Wednesday - I'm on island time.

Here are my Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt blocks so far. I have 14 done. A bit behind, this week should be 18, but now that I am back to sewing, I should be able to catch up soon.



This one is Snowball, #81. I love the simplicity of the snowball block, one day it alone will make a wonderful quilt.



This one is Whirlpool, #102. I used water colours to add to the effect.



I am also catching up on the Mystery Quilt QAL. This block is called Clay's Choice.



I am sure you recognize Friendship Stars. I so love the friendship star block, I am going to start a quilt of these soon.



Here are my Mystery Quilt blocks so far. I am not yet finished the most recent instructions, so even with this progress I am still behind.



These are my blocks for Alix for my Twelve Month Quilting Bee. These blocks are called garden fence and a tutorial is here at Hyacinth Quilts.

I have many other projects to get to work on, but living on an island for the month means that I am working on being more laid back (clearly something I need more practice at). I will update you as I go, but I am not stressing about it today.

I am linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. Please go and see what everyone is up to, I am looking forward to catching up with all the wonderful work that is always there.



Best,

Leanne

July was fun!

I enjoy going to read what everyone has been up to each month at Fresh Sewing Day at Lily's Quilts. Lynne has started making a mosaic of her accomplishments, and so I am following her lead with this mosaic. Follow the button to see everyone's work this month.

It was busy in July, with sewing, work and family time. I have made a lot of progress on the DQS11 mini quilt and now I am trying to make decisions about the binding and quilting. I finished my modern crosses quilt, which I named Rainbow Warmth. It is already in Cheryl's hands for the Quilts Recover Project. I made the blocks on my Kaleidoscope quilt, did a couple of Farmer's Wife blocks, made my first house blocks for one of my quilting bees and finished one of the Mystery Quilt blocks. Then we headed off to Hawaii for a week in the sun and the water.

I have a lot of quilting to do in August, and I have another month of mostly vacation at my cottage in the Salish Sea on the west coast of Canada to do it in.

I hope everyone is enjoying the summer and is out in the sun as much as possible!

Best,

Leanne

I'm sewing again!

I'm back from Hawaii and sewing again. I have finished the top on the DQS11 miniquilt. It's blue-green-purpleness reminds me of the ocean. It has 32 nine patch blocks and 31 white blocks, for a total of 63 blocks. I think that those proportions are about right, many of my full size quilts have about 63 blocks.



You can see the size better sitting on my regular size Irish Chain quilt. The size right now is about 13.5" x 16 " with the larger borders. I think I will cut the borders down so they finish at 3/4" which is half the size of the blocks which finish at 1.5" squares. The little squares in the nine patches are all 1/2" squares. Some are a bit wonky, I decided to leave them that way, for charm and because there is no way I can do it any better with regular piecing.



This photo was taken this morning. That is the piece I excised last night when I noticed I had burned it with my iron.



I just ripped it out of its spot and reinserted a fresh one. You can see from this photo that I was doing that well after dark. It was far easier than I expected to do this. As the recommendation is to use a much smaller stitch length with a mini quilt, the less seam ripping the better, and all I had to do was rip out the square and a few stitches on all sides of it to insert the replacement square. I hope you have trouble locating where it was done in the first picture.



Here are my binding options, opinions are welcome. The one on the bottom left is far more lime green that this picture suggests. All are K. Fassett, the prints were used in the top and the solids are shot cottons.



Last week we were in Hawaii, on the Big Island. Here is one of the beach pictures. This water was like going into a nice refreshing and warm tub. So most of the time we were in it.



There were turtles.



And beautiful fish.



More fish. I will figure out their names and show you some more later. My son took these while snorkeling with our waterproof point and shoot camera.



Here is my good bye Hawaii shot, taken at the airport last Sunday night before we boarded our plane, flew all night, stopped in two airports, then took two ferry boats, and arrived safely at my cottage on a small island in the Salish Sea (now you would recognize it as the Pacific Ocean). Jet lag, unpacking, laundry, settling in, etc. have taken most of my week but now I am sewing again.

I hope your summer is going well.

Best,

Leanne

At the beach!

The big island, Hawaii. We have taken surprising few pictures of the beaches, too busy in the water I guess.

I'll be back to sewing and blogging soon.

Best,

Leanne

Ta Da! Rainbow Warmth - Modern Crosses Completed

I have named the Modern Crosses quilt Rainbow Warmth. The pattern is from Modern Log Cabin Quilting by Susan Beal.

I am pretty happy with how this one looks, all  quilted, bound, washed and dried. It is made of white Kona cotton and a pile of bright fabrics from Kaffe Fassett, Anna Maria Horner, Amy Butler, and several others. I have added to this pile of brights and am using it for many different projects now.



For the back, I went into my fabric shelf and found these. I did not want a riot of colour like the front so I found just enough of these two, and I put one of the extra blocks on the back too.



Here is a close up of it folded on my chair. After washing you can see that the quilting shows off the smaller log cabin units of each larger block nicely and also emphasizes the crosses. Given that I was following the seam lines, it did not take long to quilt this twin size quit. I did not measure its final dimensions before I sent it but it is about 65" x 90" give or take a little.



Here it is, folded and ready to go. This one is now on its way to the Quilts Recover Project initiated by Cheryl at Naptime Quilter. However, I think I may start making more blocks, so I have a similar quilt for me too.

I am linking to {Sew} Modern Monday, you should head over to see the lovely things linked there too.

I have made it to the beach, I won't be blogging much this week. I will try to post you a picture or two later.

Best,

Leanne