after checking out the local yard sales, my husband and I go to our weekly Saturday morning market. We bought a basket of peaches this weekend and I couldn't resist taking a picture of the peach with the leaf. A picture perfect peach, even though my picture isn't the greatest quality :-). I love this time of the year with all the fresh produce available.


Tuesday 4 August 2009

More Posy's

My friend Joan, made a Posy table runner like the one I made for my daughter in law Heather a couple of years ago. She gave it to her friend, Margaret. I love the blue colours as well! Here is a picture of both the table runners. Amazing how different they look!