Some cuteness to start the week.

This little fabric basket was made using the well known tutorial by Ayumi at Pink Penguin. I have wanted to try it for a very long time.

The basket is smaller than it looks in photos. The spool of thread is 2"; the scrappy squares finish at 1.5". It is just so cute!

I made this basket for my secret partner is the Scrappy Swap 2011. In the swap you give away about a fat quarter's worth of scraps and a small scrappy item. It is perfect to hold the scraps I am sending, see how they fit. I hope my partner will like it.

I am finally getting a chance to catch up on the Mystery Quilt Along. This is a Mariner's Compass, finished as a square instead of the usual circle. I really love the drama of this block and these Amy Butler fabrics are great to play with.

I have more to do before I am totally caught up to the QAL, so more on it later but I could not resist showing off this block today.

I have added a link to Fabric Tuesday, go have a look at the lovely projects there.


It was Thanksgiving long weekend in Canada. The pumpkin pies and turkey dinner we made turned out wonderfully and were enjoyed with family and friends. Now we are enjoying the cooler sunny fall days - my favourite season. I hope you have a good week.

Best,

Leanne

WIP Wednesday - still making blocks!

For October in the Aqua and Orange Bee, I get to be Queen Bee, a first for me!  It was really hard to figure out what I wanted the members of the bee to make for me. I wanted it to be interesting and fun for them and I really want to make a quilt that I love, just for me.

Finally, I decided to send everyone solids and to ask them to make improv blocks, any size they like, any way they like, just one orange and one aqua. I found every scrap of solids in my stash that fell within my very broad definition of those colours and put together packages for everyone which I shipped yesterday. Cutting, packaging, addressing, filling out customs forms, etc. takes much longer than I had realized.

These blocks were great fun to make and they were fast, I did not plan much and I just put the fabrics together as I went and cut them, moved them and played until I had something I liked. I hope that my bee mates have fun and I can hardly wait to get the quilt back. If you want some improv inspiration, go have a look at my inspiration gallery by following this link - it is full of excellent work.


Despite my good intentions, the rest of my time last weekend and this week has been on catching up on bee blocks I owe. This one is for Alix in the Twelve Month Quilting Bee, who sent us Central Park by Kate Spain and asked for square in square blocks.

This centre print is amazing, the whole line of fabric is beautiful.

This mosaic block (based on the pattern by Elizabeth Hartman at Oh, Fransson!) is for Cassey in  the Aqua and Orange Bee. I ran out of the white part - these blocks take a lot of the framing fabric. I think this one used about 95" of it for a 12.5"square. Seriously.

Last night I cut some Kona white, which I think matches, and made her another block as there were loads of prints left from her package. Also, since I was about to send her fabrics to make two blocks, I just felt it was wrong not to send another to her.

The mosaic blocks are really dramatic and lovely. Having made these and some in the past in my other bee, I have to say that I really do not not like making them much. A good choice for a bee, to spread the work around because a quilt of these will be wonderful.

I am so behind on everything else on my WIP list that I am not talking about it. It is a long weekend for Thanksgiving coming up in Canada and maybe I can sew a bit between fall yard clean up, cooking apple pies and turkey, and visiting.

I almost forgot, the 4 x 5 Modern Quilt Bee is open for the next round of sign ups. This is a lot of fun, you make 5 blocks for your group (and one for you) and get 5 back. You sign up for whatever rounds work for your schedule and eventually you have enough blocks for a whole quilt. The group is talented and there is still room, so if you are interested, hurry over before it's too late.

I am linking to Lee at Freshly Pieced and to The Needle and Thread Network. Click the buttons to go to see the excellent work always posted there.

Best,

Leanne

September, a fond farewell.

It's Fresh Sewing Day again at Lily's Quilts. It seems that I have made a lot more than I realized this month - loads of blocks, and two quilt tops, and coasters. I have found this September so busy at home and at work that I am really happy to have had time to get any sewing done at all.

I have more blocks to make this weekend - I am finishing my September bee blocks, and I am making prototype blocks for my month as queen bee in the Aqua and Orange Bee. I have some blocks to make for Karen's Kind Stitches project and I have to finish off some more coasters for a talented friend in a private swap. Then I have a massive trip to the post office to mail all that and the 5 x 4 blocks off, I think I counted 19 or 20 packages!

I also joined more swaps, seems I am having fun with them (and one day soon I know that packages will come to me from the swaps I have been doing over the summer, cross your fingers, ok?)

The Modern Christmas Tablerunner Swap 2011 will mean that I finally will have a Christmas Tablerunner, and should put me in a holiday mood. The Scrappy Swap should be fun too, I send a fat quarter's amount of scraps and a small item of pincushion size, and no extras, and I get back the same - interesting scraps of things I might not have chosen.

I am planning to spend some time this weekend looking at everyone else's September recap, I hope you will also go over to look at the Fresh Sewing day posts, there is a talented group there.

Best,

Leanne

For Wednesday - I have some progress to share.

Here are all 6 of the blocks I made for my hive in the 5 x 4 Modern Bee. Each person picks colours and then you make 6 of whatever block you like in each person's colours. This block is an adaptation of Megan from Canoe Ridge Creations' tutorial which is here.

This one is for Megan, who asked for purple, orange and grey. I am becoming very partial to dark grey backgrounds. The purple and orange look very sharp on the grey.



I am totally enchanted with these butterflies. This next one is for Elizabeth who asked for blue, grey and lagoon/peacock on a white background. The lagoon/peacock wing is a bit more peacocky in real life.



These are 12" blocks. I am imagining them much larger and meeting corner to corner in a quilt. This next one is the one I showed you before. It is for Christina who asked for kelly green, navy/dark blue and yellow on a white background.



Here is Erin's block. She asked for blue, green and grey on white. But not lime green, which is what I have the most of by far.



Seems I need to show you each one, thank you for your patience. It was really challenging to pick the fabrics for each person. Now, I have a lot of fabric, but I worry that I have not picked the right shade or that the recipient will be annoyed that there are bits of other colours in there too.

This next one is for Kathleen who asked for blue and orange on white. As a member of the Aqua and Orange Bee, I am partial to these colours.



Finally the one for me. I picked blue and grey on white. I am happy with any shade of blue, here I tried to avoid too much aqua as the other blocks seemed to have a lot.



Today I came home to find a package with  the Freebird for Moda fabrics that I won in Judith at Rags to Bags's give away. She sent this from Ireland on September 10 and today, September 27, it is in my hands here in Canada. That's only 17 days to go 3900 miles, 6720 kilometres. There are 7 times zones between my house and hers, so when it is morning here, it is late afternoon there. (By the way, I sent Judith a package on September 13 and she got it on September 21 - even faster service from here to there). I only wish my swap packages could travel as fast as these fabrics did.



Thanks Judith for the give away and these lovely fabrics.  Judith was supported by River Fabrics in her give away so thanks to Janette at River Fabrics too! Now I get to figure out what to make out of them.

I am going to link this to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced in the morning. All kinds of wonderful projects are linked there, I hope you will go and take a look.

 

 I am also linking to a new Canadian WIP group called The Needle and Thread Network, where everyone is welcome but shy Canadians are especially encouraged.

I am off at 4 a.m. on an airplane, enjoy the rest of your week.

Best, 

Leanne

Quilting along, and making bee blocks.

I have finished the quilt top for the Across the Sea QAL. The QAL quilt has 20 blocks and then a lovely border. I decided to add 10 blocks for a total of 30 blocks and skip the border. I think that the Kona Charcoal without a border with these very bright prints looks very modern and fresh.



Here it is on my floor. It was very hard to photograph this one today, the colour is truer in the shady part. I am going to try to get it sandwiched soon and start quilting it.



This block is for the 4 x 5 Modern Bee (people on flickr have already seen it but I did not get a chance to share it here yet). I have to make 6 blocks, one for each of my 5 bee mates and one for me, using everyone's colours and my own fabrics. I have been thinking of circles a lot lately and then when I saw Megan from Canoe Ridge Creations' tutorial, I decided to use and adapt it to make this block. I don't have a go cutter so I used Eliza's Backporch templates and then trimmed and sashed the block to get it all to work.



Here is a work in progress shot. This wall quilt hangs right beside my sewing machine. You can see that it is turning into a design wall quilt. The three additional blocks still need sashing, and there are some bits from my colour palette hanging there too. I have two more blocks to make for this bee.

I was wondering, maybe I should do a video about how to sew these curves without pins or pain, maybe next weekend. Also, this block and the butterfly/flower is reminding me of the CBC logo. The CBC is Canada's national television/radio broadcasting corporation and we all grew up watching the CBC TV logo. The logo morphed into other variations on quarter circles so almost anything using pieced quarter circles reminds me of it too.

It has been busy at my work, and I am out of town a lot this coming week, so I am not sure there will be much more here till the weekend.

Enjoy your week.

Best,

Leanne