Monday, November 3, 2025

On a Roll

It's taken me a long time but 

I finally have some finishes!

This is a big basket of finished quilts

with a gratuitous chicken thrown in!




The first top up,  is the  Sea Glass quilt.

My big machine went out for a service and 

an upgrade so this is the first time

I've set up the BSR, (a stitch regulator), after the service.

Ready to jump into quilting, I had my pattern chosen, 

machine threaded and the stitch regulator wouldn't work!

I tried all the troubleshooting steps provided in the manual,

took it off and put it on a number of times,

and finally resorted to texting my service guru,

to see if the upgrades would cause the BSR to cease working.

Online rumors indicate that the BSR and 

this model Bernina are not always compatible.

It did work before the service however.

As a last resort I took it off,

 looked at it for a while,

and my practical brain finally kicked in.

Two things are essential for free motion quilting.

Dropping the feed dogs, to let the fabric move freely

and probably not having an even feed foot down!

I finally saw clearly, moved it up and

have been quilting on happily.

The pattern for this top is a water ripple,

appropriate for a water themed quilt.

After some practice on a sample,

I moved on to the top itself.



It took me awhile to get the feel of moving 

the large quilt sandwich under the needle.

 As always happens for me,

by the time the top is done I'm an expert!


The learning for this endeavor:

~choose a pattern  that can be broken 
into sections a little bit easier
~relax.


The green binding sets off the 

watery colours quite nicely.


Piecing the back with green and brown,

not only match the front perfectly 

but also used up a bit of yardage!

Next up will be the Thousand pyramids top, Stay tuned!

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Moving the Stash Numbers.

 Well, my stash numbers are finally moving!

This past month has been busy!

Family activities, fall cleanup, meetings and travel.

I am familiarizing myself with the BSR on my big Bernina,

and I may come to like it!

So far it's helped me finish these quilts.





These numbers are set to change soon, 

I am off to a fabric sale tomorrow!

47.5  YTD Purchased

8.5m Jan- Nov

Used:

 5 m donated, 

9 m (1+ 1 +baby quilts)

30 m (2 +twin

3.5 total meterage added YTD


My big machine is humming right along. 

I still use my Elna for binding though.

 We have a good process. 

I'm hesitant to change something that works


Stay safe and Sew on !


Linking up with:

Sunday Stash Report




Keep on Quilting

 The month ahead will be a busy one,

but I'm still trying to move ahead with 

quilting up the quilt sandwiches on the rack.

I will make an achievable goal of finishing up,

the red and blue string quilt.


It's just waiting for stay stitching around the outside,

a trim and suitable binding.

Since I've figured out interesting patterns for the other two

strip quilts, I'll put those ahead for my November goal too.



Wish me luck. Good luck to everyone in 

achieving  goals for November.

Happy Stitching


Linking up with :

OMG





Monday, October 27, 2025

Last of the Crazy Log Cabins


The past weekend I had the opportunity 

to really get things done.

I attended my second ever virtual retreat.

Hosted by the Idiot Quilter out of Ontario Canada,

70 dedicated souls arrived from their perspective time zones

and had a wonderful day quilting, chatting and learning together.

With all that chatting and learning,

I had time to really make progress on a few of my projects.

You may recognize this crazy log cabin center,

from the middle of three other black quilts

 that were finished not too long ago.

They each end up with a unique border and this one is no different.


First of all, there was a little mystery to be solved.

I thought that I had 30 blocks remaining 

which would let me make a 5 x 6 center,

 a nice size twin top.

The project box proved to only have 20 of the centers.

They were all nicely squared up and ready to go

 with the black backgrounds all set around the colorful center.

The sewing workroom and stash area were searched

quite intensely and no additional blocks turned up.

Producing more wasn't really an option.

The middle was destined to be set  4x5,

using the 20 blocks in the project box.

Now to decide on a border.

This stage was finished at the Buddy retreat.

The virtual treat was a perfect time to complete this top.

The look with two black borders and a scrappy strip in the middle,

was quite appealing but had

already been used on one of the first three crazy quilts.






It was very nice but I thought it needed something different.

There were slashes on one and zigzags on the other.

The third had leaning pillars,

so maybe this one could use vertical pillars.

I listened to some great lectures by quilters 

from all over the world,

and had lots of time to stitch up 

a bunch of pillars for the outside



Now it was time to put it together.

The pillars were laid around but they looked a little" too floaty".

Then we tried  putting them next to the center quilt and using 

pieced strips bordered by black around the outside.




That didn't seem to work either.

As often happens, one of the quilters said, 

" Just switch them."

Wow, was that successful.





Now I just had to figure out how to finish up the corner connectors.

The inside pieced border, with two black strips on either side,

was finished with a small mitered square.



After a few adjustments, it worked just fine.




Then to finish the turning for the outside pillars.

I had considered doing the borders all together

 and then mitering the whole corner,

but decided against it just because I couldn't imagine the look.

Left over corners from the zigzag quilt

provided the inspiration.




I made up a larger diagonal blocks to fit.


This top finished measuring 56" x 66"

Just a reminder, here are its three fellows.




































 

Painted Barn Blocks? What?

 I  spent a delightful day

painting with quilting friends.

It is way outside my comfort zone but I did it!

Our guild had a painting class,

painting quilt blocks on wooden boards,

that can be hung on fences, sheds or walls.

For quite a while, while we were 

planning it we kept calling it,

"Barn quilt painting",

which seemed to imply that we're actually painting a barn,

but we weren't.

We sourced supplies locally,

and visited some local dollar stores for acrylic craft paints.

Add a little quality painters tape, rulers,

and some snacks and we had a wonderful morning.

I primed the boards so my garage looked like

 Santa's workshop for a while.

It turned out to be an absolutely fabulous day.


We all went home with something beautiful that we'd created,

and are planning on doing it again.



Happy painting!








Monday, October 20, 2025

A Finish Finally

 The Little Owl quilt is a finish!

Pulling off the cover of  big Bernie was the answer,

and I had a wonderful evening stitching up lots of pink.


The quilting ran along the straight horizontal strips,

and finished up with a rough outline of the Little Owls themselves.


Notice how nice and poufy it is?

I used a bit of my remaining high off poly batting

to make it soft and comfy.

The back also used up a majority of the leftover pink flannel strips .

Added to the nobly wide white strips I was gifted,

the flannel strips and minky bits made it a really cozy back.


A few of the leftover strips even made it into the binding!



This little quilt is nothing but pink.

There was one Little Orphan owl who really needed a place to be.




It would have taken me a while to find another project to add him to,

so he found a place on the back.





It will be a nice surprise for the future owner of this quilt,

 to flip it over and find yet another owl.



Big Bernie is also performing well after the trip to the shop.

So far the push button needle threader has performed

eight out of 11 successful trips to the needle,! Yay!

An update on the stash too.

This finish moves the numbers!


47.5  YTD Purchased

8.5m Jan- Jun

Used  5 m donated, 6 m ( 1 +1 baby quilts)

6m ( twin) 6m ( twin)

27.5 total meterage added YTD

Stay safe and sew on!

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Put Your Foot Down 





Friday, October 17, 2025

A Buddy Retreat , More Tops!

 The sewing group I joined when I first moved

to northern Alberta no longer meets but

we still manage a retreat each year. 

I took along the second hopscotch box

to work on.  There were about 1/3 of

blocks made up so I had a pleasant afternoon

stitching away on twosies to get it underway.


Then, I arrived at the edges. 

The original pattern shows a confetti like 

border but I wanted the blocks to flow 

into the border and appear to be floating. 


That meant the blocks touching the edge 

have to have the border fabric added. 

There were three choices for the border fabric. 

 Once again the winner was the one with

enough quantity!  It was going to be tight

but the math didn't lie. 

The winner was sliced up,
 

and all the edge blocks were modified to
 
flow into the border. 










Only a few snuck by without their border
partners, but they were soon altered. 



Tada!  Here it is in all its wonder. 

I am not sure if the center really floats but the 

thought was nice. 


The border fabric was the perfect amount!

Just a few scraps remaining!


Now I have 2 hopscotch tops to quilt! 






Onward to the pinning table!  I have more pins!

Stay safe and sew on!

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