Red and Pink are my Colors

Hi everyone.  Hope you are getting through the winter months and having fun working on projects.  We have just completed a week of a-40 to -45C windchills!  I can tell you I have gotten a few projects done just by staying indoors.  The flue landed hard here even closing one wing of our hospital but I think the cold windchills have taken care of those bugs.

Here is my second finish for 2013, a snowball quilt.  I was super excited to find some flower quilting designs while visiting Marcia's Quilting Blog.  She has a longarm quilting business and does beautiful work.  I have always struggled with flowers, just can't keep them round.  Now seeing how Marcia does hers inspired me to try again  and I think they are okay, at least, the best I have done so far.

The photos could be better, however, this was during the snowy freezing weather dull days.  I made this quilt entirely out of scraps.....maybe about 600 2-1/2" squares.  It looks real pretty all finished up and will be going to a cancer patient.

Since it is February and I have time to play a little, I am working on Connie's twister heart project and you can see her tutorial here http://www.conniekresin.com/2013/02/twisting-heart-valentine-tutorial.html
Here I am so far....

See the tiny 2 1/4" template I used to cut the squares.  I have never done this tiny of twister blocks so I used my scissors to cut the blocks apart after I traced the template with a FriXion pens.  When I get it done, I am going to link to Connie's Freemotion on the River. Connie is also having a giveaway today if you live in the US.   Have a great day everyone.

Leah Day's Quilt Along

How is the last summer holiday of the year going?  I hope you are enjoying family, sunshine and all the other wonderful things that come with summer.  We are already starting to see signs of fall, summer is so short for us in Canada.  I do certainly enjoy the fresh vegetables coming in and I have done some pail pickles, 10 big quarts of dills, today 2 batches of pie dough for our prairie apples and a batch of tomatoes sauce to use in cassrole dishes so it has been busy so far but I am thrilled to have some veggies for those cold winter months coming.

I am been sorta following Leah Day's Quilt Along all summer and trying many of her quilt designs.  It has certainly helped me improve my skills quite a bit.  Now, every Sunday is going to be UFO day and I sure can use this!  For this first week, I am pulling out this twister wreath that I made from a tutorial on the "Quilting Board".  I suddenly became ill and ended up with surgery so this got tossed to the UFO bin. 

I don't have a lot to finished it so I think it is a good first UFO finish.  I did micro stippling on all the white sections on my treadle.  That was a lot of fun. I have stitched 1/4" inside the twisters but need to do the pink ones and then the borders.  I plan a big rose/burgandy bow at the bottom of the wreath.

I have all the straight line quilting done on my string wall hanging.

 

And look at the stitching on the back.  I used different sized squares for the centers but the stitching almost makes you dizzy.

I really like the white/black sashing.  This is not my original design and for the life of me I can't find the gal who made this to give her full credit for a great wall hanging.  I am going to bind it in a black/white binding, a bit darker to frame the whole event.

I have spent more time than I should have on the "Back to School Blog Hop", any of you doing this?  While browsing around other blog sites I came across this darling Quilt Along called "Hello Sunshine".  I am just puttering with these right now but they are so darn cute it will be hard to leave them alone.  There is a new block each month and you can join in here.  Here is a sample of the blocks and my first sunshine.

I can't quite decide if I will make this into a quilt or a Quiet Book.



 

Hi everyone, hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend and now it is May woohoo!  Today I made a special trip to Canadian Tire to pick up 6 geranium plants on sale $1.49 reg. $2.99 and a few other annuals.  DH set up my little greenhouse outside so it needs something to nurture and everything is in such a hurry to grow.  The roses wintered very well and the leaves are budding out.

I am happy to report my quilt for Japan is in Calgary.  I managed to sneak a couple items with the quilt.  I sewed a second flower center to conceal a Loonie, Toonie and my city pin.

Another finished project for me are the cushions I made for my cousin.  I love her dearly and she is more of a sister and friend.  Her and I have antique furnishings and I am throwing in some modern fabrics and designs to brighten up my living room.  She said she was game for something new and bright so here is what she is getting!

Here is the first with appliqued hexagons and bubble quilting.  The bubble quilting took 5 hours but I love the results. I outline stitched around the hexagons in lime green.

If she doesn't like the hexagons, she can flip it over to this

Here is the second cushion that I did some embroidery on the top depicting a spring songbird on a cherry blossom branch.

I spent many hours this past week getting a virus out of my computer, thus no posting, didn't want to infect anyone else.  My system is clean thanks to the talents of member of the Computer Help on GardenWeb Forum and Lanzdown, a site that coaches you through disinfecting you computer.  They were all so great and I can hardly believe I did this by myself.  During this stressful time I puttered around and found a pattern to a boxed zipper pouch.  This is my trial and error version.  I see by my pictures that it is really important to get those ends to match. Oh well, they will be useful to put my scissors and thimble in when I go quilting.  I think they are very cute.  I make even give a tutorial a go, so check back.

I am going to be off next week doing a bit of gardening, but keep quilting and stop by, leave a comment, I would love to hear from you.

This section will be devoted to pictures of projects I do through a Quilt Along and links to the site so you can do one too.  I admire the talent and time people take so we can learn something new.