Saturday, August 31, 2019

Kingfisher Stitch-Along quilt top finished

Kingfisher Stitch-Along quilt top 

It's done! About a year late, but it's done....well at least the quilt top is done 😊

I'm just posting a quick update for the One Monthly Goal (OMG) Finish link-up.

I'm really thrilled with the quilt. It is a little longer and wider than expected because when I sewed the diamonds together, I managed to sew two of them in the wrong place. Finally I only had to un-stitch one diamond and add two more to get it to a finished top.

Close-up of the quilt top

It's done!
It does need to be ironed but since I'm not ready to make the sandwich and quilt it yet, it's only going to get wrinkled again.
Looking pretty 😊

A final picture - say cheese!
What I learned
Hexies with flower

  • I knew that I wouldn't finish the quilt within the time frame of the Stitch-Along, but it was fun to see everyone making their quilts.
  • I was very intimidated by putting the diamonds together. It was easier than I thought but working at an angle instead of straight up or across did confuse me more than once. I'm sure that's why I made a mistake sewing them together.
  • I'd like to make another quilt with diamonds again. They looks so wonderful and it would be great to be comfortable working with them.
  • I love free motion quilting but I really, really dislike getting the quilt ready, so until I get the energy to make the quilt sandwich (on this and a couple more quilts), it's going to remain a quilt top. 
  • Last two hexies
  • However, I've got all of these ideas about how to FMQ it, so it may happen soonish!

Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking up to One Monthly Goal August Finish as well as several other linky parties. Let's join the fun! Wondering CameraCan I Get A Whoop Whoop?Finished or Not Finished Friday, UFO Busting, Favorite Finish Monthly linkupOh Scrap!Monday MakingMoving It Forward, What I Made Monday, Midweek Maker, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party,


Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Hexies on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks (Week 244)

Enjoying some relaxing time outside
I'm on a resting holiday. That means sleeping a lot (up to 12 hours a day!), reading, quilting, and a little bit of gardening and blogging. So far I've managed to keep it relatively quiet except for my felting miss-adventure (see Related posts below).

I'm working on piecing one UFO and I did finish my Kingfisher Stitch-Along quilt top. I'll write a post before the end of the week since that was my July and August OMG.

Since I haven't done any free motion quilted (FMQ) this week, here are some great hexies that I'm working on for the #100hexies100days2019 on Instagram, hosted by Sew Foxy Mama (@sewfoxymama).

Here are weeks 4 to 6. We are now on Week 9 and I just have to post them - almost caught up!

Week 4: Starts with B
I had a lot of fun taking pictures of these hexies at work. Even my co-workers got in on the fun!

B is for Bench
B is for Bescherelle
(from my high school days!)













B is for Ball (my colleague's)






B is for books
(thank goodness not mine!)














B is for a very proud Beaver


B is for Binder and Box















B is for BAHHHHH
(That's an old postcard from the Twist Fibre Festival)

Week 5: Rainbow
A rainbow on the Gauguin Portraits exhibition
catalogue since my daughter and I spent so
much time there for her school class.





A rainbow in front of our
paint pouring masterpieces

















Week 6: Adventure
What does adventure mean? For me it's road trips,
trying new quilting techniques or enjoying a great book

Adventure among the flowers


The golf hexie is for my husband :-)
Related links
Linking parties
I will be linking up to many fun linky parties. Let's see what others are up to! And don't forget to link up to Free Motion Mavericks. Tuesday Colour Linky PartyMidweek MakersNeedle & Thread Thursday, Moving It Forward, What I Made Monday, Wondering CameraCan I Get A Whoop Whoop?Finished or Not Friday, Oh Scrap!, Monday Making,

Free Motion Mavericks Link Up
Thank you for linking up last time. It's been quiet here so I hope that you're all having too much fun to FMQ (or post)!

Here is the lovely Fanny the Fancy Flamingo made by Chris at Chrisknitssews. If you didn't read how she solved her hanging challenge, make sure to read her post!

Fanny the Fancy Flamingo made by Chris at Chrisknitssews


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter

Sunday, August 25, 2019

A felting miss-adventure

Welcome - yes, I did have a felting miss-adventure last week but wasn't going to post about it until I had done something positive with part of my felted piece. I'm quick to admit to mistakes learning moments but I love happy endings 😉

Festival de la fibre TWIST
Festival de la fibre TWIST
They always have the best postcards!

It all started when I attended the TWIST fibre festival last Friday with a fellow fibre artist. The yearly festival occurs in Saint-André-Havellin in Quebec, about an hour away from Ottawa. I had wanted to attend for years now and was thrilled to go with someone who could take me along.

It was a beautiful day and there were both artists and vendors - of pretty much anything fibre. I bought some beautiful roving, a little bit of yarn and a few fat quarters. It was very busy but manageable. I even met a couple of fellow Quilt Guild members. It was a great day.

In the afternoon, we attended a demonstration of a Felted ruffle collar by Anna Mathis of Ploome Fibre Arts. In 45 minutes, Anna completed a beautiful felted collar with ruffles. She was really interesting, full of energy and made it sound so simple!


Angora fibres all in place

Anna working hard to felt it

Pulling the felted collar to make the ruffles

Trying out the felted ruffled collar
Felting miss-adventure

Can you tell where this story is going?

The angora ready to be felted
On Monday I decided that I wanted to try out some wet felting. Anna had made it sound so easy!

I should have started with a smaller project but I couldn't help myself. I wanted a felted ruffled collar, even if I couldn't wear it (I'm allergic to wool).

It started off well. I had bought some angora roving so I used a light pink for the base and a darker pink on top.
Starting to felt. Slowly massaging and then
getting more vigorous. 















This picture was taken before I got discouraged. After two hours of felting, I had to put things away to go to a meeting. The next morning I was at it again.


The results looks like something pink that the cat coughed up. I'm not being modest - it was scary!

I put it aside and worked on some of my other quilting projects. But I really wanted to create a piece with this mess, so that I had something to show for all of my trouble.

Here it is!

The finished block - the first square of my Exit Strategy piece.
I cut a strip from the felted piece and cut that down to one side (the purple strip was in the middle), and then I:
  • Needle felted on top of the scraggly felting. I used both the darker pink and the lighter pink.
  • Added some curly sheep bits to the edges.
  • Lined the purple strips with some yarn.
  • Beaded some amethyst and pink rose quartz along the purple strips.
  • Added more beads and then the Lotus Flower button.

I've attached the felted piece to the improvisational batik block that I made while doing the One Week Improv Challenge with Amy Ellis #improvwithamy. I continued making improv squares without knowing what would come of it. I'm now working on a project with these blocks, and this is my first one. I'll explain in another post.

What I learned
  • Someone said that experience is what you get, when you didn't get what you wanted (I had the posted in my room - always the cynical one). I got plenty of experience on this project....but I did end up making something, and learning, from my experience 😊
  • I believe that my mistake was not using enough angora roving. It just wasn't dense enough to felt, except in the middle.
  • In hindsight, I can't believe that I embarked on this miss-adventure. It's one thing for an expert to make something in a demo, but entirely something else to expect the same results the first time around.
  • I paid dearly for my experience. Today, six days later, I can almost walk normally. She wasn't kidding when she said to bend your knees! Since I'm on holidays, I used the time to rest and stretch, a lot!
  • I am really happy with my finished piece. It's a miss-adventure that ends well (and I have another two feet of the mess to play with!)
Related links
Linking parties
This is definitely a squirrel project, so I'll be linking up to DrEAMi! with MMM! quilts as soon as it opens as well as some great linky parties. Let's go see what others are up to! Slow Sunday Stitching,
Free Motion Mavericks with Muv, New to Me 2019, Monday Making, Moving It Forward, What I Made Monday, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Finished or Not Friday,


Thursday, August 15, 2019

Only 115 blocks left on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks link up (Week 242).

Only 115 blocks left to FMQ

Batik king-sized bed quilt
I don't think that you've seen this beauty since 2016! In July of that year, I only had 146 blocks left to quilt out of 169 (13 x 13).

I haven't posted about this project since then but I have photos from April 2018 of a few blocks that I FMQ at the time.

This is the king-sized quilt.

I counted the quilted blocks - from the back of the quilt, since that was much easier! That's when I learned that between last April and last night, I must have quilted 31 blocks. Yeah!

Here are some pretty blocks from April 2018.

FMQ flowers

Lovely ferns (or sea weeds)
Now for last night's blocks.

Curves and lots of echoing

Big and little boxes
What I learned
  • I probably shouldn't have FMQ last night - I was really tired. Some of the blocks were fine but a few were not very good. It's probably a good thing that these blocks are on the edge of the quilt. Let's face it, out of 169, a few are allowed to not be great. 
  • I've been FMQ a lot since 2016 and 2018 but FMQ a king-sized bed is really not the same. No matter where you are quilting and how careful you are, because of the size, there is a lot of drag. It took me about 3 blocks before I got in the groove - that's 2 blocks more than usual on anything else!
  • I'm going to keep at this quilt since I've noticed that one of the fabrics, in blocks that were not FMQ, is starting to tear. That particular fabric, in one of the middle blocks, has ripped and will need to be replaced. I'll show you how I'll be doing this in a later post. 
  • I originally stitched-in-the-ditch around each block, but since there are 5 pieces of fabric in each block, I should probably have stitched each seam. In my defense, I didn't expect it to take so long 😲
  • A few blocks were minimally quilted but I added them into the not-quilted count. As a learning exercise, waiting 3 years has taught me that these big blocks need to be FMQ all over, even if not densely. 
Related links
Linking parties
I will be linking up to these great linky parties. Let's check them out! Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Finished or Not Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Main Crush Monday, What I Made Monday, Moving It Forward, Design Wall Monday, Monday Making,

Free Motion Mavericks Link Up

Thank you for linking up last time. I hope that you are all enjoying the summer and getting a little bit of time to play with your free motion quilting!

Have you been following Dione, aka the Clever Chameleon's Love with a Twist free BOM? It's all about balloon animals and Dione's patterns are so cute. Make sure to check out her giraffes as well as her other blocks😊


You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter

Thursday, August 01, 2019

Quilting with a walking foot on Throwback Thursday

Welcome to Throwback Thursday (TBT) link-up for August. I'm co-hosting for Sandra of mmm! quilts this month. If you're looking for Free Motion Mavericks, click here!

First Sampler Quilt Using a Walking Foot

I believe that this is one of the first sampler quilts that I made to practice using my walking foot. It was supposed to be a cuddle quilt for pre-mature babies, however it turned out incredibly stiff. Even my brother's dog Boots wasn't interested in lying down on it!

Sampler quilt quilted with a walking foot
It was made with flannel and a thin batting. I recognize the star blocks since I made a few Christmas runners using those blocks.
It would make a better mat than a blanket!
This is the back. I got to be pretty handy with the walking foot before I finally got my Jag (my awesome Jenome)
Quilting from the back
It may be too stiff to lie down on but Chevy is always ready for a photo op!

Chevy doesn't lie down on it either!
What I learned
  • I'm not really sure why the quilt was so stiff, but now if I'm going to use flannel, I usually only use it for either the front or the back. I know that I made another one what turned out fine - but I'm not sure what I did, since it was donated a long time ago.
Linking parties
I will be linking up to several linking parties. It seems to be a little quiet out there...I suspect that the heat this year is slowing everyone down. Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers,  Finished or Not FridayNeedle & Thread ThursdayCan I Get A Whoop Whoop?Friday Foto Fun, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Monday Making, Main Crush Monday, Moving It Forward

Throwback Thursday (TBT) Link-up




You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter