Northern Needles

Time to post my challenge for the week.

My first is to quilt my coffee quilt.  I had imaginings of freemotion swirls everywhere.  Unfortunately the quilt is too big for me to effectively do this yet.  I need more practice.  But I would really like this finished so I’m going to use my walking foot and do straightlines.  I’m thinking of following the blocks and rows. 

My second goal is to start piecing my Olivia the Pig quilt.  I have to do it when Lisa is not here so that could mean some late night sewing!  But I do need to get this going so it’s done for Christmas. 

And what will you be doing?

I love sunday nights.  Phil and I go way back!!  Did you see that building tonight?  The tallest building in the world.  Oh my.

I have some updates.

First, I received a wonderful package in the mail this weekend from a friend.  What was in it?  Halloween fabric and candy corn!  wahoo!!

So saturday I had fun.  Had to do quite a bit of figuring to make my blocks work out evenly all the way around but I’m pleased with the result.

Everyone in the house agreed that it needed a black border.  But I was too tired and my pillow called.

But up bright and early this morning I had to finish it off.  I’m not too sure on the size of the border, the blocks were 3 1/2 (after piecing they were 3 inch square) square so I wanted to make sure that the border was a good size bigger.  I chose 5 1/2 inch borders, so after piecing they would be 5 inches.  They look bigger then that now but I think finished off (quilted and bound) they won’t look as large.  What do you think?  Should I trim them down?  You have till wednesday to let me know!  That’s when I get my backing fabric.

I love the dancing wishes in the middle panel!  (btw, check out Lisa stuffing a pillow she made today)

And I finished piecing my churndashes and snowballs together (friday challenge piece!).  Oh joy.  So now to figure out what I want to use as the two border colours (3 yards in total so I better like it LOL). 

Sometimes I look at this and I love the reds the best.  Then other times it’s the brown.  I’m not a fan of the light cream but I can live with it.

Ok, my pillow calls once again, another long week of work and then I can have fun on the weekend.

Vivian

As I mentioned in a previous post this week, I finished last friday’s challenge.  My coffee quilt top has been pieced.  Now to find backing fabric and get it quilted.  But that will be a future friday challenge.  On to this week’s challenge.

One of my first classes was a class featuring a layer cake and a pattern called Cafe Latte.  The feature block is a churndash.

It was an all day class and when we left we had a completed pile of snowballs and a start on our churndashes.

I’ve learned a lot during the past year and if I had to do it all over again, I would have left the snowballs for last, once I had the finished size of my churndashs.  My snowballs are just a little off.  So perfect corners are not plentiful.  But you know what?  I don’t care!  LOL…this was a learning quilt.  I leared a lot of things about what to do and what not to do.  And now I can use it to “practice” machine quilting on.  I have a class in November where we learn how to handle and quilt a large quilt on our little machines. 

I’m pleased with the layer cake I chose.  It gives a very “old” feel and is all pretty and scrappy looking.  (I’ll look up the name and post it when I find it!)

So my goal is to have the quilt top pieced.  I admit I cheated and started early (yesterday).  I have already managed to piece 4 rows together.  Another 3 to go and then off to the quilt store to get stop border and outer border material.   So that’s my goal, the entire top pieced (including borders). Who wants to come help pick out fabrics?

Happy friday!  Vivian

The weekend is half over and I have a sense of accomplishment.

First I forgot to post a picture of the completed tiles I did for our quilting bee (check out our quilting bee at:  http://thebeebalm.blogspot.com/ ). 

We were to pick three fabrics, a yellow, a blue and a red so that Shelly could have a wonderfully scrappy quilt.  I hope you enjoy it Shelly! It’s going to be beautiful.

I’m very pleased.  My coffee quilt top is finished. It’s a bit smaller then I expected…48 1/4 inches x 40 1/2 inches.  Do you think it needs to be bigger?  I could add a stop border and find some fabric to make a large border.  I don’t know.  I think I have to live with it for a bit longer and then decide.   And if you look close enough (sorry my close up shot was too fuzzy I’ll try to get a better one) you’ll see my sashing strips line up!  It was a bit difficult as there was about 5 inches and then a square, then 5 more inches and another square, and so on.  Apparently some of my blocks weren’t the same width but I think it’s hidden well.

But isn’t it wonderful?  I just love these fabrics.  I love coffee.  It’s all me! 

By the way, notice the snow out the window?  Yep…we have about a foot in the “meadow”. 

See you Sunday!  Vivian

Well, once again a week has gone by and I did not work on my challenge piece. 

However, in my usual standard, I’ve done everything BUT…I finished my October quilting bee block (pics to come) and I pulled out a UFO and hope to finish it off today.

I’ve misplaced my magazine (Irish Quilting Issue 1) so I can’t tell you it’s name but it uses a charm pack and a jelly roll.  I chose Moda’s Bistro line. 

I’m at the point where I’m sewing pieced sashing to the rows.  Fortunately it’s easy to figure out what I was doing when I lost my magazine so I can finish it off without worrying.

Unfortunately I started this when I was an extreme beginner and I’m not exactly….exact.  So I’m ripping my pieced sashings apart and resewing trying to match them up to my blocks.  Its a bit tricky but at least I know what I’m doing now. 

It will be a lap quilt size when finished.  I checked my box…I now have 3 quilts (2 lap sized and one full size) to be quilted.  With this one that will be 4.  I seriously need to buy some backing fabric and batting!!!! 

So I’m calling it a new challenge week, just because I know I’ll finish it LOL.  My friday challenge is my bistro lap quilt.  Hope that doesn’t jinx anything!

Off to take the dogs for a walk in the snow! We’ve had a blizzard pretty much every day this week, gotta change out the tires to snow tires soon. 

Happy Fall!

Edited to add photos I found of the coffee quilt…

I completed the top of my suduko quilt today.  I absolutely love the colours of it, all of the fabrics are nature related in browns and greens.  My binding will be the same brown as in the sashing.  I’ve prepared the binding and it’s all nicely rolled just waiting. 

Ta-da!!!!!

And I started working on my quilting bee September block.  Unfortunately due to mail it didn’t come until about a week ago but I’ll have it ready probably by tomorrow night and mail it home on tuesday.

We are to create a house on a field of green with a blue sky using these retro fabrics.  I think they are ’30s?  Whatever they are, they are cute.

Have a great week everyone!

Vivian

Mr. Rooster.  How do you like my pincushion?

And this is his other side.

Mr. Rooster is still missing his eyes (black seed beads) because I can’t remember where I put my beading needles.  No worries, I’ll find them.

Once a month we have a class called Bernina Club.  It’s for owners of Berninas and each class project is especially designed to help us learn more about our machines so we can truly enjoy them.  So I learned I need to get a 37 foot.  It’s the embroidery foot.  How did I ever live without it?  Its on my christmas wish list now. 

I also learned foundation piecing (on muslin) and prairie points.  And then we got to play with our machine’s embroidery stitches!!!  Loved it!  I especially enjoyed learning how to create a pyramid.  So cool.

I know I missed posting on Friday about my challenge (the Fall Memories applique).  Unfortunately I did everything BUT my chosen challenge piece.  Isn’t that the way?  I know there’s a word for it.  Avoidance?  LOL.

I did work on my rooster obviously.  And a bag.  This was for a friendship bag swap (on flickr). 

I did a little freemotion quilting in the flowers and grid quilting (diamonds) on the bottom.   

And I worked on my suduko quilt.  I have two border pieces to put on and it’ll be ready for quilting.  (no picture available until I get those two pieces put on!!!).

I’ve had a busy week.  I also picked out the fabric for my scrappy raggy quilt class that I’m taking at the end of the month.  I fell in love with purple flannels!!!

Aren’t they just gorgeous?  The green is for the backing.  The pansies will be the feature fabric and the rest are accent fabrics.  Oh I can’t wait!!!!  I got enough for a full size quilt.  Wow.  I’m overcome every time I look at them. 

And check out the threads I chose to go with them.  They are from the King Tut line.

Oh I can’t wait to quilt this.  My daughter (the 9 y.o.) is excited as I am.  “Oh mom.  We can snuggle under a pretty quilt.”  Of course we can!!!!

Oh, and I am in a virtual quilting bee.  The October block is called Italian tile and is really 3 blocks using red, blue and yellow.  So I chose my fabrics.  I like how bright and cheery they are.

In between everything I’m reading a book that a friend lent me.  Windfall by Penny Vincenzi.  It was published in 1997.  I’m enjoying it.

Happy weekend everyone!

Vivian