Friday Finish!

The robins have returned to town. Finally.

Usually I post about their return in mid March, but today was the first day I saw one in the yard and ran to get the camera. It's always a good sign that we all made it through the winter!

Another good sign...I already have finished a project his month!
I finished hand stitching the binding on the spring tablerunner in time to give it to my Mom for her birthday!

Here is the runner on her table with the potted tulips we gave her. I thought it was such a clever "springy" gift, but found that other people had exactly the same idea!
We must all be feeling a little desperate for spring to arrive!

Here is a portion of the flowers she received! Now Mom has a whole flower garden to remind her that she is loved and that spring is on the way!

Quilting Through Loss

My daughter and my brother

It has been over 6 months since my brother died. My family misses him terribly and after a loss like this, we all know that nothing will ever be the same. We know that we just have to find a way to live on without him and deal with it however we can.  

And quilters cope by quilting.
I have bags of my brother's clothes that might become quilts. For now, most of the clothes have been sitting in bags in a closet, because the energy was just so powerful and the feelings so overwhelming that I could not even open the bags. 

Last weekend I made a little start. I washed all his shirts, even though the labels say 'dry clean' and 'do not tumble dry'. I did both of these things, because a quilt has to be washable. The shirts came out fine, but being made from 100% cotton, they did shrink some.

My brother had his dress shirts custom made when Maxwell's Clothiers came to town. They would take his measurements, and he would pick out his fabrics, shirt style (ie. cufflinks which he liked for dress shirts, or buttons) and a cuff monogram design.
Then his shirts would be taylor-made and mailed to him. They are beautifully constructed, personalized garments made from top quality cotton fabrics.

Garments that I am now cutting up into pieces, deconstructing and returning to yardage.
It's jarring, and sad, and brings back so many memories. 
The fabric on the bottom left was the shirt he wore to his first chemo treatment. He still had his hair, and still had hope that he could beat cancer.
I know the only way to deal with grief is to power through it. There is no short cut, or way around it.
This will be a project that I can only work on in small blocks of time, because it's emotionally exhausting. So, every once and a while whenever I feel strong, I will visit with his shirts, and cut up the fabrics, and put the buttons in a jar. And I will cry, and listen to his CD, and remember him. And hope that I will be able to reconstruct all these pieces into something less painful, and maybe even comforting. 
If you are interested in reading more about using quilts as part of the mourning process, you can visit one of my favorite websites - Womenfolk.

Baby Quilt Finished

A universal truth = every new baby needs it's own quilt.
My daughter's new fur baby needed me to produce a jiffy quick quilt. I found some perfect fabric in my flannel scraps bin which was leftover from a flannel dog quilt I made for my nephew many years ago.  Isn't it just perfect for a new fur baby?!?!

I just pieced the scraps, used the pillowcase method  to join the layers, and did two lines of SITD quilting.  
Easy peasy baby quilt! 

OMG Max is so sweet!

I am a proud puppy Grandma!

This is the adorable backing I found in the flannel scraps - snuggly bears for this little fluffy bear cub.

Remains

When someone dies, there is a lot of work to do. 
There is the emotional mourning, the painful and invisible grief work, that seems to take much longer than you wish it did. And there are all the decisions to be made about dealing with the remains of a life. 
First you have to decide how to deal with the physical remains, a body or cremated ashes. These are hard decisions and become more complex when the family is a large one with varying opinions.  I think my family did an amazing job of working through these decisions when my brother died. This is the beautiful location of my brother's physical remains. A perfect decision.
But what about all the other remnants of a life...all the things that he owned, collected, saved and cherished? 
What do you do with all the "stuff"? 
You want to have enough to still feel connected to a loved one and to be able to emotionally connect with your memories. But what do you need and what do you do with all the other treasures?!

Pam had a very interesting blog post on mourning jewelry made from the hair of the deceased as a souvenir and reminder of their loved one - click here to read her post.  That is a lost art of being able to turn human hair into a treasured piece of jewelry. 


This is some of my brother's stuff that came to live with me. My brother's canning jars (he loved to garden and make soups and jam) and of course, some of his clothing. I am going to make quilts for his boys for Christmas. 
Notice that I didn't say which Christmas! First I have to be brave enough to open the bag! 

How long do your quilts last?

Do you ever wonder how your quilts will hold up to years of constant use, daily snuggles, and regular washing? 
Last week I slept under (well, partially "under" since my feet were sticking out the bottom!) an old quilt that I made for my nephew when he was born. 
I should mention that I started it when he was born, but he didn't get it right away! *LOL*
Here is a bad old photo of me with my nephew and son. He looks so happy about his quilt! And I look so young in my velour outfit ...and so much a red head (which regretfully, I never was!) LOL
Anyway...this same nephew is now a young man and has just completed his first solo flight...yes, in an airplane! 
BY HIMSELF!  So that tells you how old this quilt is. 
This is a "classic Kathy" quilt...scrappy, fun, personalized and full of love. I was delighted to see that although it is quite faded and the binding is very worn, the hand embroidery is still holding up great! And the memories haven't faded one bit!

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

It's Quiltarama!
Many of my nieces and nephews were together last weekend for a family celebration, which is the perfect opportunity for a quilt airing. The kids could use sleeping bags for "stay awakes" (we used to call them "sleepovers", but changed the name because not much sleeping goes on!) but it's not nearly as much fun as getting out all the quilts. Pass 'em around and snuggle in...so fun! This photo brings me great comfort and joy!

And speaking of joy, I'm hoping over to see the newly released clue #3 for Quiltville's mystery project. Hope we get to sew some aqua and green this week!
Are you joining in the fun?!? 

Finished Tshirt Quilt

The giant Tshirt quilt is finished! 
It was a marathon effort, even though I didn't finish it in time for my nephew's birthday.
As experienced Tshirt quilt makers know, it is really tough quilting soccer jerseys...
the fabric is thick and slippery, and your machine puts up a fuss! But it is finished and I am happy with how it turned out. The size is 65" x 95", so that was 316" of binding that was sewn during olympic viewing this week...
that's a gold medal effort I'll tell ya!

Even though the quilt was large, I managed to push it through my Brother 1500 before my machine died...it gave a valiant effort for it's last quilt!            

I machine quilted some free motion loops and stars (that I practiced in March's Free Motion Challenge) in the sashing and border.


I finished it off by quilting my nephew's name on the bottom corner. 

I enjoyed revisiting the memories of his childhood, the times he wore these shirts, and the fun things we did together....he was a real cutie. Here he is on the left in this old photo, sitting with my daughter, his older brother, and my baby boy...good times!
I hope he likes his quilt and uses it until it's threadbare. After all, quilts don't provide comfort and warmth sitting in a bag in the closet, right?!? 
And meanwhile...my trusty sewing machine is having a few issues, so it's in quarantine at the repair shop...cross your fingers that it can be fixed!
I didn't have a chance this week to work on the scrap challenge, but you can hop over to SoScrappy and check in on what the other quilters have been up to.

Design Wall Monday #29 - Tshirt quilt

There has been a box of my nephew's old shirts sitting in my cupboard for a couple of years. His Mom kept saying there were more shirts to add to the collection, so I didn't even open the box until this summer. I realized there were enough shirts for more than 1 quilt in that box already!  
My goal was to finish this quilt for his birthday at the end of July, but that was not possible. I did make lots of progress on this quilt including...
*washed and deconstructed the shirts, 
*bordered and/or pieced together the smaller shirts, 
*ironed a fusible knit interfacing to the back of each shirt  
*cut all the shirts to 13". 

Apparently I didn't trim this shirt to the correct size, because it refused to lay flat. There's no way that bump would "quilt out", so I had to unstitch that block, resize, and try again.
I needed to purchase a lot of yardage for the backing, sashing, and binding, and finally found a perfect blue fabric. The next steps are to finishing piecing the sashings to the shirts, sew all the rows together, add the border, pin baste, machine quilt and bind. No one except a quilter understands how many hours of concentrated effort that list of steps will require!!
Usually I enjoy the quilting part, but my machine is acting up (the hand wheel is slipping, and the bobbin is having trouble winding) and my trusty repair man is on vacation! I will be on his doorstep on his return, and hoping that my machine is not going to need palliative care!
To see what other quilters have on their design walls this week, hop over to Patchwork Times.

Merry Christmas!

It's 1:30 in the morning here and so I can wish you a Merry Christmas! I will soon be falling into bed for a few hours of sleep before heading into a very busy celebration tomorrow. But before I do that, I wanted to quickly show you the gifts I made for Christmas.
These are the 22 photo calendars (which have at least 12 photos each) using a total of more than 260 photographs that I have taken throughout 2010. There are 2 for my parents, 1 for my mother-in-law, 2 for my kids, 1 for my daughter's boyfriend, 12 for nieces and nephews, and 4 friends!

And here are my 3 finished quilts before they were wrapped! Well, the one on the left is not exactly "finished". It still needs the binding hand stitched on the back, which will be done in the car on the way to the festivities. The quilt on the right has already been delivered to it's new owner, my Aunt Eleanor, and the other two are going to my 2 sisters-in-law.

I also made 8 mug mats for the older nieces,  the girlfriends of my nephews, and my siblings. I was planning to make them all oven mitts, but I struggled so much to make the first pair, and then the second pair was a total disaster, so I gave up on that!

Then I remembered this great tutorial on how to make cute little mug mats. Jennifer's measure 7.5" x 9.5" and mine are a little smaller at 5" x 6". In the pockets are a tea bag, a little spoon, and a tiny packet of sugar. Also wrapped in their packages will be Tim Horton's gift certificates (a favorite place to buy coffee around here).

And guess what?! I made up a little gift to give to one of my blog readers...I couldn't leave you out! I cut up a kit of pieces for you to make this Ho Ho Ho wallhanging for next Christmas. I'm also adding a Ho Ho Ho decoration, a box of smarties, and you'll get your very own mug mat too! Everyone who left a comment on my blog this week automatically gets entered (and thank you for all your encouraging words to help me believe I could accomplish all the tasks I set out to do) and if you leave a comment on this blogpost, I'll throw your name in the draw for the Christmas package. Merry Christmas!

Another quilt top completed

Ta Da!

The H quilt top is together!
I was pleased with how well the blocks went together, and the borders also went on OK (well, you know me and borders...we don't really get along!).

I'm happy that it sort of looks like a Christmas quilt, but could also be used all year long.

I wanted to use the same flannel for the backing as I did for my other sister-in-law's quilt (which is also still not finished) but I guess I didn't measure properly because I didn't have enough of that flannel.

I briefly considered driving over to the quilt store and buying more, but knowing I didn't have the time forced me to scrounge around in my flannel scrap box and I found enough leftovers to piece the backing.

It's not pretty but it'll do...just barely!

Now that I have suffered through the 2 jobs I don't love...putting on borders and piecing a backing, I get to enjoy 2 of my favorite jobs...pin basting and machine quilting!

Here is my Christmas tin filled with my basting pins, and my trusty  Kwik Klip basting tool which I love. I almost finished the basting tonight.

I have one more 12 hour shift at work and then I am off for the holidays! The bindings I can sew down on Christmas day if need be, but I have to finish the quilting in the next 48 hours...wish me luck!

The "H" Quilt

I accidentally started a new quilt! Hey, at least I'm not as bad as Julie, who has already cut out 20 (probably more!) quilts that are just waiting for her to sew together! LOL!
I first got the idea of making an "H" quilt while visiting The Golden Thimble website. I thought it would be a great quilt idea to make for my sister-in-law and her husband because their first and last names all start with the letter H. For some unexplainable reason, I couldn't resist making up a few test blocks and found it was a fun and easy block to sew.
But would I want to make a whole quilt of them? And how would I set them together?
This is the layout on the website pattern, with every other block set sideways. This layout did not appeal to me at all.

So I went back to the first idea I had when putting the blocks on the design wall and much preferred the look of all the blocks standing upright, and I alternated the light and dark blocks.
It was so quick that I got the crazy idea that I could make this for a Christmas gift (right on schedule, as predicted, I get a big idea to push my stress to the next level just before Christmas...I must like it since I do it every year!! LOL If you want to read about last year's "add some stress" project - click here).
So/sew... Santa has gone into full block production! I will dig around in the stash for more fabrics as I have determined that I will only buy fabric for the 3 B's (borders, backing, binding) if I can't find anything suitable in my stash.

Wedding Quilt

Are you wondering if I finished the quilt in time for the wedding?!?
Yes...I pulled it out of the dryer just before we had to leave, and I attached the label (which I almost forgot) on the way to the church! I had pieced the blocks for this quilt at retreat in February and got the blocks sewn together in March.
It is made using Bonnie Hunter's free pattern called "Scrappy Trips Around the World". Not only is it a great stashbuster quilt pattern, but it was fun to sew.


I did wavy line quilting on the diagonals to emphasize the trip around the world design and it went fairly quickly. No problems with the quilting until I switched to Presencia thread to quilt the names of the wedding party in the border...then I had issues!




This is as far as I got quilting "Chad" before the thread broke...so I took that quilting out and put my Aurifil thread back in the machine...smooth as butter! I love that stuff!

I quilted the names of the wedding party attendants on the side borders, and the names of the bride and groom on both ends of the quilt. Then I stippled around any remaining spaces in the borders, and puts some hearts in the corners just for fun!


Here is the finished quilt being quickly held up by my son before I jumped in the car to drive to the wedding!












And here is a photo of the bride (my husband's cousin) and groom as they were getting ready to leave for their honeymoon. Although the weather was not good for their celebration (cold temperatures and lots of rain) I think they had a great day...they look very happy!

A Grand Finish!

Start the drum roll please...I have my biggest finish ever to announce!
I started this quilt 18 years ago in a class called "Quilt in a Day". The fabrics were all pre-cut into strips for us, and in the class we sewed the strip sets, cross cut them and sewed the strips together in a "Trip Around the World" pattern.

I was delighted with the quilt top, which was going to be a quilt for my daughter when she moved out of her crib and into her "big bed".  She has just finished her first year of university, so I guess she doesn't really "need" it anymore! LOL!
The size is 72" x 93"- now what on earth was I thinking making it that huge! I had no idea what I was doing, as it was my first bed quilt, and I remember thinking that I'd like it to hang down over the sides of the bed. I wrote a blogpost about this quilt 3 years ago  - click here to read more about it, and to see me crawling around on my hands and knees thread basting. I could never do that again at this age :) Also in that blog post I wrote that I started it in 1990, so that's 20 years ago! That can't be right!?!
Anyway, I got the brilliant idea to hand quilt it...how hard could it be???!! Don't you love the enthusiasm and confidence of beginning quilters?!?!?
So I started by quilting all the vertical and horizontal seam lines. That didn't look like enough quilting, so I stitched diagonally across the blocks to emphasize the diamond design. This is the centre on the back of the quilt.
Can you see where I pieced the backing??

Then I reached the borders. I started to quilt a single line down the middle of the white border,  didn't like it and took that out. That border is empty, but I may yet go back and quilt a little cable in there.  In the second peach border I quilted these cute bows...they were fun to quilt!
And then in the 4 corners I quilted these cute little bears. That was fiddly quilting.

And the last border was just straight lines out to the edge. I've heard this design called "bars".  So I've called my quilting design "Bows, Bears and Bars"!

And then the binding. Since I made this so long ago, and was not anticipating taking this long to finish the job, I had not purchased any binding fabric. I looked for years for the outside border fabric, or any of the fabrics in the quilt to use for the binding. In May I finally found a perfect match - read about it here. The binding fabric has the same flowers on a peach background, and my border fabric has a blue background, but doesn't it look great?!?

I still can't believe that this is finished, and I feel a little sad, which is CRAZY! Someone asked me recently what my second oldest UFO is and I've been focused on this one for so long, I don't even know!

Finished on time!

Yes...I did finish the wedding quilt in time to be wrapped and given to the bride on the day of her wedding. I was hand stitching the label on 20 minutes before we pulled out of the driveway.

I had a lot of fun quilting hearts this week and on the left is a photo of the continuous line of hearts I quilted on the borders. It was going along quite well with limited thread shredding and breakage, which was a relief because the backing and top were batik fabrics and the batting was a mystery batting that I found in my cupboard (not my usual Warm & Natural) so I was unsure of how this would quilt up. 

I quilted the whole top and border, and then noticed that the backing had flipped over on itself and was quilted into the border. Ugh! I can't tell you how many times I have done that! You would think I would feel the bunched up fabric layers when I am happily quilting along, but apparently I don't! So out came the trusty seam ripper and I picked out that section of the border quilting. By the time that was fixed it was already late on friday night, so I made the decision to bring the backing to the front and machine stitch 

the binding...gasp! Yes I did! And I never like how this looks but I did it anyway because I was in a time crunch. It makes the edges a little ruffley and the corners are not nicely mitered, but it was  finished and that was the main thing.

All that I remember about sewing this quilt top is that it was a mystery quilt from many years ago (maybe 10 years). Does anyone recognized the design so I can give proper credit??