Butterscotch Ripple today and another hexagon

The border adjustment is corrected and the stitch in the ditch is done! Woo hoo! Now the fun begins. I started working in the border but quickly lost interest so I've been sketching and pondering how to quilt the diamonds.

Feathers are getting easier and easier and once you have then nailed they are a great way to fill spaces quickly and elegantly! I pulled out my pad of paper and this is what I have come up with thus far. Curly queues in the corners and feathers in the spaces in between. I don't know how I will fill the smaller diamond in the centre but it will come to me!

The first step was to draw some guide lines on the diamond with my blue water soluble fabric marker.

And here is a close-up of the marking for the curly queue.

 

From there it was time to just dive in and quilt. Once again I am using Superior Monopoly on top and Superior The Bottom Line in the bobbin. I want the texture to show, not the thread. Here is the first diamond quilted.

 
And the second is also done! I may go back and echo around the feathers to give a little more dimension.

I'm thinking of sewing another diamond border and filling it with little circles and then for the very centre some feathery curly queues. I'll give it some thought while I work on the other diamonds.

How about another foundation pieced hexagon? For those of you who are new to my blog you can read about how I make these hexagons in my posts dated  May 30, June 3, June 13 and June 28.

This is a fun easy variation of the star that I shared in an earlier post. Depending on your colour choices it could be very effective!

 

And this is the template I used to make this block!

 

I did a quick tour of the garden this morning with Forest Gumby. We were downwind from a couple of critters and we wanted to get a closer look so we snuck up behind them! I managed to get this picture before they caught wind of us and took off into the undergrowth!

 

Lucky for me one of them stopped and turned and just as he did I snapped this picture!

I then went through my old pictures of the garden and low and behold, there they were again! Remember this one? I'll have to keep my eyes open for these two cuties!

 

 

Well that's it for today. Until I post again, keep your eyes open for rabbits and happy sewing!

Working for Mom - her Masai quilt and her Anna hexagon quilt

I'm working away on quilting Anne H's (Mom) Masai quilt for a Mennonite Relief Auction quilt.

The quilt is in need of a good pressing with starch and then I'll quilt it for her so she can bead and embroider like crazy. She is still in her brace for her broken right arm and it will be another week and a half before we know if it is mending. She uses her right hand to move the needle through the fabric and then pulls the thread with her left. It is a long slow process but when you feel the urge to create it is overwhelming and one finds a way to do it. At least that is how it is for Mom and me!

My next task will be to machine quilt and large quilt for Mom. Last summer while on vacation we each made the same quilt top but we used colours that appealed to us. Like me Mom has a wide variety of likes when it comes to fabric patterns, designs, patterns and colours. The quilt is called Anna and it was designed by Karen Cunningham. It is a hexagon quilt and these re great portable projects. I had a good length of background fabric for Mom and she liked it so I gave it to her for her quilt. The next step was to select a fabric with a largish print that could be centred in the hexagon circles. She settled on a soft robin's egg blue with morning glories, dragonflies, butterflies and spider webs! This is a close-up of one of the blocks...it's a little taste of what's to come. There will be more pictures in the days few days!

It is just like this spider web in her garden!

And since many of you seem to like hexagon quilt blocks here is a close-up of a block from my quilt  Loopers in the Sky with Diamonds and the foundation hexagon I designed to make this star.

 

The centre of the hexagon was fussy cut and the border was made with this hexagon. I've written numbers on the hexagon foundation to show you the order of placement and sewing.

 

 

I use my machine and set the stitch length shorter. If you are new to my blog I have written about this technique. Some of the posts are May 30, May 31 and June 3.

 

A couple of years ago I wrote two instruction booklets that I had planned on selling. They are called Easier than Pie and Easier than Pie and Beyond. They explain how I do English paper piecing and foundation piecing on hexagons. I think one of my summer projects will be to dust them off, update them and post them so that you have a resource document to help you out! 

 

And now for a quick tour of the garden!

 

Balsam flower buds - aren't they unusual?

A little shrub, don't know what, is starting to bloom

Yellow trumpet vine

 

Oh look - what's that over there? Looks like two of the zebra's decided to go for a walk in the garden. I don't know if that's such a good idea since zebras generally travel in herds.

 

They stop to have a little chat about this and that!

 Zebra Girl takes the initiative and goes in for a quick smooch!

 

All of a sudden they hear something in the brush. What was that? YIKES!!!!! Zebra Fellow is shaking in his jeans but Zebra Girl keeps her wits about her!

 

 

To be continued.........

 

Until I post again, happy sewing!

My one hundredth post!

Close-up of Loopers in the Sky with Diamonds, 2005

Welcome to my 100th post. I hope you've been enjoying my blog, quilts, how-tos, tutorials, patterns, dolls and the odd curio! I've really enjoyed sharing what I've learned and what I do. And I really like hearing from you whether by email or comments posted. It tells me that there is an appetite for what I am doing. If you have questions about how I did something I hope you'll ask me - I am more than happy to explain! If there's something you want to see more of, just ask!

So to celebrate this milestone I decided to share another one of my quilts. This is an original design and I made this quilt in 2005 for my daughter whose nickname is Loopers. She was at university studying astrophysics and I wanted to make a quilt with an astronomy theme. I call the quilt Loopers in the Sky with Diamonds!

What is it about cats and quilt? Cats are drawn to them like catnip!

The quilt was made using my foundation pieced English paper piecing technique that I've written about in the past. It is a fun way to create interesting blocks and designs. Over the next little while I'll show you close-ups of several of the blocks!

Over the next 100 posts I have lots more in store. First off is finishing Cherry Blossom quilt today or tomorrow. And then there will be more nine patch quilts and free nine patch patterns coming! And maybe the odd story to go with the quilt!

 

Close-up of Piccadilly to the Nines

Close-up of Marazion

There will be more of Anne H (Mom's) African themed quilts; this one is in progress. It needs another border, quilting and Anne's beautiful embroidery and beading!

Anne H's Masai quilt in progress

There will be lots of hexagon quilts too!

 

I hope you'll stay tuned and that you'll enjoy what I bring to you in the next one hundred posts!

Before I sign off how about a few garden pictures?

Blackberries ripening

Bottle brush

Elderberry

Day lily

Young robin (I surprised him while he was having a splasharoo in the pond!

Until I post again, thanks for your interest and happy sewing!

Happy Birthday Mom (aka Anne H), Sweetpea's, lavender bottles and machine quilting recap

Loopers in the Sky with Diamonds, 2005 (Close-up of a block I call July6)

Happy birthday Mom (aka Anne H)! I made this block on Mom's birthday, July 6th,  many years ago so I call this block July 6!

Yesterday two friends and I took her to a lovely plant and gift store in Toronto, Sweetpea's. If you are in Toronto I recommend you drop by for a visit. There are so many lovely items from body care products from Bleu Lavende, unique cards, home dec items including a few locally made quilts, baby and child gift items, perennials for the garden and gorgeous one of a kind floral arrangements! If you've been there you know what a wonderful florist shop it is. It is in the running for best florist in NOW Toronto's Best of Toronto. If you would like to vote for Sweetpea's  you can do so here.

After Sweetpea's we sent for lunch and then to Len's Mills for fabric! What quilter doesn't want fabric on her birthday? Or any other day for that matter? I picked up these three pieces which will be great for fussy cutting.

Mom is out of her cast but in a brace. At least she has use of her elbow which means I can put her back to work! I went out in her garden and harvested a big bunch of lavender so she could make some lavender bottles. She managed to get three made before she had to give her arm a rest.

These are similar but not quite the same as those that I made. But they are equally pretty and they are every big as fragrant!

I've been writing about the way I quilt large quilts on my domestic sewing machine. At the moment I am quilting my Cherry Blossom quilt. There have been some questions about what I do so I thought I would recap my method for machine quilting a large quilt on a domestic machine. This method reduces the bulk of excess backing and backing making it easier to quilt the centre of the quilt.

1. I pin baste my quilt making sure to avoid pinning over major seam lines.
2. I attach a free motion foot and I use either invisible thread  (I use Monopoly) or a very light weight thread such as Superior's The Bottom Line on top and in the bobbin I use a light weight thread such as The Bottom Line, Decobob or Invisifil. I used a thread colour in the bobbin to match the top of the quilt for this step.
3. I stitch in the ditch on all major seams horizontally and vertically. I do not remove the pins from the quilt top. The stitch in the ditch stabilizes all of the blocks on the quilt top and it won't shift or move.
4. If my quilt has a single border I stitch in the ditch where the centre of the quilt meets the border and I do this all around the quilt. If there are multiple borders I stitch in the ditch for each border. Cherry Blossom has a 1/2" pink inner border so I stitched in the ditch on either side of the pink inner border. I do not stitch around the outside edge of the quilt.
5. Once the quilt top has been stabilized with stitch in the ditch I can quilt the border. Cherry Blossom has an 8" border with a vine so I drew the spine of the vine with a blue fabric marker, pinned very well on either side of the vine and then stitched the vine with invisible thread. I remove the pins that are close to the vine but leave all other pins in the border. I remove them as I quilt the leaves that sprouted off the vine.
6. Once the border is quilted I l trim the quilt to remove the excess batting and backing and I bind the quilt.
7. Finally I go back and quilt the body of the quilt. And since the border is quilted it is flatter which means that the bulk is reduced. Since the quilt is stabilized with the stitch in the ditch there is no problem with the quilt shifting!

The key is to make sure to stitch in the ditch of all major seams. In Cherry Blossom there is no sashing but if there were, I would have stitched in the ditch on either side of each sashing.

I hope that this information has answered your questions but if not feel free to ask! I am more than happy to share with you what I do and how I do it!

Phew! Too much writing! How about some pictures of the four blocks I am working on. They are the corners for the border of a quilt. The applique is going well and there isn't too much left to do. I've been working on this quilt off and on for a year. I'll keep you posted and the reveal will be in the next few weeks!

Finally don't forget to visit Quilting Gallery's Show and Tell. The theme this week is patriotic quilts and I am the guest judge! How am I going to decide? There are so many wonderful quilts! To see all of the quilts and vote for your four favourites go here!

Until I post again, happy sewing!