Sunday, May 31, 2015

Doll Swap

I was excited to find a package on the doorstep on Friday :0)  A doll quilt arrived from Katy!  
 It's a wonderful little quilt with so many great fabrics in it.  It's fun to study them - I don't have a single one of these repros in my stash. The machine quilting is quite wonderful as well.  It adds so much texture.  I love it - thanks Katy!
She tucked a few other goodies in with the quilt  :0)  On the back it has a fabulous label with an embroidered tree.  My very lame and plain label was attatched to the doll quilt I sent for the swap on May 29 (one day before the mailing deadline)  Once it has been received I can share some pictures of it.  Thanks Lori for organizing the swap!


 
I've been trying some handpiecing again.  I find it takes a long time to get the pieces prepped but I have been enjoying the sewing.  I'm hoping to make just one of these circles to make a sunflower wall hanging for my daughter.  
It's very 3 dimensional so far which I'm really not used to.  The block pattern is in the March/April Fons and Porter magazine.  I have to figure out how to speedup the cutting and preparing the pieces so I can start a bigger project from Jen Kingwell's book.

Happy Quilting!! 

Monday, May 18, 2015

5 years to finish

Well it only took 5 years but I finished my Crowfoot quilt!  Here in the evening sunshine I think you can see the texture created by the handquilting. I love this marvellous texture!
 
 I have to deliver it tomorrow to the park for the outdoor show this weekend.  Last Monday I realized I had just days to finish it. 
 I'd been slowly working on the fill-in parallel lines between the feathers in the border and the outside edge.  Not very exciting to quilt I had left it all for the end.  And then there was binding fabric to find,  make binding, apply and handstitch down.   This quilt is 94 inches square and I "burned the midnight oil" a few nights last week to get it done by Friday.
 We went away for the May long weekend and got home this evening but there was still daylight left for a few outside pictures.
 Maybe too many pictures :0)
 Here it is on our bed where it will go when I get it back from the show next week.
I started quilting it 21 months ago. I am excited to start quilting the next project but it's not quite ready yet. I feel a little lost with nothing to put in my hoop. I will get it ready soon!

Happy Quilting!!

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

slow going borders

I haven't had anything to post for a few weeks.  I'm plugging away on the same 3 ufos.  I'm getting very close to having the handquilting finished on my Crowfoot quilt.  I have 2 branches left to applique on Trailing vines panel #12.  And, as I want this for my next handquilting project I have been adding borders to my lily quilt.
 It took a long while to cut, sew and trim all the hst's for the pieced border.  I had thought to make a more interesting pieced border but the math was easy to just do hst's and I didn't want this quilt to get a whole lot bigger.
 So, today I sewed the hst's together and added them to the quilt.
 I like it - simple but adds something I think.
 I pulled out the fabric I had bought for the wide final border - the one I want to put lots of handquilting onto and - I still don't like it. 
 It's just too yellow.  I tried 2 quiltshops already looking for a different cream fabric with no success.  I guess I will have to go a little further to a couple more.  The shop in Canmore has the batting I want to put in it so I have to drive out there anyway.  (about an hour drive)  I can always use this too-yellow piece on the back.
And its a good thing to finish a few things...  I could not resist picking this Jen Kingwell book up.  There are some exciting projects in here but I may have to take up hand piecing because the ones I like look hard.

Happy Quilting!!