Monday, October 16, 2017

Weekend Flurries with no chance of housework...

My daughter and wee grandson were out of town for the weekend so I geared up for some serious production in my sewing room this weekend while pining away for baby snuggles.  I had to put my energy somewhere that would distract me.

I'm teaching my quilt pattern, Amish Block Party ( Amish Block Party )  this weekend at the Creative Threads Conspiracy on Denman Island.  For the past 2 Saturdays I've been busy cutting my 1 1/2" strips and I've now started joining the strips into stratas so mine are ready to demonstrate on Saturday.  I'll post pictures as much as I'm able.   Here is the trial layout of my first 'cube'



I also got a bad case of quilter's ADD on Sunday.  I just needed to let out some of the distracting energy so I began cutting out this quilt:


Pattern:  Vanilla and Blooms by Fig Tree Quilts

And dug through my stash for purple, pink and teal/turquoise for 3 quilts for 3 sisters for Christmas.




More on these quilts later, but what fun to just pull out these fabrics from my stash and gaze upon their beauty.  They wanted to come and play so badly!   This will likely be more 'sewing in secret' as I don't want the recipients to know what I'm up to.  So you can see the fabric but the rest is ...


As if all of that wasn't enough, I also cut up some 3 1/2" squares out of a bright batik kit I bought at Sisters Quilt Shop in Chehalis, Washington on my May shop hop.    It was a whirlwind weekend of cutting with my Accuquilt GO cutter with the rotary cutter and rulers riding tandem.  I failed to take a picture of those but never fear...pictures will appear once the bins make their way to the side of my sewing machine sometime soon.

I can safely say that I have more than enough stuff cut up and ready to sew for my November retreat.  It's back to work today so this lunch hour missive must come to a close.  Thanks for visiting!

Mavis

Thursday, October 12, 2017

Sewing in Secret

I do love posting my quilting projects as they are unfolding.  Often I will post my fabric choices and perhaps the first of many blocks, and finally the layout and ending with the finished project.

There are times though when the recipient of one of my quilts is on my social media connections list and this makes the sharing of photos along the way restricted because I want the element of surprise when they receive the quilt.  This is when I sew in secret.


This quilt is such a one.  It was designed for a special baby due in November.  We don't know the gender but the parents chose the theme of the Hudson's Bay colours.  Fun!!!  The baby shower was last night and the quilt was finally presented so I can now share the photos.

The finished quilt.  The binding was finished in the car en route to the shower.  Nothing like a deadline to get er dun!

I chose "matchstick" modern quilting for this one.

Uneven rows...on purpose!

Starting to lay them out on the design wall.

The first three blocks

Yup!  This will work just fine.


Fabric choices -- Hudson's Bay Colours

Adding scrappy neutrals makes it interesting
And there you have it.  It was a very fun quilt to make.  The pattern is called "Scraps Galore" by Ursula Riegel of Designs to Share.  She is a local pattern designer and her patterns are widely available, at least in North America.

I hope you enjoyed this post going backwards to the beginning of this project.  I will be making this pattern again for sure.  So stay tuned for another colourway which I'm doing for my grandson.

Until next time!

Mavis