Building up the stash...

Sooo, you know how we often make resolutions at the beginning of the year and then sooner or later we just happen to forget about them?  I had this brilliant idea in January (I blame the cold weather) to only use fabric from my stash this year, meaning no major fabric purchases for me.  Well, I didn't so much forget as blatantly ignored my resolultion, I mean, who can resist the siren call of fresh fabric?

Take a peek at some of my purchases this month.  And yes, I've been very, very, naughty.  So much so, that I think my daughters are about to confiscate my credit card! :-)

Enjoy!
Mary

It all began with two, teeny tiny, itty bitty fat quarters.  I mean, are those little birds adorable or what??  I just had to take them home, and I couldn't very well leave the dotty fabric there all alone either...

...and then I saw this delightful fabric with it's gold and orange tones on a muted turquoise background..

...and this Denise Schmidt fabric was just too much fun...

...and these grey's were just calling my name...so who can say no to that?

These lovelies arrived in the mail a week ago, I ordered this from Sew Sisters.

I love the look of these oversized zigzags... these are very much outside my comfort zone...eek!

A fun neutral with grey and white dots on a black background.

And these are my Kona solids, I'm a member of the Kona solids club over at Sew Sisters and each month I receive four different fat quarters...so this is what I've received since I joined last September.  No clue what I'm going to do with them, but they sure are pretty to look at!

Monday Mash-Up

Hi all, take a look at my design wall this morning, it's pretty chaotic, wouldn't you say?  I have two quilts heading off to be long-armed and I spent a little time sorting through my UFO's yesterday.

I pulled out all the blue, or blue and white blocks I could find tucked away in my stash and put them up on the design wall, right next to my modern-esque table runner (see bottom of post for more info on that project).

No set plan for these, will just start sewing them together and adding pieces as I go along.  I have some light blue fabric I'd like to use for sashing. See the orange and blue star block?  I love this colour combo and want to make a quilt in these colours someday. I had to put it up on the design wall, it's so cheery!  

I have oodles of little triangles waiting to be sewn together too, or I could do some raw-edge applique and make something like Cheryl Arkison's Wine Gums quilt (take a look here to see what I mean.)

The triangles are the little bits left over from making all the flying geese for my Cool Blues quilt.  The block on the bottom left-hand corner of the photo is about 2 inches, not a bad size. 

 

 



This is my latest gadget, the Quick Curve Ruler, and I am just lovin' it!  That's what I used to make the table runner on my design wall.  I also bought that awesome nine-patch pattern and am ready to pick out some fabric for it.  I need a baby quilt for my niece who is expecting her first child in July.


Enjoy!
Mary


It's a "Jem" of a machine...

Hi all, forgive me for the silly pun in the blog title, I couldn't resist.
I bought myself a little Janome 'Jem' sewing machine this week and I'm as happy as can be with it.  It's my travel machine and it's as light as a feather, well, a 12 pound feather, but it is much lighter than my home machine. :-)

My new baby, a Janome Jem Platinum 760.

I took it to a quilt-along last Saturday and put the finishing touches on my son-in-law's cowboy quilt.  I know I've posted here before saying this quilt was done, but it always seemed to need just a little something more.  This time I mean it.  Really.  For sure.  It's now a queen size quilt, so there will be no more borders added!! 

Ta-dah..one cowboy quilt all done!  A friend suggested I enter this in the Calgary Stampede quilt competition.  I have to say, I hadn't even thought of that, but I just might do it.  I would say the theme is pretty spot on, wouldn't you?  ;-)

Enjoy!
Mary-Frances

More Modern Monday blocks

Good morning all!  I have a few more modern blocks to show you today...hooray! I still have one more to make before my guild meeting tomorrow, but I have to admit, I've been distracted by a new quilting toy I purchased on Saturday.  I bought the Quick Curve Ruler and just had to test it out!  What fun!

I'm linking up to The Needle and Thread Network and to Freshly Pieced for Work In Progress Wednesday. 

Enjoy!
Mary

Here's my modern 9-patch.  Check out the original version here.

This is supposed to be a bow-tie, but it doesn't really look like one.  Next time I'll make the small triangles much smaller.



This is my square in a square.  Realized I had cut the inner square too small and just made do with what I had.

Here's what I was busy making yesterday instead of working on my last modern monday block.  If you want to see what other projets you can make with the Quick Curve Ruler, take a look here. 

Here's a slightly better look at the colours I'm using for my table runner. 

End of School Giveaway Winners

A great big thank you to all who entered my giveaway!  I used a random number generator from the web to select the winners:  #7 (Colleen); #9 (Debbie) and #12(JaneB). 

Enjoy!
Mary

Colleen won the String Quilt Revival book.

Debbie won Victoria's 15 Minutes of Play book.

JaneB won the mini quilt kit!

Modern Monday quilt blocks

Hello all, happy Friday to you!  I had planned on having these blocks done earlier this week so I could show you all on Work In Progress Wednesday, but today will have to do!  My modern quilt guild meeting is next Thursday, so I will have to have blocks 9 to 16 done for then.  You can check out the originals here.

Before I show you the blocks, don't forget to check out my giveaway!  Winners will be selected Monday, April 15th, 2013.

Now, back to the quilting!  I've made four blocks so far...and they are in no particular order.

This is block 15, a double 4-patch, and I seemed to have trouble making this one wonky...I mean, I tried to make it wonky, but it came out looking like this.  Maybe I've just discovered the secret to accurate quilting for me...try to make it wonky and it will come out pretty darn straight..lol!

This is block 10, the snowball block.  I didn't make it as fancy as in the original pattern, just a straight up snowball.  The red ornament fabric is a new addition to the quilt...it's so cheery!



Block 9 is a simple string block, a nice way to use up the little bits of fabric. It's too bad my photos are so...hmmm, how shall I put this...sucky??  Yup, that's about right.  Not sure why these photos came out looking so yellow!

I totally chickened out for Block 12 and did the easier variation...take a look at the original Winged Prayer and you'll see why!

Enjoy!
Mary-Frances

The Bloglovin' bandwagon

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/4957171/?claim=ww5p92xrxj5">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

A big thanks to Sarah for clueing me in to Bloglovin'! 

Cheers,
Mary

End of school giveaway!!

No more teachers....no more books....school's out and I'm celebrating with a giveaway!  In keeping with the scholastic theme, I have two of my current favorite books to giveaway along with a quilt kit!

All you have to do, dear reader, is follow my blog and leave a message in the comments section.  I will be selecting the winners next Monday evening, so be sure I have someway of getting in touch with you!

Enjoy!
Mary

Giveaway is now closed!  Thanks to all who entered.

I love this book and I'm sure you will too!

This is another gem, and another great way to use up your scraps!

My last giveaway is an adorable little quilt kit called Gramma's Favorite.  The fabric colours are blue and white and you get everything to complete a 16" x 21" quilt, that includes backing, and binding!

Diamond in the rough

Looks like I'm late to the party with my WIP Wednesday post, so this will be short and sweet.  I put together a few more blocks on my 'diamond in the rough' quilt last weekend.  This is such a great stashbusting quilt...love it!

 

The pattern for this quilt can be found in this book String Quilt Revival. They have lots of fun projects - the spider web quilt has been on my to-do list for quite some time now. I'm linking up to The Needle and Thread Network and Freshly Pieced.

 
PS - 2 more classes and I'm done school for the semester...yipee!!!  I'll be celebrating with a giveaway... :-)

Enjoy!
Mary