Rain Day

It rained today so I was able to do some work inside.

I got all the applique pieces ready for the June "Granny's Hankie" and "Hop to It" BOM's, they just need the seam allowances pressed onto the freezer paper. We are doing block #12 of the "Hop to It" book for those participating.

We have been having great weather, and I have been spending lots of time outside.

Seedlings are starting to sprout in the garden.

There have been so many baby birds around.


Perennials have started blooming,

These irises come from our first house and we always bring some to each new house (this is our fifth house), they have never looked so good, I guess this is their favorite spot.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Still Quilting

I finished free motion quilting the Quilts of Valour quilt.

It still needs to have some quilting in the ditch done, but I asked my Mom to do that.

I used the Hera marker to mark the circles for the wreaths (using a Tupperware lid works well because it has a nice firm edge to guide the marker, and they come in so many sizes).

This was such a hard quilt to machine quilt, so I didn't end up doing the designs that I originally wanted to. The problem was with the spray baste, it kept gumming up the needle causing skipped stitches and the thread to break. I managed to quilt 12" wreaths in the flag blocks, but it took me all day to do the 12 blocks. I had to keep cleaning the needle every couple of loops. I only ended up doing some walking foot quilting in the other areas.
I never use spray baste (I don't like chemicals), and I don't think I will ever quilt another quilt that has been spray basted, I love machine quilting but this was too frustrating.

I finally got around to washing the Harvest Diamond quilt. It is the one that I tried the wool batting from Marshall (a discount fabric store in Winnipeg) for the first time.

I was surprised that it bearded. Plus the quilt doesn't have much body now. I think I will stick to my favorite Hobbs Tuscany wool batting (I'll try the Tuscany silk in future though).

I am also still hand quilting the Bear's Paw quilt (as part of Myra's PhD Challenge). I only have the borders and some bear designs to add to the large triangles. One side is complete!!! I might be close to finishing it by the end of the month (that's the goal).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Henrietta Whiskers

I finished this months Henrietta Whiskers BOM -

My fabric is so busy, definitely "out of the box for me", but lots of fun.

The six blocks so far - three more blocks and the border to go. The patterns for this BOM are still available.

I was given this quilt to machine quilt. It is a quilt that someone in my Mother's quilting group made for Quilts of Valor - Canada, I am honoured to be quilting it. I think I will quilt a feathered wreath in the large Canadian flag fabric square. She used spray baste to put all the layers together - it will be great to quilt without having to worry about pins.

I am using my regular machine quilting set-up of an old piece of counter top - this makes all the difference in quilting a large quilt.

It just sits on little pieces of 2x4 - pretty easy (to set up and to store).

I am very pleased that I planted all the gardens, especially as it has now turned cold and rainy (good quilting weather!). Here are some pictures of my yard.

I know things are just waiting to grow! (That soil might look nice - but it is really just hard lumps of clay - it always amazes me that little seeds grow in it.)

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Another BOM

I finished this months EQ BOM.

"June Jigsaw" This is a 6" block and so easy.

Half the blocks for this BOM are now finished! The patterns are still all available here (you don't need EQ to participate).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

BOM's

I finally finished the May Granny's Hankie BOM

I love how these blocks are turning out. This one was great because I didn't have to change thread colours all the time. This pattern will be on Denise's site for another two weeks.

For those who are joining in the Hop To It BOM, I used a random number generator to pick Block 12 for this month.
I think I will use the same background fabric for all the blocks, but use a mixture of reproduction and maybe some Bali fabric for the applique. There is a Flickr site for participants.

Oh No! Look what happened to my GO!
Accuquilt was very quick to respond, every thing will be fine.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Thread Head Quilt Along Challenge Winner

Well today is my baby's birthday (14 years old!!) and also the draw date for the THQA Challenge. So my baby did the honours -

There was three beautiful entries! And the winner is -

Needled Mom!!

She made such a beautiful quilt. Congratulations! Her surprise of some of my favorite quilting things will be on its way soon (probaby not in the mail as there is a mail strike pending!).

Connie also sent me some pictures of her beautiful quilt top -

Thanks Connie! It looks fantastic.

Thank-you to all those who quilted along! It has been a blast!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Apple Core Quilt

I finished the Apple Core Quilt.


It came out to be 65" x 55".

For those interested, here are some how-to's.

I cut the apple cores with the Baby GO! and the 6¼" Apple Core die.

I used ½ meter cuts (about 20") of 8 different fabrics (I used "Along the Fence" by Kim Diehl for Henry Glass & Co.) to make this quilt, plus another 0.8 meters (30") for the binding. Sorry about the metric and imperial measurements - we buy fabric by the meter, but all the quilting is in inches.

I cut the fabric in length wise strips (very important to minimize stretching) slightly bigger than the width of the shape (I cut 5+3/4" strips), and folded in into lengths that were 7½". You can cut up to 6 layers at a time.

I gently pressed on the die where the blades are to make sure to make sure the fabric was placed correctly.

This isn't what Accuquilt recommends (I mean the size of the fabric pieces, although you probably aren't supposed to press you fingers on the die either!), but by cutting the strips this size I was able to get 21 Apple Cores from each ½ meter. The package states that from 1 yard of fabric you can cut 24 or more Apple Cores using pieces that are 6½ x 8".

The 5+3/4" x 7½" pieces work fine if you are careful. With very little waste.

21 Apple Cores and the scraps from a ½ meter of fabric.

These Apple Cores are nice and large, and go together so well, with notches for accuracy.

Start by pining the notches,

and then pining the edges, I added an extra pin in between (5 pins each side is all it takes).

¼" seam.

I clipped each curve about every inch after stitching. Press the seams as you go and press the seams towards the concave curve.

I found it was easiest to work in groups of 4.

When sewing the groups of 2 together match the seams first,

by locking the seams together and then pinning.

Match the notches and ends. I also added an extra pin in between.

When pressing, fan the seams by unpicking a few stitches,

the seams were perfect every time.

When I made the quilt I worked in rows of 2 and just kept adding.

My quilt is 12 rows by 14 rows and I used all 168 Apple Cores.

I did starch it for the final pressing with Mary Ellen's Best Press.

I also added a machine appliqued rabbit (the pattern for this is from "Simple Seasons" by Kim Diehl) just because I had just bought the book and thought the rabbit went with the curves of the apple cores.

I did the machine quilting on my home sewing machine using Aurifil thread (bought from Tristans -check out this months special) and wool batting with flannel backing, using a #80 Microtex needle.

This is the flannel back showing the quilting.

I sketched out a few designs before I started quilting.

I made a cardboard template for the apples so that they would all be the same size and just traced around it with a Clover iron out pen. I would just traced them as it was time to add an apple. Plus lots of echoing and some feathers freehand.


To bind the quilt I made a continuous bias binding using this method and a 30" square of fabric. It went on beautifully and I would definitely use this method again.

This was a really simple, fun quilt to make, and such a nice change from the usual straight lines.

Here is another link for a quilt using the same die, very pretty using just 4 colours -Four Colour Apple Core Throw , from Fave Quilts a new website of free quilt patterns (I have a couple on the site).

I have recently discovered Google Images as a way to search for quilt patterns and if you search Apple Cores there are some amazing images! It is such a beautiful pattern and my hat goes off to those who make it all by hand!!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥