Paper Piecing Frog's Toes

Have been very busy lately, each month I need to finish a row for the Guild Row Robin. Above I decided to make my own paper piecing patterns, the tricky part is figuring out the order in which to sew....not so easy! the lily pad was easy compared to those toes!

Below a little bit of piecing, a little bit of applique... that makes 4 rows done, one more row to go! It's getting harder as more rows are added! There are 5 ladies in our group (and there are 5 groups) and we each have to make a row for 5 different tops. I can't wait to see them all done!

I've been doing a lot of guild activities lately. I participated in a Kids' Quilts Marathon one weekend. We set up stations for different activities like basting, cutting, piecing and machine quilting. Another weekend I participated in making String Quilts for Soldiers as part of the Quilts of Valour initiative. This was one of our completed tops....(and to my SIL, those scraps you sent me are very useful for all these projects!)

I have also been working on my guild's London Challenge, and the top is done, now it needs to be quilted. I have my pieces cut for my cousin's baby quilt, hope to show progress pics for that next week, and on top of that it is tax time, year end and all the stuff that is work, whew! no wonder I am blogging only once a month!

Should I stop or should I go?

Finished adding the last 2 rows...I don't want to put anymore hour glass blocks on... but am debating whether I should add some more borders, perhaps some vine applique. However, right now, the size is perfect for a wallhanging, it measures 38.5x34.5 inches. This wallhanging was started at Gwen Marston's Beaver Island Quilt Retreat. Gwen asked me to remind those bloggers out there that have gone to her retreats in the past to send any photos you may have of Floor Scrap Quilts you may have completed to floorscrapquilts @ gmail.com (if you cut and paste this email address, remove the spaces), with your name, year completed or retreat attended and a brief description.

This is the fabric for a baby quilt, that I will be making for a cousin of mine, that is having a baby in the spring.

We visite our friends in Michigan last weekend. We usually take the train to Windsor and then they pick us up and take us across the border. Our passports are expiring soon, and customs gave us a little more grilling then usual. He asked us what we did in London, we told him we own a comic book store, he wanted to know what is the most expensive comic we had in the store! We laughed! We did check out a couple of comic book stores while we were there, though. We always take graphic novels on the train with us to read. I read Wolverine by Claremont and Miller, It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken and Clyde Fans by Seth,

and Blankets by Craig Thompson, and just so you know, hinted by the title, a quilt figures prominently in the book....I might have to start a list of Graphic Novels that have quilts or quilting in it....a very niche market! Ha! Blankets was very good, I quite enjoyed it, very personal story of coming of age and his struggle with coming to terms with his faith. And speaking of Faith, while we were in Michigan we went to see the movie Creation about Darwin's struggle with faith when writing the Origin of the Species. I liked the movie, although it dragged in places, and it claims it is "The True Story of Charles Darwin", not so sure about that... And to complete this unintentional study of Faith I had this weekend, I also read the book A God Who Hates by Wafa Sultan...So as not to offend the quilting bloggers out there, I will keep my views on Faith to myself, but just say, it was a weekend of interesting discussions!

2 more rows!

I've added 2 more rows, this time along the bottom....Next the top....then, should I stop or add more applique?...hmmm...

I've also joined Lazy Gal's Liberated Amish Quilt Group. You can check out my first post here. What am I thinking? When do I have time for all this?

A little bit of this, and a little bit of that...

So my little wallhanging for Jeff is done! I call it "Gus and Crow". I hand quilted it with black and gold perle cotton 8. The backing is made with a light denim, but it was still difficult to quilt through, but I like the big, primitive stitches.

Here is my second row for the Guild Row Robin...the first row and the package contained panels and some blue fabric with a small red print...the themes of the panels were shopping, sewing, and friendship. I decided early on that I was going to make some spool blocks, but how to incorporate the panels...I chose fabrics from my stash that were similar to the blue print and added some green to widen the palette. My spools are holding these two ladies up like bookends!

I have been doing a lot of hand sewing...remember my BIQR applique? I had decided on using hour glass blocks to surround it. I did a few on my machine, but I needed some needle work for in front of the tv. Then I started joining them by hand, but as you can see my applique piece is not big enough

so I added some strips to the side and one across the bottom. I thought I was going to use the machine to do the long seams, but it turned out not a big deal to hand sew the long seams too.

A hint of things to come!

Well here is my row for our guild's first row robin...a few liberated baskets.



Below is a peak at a present I am making, and to kill 2 birds with one stone, it will also work for my calendar challenge...My calendar challenge started with words in a hat and make a small, roughly 12x12 inch piece from those words...but I have too much on my plate to do that on a regular basis...so any original piece I make that is that size will do...

Anyway, this is a gift for creator Jeff Lemire who will be doing a signing at our store in February...it is an applique piece based on the cover of his comic Sweet Tooth #1 and the crow in his Essex County Trilogy. Why a wallhanging? Well, there is a character that quilts in his Essex County book so I am hoping he will appreciate the gesture, and I had this red plaid that shouts out "Gus!"

I am so looking forward to his visit to our store, I think Essex County is The Great Canadian Graphic Novel!

Have a Happy, Quilty New Year!

This is what I completed in 2009 (not including postcards)...it doesn't look like much, I admit. I guess I started lots, but finished little!


So here is my list of quilt tops to be quilted, I would like to say, I will finish them all in 2010, but I doubt it...

Round Robin (with Christine)

Moody Blues

Test Pattern (BIQR 2008)

Floor Scrap Quilt (BIQR 2009)

Starlings at the Break of Dawn

Joy Christmas Placemats (2x)

LFQG Kids' Quilt

The Birds (Calendar challenge)

On my design wall:

Flower pot applique (BIQR 2009)

Challenges:

Calendar challenge: 10 to go...end date....?

Guild London challenge: designed on paper...due May 2010

Guild Row Robin: one row done, 4 to go...monthly to be completed by Sept 2010

Guild postcards: monthly, on going

I almost forgot to post this...I entered the International Plowing Match 2010 Quilt Block Challenge. You bought a package that contained Northcott Silk Inc fabrics and you had to create a 12.5 inch block, using only those fabrics. You could embellish with embroidery floss....I call this Bamboo Nights...

The pieces of fabric they provided varied in size...too much blue and not enough green. I used every bit of green, too! I used running stitches to gather the fabric to give it a more texture...The blue was too strong a colour, they also gave you too many small print fabrics.

The Great Blue Heron by Ted Goodden

I don't usually like public art, most of the time it is too pretentious for me or absolutely head scratching, "huh? I don't get it!", but this one I like! The Tricar Group commissioned this piece for its new downtown apartment building. Every day I walk by it on my way to work.

It's called the Great Blue Heron by Ted Goodden, a stained glass artist that lives in my neighbourhood.

Starlings at the Break of Dawn

Another project I am working on...thinking of quilting it, then mounting it to the back of an old window frame....just a thought... manwhile Suske thinks she can catch these birds...

It Rained Teddy Bears!

It rained Teddy Bears at the 2009 London Knights' SunLife Financial Teddy Bear Toss. Once a year at London Knights home game they ask the fans to bring teddy bears or plush toys to donate to the Salvation Army Toy Drive for Christmas. When the Knights score their first goal of the game the fans are to pitch the teddies onto the ice rink! What fun! Obviously the teddies don't always make it onto the rink in the first toss, so you just keep tossing until it goes over...there is a mad rush of tossing at the boards! But look out! hubby got grazed once and bopped once! and the older lady a few seats down had her glasses knocked right off...and some people bring some pretty big bears!

Swarms of volunteers from the Salvation Army and a local girls' hockey team are scooping up the plushies.

The final tally of Teddy Bears was 8232 from a possible 9079 fans that attended the game!

And so with that over and done with it, it was back to the game!

Final score, London Knights win 8-1 over the Guelph Storm!

Thanks Christine and Mark for the tickets! We had a great time!

More Placemats!

This one I adapted Gwen's Liberated Wedding block and made it a wreath for Christmas, appliqued some berries and machine stitched some holly + stippling.

I fixed my puffy tree and house, it lies flat, now!

You might think I work super fast, but I don't...I started making the tops at the guild's Quilt til you Wilt day, the first week of November, and have been machine quilting them only since yesterday.

Machine Quilting: Placemats

My friend Quilt Rat lent me her old Pfaff machine, as I do not have a machine that lowers its feed dogs. My machine quilting has been limited to straight lines. So this is my first successful attempt at stippling!

Our guild is donating placemats to Meals on Wheels at the December meeting, so I thought this might be the right size project to practice my machine quilting. Of course I have been practicing all summer on scrap sandwiches before attempting something 'real'. I made another placemat with a house and a tree on it, and I stippled in between but ended up with a puffy tree and house, quite awful! But I learned and this one turned out quite flat...so I am pleased with my efforts!

Almost everything I make has a name and this one is 3Trees

Nothing new to report...just the end of another season...

The Singing Bridge

Don't you just love fall? Today was a breezy, dull day with a hint of rain, but then there are the leaves! So pretty despite the weather! On my way to work I walk over this foot bridge. Some local school children have collected sticks to make the bridge sing!

So I did!

left my message,

continued on to work with a smile on my face!

Progress!

I've finished my BIQR applique, now to put borders on...I am trying out these hour glass blocks in fall colours...my flash does not work so I had to add light in picasa...

I finished my 9 Lives quilt, putting on the binding at the retreat, but I didn't get around to taking a photo of it until today.

Is your name not Susan?

Here's a gallery of WIP's from the BIQR final show and tell. I had some problems with the flash so I apologize if some are not as clear as I would have liked.

Isabeau's piece grew from one flower on a stem to this!


Sue sat behind me and it is from her I got my great fussy-cut-circle-scraps! This one is so Moran/Marston! with the bright colours and the wild black and white fabrics! I love the long legs of the bird with the berry that has a bite out of it!

Katie and Meg worked on these pieces. Katie did the one with the half vase and the girl with ATTITUDE! I love the hat and the floppy legs! We met Katie last year at the retreat and she brought Meg for her first time to the retreat.

This is another Sue's work. (there were 4 Sue's , 3 Carol's and 3 Linda's!) This Sue used wool for the applique and left over baskets from BIQR 2007.

Below, the one on the left is by Carol (one of "Gwen's people", veterans of BIQR)....this was just one of many UFO's she worked on at the retreat. She coined the term ORP, Oriental Reduction Program....She discovered she had way too many oriental fabrics in her stash and decided to make a conscious effort to use it up....She made at least 5 pieces out of her oriental fabrics....this was not one of them! The one on the right is by Sally.

Below, and top right, Susan (Sally's sister) worked on an vintage poppy pattern. My stuff is on the left and the 3 left in the middle are from the Wild Girls from California, 2 Linda's and a Sue!

Christine worked on baskets, her pomegranate applique, and fabric postcards! I received the basket postcard in the mail on tuesday, postmarked Elk Rapids! Thanks, Chris!

Below, The Pit! The lighting is terrible, luckily I took these before the flash died on my camera! From left to right, Jolene, Denise, Lucy, and then Bonnie. Jolene also sat at the table behind me and showed me that if you use the right needle your applique turns out way better! Thanks Jolene!

MJ brought applique started at a past BIQR. She had the applique all done but had never put the four pieces together. She used a bold red diamond border that is really striking!

Joyce cut all these pieces free hand and arranged them as she went, she really likes a folksy look to her applique. The three chickens represent her grandchildren!

It was an amazing week of inspiration, we all had a lot of fun, I highly recommend it!