National Quilt Day

Yesterday was "National Quilt Day" in the US... I think it should be an international celebration with the whole world having a day off work to enjoy quilting! However, the next best thing is having a whole Saturday to enjoy quilting activities, wherever you live.

In the morning the mini quilters came over and brought the quilts they finished last month, which was the Wheel of Mystery pattern. (You can see my first one here and my heart version here.) The variation and creativity in these quilts just makes my heart sing! Each one is a little treasure! I love it when the quilters pull their projects out of their bags and we get to see all their finished quilts. If I loaded the photos correctly you should be able to click on the photos to enlarge them so you can see more details, including unique quilting designs, fancy stitching, and button and bead embellishments.

This photo shows the beautiful projects from Tuesday's group, and the two quilts on the right are made from the same charm pack, but look so different!

In tomorrow's post I will show you what I worked on in the afternoon of National Quilt Day.

National Quilt Day!

Happy National Quilt Day! Actually it was yesterday, and it's really only an American "holiday" although I don't know if quilters are given time off work to celebrate! You can read about the celebration on this website. Since I take any opportunity to celebrate quilting, I used this as an excuse to make sure my family knew that I needed to quilt yesterday - as if I need an excuse!!!

Because of the winter weather we have had, and the fact that Easter is early this year, we will not have any flowers at Easter - no crocuses (crocusi?), or daffodils, or tulips...only snow. I was really in the mood to work on my flower/spring quilt. I cut the border stips and sewed those on. Then I finished piecing the backing. You may remember that I switched the border strips and the backing fabric since the recommended border, which I had already sewn, was too busy for my liking (you can see the "problem" here).
So here is the scrappy backing. There are the 4 pieced borders strips that run right across the backing, and then I filled in with leftover pieces of fabric from the kit. I have only a few small scraps left and am very pleased with myself for using up everything instead of running to the store and buying a new backing. I hope it will quilt okay on my little machine having all those seams on the back...we'll see.

Then I started the pin basting process, which I enjoy now that I have big tables to lay out my quilts on...no more crawling around on hands and knees for this old girl!

Happy National Quilting Day!

It was a great day for me....I sewed for the entire day! I worked on the Quiltaholic mystery quilt being offered this weekend. Here is the fruit of my labour. The blocks on the right are the batik fabrics for a small quilt, and the blocks on the left are the donated fabrics for a medium quilt. It doesn't look like much right now, but by this time tomorrow, it's going to be two fantastic looking quilt tops! Stay tuned!

National Quilting Day

Did you know that Saturday is National Quilting Day? It is also St. Patrick's Day, which is a big celebration at our house. For supper I am making green pasta, ceasar salad, and green cake for dessert. Other foods I had made over the years include green mashed potatoes, asparagus soup, and chicken chili with lots of green food colouring. There is something very appealing to my children about eating an entire green meal!
And because it is National Quilting Day I am treating myself to a relaxing day of sewing the new mystery quilt at Quiltaholics. In honour of St. Patrick I am including one green fabric! On the right are the batik fabrics I have picked out for a small sized quilt for myself. I purchased only the bright blue and the orange fabrics, to go with the dots, the yellow and the lime green from my stash. I will piece the binding and backing from whatever is left over after sewing the quilt top.
I also had to buy these beautiful threads for the quilting. This is my favorite quilting thread at the moment... Premium Sulky 30wt. It goes through my machine like butter, and comes in wonderful varigated colours.
And on the left are the fabrics that I have selected from the quilt guild's donated fabrics, which I will make into a charity quilt for the Pediatric Sexual Assault Unit at the hospital. I am making this in the medium size but two of the pieces are a little less than the required amounts, so I really have to be careful not to make any mistakes. I may end up piecing some bits to make all the units...we'll have to see how it goes. The pink fabric is a huge piece and will probably be enough for the backing and binding too.
I have oiled my sewing machine, wound up some bobbins and cleared off the cutting table. I have all the pieces cut out and can't wait for tomorrow morning!