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

Nouveau Muses, Buckhorn Quilt Show, Zucchini Report

This is called Nouveau Muses.  I had to get help spelling "nouveau" because it seems my brain is not as sharp as it was 30 years ago.

These lady panels are drop-dead-gorgeous.  If you've been hearing about the new digital prints, this is an excellent example.

They were paired with some beautiful William Morris prints for the borders & sashings & panel insets above and below the ladies.

I did some pretty quilting in the piecing, but in the panels I just did outline quilting along the printed lines. 

This used wool batting which added a perfect 3-D effect to the women.

These bottom pieces were quilted with the identical motifs as the upper windows.

Last night I got home from Margarets where I spent a few days with quilting buddies at the Buckhorn Quilt Show.  The quilt I am taking a lesson from is this one... I love, love, love the motifs stitched in the blocks!  Embroidery is a skill I use very little of these days, and this example has been done with thread painting.  By machine.

Here's the artist statement with a story about the quilt.

ZUCCHINI REPORT

Picked this week:  5
Picked YTD:       121
Gave away:             3

I left on Thursday morning for Margaret's, and got home after dark Saturday night.  DH would never in a million years go out and pick zucchini, so I have a BIG SURPRISE waiting out in the garden for me today.  They could be all ruined by some stupid animal/bug/disease, or perhaps I'll find 10 cricket-bat-sized fruits lurking under the leaves.  We'll see, after I get dressed.  Pray for me. 🙏

Scene Through A Window & Wazzup In The Garden

This is such a pretty quilt.

Apparently, it was made from two kits for a different quilt.

So the maker had to 'get creative'.  She sure did a great job!

The delivery guy who brought my batting order surprised me when I was still in my jammies.  This four rolls should get me through the next several months.  It's kinda fun to open these up - they're a bit like popcorn, pouffing up when they get released.  Similar to my belly when the jeans come off and the yoga pants go on.   :-)

Aaand, IN THE GARDEN:

The asparagus.  Which is delicious.  I have a zillion baby plants now that have come from seed off the parent plants.

The garlic.  Which could use some weeding.  Perhaps today?

Some of the tomatoes.  DH planted these under 'warmers'.  The tubes are filled with water, and retain heat so you can plant a bit earlier than you would normally get away with.  These will come off within the next week.  There are more tomatoes which were planted under plastic cloches, and those are already out from under wraps.

Cabbage seedlings planted a couple weeks ago.  Some of them appear to have been nibbled on by Peter Rabbit.  bastard.  This needs weeding now, too.

Pea sprouts.  These seeds were put in when I planted the cabbage seedlings.  They are now fighting it out with self-seeded cilantro, dandelions, and grass.  More weeding required.

Everbearing raspberries.  These made it through the winter beautifully!

Seedlings under fancy shadecloth.  Zucchini (!!!), butternut squash, and cucumbers.

The useless assistant.   :P

Red & Cream Sampler, zucchini report

This was the June beauty.  Only thirteen pieced blocks.

The rest was all empty space.  The request to use red thread gave me a slightly nervous stomach.  It shows every single wobble.  And every single stop/start.  I stared 'er down for a while, then put on my big girl panties and took a deep breath.

This was my first experience with a DOUBLE batt.  The bottom layer was Hobbs 80/20, then a Hobbs Wool was added on top.

This gives a gorgeous pouf to the quilting designs.

I am totally in love with that border design by Karlee Porter.

On the garden front, I got the rest of the redneck mulch put down (grass clippings on top of newspapers) so I have a path between the cutting garden and the veggie garden.  I weeded about half of the potato patch  but there is more to be done.  Woe is me, we have potato beetles.  I need to get out there with a bucket of soapy water and try to drown the bastards.  I have snow peas coming out my ying yang, so I've given away a bunch of those.  I picked four (!) raspberries this week and lots more are starting to turn red.  Yum, yum, yum.
ZUCCHINI REPORT
Picked this week:  20  (all small ones, man-finger size.  I gave away 14 of them.)
Picked YTD:         30
 

Dresden Plate

I have a major fondness for Dresden Plate quilts.  I already have two finished quilts of my own, and I have another one in the works from donated 'plates'.  Quilting this beauty was a real pleasure, that's for sure!

The red background fabric is not a common sight, and really makes the colours pop.

The plates were s.i.d. around the outer edge and the inner circle, and the blades were simply quilted with continuous long loops.  The centers were trapuntoed with a second layer of Hobbs 80/20 batting for added pouf.

A lacey motif fills the negative space.

 So, how did y'all feel about the SNOW this week?  Honestly.  Snow on April 21st.  What is this world coming to?  My poor daffodils have been beautifully blooming for a week or two but they were NOT happy with the freeze.  I said some very unladylike words and stayed inside, quilting. 

I have so many quilts on the go here it is kind of ridiculous.  I am STILL three quilts behind schedule, with seven more penciled in on my calendar for the coming week.  Yesterday I threw in the towel and went on a field trip with a friend.  There is a Tupperware outlet in Ancaster!  So we started with lunch, then Tupperware shopping.  That was followed up with a stop at William Dam Seeds in West Flamborough, then off to Limeridge Mall to load up on Bath & Bodyworks product.

Since I was all stocked up on soaps, I got my hands dirty in seed-starting mix. 

• Roma tomatoes
• cherry tomatoes
• cayenne peppers
• cucumbers
• cabbage
• basil

In another week I will start the zucchini (yay!!!  Darling Husband - sorry about your luck.  ha ha ha) and the butternut squash and probably some flowers.  I really must get the quilts up to date before spring really hits, because I will be out playing in the dirt.  The forecast for the next 7 days is warmer and warmer...

How to Quilt Multiple Placemats, and UFO Report

Here is a little tutorial on how to get a zillion placemats done for Meals on Wheels.

Start with a customer who gives you a large bag of remnants - mostly man-stuff like fishing & camping fabrics.

Add another customer who gives you a box of started scrappy quilt blocks.

Take those two items to your quilt guild, and guilt the members into taking some of that stuff home to make wee placemat tops that measure somewhere in the vicinity of 12-ish inches by 18-ish inches.  While they are groaning and rolling their eyes at you, remind them that they DO NOT NEED TO QUILT THEM.  If they are still giving you a hard time, let your eyes get a little watery as though you might be starting to cry, and tell them about how your mom used to get little gifts from Meals on Wheels and it really cheered her up.  That should work.

When they bring them back to you the next month, take 'em all  home and try to find one backing fabric that will look ok with ALL of the wee tops.  This is definitely a challenge!  Here, you can see that I found a nice neutral in my stash.

Pin those puppies on to a very large hunk of backing fabric which has been matched up with a very large hunk of batting.  Allow three inches of space all around each placemat.  And use a thinner batt - pouffy stuff tends to tip over wine glasses.  Not that seniors drink wine, of course.  :-)

Baste around the edges of each placemat.

Quilt them.  Stay INSIDE each placemat with the stitching - you'll see why in a second.

Cut them apart, leaving a generous one inch of backing all the way around.  Trim off the batting at the edge of the wee top. This way, you can simply turn the backing over to the top, folding over twice, and top stitch in place for binding. 

I have a very fancy name for this binding, calling it "Back To Front Self Binding".  Ahem.

UFO CHALLENGE UPDATE

Ta da...  Here is the Blooming 9-Patch all done.  Binding finished and everything.  Even labelled.  Now I'm waiting for Margaret to pull the number for months March & April.  I am going on a retreat this weekend so maybe I could do a little work on the next one.

Have I shown you my cutie-patootie lately?

Retreat!!!

I'm leaving my pretty tree at home and heading up to Tobermory to spend a week with the Beach Girls.

My contributions:

•  one breakfast - blueberry/peach oatmeal bake
• one appetizer - butternut squash tart with fried sage leaves
• one supper - baked salmon with roasted potatoes, butternut squash, beets, salad
• cocktail - Frosty Lemon Martini

I have about six projects loaded up, and if I sew as per usual I will get to maybe three of them.  But that's better than none of them, right?

My big excitement this week was winning my very first INTERNET prize.  Fabricsnquilts.com runs a scrappy challenge and I won quilt batting.  Yay!!  Hopefully that won't be my last prize.  But ya gotta play to win.

Apparently, I'm NOT perfect

This is Sue's gorgeous wall hanging.

I used a double layer of batting to give it extra pouf.

The quilting is almost identical to what was on the cover of the pattern.

The back is soo pretty!

So.  As I'm looking at the photos and preparing to load them to the blog, I see THIS.  Missing background stippling.  Oh, fer cryin' out loud!

DAMMIT.

Border Creek Mystery Quilt

I'm always so happy to work quilt for this gal.
OK, technically this IS work, but it's a pleasure too.

For one thing, she makes beautiful quilts.

They are nice and flat & square. Never a ripply border.

She's a girl after my own heart, and loves wool batting.

I play, work up some ideas and email them to her for approval.

Now that (!) is looking pretty gorgeous.

The Markham Quilt Guild was lots of fun on Thursday.  They were a good audience and asked many questions, which makes me think they were interested in the topic.  Yay!  Going to other guilds is entertaining, and I always learn something new.  I liked the way they ran their show & share - the members placed their items on a table early in the meeting.  When the white-glove gals hold up the item for display, the maker gets up to talk about their quilt.  This simplifies things for the historian - when she takes photos it saves her from having to force members to stop hiding behind their items.

This was another 5:30 am get-out-of-bed-because-I-can't-sleep morning.  I try to stay quiet and let DH snore sleep.  So I come downstairs with my coffee and I surf the web. I've been reading blogs and I'm feeling rather inadequate right now.  Really, I must learn how to write some day.  But I noticed that I don't like having to CLICK on something to continue READING something.  That little interruption is irritating.  And I have to check to see if it's opened a new window that I can later close, or if I have to use the back arrow button to return from whence I came.  All of this requires too much thought and attention at such an early time of day.  So there.