Mystery Quilt Reveal

It was the big reveal for the mystery quilts at guild meeting this week. Sindy Rodenmayer of Fat Cat Designs gave permission to our guild to use one of her patterns called Chocolate Stars.
I posted my bright version of the pattern back in May - click here to see it. I was able to finish my chocolate version just in time for guild meeting. I decided not to do the friendship star border on this quilt since it is for the guild comfort quilt collection and is big enough at this size. I like the effect of the sashing with the 4 patches, and am really looking forward to quilting this one.

Want to see the other amazing quilts that guild members brought to show at the meeting??

I just love how each quilt looks so different, even though each quilter started off with the same pattern! 

It was very exciting to see what the quilters created.
Which one is your favorite?!? 
If you haven't entered my birthday/100 followers draw yet, click here and leave a comment. The draw will be on Saturday before I leave for Vermont :)

Dirt or Chocolate??

All my brown star blocks are pieced. The quilt is called Chocolate Stars but because I'm not loving it, and am spending so much time in the garden, I find myself calling it "Dirt Stars"!

Now what to do with the setting?
On my bright version I didn't do the recommended sashing/setting, but I did make the friendship star border. However this time I really don't feel like sewing all those friendship stars again. I think I just talked myself into adding the sashing strips/ four patch setting, with maybe one or two plain borders depending on how much fabric I have left.
I read an interesting article about current trends in quilting based on the International Quilt Market - click here to read it.  It's Quilt Festival in my neck of the woods and I just wish I had more time to visit the venues and see what the trends are around here - click here for the events.

Design Wall Monday #21

It has turned out to be a wonderful sunny, warm long weekend here and lots of outdoor yard work was finally completed.  I did a lot of digging in the dirt, planting seeds for the vegetable garden.
And I played with the dirt coloured fabrics indoors! I worked on the brown version of our guild mystery. To see the colourful version of the quilt I finished earlier in the month - click here.  I have had these blocks sewn since December, but they are so boring compared to my colourful blocks that I have to force myself to work on them. The deadline for showing the quilts/tops at guild meeting is in 3 weeks so I am motivated to at least finish the top. I just know that this is a quilt that will not get finished otherwise...I am not a brown person, nor do I enjoy sewing 2 colour quilts (remember the civil war blocks?).
I cut out all the pieces for the remaining 4 blocks and should be able to sew these up today. Then I just have the sashing and border to figure out.
What's on your design wall today? Don't have a design wall? You NEED one - click here to read ideas for making your own.  Then hop over to Judy's blog and get some inspiration from all the design walls posted.

Mystery Quilt Finished!

I haven't started to work with my pink scraps yet this month - click here to access the posts of other quilters in the Scrap Rainbow Challenge to see what they are up to.

I have been obsessed with finishing my guild mystery quilt to show at the next guild meeting and I met my goal!
This is a photo of the quilt's backing to show the wavy grid quilting that I tried. I first saw this idea on Wanda's blog called Exuberant Color back in 2009. Her more recent post reminded me that I wanted to try this quilting idea (click here to read it) and this was the perfect project to try it out. It was so fun and quick....I loved it! I will definitely try this quilting design again.



Then I found the perfect binding fabric in my stash - lots of bright colours with purple dots.




I like this photo on the right, which shows how the binding changes colour around the corner block.


Ta da... here is the finished quilt! It was a fun sampler project with some challenging blocks.  This was a pattern posted last year on Fat Cat Patterns.

Design Wall Monday #17

On my design wall this morning is my guild's mystery quilt used with permission from Sindy Rodenmayer.

It is a pattern from Fat Cat Patterns, but I don't see it on the website anymore (she has some really cute Easter Applique designs posted now, and she has some amazing applique patterns).
This is one of her older BOM patterns, but I did not use the sashing/border directions as outlined. I am also making a chocolate version of this same pattern and you can see some of those blocks on this old blog post. I only have 2 more friendship star blocks to sew for the bright version, and then I can attach the borders.
Do little things bother you when you are making a quilt?
This is a comfort quilt to donate to the local hospital and I don't have to see it ever again once it's donated, but I sure do fuss around as if it will be a lifelong treasure that I have to look at every day! For example, these 2 corner star blocks with the Laurel Birch cat centers were bothering me from the above photo.
So I exchanged the centre squares to see if I like that better...and I like it much better!

Now what don't I like?
I didn't like that bottom right block because I used a different dotty background fabric when I ran out of the purple dots. But since then I have tracked down a fabric that is a reasonable likeness and so that block had to be fixed. I separated it from the other blocks, removed the offending borders and put new HST's around...ahhhhh, much better! You can clearly see (click on the photo to make it bigger) the 2 different background fabrics in this block, but I'm much happier with it.
I am loving the colours in this quilt and the fact that I only bought background fabric and the rest is all made from scraps. And if I'd stop re-making the blocks, I could get the whole thing done!
If you haven't entered the draw for my mini bowtie quilt, click here.

Design Wall Monday #11

In every spare minute over the past week I have been sewing indian orange peel arcs for my class this coming weekend and will update with photos later in the week when I am closer (hopefully!) to meeting my goal.
Between the arcs (just for fun) I have been sewing friendship stars for the border around my guild mystery quilt. This is a pattern called Chocolate Stars from Fat Cat Patterns, although I don't see it on the website anymore. Sindy Rodenmayer is the pattern designer and gave us permission to use this pattern as a project for our quilt guild.

I put the blocks up on my design wall to get a sense of the colours I still need to cut out....I think I have enough blue stars!! These are 22 of the 40 blocks needed for the outside border. Can you believe my bad piecing luck is continuing?!? Seriously, who could screw up a friendship star?!?!
Hop over to Judy's blog to see what other quilters have on their design walls today - click here.

Design Wall Monday #7

On my design wall today is my guild's mystery Block of the Month project.  I have almost run out of the background fabric and had to substitute a light on block #12 which makes it really crazy looking! But I am happy with the vibrant energy of this quilt so far. This is the order that the block patterns were released and isn't very balanced in terms of the colours, but I wanted to show the guild members each of the blocks as the patterns were posted.

I am planning to add some borders, so that is what I will be cutting out today.

In a couple of weeks, when it's the mystery has been revealed at guild meeting,  I can tell more about the pattern on my blog and give you to the link to the instructions if you want to make one too. 

To see what other quilters are working on today, visit Judy's blog - click here.

Happy Valentine's Day! 

Design Wall Monday #5

These blocks were on my design wall. The batik blocks were donated to the guild's comfort quilt program and I just need to add some sashing and/or borders and make it a larger quilt top. I have been playing around with scrap sashings to avoid buying yardage, but that seems to make it too busy...might have to go shopping.
The 'S' blocks at the bottom were made for Shannon's birthday quilt and they have been mailed to the birthday girl! **to see all of Shannon's blocks on her blog - click here.


I took the batik blocks down while I think about what to do next and put up my guild's mystery quilt project. I have sewn 9 of the 12 blocks. The remaining 3 blocks have been cut and the pieces are in the plastic sleeves at the bottom of the design wall, all ready to sew. All of these blocks have been made from my bright scraps... only the background fabric was purchased.

To check out many inspiring design walls - click here.

I have a question for you experienced bloggers out there... I am getting a message from Picasa that I have used up my "allowed storage space" with photos on my blog. I refuse to purchase additional storage space from Google in order to continue blogging, so do you have any suggestions for how to handle this dilemma? Who knew that one's ability to freely use Blogger services was time/space limited?!?!

Some Saturday Sewing

I had another frustrating try with my circle project, and had another bad experience with the Cut-a-round ruler. (You can read about the first episode here, but it's the same as today's!) Perhaps the issue is that I am trying to make the circles too small and this tool is not good for that size.? When I calm down, I'll maybe try it for the third time with the larger size. I just hate to give up on it since it was quite an expensive ruler and I'm making a circle themed quilt, and it's just frustrating that I can't get it to co-operate with me (or me with it?)

Then I decided to use my quilting time for some relaxing sewing (while I ruminate about the next step for my circle SAHR, the IOP plan, and the Christmas to-do list) and all that thinking gave me lots of time to finish up my guild mystery sampler blocks for this month. I am doing 2 samplers...one in browns and one in scrappy brights and am amazed at how my pile of scraps is getting used up!

These are the December blocks #7 and #8 in the two colourways.

These are all the brown blocks so far...4 more to sew and then the sashing and borders! My plan on this is to finish the blocks for the 2 samples by the end of the year, so that I can start a new 2011 block sampler using the new 100 blocks magazine!

And lucky me...since I am getting low on scraps, Becky sent me some of hers! I won a draw on her blog and these scraps arrived yesterday...look at these treasures! I've already sorted them into the string bin, the bright scraps, ...don't you love other people's scraps?!?
Thanks Becky for sharing!

Too much fun

Do you ever feel like life is just too full of fun things to do??


Last night was guild meeting and that is always very exciting. We had Donna Funnell as our speaker and she was so inspiring. Her work was amazing and the detail on her quilts just draws you in and makes you want to look at them unendingly!! You can see some of her work here or here and here.  Her quilts made me remember how much I love beading and how much I miss it. But I love so many other things too...and there are just not enough hours in my days...24 hours is just not enough! And even adding the extra hour when we turned our clocks back on Saturday night has not helped me!

I also love sewing quilt blocks and here are the 2 most recent blocks for the guild mystery quilt. (Oh yah...I love mysteries too and have to pull out some fabrics from my stash for Bonnie Hunter's new mystery starting soon...yikes)

I am making one set of blocks from leftover bright scraps with a consistent white background and one set of blocks from browns and creams. This is a photo of blocks 1 to 4 in both colourways.


And the Quiltmaker's 100 blocks magazine blog hop is making me crazy...too many things to see, too much inspiration, too many blocks and quilts that I want to make. Seriously, I do think there is such a thing as too much stimulation! If I don't get called in to work today I need to calm down, get my quilting room cleaned up and I need to FOCUS. I have this UFO to finish and the fall churn dash quilt (that I volunteered to quilt on Quilt Bee Day) to finish.
And then I need to get my fabric sorted for a class I  have signed up to take with Heather Stewart.
Okay...so the class is to make Karen Stone's Indian Orange Peel quilt. Did you see the amazing version of this quilt that Pat Sloan posted today...check it out here?? And look at this amazing one here.
Gail is organizing this class and several of the students have already met to share their fabric plans - click here to see the collections. I am going to the US to visit my sister this weekend and may have a chance to shop, so I have to figure out what I "need".

So here is my dilemma...at the top of the photo are my friend Barb's fabric selections and at the bottom of the photo are my fabrics. Do you see the problems??
Problem #1...I don't have enough batik fabric (125 Fat Quarters are suggested...holy cow!) and
Problem #2...I don't have not enough variety. I have some lights and some muddy mediums, but I need to do some serious shopping!

Weekend bits

These are the blocks that are on my design wall today. My guild is doing a mystery Block of the Month project this year and these are the first 2 blocks. I am doing 2 sets of blocks...one in brown scraps and one in brights. I have blocks 3 and 4 cut out but not sewn yet.
Mostly this weekend I am getting organized for my trip to Michigan to see Bonnie Hunter! Since Bonnie had to cancel her Canadian visit in 2012, I decided that if I was going to be able to see her I had to go to the US, and the Town Hall Quilt Guild in Clarkston has allowed me to join in the fun with them! I am so excited! I will also make a quick visit to see my neices and nephew who live in Michigan.
So this week I have been stash diving and trying to put together somewhat co-ordinated piles of stash that I want to use up. I started out thinking, all old fabrics are going in the "use up" pile, but since then I've put a lot of them back on the shelf because they are too nice to use...like my favorite batiks (even I know that this is CRAZY!!).
Now I'm thinking about using up my old plaids for the Blue Ridge Beauty and for Cathedral Stars I am still working on a plan...I have one more day to decide! Okay Kathryn this is not rocket science...just pick some fabrics already !!  Here are the background scraps and the gold pieces for the star points, but I am still working on the other decisions. Oh yah...I should probably also pack some (preferably clean) clothes!
What are you doing this weekend???  If you don't have anything else to do today, how about a virtual fiber field trip?!? Check out the fabulous list that Vicki regularly compiles and visit a wide range of interesting artists & projects - click here...enjoy!
And if you are in southern Ontario, Canada and want to enjoy the beautiful fall weather and take a road trip, check out the Erin Studio tour, which is guaranteed to get your creative juices flowing - click here.