End of the Month and trying to catch up....

Another weekend here and although we talked about going away in Vancouver Canada we have another weekend of snow, yes SNOW!!!.   Bellingham got it worst then us last weekend but again they say we're looking at 2 - 4 inches of snow and in Vancouver where many people don't have snow tires, that's dangerous.

It's been 2 weeks that both my husband and I have said, we need to get out and have a mini vacation. We were looking at a weekend in Bellevue, with some quilt material shopping and just relaxation in the hotel and bars, but not with snow on the way.

Check out last weekend's little snow fest....  This is Vancouver Island who got it more then us in Surry BC, but the idea was the same, and this same light snow fall lasted for 2 days straight.  I'm not kidding.

From CTV News

I mean, I'm from Manitoba, in the middle of Canada, where there is plenty of snow, and -30 to -40 degrees most of the winter, so snow is not a novelty...  But in Vancouver it's strange, and now a second week of it??!!!  Enough.  But at least it makes me stuck in my place and I keep up with the sewing.

Another BOM?!!  Why not.  It's not exactly a block of the month, this one is a scrappy quilt along.   

Here’s how it will work:

1. On the 2nd of each month,  a block will be posted, along with some ideas for completed projects. Only the instructions for the block will be provided.  I may make the block larger or smaller if I wish. All blocks come in different sizes from 6 to 9 to 12 inches.
2. Make 1 block and use it as a hot pad, make 3 or 4 and use them as a table runner, make a few more and make a lap quilt . . make as many as I want or have time to make.
3. Use your scraps to make as many blocks as you want or as many as you have time to make.
4. On the 26th of each month, a “Call to Action” is posted which will mean it’s time to stop working on blocks and get the project finished. It would be nice if the projects were finished . . as in quilted and bound, but they want you to at least try to have the top completed, even if it isn’t quilted and bound. 
5. On the last day of the month, a post with a link box is put up so I can link up to share my projects. 
6. I can do the ones I want or just follow along.  

This seems like it will be fun.  So far, if you look at the left you'll see how many BOMs I'm in but I'm behind in the Layer Cake and the Garden, my first original quilt that I wanted to do, 2 months behind.  DARN!

Tomorrow afternoon I'll work some more and blog them so you can follow.  

Block Lottery for a draw of all that you may need for a quilt....

I really like the idea of this lottery that's going on at Block Lotto.  Every month they give you a new pattern to make.  You make as many as you want and you send them in to get into a draw.  The amount of blocks you put in is the amount of draws you have to win all the blocks and make yourself a quilt.

 So far there has been two this year and at the end of the year you have a huge quilt.  The quilt this year is modern.  The first month is the chevron, the second one is called bead on a string, which really looks great.

beads on a strong.

The site tells you what color to do the block in, what size and what style so they are similar enough to make a quilt with all the blocks entered in the draw.  On the same site I gave you, that is where the patterns come up but if you keep on looking through the site you will also see quilts made by the winner.  Just so you know people from all over the world send in their blocks, some from Germany, some from England.  So to send your block in would be a little expensive but well worth the mention on the blog.  Generally the draw is for 35 - 40 blocks so you can make an entire quilt yourself.  The blog also states when your quilt block was received, so you know you're in the block lottery when your name is on the "At a Glance page".  .  So far as of today there are 187 blocks of beads.

When done every quilt (like a block of the month) it is recommended the following common background fabric:  

• Small (42-inch square) – 1 1/2 yards
• Crib (42 by 63-inch rectangle)  - 2 1/4 yards
• Throw (63 inch square) –3 1/4 yards
• Twin (63 by 84-inch rectangle) – 4 1/2 yards
• Full/Queen (84-inch square) – 6 yards
• King (105 inch square) – 9 1/4 yards

I'm looking at the Queen.  Here's the style.  It shows where the Double Chevons go.  Another BOM to do  ;)

It will be great when it's done.  But I'll need to keep up at the site at all times.  

Here's the link.  

This is the address to see some of the old Lotto Blocks so you can catch up.  I've started mine....

Down the Rabbit Hole - finally I started it...

As was my goal this year, I wanted to do some blocks of the month online, do some samplers, and Gable House and Co. has a fantastic one.  It's called "Down the Rabbit Hole" and Jennifer Overstreet does a fantastic job of explaining each and every step.  At this point it's very simple for a beginner quilter, and although I'm past that step, it's still fun to figure out other ways to do the blocks, making it more challenging.

A friend of mine gave me 50 pieces of fabric for my 50th birthday, so I'm using all those scraps.  They have  patterns with green, blue, pink and red, some modern, some old.  It's quite the combo but it's going well so far.  I'm  using some green material as a filler or background to bring it all together.  I already purchased 2 meters of this greenso that's working out with no new purchases.  The object in "my head" is to use all that material she gave me, so it will be my birthday quilt at the end.  The things we do to ourselves!!!!

I started this BOM late but in one day (a snow day) I did a lot.  See below for all the squares made so far.  It makes me smile to see them now.  I started at 8:00 pm and stopped at 2:00 am in the morning (yes I got lost in the sewing, but when I started to make mistakes and not have fun anymore I realized I'm getting tired and went to bed).  It really did go fast, the making of the blocks so far.

What is the schedule for the blocks you may ask?

• September - Nine Patch - Completed.
• October - HST (half square triangles) and Pin Wheels - Completed.  Had to undo and redo...
• November - Flying geese - there are 88 to do!!!!  Looking at doing them 4 at a time, but I need to find one of those lessons online to remember how to do it and to make sure it's the right size!!!  Might do it a bit bigger.
• December - Friendship Star - Completed.
• January - Variable Star - will cut them out today.  
• February - Calico Puzzle - completed.
• March - Monkey Wrench - Boy, is this going fast!!!!
• April - Grandmother's Fan and Orange Peels
• May - Piece and assemble it all together.
• June - final!!!!

This is the only BOM that ends so early so I get a new quilt then and can show my quilting guild early.

Nine Patch using different greens and pinks

Calico pattern and Pinwheel

Friendship Star - did two colors because ran out of red poka dots

I also worked a bit on my "Valentine Flowers" quilt, I'm sewing the binding, but I still need to quilt all the white sections of the quilt.  Another day, or rather in the next month.

I also bought some more fabric (I'm addicted!!!) from Wineberry's Quilting Store, wanted to treat myself after such a hard week, but I broke a promise to myself that I would not buy any more fabric unless I finished two more quilts.  That's a sign of addiction.

They look black but the color is indigo, with great modern patterns.

Finally, been working really hard on my applique BOM from Sycamore Hill website, another great BOM that I'm enjoying but is taking longer then I thought to do.  I could of used fusing but I instead I wanted to do "turn applique".    Here is what the January and February blocks look like:

Started this one.  All leaves are the same.  But I have about 5 pinks.

February's Block, haven't even started this one yet...  But I have the material.

So I am catching up!!!

New BOMs Joined

And because of that I'm looking at another 3 BOMs, I cannot resist and they're FREE!!!  The first one is from the Blogger Girls' Block of the Month.  They are asking for reds and greens, my favorite colors and it looks more challenging then some of my other ones.  Love the final look.  What do you think?

Need to make a lot of HST's.  But I love the colors!!  Can't resist.

Not Yet Started but will start

Take a look at the left hand side for all the BOM's I'm participating in but at this point.  There is only one that I have not started yet, the Garden, because it's paper piecing and it takes time, and it's very high level but you don't learn anything unless you try.  

Debbie Mumm, who I love, has a new BOM that you do every two months.  I haven't started this one as well because I don't have the material.  I need some more red and blues to get going.  You can see the great work on the left, how wonderful it looks.  I'll also need some tan, but I'll need the brown that's in the quilt as well.

Material Girl has a Layer Cake sampler. You use two layer cakes, one for the pattern and the second one for the background that should be solid.  You can use a basic color for the web site instead of the second layer cake.  Go to the link above to see the sampler of having a basic color.  Amanda Castor has a sample on her website.  Love all the different patterns here to uses and what I can learn.  

I can honestly say at this point "I HAVE GOT TO STOP JOINING BOMS!"

Snow stopped us from a mini holiday but not relaxing....

Got to work on Vice Versa but I'm not happy with it.  It's the way the colors went together.  Although the colors look good and match, the darks ended up on one side of the design and the lights on the other.  I think it would look better with alternating blocks of dark, light, then light (move the blue to the brown) and dark.  See what I mean below?  This one doesn't look bad...

Vice Versa Feb. Block

Vice Versa's Feb Blocks.

but I don't like the one with all the colors, where the darks are fuller, you can't see the green smaller triangles because of the brown and the red, with the lights and darks alternating, the green will pop better.   What do you think?

Work is interfering with Play...

School's been very busy, setting up the classes and getting all students on a computer.   Like all fabricoholics I've been buying material to be ready for some of my BOMs.  They seem to grow and I am behind in 3...  Applique is filling in my time because I'm too tired to take out my sewing machine. But at least it is getting done.  I'm happy with how it's coming along.  It's the BOM Applique, that's longer then 12 months.

I have been working on finishing/completing two of my quilts that I have the top done, but need to layer and such.  The valentine quilt is coming along so well, I'm surprised at the free style quilting I'm doing.  

I need to add my machine quilting to this blog, but this weekend we're away, and next weekend I'm at two of my school classes, plus swimming two nights, so where will I fit in the time????

It will come...  tonight maybe....

Working on the ViceVersa #2 block, cutting it out as well as the free-style quilting BOM.

I also need to get more material, the Material Girl BOM, a BOM at my new quilting guild (I'm two behind in that one), red white and blue for the Debbie Mumm quilt along, and more so.

Well I joined the FVQG like I said I would and it was the best decision I made!!!  The library is incredible, the people so friendly! and the guest speaker was the reason I went.  

Kathy McNeil was not only elequant in her presentation, but the members in the morning serssion came again to see her in the afternoon.  That has to say something about her.  What says even more are her quilts.  You can see her quilts at http://www.kathymcneilquilts.com/ but the pictures below are the quilts she brought to show to talk about.  Most have taken 1200 - 1500 hours of work.  Talk about patience.  I bought the fabric paint crayons to start painting backgrounds....  So cool!!!  I can't wait to start appliqué again!!

The picture itself is outstanding but.....

This one shows the quilting so much more!!!

This one makes you feel cold!!!

I'm so sorry that this one blurred, no flash photography...

The quilting on this quilt is outstanding, 1500 hours of work.

Little Yoyos the size of your fingernail....  My god!!!

I AM MOTIVATED!!!!

Went to the Surrey Arts Centre yesterday to look at the Fraser Valley Quilting Guild's small show and met 5 wonderful women watching over the quilts.  They were fantastic.  I didn't include any pictures because they weren't mine to show but if you want to see them go to http://www.fvqg.org/showtell.php for a look see.  They were amazing and inspiring.  They have a speaker this week  - Kathy McNeil, and you must go heard of her for her quilts with such life like quilts of birds,  that is a block of the month, and one well worth doing.  Check it out at http://www.kathymcneilquilts.com  .  She taught at the FVQG a block that was closely related to her quilt (see below for the original).  

Outstanding, and you wouldn't believe the piece work!!  One of the girls at the Art Center took the course and was working on it.  Can't believe the work!  You can' see it here and goodness knows the piece work is extension.  The workshop started with the largest piece and on the cardinal alone, there are over 8 pieces...  So imagine.  




In other great news one of the girls there also teaches free style quilting, and I spent about 30 minutes talking to her alone.  One of the great advices she gave me was that it takes at least 250 hours before you become an expert at free style quilting, so it was encouraging considering I feel inadequate on it. After that I tried it on my valentine quilt.  Here are the results...

Can you see the hearts....

Around the leaves and stems

The more I did it the better I got with the hearts....

Found the location of the meetings online and it's only 15 - 20 minutes away so that decided it.  Will go as a member right away and not a guest.  I already did the block of the month for exchange.  It's the  Would be great to win but it was fun doing it and the block turned out very well, maybe I'll make a quilt with it.  What do you think?  It was rather simple, and quick.  I can just imagine a full quilt like that.  Did I mention my husband likes blue?  ;)

On a final note, I finished my Secret Santa quilt, and it looks fabulous.  Like its London-based counterpart, Notting Hill by Joel Dewberry is a community of fashionable, European-inspired designs that blend a variety of patterns and stunning floral motifs. Try on this unexpectedly harmonious, fashion-forward and color rich fabric collection for a dashing result. It's very forgiving, easy to gather up the material, can be done numerous times and it will never look the same.  I've made mistakes in this quilt, put the same fabric by each other a couple of times and still it looked great.  The pattern is here, try it out.  My quilt is done in flannel.  The cat won't stop sleeping on it.

See the error?  Still looks great!

All this done this long weekend thanks to "Family Day" in BC.

2nd Doodle done!!!

I am so enjoying the Quilt Doodle BOM!  The 2nd quilt block came in last week and I was finished it on Saturday before Super Bowl Sunday.  It was true, it only took a 1/2 day, but it turned out so great!

I am so happy with the material in the background.  It was suppose to be stars but it looks like snow at night.  I went through my stash and found all the different browns.  This QAL BOM is fantastic, using up fabric from my snip bag, and more.  And I am so happy with  Doodle Designs and the layout of the quilt in the end.  Below is the look of how the quilt will come together.   It's the start of the week and I now have to wait until the next month, that's kill me, patience is not my virtue, but I have many more BOMs to work on and two that I am behind, so.......


Happy quilting!