Camellia

I'm calling it a mini quilt (16 inch square), but it is actually meant to be one block in a quilt, from Kumiko Sudo's book, East Quilts West.  Hand pieced and appliqued.

Until next time.....happy quilting!

Karen

New Work

My new work in progress.

"The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the germ of a new work."

~Berthold Auerbach

Have you seen this vintage photo?

Wonderful, yes!

Icicles

As the last of winter melts away.....

Small Studies 2

Icicles through the Window

Small Studies 1

You may remember, some time back, I purchased Gwen Marston's book, 37 Sketches.  My intention was, one day stitching a series of Small Study quilts.  Well, around the end of summer I pieced together my first one, Small Studies 1.

Also, stitched the June Sweet Nostalgia block, Let's Play Ball.

And, appliqued my Fish Challenge quilt.

Today I finished stitching the July Sweet Nostalgia block, Fun at the Beach.  I am going to prep and start right into the August block as this is the last block.  It only took me what, four years?  Now I am rushing to finish!

Worked a bit on my Postage Stamp quilt and now have 992 stamps pieced together.  Small Studies 2 is almost finished. And, well thinking about warmer days to come, I prepped two quilts for spring, a small applique and a mid-sized quilt for hand piecing.

Still to show you, the center of my new hexagon quilt, Recipe for Friendship.  I stopped working on it back in the fall to take a picture before continuing on.  That's right; I have yet to take that picture!  Or a picture of my mini quilt top called, Camellia, or my latest Hocuspocusville block.

Besides quilting I have been working on crochet and slowly learning drop spindle.  My rug hooking is back out and will be completed  by the end of March.

Hope you are enjoying your winter as much as I am and all is well.

Until next time.....happy quilting!

Karen

Snow Days and More

Well, actually, everything I am about to show you was completed long before the snow started to fly.  As summer turned to fall I began stitching Snow Days, the January block of the Sweet Nostalgia BOM.

 

The last time I showed you my Kansas Dug-Out, I was deciding on border and binding colour.  As you can see I went with a black border and coloured binding.  This little dug-out was hand pieced and quilted, in the ditch, with black thread.

My third Hocuspocusville block, Spooky Lou's.

And, a long time coming, but now finished my Amish Stripe quilt.  Machine pieced in 2008 and recently hand quilted with a variegated thread.

I also machine quilted my free-form quilt and decided not to square up the edges before binding.  Letting it  remain in its free-form state seemed like the thing to do.

Remember Jeanneke's Building Houses with Scraps from last year?  Well, here is my mini version.  I hand pieced a house or two each month and put it all together before the end of the year.  Once hand quilted the binding will be done in the same fabric as the corner squares.

And, what I spent most of my time working on, my Shades of Autumn POTC quilt top.  The blocks were hand pieced in 2009-2010, but I still had a long way to go added the sashing and borders.

The colour in this photo is more true to the fabric I used for the Shades of Autumn POTC background.  So, try and image this earthy yellow colour instead of the washed out white (damn the camera) in the quilt top photo above,  Much nicer, yes?

That was autumn and it's on to winter, more to tell you another day.

Until next time.....happy quilting!

Karen

Kansas Dug-Out Waits for Border

My poor little Kansas Dug-Out has been collecting dust as it hangs on the design wall waiting for a border idea to come to mind.  So, well I was thinking about it,  I've been working on a Hocuspocusville stitchery block and with just a few more stitches to go; I now have an idea for the Kansas Dug-Out border.

Before I shake off the dust and get down to business, I would love to hear any idea's you may have.

Until next time.....happy quilting!

Karen

Building Houses 2

February brings two more houses for my mini Building Houses.   It sure looks like the construction market is booming this year.  Have you seen all the beautiful houses?  If not, visit Jeanneke at Building Houses from Scraps.

Until next time.....happy quilting!

Karen

Aunt Martha

As I thumbed through an old Aunt Martha booklet, published January 1953, I came across a pattern called Kansas Dug-Out and immediately thought of the Powerhouse Museum and Aunt Clara's quilt.  The only difference between the two patterns is Aunt Clara overlaps the blocks,  sharing each of the elongated hexagons between two blocks.  I love the detail of Aunt Clara, kind of like a crazy quilt.

One day I would like to make the Aunt Clara version, but for now I am going to have a little fun with the Kansas Dug-Out version.  And, in keeping with my plan, a small quilt it will be.  So, over the weekend I prepared all the pieces and hand stitched my first block. 

Luckily I discovered,  as I was preparing my plastic templates that the pattern provided by Aunt Martha was flawed.  The square was not square and the hexagon measured slightly different at each end.   Human error or printing error, I'm not sure, but it is always a good idea to check the match of templates before proceeding.

Until next time.....happy quilting!

Karen

Building Houses

I just could not resist Building Houses from Scraps a fun project Jeanneke put together for 2012.  The plan is to try to make a house block every day, so at the end of the year you have a total of 366 (it's a leap year) house blocks.  The houses are tiny (7.5 cm x 7.5 cm) and meant to be hand pieced, which is perfect for me, but you can make them larger and piece by machine, if you like.  Rules are few, but one important one is not to show a completed quilt before the end of the year, as Jeanneke said, it is not a race and takes the fun out of it for other participants if you do.

Last year I decide to go smaller and not make large quilts anymore, just finish the ones I have on the go now and a few I have already purchased the fabric for.  So, I will be sticking to my rule and only building enough houses for a doll size quilt and it will be stretched out over the year.  As you can see, I'm going with Batiks to build my houses.

Until next time.....happy quilting!

Karen

Double Twisted

My Twisted Tumbler turned out a little more twisted then planned.  I carefully arranged and numbered the rows for piecing, but somehow managed to start several rows from the wrong end of the previous row.  Oh well, it definitely has the scrappy look now.  The original Twisted Tumbler has a border, but I was thinking of going borderless.

The weather is not what we would expect for December; this afternoon reached the mid 50's.  The grass is still growing and plants are starting to break ground.  A heavy frost turned the garden into a sugar coated wonderland, but was soon washed away by heavy rain.

Countdown to Christmas with Aurifil Thread

What a nice collection I will have by December 25th.

Once the calendar flips to December the main focus is Christmas, but I hope to find a little time to finish my November Sweet Nostalgia block, Making Friends and more importantly to complete my last five Dear Jane center blocks.

Until next time.....happy quilting!

Karen

What's Next?

Twisted Tumbler

by Pat Yamin

Pat is known for her scrappy one-patch quilts and to celebrate the debut of her 40's inspired fabric collection, in 2008, she released this free pattern.  My version will be made from 23 different Holly Holderman fabrics.  It is not a big quilt; the finished size is 28" x 23."

Well, back to The Witching Hour.  The sooner I finish my Sweet Nostalgia stitchery block, the sooner I can start piecing together Twisted Tumbler.

Until next time.....happy quilting!

Karen

Mini Yo Yo Quilt

Sew Saturday (August 7) was New Project Day, so I decided it was time to give my Clover Yo-Yo Maker a try.  I must say it is a nicer way of making yo-yo's then the old template way.  The pattern is from Country Friends Go Quilting, by Gooseberry Patch, printed in 2000.

I thought I would have had my little 12" x 15" quilt completed by the end of the day, but that didn't happen. Maybe I spent too much time talking!  Anyway, I did manage to make the 80 yo-yo's required for the quilt, arranged them in rows and pieced the first four rows together before the day ended.  Last week, I finished piecing and added the finishing touches.  My little quilt is made from leftover Sandy Gervais, Fall Back in Time.

Until next time.....happy quilting!

Karen

Reads and Seeds

Last year I started reading Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilt novels. I'm almost finished The Runaway Quilt. The fourth book in the series. I must say, this is my favourite, so far.

Gaillardia Oranges & Lemons

Gaillardia Arizona Sun

Lots of rain over the past couple of weeks and the garden is growing like a weed. Last year I searched for a perennial that would take the place of annuals and bloom all season. After thumbing through seed catalogs, I came up with the perfect plants. Arizona Sun and Oranges & Lemons Gaillardia. They bloom all summer and you can see them a mile away. I sowed the seed directly in the ground last year and just as summer officially arrived this year, the Gaillardia are in full bloom.

Country Calendar June

Country Calendar July

Can you believe it is July already? Only five blocks to go and then I can piece together my Country Calendar quilt. Have you ever visited Ellie's Quiltplace? Designer of the Country Calendar BOM. Ellen designs and sells her own patterns. I enjoy reading Ellen's blog and seeing all her wonderful hand quilted project. Very inspiring.

Freebie stitchery anyone....

Hats of Plenty

Two more Tiny Baskets completed. Ten to go!

Years before I started to quilt, I was purchasing Miniature Quilts magazines. My plan, back then, was to only make miniature quilts. But, when the time came to start quilting, I didn't think it was such a good idea to start with something so small. My first encounter with anything mini, was last year when I started hand piecing Dear Jane blocks. It is said that anything less then 36 inches is considered a miniature. So, I guess I have made a few miniatures already. But when I think of miniatures, I'm thinking much smaller then 36 inches.

So, time to start reading my miniature quilt books and give it a go. I would like to make the mini's by hand. My concern is quilting them. I don't think I could comfortably quilt without a hoop. My 14 inch quilting hoop (which I love) from Quilters Woodwork, may be too large for miniatures. They do sell a 10 inch hoop. Or, I could baste false sides to the miniature quilt and still use my 14 inch hoop. Where there's a will, there's a way!

Until next week.....happy quilting!

Karen

Spring Baskets

Here we are well into Spring and I just remembered my Spring Baskets wall hanging. Last Spring I went through all my quilting books and found many wonderful baskets. I decided on Pat Sloan's basket pattern for my wall hanging. This is also the first time I used fusible web. I must say, I much prefer the softer look of needle-turn applique. The hand stitching around the baskets was done with Aurifil Wool thread.

This cute little basket is from a Better Homes and Gardens book called, Designers & Their Quilts. I reduced the basket size to 3.5" high. My sister recently gave me a charm pack called Hopscotch by Chloe's Closet and I thought it would be perfect for my little baskets. I like to prewash all my fabric. Yes, even charm packs! All the prep work is done and my baskets are ready for stitching.

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Before you go, how about a little stroll through the Spring garden.

Checkered Lily (Fritillaria)

Corkscrew Hazel

Siberian Squill

Victorian Brooch Pulmonaria (Lungwort)

Until next week.....happy quilting!

Karen

Earth Day

The earth is a garden and each of us only need care for our own part for life to be breathed back into the planet, into the soil, into ourselves. ~ John Jeavons

Earth Day (week) has arrived and my Going Green quilt (a quilt with an environmental message) is complete. I kept it simple, a tree for Earth Day and the perfect quote by John Jeavons. My little quilt was done by hand and I used bamboo batting. To see what I thought of the bamboo batting, click on The Bamboo Report.

Back in January, I invited you to join me in making a Going Green quilt. If you did, be sure to leave a comment on this posting (deadline date April 26) and a link back to your blog, so I can see your quilt. If you do not have a blog, leave a comment, with your name and e-mail address. You must then, e-mail me a photo of your Going Green quilt, to qualify for the draw.

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. ~ Greek Proverb

Until next week.....happy quilting!

Karen