Merry Christmas!

Hi Everyone,

I am busy making a few quilts for Christmas. Will post pictures AFTER I have given them.... don't want to spoil any surprises.

Have a wonderful Christmas and all the best in 2008.

Ann

Christmas Project

I have discovered this wonderful technique called French Braid quilting in Jane Hardy Miller's book - French Braid Quilts. I bought the book and just had to try out the technique. I displayed this trial piece, which I made into a table runner, at the workshop and now a group of us are going to make Christmas table runners later this month. The trick is getting a nice center fabric with enough pattern and colour to bring the whole thing together, and then finding enough co-ordinating fabrics to do the run of colours.
This picture is up for inspiration to the ladies who are going to make one.
As with all the pictures, if you click on the picture it should open up in another window much larger so you can see a detail of the fabrics.

Table runner and placemat.

The runner is 64" long and 15" wide, which I feel is too wide. The placemat is about 12.5" x 16".

Can you believe this is the same fabrics? Different lighting, less red. It looks a little lumpy because I have just pinned the binding, it is not sewn yet. Very green looking. See you Wednesday.

Quilt in a day update

Well, call me an optimist or call me an idiot, either way, my eyes were opened when I did a test run with 4 participants. So... I have had to revise the quilt we are going to do in the workshop AGAIN! I pieced this quilt this morning and took a picture of the top only, while the sun was shining and the wind would not stop blowing it about. This is a simple ninepatch, with alternating plain blocks. More details will follow, but if you have already bought your fabric, do not worry. I made sure it will still work. In this one, the pink is the dark fabric, the multi is the medium and the pink/yellow is the light.
I will add to this later. I am going to see if I have enough fabric kicking around to make another one this afternoon so you can have more of an idea of how the fabrics work.


So, what did you do on Monday afternoon? I made another quilt top, did a few dishes, brought in the tomatoes that were ripening, had a glass of wine with my husband....

Why don't the colours look as good here as they do at home? This is lovely shades of a cool green. And you can't even see the cool Levi's fabric I used! Boats, cowboy boots and flowers. That really goes together! I was limited by the fabrics I had on hand, but it really does look nice together. The detail one ( guess it might depend on your monitor) is closer to the actual colours. The gray/taupe of the light fabric really brings out the green of the other two.

So you get an idea of where your colours will go. The dark green with little sailboats is my dark. The pale green with little yellow and orange flowers is medium and the taupe Levi's fabric is my light. Your dark, medium and lights will go in the same places on your quilt. The medium is a great opportunity (as in the pink quilt) to showcase a vibrant print.
Enough quilting for one day! Please drop me a line if you have any questions. Click here for the page with tying details.

Quilt in a Day Workshop

OK, Plan D. I guess having made quite a few quilts, I forget what I was like in the beginning! The windmill, which I had planned to do, was a little tricky for beginners. (see earlier ideas in June, July & August)
So we are going to do Irish Chain for the Quilt in a Day workshop on November 3, 2007. There is only room for 6 people, so don't wait too long to register.
IF YOU WANT TO COME... but the date is no good, call and ask to be put on the waiting list. I will run a course the following weekend too (Nov. 10) if there are enough people.














This pattern looks great in shades of the same colour. These are quite bright, as they are just drawings.

Scroll down for actual photos of quilt tops and options to tie your quilt. None of the photos do justice to the actual quilts!

So here we go. I started it at 9:30 Saturday morning and spent a lot of time updating my blog, having lunch and building a fire - mighty cold day today. By 4 o'clock the top was finished. I have to make supper, but hopefully I will have time after supper to finish it. I have called it Fade to Beige. Sunday' s project - another top, took me 5 hours. Hopefully we can do it in the course in about 7. I can't think of a name for this one yet. It looks much nicer than the photo shows. This one is done in denim colours, not denim fabric. I really like the blues with white, it looks so fresh! It reminds me of blue jeans with a clean white t-shirt. I still want to do one more, with the colour scheme reversed. Then I have to get cracking and quilt them!
Alrighty - here is one in pinks. I chose a quite light colour for the medium, and you can see how the diagonals really pop, and the cross in the centre almost disappears. Compare that to the blue one above, where the medium colour is quite dark and blends more with the dark colour, causing the crosses to be more prominent. Here is a closeup of the fabrics I used, to give you a better idea. I have a friend doing another one which has two darks also, but the light colour is running in the diagonal blocks. I know it will be beautiful - watch for it here.

Tying options: It's kind of hard to decide what you want when you have no idea what the different options entail. So here goes.

#1 is three strands of embroidery cotton, hand knotted. I did this in burgundy for contrast so you can see it. If you want to choose this option, please buy a better co-ordinating colour!

#2 is 1/8" ribbon tied and machine stitched on.

#3, 4 & 5 are all done with a machine zig-zag stitch, again in a contrasting colour. For your first quilt, where your stitching is likely to be less than perfect, choose a colour that will blend rather than contrast.

#3 has the width going from narrow to wide and back again to make a little diamond.

#4 has the width going from wide to narrow and back again to make an hourglass.

#5 is just bar tacking at the wide width.

#6 is the way MY sewing machine makes zig-zag, going from narrow to wide and back. Test how your machine does a zig-zag if you think you want to make diamonds or hourglasses. Set the length to as short as possible, and the width to 0. Start sewing slowly, turning your dial or pushing your knob to make the stitches get slowly wider, then narrower again. If you get a diamond like #3, you can do options #3 or #4. If you get a triangle like #6, well, you get a triangle and can't do the other two. As long as you can zig-zag, you can do #2 or #5.

For details on the workshop, visit Sturgeon County and click on Community Programs, General Interest for more information and registration form. Registration begins August 27, 2007. Maximum 6 people. If you have any questions, e-mail me.

Quilting workshop Level 2

Well, it is not easy to make quilts to put up here for colour ideas when we are having such a glorious summer. I decided to make one in three colours, using fabrics I had on hand. Of course, that really limited my selection, but I chose a multicolour for the background, and two co-ordinating colours from it. I really wish I had a nice lime green instead of the purple, but at least you get the idea of two colours on a background, using colours from the print. Notice the yellow and purple are not solid colours. The yellow has lemon slices on it, and the purple has butterflies.
This one is hand tied with embroidery floss in co-ordinating colours, so it doesn't look obvious. It is made from 30 blocks. I made the blocks smaller because I did not have a lot of fabric - in this setting, the ones we will make in the course will be about 50" x 60". This quilt is only 38" x 46".


Keep watching here - I am working on getting colours up.

Quilting Level 2

Well, I have made up my mind. After whipping up this lovely little quilt in record time, it was going to be the pattern we do at the Quilt in a Day workshop. But after a trial run, I have discovered it is a little tricky for beginners. I may do another course using this pattern, but it will have to be for people with some quilting experience! This pattern is called Windmill and the finished size of this quilt is 36" x 45". I started this one on July 8th, did nothing (on the quilt) on the 9th, and finished it on the 10th, including hand stitching the binding.

Step 2

I finished the top! Now I just have to layer it, quilt it, and done.
I have budgeted about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to do all that. Ha! I do like to dream.... and it needs a name - any suggestions?

A Work in Progress

Scroll down, I've been working on it!

June 19, 07
It is soooo hard to sew at this time of year. As nice as my new sewing room is, it is still in the basement and I can't see outside. But I have to be diligent and get this thing done for fall. So here is where it is at. It doesn't look like much, and there is not that much to do, theoretically. It is for my Quilt in a Day project. So I thought if I posted it, maybe that would spur me on to work on it. Even if the garden does need to be weeded...







As you can see, it is no small task.

June 27, 07

Ok, ok - it took a few days but I finally made it downstairs and spent some time quilting. Not a lot, but then, I don't need to do a lot. I didn't add up the time I spend sewing the blocks yet, because the phone kept ringing and I couldn't get a decent chunk of time in. Sewing is one thing you can't do while you are on the phone. Ironing yes, sewing no.

So I worked for a bit, seems to me it was about an hour and made these blocks. Then about 40 minutes later I had them sewn into strips. Then I had to quit because it was so flipping cold in the basement I had to come upstairs and warm up. Besides, it was time to think about making supper. View the completed top here.

So it was a good day. Less than 2 hours on the quilt, and I still managed to get a ton of weeding done. There is always weeding to do. Always. Well, except when there is snow on the ground...

UFQs (Unfinished Quilts)

Well, some of these are unfinished and will stay that way, some I am working on, and some I just plain forgot I had begun!

This Three Little Piggies quilt is my own design entirely, and it was a very good lesson in value of prints. Because so many of the fabrics are medium and medium dark, the lovely apple tree blends too much into the house and the bricks are a little wild! Did you notice the wolf's tail peeking out from behind the house? This quilt looks much nicer in the photo than in real life! It is about 2' x 3', unfinished.

I loved this pansy fabric and tried to use it as the focal print in this quilt. Yikes. What I thought were medium tone fabrics actually turned out to be darks and while I had good contrast in some spots, the overall effect was quite harsh. Another lesson learned the hard way. Maybe one day I will finish this, but it is only about 4 ' wide and I can't see it ever being a nice quilt.

I love the garden trellis look. I made this so long ago I do not remember my inspiration. But the overall effect is really nice. This is just a little practice piece about 12" x 18", and includes some fabrics I dyed myself.

How can you not love Snail's Trail? It draws your eye from one place to the next and the pattern just pops out at you. The interesting thing about making it is that you don't see the pattern at all until you put the blocks together. As you can see, there are black and white blocks and dark/light blue blocks. The swirling pattern develops when they are placed side by side. I just had to make a little something with it when I discovered it, but can't imagine making a large quilt with it.

If you squint at the picture, you really get a sense of the swirls. This piece is about 12" x 16".

Finally, a quilt I am working on. The top is done, I just have to quilt it. This design is from Barbara Johannah's book called Crystal Piecing (Chilton 1993) and like the Snail's Trail, I just had to try it.

The colours are not too clear, it is a lovely black with gold pattern for the background fabric, and the rings are taupe and an olive green. It is a lap sized quilt, or could fit a twin bed.

Barbara Johanna has been a great inspiration to me - she thinks like I do and invents her own way of doing things. This quilt was easy and turned out well, it just looks distorted because of how I have it taped to the wall! I am working on another one of the same pattern with bigger blocks in pinks and blue. Watch for it by the end of the summer. It is one I am considering for my Quilt in A Day Marathon workshop.

Update August 07 - After making two in this pattern, (this was plan B) I had to choose a quicker pattern. View plan A here (sampler), plan C here (windmill), and plan D (Irish chain), the final choice here. Yep, don't like to sew in summer, and I end up making 6 quilts. Well, they are not all finished, but none the less, I spent a big chunk of time in the basement. And I will finish them......

Quilted projects

Not everything that is quilted must be a quilt! Here are placemats I made for Neil & Meghan to match the art in their dining room (from Bombay) and their dinnerware. Thanks for the pictures, Meghan.

This is a little placemat or table runner I made while showing Janice how to do quilt-as-you-go with some blocks I had from a block swap. It measures about 12" x 18".

I made this vest about 8 years ago. I love it because I can wear all of my favorite colours with it: purple, green, black, white and even pink. The miniature Ohio Stars from the front are echoed in a large one on the back. I thought this would be a weekend project but took much longer to piece (and had many more pieces) than I originally thought it would.

Here is a perfect example of how NOT to store a quilted item. It has been folded in half, sitting on top a china cabinet with the sun hitting the fabric where it is exposed in the winter. You can see how it is faded along the fold. Rats. The green in this is the same fabric used in Samantha's quilt. There is also some of it in my vest, and in my Three Little Piggies quilt on my UFQ page.

Treat your quilts with care. This is only about 25" square. It cannot ever be restored to a nice condition! If it was a full size quilt, that would be a real shame.

Wedding Quilts

I have only made two quilts for wedding gifts, one for each of my sons and their brides. A picture of Scott and Tara's is on the way. This is a pic of the cake I did for Kelly and Matt on June 2nd.

Neil and Meghan's is not actually a quilt, but a duvet cover for a king sized duvet. It is a little big for their current bed, so a good chunk of it is hanging over the edge, out of view. Here is a draft picture of the entire quilt, made with little pieces of fabric I used in my planning stages. You can see I changed the pattern a little from inception to completion, as I could not get enough of one of the fabrics.

Scott and Tara's Quilt.... Tara wanted a black and ivory quilt so this is their quilt. It looks simple enough but has about 1000 pieces.

I found the colours plain to work with, but the end result was quite stunning.

Thanks for the picture, Scott.

Other Quilts

After seeing a jigsaw pattern at my favorite local quilt shop, Quiltessential I was inspired to make this quilt for my mom. The original pattern is by E Quilt Patterns, you can see my inspiration at their site. I even quilted it using a jigsaw puzzle pattern, see the detail picture close-up to see what I mean.







A little fun - if you want to check it out, here is why I made this quilt. A little "While You Were Out" type of thing. Thanks Jim for the website.
This is not actually a quilt, but a pieced duvet (doona for my Aussie friends) cover.




This is a birthday quilt I made for Tara, featuring footprints (Bear's Paw pattern) in recognition of her studies of the genetics of the weasel family.



Right now I am working on designing a course for a Quilt in a Day workshop. This one is a sampler style that was a little too ambitious, so I have to re-do the whole thing with another pattern. Nice effect overall, but I didn't plan on a 24 hour day!

I will be doing the Quilt in a Day course in November 2007 through Sturgeon County Community Programs. To find out more, visit their website and click on Community Programs. (The course will not be listed until late summer.)

Meghan's Quilt, made to commemorate her graduation from U of A. She had picked the pale green earlier and we could not find anything we liked to coordinate with it at the time.

This quilt was made with fabric my mom picked up in Fiji in 1957 and just had sitting around, not sure what it might be good for as the colours are sooooo bright! I figured about all I could safely add was black and white.


Neil's quilt, made with one of my favorite patterns, Bear's Paw. It is well used! Just what I like to see - that's what quilts are for.

Charity Quilts

I have made several quilts and donated them to fundraising events for the Lurana Shelter in Edmonton. Sadly, I cannot find pictures for some of them, but here are some photos of three of them.
If you bought the beautiful butterfly one I made, I'd love to have a picture of it! This little clip is all I have.



The picture does not do justice to this I Spy quilt with almost 100 fabrics. It does not accurately reflect the colour wheel effect as the colours are not true, but you get the idea I hope. This is a crib sized quilt.






The bold colours in this tumbling block quilt were chosen to highlight the 3D effect. It is made with a modified pattern, using no diamonds at all. It was a snap to sew. This too is a crib quilt and I hope some little guy is cuddling under it.


This is my most recent charity quilt, finished in the spring of 2007 for the Franciscan Sisters Benevolent Society Avenue of Hope Gala. It is made with fabrics purchased in support of breast cancer research and fits a twin bed (shown on a double bed). I also made a matching pillowcase and throw cusion for a complete ensemble. I was really pleased with this one and hear it was a popular item at the silent auction.



I plan to do a blue one for the fall, if all goes well this summer.... there are lots of projects on the burner right now and the garden is calling me.