Back From Vacation

My daughter and I had a wonderful vacation in London and Paris!  It was the first time either of us had ever been there, so it was a grand adventure!  Here are the two of us at the Eiffel Tower.  (I'm the one on the left, LOL)

The weather was fantastic - it only rained for one morning.  We were on a tour, so spent some time on buses with a guide pointing out all of the sites while we clicked our cameras out the window.  When I came home and started sorting through my 500 photos, I found that I couldn't remember what many of them were!  "Here's an old building."   "Here's another old building."  DD and I will just have to go back again for a refresher!

We managed to see many of the tourist sites - Windsor Castle, The Tower of London. Westminster Abbey, the Louvre, the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. We mastered the Tube.  We saw a show. Unfortunately, Kate and William must have missed the memo that we were coming, as they were not in residence in Kensington Castle when we arrived.

But now back to reality and back to work!  And, just a little bit - back to quilting.  I finished my July Craftsy BOM block, and that's about all that I did in the last month!

Another first for me - I've never made tumbling blocks before.  These ones had an easy trick - you can see the seam in the lightest blocks - this allowed them to be all sewn together in strips, instead of sewing with Y seams.  Pretty slick!

Why am I Quilting When I Should be Building an Ark?

It has been raining and raining here.  Rivers are flooding.  Roads are being washed out.  It's not as bad in Calgary as in some of the surrounding towns.  We're so close to the mountains that when there is a big rain, the effect is multiplied by the run-off.



But we're high and dry here, just watching it come down.  The biggest tragedy for me is that the guild meeting tonight was cancelled!

I've been working on my Craftsy Block of the Month blocks. As I mentioned in my last post, the June block had Y seams, which I have never done before.  Well, I have to tell you  - Laura's instructions were so complete, that I had no problem at all.  The seams met up exactly where they should!

Here are May's:

and here is June:

Well, off I go to the basement quilt studio.

It's a Beautiful Day for... a Day Off!

It has been pretty rainy and miserable the last few weeks - which is quite normal for Calgary this time of year.  We really don't get any nice summer weather until July.

So, when I planned to take today off from work, I wasn't holding out too much hope.  But it is a pretty nice day, so far.  Rain is predicted for later on, but I will enjoy it while I can.  So far, hubby and I have made a trip to the bank and to Timmies - nice and relaxing.

I've been working on a baby quilt for my new grand-nephew.  It's an I spy quilt of sorts - I used charm squares with various pictures on them, and sashed them with a greenish fabric.

It looks grey here, but it is a sage green.  Now, I plan on trimming the sides so it is square, and quilting it up with a quick all over pattern.  I had toyed with the idea of leaving the sides all zigzag.  Then I thought about binding all of those corners - on a quilt that will be dragged around and washed 100 times - and decided that I'd leave zigzags for another project.

I'm also working on the Craftsy BOM blocks for May and June.   June's block includes Y seams.  Believe it or not  - 14 years quilting and I've never done Y seams.  Laura, the instructor, demonstrates them really well, so it's a good opportunity to try them.

If you haven't looked at the Craftsy BOM, I highly recommend it.  It is intended to be done by a new quilter, so some of the concepts she shows are pretty basic, but I have to admit that I have learned a few things over the course of the last 6 months.  And it's free!  I don't know if I'll put the quilt together using the layout that she has planned, but, for now, I'm having fun putting the blocks together, and looking at the other blocks and comments.

Sew Sunday / March A Long Report

I had plans for my week off.  Oh, I had big plans.  Now, it's the last day of said week, and I did not accomplish anywhere near what I wanted to accomplish.

I listen to Pam's "Hip to Be a Square" Podcast regularly, and follow her blog.  Take a look at her blog sometime.  That woman is amazingly fast when it comes to completing quilts.  Suffice it to say, she completed more this week than I did - and she was working full time, whereas I was off!

But, I'm not complaining, really I'm not.  I enjoy taking my time, and enjoying the process.  It's not a race.

So, here is my weekly March A Long progress report.

Monday:
I thought I had finished up the hourglass units.  Then, I put them in rows, and found out (surprise!) that 208 units don't make a good rectangle.  Turns out I needed 32 more.

Tuesday:
Made 32 more hourglass units.

Wednesday:
Sewed the hourglass units together.  Here they all are.

I put them together totally randomly.  That was a bit of a gamble for me - usually, I plan out the placeement of even my scrappiest quilts.  But this is going on the back, so I went for it.  The lights and darks aren't evenly distributed, but it doesn't look bad.  This piece is about 80 inches by 30 inches - the size of a small quilt all by itself!

Thursday:
Sewed the rest of the backing together and sandwiched it.

Friday:
I always have to procrastinate at this point, because I usually have no idea how I am going to quilt the quilt, and I'm terrified of mucking it up.  So, Friday was the day I did inventory of my sewing room.

Saturday:
Still procrastinating - I did the March Craftsy BOM Block.

This one is pretty busy!  It was fun to make, and Laura Nownes gave a really good lesson on drafting HST's and QST's in the video part of the lesson.

And, I finally started quilting the Sand and Sea Glass quilt!  Yay!

That's my report, Scientific Quilter, Sir!  And I'm linking up with Darla, the Scientific Quilter for March A Long.

And now, for Sew Sunday.  I've got my housework and grocery shopping done, so I can spend a couple hours in the sewing room.  And, now that I've made the big leap to start quilting Sand and Sea Glass, it should be much easier to continue.  So, that is my plan for this afternoon.

And I'm linking up with Mary at Fairly Merry and Sew Sunday.

February Fade Out

But now I'm marching into March!

I did really well with the Drop and Give Me Twenty challenge - for the first half of the month.  I finished the Freebie Fifteen (Sand and Sea Glass) top.

I bought new fabric for the backing, that is perfect!  But, I haven't started quilting it yet.

I made this cute ironing board cover.

This ultra cute potholder!

And my February blocks for the Craftsy BOM

That is WAYYY more productive than my usual month!

So, now it's March, and Darla, at Scientific Quilter is hosting her annual (well, she did it last year, and she's doing it again so that makes it annual, right?) March A Long.  Her challenge is to do something quilt related for at least 15 minutes a day.  But, she's not intimidating about it - if all you do is think about quilting, that's good too.  If you're interested, head on over to Darla's and leave a comment.

And, so far this month, I've finished another pot holder.   Don't ask me why.  I don't NEED a new potholder.  But, the cupcake one was fun, and I had a little thermore batting left, so decided to whip this one up.

I straight line quilted it with a decorative stitch on my machine.  I've never tried that before, but it turned out pretty well, I think.

We're off on a little vacation for a week, so my March A Long activities will consist of magazine reading, podcast listening and shopping!  See you in about 8 days!

February 4

I took a break from the Freebie Fifteen tonight, and worked on the Craftsy February Block.

This one had a set in seam.  There are a LOT of first time quilt makers in this class.  I didn't do a set in seam until my third or fourth quilt.  I'm guessing it is going to be pretty intimidating for the beginners!

The orange is  my focus fabric.  It does have blues and greens in the design, although you can't see them so well in the photo.  I plan to use it in each of the blocks in the quilt.  Hopefully, it will have a unifying effect.

We made three of these.

Linking up with Craftsy and with Quilting Hottie Haven:

Craftsy January Block

Well, I've finished the January block in the Craftsy 2013 Block of the Month.  Laura, the instructor, is starting out nice and slow, and from the comments on the course, there are many beginners, so that is a good thing.

Here are mine.

I forget what she calls them.  Something like wonky log cabin, or uneven log cabin - in any event, the light strips are 1 1/2 inch wide and the pink strips are 2 1/2 inches wide.

One thing I really like with the instructions are that she gives the size of the block at each step in the process. So, you can check your piecing before you get to the end and find out your finished block is 1/2 inch too big or too small!  For this block, of course, it's easy to figure out yourself, but I found that really frustrating when I was working on the Freebie Fifteen blocks.  You were working with squares that were, say, 3 5/16, cut on the diagonal twice and sewn to other pieces, and set on the diagonal, and you had no idea what size they were to end up!  All you designers out there, keep that in mind!  Tell us the measurements at each stage in the construction, please!

Craftsy 2013 Block of the Month

I've decided to join in the Craftsy Block of the Month this year.  It is taught by the famous Laura Nownes, co-author of "Quilts Quilts Quilts".  Looking at her picture, above, she must have been 12 when she wrote that book.

In any event, the blocks look interesting - starting with the very basic, but working up to some techniques that I have never done - i.e. Y seams.  One month is tumbling blocks, and another is a Lemoyne star.  I can't believe I haven't ever done either of those, but there you go.  

I'm hoping to make it completely from my stash.  I pulled some fabric last night.

The instructions call for 2 yards of background (I'm using a white) and a whopping 33 quarter yards of various prints.  When looking at the cutting guide, though, some of those quarter yards are used to cut, say, a 7 inch square.  If you're not using 33 different fabrics, I really don't think you need all that much.  At least, I hope not. 

The top fabric is an Amy Butler print that I'm using as a focus fabric.  I've got a metre of that, and plan to put a bit of it in every block.  Then I've got about a metre of the stripey and the dotty fabrics, and smaller amounts of all the others.

Are you doing this Block of the Month?