Art Quilts of the Month

I finally got caught up with my Art Quilts of the Month!

This is the August one. We went on a road trip to Alberta at the end of August, and crossed the prairies. This little quilt was inspired by the views from the car.

This is a photo from Saskatchewan.

For September I chose an appliqué of a Gloriosa Daisy - they were blooming beautifully in the garden. It is invisible machine appliqué because I taught a class on it in September.

For October I painted a piece of fabric in fall colours, added leaves with metallic paint, and then stitched falling leaves.

Here are all ten quilts so far - the year is flying by! These are 6" x 8" mini quilts.

I was lucky enough to Skype with a friend this weekend while we sewed, and I made another hexagon.

This is a design by Mickey Depre.

Only three so far. I have no plans for these, I just wanted to try making hexagons.

I finished spinning the skein of wool that I hand dyed. It is almost 200g of fingering weight 100% wool. It is a gift for my Mom.

This was the first ply along with the fibre for the second ply - I love seeing how the dyed fibre spins into yarn.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!♥

July Roundup

This month I managed to finally finish the Rob-Peter-to-Pay-Paul quilt top (Yeah!!).

It is 56"x70". It will stay a top until I am ready to quilt it in the fall.

I spun everyday for 24 days (and then cleaned my spinning wheel and put it away for a while).

This is all that I spun during the 2013 Tour de Fleece - 600g of yarn in total. The brown yarn was fibre from SweetGeorgia yarns, and the rest are my hand dyed fibres. Now I have some knitting projects lined up!

Speaking of knitting, I finished up two pairs of socks this weekend.

The blue ones are my first pair of toe up socks (the pattern can be found here). The grey ones are the July 2013 Mock (mystery socks), from the Ravelry group Sock Knitters Anonymous.

I finished my Blocks of the Month this weekend too -

Pieces of Time BOM blocks.

Ostrich BOM - this month "Seminole" was chosen.

Art Quilt of the Month - the piece of fabric was cut from a piece of sun printing I did last week (it didn't quite work like I thought it would, I think it was too hot and dried too quickly). The quilting is a spinning design, since I did so much spinning this month. I added a painted sun after it was quilted, just to represent summer (it is in contrast to my January art quilt which represents a blizzard).

Last week I spent some time at my parents home, and only went down to the lake once (we were busy working).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

BOM's, AQOTM, and a KAL

The end of the month is always a flurry of sewing to catch up on for me!

Here are my Ostrich Block of the Month (BOM) blocks - 

This month was "Stars", I made two 9" Ohio Stars.
Here are all of my blocks so far -

These are my Pieces of Time BOM blocks (7.5" blocks) -

and all of them together (plus the pattern - a long way to go) -

My Art Quilt of the Month (AQOTM) was inspired by all the roses blooming in the garden -

I even used a leaf as a stamp for the quilt (just painted the back of a leaf with gold fabric paint).

It is 6"x8". The rose photo is an altered photo of a rose in the garden, that I printed on fabric. Something different for this month - no beads! That was a challenge for me!

Here are all six AQOTM so far  (hard to believe that half a year has gone by) -

I participated in a mystery Knit-A-Long (KAL) for June from Craftsy. This is the first time I have ever done something like that. It was exciting to get the beautiful skein of yarn in May, and then wonder about what we would be making in June.

It is a lace cowl. The yarn is a silk and mohair blend that is as thin as a hair and floated, plus it was knit on large needles. I have never knit with anything so fine and it was a challenge (one person said she felt like Charlotte spinning her web).

It also had a 16 stitch cable at the start and end of the row which was another challenge - once the instructor added a video on how to do that, things went much smoother for me. Everything was well explained and it was nice to knit along with others.
It is very rewarding to finish something so challenging. It is so soft and light, I look forward to wearing it. If you click on the link, you can see how it can be worn.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Some Things

Last week we went to see Fleetwood Mac in concert! It was fabulous, and a dream come true for me. 

sorry - not the clearest picture

This month's art quilt has a line from my favourite song - "Landslide".

The fabric is a piece of my hand dyed fabric, that I painted before quilting, and then added some more details with paint, pearl cotton and beads after machine quilting. It is 6" x 8"

The stack of art quilts are growing, and I think I have figured out how to "bind" them together in to a book  - I plan on attaching a couple of metal loops of the side, and stringing a ribbon through them. I will also make a front and back cover for the book.

I also finished a few other things -

This is a scarf from the Craftsy class Explorations in Brioche Knitting. I made it from Merino wool that I spun.

Surprisingly I made something practical too - my youngest asked me to make him a pair of pyjama shorts (made out of leftover quilting flannel though, at least they are just one colour - he was happy).

I have another knitting project on the go - this is a top down seamless sweater - a really lovely way to make a sweater because you can try it on as you go. I am knitting it in the round with interchangeable needles (mine are Addis Turbo), the needle for the right hand is the proper size for gauge, but the needle for the left hand is a smaller size so that the stitches slip over easily as a I knit (I tend to knit tight and this has made a big difference).

Things are finally starting to grow around here - tulips are blooming, trees are budding and hopefully it will get warmer!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

Blocks of the Month

I finished all my blocks of the month today (nothing like waiting until the end of the month!).

These ones are for my online quilt group - we are working on a quilt called Pieces of Time by Lori Smith.

Here are all my blocks so far.

This block is part of an Ostrich Block of the Month with a local quilt group - this one is a Square in a Square, I chose a 9" block from EQ7.

This BOM is fun because there are no patterns, just an idea every month, so we get to make what we want.

This one is my Art Quilt of the Month. It is supposed to represent the tulips growing before the snow melted in the garden. I tried appliqué this month - I used Glue Baste to attach my pieces before quilting. This one was inspired by a friend who is also working on Art Quilts of the Month, she recently made some beautiful little quilts that can be seen on her blog - thanks for the inspiration Susan!

I was very surprised to see the tulips growing last week, but now the rabbits have eaten them all - I guess they thought it was a pretty long winter too and are glad to have something fresh to eat. 

Here are my four art quilts so far - they are all 6" x 8".

The snow is really melting, just the deep drifts left, but warm days are on the way! As I am writing my husband is taking the snow tires off our cars, another good thing!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

End of March Roundup

Last week I quilted this tumbler lap quilt -

It started as a fat quarter pack and was cut using the GO!. I quilted an all over meander (it seems to be a much maligned quilting pattern, but sometimes it is the perfect design). I had pieced the quilt top last summer, and it is nice to have it finished.

This is my Art Quilt of the Month for March -

I used some of my first home spun wool, and couched it down to a piece of rust dyed fabric. I quilted feathers on it since I have been working on a FMQ feathers tutorial this month. The little quilt is 6"x8".

I have been doing spinning -

Silk and Merino all the way from Australia.
Thanks Joan!

These skeins are drying after being washed -

The bottles (for weight) help set the twist while they dry.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

February Art Quilt of the Month

This is my February Art Quilt of the Month. It is 6" x 8". I chose hearts because my husband and I celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary this month.

I had fun trying different embroidery techniques for the hearts. The top heart is surrounded by french knots and seed beads, the white heart is pulled thread on linen.

I used a wooden heart as a template to draw around.

The outline for the heart is traditional Schwalm Embroidery stitches - a coral stitch, with a chain stitch on both sides. I used Watercolors by Caron for the stitching, instead of the traditional white matte cotton thread (Schwalm is also traditionally stitched on much finer linen).

I used the same wooden heart for the outline of the other heart. The fabric is my snow dyed fabric - I love the colours of this piece.

I used 100Wt Invisafil thread for the free motion quilting.

Here are my art quilts of the month so far (my plan is to bind them together in to a book at the end of the year).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥

The Winner Is..

Thank-you to every one that entered my Spreading Love Giveaway - there were lots of heartwarming stories.

My son picked a number, and the winner of the little wallhanging is Karen (For the Love of Needle and Thread).
She told the story of a Random Act of Kindness that happened to her -

I was the recipient of a RAK once when I was leaving a doctor's office. The parking lot had one of those toll booths where you had to drop in the coin to get the lever to go up and I dropped the coin and didn't have any more. I was so upset from seeing the doctor and then this happened. Well I had a long line of cars waiting behind me to get out and a wonderful lady came up and gave me a coin. It was a small act that meant the world to me at the moment.

Congratulations Karen!

This week I have been trying to work on some "of the Month" projects I have for February.

The first is my Art Quilt of the Month. I have been doing embroidery for this one - I tried some Pulled Thread embroidery. It is on a piece of my snow dyed fabric - seemed appropriate since there is still so much snow.

This one is for a BOM that I am participating in with a local quilt group. The first block was one of our choosing, and so I tried a Lone Star since I have never made one before. The block is a 24",  and as you can see I had a few difficulties with it - I am hoping it will all work out in the quilting!
For this BOM a block pattern or idea will be chosen every month. We decide which style of quilt we will make - mine will be a random/scrappy style with different size blocks - I think it might be called Orphan Block Quilt (although the blocks won't be Orphans, so I am not sure of the name). My colour palette will be cream/red/pink/beige/caramel.

I still have the Pieces of Time blocks to make for February.

The gray partridges were enjoying the sunshine yesterday.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!♥