Sunday, November 30, 2014

ONE OF THESE THINGS............

.............is not like the other, and Christmas is coming fast!  At the beginning of the year, I decided to knit socks for the girls' Christmas stockings.  This is where I am at



I've been knitting every chance I get to sit down, but I am still slow. I need to finish this one


I want all my girlies to have toasty toes this winter  : )




The black and white pair on the right is from my finish along list for quarter 4. Yay! So is the plumb pair, but I haven't got very far

These four quadrants


became this 24" block for the Heal group of do.good stitches


This was a fun block but very time consuming.  That completes my blocks for the four groups I'm in this month.
Now on to some Christmas sewing!!!

linking up with Wool on Sundays

Thursday, November 27, 2014

A SCRAPPY BABY FINISH

A bit of time in my sewing room this week allowed me to get this little quilt finished up.  It started with a charm pack of low volume prints to which I added very small scraps.


The inspiration was from the book 'Imagine Quilts'. I just resized the block


For the quilting I did wavy lines in a light grey thread


The backing is a flannel I bought about 4 years ago. The colours were right for this  : )



 It's not a big quilt at all, but I figure some baby will like it eventually


One more so you can see what I woke up to yesterday---10" of snow!!!

quilt stats:

pieced and quilted by me
A charm pack and scraps
27 1/2" x 34 1/2"

linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday
Finish It Up Friday

Monday, November 24, 2014

EVERYTHING OLD

While in Victoria recently I found this great shop tucked inside a little old house. Everything Old is a treasure trove of a bit of everything you can imagine. If they don't have it, they can likely get it  : )

The reason I went was because I had seen this collection on Instagram


My daughter has wanted an old camera for a long time. I told her if I ever saw one (within budget) I would grab it for her

We settled on this beauty


It's from the Eastman Kodak Company 1903-1912  complete with red bellows


all the little levers and buttons work


She thought it was pretty cool and plans on taking it to a camera shop to see if there might be a way of getting film for it

I picked up a few of these old printing blocks just because


This dress form caught my eye


You actually unhinge this in the front, put it on, press the wire to your shape, then take it off.
What a riot!

Everything Old is right by the ferry on the Victoria side. If you ever have a sailing wait, that is a great place to kill some time  : )

Now back to some sewing.


Thursday, November 20, 2014

A MINI QUILT

My little ice cream quilt has been gifted and was well received by the recipient. Apparently her daughter really liked it too  : )

Now it's on to another swap quilt

This one started with a picture in my head.  An old stone wall with a painted door


It's not a door unless it opens, so some iron hardware was added


out from the cracks in the wall sprang some little tiny flowers---as tiny flowers often do


and then someone leaned a bicycle against the wall. Perhaps to visit whoever lives behind the door.......

A little embroidery and some top stitching to finish this off and then I will show you the whole thing.

linking up with w.i.p. wednesday
ntt Thursday

Monday, November 17, 2014

SCRAPS FOR BABY

Not sure if you remember these little blocks.



It started with a quilt I saw in this book 'Imagine Quilts'


I played around with the size of block so I could use a charm pack of low volume prints that I had.
Also, the smallest of scraps were put to use here


Now I need to decide on some sashing. Well would you look at that! There is a blazing oops in one of the rows. Good thing they aren't sewn together yet   : )

Have yourself a lovely week end

Friday, November 14, 2014

NOVEMBER BEE BLOCKS

Three out of four groups have been taken care of so far this month. I need a certain solid to finish up the last one.

for the Humility circle of do.good stitches we did Churndash blocks.  I call these 'red and butter'


For the Joy circle of do.good stitches we made Friendship star blocks in wintery colours


and for Elizabeth in my Mid Century Modern group she asked for a Pineapple block.  This block isn't for the 'rushed' sewer   : )


foundation paper piecing makes it nice and straight


linking up to Needle and Thread Thursday

Monday, November 10, 2014

SCRAPS ON THE SHELF

This past week I worked on two projects so I would be able to link up with the Choose Your Own Block-Along with Cindy.  First up are these scrappy blocks.  Last time I showed you these they looked like this


and now.........


they are coming along nicely


If I did 25 blocks, my quilt would measure 70" square. That's some serious scrap busting   : )

Also I worked on my City Sampler blocks





I turned the page to work on the next one and discovered I was finished with that chapter. The next chapter deals with stripes so I think I will get lots of practice with my 1/4".......

What about you?  Do you have a project you are working on and need some encouragement? Why not link up  : )

linking up with Live a Colourful Life
Scraptastic Tuesday

Saturday, November 8, 2014

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

  Thanks to everyone who entered the give-away for the book 'The New Hexagon".  The first name the random number generator picked was Sharon. Amazingly enough, she won over at Linda's blog too.  Can you believe that?  She graciously told me I could choose another name and that was .......

Alcea Rosea 31

I have sent you an e-mail  and you will soon be making a pile of hexies all your own  : )



I replied to everyone that I could. If you didn't hear back from me, you are a no-reply blogger. I tried--I really did   : )


Wednesday, November 5, 2014

I SCREAM - YOU SCREAM

Business first: If you haven't yet entered my give-away you can do that here

Thank you to everyone who voted for my quilt. It made it into the viewers choice. Now it's voting time : )  If you care to cast a vote in the 'original design ' category, you can do that here

Last week I showed you a block for a quilt I was making for a swap.  I got the little quilt finished up.


I think it turned out pretty cute


These were foundation paper pieced.  The pattern was found here

This little one came about because about 100 years ago, I bought a piece of fabric with cherries on it because one day I might need it.  It took longer to find the fabric than it did to piece the ice cream cone.  Trust me



One little swap project down,  two to go : )
Thanks so much for stopping by

linking up with Quilt Story
Let's bee social
Needle and Thread Thursday

Sunday, November 2, 2014

THE NEW HEXAGON --A GIVEAWAY

GIVE-AWAY IS NOW CLOSED ******

Ok!  I've finally got my act together over here to tell you about this wonderful give away sponsored by Katja of Katja's Quilt Shoppe.  She wrote a book. A really lovely book.  She is fresh home from Quilt Market and still floating on cloud 9 so has offered to give away not 1, but 3 books.


Katja takes the humble hexagon to a whole new level in this book. Each 3" hexagon is divided into different shapes within the hexie to create the most amazing blocks.

And look, I have a block named after me  : )


At one time Katja offered this as a block of the week quilt along where each week for 52 weeks, we picked up instructions for these blocks. The blocks were named after some of the participants.

Starting in January, she is going to have a free online Millefiori quilt along using shapes from the book. It's going to be amazing!


Mille-fleur: a french term used to refer to a background composed of small flowers

To enter the give-away simply leave me a comment on this post.

To see more of what's in the book visit Linda and Margaret and enter for a chance to win there too!