Showing posts with label Paddington Bear. Show all posts

Thursday, January 04, 2024

Making Plans on my 600th post!

Happy 2024! This first post of the year is also my 600^th post. 🥳 Yeah! Thanks Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl for hosting this wonderful party again.

For the last couple of years I've tried to minimize and generalize my plans - that's the best way for me to get realistic and possibly follow them. Last year my intention for 2023 was to learn by playing, with mindfulness and contentment. I still think that this is a great intention to work towards but I've tweaked it a bit.

For 2024, my intention is to learn by playing, with mindfulness and gratitude.

Anna's Hygge t-shirt quilt December 2023

Quilts

There are two quilts that I will be starting:

Swatches and plan

my daughter's Paddington Bear quilt, and
my husband's panel wall hanging.

I've started the Paddington centre panel

Double Decker Bus
Quiltmaker
May/June 2023

I'll be working on my Rainbow Neighbourhood flimsy, and finally, I'm really looking forward to free motion quilting (FMQ) my friend's quilt.

I've committed to participating in the SAHRR (Stay At Home Round Robin) again this year. I'm planning on making a medium sized wall hanging. That should help me keep up without stress. I love this challenge and the ladies who run it are so much fun.

It's going to be busy in the quilt making department but I have lots of time, no deadlines and some fun work ahead! 😊

Challenges and Hand-made Books

I will once again be participating in the Joyful Quilter's 2024 Table Scraps Challenge. I love making small scrappy projects each month. The fun of this challenge outweighs the deadline factor 😁 I'm already planning to make 3 more scrappy placemats for the rest of the family.

Two scrappy placemats done in 2023

Project Quilting starts January 7^th. I'm really hoping to use my quilting calendar to keep track of events such as this. I've added it to the calendar - now I just need to remember to look at it! 😁 Speaking of calendars, I also need to make myself a FMQ agenda cover.

These are the agenda and journal covers that I made in 2023
as well as the three Project Quilting projects.

I'm looking forward to making more handmade books this year. Although I'm no longer in the Handmade book club, I still have many books to make and all kinds of fun ideas for their uses. I'm also planning on leading a playdate with the Out of the Box (OOTB) fibre artists group this winter.

I procrastinated writing this post and made a Crown Binding. It's a type of Artist book structure and is made mostly by folding paper. I'm not surprised that my books turned out quite wonky - I was never good at origami. It's an accuracy challenge thing 😏

2 crown bindings

You can see the structure
keeping the pages in place

Art Quilts and Mindful Stitching

I tend to spend time stitching and working on art quilts between the larger quilt projects. As much as I love quilting, I need to make art quilts. It nourishes my soul. The art quilts often involve mindful stitching, but I do want to stitch every day. I'm still a member of the TextileArtist.org Stitch Club. I don't make each project but I tend to go back and forth, depending on my mood.

I'm not really working on an art quilt right now but I do have an embroidery started. It's called Snow Happens by Bird Brain Designs. I've had it forever in my stash and I've already started. I'm not going to show you more progress since it looks really bad with the pattern stitch lines in. Once I iron off the lines, it will look great - just not the same as the pattern! 😁

Stitching the Snow people

Snow Happens by Bird Brain Designs

I'll be making a wall hanging for my son's girlfriend. Instead of those diamonds on the pattern, I was thinking of working with hexies. Once I figure out how large I want to make it, I'll design the wall hanging with various elements on it. I have until next December, so I should be good. I know that it isn't very mindful but as long as I have audiobooks to keep me going, it will get done!

I'm going to try doing some mindful stitching by either starting a small panel of intuitive stitching à la Karen Turner, or possibly following the Stitch Away the Winter Blues with Kate Ward of Zen Stitching. The objective isn't the end product but rather the process.

Participating in Shows

I'll be participating in the Common Thread Quilt Guild's quilt show this spring. I plan to enter Version 2.0. I will also be making some really fun fibre art as part of an outdoor exhibition. The art will live outside for a few months. I'm really looking forward to playing and seeing what I can make. I made these prayer flags last winter and they survived the outdoor very well.

Flag in the tree

Prayer flags on the snow

What I learned

As I look at my post, I realise that I have a lot of things that I want to do in 2024.
If there are very few deadlines, I should be OK. The stress comes with trying to meet deadlines, not in the playing with fabric and fibre 😊
I want to emphasize the playing aspect. If it's not fun, when why do it?
Playing gives me the freedom to try things, make mistakes and sometimes even work my way out of those challenges.
It's amazing to see all of the snow that we had last winter. Right now the ground is just covered in leaves. There was a light covering of snow on Christmas day but it was all melted by the afternoon with the rain we got.
I'm looking forward to another wonderful year of learning and playing. I am extremely grateful for the gift of time that retirement has brought.
Wishing you all happiness, health and fun in 2024! Here's to another 600 posts!

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties, particularly #2024QuiltingPlanningParty with Yvonne, the Quilting Jetgirl! Monday Making, Sew & Tell, Midweek Makers, Put your foot down, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Can I Get A Whoop Whoop?, Patchwork & Quilts, Oh Scrap!, Slow Sunday Stitching, 15 Minutes to Stitch 2024,

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 563 of Free Motion Mavericks.

Last week DonnaLee made some really cute Christmas Tree coaster as well as more placemats and a runner.

DonnaLee's sweet Christmas Tree coaster

Gail of Quilting Gail had a few finishes in December. One of her favourites was Vanishing Star. What a gorgeous quilt!

Gail's Vanishing Star quilt

Melva of Melva Loves Scraps finished her final quilt of 2023! It's a Wonky Star Toss quilt. What a fun finish 😊

Melva's Wonky Star Toss quilt

Finally, from Frédérique of Quilting Patchwork Appliqué, here is the beautiful Patio quilt that will be quilted in 2024!

Patio - finished and to be quilted in 2024!

It's now your turn!

Friday, December 30, 2022

Planning for 2023

Thank you Yvonne at Quilting Jetgirl for hosting this great linking party again this year. Hopefully it will help keep me focused.

Last year I minimized my plans for 2022. Of course it didn't all get done but that's ok because that's what planning is all about. For 2023, I'm keeping it as simple and general as possible.

My intention for 2023: learn by playing, with mindfulness and contentment

Quilts

This category is more specific because of my promises to get these projects done. I'm very hopeful of completing these and they'll provide great content for the 2023 Free Motion Mavericks' posts.

Finish Version 2.0 quilt

Version 2.0 will be finished in the first week of January

Make my niece's t-shirt quilt

One of four pictures of her t-shirts

Create my daughter's Paddington Bear quilt

Paddington Bear design book

Fabric samples

Challenges and Hand-made Books

I don't want to add pressure to myself, so I will participate in the Table Scraps 2023 Challenge and create hand-made books whenever I can because these are usually small simple projects where I learn things and they make me happy.

Oranges and Lemons - August's Table Scraps Challenge

Coptic Book Challenge - December 2022

I made this beautiful coptic book during the challenge, but never got around to writing a post. So here it is! Coptic is the way the book is bound. The cover is made with a background of printed book pages covered with the top layer of a paper napkin. I love the effect!

Coptic Book

I'm using the book to keep my dried leaves and other natural elements that have been glued onto paper and/or covered with Mod Podge. These are ready to be used in art pieces 😊

The coptic book is used to hold natural elements ready to use for art

Art Quilts and Mindful Stitching

I am placing these together because they are often inter-related. December has shown me that, for my peace of mind, I need a mindful stitching practice. I believe that any hand-stitching can be mindful, so I'm going to make a real effort to stitch every day.

Stitching on eco-printed fabric (I forgot about this project!)

Off the Grid sampler in progress

Meditation block in progress

As well, I will participate in more of the TextileArtist.org workshops, and actually finish the projects. I've started a few projects that I've yet to finish or blog about. Here is one of them.

This project, from Jean Draper's "Stitches in thin air" workshop (August 2021) is still in the percolating phase. I love how the yarn and string, stiffened by glue, makes such interesting patterns. The first image has two layers on top of each other.

Two layers together

I added so much yarn in the top layer that you can't see much of the bottom layers. However, the plan is to separate each layer by at least ⅛ " to ¼" so that the bottom layers can be seen from the side. The overall plan is to create a 3D piece showing the different layers of earth underneath.

"Stitches in thin air" piece in the percolating phase

Blog and Instagram

2023 Planning Party with
Yvonne of Quilty Jetgirl

In the next few months, I will update the look of the blog and continue posting on Instagram. There is no pressure here but I want to get it done this winter or spring.

What I learned

As I mentioned in my Christmas post, "Although I'm retired, my life has not slowed down. It seems that living in minor chaos and stress has become a habit that I need to break!"

This is where my intention of learning by playing, with mindfulness and contentment comes in.

I know that this "plan" for 2023 is still a lot but I am retired and have time to play. It's just a matter of setting and living with the intention of playing with mindfulness and contentment.
The plan will, of course, shift since I now have a set of panels to FMQ for hubby. I bought the panels years ago and now seems to be the time. It's all good 😊
I've already registered for a couple of courses for 2023. I'm going to minimize this since there is already lots of learning included in the Stitch and Hand-make Book clubs.
I need to remind myself that although joining blog hops are a lot of fun, they have deadlines and can be quite stressful. I love comments but get very stressed when I have more than a few - which is what happens during blog hops 😕.

Thursday, August 11, 2022

Planning a quilt and Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to Free Motion Mavericks, week 394. I don't have any new free motion quilting (FMQ) to show you this time. It's been busy but I have made time to play with paper, fabric and thread - of the slow kind 😲. That's a good thing since it keeps me somewhat grounded and calm 😊.

Planning and making a special book

Although I didn't do any FMQ, I am very slowly working on my daughter's Paddington Bear quilt. You may have seen the accordion books that I made a short while back. I decided to embellish and use the accordion book with a flap to record the planning and making of this quilt.

Accordion book with flap - now featuring Paddington Bear

Isn't it gorgeous? I attached the image that I used to make the medallion appliqué, to the front of the book. The flap was sort of in the way so it's a good thing that I had a second copy of the image to make adjustments.

Book with the flap open

Inside the book I added the fabrics that I used for the appliqué as well as the other Paddington Bear fabric that I have and will incorporate into the quilt. The funny looking Paddington Bear image is made up of the hand-dyed fabrics that I used on the appliqué. I added a pocket to include the pattern that I am creating.

Fabric swatches and pattern

The next page includes more of the lovely fabric that I was able to accumulate. Like Paddington, a lot of the fabric travelled from far to get to my home.

More great Paddington Bear fabrics

FMQ design inspiration

As I was dog-sitting at my son's apartment, I took a few pictures of a London towel that they have (as well as pictures of Poppy of course)! I'll be using the images on the towel as inspiration for the FMQ that I'll use on this quilt. A few years ago, there was tons of fabric like this featuring London. I sure wish that I had bought some!

Great images of London to base some FMQ designs on

Here is the Paddington Bear appliqué that I made for the centre medallion of the quilt.

Paddington Bear appliqué

My daughter and I have decided on a variety of gray Kona Cotton for the background of the quilt. I can't wait to go on a road trip to pick some up. I do want to figure out what other Kona colours that I could use on this since it will have real quilted blocks 😲. Yes, I know, I'll be making real blocks....that's how much I love my daughter!

The wonderful Poppy

What I learned

I really wanted to buy some of that London fabric but didn't clue in about where I could use it. The worst part is that I was already planning this quilt at the time!!!
My mother made my son a book with the designs that she used when she made his quilt. I think that it's a wonderful keepsake. As I make more books, it would be a great opportunity to record these quilty ideas and give the book to the person who gets the quilt. This will be my first one.
I adapted my Paddington Bear book by adding a pocket and some extra pages. I'm sure that my technique will get better as I make more books!
I've discovered "good" paper (stuff other than photocopy paper). That could get as addictive as fabric 😍

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome! Did you get to check out Angie in SoCal of the Quilting Reader's Garden blog's finish? She made a table topper for the July Table Scraps Challenge and FMQ it. Way to go Angie!

July table topper by Angie in SoCal

It's now your turn!

Monday, October 22, 2018

October updates

October is almost finished and so far I've written very few posts. I did some quilting, lots of planning and listened to many audio books. I'm also totally overwhelmed by the number of comments on my September posts and I hope to answer them....one day, or not. So please know that I really appreciate getting comments, but at one point, I may give up on answering the older ones. Sorry 😔

One Monthly Goal (OMG) accomplished!

My October OMG was to finish a quilt top for a t-shirt and dress quilt for Sonya's daughter. I had very little hope that it would get done, so I am very, very pleased to say that the quilt top is finished and the quilt is about half quilted.

Here are a few of the quilted blocks so far. I'm not sharing the rest of the quilt top yet since I'd like to keep it a surprise 😊 Since I'm planning to make this quilt my November OMG, you'll be able to see it at the end of November, if not earlier.

This first block is a variation of Peas in a pod, designed by Maddie Kertay. You can see my own doodling of it in my FMQ journal. The design is found in 180 Doodle Quilting Designs, page 99. The book is compiled by Karen M. Burns.

Peas in a pod

Variation of Peas in a pod
FMQ design

You may recognize this next FMQ design from Angela Walter's Free Motion Challenge Quilt Along that I did last spring. This is the Feather Meander and a lot of swirly variations.

Feather Meander and swirly variations

Finally, I quilted around the dolphins and then FMQ a whole bunch of bubbles.

Bubbles around the dolphins

There is a lot more to quilt, especially since I also want to FMQ inside the sashing, which I will keep simple.

Fabric acquisition for a future project

For the October's Throwback Thursday, I posted a Beatles quilt that I made using a walking foot. In the post, I said that although made for my daughter's room that the quilt had never hung there since I had taken too long to finish it and her room decor had moved on.

Well my daughter, who is now studying art history for a semester in Venice (doesn't that sound absolutely amazing?!) commented that she still wanted a Paddington Bear quilt and would love it even if her room changed. (The link to that post is in Related links below.)

Since I know that she loves Paddington Bear and that she's my number one fan, the day after she posted her comment, I went on the internet in search of fabric. I found these on Etsy and I'm sharing the links below since I had excellent service from both shops.

Lovely Paddington Bear fabric

At this time, I'm thinking of making a large Paddington Bear applique in the quilt centre and then using this and other fabric blocks around it for a scrappy look. This will probably be a winter 2019 project.

More hexies

The 100 hexies in 100 days event on Instagram is now in its eleventh week. Here are the hexies and the pictures for weeks 9 to 11. Since I haven't done as much quilting as I would like, I thought that I would try to put a little more effort in my pictures of these hexies.

Week 9 - Floral

Since the floral theme was all about colour (for me), I thought that I would use the Our House quilt to showcase the hexies I made. Here they are!

Floral hexies at Our House

A close-up of the floral hexies with "the two cats in the yard".

More floral hexies in the yard

Week 10 - Favourite Colours

It's pretty difficult to make me choose ONE favourite colour. Instead, I gathered up some of my favourite colours and made a display with my muse and my Kimono silk thread collection.

What a lot of colours - how can I choose just one?

The quilt under the hexies is a wheel chair quilt that I made for my grandmother. It's the perfect backdrop for wonderful colours.

More lovely colours and incredible silk thread!!!

Week 11 - I Spy

This week's selection is objects that are used in an I Spy quilt. It took me a while to find fabric that I mostly hadn't use on previous hexies. Thank goodness I've purchased a few fabrics recently :-)

I Spy hexies on fireman fabric

My absolute favourite is that priceless pink squirrel!

Paddington Bear makes his first appearance.

Art with Fabric, Fall 2018 Coming Soon!

The Art with Fabric blog hop, hosted by Alida, will be held between Monday, November 5 to Friday, November 9, 2018. My post will be featured on Wednesday, November 7th.

The theme of the blog hop is our favourite colour. I am doing my art piece on the colour white - which is not my favourite, although technically white includes all colours, so technically it could be my favourite :-)

My piece is based on a BBC documentary series called A History of Art in Three Colours. While the first two films were interesting, it's the third one that caught my attention. My piece will feature white and its role in the evolution of art history, particularly in contemporary art.

What I learned

I tend to practice a lot of FMQ designs on scrap pieces of paper or photocopy paper. When I get one that works well on paper and ink, I'll usually try it on the sewing machine. Generally I know that if I can draw it, then I can quilt it. I then either re-copy these in my FMQ journal or just cut and paste them in the journal. If I didn't keep track of the designs I use or can do, I would never remember what FMQ designs to us!
The 100 hexies in 100 days event on Instagram has influenced my fabric purchases! I now look for some fabrics that have interesting characters. This is not normally the type of fabric I buy, but they can be very handy to have when making art quilts.
I've been working very hard on my Art with Fabric Blog Hop piece. It's a fairly complex piece that has been both fun and challenging to make. I'll have a lot more to say on November 7th, so I hope you'll join me.