Showing posts with label Fleur Woods. Show all posts

Thursday, January 22, 2026

Getting stuff done and I Quilted This!

Hello and welcome 😊 Has your winter started yet? Apparently the weather here is cold enough for the Rideau Canal to be open for skating - so it's officially winter in Ottawa. The weather inside my studio is lovely so stuff is getting done! My plans for 2026 are ambitious, but at least I'm working on them.

FMQ the Cowboy panel quilt (SAHRR 2025)

I stitched-in-the-ditch most of the quilt and it was time to start quilting the blocks. I used the walking foot for the quilting that was straight lines and then switched to the FM or darning foot for the rest. I'm very happy to report that my tension was perfect even with the cotton thread.

Here are a few of the blocks. Some of them were quilted in straight lines with the walking foot.

Straight line quilting

Other blocks got a mix of straight line quilting and then FMQ.

Straight line and FMQ for this block

Some blocks were FMQ.

Lots of fun FMQ

FMQ with dark variegated thread.
The cow will be outlined in another colour.

FMQ with the possibility of adding
more details on the hat and boots

I worked through the quilt by colour. The straight lines were mostly done with blue thread. I then started FMQ with the dark variegated thread and finally a soft gray polyester thread. Once I finish quilting the blocks, I'll tackle the panel. I really don't mind following the fabric's pattern but I have to be careful to actually stitch on the line! 😁

First baby quilt in the making

My youngest adult child has three friends who are having babies so we are making them baby quilts. JJ helped me decide on the patterns and the fabric. This first quilt is from the Martingale book, Modern Baby. We chose the Square Dance pattern because we want to include fabric that relates to the parents' hobbies and lives.

Square Dance pattern

Modern Baby by Martingale

I'm using my stash of Kona cottons to make the shapes while the squares within will be novelty fabric to reflect their interests and of course baby.

This is what the quilt looks like so far. Unfortunately my design wall is not wide enough, but you get the idea.

The first row of the quilt

The first block is a Star Wars fabric, the second is cute dinosaurs, the third fabric has a rainbow and flowers and says "Be happy, be kind, be you" and the fourth fabric is adventure themed.

It took me a while to figure things out because the pattern assumes that you'll make all of the same pieces at once. Since I'm using the fabric I have, I had to figure out how to make each block. The trickiest part was to make the half square triangles with three different fabrics. It took a few tries but I got it! I'm happy to report that I didn't have to use the seam ripper much 😁

I've made a rough plan to keep me organised.

The plan to keep me on track

Embroidery

Yesterday I finally put away our Christmas tree. Now I have my slow stitching space back in our living room. I started by stitching the year in the next square of my Not so daily stitching project. I couldn't help stitching it in white 😀 as a nod to the silly colour of the year, but I then had to add a bit of colour!

I also experimented with the turkey stitch. I stitched it in beautiful silk yarn. Our local yarn store is closing since the owner is retiring. I've been in there a few times in the last couple of months to pick up some beautiful yarns to embroider with. You can get quite a bit when it's 40-50% off.

Practicing the turkey stitch with silk yarn

before the haircut!

Turkey stitch with a trim

This was very much a practice block, but I guess I should add a little something to make it more cohesive.

I've been wanting to practice this stitch but didn't remember its name. Fleur Woods, the textile artist that I took a course from last year is offering the same course again and since I registered last year, I can participate in this one. I reviewed parts of the course and found the turkey stitch. I want to use this in the last coiled project that I was working on to add flowers to the piece. The turkey stitch will be perfect!

What I learned

I've really enjoyed quilting the cowboy panel quilt. With so many blocks to quilt, it's fun to jump from one to another to use the same coloured thread.
Since my tension is doing great, I don't even have to change the bobbin thread except from dark to light to match the top thread.
I do enjoy FMQ by following the lines in the fabric images. It's just getting harder to stay on the line but I'm OK if I take it slowly.
I'm also FMQ with a strong pair of reading glasses, that has a clip-on magnifier attached to them. What a difference it makes. I now have two sets (upstairs and down) and use them to embroider and get that darn thread/yarn into the needle!
I really enjoyed figuring out the Square Dance baby pattern. I should be able to use the Kona solids from my stash. We also have some really cool novelty fabrics to choose from.
I've been really scattered and overwhelmed during the last week. Today doing some slow stitching really helped to calm me down. I feel so much better. 😊

Coming up

Things are getting busy so I'm going to use this space to keep myself organised!

This week's prompt for Project Quilting is plaid - the finished project is due Sunday.
Round 1 of SAHRR 2026 is now out - it's the hour glass block. I need to get fabric from my stash and make at least one block. The linking party closes on Monday.
The Cowboy panel quilt is my January OMG - I have until January 31^th to post it.
The blue house for A Quilter's Cove QAL needs to be done by January 31^th so that I can host the linking party!

I Quilted This!

Welcome to the I Quilted This! linking party. I'll be featuring the projects from last week's party that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. Thank you everyone who linked up. Feel free to grab the button.

Kat of Scrapbox Quilts quilted another charity quilt with a donated flimsy and backing. Kat quilted this baby quilt in a continuous circle.

Baby quilt quilted by Kat

Melva, of Melva Loves Scraps, made a quilted panel for her t-shirt. Melva quilted the block before adding it to the t-shirt using a reverse appliqué technique. If you're interested, read her post to find out how to make your own!

Melva's finished t-shirt with a quilt block

Melva and her Arches National Park t-shirt

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts participated in the Starry Seas Blog Hop. Her quilt, Dawn to Dusk, was inspired by her commute. You'll want to check out her post for more details of the story.

Preeti's Dawn to Dusk quilt for the Starry Seas Blog Hop

It's now your turn!😍

Thursday, January 02, 2025

Best of 2024 and Free Motion Mavericks

It's that time of year again - reflecting on 2024 and then planning for 2025. Usually in my best of post, I sum up the whole year, but this year, since I have quarter posts of what I've done (and a fourth quarter post to come), I've decided to just highlight my favourites in each of my categories (quilts, challenges, journal making, art quilts, mindful stitching/embroidery and miscellaneous projects). I'm linking up to Meadow Mist Designs' Best of 2024 linking party. Thanks Cheryl!

Small Quilts this year

This year I didn't make any large quilts. I think that I was too overwhelmed by last year's many quilts. I did make a couple of larger quilt hangings and some cuddle quilts, mostly as part of the 2024 Table Scraps Challenge. They allowed me to play and then practice my FMQ. I also FMQ my friend's quilt.

Yellow Cuddle Quilt

This fall I made a table topper for a friend's retirement, based on his painted fence of Newfoundland Houses.

I just love this photo of our friend in front of his fence and
the table topper

Challenges

In 2024 I participated in challenges, particularly the first three of Project Quilting in the winter and then most of the Table Scraps Challenge year round. I really enjoy these challenges - they let me be as creative as I want to be, and range from very simple to complex.

My favourite was definitely my first Project Quilting piece, Home to feed. It was more complex and creative, and allowed me to experiment with Sulky Solvy water stabilizer to get ready for my later project, Spring Tulips 🌷.

Home to Feed, a Project Quilting piece

I also made a number of placemats for my family during the Table Scraps Challenge. I had started in 2023 and by the end of November, everyone had one!

Five placemats made during the 2023-24 Table Scraps Challenge

Art Quilts

I did make quite a few quilts just because I wanted to! It's hard to say which ones were my favourite, although Spring Tulips 🌷was very challenging and a favourite 😍. When you put that much work into a piece, it's either love or frustration! This one, thank goodness, was love!

Spring Tulips 🌷

The Outdoor Fibre Art Exhibit “Impermanence / Éphémère” kept me very busy in the Spring. I'm really happy with the pieces that I made. Some of them are still outside in my back yard 😀!

My pieces in the Outdoor Fibre Art Exhibition
Impermanence / Éphémère

There are a few others but one that I'm very happy with is my FM stitched portrait of hubby. It was made based on a class with TextileArtist.org's Stitch Club.

A FM stitched portrait

Mindful Stitching and Embroidery

Many embroidery projects were started this year, but few are finished! At the beginning of the year, I started a Daily Stitching project. It didn't take me long to realise that daily anything is not for me. So now it's an Almost Daily Stitching Project 2024-25 😉

Almost Daily Stitching 2024 (and now 2025)

I started a new course this fall - Joyful Embroidery with Fleur Woods. The course is offered through Fibre Arts Take 2. I have watched the full course and now have 2 pieces in progress.

Embroidery in progress

Needle punch piece - coming along

I also discovered the joy of Kawandi Style embroidery and love it. I made 2 small pieces and then made another with Christmas fabric. This last one I started by machine stitching all of the pieces down and then covering it with running stitches. This makes the process so much easier and faster, and still looks great!

Christmas Kawandi Style mat

I also experimented with stitching on both paper and metal. If you're curious, check out the links.

Journal Making

I made less journals than last year but still love making them when I do. It helped that I went over to my friend Connie's home in the fall and we made a few together (although I forgot to post about these)😞.

Scrappy Journal Challenge

I also made two fabric covers - one for my 2024 agenda and the other for my niece's school agenda. She loves neutral colours - it must be her Danish side 😁

My niece's school agenda cover

Miscellaneous Items

I made a few small projects just because 😊 These included a woven band for my holey jeans, many lovely Cathedral Window hot pads as gifts, fun fabric corner bookmarks and my favourite and most practical, mosquito proofing my swing. The latter brought me hours of enjoyment in the summer.

Mosquito proof swing

As I'm creating this post, I find it hard not to include everything so I will stop now 😍. If you're curious, you can check out my new 2024 Finishes page as well as my quarterly posts (1st quarter and then 2nd & 3rd quarters). My 4th quarter will be posted in a few days.

My intention for 2024 was to learn by playing, with mindfulness and gratitude. It looks like I achieved that with much learning and experimenting - and always with gratitude! Thanks again for taking the time to follow me on my journey!

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many linking parties, including Meadow Mist Design's Best of 2024 party. Thanks so much Cheryl for another great yearly party!

Monday Musings, Sew & Tell, Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2025,

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 513 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a week of getting things finished before the new year, and of reflection on 2024. Thanks to everyone who linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Gail from Quilting Gail was not going to make any last minute projects, until she took out her lovely nativity scene. It's hard to remember to make these small projects once the decorations are put away. So here is the simple but lovely tablemat made specifically for the nativity set!

A tablemat perfect for Gail's Nativity scene

Frédérique of Quilting, Patchwork, Appliqué posted her Best of 2024. There are many lovely domestic machine quilted projects. Here is one of my favourites!

Frédérique had a great time quilting her Patio quilt for François!

It's now your turn to show us what you're making or finishing on this first week of 2025!

Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Many Updates and Free Motion Mavericks

Hi and welcome 😊 I'm sorry about not letting you know that I would miss last week. I needed a break and now I'm back. I hope that you're having a good week.

Slow stitching updates

In Fleur Woods' Joyful Embroidery workshop, I have been stitching away. It's very slow! I love it but have I mentioned that it's very SLOW?

Coming along....very slowly

This is where I was November 7th.

The beginning

I've also been working a bit on the needle punch piece. I really love how it's coming along.😍 It's expanded from my round 10" hoop to a square snap-on frame. I'm going to see if I can get a slightly larger one!

Latest work on my punch needle piece

Since my last photo, I've added a couple of fabric manipulation areas in the blue and blue-green. I used a technique taught by Mirjam Gielen through Patreon. It's called "cuir froissé" or "creased leather". Here is a quick explanation.

Start by drawing a shape on your background - round or oval works well. You then cut out a piece of fabric much larger than your shape. Stitch the outside of the fabric piece along your drawn image so that the image is covered by the fabric. Yes, you'll have lots of extra fabric flopping around the middle. Next stitch that extra fabric down. I just stitched in down in random places with simple stitches until I liked what I had. Since I didn't do a great job of stitching down the outside of the shape of the first one, I added seed beads over those stitches.

Close-up of the fabric manipulations

This is a really great way to add texture into a piece. Next I'll do some organic embroidery over the two pieces of orangish fabric in the top right corner.

Next the orangish fabrics will be stitched organically

Quilting Floral Fusion

I've begun quilting my Floral Fusion wall hanging. I used my walking foot to stitch-in-the-ditch.

Since I hadn't stitched down the appliqué, that was the next task. I tried using one of the appliqué stitches on my machine but it was very difficult to see what I was doing. That's the drawback when trying to blend in your stitches. After doing one of the flowers, I gave that up and just used free motion quilting (FMQ) to slowly stitch very close to the edges of the appliqué. Again, since the thread blended in, I did a couple of passes to make sure that I got everything. Here is a close-up of the quilting that I've done with the light thread.

FMQ down the appliqué

Next, FMQ down the appliqué with dark thread

What I learned

The Fleur Woods' Joyful Embroidery has been interesting. I've learned a lot, but it is very slow going.
I've done quite a few small projects in the last month or so - I wanted a few finishes for all of the time that I've spent stitching and quilting!
I don't think that Fleur will have any competition from me. I love the slow stitching but only as a supplement to other things. 😊 I thought that it might be a little too slow for me and I was right. I am going to keep at it though. Both of these pieces will be gorgeous when they are done....eventually!
I've enjoyed quilting Floral Fusion. Stitching-in-the-ditch with my walking foot worked well as I took it slowly to stay in the ditch.
The experiment with the appliqué stitch on my sewing machine reminded me why I often work with contrasting thread - it's so I can SEE IT!
Tonight I'm going out to find a larger frame for my punch needle and a larger, brighter lamp. My eye is healing well but I need stronger light with the option of a magnifying glass. Hopefully that will help.
I'll be going through my thread next to see what I can use to stitch the darker appliqués. I'll probably need a few different colours. I hope to have the quilt finished by next week - wish me luck!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 507 of Free Motion Mavericks! Thank you for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Donnalee finished her Eggplant Cat - what a cuty! The next one is Pepper Puss - I hope that she gets it done in time for the fundraiser!

Donnalee's quilted Eggplant Cat

Deb from A Scrappy Quilting has a production line of quilts - some ready to quilt, others quilted and needing bindings. Way to go Deb!

Deb's production line

Legacy quilt

After a false start, Gail from Quilting Gail finished her amazing vase of Dresden flowers. She used two of her Silly Moon rulers to quilt the flowers. Check out her post to see close-up pictures of the quilt and her ruler quilting.

Gail's vase of Dresden flowers

Did you get a chance to see my finished Newfoundland Houses Table topper? I got it finished just in time to give it to our friend at his retirement party. He's very happy with it.

The topper and the fence!

It's now your turn 😊

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Scraps, Embroidery and Free Motion Mavericks

Allô and welcome 😎 I believe that this is the loveliest, warmest Hallowe'en day I've ever seen. Not very spooky here 👻👻 It's been another busy week but I did teach, in French, on Monday and it went really well. I was happy to see that my French and IM (Information Management) knowledge weren't too rusty after two years away from work😊 I've taken the rest of the week off to rest and read, so not much sewing except for repairs to a friend's boat cover. Now that it's no longer in my studio, I can get back to artsy things!

Light and Dark Scrappy Runner

October's colour for the Table Scraps Challenge is light or dark browns so I'm finally making my son's placemat with both dark and light brown scraps. I'll try to include a quilted cat since that's our October theme.

Dark and light brown on this side

Dark and light mostly brown on this side

During our Fall Fling, one of the artists gave me a bag of mostly cotton scraps. How fun! Many of the scraps in these two pieces come from that haul (way better than Hallowe'en candy!) It included what looks like fabrics from a Thanksgiving line of fabrics. I made sure to add more fabric because I didn't want the placemat to only be about Thanksgiving. On the second picture the three strips on the right come from pillow shams that my mother made for my grandfather (along with a quilt). I know that my son will appreciate that.

This is as far as I've gotten. The two pieces will be cut down to match the scrappy placemats that I made everyone. My son was last since he wanted neutrals. I have until November 3rd to link up to the October Table Scraps Challenge, so watch out for a post this weekend.

A bit more Embroidery

I haven't done much embroidery this week, but I did add a little bit to the Needle Punch piece that I've been working on for the Joyful Embroidery course. Since my last post, I added the brown leaf fabric at the bottom and covered it with organic blanket stitch. I decided to stitch outside of the fabric area and I love how it looks. I'll probably go back and do the same for the blue-green fabric.

Adding stitching on and around the leaf fabric

I added a row of yellow thread between both fabric areas which I'll be thread-weaving. If it looks good, I'll make it a larger area.

After looking at the YouTube videos about the different yarns to use in punch needle, I experimented with adding my lovely linen yarn which was too slippery to use alone. I paired it with a thin cotton yarn and it worked beautifully. There is also so much dimension when more than one yarn is used.

A Black Eyed Susan in my Almost Daily Stitching piece

Since Fleur Woods encouraged us to stitch more than one of our flowers for additional practice, I added a sweet Black Eyed Susan in my Almost Daily Stitching piece 2024. I drew it on with a Frixion pen and then stitched it in no time. Practice does make it better and easier. 😊

On my way from work to my car, I noticed this amazing mural. I knew that you would appreciate it also!

Mural in Hull district of Gatineau

I also saw hundreds of Canada Geese in the sky as I was coming home from Fall Fling last week.

Safe journey everyone!

What I learned

It was so nice to get back to sewing after so long. Hand stitching is awesome but it seems that I need both in my life.
I love going through scraps that I've been gifted. What can I say, it's better than Hallowe'en chocolate (but not quite as good as great chocolate! Thanks Lise for that amazing birthday chocolate😋)
Now that I "discovered" fabric twining, I get to keep narrow, long pieces of fabric - or even ripping up long strips. Oh joy, I'll need another basket just for twining strips!
It's so much fun adding "special" scraps to a project, like from my mother's pillow sham for my grandfather.
I'm having a great time experimenting with the punch needle project, like playing with different yarn and embroidering outside of the lines.
Since I'll be making a quilt sandwich for the placemat, I'm also going to take the opportunity to sandwich my Floral Fusion wall hanging and a small quilt that I got from the Community Quilts table at the last guild meeting. Hopefully there will be some fun FMQ here soon!

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 505 of Free Motion Mavericks. It was a lovely and productive week for last week's party! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting.

Kat of Scrapbox Quilts finished up a lovely 18" Christmas Candle Mat.

Kat's lovely 18" Christmas Candle Mat

Donnalee added the eyes and whiskers to her Avocado Cat. He is gorgeous! Look out for her Eggplant Cat next!

Donnalee's finished Avocado Cat.

Quilting Gail linked up her latest wonderful quilt - this time for her son's birthday. This one was all about the fabrics (a bundle of Tim Holtz fabric). Gail used her Silly Moon Kite ruler for the blocks and then swirls for the

Gail's latest finish for her son

Here is the FMQ loveliness.

Gail's quilt as seen from the back

Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts has produced another beauty, Presto Mushrooms! It's got an amazing amount of colour going on! Perfect for a six year old and me!