Gooood Morning Blogland friends !

Today is my Sunday (I worked the weekend). It was a good weekend, lots of tourists in the library as it was preview day with lots of parents and prospective students. As I was relaxing at the end of my work Sunday I remembered I hadn't shared my latest finished projects. Oh No !!Here is a front pic of the three place mats I made for the guild's donation to Meals on Wheels. Perhaps you remember that I had an orphan block from my Lil' Twister project, and I found some lovely blue & white Star of David fabric. So I made a Happy Hanukkah place mat! On the right is a pic of the reverse side. This year is the end of the Christmas lace panels donated by the mater. So ... next year I will need to be more creative!

Here's a pic of my finished (?) Lil' Twister table runner.

I'm very pleased with my colour choices and the overall effect. However, I had serious troubles (indecision causing multiple unsewing and resewing) troubles with the borders and consequently it's not square, and very wavy, especially in one corner. GRRRR. I'm seriously considering using it as a machine quilting practice piece and just going to town with the quilting. Can't make it any worse! What do you think?

TTFN

Not a winner ;(

I know what you're thinking - a  local guild quilt show is not a competition, and you're right, but it sure would have been nice to win "Best of Show" and another CQA ribbon! I admit I was disappointed, but that's how these things go. Once again I was so close, this was my second/third time being #2!
Contrary to popular believe, quilting is usually a solitary activity, thus there are limited opportunities to receive positive reinforcement from colleagues for all your hours of labour and creativity. Here's a pic of the "honourable mention award" I did receive. It's great that the guild provides a "ribbon" for second place so I do have something to hang on my wall of Honour :). Does your guild do this?

I very much appreciated all the positive comments from most of my fellow quilters. However the remark "I didn't vote for you" from my so-called friend took me aback and was rather unkind. I put  her comment into the sour-grapes category; it reflects on her not me. I may have to re-think our carpooling arrangements!

Here's a pic of the well deserved winning quilt

Congrats Tiny! (yup, that's her name)

TTFN

Woohoo! Spending a rare Sunday at home - not going out - not answering the phone, but not totally unplugged ;) After blogging and catching up on FB will spend the rest of today in the sewing room. Have a couple of place mats to make. Our guild donates holiday place mats to Meals on Wheels.

 

I have 2 half made "Christmasy"place mats from last year ... lovely red Poinsettia fabric with machine made lace panels appliqued in the centre. Then, since I had one orphan twister block , in blues, and my local fabric store had some great blue & white Star of David fabric - on sale - well, could I resist making a third place mat for those who celebrate their own holidays? Will show you completed pic next week!

Parting pic of my beautiful red maple which is quickly loosing all it's foliage ;( . Sad to see it go, but enjoying the colour! Have a great week everyone ...

TTFN

Quilt Show !

So, my guild had a quilt show this weekend .... It was FAB :) I just wish I could have taken more/better pics!

 

Lil Twister Part 2

So, last week I gave you a mini tutorial on making Lil' Twister blocks. Afterwards I thought - wow, what a lousy job, I really need to beef up the visuals!

On the left the blocks are laid out in order. I take them to the sewing machine this way. Then, going from right to middle I sew together the first 2 blocks for each row, and of course follow this up by sewing the third, left block to make up the 3 rows.

Of course you press the seams for the 1st and 3rd rows in one direction, and for the 2nd row in the opposite direction, like the pic on the left. Sew the rows together, then using your unsewer (aka seam ripper) undo those little stitches @ each intersection so they can spiral as in the pic on the right! If you haven't discovered this trick - try it. It helps your intersections to lie flat! 

And voila!! You should have a block like this! Reverse view on left, front side on right! Now, all I need to do for my own table runner is get some borders on and tackle some machine quilting. Wish me luck!!!

While blog surfing recently I came across the funniest site I've seen in a long time - new to me, maybe not new to you ... Texts from Hillary :) Click on the pic to go to this tumblr site to enjoy more !!!

TTFN

Mini Tut on Lil Twister!

So here's a mini tutorial on using the Lil' Twister  tool. First you decide on a colour scheme, in my case blue because this table runner will be for mother and she has blue in her kitchen and I have a basket full of blues! Once you have your colours chosen sew 4 5" squares together and border with 3" strips, in my case I bordered the squares with white.

Align the lines of the Lil' Twister tool with the seam lines in the block at the bottom left corner (see pic). Next move the tool up to the next seam line and cut around the twister, the "scraps" it leaves can be saved for another project.

Now it's time for the third cut, again, align the lines on the tool with the seam lines. For the next set of cuts aline the lines on the Lil' Twister tool along the center seam of the block, maintain the same angle as with the first set of cuts. And then cut the final three along the right side of the block.
Putting the blocks together is easy when you use distinctive prints, however, if you were to try this scrappy you will have lots of fun arranging the three blocks per row. Here's a finished block

 And my semi finished runner with the chosen backing fabric. Next week (I hope) I will show you the finished product!!

  TTFN

Let's Twist!

So, it's the long Turkey weekend and I have finally carved out some time (pardon the pun) to make a project I've had on the wish list for ever so long. I got this Lil' Twister tool at my favourite quilt shop (The Marsh Store). The first step in the process is to pick fabrics.
Well, this wasn't too hard for me I just pulled from my stash some interesting blues in dark, mediums and lights, and cut 5" squares. You sew the four squares together to make a block. The hard part for me was finding the whites for the 3" borders. Thought I had loads of whites, what I have is loads of off whites. YIKES - it's 9:30 at night and no fabric store open. Phew! I managed to find just enough :) Guess that's going on my list of "must have"!

 So once the blocks are all sewn and pressed you get the ruler and start cutting!

I took my lead from an online tutorial by Tamarack Shack Thank you, Thank you for the great tut, you can see a pic from her blog behind the sewing machine! The pic on the left shows the difference in the finished size from the square block to the twisted block! It may seem like you're losing a lot of fabric - but not really, besides, don't we all have loads and loads? On the right is one finished twister block, seven more to go, I can't wait until I finish this one ..... will post pics
TTFN and Happy Thanksgiving!!

Glorious Sunday :)

What a glorious Sunday - so aptly named and I am happy and thankful to be able to enjoy such a sunny day off! One week away from Thanksgiving (Canadian) and my home is half cleaned and decorated for the day even though I will likely not be entertaining! None-the-less I do enjoy some seasonal decorating :) don't you?

Even my plants are enjoying this glorious Fall weather - these are cuttings I'm rooting. They are "housed" in a tin box salvaged from the archives. I salvaged 5-6 from the old archives at the library. Originally they held LFP (London Free Press) photo negatives, but were conservatorily re-housed and staff were tossing these wonderful old tin boxes. Well, I just knew I had some kind of re-use for them ...

 

This tin box sits on my wash stand in the living room behind the lamp. I made a cloth liner for it and it holds all my sewing stuff (pin cushions, thread catchers, fabric scraps, de-sewer, etc). Great for de-cluttering :)

Along the re-use theme is my tablescape. The fabric is a piece of hand woven cloth from our 50 years ago  African (Nigerian) adventures, and the dark brown rattan plate was a dumpster dive retrieval!

I'm still nursing along the cut down plant I threw out (on the left). I thought it was dead after I took the cuttings (seen above) but it fooled me and sprouted leaves - a kind of re-cycling! So my plant table continues to be in the window and enjoys the Fall sun. Maybe someday my Orchid will even re-flower - maybe maybe maybe??
TTFN

Autumnal Weekend

 

So, it's been a lovely autumnal weekend. Sunny and not too cold. A friend and I went for a wee drive and dropped into Country Patchworks for their 8th anniversary sale. I took along my One Block Wonder book my friend generously gave me, because - you know - I need another project ;) Well, I really shouldn't have been fabric shopping at all. On Friday I bought myself a new winter coat. Ok, it was on sale, but still $. Then Sat morning before the road trip I hit the local fabric store for their 50% off sale. Did I get what I needed there? Not really - Duh. I bought the zippers I need for pyramid bags to match all the purses, but did I get any neutrals/whites for the next (Lil Twister table runners) project? Nooooo. I really must start a MUST HAVE list so I'm more prepared for these 50% off sales. Oh well, I did pick up my first bottle of  Best Press!

So, now that I've shot the budget for the next few months I will probably have to cancel our road trip to PH. Dang! Ah well, might be more fun in the spring anyway and maybe by that time I'll be needing some more fabric for the cubes in the One Block Wonder!
TTFN

Happy Fall!

  

It's a glorious day in the neighbourhood, bright and sunny and warm - YAHOO! and  I've been busy - as you can see! In total I have made 5 new purses, and 10 reversible covers! Shhhhh, most of these are Xmas presents, so don't tell anyone! This weekend I planned to finish off this project and make matching pyramid bags to insert into the purses as wee cosmetic bags (a nice touch I think!) and I still have some bag bottoms (say that fast 10 times, bag bottoms, bag bottoms - I dare ya!) 

TTFN