I found this pattern on the Wedding Dress Blue blog under the Calico Rose quiltalong tab at the top of the page. The quilt done in whites and scrappy fabrics didn’t interest me but I could imagine bright scrappy fabrics twinkling on a black background. I’m glad to say the finished quilt exceeded my expectations.

I’ve been working on this for way too long but with the thanks of my fiance Marc it finally got it quilted and after some brutal (black binding on black fabric is no fun to sew at all!) binding sessions getting all 30′ of binding completed, it’s finally on our bed!

And we are absolutely loving it!

Here is the list of UFO’s that have entered 2019 with me:

1. En Provence – A Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt – top completed
2. Friendship Star baby quilt – top completed
3. Star blocks – loose blocks, top needs to be made
4. Alletaire – A Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt – Blocks need fixing and top needs to be finished
5. Halloween square pumpkin wall hanging – needs quilting
6. Cinema at 7 – top completed
7. Found charm square top – top made or donated?
8. Cross and Chains – top completed
9. Panel with bright yellow backing needs quilting finished or tossed
10. Too nice to cut lap quilt – top completed
11. Black and white wall hanging, finish quilting
12. Star Quilt in Allison Glass Fabrics – top completed
13. 100 Hugs in Pink and Purple – top completed
14. Black and white bed quilt – top completed
15. Coin Quilt – in pieces, top needs to be made
16. Bento Box Quilt – top completed
17. My Quilt (Star something or other) – borders need to be added
18. That other Bonnie Hunter not finished Mystery Quilt – borders need to be added
19. ZigZag Nines (Bonnie Hunter) to be made into several smaller quilts
20. Arizona Crossroads – border to be added
21. Shannan’s Poly cotton Quilt – top to be finished
22. Black table runner – quilt or scrap
23. Peaky and spiky quilt – top to be finished
24. green and black (144 square) baby quilt – top completed
25. Twisted Star lap Quilt – top completed
26. Idaho Square dance variation – top completed
27. Star quilt (brights on black)- top completed
28. Maple leaf Strippie Quilt 1 – top completed
29. Maple leaf Strippie Quilt 2 – top completed
30. Marc’s Gradient Quilt in 3 colours – needs borders
31. Irish Star Quilt – borders?
32. Quilt top (not made by me) found at VV – needs quilting
33. Guild top 1 (not made by me) – needs binding finished
34. Guild top 2 (not made my me)- needs binding applied and sewn down
35. Whirlygig – top completed
36. Stars in sashing quilt – top completed
37. Stars touching – top completed
38. Black & brights Livejournal swap quilt – top needs to be made

There are also two started 2019 projects – a wheelchair quilt for Dad and a pile of “H” blocks that I’m making to either make into either wheelchair or baby quilts for charity. These will not be going on the 2020 UFO list.

My objective for 2019 is to not necessarily get my UFO list to zero, I don’t think that’s realistic but I think what is realistic is to get the list halved going into 2020. If I can do better great, but I don’t want to set myself up for either failure or stress. That defeats the purpose of a hobby that I do for enjoyment.

Marc came home not long ago and told me that a friend of ours is in the family way once again. It’s a little too early to know if it’s a boy or a girl so I’m making sure I’m prepared. I’m undecided whether to keep this new quilt in the same theme as the quilts for her older two children and do a sea theme or do something else entirely. Here are two very bad pictures of the quilts I made for the older two children:

Part of me is tempted to break with the theme and make the new arrival a 100-Hugs quilt from the Wedding Dress Blue blog. I have a blue and green one all ready to go for a little boy:

And I’m working on a pink and purple 100-Hugs Quilt for a girl. I haven’t had much time to sew lately so it’s been coming along slowly.

No worries whatever I decide. Baby quilts always find a home!

Last weekend I headed to quilt retreat with one of the quilt guilds I belong to. Four days up north of the city in cottage country, with great ladies, my favourite hobby, lots of good food and snacks and wonderful scenery.  Just what I needed after a crazy few months of work and life in general.

Here are some of the views of the resort where we stayed

Beautiful, isn’t it?

As beautiful as it was it was chilly outside which kept me inside quilting up a storm.

I had started the and constructed the 3.5″ squares for a Galaxy quilt by Deb Tucker before I arrived at the retreat. A good thing, as there was some swearing involved in getting my pieces the right size and not an 1/8th of an inch shy of the right size. However, my perseverance paid off and the top (other than the outer purple border which is not on yet) went together very nicely:

I also had cut out a quilt for Marc before the retreat but had not sewn it together. He’d wanted a quilt made of solids in three colours. I’d found this quilt called Geometric Graduation 2 by Greta Grama that fit the bill perfectly. It too needs outer borders but the rest is together:

It was fun to do but after a while I did need a break from dealing with solid black material with solid black thread. The 132 blocks were easy to put together, however,placement did take a bit of concentration. This too needs outer borders. I just wasn’t in the mood to tackle outer borders at retreat (that and I just didn’t have enough time).

Last but least I made a simple Mary’s Strippie quilt top with some Toronto Maple Leaf juvenile fabric:

I was productive. I have another Maple Leaf Strippie cut out that I didn’t get to and I, of course, have to get the borders on the two quilts I started.

All very different in style but I liked that as it gave me a very nice variety of things to work on and stopped me from getting bored.

A few more pictures from the restort:

A few weeks ago Marc and I took a course at a local quilt studio, Whirls n Swirls Quilting Studio run by the lovely Tracey, teaching us how to use their APQS long arm quilting machines.  Yes, I managed to convince my man to join me in learning to quilt on a a long arm. He has tried a bit of piecing and quilting on my domestic machine but it really isn’t his thing yet still he was willing to try this type of quilting – I’m very lucky and I actually think he’s better at the mechanics of operating the long arm than I am.  For our lesson we quilted on a quilt panel that they supplied and then donated to a local charity.

Today we went in to quilt a quilt I had pieced.  I picked a long finished quilt top from the Wedding Dress Blue blog (I love Deanna’s patterns) called Calico Rose to quilt as my first long armed quilt. Why start with something small when you can start big?

Here it is folded in 4 and not yet quilted:

Here it is on the machine with Marc quilting away on it.

It took us four hours to quilt –  a fraction of the time it would have taken me at home.  It was also so much easier doing it on the long arm rather than fighting getting it through the the the throat of my home sewing machine. My shoulders, back and arms are loving the decision I made to do this at Tracey’s studio. It still needs to be  trimmed and binding to be made for it. I’m wavering back and forth between solid black binding and scrappy colourful binding.  I’ll decide while I get prepared for quilt retreat starting at the end of the week.

I made it! My Around the Block quilt was bound before the end of September. I’m so happy with how it came out.

Around the Bock – finished

I found a another dotty black fabric for the backing:

Around the block showing the backing fabric

I’m so pleased with how this came out I’m keeping it. It’s the perfect size to cover my feet and legs when I”m stretched out on the the recliner chair.

I’m so happy my Windmill quilt is finished!

The pattern is from the Patch the Giraffe blog where it was called Big Bock Quilt and is about 36″ square. It went together well!  A simple pattern yet a lovely bold result. It’s backed with pink material in the quilt top.   I’m really pleased that my blue quilting lines washed out completely. Crayola washable markers haven’t failed me yet.

This will make a great quilt for a baby girl. I don’t have anyone in mind for it yet but I know I’ll find the perfect little person to gift it to soon!

Linking up with blogs listed on my Quilt Link Up Parties page.

I’m pleased to report another finish. This time it’s the Hundred Hugs Quilt. I made the top a few years ago and finally quilted and bound it in the last few weeks.   I love that it’s scrappy yet has a controlled colourway of green and blue. The quilt is a bit crinkly but has been washed and soft and clean and is ready to be gifted.

 I’ve decided I’m keeping this one so that I have a baby boy quilt on hand. I don’t have anyone in mind for it but I’m sure the opportunity to gift this will come up sooner rather than later. 

This makes 2 of the 5 quilts I recently quilted completely finished.  The hand sewing of the binding is coming along on another 2 quilts and the binding has been chosen but not yet sewed for the last of the 5 quilts. I’m slowly getting there with finishes. I’d love to get them all finished by the end of the month.

I’m linking this up with many of the blogs on my Quilt Link Up Parties page.

I finally have a finish. Believe it or not it’s my first one in 2018.  I started making these happy blocks earlier this year and actually finished a quilt with them  in the same year I started working on them.  I’ve made lots of tops in that time but never got them past the finish line. Life happened – renovations, family health issues, unpacking after renovations, setting up my sewing room after our move last year – and it kept me from the sewing machine more than I would have liked. And when I finally got to the sewing room I was piecing quilt blocks and tops and not sandwiching, quilting or applying binding to actually get quilts finished.  That has now changed.

For this quilt I used the same print for the centre square and and then used various tone on tone fabrics from my stash for the outside of each block. I was planning to make it very scrappy but that didn’t happen. Rather a controlled scrappy quilt emerged.

I found a green fabric with hearts on it in my stash. As it  matched most of the colours in the quilt I thought it the perfect backing for this quit. I quilted it using a wavy line stitch on my sewing machine. It was then bound in the same material I used for the pink blocks.

If you see some dark lines on the quilt those are marks from the crayola washable markers I used to mark some of the quilting lines on the quilt. I’ll wash it prior to giving it away.

I’m not quite sure where this quilt will end up. I’m guessing that it may be donated to the quilt guild to use as a charity quilt or for the silent auction at the upcoming quilt show.

When I mentioned to my beloved that I was blogging about this quilt. I described it as a the quilt I made with the colourful squares.  He looked a me as if my head was spinning and exclaimed “Which quilt with the colourful squares?” and then started laughing loudy. Between laughs he suggested that given how I love bright colours, that my describing a quilt that way is not identifying in the least. I have to admit he does have a point; I do like colour! Instead I’m calling this my Happy Blocks Quilt.  It probably won’t help him identify it but I’ll know which one it is.

I’m so pleased. This past weekend I got in some serious quilting time. I got 5 baby/crib sized quilts FINALLY quilted. I love piecing, but sadly the actual quilting isn’t my favourite part of the entire process.

One of the quilts I quilted is this one:

I must confess that the quilting is very simple. I used the walking foot on my Husqvarna Sapphire and a stitch that produced a gentle curvy line. It went very smoothly and quickly. I think it complements the straight lines in the block nicely and adds a bit of interest.

A close up of the quilting:

Yes, those light blue lines are marks  from a crayola washable fine line marker. I’ve found that they are indeed true to their word and that the marker does wash out. I hope I’m not proved to be wrong on this though I’ve used those markers many times and have never known them to remain after the quilt has been washed.

I found this quilt on the Patch the Giraffe blog. The blog hasn’t been that active lately but the pattern is still a great one.

I’ve selected the blue material in the centre of the quilt for the binding fabric.  It’s cut out and ready to go on.  My plan is that the binding is on by the end of the week.

I’m linking this post up with many of the blog parties listed on my Quilt Parties page.