Thursday, October 24, 2019

Nifty Novelties Blog Hop at Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 252 of Free Motion Mavericks and the opening day of Nifty Novelties Blog Hop, hosted by Marian of Seams to be Sewn. Marian has obtained some great giveaways, so please read below.

Paddington Bear visits Nifty Novelties Blog Hop 

Last fall on Throwback Thursday for October, my daughter reminded me of my promise to make her a Paddington Bear quilt. I promptly bought the fabrics, and then all kinds of art quilting deadlines happened! I've got a good idea of the quilt's design but I have a couple more quilts to do before I can get to this one. The Nifty Novelties Blog Hop was the perfect excuse to make her a Paddington Bear book mini until I get the real quilt done.

Paddington Bear book block mini
Here is a close-up of the book cover
Paddington came with us to a fancy restaurant tonight and became acquainted with my daughter 😊 I'm happy to report that Paddington Bear was on his best behaviour and my daughter loves her mini!

Paddington Bear among the fresh green sprouts
These are the novelty Paddington Bear fabrics
that I bought last fall. They come from around the world!



I hope that you'll visit the other participants in the Nifty Novelties Blog Hop. The links are at the bottom of this very long post!

Giveaway




Marian of Seams to be Sewn has received a whole bunch of fat quarters for the Nifty Novelties Blog Hop. I'm hoping that Rafflecopter will be easy to use. The giveaway is a Timeless Treasures Fabric Bundle. You can find the raffle details on Marian's post. BTW, I will pay for the shipping of the bundle for the winner of my post 😊.
Update - Dix in Canada is the winner of this Timeless Treasures Fabric Bundle. Thanks to everyone for leaving a message and Marian for organising all of this.

What I learned
  • I was going to appliqué the Paddington Bear pieces without using anything behind them (my usual way!) but it became obvious that I needed some kind of stabilizer. I decided to use the Crafted Appliqué technique. It was perfect for this project.
  • I stitched the pieces to the front of the book cover with Kimono silk thread without a problem but then had major tension issues with the FMQ. At least the tension was so bad that I was able to pull most of the thread out without effort. This is the first time that this has happened - I think my Jag is due for a tune up.
Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking this sweetheart at many linky parties. Also, don't be shy. Join us with Free Motion Mavericks this week. Your project doesn't have to be free motion quilted. Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off The Wall Friday, Friday Foto Fun, Monday Making, Moving It Forward, Design Wall Monday,

Project details
Paddington Bear book block mini
7½" x 8½"
Techniques: foundation paper pieced, crafted appliqué technique, FMQ
Material: cotton








Free Motion Mavericks
There were some lovely projects linked up last time. Quilting Gail finished a 2008 UFO from a Japanese star stack and whack class that she attended. Here is a close up of the piecing. If you didn't see it last time, take a few minutes to visit. 
Quilting Gail's Japanese star stack and whack quilt
Quilting Gail's Japanese star stack and whack quilt

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

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Thursday, October 24
Quilting and Learning - What a Combo (you are here!)
Days Filled With Joy
Life in the Scrapatch
Bumbleberry Stitches

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Wednesday, October 16, 2019

More hexie play

Can you believe that October is half done? The leaves here are really starting to change and the weather is turning cold and wet. I may have to put my sandals away soon 😞

More of 100 hexies in 100 days (#100hexies100days2019)

The official party was over last week, but I finally finished putting my hexies together and posted my last few weeks on Instagram. Better late than never!

As always, it was a lot of fun. I got side-tracked a lot, but then that's pretty much my normal state of being. My last hexie post went up to week 6. So here is the rest of the lovely hexies. You will find the links to my previous posts in Related links below.

Week 7 - Japanese
Week 7 - my Japanese fabrics





















Week 8 - Sewer's Choice
Looking through my scraps, I found a bunch of fabric with polka dots and circles. I love the way that the centre circle looks like alien eyes peering out!
Week 8 - Sewer's Choice - polka dots and circles!
Week 9 - I Spy

There was a lot of fun fabrics here: a bench, a cactus, a cyclist and sailboat to a rabbit and a rain cloud.
I spy some outside fun
I spy a turtle on a rock!














Week 10 - Berry Cute

I knew that Week 10 would be problematic because I have very few berry fabrics. I was happy to see someone post some holly and berries - at least I had some of those. The others are cherries and an orange tree.
Very Berry fabric (with bugs!)
Week 10 - some berries and fruits


















Week 11 - Sewing Notions
I took the pictures of the Week 9 to 11 hexies at my brother's cottage. It was so much fun running around with my hexies! I even met his neighbour whose chicken the sign is about!
Chicken crossing sign

Sewing notions on a log
























Week 12 - Vintage
One picture of some vintage flower fabric!

Week 12 - Funky vintage flowers
Week 13 - Creatures
By now my holiday was over and back to work I went. At least I had some fun with the photo shoot in my cube!
Week 13 - Many fun creatures

Creatures among the polar bears

Funky art and cute creatures
Week 14 - Favourites
I decided that I needed some batiks in this mix since I love to work with them - they are so colourful!
Week 14 - some of my favourite fabrics - Batiks!

Batiks posing in front of my
mother's old sewing machine



















Week 15 - Playful
I found some lovely, playful fabric for this last week. Of course, they deserved a playful photo shoot!

Week 15 - lots of playful fabrics 😊
Can we get more playful?





















My mother's snowman
What I learned
  • Participating in this event is always a lot of fun, but it does require work, especially to keep up.
  • As always, the photo shoots are a huge part of the fun.
  • It's weird how some days I want nothing to do with computers and Instagram - that's why I'm often late in posting.
  • I love seeing other participants' hexies. It's always so creative.
  • I'm looking forward to another fun year in 2020. Thanks Sew Foxy Mama (@sewfoxymama)!
Related links
Linking parties
As always, I'll be participating in all kinds of fun linky parties. Let's find out what's trending in quilty blog land! This week is Muv's turn to host Free Motion Mavericks and I've linked up. Make sure that you link up your post, even if it's not FMQ related! Slow Sunday Stitching, Oh Scrap!, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Moving It Forward Monday, What I Made Monday, Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Needle & Thread Thursday,

I've also linked up to Meadow Mist Designs' Favourite Finish Monthly Link up for October and Whims and Fancies' Wandering Camera.

On Thursday, please join me for Free Motion Mavericks and the Nifty Novelties Blog Hop.

Have a great week!
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Thursday, October 10, 2019

Fantastical book block on Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome back to Free Motion Mavericks. This is Week 250! Isn't that amazing? Most of those weeks were hosted by Muv of Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing. Congrats!

Creating a fantastical book block

Since the last Free Motion Mavericks that I hosted, I worked on the appliqué book block. It started off as this, and had morphed into this (so far) →
The original foundation
paper pieced block
Adding some appliqué















Here's a look at the process.

I went through my stash of fun fabrics and came up with this layout.
Laying out the pieces


The next part was to sew it all down. I did use a little bit of glue to hold some of the pieces down before sewing them down with the darning or free motion foot.

Stitching them down 













It was then time to free motion quilt it.

If you're noticing a similarity in style with some of my other art quilts it's because the recipient of this one wanted it in the style of Morning Has Broken. You can check it out in the related links below.

Fantastical book is in the
style of Morning Has Broken

You can see the details of the image better in this photo.
A close-up of what's on the cover of the fantastical book









What I learned
  • When I started taking fabrics out to audition, I was surprised by how small the space to fill was. I usually work with larger pieces, about 20"- 24". It made the choosing of fabrics more challenging.
  • When I sew things down, I'm never sure how much to actually stitch it since I will then be quilting it. That's always such a subjective thing - and sometimes I get carried away with the stitching before the quilting.
  • To sew the pieces down and to free motion quilt (FMQ) I used mostly polyester thread since these are the colours that matched the most. I'm still working on my collection of cotton thread, but really, I didn't see the difference, especially for a small project. In my opinion, the colour is more important than the type of thread, unless of course I'm using silk. 😊
Related links
Linking parties
I will be linking up to many fun linky parties. I also hope that you link up below with Free Motion Mavericks! Put your foot down, Needle & Thread, Midweek Makers,
Colour and Inspiration Tuesday, Moving It Forward, Off the Wall, Finished or Not Finished Friday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Peacock Party, Oh Scrap!, Monday Making, Design Wall Monday, Moving It Forward Monday, What I Made Monday, Colour and Inspiration Tuesday,

Free Motion Mavericks

We've had some great link ups here last time. I'm really sorry to say that the last two weeks were so crazy here that I didn't have time to check out everyone's posts until writing this up. I'm really looking forward to our Canadian Thanksgiving weekend to catch up on my blog reading and replying to your comments.

Last time, Laura of Slice of Pi went totally out of her comfort zone to make a quilted cell phone clutch, with a Kraft-Tex flap. It really is stunning - and the clutch is quilted! If you haven't read about her experience making this, you really need to read it!



You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!
Click here to enter
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Thursday, October 03, 2019

Hand-quilted pillow on Throwback Thursday

Welcome to Throwback Thursday (TBT) link-up for October. I'm co-hosting for Sandra of mmm! quilts this month. I hope that you can join me in showcasing your pre-blogging era quilts.

Hand-quilted pillow

This pillow was one of my first hand-quilted projects, possibly around 2006. The front has a thin layer of batting and is hand-stitched in the ditch and outlines three butterflies. I made it during a class at our local quilt shop, Quilty Pleasures.

Hand-quilted pillow
 It has been well loved by my daughter and it matched the quilt that my mother made for her.
Hand-quilted butterfly motif
The fabric is quite faded but it washed up well. I just noticed that some of the quilting on the butterflies has come off. I'd better fix that!

October's One Monthly Goal (OMG)
Since this is a short post, I'm including my October OMG, which will be a pillow by the end of the month😊. I don't generally make pillows (these would be my only two) but I'm eager to start free motion quilting my Kingfisher Quilt. I had extra diamonds cut from the background batik, so a pillow will let me try out the motif I have in mind for the project. Hopefully the FMQ will work out - but either way, it should be a pretty pillow.
The front panel of the pillow-to-be



Pillow to match the
Kingfisher quilt

















Hopefully the FMQ will work out - but either way, it should be a pretty pillow.

Related links
Linking parties
I'll be linking up this post to several great linky parties, including, of course, the One Monthly Goal hosted by Patty of Elm Street Quilts. Let's go check them out! Moving It Forward, Tuesday Colour Linky Party, Needle & Thread Thursday, Put your foot down, Midweek Makers, Slow Sunday Stitching, Peacock Party, Beauties Pageant, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Finished or Not Finished Friday, What I Made Monday, Design Wall Monday, Monday Making, and Free Motion Mavericks with Muv.

Throwback Thursday (TBT) Link-up for October



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