reproductions

One more post before the end of the year - its hard to believe 2019 is almost over.  

When I was in Houston in November I had the opportunity to attend a lecture given by Leah Zieber.  It was so very interesting!  She had many, many small, vintage and antique doll quilts and crib quilts to show us.  She had 2 items that instantly brought me back this - my Susan McCord Trailing vines quit.

 I'm slowly working away at handquilting it - outlining all the leaves takes lots of time!  I'm working down panel #5 out of 13.  But back to Leah's lecture - take note of the sashing fabric.

 It's exactly the same print as this darling little antique child's dress that Leah brought from her collection.

 And the same on the back of this small doll quilt also in Leah Zieber's collection.

 I was so excited to see the original fabric this reproduction was made from in not only one but 2 items sewn around the 1850's.  The repro is by Margo Krager for Blue hill Fabrics.  I was pretty excited...  It is hard to find someone who understands my excitement - lol

 I've been steadily working on putting together my Hospital Sketches BOM.  I added a border of red and cream hst's.  Triangle paper helped it go quickly.

 Then I am adding an appliqued border.  I'm designing it as I go using shapes from the blocks.  It is in the style of the border of the Buhl Bushong quilt from the Virginia Quilt museum.  (they are having a sewalong but I could NOT start another project)  I saw 2 antique quilts in the exhibits in Houston that also had borders like this.  It's been fun to applique and I'm enjoying revisiting some of the flower shapes and adding birds.

 I made a couple of Canadian themed pincushions to give as gifts.  I tried out my idea in 2 sizes.

Little projects can be so satisfying :0)
Happy Quilting!!

Houston International festival 2019

It was so excited to be able to go to Houston International Quilt Festival again.  I submitted my Lily Quilt for 'In the American Tradition' exhibit and I was delighted they accepted it.  

 The second time around it was still a bit unbelievable to come around a corner and find one of my quilts hanging with all these amazing and beautiful others.

 This year my good friend Catherine was able to come. It was fun to have a travel buddy, someone to stay with and explore the Festival with.

 It is wonderful to see the amazing quilts submitted to the juried part of the show like this one by Midori Horie of Japan.  The appliqué and handquilting are beyond exquisite.

 But my favorite quilts in the show are the antique quilts.

 This one is part of the Texas Quilt Museum's collection.

 and this one too

 This one was in a gorgeous exhibit of some of Mary and Joe Koval's collection.

 I loved the border of this one - also from the Texas quilt Museum.

 Then there are the booths full of antique quilts for sale.  I love hanging out in these booths!!  This one was in Jane Lury's booth and I loved the border.
Another awesome part of Quilt Festival is meeting people.  This is Dawn whose blog is called Collector with a Needle.  

It was so lovely to meet her - I've enjoyed her friendship online for years.

 Deborah Ursell is an very busy vendor who I met last year - she is so fun and enthusiastic.  Her booth of Vintage Quilts and More was packed all the time.

 Julie Silber I met last year too.  Her booth is full of wonderful and interesting quilts and she is full of interesting stories.

 I met Cecile from Patchwork Inspirations who was visiting from France.  She is a sweetheart. It was so interesting to visit with her and her husband.  Together with Lori of Humble Quilts who I met last year.  Lori is full of ideas and issued us a challenge to do something with an antique block which we could choose from some she brought.  I will post more about that later. It was really cool to run into her again at the antique quilt booths and look at some beautiful and some interesting old quilts together.

It also enjoyed meeting Sue from the UK whose blog I have followed for years.  We were in a class together with Lori on my last morning there.
And then it was time to come home to regular life with piles of new quilting ideas in my head :0)

 I didn't get pictures with everyone I was happy to see again like Judith of Juud's Quilts  and Mary Koval, and Bernadette who was busy in the WonderFil Threads booth. (and then I haven't worked up the courage to ask Jane Lury for a picture yet)  However, it is the people and the antique quilts that are my favorite parts about going to this show.

Happy Quilting!!

a gift given

I was pleased to finish this quilt recently and give it to my mom.  It's a Kim Diehl pattern from the April 2014 Fons and Porter magazine.  I machine quilted it on my Juki machine  

 I wasn't sure how to quilt the appliqued center blocks.  In the end I learned that's it's not too difficult to free motion quilt outlining around the appliqué shapes just like I would do if I was handquilting.

 After that the borders were easy and fun.

 These pictures are all square...  I recently changed Iphones and lost a month's worth of pictures in the process.  Thankfully I had posted these pictures on Instagram so I was able to get them back from there.

 I gave it to my Mom last week when she was visiting.  I think she liked it :0)

The last 2 blocks of Hospital Sketches were quick to stitch up.  I'm a bit sad that the BOM is finished now.  It was fun to look forward to each new block release.

 I really like the triple tulip block.

 I changed around the final block a bit.  There was a picture of all 9 blocks together but I lost it too.  I will have to lay the blocks out again for a complete picture again soon.

This delightful little doll quilt arrived in the mail from Deb Anger from across Canada in the doll quilt swap I participated in.  The pieces are tiny!  I love these little trees.

 It was beautifully handquilted as well and has wonderful texture.

Happy Quilting!!

Still stitching

We are back to the fall routine around here.  There is still lots to do but a little more time to think about quilting.

I finished a little quilt for a doll quilt swap.  There were even still some flowers in my yard to photograph it with.

 I hope it reaches its destination soon.  It had a long way to travel.  I enjoyed using some stencils to mark quilting designs.  It was a fun little break from my big projects.

In August I was too busy to do much applique prep so I got 2 blocks behind in Barbara Brackman's Hospital Sketches applique BOM .

 I decided to add some extra parts to block #7  I sure enjoy playing around with the shapes.  What did stitchers in time past do without freezer paper?

From paper to fabric :0)

I started on the next block right away.  So far only one of 3 flowers appliqued.  I played around with the shapes a little again - I like to make some changes to make the project my own.

 I was invited to a birthday party for a good friend.  I wanted to make her something so I whipped up a little pouch to tuck a couple things into.  I had no time to handquilt it but the applique was done by hand.

Happy Quilting!!

Summer flies by

Summer is such a short, sweet season where I live.  Next Tuesday my kids all go back to school and it already feels like fall temperatures have arrived.  Summer is a very busy season but some sewing still happened.

 I am finally making good progress on the last applique border for my signature quilt.  Can I finish this before the end of the year?

 I finished block 6 of Barbara Brackman's Hospital Sketches. 

 Here they are all together.  I haven't had a chance to start block #7 yet and yesterday block #8 was released.  Yikes - now I'm behind!

 I wanted to join in a handquilted doll quilt swap on Instagram.  It was fun to play with my reproduction scraps.  I made 4 blocks and set them on point.

 I'm working on the handquilting part now and I'm almost finished.  A nice break from quilting my trailing vines...

We spent the last 2 weeks on vacation - driving around Washington State and the province British Columbia.  I was determined to fit one good quilt shop into the itinerary and found Two Thimbles Quilt Shop in Bellingham, WA  They had a whole room full of reproduction fabrics!  It was marvellous  :0)   

 A few pieces to remember my visit. 

 I loved the time we spent at Deception Pass State park - it was beautiful!

 We did the touristy thing in Seattle.  I found a shop window full of these old sewing machines.  I wanted to try them all out.  It makes for an interesting display but it makes me sad that they aren't getting sewn with.

 While away I found inspiration for applique/handquilting motifs in a few unlikely places.  This was a gorgeous set of doors in Port Townsend.



And this is a part on an authentic Venetian gondola on display at the Italian cultural centre in Vancouver. 
I'm hoping that more time for stitching lies ahead!
Happy Quilting!!

time flies

In a moment of weakness...  I started a new project.  On Instagram there was a new sewalong starting up using Dutch chintz fabrics.  Susie who goes by fixer_of_old_quilts on Instagram is running a sewalong patterned after antique Dutch quilts.  She was offering the pattern for templates to English paper piece the center star.  I dove right in!!

 It was an adventure to make this center star with each point pieced with a seam down the middle.  Then I had to choose a background fabric.  Kyle suggested looking at the other fabrics I planned to use and the choice of this medium blue was much easier. 

 It was another trick to get all the background pieced stitched in and have the star lay flat.  It's been a fun and challenging project so far.

 Today I added pieced corners to make this a square with the star on point.  From here on it gets rows and rows of more hst's.  I'm using some of my Dutch chintz fabrics mixed together with other fabrics from my stash.
I've also been working on my Hospital Sketches applique BOM.  The May block was a pineapple block that was a little plain.  I decided to redraw a different pineapple block from a book that I have - Red and Green Quilts from the Poos collection by Kay Triplett.

 It was fun to experiment a bit :0) 

 And I finished it in time for the release of the June block.  I'm going to make that one with no changes.

 I've also been stitching a few of my staraday stars.  My tin is almost full and I'm 1/3 of the way to finished - lol!  A long term project for sure.

I also want to include a picture of my son at his grade 9 grad.  He's off to high school next year.  He is a great student and athlete - I think he's going to love high school.  He looked so handsome all dressed up :0)

Happy Quilting!