Happy Thanksgiving!

He isn't a turkey, but he is dressed for Thanksgiving this wee Autumn bear I made many years ago. Enjoy the bounty of today to my American friends and family.


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Going Around In Circles Second Finish.

Last night I finished stitching the binding on my second piece from my class with Terry Aske. I'm very pleased with the finished look. I hand appliquéd the
piece rather than machine stitched it. Then machine quilted it.


I made my first flanged binding courtesy of Karen's Quilts, Crows and Cardinals tutorial. Again I hand stitched rather than machine stitched the binding as I wanted to change colours to line up with the segments of the quilt.


I used pink, turquoise and yellow threads to add to the colour wheel appeal of this piece.


I didn't mark the quilt but used the walking foot as a guide so at times things got a bit wonky.


Friday my friend Rita and I went to Fabricana for their customer appreciation day. I've never gone before and it was amazing to see how many people attended. Line ups for cutting often had 10-15 people in them, cash probably double. We both got some lovely fabric but I decided to also get some of these new mystery patterns. They are by Cantik Batiks as Canadian company. They will be released approximately every 6 weeks depicting 13 areas of Canada and the U.S.A. The first one was New Brunswick for Canada which they didn't have.


I've been to the Gulf Coast and seen Pelicans feeding in Galveston Texas.


I've driven through the Rockies both in Canada and the U.S.A. many times.


My plan is to get places I've been to or wish to visit as they are released. The patterns are designed for fusing, but are generous in their fabric so I plan to make mine traditional appliqué. They also kit some as individual wall hangings.

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Going in Circles Finish.

Last night I finished up my first design from my workshop with Terry Aske. I decided to stick with my first choice of background. Terry had brought some bias seam binding to share I I took a small length of yellow. When I went to the fabric store after the class I bought some pink bias binding and some solid colour for my other piece.

Here is what I came up with. I'm rather pleased with this little piece that measures about 13" square.


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Going Around in Circles with Terry Aske

Saturday I went to a Circle workshop with Terry Aske.  Terry is a New Westminster quilter that I've long admired.  I went to Houston several years ago and was admiring a couple of quilts that turned out to be hers.  She has had quilts featured in Quilting Arts and loves to develop interesting techniques.  You can click here to check out her blog, website and etsy shop.

  She is a very prolific quilter.  Here are the quilts that she brought along to inspire us.  I do have some pictures of her quilts in both 2013 and 2014 when I went to Houston.

The first technique she explained to us can be used on straight line quilts also.

 Some of her quilts are a mix of the two techniques she shared with us.

 I love this black and white print she used in this one with the words and the background print as well.

Quarter circles that required some redesigning when she realized she was short of some fabrics.

 Michael Miller challenge Glitz Quilt.  Hard to see but the background is all pieced.

 Her templates for the above quilt.

 This one was a favourite as you will see later.

 She likes working in Paint on the computer to generate ideas.

 Another quilt in progress so we could see the layers.

 A mix of straight edge and circles.

This was the design I decided to work on.  I didn't bring my sewing machine so I just played with paper and fabrics.

 This was my initial background that I chose before class.  I didn't bring a lot of fabrics along.

I asked another gal if I could borrow her grey fabric to see how it looked here.

 Then I tried it on some black..

 Finally I decided to reverse the blue with the darker blue stars on it and see how that looked.

Right now I'm leaning towards the blue grey one but would like to get a solid or mottled so this design has stalled until I get some more shopping done.

This was one of the works in progress.  You actually sew the circles flat and then cover the seam allowances with bias tape.

 This gal decided to slash her circle and may add an inset.

 Lovely teals and purple.

 Some glitz in the fabrics and check out that bias tape, it has gold on it!

 Interesting combination.

Here Susan is sewing from the backside to link her circles to her piece.  Sadly I didn't get a picture of the right side.  She used some black, white and red scraps from a friend.  It looks great.

 Some more bias tape in place to define the circles.

 Tricia's work.

 Three linked circles.

 Love that centre aboriginal fabric and the movement it gives.

 Lime green and yellow on grey background.

 Influence by the trees outside and the grey rainy day.

 I left early and went shopping for some solids and went home to play with my design.  By Saturday evening I had these pieces cut out and ready to sew.

 Last night I finished sewing the pieces together.  I'm pleased that I decided to add black rather than a dark plum to my adaption of Terry's design.  She told us to play around with some of her ideas.  My plan is to quilt this piece and then square it up.  It is about 18" x 20" or so, not sure what quilting designs I'l used.

Mary Lou Weidman Snowman Blocks Done!

Late last night I finished sewing the last of my carrot noses onto my snowmen for an upcoming swap. Ironically I managed to have eight face right and eight face left, eight with toques and eight with top hats.  Twelve will be swapped, I'll send one for Mary Lou and keep the remaining three.

 I love how the newspaper fabrics went together.

 I used the same shape for all the top hats and same for the toque.  The noses I rough cut and then as I stitched them on they took different shapes.

 Most of the snowmen were pretty straight in their stance.

 A couple lived a bit closer to the balance edge.

 This guy looks ready to boogie on down.

 I think this guy is trying to stand up straight, but having to close one eye...it is Friday night after all!

 The cool guy just hanging out.

 A little star gazing and wishing for snow.

 Glad that the end of the week is here.

 Looking towards the stars.

 Contemplating what will happen this weekend.

 Friendly snowman.

 Hmm...I wonder?

 Grooving to the music.

 Yes Sir!

 These will be the ones I send away, I'm going to add a snowflake button to each block.  Now to wait and see what comes back to me?