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.

Block Party progress

I took a break from my labyrinth quilt yesterday, and got two of the three block party blocks completed.  We have a pretty Christmas pinwheel, and a star block this month.  It's a busy month this time around, because we had a cancellation last month so we're playing catch up. 

I have one more to complete, but the official deadline for it isn't until the 6th of December, so I can put together some more labyrinth blocks before I tackle that 8-pointed star.

Blogathon starts today!

Blogathon Canada starts today.  Be sure to drop by the host blogs for a chance to meet some great Canadian bloggers.  And don't forget to enter on each blog for a chance to win great prizes.

Drop by the Sew-Sisters blog too, for more chances to win!

Here's the schedule for this week's blogathon. Be sure to drop by all the blogs during the blogathon week, and check out some of the additional blogs they'll each have linked.  Get to know some Canadian bloggers, and enter for a chance to win prizes. And be sure to come back here on November 23 for my hosting day!

Monday, November 18	BC	Holly	Holly's Red Bike
Monday, November 18	BC	Heather	Winding Bobbins
Tuesday, November 19	Maritimes	Adrienne	Chezzetcook Modern Quilts
Tuesday, November 19	Maritimes	Marjorie	Marjorie's Busy Corner
Wednesday, November 20	AB	Katherine	Sew Me Something Good
Wednesday, November 20	AB	Andrea	Urban Quilt Works
Thursday, November 21	SK	Flo	Butterfly Quilting
Thursday, November 21	MB	Kathy	Tamarack Shack
Friday, November 22	QC	Izzy	Dizzy Quilts
Friday, November 22	Territories	Danielle	A Geeky Crafty Life
Saturday, November 23	ON	Jackie	Jackie's Art Quilts
Saturday, November 23	ON	Krista	Krista Quilts

Design Wall Monday - Nov 18

My design wall is a bit of a mess today.  I spent some time working on my labyrinth quilt yesterday. I really should have been doing my block party blocks, because two of them are due this coming weekend but labyrinth was calling my name. 

I cut all the strips out, to make sure I wasn't going to run out of the light, and stuck the strips up on the wall in sets. I should be OK - there's about 10 inches of the light purple fabric left right now.  Assuming I didn't make any major mistakes in cutting, I have enough.  That might be a big assumption, give than I have found cutting issues in each of the 3 blocks I've assembled so far.  Apparently I can't count very well.  However, I'm pretty sure the fabric is going to be enough.

On the good news front, I finished quilting my diamond star yesterday.  I love how it came out, although some of my free motion quilting still needs more practice.  There's a little bit of everything in this quilt - feathers, circles, stippling, and ruler work.

The colour in this second picture is way off, but I was trying to get the quilting to show up.  I guess my photography skills need more practice too.  Now I just need to get it bound by this weekend.  With that and the block party, I think labyrinth is going to have to take a break for few days.

Drop by Judy's blog today to see what everyone else has on their design walls.

Stash Report - Nov 17

This week wasn't nearly as prolific as last week, but I can report 3 yards used for the backing of my star quilt.   I've made a lot of progress on the quilting, and hope to get it off the long arm by the end of today.

I've also made a little bit of progress on the labyrinth, and have managed to confirm that I will *not* run out of fabric before it's done.

Total stash used this week: 3 yards
Total for the year: 231 1/4

Drop by Judy's blog to see what everyone else has been up to this week.