April's FMQ Challenge Piece

I finished April's Free Motion Quilting Challenge piece at the beginning of the month, but saved showing it for a day I didn't have any thing to blog about (I am trying to blog every day in April, along with exercising every weekday - both are keeping on track! Although I did dream, over a week ago, that April was over and I was relieved!!). Today was a beautiful day and along with laundry, baking, cooking... , I worked outside cleaning the flower beds.

This month the challenge was using Don Linn's method for marking quilting designs on the quilt top.

The tulle method of marking works well and I have used it before for embroidery. The good thing about it is you can easily see where you are placing the pattern. 

Last month I used a much easier method of marking the design (using a paper pattern and iron-off pounce), but it was harder to tell the exact placement of the pattern.

I plan on adding more quilting to the above design.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day! ❤

More Dear Jane

Today I made 5 more Dear Jane blocks, now there are 12.
There is a very helpful website - That Quilt - that has instructions for all the blocks (since the book has none).

This one was tricky and took me a few hours (for a 5" block!! Now I think my quilt is getting smaller by the day - maybe it will just be a table runner!), but at least I made it.

I paper pieced it - the above piece of paper is 3", it is the centre of the block.

The method I use, you don't sew on the paper, but fold all the lines before stitching,

and then stitch beside the fold. There is a good tutorial here.
I don't use freezer paper since I am just making little blocks. I use a bit of glue stick glue to set the first piece and work from there. Also since I am using cheap paper, just drawing the lines is enough to score the line for folding.

I said that the above block was tricky, but maybe I was having an off day -

this one stumped me too! The centre was supposed to be cream (it is now). I paper pieced it too.

There are so many beautiful variations of the quilt (google images), that I think I will start picking and choosing which blocks I will make, because I know I won't have enough cream to make them all.

I have made my Dear Jane blocks for this week (I am trying to make a few a week) and have cleaned my sewing room, ready for a different project (maybe another small quilt of the month).

I have been using scrappy tumblers as "leader and enders", and made quite a few rows this weekend - I think I almost have enough to sew into a quilt top (this will be a charity quilt).

I turned the little piece of punch needle embroidery I made the other day into a top for an old tin.

This is the tin after I spray painted it with some paint I had.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!❤


Update - Here is another lovely Dear Jane blog - "Janiac's Unite" - thanks Heather.

Making DJ Blocks

I have been making Dear Jane blocks - these are the first 7 in the book. They are 5" (they will be 4 1/2" finished), and are very addictive to make. The book doesn't really have the pattern, just a picture of the block and a scale drawing of the block - so I have to figure out the measurements and how to make the block - kind of like a puzzle, so lots of fun. Plus I only have to make one.

Some are hard and some are very easy.

Some have 40 pieces in 5"!

Some I am machine appliquéing.

And some have paper piecing (this is the method where you don't sew on the paper, but fold it back).

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!❤

Frustration

I finished Crosses Mourning - January's small quilt of the month. It is 17" square, the blocks are 5". The pattern is from Kathleen Tracy's Prairie Children and their Quilts.

I used wool batting for the "puffiness".

This is the back of the outside border - I chose a simple feather border ("open-heart feather"), because I knew that quilting wouldn't be visible in the border fabric, but I love feathers and add them when ever possible! I did stitch on the binding before quilting the border - I find it helpful to make sure the design fits in the space, especially when the border is narrow (the above border is 2" wide).

My frustration came when I broke...

one (oh no!)...

two (aahhh!)..

three (arrghh!!!) titanium needles in a span of 5 minutes!!!

I was just quilting the above quilt - regular fabric, wool batting, sewing slowly - nothing unusual! So much for titanium needles bending instead of breaking (although one bent before it broke into 3 pieces -it even froze my sewing machine, with a huge exclamation point for warning on the display screen - "motor overload"), or finding out if titanium needles last 5 times longer than regular needles!
I switched back to a Mircotex needle for the rest of the quilting.

After the little quilt was finished I decided that it was enough quilting for a day (three broken needles before 8am was enough), so I switched hobbies and made another piece of punch needle embroidery. This one is 3" across. It is going to be put onto a small tin (more when it is finished).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!❤

Another Quilt of the Month

I had so much fun making the last small quilt of the month (from Kathleen Tracy at a Sentimental Quilter), that I decided I would make the previous months quilts as well.

This is the January one - Crosses Mourning from the book "Prairie Children and their Quilts" by Kathleen Tracy (if you click on "see more images" under the book in the link, you can see all the beautiful quilts in the book).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!❤

New Shelves

My youngest son made this little shelf in school a few years and I finally got around to staining, varnishing, and hanging it up! It sure is a cute place to display sewing things and old bottles (my brother and I dug them up in the yard of a home we lived in when we were young, in England).

I had thought about de-cluttering my sewing area but instead I added some thing (the clothes on the wall are from my mother's family).

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!❤

April's Small Quilt

Karen (For the Love of Needle and Thread) recently suggested that I might like to join Kathleen Tracy's (A Sentimental Quilter) Small Quilt Group on Yahoo. Well, she was right - it is a lovely, informative group.
This year Kathleen is having a "quilt of the month" - using patterns from her books, but this month's pattern is a free one on her website.

This is the April quilt of the month.
I decided to make mine a bit smaller, and made 3" blocks. The quilt is 9" x 13".

I tried this Kimono Silk, a 100Wt thread for the free motion quilting, using a #70 titanium top stitching - it  sewed beautifully. The quilting in the squares was with the walking foot and Aurifil #50 thread, because I wanted the stitching to be visible.

I quilted some feathered hearts in the 3" plain squares.

The quilt was washed and because I used cotton batting, it is all nice and crinkled now.

I made the quilt smaller than the pattern because I wanted a little quilt to display on my featherweight machine.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!❤

Bali Baby Jane

I finished the little Bali Baby Jane quilt. It is 16" square.
I made four 4.5" Dear Jane blocks, just to try out some of the patterns and fell in love with them. I now have plans (and more importantly fabric from my stash) to make some more. I will be using reproduction fabrics for a more traditional look.
I am planning on making a few blocks a week (it seems like lots of quilters have some Dear Jane blocks lying around, so I will see what comes of my plans!).

I used wool batting and added the binding before quilting the border (but I didn't stitch the binding to the back until it was all quilted), so that I would be able to fill the area with feathers.
I used Bottom Line thread (a 60Wt polyester thread) in the top and bottom for the machine quilting, plus a #70 Titanium Top Stitching needle by Organ for the first time. They both worked very well and I have been using the titanium needle ever since for piecing - they are supposed to last a lot longer than regular needles.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!❤

Fibre Art Network Quilts

At the quilt show that I went to on Friday there was a special display by the Fibre Art Network. The group has members across Western Canada. This collection is called "Canadian Content" (more pictures, along with descriptions can be seen here on their website). The quilts were incredible in person!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!❤

I Might Be Addicted

I bought these two books yesterday at the quilt show - "Dear Jane" and "The Civil War Sewing Circle", both lovely books.

I thought I would try some Dear Jane blocks with Batik fabric, just for fun. They certainly are fun to make, and I am now thinking I am going to buy some background fabric to get started on a large Dear Jane!! Addicted??!!...
The blocks are 4.5" square (finished size), and I used foundation paper piecing, machine appliqué and regular piecing to make them.

When I made the freezer paper templates for the machine appliqué, I only traced one design and then stapled the other layers of freezer paper together, to make cutting out the templates faster.

I added some 3" borders, and I will machine quilt it tomorrow

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!❤

Quilt Reflections Quilt Show

I spent a wonderful afternoon at the Manitoba Prairie Quilters quilt show - Quilt Reflections.

Here are some pictures (sorry there are no explanations or names of the quilters - I am too tired, and I know we all just enjoy the photos). There were lots of people, so it was hard to take the best pictures.


Please don't pin these photos on Pinterest as they are not my work!

This lovely one is by  Corina - CW Quilts Sometimes
and is shown here on her blog.

This quilt was quilted by Judy - Green Fairy Quilts
 (more pictures are here on her blog). 

There were so many amazing quilts!! This is just a small sample (my arms were getting tired - maybe it was with all my purchases! I know I didn't need anything, but I still managed to find some fabrics, books and a GO! die that needed to come home with me).

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!❤