December's Get it Done!

Last month I set these goals for myself.  And I made quite good progress, if I do say so myself

1. finish binding labyrinth - Done
2. quilt and bind Living in Harmony - Done
3. bind bear paw - not done
4. catch up on BOM - Downtwon, Toes in the Sand, and Block party. - Done

Poor old bear paw has been on the list two or three months in a row now, and I keep ignoring it.  Maybe next month.  But, in addition to all those lovely finishes, I started and finished my diamond star quilt, pieced my labyrinth quilt (hmm, just noticed the name conflict with my "other" labyrinth - I guess I'll be renaming this one.  Maybe "A-maze-ing Effects"), and made a Christmas wall hanging.

For December, I'd like to continue my finishing streak.

Urban Candy

1. quilt & bind swoon
2. quilt & bind Urban Candy
3. extend "challenge" top from retreat
4. quilt & bind christmas wall hanging

The first 3 of those are "due" December 14.  That might be a stretch, but hopefully the quilting can be done on two of them, and the piecing on #3.

That's not to say I won't be working on the Bonnie Hunter mystery, and the Border Creek Station mystery, and another diamond star quilt.  Just not making any promises about those :)

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else is up to in December.

Friday Update

After my non-starter day earlier this week, my swoon quilt is on the long arm.  I couldn't find any king-size white batting the LQS, so I decided to go ahead and piece it.  I have my queen batting all loaded up, and when I reach the bottom I'll figure out how to handle the shortfall.

I'm hoping to get this quilted and bound before the 14th, for a show and tell.  It's a big quilt, but so far things are going fairly smoothly with the quilting.  Hopefully I didn't speak too soon :)

It could be a busy weekend. Tomorrow is "Get it Done" link up day.  Bonnie's Celtic Solstice started today.  Back to Square One mystery should end on Sunday.  And then it will be time to think about catching up with all my block of the month projects.

The best laid plans

I was all set tonight to start quilting my swoon quilt.  It is enormous - about 106" square, but I have a wide backing for it, and have figured out my quilting plan.  So I headed downstairs, quilt and backing in hand and loaded up the long arm.  Then I turned to the closet to pull out the white batting I knew I had in there - and it's only a queen size!  93x106" - not nearly big enough :(  I debated piecing some batting, but decided I didn't want this particular quilt to have pieced batting if I could avoid it. So, my longarm is now loaded with a backing I can't do anything with, until after I get to the shop later this week.  I sure hope they have some king size white batting in stock.

So, instead of quilting swoon tonight, I headed back upstairs to see if I could get started on my next quilt.  Printed out the plan from EQ, and started counting fabric. I knew I had enough for the original, but I have decided to extend this one a bit.  And, naturally, I'm short on one of the fabrics for the new plan.  I couldn't find anything in the stash that would work, either as a replacement or an extension, so that's off the list for tonight too.

So, moving on, I dug out some sashing fabric for a charity quilt I'm working on - and now can't find the blocks I'm sure I made.  These are the blocks I have, but I was sure I had made about 10 more.  If I did, they've found themselves an excellent hiding place.  Time to give up for tonight I think.

Design Wall Monday - Nov 25

UPDATE January 2018:
The pattern for this quilt is now available on Etsy from this link.

My design wall isn't big enough to hold today's project. So here it is on my design floor. All done except for the borders - I have to check how much of the dark I have left, to figure out how wide the borders can be.

I'm thrilled with how this came out.  And even more thrilled that I had enough fabric - there is a 30"x5" strip left of the light purple.  I wish I could remember exactly  how much fabric I bought for this project.

I think this picture looks even more 3-dimensional than the other.  The quilt is actually square, but the dark pieces on 2 corners are blending into my floor so well that it looks like they aren't there.

Drop by Judy's blog for more design walls today.

And the winner is ...

Commenter #81 - Joanna - won the giveaway of Tonga Celebrate Batiks.  Congratulations, Joanna.  Watch your inbox for an email from me.

Stash Report Sunday - Nov 24

I spent the weekend finishing a quilting projecct so I could return the quilt to its owner. And figuring out how to hang an octagon.  My diamond star quilt is going to be a class at the local quilt shop in the spring, so I had to figure out how to make it hangable at the store.  Which is fine - because when it comes home it's going to hang here too, so that was just some added incentive to figure this out sooner rather than later.
 
I ended up running a piece of doweling across the widest part of the quilt, in addition to the top.  Put a pocket at each end of the long dowel, and a short sleeve in the middle to keep it tight to the quilt.  Seems to work, and I'm looking forward to my next visit to the store, to see my quilt displayed.

It's not quite as wavy as it looks in this picture - it's dragging on the floor here.  But I will admit that it's not entirely as flat as it could be.  But the dowels hold the top part nice and straight, and it doesn't collapse in on itself.
Stash usage this week was minimal - 3/4 yard for binding and sleeves on the diamond star quilt.


Total for the year: 232 yards.  Drop by Judy's blog for more stash reports today.

Blogathon

Welcome to my stop on the Blogathon Canada tour!  It's a sad day, because the blogathon is ending today.  But I hope you had a good time and dropped by a lot of new blogs over the course of the week.  And to ease the pain as our fun ends, there's another great giveaway at the bottom of this post!

I am an avid quilter, in whatever spare time I can scrounge from my days. Now that my sons are older (17 and 19) I have a lot more time for quilting, and I've been making full use of those opportunities.  I've lived in Ottawa for over 20 years now, and I love it here.  I've been quilting for almost 10 years, and often design my own quilts.  I thought I'd give you a quick tour of some of my favourite quilts.

 This was an "ugly fabric" challenge at my guild last year.  I ended up with 5 tone-on-tone fabrics, and one print which included all those other colours - quite convenient, for creating a pretty quilt from ugly starters.  I'm in a bit of a triangle/hexagon phase, and this quilt fits right into that :)

This is my most recent finish.  I am in love with this turqoise fabric

I designed this quilt based on an M.C. Escher print.  More hexagons and triangles :)  I call it Metamorphosis after the Escher print that inspired it.

And this quilt was probably my first "modern" quilt.  And one of my first designs which I've actually made available for sale.  And I made most of this quilt when I was in Texas at my very first quilt retreat. That's a lot of firsts, for one little quilt :)

I designed this quilt because I wanted to see what I could do with fractals - ever-increasing stars inside each other.  I found my limit at a 3" lemoyne star in the center.

And finally one of my favourite quilts.  This was my first hexagon/tumbling block pattern.  I had a concept in mind, then I just started making blocks out of my scraps.  The falling blocks on the right are all pieced individually, with a lot of cut & sew to keep everything straight.

Be sure to drop by some of the other blogs on the tour.  Jackie is our other host for today, and you can find her over at Jackie's Art Quilts  And, to keep you blog hopping, here are a few more of the wonderful Ontario bloggers you can check out.

The Quilting Princess

Quilt Obsession

Lethargic Lass

Artsystuff

Lisa in Port Hope

Unexpected Moments

Wits End

Quilt Matters

Wonderbunnie Designs

SuzieQ Quilts

Kitchener Quilter

True Blue Canadian

Fiberchick

Books and Quilts

Happy Turtle

I love batiks, and when I saw this rainbow fabric I knew it had to be part of my giveaway.  The bundle includes 1 metre of  Tonga Celebrate Batiks - Sketchbook Rainbow, and 6 fat quarters from the same collection.

To win this fabulous bundle of fabric, just leave me a comment before midnight Eastern time on Nov 24.  If you are a no-reply commenter, please make sure you leave your email address, so I can contact you if you win!  The contest is open to international participants. Contest closed.


And don't forget to drop by the Sew-Sisters blog, for a great giveaway from Robert Kaufman.