FEELING CHATTY

The other day, a woman came into the shop and I sort of recognized her.  She looked a little surprised and said "is this YOUR shop?"   I told her it was, and she said "well you're the reason I'm knitting!"
Now it was my turn to look surprised.  She proceeded to tell me that several years ago one of her sons was heading to Guatemala on a missions trip and I donated a bunch of baby quilts and little knitted hats to match for the orphanage down there.  After seeing the impact it had on the people working there, she decided she needed to learn how to quilt.  She said with a laugh "well THAT didn't work, so I took up knitting".  Suddenly I felt like Mrs. McArthur    It was really nice to know that something I did and had totally forgot about had made an impact on someone else.  Quilting matters. Knitting matters.  But most of all, giving of our time and talent matters.

I got some happy mail yesterday!  These blocks arrived for my knitty quilt from Mary

I just love them.  Thank you Mary!

They tie in perfectly with my block and I just can't wait to get this quilt together  : )
I've got all kinds of words going through my head, but the wall in the shop where it will go is only so big.  Once again I will have to demonstrate some self control..............

Have a lovely week end,
Carla

METRO AREA MONTH 8

Happy April !  Hurray for warmer weather and all the 'happy' that spring brings : )  I hope you are enjoying sewing these blocks as much as I am.  Some are more challenging, but fun just the same.

Pinks and reds this month.  It turns out red is really hard to photograph.  It turns bright orange or some other weird colour, but you get the idea anyway

I'm zooming in for a close up here because I was really happy with my points on this block.  Pressing the seams open helped with all that bulk

Little 1" squares.  Love them

I am off to work again : )

Have a lovely week end
Carla

BLOCKS BEHAVING BADLY ( AKA METRO AREA)

Here we are at month number 3 in the Patchwork City block of the month at Katja's Quilt Shoppe.

For whatever reason these few blocks caused me some trouble.

This one needed ALL the stitch rippers..........and chocolate  : )

the other two went together alright

Then there was this one.  I cut the large triangle the wrong size twice!  I blame the fact I was sewing in a dimly lit hotel room while my hubby recovered from eye surgery. After all that, the cat is upside down. I'm leaving it

By now, we are getting quite a nice pile of black and white scraps. This will allow for lots of choices if you want to change things up a bit

Here they are all together.  I am loving that plum colour.
Hopefully I can get the next month's together with no mistakes : )

Enjoy your week

A CHURN DASH FLIMSY

All the blocks arrived from my bee mates in the Joy group of do.good stitches.  In the evenings, between periods of hockey I managed to get the top together

This is the second time I've made a quilt like this. Different size churn dashes make it more fun I think

I dug through my backing pile and found this green print from STOF

Hopefully I can get this done soon and sent off to Vickey  : )
Have a great week end!

linking up with My Quilt Infatuation

A FINISHED X AND PLUS QUILT

This quilt started last fall when Cindy contacted me about being her partner for an x and + swap that Carla and Susan were starting. I immediately said yes and we set about choosing our colour palette. I couldn't find our inspiration picture when writing this post, but perhaps Cindy will have it.

We decided on 64 blocks. Each month we made 4 pair of blocks. 4 to keep and 4 to trade.  It was so much fun getting them in the mail each month because her fabrics were so different from mine  : )
Today is the day for the reveal

My quilt

The blocks were sewn together randomly which resulted in some lighter areas but that's ok. I had fun just grabbing the next block and sewing it on.
While quilting this, I was thinking of where I might go for a little photo shoot. I knew of a small waterfall that my son has taken pictures of and I asked him if he could take me there.  His reply was "I think you could make it"

So...........channeling my inner 'mountain goat',  off we went.

There is much less water right now so we didn't get too wet.......

Seeing as how we traded blocks every month, I knew when I saw this fabric that it would make the perfect backing. It's called  '8 days a week' by Windham fabrics. The binding is a scrappy mix of leftover turquoise bits.

I'm super happy that I joined in this swap. I just love this quilt! Thank you Cindy for being such an awesome partner.

I'm linking up today with Lollyquiltz where you can see more x and + quilts made by others who partnered up

quilt stats:
58 x 58
pieced by Cindy and me
quilted by me

linking up with finish it up Friday