Needed to catch up....

 I don't know why I'm on a schedule,  I'm semi retired, but I've been busy with cleaning the house and just got back last week from Winnipeg Manitoba visiting my aunt.  Then there was thus appointment with dentist, then a foot specialist,  the doctor, etc.... etc. .  Then there was subbing 2 days a week for the past 2 weeks.  Everything was adding up.

So I feel as if I'm behind.  I have 3 baby quilts to get done by September for 2 nephews and a friend's daughter.  I'm enjoying it.  

See the previous blog entry to see where the free pattern is for this one.  It's an excellent pattern but I have to tell you, you need to do one at a time and then put them together because there's a lot of pieces to each person, about 4 HST's as well.  But the instructions are very clear, and easy to follow.  The Pattern is from SewFresh, my favorite Canadian pattern maker.  And she gives this pattern and the next one out for free.

I love her patterns so I made the quilt before a second time.  The actual free pattern has 4 different Disney characters on it, but I just did the one and did an edge that has the words tiger all over it.  As I said it's my second one, and very easy to complete in a day.  

Plus I've been painting again, I really miss it when I'm not doing it.  So here's the results. It's a 8" x 10"

And today I did another one from Craft Week that Ali was a guess at.  To join was free but you had to be part of the class or you also had 24 hours to see the replay without paying, then it's gone.  Got this done with the replay.  If someone gives you lemons, make lemonaide.

How's that for a week and a half???   Need to make one more baby quilt by September.  That's it for now.  My material supplies is going down, but I still have so much more......

Have a great weekend.

Patterns Galore...

During Covid I was doing a lot of sewing and buying a lot of fabric...  After I got too much fabric (yes there's such a thing) I started to buy patterns that I really like, and I got too many of those....  But one thing I discovered is that there's a lot of free patterns and free BOMs online.  Here are only a few of the three pattern sites:

Fat Quarter Shop - which has both free patterns and many many free BOMs that I've personally made and love.

Bear Creek Quilting Company which has free patterns from fabric places and have uplinked the MODA Blockheads on their site.  On their blog they have listing of BOMs and each month they posted some really great patterns free that came out that month.

National Quilting Circle has a number of them from Fabric Companies as well.

Jordan Fabrics - always my favorite with free videos to learn how to do these free patterns as well.  The videos are very clear and easy to understand.

Robert Kauffman - one of the greats....

Moda Fabrics that has BOMs, some fatheads (a group of blocks you put together for a quilt - a real learning experience), the moda bake shop that has a view of these free quilts, and so much more for you.  One of my go to places for free patterns and most of my UFOs come from here because I join too many of them!!

Tilda's world which is a British quilter with such cute quilts.  Really stunning and most of them are holiday styles.  It's a MUST take a look site.

Missouri Star Quilt Company doesn't have the printouts of free patterns but it really has a lot of videos that show you exactly what to cut, how much material you need to buy, and how to make such fun, easy quilts.  This is a link to their video channel that has the tutorials all there.  Check out out.

Coriander Quilts always has one or two free patterns on it that are divine...  Check out this months.  It's on my list now....  So cute for September, October and November on the wall or on the couch.

Another of my favorites is American Patchwork and Quilting which every month has one or two free patterns with each of their magazines.  Those really add up and now their online.  Check out this link to many fabulous ones.  They're categorized , see how below;

Just get It Done Quilts is based out of Ontario, with a blog worth reading.  They have stash busters, free patterns and more.  Check out the freebies on top for more.....

Love Crafts has a number of patterns from all over, and more than just quilts.  You can do a search by the maker of the pattern, or what size quilt, or what item (like hand crafts stuff).  Take a look at their great search engine.

And if a free pattern is not your thing, how about a free block:

1. Moda Blockheads Round 2 can be found here, all of the blocks from Round 3 can be found here, all of the blocks from Round 4 can be found here.
2. Another great spot to find blocks is Quilter’s Cache.  This website has so many quilt blocks!
3. Generations Quilt Block patterns is another spot for free quilt block patterns in various sizes.
4. Consider blocks from other quilt alongs. The Sewcialites quilt alongs have a wonderful backlog of great quilt blocks. These blocks are available in 3″, 6″ or 9″ sizes.
5. Quilting Daily has 150 blocks with images of each one.

These are but a few.  I know, I've overwhelmed you so I'll stop.   I hope this helps you in some way shape or form.  Happy quilting. 

OMG for February and things to try with scraps....

A star quilt with no Y seams, which is what scares me.  It actually uses a jelly roll but if you can cut up some of your extra fabric into 2 1/2 inch strips it would be great.  It's from Jordan Fabrics, you have to see their web site, fa-nominal.  


Her free pattern is here.

I would like to try that for this month's OMG but I have more important things at this point.

I am proud to say that I finished my January's goal, and I want to finish at least 10 of the goals I set.  so I need to choose wisely.

So although I am in the middle of another quilt (it's a surprise so you have to wait until the middle of February to see it), my goal this month is to catch up on all of my BOMs.  That means:

• 5 of the blocks from the Harry Potter QAL from Sew Fresh Quilts.  I'm doing both the big one and the small one
• 3 blocks from Quilt Doodles Garden Sunshine BOM.
• 3 blocks from Choose your Own Adventure from Moda Blog - that one was this summer but I've always wanted to do another medallion quilt, and I gave my first one away so...
• 2 blocks from Freshly Pieced, a modern HST BOM that I bought into.
• 10 blocks from Anna Marie Channey's Conversation BOM that I get through email.

You think that's enough?  I can catch up on all of this in February and keep on cleaning my sewing room.  That's another blog entry later this week.  So if I pull this off, I am going to be absolutely amazed with myself, considering I've already started two new habits this month (exercising every morning for 1/2 hour, and swimming every Tuesday) as well as my painting class is on again.

Someone told me I'm acting like I'm retired but with a job.  What do you think???  Taking on too much?  I think so to.  Happy Friday.

Nicole

Just under the wire...

Well, it's hard to miss when I posted my November's entry for what I wanted to complete in the November's "Lovely Year of Finishes (it was my last entry), but I did it, I did complete one of my goals.  I am not making excuses but it's been a very bad month for me this month, and very trying.  I won't go into it with details but I'm sure many of you out there have gone through bad times and needed quilting to get through it.  In all honesty, I only had two weekends to complete my goals and I'm very happy that I was able to do one of them.    I started from this (all the material saved up).

To this......

Who doesn't love a Christmas quilt.
The quilting was spiral with fillers in between and I love the final results.

 

The pattern was free from Jolly Jabber.  It's called Little Joys and all the patterns are free here.  It was a block of the month (short one), but absolutely beautiful, simple, and easy to do.  For those of you interested in doing a similar one and has more options click on this link for a Christmas "Deck the Halls".  

As I said previously, many things happened to me this month, most of them very trying, and painful.  I didn't do much sewing at all, and truthfully, in the last two days it's been my salvation, to get my mind back.  I'm sure we all have times in our life like this, but I'm still working through some trouble times, and it's coming out in my sewing.

Although this other quilt was not the one that I said I would complete this month I did receive as therapy a pack of fat quarters that were Halloween in style.  Now I know, Halloween is over with, but I still wanted (no needed) to sew, so I started the blocks, added some black and here are the results.  The quilt is made of 12 inch squares, with lighter orange around each one, and then dark orange borders.  But it looked too plain so I thought I would add some applique.  And the results are the pumpkins and the leaves around the quilt for interest sake.

So this is the results....

That's it.  I did make one goal and I'm submitting this to a Lovely Year of Finishes....

Another end of the month....

Here it is another end of the month, and I have a couple of things already done.  Feeling good about it.

• These are the big ones for the "A year of Lovely Finishes"


• Material Girl's Layer Cake BOM -  Quilted!!! Over 16 hours of quilting on this one!  Binding hand sewn on (that took over 2 hours!)  And I still have 6 more to go!

• Aurifill's spool quilt for the end of bed (2 rows completed, need one more row, and binding)  That's my next ALYOFs!!
• Completed the 2nd quilt I made form the 50 pieces of fabric a friend gave me.  Ended up being a lap quilt in pink and black.  See below for the pictures

• Sycamore Rose
• block-2  (February)  -  Half way done.  Taking it on a plane trip - that should finish it off!  Boy, am I behind!
• block-3  (March)
• block 4 (April)
• Block 5 - May
• Block 6 - June
• Block 7 - July
• Free Motion Quilt along 
• Block 2 styles 
• Block 3 - 4 styles
• Block 4 - 4 styles
• Block 5 - 4 styles   



Aurifil July

• Block 6 - 4 styles.                          
• Aurifill July -  picture at the right.
• Prairie Flower #10 (just 1 more to go then the corners, can't believe I'm almost done).

Prairie Flower









Vice Versa - July's was nice and simple but I do need to take my time on these things.  

                  

Galaxy of the Stars - 


• June - Done at the start of the month.
• July - will do next month.




Block Lotto pattern



•        June - It's a sun!!!  Still not done them!!  And paper piecing!! Will try in August!
•        July's was 14 spokes.  See to your right.  Made 9 of them.  Need to do 5 more. Didn't win this month but still will end up with a Queen size very very modern quilt.

• Crafty 2012 
•        July  - all done.  See the link here for some great pictures and all the blocks together to show how it will turn out.  Spectacular.  Recommend this FREE class to everyone.  Amy is a great teacher, learned a lot of new techniques (hexagons, and first time with Dreisdons), and did the class on my own time, always a plus for learning anything new.  
•       August - done!!!

Getting there!!!

• Globe Trotting 2014 Mystery Quilt - July - All done, it was an easy one to complete.
• Doodle Design - July - took longer with the hand applique.

• Finish table runner beads on a string (FOUND IT! and it's done.)  Was submitted at Block Lotto by a friend.  the link is here.

Take a look at the quilting - Free style.

• Do the modern quilt that I have cut out - green and purple for the newFO Challenge and preparing it for the "Modern Quilt" Flickr Group. Love there work there, so inspirational.
• Thangles - 4 more blocks for my quilt.
• Thangle table runner for the table - pinks and white with dots.  Very modern for the Modern flickr Group and the New FO Challenge.  Half way completed.  Blogged about here.
• Debbie Mumm's Patriot's Quilt - for July and August - simple to do but did take some time. They look great.  See to the right just slightly down.

Debbie Mumm

• I wanted to do at least one "Garden" paper piecing.  I've been doing the Galaxy of Stars as a paper piecing pattern and although I promised myself I would improve on paper piecing using the "Garden", I did do the Crafty Block of the Month 2012 block with paper piecing.  It is getting easier but I do seem to waste a lot of extra fabric.  
• Want to start one of the patterns from Vintage Quilt Revival by Katie Clark Blakesley.  
• Piece out the Carpenter Star for the New FO Challenge.   

  

  Carpenter Star.

  

  Crafty 2012 Paper piecing

What was done in June!!!

The biggest challenge this month was to try to get everything done.  Last month I finished two of the "Blocks of the Month", Material girls, and Down the Rabbit Hole.  These two were what I promised to complete for the "A Lovely Year of Finishes" (see to the side).  Although I promised to complete these two quilts (sandwich, quilt, bind, the whole thing), I still have a large list of things to do.  The bold items are the ones that I am behind in.  My main goal is to keep up with the BOMs but the appliques are just not happening (the sycamore rose block is 4 months behind now.

I can honestly say that I am disappointed with myself this month.  I understand why I am behind but still, I should of enjoyed relaxing more with the quilting, and July is almost a write off because I'm away travelling.  So that will be the perfect time to do some of the applique for the sycamore rose quilt blocks.  I really need to catch up on those.

• Material Girl's Layer Cake finishing off the quilt (put the borders on it) and quilt the entire things.  Finish it off. - put it all together, got borders, and have started quilting but it will take me ages...
• Down the Rabbit Hole - finish off the quilt.  I love it - Here's the link to pictures.

  

  Down a Rabbit Hole Completed

• sycamore-rose-block-2  (February)  - half done, thank goodness
• sycamore-rose-block-3  (March)
• Sycamore Rose block 4 (April)
• Sycamore Rose Block 5 - May
• Sycamore Rose Block 6 - June
• Free Motion Quilt along Block 2 styles 
• Free Motion Quilt along Block 3 - 4 styles
• Free Motion Quilt Along Block 4 - 4 styles
• Free Motion Quilt Along Block 5 - 4 styles                             
• Aurifill June - completed and loving the look of the entire quilt.  This link shows my flickr account and the picture of all of them, including June.
• Prairie flower #4 - OK, this is finally done.  - Took me two months and you can see why with this look!!!!  Click on this link for a picture of it.

  

  Pairie Flower #9

• Prairie flower #9 - completed!!!  I did this one in about a day.  There was a lot of work but I sat for 4 hours with my husband talking and sewing at the same time.  See the results here.
• Galaxy of the Stars - May - from FVRQ Guild. Did it on Sunday.   
• Galaxy of the Stars - June only.  They gave us June and July to do over the summer. But I never had time to complete it.  Been too Busy.
• Vice Versa - June - done.  Took an entire 4 hours because I kept on making mistakes.
• Modern pattern (block lotto) June - It's a sun!!!  Couldn't enter this month, been too busy, but I am making myself some.
• Globe Trotting 2014 Mystery Quilt  Completed!!!  Look here for the blog entry of this one and Doodle...
• Doodle Design - June - Completed!!!  Loved this one.  It was skates that I added shoe laces to.
• Finish table runner beads on a string (Couldn't find it!!!! It will show up at some time.)
• Aurifill's quilt for the end of bed (2 rows completed, need one more row, and binding)
• Do the modern quilt that I have cut out - green and purple for the newFO Challenge
• Another 3D quilt for the newFO Challenge - it wasn't flowers, it was a box and I showed my quilting guild how to make the small box so this one had two purposes.  But it's completed.
• Want to cut out material for a Swoon quilt - 



New Quilt cutting out.

• Completed!!!  It's not a swoon but a carpenter star quilt.  I found the pattern at this link - it's a free pdf file.  Here's a picture of the pattern I will be doing. I'm excited to start it.  Using gold and brown in it as well, but not the horses.
• Did 5 more Thangles  quilt blocks from two packages.  Looking good.

Thangles

Had a bad month this month.  I was on strike which meant that I was busy on the strike picketing line, and nervous about what was happening.  I was so exhausted because I stress that I hardly sewed.  But my main goals were to complete those two quilts (first two listed), and when doing that I had enough left over material from the "Down the Rabbit Hole" that I made a third one.  Two for the price of one.

Doodle Designs - the Skate.

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.

NewFO Challenge January, 2014

Last weekend I joined another BOM (now many people are probably saying "Are you nuts!!" - the answer is yes) but this one is easy!!!  It's the 2014 NewFO Challenge, and the rules are simple:

Each month, I start something new, at least one thing and I don't have to worry if it's a big project or a small one.  As long as you start it (you don't have to complete it) and then keep on updating CatPatch how the project is going.  You don't have to ever finish it....

You can put the link on CatPatch to your blog entry where your project is explained.  So here is my blog entry and I'm waiting for the "linky party" is up and going, and I'll add it.

So here it is, the project I started this month.  The pattern is called Harmony Rose Quilt From Red Rooster Quilts (Free Pattern)  and although I liked the look of it, I found the instructions a little hard to follow, so I started with the idea, used my own material for Valentine's Day.  From this pattern picture:

To this...

The flowers are made with Clover yoyo maker.  With Clover these yoyos are easy as heck, can make a number of them in an hour, but looks like I'll need more.  Want to add some to the right side.  I tacked each one on, so they're three dimentional.  The vines I made with bias material and double stitched it on.

You can't see it but eh red border has small gold hearts on it.  Perfect for Valentine's Day.  The quilt is a large laptop quilt at this point, perfectly square (it may grow, I seem to like making large quilts.).  The background is a combination of off whites, with the outer border just plain tan.   I have used applique for the centre heart using the pattern's heart, but decided to piece the hearts on the 2nd border.  I'm not sure I'm happy with it yet.  

I also finished a quilt that I started before Christmas.  It's from the winter Issue fromQuilter's World.  The angels are embroidered - red work - but the rest is pieced work.  The squares are "X" quilted, with red thread on the diamonds but the squares are crossed with white.

I did not do any fancy quilting around the angels, I wanted the embroidery to stand out on its' own but after looking at the actual pattern, think I'll try my free-style quilting skills, and do some quilting around them. The pattern has a lot of circle free style. I still love how my pattern looks.