Never Say Never

Somedays I don’t know who I am…farmer, quilter, potter ?? I have spent most of my creative life with my hands in clay. In the last few years I have spent more time at my sewing machine than at my potters wheel.

This little project represents both of my interests:

I found this free paper piecing template at Debby Kratovil’s site right here. If you haven’t been to her site, you have to go… but wait till the end of my post, o.k. ? She has some really good pointers on putting the block together and the template includes approximate sizes to cut the fabric pieces. How great is that ? I just love love love love that Mimosa fabric she used for her cup and saucers. She made 10, TEN, but I only made these 5 ( so far ). Of course I made mine into pot holders. I used one layer of batting and one layer of insulbrite, that explains the puffiness and stitched in the ditch to quilt them.

In my mind they look more like tea cups – except the first one, it is most certainly a coffee cup. So I had to make one of these:

When my husband saw the first one he immediately said, ” I thought you said you were never going to make those again?”

It took me a minute but he was referring to my making expresso sets… They have been quite popular when I make them in clay but oh-so -fiddely when trying to make a nice set. The bottom of the cup has to nest well in the saucer and the lift on the saucer has to mirror the curve on the cup, ect.

These are so much easier !

Thanks for stopping by.

Best Wishes for a great weekend.

linking up with Amanda for Finish It Up Friday.

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Sleepless in Saskatchewan

My daughter came home last weekend and we spent Saturday morning fooling around with the quilt layout I showed you last week. When she first saw the layout I had on the design wall she loved the coral and navy. When I showed her the contact sheet printout of the 3 “winning layouts” she thought the one with the most blue in it was the best choice. When I told her that this quilt could be for her if she wanted it she said, “well, that changes everything ! If it was going to be for sale I thought the blues would appeal to most people.” This is the layout that we collaborated on:

By taking out the print that reads as a greenie/grey, leaving more room for the tone-on-tone cream, and adding in more of the coral I think we have a bright, lively quilt. It’s a pity the coral print really doesn’t photograph well. You might be able to see the coral squares in the lower right part of the layout are lighter and are closer to representing the print. This is  because of the way the natural lighting comes into the room. There is an overhang on this south facing window and it throws a shadow over the top part of my design wall.

So, we left it at that because it is always better to sleep on it before a final decision. The next day she spent some time staring at the design wall and concluded that she really didn’t like the focus fabric !!!!!  Arrrggh ! But that’s o.k. There will be other quilts 🙂

I am slowly sewing together the other quilt I showed you a couple of weeks ago…

I forgot to mention that the fabric is called oink-a-doodle-moo by Jenn Ski. It’s a great farm themed kids print.

One last project I dropped everything to work on:

I am not a good sleeper – I can fall asleep quite easily but staying asleep is another matter. Sunrise is at 4:45am these days and sunset is at 9:40pm. Tuesday morning I was awakened at dawn by an irregular thumping sound which I thought was a tree branch thumping on the roof. Upon further investigation it turns out a robin was repeatedly jumping off a nearby branch and flying into our bedroom window. This went on for quite sometime – I eventually pulled the blind down and that seems to have deterred the persistent little thing. I am usually awake with the sun anyways. This incident just got me thinking that I really need to explore other means of trying to stay asleep because I find myself quite exhausted and not very productive because of it. So here is my eye mask I made:

The tutorial I used is here if you’d like to make one too. I sewed this up very quickly – didn’t have the required felt so I used insulbrite and that seems to black out the light. I used it last night and I think it helped. I will continue to use it to see if it makes a difference. If  I make it again though I will make it bigger – she suggests using a 3/8″ or 1/2″ seam allowance and I used the 1/2″. So I’ll use the smaller seam allowance and maybe even enlarge the pattern slightly.

This Sunday a friend and I traveled down to Saskatoon to take in the first ever Saskatoon Modern Quilt Guild Showcase. It was really worth the trip – so many quilts to enjoy and admire !

They have a few pictures of the show up on their flicker site – https://www.flickr.com/groups/saskatoonmqg/pool/

One last thing – the marks left by the black frixion pen on my table topper did wash out – YAY !

linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

An Arm & a Leg.

So… I had a lot of fabric left over from my table topper finish I showed you last friday. I can’t really explain why I bought so much, probably because I didn’t have a plan when I walked into the fabric shop.

* note to self – STOP That !

Anyways, high on my one block Swoon fast-finish, I started cutting 4.5″ squares, having in mind another quilt on my bucket list and using Cluck Cluck Sew’s little quilt as inspiration. I’m not sure but I think the layout of the blocks could be reminiscent of a Chimney Sweep block.

Below is a shot of the prints I am working with. You can click the image to make it bigger.

The coral and the yellow aren’t nearly as obnoxious in person – they play nicely with the focus prints below… trust me !

So, these are a few of the layout options I have been fooling around with :

You’ll have to imagine a tone-on-tone cream print in the white squares. There are a few surrounding the centre square but I haven’t cut all of the squares yet.

These are the layouts that appealed to me the most:

#1

#2

#3

Can you see the fabrics I have pinned off to the right ? I’m still trying to decide if I will add borders. As it is, the quilt will finish 60 x 60. I could add borders to make it into a twin sized quilt. I roughly figured out that will cost me an arm and a leg…

Any suggestions ????

Here’s your chance to tell me what to do 😉 . The comment thingie is on the left up at the top by the date.

I’ll be linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday. 

Fingers Crossed

I finished up my table topper yesterday. I bought the material last Saturday and completed the project by Thursday – that’s blisteringly speedy for me… even if it is only 32.5″ square !

I clipped it to the base of our antique windmill to take these pictures. It was a bit gusty so it was difficult getting a good picture.

The above picture probably shows the most true colours of the fabric combinations.

Back inside for a little peek at the backing fabric.

This is a shot of the selvage on the fabric I used for the binding. This fabric has almost a metallic shimmer to it but there’s not a metallic thread in the bunch. Pretty interesting use of contrast to create that look. I also thought that this fabric went with the oriental vibe of the other fabrics.

Elizabeth E. commented on my Wednesday post that this is a version of a traditional block first published in 1932.

As I am quite interested in the origins of quilt blocks I did a little investigation and along the way came across this excellent page.

One little concern I have on this project is this:

can you see that ghost of a white line down the centre of the blue fabric ? You can click on the picture to make it bigger.

I had used the black FriXion erasable marking pen to mark my pivot point for my quilting. The marks are supposed to disappear after applying heat. Since I haven’t washed the table topper yet I am hoping “it’ll all come out in the wash “. Fingers crossed !

Thanks for stopping by.

I’d love it if you left a comment, it’s up on the left by the date at the top of this page.

Wishing you a pleasant weekend !

I’ll be linking up with the super speedy Amanda @ CrazyMomQuilts for Finish It Up Friday.

Digital Assistant

This is my latest work in progress. You all probably know the name of the block as it was so popular a few years ago, 24″ Swoon. It has been on my bucket list all this time. As I was trying to come up with an idea to make a table topper for a friend I thought – why not just one  swoon block and a border or 2 ? I can really see what all the excitement was about when this block was first introduced. It is a satisfying block to make and I think the colours here work quite well in this design. I have several choices for the skinny border:

#1- this is just Kona Bluebell solid

#2

#3

Taking pictures and then going to my computer really helps me sort things out and helped in the decision making process. I think I’m going to go with combination #1. I think #2 is just too busy. While I like #3, my friend is really crazy about blue. She’s been known to say, ” I like any colour as long as it’s blue” ! This is another WIP

another digital tool I often use is taking a picture of my layout and then making it black and white to more easily see value.

I would like to get one of those red pieces of plastic to view the layout through right at my design wall. I’ve heard these really help but so far I haven’t come across one to buy. Thanks for stopping by !

It’d be great if you left a comment, the clickie thing is up at the top of this post by the date

Linking up to WIP Wednesday with Lee @ Freshly Pieced.

Good News and Bad News.

The good news is we received much needed rain.

The bad news is… hail came with it. For those of you in other climates; hail is pellets of ice that form when updrafts in thunderstorms carry raindrops to high altitudes, where the water freezes and then falls back to Earth.

I stood on the porch during the melee and took a few pictures…

In the above picture you can see how parched the grass is in the background behind my daylillies.

This will certainly set the crops back.

This growing season is off to a tumultuous start: cool late spring, drought, frost last week and now this.

What next ? Sheese !