The Fox and the Mermaid

Bonjour les amis !

( Hello friends )

I have a finish for friday and it’s a cute 40″ square baby quilt.

The fabrics are from a Patty Sloniger collection called Les Amis. I used a Michael Miller solid called ‘fog’ for the background. This is the 3rd quilt I have made from these fabrics and I haven’t grown tired of them yet. Which is a good thing because I probably have enough to make another crib sized quilt.

I didn’t get too fancy with my quilting, choosing to stay with my go-to serpentine stitch.

While I usually do a pieced back I kept this one quite plain. I found this plaid at the “local” fabric shop and went with it.

The title of my post today is ” The Fox and the Mermaid”, have you spotted the mermaid ?

… it’s the name of the Michael Miller cotton couture fabric I used for the binding.

Hands down, one of my top ten favourite colours !

Thanks for stopping by.

Have a super weekend, linking up with CrazyMomQuilts for Finish it up Friday.

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Is it just Me ?

This is a little star baby quilt I’m working on. It’ll finish at about 40″ sq.

I’ve had these fabrics for quite awhile. The collection is called Les Amis by Patty Solinger. I think this is the 3rd quilt I’ve made from the fabrics I bought in this collection…. and I probably have enough to make one more ! I never know how much to buy and I don’t think I’ll ever figure it out because I change my mind so often about what I’m going to make. I went shopping the other day and was able to snag this fabric below ( on sale !!! ) for the backing. Of course I bought extra, you know, because I have more of the other fabric 😉

I also bought this book….

Have you seen it ? There is so much to love about this book but also one thing that kind-of bugs me, I’ll start with that. It may be just me but I really don’t like it when modern quilters re-name blocks and there is a lot of that in this book. Flying Geese blocks are called “Furrows” block and a log cabin block is re-named “Haystack”.to name only two.  Granted, she does say in the introduction, “A few are traditional blocks with a new spin and a new name.” but relatively new quilters like me won’t be able to differentiate all of them. I find it interesting to know the original names. There are several new blocks in this book that, to me at least, are original and certainly add to the whole theme of the book. Lori’s wonderful fabric and colour choices show enough ingenuity and creativity that Lori’s talent is quite clear and she certainly puts her mark on the traditional blocks. I think we loose something without the full disclosure and a nod to the old name is worth including, perhaps in brackets. Does re-naming blocks irritate anyone else ?

Now – on to the things I love about the book and make no mistake I am thrilled that I have it in my hot little hands… First off – I love that it is spiral bound, so user friendly and nice to leave it open on my table as I work. There are 45 blocks in this book in 2 sizes ! In addition there are tractor and barn blocks in even more sizes. I think I read somewhere that there are 14 projects in the book but I’m pretty sure that is a low estimate. Lori encourages you to mix and match and gives tips on several different possibilities. The photos in the book are well done and very inspiring. Without gushing too much I have to say that this book alone would keep me busy for the rest of time. It was a bit pricey at almost $40.00 Canadian and I have seen it just now at Connecting Threads for less  😦  Considering how much content though – I feel it is worth the price.

I had a hard time deciding what to start with but I finally just jumped in with the 6″ baby chick block… twenty pieces in this little block !!! Wish me luck as I have trouble with tiny pieces and my cutting accuracy as a rule.

This tractor block may be next.

This fat quarter bundle has been waiting patiently for a project – I thought I had settled on what I was going to do with it until I got my hands on Lori’s book. Do I open it ???? Will there be enough fabric? Those reds and greens may be hard to match, agggh… see what I mean ?? I have never been too interested in making a ‘sampler’ quilt but I am now ;))))

Hope your week is going well.

It’d love it if you left a comment.

The clickie thing is up at the top by the date.

Linking up with Lee at WIP Wednesday.

Ha, Ha, No Chance !

This “oink-a-Doodle-Moo” fabric collection by Jenn Ski was so ‘us’, I just had to have it.

The pattern I used is one by John Q Adams from his co-authored book, “Shape Workshop for Quilters”. The quilt measures approximately 49″ x 56″.

I had quite a hard time getting decent, full-image photos of this quilt. I don’t have a very good camera and I think the reds were really throwing something off. Here’s a close-up from the backing:

The backing print is directional and I discovered that I didn’t have a wide enough piece for the backing. So I framed it in a horseshoe print I found at a local fabric shop. Besides the obvious fact that this fabric has so many fun farm images, I was especially drawn to the collection because of the old-fashioned windmill.

We have one of these 45 – 50 foot structures on our farm and they are getting quite rare. One fellow saw it from the highway a few years ago and drove into the yard with an offer to dismantle it and “get rid of it” for us.  Ha Ha, No Chance … we politely declined 🙂

 our windmill last winter 

I used the backing fabric and other prints from the collection to fussy cut images for the framed “I spy” type of units .

The binding fabric I used is from a different fabric line but I couldn’t pass up the tractor tire print.

The most popular farm equipment in our area includes New Holland (blue) Case IH (red) and John Deere (green). Most farmers have strong loyalties to one brand or the other and you will notice that this fabric collection includes all colours !

Thanks for stopping by.

I’d love it if you left a comment. The clickie thing is up at the top of the post by the date.

Hope you all have a nice week-end !

linking up with Amanda for Finish it up Friday.

A Chance of Drought

There hasn’t been a lot of time for sewing this week but I have been trying some new blocks and colour combos.

The first one I showed you on Wednesday and provided the link.

Here it is all finished up into a pot holder :

The following block is a combination of paper piecing and regular piecing. The block is called Goose Tracks and here’s the link if you want to make one – or more ! They have it in two sizes – I made the bigger one.

This one below is also paper pieced and is from the book Patchwork , Please ! by Ayumi Takahashi

In other news – It’s dry here in Saskatchewan. There are many forest fires burning to the north of us and this is what it looks like to the south of our yard today.

I rode my bike up the hill and took this next picture. In the middle ground you see our yard and beyond that you should be seeing the top banks of the North Saskatchewan river valley but the smoke from the fires is certainly blocking the view. Those little white flowers in the foreground will hopefully become field peas and after we harvest them will be ground into flour and feed lots of people all over the globe. Just add rain and grow !

There’s still lots of work to be done though. The men are changing the tires on the sprayer today. The sprayer is used to spray herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and desiccants. During seeding we run on thicker tires to get a grip through the moisture and after that they put on narrower tires so as not to trample as much crop.

This is what the sprayer looks like with the booms out in the field:

Thanks for stopping by.

Hope all the folks in the U.S.A. are having a lovely holiday weekend !

Gnashing teeth and hair pulling.

I bought a few new fabrics recently, intending to add in some from my stash and make a baby quilt.

Grouping #1

I think I have a plan for the above – just have to make up my mind and get cutting

Grouping #2

the first 3 fabrics below on the left have been in my stash for a few years now. I just love that plaid and would like to work it into a quilt. All I remember about it is that it is from a collection called wovens – the store I bought it from, Pink Chalk Studio, was a favourite and isn’t even in business anymore. Time to use it up !

So… did I get started on a baby quilt…

Well, umm, no. I started fooling around with a cool paper piecing block and colour/print choices. The paper piecing pattern is called All Squared Up and is available for free on Quilters Cache.

I was having some trouble getting that yellow triangle piece to work out properly without using a huge piece of fabric. In desperation I came up with these rough templates :

Hopefully you can see my scribbled notes on the scraps of paper. I traced the lines from the paper piecing pattern to make the templates.Then they were put right side up on the wrong side of the fabric. I cut the fabric on the rough lines about a half inch around the templates. It was important to indicate which side of the triangle was the stitching side. They worked really well and saved me fabric and a lot of gnashing of teeth and hair pulling ! 😉

Happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canucks !

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