May the 4th be with you!!

Happy Star Wars Day one and all....;-)

The force was with me yesterday as I was super motivated to get four more blocks done on my Modern Monday quilt.  The sun was shining and my garden needed tending, but I was in the groove and didn't want to leave my cozy sewing room...I didn't even want to stop and make supper (thank goodness for leftovers and microwave ovens, right?). 

I have four more blocks to do this month before our next modern quilt guild meeting and I need to make myself a nametag...kinda stuck on that one...what to do?  I have another week to mull that one over.

Enjoy!
Mary

Here are the latest blocks for my Modern Monday quilt.

Block 17 - hour glass variation, not sure what happened when I made this one but it is 1/2 inch too small....oh well.

Block 19 - another star block..I love star blocks, one of my faves

Block 20 - wonky shoo fly 

Block 18 - wonky flying geese

Almost finished

Hello everyone, what a crazy week this has been.  More divorce nonsense to deal with, DD's 24th birthday (which was lovely) and interviews for my fall practicum have kept me away from the sewing room this week.  I do have one little project that is nearly done, only the binding to go.

Here, take a peek, won't you?

Enjoy!
Mary

I'm almost done this table runner, just need to add the binding.  I bought the quick curve ruler and wanted to test it out.

I did the quilting myself, something I hope to do more of in the coming months.  I stitched in the ditch around the curves then did a back and forth pattern, a ribbon stitch or soft zig zag?  Not sure what to call it.



I filled the spaces between the curves with circles, they look a little like pebbles, don't they?




I've also started a new project for my niece's first child, due in July.  The colours are wonderful and I love this print for a baby boy.



I'm using the quick curve ruler for this one as well...here are the four blocks cut and ready to go.  I'm bringing this project with me to the quilt-along this Saturday night, so I will have more photos for you next week!




I'm using the Urban Nine-Patch pattern, but will make a crib size quilt, so there will only be nine blocks.

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!