Vintage Quilt Finished

 This is a pretty top that I bought at a local antique/junk barn around the corner from me.  I paid $25 for it two years ago.

I need another quilt like a hole in the head, but I just could not walk away from the poor thing.  It's partially hand pieced and partially machine pieced.  To respect the era I used 100% cotton batting instead of my usual 80/20 blend.  That makes it a little more "flat".

You'll note the Mennonite Mistake (also known as a Humility Block) in the bottom right hand corner - that one pieced corner block is turned the wrong way.

I just happened to have (a common expression which is often heard spoken by most quilters, lol) a pink that was one shade darker than what the maker used for the sashings & border.  It was perfect for the binding, and I'm currently about half way through the hand stitching on that.

Here's the back.  I was a wee bit shy and had to piece in a bit of different fabric in one corner.  Nothing I plan on worrying about, though.  The list of my own quilts waiting for quilting is now down by one!

I had a couple people mention to me that my last blog post had a BIG FAT MISTAKE where I mentioned I was planning to sew through the Superbowl last Sunday.  Ahem.  I am now aware that the big event is THIS weekend, and I'm all prepared.  Two charm paks, one pattern, one card table, one sewing machine.  And a frozen lasagne.

It would be nice if I could be all newsy-like and tell you what I've been up to but...yeah, I got nothin'.  I'm doing a LOT of reading and a LOT of tv watching.  I did order seeds tonight - normally I go on a field trip to the seed store and spend a lovely hour or two wandering the aisles.  Do a little inner eye-roll when my bill adds up to almost $100 (saving sooo much money!! pfftt.) then head on home with my treasures.  This year I am doing a parcel pickup and my scheduled date is MARCH 8th.  WTH?  sigh. Ontario is still under stay-at-home orders, which should be ending late next week I think.  However this morning I read two different news articles, and one of them indicated the government is second-thinking and may leave the orders in place for a while.  I guess we'll find out when we find out.

COVID-19 UPDATE

WORLDWIDE:  106 million cases, 2.31 million deaths, 349,200 new cases Feb. 2/21

USA:   26.9 million cases, 460,000 deaths, 129,600 new yesterday

CANADA: 801,000 cases, 20,702 deaths, 4,022 new yesterday

ONTARIO: 280,000 cases, 6,435 deaths, 1,784 new yesterday The current stay-at-home order is in effect until Feb. 11th at the moment.

HAMILTON:  9,470 cases, 265 deaths, 63 new yesterday

Christmas Quilts

Most years I show you my same three Christmas quilts - one for the King bed, one for the Queen bed, and one for the living room.  THIS year I'm showing you some customer quilts.

This is a gorgeous selection of Cardinal fabrics.  It's not exactly a Christmas quilt, but the birds always evoke winter.

This one's really cute - just squares of Christmas fabrics stitched into a throw.

There's a ton of work in this one - Round the Twist or Garden Trellis quilt.  This version used a lot of half-square triangles.

And a very Canadian hockey quilt.

Since I'm officially on vacation until Jan. 6th, this TFUQ is getting booted off the list.  The blocks were cut using JAWS (the Accuquilt die cutter).  I dragged this around as a UFO for quite a while, and finished it earlier this year.  With the curved Apple Core piecing I need to do some extra-careful perimeter measuring for the binding.  And the binding must be bias to maneuver around the curves.  For curvy edges I also like to cut the binding just a wee bit narrower - usually I cut 2 1/2", but for this I'll cut 2 1/4".  And I'm not foolish enough to try attaching this binding with the longarm.

I have a big to-do list that I really hope to complete.  I have a bad habit of writing things down, and feeling pretty virtuous because I wrote them down.  Note to self... that doesn't actually get anything DONE.  So far all I've crossed off is the quilting for one Quilt of Valour.  That still needs the binding, but I'm waiting for some QOV labels to arrive in the mail, since I ran out of them.  Bookkeeping is also on the list.  I've managed to tick off an hour per day three days in a row (fell down on day four, but getting back on that horse today!).

Vacation: Port-au-Stay-At-Home

The winter holiday is here.  Time to stay at home and get some sh*t done.  And relax, too, of course.
I started off my vacation by heading out on a field trip with a friend.

First stop Dundas, to the Carnegie Gallery.  They have a Christmas Market going on right now, with many artisans selling their wares.  There are no pics from inside the gallery - I was trying to avoid getting arrested.  Or being yelled at.  Not even a gentle scolding.  While we were in Dundas we made a stop at McGuire's Cheese Shop.  For the past several years I've apparently been making sure my pant size goes up a wee bit every Christmas so I treated myself to three lovely hunks of deliciousness.  A lemon stilton, a stout cheddar, and whatever it was they had on sample...it's from a local cheeserie and was absolutely delicious so I added that to my basket.  (It's also what I had for supper with a side of crackers and a glass of wine.  Not necessarily a healthy supper.)  However, in my defence:  we had lunch at the Bangkok Spoon where I had a S.A.L.A.D. with my meal.  So not a totally disreputable food day.

Next on the agenda was the Waterford Museum to see the exhibit of Red Cross Quilts.  This is on until Feb. 15, 2019 so try and get there if you're into quilts.
Excellent exhibit!!

We wandered around the museum to see what else they had out for display.
Hah. 😀 Thank goodness we have better equipment to stitch with today.

The museum is kind of next door to the quilt shop, so we also popped over to Quilt Junction and dropped a few dollars.  And bumped into a quilting buddy in the shop.

My vacation list of things that need attention, in no particular order:

I'm only on day three of "vacation" - this is quilted and off the TFUQ list.  And thank you, but NO, don't remind me that now, day three, is already past twelve noon and I should get my arse in gear.

Binding inside angles is something I haven't tackled before so there's a bit of a learning curve.  The YouTube video I watched (OMG, I swear you can learn anything on YouTube) demonstrates hand stitching the miter on the front side first, then folding the binding over to the back and hand stitching the back miter closed, and THEN stitching the binding down.  I need to figure that out, but working on BLACK is not my favorite thing anymore.

I'll keep you posted with my to-do list progress...

Sensational Solids and Wonderful Winnings

This beauty went home yesterday.

The slightly paler yellow in the wide outer borders is linen.  Very soft, and makes for a beautiful quilt.  On the down side, I found it a bit 'shifty' - think flannel or homespuns.  I suspect it would have been more challenging to piece with too, because of the loose weave.

The maker is giving this to her brother, so she didn't want "girly" quilting, and since music is his hobby that's what went in the wide borders.

Because the cross-hatching was interrupted by the squares, I chose to mark the quilting lines.  And I'm a big scaredy-cat when it comes to worrying about permanent stains.  I used tailor's chalk.  No muss, no fuss, brush or vacuum away.

An added service I offer is binding.  See the "PRICING" page for options.

WONDERFUL WINNINGS

The Caledonia Guild finished out the season on Wednesday with a pot luck supper.  All year the members have been bringing fat quarters for the year-end draw.  Each f.q. = 1 ballot.  The collection totalled 100 f.q.'s, so the pile was split in half and two winners were chosen.  Guess who won a pile of 50 f.q.'s?

GARDEN UPDATE

The asparagus is slowing down, but the strawberries are ready.