FMQ a Baby Quilt and Cell Phone/Device Holder

Hello and welcome. By the time you read this, I will be ready 😕 and hopefully making my way across the Pond for an amazing trip! Our first destination is London💂 and then Southampton to embark on the ship. Before I leave, I'll share my latest finish. 

FMQ a Baby Quilt for the Guild

You've seen the two scrappy BB/cuddle quilts that I made this summer. I took them, as well as the quilt shown below to the Common Thread Quilt Guild (CTQG) meeting this week. They are donated through our Community Projects.

I picked up the flimsy, batting, backing and binding last year at a guild meeting. I quilted most of it months ago and just needed to finish FMQ the borders. This time I didn't bind the quilt before quilting the border since the borders are 6" wide. That's quite wide and I didn't want to take a chance that it wouldn't work out.

Finished baby quilt for Community Projects

Back of the baby quilt

I FMQ the centre blocks with straight lines converging to the middle of the triangles but extending out to the next rows/columns. With that geometric quilting, I wanted to add organic shapes to the borders. I FMQ vines of heart shaped leaves. Even though I was using an orange thread, it was still sometimes difficult to see within the colourful fabric pattern. I'm always amazed how a colour that I think should pop out, will disappear. The only reason I wanted it to pop out was so that I could see it clearly when I FMQ it. 😕

Here is the pretty backyard photo. My garden is mostly weeds but at least they're mostly alive now that we've finally gotten some rain.

Backyard glamour shot 😎

Scrappy Cuddle Quilts

Because we all love photos of quilts, here are the two scrappy cuddle quilts that I handed in this week at the guild meeting. You can read more about them in previous posts (see Related Links).

Purple Scrappy Cuddle Quilt

Teal Scrappy Cuddle Quilt

Cell Phone/Device Holder

Last Spring, my childhood friend, Sylvie, made me a cell phone or device holder. JJ (my adult child) and I have been moving it around the house and using it. JJ asked me to make more so that we could keep them handy....so I finally did. They will be very useful and I have made one to take with me and another as a gift for my niece.

Original holder made by my friend Sylvie

More cell phone/device holders

The holders only require a 9" x 12" fabric piece., a cup and a half of rice and some fluffy batting. I used batik fabrics since they are pretty and already out to use for the Bloomers blocks, Of course, the neutral batik one is for my niece - I love the leaves pattern on it. The one supporting my old cell phone is an amazing fabric that looks like cathedral windows. I've been wanting to use that fabric for years - so now I have and I'm keeping it 😍 JJ got the two other two and we'll keep my friend's one downstairs to share.

I did learn a couple of things 😊while making these. The first thing is that once the holders are filled with rice and fluff, you want to place the pins facing the top so that they can easily slide out of the way when sewing that last seam. This became very evident when I tried to remove the pins that were pointing up and difficult to remove before stitching.😉 

Ensure that the pins can be easily slid out of the way!

I also added a quilting clip at the beginning of the seam. It just keeps the fabric together while you fiddle around with it but is easily removed just before you start to sew.

What I learned

• I enjoyed FMQ the baby quilt that I didn't have to piece.😁
• At the guild meeting in June, I picked up another quilt top to be finished. It's wonderful - the committee puts the quilt top, batting, backing, binding and a label together. It goes so much faster to finish without having to figure things out...since there's always a chance of getting it wrong!
• I'm really glad to give back to the community, now that I have a little more time. Since my favourite part is the FMQ, it's a great way to get more practice without spending so much time piecing.
• Making the phone/device holders went really well and it was as easy as promised!
• I didn't have any fibre fill, so the first holder I made, after adding the rice, was filled with scraps of batting. I just had to try - but I removed it and then refilled it once I had bought the correct fill. 

Related links

• Finished Teal Cuddle Quilt, August 28, 2025
• Scrappy Purple BB Quilt Finish and FM Mavericks, July 31, 2025
• How to make a phone pillow holder

Linking parties

I'll be linking up to many fun linking parties. Consider checking some out, after you've linked up below. 15 Minutes to Stitch 2025, Finished or Not Friday, Beauties Pageant, Off The Wall Friday, Put your foot down, Patchwork & Quilts, Sew & Tell, TGIFF

Free Motion Mavericks

Welcome to week 548 of Free Motion Mavericks! It was a very productive week! Thanks for linking up. Here are the projects from last week that included FMQ, ruler work or walking foot quilting. 

Kat of Scrapbox Quilts finished two scrappy bargello quilts in the RSC colours. Each was simply FMQ. They are so lovely!

Kat's scrappy bargello quilt FMQ with slight waves

Kat's scrappy bargello quilt FMQ with straight lines

Sally from Crafts, Cavies and Cooking is in the process of FMQ a lovely, large quilt. In her plan of attack, she stitched all of the stars first. Now she's working on the crosses. What lovely FMQ!

Sally is now FMQ the crosses!

Sally was FMQ the stars

Deb, the Scrappy Quilter is rolling along and finishing more quilts! This latest one involved curves :-) The FMQ is lovely as it echoes the curves of those gorgeous blocks. 

Deb's lovely curved blocks quilt

Details of Deb's FMQ as she echoes the curves

Gwyned Trefethen is busily FMQ her very large 2024 RSC quilt. Here is her latest accomplishment.

Gwyned FMQ her 2024 RSC quilt

Melva of Melva Loves Scraps had another finish this week! Here is her Rainbow Korner Kabin quilt. She FMQ it with a Baptist Fan design.

Melva's Rainbow Korner Kabin quilt

Close-up of Melva's Rainbow Korner Kabin quilt

It's now your turn 😍

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Celebrating 150 with Quilts

I've had a crazy busy week with Art with Fabric on Monday and then a two-day surface design course with Hillary Rice. I can't wait to write a post about my surface design experiments, but it'll have to wait a few days, cause today we're going to Celebrate - Fêtons 150 with some amazing quilts from the Ottawa Valley Quilter's Guild Show - Festival of Quilts 2017.

There was an exhibit of  "150 Years of Quilting in Canada" at the Festival of Quilts 2017. The quilt below fits right into our theme. The British Empire Quilt features many of the provinces of Canada. The quilt was probably completed between 1949 and 1956 since Newfoundland is included as a province.

British Empire Quilt

I love this block of New Brunswick since it's also part of the Ottawa region's history - "draveurs" or draftsmen taking the logs down the river.

What a wonderful piece of history!

New Brunswick depicted with
raftsmen on the river

The Canada 150 Interguild Exhibit was featured as part of the quilt show. Many guilds from the Ottawa area created their own Canada 150 quilts. The exhibit is travelling to various quilt shows this year. Here is a sampling:

Almonte Quilters Guild

Cornwall Quilters Guild

Lanark County Quilters Guild

Ottawa Modern Quilt Guild

Common Thread Quilt Guild
Postcard Quilt

Fireworks at Parliament postcard

Do you remember the Common Thread Quilt Guild's Postcard Quilt? It was also part of this exhibit.

Here are a few of the postcards:







Isn't it great how different the postcards are? So many different techniques and colours used.

Embroidered beaver postcard

Canada Goose postcard

This was my Canada Goose contribution.

Moose postcard 

Double Double Coffee postcard 

I couldn't resist ending with our national obsession for a certain coffee.....









There was also a President's Challenge as part of the Festival of Quilts 2017. There were some incredible quilts! I will include these in a later post.



Finally, here is what I'm working on - Quilty Pleasure's Sergent Sesquicentennial block. Don't forget to leave comments or to link-up your projects to the Celebrate - Fêtons 150 in May. You could win your own Sergent Sesquicentennial block kit!

The picture on the left was taken before I fixed the Sergent's torso. Turns out that he doesn't have very broad shoulders and a tiny waist!

Here's the latest photo. I picked up some brass buttons tonight so these will be added on once the block is finished.

Sergent Sesquicentennial block
almost done

Oops version of the
Sergent Sesquicentennial block

What I learned

• I had an amazing time at the Festival of Quilts 2017. On my first tour of the show, I took it all in. Then I took photos on the second pass. Finally I went shopping! After that I was more exhausted than if I had worked a full day! I'm really going to have to pace myself when I go to Quilt Canada!
• It was great to see the Canada 150 quilts. As I took pictures, I felt like a reporter going after the big story :-)
• As you saw, I had some minor misshapes with the Sergent Sesquicentennial block. I really need to stop when I'm getting tired before making the mistakes. Luckily these were fairly minor - nothing that I couldn't rip out!  

Remember to link-up!

Related Links

• Joyce Wieland and Art with Fabric - May 14, 2017
• Ottawa Valley Quilter's Guild show - Festival of Quilts 2017
• Common Thread Quilt Guild Postcard Quilt - More Quilts to Celebrate, April 17, 2017
• Celebrate - Fêtons 150 in May

Linking Parties - Come party with us! Check out the link-ups that are going on! I will be linking up to my very own Celebrate - Fêtons 150 in May. Moving it Forward Monday, Linky Tuesday, Let's Bee Social, Midweek Makers, Needle & Thread Thursday, Off the Wall Friday, Can I get a Whoop Whoop?, Finished or Not Friday, MOP Monday, Main Crush Monday, Monday Making,

April Challenge

This is a quick post about the upcoming Lovely Year of Finishes Goal Setting Party.

In April, I will finish one of my Common Thread Quilt Guild UFO (Unfinished Objects) Challenge projects. I wrote about this challenge in my March Goal Setting.

South-west art quilt to finish by the end of April

I originally entered five UFO projects to complete. I wrote that there was a possibility of completing two of the projects:

• Snippet flowers in a vase from 2008 (ready to FMQ if I can find it); and
• South-West art quilt from 2010 (I've written about the project in September 2014)

I did find the Snippet flowers quilt (it was stored under the bed!) but I really don't like the borders that I put on it. It's ready for some thread painting though, so once I undo the borders, I'll start on that part of it. It will not be ready for the guild challenge since the deadline is our May guild meeting.

I will therefore finish my South-West art quilt by the end of April! Come by and see  me at me at the April Finishing Party.

I am presently visiting relatives in Vancouver BC. We spent some time driving through the mountains. I can't wait to review my photos to see if there is another art quilt that I can start (after I finish this one of course). Stay tuned.

Update on March Challenge

2015 A Lovely Year of Finishes - March Challenge

Imagine Quilt based on John Lennon's song

It would seem that I am making the wrong choices when setting priorities these days. I’m used to my work priorities changing, but not my quilting ones, probably because I don’t usually have priorities and deadlines for quilting and I try to keep it that way.

My motivation for posting my priority in March was to encourage myself to write in my blog about it – but I may have forgotten that I needed to actually finish the quilting that I set as an objective! Quilting almost every day is not an issue for me, but what I’m actually working on seems to be. Oh well, live and learn.

I am happy to report that I finished my Guild Music Challenge quilt. I worked on it at the beginning of the month, but typically left the embellishment till the last minute.

Close-up of Imagine

I was intimidated by the FMQ of the “world” part of the quilt because I wasn't sure how that would go. Turns out it was great. I started by stitching in-the-ditch, which wasn't technically “in-the-ditch” because of the embroidery located around each piece. I then did some FMQ of the different fabrics. I had a ball. It was so hard to stop!

I was also unsure of how to FMQ the background because I wanted the people holding hands to stand out. I started by echoing the top of the people. After that, I FMQ clouds in the sky. I looked all over the internet for inspiration and finally ended up using a variation of Angela Walter’s work that she had done for a client. 

Sky quilting based on Angela Walter's work

When I attached the world and the background together, I just quilted in-the-ditch and quilted around the outside edge to make sure that both pieces stayed together. 

Close-up of John Lennon and some beading

What I learned:

• If I was fussier, I would have re-done the embroidery around some of the pieces of the world, as well as some located on the outside edge of the world. On the other hand, there’s nothing stopping me from re-doing these at any time, if it does bother me. I am truly not a perfectionnist!
• I’m ambivalent about the end project. I like it, but I think that the finished project in my mind might have been better than the real thing.

  

  Details of beading

• I did learn a lot throughout this project. I really enjoyed the embroidery as well as the embellishment with beads. I could have kept going, but for the amount of time it would have taken, I’m not sure that it would have added anything more to it. You have to stop sometime.
• I loved the FMQ of both the world and the background. In the end, I think that adding an echo around the people holding hands was a good idea. I don’t really think that it needs to stand out more. I have to learn that subtle is good too!

Check out other participants in the March 2015: Lovely Year of Finishes, Free Motion Mavericks and Fabric Tuesday by Quilt Story.

Many Challenges

To encourage me to keep blogging (I don't need encouragement to quilt!), I've decided to write about a few challenges that I'm participating in.

2015 A Lovely Year of Finishes - March Challenge

I was hoping to participate earlier this year but as you can see, it didn't happen.

The world - crazy quilt style

My goal for March is to complete my Music Challenge quilt for our Guild. Since the deadline is our April meeting, getting it completed before March 31 would be perfect. When we joined the challenge, we were given a fat quarter of music fabric. It has to be incorporated into the quilt (as little or as much as we want). The quilt should illustrate or be inspired by a piece of music.

It took me a while to decide, but I finally picked "Imagine" by John Lennon. It all started with a quilting pattern of people holding hands - what could be better? To make this interesting, I decided to make a 3D quilt. The centre is the world, made from fabrics that represent various cultures and nations, pieced crazy quilt style. I've completed the piecing of the world and have embroidered and embellished it with ribbons etc. I haven't added beads yet since I need to FMQ it first. I'm still not sure how I want to do this yet. I guess I have a couple of weeks to figure it out.

Background

Music Challenge Quilt - so far

I've completed the pieced background and have started FMQ it. I want the "people holding hands" to be the focal point of that section, so I'm still trying to figure out how to finish FMQ it. After that, I will have to attach both pieces together.

What I learned:

• I'm really happy that I took the time to write about this project because the pictures I took have shown me that I have a lot of work to do to get those "people holding hands" to show up.

See you at the end of March!

Common Thread Quilt Guild UFO (Unfinished Objects) Challenge

Our guild is hosting a UFO challenge. Since I had to register just before I left for China in the fall, I made some very quick (and possibly not great) UFO choices. It's a good thing that I have kept my list of quilting projects up to date. I only had to review it to come up with some UFOs for the challenge. Here they are:

1. Snippet flowers in a vase from 2008 (ready to FMQ if I can find it :-(  )
2. Batik quilt from 2011 (needs interesting FMQ since it has too little contrast)
3. South-West art quilt from 2010 (working on it during my lunch - occasionally)
4. Strip-quilt number two from 2012? (needs to be FMQ)
5. Completing my mother's whole cloth quilt from 2002 (hand quilted)

I think that the deadline for the challenge is our May meeting. At this time, two of these projects have a fair chance of getting completed; the South-West art quilt and the Snippet flowers in a vase (if I can find it!).

Frayed Knots Spring/ Summer Garden 2015 Block Exchange

I've included this block exchange as a challenge - cause it is! Having to make 23 blocks by a specific date is definitely a challenge for me. 

We have a choice of many sizes of blocks, as long as they have a 36" perimeter. I'm keeping mine simple by making 9"x 9" blocks. The background has to be pastel colours. I keep forgetting the word "pastel" probably because I don't usually do pastel! It was terrible - I had to shop for pastels :-) 

Some exchange blocks

I am making an assortment of blocks since I don't have the patience to make 23 of the same blocks. It turns out that there aren't that many patterns for 9" x 9" blocks, but I finally figured out that they are essentially variations on 9 patch blocks, so I can either expand a 6" block, or reduce a 12" block. That will give me many more options. I'm not very good in math, so I use grid paper to calculate the sizes. Gotta love grid paper!

Here are a few of my blocks. I have 10 blocks completed. Only 13 left to finish before June! Very do-able.

Check out other participants in the March 2015: Lovely Year of Finishes

Eggo Inspired Quilt

Breaking it up in a percentage of colours

Eggo box-top

The Common Thread Quilt Guild's challenge this year was to use a box-top as inspiration to create a quilt. We had to use every colour found on the box-top.  My randomly picked box-top was from a package of Eggo Waffles. Aren’t those amazing colours? There’s even a couple of blueberries and a raspberry to go with the yellow, red, oranges, white and brown.


Quilted details



I calculated roughly the percentages  of each colour and came up with this lap quilt.

Since I also want to learn to machine quilt, it was the perfect project to practice on.  I don’t have a machine that does free-motion but I got to practice my “sewing in the ditch” several dozen times. By the end, it was getting pretty good.  I also tried to get fancy and machine-quilted a couple of flowers.  It wasn’t too difficult to do on a practice piece, but then there’s a whole quilt that needs to be rotated under the sewing machine...well, that’s another matter. So the rest of the strips got wavy lines!

 

Eggo Inspired Quilt



I've linked up to Sarah Goer's Show Me Something Orange linking party.