November is a Triumph!!

 Last month I didn't do much because I was working too much, substituting for friends, and replacing sick teachers.  This month, I did two weeks of replacing one teacher and a month in October.  I would come home tired and nap for 1/2 to an hour every day.  Then I would go to bed at 9:00 and start the next day.  But in between the weeks was Remembrance Day, and another day was a Professional Development day so I wasn't so tired and able to do some painting and sewing.  I reached one of my goals of finishing my Christmas quilt, it's quilted as well, and I'm so happy with it.  So I want to brag and show some of my work.

So here's the final picture.  There were four more paper piece items to do, one was a sleigh bell that's completed (going to turn that into a pillow), one with squirrels, one of a dog on a sleigh.  But I love these ones and the final quilt measures 60" by 60".  Perfect for hanging on my wall this Christmas.  The pattern is from Apples and Beavers, check out their quilts.  Really loved their patterns, have purchased a number of them, including the really cute Dragon one.  You got to take a look.  They had this BOM last year that I bought into, paper piecing.  Wanted to practice my paper piecing again before I tackle this really hard one I have, so I said why not.  Unfortunately their schedule was just beyond my capabilities, 3 paper pieces a month, so I gave up.  They asked me why I wasn't sharing and a survey went out where I found out I wasn't the only one having trouble.  Thus,  a 2nd round of it with one a month or a little less time.  This was more manageable, and the  results you see.  They had stashing around the blocks with stars joining the stashing, but I like my idea better and it really shows up the blocks.  I'll show more pictures when it's up on the wall, and not on my floor like this one.  You can see some previous posts that show the blocks separately.

My next success was really an activity in courage.  I had an old quilt that I did not use for 4 years.  It's been washed numerous times, shrunk a couple of times, and just doesn't fit our queen size been with a husband that hogs the blankets (I would end up with no quilt on my side).  I said for a year that I would cut it up and make a jacket out of it.  Instead I made a hoodie with all my left over blocks and used that.  I loved it but my husband put it in the dryer and I never pre shrunk it so it became a size 10.  I'm an 18 with these shoulders.  I gave it away to a niece who said I could wear it for camping....  I cried.  But onward and upward...  The first cut is the hardest.  The results.....

 It's like being wrapped in a quilt outside.  This is all from that quilt I made in 2019.  Still going strong.  I even had a piece to make a bed runner with (about 20") for my summer white quilt and a good thing too because I made matching pillow cases.  Now that's a great use of quilts.  That was the next one.

The rest of my time was used as reading and painting.  Signed up for a year on a learning site to learn to paint a certain style and let me tell you I'm loving it.  I've only been in it for 2 months (signed up at the start of October) but so far I've painted 8 pictures (moved down to 8" x 8" because running out of wall room).  Here's my favorites so far...

This is a beginner one...  LOL  it's not....

A retirement gift to a friend.

Just because I've been practicing color mixing, and this one had 8 greens.  Sorry about the darkness of the picture.

This one was the hardest of them all, but I wanted to make a small Christmas gift for my uncle who is over 80 and just moved into a smaller place.  He probably doesn't have any Christmas decorations so this is one I want to give him.  It's framed in black and looks really good.  Have to get it off soon because he lives in Arizona, and that will take some time with Duty to pay.  But that's OK.

Finally, great news, I'm back to my quilting guild, just in the morning session if I'm not working.  It feels strange to me, going in daylight but my husband is happy about that, he doesn't like me driving in the dark.  So I joined the Fraser Valley Quilt Guild again, and the first thing I did was join a group to get some of my UFOs down, because I'm sure they're multiplying behind my back in my sewing room (those little devils).  My husband also told me that when I die he's going to contact the Guild and give them all of my kits for free.  Poor thing, he doesn't know the cost of them lol...

So here's my list.  It cost $2.00 for each one you list, and it's an entry to win all the money in the end.  There are numerous other people in it, and like me, they start new ones.  

I had two on the go when I did this and didn't list them.  one was that Christmas quilt.  But the idea is to get my stash down, and this will help.  It runs until June and this was the final day to join, so I did it in a rush, with everything throwing me for a loop on how different the day meeting is compared to the night, and all the people, there were tons.  And to top it off, I'm going to miss the December meeting because I'm going to a hockey game in Seattle with the hubby, but that's OK.  There's always January.  So if you can't read it here it is:

1.  Florence Flamingo by Elizabeth Hartman  

2.  Oh My Cacti by Pen and Paper Quilt.  It's very hard and complicated.  That's why I keep putting it down.

3.  The Tinner box from 2020 that I had with blocks that we did as a group and pass around to each other to make one a month.  I have 15 more to go.  But I love the material.

4.  hand Stitch Farm Yard from The Buggy Barn.  Called Crazy for Applique.

5.  Canadian Animals - Wonderful Woodlands from Art East Quilting Co.  This one is 5 years old.  Must get it done.  It's cute.  See for yourself.

6.  Bear from the same creator.  Bear-Wildered by Art East Quilting Co.  Bought the kit after seeing this one online in a zoom....  jeesh....

That's it my six quilts want to do. 

Wish me luck, and I definitely NEED to stop buying more patterns or getting them free on the internet like this block "There she blows" a whale block....   Yes I'm taking you with me...... 

And if you have the same sense of humor I have...  You'll love this one from Art East Quilting Co. $18.00 

Have a great week.....I have enough to do.

October's wish list......

 OK, another month, another time of making a list of what I want to accomplish, but this month, it's a little harder.  My mother's estate is finalizing, and I'm going through the trauma and the memories of that.  My aunt (her sister) is in the hospital for the 2nd time for not responding properly when talked to because of a concussion three months ago (she couldn't even talk to her daughters when her daughter got there).  I'm still working part time and I'm getting tired of it, and all this with life as usual.  That's crazy!!!!

So what do I do?  continue on like everyone else.  

So here's my list of things to do:

Continue with my paper piece Christmas quilt. Looking at finishing the entire quilt.

• teddy bear quilt
• female elf
• snowman
• steam engine
• the sashing for the quilt
• finish the quilt

See some of the other ones I've completed here....

The cactus quilt.

• need to make 3 more blocks.  I'm behind but I find it so hard to make this one....

And now the final thing:

The quilt pattern that's a skeleton, from Sew Fresh. I've had it for a while and I've looked and couldn't find the pattern on her website nor on her Etsy account.  Here's a major hint of what it's suppose to look like, everything has been cut except for the white, and that's where I'm at.  It's queen size and it shouldn't take too long to do the rows.  It's for Christmas for a girl who is nuts about Halloween.  Yeah I know, I know, it doesn't make sense but that's my family.

I also signed up for something new and I'm very excited about.  It called Fresh Paint from Ali Kay's Studio.  She's a gorgeous painter with bright, very loose painting that I just adore and wanted to learn how she does it.  I took a $10 week of painting with her (5 days actually) where I learn her style and because I was enjoying it sooooooo much (it's acrylic) I signed up by the month to all her classes.  Here's an example of her style.  I love it!!!!

A true stunner, and I'm learning her style.  I'm painting a corn flower and a group of pumpkins in this style.  See another of her works below:

The corn flower is completed.  I love it, but my style is still tight, I still need to loosen up, so tomorrow's class and the next two days is the pumpkins, for me to learn.  Can't wait.....  Here's my corn flower.

I can still get more loose, so we'll see what happens.  My goal for this month is to do the pumpkins, a tulip one and then who knows.    At least two more.  

So I think that's enough for now, for this month, because I'm also traveling again for a week to see a sick aunt.  I'm hooking up to Stories from the Sewing Room for some major motivation.  Have a great month people, have fun.

Another Thing off my bucket list for this month....

Been catching up with the Cozy Holiday Sampler QAL by Apples and Beavers. I bought this last year and only had time to do 5 of them.  So I gave up.  Now I'm back on track, doing one a week with email prompts from Apples and Beaver.   Sometimes even 2nd one for the week. There are 20 paper piece blocks.  I had 7 of them done before this, so now I have 10.  I wanted to do 4 of the following this month and I marked which ones I have completed.:

• Teddy Bear
• Snowflake - done
• Ms. Santa Claus - done
• Female elf
• Male elf
• Sock wasn't on my list but I got it done.

Sock in blue.

Star with two colors white, one is shiny.

I had fun with this one and the eye glasses were so cute.

I also am in a challenge of the week for water coloring that I found online.  So I completed the following as a practice of a YouTube video I found online.  Below is mine and after is the YouTube video:

Then I purchased some acrylic tubes on Facebook (6 of them but one was bad so I threw it away) and she also gave me some huge canvases for free.  Right away I wanted to use the colors so I painted this:

You can see the sun set better with a light shining on it.  There's also birds in the top left corner.  It was about 30" wide and 46" length.  It really was gorgeous but I didn't have room for it, and my husband said no....   You have to understand I have tons of pictures all over the place, mine in acrylic, mine in watercolor, and my mom's in both watercolor and acrylic (she was a professional artist - she did portraits and landscapes of the prairies.) so I have no room.  I circulate my pictures (take some down and put up new ones).  It's funny how many I have.

So I offered it to three people and all said no.  It's the size.....  Finally I told my husband "Hey listen all I wanted to do is try this out, and I learned something about it, so it's OK, lets give it to a second hand store as a donation".  So off I go to do this and while in the elevator of our condo another person steps in, says she likes it and my husband says "you want it?  It's yours" and she says yes that its a beautiful painting, I say thank you and she's impressed that she knows the artist.  So that seals the deal, she takes it.  Funny hun???

But in the end when I offered the painting to one friend she said no it's too big but she really likes this other one in my place, and I end up giving her that one.  I have way too many pictures, so one less is enough.  But it wasn't enough apparently because I finished another item on my goals list.  This ended up on a wall that my husband said "No pictures are going up here, I want one wall clean, nothing on it".  Not any more:

This was the 2nd part of my challenge of the month to finish a quilt, but really I always wanted to make it, but was always scared to do so,  It had so many little details to add, and then to embroider.  But in the end it's done, and in my own style.  I didn't make it exactly like the pattern, but I still like it and so does my husband.

The 1st part of my challenge of the month to finish was the Cat in the Hat quilt, which I completed a week ago.  You can read about it here at this link but I've included a picture of the quilt below.  Really, it turned out great for a gift for a brand new mother.  She'll love it.  And I'm gifting it with a couple of Dr. Seuss books that I bought at a used book store.  It's perfect!!!  All flannel.

Those two things were what my goals were when I hooked up with  Stories from the Sewing Room One Monthly Goal for completing so much and also for starting a new one (that's the one that I mention below)  and finishing that new one in one month....  Can't believe I did that   Here's my goal stating blog post from the start of the month.  On to planning Septembers goals but I start subbing again and school starts, so I have to make it small.  

This month I joined the Summer Block Party 2025.  It was a free BOM with some really cool blocks that were 18" big.  The blocks were  so cute I could not resist (and I should of because I was going to add another UFO to the list!!!!).  But instead of a quilt I wanted to make a bed runner, and that's exactly what I did.

There were 9 blocks in total by a great group of people.  I was following A Bright Corner for her links and getting emails from all the girls who were putting this on.  It's over with but I did complete the quilt.  I quilted it, and did all the blocks in a month.  I AM SO PROUD of myself.

Love the bathing suit, but it turned out to be bigger than the other blocks so I had to cut it down a bit.  The hardest block to do was the umbrella with the chairs, something that I really wanted to complete but I made a mistake.  Can you see it?  I want to do that block again so next time I'll do it right, hopefully.

That's it for quilts.  I'm following Crystal Coast Quilting Guild for the numbers of the quilts to do for the American Quilting Society UFO challenge.  I'm sure I covered 2 of them, and the Summer BOM was an extra that I started this month and completed this month. 

Now the next month's challenges:

my watercolor challenge:  to paint sea life so this is what I want to attempt.  The video I'm looking at is below:

As for the next quilt, who knows but it will definitely be a new one and one that I started and need to  finish, like the girl with the red blocks all around it (the blocks are from RB and the applique was a piece I found in a 2nd hand store.  It's a quilt I want to make for our bed with no batting, so it's nice and light, especially after this heat wave in BC we're having.  We are in the north, and here the town of Lipton  was in the 40 degree mark, breaking another record.  What the heck.

Good luck to everyone finishing their UFOs.  Take care.  Have a great September.

One Monthly Goal Completed for June

 Well, I got it done, the giant Medallion Quilt.  It's made of scrap white/off white background and a number of fat quarter Kaffe fabric bundles I bought from Dinkydoo (a quilting store in Maple Ridge).  Yes it's bright and gorgeous, "YELLING" look at me!!!!  I started it with the Medallion challenge rom --------------- and I did all my rows.  It was a generous lap top then (65" by 65") but now it's 98" by 98".  OMG!!!    It was part of the Stay at Home Round Robin that was on online.  I found it at Kathleen's site, and the link up is at Quilting Gail's site (click on the link here to see the finals)  if you want to see all the finishes.  They're amazing.

It's a king.  I added another row of 15" blocks of more flowers.  The pattern is from the Block Head series, free.   Stacy Iest Hsu made this block in a 12" size and it is just the cutest, but I made all the flowers face the same way, and I put a 1 1/2" divider between, with a 1 1/2" section either on top or at the bottom, to alternate them in placement so they were not all in a row.  You can get the flower pattern here.  It's part of the Block Heads 3 Block 46 rose alternative.

And every garden needs a cat.  I put a heart in it.

After the 14th flower, I was getting tired.  So I decided to add the bee and the bee hive.  This pattern was on sale at one point from Heather Valentine of the Sewing Loft.  She made a very cute group of blocks (size 6 or 12") of the bee hive, the bee and some flowers that I did not use.  You can see them better on her site at this link.  It's so easy to make and I just loved these bee patterns.  

So I made two of the bees to add on the size of 6" and the bee hive at 12".  Then I wanted to try another quilt block free from the Moda Bake Shop, a block that is part of the Summer in the Garden, another quilt on my list of quilts to do.  I just love this coneflower.  It's by Jen Daly.  It comes in 6" or 12" block and of course I made the 12" one.  You can find this free block on this link.   It's at the bottom of the page.   I put two coneflowers, one on each side.  You can't see the pictures well here, but there are two reds in this one) a different red in the middle, and it just pops.  I GOT to make a quilt of all these flower blocks!!

So that's the additions I made to enlarge this quilt.  Really it looks wonder.  The flowers pop with everything else I added.  I added another wheel for the top, then a line of divider that I used around each row.  The first line of flowers was where I ended it, and the addition you can see at the bottom

At the end of the bed quilt I added another row of log cabins with scraps, and then I added the ribbon, just to add some spice (and quite frankly, I was really tired of this quilt).  I used quilt as you go on all of these additions, because I was using my domestic.  Yeah, you got it my little domestic.  I used the border at the end of each row to add the new row.



And in case you forgot the original center piece, this one takes the cake, the colors that just go crazy.  That's it, that's my finish.

Will be hooking up the UFO challenge finish with Sewing from the Sewing Room.

As for the extras I said I would do, I did catch up with the Christmas quilt from Apples and Beavers.  It's all paper piece as you can see.  There are a number of designs, all 12 1/2 by 12 1/2 unflinished.  The skill level goes from beginner to confident in a building skills level.  I love their patterns, all fantasy, and most paper piece.  Some are stitch and flip.  But see for yourself at this link.  Look for the dragon one, that's a pattern I already purchased and can't wait to try.  There are also free patterns here!!!  Look for the sunflower pattern.

In the end it is suppose to look like the below:

Hope mine looks so good.  

I also did what I said I would do, I sewed up three Cacti from the pattern "Oh My Cacti" by Paper and Pen below.  

It's difficult, with small little pieces as well as I'm doing four different colors, so you need to cut out the right amount for each cacti, then make sure they're all together, and you can find them.  Also there are so many pieces, so it's hard to find the pieces, you need a lot of space to place them all out somewhere to find the pieces.  This  one will really really take a lot of time.  If I do three a month, I'll be happy.  It will be an extra thing to complete each month.  I can only do no more than 2 in a sitting, the pattern gives me a headache.  I love love her patterns, but this one is hard.  We'll see.

Happy with what I've completed this month.  Lets see if I can keep it up.

One Monthy Goal for March

 Well I have tons of different quilts that I need to finish or at least start when I've gathered everything up in a neat little package, but for two weeks I'm working full time at the start of the month.  So I'm hoping to do the following...

Here are the three I'm looking at completing:

The bird pattern is from SewFresh, an Ontario quilter and pattern designer.  I'm looking at the larger one for my aunt for her larger living room table, where the cat will live on it  lol.  She uses the sew and flip method which I really like.

Look at that material, the colors are so vibrant.  They're from another quilt I made 20 years ago, so this will get her done, and get that material finished.  The background will be gray, like the picture.  The rest is all scraps, and I love using all of my scraps.

Another one I want to complete is the pods you see here.  I got the pattern off of Etsy.  I've made 4 of them already, and sent them out as gifts and christmas gifts.  It's quick and easy.  

Here's a better shot of the pattern by Pen and Paper on Etsy.  I already made the snake as a surprise for my husband when we came back from a trip to Scottsdale Arizona.  And he loves it.  Sorry about the terrible picture.  I'm doing the cacti and then in the corner the snake again.

Here's my material, all left overs but not the backing, which looks like sand.  It's the same material I used for the pattern.  It's half cut out, so I need to finish that and then sew it, and the designer uses stitch and flip as well, my favorite way to make a quilt.

Here's the pillow that I was talking about.  And the material that's brown is my background for the quilt I am making.  I'm going to use it as a hanging quilt to match the pillow.  I'm excited about it but unsure if I have the time to do these.  The one that's definite for this month is the cacti one, that's the goal, the others are bonuses.  This is my plan.

Joining up with One Monthly Goal at Stories at the Sewing Room, with others.  Hoping this will motivate me to finish a few quilts this month.  Wish me luck.  :)