November Update

  This is my 101st blog post and there is a give away at the end of the post. Its also a post about quilt alongs.

      I know that people usually have a give away on the 100th post but I was scrambling to link up with the Dog Gone Cute link up, so I'm having it now.  I didn't quite finish my Dog Gone Cute quilt in time for the link up.  In case you don't know, the pattern was designed by Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts and she hosted the quilt along and link up.  Heres a shot of my quilt to show the four corners of completed binding.  So now you know it's finished, and I'm very excited to share that I was one of the lucky quilters who won a prize! If you haven't seen it my completed quilt and you would like to read more about it and see more pictures you can go here.

               This is my second finish for the 4th quarter finish along, hosted by Adrienne at On The Windy Side.  My original post is here.

  Now that the Dog Gone Cute is finished, and I do mean finished, I have turned my attention back to the Midnight Mystery Quilt Along. This one is run by Cheryl of Meadow Mist Designs. I had fallen quite far behind but I did give the project a fair bit of attention on the weekend.  I've finished the courthouse steps blocks and I've done 24 of the square in a square blocks.  

     So I have 10 more square in a square blocks to sew, followed by a few 1/2 square triangles, and then I can start sewing things together.  Maybe I'll even catch up before the next instruction instalment.  

     These are not the first quilt alongs I've participated in.  In the past I joined a couple of block of the months which are both languishing in the UFO pile.  So getting the Dog Gone Cute Quilt almost finished by the link up was pretty good for me.  I'm pretty sure I'll get the Midnight Mystery finished as well.  Come to think of it I managed to get the other on line quilt along I participated in done as well.  It was the Giant Chevron Free Motion Quilt Along that was run by Jess of Elven Garden Quilts last year.

     So why do I manage to finish the on line quilt alongs when I'm rubbish at getting the non online groups done.  I don't think it's the lure of prizes, although winning one sure was sweet. No I think its got something to do with the link up.  Aiming for that link up seem to hold me to some kind of accountability.  That's a good thing.

     So  now it's time for my give away. In the spirit of sharing, which is so present in the online quilting community, I've put together this little grouping of fat quarters. If you would like  a chance to win them just leave me a comment.  Maybe you could tell me if you have ever participated in a quilt along.  Did you manage to finish  or did you fall behind and drop out.

     I'll keep the giveaway open for a few days or so and then I'll pick a number out of a hat. (Note:  I held the draw on Sunday and Anja's name was picked out of the hat, well bowl). There are no extra chances for following but I would appreciate it if you did. I'm not particularly computer savvy, so if you show up as a no reply blogger I'm sorry to say I'll have to  choose someone else.  I'm linking up with Let's Bee Social over at Lorna's blog.  

Close But No Cigar

     Well there is nothing like a linky party to keep you pushing along to the end.  I've been working like a demon to get the Dog Gone Cute quilt done...and I didn't quite do it.  As my dear departed father would have said "Close but no Cigar".
But I'm linking up anyhow with my almost finished Dog Gone Cute quilt.  Here she is.

     All completed except for sewing down the last two sides of of binding.  I took the photos at 7:30 am on my frosty back porch wearing my pj's and a sweat shirt.  If my neighbours don't already think I'm nuts I'm pretty sure this will do it.

     I know that my quilt looks quite a bit like the other quilts in the link up but here's the exciting part.  I made this quilt for my first grandchild who will be born in March!  My son and his wife told us they were expecting pretty much at the same time that Lorna released her pattern and started the quilt along.  They both love dog's so I knew that I had to make this for them.

     The pups are made of scraps and the background fabric is Kaufman's Quilters Linen that I had in my stash. If any of you saw this little orange pup before you can see that I performed dental surgery on her before completing the quilt.
I was aiming for gender neutral in the choice of fabrics and I now know that the baby is a boy.

     What I love about this pattern is that the pups are all slightly different and I when I was putting together I could imagine spending time with my grandson counting the puppies and looking for similarities and differences.  The backing fabric is What a World  by Jill McDonald of P&B textiles.  I managed to get yards and yards of this on sale about a year ago.  It's a great print for sparking imagination.

   The binding is Modern Home a Monaluna design.  I bought the last scrap which was just enough to bind the quilt. It's a great little print and I'm wishing I bought more of it when it was current.

    As time was running out before the link up I opted for the wavy line walking foot quilting that Lorna used on her sample. I like how it looks and I'm sure I'll be using this type of quilting on future comfort quilts.

       My puppies were the smaller size, and I put lot's of negative space around each of them.  The quilt finishes at a small lap size 45 inches by 57 inches.  I'm joining up to the linky party at Sew Fresh Quilts. and if you want to get in on the voting go here  Thanks Lorna it's been lots of fun!  

Bee Day

     I'm a member of the Outreach Committee of my local guild. On Friday we held a quilt bee.  The Outreach Committee  organizes making the quilts that are donated to the personal violence unit at the local hospital.  Most of the quilts are given to sexual assault victims and are important in building trust and starting the healing process.  We also make memory quilts which are given to parents who have lost an infant.

     Throughout the year we hand out block kits at our meetings.  This year we also handed out kits to people as they renewed their membership.  The striking quilt top below was made from registration blocks and was designed by our committee chair Cheryl Cowan.  

     

     Also this year in addition to handing out block kits each month, we are printing instructions for the block in our guild newsletter so  quilters can make blocks from their stash.  The committee members are taking turns picking the blocks and getting permission if necessary to share the instructions with guild members. 

      I was the first committee member to share a block of the month.  I asked Tanya of Tanya Quilts in Colorado if we could use her Log Cabin Medallion block pattern.  We handed out block kits for one quilt top and encouraged members to make other blocks from their stash.  We received enough blocks to make three quilt tops!  Two were completed at the bee day and the third was taken home to be completed by our next meeting.  Here are pictures of the two completed at the bee.

     It was a very productive day.  We completed at least  4 additional tops.  Several memory quilts were finished, some quilts were quilted and backings and bindings were sewn together.  Several guild members also shared their tips for free motion quilting, machine maintenance, and sewing  binding.

     Bee day has always been one of my favourite activities of the guild it's a great way to get to know other members while working for a good cause.  How about you.  Do you attend bee days at your guild.  Do you work on donation quilts.  If you do where do you donate them? 

      I'm linking up with Lorna at Let's Bee Social, and just in case you were wondering I'll be sharing my puppy quilt sometime before the last link up day on November 9th.

Trying to stay on the brighter side.

       I've been little miss cranky pants lately which is because I have come down with my second cold this fall.  I am trying to look on the brighter side however, which is kind of hard to do when your tea tastes like swill and the wi fi doesn't work in the bedroom and the neighbours have chosen today to fix the fence.  Hey wait the neighbours are fixing the fence.  That's a good thing.  I won't have to look at it sagging into my yard anymore, and what's even better is that Dwight came home for lunch and decided to help them repair the fence which can only be a good thing because he is a carpenter.
     There brighter already.  

      My sewing room is filled with orange brightness.  I have Anja of Anja Quilts to thank for this.  I agreed to exchange a mini mini with her and her favourite colour is orange.  I had a lot of fun playing around with scraps, working in an improvisational way. I've temporarily abandoned my last improv project so it was good to work this way again.( Note to self do more of this it makes you happy.)

     Another bright thing is that I have finished my  12 blocks  for my Dog Gone Cute quilt.   I am not going to show you the last 6 puppies I sewed for the dog gone quilt along ....yet.  I am saving those for the November link up when hopefully you will see my completed quilt.  I will share my completed pick up sticks block.  I'm half way through the fifth.  I'm not sure how many more I am going to have to make.  I know there are at least 7 more coming my way and I need a total of 20 to make the quilt.  They are very fun to make.

   In other news I thought about pattern testing for Mollie Sparkles who is one of my favourite bloggers, but in the end I decided against it because I don't have the time.  But I will be super excited if I get into the Stash Bee block exchange.  I'm confident I can get at least one block done per month.  I loved the sense of community that came along with the New Bloggers Blog Hop and I'm eager to continue that on a smaller scale.
     And speaking of the New Bloggers Blog Hop and the Fabri Quilt Block Challenge that came along with it, my block has been chosen for inclusion in the 2016 Quilters Planner.  This is a wonderful planner put together by Stephanie of the Late Night Quilter which you can read about here, and order here.

     I'm waiting with anticipation to get my copy.  Not that I think it will solve all my organizational problems but maybe some of them.  It will be great to have a resource always on hand to jot down quilting ideas and practice doodling free motion patterns, but what I'm really excited about is that so many of the Fabri Quilt challenge blocks will be in one place for future reference.  

     I know I only talked about improv a little bit in this post but I'm going to link it up to the Ad Hoc Improv  Quilters Linky at Kaja's blog Sew Slowly, anyways.

A Runner for Leanne

     In September my co worker Leanne left the Health Food Store and our city to study Massage Therapy.  Leanne was my co worker for eight years and added a really lovely presence to the store.  I decided to make her a table runner.

     This is the first cross quilt that I have made.  I started with the green fabric with the roses, which is an older Anne Marie Horner fabric.  This fabric had been in my stash for quite some time and to be honest it was one of those fabrics that I was not sure I would ever use.

     This fabric did remind me of Leanne however and some of the clothing that she wears.  I added the orange fabric, also an Anne Marie Horner and then decided to use various shades of neutrals for the rest of the fabrics.

     Leanne loves retro table linens and is a very dedicated to recycling and upcycling.  She would really love the fact that I used a fabric that had been sitting around in my stash for a while.  Many of the neutral fabrics were scraps and that would also appeal to her.  The whitest fabric is a text print.  The words on the fabric reminded me of her spirituality and positivity, with it's messages like dream big and enjoy the little things, life is better with you in it.

     For the back of the runner I used another fabric that had been in the stash for years. Ditto for the orange binding fabric.  I used my walking foot to echo quilt inside each of the crosses.

     I took this fall like runner out to the back porch to take photo's in the early evening just before the rains came.
Soon I will put it in the mail and send it to my friend.

     This is my first finish for the 4th Quarter Finish Along.  My original post is here.  I'm linking up today with TGIFF  which is hosted this week by Shelley at the Carpenters Daughter Who Quilts, and Friday Finishes at Crazy Mom Quilts.

Sunday Stash.

     Yesterday I was in my p.j.s until about 3:00pm.  This is because after I drank tea and read the papers I started quilting Leanne's table runner.  The day went like this:  quilt a bit...check emails...quilt a bit...do laundry...quilt a bit make lunch...quilt a bit.

     You might ask why I bothered to get dressed at 3:30pm but the thing is, it was such a nice day that I thought I should get out and enjoy it.  So I went for a walk which of course took me by my local quilt shop Greenwood Quiltery.  I was scoping out some fabric to use as a background for a quilt tutorial that Cynthia posted on her blog  Quilting is more fun than housework. I saw three possibilities .

     I didn't pick up anything this trip but I was there on Wednesday when I picked up these beauties.  (The quilt store is a 10 minute walk from my house.)

     These are the new Tula Pink mosaic fabrics and I love the gradation of colours in each fat quarter.  I also picked up this book by Gwen Marston.

 

     

     I'm on a bit of a Gwen Marston kick right now having just read my way through her book on Minimalism.  I've had a quick flip through this book and I've found my inspiration for using some of the bright solids I picked up in the spring.
I'm linking up with Sunday Stash on Molli's blog then I'm off to my sister in laws farm for Thanksgiving dinner.  Nothing says Thanksgiving more than a trip to the farm. Don't you think.

Fourth Quarter List

     I didn't post a third quarter list as I knew I wouldn't get a lot finished over the summer. I was pretty busy with blog hops and with projects for the comfort quilt program at my local guild.  
      I am however posting a 4th quarter list and I'm hopeful that I'll manage to finish everything on this list. First up is a table runner for my friend Leanne.  Here's a sneak peek.

     The second project is also a table runner but it's quite different.  It's the row by row project from Hyggelit Fabrics .  I couldn't resist this fun fabric, and I put it together with no one in mind.  I'll be practising my free motion quilting on this one.

          Third on the list is a group project that the Modern small group of my local guild is working on. It's a grey pick up sticks quilt  which will be donated to the comfort quilt program (you can read about that by clicking of the tab at the top of the page).   We've made enough blocks for two quilts and I'll be putting one of them together.   Here's a close up of one of my blocks.

    The fourth and final project on the list is my puppy quilt for the dog gone quilt along. This quilt along has been a lot of fun.  I'm planning to make a quilt with I'm thinking 12 blocks in total. Here's the gang so far!

      I'll be happy if I get these four things done...anything else will be a bonus.  I'm linking up with the 4th Quarter Finish Along hosted by Adrienne on the Windy Side and I'm also linking up to Lets Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts.